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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Covelo 2.83" - Laytonville 2.75" - Yorkville 0.76" - Hopland 0.48" - Boonville 0.28" - Ukiah 0.17"
RAIN CONTINUES with the possibility of low elevation snow and mixed precipitation as a colder air mass looms. Minor flood stage for the Eel river at Fernbridge is possible tonight through Tuesday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): .87" of new rainfall, 51F & cloudy this Monday morning on the coast. Forget the high winds I talked about yesterday but the big rain for today remains in the forecast. Scattered showers & colder thru Friday, maybe into the weekend? The systems never did take a full proper shape, it's been more scattered than I expected.
NICHOLAS WILSON (Little River): My gauge shows rainfall of 1.34" since midnight, and counting. The 3 day storm total is 2.88" and counting (beginning Friday night). Season total to date is 39.09" since July 1, 2025. My weather station is located just east of the Little River Airport at 622 ft. elevation. You can go to my station page on Weather Underground to access current and historical data. https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCALITTL10
PG&E MOVES TO DISMANTLE POTTER VALLEY PROJECT PREDICTING ‘ADVERSE IMPACTS’ TO THE RUSSIAN RIVER
by Monica Huettl
On January 31, 2025, PG&E released its Final Draft Application for Surrender of License for the Potter Valley Project (PVP), a hydroelectric facility that has historically diverted water from the Eel River to the Russian River watershed. The 2,086-page document outlines PG&E’s plans for decommissioning the century-old project and details the expected effects on Russian River water users, including agricultural, municipal, and recreational interests in Mendocino, Sonoma, and northern Marin counties. This summary highlights key takeaways relevant to the Russian River community.…
ADAM GASKA:
RE: FINAL DRAFT SURRENDER APPLICATION AND DECOMMISSIONING PLAN FOR THE POTTER VALLEY PROJECT AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING
The PVP hasn’t become unprofitable because of age. It has become unprofitable because the amount of water allowed to be diverted has been decreased from 150k,000 AF annually to 60,000 AF out of concern for fish. Today, roughly 39,000 AF is being diverted due to the broken transformer that took the project offline. The government has also required studies ad infinitum, ad nauseum which has increased the cost to operate the project. Less revenue and additional cost has equated to profit loss so PG&E is divesting from an underperforming asset.
Our communities and those south of us need for water does not factor into their equation.
SCOTT WARD:
Congressman Huffman and his Enviro sycophants are BIG FAT LIARS when they say that there are 100’s of miles of salmon habitat and spawning streams above Scott Dam. The dam and Lake Pillsbury are an essential component of water storage for fire suppression and over the last 100 years have created a unique ecosystem for a variety of species. Removing the dam is short sighted and has become a rallying cry for the pseudo environmentalists. My question is, when will the citizens (particularly the wealthy ones) in Sonoma and Marin counties realize and speak up about the consequences to their water supply when Scott Dam is removed?
ADAM GASKA:
When their water bills go through the roof.
Marin Water instituted a drastic rate increase to catch up with deferred maintenance projects. They have been told their water supplies are already inadequate during droughts. They are looking at a handful of different projects, none of which are cheap. This assumes their current water supply is secure, which it isn’t. One project being looked at is to run a pipeline on the Richmond Bridge to pump Sacramento River water to Marin. The pipe itself would cost an estimated $50-100 million dollars, then add in the pumping. Another project would expand Nicasio Reservoir or Kent Lake by either raising the dam or building a second reservoir. This would flood thousands of acres of farm land on top of the 16,000 acres lost at Pt Reyes further impacting Marin County agriculture.
If you add up all the projects necessary to store more winter water on top of the cost to pump Eel River water to the Russian during winter, it’s likely in the billions of dollars. It’s likely more cost effective to repair/replace Scott Dam, install fish passage and continue the historic diversion.
BETTER THINK IT OVER
Editor:
The Santa Rosa paper reported that our congressman has “secured” $15 million of our own money to tear down Cape Horn Dam. This 100-year-old small dam, which does have a fish ladder, exists to provide a deep enough pool of water to allow Eel River water to enter the tunnel intake for the Potter Valley powerhouse. For over 100 years, that tunnel has facilitated moving water from the Eel River watershed to the Russian River watershed. Tear that dam down, and the pool disappears. Without the pool of water feeding it, Potter Valley and Lake Mendocino dry up most years. Is that a good idea?
Before we start tearing dams down, maybe we should figure out a secure and effective way for those who depend on the Russian River for their water to survive a dry Lake Mendocino.
John Torrens
Petaluma
GLAD DONAHUE: As to the Day Without Immigrants walkout happening Monday Feb3, I am curious which businesses are backing their employees and giving them the day off? High five Jumbo’s for closing for the day. Anyone else?
BOONVILLE GENERAL STORE: On Monday we will show support to our employees, family, friends, & loved ones. Boonmex & the Boonville General Store Store will not be open. We apologize for the inconvenience to our daily customers, but we hope you understand. We hope that others will join us tomorrow on this journey & we appreciate all those other AV business who are joining this movement. We are essential, we are strong, we are a community!
AV UNIFIED NEWS
Dear Anderson Valley Community,
Anderson Valley USD supports its students and families! There has been a lot going on in the news and we want to assure you of every staff member’s commitment to the safety and confidentiality of the students we serve. Please read below for important updates.
District Updates…
We Value ALL Our Families: Immigration Support and Updates
As your Superintendent, I want to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to maintaining a safe and inclusive environment for all students, regardless of their immigration status. In accordance with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), every child is entitled to equal access to public education, irrespective of their immigration status. To date, no immigration officers have been on any of our campuses.
To uphold our commitment, our district has established the following policies and procedures (also included in our attached letter to families):
Prohibition of Unauthorized Access by Immigration Enforcement:
In alignment with California Senate Bill 48 (SB 48), our district prohibits granting access to school grounds to any immigration enforcement agent without a valid judicial warrant or other legal grounds. This policy ensures that our campuses remain safe spaces for all students
Protection of Student Records:
Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we are obligated to protect the confidentiality of student education records. We will not release any student information to immigration authorities without prior written consent from the parent or guardian unless presented with a court order or subpoena. CSBA.org
Limitation on Inquiries Regarding Immigration Status:
Our staff will not inquire about a student's or their family's immigration status, nor will we require documentation that may expose such status. This practice aligns with guidance from the California Attorney General's Office, which advises schools to refrain from collecting information related to immigration status to ensure equal access to education. California DOJ
Response Protocol for Immigration Enforcement Requests:
In the event that an immigration enforcement agent requests access to a school site or student information, staff are instructed to refer the agent to the Superintendent's office. The Superintendent, in consultation with legal counsel, will review the request to ensure compliance with all applicable laws before any action is taken. We understand that recent changes in federal immigration enforcement policies may cause concern within our community. Notably, the rescission of the 2021 memorandum on "protected areas" has raised questions about the presence of immigration enforcement in schools. Please rest assured that our district remains steadfast in its dedication to protecting the rights and well-being of all students.
