Mendocino County Today: Friday 5/23/2025

Mostly Sunny | Pacific Horizon | Black Market | Dumping Trash | Undergrounding Boonville | Manufactured Home | Sidewalk Gardens | Not Enough | Dam Cost | Flea Market | Charley Foxtrot | Garden Beds | Memorial Service | Wildflower Show | Plant Starts | Plant Sale | Plaza Story | Palace Key | Catching Lobo | Manchester BBQ | Captain Ford | Women's Art | Yesterday's Catch | Nat Childs | Koepcke Photo | Drought | Snowpack Melt | Tapper/Gross | Wine Shorts | Mark Top | Desert Silence | Survival Story | Chicken Reasons | Plane Insult | Vaillancourt Fountain | Mobile Home | Shooter Manifesto | Real Story | Survivorship Bias | Coin Operated | Billionaires Need | Look Out | Lead Stories | Hair Guide | Sacred Cows | Planning Department | Fetterman Disgusts | Rear Windows

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COOLER CONDITIONS expected through Friday. Another period of warm temperatures and high pressure this weekend before and another chance for light rain Sunday into Monday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A crisp 41F with clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. Our earlier forecast clouds & fog are gone now making for a lovely holiday weekend forecast albeit a little cool & possibly breezy.

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SHERIFF KENDALL ON BLACK MARKET MARIJUANA:

(Statement to Supervisors, Tuesday, May 22, 2025)

If anybody has read the news lately they’d know that we had a lot of homicides last week. A lot of people were shot. That has an impact on us. A lot of that is on overtime. I had to bring in Spanish-speaking deputies, pull them off the street to be able to work with detectives and so forth. We are going to leverage the funding we got from Senator McGuire on that. We are also going to leverage federal funding for cannabis suppression. But for the last several years, every time I met with our federal partners about the problems we are having — we are having some serious issues with transnational drug trafficking organizations. We are! Do not think that we are exempt from that in Mendocino County. Up to this point, the federal government wants to have no conversations regarding marijuana. But I will keep beating the drum on this because I’m afraid that pending legislation in the state of California will create an even more serious issue for our locals. We don’t want to see that. In 2019 or 2020, I met with the State Department of Cannabis Control with the sheriffs from Humboldt and Trinity counties. We predicted what we would be seeing. And they didn’t want to hear us at all. Right now we have a failing legal cannabis industry in Mendocino County. We have a thriving black market. The people who invested time, money and so forth trying to get into the legal realm have basically just been run over by some very bad actors. It’s not fair to anyone. It’s not fair to our residents who have to put up with this either. It’s a dangerous situation that everybody’s in right now. So I will keep beating the drum on that. And we will see what we can get. If we don’t keep pushing on this problem, it will be the end of us in rural areas.

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NEAR FORT BRAGG IN JACKSON STATE FOREST: Why the F do people do such a thing?!? I will never understand.

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THE VERY SLIM ODDS that downtown Boonville will ever get its utility wires undergrounded went up just a bit this week with an announcement from Community Services Director Sash Williams that he’s been in private conversations with Caltrans, talking about their plans for the possibly upcoming water/sewer project and the possibility of incorporating utility underground in Boonville into that project if it’s approved by local parcel owners and funded by the State Water Board. Williams noted that it took about ten years for Gualala to have its utility wires undergrounded, and that seems to be the standard amount of time. If Boonville were somehow able to have its undergrounding merged with the water/sewer project the time line would be aggressively shorter. Williams also said that Boonville is behind Caspar on the Coast in line for undergrounding in Mendocino County, but that Caltrans/Caspar may be willing to accept a delay to allow the Boonville Undergrounding to dovetail with the water/sewer project. However, that would require a “rush” job (if five years or so can be considered a rush job) to make it happen in that time frame. Caltrans apparently also envisions a pedestrian/bicycle friendly paving project in downtown Boonville which would involve their 80-foot wide right-of-way swath running the length of Boonville. Besides CalTrans, the undergrounding also requires coordination with PG&E and AT&T. The water sewer project itself requires coordination with Caltrans, the State Water Board and associated financial offices, at least two County departments, and the Local Area Formation Commission. (And we probably left one or two out.) Several easements, permits, and approvals will also be required. So even with Mr. Williams somewhat promising report, the odds of Boonville’s utility lines going underground in our lifetimes remain slim. But not very slim.

(Mark Scaramella)

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A FORT BRAGG READER WRITES: For all the people who need affordable housing you might consider a manufactured home. Today at the Harbor RV Park near the Outlet and the Noyo River Grill there is a brand new double wide going into space #2. What people may not know is that it is possible to get a mortgage with a new one. Also there are many upgrades and features in a new one so for the cost of a rental you may be able to own something. I am living here in a new one and I recommend the people who are installing this one. They are very experienced and make sure it passes inspection. The space rental is $700 a month which includes water and sewer. Metered propane is available.

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LAKE ISN’T ENOUGH

Editor:

Removing a dam and concurrently eliminating water storage for a drought-prone area is madness. Spending $50 million to pump “flood stage” water from the Eel River over to the adjoining Russian River basin when presumably the same flood stage events are going on down here defies description. Water storage, properly managed, helps us even out the effects of dry periods. Waiting until the drought breaks to replace water will be too little, too late.

The $500,000 study to consider expanding water storage at Lake Mendocino (offered by Rep. Jared Huffman) is a delaying maneuver. Those of us who are old enough to remember the Sonoma County “sewer wars” of the late 20th century remember it was studies that were used repeatedly to stop infrastructure development.

It wasn’t until raw sewage started oozing up in residential neighborhoods in west county, and the grand jury sanctioned a former 5th District Supervisor for his delaying tactics, that the necessary tertiary treatment sewage facilities were allowed.

If this goes ahead, the only reliable water supply left on the North Coast will be Lake Sonoma. It will not be enough.

Malcolm t. Manwell

Santa Rosa

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TOMKI CREEK DAM COST SET AT $42 MILLION (April 12, 1961, The Press Democrat)

Ukiah—The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors yesterday received an appraisal report on the proposed Tomki or Valley's End dam and agreed that it is now “up to the people to decide if they want the $42.5 million project.” Edward Carpenter, water engineer for the county, made the report after a two-month study of existing studies and records on the proposed project. The dam—which is a part of the California Water Plan—would be located on Tomki Creek half mile upstream from Scott Creek. The location is in the northern end of Redwood Valley and seven miles east of Willits. The 160-foot-high earthen dam would create a lake eight miles in length and provide 22,000 acre feet of water for Little Lake and Redwood Valleys. “The project is one that fits perfectly the requirements of the Davis-Grunsky Act,” Mr. Carpenter said. Actual cost of the dam is estimated at $2,075,000 and the balance would be spent on construction of a two-mile tunnel to Berry Creek, a diversion dam and aqueduct, the report shows. The cost of water at the dam would be $4.80 an acre-foot or $22.15 delivered at the point of use, Mr. Carpenter explained. The average price of water to all users in the city of Santa Rosa (domestic, commercial and industrial) is $110 an acre foot,” he said. “It should be remembered that until consumption reaches 8,000 acre feet the cost will be considerably higher,” he said. Redwood Valley is presently using 2,000 acre-feet and the ultimate use would be 16,000 acre-feet. Little Lake is now using 1,650 acre feet and the ultimate 8,500 acre feet of the ultimate (15,000 acre feet) requirement must be met from new surface supplies, the report shows. The study cost the county $600 and the supervisors commended Mr. Carpenter on his work.

