Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 3/25/2025

YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Ukiah 88°, Boonville 85°, Covelo 84°, Yorkville 82°, Laytonville 82°, Fort Bragg 67°, Point Arena 64°, Mendocino 63°

A WARM, DRY pattern continues as high pressure builds in to the region. A sneaker wave threat will be prevalent today into Wednesday with a long period swell. Precipitation and breezy to strong winds are likely Wednesday through the end of the week as a more active pattern sets in. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Enjoy near record warm temps this Tuesday on the coast, as colder temps return tomorrow. 48F under clear skies at 5am. Rain returns tomorrow & except for maybe a break on Saturday lasting well into later next week. Ahem. Sneaker waves continue along the shore so be careful while you're down on the beach the next couple days.

BOONVILLE COMMUNITY PARK — CAUTION: Wasps/Hornets have built a nest in the roof over the raised platform for the lower slides. The platform has been taped off until a volunteer can spray the nest during dormant hours of the nest. It will take a few days before this will be resolved. Thank you for your patience.

ANNEMARIE WEIBEL:

City Council voted tonight 4 to 0 in favor of approving the 87-unit Fort Bragg Apartment Project

There is a possibility that some people, especially neighbors, will appeal this decision to the CA. Coastal Commission. Commission staff is aware of the project. They might determine that there is no substantial issue and uphold the local approval.

Lately the Commission is under a lot of pressure. It is important that we let the Commissioners know that we support the Coastal Act. It is thanks to this act that the coastal zones so far have been preserved and protected to the degree that they are and considered a precious asset for everyone in our state.

It is even more important than ever to let them know how we feel as the current administration would like to repeal or modify the Coastal Act, or limit the authority of the Coastal Commission to enforce its provisions. Read this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/us/trump-newsom-california-coastal-commission.html

CLEAN UP CREW UNCOVERS BODY ON LOW GAP ROAD

On Saturday, March 22, 2025 at approximately 9:52 A.M., Deputies from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to the 1800 block of Low Gap Road in Ukiah regarding found human remains.

Upon arrival, Deputies contacted members of a local non-profit group who were conducting trash cleanup in the area. Deputies were advised that while cleaning up trash, one of the non-profit group members located what was believed to be human remains. Deputies conducted a further search of the area and located what they confirmed to be adult human remains.

Investigators from both the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the Ukiah Police Department responded and processed the scene. Investigators are researching active missing persons cases in an attempt to assist with identifying the human remains. Once positive identification is made and the legal next of kin is notified, an additional press release will be issued regarding the identification of the decedent. At this point the coroner’s case is still actively being investigated, but foul play is not suspected.

Anyone with information regarding this investigation is requested to call the Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086 (option 1). Information can also be provided anonymously by calling the non-emergency tip line at 707-234-2100.

CHRISTOPHER ‘CJ’ JONES SENDS BEST WISHES TO HIS MENDO AND BOONVILLE FRIENDS FROM PORTLAND

NOTICE OF PUBLIC COMMENT, WORKSHOP, AND HEARING FOR THE RUSSIAN RIVER PATHOGEN TMDL

Notice Of Opportunity To Comment, Public Workshop, And Public Hearing On Revisions To A Basin Plan Amendment Regarding The Russian River Watershed Pathogen Total Maximum Daily Load (Tmdl) Public Comment Opportunity

Notice is hereby given that the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (North Coast Water Board) opens a 45-day public comment period regarding proposed revisions to the Action Plan for the Russian River Watershed and Russian River Pathogen Total Maximum Daily Load (Action Plan) and the Staff Report for the Action Plan for the Russian River Watershed Pathogen Total Maximum Daily Load (Staff Report). These documents are available on the Russian River Pathogen TMDL webpage. Strikeout-underline versions of the revised documents will be provided upon request.

Comments can be made upon any part of the available documents. However, comments submitted during prior renditions of this TMDL project need not be resubmitted. Written comments must be received no later than 5:00 PM on May 8, 2025. Send comments by selecting from the following methods:

Email up to 15 megabytes to NorthCoast@waterboards.ca.gov and use the subject heading “Russian River Watershed Pathogen TMDL Comments” Follow electronic submittal guidelines for comments greater than 15 megabytes Fax to 707-576-2069 Mail or Hand Deliver to: North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board

Attention: Russian River Watershed Pathogen TMDL Update 5550 Skylane Boulevard, Suite A Santa Rosa, CA 95403-1072

Public Workshop notice is additionally hereby given that the North Coast Water Board will hold a public workshop during the 45-day public comment period. During the public workshop North Coast Water Board staff will present the proposed updates, followed by discussion between the North Coast Water Board and staff. Oral and written comments from members of the public regarding the proposed updates will be accepted. To ensure a productive and efficient workshop in which all participants have an opportunity to participate, oral presentations may be time limited and therefore submission of written comments to accompany oral presentations is encouraged. The workshop will be held on April 1, 2025 at 9:00AM in the David C. Joseph Board Room at 5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A in Santa Rosa, California.

Public Hearing notice is additionally hereby given that the North Coast Water Board will hold a public hearing to receive oral public input and comments on the proposed Russian River Pathogen TMDL Action Plan and Staff Report updates. Following the public hearing, the North Coast Water Board will consider adoption of the Staff Report and Action Plan revisions, by Resolution. The public hearing and consideration of adoption meeting is scheduled for June 12 or 13, 2025 at 9:00AM in the David C. Joseph Board Room at 5550 Skylane Blvd., Suite A in Santa Rosa, California.

Live video and audio broadcasts of the public workshop and public hearing will be available via the internet and can be accessed at the CalEPA Public meeting live webcasts webpage. These meetings will be recorded. North Coast Water Board Contact Please direct questions about these documents to Lisa Bernard, Senior Environmental Scientist, Planning Unit Supervisor at (707) 576-2677 or Lisa.Bernard@waterboards.ca.gov; Charles Reed, Supervising Water Resource Control Engineer, Point Source and Groundwater Protection Division Chief at (707) 576-2752 or Charles.Reed@waterboards.ca.gov, or Nathan Jacobsen, Senior Staff Counsel at (916) 341-5181 or Nathan.Jacobsen@waterboards.ca.gov.

Any person who is disabled and requires special accommodations to participate in the North Coast Water Board’s meetings and hearings should contact Deidre Wilkerson at Deidre.Wilkerson@waterboards.ca.gov at least three days before the scheduled event. For more background and information, please visit the project web page at: Russian River | California North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board

IS RAISING COYOTE DAM THE KEY TO FIXING RUSSIAN RIVER’S WATER PROBLEMS?

by Monica Huettl

The opening of the Coyote Dam spillway at Lake Mendocino [Photo by Matt LaFever]

At its February 13, 2025, meeting, the Mendocino County Inland Water & Power Commission (IWPC) discussed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets the stage for a New Eel-Russian Diversion Facility (NERF).…

https://mendofever.com/2025/03/25/is-raising-coyote-dam-the-key-to-fixing-russian-rivers-water-problems/

TSUNAMI DRILL

On March 26, at 11 am, the Office of Emergency Services in Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino counties will issue test alerts encouraging the public to practice their earthquake and tsunami plans by:

IF YOU ARE IN THE TSUNAMI ZONE: Practice your evacuation plan, walking out of the tsunami zone.

IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE TSUNAMI ZONE: Stay put! You do not need to evacuate. However, take time to think about what you would do after a damaging earthquake.

Remember that dangerous tsunami waves can last a long time; 24-48 hours after the first wave. In a real event, don't enter the tsunami hazard area until you receive official notice that it is safe to do so.

UPDATE ON FIREWORKS ASSAULT IN FORT BRAGG: CHARGES FILED

On January 4, 2025, a member of the local media contacted The Fort Bragg Police Department regarding a video circulating on social media. The video depicted unknown subjects throwing a lit explosive device at a member of the unhoused community within the City of Fort Bragg in July of 2024.

Officer immediately initiated an investigation interviewing involved parties, and serving multiple search warrants, resulting in the seizure of a cellar phone. A subsequent warrant was completed for the search of the phone.

On February 9, 2025, officers reviewed data acquired from the suspect’s cellular phone consisting of photographs, messages, and videos.

During review, officers located multiple videos pertaining to the investigation. The videos depicted a female adult driver, Taylor Carnahan, 21, of Fort Bragg, operating a motor vehicle in the 100 block of Boatyard Drive while a male juvenile (name withheld), of Fort Bragg, threw lit explosive devices at the female victim on four separate occasions between 6:22 P.M. and 6:37 P.M. on July 8, 2024.

This information was forwarded to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office and the Mendocino County Juvenile Probation Department. An additional charge of Conspiracy to Commit a Crime, was requested on both parties.

As of March 24, 2025, Carnahan has been booked at the Fort Bragg Police Department for Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Dependent/Elderly Adult Abuse, Discharge of Fireworks Likely to Injure Persons, and Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. Carnahan is currently on calendar to attend court of the described charges.

Charges of Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Discharge of an Explosive Device with intent to Terrorize, and Discharge of Fireworks Likely to Injure Persons, have been filed against the juvenile suspect and are currently under review of the Mendocino County Juvenile Probation Department.

There have been no further reported instances of these crimes, and no other suspects were located on the suspect’s phone. Anyone with information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Officer Franco with the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)964-2800 ext. 227 or email dfranco@fortbragg.com.

This information is being released by Sergeant Jon McLaughlin. For media inquiries, please reach out to him directly at jmclaughlin@fortbragg.com.

