Mendocino County Today: Sunday 5/25/2025

Randolph Missing | Cloudy | Albert Missing | Student Hospitalized | Roadwork Delays | Ted Talk | Northern Pomo | Budget Woes | Pet Wednesday | Albion Headlands | Offshore Drilling | What Beach | Ed Notes | Hair Hanger | Local Events | Film Festival | Adopt-a-Pet Day | Folk Festival | River Dams | Yesterday's Catch | Cloverdale 1885 | Marco Radio | Proud Parents | Disparaging Harris | Birds | Pariah State | Giants Lose | School Lunch | California Stories | Monkeys Typing | $TRUMP | Hands Off | Checkers | Lead Stories | American Rigidity | Gaza Plan | Evgeny Kobytev

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A WEAK FRONT Sunday night into Monday will cool temperatures and bring a chance of light rain to Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. A warming trend is expected for the next week into the weekend possibly bringing triple digit temperatures. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Sure enough a foggy 49F this Sunday morning on the coast. I could see the fog building yesterday. I'll go with a mix of cool temps, fog, clouds (approaching front) & clearing into the new week. We'll check on possible clearing skies in a few days.

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WALKING MAN GONE MISSING

by Matt LaFever

A Northern California man who told a loved one he planned to walk all the way to the Pacific Ocean has gone missing, prompting a search by authorities in Lake County.

Albert Herschler, 38, of Olivehurst—a small Yuba County town about 40 miles north of Sacramento—was reported missing to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office on May 21, officials said in a statement.

Herschler reportedly left his home roughly three weeks ago, telling his family he intended to make the long trek west to the ocean. The last known contact came on May 18, when Herschler phoned his grandmother and said he was “20 miles away from Clearlake” and in need of water, according to the sheriff’s office.

Since that call, Herschler’s phone has gone straight to voicemail and no one has heard from him, the agency said.

Lake County is a rugged, rural region of Northern California, with limited infrastructure connecting its small towns and vast open spaces. Clearlake, one of the county’s largest cities, sits on the eastern edge of Clear Lake—the state’s largest natural freshwater lake.

Herschler is described as a white male, approximately 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds. He has a shaved head, a reddish-blonde goatee, and blue eyes. His grandmother told deputies he was last seen wearing a black shirt.

Anyone with information about Herschler’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Lake County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch at (707) 263-2690.

The sheriff’s office has not disclosed any confirmed sightings or evidence of his location since May 18.

(mendofever.com)

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WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED?

A lot of people have posted versions of the below referencing a fight at the Boonville High School this week that saw a male student hospitalized.

There really needs to be a resolution… Kids are supposed to be and feel safe at school. Instead those who comment or make statements are made to be ridiculed and not taken seriously. Prayers to the student who was injured and those who witnessed such ugliness today. Moving forward it would be great to see some changes. Outside volunteers, donating your time or stepping up for our valley kids in one way or another could go a long way. What could we as a community do to help engage our youth, and bring them together to teach them that this isn’t how we behave or what we tolerate? Seems far fetched but is it? There’s got to be something that can be done.

(Mendo Action News)

ED NOTE: The incident is under investigation. We expect to get a statement of the facts from AV Superintendent Larson early next week.

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VALLEY ROADWORK (CalTrans)

Electrical work from the CalFire Boonville Station to the Robinson Creek Bridge will occur on Thursday, May 29. Lane closures will be in effect from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Motorists should expect up to 5-minute delays.

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Road work on Highway 253 at Butler Ranch Road continues. One-way traffic control will be in effect from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Motorists should expect up to 5-minute delays.

(Caltrans)

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SUPERVISOR WILLIAMS WOWS COAST ROTARIANS (MCN chatline)

LEONA WALDEN

Supervisor Ted Williams is a dynamic speaker and extremely informative this past Thursday.

The Town Hall meeting yesterday, Thursday at Preston Hall was a big success.

Mendicino Rotary club is worth the organization you might consider looking into and joining.

Most meeting, they have very interesting speakers. Toby and Leona are both members.

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JEAN ARNOLD:

While I’m grateful to the Rotary Club and the Presbyterian Church for hosting the Town Hall and I learned a few new facts (who knew that the population of Mendocino County is only 0.2% of the State population, or that it costs close to a mil to repave a mile of two-lane road?), as a person who attended the last Town Hall there and the recent Budget Meeting in Ft. Bragg, I found most of it extremely repetitive.

I ws especially disappointed when Ted criticized the media coverage of the Cubbison fiasco, saying that they get lots wrong -- but wouldn’t identify WHAT they got wrong, and didn’t/doesn’t provide any information to counter what they report. I see this as the equivalent of howling, “Fake news!” without making any effort to give us anything else. A reporter was sitting right in front of me, recording the entire meeting on her phone, not on a pad. I’ll be interested in seeing what she writes. Ted also tried to free himself from his responsibility for what is happening. The BoS decides what happens with the civil settlement, or lack thereof, in the case, not the D.A., and they want to move the case to Marin, which means employees will be driving down there for depositions (and as you may have noticed, courts often cancel hearings at the very last moment).

All I know for sure is that despite 75% of his remarks being about the gross lack of funding and how little can be done with what we have, cash is still pouring out the door to pay for these criminal and now civil cases. And CEO Antle allowed Eyster to “host” a steak dinner again, at our expense, this year -- after ALL THIS.

Our money. Your money.

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KATHY WYLIE

It’s in litigation. Supervisor Williams is correct that board members shouldn’t be wading into the weeds, causing further speculation with the public, before it is adjudicated.

You can’t know all the facts that the Supes have yet.

I’m glad you took away that the county is very small, and the tax base here can’t keep up with the growing costs of the services the county provides to us residents.

We have an ongoing, growing structural deficit (crisis) in how Mendocino county is funded.

Read ‘The Municipal Finance Crisis’ by Mark Moses, for more.

And thanks again to Rotary for sponsoring these forums!

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JEAN ARNOLD

I well know it’s in litigation, which I feel is yet another blunder in a blunderful series of decisions.

The question I was going to ask, was, “Why can’t the Board of Supervisors admit they were wrong, apologize, and settle with Ms. Cubbision?” It was deemed not to be a question, and the moderator discarded it(!).

Ted implied that he/they (the BoS) didn’t have control over what has happened and is happening, and that is most definitely NOT the case. They didn’t have control over the criminal case, but they do now over the civil one, and they do (or should!) have control over the actions of CEO Antle, and Ms. Pierce, who is refusing to support and work with Ms. Cubbison by doing a proper hand-over and explanation of her actions while covering for Ms. Cubbison. Topping it off, the Board is trying to force solely Ms. Cubbison into signing documents testifying to the accuracy of work she wasn’t allowed to perform while out on unpaid leave, defending herself from charges for which she was exonerated.