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COUNT ME AS DENSE, perhaps, but even with my years of military experience I didn’t at first know what Board of Supervisors critic Teresa McNerlin was referring to Tuesday when, after calling the ridiculous Cubbison affair a SNAFU and a FUBAR (which most of us know), she went so far as to call it “Charley Foxtrot.” This morning it belatedly dawned on me that “Charley Foxtrot” is NATO code speak for CF which is short-hand for Cluster-F_ _ _.) Since Ms. McNerlin is an Army veteran we now understand and appreciate her characterization.

(Mark Scaramella)

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GARDEN BEDS AVAILABLE!

The Community Garden at the Elder Home in Boonville has beds available for AV community members. Two raised beds ( both 5'x20') and two in-ground beds (one 5'x20' and one 10 x 20'). Drip irrigation, water and compost provided for a low annual fee (depending on bed size).

Join your neighbors, make new friends, grow food and flowers. It's a grand experience.

For information and to apply, contact: avehcommunitygarden@gmail.com

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AMERICAN LEGION POST 385 MEMORIAL DAY SERVICE

Evergreen Cemetery, Boonville

At 11 AM

Monday, May 26th, 2025

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PHILO FLORA PLANT STARTS AT BOONTBERRY

Plant starts still available at Boontberry, so if you missed the sale don't worry! If you don't see what you are looking for check back, I will re-stock a couple times a week and bring new plants as they size up enough for sale.

Prices are: 4” pots $5, 6 packs $6-7 each.

Plants available this year:

Peppers: Serano, Poblano, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Shishito, Bell Pepper, Lunch box, Jimmy Nardello, Adjarski (sweet Italian style frying pepper).

Eggplant: Aswad (large globe Iraqi heirloom that does well in our climate) and Diamond eggplant (asian type - slender long fruit).

Tomato: Sungold, Green Zebra, Heirloom White, San Marzano, Blue Beech, Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, Black Krim, Pink Brandywine, Goldie, Striped German.

Cucumber: Pickling, Lemon, Armenian, Shintokiwa (Japanese type, my longtime favorite)

Melon: Watermelon, Cantaloupe

Summer Squash: Zucchini, Yellow summer squash

Winter Squash: Butternut, Delicata, Jack O’ Lantern pumpkin, North Georgia Candy Roaster, Giant Pumpkin, Kabocha

Herbs and Greens: Little Gem Lettuce, Pirat Butterhead Lettuce, Cilantro, Dill, Italian Basil, Thai Basil, Parsely, Celery, Red onions, Lacinato Kale, Chard, Green Shiso.

Flowers: Bachelor's buttons, Cosmos, Sunflowers, Zinnias, Scabiosa, Rudbeckia, Basket Flower, Marigold and more.

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THE CITY OF UKIAH ‘FAVORS DEMOLITION AND RELOCATING’ ALEX THOMAS PLAZA? SAYS WHO?

by Andrew Lutsky

On April 27 I noticed a news story by Mike Geniella in three of the local papers about construction beginning on the new courthouse. Halfway through the story Mr. Geniella pivots to the future of the existing courthouse and quotes heavily from Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley.

Regarding the soon-to-be vacant courthouse, two sentences leapt out:

“One possibility is that the county might deed the site to the City of Ukiah, which favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza to the block bounded by State, Perkins, School, and Standley streets. Deputy City Manager Riley said, “There are a lot of pieces to put together, but it is a serious possibility.” [emphasis mine.]

I did a double-take. I had not heard that the City of Ukiah ever adopted a policy of investigating or moving forward on plans for the sale and demolition of Alex Thomas Plaza. As someone who has spent hundreds of hours at the plaza over the past thirteen years, I’m pretty sure I would have remembered hearing that.

I thought I was misreading, or that this was a piece of satire or maybe some kind of hoax. I looked closer and saw it was not a joke.

That day I started a petition to protect the plaza. To date over one hundred and fifty people have signed it.

The same day I also promoted the petition in a comment I added below Mr. Geniella’s story on the local news website Mendofever. In response to my comment Mr. Geniella replied, “Riley and other relocation proponents believe [Alex Thomas Plaza] offers a higher potential for commercial development, perhaps a hotel, according to the theory. If so, a sale could substantially diminish the city’s costs to move the plaza.”

Two days later when the Anderson Valley Advertiser published a short piece I submitted about my petition, Mr. Geniella typed a comment in the style of the forty-seventh president: “A CLARIFICATION IS NEEDED.” In his “clarification” he provided little bits of added context– including his questionable claim that “Relocating Thomas Plaza is not a new idea. Two years ago, a group promoted demolishing the current courthouse and turning the site into a new Thomas Plaza” — and he did not say a word about his most incendiary claim in the piece, that the city “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza.”

Ten days later I wrote a letter to all five city council members, the city manager and the deputy city manager. Five of the seven cited Geniella’s “clarification” in their response, as though its existence meant no further questions needed or ought to be posed. None of the seven responded directly to any of my twelve questions in a meaningful way.

While they uniformly ignored all of my questions, the council members’ responses did have a theme: We never gave any indication that the city “favors” the sale and demolition of the plaza.

Mayor Doug Crane: “I have no recollection of any council deliberation about doing away with the Plaza.”

Mari Rodin: “We have not discussed the future of Alex Thomas Plaza as a council.”

Susan Sher: “[T]here is no policy nor anything before the Council regarding demolition of Alex Thomas Plaza.”

Juan Orozco: “None of the rumors concerning the Alex Thomas Plaza and what could happen to it are to be taken serious.”

Ms. Criss and Ms. Rodin both suggested I ask the Deputy City Manager herself about her statements and Geniella’s claim. Since I had sent a similar letter to Ms. Riley, I too was hopeful she would respond to my questions with some substance, but our hopes were in vain.

Ms. Riley– who coincidentally owns a shop directly across the street from the soon-to-be-vacant courthouse which she hopes will be demolished using the funds from the sale of Alex Thomas Plaza and a smaller “replacement” plaza will be built on that lot– refused to answer any of my questions, referred me to Geniella’s clarification, and said “I have nothing more to add.”

City Manager Sage Sangiacomo similarly deflected my questions and he too referred me to Geniella’s non-clarifying “clarification.” As to whether the city council has directed city staff to consider the sale and demolition of Alex Thomas Plaza, he stated: “At this time, no such direction has been given by the Council or any subgroup thereof, such as an ad hoc committee. Furthermore, City staff have not sought any such direction.”

I began to wonder … Was Mr. Geniella’s claim, that the city “favors demolition and relocation of Alex R. Thomas Plaza,” a fabrication?

So I contacted Mr. Geniella.

I started by asking him about the claim he makes in his “clarification” that selling and demolishing Alex Thomas Plaza was “not a new idea.”

Here is our exchange:

Me: I am quite perplexed by what you meant when you said in that comment, “Relocating Thomas Plaza is not a new idea. Two years ago, a group promoted demolishing the current courthouse and turning the site into a new Thomas Plaza.” I have done some searching and do not see any reference to Alex Thomas Plaza in the articles you or anyone else have written about the courthouse plans over the past few years.