SECOND COAST MURDER SUSPECT ARRESTED IN LA

In early January 2025, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office received information from a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Investigator regarding this homicide investigation. It was believed that Edgar Coria was currently in the Los Angeles area and living under the alias Jaime Baltazar Ramirez. At the time, Ramirez (Coria) was named as a suspect in a burglary case. LAPD, with assistance from a liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was able to determine that Ramirez was actually Edgar Coria, who was currently wanted for murder in Mendocino County.

For the next three months, LAPD investigators along with members of the FBI worked multiple angles to confirm Coria’s identity and a location where Coria could be found.

During the afternoon of Wednesday, March 19, 2025, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Detectives received a call from the original LAPD Investigator who advised they had just made a traffic stop and believed they had Edgar Coria in custody. After a short conversation, Coria was positively identified and booked into an LAPD detention facility on the felony homicide warrant from Mendocino County.

Mendocino County Sheriff’s Detectives, assisted by a bilingual patrol deputy, immediately responded to the LAPD detention facility and conducted an interview with Coria.

Coria was transported to the Mendocino County Jail on the following Thursday where he is to be held on $1,000,000 bail for the charge of Murder and other charging enhancements.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank all the allied agencies for their assistance during this investigation.

Previously: (09-26-23)

On 09-26-23 Sheriff’s Detectives identified the second suspect in this homicide investigation as being Edgar Arteaga Coria who is a 44-year-old male from Gualala.

Coria is described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 160-170 pounds, having brown eyes and black hair.

Coria has a tattoo on the left side of his neck and the name “Arteaga” tattooed on the back of his neck. Images of the tattoos and a recent photograph of Coria are attached to this press release.

Coria should be considered as being armed and dangerous and Sheriff’s Detectives have determined that he has fled Mendocino County.

Sheriff’s Detectives are continuing investigations into Coria’s current whereabouts.

Coria should be considered armed and dangerous.

Any sighting of Coria should be reported to the local law enforcement having jurisdiction in association with the location of the sighting.

Anyone with information that may assist Sheriff’s Detectives with this investigation are urged to contact the Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086, the Sheriff’s Office Tip-Line at 707-234-2100 or the WeTip Anonymous Crime Reporting Hotline at 800-782-7463.

This updated press release is being disseminated for clarification purposes. The narrative portion of Updated Press Release #1 issued on 09-25-23 @ 9:00AM inaccurately described Jesus Joel Romero as residing in Gualala. His correct city of residency is Point Arena, California according to the Sheriff’s Office Coroner’s Division.

During the midst of active investigations, Sheriff’s Detectives developed the identities of two adult males as persons of interest in this homicide investigation.

During the evening hours of 09-24-23, Sheriff’s Detectives were contacted by Antonio Coria Garcia, 23, of Point Arena, who was one of the persons of interest. This contact was at the request of Coria Garcia.

During the contact, Sheriff’s Detectives established probable cause to believe Coria Garcia was involved in the killing of the adult male victim. As a result, Coria Garcia was booked into the Mendocino County Jail.

Sheriff’s Detectives are currently seeking to locate the second identified person of interest and that person’s identity is being withheld at this time.

Sheriff’s Detectives have identified the adult male victim as being Jesus Joel Romero, a 32-year-old from Gualala, California.

A forensic autopsy is scheduled for later this week, but preliminary body observations suggest Romero died as the result of multiple gunshot wounds.

Original Press Release (09-24-23):

On 09-24-2023 at 2:08 AM Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Deputies were dispatched to a reported physical assault in Point Arena.

The Sheriff’s Office received a telephone call from a family member reporting that they had learned that their family member (adult male) had been physically assaulted while at a bar in the City of Point Arena. This physical assault had apparently occurred hour(s) prior to the call to the Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies arrived in Point Arena and began searching for the adult male, subsequently locating him on Ten Mile Cut Off Road, a significant distance away from the bar.

The adult male was obviously deceased and the condition of his body led Deputies to believed that he was the victim of a homicide.

Sheriff’s Detectives were summoned to the scene and are in the mists of an active investigation. They are being assisted by investigators with the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office and criminalist with the California Department of Justice.

No further information is available for public release at this time due to the active investigation.

PG&E INVITES NORTH COAST CUSTOMERS TO A TOWN HALL

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) invites North Coast customers to a virtual town hall to learn more about work in their region, safety tips and customer saving programs.

On Thursday, March 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., PG&E experts, including North Coast Region Vice President Dave Canny, will provide a brief presentation during which participants will have the opportunity to ask questions.

The event can be accessed by visiting PG&E's website: http://www.pge.com/firesafetywebinars.

American Sign Language interpretation will be available. For the full webinar events schedule, additional information on how to join and to view past event recordings and presentation materials: http://www.pge.com/firesafetywebinars.

Customers can find opportunities to engage with PG&E representatives in the area by visiting: https://www.pge.com/en/featured/open-lines.html?vnt=openlines

MENDOCINO COAST FIGHTS BACK!

Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them.

They’re taking everything they can get their hands on—our health care, our data, our jobs, our services—and daring the world to stop them. This is a crisis, and the time to act is now. The Mendocino Coast Is Fighting Back!

On Saturday, April 5th, we’re taking to the streets to fight back with a clear message: Hands off!**

Fort Bragg Town Hall, 363 North Main St., Noon, April 5, 2025

This mass mobilization day is our message to the world that we do not consent to the destruction of our government and our economy for the benefit of Trump and his billionaire allies.

Bring a sign, noisemakers, and an attitude of peaceful demonstration, as is our right!!!

See you there.

Mendocino Indivisible (the huddle)

Libby, veggiecamper@gmail.com

DISABILITY AWARENESS DAY RETURNS TO UKIAH ON APRIL 6

Mendocino County SELPA and the Mendocino County Office of Education invite the public to attend Disability Awareness Day on Sunday, April 6, 2025, from 12:00 to 3:00 PM at Alex Thomas Plaza in Ukiah. This annual event brings the community together to recognize and celebrate the diverse abilities of our members.

Gina Danner, Mendocino County SELPA Executive Director, said, “This event is a chance for our community to come together, have fun, and build support and understanding for one another.”

Families and community members can play lawn games, enter the talent show, and browse the resource fair. There will be a sign-making station for those who choose to participate in a celebratory group march around the plaza. Local vendors will offer food for purchase, and attendees are encouraged to bring a chair or blanket to relax on the lawn.

Isaac Ramey, Mendocino County Office of Education Senior Director of Special Education, shared, “Fabiola Olimon Ramos organized last year’s inaugural event, and we’re excited to help continue this tradition. It’s a great opportunity for us to highlight the importance of inclusion and celebrate the contributions of every member of our community.”

Disability Awareness Day is sponsored by the Mendocino County Office of Education and coordinated by Mendocino County SELPA (Special Education Local Area Plan). Community partners and booths include Courageous Engagement, Finance for People, MendoLEAP, Mendocino County Blue Zones Project, Mendocino County Department of Rehabilitation, Raise & Shine Resource Center, Redwood Coast Regional Center, Redwood Community Services, SELPA Community Advisory Committee, and Ukiah Unified School District.

Mendocino County SELPA supports approximately 1,800 students with disabilities county-wide in accessing the local services and resources they need to succeed in school and beyond.

SOCIAL WORK APPRECIATION MONTH: THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL WORK IN MENDOCINO COUNTY

March is Social Work Appreciation Month, a time to honor the dedication and commitment of professionals who choose to serve their communities. One such dedicated professional is Mendocino County Department of Social Services Adult Protective Services (APS) social worker, Jaquelene Otis.

Jackie grew up in a large family, including an older brother with special needs. “At that time, my father’s health insurance wouldn’t cover my brother. There weren’t services such as physical therapy available, and finding resources was much more difficult than it is today.” When Jackie’s family connected with a social worker, Mrs. Smith, they not only found essential support but also a lifelong friend. Mrs. Smith helped the family access resources that enabled them to care for Jackie’s brother safely in their home. “My brother was amazing, one of my very favorite people. Doctors told us he wouldn’t live past the age of one, but with care and love, he lived to the age of 48.”

Inspired by the social workers who supported her family, Jackie pursued a career in the helping field. After high school, she enrolled at Chico State University, initially intending to become a nurse. To gain experience, she worked at a nursing home, where she discovered her passion for working with the elderly. “I really loved it. I felt like I had thirty or forty grandparents,” she recalls.

Life took a turn as Jackie and her husband started a family. She put school on hold when expecting their first daughter. After a few years, they decided to move back to Mendocino County and relocated to Ukiah. At one point, the young family needed assistance with health insurance. When Jackie attended an interview to determine their benefits, she dressed professionally, as if for a job interview. Whether it was her manner of dress or caring nature, her caseworker, Tommy Smith, saw potential in her and encouraged her to apply for a position with the county. Taking that advice to heart, Jackie applied and was hired in 2000 as an office assistant with the Mendocino County Department of Social Services.

Eager to learn, Jackie absorbed as much as she could. After a few years, she transitioned to an eligibility worker role within the Employment & Family Assistance Services division. There, she deepened her understanding of resources for vulnerable populations. When an opportunity arose, she joined Adult & Aging Services as a social worker assistant and later became a social worker.

Today, Jackie is a social worker for APS, where she and her team are on-call 24/7 to respond to reports of suspected elder and dependent adult abuse. “There’s no typical day in APS. I may start with a plan to visit clients, write case plans, and complete assessments, but one emergency can change everything. Just this morning, I received a call that one of my clients was ill. I responded, contacted emergency services who took her to the emergency room, and met with her family. My day changes depending on my clients’ needs.” Each year, her team investigates nearly 1,000 cases of suspected elder and dependent adult abuse in Mendocino County.

