Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 1/28/2025

Cold & Clear | Pharma Schucker | McGourty Denies | Local Events | Scheubeck Book | PHF Roofing | Woodworking Show | Crab Feed | Board Members | Get Organized | Leash Law | Garden Club | Ed Notes | Riding Ring | Yesterday's Catch | Tulsi Zagging | Dark Mother | Carbon Science | Old Banana | Capital v Nature | Home Sick | Remember Back | Fish & Whistle | Gender Expansive | DUI Hire | Coming Deluge | Marciano Parents | Protest Clash | Kuffel Kerfuffle | Longest Ball | Higher Journalism | Affordable TV | Lead Stories | Your Doing | Rejecting Trump | Rooting For | Cease Fire | Religious Training

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DRY WEATHER with slow moderation of overnight temperatures is expected through mid week. Rain with high mountain snow will return late this week and continue for the weekend. Strong and gusty southerly winds are expected over the coastal headlands and higher terrain on Friday and possibly on Saturday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 34F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. Our forecast thru Thursday remains the same but rainfall amounts have been kicked WAY up for the first 4 days of the weather coming in on Friday. I did notice the forecast discussion says rainfall amounts could change by then, & of course, we'll see.

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SCHUCKS, SCHUCKER

On Friday, January 24, 2025, at approximately 11:55 P.M., a Sergeant with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office was on uniformed patrol in the area of Albion Ridge Road and Highway 1 in Albion, CA. The Sheriff’s Sergeant observed a vehicle turn onto Highway 1 from Albion Ridge Road and initiated a traffic enforcement stop due to the vehicle having expired registration. The vehicle yielded in the 4600 block of Albion Little River Road and the Sergeant contacted the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle who was identified as Ashley Schucker, 45, of Albion.

It was determined Schucker was on active felony parole with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for Carjacking. During a search of the vehicle pursuant to Schucker's parole terms, Schucker was found to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine, suspected fentanyl, and Oxycodone pills that were all packaged for sales along with other paraphernalia and equipment indicative of drug sales.

The Sergeant placed Schucker under arrest for Possession of a Controlled Substance for Sale, Possession of a Controlled Substance for Sale, Transportation of a Controlled Substance for Sales, Transportation of a Controlled Substance for Sales, and Violation of Parole.

Schucker was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he is being held without bail due to violating the terms of his parole.

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FORMER COUNTY SUPERVISOR MCGOURTY DENIES SEEING DA MEMO

by Mike Geniella

Former Mendocino County Supervisor Glenn McGourty denies having seen a confidential memo to him from District Attorney David Eyster that is the focus of pending civil and criminal litigation surrounding suspended county Auditor Chamise Cubbison.

A copy of the memo, sent from a private Eyster email account, is on file with Mendocino County Superior Court. It is addressed to McGourty and was written by the DA on Aug. 30, 2021.

Over the weekend McGourty insisted he never saw the memo. Court documents show former County CEO Carmel Angelo distributed it to senior staff. They also show that supporting information Eyster attached to the memo was formally included in the packet distributed to the board members for review. The private cover letter to McGourty was not, however.

“Maybe it went to spam,” suggested McGourty about an email he insisted he never saw.

In a follow up Monday to further questions, McGourty said, “I don’t recall seeing it.”

McGourty also denied that he ever had any discussion with Eyster or Angelo prior to the board’s vote Aug. 31, 2021, to block Cubbison’s appointment as interim Auditor.

“I had no discussion with him or Carmel,” said McGourty.

Before the 2021 vote, DA Eyster took the extraordinary step of appearing before County Supervisors and publicly denouncing Cubbison, citing his office’s past run-ins with her over the DA’s expenses.

Eyster, on the top of the memo copied to Angelo, told her it was “confidential.”

“I am hoping this becomes public but I only saw it going to GM (Glenn McGourty),” noted Eyster.

Angelo in turn distributed the memo to her top assistant Darcie Antle (now CEO) and Janelle Rau, then the county’s General Services Director.

In his three-page memo addressed to McGourty, Eyster directly asked McGourty to vote no on a recommendation to the board that Cubbison be appointed as interim Auditor. Retiring Auditor Lloyd Weer who had recommended Cubbison’s appointment to the board.

After seeking McGourty’s no vote, Eyster then outlined a three-step plan to force the merger of the county’s two key finance offices and eventually eliminate the positions of elected officials who led them. Eyster said a newly created county Department of Finance director could then be put under board control. Voter approval of such a position would be needed, but the merger could be ordered by a vote of County supervisors, who later did so.

A San Francisco law firm representing Cubbison has cited the Eyster memo as evidence she was denied due process after county Supervisors quickly suspended her without pay and benefits following the DA charging her with a felony in October 2023.

Cubbison Attorney Therese Cannata contends the memo shows Eyster and board members colluded as far back as two years earlier to oust Cubbison because of her questioning of the DA’s spending, and Cubbison’s criticism of a board push behind the scenes to consolidate the County’s two top finance offices.

“Unbeknownst to Ms. Cubbison or the general public at that time, Eyster had sent a cover email from his private email account to a board member enclosing the packet (of his office complaints) that became part of the meeting agenda,” stated attorney Cannata in a Jan. 10 court filing.

Last week the disputed memo surfaced as a line of questioning in ongoing criminal proceedings against Cubbison and former Payroll Manager Paula June Kennedy, who are accused by Eyster of felony misappropriation of county funds. Cubbison is alleged to have knowingly allowed Kennedy to collect about $68,000 in extra pay during the Covid pandemic. Cubbison contends the extra pay deal was struck between Kennedy and former Auditor Weer when he was still in charge of the office. Kennedy contends that both Weer and Cubbison were aware of her use of an obscure pay code to collect the extra pay. Kennedy at the time was a salaried employee entitled only to compensatory time off, which she had exhausted.

County Supervisors suggested the CEO’s Office uncovered the payments but in fact it was Cubbison who triggered a law enforcement investigation in August 2022. Cubbison then “duly reported” to the County Counsel’s Office that Kennedy intended to quit and sue the County because she had racked up 390 hours of uncompensated time while single handedly putting out a twice per month county payroll for 1,200 employees.

Civil attorney Cannata declared that “the District Attorney seized the moment as the personal step in his personal vendetta against Ms. Cubbison by making sure that the investigation pointed” to the elected Auditor.