Would you sign a tax return that someone else had prepared in your absence, testifying to its accuracy? She’s asking that Ms. Pierce co-sign, which is a perfectly reasonable and logical stance.

They’re STILL trying to force her out, and creating a hostile work environment, which will likely result in a higher ultimate payout to Ms. Cubbison in the civil suit. It’s very hard to picture a scenario where Cubbison will lose, given the evidence and what she’s suffered.

You (plural) are welcome to respond offlist (though I’ll be out today). I don’t want to start a discussion, just correct any wrong impressions.

Jean Arnold

PS I don’t know, haven’t met, or ever spoken to Ms. Cubbison. Just a citizen here, watching all that’s transpired with horror.

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SUPERVISOR TED WILLIAMS

Jean,

“and Ms. Pierce, who is refusing to support and work with Ms. Cubbison by doing a proper hand-over and explanation of her actions while covering for Ms. Cubbison. Topping it off, the Board is trying to force solely Ms. Cubbison into signing documents testifying to the accuracy of work she wasn’t allowed to perform while out on unpaid leave, defending herself from charges for which she was exonerated.”

The Board of Supervisors conducts the public’s business in front of the public. You (and any member of the public) can watch the actual discussions. Correspondence between staff and departments is subject to public records laws and available upon request. If you are in possession of documented refusals to work collaboratively, I welcome you to share and I’ll follow up. I have not observed any such refusals.

What was actually said by the Board and staff regarding this issue can be viewed at the following timestamp from last Tuesday’s public meeting: https://www.youtube.com/live/rrRqnK_Sp5I?si=iCbtKy53F7VvzBpw&t=2260

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JEAN ARNOLD:

Thank you for responding, Ted.

I will check out the link, but I don’t have time to watch the whole recording (and I’m hearing-impaired), so I can’t have the whole story. The letter Haschak penned and went public was threatening.

If, as I understand, Pierce is not being made available, it seems to me that Cubbison is being denied what she needs to do her job, then being accused of not being able to do her job. And moving the civil case to another jurisdiction would require her to spend a lot more time away from her post than would be required if the case was tried here. A trip to Marin is pretty much a day shot.

I’d really appreciate your specifying any facts that you can show the press got wrong, instead of saying their reporting does not reflect what occurred.

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JULIE BEARDSLEY:

The Board of Supervisors must admit they received bad advice and made a mistake removing Ms. Cubbison with no hearing, then depriving her of her salary and benefits for 17 months. Trying to stonewall a settlement and using delaying tactics, like trying to get the case removed to Marin, are not helping to improve this situation. Deputy CEO Sara Pierce was the Auditor Tax Collector for those months, and she is needed to finish audits taking place. Not allowing her to be available to Cubbison’s office has the optics of more “mean girl” politics, and is beneath the office of the BOS. Settle this case and let’s move on. Additionally, removing CEO Antle, and appointing a new CEO (I suggest Tony Rakes who is experienced and smart), would go a long way in restoring confidence in our county government.

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ED NOTE: Williams was instrumental in the Cubbison fiasco and by permitting the ongoing Mean Girls treatment of Cubbison, at the expense of County functioning, he and the Supervisors are piling dysfunction on top of dysfunction. Of course Williams doesn’t dare say where the media coverage is wrong, media being synonymous with the AVA in this case. Julie Beardsley is right on.

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MARK SCARAMELLA:

As Christopher Hitchens used to say: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” Williams has lost credibility on the Cubbison matter (as with many other of his self-serving remarks) since he is a party/defendant in Cubbison’s lawsuit, hardly a neutral observer. Of course he toes the Board’s party line, whatever it may be. (We don’t know because the Board is silent on the case, other than in their court filings.) Williams’ public record of leading the Board’s vindictive effort to “Get Cubbison” going back to 2021 when he first started whining about not getting budget reports that he should have asked his CEO for speaks for itself. I expect we’ll know more when/if the Cubbison depositions are released.

Ms. Wylie’s claim that the Supervisors are somehow in possession of facts that are not “yet” public implies that there might be some kind of reasonable explanation for the Board’s actions in the Cubbison fiasco. You’d think that if that was true at least some of it would have been presented at Cubbison’s preliminary hearing and therefore be public. Instead, the opposite was true: Everything that became public during the 17-month run-up to Cubbison’s Preliminary hearing put the County in a very bad light and Judge Moorman tossed the case in advance, criticizing the Mendo officials involved and praising Cubbison as a whistleblower. Even DA Eyster’s hand-picked $400 an hour outside prosecutor Tracy Carrillo could offer nothing to defend the County’s actions —after Eyster himself dumped the embarrassing prosecution on Ms. Carrillo.

So far all we’ve heard from Williams or the Supervisors or the County or their attorney in the Cubbison civil matter are transparently lame tactical legal maneuvers including unsubstantiated media bashing and judge shopping. Judge Moorman’s pointed remarks about the County in Cubbison’s criminal case have gone unchallenged by the Supervisors and their attorney. There has been no appeal of Moorman’s highly critical dismissal of the County’s misappropriation case against Cubbison. The Supervisors have made no assertions of error or demands for correction. They have not issued a press release (like the one they released when they first tried to defend the Veterans Service Office relocation fiasco before reversing themselves months later) with whatever claims, complaints or corrections they may have. Of course, that would be subject to public review and scrutiny which would not help their case, as weak as it is. Much easier to make claims of false or biased reporting. (As if Williams himself is unbiased.) Williams knows that most of his coast supporters are not following the case (with the obvious exception of a few people like Ms. Arnold) or the Board meetings, so his unsubstantiated remarks are predictable, but tiresome.

PS. Supervisor Williams’ picky attempt to undermine Ms. Arnold’s description of the Pierce/Cubbison situation by pointing out a minor mistake in her otherwise correct statement proves nothing because Ms. Arnold is not representing herself as a member of the local media. In fact, although the Board seemed to prefer that everybody cooperate nicely last Tuesday (when the cooperation problem is only on the County side), they refused to ask CEO Antle to withdraw her ridiculous order that Cubbison put all her questions of Pierce in emails. PPS. We hope that Cubbison’s civil attorney, Ms. Cannata, adds the creation of a post-exoneration hostile work environment and the board’s ongoing refusal to even give Cubbison her back pay after being unjustly suspended without pay to her growing list of claims against the County.

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SUPERVISOR QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Supervisor Maureen Mulheren offered this keen insight during last Tuesday’s budget discussion: “Our budget is not balanced because we have more expenses than we have revenue.”