Jackie emphasizes a common misconception about APS services. “One of the first things I tell a client is that we’re here to see how we can make life a little better for them. Our services are voluntary, and we cannot remove someone from their home.”

Social workers in APS must be resourceful and think outside the box. Jackie and her colleagues act as orchestrators, coordinating help for cleaning, transportation to medical appointments, household repairs, and removing other barriers that might threaten a person’s ability to stay in their home safely.

“We’re all in this because we want to help people. I’m incredibly grateful that I found my way into this field—it’s something I always wanted to do but didn’t know how to get there.” Jackie has served Mendocino County for 25 years and still beams when she talks about her clients.

In a heartwarming full-circle moment, the social worker who once helped Jackie’s family, Mrs. Smith, remains a part of her life. Jackie now works closely with Mrs. Smith’s daughter, Teresa, who is also a social worker with APS in Fort Bragg. The two share a deep passion for their work and the clients they tirelessly serve.

If you are interested in learning more about social work with the Mendocino County Department of Social Services, please call (707) 468-7080 or email staffresources@mendocinocounty.gov.

Frellson Brothers Billiards and Pool. Santa Rosa, California, 1913

ED NOTES

ONE DAY AT 4TH AND CLEMENT in the City, so many art trendies had gathered to get into an exhibit that they spilled out into the early evening street. The next day I stopped by to look at the art. There wasn’t any. A note soon appeared on the door that said the art had moved to Mission Street, somewhere around 16th. I never did catch up with the display, but I heard it was interesting.

THE CITY is teeming with artists and art schools but there’s never been less art, confirmed for me by my annual visit to SFMOMA where, the last time I visited, in the building’s endless atrium there was a huge neon mass, which I liked better than the atrium without it.

I LOOKED at sculptor Richard Serra’s drawings of the big hunks of steel he installs in the big empty spaces of big empty buildings housing big empty people who would become suicidal looking at these things all day. In the context of industrial soul-less-ness Serra’s installations make sense.

THE MOST IRRITATING DISPLAY, however, and there are always at least three or four vying for the top phony award, was a video of two high school kids talking about the photographic genius of their mother, an obvious lunatic, seen at work in the film snapping hazy pictures of dog bones. Right here I propose that photography be downgraded to Art, Class 5. Art, Class 6 would be macrame and beading, Art, Class 7 videography — all of it.

THE MOMA has some arresting photos in its vast collection of random stuff, about half that random stuff being of no artistic value whatsoever, but almost all the MOMA’s interesting pictures were taken in either the last half of the 19th century or the first half of the twentieth. Besides, anyone with better than the sensitivities of a stone can take an interesting picture, and everyday right here at the ava we feature some really beautiful photos of our incomparably beautiful county. Somehow, few people among the shutterbug pros on exhibit at SFMOMA manage to pull off beauty, and their camera equipment costs thousands.

TAKING A BREAK from the non-art across the street, I sat on the park bench watching the passing parade. Now there’s an art show! As it happened, there was a photography class in progress, all of them snapping away at… seagulls! Granted, it was a class, but still.

NO, I don’t like Ansel Adams enough to pay my way in to look at his photographs. I can get a nice shot of a redwood all by my ownself, and store it permanently in my head where I can call it forth any old time to enjoy. And my mental picture is better! Better, I tell you!

ANYWAY, the guy who used to do the booking photos at the Mendocino County Jail turned out much more interesting pictures every day than most “art” photographers manage over their fraudulent careers. If you called the booking photographer an artist he’d probably arrest you, but he or she has got a nice eye, and Mendocino County yields to no one in the pure photogenic diversity of our criminal population.

A SENIOR MOMA ticket costs $25! Pure extortion, and no break at all for the average senior even in up-market Frisco.

BUT there were two paintings I’d never seen before worth the inflated price of admission: Edward Hopper’s ‘The Equestrians’ and a painting called ‘Potrero Hill’ by an old beatnik whose name I failed to write down. (Bechtle?) The old boy can paint, whoever he is.

It occurred to me that what’s generally missing at the MOMA is any kind of consciousness, social or political. The artists have no ideas. They all float in a hazy nimbus of neo-decadent. Like Dudes and Butt Cheek Tattoos untethered to the reality the rest of us know and are fascinated by. And their art is boring and mostly awful and, I’ll bet, a lot of them are fascists in their bones.

AS THE ANTIDOTE to dead art by the walking dead at 3rd and Mission, I hopped on the 2 Clement out to the Legion of Honor where there was a Pissarro exhibit called Pissarro’s People. At last! Whole rooms full of the real deal! Pissarro was an anarchist who managed to get himself on all the right government hit lists. As a person of the left, he was also a person of feeling and sympathy which, as a genius, he can also make us feel through his paintings. Even his sketches for paintings have power.

MARK SCARAMELLA ADDS:

Speaking of artistic photography, we like the photography from the “Humans of Berkeley” project.

Check their facebook page for more…

CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, March 24, 2025

AARON BULCKE, 42, Windsor/Ukiah. County parole violation.

JAMES COLYAR, 46, Willits. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

NICHJOLAS HOGAN, 42, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation.

DALTON KNOWLES, 26, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

MICHAEL KUBAS, 45, Nice/Willits. Domestic battery, under influence.

JORGE MARTINEZ-GARCIA, 29, Ukiah. Petty theft with two or more priors, county parole violation.

CHRISTINA TORRES, 37, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

HIKERS RESCUED FROM SHEER CLIFF ON NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S LOST COAST

‘They had no business being where they were. There is no trail up there.’

by Matt LaFever

A massive rescue operation involving more than 20 people and multiple agencies saved two hikers stranded on a near-vertical cliff along Northern California’s remote Lost Coast over the weekend.

The hikers were trapped 75 to 100 feet above the beach in the King Range Wilderness on Saturday. One of them was “unable to move” after falling, according to a Facebook post from the Shelter Cover Fire Department, and faced either a deadly drop onto boulders below or a potential plunge into the ocean.

Chief Nick Pape of the Shelter Cove Fire Department described the situation as life-threatening. “It’s near vertical where the victims were located, and below them was absolutely vertical, probably 60 feet to the boulders below,” he told SFGATE. “It was definitely a life-threatening fall situation if that patient hadn’t fallen any further than they already had.”

The Shelter Cove Fire Department dispatched its Ocean Rescue Team to an area of the Lost Coast known as Miller Flat, deploying a jet ski, a rescue boat and four rescue swimmers. However, due to the hikers’ precarious position, ground access was deemed impossible.

“Miller Flat is on the far south side of Big Flat,” Pape explained. “Most people that hike the Lost Coast recognize the flats as one of the more hiking-friendly areas — rolling meadows that meet up with the coast. But at the end of Miller Flat, those flats disappear off into a rugged, jagged cliff. The high tide mark comes right up at the base of that cliff.”

Pape noted that the hikers were far off the designated Lost Coast Trail. “They had no business being where they were. There is no trail up there,” he said. “The trail for the Lost Coast Trail is fairly well marked.”

With conditions too dangerous for a ground extraction, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Humboldt Bay was dispatched to perform what the fire department described in the Facebook post as “two complex high-angle hoist rescues.” Coordinating with the teams below, the helicopter crew airlifted both hikers and transported them to Shelter Cove Airport, where ambulances awaited.

Despite suffering mild to moderate injuries, the hikers declined medical treatment and were transported back to their vehicle, Pape told SFGate.

The operation mobilized more than 20 rescuers, including many volunteers, according to the Shelter Cove Fire Department’s post. In addition to the fire department, six agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue and Cal Fire Kneeland Helitack, were involved.

“It takes a lot,” Pape said. “A lot goes on every time somebody calls 911 for these types of rescues.”

Rescues along the Lost Coast are on the rise, Pape said, and its rugged lands and limited access pose serious challenges for emergency crews. “We’ve definitely seen an uptick,” Pape said. “The Lost Coast Trail has become quite popular lately — anywhere from 15 to 20 rescues a year in the King Range.” His team also responds to fire calls in the high country and frequent hiker injuries on the beach. “This is our fourth call this year. We’ve had two surfer distress calls in the same area, plus plenty of rolled ankles, hypothermia — stuff like that.”

Pape warned against underestimating the Lost Coast Trail. “It’s one of the most scenic, rugged experiences in California, but help is far away,” he said. Rescuers face tough odds: Jet skis take 30 minutes to reach the area, helicopters fly in from Arcata, and land access is nearly impossible along a 6-mile stretch. “Further north and south, we can use quads and UTVs, but in that section, rescues are just really, really hard.”

BAWK-BAWK-BAWK

Editor:

I pleaded not guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges for rescuing four baby chickens from Perdue’s Petaluma Poultry slaughterhouse. I am facing up to 5.5 years in prison. As I prepare for trial this May, I remain convinced that my case is politically motivated. For more than 14 months, I have been wearing an ankle monitor while under strict pretrial release conditions. If I had stolen four dead chickens from a grocery store, I believe I would be facing a relatively inconsequential misdemeanor theft charge. It is unlikely I would be charged with a felony or be under electronic monitoring.

When I rescued these four chickens, I gave them names: Poppy, Ivy, Aster and Azalea. I shared their stories. I challenged the notion that animals are property that can be used and abused as companies please. It is the idea that animals are entitled to protection that Perdue and law enforcement find so threatening, and I believe it is for that idea that I will stand trial.