The preliminary hearing in the criminal case resumes Tuesday morning before Judge Ann Moorman in Superior Court.

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LOCAL EVENTS

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WHERE'S THE SCHEUBECK?

Is this book still available?  I found it could be ordered from V. Field, Box 482, Covelo 95428 for $40, but this was in 2008 I guess.  I also saw on a facebook post that it was in the library as a proof with many typos, but could not find it.  Thanks.

— Lloyd Dennis

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Ed note: Try the Held-Poage Library in Ukiah. Meanwhile, we've put out an APB for the author.

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SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN (facebook):

Stopped by the PHF (Psychiatric Health Facility) on Friday and was excited to see they are working on roofing. This project is moving quickly. You can read more about the projects funded by Measure B on the County website at MendocinoCounty.gov

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KRENOV SCHOOL OF FINE WOODWORKING MIDWINTER SHOW TO OPEN IN FORT BRAGG, CALIFORNIA

The Krenov School, home to the Fine Woodworking program at Mendocino College, is pleased to announce its 2025 Midwinter show. Exemplary works of fine furniture and craft will be on display at TC Space Gallery in Downtown Fort Bragg from February 1 - 9, 2025.

The exhibition spans a range of furniture typologies, reflecting a diversity of styles and ideas, each piece a testament to the individuality and craftsmanship of the maker as well as the techniques and traditions taught at the school.

The Krenov School has trained students in the techniques and traditions of fine cabinetry and furniture-making since its founding in 1981 by James Krenov. Students come to the school from a diversity of backgrounds, united by a love for woodworking and a dedication to learning. Under the guidance of instructors Laura Mays, Greg Smith, Jim Budlong, Ejler Hjorth-Westh, and Todd Sorenson, students have been honing their craft and skill, their sensitivity and attention to detail, and their design sensibilities. The exceptional body of work that has emerged is the culmination of a semester of hard work, quiet epiphanies, mended errors, and benchroom laughter.

The Midwinter Show will be open to the public from 02/01/2025 through 02/09/2025, 10am - 6pm daily at TC Space Gallery, located at 324 N Franklin St, Fort Bragg, CA 95437. Please join the Krenov School’s Class of 2025 at the public reception on Friday, February 7th, 5-8PM, part of Downtown Fort Bragg’s First Friday Art Walk.

Learn more at thekrenovschool.org.

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NEW VOICES AT MCOE

January is School Board Recognition Month, a time to honor the dedication and service of school board members who play a vital role in shaping the educational landscape. In this spirit, the Mendocino County Board of Education (MCOE) is proud to welcome its newest members, Nancy Bennett and Michelle Hutchins, who were recently sworn in to serve Trustee Areas Four (Caspar, Cleone, Fort Bragg, Leggett, Piercy, and Westport) and Three (Covelo, Laytonville, and Willits), respectively.

Bennett and Hutchins bring valuable experience and fresh perspectives to the Board. They step into roles previously held by Drew Duncan (Trustee Area Four) and Charline Ford (Trustee Area Three).

Nancy Bennett is a parent and small business owner with a longstanding commitment to school-based volunteerism. She is excited about the number of programs, pathways, and tools offered to students now, noting the opportunities are much greater than when she was a student.

Michelle Hutchins is a parent and education consultant. She served as the Mendocino County Superintendent of Schools from 2019 to 2022 and is excited to use her experience to serve the Mendocino County Board of Education.

The Mendocino County Board of Education also includes Board President Marilyn Puget, who represents Trustee Area One (Calpella, Hopland, Potter Valley, Redwood Valley, Talmage/Ukiah East), Vice President Donald Cruser, who represents Trustee Area Five (Boonville, Comptche, Navarro, Philo, Mendocino to Gualala), and Larry Olson who represents Trustee Area Two (Ukiah).

For more about the Mendocino County Board of Education, please visit the MCOE website: https://www.mcoe.us/.

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LEASHED MEANS LEASHED

Editor,

Mendocino County has a leash law. Having your dog leashed means the dog’s leash is attached to the dog on one end, and to its person on the other, not the leash is attached to the dog, or the leash is in the person’s hand. In other words, the person is leashed to the dog, and the dog is leashed to the person.

Jean Arnold

Mendocino

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FORT BRAGG GARDEN CLUB MEETING

Join us at the next Fort Bragg Garden Club meeting on Monday, February 10 at 1:00 at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden’s Education Center, also known as the Farm House. Rella Gadulka, owner and operator of Simply Succulent nursery, will share her knowledge about the origin of these versatile and drought-tolerant plants. Rella has been raising succulents to sell for over 40 years. You can also join the meeting via Zoom by emailing fbgcpresident@mcn.org for the link.

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ED NOTES

AYN RAND is among the Trump Gang's favorite writers, at least the only one they dare mention publicly, The Turner Diaries perhaps the unmentionable one. The more cerebral, or pretentious Magas, go deeper, but Schicklgruber had all kinds of big thinkers behind him, too, including a broad swathe of the German faculty. Unfair of me to malign the maligners this way since I have no idea what they read, but they'd likely appreciate Rand, the worst fiction writer in the history of English lit because lots of the insider Trumpers think of themselves as intellectuals. And supermen.

THE ONLY TWO Randians I've known directly have been about as far from Randian supermen as it's possible to get. One was Millie Perkins' brother. Millie Perkins, I think, is the actress best known for having played Ann Frank. Jim Perkins, Millie's brother, worked at Safeway.

I MET JIM when I rented a room with a shared kitchen in an old Victorian on Scott near Hayes in San Francisco. My housemates included a German baker who always worked this one comment into the conversation: “I vant to get out of dis crazy country.” There was also a fellow named Henry Cohen who said he'd fought with the Castro Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. “The trouble with you, kid,” Cohen would say to me, “is that you're not educated.” By which he explained that I wasn't a Marxist-Leninist like he claimed to be. ”Henry, every time I try to read that stuff I fall asleep.”

WHENEVER I saw Perkins he, too, enumerated my educational deficiencies but assured me I could put myself right by reading Ayn Rand. The most interesting guy in the building, which is now a very fancy bed and breakfast without so much as a hint of its life as a $40 a week tenement circa '63, was a young drunk who threw himself down the stairs every night at precisely 8 o'clock. The first time I saw “Mr. Stairs,” as we called him, hurl himself from the grungy top floor kitchen to the first landing, I was startled. And worried that he'd hurt himself. I hustled out of my room just as Stairs was un-crumpling himself halfway down the curved stairwell.