Mulheren went on to complain about the “budget process,” saying that her colleagues’ approach to budget balancing — asking all departents to file budgets with 10% cuts for board consideration — “does not get us where we need to be as an agency.” But, of course, Mulheren offered no alternative approaches. After upwards of an hour of aimless discussion the Board voted 3-2 (Mulheren and Bernie Norvell dissenting) to ask the Departments for budgets with 10% cuts, even though nobody particularly liked the idea. (Norvell thought that law enforcement should be excluded from the request.)

Explaining her no vote, Mulheren said that asking for across the board 10% cuts even if they’re just on paper for consideration “does more harm. It’s not thoughtful. There’s a way we can get there as a community.” What way? Mulheren again did not say. Nobody even brought up the distinction between General Fund departments and non-General Fund departments.

The Supervisors say they are still about $3 million short of what the General Fund Departments say is the minimum funding they need for the July 2025-June 2026 fiscal year. But that $3 million is after dubiously assuming that they’ll get $8 million in savings by leaving a bunch of funded positions vacant next year. As we have noted before, there is no reasonable math that gets you to $8 million in general fund savings by leaving positions vacant, even if they can go without filling all the positions they predict will be left vacant, also a dubious assumption. Among other things, the prediction ignores the distinction between General Fund departments and departments which are primarily funed by state grants and special projects.

No one asked the departments about ways to enhance their revenues through such things as what Sheriff Kendall likes to call “leveraging” other state and federal revenues.

(Mark Scaramella)

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UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Have you been searching for a fun-loving and adorable companion? Then Wednesday is your girl! This young female dog has a cute button nose and an energetic, playful spirit. She’s a sociable girl who loves to make new friends, whether two legged or four. Wednesday is an excellent walker on-leash and she’s always up for an adventure. And when the time comes to settle, she knows just what to do. Our girl is happy to play in water, explore the outdoors, and snuggle up for a mid day nap. Wednesday is a mixed breed, 10-ish month old dog, weighing a svelte 60 pounds. Wednesday will be a wonderful addition to your family.

For information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

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THE ALBION HEADLANDS

Considered one of California's Last Great Places. Comprised of roughly 84+- Acres, approximately 1+- miles of Coastline and 16 Separate Legal Parcels zoned for Residential Development. Extensive studies and improvements have been completed on the property which allow for a more streamlined process towards future development and approval. Situated just West of the town of Albion, the property runs adjacent to California's last remaining wooden bridge and Highway 1.

The property offers a true outdoor experience like no other and could play host to those discerning and Conservation minded buyers looking to create open space; or to those seeking the ultimate Multifamily Compound at the water edge. Rarely does a property so bold and so dramatic become available on the Mendocino Coast. The Albion Headlands is truly one of California's most spectacular oceanfront properties.

https://youtu.be/4uIYNhYyMGw?si=4Dqav7JhomZpZkMC

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LEIGH ANNE LINDSEY:

Trump’s offshore drilling plans target California’s Marine Sanctuaries for the first time ever. The comment period ends June 16. Visit SaveMyCoast.org now to tell the Interior Department: our coasts are NOT for sale. #ProtectOurCoasts

Watch/listen to our Resilient Earth Radio & Podcast episode about this Executive Order by Trump where I speak with Richard Charter Sr. Fellow The Ocean Foundation. Uploaded Friday May 23, 2025. Included are clips from news reports, a 70s movie, and a short clip from an interview with Congressman Blue Frontier.

https://youtu.be/wNlDkxYBPYU?feature=shared

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NAME THE BEACH

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ED NOTES

FROM THE ARCHIVES, 2013: Ten acres of dissipation or a political celebration? Dissipation seemed preponderant at San Francisco’s civic center Saturday but, as a child of the 1950s, I’m still adjusting to new realities. I do remember, though, that the first gay parades in the early 1970s occurred in an overall political context emphasizing all kinds of liberation, from ethnic to sexual. Anymore, especially this year, Gay Pride Day seems heavily corporate, heavily Democratic Party, heavily mainstream with Bradley Manning, a gay hero if there ever was one, purged as the parade’s grand marshal. He, Assange and now Snowden, are well outside the great Frisco Consensus as defined by Willie Brown, Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein. Like a great, gray poison fog, the grasping talons of the Democrats enfold us all in their lethal embrace. The Republicans aren’t even good for a laugh anymore. They’re just dumb and mean.

I’d footed it up Market from Union Square with Castro Street as the goal. I wanted to see what the celebration was like only hours after the Defense of Marriage Act had fallen. I didn’t know that the Civic Center had become a weekend celebration set aside, admission $5, to a mob scene of people, many with their bums hanging out from leather coveralls reminiscent of baboons. Earlier in the day, I’d seen lots of citizens in odd costumes all over downtown, none with their reproductive organs in view. But there are always odd people downtown. Farther up Market at the official celebration area in front of City Hall, the revelers didn’t seem particularly gay, but more that the whole sexual panoply seemed present — from the inevitable naked guys to nubile young women, and everything in between. I thought back to my deformative years when gays weren’t part of the national consciousness.

I remember feeling sorry for a high school classmate who’d been arrested with an adult barber for “unnatural acts,” or whatever the euphemism was then. It got into the newspapers, and only later could I fully imagine what it must have been like for that kid to have everyone pointing him out like some kind of secret freak. Gays weren’t gays yet, either, and the other prevalent pejorative, fag, was also unknown. In 1957 a fag was a cigarette. Homo, queer and fruit were the terms then applied to male same sexers. I don’t recall a derogatory term for lesbians, probably because they were even more invisible than male gays.

I had a baseball coach who constantly grumbled that the frustrations presented by both the team and the game were “driving me fruit.” Or, “For Chrissakes, you guys are enough to drive a guy fruit.” But I don’t remember anybody associating the coach’s perpetual road to fruit with homosexuality, although shrinks pointed out that those who constantly invoked fruit were probably closet cases.

In Marine Corps boot camp our DI routinely denounced Californians as “a bunch of damn queers sent to sabotage my Marine Corps.” We all laughed at that one, but not in front of him; he scared the shit out of all of us and often talked about how he’d like to choke us all to death, especially the Californians as I wondered if this guy is on my side, how bad can the Russians be.

All this stuff seems ancient now, and very crazy. People nostalgic for the 50s weren’t there, but the 50s were twice as bad for same sexers. I suppose like most heteros, it wasn’t until those first gay marches in San Francisco that I realized how awful it had been for gay men and women. Now, freshly enslaved by the Democrats, the 50’s seem almost an era to be nostalgic for.

ON-LINE STATEMENT OF THAT DAY: “A story about gay puppets receives a prominent position on SFGate’s website. This was to be expected now that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are over, Gitmo has been closed, the unemployed have become employed and Obama has locked up those responsible for the financial crisis.”