Please find links to additional information for families below:
Immigration and California Families: State Immigration Website
National Immigration Law Center: “Know Your Rights” (English | Spanish | Additional Languages)
Welcome, Teachers from Chile!
We are thrilled to welcome two new teachers from Chile! They arrived in the USA on Friday and are working on their paperwork so they can be in classrooms soon.
Alvaro Gongora will be joining AVHS. Mr. Gongora joins us with several years experience teaching math. He has a passion for helping students learn rigorous concepts and is excited to join AVUSD!
Maria Nadia Ramirex Valencia will be joining AVES. She comes to us with several years experience teaching special education. She loves working with young children and can’t wait to meet our students and staff!
Please take a moment to welcome these awesome additions to our teaching staff. We are so fortunate to have them!
Murals at AVES
In order to ensure everyone’s thoughts have been considered as we take next steps with murals on the AVES campus, we are asking for your input!
Please take this survey to share your thoughts about murals on the AVES campus. The survey will be tabulated this MONDAY (Today), so be sure to take it if you have opinions about our murals.
Please consider attending our Mural Meeting at AVES, on February 6th at 4:00 p.m., (moved to the cafeteria), to review the data collected, view a slide show about the murals, and provide final input for Mr. Ramalia as he and his team make final decisions regarding old, new, and future murals at AVES!
FFA Awards
Saturday the AV FFA Grapevine Pruning team participated in the FFA State Finals at Fresno State. They placed 10th in the state! Aliya placed 4th in cane pruning and 14th high individual! It was a great first year for the team!
Great job Alexys Bautisita coaching the team. Thank you to everyone who supported this team!
We love to see parents at our events, supporting their kids. If you would like to be more involved, please contact your school’s principal, Mr. Ramalia at AVES or Mr. McNerney at AV Jr/Sr High, or our district superintendent, Kristin Larson Balliet.
We are deeply grateful for our AVUSD families.
With respect,
Kristin Larson Balliet, Superintendent
Anderson Valley Unified School District
klarson@avpanthers.org
FORT BRAGG GRAFFITI DIALOGUE
Frank Hartzell: I have gotten a lot of feedback about the story I wrote last night at 1 am after work. Some say I should not publicize the scribblings of wanna bee gangsters, as it gives them what they want - to be seen. But I say this goes too far. These jerks boldly stood out in front of Vets hall and B and H and did this giant writing. They attacked the heart of the town. What do you think?
Marie Tobias:
Oh No Frank…
I'd go full tilt boogie in the opposite direction.
Spray the wall with Stripper, lay down a transparent film, then lift the graffiti off, intact, and mount on a decorated plywood sheet. Put in a tiny park, a monument to public embarrassment. Have a box of rainbow indelible markers so the public can tag the graffiti.
Discuss the the creator's ignorance… stupidity, sexual inadequacy, lack of skill or social grace, lack of artistic ability, poor hygiene, whatever moves you. Make that tag live in a frame of embarrassment and social disgrace.
Put a plaque on it that says: “Congrats asshole. You want to be noticed? Make your mark? Here you go. The whole world notices what an infantile waste you are. Hope you're basking in the attention.
MENDO (VILLAGE) GOES FULL MARRIOT
A local had a blunt take on the new neighbors: 'I'm not impressed'
by Matt LaFever
The Northern California coastal village Mendocino is a top tourist destination, known for its Victorian architecture, dramatic oceanfront bluffs and a cool climate that provides refuge from inland heat. But, after the New York-based owner of two of its historic hotels recently partnered with a global hotel network, concerns have arisen that outsider ownership could erode the town’s charm and authenticity — even as new investors insist they’re committed to preservation while continuing to increase economic potential in the rural county.
Castle Peak, an investment firm focused on hotels and resorts in high-demand outdoor destinations across North America, acquired Mendocino’s Hill House Inn for about $5.8 million, along with the Mendocino Hotel Garden and Suites for about $4.25 million, through Castle Peak Holdings in June 2022, according to deeds obtained by SFGate. Its hospitality brand, Trailborn, partnered with Marriott International in December 2024, with the global hotelier announcing “the expansion of its outdoor-focused lodging offerings” with “a long-term agreement to add Trailborn’s portfolio to Marriott’s system.”
Ricardo Berrospi, Trailborn’s regional director of operations, described the deal in a statement as a “long-term distribution agreement to join Marriott’s system and platforms.” He emphasized, however, that Trailborn “had not been acquired by Marriott” and would remain an independent boutique hotel collection. Berrospi also stated, “Trailborn remains solely responsible for the operations and renovation plans for the two buildings in Mendocino.”
Mendocino County 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams represents the coastal village at the county level. He told SFGate that the town is one of the county’s largest revenue generators. To preserve its charm, locals enforce strict design rules. Property owners planning exterior changes must get approval from the Mendocino Historical Review Board — or risk code enforcement’s abatement orders or fines. Before Trailborn alters these historic hotels, a five-member local board is tasked with ensuring that the plans align with Mendocino’s character.
The Mendocino Hotel & Garden Suites has been a centerpiece of the village’s Main Street since 1878. Looking out over iconic headlands, the property boasts 51 rooms, ocean views, botanical gardens, three restaurants and a bar. Currently undergoing extensive renovations approved by the review board in September 2023, the hotel’s overhaul includes yard regrading, landscaping updates, a new solarium roof, the demolition of a rear wall, the addition of a glass wall with doors, and upgraded exterior lighting. A reopening date has not yet been announced.
Trailborn’s restoration of the Mendocino Hotel is also expected to include bringing back its bar and lobby and revitalizing its restaurant.
Built in 1978 to resemble a 19th-century fishing village, the Hill House Inn offers panoramic views of the Pacific and headlands from its restaurant. Alongside other town landmarks, it also gained fame as a filming location for the television show “Murder, She Wrote.” Like the Mendocino Hotel, the Hill House’s website notes that it is closed and does not allow bookings.
The restoration work at the Hill House Inn is focused on enhancing the property’s meeting and event spaces for future events, weddings and celebrations. Trailborn intends to install a small market that provides local food and goods.