EVEN with the curve that spared him another 15 feet of free fall, the plunge was a good 20 feet down. “Are you all right?” Mr. Stairs just looked at me, got to his feet and disappeared into his room. Perkins, the Randian appeared. “Do it again, you bastard!” he yelled at Mr. Stairs retreating back.”And break your neck this time!”

I ONCE INVITED a girlfriend over for a communal dinner with my lunatic housemates, but as soon as she saw the kitchen she said, “This is too depressing. I have to leave.” Just as she reached the front door, Stairs did his 8pm self-toss. “God!” she exclaimed as she left, forever, as that tenuous romance turned out.

I WAS dismayed by Stairs myself. It was his creepy punctuality that got to me. A guy throwing himself down the stairs every night at exactly the same time? I'd start looking at the clock about 7 in anticipation, and right at 8 here he'd come, head over loose-limbed heels, and no faking the pure heedlessness of his plummet.

BUT STAIRS always picked himself up and walked away. Perkins, the objectivist, was totally contemptuous not only of Stairs but all mental illness. He took the hard view of everything, the dog-eat-dog perspective, although at Safeway, in the two years I knew him, he never moved up from bag boy. I used to tell him that a true Randian superman would, at a minimum, be in charge of the vegetable bins by age 22. “What kind of superman are you, Perkins?”

I'LL BET if you surveyed “the Randian community” you'd find wall-to-wall cranks and fantasists, the raw material for fascist movements, the Trump demographic, the people who walk around just seething, people like a guy calling himself Al Blue who reminded me of my life on Scott Street. He'd written in to suggest that instead of sending money to Haiti, we should send it to Meg Whitman, the Republican then running for Governor.

A MOVIE RECOMMENDATION from twenty-five years ago, and more valid than ever, plus a pair of neverminds: ‘The Golden Door,’ an Italian film, recreates the Ellis Island immigrant experience circa 1900 so faithfully it’s as if a documentary film crew had followed the new Americans from Sicily to Ellis Island. Introduced and produced by Martin Scorcese whose own grandparents came over through Ellis Island, Scorcese says the movie is so faithful to the facts that it took him back to the stories his grandparents told of leaving the old world for the new. ‘The Golden Door,’ in Italian with subtitles, is one of the best movies I’ve seen. ‘The Best of Youth,’ another Italian film, always gets raves, but I found it a little too charm-heavy, the characters way too handsome, the writing way too cutesy and soap-opera-ish on its way to all that charm. When one suicidal guy leaps over his balcony I hoped it would create a chain reaction and the movie would be over sooner than later. Denmark is a place I’ve always associated with Hamlet, little cookies with jelly splotches in the middle of them, and tidy people washing down their sidewalks. But ‘Pusher’ is a Danish movie about Danish tough guys, drug tough guys, who beat each other up and rip off Swedes while muttering about Norwegians. It’s very well acted, but the sub-title translations are in tin-eared, pseudo-American tough guy idiom. I’m sure Scandinavian tough guys watch all our gangster movies and listen to our ganga banga rob yo granny and her momma too music, but I’d have preferred a literal translation from Danish to Danish-English. It would have made the mayhem much more interesting to hear the Danes talk in Dane as they hit each other over the head with pool cues. ‘Crazy Heart’ is a chick flick set to cowboy music. It’s pretty good, though, because Jeff Bridges is always good. In this one Bridges is a broken down country western singer who stops drinking to almost get the girl. Overall, though, and as the astute readers of this fine publication certainly know, most modern movies aren’t what they were. For example, try watching the original ‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ and the more recent re-make. The original is a well-acted, witty little gem, the re-make simply moronic crash and flames, as is most of what’s out there these days. Except for ‘The Hurt Locker.’ It's really really good. And there's lots of good stuff on NetFlix. We may be going down the tubes, but good movies are better than ever.

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ANOTHER E-BAY POSTCARD OF ANDERSON VALLEY (via Marshall Newman)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, January 27, 2025

JOSHUA BELL, 43, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, Probation revocation.

TRAVIS BONSON, 44, Ukiah. Parole violation.

KEENAN COCHRAN, 40, Little River. Resisting.

EDGAR DEAGUILA-PEREZ, 34, Willits. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

LEWIS DISHMAN, 42, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-loitering, petty theft, vehicle tampering, probation revocation.

JUAN GARCIA-RAMIREZ, 23, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

BRYAN GONZALES, 21, Reno/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-lodging without owner’s consent, robbery, controlled substance, probation revocation.

LEVI LEON, 37, Willits. Shoplifting, stolen property, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

JOHN MARKS JR., 56, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, concealed dirk-dagger, conspiracy.

JAMES MORRIS, 34, Willits. Under influence.

ORLANDO MUNOZ, 30, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, resisting.

EVAN MURDEN, 32, Willits. Robbery.

SYDNEY SHACKMAN, 57, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-lodging without owner’s consent.

DESIREE SHELLHART, 39, Ukiah. Petty theft with priors, conspiracy, probation revocation.

ANNIE STANDARD, 30, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

RICHARD SUGGS SR., 41, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, no license, parole violation.

ANTONIO THOMAS, 44, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

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TULSI GABBARD, a former Democratic lawmaker from Hawaii, was once a darling of the political left. Gabbard was feted by liberal activists in Mendocino County, where she spoke several times. But in less than 10 years, Gabbard has gone from being an ally of Bernie Sanders to a key figure in the MAGA movement as Trump's proposed head of the nation's intelligence agencies. Naturally, I am suspect of Gabbard's zig-zagging through our chaotic politics. Are we supposed to rely on her to analyze what is going on around the globe? (via Mike Geniella)

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BRING MOM HOME

Bringing in the Dark Mother to purify the global chaotic confused mess. It’s simple. Invoke the dark mother of your choice, depending on the tradition which you appreciate, chant the mantra, visualize She and her colleagues destroying the demonic, and then celebrate! Either that, or continue rotting in the quagmire of samsara. You have a choice. Kali Ma’s Mantra: Om Aim Hrim Klim Chamundaye Vicche

Craig Louis Stehr

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FACTS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE ETC.

