Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 4/23/2025

Becoming Sunny | Heavily-Armed Triplets | Email Scam | MCHCD Meeting | Cleanest Hospitals | Annexation Vote | Spring Fling | Feds PVP | 80s Party | RVMAC Meeting | Ukiah Protests | Plant Sale | Rental Wanted | Caspar Breakfast | Prescribed Burn | Assemblyman Rogers | HREC Tours | Schoenahl Painting | Broken Nature | Bull Barn | Yesterday's Catch | Solitary Lives | Lacob Court | California Bears | Relax David | Giants Lose | Crumb Biography | Musk Online | Kahlo & Packard | Vance Next | Pope Francis | Next Pope | Producer Quits | Tariff Cost | First 100 | Smoking Skater | Lead Stories | Mini E | Inhaling Gaza | Disillusionment Dept

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COOLER overnight temperatures with pleasant daytime highs will continue again today although winds will be lighter. Clouds, cooler temperatures and a chance of rain are forecast Thursday afternoon through Saturday. Dry weather is expected to return Sunday and into next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 43F with clear skies (at 5am) this Wednesday morning on the coast. I am expecting the clouds to arrive earlier today than forecast yesterday then extending into Saturday with a chance of rain Friday & Saturday. The forecasts are not in agreement on the rain so as usual, we'll see? They say clearing returns on Sunday.

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MENDOCINO COUNTY TRAFFIC STOP LEADS TO ARRESTS OF TRIPLETS, seizure of guns, explosive devices

by Anna Armstrong

Three brothers — triplets — were arrested last week in Mendocino and Humboldt counties after the California Highway Patrol discovered explosive devices and firearms in their possession, according to a California Highway Patrol-Garberville news release.

The 33-year-old brothers, Andivere and Andizere Hill of American Canyon in Napa County and Andironere Hill of Alderpoint in Humboldt County, have all been arrested on suspicion of multiple counts of possession of explosive devices and unlawful possession of firearms, which were discovered during a vehicle search in Mendocino County and a search of a residence in Humboldt County, officials said.

On April 15, CHP officers conducted a traffic stop along southbound Highway 101 just south of Piercy in Mendocino County. The driver had a suspended license, officials said, which prompted a search of the vehicle.

During the search, officers found two firearms and a bag of “several pounds” of homemade explosives and supplies, according to the CHP. The discovery prompted a call for backup to the Humboldt County Regional Bomb Squad.

Bomb technicians determined the devices to be “destructive,” officials said, adding that the occupants of the car, Andivere and Andizere Hill, were arrested and booked into the Mendocino County Jail.

On April 18, CHP officers along with CHP and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office SWAT teams served a search warrant at the residence of Andironere Hill, in Alderpoint in Humboldt County.

In the home, investigators found more materials for making explosive devices, along with an assault rifle, two pistols and a large amount of ammunition, according to the CHP.

The CHP Hazardous Device Disposal Unit and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office conducted two controlled detonations of the explosives in order to dispose of the devices, the CHP said.

Authorities did not share additional details about the case including the brothers’ possible motives with the explosives.

(pressdemocrat.com)

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ANOTHER BIG SCAM AIMED AT PACIFIC.NET EMAIL

AVA News Service

A friend recently succumbed to the latest scam going around to email users of @pacific.net. Titled “Migrating to the New Webmail Service” or similar, it claims you need to click on a button within the message to “sync your email and prevent losing data.” This is a scam that results in your system being hacked. My friend realized immediately they had made a big mistake, but it was too late. They have spent the last several weeks having all their credit cards reissued, changing passwords on all accounts, and recovering frequent flyer miles that were stolen within a day of the fatal click.

As Pacific.net does not have a public function that allows you to change your account password, you will have to abandon your @pacific.net email and start another email account elsewhere and notify all your contacts of the new address. Repeated attempts to contact @pacific have gone unanswered. Could be their systems are being overwhelmed by the hack.

If you have made the mistake of clicking on the button, the first thing you need to do is contact the big three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) and freeze your credit. This means the credit bureaus will contact you first if a hacker tries to open new credit lines in your name. Of course, you cannot use your compromised email account as the contact point as the alert will just go to the hackers!

Here is the message, which you should delete immediately without opening. The return path on one I received recently was conchetta at metrocast dot net.

Hello Pacific Internet Users,

We are migrating to a new webmail system to enhance your email experience.

To sync your email and prevent losing your data, please log in to the new system by clicking the button below.

Log in to New Webmail https://pacific114net.weebly.com/

Our priority is always your security and privacy, and we are committed to making this as smooth as possible.

Just to let you know, replies sent to this email cannot be answered.

© 2024 Pacific.net http://pacific.net/ All Rights Reserved

Solution Specialist

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MALCOLM MACDONALD: Mendocino Coast hospital on the list of the cleanest hospitals in the country.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/rankings-and-ratings/350-cleanest-hospitals/

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UKIAH CITY COUNCIL VOTES TO ADVANCE ANNEXATION PROPOSAL FOR SURROUNDING AREAS

…During the public comment portion of the presentation at Wednesday’s meeting, concerned constituents, business owners and farmers explained why they believe the annexation proposal would not benefit Ukiah or its surrounding communities…

… The annexation would roughly double Ukiah’s geographic size and redirect property tax revenue from Mendocino County to the city in the areas annexed. … [Our estimate is that the proposal would nearly triple the size of Ukiah.]

…”The agreement gradually transfers tax revenue from the county to the city over about 10 to 15 years, allowing the county to adjust to the change without an abrupt loss in revenue.”…

…”The possible annexation comes on the heels of the city’s recent annexation of the Western Hills region last year.” …

https://mendovoice.com/2025/04/ukiah-city-council-votes-to-advance-annexation-proposal-for-surrounding-areas/

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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MULLS INTERVENTION IN CALIFORNIA DAM REMOVAL

The feds have finally answered calls to halt PG&E's demolition of a key water project

by Matt LaFever

In a major twist, the Donald Trump administration is now reviewing regional appeals to halt PG&E’s plans to dismantle the Potter Valley Project — marking the first time the 47th president has weighed in on the fate of the century-old Northern California water system that diverts Eel River flows into the Russian River watershed.

The move follows a unified plea from farm bureaus in Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties, which warned that the utility’s plans would devastate local farms, economies and wildfire defenses across the North Coast.

In an April 14 letter, the Bureau of Reclamation responded to an inquiry from Aaron Sykes, a board member of the Lake Pillsbury Alliance, which represents the homeowners and stakeholders fighting to keep Scott Dam, the structure that holds back Lake Pillsbury. In the letter, which was reviewed by SFGATE, the federal agency said funding for the project is “undergoing reviews” to ensure it aligns with an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office that directs the government to explore any “undue burden” on the “use of domestic energy resources” including, oil, coal and hydropower.

The Bureau of Reclamation identified two potential federal funding streams for the Potter Valley Project, which could theoretically give the administration a means of intervention in its decommissioning. One is the Department of the Interior’s Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Program, which offers grants covering up to 65% of costs for fish passages, wetland rebuilds and other habitat improvements. The other is the Inflation Reduction Act, an aspect of which is aimed at fortifying Western water systems against climate stress. It’s worth noting that both of these pots of money come from legislation passed during the Joe Biden administration.