DEBBIE L. HOLMER, archivist of the Fort Bragg Advocate, remembered that back on June 20th, 1911, “Jack London, the celebrated novelist, accompanied by his wife and a Japanese servant, drove into town behind four little ponies. The North Bay Counties Association has engaged this prominent writer to write an article for Sunset Magazine, boosting the resources of the seven counties. After a short visit, Mr. London left for Eureka Tuesday afternoon and intends to make a complete tour of the seven counties collecting data for his articles. This makes Jack’s second visit to Fort Bragg. He passed through here on horseback for the first time shortly after the great earthquake and states that he is surprised to see the rapid strides of improvement our little city has made in the last few years.”

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CALIFORNIA’S REDWOODS HELPED A PERFORMER BREAK A WEIRD WORLD RECORD

by Matt LaFever

In June 2024, beneath the towering redwoods of Northern California, Leila Noone twisted, turned and flowed through the air, suspended by nothing but a single knot of her own hair. For 25 minutes and just over 11 seconds, the 38-year-old circus artist moved midair among the tallest trees on Earth, striking graceful poses as guitar melodies drifted through the forest. In a place defined by giants, Noone wasn’t just performing a rare form of aerial art — she was chasing a world record.

Nearly a year later, on May 13, 2025, Guinness World Records confirmed that her feat beneath the redwoods had earned her the title for the longest time suspended by the hair. She broke a record that had stood for 13 years.

“I just love the redwood forest,” Noone told SFGATE. “Every time I’m in it, I’m just so inspired.”

“The most I had ever done was 10 minutes before that,” she added.

Noone’s record-breaking feat took place at Camp Navarro, a 200-acre retreat tucked in the redwoods of Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley, a place she called both spiritually charged and physically grounding.

Hair-hanging demands rigorous training, meditative focus and an unshakable tolerance for pain. For Noone, it took nearly three years of preparation to attempt to break the record, including performances suspended from cranes and even hanging people from her feet.

Noone told SFGATE she has spent the past several years living a nomadic lifestyle, performing at festivals and fairs across the country. Hair hanging spoke to her in a way few other disciplines had, with its deep ties to both circus history and spiritual traditions.

“It has kind of ancient roots,” she explained. “Lots of circus families only passed it down as secret knowledge within those families. And in places like India and China, people used it not for performance but as a form of meditation, to demonstrate the power of the human spirit.”

Noone, a Connecticut woman now living in Austin, Texas, had the idea to attempt her feat in the redwoods while attending a wellness and leadership retreat in the area, where she had been hired to represent the “element of air” through aerial performance.

“It was like a whole week of practice and just staying put and just staying in the stillness and meditation,” she said. “Coupled with the beautiful redwoods, which are so resilient, strong and have withstood so much. It was like, yeah, this is where I have to do this record.”

Unlike many record attempts staged before large crowds or dazzling lights, Noone’s was quiet, surrounded only by friends, fellow artists and the stillness of the forest. “I was kind of just waiting patiently for, like, a sign from the universe,” she said. “I thought maybe it would be on a stage, some spectacle. But when I got to the redwoods, it just felt so right to do it then.”

About 10 minutes into her hair hanging, Noone told SFGATE, the pain began to overwhelm her. To cope, she focused on her hair follicles, the points of greatest strain, visualizing them as radiant energy. “I started picturing them as beams of light,” she said. “And I just sent that light outwards into the forest. And then I just kind of surrendered, and I just became light.”

That mental image helped her feel “20 pounds lighter” and gave her the strength to endure. Without that visualization, she said, “mentally, I would have just given up.”

With her legs crossed midair, Noone remained calm and composed, buoyed by the community that had gathered to support her. Some played gentle guitar music; others whispered affirmations from below. “I just felt so inspired and so much power coming from these amazing trees and the community and all the work that we had done,” she said.

Noone’s hair isn’t especially long, just past her shoulders — but that hasn’t limited her. “It’s crazy how strong hair is,” she said. “One follicle of hair is very, very strong.”

Now, as a member of the record-breaking club, alongside the sword swallowers and whip artists she’s met on the renaissance fair circuit, Noone is already thinking about what’s next.

“I do actually know a few hair-hanger friends who could probably beat this record,” she said. She doesn’t view that possibility as competition; instead, she embraces it. “I encourage people to break the record or … challenge themselves, because that’s how we grow, and that’s what inspires us to do the next big thing.”

(SFGate.com)

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LOCAL EVENTS (Memorial weekend)

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MENDO FILM FESTIVAL IS BACK

by Matt LaFever

The 18th annual Mendocino Film Festival is back, and according to a press release from festival organizers, this year’s lineup is more vibrant and star-studded than ever. Running May 29 through June 1, the beloved coastal event will showcase 67 films from 20 countries, including works by Oscar and Emmy-winning directors and producers.

The press release highlights a strong showing from Mendocino County creatives, with several local filmmakers and special guests slated to appear. Directors Ana Blanco and Natasha Benjamin will attend the premiere of Sequoias of the Sea, their documentary about kelp forests and the Noyo Harbor community. That screening takes place Friday, May 30 at 1 p.m.

Also returning home is Will Hawkes, a Mendocino local and co-writer of the Oscar-nominated short The Last Ranger. His film will screen as part of the “Making a Difference” shorts program on Friday, May 30 at 10 a.m., the release notes.

Festival organizers are particularly excited about “Reel Mendo,” the closing-night event on Sunday, June 1, which celebrates Mendocino County filmmakers with 11 original short films. According to the release, topics range from mushroom foraging and art to bootlegging and even murder, offering a diverse lens on local life and creativity.

This year’s festival places women front and center. For the first time, 55% of the films are directed by women. The press release calls special attention to the “Women Who Dare” series—six films about bold, visionary women who pursued their passions and challenged the status quo.

Music and art lovers will find plenty to enjoy, with 17 films centered on creative expression. Highlights include Coastal, a documentary about rock legend Neil Young directed by his wife, Daryl Hannah. The screening, scheduled for Friday, May 30 at 7:30 p.m., will be followed by a ‘70s rock party featuring the five-piece band Moon Rabbit.

The press release also touts a range of films for nature lovers, including stories featuring sled dogs in the Norwegian Arctic, wolves in Yellowstone, and sheep in the Pyrenees. Foodies can feast their eyes on documentaries celebrating cheese, Italian cuisine, and pastries—including The Sweet Story, showing Saturday at 10 a.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.

Sixteen films in this year’s slate tackle environmental and social justice issues, the release emphasizes. Topics include climate change, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant experiences, and the Gaza-Israel conflict—showcasing the festival’s continued commitment to timely and pressing global conversations.