Mr. Geniella: The earlier reference was made by Tom Liden, who has long been involved in civic matters. We were speaking about the Palace Hotel when the notion of relocating the plaza, and using the old limestone courthouse addition facing School Street for a county museum annex was discussed. I will try to find that story. In the meantime, I suggest you contact Mr. Liden directly. There is no skullduggery here. It’s an idea that has been kicked around in some circles. Ms. Riley was not dropping anything new.

Me: Ms. Riley is a member of city staff, her statements represent the city government, and it sounds like she stated a city policy, which I have never ever heard or seen before. Can you refer me to a mention of this idea made by city staff or a council member?

Mr. Geniella: Ms. Riley was not stating an official anything. It was a discussion in general, and she shared her thoughts about the notion of relocating the plaza that had been openly discussed in some quarters for at least two years before I printed her comments.

Me: Mr. Geniella, you wrote that the city “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza.” Are you saying that Shannon Riley is not the source of that claim?

Mr. Geniella: Andrew, You seem bent on distorting how and what was said. I have no axe to grind in this, but the simple truth is that Ms. Riley and I were engaged in a conversation largely focused on the new courthouse, and its impact on the downtown area. The subject of the old courthouse's fate came up. [He followed this comment with a direct quote from his story.] Perhaps you were caught off guard by the notion, but it is not a new one, and it has not been discussed secretly at City Hall or on the street corner.

Me: What have I distorted, Mike? Please tell me. I'm seeking clarification. If a member of city staff or representative from the City of Ukiah did not say that the city “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza,” I strongly believe you should issue an immediate correction/retraction. You made a point of “clarifying” this issue, but your claim about the city “favoring” the demolition of the plaza doesn't appear to have any evidence to support it. At least I haven't seen or heard any yet.

Mr. Geniella: I'm sorry, Andrew, but you have an agenda here. You want to turn remarks made by Ms.Riley during an on-the-record conversation about a larger issue into something that suggests a secret city policy to do away with Thomas Plaza has been exposed. Riley's quote speaks for itself: “Riley said she envisions a new Thomas Plaza occupying the historic heart of downtown where the courthouse now stands, with the current city-owned plaza site being developed for commercial purposes, adding an anchor at the southern end of the downtown core.”

Me: Yes I do have an agenda, Mike … the truth. How does that quote speak for itself? It's absolutely not clear, for example, whether Ms. Riley is sharing this vision on behalf of herself or on behalf of the City of Ukiah, which was one of my seven questions, and I posed it directly to all city staff and council members including Ms. Riley, who refused to answer any of my questions. With due respect Mike, I must ask you again: If a member of city staff or representative from the City of Ukiah did not tell you that the city “favors demolition and relocating the Alex R. Thomas Plaza,” will you issue an immediate correction to the local media? Can you provide any evidence to support your claim that the city “favors” the demolition of the plaza?

Mr. Geniella: I accurately quoted Ms. Riley. I'm done with this discussion, Andrew. Make of things what you will. I stand with my personal and professional credibility.

I concluded from this dialogue that Mr. Geniella has no evidence to support his claim that the city “favors demolition and relocating of Alex R. Thomas Plaza.” That claim is entirely his invention.

Does that mean that no one wants to see Alex Thomas Plaza sold and demolished? No, unfortunately it doesn’t. Clearly some do, including Deputy City Manager Shannon Riley and, perhaps, Mr. Geniella himself. But the City of Ukiah does not “favor” that outcome, and Mr. Geniella ought to publicly retract his claim asserting that it does.

I then asked City Manager Sangiacomo, “Do you think the city has a responsibility to correct the record when a reporter has made a false claim— and has not in any way clarified that claim— in a news story published in multiple media outlets about the position the city is taking regarding the sale and demolition of Alex Thomas Plaza?”

As expected Mr. Sangiacomo refused to answer that question, too. His sole reply: “In my opinion, I believe Mr. Geniella provided timely clarification.”

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THREE TOED LOBO

by John Pinches

Old and full of glory,

He will be mentioned in many a story.

I will try to tell his history,

But parts of it will always be a mystery.

He roamed and killed,

As he wished and willed,

Costing the rancher plenty,

As the deeds he done were many

From Howard and Brad to Morley and Fred,

None would sleep until that witted lobo was dead.

Many a cold morn was spent,

Just wondering where that coyote had went.

It was Sully, the hunter who years ago,

Managed to catch the foot of Lobo,

But he wasn’t long getting free,

As he left one toe now, now only packing three.

Everybody wanted to join for the hunt and its fun,

They came with horses and dogs ready to run.

There was George and Jim, while hunting him,

Tried to start a fire with photos and a pitchy limb.

When the hunting party finally came in,

Bringing sore back horses, worn out dogs and disgusted men.

They had only bad news to bring with them,

Because that coyote had passed George

And Jim, while they were lighting that limb.

Tired and unable to face the cold,

Through of being so spry and bold.

That coyote would be running yet,

Of this, I would take a bet,

If he hadn’t of placed a paw

Into the steel trap, set by my Pa!

So struggle was given because he knew,

That his full costly life was through.

The story must end,

As Sully brought Three Toes in,

The good news was spread,

That the Mendocino Phantom was dead.

Now everyone will recall,

As they see this epitaph hanging on the wall:

How things were in the past,

And how Sully had done it at last!

(via Chris Brennan)

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THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN FORD: A TALE OF CALIFORNIA, by Robert Winn

Book review by Victoria Patterson, PhD

In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, a young lawyer named Noah Ford made a trip to California to find out about the life of his uncle, Henry Ford, who lived near the village of Mendocino and who died of a gunshot wound from his own pistol. In his quest to find out more about his uncle and his untimely death, Noah became involved with a variety of early settlers to the county and was more and more convinced that his uncle was murdered.

As he discovered the reality of life in this uncharted environment, he was exposed to the contradictions in this remote outpost as well as to what was truly happening in two of California's early Indian reservations in Mendocino and Round Valley. He was shocked by the cruelty shown to the area's Native people.

This novel, written by Robert Winn, a former history professor at College of the Redwoods, is set in and around Mendocino County and early San Francisco. It is a skillful blend of fact and fiction. Many of the characters are historical personages. In the parts of the novel where they appear, Winn tried to accurately reflect the historical record, at times by using their actual words. The work is extensively researched and is based on the correspondence between the Office of Indian Affairs found on microfilm at the Universities of Oregon and California, papers of Judge John Wilson, and accounts of the Bear Flag Rebellion at the Bancroft Library, as well as testimony on the Mendocino Wars. Other original sources are documented at the end of the book. Also, at the end of the book, the fictional characters invented to round out the novel are clearly identified as such.

Winn, who lived on the Mendocino Coast for years, was intimately familiar with the landscape. His descriptions of the forests and coast of Mendocino County are filled with trees and plants and flowers that are completely recognizable even today. A reader who is familiar with the county can easily trace the journey on horseback from the coast to Round Valley and can see it as it must have once been.

Although the history of California, with a detailed description of the Bear Flag rebellion, forms part of the narrative, it is not a dry history text. The saga of Ford's attempt to find out the truth of his uncle's death is filled with danger and intrigue. There are cut-throat settlers motivated by greed for land, reservation officials guilty of corruption, and ordinary citizens trying to find a role in a new society. There are three feisty and principled women characters, one of whom is a Native American, who stand up for their opinions and actions.