Built in 1922, Scott Dam created Lake Pillsbury and enabled the year-round flow of water to the Russian River — an essential supply for agriculture in Mendocino, Sonoma and Marin counties. PG&E has announced it will surrender its license for the Potter Valley Project, citing mounting losses and aging infrastructure.

Local farm bureaus called on the Trump administration to step in via a joint letter on April 4, as SFGATE previously reported. The entities urged the Bureau of Reclamation to assume ownership of the dam to maintain water deliveries to over 600,000 North Coast residents.

Estelle Clifton, president of the Mendocino County Farm Bureau and a signatory on the joint letter to the administration, told SFGATE in an email that given “Scott Dam is in the Mendocino National Forest, a sensible outcome, of PGE abandoning their energy project, will be for it to be owned and managed as a federal water use project through the Bureau of Reclamation.”

The administration’s response in the April 14 letter signals a willingness to weigh those concerns. The letter, signed by acting Commissioner David M. Palumbo, stated that the Lake Pillsbury Alliance’s concerns were “consistent with other perspectives we have heard in recent weeks from the Lake County area.”

PG&E is expected to submit its final decommissioning plan for the Potter Valley Project by July 29, 2025. If Trump does intervene, it wouldn’t be the first time his administration has waded into California’s water wars. In January, the president ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release 2.2 billion gallons from Lake Kaweah and Lake Success — key Central Valley reservoirs — during a time of low irrigation demand. The White House called it wildfire support for Southern California, but water experts and lawmakers said none of the water could actually reach Southern California systems and dubbed the release a political stunt.

(sfgate.com)

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SPEED LIMITS, COCKFIGHTING, REC CENTER — Highlights from the April Redwood MAC Meeting

by Monica Huettl

At the April 9, 2025, Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting, state and local leaders offered a sweeping look at the issues shaping the community’s future. Scott Alonso, District Director for Assemblymember Chris Rogers, outlined how the only Democrat representing a rural California Assembly district is fighting for the North Coast—highlighting state funding wins, proposed bills to lower speed limits, and efforts to ban cockfighting without targeting backyard chicken owners. Supervisor Madeline Cline discussed upcoming Highway 101 construction, a potential ordinance banning retail nitrous oxide sales, and the county’s strained budget. The Redwood Valley Recreation Center Steering Committee shared progress on turning a defunct school into a vibrant community space, while cannabis cultivation, solar energy policy, and ongoing road maintenance sparked spirited community conversation.…

https://mendofever.com/2025/04/23/speed-limits-cockfighting-rec-center-highlights-from-the-apirl-redwood-mac-meeting/

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UPCOMING UKIAH PROTESTS

Ukiah, Social Security Office, 521 South Orchard, April 24 at noon to protest cuts to social security.

Ukiah, May 1st, Alex Thomas Plaza, State Street side, from 12:15 to 12:45.

(Karen Rifkin)

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THE FORT BRAGG GARDEN CLUB PLANT SALE is this weekend, Saturday April 26, 10am—2pm, 300 South Main Street, Fort Bragg.

Given the pressure of the economy, we have NOT raised any prices this year. We have a wide variety of vegetables, as well as herbs—which are great for companion planting. The native plant list follows. For those new to native plants, we have a three-plant native starter group for $10 which includes Yarrow, Beach Strawberry, and California Bee Plant.

Fort Bragg Garden Club Native Plant Sale List:

Achillea millefolium, Yarrow
Asarum caudatum, Wild Ginger
Clarkia amoena, Farewell to Spring
Epilobium canum, California Fuschia
Erigonum giganteum, Giant Buckwheat
Erigonum grande rubescens, Red Buckwheat
Erythranthe guttata, Seep Monkey Flower
Fragaria chiloensis, Beach Strawberry
Grindelia stricta, Gum Plant
Lupinus arboreus, Yellow Bush Lupine
Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Margarita BOP’, Penstemon Beardtongue
Penstemon heterophyllus, Foothill Penstemon
Salvia spathacea, Hummingbird Sage
Scrophularia californica, CA Bee Plant, CA Figwort
Symphyotrichum chilensis, California Aster

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LAURI ROMESBURG:

I just want to say that Facebook has become so full of scams that it is ridiculous!!

I am a single mom looking for a rental. 90% of the rental ads in Mendocino county are BS. People wanting to scam your information for background check.

Is there anyone in Anderson Valley that has a granny unit or small house for rent $1200 or under? I have a good job, ref, quiet, clean. If so please contact me. Willing to do property maintenance or other work for a livable deal.

Lauri@avbc.com

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NOTICE: PRESCRIBED BURN NORTH OF LAYTONVILLE ON 4/26 AND 4/27

Torchbearr, in collaboration with The Eel River Recovery Project, local landowners, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), is planning a prescribed burn on lower Tenmile Creek on April 26 and 27th, 2025. This restoration burn will treat approximately 15-acres of forest understory fuels for wildfire safety and forest health.

The planned burn area is located near Hwy 101 approximately 7 miles northwest of Laytonville. During the burn, smoke may be visible in the area. The burn will be led by qualified Burn Boss Scot Steinbring of Torchbearr and staffed by fire professionals, with permission from CAL FIRE, pending an approved burn plan, burn permit, smoke permit.

Funding for the Tenmile Creek Watershed Forest Health Project was provided by CAL FIRE’s Forest Health Program as part of California Climate Investments (CCI), a state-wide program that puts billions of Cap-and-Trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment — particularly disadvantaged communities. The cap-and-trade program also creates financial incentives for industries to invest in clean technologies and develop innovative ways to reduce pollution. CCI investment projects include affordable housing, renewable energy, public transportation, zero-emission vehicles, environmental restoration, more sustainable agriculture, recycling, and much more. At least 35% of these investments are located within and benefitting residents of disadvantaged communities, and low income households across California. For more information, visit the California Climate Investment website at: www.calclimateinvestments.ca.gov.

ERRP is interested in recruiting volunteers to participate in controlled burns to assist with meeting their current ambitious prescribed fire goals, and to help the community build a stewardship corps that can assist with cooperative controlled burns as a way of maintaining forest and grassland health into the future. Anyone with interest should contact Alicia Bales at 916-595-8724.

ERRP Managing Director Pat Higgins may also be contacted, if the public has questions about the project at 707 223-7200.

Look for alerts to burn activity on the ERRP Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/EelRiverRecovery/).

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CELEBRATE SCIENCE AND NATURE AT THE UC HOPLAND RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER MAY 18

Wildflowers are still blooming across the rolling hills of the 5,358-acre UC Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC), a perfect time to celebrate all the learning that takes place across this beautiful landscape. Celebrate Science and Nature, the annual fundraiser for HREC, will build scholarship funds for all programs for youth and adults at the Center.

