Mendocino County Today: Saturday 5/31/2025

By AVA News Service on May 31, 2025

HOT conditions will peak again Saturday afternoon with gusty winds along shore by Sunday afternoon. Generally warm and dry conditions will continue through the start of June. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 47F under clear skies this Saturday morning on the coast. A little fog to our north but we will likely stay mostly clear. A little breezy this weekend, temps cool down tomorrow.

MENDO FOOD NETWORK & FORT BRAGG FOOD BANK CUTTING BACK

Unfortunately, the recent federal budget cuts that have been impacting the Mendo Food Network and Fort Bragg Food Bank continue to effect our ability to maintain our programs.

Effective in June, we will no longer be holding two pop-ups a month in Willits. We will continue our 1st Thursday pop-up in Willits, but will NO LONGER have a 3rd Thursday pop-up.

We understand that this will be challenging for many of our community members, and we apologize. Please know that our programs and the families we serve are our priority, and any changes we make are out of necessity. Cutting our services is the last thing we want to do.

If you have any questions regarding our pop-up services, or the impact of federal budget cuts on our programs, please reach out at (707) 809-5669 or info@mendofood.org.

Thank you for your understanding.

INLAND WATER AGENCIES LAY OUT POTTER VALLEY PROJECT PLANS

by Jim Shields

I attended a special joint meeting via zoom on May 29th. The various parties (Supervisors, City of Ukiah, and probably a half-dozen or so water agencies, were present to be briefed on the current situation regarding the status of PG&E’s abandonment of the Potter Valley Project. It was actually a very informative meeting. There’s a long way to go before anything is finalized. The consultants who handled the briefing estimated the soonest any construction, including PG&E’s demolition of Cape Horn dam, could occur wouldn’t be until 2031-34. There are a lot of moving parts and numerous players with conflicting agendas, so you can count on litigation slowing things down.

I don’t have any discretionary time right now, so I’ll leave it to others to report on the details of what occurred at the joint meeting. But as I said, there was beaucoup information and details presented at the session.

I've also attached screen shots of current diversion infrastructure, proposed diversion infrastructure, and a few other charts of potential interest.

VACANCY OLYMPICS

Mendo Proposes A Chaotic ‘Strategic Hiring Process’ To Balance The Budget

by Mark Scaramella

According to an item buried deep in next Tuesday’s board agenda packet the county is no longer planning to institute a “hiring freeze.” Instead they will call it a “strategic hiring process.” That “process” is supposed to include the following:

“Human Resources will present a monthly agenda item to the Board of Supervisors, which reviews all departmental requests to fill vacant or soon-to-be vacant positions. Each request will include a justification outlining the necessity of the position, any legal or regulatory mandates, and the proposed funding source.”

Given the County’s historic aversion to the production of monthly reports of any kind, we are mentioning this mainly to document that it is part of the “strategic hiring process,” and is supposed to be a key element of the alleged balanced budget for next fiscal year.

The CEO’s budget team assumes that this “process” will magically generate over $6 million in expense reductions over the next fiscal year as employees quit, retire or otherwise leave County employment and are not replaced.

We doubt the County will produce these reports, much less hold the line on not replacing employees who leave. If the monthly reports are produced, the Board will be hard pressed to decide who to replace, not to mention replacing staffers with the proper qualifications and experience.

Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how this plays out and to see if the County makes good on its plan to produce this monthly report of vacancies for the public and the Board to review, with departments vying against each other for replacement approvals in a low-grade version of Lord of the Flies.

Tracking the vacancies and replacements over the year toward their highly suspicious $6 million salary savings target using this random, scattershot hiring freeze instead of an organized reduction in force or reduction in labor hours is bound to produce needless additional tension and morale problems in the affected departments.

In rough numbers, the General Fund is about $100 million. The County says that they typically have a 6% turnover rate each year. Assuming that, on average, salary and benefits from vacated positions is about $100k per position, that’s the equivalent of 60 positions vacated for an entire year.

However, since those positions will not suddenly all go vacant on July 1, but will occur over the year, that translates to more like 120 General Fund positions that would have to be vacated and not replaced over the July 1, 2025 - June 30, 2026 time period.

The majority of the County’s roughly 1200 employees are not funded out of the General Fund, but with state and federal grants and other programs. So again, in rough conservative terms the County would have to have 120 people leave and not be replaced out of, say, half of the 1200 positions, or 600 General Fund positions, to get anything like $6 million in salary savings. Further, most of the General Fund positions are in law enforcement which the Board so far has been unwilling to cut or leave vacant. That leaves maybe 300 positions out of which they expect 120 people to leave and not be replaced.

Of course these estimates are only for perspective — the actual numbers will vary.

In 2010 when a similar size budget gap had to be addressed, the County decided to reduce office hours and employee hours and postpone raises rather than cut staff or salaries. They also instituted a hiring freeze, but not on the scale now being planned for, It wasn’t popular, but it kept most staff on board.

Cutting staff and office hours alone would not achieve anything like a $6 million in savings. But, if done in combination with a more well-planned hiring freeze, it would at least leave most County General Fund departments with intact staffs. Most General Fund departments have fairly small staffs where each departure is a major hit to productivity. Leaving them with random vacancies based on who leaves voluntarily seems like the worst possible way to reduce staffing.

Add to this the stupid idea of putting position replacement requests before the Board every month in a sort of vacancy olympics. The “strategic hiring process” thus becomes nothing more than a random first-come first-serve replacement approach which will generate even more staff chaos than at present. Not to mention the months-long delays involved in hiring qualified replacements.

Notice also that this “strategic hiring process” conveniently exempts any targeted reductions of management positions or salaries where the most savings can be generated for the fewest vacancies with the least impact on actual line work.

Essentially, the Board and the CEO are declaring that they are helplessly incapable of deciding which positions to cut, letting employees passively and randomly decide individually. But on the other end, they believe they are somehow uniquely positioned to decide which positions should be replaced.

As we have said before, Mendo’s thoughtless approach to budget balancing, no matter what fancy name they may give it, makes Elon Musk’s widely criticized DOGE chainsaw operation look downright sensible.

DA NAILS ANOTHER MASTER CRIMINAL

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Thursday afternoon after approximately 15 minutes of deliberations to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty.

Defendant Sydney Christine Shackman, age 57, of Ukiah, was found guilty of Residential Burglary, a felony and a future Strike conviction within the meaning of California’s voter-modified Three Strikes law.

On July 25th, 2024, law enforcement was called to a residence in Ukiah after a stranger was seen on the home surveillance system by the absent homeowner. Shackman was not immediately located, but was eventually discovered on the property. During their investigation, law enforcement determined Shackman had taken items that did not belong to her from within the residence.

The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence that was used against defendant Shackman at trial were the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the DA’s own in-house Bureau of Investigations.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney David Moutrie.

Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Victoria Shanahan presided over the three-day trial.

The defendant was ordered to return to court on June 4th at 1:30 in the afternoon in Department B for setting of judgment and sentencing.

IS FORT BRAGG’S CITY COUNCIL ILLEGALLY MAKING LAND USE DECISION IN CLOSED SESSION?

Editor,

The full justification for the Fort Bragg City Council putting off resolution of its lawsuit with Mendocino Railway in the courts, in order to negotiate a master evelopment agreement for the Fort Bragg headlands with the railway, was never transparently vetted with the public. And while its legal for city councils to make decisions about litigation in closed session, it is not legal or morally acceptable to make land use planning decisions in closed session.

Because the Council decided to hide its decision making regarding land use on the headlands behind its closed session considerations regarding litigation, it has exposed the City on multiple fronts to added risk of legal & financial liability.