‘The Death of Captain Ford’ is an engaging read that combines a mystery, a piece of the history of California, a truthful description of 1860's life in Mendocino County, and an exposé of the brutality which the Native people experienced at the hands of many early settlers as well as the kindness of a few.

It is based on extensive research and combines that with an imaginative eye for period detail. It is a wonderful addition to our understanding of the Mendocino County that many of us call home.

(The book is available at the Historical Society of Mendocino County for $17.95. Courtesy, the Historical Society of Mendocino County; Archives & Held-Poage Memorial Home, 200 So. Dora St. Ukiah CA 95482. 707 462-6969. www.mendocinocountyhistory.org, info@mendocinocountyhistory.org.)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, May 22, 2025

SOLAMON ACOSTA, 27, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SHANE BROWN, 39, Fort Bragg. Attempted arson.

DENNIS HARDIN JR., 47, Ukiah. Brandishing.

JARED KIDD, 33, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, paraphernalia, probation violation.

CARLOS LEON, 22, Ukiah. DUI-any drug.

DENA MORRIS, 63, Ukiah. Parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

RICKEY PHILLIPS III, 32, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, disobeying court order.

DANIEL RODRIGUEZ, 18, Willits. DUI.

SETH SMART, 29, Ukiah. County parole violation.

CHELSEA WILLIAMS, 25, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

LARRY WOLFE JR., 35, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, vehicle registration tampering.

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REMEMBERING NAT CHILDS

by Paul Modic

I hadn’t heard anything from Nat Childs on Facebook recently, last week went to his page to see what he’d been up to and found that he had died two days before. I hadn’t known he was sick though when I visited him and Sandee in Arizona two years ago on my way to Mexico he was able to guide me out to their place on the outskirts from downtown Quartzite as he was in town for a doctor appointment. (At the time, he said he’d fallen a couple times and was trying to figure that out.)

Nat was a mensch, a good guy, a good man, and a good friend. I used to stop by his workshop above the old Greenhouse Nursery school to drop off my ‘zine back in the ‘90’s. He was always sitting there working on some electronics repair for someone, met me with a smile, and we’d talk for a few minutes and sometimes a lot longer about life, I suppose.

Back in the ‘80’s I got the first Nat Phone in the Gulch and in the ensuing years ten to twenty neighbors also bought those modified cordless phones and Nat hooked them up. There were almost a hundred total in the Southern Humboldt area installed over the next ten years, truly a revolution/innovation of communication in the local backwoods, and even some out of state. (See Nat’s description below, furnished upon my request.)

Nat helped me buy my first powerful Mac computer in ‘95 and after he moved to Arizona for a life with his new wife Sandee, we kept in touch mostly over Facebook. (For a while back then Nat was lookin’ for love over the personals, as was I, and once he told me he’d met a nice woman in Eton and visited her a time or two. “She’s about 400 pounds,” Nat said and I just thought wow, though he didn’t seem phased.)

In the photos it looked like Nat’s whole family was down there with him in Quartzite for his last weeks and days, so that was sweet, maybe a “good death” at home. I don’t know what got him but it was nice when he was with us, a very positive person, a loving parent and husband, who never gave up hope about reasoning with Trumpers, and asking them plaintively why? Why? Why?…Bye Nat

(Hey Paul! I think Fred Bauer gets the credit for the ideas behind the Natphone. He brought me a cordless phone and asked me to modify it so it could connect to large antennas he had bought to see if he could get phone service at home and it worked! So I pursued the idea, finding a cordless phone better suited to the task and antennas that worked and the Natphone was born. Later the original phone became unavailable and I had to find another and about that time I was able to get circuit boards from Jim Carlson that enabled me to attach a Natphone handset and create standard phone connections at home, freeing the user from having to hold the original handset and allowing use of standard phone equipment at home including slow internet.

I don’t think anyone is still using one though I did repair one maybe two or three years ago.

Briefly, the conversion involved removing original antennas from handset and base, replacing them with coaxial cables that connect to large directional antennas that point at each other. Some re-tuning of each unit. Result was connection over five miles as long as you could see from one end to the other—line of sight access between them.)

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BOB ABELES: I just spent too much time (5 minutes) on the photo in question.

It is not AI generated, but it is also not an actual photo of Juliane Koepcke. Instead, it’s a pre-AI internet meme from 6 years ago that someone has unearthed and recycled. The photo is a still from a 1974 movie about Koepcke’s ordeal.

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DROUGHT

curls then, the way day-ends begin. Thistles dry as any September

stacked against July.

The comfort in dust.

Suffocation--First a tightness in the chest, then, recognition

of what the chest is,

that is,

boundaries--the limits of breath,

its area,

&

how.

— Don Shanley

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A READER WRITES:

Fresh Air: Inside The “Cover-Up” Of President Biden's Decline

A good listen for anyone too exhausted to read the book.

CNN host Jake Tapper's book, ‘Original Sin,’ co-authored by Alex Thompson, describes a president who struggled to function: “One person told us that the presidency was, at best, a five-person board with Joe Biden as chairman.” Tapper spoke with Terry Gross about moderating the disastrous Biden/Trump debate, George Clooney's op-ed calling for the president to drop out, and the White House's “cover-up” about Biden's decline.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fresh-air/id214089682?i=1000709173168

ED REPLY: Tapper has admitted he, uh, held his Biden “doubts” for his book. The media took a huge blow by ignoring Biden’s obvious unfitness. The feckless Terry Gross is the perfect person to interview this guy.

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ESTHER MOBLEY: What I'm Reading

If you haven’t already read about how Thomas Keller tried to kick my colleague MacKenzie Chung Fegan out of the French Laundry, open a new tab immediately.

Gallo allegedly violated groundwater limitations, according to Fresno inspectors, discharging untreated wastewater that threatened the local drinking supply, reports Susana Guerrero in SFGate. (SFGate and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently.)

San Francisco liquor licenses can be had for cheap right now, writes Lauren Saria in the San Francisco Standard, which may be a sign of the restaurant industry’s dismal state.

(SF Chronicle)

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ED NOTE: The French Laundry saga is worth a read, and I write as a guy who thinks the entire haute cuisine movement is wayyyyyy past absurd somewhere north of decadence bordering on depravity.

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TOP OF THE MARK, San Francisco (1950s)

At the Top of the Mark, guests sipped cocktails beside floor-to-ceiling windows that framed sweeping views of San Francisco’s skyline and the sparkling bay beyond. The interior glowed with soft lighting, polished wood, and the hum of live piano music, creating a sophisticated retreat above the bustle of the city. Waiters in white jackets moved gracefully between tables, delivering drinks and hors d'oeuvres to travelers, socialites, and servicemen. From this high perch atop the Mark Hopkins Hotel, patrons could see the headlights crawling up Nob Hill and ferries gliding through the fog below. It wasn’t just a bar it was an experience, one that captured the elegance of the city’s golden postwar years. Whether for celebration or farewell, the Top of the Mark held countless moments of quiet glamour.

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“IN THE FORESTS, alongside rivers, everything speaks to man. The desert, on the other hand, is uncommunicative. I couldn’t understand its language: that is, its silence.”