On Sunday, May 18, members of the public are invited to join scientists and staff for field tours, a farm-to-table luncheon from Black Dog Catering and a live auction of unique experiences. The event offers the community a chance to learn about the research being conducted, support HREC’s programs and enjoy the best in local produce.

“From 10 a.m. to noon, there will be optional field tours of some of our key research and education projects, where visitors can meet the scientists, see what tools they use and what they are learning about our environment, followed by a delicious lunch and a chance to meet our Hopland Scholars Fund recipients” said Hannah Bird, Community Educator at HREC.

Participants can choose from eight field experiences, including oak woodland regeneration, a research safari, a visit with the sheep, museum tour, and hiking with the California Naturalists. A three-course lunch runs from 12 to 3 p.m. and includes presentations from a variety of researchers and educators about the work happening at HREC now and into the future.

“Since we created the Hopland Scholars Fund, we’ve been able to welcome so many more students, researchers, and community members to the site,” said John Bailey, HREC Director. “For the first time in 2025 we were able to offer school field trips at no cost to the schools thanks to the generous donors to our Hopland Scholars fund. The fund supports access to educational programs from our school field trips to adult programs like the California Naturalist program”.

“Hopland Scholars also supports scientific scholars in their quest to understand, interpret and learn from our natural world,” Bailey said. “Both discovery and education are necessary to form valuable and impactful programs.”

Auction items are unique experiences including a catered picnic lunch at one of the most beautiful areas of the site with an accompanying tour, and a stay at a Fort Bragg vacation home.

“We welcome everyone to celebrate science and nature with us on May 18th and to help build our funds to support scholars of all ages,” Bailey said.

Tickets cost $80 for adults and $25 for children. Register online by visiting the HREC website https://bit.ly/celebratehrec2025 or by calling Hannah Bird at (707) 744-1424, Ext. 1642. The registration deadline is May 12. The event will be held at the Rod Shippey Hall, 4070 University Road, Hopland.

More on the University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center:

The Hopland Research and Extension Center is a multi-disciplinary research and education facility run by the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources Division. As stewards of more than 5,300 acres of oak woodland, grassland, chaparral, and riparian environments, research and education programs at the center aim to find better ways to manage our natural resources and conduct sustainable agricultural practices, through science, for the benefit of California’s citizens.

You can find HREC on

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hoplandrec/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoplandREC

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RENEE LEE: A Roger Schoenahl original graces the walls of the senior center.

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ROGER ZANE SCHOENAHL, THE SCORPION AND THE OCTOPUS

by John Sakowicz

Over the years, I ran into this one guy a lot at Riverside Park at the end of Gobbi Street in Ukiah. He was a peculiar guy. Tall and googly. He ranted and raved to himself. He shouted at demons that weren’t there. Or maybe they were. I never knew if he were homeless, but he seemed schizophrenic. He would enter the park, walk down to the Russian River, and walk out of the park, making a big loop around the wildflowers and grasses in the middle of the park. He yelled at people walking their dogs. He yelled at the dogs. People would yell back at him to stop. And then the guy would say he was sorry, and he would punch himself in the head. He kept on punching himself in the head as he walked out of the park.

The guy’s name was Roger Zane Schoenahl, and after I read in the local newspaper that poor Roger hung himself from the Perkins Street Bridge over the Russian River, not far from Riverside Park, I thought how the county’s mental health system failed him.

I was sad for a long time after I heard about Roger’s suicide. I’m a poet, and I tend to think in metaphors, and the two metaphors that immediately came to mind were a scorpion stinging itself and an octopus cannibalizing another octopus.

Somewhere right now, a scorpion is stinging itself to death. It’s not a pretty thing to watch. To the naked eye, it appears the scorpion is stinging itself to commit suicide.

The behavior stems from observing a scorpion in distress, such as when it is thrown into a campfire or otherwise exposed to extreme heat. In these situations, the scorpion’s body undergoes a series of involuntary spasms in its tail.

When a scorpion is exposed to intense heat, its body rapidly dehydrates. This process triggers frantic spasms and contractions in its tail. The seemingly self-directed sting-like motions are caused by these involuntary muscular contractions as the scorpion’s nervous system malfunctions. The intense heat leads to a neurological overload, which ultimately results in the spasms and self-stinging.

Somewhere right now, an octopus is eating another octopus. It’s also not a pretty thing to watch. Octopus cannibalism is not a pretty thing to watch as a bigger octopus bites a smaller octopus, tears it to pieces and then without even chewing sucks it in through its beak.

Octopuses sometimes eat other octopuses. It’s cannibalism, pure and simple. It can happen when food is scarce or when one octopus is much bigger than another.

Lobsters, crabs, whelks, and clams are an octopus’s the most preferred prey, but cannibalism happens.

The octopus’s beak? It’s also not a very pretty thing. Picture a small but super powerful, hard beak located right in the center of an octopus’s mouth. It’s like a woodchipper machine. It can break a crab’s shell. It can break rocks.

But wait, there’s more. Octopuses have another secret weapon in their biting arsenal called the radula. This radula is a specialized feeding organ consisting of tiny, rasp-like teeth. It’s like having a conveyor belt of teeth in its mouth. The radula works like a longwall mining machine in a coal mine. Prey is broken down into food, and the food is broken down into pieces, and the pieces were broken down into a slurry. An octopus can eat without chewing. An octopus is a fearsome eating machine.

What’s the connection between poor Roger and the self-stinging scorpion and the cannibalistic octopus? I don’t know exactly. I really don’t. It’s something I feel. I guess I would say sometimes Nature seems divorced from itself. So broken. Sometimes Nature seems to be seriously malfunctioning. Very seriously malfunctioning. Like being murdered by someone you don’t even know is there. Like being murdered without getting the chance to defend yourself, or even to panic or be terrified. In the end, maybe you’re not exhausted. Maybe you don’t even remember dying. Maybe Nature can be that broken.

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ANOTHER E-BAY PHOTOGRAPH OF LOCAL INTEREST

Bull barn in Navarro (Wendling). Built in the 1880s to house bulls used to move logs and - when the postcard was published - believed to be the only remaining bull barn in Mendocino County.

Marshall Newman

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, April 22, 2025

KARL BARTH, 62, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation.

JASON CONNER, 36, Redwood Valley. Grand theft.

JACK GOUBER, 57, Ukiah. Battery.

RODNEY HUBBARD, 55, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

KEVIN WHIMPEY, 34, Orem, Utah/Ukiah. DUI-drugs, evasion.

DUSTIN WOLLEY, 30, Potter Valley. Domestic violence court order violation.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Everyone going solo on their phones all day whether on social media or gaming etc. are living solitary lives. Look at the effect porn has had on relationships! Gone are the days of a sleazy laser disc that was stored high in the closet for occasional “use”!

Back in the 1950’s and 60’s when I was growing up my parents had set nights to go bowling or play cards with friends. Lots of talking went on then! (We used to listen in on the steps). Church activities pulled people together socially and lots of interactions happened there as well.

The iPhone has changed all that. You can now sit alone on a park bench and continue bingeing the latest “White Lotus”! Back in the day one or two programs might be watched in an evening on the TV plus the news.