Zoe Rosenberg

Berkeley

CRIMES ARE CRIMES

Editor,

Our financiers react to regulations as if they were a crime. And yet our corporate practices are questionable if not illegal. The United States judicial system needs to protect people and administer laws strict enough to alter corporate behavior.

For years, US corporations such as Halliburton and ExxonMobil manipulated South America politics. Most of us are familiar with the perpetrators: the United Fruit Co, Chiquita and Bechtel have extensive South American rap sheets, and yet, they are considered reputable companies by us. US Intuitions that behave like criminals should be treated as such.

Many of us feel that what corporations do is none of our business. But the afore mentioned corporations are destroying South America’s environment and inflicting crimes on their citizens. Both Brazil and Venezuela became outright hostile. We might not think their environment, civilization and culture are important, but they do. The solution to our immigration problem starts with us addresses Corporate America’s policies. I am sure that if treated like human beings, South Americans would stay home. Our country solved a major political schism after world War two. We called it the Marshal Plan. Sources: Public Citizen, The Democracy Center, the BBC, and the BBC.

Tom Fantulin

Fort Bragg

THE MERCENARIES WHO TOOK ON NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S HIPPIES RESURFACE

‘It was like a nightmare,’ a tree-sitter said of Lear’s psychological warfare

by Matt LaFever

Video of a Feb. 22 legislative town hall in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, went viral after plainclothes security tackled a woman confronting Republican lawmakers. Three men restrained her, zip-tied her hands and dragged her from the event — sparking national outrage and debate over the use of private security to silence political dissent.

Employees of a security firm, Lear Asset Management, drag Post Falls resident Teresa Borrenpohl out of a town hall meeting on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, in Post Falls, Idaho. Hailey Hill/Coeur D’Alene Press via AP

Soon after the event, Lear Asset Management was revealed as the private security firm involved in the Idaho controversy. Its local credentials were revoked, and law enforcement leaders are now expressing concerns over the use of private security unchecked by police standards.

For many on California’s North Coast, Lear Asset Management’s heavy-handed tactics in Idaho were no shock. For decades, CEO Paul Trouette has straddled the line between private security and hired gun, hired by logging companies to police forest protesters. Lear sometimes clashed with law enforcement, raising a key question former Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman put bluntly to SFGate: “How do we know they’re doing the right thing? The answer is: We don’t.”

‘A bunch of guys that look like they’re soldiers’

Allman told SFGate that Lear Asset Management filled a specific market demand in the Emerald Triangle during the Wild West days of cannabis cultivation, when cannabis grows still proliferated in the hills of Mendocino and Humboldt counties. Timber companies like Mendocino Forest Products would find a guerilla grow had taken root on their property, an issue which, unless there was an immediate threat to safety, “was not a top priority” for law enforcement, Allman said. Lear Asset Management became an on-demand eradication service for these companies, Allman explained.

Allman said Lear never directly collaborated with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, but he recalled seeing Trouette and Lear members at annual spring meetings with timber companies to discuss illegal cannabis and timber harvesting. However, Lear’s inclusion in these meetings ended when Lear’s practices fell “outside the scope of our security expectations,” Allman said. He declined to elaborate, but during his tenure, media reports suggested the public began conflating Lear’s unregulated activities with the Sheriff’s Office’s cannabis enforcement efforts.

Lindy Peters, now a member of Fort Bragg’s City Council, joined Lear Asset Management on a reporting trip as a correspondent for Mendocino TV in summer 2014 to witness firsthand the cleanup of a trespass cannabis grow site deep in the Mendocino County wilderness. What he encountered was far more than he expected.

“We show up with the camera, and I show up ready to just kind of be like a ‘20/20’ or, you know, ‘60 Minutes’ or something,” Peters recalled. “We get there and we noticed, you know, there’s a bunch of guys that look like they’re soldiers. All dressed in army fatigues and, you know, they got weapons and stuff. And I’m thinking, what the hell is going on here?”

Paul Trouette, the CEO of Lear Asset Management, stares down a environmental protester in Humboldt County, flanked by one of his operatives. Courtesy of IG: blockade.babes

Peters was introduced to Trouette, the head of Lear Asset Management, at a meeting of a group focused on combating illegal grows and their environmental damage and was taken aback by the paramilitary-style operation he witnessed in the field.

The cleanup mission was meant to showcase the environmental devastation left behind by illegal grows. However, the heavily armed security presence and tactical approach raised questions for Peters, finding himself in the company of what he described as a “private army,” an experience that made him reconsider the nature of the operation he had agreed to document.

Despite his shock at the militarized presence, Peters acknowledged the scale of destruction caused by these illegal grow sites, including toxic waste, chemical runoff and plastic debris scattered across remote landscapes. “To see it up close was something else,” he said. “The amount of damage they do to the environment, it’s just unreal.”

Lear Asset Management operates with little oversight, a major concern raised by Allman. Unlike law enforcement, the private security firm isn’t required to wear body cameras or respond to public inquiries. “They don’t even have to answer the phone if a reporter calls,” Allman said.

Allman argued that private security firms function in secrecy, with no requirement to disclose training records, work history or past misconduct. “Unless there’s a lawsuit, people can’t find out what kind of training they have or if they’ve been fired from a law enforcement agency,” he said. Without public accountability, he noted, officers with questionable backgrounds could continue working in the industry, undetected, unless someone digs through online records. With no regulatory oversight, he warned, companies like Lear wield significant authority while avoiding the transparency and accountability demanded of public law enforcement.

‘They Always Dressed Like They Were In Syria’

Sarah Luttio was high in the redwood canopy of Humboldt County’s Rainbow Ridge when she realized she was just the latest in a long line of activists facing off against Lear Asset Management. Known by the forest name “Rook,” Luttio had joined the fight against logging, but what she encountered was something far beyond the usual tensions between environmentalists and industry.

Rook’s tree-sitting efforts in 2019 and 2022 were part of a broader campaign against the Humboldt Redwood Co.’s logging operations. But beyond the clash of ideals, Lear’s tactics left a lasting impression. Its operatives employed intimidation techniques that felt more suited to a battlefield than a timber operation, Luttio said.

“They always dressed like they were in Syria,” Luttio recalled, describing Lear’s security personnel outfitted in full military camouflage, chest rigs and tactical radios. Some carried Tasers prominently on their vests.

Images provided to SFGate back up these claims, showing Lear personnel — including Trouette — wearing tactical vests, keffiyeh-style scarves and camouflage, some holding zip-tie handcuffs, and one openly carrying a semiautomatic pistol.

A photo of Lear’s camp beneath Luttio’s tree showed a sprawling khaki multiroom tent flanked by two pickups and a Jeep, all modified for off-road action and heavy hauling.

During her time in the tree, Luttio experienced firsthand the sensory onslaught Lear used to break the will of activists. “They would aim massive floodlights at my perch all night, and blast sounds from a Bluetooth speaker — sometimes right-wing talk shows, other times recordings of screaming animals, like wounded rabbits and foxes,” she said. The intent was clear: to deprive her of sleep, heighten anxiety and push her toward giving up.

Clover, a longtime tree-sitter and organizer in Humboldt County, has spent over a decade resisting logging operations, including a total of two full years living in trees. Clover, who uses they/them pronouns, is no stranger to the physical and psychological toll of defending the canopy, but even with their experience, they were shaken by the tactics used to break their will.

“The guards were playing psychological games,” Clover recalled. “One guard even asked me what kind of music I like.” At the time, it seemed like a harmless question, but later that night, it became clear it was anything but.

“My tree sit was attached to a rope, and in the middle of the night, I was woken up out of a dead sleep by my whole structure shaking,” Clover said. “I didn’t know why. All I knew was that I was being blinded by a spotlight and there was music playing so loud that … I shouted to ask them what the hell they were doing.”

The disorienting mix of flashing lights, deafening noise and sudden movement created a sense of panic, Clover said. “It was like a nightmare,” they said. “I had no idea what was going on, and that was the worst part.”

A 2022 Instagram post shared by a tree-sitting activist includes what sounds like a podcast or talk radio show blasting at full volume from a Jeep parked below a tree.

The intimidation didn’t stop at the logging site. Both Clover and Luttio said they saw Lear Asset Management on state parkland bordering Rainbow Ridge, well beyond its expected range on private land.

“They have game cameras, remote cameras and drones,” Luttio added. “They’re always watching. They’d fly a drone around me until Paul Trouette got bored.”

While California State Parks acknowledges that Lear Asset Management may have been seen moving through state parkland, spokesperson Jorge Moreno clarified that this was due to the nature of the access road leading to Rainbow Ridge. The road, which alternates between public and private land, is used by both state park rangers and employees of Humboldt Redwood Co. “There are no fences out there,” Moreno explained, meaning that anyone traveling the route — including Lear Asset Management, when contracted by the timber company — would naturally cross into public land.

Moreno said State Parks was aware of Lear’s movement through the area, but emphasized that the firm was not actively patrolling park property. While State Parks recalled no specific interactions between state park rangers and Lear in 2019, Moreno noted one instance in August 2022 when Lear was present near the park boundary. Following an arson incident that destroyed heavy equipment on Rainbow Ridge’s access road, the firm provided security for Humboldt Redwood Co. and its contractors. During that time, any concerns related to state park property were handled through direct communication between the company and park staff, with rangers assessing any necessary action.

A 2019 Instagram post from tree-sitting activists showed a drone hovering over a tree-sitter. Clover saw cameras firsthand too.

“I saw a camera set up on a hilltop, just overlooking everything,” they recalled. “No one was there. It was either on a tripod or a pole, just watching.”