— Pablo Neruda, as quoted in ‘Memoirs’ (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 1977. via Don Shanley)

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MISSING WOMAN WAS 'MIRACULOUSLY' FOUND IN CALIFORNIA'S MOUNTAINS. THEN CAME THE CHORUS OF SKEPTICS

After a news conference, comments questioning Tiffany Slaton’s story began streaming onto the Fresno County Sheriff Office's social media, news articles about the rescue and a Reddit post dedicated to discussing “odd details” in her story.

by Clara Harter

In the days following missing camper Tiffany Slaton's rescue from the Sierra National Forest, what began as a heartwarming tale of a woman surviving against all odds has been tinged by a chorus of online skeptics questioning the hiker and her family.

While many have praised the tenacity of the 28-year-old Georgia woman, others have expressed doubts about the veracity of her shocking survival story and have criticized her family's fundraising motives.

Slaton had set out for a three-day camping trip in the Huntington Lake area on April 20 but wound up surviving three weeks in the wilderness — eating wild leeks and boiling snow melt for potable water — before she was found on May 14 in a cabin near Lake Edison, she said during a Friday news conference.

Slaton said she became lost after she fell off a cliff and was unable to return to the main road due to an avalanche. After the tumble she was unconscious for two hours. When she woke, she splinted one of her legs and popped her other knee back into place.

She proceeded to journey many miles while seeking civilization, overcoming 13 snowstorms and two landslides, she said. Along the way, she lost her electric bike, tent, two sleeping bags and phone.

After she was rescued, medics determined she was dehydrated, but otherwise in good condition, according to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office.

After the news conference, comments questioning her story began streaming onto the Fresno County Sheriff Office's social media, news articles about the rescue and a Reddit post dedicated to discussing “odd details” in her story.

“I'm glad to see that other people don't believe this story. So many things don't add up, I hope this office investigates fully since resources were used,” a person wrote on the sheriff's office's Facebook. “It's embarrassing to think people believe someone fell off a cliff, survived 2 hours unconscious (guess she was timing it), popped her knee back into place, and traveled 20 miles after splinting her leg.”

Slaton has not spoken with the media since the news conference. Her mother, Fredrina Slaton, declined an interview request from The Times on her behalf.

On Monday, her parents shut down donations to their GoFundMe page, which had raised more than $23,500, citing “negative feedback that has arose from these events.”

“It has taken a lot to endure the attacks and attention asking for help has brought us,” Fredrina Slaton wrote on GoFundMe.

Slaton's parents reported their daughter missing on April 29 after not hearing from her for nine days. They launched the fundraiser on May 7 and continued to accept donations after she was found, citing the need to cover travel expenses to California.

“At this time, we aren't taking any interviews,” Fredrina Slaton told the Times in a Wednesday statement. “We are focusing on Tiffany's health and well being.”

Bobby Slaton, Tiffany's father, has defended his daughter's survival tale, writing on GoFundMe, “Believe it or not, we even thank those who have questioned the merit of the events — That is what makes miracles so unbelievable.”

Experienced Sierra mountain guide Howie Schwartz said he doesn't doubt Slaton was lost in the wilderness, but said there is lot that doesn't make sense about her story.

“It doesn't seem like a story you can really wrap your head around,” Schwartz told The Times. “Falling off a cliff, having to splint her leg. You don't splint your leg unless your leg is broken and if your leg is broken, you're not walking miles on it.”

Schwartz was guiding a five-day ski trip in the Mono Recesses in the Sierra while Slaton was missing and saw helicopters searching for her. He confirmed that there were still late-season snowstorms passing through the region, but noted that Huntington and Edison lakes' elevation is low enough that precipitation likely came down as rain.

Another detail many internet sleuths have fixated on is Slaton's experience with her phone. She said she was unable to contact 911, but got GPS information for a Starbucks location.

“I eventually got mad at my GPS and decided to ask, 'Well, where is the nearest Starbucks?” she said at the news conference. “It was like, ‘Oh, well, we can answer that question. It's 18 miles from here’.”

Tony Botti, a spokesperson for the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, said that the department does not yet have a clear understanding of all aspects of Slaton's survival story — such as the exact route she traveled while missing, or how her phone could not contact 911 but directed her to a Starbucks.

“We can only work with the information she told us because there are no other independent witnesses,” Botti said in a statement to The Times. “If there are inaccuracies or embellishments, we really can't do anything about it.”

The department is still investigating Slaton's journey and has found tracks lining up with her path, but has not recovered any of her missing belongings, Botti said.

Some people have accused Slaton of seeking attention with her story, pointing to her comment during the news conference that she was interested in going on the survival show “Alone” in which participants are left in the wilderness with only a backpack.

“Option 1: she's mentally ill and needs help. Option 2: She greatly embellished the story to cover her horrendous disregard for common sense. Option 3: A contrived story looking for a book deal and GoFundMe revenue,” one person wrote on Reddit. “Anyone who knows the area would agree.”

Some critics have lambasted her for failing to bring a satellite contact device — which allows people to send messages in areas without cell service — arguing she wasted law enforcement resources in the search for her.

Botti defended Slaton, saying that the woman didn't report herself missing and “there is no evidence to show she knew we were searching for her.”

Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni called Slaton's journey “an incredible story of perseverance, determination and survival” saying it is “something that you may see on TV that they would make movies about.”

The Sheriff's Office began searching for Slaton after her parents reported her missing and, thanks to tips from the public, learned she had last been seen at Huntington Lake on April 20.

The Sheriff's Search and Rescue team scoured nearly 600 square miles of the High Sierra looking for Slaton from May 6 to 10. Vehicles were unable to make it through Kaiser Pass because of heavy snow blocking the road, but helicopters were used to scout above Mono Hot Springs and around Lake Edison, where Slaton was ultimately found.

The Sheriff's Office announced that the missing hiker was “miraculously found alive” on May 14 at Vermilion Valley Resort, which is more than 20 miles from where she was last seen. Resort owner Christopher Gutierrez found Slaton inside a cabin when he went to check in on the condition of his resort in advance of reopening for the summer season.

Gutierrez commended Slaton's wilderness skills during a news conference last week, saying he was awed by how she endured a blizzard and foraged for survival.

“She has stories, she could write a book,” he said. “It's just unbelievable.”

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’ve never seen a “rich” man that’s in charge of the wealthiest, strongest, country in the world get so giggly about a used 13 year old plane.

Who does that??? It’s embarrassing that “we” are accepting some other country’s hand me downs. It’s an insult.

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S.F. FOUNTAIN’S 95-YEAR-OLD CREATOR RETURNS: ‘I’m here to save that piece of art’

by Sam Whiting

The creator of the giant Vaillancourt Fountain at San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza is aware that he may never see it restored to its former glory with water gushing through its white concrete pipes and channels.

But dry and dingy as it is, the monumental artwork has been there for nearly 55 controversial years, and Armand Vaillancourt says it can last another 55 at least.

That is why Vaillancourt, 95, made the six-hour flight from Montreal to San Francisco this week.

“I’m here to save that piece of art,” he said in a thick Quebecois accent while sitting in the sun Tuesday admiring his work.

The 40-foot-tall, 710-ton fountain, installed in 1971 next to the Embarcadero Freeway, has survived a legion of critics over the decades who decried its blocky Brutalist aesthetic. It also survived the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which damaged the freeway beyond repair.

But its supporters, including Vaillancourt, fear it may not survive the pending transformation of the park that surrounds it.