It seems to me that TPTB want us to be isolated and easily propagandized (lied to). So far they are winning.

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CALIFORNIA MAY BE THE WORLD'S BLACK BEAR CAPITAL, ACCORDING TO STATE'S NEW BEAR PLAN

by Gregory Thomas

If it seems like black bears are having a moment in California, that’s because they are as prevalent here as they have been in decades. The state “may be home to the densest recorded population of black bears in the world,” according to a state wildlife document released this month.

That’s one of several revelations about California’s growing numbers of ursine residents contained in the newly finalized Black Bear Conservation and Management Plan for California. Produced by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, the 86-page document shows how black bears, whose numbers were decimated by hunting in the 19th century, are recolonizing the state and crossing paths with humans with increasing frequency.

In 1992, the running black bear population estimate in California was 10,000 to 15,000 individuals; today that estimate has risen to 60,000 animals — though there could be about 10,000 more, according to the planning document. They’re estimated to range across roughly 40% of the state’s land area, according to the document.

“We need to adjust and put in good practices to coexist with bears,” said Arjun Dheer, statewide black bear coordinator for the department’s Wildlife Branch. “Bears are very charismatic … but they are not necessarily easy to live alongside.”

The new plan updates an older one last published in 1998 and has been a decade in the making. It doesn’t propose or initiate new policies for handling bears but presents a framework to monitor their populations and behaviors that will be used to guide future decisions.

About half of California’s bears live in the North Coast and Cascade regions — an area extending from Mendocino County north to the Oregon border that covers Redding. Another 40% reside in the Sierra. Most of the remaining ones are found primarily in the Transverse Ranges of greater L.A., roughly between Santa Barbara and Palm Springs.

And their ranges are expanding. Black bears from the forests of Mendocino County have been pressing into more urbanized parts of the North Bay in recent years, while bears hailing from the Tahoe basin have reportedly spilled down the western flank of the Sierra toward Sacramento.

Places with the highest densities of black bears include Del Norte County (156 bears per roughly 38 square miles), the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Humboldt County (133 per roughly 38 square miles) and the Tahoe basin (84 per roughly 38 square miles), according to the document.

With regards to California’s ranking among bear locales worldwide, Dheer clarified that the state is not overrun with the creatures. Rather, the high-density pockets here rival or exceed those recorded in Alaska and other black bear habitats.

An “increasing spatial overlap between people and black bears” in California has made human-bear conflicts a common occurrence, according to the document. Between 2017 and 2023, 7,219 such conflicts were reported. Hotspots for testy encounters include the Tahoe basin, the Pine Mountain Club outside of Santa Barbara, and the San Gabriel Mountains foothills.

Last year, the state hit a grim milestone when a 71-year-old woman at home in Sierra County was mauled to death by a black bear, marking the first documented human fatality caused by a black bear in state history.

The state is still homing its methods for counting and monitoring its bears, Dheer said. Older tactics like relying on hunters to produce teeth samples or using hair snares to collect fur are being augmented or improved by DNA sequencing and data modeling that can help provide deeper looks at where bears are and what they’re doing.

“We want to establish local study areas where we do intensive monitoring that is representative of larger bear regions in the state,” Dheer said. “We want to collect population size and trends, how they’re interacting with other species like mountain lions and deer, how they’re affected by variables like precipitation levels and fire and temperature and climate change.”

Some of that information will become clear in the next three to five years as the state works to affix GPS collars to 250 black bears; the state is currently monitoring about 130 collared bears, Dheer said.

A goal of the plan is to help wildlife officials better manage this growing population, which begs the question of how many bears California can sustain — or what a reasonable “carrying capacity,” in the department’s terms, looks like for the animals.

“That’s something we need to study and assess,” Dheer said. “Right now we can’t point to an exact carrying capacity, but it’s an interesting question.”

(SF Chronicle)

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GIANTS’ SOUTHPAW BLUES CONTINUE; Brewers ride 8-run inning to victory

by Shayna Rubin

When crafting the Opening Day roster, San Francisco Giants executives filled the bench roles with right-handed hitters Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss over left-handers Brett Wisely and Grant McCray.

That Schmitt and Koss are strong defensive infielders had something to do with that decision, but Schmitt’s strong at-bats against left-handed pitchers during spring training also factored in.

That move — along with outfielder Luis Matos on the bench — put the final touches on a Giants roster that is built to excel against left-handed pitching. Heliot Ramos batted .370 with a 1.189 OPS against lefties in 2024 and is the chosen one to lead off in such lineups with Willy Adames and Matt Chapman holding up the middle of the order.

The Giants, though, have floundered early on against left-handed pitching, especially starters. Tuesday’s showing against Milwaukee Brewers lefty Jose Quintana didn’t indicate a step in the right direction. The Giants scored one run against Quintana in an 11-3 loss to the Brewers, dropping them to 2-7 in games started by left-handed pitchers.

Heading into the game, they were slashing .185/.261/.323 and a .584 OPS, a line that was 25th in MLB. For manager Bob Melvin, it’s been too small a sample size to get overly concerned over their troubles against southpaws.

“It’s the same thing as last year,” Melvin said before the game. “We came away from spring training thinking lefties would be our sweet spot and hasn’t been to this point. It’s still early in the season. We have a lineup that should work against left-handed pitching.”

The Giants also ran into one of baseball’s hottest pitchers, who happens to be a lefty.

Quintana has caused trouble for opposing teams at every stop. Now in all three of his starts this season he’s allowed one or fewer runs while maintaining a 0.96 ERA, the fifth lowest in the majors. Against this lefty, the Giants’ attempt to stay inside his bread-and-butter sinker and go the other way didn’t work out.

“We had some at-bats early in the game where situationally we didn’t do a good job,” Melvin said.

San Francisco’s issues against lefties mimics the team-wide look offensively. Ironically, left-handed hitting Jung Hoo Lee had the team’s best numbers against southpaws going into Tuesday’s game, batting .333 with a 1.010 OPS. But Lee is hitting just about everything this season to land among the National League’s top 10 in average and OPS.

Of the mainstays in the lefty lineup, only Chapman (.240), Ramos (.219) and Tyler Fitzgerald (.250) went into Tuesday’s game hitting above the Mendoza Line in this matchup. Schmitt, on the 10-day IL with a Grade 2 oblique strain, made the move across the diamond to play first base in games against lefties but is 3-for-19 in those opportunities. Matos, whose playing time is mostly dependent on this match-up, is now 2-for-21 against lefties this year.

“That’s the hard part for younger players,” Melvin said. “You come out of spring training getting at-bats every day, used to playing every day. I still think he’s in a better position this year to be able to handle his role. He’s hitting the ball the other way a little more. He’s hitting it up the middle. He has a better two-strike approach. You go a couple games where you don’t get hits and you get a little anxious and try to do too much. That’s probably where he’s at right now. We saw last year, when he gets hot he’s a significant bat. It’s going to happen here at some point.”