While Luttio remained aloft in the redwood, activists said security guards camped beneath the tree around the clock, blocking any resupply efforts. The post that shared the drone video captured the scene: ”Security guards employed by the logging company continue to camp under the tree at all times, preventing resupply of water and food.”

Humboldt County 5th District Supervisor Steve Madrone didn’t hesitate when he learned what was happening on Rainbow Ridge. “They were preventing her from getting any food or water and literally trying to just starve her out of the tree,” he told SFGate. “Which is extremely dangerous. You’re high up — 50, 100 feet in the air — you get dizzy, and all kinds of bad things can happen.”

He called the logging company’s management. “I said, ‘I understand you want these people off your land, but they have a right to civil disobedience. What I hear is that you’re keeping this woman from getting food and water.’” When they refused to let him in, he didn’t back down: “I said, ‘OK, well, I’m probably going to have to trespass then because I’m not going to let this go. You can either take me in and escort me, or I’m going in myself.’”

A day later, the company relented. He was escorted into the site, where he saw Lear’s forces had finally eased up. “By the time I got there, they had already started bringing her food and water,” he said. “They backed off from their, you know, really ruthless tactics.”

In 2019, the standoff at Rainbow Ridge reached a climax when Lear allegedly enlisted an outside arborist to forcibly remove Luttio.

A post made by Luttio on the tree activist Instagram account the day it happened read, “#TFW you’re in a tree and a logging company just sent in a climber to dangerously cut down all your supplies, but you managed to defend your net and your friends.” One of the accompanying images shows the logger, his face obscured by a scarf, perched dangerously close to Luttio with a chainsaw in his hand. Despite the overwhelming pressure, Luttio managed to stay aloft for a week before being removed.

‘Who Are These Guys?’

At the February Kootenai County GOP town hall in Coeur d’Alene, Lear Asset Management’s involvement in the chaotic removal of Democratic candidate and protester Teresa Borrenpohl brought the security company’s tactics back under scrutiny. Hailey Hill, the reporter from the Coeur d’Alene Press who broke the story, told SFGATE about the troubling lack of clarity around the security guards’ authority and their coordination with the sheriff’s office.

“There was a moment when [Sheriff] Norris gestured to the two men, directing them to intervene,” Hill said. Hill described the security guards as “intimidating” and said, “It wasn’t really clear what kind of autonomy they had.”

The incident led to Lear’s business license being revoked and sparked a larger debate on the appropriateness of such interventions at political gatherings, with Borrenpohl’s legal defense fund surpassing $245,000 in February. The Coeur d’Alene police chief criticized the removal, adding fuel to the controversy.

Decades after its founding, Lear Asset Management is still pushing the boundaries of the law. SFGATE reached out to the company in the aftermath of the Idaho incident to understand its plans going forward but heard no response. Its latest actions in Idaho have reignited a question Lindy Peters asked nearly a decade ago while observing the “soldiers for hire” in the Mendocino County woods: “Who are these guys? And what exactly are they doing out here?”

Paul Trouette with a machete. Courtesy of the Jerry Melo Foundation

(SFGate.com)

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

As I understand it, the Ukranians are offering McDonalds cheeseburgers to entice conscripts. So, you can eat a McDonalds cheeseburger and die from the vax, eat a McDonalds cheeseburger and die from fighting the Russians, or eat a McDonalds cheeseburger and die from just eating the cheeseburger. I recall several years ago (possibly New York magazine?) a first-person article from a young writer who purchased a Big Mac and let it sit out on the coffee table for a year. Nothing happened. No rot or decomposition, no mold, nothing. A wonder of modernity.

TOO LATE

To the Editor:

In response to President Trump’s call for Judge James E. Boasberg to be impeached, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”

His statement may be accurate and well intentioned, but it is too late. He and his five conservative colleagues left the barn door open by granting a president immunity in Trump v. United States (2024), a decision written by Chief Justice Roberts. A president now need never be constrained by fear of violating the law. To give presidents immunity is to declare that they are kings.

Have we changed overnight from a democratic republic to a monarchy? How will this president-king be constrained?

John E. Colbert

Arroyo Seco, New Mexico

“MARTHA HOLMES, born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1923, carved a remarkable career in photojournalism at a time when few women held such positions. Starting at the Louisville Courier-Journal, she quickly demonstrated an eye for capturing both raw emotion and refined elegance. Her big break came in 1944 when she joined LIFE magazine, becoming one of the few female photographers at the publication. Holmes had a unique ability to make her subjects feel comfortable, a skill that set her apart in an industry dominated by men. From Hollywood icons like Humphrey Bogart to groundbreaking musicians such as Louis Armstrong, she captured striking portraits that blended authenticity with artistry. One of her most famous images is that of Jackson Pollock in 1949, showcasing the abstract painter in his element, a moment that defined the intersection of art and photography in mid-century America.

“Holmes worked in an era where women in journalism had to prove themselves constantly. She adapted quickly, trading frilly dresses for practical slacks when covering breaking news, a symbol of her transition from a society photographer to a serious documentarian. Her coverage of racial tensions in the 1950s and 1960s reflected her ability to capture history with depth and sensitivity. Unlike many photographers who focused on stark realism, Holmes maintained a belief in finding beauty even in difficult subjects. Her philosophy was rooted in empathy, ensuring her portraits conveyed dignity rather than mere spectacle. This approach earned her the trust of her subjects, from politicians to everyday people caught in history’s pivotal moments.

“As part of the LIFE Picture Collection, Holmes’s legacy continues to inspire generations of photographers. Her work remains an essential record of 20th-century American culture, documenting both the glamour of post-war Hollywood and the social upheavals that shaped the modern world. Her ability to balance artistry with journalism placed her among the greats of documentary photography. Today, her images are celebrated not only for their technical brilliance but for the warmth and humanity they exude. With Women’s History Month highlighting trailblazers like Holmes, her contributions stand as a testament to perseverance, talent, and the enduring power of visual storytelling.”

LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

Hegseth Disclosed Secret War Plans in a Group Chat

Columbia Student Hunted by ICE Sues to Prevent Deportation

Food Banks Left in the Lurch as Some Shipments Are Suspended

Federal Agency Dedicated to Mental Illness and Addiction Faces Huge Cuts

A Palestinian Director of ‘No Other Land’ Is Attacked and Detained, Witnesses Say

Headache? Fatigue? You Could Have Your First Case of Seasonal Allergies

When potato chips were sold in a box for only 59 cents in 1972.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, April 1967:

“I should make it clear that while I have tried to give a voice to the voiceless on Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called enemy, I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor. Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. There is something seductively tempting about stopping there and sending us all off on what in some circles has become a popular crusade against the war in Vietnam. I say we must enter the struggle, but I wish to go on now to say something even more disturbing. The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy — and laymen — concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa. We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy. Such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.”

JEFF BLANKFORT:

Sorry, but I have been observing “Not in My Name!” protests of Israel and International Zionism’s war on the Palestinians and Lebanese people by American Jews since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 and with all due respects to those Jews who participate, I consider those protests, when one gets past the images, to have contributed to what has been the utter failure of “the Palestinian solidarity movement,” with which I have been heavily involved since 1970.

What the organizers and participants seem to be telling the world is that, as Jews, they have a special relationship with the issue, that “it’s a Jewish thing,” and not the responsibiliry of ALL Americans to protest their tax money being used by the lickspittles of the political class to furnish Israel with the weapons of war and genocide.

That these protests never lead with a demand to stop US weapons for Israel nor raise the one issue that organized Judasim, across the spectrum, has managed to keep from the American public, would bring home to most Americans the sadistic nature of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, the suppression of which by JVP as well as our national media have been among American Zionsts’ most successful accomplishments.

Too many Palestinians, so pleased and respectful of Jews who are willing to condemn Israel, have, in effect, turned over the agenda of the struggle for Palestine in the US to Jewish Voice for Peace, which has a history of targeting the ONE organization in the US calling for stopping US funding for Israel and educating US citizens about the Liberty, Alison Weir and her If Americans Knew which some years back JVP attempted to destroy. Having failed that the JVP now ignores her and her campaigns on both issues.

Check out If Americans Knew’s website and subscribe to her daily reports on Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank and what US politicians are up to on Israel’s behalf.

IT IS A WELL-DOCUMENTED FACT that Israel and its supporters use lobbying, campaign funding and blackmail to exert influence over western nations. It is also a fact that the US empire has the power to stop Israel from doing this at any time, but chooses not to. The empire managers in the official elected government don’t do anything to stop these influence operations, nor do the empire managers in the far more powerful unelected national security state. Does anyone really believe Israel would still be exerting such massive influence over the US government if the CIA determined that this was impeding their agendas of global domination?

It follows that the Zionist influence operations exist because the empire wants them to. The artificially manufactured support for Israel has been deemed a necessary evil to help ensure constant violence, division and instability in the middle east and justify endless military presence in a crucial geostrategic region which, if left to its own devices, might unite and conduct its affairs in a way that is disadvantageous to western interests.

There are many other nations in the middle east who are aligned with the US and are used to advance its interests in the region, but none of them are fully dependent on support from the US government for their continued existence. It’s a completely artificial construct that was inserted into the middle east like a glass shard into a foot, and its continued existence benefits both the settler colonialists who live there and the long-term hegemonic interests of the US-centralized empire.

I say all this to point out that the west isn’t some passive innocent victim of manipulations by the big mean tyrant Israel. It is just as guilty of Israel’s crimes as Israel itself, because those crimes are inseparable from the western empire as a whole. You see some on the right trying to argue that the west would be this wonderful virtuous place if not for the malign influence of those nasty Jews, but this narrative is refuted by the entire historical existence of the western world. The west has always been a warmongering, genocidal civilization driven by conquest and domination, and the western settler-colonialist project of Israel is just one more manifestation of the dystopia we are living in.