Editor,

Regarding ‘Climate Change didn’t cause the LA fire; this is who to blame,” … (SF Chronicle, Jan. 20, 2025), I was taken aback by the claim that climate change had nothing to do with the Los Angeles fires and that “elected officials” were to blame.

During my 40-year career in science, my office was two blocks from an atmospheric research center where many of the world’s leading scientists worked on the climate challenges that they predicted and we are now experiencing.

There was never any debate amongst the subject matter experts about whether overloading our atmosphere with carbon is a problem. In this age where untruths and deception are now considered acceptable, it has never been more important that we pay attention to unbiased, peer-reviewed sources of information from scientists who are truly qualified to comment on complex matters.

I can testify that there are no harsher critics, or more difficult people to convince, than fellow scientists. Nothing short of absolute proof about scientific research will carry the day.

I encourage people to use common sense in their information sources. No politician or oil company-owned expert will provide anything other than the usual obfuscation for profit.

The world faces unprecedented, weather-related disasters. It is time to give scientists their due and ignore the opinions of those who reach their conclusions from ignorance.

Mitchell Neto

Davenport, Santa Cruz County

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The problem with Capitalism is:

…capitalism, by its very nature, cannot help but destroy the integrity and well-being of what we call “nature.” No need for yet another inventory of disturbances in the environment, our bodies, and our psychic balance. The enemy of nature is not oil or pesticides or factories or bulldozers but capital, “that ubiquitous, all-powerful and greatly misunderstood dynamo that drives our society.”

While traditionally the marketplace is a means of exchanging goods for money so as to purchase other goods, under capitalism it becomes a way of accumulating money…

As the basis of economics becomes the trade itself and not the tangible thing exchanged, money is transformed into an all-consuming monster. No longer bound up with the limitations of actual land, people, and resources, it springs to life, an abstraction with a will of its own.

There lies the source of our ecological crisis.

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IF INDUSTRIAL MAN continues to multiply his numbers and expand his operations he will succeed in his apparent intention, to seal himself off from the natural and isolate himself within a synthetic prison of his own making. He will make himself an exile from the earth and then will know at last, if he is still capable of feeling anything, the pain and agony of final loss. He will understand what the captive Zia Indians meant when they made a song out of their sickness for home:

My home over there,
Now I remember it;
And when I see that mountain far away,
Why then I weep,
Why then I weep,
Remembering my home.

— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

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FISH & WHISTLE

by John Prine (1978)

I been thinking lately about the people I meet
The carwash on the corner and the hole in the street
The way my ankles hurt with shoes on my feet
And I'm wondering if I'm gonna see tomorrow.

Father forgive us for what we must do
You forgive us we'll forgive you
We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue
Then we'll whistle and go fishing in heaven.

I was in the army but I never dug a trench
I used to bust my knuckles on a monkey wrench
Then I'd go to town and drink and give the girls a pinch
But I don't think they ever even noticed me.

Fish and whistle, whistle and fish
Eat everything that they put on your dish
And when we get through we'll make a big wish
That we never have to do this again again? again?

On my very first job I said thank you and please
They made me scrub a parking lot down on my knees
Then I got fired for being scared of bees
And they only give me fifty cents an hour.

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WOKE DEI TEACHER COMPLAINS ABOUT TRUMP REMOVING THEIR PRONOUNS IN PARODY-LIKE SPEECH

by Rachel Bowman

A woke teacher ranted about Donald Trump's rollbacks on transgender and DEI programs during a Washington State House of Representatives committee hearing.

Tracy Castro-Gill, 49, the former leader of the Seattle Public School District's Ethnic Studies program, took the podium at a House Committee on Education public hearing on Thursday to complain about Trump's measures.

'My name is Dr. Tracy Castro-Gill, my pronouns are they/them. I am a disabled queer Chicanx educator and scholar in Washington state with my expertise on curriculum and instruction,' Castro-Gill said in her long-winded tirade.

'These were markers that were made illegal recently in the federal government. However, my very presence and humanity is in opposition to that legislation.

'I want to remind us that George Orwell, in his novel 1984, warned us about limiting how we are allowed to define ourselves and our experiences and how that allows fascism to take root.'

On his first day back in office, Trump signed executive orders repealing protections for transgender people and terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government.

The president made the issue of gender part of his campaign, arguing that it fell into the realm of common sense.

'As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,' Trump said during his inaugural address last week.

The chairwoman, Democratic Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos, interrupted Castro-Gill's rant to remind the teacher to stay on topic with the hearing of HB 1296.

The bill aims to promote a safe and supportive school system by addressing student rights, parental/guardian rights, employee protections, and requirements for state and local school districts,' according to The Center Square.

Castro-Gill said they would support the bill if amended with additional teacher protections.

'The fact that teachers have stood in the gap and are the primary targets are why I am testifying pro because of the protections for educators,' the teacher said.

'Educators, as we've heard from students, are often the people who foster student identity and development and are currently being targeted and pushed out of their positions because of this fact.'

Castro-Gill called out Republican Rep. Joel McEntire during their rant for questioning if the bill was in line with Trump's orders.

'I also teach at the University of Washington and hear the curriculum violence and harm and how they're being erased in their K-12 programs, much the way that I and other gender expansive people were erased by Representative McEntire in this very room today,' the teacher said.

Santos reprimanded Castro-Gill again, saying, 'Excuse me, ma'am, we don't impugn members. Please proceed carefully.'

Castro-Gill wrapped up the rant by demanding stronger protections for educators and including language in the cultural competency, diversity, equity, and inclusion standards from the state professional educators standards board and ethnic studies framework from the superintendent's office.

Castro-Gill once led the Seattle Public School District's Ethnic Studies program from 2019 to 2020 and was paid $93,000 a year.

However, Castro-Gill was removed from the district in 2020 for the program's failure and repeated incidents in the school, and the position was dissolved.

They accused colleagues of being racist and introduced an Ethic Math Studies program that claimed math could be used as a tool for racism.

Their father, Rick Castro, who is half Hispanic, said his child lied about being homeless as a child and compared them to race faker Rachel Dolezal.

Castro-Gill has denied the allegations and called their father an 'ultra-conservative conspiracy theorist' who has been out of their life for years.

Daily Wire reporter Luke Rosiak wrote a piece on Castro-Gill in 2022 that exposed they were married to a convicted child molester.