Comedy also has a place at the fest. On Saturday, May 31 at 7:30 p.m., Bay Area comedian Natasha Vinik will open for the humorous and insightful documentary Anxiety Club, inviting festivalgoers to unwind and laugh.

One of the festival’s most anticipated programs, the Fourth Annual Native Cinema event, returns Sunday, June 1. This year’s showcase features Standing Above the Clouds, a Hawaiian documentary, and Our Ocean, Our Future, a short film about the Kashia band of Pomo.

For word nerds, grammarian Ellen Jovin will host her “Grammar Table” outside Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Her film Rebel with a Clause screens later that day and again on Sunday, June 1.

To deepen the experience, the festival invites attendees to “Coffee with the Filmmakers” on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. in the Café Beaujolais Garden, where fans can chat with directors and producers over pastries and conversation.

Tickets are going fast, the press release warns. They can be purchased at MendoFilm.org/tickets or in person at the Mendocino Film Festival Office, located at 45062 Ukiah Street. For more details and the full program, visit MendoFilm.org or follow the festival on Facebook and Instagram.

(MendoFever.com)

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MOUNTAIN FOLK FESTIVAL IN LEGGETT, June 28, 2025

A Benefit for the Leggett Volunteer Fire Department at the Leggett Fire Station.

Mountain Folk Festival is a family oriented music festival with dancing, crafts, logging events, food, auction, children’s activities and a community parade. Free parking, Free kids activities.

Free Music June 28th 2025 with a concert sound system. Music noon until 10 pm Saturday. Good Vibes!! Festivities begin with a parade Saturday at 10am.

Fun for the whole family. Over 30 Arts and Crafts booths, food, Kids Zone with bounce house, Fire Department demonstrations, Axe throw, Auction, Beer & Wine booth and more!

https://www.mountainfolkfestival.com

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BIG RIVER WAS DAMMED

Did you know that Mendocino’s Big River once had more logging dams than any other river on the Redwood Coast? Over two dozen of them! In his book “Big River was Dammed,” author Francis Jackson documented just how important the dams were to the logging industry that once thrived here.

These dams weren’t built to store drinking water or generate electricity; they had a single, essential purpose: to provide a rush of water powerful enough to move redwood logs downstream to the Boom, just upriver from the Mendocino sawmill. There, solidly built piers stopped the logs from being carried further down the river and out to sea. Logs were then bundled into rafts and towed to the mill pond by a flat-bottomed boat called the Maru.

One of these dams was Soda Creek Dam, built in 1893 by Wilder Pullen. His wife, Etta, wrote in her diary that he began work as superintendent of the dam’s construction in July, and it was completed by November of the same year.

The construction of these dams was a remarkable feat, especially considering the isolated terrain and the lack of machinery—most were built using only hand tools and jackscrews. Soda Creek Dam was different from most: instead of being tucked into a steep ravine, it was set on a wide flat with a narrow, shallow brook running through. Jackson reported that evidence of this dam was still visible in 1973.

Coordinating the release of water from these dams was a delicate operation. With no phones in the forest, loggers used signals like gunshots, mirror flashes, or planned schedules to release water in just the right order. The surge of water from multiple dams would carry logs for miles downriver, breaking jams and keeping the flow moving toward the coast. It was all part of the tough, creative work that built the early timber economy of Mendocino.

(Kelley House Museum)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, May 24, 2025

JOSE GARCIA-LEON, 57, Ukiah. Suspended license, probation revocation.

SAYSOMONE MANYPHONE, 39, Fort Bragg. Assault with firearm, use of weapon during crime.

MARC MAXXUM, 38, Leggett. Domestic battery, probation revocation.

SEAN STAGOS, 34, Lancaster/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

LANCE TREPPA, 46, Ukiah. Failure to register, county parole violation, unspecified offense.

DAVID URRUTIA-ALBAUERA, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI, no license, suspended license for refusing drunk-chem test, criminal threats.

ALEJANDRO VILLEGAS-MEZA, 27, Willits. DUI, leaving scene of accident with property damage.

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MEMO OF THE AIR: The box.

Marco here. Here’s the recording of last night’s (9pm PDT, 2025-05-23) 7.6-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0645

Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I’ll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

When it’s way more than just singing and playing a song like a player piano does. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2025/05/frank-watkinson-covers-blink-182s-i.html

Nouvelle Vague. Imagine if there weren’t a France nor anything French or French-like in the real world and some quirky genius came along and somehow made a French movie out of whole cloth, the language, the mannerisms, the style, everything. Just think about that for a moment. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2025/05/nouvelle-vague-film-by-richard-linklater.html

Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle once wrote a column about seeing a small, attractive, cheap electric chainsaw in the hardware store, thinking, Huh, buying it and taking it home to limb a tree in his tiny Berkeley/Oakland backyard, whereupon he discovered that the first-time feeling of superhuman power of having a power tool whizzing in your grasp can go to your head. He went around the top of the fence with it, evening out the pickets, rounded the corners of his yard bench table, flipped the table over to make all the legs the same length to de-wobble it and ended up with the seat only three inches off the ground, from successively miscalculating from leg to leg and compulsively continuing. This is like that, except with a paint blower. https://bitsandpieces.us/2025/05/20/talk-about-painting-the-town-red/

And you have the second amendment right to not only own one of these, but drag it around with you in a wheelbarrow or a truck. And so do all your crazy neighbors. It’s very simple technology. Captain Kirk made something like this out of bamboo and rocks to overcome a Gorn. My friend Jeff and I, when we were boys, made one out of copper pipe and nails and nuts and bolts in the dim sheep shed. Luckily we escaped injury, except for the whanga-whanga-whanga pulsing painful immediate hearing damage. Jeff’s grandfather had had his voicebox removed because of cigaret cancer, and when he appeared in silhouette in the god-light from the bright outer world, in the smoke and dust, in the suddenly yanked-open door and said, using a device pressed to his neck, “NNELLO BOYZZZ VVAHT NARRR NYOO DHOO-INGZZ!” the jump-scare space alien surprise of it spiked the memory permanently to the crime-wall of my operating system. All gunpowder weapons equal that. Plus, twenty years after that, I found out that my friend Randy was murdered by crazy boys who stole guns and ammunition from a housing development, went out to the highway and for no reason at all except that they were boys emptied them into Randy where he had pulled over to take a nap. That also is what all gunpowder weapons equal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5mo-UJ5VdA&t=640s

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

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DISPARAGING HARRIS

Editor:

I realize the 2024 election is over. I’m not trying to rehash it. I concede that Donald Trump won, just as Kamala Harris conceded. But I want to take a moment to touch on something. This is directed to Trump voters who have daughters. There were a lot of vile things said about Harris. From Trump saying she was “dumb” to others saying she slept her way to the top, or that she was merely a product of DEI.