— Caitlin Johnstone

THE HIGH PRICE OF WAR WITH IRAN: $10 Gas and the Collapse of the U.S. Economy

Netanyahu's government is going down and he wants to take America with him.

by Dennis Kucinich

Israel is currently in turmoil, marked by widespread protests demanding Netanyahu's resignation. Critics accuse him of prolonging war for political gain, while his dismissal of top security officials and ongoing attacks on the judiciary have further intensified the unrest.

Meanwhile, Washington DC’s drumbeat for war never stops. It’s always at the expense of a decent and secure standard of living for people in this country and abroad.

The Trump Administration, after the series of heady airstrikes against Yemen, is at this moment being beseeched by Netanyahu and his associates to prepare for a seemingly consequence-free nuclear strike against Iran, completing the trifecta of Netanyahu’s long-standing dream.

I have consistently warned against the consequences of an attack on Iran, delivering 155 speeches to the House, 63 presentations alone in the 109th Congress, between 2005 and 2007, when the Bush Administration deliberated using nuclear “bunker-busters” as a means of bringing Iran to heel.

I understood the politics then and I understand them today. I warned hundreds of times that it was not in America’s interests to go to war against Netanyahu’s hit list: Iraq, Iran, Libya…

https://kucinichreport.substack.com/p/the-high-price-of-war-with-iran-10

Turkey dinner aboard a Pan Am Stratocruiser. 1949

THE LAST RESORT

by James Kunstler

“What is the alternative to presidential oversight and management of the agencies listed in this branch of government? They run themselves? That claim means nothing in practice.” —Jeffrey Tucker

Surely you know the old joke: “What do you call a thousand lawyers at the bottom of the sea?” (Answer: “a good start!”). There’s a reason why lawyers are so broadly despised. Law is humanity’s instrument for creating order out of the terror and chaos of nature, where anything goes. The result of law theoretically, is a civil society, where only the good, true, and right things can go.

These days, lawyers are hard at work to replace civilized order with the terror and chaos of nature — which is to say, the seeking of raw power: this is what I can do to you! That primal despotism is the motivating engine of the Democratic Party in its terminal phase, a feral, power-seeking monster. It was why, in case you hadn’t noticed, the essential drive of Woke politics was the sadistic pleasure it took in exacting its endless punishments — cancellation, personal ruin, censorship — not correcting alleged injustices against marginalized minorities. And that tells you, by the way, exactly why the J-6 defendants were treated so harshly by the likes of Judge James Boasberg, Tanya Chutkan, and their colleagues of the DC federal district.

The enabling device for that monstrous power seeking of the Democratic Party was the colossal racketeering operation they implanted in every corner of the federal government, an insidious process that accelerated during the Obama years, eluded discipline during Trump One — with the many distracting ruses such as RussiaGate — and surged into final overdrive during the perfidious term of “Joe Biden,” America’s first false-front president.

The racketeering operation was perfectly illustrated in the DOGE’s recent deconstruction of USAID. That agency worked as a gigantic money laundering matrix to pay Democratic Party activists for the sole purpose of maintaining and expanding the party’s power — its ability to push American citizens around, control our lives, tell us how to live, how to think, and, ultimately, in the Covid-19 scam, telling us to take our shots, get lost, and die. Pitifully, a lot of those vaxx victims were the Democratic Party’s own rank and file, which shows you how psychotically suicidal the Democratic Party became.

By and large, it was conservatives who avoided the vaxxes because they were able psychologically to entertain the evidence that Covid was a nefarious set-up and that, month-by-month, the vaxxes were proving to be both ineffective and harmful. Democrats, in their Woke fugue state, could not do that. Even today, they insist that their vaxx injuries are “long Covid” and would be worse if not for the additional boosters they took. Poor dumb bunnies.

Mr. Trump was played masterfully in the initial 2020 Covid roll-out by the likes of Dr. Fauci, Deborah Birx, and the faithless Veep Mike Pence who directed the Coronavirus Task Force (and whoever was behind it). The president could not bring himself to oppose or cast doubt on their diktats and to this day he must remain embarrassed about how that all worked out. But he also probably learned to not be fooled again.

And so, after the fishy 2020 election, and during the disastrous “Biden” years, Mr. Trump had time to lay careful and comprehensive plans for ending the massive racketeering and for restructuring the federal apparatus into a leaner, more efficient, and more lawful enterprise for managing the civil society known as the USA. Which brings us to the present.

Mr. Trump’s lawfully appointed agent, Elon Musk, and his legally chartered investigative advisory unit, called DOGE, has begun making recommendations for severe cuts in agencies and employees, which have been executed by the lawfully confirmed heads of agencies, and the chief executive himself. Thus, the rapid, systematic disassembly of the Democratic Party’s grift machine and the end of its immense revenue stream. No more USAID and its thousands of NGO money laundromats. No more Department of Education and its Grant-O-Matic depredations in the universities. No more work-from home (but not really) nonsense. No more DEI reverse racism in hiring. No more flooding the swing state voting precincts with illegal aliens. No more stupid proxy war in Urkaine. No more gender pretending chaos. You see how it goes now.

Also, thus, the Democratic Party’s last resort: the federal judiciary, 235 new judges jammed into office in the twilight weeks of “Joe Biden” (as Senate Minority Leader Schumer bragged on Sunday’s TV talk circuit), plus the ones such as Boasberg, Chutkan, et al., already on the bench, primed to thwart Mr., Trump’s efforts to govern at every turn. They are the Dem’s only remaining lever of power. And they can only be activated by lawyers filing suits against Mr. Trump — hundreds having been filed in the past eight weeks. And these, as you learned in the Friday post here, are directed by attorney lawfare field marshal Norm Eisen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, using the many well-paid lawfare lawyers at his disposal.

In politics, momentous things often happen on weekends. This past Saturday, Mr. Trump released a White House memorandum directing the Attorney General and the Director of Homeland Security “to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive departments and agencies of the United States.”

More specifically, the president’s memo asserts:

“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 prohibits attorneys from engaging in certain unethical conduct in Federal courts. Attorneys must not present legal filings ‘for improper purpose[s],’ including ‘to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation.’ FRCP 11(b)(1). Attorneys must ensure that legal arguments are ‘warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law’.”

This is the first time that legal discipline has been leveled directly at the lawfare lawyers themselves. (Election-rigging maestro Marc Elias is mentioned by name in the memo.) It means that after eight years of this noxious gamesmanship, they are going to have to start answering for their actions, they will have to lawyer-up on their own account, and they are going discover (the old saying goes) how the process is the punishment.

Next, if it is not already underway at the DOJ, Mr. Trump must direct AG Bondi to explore the parties financing this lawfare — this “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation” — and you should suppose that it has been emanating from the checkbooks of George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and other wealthy seditionists, who, likewise, will have to some serious ‘splainin’ why they should not go prison. One thing for sure: the money for all this is going to dry up.

DEMOCRATIC LEADERS: WIMPS, WALLOWERS AND WALLFLOWERS

by Ralph Nader

I’ve stopped counting the articles on the Democratic Party’s disarray over how and when they should confront Tyrant Trump’s criminal destruction of our country, its people’s livelihoods, security for their families, and their freedom to speak and advocate for their concerns.

Seized with internal doubts, fear, and cowardliness, most Democrats in Congress and the Party’s corporate-indentured bureaucracy can’t stop contracting out their jobs to corporate-conflicted consultants who have been and are in reality overpaid Trojan Horses.

What’s the superlative of “pathetic”? The Washington Post’s Dylan Wells gave us a definition. The Democrats in Congress are all agog about learning how to use TikTok against the more elaborate GOP’s TikTok. They invited an influencer who posted a “choose your fighter”-themed video featuring Democratic congresswomen bouncing in a fighting stance while their accomplishments and fun facts were displayed on the screen. I kid you not! At one influencers session, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was seen taking detailed notes.

Sporting its lowest-ever favorability ratings, the Party of the Donkey neither listens to seasoned civic group leaders, who know how to talk to all Americans (see winningamerica.net), nor to progressive labor unions like the American Postal Workers Union and the Association of Flight Attendants. The dominant corporate Democrats (just look at their big campaign donors) don’t even listen to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who for many months has been aggressively taking the Grand Old Plutocrats, led by their dangerous Madman, Trumpty Dumpty, to the woodshed.

Instead, we have mealy-mouth Chuck Schumer vainly trying to recharge his dead batteries amidst the slew of avoidable election defeats in the U.S. Senate despite huge campaign cash.

Of course, the Democratic leaders don’t listen to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is the most popular politician in America and is attracting huge crowds (5000 people at an event in Tempe, Arizona) in Republican Congressional districts and going after the cruel, vicious, self-enriching, anti-worker Wall Street over Main Street GOP corporatists.

Long-time political observer, Bill Curry, says “POLICY PRECEDES MESSAGE.” Otherwise, the messages are empty, forgettable excuses for the Party’s media consultants to get their 15% commission on repetitively empty TV ads. The Democrats should instead be investing in a serious ground game.

Last fall in Pennsylvania, people told us that the door-knocking by Democrats was far more frequent than in 2022. What were they knocking about? Just saying, vote Democratic? The Party lost the state to the wannabe dictator Donald and a U.S. Senate seat to boot.

By contrast, Pritzker raised alarms about Trump’s regime alluding to the rise of Nazism in Germany where Hitler was also an elected dictator.