According to Rosiak, Castro-Gill left their husband, Ron Hammond, and two children in California to move to Washington and marry Brian Gill, a convicted child molester who had abused his eight-year-old cousin.

The two had met online on the SecondLife virtual chat website, where strangers could talk to one another using online avatars. Brian had died of a heart attack in 2018.

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GLUG, GLUG…

by James Kunstler

“…once Trump runs out of easy ways to unfuck the federal government, his administration will hit a crossroads moment, probably sooner rather than later.” — Matt Taibbi

That’s the sound of a swamp being drained. And much fetid water is still backed up over the 68.3 square miles that comprise the District of Columbia. You might be just realizing that the “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal racketeering operation. And let’s be clear and precise: racketeering is making money dishonestly. Thus: the grubby Biden Family itself at the top of that putrid food-chain, and their smalltime harvesting of mere table-scraps. Where trillions got creamed off by the big gators, the Bidens risked all for a measly few million, like newts gorging on gnats in a drainage ditch.

Are you so cynical — as the Marxians are in their so-called “critique” of capitalism — that you think all human transactions of making-and-doing are dishonest? That is yet another misreading of reality, which the recent years of nonstop official propaganda and gaslight have catastrophically aggravated to the degree that half of America can no longer think at all.

Capitalism is not a political ideology despite the “ism” incorrectly attached to it, like the tail pinned on a donkey. Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth. The catch is, in a hyper-complex society, the management itself becomes complex to an extreme. And that can easily lead to mismanagement, which will deform and pervert the very mechanisms that superintend wealth, sometimes so badly that the wealth disappears altogether.

These are the dynamics faced by the newborn Trump command. Both political parties, per se, have fallen into a dismal habit of racketeering in this sclerotic state-of-empire. But now Mr. Trump has seized control of the Republican apparatus, at least, and the Party’s entrenched ol’ crocs and pythons descry that under DJT the regular feeding frenzy is over. Hence: the hand-wringing over Pete Hegseth setting foot in the Pentagon, as he will sometime this dawning day. The dollars pounded down that rat-hole in this century could have funded start-ups of several empires, but instead the swag just landed in the index funds of countless board members parasitically lodged in a dark cosmos of G.I. procurement circle-jerks. A lot of that can and will be stopped. And the ones who just won’t quit are liable to be found out.

Now, the Democratic Party faces more perplexing quandaries. It, too, is constructed as a gigantic grift machine. But if you subtract the employees of the multitudinous NGOs and non-profit orgs set up in recent years to receive government largess — which have spawned like smelts in the San Joaquin delta — you would eliminate much of the party’s rank-and-file. (The rest are apparently embedded in government itself and the teachers’ union.) A whole lot of activists would lose their platforms for activism in the process.

These crypto-bureaucracies have become the places where the Democratic Party stashes the “elite over-production” of Woked-up Marxian semi-morons from America’s diploma mills — in which orgs they are lavishly paid to conduct the aforementioned propaganda and gaslighting operations that wrecked so many American minds. The funding spigot to many of those is getting shut down. It will result in an employment crunch for a large cohort of professional crybabies. They could possibly adapt to their new circumstances by ceasing to be crybabies, and finding other, more useful things to do. That would portend some very significant cultural shiftings, which might include the death of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it. Or, they could all just join Antifa (if they’re not already in it) and go make trouble in the streets.

The first seven days of Mr. Trump have been sheer razzle-dazzle. He and the people around him have torn through the zeitgeist like front-end-loaders through a homeless encampment. He has yet to meet a crisis. Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.

If crisis awaits, it’s probably lurking in the financial realm, where the operations of debt have put nearly every country on Gawd’s Green Earth behind the eight-ball. There is just too much of it that everybody knows can’t possibly be paid back — or soon even serviced — and the grand managers of these matters are finally out of tricks for pretending things can go on. Nor, here in America, can Mr. Trump cut spending fast enough to rebalance accounts. And if he somehow could, government employment has become such a big piece of the total economy that we would land post-haste in a new great depression. That predicament is yet-to-be faced, but hold your breath because it is hard upon us.

Meanwhile, this is the week when the most hardcore of Mr. Trump’s cabinet warriors go ‘splainin’ before committees in the US Senate: Bobby Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. Prepare for some heat and light. And then, the deluge.

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I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY about money now, but I worried plenty about it before I hit the jackpot fighting. My pop, Pierrino Marchegiano, was a shoe worker. My mom, whose first name is Pasqualena, ran the house. With six kids, she had plenty to do. I'm the oldest. I got two brothers and three sisters.

I was born in Brockton on September 1st, 1923. One of the first congratulation cards mom got had little boxing gloves hanging from it. Under a picture of a baby it said, 'Welcome to another champion.' We lived on Warren Avenue then, but I don't remember anything about that, because we moved to 80 Brook Street when I was a year old. That's in the middle of the Italian district, where my people still live, but not in the same house.

Both mom and pop were born in Italy. Pop came over from Chieti, a little fishing village near the Adriatic, when he was a young man. He was in the American army and got gassed in France during the First World War. He's had trouble with his stomach ever since.

— Rocky Marciano

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A CLASH OF INAUGURATION PROTESTS

Pro- and anti-Trump protesters meet on the streets of Washington, and caricatured lunacy mostly ensued. A 25-minute tour de force by Ford Fischer's News2Share crew

by Ford Fischer and Matt Taibbi

An accidental street collision in 1981 caused “You got your chocolate in my peanut butter,” which in turn launched the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup. In January, 2025? “I love abortions!” met “Fuck Antifa!” on the streets of Washington, creating God Knows What, but the 25 minutes of ensuing News2Share coverage by Ford Fischer’s crew sure were interesting.

There are too many eyebrow-raising moments in this reel to comment upon properly, but one piece of dialogue involving a fully masked protester (no spoilers! I won’t say which movement) stood out:

Q: So you’re standing today in Malcolm X park with a giant guillotine. Tell me about the intent behind that?

A: Um… what I’ll say is that it’s art and it’s open to intepretation. It’s subjective. I certainly have my own reasons. Um, there’s people I care about who are in jeopardy, who are probably going to lose their rights to exist how they would like to, to love how they would like to, to be who they are meant to be. But this, this is a real symbol.