An ambitious $30 million project is underway to dramatically redesign Embarcadero Plaza, formerly known as Justin Herman Plaza, and link it to the adjacent Sue Bierman Park. The effort was announced last November by then-Mayor London Breed, and endorsed by the Board of Supervisors in March.

A preliminary rendering published with the announcement did not show the fountain. That got the attention of Vaillancourt’s daughter Oceania, who informed her father.

The project is still in the planning phase. No design decisions have been made, no public hearings have been held, and Vaillancourt said no representative of the city has reached out to him.

But he did not like what he did not see on the renderings. So he booked his own flight and booked his own pre-emptive hearing this week with the staff of the San Francisco Arts Commission, which owns the sculpture as part of the Civic Art Collection.

“They made the new plan and my monumental sculpture is not there,” said Vaillancourt.

He described his message to city staff as, “Be reasonable. Let that artwork live forever.”

“This survived a 7.1 earthquake with no damage, not a scratch, but they never took care of it,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it except the dirt.”

Recreation and Parks officials told the Chronicle that they had met with Vaillancourt on Wednesday. “It was an initial conversation focused on listening and exploring ways we might work together going forward,” said spokesperson Tamara Aparton.

She said that Rec and Park spent an average of $100,000 per year on maintenance of the fountain, which includes repairing persistent leaks and clogged drains, servicing the pumps, removing debris and cleaning graffiti.

But the only recent sign of attention Vaillancourt said he could see was a high fence on the Embarcadero side, an apparent attempt by the city to keep people from sleeping on the sculpture. While he was there Tuesday, a security guard came and rousted people who seemed to be setting up camp.

He had not visited the fountain in eight years, and his first reaction upon seeing it was to utter: “Wow.”

“The joy,” he said. “It is so powerful.”

The fountain’s sheer size is part of its artistic power — and a major issue in deciding its fate. Part of the civic discussion is whether it can be moved to another location in the city, or put into storage.

Vallaincourt laughed at that idea.

The fountain, which took him four years to build, is anchored to a foundation 40 feet deep and has steel cables running throughout. It was intended to shift and sway but never break, and did not even burst a pipe during the Loma Prieta quake.

However, it eventually blew a pump, and last summer the water was turned off. It would cost millions to repair, but Vaillancourt said it would cost millions more to demolish the fountain and backfill the huge crater that would leave behind.

He endorses whatever plan the city has for the plaza, which is likely to remove the brick and replace it with grass and trees or other natural elements. He said the fountain will go perfectly amid all of this, provided it is sandblasted to return it to its original white luster, and the water is turned back on. (When it was installed, the flow at 30,000 gallons a minute was intended in part to drown out the traffic noise from the adjacent freeway.)

“If you keep the sculpture like it is, people cannot enjoy it,” he said. “When the water is on the kids run through it. It’s a big toy in a sense.”

The redesign and renovation is a partnership between the Recreation and Parks Department, the Downtown SF Partnership and BXP (formerly Boston Properties), the commercial real estate firm that owns the four Embarcadero Center office buildings east of the plaza.

One community outreach meeting has been held by Rec and Park, and a second one is to be scheduled sometime this spring or summer.

Vaillancourt said he has done his own community outreach and claimed that “all of the people we talk to, engineers and architects and all that, they say do anything in the park but don’t touch Vaillancourt Fountain.”

Skateboarders, who like to thrash up the concrete benches, don’t want it touched. Neither do the members of the Northern California chapter of Docomomo U.S., a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the architecture of the Modern Movement.

They will host an informal picnic at 4 p.m. Friday at the fountain, with Vaillancourt promising to attend and engage in any form of conversation or debate.

With his distinctive flowing white hair and beard, he describes himself as a “small tiger,” and though he will be 96 in September, “all my life I’ve never said I’m tired,” he said.

Then he leaned back to admire his creation and started singing a song that was popular when he was building it, with his wife, Joanne, and son Alexis looking on.

“All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

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JEFF BLANKFORT: What apparently led Elias Rodriguez to act as he did in Washington Wednesday night that I expect the national media not to publish, at least in its entirety (from The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein):

The Israel Embassy Shooter Manifesto

(900-word document cites Gaza as motive)

by Ken Klippenstein

I’ve obtained the alleged manifesto written by Elias Rodriguez, suspect in the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC on Wednesday.

I believe the document to be authentic for several reasons, including the fact that it is signed by Rodriguez and time-stamped well before he was named by law enforcement or any media. I am publishing it here not to glorify the violence — which I find abhorrent and condemn — but so the public can better understand the truth of what happened.

Refusing to confront the content of these texts often creates an information vacuum that is quickly filled by hoax documents, conspiracy theories, or selective leaks from authorities that can distort the facts. I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant, especially when politics is involved, as the document makes clear is the case here.

Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela A. Smith identified Rodriguez as a 30-year-old man from Chicago who she said shouted “Free Palestine!” at the scene. The manifesto echoes this message, citing the war in Gaza as its central grievance and framing the killings as an act of political protest.

Below is the document in full.

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Explication

May 20, 2025

Halintar is a word that means something like thunder or lightning. In the wake of an act people look for a text to fix its meaning, so here's an attempt. The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification. Instead of reading descriptions mostly we watch them unfold on video, sometimes live. After a few months of rapidly mounting death tolls Israel had obliterated the capacity to even continue counting the dead, which has served its genocide well. At time of writing the Gaza health ministry records 53,000 killed by traumatic force, at least ten thousand lie under rubble, and who knows how many thousands more dead of preventable disease, hunger, with tens of thousands now at risk of imminent famine due to Israeli blockade, all enabled by Western and Arab government complicity. The Gaza information office includes the ten thousand under the rubble with the dead in their own count. In news reports there have been those “ten thousand” under the rubble for months now, despite the continual making of more rubble and repeated bombing of rubble again and again and the bombing of tents amid the rubble. Like the Yemen death toll which had been frozen at some few thousand for years under Saudi-UK-US bombardment before being belatedly revealed to stand at 500k dead, all of these figures are almost surely a criminal undercount. I have no trouble believing the estimates that put the toll at 100,000 or more. More have been murdered since March of this year than in “Protective Edge” and “Cast Lead” put together. What more at this point can one say about the proportion of mangled and burned and exploded human beings whom were children? We who let this happen will never deserve the Palestinians' forgiveness. They've let us know as much.

An armed action is not necessarily a military action. It usually is not. Usually it is theater and spectacle, a quality it shares with many unarmed actions. Nonviolent protest in the opening weeks of the genocide seemed to signal some sort of turning point. Never before had so many tens of thousands joined the Palestinians in the streets across the West. Never before had so many American politicians been forced to concede that, rhetorically at least, the Palestinians were human beings, too. But thus far the rhetoric has not amounted to much. The Israelis themselves boast about their own shock at the free hand the Americans have given them to exterminate the Palestinians. Public opinion has shifted against the genocidal apartheid state, and the American government has simply shrugged, they'll do without public opinion then, criminalize it where they can, suffocate it with bland reassurances that they're doing all they can to restrain Israel where it cannot criminalize protest outright. Aaron Bushnell and others sacrificed themselves in the hopes of stopping the massacre and the state works to make us feel their sacrifice was made in vain, that there is no hope in escalating for Gaza and no point in bringing the war home. We can't let them succeed. Their sacrifices were not made in vain.