Equally troubling, hiding the deliberations regarding land use planning from the public, undermines the public's faith in the integrity of City Officials and the Council. The argument that the City needs to do its headlands land use planning in secret because of litigation issues with the railway is nonsense. Land use decision making must be done in public with full transparency, and determinations of law should be made by the courts. More than six months into these secret discussions and the public has no way of knowing what is being discussed or what the impacts may be on the community.

Peter McNamee

Fort Bragg

COUNCILMAN LINDY PETERS REPLIES:

As you know, agenda items regarding litigation cannot be held in open session. Publicly , I have been saying all along that we need to use this stay to figure out the core issue in our lawsuit. Namely, is the Skunk Train a true common carrier railroad or is it an excursion train? Working on a development agreement before this basic disagreement is hammered-out is cause for public concern. There has only been one public meeting where the community has had a chance to weigh-in on what Mendocino Railway is proposing to develop on the north side of the old Mill Site. One. The next one will be June 26th at a Special Meeting. That’s two. That is clearly not enough. I am but one council member but my consistent message has been to have much more public engagement and community participation before we move forward. We still need to rezone the entire site through an LCP amendment to our Coastal General Plan in my opinion. Then we’ll have a clearer understanding of how planned development will occur.

Fort Bragg Councilman Lindy Peters

LOCAL EVENTS

READER SHERRI PATTEN HENSE-BROWN OF UKIAH WRITES: I read your article re: the annexation. I thought you might know the answer to this. Maureen Mulheren is currently the Chairman of the LAFCO commission that will eventually review this and reviewed the western hills annexation. Her main representative base is Ukiah and could have benefits related to this review. Would this be a conflict of interest if she served on the LAFCO review as chairman for the annexation application?

MARK SCARAMELLA REPLIES: Yes. In fact, one could argue that Supervisor Mulheren should never have been assigned to the secret ad hoc tax sharing committee in the first place for the same reason. But 1. I doubt this proposal will ever get to LAFCO (at least not in its present form), and 2. If it does (perhaps in some significantly scaled back form), conflicts of interest have a habit of being overlooked when it’s convenient for Supervisors. After all, no one brought up the conflict/appearance of conflict when Mulheren, a former Ukiah City Councilperson with friends who are City officials, was assigned to negotiate the agreement. A few years ago I filed a conflict of interest claim with the Supervisors and with the State Fair Political Practices Commission calling on Supervisor Glenn McGourty to recuse himself from all inland water meetings and discussions because McGourty was voting on inland/Russian River water decisions while at the same time he owned a profit-making vineyard which depended on Russian River water for its profit. McGourty, then-County Counsel Christian Curtis and the FPPC all ignored my complaint. I also filed it with the Grand Jury at the time but they too ignored it: https://theava.com/archives/159457#2

BIG RIVER HAUL ROAD NOW ACCESSIBLE TO WHEELCHAIRS AND WALKERS

MendoParks is thrilled to announce that the Big River Haul Road entrance is now barrier-free, allowing for wheelchairs, walkers, and other mobility assistance equipment.

“A few weeks ago, State Park Chief Ranger, Loren Rex, pitched me the idea of creating barrier-free accessibility to the Big River haul road at Big River Beach (part of the Mendocino Headlands State Park). I loved the idea, so he and I immediately got to work,” says Sid Garza-Hillman, MendoParks Executive Director. “State Park Superintendent Bill Maslach gave us the green light, MendoParks purchased the bollards, and Loren contacted and scheduled a local contractor. Two weeks later, the project was complete! It is so rewarding to see this project become a reality so quickly, and one that aligns so perfectly with a major part of MendoParks’ mission — making Mendocino’s gorgeous State Parks accessible to more and more people.”

“I was so thrilled to see the gate open to roll through. Making this path more accessible to wheelchair users is a wonderful next step. While we did a little nature journaling, we listened to the harbor seal pups, enjoyed the gentle breeze, and saw happy walkers and riders,” says Leslie Krongold of Leslie’s Accessible Walks, who led a recent Nature Journaling event at Big River Beach.

For more info or to support MendoParks, visit www.MendoParks.org

Remind and/or pass the word on to your senior friends.

We just got some radios. So don't worry if you don't have a radio, we can
loan you one.

For more information on the class specifics and radios in general:
http://1sky.com/gmrs/class2.html

BOB AYERS BIG BAND playing Saturday night in Fort Bragg

Bob Ayers Big Band - 17 Piece Band - at Tall Guy Brewing

Saturday, May 31st - 7pm - 10pm

Tall Guy Brewery - 362 N Franklin St, Fort Bragg, CA 95437

No Tall Guy cover charge but be ready to support big band by dropping your bucks in the donation bucket!

Huck's Sliderhouse will be there with food!

HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MENDOCINO HISTORY TALK

The Historical Society of Mendocino County invites you to a special program on June 8th in Boonville, examining the history of the Pomo people of Anderson Valley, and the work and facilities of the Anderson Valley Historical Society.

This event will feature presentations from:

Liz Knight (an ancestral descendant of the Anderson Valley Pomo)
David Severn (Researcher)
Jeff Burroughs (Valley Historian)
Anderson Valley Historical Society

Following the presentations, attendees are invited to visit the Anderson Valley Historical Museum. The AVHS has an extensive collection of artifacts and equipment from the 1800s in the Valley.

Beverages and delicious treats will be available.

Where: Anderson Valley Historical Museum 12340 Hwy 128, Boonville, CA 95415

When: Sunday June 8th at 1PM

https://www.mendocinocountyhistory.org

THE HARE CREEK COMMUNITY MARKET will be every Saturday and Sunday 10-3pm throughout the summer.

Located on Highway 1 in Fort Bragg, just south of Highway 20 and the Hare Creek Bridge, and just 6 miles north of Mendocino, at the old Hare Creek Automotive

Everything Is For Sale at the Community Market. Part artisan’s market, part farmer’s market, part garage sale, part auto lot, many unique vendors, vintage and new, and different things every day. Come by and check out the new weekend market in town, there’s something for everyone.

I will have rare plants and starts including strawberry, borage, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, sunflowers and more ready for beds, patio pots or garden.

Do you have stuff you’d like to sell? 10x10 Spaces are $25 per day and you can sell whatever you’d like Setup begins at 8am.

Please text to reserve your space. Call 607-437-8465

POINT ARENA CELEBRATES FRAGILE RECOVERY

by Elise Cox

Just over a year ago, the City of Point Arena was teetering on the edge of financial collapse. Today, it's making a fragile recovery—thanks largely to the dogged determination of interim City Manager Peggy Ducey.

[Peggy Ducey:] "When I came in, in February of 2024, as the interim city manager, our city accountant resigned in March and told me I needed to hire an attorney to file for bankruptcy for the city. And he took the bookkeeper with him."

[Narrator:] Ducey didn’t take that advice. Instead, she rolled up her sleeves.

[Peggy Ducey:] "At the end of March, I opened our bank account, and we had $28,000. But I made a determination that before I was forced to file for bankruptcy, I would try and dig the city out of this hole."

[Narrator:] One year later, the city’s cash balance has risen to over half a million dollars, with an additional reimbursement from FEMA expected to push it even higher. But Ducey says the recovery came at a steep cost—particularly to city staff.

[Peggy Ducey:] "It's been a long, hard process. And a lot of that money was saved on the backs of our staff—both in the field and here in the office."

[Narrator:] Ducey presided over layoffs and restructured operations. The city now shares employees across departments and relies on volunteers and local businesses to help maintain public spaces.

[Peggy Ducey:] "I had to lay off another employee, and then combine street work with wastewater duties for one staff person, and pier operations for another. So we’ve not only cut spending to the bone—we’ve restructured to become much more efficient."