Ed O’Brien has called Mendocino home for 55 years. He owns and runs Compass Rose, a leather goods store, and served on Mendocino’s Historical Review Board, and was the chief of the volunteer fire department.
Asked by SFGate about the new owners of the Mendocino Hotel and Hill House Inn, O’Brien was blunt: “I'm not impressed.”
“They didn't introduce themselves well to the community,” he said, criticizing the approach of prioritizing behind-the-scenes renovations while leaving the buildings’ facades looking neglected.
O’Brien contrasted them with “mom and pop” owners, who he said maintain a “direct relationship with the community.” As for the newcomers? “They're not involved,” he said. “No-shows.”
Sandra Speck-McElroy, owner of Trillium Restaurant in Mendocino, has spent a lifetime in the town’s hospitality industry, witnessing many businesses transition from local to outside ownership.
From her experience, nonlocal owners are often “not nice to their employees” and are disconnected from the town. For instance, she recalled a story about another Mendocino hotel under nonlocal ownership, where a bride called to inquire about hosting her wedding. Instead of speaking with a locally based staff member, the hotel’s system “directed them to someone who lived in Arizona who didn’t know anything about our town.”
Despite her concerns, Speck-McElroy was optimistic about Trailborn’s commitment to tackling “50 years' worth of deferred maintenance” and reviving the properties. She hopes the renewed businesses will attract more tourists to the town — and her restaurant.
Mendocino County’s annual transient occupancy tax — collected from lodgings and a key indicator of tourism trends — took a hit during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic but has since rebounded strongly. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, the county collected $4.65 million. The following year saw a sharp 56% increase to $7.26 million. From 2021 to now, revenues have held steady at over $8 million annually, a sizable increase from the prepandemic average of closer to $5 million per year.
Guy Pacurar was an outsider when he purchased Mendocino’s Brewery Gulch Inn in 2007, but he quickly embraced life on the North Coast and made the community his home. When it came time to sell the property in 2022, Pacurar told SFGate he had hoped to “keep it local,” but the only local buyer had plans to stop operating the inn. Instead, he sold it to an experienced, nonlocal hotelier to ensure that the business would continue.
On the nonlocal ownership of the Mendocino Hotel and Hill House, Pacurar noted, “Nobody local stepped up to buy them.”
Calling the Mendocino Hotel “the iconic cornerstone of Main Street that is emblematic of Mendocino,” Pacurar emphasized its revival, saying, “It’s important that it be brought back.”
He remains “cautiously optimistic” about the new ownership, having met the manager of the two properties. “If they’re focused on the community, it’ll be a boon,” he said.
In response to a question about Trailborn’s community focus, Berrospi said in his statement that the team is “deeply committed to preserving these cherished establishments” and plans to collaborate with local partners to provide “exciting upgrades for both travelers and the local community.” He said Trailborn would communicate with the public when the inns are ready to reopen.
Regardless of ownership or outcome, Speck-McElroy has one priority: “I want the town to stay quaint.”
(SFGate.com)
JOHNNY SCHMITT (Boonville Hotel):
It's all pretty sad… Seeing all these once family owned properties passing into corporations tied into chain hotels. Over my dead body would we sell to one. Luckily we're not in that position! All we can do is just try to work with them and help them understand the local labor force and community. Same thing happening with the wineries. There are only a few family owned wineries left in Anderson valley; they need our support or we will lose them too!
LEE STEDMAN
Honestly at this point I would just be happy to see anyone actually fix up both places. Seeing countless management companies come and go because they ending up not being able to afford the massive amount of renovation and repair for both of those places. It would be good for the labor pool to open both of those places up too. Now, as to the attitudes of non-local owners? Let's hope they make the smart move of hiring local GMs and HR people, that usually helps!
THE ATTACK OF THE DWARF BULLY GIRLS
by Mark Scaramella
In the early 1990s, AVA Cartoonist Dr. Doo (Fred Sternkopf) ran a series of cartoonish sketches depicting timber activist Judi Bari as a bodysuit-clad Wonder Woman, intrepid survivor of a murderous carbomb attack.
Bari and her female posse of trust funders decided that Dr. Doo’s cartoon was “sexist.” They complained about Dr. Doo in a series of Letters to the Editor demanding that Doo stop the “sexist” sketches or that the AVA stop publishing the offending cartoons.
We ignored them, so the Bari-ites devised one of their signature “direct actions.”
One of Bari’s acolytes was an attractive young woman named Melissa Roberts, who had befriended us and had helped out with publication prep a few times. Many, many hours of prep work led up to print day, with a hard post office delivery deadline, a fact irrelevant to people who don't work.
When we arrived at Willits Printing early Wednesday morning to drop off the AVA’s “flats,” the 12 pages of pasted up broadsheet with that week’s collection of news and enlightenment, Ms. Roberts was standing by her old beater car parked in front of Willits Printing, with a beckoning smile, as if to have coffee and a chat during the printing process.
Before we could get out of the car with the flats, there was a blast of a whistle and around the corner came Judi Bari and her (mostly) short people — Little Tree (Alisha Bales, then about 20), Kay Rudin, Mary Korte (not so short), Naomi Wagner, and one or two others.
Miss Tree jumped into the passenger seat and Wagner and Bari held the driver side door closed to prevent our exiting the car.
Meanwhile Roberts had snagged the box of AVA flats from the back seat and ran inside the print shop. Miss Tree tried to grab the car keys but was unsuccessful. When we asked what was going on, we were told to shut up and ”just wait a few minutes.”
We knew that the Willits print crew would not begin without our go-ahead. After the few minutes the dwarves released him us and we noticed that everyone but Roberts was standing on the sidewalk outside the printer’s front door. We demanded that the flats be returned and that they stop fooling around.
Since Roberts had previously assisted the AVA with copy prep and publication a few times, she was familiar with the layout process and timing of the weekly print run. So she had been designated as the lure and the designated page alterer. After grabbing the flats she had rushed into the print shop and replaced the offending cartoon with a cartoon of their own drawn by Kay Rudin depicting Dr. Doo as a misogynist.
When we realized what they had done we told Roberts: “Just give the flats back and we can forget about this. I’ve got a paper to get out.”
She refused.
Assuming a military posture, we quickly marched double time over to the payphone outside the nearby Safeway store to call AVA HQ. Wagner and Miss Tree trotted along trying to keep up, urging us to agree with their cause and alteration and proceed. We just kept marching, grumbling, “This is stupid. This is really stupid…”
Reached by phone, The Editor, shouting so loud he could be heard beyond the phone booth, “Call the cops!” We called the Willits Police office line and reported that the Boonville newspaper had been hijacked.