Fitzgerald got a broken-bat single in the third inning to score San Francisco’s only run off Quintana. Otherwise, the Giants had six hits off the 36-year-old former Giant, but went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

It wasn’t all on the offense; the Giants didn’t have a good day pitching or on defense.

The Brewers put up three runs in the third inning with William Contreras delivering a two-run single. The third run may have been prevented if, on Christian Yelich’s line drive to set the table, left-fielder Ramos had thrown the ball to second instead of trying for the out at third — Ramos, perhaps, didn’t think there was a play to be made at second, Melvin said. That allowed Yelich to trot into scoring position.

Milwaukee put the game away with an eight-run sixth inning in which Yelich hit a grand slam and Jake Bauers followed with a two-run homer off reliever Lou Trivino. The mess on the bases began with Jordan Hicks still in the game, aided by shortstop Adames’ throwing error to first baseman David Villar and catcher Patrick Bailey’s passed ball and errant throw to first as he tried to recover.

“We didn’t play great defense behind (Hicks),” Melvin said. “I don’t think he threw the ball badly. Good velo, had good breaking stuff at times. The one inning got away from us completely, but we didn’t play good defense.”

Hicks shouldered five earned runs over five innings with five strikeouts and three walks. Trivino allowed five earned runs over two-thirds of an inning.

The Giants managed to score twice more after Quintana’s departure, but the deficit was large enough that Koss pitched a scoreless ninth inning.

(sfchronicle.com)

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WHY R. CRUMB WORKED WITH A BIOGRAPHER: ‘I GUESS I FELT SORRY FOR YOU’

Dan Nadel’s “Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life” takes on the good, the bad, the ugly and the weird. Over punk rock vegetarian food, subject and writer compared notes.

by Molly Young

How fortunate that my first parasocial relationship, as they’re now called, was with a genius. I encountered Robert Crumb’s work at the age of 8 or 9, when his comics could be found — lurking and sweating — in the “Counterculture” section of my local used-book store in San Francisco. Frightening stuff for a kid. Titillating, too. But “Counterculture” was crammed with scary and spicy material. Only Crumb’s work, specifically the autobiographical comics, wormed under my skin.

The worming occurred, I understood much later, because of the material’s intimacy. Few artists have the technical ability, desire, intellect and courage (or berserk compulsion) to render their souls legible on a page — not to mention their kinks, agonies, protruding Adam’s apple and sub-ramrod posture. What I was sensing in my bookstore adventures with Crumb was an early glimmer of what it might mean to truly know a person, with all the joy and terror that such knowing entails. It hardly mattered that I would never meet the man.

Except, 30 years later, I did. One morning in April an elegant figure in a fedora strolled up Avenue A in the East Village. He was instantly recognizable for his spidery hands and Coke-bottle glasses. With him was the author and curator Dan Nadel, who has written “Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life,” a superb biography of an artist who, starting in the 1960s, changed the shape of comics in every decade that followed. Nothing escaped the penetrating eye of Crumb, whose work took on liberal hypocrisy, sexual and racial violence, Christianity, drugs, the C.I.A., existential distress, love, consumerism and death.

To help promote the book Crumb had flown over from France, where he has lived since 1991 in a house that his late wife, the influential artist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, found for the family.

We met at the restaurant Superiority Burger, where the artist and his biographer slouched in a red booth and deplored the state of modern pants.

“Modern pants are stingily designed,” Crumb, 81, griped. “They have a low waistline and a high crotch, so your junk is all bunched up in there. Are they supposed to be sexy or what?”

“It’s a complicated thing, getting dressed,” Nadel said.

Crumb: “It shouldn’t be, but it is.”

“You want to look like an adult.”

“A dignified adult,” Crumb said. “People these days wear untucked T-shirts with some stupid logo on it and shorts and sneakers. Clown outfits. They look like idiots. Fools. You can’t look intelligent in an outfit like that.”

“Tell that to Zuckerberg,” Nadel said. They chuckled.

In person, as on the page, Crumb has a charmingly rude ’tude and a steel-trap mind.

By the time Nadel conceived of the biography, other writers had been circling, but none had the encyclopedic knowledge of comics history required for the job. “When Dan came forward, he already knew all that stuff,” Crumb said.

Still, the six-year process had a slow start. Nadel wrote a letter to Crumb on stationery and mailed it off. No response. A few months later, he followed up by email. A reply came: If Nadel was serious about the project, he had to come to France. In the days before traveling, Nadel grew so nervous he choked on a piece of lamb and wound up in the emergency room. The trip was postponed.

Eventually he made it to Crumb’s village in southern France. The two had dinner, played records and came to an agreement the following morning: Nadel could write the biography under the condition that he address the (plentiful) charges of sexism and racism against the artist’s work head-on, as Crumb had no interest in brooking a hagiography.

Unlike paintings or novels, comics hit the beholder with a double whammy of visual and verbal expression, and the result can electrify as swiftly as it can alienate. Over the decades, many have been alienated by Crumb, whose Dürer-level hand is attached to a mind that rages and leers as often as it probes and theorizes.

Part of Nadel’s motivation, he said, was to contextualize a figure who had zigzagged from the margins to the mainstream and back. “There was this idea that Crumb was a bad boy breaking all the rules of the form,” he said. “Actually he’s a traditionalist who figured out a way to use the language of comics to say entirely new things — to deal with adulthood in America in a frank and confrontational way, while maintaining unbelievable formal rigor.”

To write the book, Nadel submerged himself in a colossal archive. Because Crumb doesn’t own a computer or smartphone, he reads email on printouts provided by his assistant, Maggie. He then composes a response by hand, which Maggie types and sends. Hard copies of both messages are then filed in boxes. Nadel estimated that he had read between 3,000 and 4,000 pages of correspondence alone.

“You buried me in paper,” Nadel said over coffee and French fries. “I didn’t know how I’d swim through it all.”

“What amazes me is that you did.”

After lunch the two went for a walk. Despite earlier flirtations with spring, the temperature had sunk to 34 degrees and New York’s organisms were suffering from confusion: The daffodils drooped, the humans shivered in light jackets and only one of dozens of cherry blossom trees in the neighborhood had mustered itself into bloom.

On East Fifth Street Crumb spotted a faux-African statue buried in a heap of trash bags. He strolled into the rubbish and lifted the statue, brushing away coffee grounds and a lemon peel. “This is so wacky,” he said in delight, tucking the statue under his arm.

Next on the itinerary was a visit to the apartment of Crumb’s friend and bandmate John Heneghan, who is a collector of rare 78s. Heneghan answered the door with his wife, Eden Brower, who sings and plays ukulele and guitar in Eden & John’s East River String Band, along with Crumb and other guests.

“I found this on the street,” Crumb announced, presenting the statue as a house gift. It was admired and displayed in the apartment kitchen.

The three men and Brower, who wore an ethereal pink skirt, settled into the living room and stared down Heneghan’s collection of records: rows and rows of fragile discs in brown sleeves, all neatly labeled and arranged beneath portraits of bluesmen by Crumb.