There are other scenes about which one probably shouldn’t make light, but either way, this effort to capture both sides of last week’s inauguration demonstrations is another sterling contribution in Ford’s growing library of for-posterity video reels. This era needs nonjudgmental eyes in all directions, and News2Share continues to let images of key moments do the talking.…

https://youtu.be/Mi2kjLtOd7c?si=Q8C1KR80TX-Vcfoo

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METEOROLOGIST FIRED FOR DESCRIBING WHAT WE ALL SAW: ‘DUDE NAZI SALUTED TWICE’

by Dave Zirin

I often email media spokespeople from sports leagues, political offices, and corporations seeking official comment and usually their responses are about as spicy as warm milk. That’s what made this email from Milwaukee’s CBS 58’s Molly Kelly so odd. I was contacting the local news station about the firing of meteorologist Sam Kuffel. For those who haven’t heard, the popular Kuffel was abruptly dismissed after commenting on Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at the inauguration day of Donald Trump. Kuffel wrote on her private Instagram page of Musk, “Dude Nazi saluted TWICE during the inauguration. You fuck with this and this man, then I don’t fuck with you.” She added an anti-Nazi meme from the always reliable It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

This would have gone unnoticed except a right-wing radio sewer dweller, who won’t be getting free publicity in this piece, threw a fit calling her “vulgar” (always remarkable when this collection of rape apologists reaches for the fainting couch) and said that Kuffel was “spreading a lie” that this was a Nazi salute. This sure doesn’t look like a lie after Musk addressed German’s Alternative for Germany (AFD) party political convention over the weekend. To raucous cheers, Musk urged the far-right party to “move on” from the “guilt” of the Holocaust. Outside tens of thousands protested the German party whose leaders keep using banned Nazi slogans.

CBS 58 fired Kuffel without hesitation, even though — in keeping with her job — all she did was open a window, stick her hand out, and tell us it was raining. Here we get back to station spokesperson Molly Kelly. Kelly, upon my query about why Kuffel was fired, responded, “We can confirm that Sam Kuffel is no longer with the station. However, we cannot comment further on personnel issues. You can refer to me as a spokesperson from the company but please do not use my name.”

I then received a follow up email insisting I not use her name. In 20 years of doing this work, I have never had a spokesperson, speaking on the record and giving a typically drowsy answer, ask that their name not be used. For non-journalists, the rules are Journalism 101. Not using names is something that needs to be agreed upon in advance, not after the fact. As a communications professional — and especially as an official spokesperson — Kelly should have known that. It was an outlandish request and can only be interpreted as an act of shame or fear.

The people at CBS 58 aren’t publicly voicing their solidarity with Kuffel. They have their heads down and, as we can see, don’t even want their names associated with anodyne statements. Their bosses at the multi-billion-dollar media conglomerate Weigel Broadcasting dropped the axe, the head has fallen in their laps to deal with, and they seem to just want it to go away. But that didn’t happen, and they are now all part of a national story that states Nazi salutes are free speech but critiquing them even privately could cost you your job.

It’s a big deal, and the people in Milwaukee are not letting it stand. The station has been inundated with phone calls and emails. A request by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for reader opinions about the firing produced a deluge of support for Kuffel. It turns out that Nazi multi-billionaire fascists who make Holocaust jokes on social media are less popular than those who stand up to them. The dismissal even made Stephen Colbert’s monologue where he said, “In Wisconsin, a local meteorologist denounced Musk on social media writing, “Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration” and was then fired from her job. That is terrible, but to be fair, a meteorologist is never supposed to be that accurate.”

Kuffel’s firing also has roused a city still reeling, like many, from the overwhelming onslaught of reactionary and ugly executive orders of the last week. Pastor Greg Lewis, the president of Milwaukee’s Souls to the Polls, messaged me, “CBS 58 has caved to right-wing talk radio and the MAGA mob. There’s a demonic straight line from Trump’s good people on both sides to the January 6 insurrection to pardoning leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to the CBS 58 firing of their meteorologist. Trump and his allies have mobilized and legitimized racists and bigotry in their pursuit of an extremist agenda.”

In addition, long-time Jewish activist Frank Shansky criticized certain members of the Jewish community for their refusal to call out a dangerous, violently antisemitic gesture. The Anti-Defamation League, an ostensibly “pro-Jewish” organization that’s cozy with Trumpism, forgave Musk immediately. ”It appears that the ADL and ‘leaders’ of the Milwaukee Jewish community feel free to wrongly call Palestinian students antisemitic for protesting Israeli policy in Gaza, but when a man of power proudly makes a Nazi salute, that apparently isn't antisemitic. We're in an era where courage to speak truth to power is getting harder and harder.”

Kuffel, unlike her colleagues, has not been silent. In her first statement since the incident, she explained that she ”never meant to harm anyone — certainly not my former employer and colleagues. I am still processing all of this and weighing my options. But again, I’m deeply appreciative to all who have supported me through this.”

Support is certainly coming from corners Kuffel probably did not expect. A massive billboard, is set to be put up by the Minocqua Beer Super PAC (that’s apparently a thing), across the street of CBS 58 has a massive picture of Musk’s Nazi salute with the words, “Stand with Sam Kuffel. Boycott CBS 58. Don’t obey in advance.”

In addition, a petition is off the ground aimed at getting Kuffel’s job reinstated. The now-retired Milwaukee union leader Michael Rosen said to me, “None of this is surprising since Wisconsin is the home of Joe McCarthy, who was mentored in the art of dirty politics and witch hunts by Donald Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn. Sam Kufell is just roadkill to the MAGA crowd. But to those of us who are committed to justice and equality it should be nothing short of a call to action.”

I hope I’m wrong, but I do not think Sam Kuffel will get her job back. Her importance as a warning to others in Weigel’s media empire and beyond is probably worth more to them than any short-term blowback, even if it guts the credibility and viewership of CBS 58. But this story actually provides a window into our best hope for building a movement against Trumpist fascism. Led by Trump’s hyper-caffeinated, spoiled lizard brain and his bratty sons, the far right wants to crush any vestige of democracy with a thousand cuts: spewing executive orders of dubious legality at us until we don’t know which way to turn or where to aim our ire. But doing this also overextends any kind of popular support or mandate they think they have after Trump received less than half the popular vote. Corporate America, the media, and much of the Democratic Party (unanimous vote for Marco Rubio in the Senate?!?) might be in a state of premature surrender, but among many people, this administration is already, in football terms, outkicking their coverage.