Look, there are no secrets about the winning agendas, authentically presented and repeated with human interest stories and events. Here are six of them for starters that Kamala Harris Et al. avoided or reduced to disbelieved throw-away lines while adopting her vapid slogan about creating “an opportunity economy.”

Raise the frozen federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $15 an hour. That would mean 25 million workers would live better. Slogan – “Go Vote for a Raise, you’ve been long denied it.” Or “America Needs a Raise.”
Raise the Social Security benefits FROZEN for over 45 years and pay for that by raising the Social Security tax on higher income individuals. In 2022, two hundred House Democrats voted for such a bill by Congressman John Larson (D-CT). Sixty-five million retirees would live better.
Restore the child tax credit, providing about $300 a month to sixty-one million children from both liberal and conservative families. Before the Congressional Republicans blocked its extension in January 2022, this measure alone had cut child poverty by 40 percent.

Just these three long overdue very popular safety nets would help almost 150 million Americans. Lots of votes there, including giving the 7.1 million Biden 2020 voters a reason not to stay home in 2024, along with over 80 million additional eligible voters who sat out the election.

Bear in mind, that just a switch of 240,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would have defeated Trump and his brutishness in 2024.

Raise taxes on the very undertaxed super-wealthy and profitable corporations – half of the latter pay no federal income taxes. Polls show 85% of the American people support the overdue restoration from the Trump and GW Bush tax escapes for the rich and powerful.
Crackdown on the corporate crooks who cheat, lie, and steal the hard-earned consumer dollars and savings of all Americans, regardless of their political labels. Huge super-majorities of Americans are disgusted by the double standards of justice that stains our democracy every day in every way.
Empower the American workers to join trade unions (the U.S. has the biggest hurdle in union organizing in the Western world), and make it easier to be able to band together to demand and get universal, affordable health insurance, protect their children, make sure their taxes come back home to upgrade crumbling public services, and to organize civic groups to manage their elected representatives who have mostly forgotten where they came from and who is sovereign under the “We the People” Constitution.

There are more compacts with the American people to landslide the GOP. For now, the urgent mission has to be to stop the fascist dictatorship that is using police state tactics, ripping apart life-saving and life-sustaining services. Note Trump/Musk do not touch the massive “waste, fraud and inefficiency” of corporate welfare – subsidies, handouts, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes – corporate crime e.g., defrauding Medicare ($60 billion a year) and other federal payout programs (Medicaid, corporate contracts) and the unaudited, bloated military budget that Trump/Musk want to expand further.

Never in American history has there been such an impeachable domestic, law-violating, constitution-busting president committing criminally insane demolitions of the federal civil service staffing the ramparts of protecting the health, safety, and economic well-being of all Americans in red and blue states.

With Trump’s polls falling along with the stock market and inflation/prices starting to rise, the sycophant Congressional Republicans, violating their constitutional oaths of office, are starting to get the jitters. The packed angry crowds at their Town Meetings are just modest harbingers of what is to come soon.

Trump wants to “Impeach” and “Fire” anyone who is in a position to resist Der Fuhrer. Well, people, tell him with ever larger marches and polls that HE must be fired, which is just what our Founders provided for in the Impeachment authority exclusive to the U.S. Congress.

It’s up to you, the citizenry, as Richard Nixon discovered after the Watergate scandal. Expect the politicians only to follow you, not to lead.

ABC is making a big deal celebrating the 45th anniversary of their “Nightline” show which had some decent moments back in the Ted Koppel days and the show’s origin during the Iran Hostage “crisis.” The show has become just another irrelevant blip on the corporate news radar these days. Apparently, ABC is trying to revive interest in the show by pretending it’s kinda like it was when Koppel ran it. So this seems like a good time to look back at when Alexander Cockburn appeared on the show in 1990. Cockburn wrote about his experience in his 1996 book “The Golden Age Is In Us,” still relevant and interesting all these years later. Here’s the “Nightline” excerpt: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/25/dialogue-of-the-deaf-debating-ted-koppel-on-communism

SUBMISSION

by Adam Shatz

On Friday, 21 March – two weeks after the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student from a refugee camp in Syria; a week after Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian graduate student, fled to Canada to avoid being detained by ICE; and just a few days after Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas, killing more than four hundred more Palestinians in less than 24 hours – Columbia University capitulated to the Trump administration’s menu of demands, including a ban on the wearing of non-medical masks on campus, adherence to a broad and highly tendentious definition of antisemitism that would forbid almost any criticism of Israel for its treatment of Palestinians, and the imposition of a “senior vice president” to oversee the Department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies.

Columbia’s surrender – a “shameful day” in the words of Sheldon Pollock, who oversaw MESAAS – took place hardly a week after the Trump team presented its ultimatum. $400 million in federal funds for scientific research were at stake, but it would be a mistake to view Columbia’s decision as a painful concession under financial pressure. The university could have compensated for the loss by dipping into its $14.8 billion endowment; it could have taken the administration to court for its extortionate assault on academic freedom and the right to assemble; it could have sought to build a united front with other universities facing unconstitutional demands from the White House. Instead, the board of trustees – already stacked with supporters of Israel – took advantage of Trump’s ultimatum to accelerate a campaign against pro-Palestine dissent launched when Joe Biden was in office.

Pro-Israel faculty, as well as prominent deans and a representative of Jewish alumni, had met in February with the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, urging her to “get ahead” of the Trump administration with new restrictions on protest. Esther Fuchs, a co-chair of the antisemitism task force at Columbia, said that “a lot of these things are things we needed to get done and were getting done, but now we’ve gotten done more quickly.”

Paul Weiss, a liberal law firm, has followed suit, agreeing to work on $40 million in cases approved by Trump, and to donate tens of millions of dollars to a group combatting antisemitism. Up next is the University of Pennsylvania, under threat of losing $175 million in research grants for allowing a transgender woman to compete in the women’s swimming team.

That Columbia was first on the list was predictable, not just because of the scale of the protests there but because of Trump’s personal animus against the university. More than 25 years ago, Columbia’s then president, Lee Bollinger, turned down a Trump development project, the price of which would have been – by coincidence – $400 million. “Destroy Columbia University” was among the proposals advanced by Max Eden of the American Enterprise Institute last December, in an article headlined “A Comprehensive Guide to Overhauling Higher Education.” Eden advocated arresting Bollinger: “Perhaps the college presidents could learn a valuable lesson from the sight of him in an orange jumpsuit.” Trump is also aligned with right-wing Zionists in the United States who loath Columbia for having been the home of Edward Said (the “professor of terror”) and for its Middle East Studies program, which they called “Birzeit on the Hudson.”

There’s nothing surprising about Trump’s attack on the universities, or on the liberal law firms that he also despises. What is shocking is the ease with which his attack has so far succeeded. Like the academics and politicians in Michel Houellebecq’s novel ‘Submission,’ American college administrators and lawyers are responding to Trump’s bullying as if it were an opportunity to carry out “reforms” – and as if they were secretly relieved that their hand has been forced by the Leader. This is a tale not so much of capitulation to an authoritarian leader as of collusion with him.

The groundwork for Trump’s assault was laid by the universities themselves, and by the Biden administration, which supported the crackdown on the encampments. In the show trial Congressional hearings that led to the firing of Claudine Gay and other university presidents, Gay and her colleagues never contested the claim that slogans such as “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” amounted to “calls for genocide against Jews.” In effect, the universities ceded the ground to Israel and its supporters, allowing them to paint the protesters as antisemites calling for the murder of Jews – and conveniently distract attention from the actual genocide unfolding in Gaza.

There were disturbing incidents of aggression against Jewish students on some campuses, including Columbia. But there were also cases of physical violence against Palestinians and pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including a mob attack at UCLA, and the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont, one of whom was left permanently paralyzed. Columbia and other universities could have punished individual incidents of anti-Jewish hatred, while defending the right of student protesters – many of them Jewish – to call for divestment from a state that, with American weapons, has carried out the destruction of an entire society.

Instead, Columbia embraced the narrative of its accusers, amplified by highly selective accounts of the protests by “liberal” writers sympathetic to Israel. On this view, the protests were themselves antisemitic, or at the very least caused Jewish students to feel unsafe, and therefore could not be tolerated.

The rights of Palestinian students, whose voices, unlike those of conservative Jewish students, are not echoed by members of the board of trustees, were ignored, as were their much more serious concerns over discrimination and safety.

In an email to the administration in January, Mahmoud Khalil warned that he and other student protesters faced “severe and pervasive doxxing, discriminatory harassment, and very possibly deportation in retaliation for their lawful exercising of their rights to freedom of speech, expression and association.” An organized campaign against Khalil and others was already underway, both within the university and in right-wing Jewish organisations such as Betar and the Anti-Defamation League (which celebrated his arrest).

Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, denounced Khalil as a “terror supporter” on X, and, in another post, suggested deporting him, tagging Marco Rubio. The night before his arrest by agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Khalil wrote to the university administration: “I haven’t been able to sleep, fearing that ICE or a dangerous individual might come to my home.”

Armstrong not only failed to come to his aid; she has not been able even to mention his name in any official correspondence since he was handcuffed in his apartment, where he had just returned from dinner with his pregnant wife.

As the Trump administration hailed the detention of Khalil, a green card holder and legal resident (“Shalom, Mahmoud,” the White House wrote on X), Armstrong claimed that her university was committed to making “every student, faculty and staff member safe and welcome on our campus.”