[Narrator:] Along with the better financial outlook, there’s a renewed sense of pride in Point Arena.

[Peggy Ducey:] "I think the council would agree—the city looks better. Downtown, people have been out cutting weeds. The other morning, I saw a gentleman from the liquor store sweeping the sidewalk and the gutter. It was great—because we can’t always get to everything as fast as people need."

[Narrator:] Despite improvements in sales and property tax revenues, Ducey cautioned that the city still needs to live within its means.

[Peggy Ducey:] "The city's not out of the woods yet. When we spent down to $28,000, we ate through all of our restricted funds and our general fund. So now, part of what we’re doing is rebuilding those balances—like the gas tax fund and other accounts that are legally restricted."

[Narrator:] Much of the revenue coming in is earmarked for specific services—like road repairs, wastewater treatment, or planning—and can’t be used freely.

[Peggy Ducey:] "Grant revenues are always targeted. They don’t infuse much into our general fund. Our franchise fees, business licenses, rents and concessions—they help. The senior center rents part of City Hall and pays a portion of the utilities. But revenue from the pier and wastewater are part of enterprise funds. Those can’t be used for general services."

[Narrator:] Ducey says the city needs to build a financial cushion—a reserve it’s never had.

[Peggy Ducey:] "The Government Finance Officers Association recommends at least a 25% reserve—25% of your general fund. For Point Arena, that’s about $250,000 in a savings account."

[Narrator:] She also pointed to the city’s $300,000 mortgage on the firehouse as a long-term liability. Paying it down, she said, would improve Point Arena’s credit and help it borrow money when needed—for example, to fix Windy Hollow Road, a project that’s been delayed for years.

[Peggy Ducey:] "When most cities file for bankruptcy, it's because they have millions in debt—retirement obligations, big liabilities. But for a tiny city like Point Arena, $300,000 feels like a few million."

[Narrator:] As she prepares to step down next month, Ducey says she’s finally confident the city is on stable footing.

[Peggy Ducey:] "I made a commitment that I wouldn't leave until I felt like we were stable and moving forward. So—we are. I'm leaving."

[Narrator:] With the next city budget due in June, Ducey says Point Arena’s careful financial management could soon pay off. If the city keeps its momentum, lenders might offer a line of credit—a safety net it currently lacks.

(KZYX.org)

ED NOTE: Before her position as Point Arena’s Interim City Manager, Peggy Ducey was Fort Bragg City Manager.

SUPERVISOR NORVELL OUTLINES FIRST-TERM GOALS AS SUPERVISOR

by Mary Benjamin

Fourth District County Supervisor Bernie Norvell, elected to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors this past year, has set agenda priorities for his first term. Norvell took office in January, but had earlier spent targeted time at the County offices educating himself on the county government system.

His focus will be his signature campaign issue regarding finding solutions to the expanding problem of street-level homelessness in the county. He has also committed to “making sure Caspar has a voice“ in its desire to attract new residents and develop local businesses. He will continue his personal contact methods with the public, which he developed as mayor of Fort Bragg.

Another focus Norvell has taken on is to build a better relationship between the county and the City of Fort Bragg. He explained, “I’m not sure the City of Fort Bragg has had a good working relationship with the county.” He continued, “I try to intervene whenever I can and make sure the relationship between the city and the county is improving, which I think it is.”

The county’s current struggles predate Novell’s arrival on the board. Lack of definitive financial policies and procedures dating back more than two decades will now be examined by the State Auditor’s Office at the invitation of the Supervisors Board. The state audit is the result of the county’s failure in the past three years to meet state-mandated deadlines for financial reports.

Norvell said, “I have complete confidence that the county will take the state audit seriously and make all the recommended changes that the report comes up with.” He added, “I think there’s a big appetite at the Board right now to fix these things.”

Norvell came onto the board long after high staff turnover slowed down county Social Services and County District Attorney Eyster’s investigation into alleged misappropriation of public funds by the County Auditor/Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector. Note: Mendocino Superior Court Judge Ann Moorman dismissed that two-year felony case on February 25, 2025.

Norvell believes that recent management-level hires are already making a big difference in long-ignored financial protocols and employment procedures.

Norvell’s district spans a significant geographical area with radically diverse needs from south of Caspar to the county border along the coast and inland west of U.S. 101 to include the communities of Leggett and Piercy. The remoteness of some parts of the district required Norvell to establish regular phone contact with the northern end of the district.

Norvell would like to see the county “reach out” to that area where the communities, he said, “tend to rely upon themselves rather than seek county resources.” He has made it part of his routine to appear for a fifteen-minute segment on KMUD every week.

He generally works from his office in Ukiah at the county government site three days a week, where he has direct access to county department heads. He noted that there are “a lot of Zoom meetings.” He hears from constituents daily who are looking for resources, support, explanation, and from others who are proposing new programs.

His time on the job runs to about fifty hours a week, including weekends. He considers hearing from people and listening to their problems, ideas, or issues as an important part of his job. As an example, acting on a request from the northern community of Piercy, Norvell assisted by writing up a grant for them.

Norvell is currently assisting the Caspar community with requested changes to the section of the county’s Local Coastal Plan (LCP) that regulates coastal land development as specified by California law. The county plan has not been updated since it was certified by the California Coastal Commission in 1992.

Casper would like allowances for some moderate growth. Growth must be preceded by assurances of adequate water sources. Currently, the Casper Cattle Company supplies a great deal of the water to the community. Caspar would like to develop its own water and sewer district.

Also, the current LCP does not include density allowances on larger parcels. According to Norvell, Caspar envisions more housing and a few commercial businesses on those larger parcels. Norvell has committed to “work with them on getting them what they need.”

A long-term commitment for Norvell is to continue his advocacy for a successful intervention program for the county’s homeless, which continues to be an ongoing issue for public health concerns, established business owners, and residents.

As mayor of Fort Bragg, Norvell was one of the prime supporters in creating a workable intervention system to address homelessness that affected downtown businesses and left people who were physically or mentally compromised or suffered from substance abuse with no intervention model providing access to social service resources.

Adopting recommendations for Mendocino County by national homelessness expert Robert G. Marbut, Mayor Norvell, Fort Bragg Police Captain Thomas O’Neal, and later, new Police Chief Neil Cervenka spearheaded the development of a program targeting proactive solutions to homelessness in Fort Bragg.

The final rendering became the Crisis Response Unit (CRU), which worked under the auspices of the police department and hired knowledgeable social services counselors. Within six months, the City Council and the Fort Bragg Police Department were able to provide data confirming success in placing people in recovery programs and temporary housing.

Norvell intends to push for the same level of success in the county and has thrown his support behind the fledgling county program CORE, the Community, Outreach, Response, Engagement project. According to Norvell, CORE is a singular collaborative county effort and not a clone of Fort Bragg’s CRU.

This initiative will be operated by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department, Mendocino County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, and Mendocino County Social Services. Its first contact with a homeless encampment in the Talmage area did not result in any campers agreeing to accept services, although they claimed they were aware of available services.

Given his own experience with CRU, Norvell noted, “Nobody is going to take you up on your offer unless they trust you.” Early on, the CRU team realized that to succeed, they had to take on the job of “building relationships, getting people through the system, building trust,” said Norvell.

He added, “The county will need to think outside the box to address it differently. If we do just what the state requires us to do, that population is going to continue to grow county-wide by an average of 10% a year, doubling every seven years. If we’re okay with that, let’s keep doing what we’re doing. If we’re not okay with that, then we work outside the box.”

He continued, “I applaud the county for making changes. More changes are going to have to be made. I think the appetite is there to figure out why what we’re doing isn’t making a difference.”