Let me ask you this: If your daughter went to law school, became a respected prosecutor and then by election became the district attorney of San Francisco, then the attorney general of California (and reelected), then a U.S. senator for California and then was selected as a vice presidential running mate, won the election and served four years as vice president, how would you feel about your daughter? Would you not be the proudest parent in the world? Me too.

Then what am I missing here? Look, people have the right to disagree with any specific policy position but to support and cheerlead the baseless and vile things that were said about her is unserious and childish.

Adam Charp

Santa Rosa

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BAD BOGUS BILL

Editor,

President Donald Trump’s nightmarish “Big Beautiful Bill” feels like a multipronged assault on the American people.

If enacted, the tax and domestic spending bill will hobble the government with oceans of red ink and trillions in additional debt at higher rates, thanks to the recent Moody’s downgrade.

When combined with Trump’s disastrous tariffs and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s slapdash evisceration of federal spending, we’ll likely see slower growth, higher prices, more limited supplies and diminished public services.

Trump and Musk have reduced the country to an out-of-control pariah state — unwelcoming, untrustworthy and uncharitable. But it’ll be a bonanza for the likes of Trump, Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and their oligarch buddies.

John Brooks

Fairfax

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GIANTS SHUT OUT BY NATS as Kyle Harrison goes 4 innings in first start

by Shayna Rubin

WASHINGTON — The San Francisco Giants looked a little different when they took the field at Nationals Park on Saturday afternoon. Opting out of their classic away grays for the afternoon, the team decided to wear their black alternate uniforms typically worn for home games on Saturday nights.

The Giants decided to wear black because it is similar to the uniforms worn during spring training, a time when vibes were so high for this club that it inspired one of the hottest starts to the 2025 season across baseball. Whatever momentum the uniform change was hoped to inspire did not translate on this day. The Giants offense was limp and shut out in a 3-0 loss to the Washington Nationals.

The black uniforms will likely pop up again on the road, but it’s safe to assume they won’t for Sunday’s series finale after such a loss.

“My guess is it’s going to be gray,” Matt Chapman said.

A poor showing at the plate magnified one mistake pitch made by Kyle Harrison in his first start of the year, filling in for an injured Justin Verlander. Harrison hung a slider to James Wood in the first inning that he blasted to right field for a two-run homer.

An adjustment between innings helped get Harrison through the second and third innings without allowing a base runner. Very strike-focused in the first inning, Harrison watched back and noticed the Nationals hitters were willing to chase out of the zone.

“I had to get off the plate a little more because they were willing to swing and chase,” Harrison said. “As soon as I tapped into that a little more, got a little better.”

Harrison got out of a jam in his fourth and final inning, pitching around back-to-back one-out singles to get a pair of ground outs. Because he moved from a bullpen role, Harrison was on a 60-pitch limit entering the day, so he was most encouraged that he felt energized and strong enough to go back out for a theoretical fifth inning. Harrison allowed two earned runs over four innings, striking out four and walking none. Tristan Beck kept the game in reach in his season debut. He gave up one run over three innings. Both their efforts kept a potential comeback in reach.

But there was no comeback to be had against Nationals starter Jake Irvin.

Irvin glided through the Giants lineup that had also been tweaked to spark some fire. Heliot Ramos, the hottest hitter, moved up to the two spot. But only Tyler Fitzgerald, hitting in the nine spot, made up a majority of their offense with two of their three total hits off the right-hander. Irvin punished San Francisco’s right-handed hitters with backdoor sinkers, keeping them especially off-balance with changeups and curveballs.

Hitters couldn’t get any hard contact off the fastball. Chapman’s fourth-inning double-play ball hit 99.4 mph was the hardest contact made, and also ended their lone scoring opportunity with two runners on.

“Obviously he was locating really well and keeping off the barrel of the bat. Get some grounders. Got a few strikeouts,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Just couldn’t muster anything.”

Once it was obvious they were getting sinkers in, the Giants were aggressive, but so ineffective that the at-bats looked impatient. Irvin needed five pitches to navigate the sixth inning and just four in the seventh to position himself for a career-high-matching eight innings of scoreless ball on 96 pitches.

“Sure as we sit here now, you’d like to say be more patient with it,” Melvin said. “But it’s probably going to be strike one.”

As each inning passed, hope waned that the Giants could get to the Nationals’ sub-par bullpen and mount a comeback that way. In the clubhouse, players are still maintaining perspective.

“You look around the league, everyone goes up and down,” Chapman said. “Obviously the days we haven’t been able to win, our offense has struggled a little bit and we haven’t been able to get to the starters. We’ve done well against the bullpen guys but sometimes we haven’t been able to jump on the starters and it’s not easy to always come back and find ways, but our pitching staff has kept us in every game. Unfortunately we weren’t able to do anything with it today. But our pitchers are doing a great job of keeping us in the game and we have to do a better job of scoring early.”

(sfchronicle.com)

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KEYSVILLE, VIRGINIA, 1943

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CALIFORNIA’S VERSION OF ‘THE WAY WE WERE’ CAN BE SEEN IN SO-CAL AND NOR-CAL

by Carl Nolte

Here are a couple of California stories — one about a fading landmark district, the other about a crooked railroad. One is a Southern California classic. The other is in San Francisco’s backyard.

It’s always a bit of a culture shock for San Franciscans to spend time in Southern California. Maybe it’s the freeways, the traffic jams, the palm trees, the Los Angelesness of the whole place. “Look,” said my companion, “they are selling Dodger Dogs in the gas stations.”

Times never stand still in L.A. Everybody’s tailgating. Slow streets? That must be one of those quaint Northern California affectations.

So it was a shock to turn off Wilshire Boulevard and into Westwood Village, what one radio station once called “the hippest place in L.A.” There was a time, and not long ago, that Westwood Village was packed with people on weekends. There were 20 movie screens, hundreds of stores and restaurants and so many cars trying to crowd into the district that automobiles were prohibited. It was right next to the UCLA campus, the ultimate college hangout. More recently the UCLA magazine featured a long piece about the heyday of hip Westwood. The title: “The Way We Were.”

That was then. Last weekend, Westwood Village was nearly deserted. Plenty of parking in the vast garages. Lots of “For lease” signs on storefronts. The landmark Regency Village Theatre, famous since it opened in 1931 as the Fox Westwood, had a chain-link fence around it. The theater was the classic movie palace in the Golden Age of Hollywood, with a 170-foot-tall white tower, decorated with stucco lions and griffins, part Spanish colonial revival, part showbiz, all Southern California.

Across the street, the smaller Bruin Theater, a streamlined moderne neon showpiece in its own right, was closed, too.