They played Daddy Stovepipe, the Tennessee Chocolate Drops, Gus Cannon, Bradley Kincaid. Crumb closed his eyes and hummed along, knees bouncing, ecstatic in aural submission.

It was time for the journalist to see herself out, leaving the aficionados to their mournful jug tones and melodic plaints. Earlier in the day Crumb had confessed bafflement toward the ongoing interest of the media, or biographers for that matter, in his life.

“There’s no more public person than me,” he said, alluding to decades of radiological self-exposure. “Everyone knows more than they care to know about my private life.”

“Why did you agree to let me do this book?” Nadel asked.

Crumb thought about it for a moment, worrying the fabric on his fine trousers.

“I guess I felt sorry for you,” he decided. They both cracked up.

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MUSK

by Deborah Friedell

Elon Musk bought Twitter because he loved it. He loved tweeting poop emojis at dawn; he loved tweeting masturbation jokes at dusk. He loved that he had more Twitter followers than almost anyone else, though it galled him that Barack Obama and Justin Bieber had more. While other celebrity social media accounts were often so sanitized that they smelled of chlorine “Happy Tuesday everybody! Stay positive!” at least no one could claim that @elonmusk had ever been focus-grouped. Not when he tweeted an unflattering photograph of Bill Gates with the caption “In case you need to lose a boner fast.” Or in response to a tweet from Bernie Sanders: “ keep forgetting that you’re still alive.” For years, he wouldn’t pay to advertise Tesla, his electric car company, and he dissolved its North American public relations department: there was nothing anyone could do for the company’s image, he believed, that he couldn’t do more efficiently himself.

Which isn’t to say that there weren’t mishaps. In 2018, Musk may have produced the most expensive social media post of all time when he tweeted “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured” — a joke that made Tesla shares jump 11% before traders realized that he wasn’t in earnest. The financial papers had to explain to their readers that “420” was code for smoking pot. Musk paid a $20 million fine for that one — Tesla also paid $20 million and he had to step down as the company’s chairman, though he remained its CEO.

He stood to lose even more money after he tweeted that a British diver involved in the rescue of Thai schoolboys, stuck in a cave, was a pedophile. The diver said that the tweet had destroyed his life, and sued for defamation. Fortunately for Musk, an American jury bought his defense that “Twitter is a free-for-all where there’s all sorts of things, you know, that sort of aren’t true, untrue, half true, where people engage in sort of verbal combat effectively.” He exulted at the verdict: sanity! The American people (the trial had taken place in Commie-fornia, no less) had his back. “My faith in humanity is restored,” Musk told reporters. Perhaps he’d even been wrong to settle with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his marijuana joke — he tweeted that henceforth the SEC could suck his cock.

(London Review of Books)

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IN THE SPRING OF 1941, amid the shifting cultural and political landscapes of Mexico City, Frida Kahlo was photographed alongside Emmy Lou Packard, a fellow artist and close confidante.

Their bond had been forged years earlier in San Francisco, circa 1930, when the then-young Packard, born in 1914 in California, had become enamored with Mexican muralism. Introduced to Diego Rivera while he was painting the murals at the San Francisco Stock Exchange, she was soon pulled into the orbit of both Rivera and Kahlo. By the early 1940s, their friendship blossomed into a dynamic creative sisterhood, as Packard moved to Mexico to work as Rivera’s assistant on the massive Pan American Unity mural at the Palace of Fine Arts.

At the time of the photograph, Kahlo was navigating the aftermath of her father Guillermo Kahlo’s death and her increasingly strained marriage to Rivera. Despite chronic pain from her lifelong injuries, she had begun to produce a new wave of intensely personal work from her beloved Casa Azul in Coyoacán. Packard, meanwhile, was immersing herself in Mexican art and politics, often engaging in dialogues with Kahlo about feminism, socialism, and indigenous identity. Their friendship was steeped in mutual admiration and a shared belief in art as a form of resistance. Packard was one of the few allowed to witness Kahlo’s more intimate moments of vulnerability and artistic contemplation during this tumultuous period.

Though Packard eventually returned to the U.S. in the late 1940s to become a prominent muralist and advocate for public art in postwar California, taking up permanent residence in Mendocino, her time with Kahlo deeply shaped her visual language and political sensibilities. The 1941 image captures more than camaraderie — it marks a moment of deep solidarity between two women whose art, advocacy, and authenticity continue to reverberate across borders and generations.

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WHAT CHANGED?

To the Editor:

Pope Francis was a well-meaning man, but did his voice make a difference to the lives of the voiceless, or was he simply a mouthpiece for the Roman Catholic Church’s mission of self-preservation?

After all, as the church loses ground in the wealthier societies around the world, the Vatican relies on growing the Catholic flock among the impoverished nations. Proselytization is a key element in that strategy. Is it therefore any surprise that its message is designed to appeal to the poor? If we are brutally honest, we must ask: What do these words of care and concern for the impoverished mean, and what have they changed?

The Roman Curia, the administrative body of the Vatican, ensures that even with the best of intentions, the pope does not stray far from the church’s own interests of affluence and influence. Pope Francis was a kind, well-intentioned man, but also a hard-working cog that helped keep that wheel spinning.

Anil Bhalla

New York, New York

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TOP PRODUCER OF ‘60 MINUTES’ QUITS, SAYING HE LOST INDEPENDENCE

The news program has faced mounting pressure from both President Trump and its corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

by Michael M. Grynbaum

CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.

In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens — only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history — told his staff in a memo that “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

“So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward,” he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.

“60 Minutes” has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of “unlawful and illegal behavior,” and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration’s approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump’s case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on “60 Minutes.”

Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched, and Mr. Owens said in February that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement. Many journalists at CBS News — the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace — believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment.

In his memo on Tuesday, Mr. Owens pledged that “‘60 Minutes’ will continue to cover the new administration, as we will report on future administrations.” He added: “The show is too important to the country. It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.”

Mr. Owens had also led a recent overhaul of “CBS Evening News,” the news division’s flagship weeknight show. He first worked at CBS as a summer intern in 1988, and was named the executive producer of “60 Minutes” in 2019.

Mr. Trump has often singled out “60 Minutes” for scorn. In 2020, he cut short an interview with Lesley Stahl after he became displeased with her questions. He declined to be interviewed by the program during last year’s presidential campaign.

On April 13, apparently irked by that evening’s edition of the show, Mr. Trump accused “60 Minutes” of “fraudulent, beyond recognition, reporting” in a social media post and urged his government regulators to strip CBS of its broadcast license. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Executives at Paramount and at Skydance took notice of the president’s angry comments, according to three people familiar with internal discussions. Settlement talks between Paramount and Mr. Trump are ongoing, and the two sides have chosen a mediator to help resolve the case.

In recent months, “60 Minutes” has also faced scrutiny from Ms. Redstone herself, who complained to CBS executives about a story focused on the Biden administration’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas. One day after that segment aired, a veteran CBS producer, Susan Zirinsky, was appointed to a new role overseeing the news division’s journalistic standards.

Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, wrote in a separate note on Tuesday that she remained “committed to ‘60 Minutes’ and to ensuring that the mission and the work remain our priority.”

She also praised Mr. Owens. “Standing behind what he stood for was an easy decision for me, and I never took for granted that he did the same for me,” she wrote.

(NY Times)

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BILL KIMBERLIN: I am suggesting that all U.S. Sales receipts to customers include this line item… "Trump tariff tax cost to you."

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TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS: MEANER, MORE MENDACIOUS, MORE UNSTABLE

by Mel Goodman

While the mainstream media was copiously tracing the physical and mental decline of President Joe Biden during the presidential campaign of 2024, Donald Trump’s decline was largely ignored or downplayed. The media seemed obliged to track Biden’s every move and stumble. Conversely, the media seemed obliged to ignore the worst of Trump’s faltering executive decision-making, but—even worse—believed it was their duty to make Trump’s irrational utterances appear to be rational.

There are already obvious political differences between the first term Trump and the second term Trump, but the cognitive decline of the Donald cannot be explained solely by the fact that there were a few rational advisers in the White House the first time around, and simply no competent advisors or leaders on hand for the second term. Economic advisers, such as Gary Cohn and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, played a very important moderating role in the first term. The three and four-star generals in the first term were a particular surprise, doing their best to calm the roiled waters of the White House and the roiled behavior of the president himself.

In the second term, such economic players as Secretary of Commerce Howard Luttnick and Peter Navarro, are making things worse and making decision making more capricious and random. It’s safe to say that there isn’t one competent player in Trump’s inner circle, and falsely-labeled moderates such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio will find their reputations soiled by their experiences in toadying to the president. The moderate generals of the first term (Generals Kelley, Milley, and McMasters) have been replaced by an incompetent and unqualified secretary of defense who has conducted a quiet purge of the senior ranks and the Judge Advocate Generals that the media has played down.

An ironic example of the huge differences between Trump I and Trump II is the different handling of deportation cases that dominated Trump’s first term and the early weeks of his second term. Seven years ago, for example, an Iraqi immigrant who had been living in the United States for nearly 25 years, was mistakenly swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and deported to Iraq in violation of a court order. The Trump administration soon realized that a serious error had been made, and that led to a month-long odyssey to track down and retrieve a man who never should have been deported in the first place.

The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia has followed a far different pattern. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi falsely refer to Abrego Garcia as being a member of the violent MS-13 gang, although he has never been charged with being in a gang and a government lawyer even acknowledged his deportation was an error. The lawyer was fired because of his honesty.

But the total unwillingness to work to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States differs from efforts of the leaders of Trump’s first term, when ICE immediately and affirmatively went to the court to acknowledge that it had violated the Court’s orders. There was coordination between the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and the Iraqi government. The government itself conceded that the Iraqi immigrant had been removed to Iraq despite the court order. Several months later, the Iraqi immigrant was tracked down and returned to the United States.

In the current confrontation, Trump and his closest aides (Miller, Bondi, Homan) are ignoring the decisions of the federal and district courts, even the Supreme Court, to ensure that Abrego Garcia remains in notorious prisons in El Salvador, where he faces indefinite lockup. They are playing a game with the Supreme Court, focusing on the Court’s use of the word “facilitate” to say that they can’t do that because he’s out of U.S. control.

In any event, the intransigence of the Trump administration ignored the courts demands for “facilitating” the return of Abrego Garcia; providing “regular updates” on the steps that have been taken; and halting the deportation proceedings. The administration is challenging the constitution’s demands for due process, and the checks and balances that accompany the separation of powers.

Trump has called Senator Chris Van Hollen a “fool” and a “grandstander” for meeting with Abrego Garcia last week in El Salvador. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has received $6 million from the Trump administration to keep the deportees in the notorious Cecot prison, also ridiculed Van Hollen’s meeting with ugly postings on X to match the mendacious postings of Donald Trump. Bukele has used a two-year state of emergency to reduce crime and violence in El Salvador at the expense of democracy and civil liberties that no longer exist.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the government’s removal of an additional 30 Venezuelan men held in Texas under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The vote was 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito predictably dissenting. The decision on Saturday follows an astounding array of Trump’s unconstitutional actions, including the elimination of federal agencies created by statute; the refusal to spend federal funds allocated by federal law; the firing of those working in the executive branch; and the elimination of birthright citizenship.

No two events demonstrate the meanness and mendacity of the Trump presidency more than the 2025 meetings in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky and between Trump and Bukele. Trump’s deceitful condemnation of Zelensky in February for starting the war with Russia (“You should have never started it.”), and the grotesque spectacle between Trump and Bukele exuding smug impunity over the illegal deportation of Abrego Garcia to the notorious Cecot mega-prison. U.S. citizens had never before witnessed such abject cruelty and heartlessness from their commander-in-chief.

(Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism, and Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider’s Account of the Politics of Intelligence. His forthcoming book is American Carnage: Donald Trump’s War on Intelligence. Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.)

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LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

Critics Call Rubio’s Overhaul Plan a Blow to U.S. Values

Trump Says Undocumented Immigrants Shouldn’t Get Trials Before Deportation

Global Growth Expected to Sputter Amid Trade War Fallout Fears

Elon Musk Vows to Spend Less Time in Washington as Tesla’s Profit Drops 71%

Birthrates Languish in Record Lows, C.D.C. Reports

YouTube at 20: From ‘Lazy Sunday’ to ‘Hot Ones’

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WAR DUST AND COLLATERAL INHALATION: Israel Breathes in Gaza’s Dust

A Forensic Study of the Self-Inflicted Consequences of Modern Warfare

by Dennis Kucinich

Gaza is suffering the most intense bombing, per capita, of anywhere on earth, ever.

Over 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Gaza, an area slightly smaller than the City of Detroit, Michigan, resulting in the recorded deaths of at least 60,000 Gazans and injuries to hundreds of thousands.

It is impossible to overstate the effects of the abominable bombing war on Gazans, their lives, their families, their health, and their communities.

What has escaped attention up until now is the undeniable environmental and health effects of the bombing of Gazans on Israelis, as well as on citizens of neighboring states, and the potential harm to U.S. military personnel in the region.

A study of explosion physics based on declassified Department of Defense data, as well as blast temperature data and consequent emissions; a review of wind patterns, together with publicly available data of health effects from 9/11, as well as data gathered from U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War, yield a shocking conclusion.

Israel, in executing the unprecedented bombing attack on Gaza, is, in effect, bombing itself, with grave consequences for the public health of its people. What is being visited upon Gaza does not stay in Gaza.

The sustained bombing of Gaza pulverizes stone, heavy metals, and the human body. The vaporizing of human beings under extreme heat and pressure combines with dust, water vapor, and metallic particles the size of microns, all blasted upwards, aerosolized, wind-driven across borders, into Israel and surrounding countries.

The unlimited bombing of Gaza has created an unparalleled ecological and biomedical feedback loop. Israel exhales death in Gaza and inhales the Gaza it has vaporized.