Norvell is sensitive to those who oppose shutting down encampments on humanitarian grounds. He noted that Governor Newsom is offering funds to expand housing and treatment beds. Recently, the Supreme Court reversed a decision that required cities to allow encampments if there are no available beds to house them.

Norvell observed that the encampment problem nationwide is a critical issue. The camps are unsafe, unhealthy, and damage the environment. He said, “Leaving them in these encampments is equally inhumane. I think banning encampments, for the most part, should be a tool for getting people into services.”

Norvell is also looking at the bigger picture of economic development. He said, “It’s hard to encourage people to come in and want to do business in your area where street-level homelessness is a problem. It infringes upon people’s abilities to establish successful businesses.” He added, “I don’t think you can talk about economic development and revenue generators if you don’t include street-level homelessness.”

He continued, “All over the country, businesses are closing their doors because they’re sick and tired of it, and rightly so. They shouldn’t have to fix it. Some businesses take a hard line because they have to do it themselves, and some go about it the wrong way.”

He noted, “That’s what happens when you leave it up to the taxpayers to solve the problem that governments are supposed to fix for you.” Norvell then referenced the mistreatment of a woman sleeping on a bench in Fort Bragg who was harmed when a firecracker was thrown at her.

About the potential success of CORE, Norvell stated, “I plan to make sure that happens. I have been working with Supervisor Cline (Redwood Valley), who sees it the same way I do. I have high hopes. The county already has social services in place that Fort Bragg had to build on its own.”

Supervisor Norvell can be contacted by phone or email at 707-463-4221 or norvellb@mendocinocounty.gov.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

WISH YOU WERE HERE, CRAIG

Lymphatic, Immune, and Breast Health Workshop

I’m inviting you to join me this Sunday for a special in-person workshop focused on Lymphatic, Immune, and Breast Health—a holistic and empowering approach to caring for the body’s sacred waterways.

Together, we’ll explore: ~ The emotional-lymphatic connection, including how grief, unspoken truths, and stagnation affect the chest and breast region

~ Ayurvedic wisdom and daily rituals to support flow, vitality, and immunity

~ Gentle movement, breathwork, and guided self-massage to encourage rasa (fluid essence)

~ Practical tools for reducing inflammation, improving energy, and supporting breast tissue

Date: Sunday June 1st

Time: 10am-3pm

Location: The Shala, Mendocino 45121 Ukiah St.

This workshop is designed for all bodies and all stages of life. Whether you're seeking education, healing, or reconnection with your own cycles and inner waters, you are welcome.

If you attended the Polyvagal Nerve Therapy Workshop, you’ll receive a special discounted rate—a thank-you for continuing this journey with me.

Space is limited. Reserve your space here: https://justinelemos.com/events-39a3V/rasa-river-of-life-lymph-breast-health-ya84k

Warmly,

Justine Lemos, PhD

justinelemos@gmail.com

www.justinelemos.com

PEACEFUL PROTEST ON HIGHWAY ONE: Saturday, June 14th, from 11 a.m. To 1 pm, No Kings Day!

We will spread out over a half-mile of sidewalk, from McDonald's to the Harbor Lite Lodge, on the east side of Highway One in Fort Bragg. This includes the Noyo Bridge, but also lots of sidewalk space on solid ground for folks who don't want to be on the bridge. Organizers are asking all participants to stay on the sidewalk at all times, keeping the entire roadway (including the parking strips) clear. Updates and details can be found on the event page: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/787694

For further information, contact mendohuddle@gmail.com

About No Kings Day:

Donald Trump is planning a military parade in Washington, D.C. for his birthday on June 14. This display of might is intended to intimidate opponents and solidify his image as a strongman on our dime—we won’t stand by while that happens. Instead of allowing this military parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else the story of America that day: people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption. The flag doesn’t belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it. For an updated map of the NO KINGS events nationwide, visit https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/map

CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, May 30, 2025

JORDAN BRIGHT, 34, Ukiah. DUI-any drug, suspended license for DUI.

JAMES CLAUSEN, 55, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

BENJAMIN GAYSKI JR., 33, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

ARMANDO GONZALEZ, 24, Ukiah. Unlawful sexual intercourse with minor who is more than three years young than perpetrator, probation revocation.

ZACKARY LEONARD, 29, Ukiah. DUI, probation revocation.

JOSEPH PARKS, 59, West Sacramento/Willits. Battery with serious bodily injury.

EMERGENE PHILLIPS, 25, Covelo. Domestic battery, robbery, stolen property, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person, parole violation.

JEREMIAH RAY, 40, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, vandalism.

ERIC SUNDVOLD, 37, Willits. Attempted burglary, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct-loitering, child endangerment, under influence, resisting.

ERIC WRIGHT, 29, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, false ID, probation revocation.

CRAIG MUGGED

Insane Incident in Declining Chocolate City, America's National Capital

I got mugged this morning by an insane individual at the bus stop, who began by growling at me, and then hit me in the stomach, and when I did not respond, pushed my face making the new Kangol baseball hat fall off. He remarked: “I’m tired of people like you!” Following this reverse racial discrimination attack, I walked around to the other side of the bus stop, and everybody said that they were sorry that it had happened. I replied: “That’s okay. I understand that he is insane.” As the ancient Indian Vedas explain: “The real you is not affected by anything at all.”

Craig Louis Stehr

N.B. Where is my fucking subsidized senior housing and my disappeared SSI monthly disbursement?

THE WHITE ZONE
is for immediate
loading & unloading
of passengers only

No Parking.

The White Zone
is for immediate
loading & unloading
of passengers only

No Parking.

The White Zone
is for immediate
loading & unloading
of passengers only

No Parking.

— Don Shanley

CREDIT WORLD, an on-line discussion:

[1] I watched a pathetic woman at the grocery store the other night. She was trying to pay for her food and she kept pulling out credit card after credit card. Each time each card was denied. She went through, I think, 8 cards before she found one that had an available balance. Seriously. Ironically, she probably exited the store and loaded her groceries into a $75,000 2025 Chevy Tahoe.

[2] We have three cars, a 2003 Ford Explorer and 2003 Dodge Neon plus our "new" car, a 2010 Nissan Versa. I don't remember the last time we had a car payment. We also are vigilant in keeping our cars properly maintained and clean. That's just how we are. Oh! And we haven't paid credit card interest on any card in years, and we're not rich - at all.

[3] I like it. I drive a 2007 Toyota Tacoma. I also have a 2005 Toyota Corolla (for my children). My wife drives a 2018 Camry. I also have a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro. I have never purchased a new car. I always pay cash for used vehicles and I also take good care of them. I have one credit card that I use. I pay it off every month. Instead of paying interest the CC company sends me a check for about $150 every 3 months. Since getting the card I have been paid probably $3,000 just for using the card and have not paid a dime in interest.

[4] Cank, It's all good. I have to use 4 cards, 1- 5% gas, 2-5% groceries, 3- 5-10% for everything at the drugstore, and 4- 5% on for tv, internet and utilities. Plus I get new cards all the time and get between 2-300 bonuses just for using them. Credit rating is 840+. The banks also pay out major bonus's just for opening an account of which I have several that I never use. It's all funny money anyway. 1996 GMC, 2002 Tacoma, 2018 Hyundai (wife's car and my first ever new car at age 60)

[5] 2009 Honda Accord here. I qualified for new plates because of the age of the car.

MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!

Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5pm or so. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.

Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.

Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:

AT the AT-AT factory. Building our far, far away past. https://theawesomer.com/ai-at-at-factory/771778/

Ann Pennington. Four-feet-five inches. Awww. But everyone was tiny and cute in those days. Even murderers, gangsters, sports figures, scientists, proto-hobos… You would have been tiny, so it all seemed normal, like how everybody is nuts now. Also they were nuts then, too, but in a different way. A different flavor. "When it seems like everybody, it's probably you." https://www.vintag.es/2025/05/ann-pennington.html

And George Carlin in 1965. Thirty years later, he had a subscription to my newspaper, I'm proud to say. For most of 1965 I was seven years old. I remember all the advertising jingles from then. https://laughingsquid.com/george-carlin-stand-up-1965/

Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

AIR PIRATES AGAINST DISNEY: A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN

http://tinyurl.com/MOUSETRAPMOVIE

PHOTOS FROM THE EDGE 13 - WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK

by David Bacon

Before Washington Square was a park, the Yelamu tribe of the Ramaytush Ohlone people lived along the Bay, and traveled up into what was then dunes and grassland, studded with oak trees. After the San Francisco peninsula was taken from them by the first Mexican settlers arriving from the south, cattle rancher Juana Briones grew potatoes on this small patch. Those who came after her used it as a dump and a cemetery.

When the Italians and Chinese came, the city created a park that marked the border of their neighborhoods in North Beach and Chinatown. Today, a century and more later, you can still hear breakneck conversations in those languages at the tables in front of Victoria Pastry, across Filbert Street.

The park was a home for immigrants and artists. As a teenager fresh from Udine in north Italy, Tina Modotti must have wandered through the trees intoxicated by dreams of becoming an actress. She starred in North Beach's Italian dramas, before heading first to Hollywood, and then to Mexico where she transformed herself into a Communist photographer. Finally she gave up her art to guide refugees from Spain after its Civil War. Even though the U.S. government never let her return to North Beach and her family there, I imagine Washington Square Park still filtered into her sleep once in a while, to remind her of those first dreams.…

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2025/05/photos-from-edge-13-washington-square.html

KYLE HARRISON TURNS UP HEAT, Giants hold Marlins to 3 hits in shutout

by Shayna Rubin

Giants starter Kyle Harrison throws a pitch in the first inning of Friday's game against the Marlins. He delivered five shutout innings, striking out five. (Lynne Sladky/Associated Press)

MIAMI — The San Francisco Giants needed a soft landing after getting swept in Detroit, on their third leg of a long road trip. The Miami Marlins, on pace for 60-ish wins this year, are one of a few teams who could provide that.

Despite the offense lacking again, the Giants got back on track with a 2-0 win over the Marlins on Friday night. In 12 straight games now the Giants have scored four runs or fewer, tied for the longest such streak by this team since September 2018. The pitching staff was essential in ensuring a sixth win from that stretch.

Kyle Harrison, making his second start of the year in place of injured starter Justin Verlander, pitched near the peak of his powers. Still on a pitch limit as he transitions out of a bullpen role, he gave up one hit over five innings, striking out five and throwing 80 pitches.

He struggled to throw strikes, at times, as evidenced by his three walks. Two of those walks came in the third inning with one out, but Harrison found the zone again. On a 1-1 slurve, he drew a line out and then struck out Heriberto Hernandez, in his big league debut, on three consecutive fastballs.

“Mentally, it was about getting the first one over and then getting them out,” Harrison said. “Starting 2-0, not helping anybody. I have to go out there and attack guys and figured it out.”

Harrison’s fastball was the star of the show. He induced 10 swing-and-misses off the pitch and reached 97 mph three times. His 95.3 mph average velocity on the pitch was the highest of his career, just beating out his 94.7 mph average in his previous start against the Washington Nationals. Both topped by a small margin his previous highs hit in the first two starts of his career in August 2023.

The ride on Harrison’s fastball combined with its mid-to-high 90s mph velocity make his four-seamer one of the organization’s most prized pitches, but the average fastball velocity reached a concerning low of 90.7 mph last August after he returned from ankle and shoulder injuries. It took him all of spring and several weeks with Triple-A Sacramento to tick the velocity back up to an ideal level.

“I think that’s pretty cool. Seeing the hard work I’ve been putting in and where I started in the spring and now just took some time to naturally get stronger,” Harrison said. “The shoulder has been feeling great, so that’s a good sign we’re trending up.”

Despite hitting starter Cal Quantrill hard from the get-go, the Giants’ offensive woes followed them to Miami, but did just enough against one of the league’s weakest staffs.

Wilmer Flores made sure to make good on Heliot Ramos’ one-out triple in the first inning. Flores saw 10 pitches — four-seamers, sliders, sinkers and cutters — before pushing the 11th, a cutter down in the zone, into center field for a single, his 46th RBI of the year.

“We’ve seen him do that and as the at-bat goes on and on, you just know something good is going to happen,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Because he’s seeing a lot of pitches and he’s throwing him everything he has and Wilmer in that situation is not trying to do too much. Just trying to knock in a run.”

Matt Chapman added on in the fourth inning with a 420-foot home run to left field, his 10th of the year which now ties Ramos and Flores for most on the team. The Giants went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 on base.

“We got a bunch of hits today and couldn’t get the big hit with runners in scoring position but I thought our at-bats were better,” Melvin said. “We ran the bases a little better. I know it only showed up as two runs, but the pitching covered it.”

The bullpen had to protect another slim lead, and things got dicey in the seventh inning when Erik Miller gave up a leadoff double to Connor Norby and walked Kyle Stowers. A sacrifice bunt advanced both runners into scoring position but Miller struck out Nick Fortes and Tyler Rogers came in to strike out Agustin Ramirez.

Miller and Rogers were among six relievers whom Melvin used to get through the game. Ryan Walker, moved off the closer role, threw just two pitches to retire Dane Myers and strand a pair in the sixth inning. Randy Rodriguez threw 27 pitches on Wednesday and wasn’t used, nor was Jordan Hicks, who hasn’t pitched since Monday.

Camilo Doval, back in the closer role, notched a four-out save and did it in front of his mother, Rosa Giron, in the LoanDepot Park stands. She was watching him pitch in the majors in person for the first time. Doval said his mother will be in attendance for all three of the games in Miami and getting her to the States from the Dominican Republic was a year-long process the Giants helped him achieve.

For Doval, it meant everything to have her witness him pitch live, something his mother sacrificed so much to let happen.

“It’s something really serious for me as it is for her. It’s my dream. She sacrificed so much for me. She went without eating for me to eat,” Doval said with Erwin Higueros interpreting. “So she has also struggled like I did. She had a dream of me playing baseball. I don’t know if she ever thought I was going to get to this level, but there was so much sacrifice.”

(sfchronicle.com)

‘HIPPIES HAVE NEVER GOTTEN THEIR DUE’: S.F.’S NEW COUNTERCULTURE MUSEUM

by Sam Whiting

When the Counterculture Museum opened Thursday afternoon on the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets in San Francisco, its first two paying customers were waiting at the door in boho-chic paisley and patchwork dresses.

Kaszmir Figura, 20, of Warsaw, Poland, and Bianca Czeslawski, 23, of Chicago met just three weeks ago in the Green Tortoise Hostel, while bumming around the city. They had already visited the new museum’s sister institution, the Beat Museum in North Beach, and were eager to embrace more of San Francisco’s vintage vibe.

“It’s amazing, the collection and how broad it is, how many eras it covers,” said Figura, who also bought a book about Jim Morrison, “No One Here Gets Out Alive.”

Czeslawski is on a gap year after graduating from the University of Wisconsin. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life so I came to San Francisco for the first time, for inspiration,” she said.

After paying the $10 entrance fee, the pair spent an hour looking at the display cases in the Counterculture Museum and planned a return trip — maybe several.

“It requires another visit to absorb everything,” said Figura, noting three mannequins in tie-dye granny dresses that could supply additional throwback fashion ideas.