A group of Hollywood heavyweights, including Chris Columbus, Bradley Cooper and Steven Spielberg, plan to reopen and revive the Regency Village Theatre, but the message is clear: San Francisco’s struggling downtown is not the only district that has been affected by changing times.

Meanwhile, the small Marin County city of Mill Valley will celebrate its own changing times on the Memorial Day weekend when an engine from the crookedest railroad in the world returns to town after 101 years.

This was the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway, and the pride of the line was engine No. 9, which has been restored to its former glory.

No. 9 is ticketed for display at Mill Valley’s landmark former rail station this weekend and will be the centerpiece of the town’s Memorial Day parade Monday. No. 9 will ride on a flatbed truck just behind Mill Valley’s shiniest red fire truck from the Old Mill School through downtown and along Miller Avenue to Tamalpais High School. The parade starts at 11 a.m.

No. 9 is the last surviving artifact of the mountain railroad which ran from Mill Valley to a terminal just below the summit of Mount Tamalpais starting in 1896. Later there was a branch line to Muir Woods.

The railroad was a tourist line, pure and simple, and advertised its winding roadbed (with 281 curves in just over 8 miles) as “the crookedest railroad in the world” and the ride “the greatest sight-seeing trip on earth.”

Engine No. 9, purchased new from the Heisler Locomotive works in 1921, was the pride of the line, the most powerful engine — a “thoroughly modern” machine with all-wheel drive.

However, it was expensive to operate, and when the railroad ran into financial difficulties in 1924, No. 9 was sold at a bargain rate to a Humboldt County lumber company for use on logging trains. But it was charmed; it survived for a century. The railroad did not. Done in by changing times, it was abandoned in 1930.

But the crooked railroad lived in legend. Rail historians and a few old-timers kept the memory alive for another generation. One of the railroad’s admirers was Fred Runner, who became aware of the railroad when he stopped by the West Point Inn, built by the railroad in 1904 and still in operation.

“I thought it was a good story that needed to be told,” he said. Besides the West Point Inn, one other artifact had survived: Engine No. 9, then owned by the Pacific Lumber Co. in the mill town of Scotia in Humboldt County.

The old engine was sitting in a park for more than 60 years. In the meantime, the lumber industry faded, the mill closed and the old locomotive gathered rust and attracted vandals.

Runner and some of his associates formed a group called Friends of No. 9, bought the engine at auction for just over $50,000, spent more than $30,000 moving it to the North Bay and close to $500,000 restoring it. “We took out tons of rust and rebuilt it,” Runner said.

Now No. 9 is in museum quality condition, down to the controls in the cab, the gauges, even the engineer’s brake handle. The craftsmanship in restoring the engine was meticulous. “It’s breathtaking, honestly,” Runner said. It’s not possible to operate No. 9 under steam. It’s just too old.

After the Memorial Day parade, No. 9 will go to a temporary home at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento as a featured display. There’s talk about a permanent display around Mount Tamalpais. But that’s a discussion for another time.

(SF Chronicle)

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DANCE$ WITH EMOLUMENT$

by Maureen Dowd

When Donald Trump was headed for the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, I took Carl Hulse, the Times’ chief Washington correspondent, to Trump Tower to meet him.

Trump didn’t know anything about the inner workings of Washington. He proudly showed us his “Wall of Shame” with pictures of Republican candidates he had bested. His campaign office had few staffers, but it overflowed with cheesy portraits of him sent by fans: one of him playing poker with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Teddy Roosevelt, and a cardboard cutout of him giving a thumbs up, flanked by Reagan and John Wayne.

As we were leaving, Hulse warned Trump dryly: “If you ever get a call from our colleague Eric Lipton, you’ll know you’re in trouble.”

“Eric Lipton?” Trump murmured.

The president probably knows who Lipton is now, because the Pulitzer Prize-winning Times investigative reporter is tracking Trump on issues of corruption as closely as the relentless lawman in the white straw hat tracked Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Lipton and The Times’s David Yaffe-Bellany were on the scene at Trump’s Virginia golf club Thursday night as the president held his gala dinner to promote sales of $TRUMP, the memecoin he launched on the cusp of his inauguration. (Melania debuted hers two days later.)

Trump has been hawking himself in an absurdly grandiose way his whole life. But this time he isn’t grandstanding as a flamboyant New York businessman. He’s selling himself as the president of the United States, staining his office with a blithe display of turpitude.

Protesters at the golf club shouted, “Shame, shame, shame!” but there is no shame in Trumpworld. Trump asked guests, who were whooping with joy at the president who allowed them to purchase such primo access by essentially lining the pockets of Trump and his family, if they had seen his helicopter.

“Yeah, super cool!” gushed a guest.

Buyers flew in from China and around the world, scarfing up a fortune in $TRUMP — some had millions of dollars worth — to procure the 220 seats at the dinner.

“It was a spectacle that could only have happened in the era of Donald J. Trump,” Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany wrote. “Several of the dinner guests, in interviews with The New York Times, said that they attended the event with the explicit intent of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.”

Pan-seared influence peddling with a citrus reduction. The prez is a pro at quid pro quo.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, rebutted criticism on Thursday, saying: “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner.”

But he flew to Virginia on Marine One. He gave his remarks from a lectern with the presidential seal. And some of the crypto crowd on Friday got a tour of the White House (Lipton took his post outside the fence).

With more than a dozen lucrative deals for his family and partners, the Times article said, “Mr. Trump is estimated to have added billions to his personal fortune, at least on paper, since the start of his new term, much of it through crypto.”

The corruption is seeping across the Potomac.

Don Jr. and investors are opening a pricey private club in Georgetown called “Executive Branch,” where business and tech moguls can cozy up to administration big shots.

The infamous $400 million gift for Trump from the Qataris, a luxury jumbo jet, has arrived in San Antonio. This alluring “pre-bribe,” as “S.N.L.” dubbed it, instantly wiped out Trump’s old concerns that “the nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” (Accepting the plane was sort of like a terrorist fist-bump, the same kind a Fox News host bizarrely accused the Obamas of making with each other.)

Other foreign leaders got the message that emoluments were welcome. In an Oval Office meeting where Trump continued to relish his role as protector of the white patriarchy, the South African president jokingly told the American president, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.” (This might be the line that best sums up the Trump presidency in the history books.)

Trump replied breezily: “I wish you did. I’d take it.”

Trump Inc.’s money grabs were taking place against the background of the president pushing through his “big, beautiful bill” extending his obscene tax cut for the rich while slicing billions from programs that help poor people stay alive.

“The guy promised to make American families more prosperous,” David Axelrod said. “He just decided to start with his own.”