The impunity that representatives of our government feel at abetting this slaughter should be revealed as an illusion, then. The impunity we see is the worst for those of us in immediate proximity to the genocidaires. A surgeon who treated victims of the Mayan genocide by the Guatemalan state recounts an instance in which he was operating on a patient who'd been critically injured during a massacre when, suddenly, armed gunmen entered the room and shot the patient to death on his operating table, laughing as they killed him. The physician said the worst part was seeing the killers, well known to him, openly swagger down local streets in the years after.

Elsewhere a man of conscience once attempted to throw Robert McNamara off a Martha's Vineyard-bound ferry into the sea, incensed at the same impunity and arrogance he saw in that butcher of Vietnam as he sat in the ferry's lounge laughing with friends. The man took issue with McNamara's “very posture, telling you, 'My history is fine, and I can be slumped over a bar like this with my good friend Ralph here and you'll have to lump it’.” The man did not succeed in heaving McNamara off a catwalk into the water, the former secretary of state managed to cling to the railing and clamber back to his feet, but the assailant explicated the value of the attempt by saying “Well, I got him outside, just the two of us, and suddenly his history wasn't so fine, was it?”

A word about the morality of armed demonstration. Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity. I sympathize with this viewpoint and understand its value in soothing the psyche which cannot bear to accept the atrocities it witnesses, even mediated through the screen. But inhumanity has long since shown itself to be shockingly common, mundane, prosaically human. A perpetrator may then be a loving parent, a filial child, a generous and charitable friend, an amiable stranger, capable of moral strength at times when it suits him and sometimes even when it does not, and yet be a monster all the same. Humanity doesn't exempt one from accountability. The action would have been morally justified taken 11 years ago during Protective Edge, around the time I personally became acutely aware of our brutal conduct in Palestine. But I think to most Americans such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane. I am glad that today at least there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.

I love you Mom, Dad, baby sis, the rest of my familia, including you, O*

Free Palestine

—Elias Rodriguez

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Rodriguez’s Targets

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THE REAL STORY HERE is how the entire western political/media class has expressed more outrage and sympathy over the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers than tens of thousands of Palestinians in history’s first live-streamed genocide. The coverage of the story is the story, because it exposes how little regard the western empire has for the lives of non-westerners. Palestinians are not regarded as fully human, so their deaths by daily genocidal massacres are considered less worthy of attention than a double homicide in Washington DC.

Western institutions regard Muslims and Arabs and people with darker skin as subhuman vermin whose extermination should be met with an emotional response ranging somewhere between indifference to glee. Our civilization views itself as morally superior to Nazi Germany while continuing basically the same atrocities under basically the same ideology.

That’s the real story here. That’s the real lesson.

— Caitlin Johnstone

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DURING WWII, the military analyzed the bullet holes on returning fighter planes to determine where to add more armor. The red dots in the image show where the planes that made it back were most commonly hit.

Initially, the military considered reinforcing the areas with the most bullet holes — the wings, tail, and outer fuselage. But statistician Abraham Wald pointed out a critical insight:

These are the planes that survived. The hits they sustained were not fatal.

Wald argued that the areas with few or no bullet holes — like the engine and cockpit — were the critical weak points. Planes hit in those areas didn’t return, so those missing data points were crucial.

This story teaches us survivorship bias — the logical error of focusing only on the people or things that survived a process while overlooking those that didn’t, often leading to false conclusions.

It's a classic case in statistics and decision-making, still taught widely today.

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COIN OPERATED

Put in a coin

And pull on the handle

Democracy’s purloined

In Trump’s crypto scandal

Little more

Than a vending machine

Our Grifter To The Core

Sells suckers his memes

A million here

A billion there

The ransom of fear

Buyer Beware

Coin operated corruption

Is destined to end

With the machine’s destruction

For failing to vend

— Elvin Woods

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I KNOW A MAN

by Robert Creeley (1991)

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.

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LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind

Trump Administration Says It Is Halting Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students

Judge Blocks Trump Administration From Revoking Student Visas

Kennedy and Trump Paint Bleak Picture of Chronic Disease in U.S. Children

Global Forest Loss Hit a Record Last Year as Fires Raged

End of the Penny Grows Near

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SHOULD WE KEEP SACRED COWS, OR SLAUGHTER THEM?

I say slaughter. But hey, it's a free country. Or is it?

by Matt Taibbi

On my way out of town for a story yesterday, I read “My Brush With Trump’s Thought Police” in the New York Times. Nobel laureate and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz described having his publicly funded lecture on “The Road to Freedom: Economics in a Good Society” canceled:

A core element of freedom is the ability of each person to live up to his or her potential. A liberal education is essential for this to happen, because it helps students develop their skills and capabilities to the utmost, frees them from shibboleths and enables them to think critically.

But this kind of approach is threatening to authoritarianism, which wants to impose particular views on a nation’s citizens. In the case of the Danish lecture series, simply discussing diversity, equity and inclusion was apparently deemed threatening to the administration, which asserts that those qualities, by their very nature, are discriminatory against a majority of the population. But Mr. Trump’s “1984”-ish thought police have not stopped at D.E.I. Climate change and gender are other terms that are being expunged.

I almost spit out coffee at the last line. Probably no three terms in the English language are more associated with groupthink-truisms or “shibboleths” than D.E.I., climate change, and gender.

We saw (and are still seeing) a generation of people be censored or lose jobs or careers for failure to properly salute those terms. Seemingly half now write on Substack. Matt Yglesias was bounced from a site he co-founded, Vox, because he was one of 150+ people to sign the Harper’s Letter on open debate alongside gender villains J.K. Rowling and Jesse Singal. Biologist Colin Wright, Canadian psychologist Kenneth Zucker, Princeton classics Professor Joshua Katz, the black former DEI director for De Anza Community College Tabia Lee, data scientist David Shor (fired for tweeting a study questioning the efficacy of violent protest), and countless academics forced to write “diversity statements” (the most potent and outrageous symbol of the mandated-thought era) only begin the list of other casualties. You could fill a congressional district with people punished for lack of fealty to DEI and gender “shibboleths.”

As for climate change, see the punchline below. It’s incredible that the New York Times would have the gall to talk about someone else acting as climate change “thought police.”

The Denmark lecture episode, which as Stiglitz notes is news over there, is a textbook example of why the snowballing pile of Trump constitutional controversies is more complicated than is being let on. Some administration developments are genuinely terrifying. Kristi Noem saying habeas corpus is a “constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people” was legit pucker-inducing. Speaking of Denmark, Donald Trump probably shouldn’t be musing about seizing Greenland (even though, again, I can’t help find the level of trolling involved in sending J.D. Vance there funny). Trump and Marco Rubio should probably compare notes before giving contradictory answers about who is and isn’t entitled to due process. On the other hand, some of the alleged “attacks on free speech” turn out upon closer inspection to mean the opposite of what’s been represented, as in this case.

I once admired Joseph Stiglitz as someone who spoke with unusual candor for someone occupying lofty institutional roles. As a young reporter in Moscow in the nineties I was shocked by the I.M.F. and his World Bank, which to my novice eyes seemed to be pursuing disastrous policies, plunging Russia into debt while enriching a handful of gangster-oligarchs to act as a bulwark against Communism. Stiglitz showed guts in also publicly calling out these neoliberal policies as short-sighted, while correctly warning about blowback. I think he means what he says, which is what makes this depressing. We’ve been in a monocultural boil for so long, even some more independent thinkers can’t feel the heat anymore.