Shortly after Khalil’s detention, in a meeting with international students, Jelani Cobb, the dean of the journalism school, urged them to remove posts about the Middle East. “Nobody can protect you,” he said. “These are dangerous times.” True enough. Nonetheless, it was extraordinary that the dean of the country’s most prestigious journalism school was advising students to practice self-censorship – and expressing, in effect, the “learned helplessness” that the American government has so often sought to instill in its critics. On 21 March, Armstrong and the board of trustees effectively buried the Columbia University of C. Wright Mills and Richard Hofstadter, of Edward Said, Barbara Fields and Eric Foner.

The response of some liberal commentators to Trump’s attack on Columbia has been to argue that “antisemitism” is simply a pretext for his effort to impose his will on institutions of higher learning. There is some truth to this. But the choice is hardly accidental. Trump is surrounded by antisemites and himself prone to making antisemitic comments about sinister globalists. By styling himself as a warrior against antisemitism, he packages a highly repressive – and discriminatory – campaign as a crusade against bigotry. The charge of antisemitism is, more importantly, a way of delegitimizing the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence, and strengthening Israel’s efforts to inflict “politicide” on Palestine. It is the logical corollary of Trump’s support for Israel’s resumption of the war on Gaza, and his call for the creation of a Palestinian-free “riviera.” Those who raise the mildest of objections – even the ultra Zionist Charles Schumer, the minority leader of the US Senate – can be derided as “Palestinian.” Protesters will find themselves at the mercy of the Justice Department’s Joint Task Force October 7, which seeks to “investigate acts of terrorism and civil rights violations by individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups.” In other words, students who protest against Israel’s war on Gaza could be charged with material support for “terrorism” and possibly jailed.

The Trump administration’s approach to the policing of pro-Palestine dissent is ruthless, but not much more than that of universities like Columbia. Other universities are falling into line. Harvard recently endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, a pillar of Israel’s efforts to muzzle discussion of its oppressive practices. Susan Neiman coined the term “philosemitic McCarthyism” to describe the situation in Germany, where writers, artists, museums and cultural institutions that receive state subsidies have seen their funds cut for expressing support for Palestinian rights, and where many left-wing Jews have been assailed as antisemites. Philosemitic McCarthyism in Germany has underwritten a policy of unconditional support for Benjamin Netanyahu, while doing nothing to curb the rise of the neo-Nazi AfD party. The AfD, whose pro-Israel credentials are impeccable, is this week headed to Israel for a conference on “combating antisemitism.”

Mahmoud Khalil, who never wore a mask, had a strong premonition that he would be arrested. Having grown up in a refugee camp in Syria and fled the civil war there, he’d never had the luxury of safety, unlike his accusers. As a Palestinian, he knew his rights were conditional – even in a “country of immigrants.” After his unlawful detention, only thirteen members of the House signed a letter demanding his release. In his letter from prison in Louisiana, he said:

“Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.”

Khalil’s invocation of the “right to have rights” is an allusion to Hannah Arendt. Arendt was thinking of Jewish refugees like herself, whom the Germans had stripped of their citizenship. Today it is refugees from the Global South, and above all Palestinians, whose right to have rights, whose very existence as a people, is under threat. (The law under which Trump seeks to deport Khalil is the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which originally targeted suspected Communists among Jewish immigrants who had escaped the Holocaust.)

Liberals in the West – on our campuses and in our politics – have contributed to an anti-Palestinian hysteria by carving a “Palestine exception” into their liberalism. What they have chosen to overlook – the ethnocratic, racist character of the Israeli state; its brutal, authoritarian policies towards Palestinians – has now been embraced as a model for their own societies by Trump and the far right.

The right to have rights was always asymmetrical, but its denial has now been radicalized by MAGA to include virtually anyone who incurs the disfavor of the Trump administration.

There is of course a difference between hypocritical liberalism and violent right-wing authoritarianism. But the one has helped pave the way for the other. Behind Armstrong’s cowardice, and the cowardice of her accomplices in the university administration and faculty, lies the hope, or the calculation, that caving to Trump’s ultimatum will allow Columbia to function “normally” again. Research funds will return, along with donations from wealthy supporters of Israel, and the campus will be quiet. But the result is to make a mockery of the academic freedom the university claims to uphold, and to ensure the erosion – the destruction – of the university’s values. The campaign of repression is already spreading to other targets. Submission is no way to stave off fascism.

(London Review of Books)

McClellan Street, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, 1973. (Peter Turnley)

13 Comments

Bruce McEwen March 25, 2025

“Besides, anyone with better than the sensitivities of a stone can take an interesting picture, and everyday right here at the ava we feature some really beautiful photos of our incomparably beautiful county.”

I especially appreciate the inclusive photos of small things like a dead leaf, a bit of bark or lichen by the egalitarian Mike Kalantarian.

- Kathy Janes March 25, 2025
  
  Yes, MIke’s photos are beautiful. I think he spends a lot of time in the forest.
  
  - Mike Kalantarian March 25, 2025
    
    Thanks for the kind words, all. I like the rhyme. I do get in a lot of forest time (somebody’s got to tire that dog out). And I saw an amazing thing today in a colorful crop of turkeytail, a salamander cuddled up and napping on one of the polypore shelves.
    
    - Matt Kendall March 25, 2025
      
      I always enjoy the images folks send into the AVA. It doesn’t matter if they are forest or pasture, and the historical photos are great as well.
      
      Everyone who knows me will tell you the only thing I don’t like about my job is all the time I spend in the office. Then when I get to see images from folks like yourself, Jeff G and Falcon I feel like I am getting a little outdoors time.
      I also like to guess at where the photos were taken before I read the captions. Sometimes I get it right!!
      Thank you for sharing them.
      
Steve Heilig March 25, 2025

”No people ever realize their dictator in advance. When our dictator shows up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”
– Dorothy Thompson, 1939, covering a fascist rally in NYC.

Kimberlin March 25, 2025

“I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.” Martin Luther King

However, I beieve the editor here recently has stated that joining the military can be a good thing as the likelyhood of being killed is remote. He does not mention that giving up every right you have as a citizen will cause you to do things under order that will most certainly appal you.

Jerry Burns March 25, 2025

I too appreciate Mr. Kalantarian’s great photography. I’m so glad that someone is documenting the recyclers of our forest and meadow lands.
Thanks!

- Bruce McEwen March 25, 2025
  
  Nothing quite as cosmic as stopping in the oak woodlands to contemplate what Pablo Neruda called a a chalky bone shard, what Neruda called “celestial ash.”… I also miss comfortably seedy old used book stores … oh, all the intriguing hours I spent in yours, Jerry… !
  
Bob Abeles March 25, 2025

I’d like to share a quote from my all time favorite podcast, “Literature and History”.

“I am not a misanthropic person. I like people. I believe in us. Maybe that’s because I study literature, and literature is beautiful, and it was written by all of us, and it belongs to all of us. In L&H, we have been through some pretty awful junctures of ancient history – massacres by ancient Egyptian kings, Assyrian siege warfare, Alexander’s conquests, any given century of ancient Roman history, and on and on and on. Some junctures have challenged my optimism. More often, though, thus far, ancient and early medieval history have supported what studying more modern history in school already taught me – that the generic human unit is a blank slate, capable of cruelty and kindness, that the default human being is both glorious and shitty, but that participation in organized societies with a free circulation of information tends to instill compassion more than callousness. The show has reinforced my optimism, more often than not, then, and showed me that when we are sequestered apart from one another in tribes, sopping up misinformation about each other from those who gather power from spreading that misinformation, we are at our worst; but that on the contrary, when we are in front of each other, or even just reading about each other in detail, and we allow our presuppositions to be disintegrated, we’re at our best.” — Doug Metzger

- Bruce McEwen March 25, 2025
  
  Eloquently stated.
  
  And it fits with Plato’s pupil, Aristotle’s, observations of our violent proclivities; and Aristotle’s concurring conclusion, that things do indeed tend to improve; a phenomenon for which Aristotle coined the term “amelioration.”
  
  Thanks for sharing, Bob. This reinforces my own optimism (my beer is half-full again when I thought it was about empty!) that certain vaulting egos will soon come a cropper, ha.
  
  My father was a knight in armor, a Sherman tank commander in the Battle of the Bulge, with his page (driver) and squire (gunner) until a Nazi 88 mm shell lit up his tank like a Roman candle. He was pulling out his crew when it exploded and he crawled under a farmhouse porch to make a tourniquet for his leg.
  
  My wife’s father was a knight in his own right, flying a fighter bomber off the USS Bougainvillea in the Pacific Theater (until he was shot down over China and spent the rest of the war in a Japanese POW camp). He had his armorer (squire) and his page (mechanic) just like in Ancient times.
  
  Now, I didn’t post these boasts out of idle vainglory, but rather to reinforce the determination I made when I got out of the Marines in 1972, that the next war I volunteered for would be fought against my enemy — not my enemy’s enemies.
  
Eric Sunswheat March 25, 2025

RE: IS RAISING COYOTE DAM THE KEY TO FIXING RUSSIAN RIVER’S WATER PROBLEMS?

—>. Sketchy idea. Consider that an earthquake fault was discovered since Coyote Dam was first built, so there could be limits for expansion to capture wet years flows, thus would condition cost benefit equation, consuming feasibility study dollars, is my take away.

Jim Armstrong March 25, 2025

I am afraid I found way too much to assimilate in todays’ MCT.

Marco McClean March 25, 2025

You wanta see some fascinating photography, go to Vintage Photo Booth and start scrolling down.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/VintagePhotoBooth

13 Comments

Leave a Reply to Eric Sunswheat Cancel reply