By the time we returned to Willits Printing, most of the Bari-ites had disappeared.
Willits Police Sergeant Gerry Gonzalez (who later went on to become Willits police chief, and now sits as a Willits city councilman) arrived with a second younger cop and loudly announced: “We understand there’s been a theft.”
“Not exactly,” we replied. “It’s been altered without our permission.”
After a brief moment of thought, Gonzalez asked, “So they violated your civil rights?”
“You could say that,” we replied.
“Who committed this crime?” asked Gonzalez.
We glanced at Roberts who was standing a few feet away leaning on her car, innocently batting her eyelashes.
“She did,” we said, nodding toward Roberts. “But we’ll drop it if they return the original.”
At that point, we did not know where the flats were. He later found out that Roberts had left them with the printer staff assuming (incorrectly) that they would proceed with the Rudin cartoon.
Roberts said nothing.
“Do you want to press charges?” asked Gonzalez.
“We’d rather they just give us back the original,” we said. Then, turning to Roberts he again said, “Come on. Just give it back and quit screwing around.”
But no. Roberts was a loyal Bari-ite. So we went into the print shop and asked to use their phone to call The Editor again.
Since we didn’t have the original cartoon, and we were certainly not going to use the Rudin substitute, and we had to get going to meet dispatch deadlines, and the enraged Editor was shouting, “Arrest all those hags!,” we told the print crew to insert “CENSORED” in big block angled letters in the space where the original Dr. Doo cartoon had been.
An hour had elapsed, jeopardizing our distribution deadline, but we finally got the print run completed and returned to Boonville in time to finish the production and (barely) make the Post Office drop-off deadline.
In the ensuing weeks we received indignant letters from Bari and her “dwarf bully girls,” as the Editor called them, complaining about Dr. Doo’s “sexist” sketches, the Editor pointing out that the great feminists, self-described, had not only dangled Ms. Roberts as sex bait to distract me they were also politically phony in every other way, including their croc tears for timber workers.
STEVE HEILIG: Found on S.F. street: Country Women, 1976, POB 51, Albion
ED NOTES
MY LATE COMRADE, Alexander Cockburn, noting my reference to myself as a geezer in another media venue, wrote: “I note intermittent but regular iteration — like some sinister theme in Wagner — on seniordom in your pieces, mottled hands shaking slightly on the cane, roguish twinkle as you tell the 200 pound Safeway girl that you don't need to be helped to your car. I say enough! I like to stop in at Max's 540 Club on Clement in San Francisco for a beer or two. One day I made the mistake of visiting the place after dark when the clientele is very young and very loud, an impenetrable din of “So, like I said to this dude, 'Dude, like bleeping back all the bleeping way off.” That time, I tried to talk with the only other wheeze in the place, but we had to give it up. Between the music which, of course, is solidly arrhythmic DudeTunes screamed rather than sung, and the dudes and dudettes dude-ing and adverbing each other at top decibel, it was actually painful. So, ever after, I stop in the afternoon to sit in the sun with a beer, watching the passing parade, toting up my liver spots.”
MENDOCINO COUNTY'S County Code for Marijuana Regulation is very, very long. How long?
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS is 278 words, the Bill of Rights 725, the Declaration of Independence 1,337, Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech comes in at 1780 words, the US Constitution is 4450 words, the Magna Carta 4800, the Communist Manifesto 17,170 words.
MENDOCINO COUNTY'S Marijuana Cultivation Ordinance? (Chapters 20.242 and 20.243): Tens of thousands of words. (And that doesn’t count the state regs…)
AN IRISH DAUGHTER had not been home for over five years. Upon her return, her Father cursed her heavily: “Where have ye been all this time, child? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn’t’ ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother through?” The girl, crying, replied, “[Sniff, sniff] Dad… I became a prostitute…” “Ye what!?” he thundered. “Outta here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this Catholic family!'” “OK, Dad, as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion, plus a $5 million savings certificate. For me little brother, this gold Rolex. And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited-edition convertible that's parked outside, plus a membership to the country club… [takes a breath] … and an invitation for ye all to spend New Year’s Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera.” “Now what was it ye said ye had become?” says Dad. Girl, crying again: “[Sniff, sniff]… a prostitute, Daddy! [Sniff, sniff].” “Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old Dad a hug.”
SMALL BUSINESSES are getting priced out everywhere, and no politician would dare mention commercial rent control. I hope Greg at the Bike Hut down on the Embarcadero near the SF ballpark is still there. The Bike Hut rents and repairs bikes. Before my handmade bike got ripped off on Haight Street, I would take it to Greg for tune-ups. He was one of these rare guys who tells interesting stories while he works, occasionally interrupting his work when the story requires emphasis in a few arm and hand gestures. The Bike Hut also trained “troubled youth” in the practical, marketable skill of bicycle repair. A kid, any kid, would benefit from hanging around with Greg, a smart guy with a sane world view, a rare adult in other words. Greg liked my homemade bike so much he remembered it, and when I told him it had been stolen because I'd assumed it had no value to anyone but myself, he told me he was going to make me another one. The other day when I stopped by the Bike Hut, as always Greg was at work on a repair job. He's overly generous, charging about a third what most bike shops charge for labor. And his bike rents are lower than any place in town at $15 to $20 a day. Greg said, “Listen to this! The lady from Iowa or somewhere just called for me to come and get her bike because she said she's too tired to ride it back here!” ‘Iowa’' is Greg's shorthand for customers who come from any place beyond the Bay Area. “She tells me she's going to leave the bike on the bridge.” I ask her, “Which bridge? And where on which bridge? And please don't do that because it will be stolen. For all I know she could be on a bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden or on an overpass bridge, but it turns out she's underneath the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point. I sent a kid out to get it, but what a pain some of these tourists can be. Most people are fine, but once in a while you get someone from Iowa and…”
APPROACHING the rear of the Ferry Building one day after visiting Greg, I could hear the first notes of Rhapsody In Blue played by someone on a clarinet that were so clear, so perfect, so mesmerizing I almost stopped walking towards the music out of fear it would stop. But there he was, the artist, a courtly old black man and his horn, and on he played, the most memorable rendition of that music I've heard. I wasn't the only passerby aware that we were listening to something special, and when the old guy wrapped it up a dozen or so of us rushed up to press folding money on him.
ANOTHER EBAY LOCAL POSTCARD (via Marshall Newman)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, February 2, 2025
JAMES DODD JR., 31, Willits. Controlled substance with two or more priors, county parole violation.