Thank you, Sam Kuffel for showing some spine. But, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, you don’t need to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind is blowing. As for Musk, he and his Nazi salutes need to be driven from public life. If Musk was just being “ironic,” he can explain that at Nuremberg.

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SEPTEMBER 10, 1960 - Mickey Mantle rockets a homerun that measured 643ft. Guinness Records has it as the longest ball ever hit in a major league game.

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TO THWART TRUMP’S TYRANNY, THE MEDIA MUST COVER RESISTANCE BY CIVIC GROUPS AND UNIONS

by Ralph Nader

A lawless madman, with cunning political skills, is at large in our White House. After less than five days in office, he has set a record for flamboyantly issued executive orders, many violative of federal statutes and the Constitution.

A partial list: he has withdrawn the U.S. from the World Health Organization (e.g., damaging international coordination regarding pandemics), quit the Paris Climate Accords (e.g., nations working together against climate violence), selected corporate ideologues to run regulatory agencies (the purpose of which is to save lives, prevent injuries and stop consumer rip-offs), unleashed ICE to crash schools looking for undocumented kids to take away, threatened the media, readied more tax cuts for the super-rich and big companies, and halted the hiring of I.R.S. staff needed to stop massive tax evasions by the plutocracy. He has moved to make massive cuts in spending for programs protecting children and the sick (e.g., slashing Medicaid), lifting controls over oil & gas drilling, reducing support for solar and wind energy, and gutting the civil service. Meanwhile he, a convicted felon, is pardoning hundreds of convicted jailed felons who assaulted Capitol Hill police on Jan. 6, 2021, who will now be vengefully on the streets. The terrifying list goes on. (See the Brookings Institution tracking of regulatory changes in the second Trump administration).

These actions harm all Americans – that is, they produce indiscriminate injustice against both liberal and conservative low-wage workers, consumers, parents, and children. This strengthens the resistance from the people with a more unified opportunity to stop Trump. Already the first torrent of federal and state lawsuits are being filed to block Trump’s power grab. Certainly, many state attorneys general are readying lawsuits. However, comfortable with his dominance over Congress and the Supreme Court, Trump’s response is one he has previously used – figuratively mocking so sue me, ha, ha, ha.

In anticipation of the Trump rampage, the New York Times published a lead column on January 18, 2025, titled: “Are We Sleepwalking Into Autocracy?” The columnists’ answer is “Yes,” unless: “Defenders of democracy have to stay united, focusing on ensuring that checks and balances remain intact and that crucial democratic watchdog institutions (my emphasis) elude capture.”

Nice words. But the Times and other large newspapers and magazines have largely avoided a critical responsibility since the 60s and 70s. That is, without their covering the actions, litigation, initiatives, and reports of civic institutions and labor unions, little or nothing will flow from their efforts.

The Times editors know full well that without reaching millions of people, influential groups and lawmakers, the power of civic/labor community is very significantly reduced. This lack of media coverage has been happening for the past forty years.

Mass media coverage based on newsworthiness and editorializing empower these groups, gets the attention of more supporters and makes it more difficult for the forces of often secret autocratic government to roll over the citizenry.

The regular reporting about what activists were doing in the 1960s and 1970s made possible the consumer, environmental, labor, and freedom of information laws. Similar efforts now cannot gather momentum with media visibility. Legislative hearings, prosecutions, and regulatory actions cannot get jumpstarted just by the people insistent on a just and democratic society.

Over the years I’ve highlighted this exclusion coupled with suggesting newsworthy stories to hundreds of reporters, editors, and a few publishers. To little avail.

Look at the scene at the Times and the Washington Post. How often do you see op-eds from civic/labor advocates? How often do you read reviews of their books? How often have the groundbreaking studies by Public Citizen, Common Cause, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Veterans for Peace, Union of Concerned Scientists Et. al received coverage? Look at the profitable Washington Post Live podcasts and see how civic and union leaders have been back-handed. How often do the celebrated Times and Post podcasts interview them? The exclusions are overwhelming, even when compared with the access extreme right-wingers receive, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Grover Norquist.

Some may say, well, they can always use social media. It is too cluttered, too fractured, and too impulsive. Whether we like it or not, the major newspapers’ original content feeds the radio and television stations and still has an unchallenged impact on getting attention for agendas underway that may have been floating around on the Internet for years and going nowhere.

The same situation exists for local journalism which could feed local TV and radio were it to stop ignoring incipient efforts from community activism, whistleblowers, or simply good stories called into them by alert citizens.

Official source journalism presently reigns. Our democracy can’t afford redundant and tepid reporting in the coming days. For example, there are about 500 full-time reporters covering Congress. The mostly ditto-head reporting misses all kinds of stories. We started the quarterly forty-page newspaper, Capitol Hill Citizen (capitolhillcitizen.com) to expose some of the goings on in Congress that fall under the rubric of ignored unofficial journalism to illustrate this point.

In an era of closing weekly and daily newspapers, one might expect some coverage of this unique effort reporting on Congress, the most important and potentially most powerful institution that can turn around our deteriorating democracy. For nearly three years, none of the major newspapers and news magazines have told their readers about this rising journalistic beacon.

To sum up: the reporters and editors at the Times, Post and the rest of the national, local newspaper, radio, and TV media must rise to higher levels of their own significance and give voice to the aroused resistance against the onrushing Trumpian dictatorial regime imposing fascistic government and more concentrated corporate power.

If they cave, if they cower, as Thomas Jefferson warned, the main bulwark for our Republic crumbles. More citizens then withdraw and give up. That calamity would freeze Congress and the people who are the last ultimate rescuers of our besieged constitutional Republic.

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THE DAWN OF AFFORDABLE TELEVISION

On August 24, 1945, history was made in a New York department store as the public witnessed the first post-war demonstration of a groundbreaking innovation: an affordable television set. Priced at just $100, this receiver was among the first moderately priced models to be mass-produced, making the dream of owning a TV accessible to a wider audience.

Rose Clare Leonard was one of the first to experience this marvel, watching a modest 5×7-inch image on the screen as she tuned in during the demonstration. This event marked the beginning of a new era, where families could connect with the world from the comfort of their homes—a revolutionary shift that shaped modern media consumption.

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

White House Budget Office Orders Pause in All Federal Loans and Grants

Trump Administration Halts H.I.V. Drug Distribution in Poor Countries

What to Know About DeepSeek and How It Is Upending A.I.