“Anyone who comes here needs to set aside at least an hour or two,” added Czeslawki. “I’m really excited to look through the book collection. I’m looking for some Joan Didion.”

The opening, in a former clothing store, was intended to be soft, but it was actually loud with Jimi Hendrix’s electric guitar-heavy rendition of “C’mon (Let the Good Times Roll)” blaring from speakers on the counter.

Opened by private museum operators Jerry and Estelle Cimino, the nonprofit attraction is not the kind of museum that displays original works of art or antiquities from its own collection. You have to pass a half dozen display cases and enter the special exhibition room in back before an actual 1960s artifact pops up, in the form of a vintage sign for the Haight-Ashbury Alcohol Treatment Service, donated by Dr. David E. Smith.

Also on display is the first edition copy of Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” that he read from during his 1967 trial for drug possession, and a 14-hour audiotape of an Acid Test recorded by Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

More than anything else, the counterculture is represented by vinyl LP records and political buttons, and a featured opening exhibition on the San Francisco Oracle, which was the alternative newspaper published just up the street.

On opening day Thursday, many visitors were returning to an era they had experienced firsthand. This included Jonah Raskin, 83, who said he was associated with the Yippies, the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground.

“I was there then,” he said. “I smoked dope, I rioted in the streets, I lived in communes and I listened to the Grateful Dead and I still do.”

The Counterculture Museum is dedicated to all of these themes. “They’ve woven them all together brilliantly. Black power, women power, youth power, it’s all here,” said Raskin, who arrived by Lyft from his home in Japantown. “Hippies have never gotten their due, and this museum is going to give them their due.”

That truth is fundamental to this pop culture history museum, which was dreamed up by Estelle Cimino over dinner in 2014. “Most of the Beats are long gone,” she said, “but there are still 10 million hippies out there.”

The Vietnam War is represented in a rucksack and a dress uniform behind glass, along with antiwar buttons, press photos of Lt. William Calley, who led the My Lai Massacre, and other ephemera. Two additional display cases are dedicated to the Vietnam era — one about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers and the other about the Kent State shooting. It includes a 45 rpm record of “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

“In my opinion Kent State is the most important event related to the ending of the Vietnam War,” said Cimino. “It turned the tide of public opinion against the war.”

Another visitor, Susan Elting Hillyard, was a freelance photographer on the scene in San Francisco in 1967 as the Summer of Love came and went. Back in January when the museum was announced, Hilliard reached out to Cimino, saying she had some pictures he might be interested in.

They turned out to be photos of the Grateful Dead playing the Trips Festival in San Francisco in 1966, only their third performance under that name. Hillyard’s photos, which were last shown to this extent at the Psychedelic Shop in 1966, are now the main focus of the psychedelic case. Her image of Phil Lesh and a beardless Jerry Garcia, with promoter Chet Helms in the background, is blown up to 6 feet by 8 feet and is in the window display at the front door.

“To see them so large, in the windows and on the walls is really an honor,” said Hillyard, 84, who came over from Oakland for the opening. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Jerry Cimino, co-founder and curator of the Counterculture Museum, talks at a display including photos by Susan Elting Hillyard of Oakland as Cimino gives a tour Thursday to Hillyard, center, and Dennis Hearne of San Francisco at the Counterculture Museum.

Next to Hillyard’s image is a picture of Carolyn Adams, known to all as Mountain Girl – who was Kesey’s girlfriend and is Garcia’s former wife.

“We really thought we could change the world,” is the caption attributed to her. “We still do.”

That is the rallying cry and theme of the museum, as the Ciminos have created it. They started the museum from scratch, and have built it on philanthropy, with hundreds of donors of both funds and artifacts, loaned and donated.

“We tell the story of all the elements of the counterculture with a very small budget,” Cimino said. “This is an important labor of love.”

Thursday’s soft opening will be followed by a book signing in June of cultural historian Dennis McNally’s just-released encyclopedia of the era, “The Last Great Dream: How Bohemians Became Hippies and Created the Sixties.”

In August, the remnants and disciples of the Grateful Dead will play a 60th anniversary concert in Golden Gate Park. Those “10 million hippies” will be descending upon Haight Street, with the Counterculture Museum at the epicenter.

“We’ve been told to expect an onslaught,” Cimino said, “and we’ll be here to welcome them with open arms.”

MAY IS GOOD VIBES MONTH FOR THE NFL, BUT IT COULD MEAN SOMETHING REAL FOR 49ERS

by Ann Killion

May is the NFL’s happy month. Every team has good vibes. Every team has a pep in its step. Every team is going to the next Super Bowl.

So you’ve got to take all the noise about the “immaculate” vibes coming out of the San Francisco 49ers this offseason with a dose of perspective. Thirty-one other teams are probably saying the same thing.

But what is different this spring for the 49ers, what has changed from a year ago, is the level of commitment and intention to work on those vibes. To making sure that things are different this offseason, which should in turn pave the way for a much improved season.

As last year’s miserable 6-11 season was slipping away, Kyle Shanahan acknowledged that things had felt off “from the beginning to the end, the way we started out, the way we felt in training camp, throughout the whole year.”

Can he tell yet if things feel different this year? I asked Shanahan if he had specifically addressed how to improve the offseason vibe.

“The way I addressed it was in our last meeting in January,” Shanahan said Thursday after the end of a spirited OTA practice. “I just talked about how the season ended the year before and how I felt guys weren’t ready to come back. And I understood that. But I told them how I won’t really understand that this year.”

A year ago, the 49ers’ 2023 season ended with a heartbreaking overtime loss in the Super Bowl on Feb. 11. Just nine weeks later, the offseason program began. Several players were missing. Some due to leveraging new contracts, others because they just didn’t show up.

This year, the 49ers season finally ended on Jan. 5, but it had really been over since early December. Shanahan told his team he wouldn’t “comprehend” it if after an extra five weeks off his players still failed to show up.

He told his team, “We all know how disappointed we are and a lot of us have played a lot of football. But we’re going to have a team that doesn’t know what we’ve done in the past or how you guys have earned a lot of stuff and we need to show them.

“And (at) the first meeting when we get back, I expect our whole team to be there. And for it to be important to guys.”

It was and they were. On April 22 when “phase one” of the offseason opened, the turnout was complete.

“The coolest thing was everyone being there on the first day,” Shanahan said. “We had every guy show up. I didn’t have to call anyone and beg them, which said a lot. They all knew what I said on the last day and I wanted to see if it really meant something to them, not to where I had to call them and remind them.

“They all showed up, they’ve been working really hard… That’s something I really appreciated and I know I got the right guys.”

Who knew NFL head coaches had to beg extraordinarily well-paid athletes to come to work? But there you have it.

Having the veterans committed to the offseason, to come in and lay the groundwork and begin relationships with so many new players – both rookies and free agents – is key to reestablishing the 49ers’ winning culture. And to extending their window for a potential championship.

The 49ers have undergone massive change. Just 12 of the 22 players who started in Super Bowl LVIII, which took place a little over 15 months ago, remain in the 49ers’ fold. (And just Jake Moody of the special team “starter” trio of kicker, punter and long snapper.) All the new faces bring new energy, but they don’t know the Niners’ way. It was critical to have “the best players here to set the tone,” George Kittle said.

It was also key to get the three most important leaders on the team signed to their contract extensions early. Quarterback Brock Purdy is, by virtue of his position, the most important player on the team. Fred Warner and Kittle are the respective leaders of the defense and offense. The 49ers’ front office has been reckless in the past, allowing contract negotiations to simmer and burn deep into training camp, creating a toxicity that seeps into the entire building.