PARIS DUPLESSIS, 45, Stevenson Ranch/Ukiah. DUI, more than an ounce of pot.
DAMIAN FEAGAN, 19, Ukiah. Exhibition of firearm in threatening manner.
LUCY HERBERT-MYERS, 58, Caspar. Domestic battery, attempted robbery.
RODERICK JAMIESON, 59, Willits. Possession of obscene matter of minor in sexual act and sexual sadism.
TIMOTHY LOEWER, 32, Ukiah. Controlled substance, disobeying court order, probation revocation.
VICTOR LUCAS, 29, Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs, paraphernalia, reckless evasion, resisting.
AMBER MAXWELL, 36, Chico. Domestic battery.
TIMOTHY SHIELDS, 64, Gillette, Wyoming/Ukiah. DUI.
STREET SCENE
by Paul Modic
At the post office a barefoot woman was dancing in the parking lot on the wet wintery day. Her shortish strawberry-blond hair was over her face and her head was down. She danced in manic patterns along the pavement like some butterfly mating ritual. When I got out of the post office she was still dancing and I went up to her.
“Is that a profound artistic statement,” I asked, “or some drug-fueled mania?” She continued dancing and moved toward me. “Let me see your face.”
She looked up, pale with pink lips, blue eyes, and her hands cold and red. She danced and I danced with her then she stopped in front of me, I took her in my arms and we had this kind of slow hug dance.
“What's your name?” I asked. Avery. I turned her around and held her from behind, picked up her leg and slowly swirled her around. I held her close, she was a waif, and I lifted her off the pavement and danced/carried her. I was getting turned on.
“How old are you?” I asked. Thirty-four. She looked up at me with her inviting pink lips, just one little sore on the corner of her mouth, and I came very close to pressing my lips onto hers.
Then the cops drove up. “There were some complaints,” one said. They checked her out, the one with rubber gloves on gave her a sobriety test. She was rambling about this drug and that, these people and that location, the cop said something about her kids as he looked her up in his hand-held computer.
“Hey, I hope she doesn't get in trouble because she was dancing with me.” I said. “She was fine dancing alone.”
The cop looked at me. “What's your name?” I told him and then said I would go over to the thrift store and buy her some socks and shoes.
“What size are you?” I asked. Five. I walked past the gauntlet of homeless travelers in front of Ray's Market, found a size six and some thick warm socks, and walked back across the street.
“We could take you to the Eureka jail right now,” the cop said as Avery struggled with her socks.
I prompted her, “Pull that sock on better, honey…okay, lace up the shoe, tie it tighter…okay…”
“So you got this now?” the cop said to me.
“What?” I said. “Hey, I'm not a saint, I'm going home. Well, maybe I should be a saint?”
The cops left, I left, and Avery was instantly scooped up by one of the denizens hanging out along Ray's homeless wall.
A WIN FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS AT POINT REYES IS A LOSS FOR ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE
After the buyout of ranches in the national seashore, the people who live and work on them, mostly immigrants, will become jobless and likely homeless.
by David Kirp
A year and a half from now, almost all the dairy farms and cattle ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore will be gone.
Here’s the situation: In 2016, three environmental organizations — the Western Watershed Project, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Resource Renewal Institute — sued the National Park Service, arguing that the ranches and farms, which lease 18,000 acres of the 70,000-acre park, were polluting the waterways.
The remedy, they contended, was simple: The ranches must go.
Four years later, after the National Park Service agreed to extend the ranchers’ leases, the environmental groups brought another lawsuit. Negotiations among the parties, ordered by the court, went nowhere until the Nature Conservancy, a well-heeled international organization, chimed in with an offer of an estimated $30 million to ranchers, who agreed to leave. (Because the negotiations were secret, the exact figure has not been made public.)
Twelve of the 14 ranches agreed to the buyout. They will be closed and the families who live there will be evicted. (There has been no census of these families: estimates range from 90 to 180 people.)
The people who live and work on these ranches, almost all immigrants, will become jobless and likely homeless as well. They are being pushed out of the community where many of them have lived their entire lives.
The ranchers who are departing have coexisted with the National Park Service since the Point Reyes National Seashore was established in 1969. They have history on their side — many of these ranches were already operating when Abraham Lincoln became president.
“It’s who we are, it’s our existence,” Kevin Lunny, a third-generation rancher told me. “It’s our identity and we have to walk away from it.”
Nonetheless, they accepted a buyout bankrolled by the deep-pocketed environmentalists.
The ranchers agreed to the deal because they were assuredly worn out by the constant pressure of litigation that had gone on for years. The negotiations were secret, and so they didn’t know until the agreement was made public earlier this month whether they would be able to stay. Because the National Park Service has given them only short-term leases, they haven’t had the security they needed before purchasing new equipment or making much-needed improvements.
To paraphrase the line from “The Godfather,” the ranchers received an offer they couldn’t refuse. The apparently generous settlement enables those who want to stay in business to relocate.
The deal will only give the farmworkers a pittance, of course, but at least it’s something. These workers are afraid to speak up, fearing that they’ll be fired and wind up with nothing and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will come after them.
I attended a mid-January community meeting at the Dance Palace, the community center in Point Reyes Station. The hall was packed. Tellingly, all the seats had been reserved before farmworkers learned about the meeting; those who came had to stand outside and hear the proceedings via loudspeaker.
Jasmine Bravo, who grew up on ranches and now works as a community organizer for the Bolinas Community Land Trust, had a pointed comment: “I’m just wondering if you all have a plan for the workforce after the residents who live on ranches have been evicted, and you lose Isabel and my sister at the clinic, and Gabriel Romo at the bank, and everyone who works at the grocery stores and makes your food?”
Neighboring communities, Inverness and Point Reyes Station, get nothing but heartache from the deal. Between them, they have fewer than 2,000 residents.
The ripple effects of the deal will touch the lives of everyone there. The local economy will take a hit. Grocery stores and restaurants will lose workers and so will services like the family health clinic. There’s a social cost as well. These families have enriched the life of the community by introducing much-needed cultural diversity. They also brought ethnic and economic diversity to mostly white and upper-middle-class villages.
The public schools will suffer. The Shoreline School District, which spans 450 square miles, enrolls fewer than 500 students — and that number will decrease when these families leave. Fewer students means fewer dollars, a body blow for a district chronically struggling to make ends meet.
I’m a volunteer at the high school, which enrolls 143 students. The two English teachers are doing a masterful job. One of them teaches an advanced placement class, which increases a student’s chances of getting into a good college. Will the AP class survive when there are fewer students? Indeed, will the district be able to afford two English teachers?