Israel, in bombing neighboring Gaza, is breathing in its own fallout, along with the vaporized remains of its declared enemies. The external consequences of violence becomes internalized. The substance of the oppressed communes with the oppressor.

On a clinical level, breathing in bioaerosols can compromise human immune systems. Breathing in ultrafine particles from non-biological war dust can cross the blood-brain barrier and contribute to neurodegenerative disease.

Israel and the Palestinians share a common atmosphere. They inhale the same war dust, from bomb materials, carbon soot, and the fine particle remains of vaporized Gazans.

Human cremation occurs at temperatures between 1,400°F and 1,800°F. The blast temperatures of the bombs identified as being dropped on Gaza—MK-84 bombs: 4,496°F; GBU-39s: 4,892°F; BLU-109s: 3,632°F—far exceed this range. In comparison, blast furnaces used to melt steel operate at 2,500°F to 2,800°F.

People at the epicenter of such bombings in Gaza are instantly turned into dust. This is a factor confounding the determination of exactly how many people have perished in Gaza since October 2023. How can an accurate body count be achieved if bodies have been turned to smoke and ash?

Let’s look at 9/11. The total confirmed dead: 2,753. Almost 40% of the victims were never identified, as their bodies were fragmented or vaporized, reduced to dust.

When a bomb hits its target—for example, a tent city—the high-temperature explosion can vaporize a person so thoroughly that microscopic particles of DNA and loose molecules are suspended in air, mingling with dust and smoke as bioaerosols.

These biologicals—DNA and fat in human tissue—turn to carbon, black dust, and smoke. The minerals of bones and teeth, skeletal dust, go airborne. Fragments of cells can float in the air, bubbles holding fat, bone, and broken DNA strands travel with the wind and are breathed in dozens of miles from the blast site.

It is not only the superheat that destroys the human body. The explosive force of a bomb, in terms of pounds per square inch (psi), can produce vaporization at the blast site, an impact equivalent to a plane plunging into the earth at high speed.

As 100,000 tons of bombs have been dropped in Gaza, the matter destroyed takes a different form, as toxic pollutants carried aloft in gas, dust, vapor, and particulates.

Specifically, toxic quantities of cadmium, nickel, lead, mercury, and arsenic are released into the air, together with dioxins, furans, PCBs, (polychlorinated biphenyls); PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

One calculation indicates that 100,000 tons of bombs, exploded in a densely populated area of Gaza, can generate between 800,000 to 1.2 million tons of pollution.

Add to this the dust of Gazans’ human remains and you have extreme airborne consequences carried by the wind, directly into Israel, particularly the central and northern regions, and far beyond.

There are relevant comparisons for the health effects of a tremendous explosion in an urban area. A month after 9/11, people in Manhattan began to develop chronic coughs.

A longitudinal study of members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) revealed that after six months, firemen began to suffer from chronic bronchitis; others saw the onset of pulmonary fibrosis.

Two years after 9/11, a higher incidence of thyroid, prostate, breast, and other cancers arose among those exposed to 9/11 contaminants. Early-onset neurodegenerative, Alzheimer’s-type symptoms presented after five years or longer.

Based on epidemiological data from studies of those near the people and buildings destroyed on 9/11, certain health effects can be anticipated in Israel.

The people of Sderot, Netivot, Be’er Sheva—all within a short distance of Gaza—are at high risk of long-term health effects of the bombing. Ashkelon and Tel Aviv have been exposed to environmental consequences, as has northern Israel and even Jordan.

While Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection operates air-monitoring stations at sites proximate to Gaza, it would be instructive, given the intensity of the bombing, to see if the effects of war-related pollution are being fully disclosed to the Israeli public.

Given the unprecedented levels of bombing in Gaza, the types of bombs used, their explosive power, the extent of physical destruction, the extraordinary number of casualties, the creation of large plumes of black smoke containing the genetic material of burned and vaporized Gazans, the people of Israel—on the other side of the Gaza boundary—will likely experience increased levels of respiratory illness, asthma-like and other pulmonary diseases, and a sharp increase in cancer as a direct result of being exposed to toxic airborne substances present at a microscopic level.

Added to this direct hazard is the ongoing recirculation of wind across the vast hellscape to which Gaza has been reduced. That, too, will sweep up and redistribute the contaminants from the over 50 million tons of debris from the land of Gaza to the land of Israel.

At this point, the calamity which has befallen Gaza as a result of incessant bombing will visit, in various forms and degrees of harm, southern and central Israel, western Jordan, the northeast Sinai Peninsula, northern Egypt (Delta and Cairo), Lebanon, Cyprus, southwestern Syria, northwestern Saudi Arabia, southeastern Turkey, Crete, Greece, Sicily, and Malta. Additionally, sea spray can carry aerosolized particles clear across the Mediterranean Sea.

The United States has a substantial number of Naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean, including two aircraft carriers, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as numerous other assault ships.

U.S. military installations are present at Incirlik, Turkey, Naples, Italy, Cyprus, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. All face “war dust” pollution hazards as a result of the bombing of Gaza.

I know well the adverse health consequences suffered by US servicemen and women who served in the Persian Gulf War, 1990–1991.

Veterans of that war came to my congressional office complaining of constant pain, neurological, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms, all of which were ignored or covered up by the Department of Defense.

As a Member of Congress, over the objections of the Department of Defense, I took up the cause of veterans who suffered what came to be known as Gulf War Illness, a multi-symptom condition still affecting, to this very day, nearly 245,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War.

Bernie Sanders and I worked together in Congress to obtain funding for research into GWI, which is now a medically recognized, war-related condition.

When you see the measurable, catastrophic effect which war environments can have on those who serve, and the measurable catastrophic effect of those proximate to the 9/11 attacks, and the indefensible obliteration bombing of Gaza and its people, you may come to an understanding of the wholly fallacious notion of the containment of war and why I assert Israel is bombing itself.

The bombing of Gaza has created a human health crisis which cannot be ignored any longer.

There must be an immediate cease-fire on humanitarian and ecological bases.

• The UN must urgently address the collapse of the Palestinian public health system, including the implications of the war for respiratory diseases and cancers among survivors.
• The UN must lead a Transboundary Environmental and Human Health Assessment of the Immediate and Long-Term Implications of War Dust, which will include transboundary assessments of the toxic environmental effects of the war.
• Monitoring stations must be set up. The people of the world have a right to know what is in the air they breathe.

International humanitarian and environmental law must, at last, be enforced.

UN representatives must determine a path forward.

Israel and the United States must consider the far-reaching consequences of the decision to attack and bomb the people of another country.

The tortured mindset which licenses the extinction of Gazans is now a spectre haunting the entire world, with its ghoulish designs on Iran. I will explore that approaching cataclysm in a future column.

Human rights and compassion are not considerations in bombing Gazans. Perhaps enlightened self-preservation can be introduced as a means to stop the bombing, once and for all.

The war against Gazans must end, and perhaps through the suffering of Gazans, and understanding the regional and global health impact of bombing, we may understand why it is time to call an end to all wars.

(kucinichreport.substack.com)

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