In a galaxy long ago and far away, there was shame attached to selling your office. Sherman Adams, President Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff, lost his job and ruined his reputation after he accepted a vicuña coat from a Boston textile manufacturer doing business with the federal government.

Trump has no reputable reputation to ruin. He’s a snatch-and-grab artist.

“I think social media and Donald Trump’s persona have numbed people to the idea that certain forms of behavior are off-limits,” Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer, said. “No institution has been able to rein in Donald Trump. He got impeached twice. Didn’t matter, so Congress couldn’t rein him in. He had all sorts of federal and state prosecutions that ended up going nowhere, so law enforcement couldn’t rein him in. The media has been covering him as close as anyone could ever be covered, and the media couldn’t rein him in. I think it makes people just sort of turn away and accept it as inevitable.”

Before he did his “Y.M.C.A.” dance and scrammed early, the scamming Trump told the crypto enthusiasts at his golf club that he wasn’t pushing crypto and Bitcoin for himself.

“I really do it because I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

In Trump’s moral universe, the right thing to do is always the thing that makes him richer.

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

In my lifetime, I can remember the defiance of Richard Nixon who, despite the allegations of financial impropriety, kept the Cocker Spaniel he had been given by Lou Carrol in the name of the “great state of Texas” because his daughters loved the pup and had already named it “Checkers.” Now we have a president who is embarrassing on so many levels but mainly because it is so obvious that he would sell his mother for one plug nickel. And those who could stop him just stand around and watch and hope for the crumbs from his table. How did we ever come to this?

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LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests

Trump Allies Look to Benefit From Pro Bono Promises by Elite Law Firms

Why Vietnam Ignored Its Own Laws to Fast-Track a Trump Family Golf Complex

Russia Bombards Ukraine With One of Largest Air Assaults of the War

Selfies From the Front: Inside the ‘V.I.P.’ Brigade for Ambitious Russian Officials

How Donald Trump Has Remade America’s Political Landscape

6 Months Later, Democrats Are Still Searching for the Path Forward

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IT’S A COMPLETE LIE To Say Gaza Can Have Peace If Hamas Surrenders

by Caitlin Johnstone

Anyone who says Gaza will be at peace if Hamas just surrenders and releases the hostages is either knowingly sowing disinformation or ignorantly sowing misinformation. We need to make sure everyone’s clear on this so nobody can say they didn’t know after history unpacks this one.

Netanyahu has made it completely and unambiguously clear that even if Hamas surrendered today and released every single hostage, Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan will still need to be implemented as a precondition for ending the mass slaughter. To be absolutely 100 percent clear, Trump’s plan for Gaza is that “all” Palestinians be removed on a “permanent” basis, never allowed to return.

There is no way to permanently remove all Palestinians from a Palestinian territory without material coercion — meaning more mass scale violence and siege warfare. There is also no way to argue that this mass displacement would be voluntary even without further violence, since Israel has been deliberately and systematically making the Gaza Strip uninhabitable by destroying civilian infrastructure. Forcing them to choose between starvation in an uninhabitable wasteland or submit to ethnic cleansing is exactly the same as forcing them out at gunpoint.

It was obvious that this was Israel’s plan for Gaza in October 2023; plans to move the civilian population out of the enclave were already being circulated within days of the onslaught. But that wasn’t Israel’s official and openly stated policy until the Trump administration; now that Israel is clearly and explicitly stating this agenda in public, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone to continue circulating the lie that the suffering of the people of Gaza ends if Hamas surrenders. What happens is that their homeland will be permanently taken away from them as they are shipped off to a foreign land, and Gaza will cease to exist as a Palestinian territory.

That’s not peace. Or if it is it’s the peace of an empty room; the peace of a room full of corpses. Saying you made peace by removing the Palestinians from Palestine is like saying you settled an argument by decapitating one of the arguers.

That’s the only “peace” the people of Palestine will experience if Hamas lays down its arms. Losing everything they’ve ever known forever, on pain of death.

That is the inconvenient truth people are trying to hide when they say “This all ends when Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages.” That is the deception they are sowing.

❖

Israel bombed the home of two married doctors in Gaza on Friday, killing nine of their children and critically injuring their sole surviving son. The father of the children was also severely injured in the attack, while their mother, while still working at the nearby hospital, received the charred bodies of her children. They were too badly burned to be recognized.

This one incident, just by itself, is vastly more newsworthy and deserving of attention than two Israeli embassy staff members being killed in Washington. But news coverage hasn’t reflected this, because Palestinians aren’t regarded as human beings in the mainstream western press.

❖

The Guardian has published an opinion piece by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett titled “As Gaza’s children are bombed and starved, we watch — powerless. What is it doing to us as a society?”, which is noteworthy because it somehow never mentions the word “Israel” or “Israeli” one single time throughout the entire article. It doesn’t even mention Netanyahu.

This is a particularly glaring example of the way the western press have been discussing the Gaza holocaust as some kind of unfortunate tragedy that is just passively happening to the Palestinian people, as though it’s a natural disaster or something. It’s like bombs and siege warfare are just the weather over there. Like “Oh it’s a bit bomby and faminy in Gaza today, and it makes me feel sad!”

This genocide is exposing the mass media like nothing else in my lifetime.

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Israel supporters have different packages of apologia for each ideological group, with different narratives explaining why Israel’s abuses are justified to all the different groups in language designed to appeal to each faction.

Are you a progressive humanitarian? Israel apologists have a narrative package custom designed to appeal to your support for the Jewish people and the revulsion you feel toward their historic persecution.

Are you a conservative who’s fearful of Muslims and terrorism? Israel apologists have a completely different package of narratives designed to appeal to your fears and explain why Islamic extremism must be defeated to protect western civilization.

Are you a fundamentalist Christian? There’s a whole other package of narratives designed to explain why support for Israel is actually commanded by God in the Holy Bible.

Are you a fascist who thinks Arabs should be wiped off the face of the earth? Boy howdy do the Israel apologists ever have some narratives for you.

Israel apologists understand that different political factions are responsive to different types of messaging, so each political faction gets its own messaging package.

The only ones they can’t effectively target with carefully constructed narratives are the groups who are already forcefully pro-Palestine, predominantly on the leftmost end of the political spectrum. So they just work on silencing, stigmatizing and marginalizing those groups instead.

It’s all about controlling the narrative. Israel apologists understand the power of narrative control better than perhaps any other major ideological faction on earth, and you see it at play throughout every facet of our society. That’s one of the many reasons they were so successful at manufacturing support for Israel in the west up until history’s first live-streamed genocide caused them to finally start losing control of the story.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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EVGENY STEPANOVICH KOBYTEV: The human face after four years of war.

More info about Evgeny: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/evgeny-stepanovich-kobytev-1941-1945/