The families who live on the ranches were not invited to participate in the marathon mediation. The formal agreement doesn’t even mention them. There’s a $1 million pledge for services and financial support, but the funds are not yet on the table.
They are truly the forgotten people.
Although most of these families want to stay — this is where they have built their lives — they cannot afford to live in a community where the median price for a home is more than $1 million. There aren’t decent jobs for those who will be displaced from the ranches and farms, and no concrete plans to retrain them. What’s more, with President Donald Trump vowing to rid the country of 20 million undocumented immigrants and end birthright citizenship, some live in fear of being deported.
he Nature Conservancy and the environmental organizations that brought the suit have no stake in these communities. They are outsiders, with no understanding of — and seemingly no interest in — the lives of those who live there. The only thing they care about is creating what the agreement calls a “scenic landscape zone.”
That absolutist attitude gives environmentalism a bad name.
(David Kirp is professor emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and the author of “The College Dropout Scandal.” He is a resident of Inverness.)
GOVERNOR NEWSOM ISSUES EXECUTIVE ORDER MAXIMIZING WATER DIVERSIONS AND WAIVING CRITICAL PROTECTIONS
Is Newsom Mimicking Trump?
by Dan Bacher
Sacramento, CA – On Friday, Governor Gavin Newsom issued a controversial executive order that would make it easier to divert and store “excess” water from incoming winter storms as a multi-day atmospheric river arrived in California at a time when Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations are nearing extinction.
The order drew the wrath of a coalition of environmental groups that said it “took a page from President Trump’s playbook” by ordering state agencies to pump even more water to boost water supplies and override regulatory and institutional barriers to new diversions, threatening water quality, the environment and communities that depend on healthy rivers and aquatic ecosystems.…
INJUSTICE, OR THE MORE THINGS DON’T CHANGE….
Injustice, by Piyassili, Assyria, 1218 BC
The people who are made to feel ashamed every day
are not the people who should feel ashamed.
The people who should feel ashamed
are the people unable to feel ashamed
yet heap shame by the bundle every day
on the troubled, the poor and despised.
TAYLOR SWIFT is a self-made billionaire woman who did it without lying, cheating or stealing.
She donates money to the needy in every town she has a concert. She outsmarted a man who tried to steal her music by re-recording all of it. By all accounts she seems to be a nice person and a great role model…. Every time you bash Taylor Swift, you are telling your daughters and granddaughters that you don’t respect successful women.
NFL EYES DRASTIC CHANGE FOR OFFICIALS amid lingering fallout from Chiefs-Bills fourth-down controversy
by Alex Raskin
The NFL is eyeing a new electronic system for measuring first downs without the use of a microchip, according to a report in The Washington Post.
The system would still rely on human officials spotting the football on the field before the electronic system measures if a first-down call is warranted. What's more, the proposed system has already been tested in game conditions, according to the Post.
DailyMail.com has reached out to an NFL spokesman for confirmation.
The report comes after a controversial fourth-down ruling in the Kansas City Chiefs' AFC Championship victory over the rival Buffalo Bills.
Early in the fourth quarter, the Bills were driving with a chance to extend a 22-21 lead. But after picking up one fourth-and-1 with a sneak, they tried another fourth-down conversion at the Kansas City 41.
Ultimately Allen was bottled up by the Chiefs' Nick Bolton at the line of scrimmage, and the Chiefs took possession before driving 59 yards for a go-ahead touchdown. But to many fans – and CBS cameras – Allen appeared to have the first-down before being brought down by Bolton.
Unfortunately, there is no current technology being considered that would help determine forward progress. However, the NFL will engage its Competition Committee on technology to take virtual line-to-gain measurements next season.
The league tested Sony's Hawk-Eye tracking services for virtual line-to-gain measurements in the preseason and in the background during the regular season. The optimal tracking system notifies officiating instantly if a first down was gained after the ball is spotted by hand.
The key word is 'after.'
This technology replaces the chain measurement. The NFL has long used two bright orange sticks and a chain — the chain gang — to measure for first downs. That method would remain in a backup capacity.
'What this technology cannot do is take the place of the human element in determining where forward progress ends,' NFL executive Kimberly Fields told The Associated Press on Friday.
'There will always be a human official spotting the ball. Once the ball is spotted, then the line-to-gain technology actually does the measurement itself. So I think it's probably been a point of confusion around what the technology can and can't do. There will always be a human element because of the forward progress conversation.'
Fields said an average of 12 measurements took place each week during the regular season. The new technology would've dropped the time spent to measure from 75 seconds to 35 seconds.
NFL balls have been equipped with Zebra microchips since 2017, powering the NFL's Next Gen Stats data product. The chips are also affixed to players' pads. They provide various data and metrics that help clubs, media and fans with player evaluation and analysis of team performance.
But these chips can't determine where a player was tackled, whether a player is down by contact or which team gained possession of a loose ball to the precision necessary for officiating use.
(DailyMail.uk)
'When l was a boxer in the 1970's, l was hit in the face by Joe Frazier, knocked out by Muhammad Ali, and knocked down a couple of times by Ron Lyle before l got up and won. All of the fights had one thing in common: When they were over, l could hardly remember the pain. l forgot my weak knees, the cuts, the blood in my eyes. lf not for the films of my fights, l would have put them totally out of my mind. It's the same when you hit rough times: Don't let the pain and disappointment lodge inside.'
— George Foreman
A TRUMP POEM
In his mind he’s the king
so smart knows everything
What did those farmers know
he took their water for a show
Bodies in the Potomac
he has no shame
blame blame his only game
Taxes us stiffs
says it’s tariffs
Elon gives the Nazi salute
social security his to loot
In his mind he’s the king
so smart knows everything
— Paul Justison
LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT
Trade War Heats Up After Trump Orders Tariffs and Canada Retaliates
Trump Administration Moves to End Protections for Venezuelans in the U.S.
Thousands of U.S. Government Web Pages Have Been Taken Down Since Friday
Crews Move Closer to Recovering All Bodies in D.C. Crash
Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ Wins Grammy for Best Country Album
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
It’s hard to discuss the tariffs sensibly since they made no sense to begin with. Trump demanded Canada stop fentanyl from crossing the border and that Mexico stop all the migrants. Both countries had been making increased efforts at what clearly has to be a bilateral effort but that wasn’t good enough.
Truthfully, it seems like this is solely to cause more chaos in order to justify more draconian domestic policies. Just this morning the orange shitweasel posted again that Canada should be the 51st state and it would make things so much better for Canadians. And he insulted the Mexican president by claiming the entire government is in the hands of the drug cartels. Both of which are astoundingly stupid.