If Stiglitz thinks cutting federal funding for DEI and “gender ideology extremism” represents the “erosion of American democracy,” I have to conclude he doesn’t know the definition of eitherdemocracy or “shibboleth.”

This country was long forced to worship a list of sacred cows (about race, gender, climate, equity, and so on) before getting fed up and voting to slaughter them. The effort to “impose particular views,” as Stiglitz puts it, isn’t happening now. That was done over a decade of constant budgetary initiatives, with nary a peep from media, leaving most of bureaucratic America choked with mandatory thinking at every level. That was the outrageous free speech violation, not this (admittedly clumsy) effort to cut its funding. It’s the difference between feeding sacred cows and slaughtering them. America isn’t a theocracy. We can’t have sacred cows. But something like a religion still runs deep, thanks to a generation of propaganda.…

https://www.racket.news/p/should-we-keep-sacred-cows-or-slaughter

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AS A FELLOW STROKE SURVIVOR, JOHN FETTERMAN DISGUSTS ME

by Drew Magary

You and I should never have to worry about Pennsylvania. It’s a dull, gray state that exists three time zones away from California and is populated by needy, hostile people. But because we live in a swing state-ocracy where control for every branch of the federal government is decided by the thinnest of margins in our most inessential states, we have the grave misfortune of having to not only care about Pennsylvania more often than sensible doctors recommend, but to care about the politicians who represent it.

Which brings us to John Fetterman. Trust me, I just groaned at seeing the name, too.

Back in 2022, Fetterman was the oafishly lovable lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania whose Senate run in the midterms stood to help Democrats keep their tenuous majority. Even better, Fetterman’s brusqueness, along with his fondness for casual wear, gave the Democratic National Committee hope that it had, at long last, found its long-prized ”leader who can appeal to both centrists and to Republican-leaning pickup truck owners.” He was the rising political star of the moment, and perhaps a dark horse future presidential candidate.

Three years later, Fetterman has become the demon child of Joe Manchin and Donald Trump. A turncoat. A bastard. A true piece of s—t. This transformation was laid bare a week ago in a thoroughly damning investigative piece by New York Magazine’s Ben Terris. In talking with everyone in Fetterman’s circle, Terris discovered a man who was nigh unrecognizable as the one who edged out “Dr.” Mehmet Oz in that midterm race. Now firmly entrenched in the Senate, Fetterman has all but abandoned his voting duties, has expressed a distressing bloodlust for slaughtering innocent Gazans, has alienated both staffers and constituents alike and drives so recklessly that he injured his own wife in a car crash.

Now, I’m quite used to feeling let down and/or betrayed by Democrats. It’s what they’re best at, really. Ask the ghost of Dianne Feinstein. But where Fetterman’s treachery differs from that of his worst contemporaries is that it appears to have come not from craven opportunism, nor from aging out of the times. In Fetterman’s case, he appears to have had the good sense literally knocked out of him. Roll the clip: https://www.youtube.com/live/ovHLD5NSbBk?si=fml5Dc8fjkmPxkit

A quick refresher: Fetterman suffered a stroke in the lead-up to the 2022 midterms, the aftereffects of which were on clear display in his only televised debate with Oz. Fetterman slurred his words, couldn’t process questions in the moment they were asked, and found himself unable to finish his thoughts coherently. All of that is evident in the above clip, and if you find it tough to watch, well, imagine having to watch it when you yourself are a traumatic brain injury survivor.

I am one such survivor. One night in 2018, I was enjoying some beer and pizza with my friends when BOOM! I had a sudden, catastrophic brain hemorrhage. When I came out of a medically induced coma two weeks later, I found myself living inside of a new body: 30 pounds lighter, deaf in one ear, unable to stand up. My mind had undergone a refurb as well: easily confused, prone to hallucinations and easily enraged. The only reason I’m able to write this post today is because I had the time, the resources and the support I needed to recover. I had to spend months rehabbing both my body and brain back into fighting shape. I had to get outfitted with hearing aids to make up for my sensory losses. I had to find the right meds to treat the permanent brain damage I had suffered, and then I had to stay on those meds. And I had to go see a therapist to help me talk my way through dealing with the resulting adjustment disorder my injury caused.

As you might have guessed, this process took years, and is in fact still ongoing. Talk to anyone who’s ever had a stroke and they’ll tell you a similar tale. Recovering from one of these injuries is a long road, if you recover at all. Judging by Terris’ expose and by a score of other reports that have followed in its wake, John Fetterman has had little to no interest in walking that road:

“Two aides told me they frequently heard him talk about how he felt so great that he didn’t ‘need’ medication. One person told me Fetterman said he ‘didn’t like the way’ his medication ‘made’ him feel — made, past tense.”

There was a point in my recovery where I thought I was “OK” enough to stop taking one of my meds, so I did so without consulting my doctors or my therapist. I got worse almost instantly, but luckily had the presence of mind to sense it. I went back on those meds and have stayed on them ever since. I wasn’t a good patient throughout all of my rehabilitation, but, more often than not, I was a willing one. That willingness eventually paid off. Sticking to my recovery plan helped me feel better and, as a bonus, it gave me an understanding of what life might be like for other TBI sufferers out there, Fetterman included.

That’s why I defended Fetterman to friends after that 2022 debate performance. I didn’t like people judging the man based solely on his newfound disability, because that felt like a slight against both him and the TBI survivor community. I also didn’t want f—king Dr. Oz to win that election, so I rationalized Fetterman’s performance away using my newfound empathy. I figured he was gutting out a tough situation as best he could and that, like me, he’d put as much effort as he could into recovering from his stroke while handling his legislative duties.

He has done neither of those things. Sen. Fetterman has proven himself to be a terrible politician and an even worse patient, with the latter informing the former to an unknown degree. Instead of putting in the work to make himself a whole person again, Fetterman has chosen to remain in place and wither into an ignorant, hateful man.

No two traumatic brain injuries are alike, and I can’t know the extent of Fetterman’s brain damage because I’m not his doctor and because I’m prevented from seeing his CAT scans due to HIPAA laws — which currently remain in place until Oz, now in charge of Medicare for the second Trump administration, throws them into a bonfire. So it’s not necessarily fair of me to present my own TBI as an apples-to-apples comparison with Fetterman’s. I also understand that millions of my fellow Americans are bad patients: the inevitable result of a health care system that is both predatory and often unworthy of our trust.

But this man, unlike most of us, is a sitting U.S. senator. A senator who won’t take his meds, won’t operate within the limits of his physical and mental health, and appears to have no interest in ever getting better when the people who work for him and the people who love him are begging him to try. Other TBI survivors are free to bail on recovering, but this man is a public servant whose actions resonate out of the Keystone State and across the entire country. John Fetterman is duty bound to be a good patient; he and his colleagues take an oath of office that necessitates it. If he cared about the people he serves — or hell, just about himself — he would step down from office so that he can try, in good faith, to get his life, and his worldview, back together as best he can. Instead, he simply sits there and rots, forcing all of us to rot alongside him. So needy. So hostile.

(sfgate.com)

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