“They’re trying to say what you’re worth, those conversations get a little dicey sometimes, egos might be stepped on,” said Kittle, whose four-year extension was completed last month. “It’s very awesome that we have everything done.”

There are other things that feel awesome to the 49ers. Like having Robert Saleh back as defensive coordinator. Saleh and Shanahan looked very comfortable together, manning their sides of the field.

“It’s awesome having him back,” said Shanahan, who had to fire two defensive coordinators the past two seasons. “It’s nice hearing his voice in there, how he sees defense now, how he sees the NFL now. He’s still the same guy, but it’s cool to see how he’s evolved.”

Warner’s body language exuded relief at having his first defensive coordinator back.

“So crucial,” he said. “I can’t even speak enough to how much he meant to our group, in the past and having him back now. Just the calmness it brings. Not to speak badly of anybody that’s been here in the past, but just speaking on how much respect and admiration that I have for him.”

Old friends are back. New talent is on the field. The vibes feel immaculate, like May vibes usually do.

The 49ers seem committed to not repeating their mistakes from last year’s disaster.

(SF Chronicle)

STEVE PREFONTAINE died in a one-car accident on Skyline Boulevard in Eugene on May 30, 1975, a half-century ago. He was 24. In his brief, brilliant career, Prefontaine gripped the public imagination in a way no U.S. distance runner had before, none has done since and almost certainly, none ever will do again.

MRS. DALLOWAY AT 100: Virginia Woolf’s Modernist Masterpiece of Imperial Decline

by Jonah Raskin

Virginia Woolf didn’t realize when she began to publish her own work more than 100-years ago that she would birth a cottage industry that would put all her writing – letters and diaries as well as essays, novels and short stories—into print, and that would be read and studied around the world. No one was more scribacious than Woolf and no one was more devoted to the cause of women writers than she. The novelist Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, calls her “a goddess” and himself “one of her acolytes.” Other authors and critics have been no less effusive.

In Three Guineas—while all Europe hurtled toward WWII— Woolf wrote defiantly, “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” The rise of militarism and fascism (as well as her own depression) seems to have driven her to suicide at the age of 59. She harbored and expressed some of the prejudices of the British upper class into which she was born and bred, called herself a “snob” and didn’t always transcend her snobbery.

Unlike Emily Brontë and her literary sisters, Charlotte and Anne, whose books first appeared in print under the male pseudonym, Currer Bell, and unlike Mary Ann Evans who published under the pen name George Eliot, Virginia Woolf published her work under her real name. The world of books, authors and editors, and the status of women in British society had come a long way from the days of the Brontës in the early 19th-century, when a young woman might aspire to earn a modest living as a governess. But to aspire to authorship was often deemed “unladylike.”

To write and publish under one’s own name, like “Mrs. Gaskell,” the author of North and South and Wives and Daughters as well as a biography of Charlotte Brontë, was to go against the grain. Mrs. Gaskell’s first novel, Mary Barton, (1848), was published anonymously. Virginia Woolf reaped the benefits provided by the pioneers of English fiction, from the Brontës, to George Eliot and Mrs. Gaskell. She acknowledged their influence.

Born in 1882, near the tail end of the reign of Queen Victoria— and for a brief time one of the last of the Victorian novelists—Woolf changed her early writing style and her outlook on the world at about the same time that the British Empire was fast failing.

An ardent pacifist and passionate feminist, Woolf died in 1941, before she was recognized as one of the mothers of modernist fiction.

The seventh child of Julia Prinsep and Leslie Stephen, she was initially educated at home, attended King’s College London, advocated for women’s rights, and in 1912 married Leonard Woolf, a secular Jew who served the British Empire in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He kept her alive and on track for decades.

Virginia and Leonard founded the Hogarth Press, which published her work, and the first edition of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. They also helped to give birth to the Bloomsbury Group, a literary and political circle whose members included the economist John Maynard Keynes, the novelist E. M. Forster, artist Vanessa Bell and biographer Lytton Strachey.

Woolf’s early, largely traditional work includes The Voyage Out (1915) and Night and Day (1919). Jacob’s Room (1922), which was influenced by post-impressionist painters such as Matisse and Cézanne, took her in a radically new and different direction. Still, it was not until the publication in 1925 of Mrs. Dalloway now celebrating its one hundredth anniversary, that Woolf perfected the stream of consciousness style for which she has been globally recognized. By calling her character “Clarissa,” Woolf no doubt wanted readers to think of Clarissa Harlowe, the protagonist of Samuel Richardson’s 1748 epistolary novel, Clarissa or, the History of a Young Lady, subtitled Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life.

Clarissa Dalloway isn’t young, but she’s a lady with a fascinating personal history and a complex private life that Woolf traces, and portrays bourgeois British society that surrounds her.

Often ignored during her own lifetime, it was not until the 1960s that Woolf’s work began to be heralded, widely read and made required reading in college literature courses. Feminist critics and advocates of the women’s liberation movements “discovered” her novels and her non-fiction, including the magisterial and influential book-length essay, A Room of Her Own in which she noted famously that to be a writer a woman needed “money and a room of her own.” An aunt left her an endowment of 500 pounds a year.

The Mississippi-born American fiction writer, Eudora Welty, expressed some of the enthusiasm for Woolf’s work in a 1981 Foreword to a paperback edition of To The Lighthouse (1927). Welty wrote that Woolf’s novel “is a triumph of wonder, of imaginative speculation and defiance.”

She might have said much the same about Mrs. Dalloway, which has slowly but surely become an enduring classic of 20th-century British literature that belongs on the same shelf along with James Joyce’s Ulysses and Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Dalloway has echoes of both Joyce and Proust. An avid reader and an astute book reviewer and critic, Woolf devoured and absorbed sections and some of the perspectives of In Search of Lost Time.

She also read and reread Ulysses (1922) which she described as “an illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, & we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, & ultimately nauseating.” That comment says more about Woolf’s elitism and snobbery— about workers and the Irish, as well as British subjects who weren’t educated at Oxford or Cambridge— than it does about Joyce’s novel. Perhaps she was jealous of Joyce’s fame.

Despite the rebuke, she borrowed from Ulysses, which takes place in Dublin, Ireland during one day, June 16, 1904, and that offers parallels with Homer’s The Odyssey. Woolf chose not to offer echoes of Homer or any other ancient epic, but like Joyce she opted for the Aristotelian unities of time and place.

Mrs. Dalloway is set in London, England, the city she knew as well as Joyce knew Dublin, on one day in the middle of June 1923, not long after the end of WWI, a traumatic event which casts a long dark shadow on the characters and the plot. For over two-hundred pages, the authors wanders in and out of the consciousness of her characters, especially Mrs. Dalloway’s. She also describes her impressions of people, streets, and automobiles as she wanders about London, and so the novel offers a complex multi-faceted portrait of the city and its citizens from all walks of life.

Ulysses takes place a decade before the start of WWI, though it was written after the start of the war and with the war in a rear view mirror as a catastrophe in the offing. Woolf took a different approach to the 20th –century. By setting her novel in the immediate aftermath of WWI, she was able to depict its deep and profound impact on British society and especially on one of the novel’s central figures, Septimus Warren Smith, a suicidal shell-shocked soldier. In today’s logo, he’s afflicted by PTSD.

Woolf also depicts Smith’s vain, pompous physician, Sir William Bradshaw, a doctor knighted by the crown and totally unable to rescue Smith or to ease his mental suffering. He’s a so-called “expert” without any redeeming and socially useful expertise.

Most of Woolf’s characters come across remarkably well as unique individuals and also as social types who are representative of the classes and castes to which they belong. Woolf gathers them together to satirize them without bitterness. Clarissa Dalloway is the shallow society hostess with the “most-ess” who attracts friends and acquaintances to her home. Smith is the foot soldier abandoned and forgotten by the powers-that-be whose power he has fought to preserve on the battlefield and in the trenches.