What’s baffling is the lack of any kind of coherent messaging from Democrats. It’s like they are just sitting back and letting him burn the house down for a “I told you so” moment.
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
Gold just ended a banner year. Its price rose 27 percent in 2024, closing at $2,617 per ounce. Only the Nasdaq Composite index, fueled by reliably strong performances from the so-called Magnificent Seven tech giants, did better, at 31 percent. (The S&P 500 improved 25 percent.) This was gold’s best showing since 2010, when prices increased 29 percent, though over the last twenty-five years gains have been nearly unrelenting. According to analysts at JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup, the rally won’t end here. They project gold to reach a historic $3,000 per troy ounce in 2025.
All this has baffled market observers. Unlike other investments, gold does not yield interest but rather only accrues price-related gains. This is why investors hold the metal when other choices stand to deliver little profit, like in a low-interest environment. But rates have been anything but low in recent years. So what is driving these increases?
Part of the answer is that central banks across the world have been on a buying spree. According to The Economist, gold now comprises 11 percent of their reserves, up from 6 percent in 2008. Central banks generally hold most of their reserves in currencies, especially dollars. But the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the spiraling conflicts in the Middle East have pushed some bankers to search for greater stability and diversification. The prospect—and now reality—of a second Trump presidency and what it portends for US trade relations with China, Canada, and Mexico has only added to the overall sense of uncertainty.
“Money is gold, nothing else,” J. P. Morgan famously said in 1912. At the time, the US dollar and other currencies were backed by gold reserves: that is, banks were technically obliged to convert paper notes into gold if the holder demanded it. Whereas governments could print currency to increase supply, potentially eroding its value, gold reserves are limited. That makes it a good alternative when markets are turbulent.
The present demand for gold is not apolitical, however. In the last five years central banks in Russia, China, India, and Turkey—rather than Europe—have been the main buyers. These countries have not signed on to Western sanctions against regimes like those in Venezuela, Iran, Myanmar, and Russia itself. By bolstering their gold reserves, they are preserving the option of circumventing the dollar-based financial system in case of conflict and protecting their own assets against potential Western freezes and confiscations.
— Vanessa Ogle, New York Review of Books
THE WESTERN WAY OF GENOCIDE
The genocide in Gaza portends the emergence of a dystopian world where the industrialized violence of the Global North is used to sustain its hoarding of diminishing resources and wealth.
by Chris Hedges
Gaza is a wasteland of 50 million tons of rubble and debris. Rats and dogs scavenge amid the ruins and fetid pools of raw sewage. The putrid stench and contamination of decaying corpses rises from beneath the mountains of shattered concrete. There is no clean water. Little food. A severe shortage of medical services and hardly any habitable shelters. Palestinians risk death from unexploded ordnance, left behind after over 15 months of air strikes, artillery barrages, missile strikes and blasts from tank shells, and a variety of toxic substances, including pools of raw sewage and asbestos.
Hepatitis A, caused by drinking contaminated water, is rampant, as are respiratory ailments, scabies, malnutrition, starvation and the widespread nausea and vomiting caused by eating rancid food. The vulnerable, including infants and the elderly, along with the sick, face a death sentence. Some 1.9 million people have been displaced, amounting to 90 percent of the population. They live in makeshift tents, encamped amid slabs of concrete or the open air. Many have been forced to move over a dozen times. Nine in 10 homes have been destroyed or damaged. Apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, universities — Israel blew up Israa University in Gaza City in a controlled demolition — cemeteries, shops and offices have been obliterated. The unemployment rate is 80 percent and the gross domestic product has been reduced by almost 85 percent, according to an October 2024 report issued by the International Labor Organization.
Israel’s banning of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — which estimates that clearing Gaza of the rubble left behind will take 15 years — ensures that Palestinians in Gaza will never have access to basic humanitarian supplies, adequate food and services.
The United Nations Development Programme estimates that it will cost between $40 billion and $50 billion to rebuild Gaza and will take, if the funds are made available, until 2040. It would be the largest post-war reconstruction effort since the end of World War Two.
Israel, supplied with billions of dollars of weapons from the U.S. Germany, Italy and the U.K., created this hell. It intends to maintain it. Gaza is to remain under siege. After an initial burst of aid deliveries at the start of the ceasefire, Israel has once again severely cut back the trucked-in assistance. Gaza’s infrastructure will not be restored. Its basic services, including water treatment plants, electricity and sewer lines, will not be repaired. Its destroyed roads, bridges and farms will not be rebuilt. Desperate Palestinians will be forced to choose between living like cave dwellers, camped out amid jagged chunks of concrete, dying from disease, famine, bombs and bullets, or permanent exile. These are the only options Israel offers.
Israel is convinced, probably correctly, that eventually life in the coastal strip will become so onerous and difficult, especially as Israel finds excuses to violate the ceasefire and resume armed assaults on the Palestinian population, a mass exodus will be inevitable. It has refused, even with the ceasefire in place, to permit foreign press into Gaza, a ban designed to blunt coverage of the horrendous suffering and death.
Stage Two of Israel’s genocide and the expansion of “Greater Israel” — which includes the seizing of more Syrian territory in the Golan Heights (as well as calls for expansion to Damascus), southern Lebanon, Gaza and the occupied West Bank — is being cemented into place. Israeli organizations, including the far right Nachala organization, have held conferences to prepare for Jewish colonization of Gaza once Palestinians are ethnically-cleansed. Jewish-only colonies existed in Gaza for 38 years until they were dismantled in 2005.
Washington and its allies in Europe do nothing to halt the live-streamed mass slaughter. They will do nothing to halt the wasting away of Palestinians in Gaza from hunger and disease and their eventual depopulation. They are partners in this genocide. They will remain partners until the genocide reaches its grim conclusion.
But the genocide in Gaza is only the start. The world is breaking down under the onslaught of the climate crisis, which is triggering mass migrations, failed states and catastrophic wildfires, hurricanes, storms, flooding and droughts. As global stability unravels, the terrifying machine of industrial violence, which is decimating the Palestinians, will become ubiquitous. These assaults will be committed, as they are in Gaza, in the name of progress, Western civilization and our supposed “virtues” to crush the aspirations of those, mostly poor people of color, who have been dehumanized and dismissed as human animals.
Israel’s annihilation of Gaza marks the death of a global order guided by internationally agreed upon laws and rules, one often violated by the U.S. in its imperial wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, but one that was at least acknowledged as a utopian vision. The U.S. and its Western allies not only supply the weaponry to sustain the genocide, but obstruct the demand by most nations for an adherence to humanitarian law.