Airborne Lead and Chlorine Levels Soared as L.A. Wildfires Raged

Crafting a Haggis for American Tastes (and Import Restrictions)

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A NAZI OFFICER, one day, visited Pablo Picasso in his atelier. At the sight of the majestic Guernica, visibly impressed, he asked the painter: “Did you make this horror, master?”

And Picasso, impassive, replied: “No, it's your doing.”

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BOTH JORDAN AND EGYPT have put out statements rejecting President Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Gaza and move its population to those nations.

“Our principles are clear, and Jordan’s steadfast position to uphold the Palestinians’ presence on their land remains unchanged and will never change,” Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi told the press on Sunday.

Similarly, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry affirmed “Egypt’s continued support for the resilience of the Palestinian people on their land and their commitment to their legitimate rights in their homeland, in accordance with international law and international humanitarian law.”

It still remains to be seen if the Trump administration will find a way to bribe or coerce either or both nations to comply with Trump’s ethnic cleansing agenda, but the fact that they aren’t already on board means the empire still needs to jump through some significant hoops before this could happen.

— Caitlin Johnstone

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CEASE FIRE

by Selma Dabbagh

Before October 2023, calling for a ceasefire was a standard response from diplomats and politicians when massive military violence was unleashed by a state against a largely unarmed population (especially if the population was under military occupation by the state, which should entitle them to extra protections under the Geneva Conventions). Since October 2023, ‘ceasefire’ became construed as a radical cry by demonstrators and campus activists to be policed and curtailed. Those who called for it were at risk: from Whitehall and the City to universities and the street.

One can only hope that in the future the failure to call for a ceasefire during Israel’s genocide in Gaza will not only be a source of great shame, but, more concretely, that there will be criminal investigations into the silence from and silencing by those in power.

The terms of the ceasefire eventually agreed for 19 January 2025 are, as Mouin Rabbani and others have pointed out, pretty much identical to those that were close to being agreed on 27 May 2024. Failure to reach a deal then prolonged the agony for the Israeli hostages and their families. For the Palestinians in Gaza it meant at least another ten thousand deaths. Itamir Ben Gvir, Israel’s former national security minister who responded to the ceasefire by resigning from the cabinet, took the credit for preventing an earlier deal, demonstrating the perfidy of the US administration in blaming Hamas.

‘Why aren’t you in The Hague?’ called out Sam Husseini, the communications director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, as he was removed from Anthony Blinken’s last press conference as US secretary of state. ‘You’re manhandling me,’ he told the security staff, as they lifted him up by his arms and feet. Some of the other journalists filmed it on their phones. ‘I’m a journalist, not a potted plant,’ Husseini protested.

When Major-General Oded Basyuk visited London this week, a journalist from Declassified UK asked him on his way into the Royal United Services Institute if he was ‘worried about being investigated by the ICC for war crimes’. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ the RUSI security guard told the journalist, closing the door in his face. ‘Get back on the street.’

Out on the streets, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign announced on 8 January that the Metropolitan Police ‘intend to go back on a previous agreement and impose conditions to prevent us marching from BBC HQ at Portland Place on Saturday 18 January’. The original plan had been to protest against the pro-Israel bias of the BBC’s coverage of the war in Gaza. The protest went ahead on Whitehall, with more than a thousand police officers in attendance. According to Ismail Patel, writing for Middle East Eye:

as video evidence shows, police voluntarily allowed us to go through, telling us: ‘Make your way through please.’ Despite this, police then turned on protesters, escalating the situation and arresting more than seventy people. Ten people, including several over the age of sixty, were charged with public order offences.

A friend at the demonstration said the policing felt ‘like a trap’. Dozens of legal scholars signed a letter to the home secretary asking for an inquiry into the policing of the demonstration. The British Palestinian Committee also wrote to the UK government of its serious concerns:

This escalation highlights a broader pattern of targeting anti-war and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, creating a chilling effect on the right to protest for those advocating justice for Palestinians.

In the four days between the official announcement of the ceasefire by Qatar and its coming into effect, Israel intensified its bombardment of Gaza, killing 247 Palestinians. Since the ceasefire began at least two Palestinians have been killed in Southern Gaza.

Doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta, waiting to re-enter Gaza, spoke of the people there trying to unearth the bodies of their friends and relatives from the rubble. Hundreds of health workers have been killed. ‘They killed all the nephrologists,’ Ghassan said, ‘and destroyed all of the kidney dialysis units.’

For each individual connected to Gaza, the losses are specific, personal and multifold. Mosab Abu Toha, a poet from northern Gaza, wrote of his despair at seeing images of the destroyed Edward Said Library:

Today morning with a heavy heart I received the news of the destruction of the Edward Said Public Library in Beit Lahia, north Gaza. The news and pictures came through just three days after Gazans were allowed to return to north Gaza. Starting 2016, I started collecting books from around the world to build Gaza’s first English language library. With the endorsement and support of authors and intellectuals around the world, I raised the needed funds to open the library in the summer of 2017.

On the first day of his second term as US president, Donald Trump described Gaza as a ‘phenomenal location on the sea’. Living in a tent close to the beach in southern Gaza, my friend Marwa has had her request for permission to travel to the north, to visit her elderly mother, denied three times for ‘security’ reasons. There has been no news of her cousin, who used to look after her mother, since he was taken by the Israeli army over a month ago. He is in his seventies. In the north, Marwa’s colleague K wrote this week: ‘Everyone is fine, thank God, as for the children. Now the biggest problem is that there is no home, everything was destroyed.’ Sending money to K is difficult: Jordanian banks have held larger sums for several months for ‘security reasons’. Only small transfers get through, and none to Palestinian banks that I have tried.

For Israel, the ceasefire is not only patchy, it is on one front only. Since Sunday it has turned its sights on the occupied West Bank, where attacks by settlers and the army have intensified. At least ten people have been killed in Jenin and thousands displaced. The Israeli government is threatening to ban UNRWA, which provides vital support to millions of Palestinians, from operating in the West Bank next week. As Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Territories, observed, ‘if Israel can ban a UNGA subsidiary body from the territory it unlawfully occupies, without facing consequences, it means nothing coming from the UN will ever hold it back.’ She called on the UN to ‘UNseat Israel.’ The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, has spoken of the intention to deploy methods used in Gaza against the West Bank population.

(London Review of Books)

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