The message this sends is clear: You, and the rules that you thought might protect you, do not matter. We have everything. If you try and take it away from us we will kill you.
The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watch towers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheid existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance are as familiar to the desperate migrants along the Mexican border or attempting to enter Europe as they are to the Palestinians.
Israel, which as Ronen Bergman notes in “Rise and Kill First” has “assassinated more people than any other country in the Western world,” uses the Nazi Holocaust to sanctify its hereditary victimhood and justify its settler-colonial state, apartheid, campaigns of mass murder and Zionist version of Lebensraum.
Primo Levi, who survived Auschwitz, saw the Shoah, for this reason, as “an inexhaustible source of evil” which “is perpetrated as hatred in the survivors, and springs up in a thousand ways, against the very will of all, as a thirst for revenge, as moral breakdown, as negation, as weariness, as resignation.”
Genocide and mass extermination are not the exclusive domain of fascist Germany. Adolf Hitler, as Aimé Césaire writes in “Discourse on Colonialism”, appeared exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man.” But the Nazis, he writes, had simply applied “colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”
The German slaughter of the Herero and Namaqua, the Armenian genocide, the Bengal famine of 1943 — then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill airily dismissed the deaths of three million Hindus in the famine by calling them “a beastly people with a beastly religion” — along with the dropping of nuclear bombs on the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, illustrate something fundamental about “western civilization.” As Hannah Arendt understood, antisemitism alone did not lead to the Shoah. It needed the innate genocidal potential of the modern bureaucratic state.
“In America,” the poet Langston Huges said, “Negros do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression have long been realities to us.”
We dominate the globe not because of our superior virtues, but because we are the most efficient killers on the planet. The millions of victims of racist imperial projects in countries such as Mexico, China, India, the Congo, Kenya and Vietnam are deaf to the fatuous claims by Jews that their victimhood is unique. So are Black, Brown and Native Americans. They also suffered holocausts, but these holocausts remain minimised or unacknowledged by their western perpetrators.
“These events which took place in living memory undermined the basic assumption of both religious traditions and the secular Enlightenment: that human beings have a fundamentally ‘moral’ nature,” Pankaj Mishra writes in his book “The World After Gaza.” “The corrosive suspicion that they don’t is now widespread. Many more people have closely witnessed death and mutilation, under regimes of callousness, timidity and censorship; they recognise with a shock that everything is possible, remembering past atrocities is no guarantee against repeating them in the present, and the foundations of international law and morality are not secure at all.”
Mass slaughter is as integral to western imperialism as the Shoah. They are fed by the same disease of white supremacy and the conviction that a better world is built upon the subjugation and eradication of the “lower” races.
Israel embodies the ethnonationalist state the far-right in the U.S. and Europe dreams of creating for themselves, one that rejects political and cultural pluralism, as well as legal, diplomatic and ethical norms. Israel is admired by these proto-fascists, including Christian nationalists, because it has turned its back on humanitarian law to use indiscriminate lethal force to “cleanse” its society of those condemned as human contaminants.
Israel and its western allies, James Baldwin saw, is headed towards the “terrible probability” that the dominant nations “struggling to hold on to what they have stolen from their captives, and unable to look into their mirror, will precipitate a chaos throughout the world which, if it does not bring life on this planet to an end, will bring about a racial war such as the world has never seen.”
What is lacking is not knowledge — our perfidy and Israel’s is part of the historical record — but the courage to name our darkness and repent. This willful blindness and historical amnesia, this refusal to be accountable to the rule of law, this belief that we have a right to use industrial violence to exert our will marks the start, not the end, of campaigns of mass slaughter by the Global North against the world’s growing legions of the poor and the vulnerable.
(chrishedges.substack.com)
THE DICTATORS
by Pablo Neruda
An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence
Good issue. Water diversions for the overpopulations of the greedy, colonialism, and genocide. Pretty well sums up us dumbass human monkeys. Maybe evolution will produce a useful species to replace us, once we have completed our suicidal goals. It’s amazing to think that a species so full of itself as we are would elect a brainless, vicious mutant like Trumples to “lead” us. The end is nearer than you yuppies and simpletons may think.
MUSK’S THE GUY—THE NEW AMERICA
“Staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development were told the agency’s main building in Washington was closed on Monday and they should work from home. The email came early Monday morning, soon after tech mogul and President Donald Trump ally Elon Musk said he had spoken to the president, who agreed to close down the agency…
Musk followed up his comments a few hours later with a post on X suggesting that the closure was already well underway. ‘We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,’ Musk wrote.
USAID handles billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, which is also largely frozen at the moment following a separate executive order by the president. Trump told reporters Sunday evening that the agency was run by ‘radical left lunatics’ which the administration was kicking out ‘and then we’ll make a decision’…”
POLITICO 2/3/25
The superlative travel writer Paul Theroux hath demonstrated oodles and scads of abuses by these smug do-gooders, who feed on USAID, the sanctimonious NGOs in Africa, from Mrs. Picksniff in Dickens day, to the helping pros you so justly condemn daily at the County Trough in Ukiah, both trotters knee-deep in the gravy, blowing bubbles through their snouts and queuing up to have medals pinned on their breasts.
As my late mother-in-law was fond of saying, “It all has to come down.”
If you wish to discuss the fentanyl crossing the border from Mexico, you should also discuss the weapons crossing the border into Mexico from the United States.
President Pardo just agreed with President Trump to address those two problems with 10000 troops at the border.
What we see from the past is if illegal drugs are blocked in one place, they start coming in somewhere else. I suspect the same can be said for guns.
ED NOTES
“APPROACHING the rear of the Ferry Building one day after visiting Greg, I could hear the first notes of Rhapsody In Blue played by someone on a clarinet that were so clear, so perfect, so mesmerizing I almost stopped walking towards the music out of fear it would stop. But there he was, the artist, a courtly old black man and his horn, and on he played, the most memorable rendition of that music I’ve heard. I wasn’t the only passerby aware that we were listening to something special, and when the old guy wrapped it up a dozen or so of us rushed up to press folding money on him.”
This is beautiful–the moment, and the writing of it.
Hey Bruce,
I’m not insinuating that you guys are now bros, but, President Trump has signed an order to ‘Dismantle the Education Department” Maybe a tepid little Okey Dokey? Please.
It won’t be missed. It’s only a larger version of MCOE
❤️🩹🌵
“Corazon Espinado (feat. Mana)” by Santana
https://pandora.app.link/HJYnPGaSHQb