His ordinary British family name, “Smith,” marks him as common, while his given name, “Septimus,” singles him out from the crowd that attends Clarissa’s party, with the cream of London society, including the Prime Minister who makes a brief appearance. Clarissa’s party might remind readers of Gatsby’s parties in The Great Gatsby, published the same year as Mrs. Dalloway.

Woolf is adept at smooth introductions of her characters, moving them around effortlessly, and showing them interacting with one another. Septimus Smith’s suicide takes places at the same time, though not at the same place as Mrs. Dalloway’s party. He leaps to his death from a window, leaving his Italian-born wife Rezia, a 24-year-old hat maker, a widow. When Sir William tells Mrs. Dalloway at the party that a “young man had killed himself,” self-centered Clarissa thinks “In the middle of my party, here’s death.” Not what she wanted.

In the original version of the novel, Woolf planned to have Mrs. Dalloway commit suicide. The author clearly had suicide on her mind. She took her own life in 1941 at the age of 59 when she waded into the River Ouse in the UK with a large stone in the pocket of her coat that weighed her down in the waters. In a suicide note to Leonard which sounds self-deprecating, she wrote, “You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read, I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good.” She added, “Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer. I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.” She signed the note with the capitalized letter “V.”

Among the most memorable characters in a large cast of characters in Mrs. Dalloway there’s first and foremost Peter Walsh, an ex-lover of Clarissa’s who wooed her before she married her rather drab husband, Richard Dalloway, a member of the Conservative Party in Parliament. Walsh is meant to be emblematic of the men who served the British Empire in India.

A scion of “a respectable Anglo-Indian family” that “for at least three generations had administered the affairs of a continent,” Walsh realizes that he has the sentiment of “disliking India, and empire and army.” Woolf seems to say that the British Empire was hollow at its heart.

Walsh and some of the other characters in Mrs. Dalloway are reminiscent of the figures in T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Hollow Men,” which ends famously, “This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but a whimper.”

And yet, unlike “The Hollow Men,” and unlike The Waste Land, Mrs. Dalloway isn’t apocalyptic. Mrs. Dalloway’s world doesn’t end, and neither does she, though the novel depicts a world that’s dying, an empire in decline and a decadent aristocracy that’s fading into the pages of history. Mrs. Dalloway’s party is a sign of imperial failure not of rejuvenation.

Christopher Caudwell, the Marxist literary scholar who died in 1937 in the Spanish Civil War, might have made the novel a centerpiece in his trenchant collection of essays, Studies in a Dying Culture published posthumously in 1938.

If you have difficulty getting into Mrs. Dalloway and trouble reading it, as many readers do, try not to be discouraged. Like Ulysses and like The Waste Land it’s a difficult modernist work that repays attention and scrutiny.

When I was a student at Columbia College in New York in the early 1960s, Woolf’s work did not appear on any syllabus, her name sadly missing from discussions and lectures about British literature. That was the patriarchy talking. A younger generation of men (and women, too) have been attuned to Woolf’s genius.

Michael Cunningham, the author of the novel, The Hours, his homage to Mrs. Dalloway, writes that as a young man he tried and failed to read Woolf’s novel. “I couldn’t follow it,” he says. “It didn’t make sense to me.”

But he persevered and came to the conclusion that “great novels [like Mrs. Dalloway} aren’t necessarily trying to tell their readers anything specific, and that if these novels mean to improve readers, they do so by imparting an expanded sense of the world.”

Mrs. Dalloway might do much the same for you as it did for Cunningham. You might like it as much as he has or as much as Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden and the prodigious English novelist, Margaret Drabble, who wrote, “Virginia Woolf is one of the few writers who changed life for all of us.” Drabble added, “Her combination of intellectual courage and painful emotional sensitivity created a new way of perceiving and living in the world.” Mrs. Dalloway inhabits the same literary territory as George Eliot’s Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch, and Joyce’s Molly Bloom in Ulysses. She’s an original immortal.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)

MAGA PEDO

TRUMP’S PARLOUS GAMBIT

by James Kunstler

“The modern politics of division have become a banally hectoring faux morality play put on by the theater kids for the other theater kids.” —El Gato Malo on X

While Jake Tapper leads the Mea Culpa Chorus singing Kumbaya in a minor key, absolutely nobody is fooled that the grotesque psychotic deformities of US politics can be reduced to a few White House factotums lying to the news media about “Joe Biden’s” cognitive abilities. For one thing, the news media was not lied to. The news media (including Jake) lied to the nation, consistently, flagrantly, mendaciously, for years, and most of all they lied about the gigantic racketeering operation that government had become in the age of Anything Goes and Nothing Matters.

Cases-in-point, as reported by Alex Krainer, the $93-billion barfed out of the Department of Energy between the November election and January 20 to scores of hastily-formed NGO gangs with no business model or record of competency. . . and the staggering $375 billion spread around similarly out of the EPA from a slush fund run by John Podesta (as Senior Adviser to the President for International Climate Policy and Clean Energy Innovation).

That was pure grift, you understand, and it was how the Democratic Party kept its activist troops of the so-called “marginalized” paid and happy. As it happened, the “marginalized” who dwell on the edge of society — and also just beyond the set of agreements that define reality — are out-numbered by the rest of us, who voted against the tyranny of the margin and their hallucinations. And so now, the country goes through a convulsion attempting to readjust to reality — for instance, the unhappy fact that all that money was unreal, mere bookkeeping entries by dishonest accountants.

One reality we struggle with is the doleful fact that there is no work-around for the nation’s monumental debt. Since it can’t possibly be paid off, there are two stark paths for it: default and ruinous deflation (that is, money vanishes and the nation goes broke); or a futile attempt to inflate it away with more fake money creation (you’ll have money, but it’s increasingly worthless, so you’re effectively broke). Either way, you’re broke. In the meantime, the remorseless interest that has to be paid on $36.2-trillion squeezes out everything else we’re supposed to care for as relates to the common good.

Every broke-ass family or individual person knows how debilitating money-worries can be. And since unpayable debt is the common denominator across all of Western Civ, this perhaps explains the gross, suicidal mental disorder displayed lately by leadership all across Europe, North America and Anglo-Oceania. Europe, especially, exhibits behavior that is completely cuckoo — inciting war with Russia, inviting in murderous hostiles from foreign lands, and sadistically policing their own citizens.

The exception is Mr. Trump, a businessman-outsider to government trying to pull off an escape from the deadly debt quandary. It’s probably impossible, but he is trying nonetheless. It has three main features: 1) to readjust trade relations that, in theory, would restore industrial production across the land — a bootstrapping operation to kick off “growth.” 2) to engineer a severe re-set of the money system that would effectively amount to defaulting on debt but somehow without the feature of disappearing money. At best, this would induce some kind of fall in living standards, but mostly among the small sector of financial buccaneers who thrive on swindles and the Boomers living on investment accounts (figment wealth), who are now dying off anyway — which is to say, Great Depression Lite. And 3) the least understood feature of Trumpism: to decouple the USA from the resource scarcity in the rest of the world, and the consequent strife it’s inducing, and withdraw into a sort of Fortress North America that can somehow carry-on self-sufficiently while everybody else collapses.

As big pictures go, this is a pretty wild one, stupendously ambitious, risky, and perhaps improbable. But what do Mr. Trump’s domestic opponents have to offer? To go back to their asset-stripping operation with its insane sideshow of race-and-sexual hoaxes and hustles? Let’s face it, the Democratic Party has utterly shot its wad. If it tries to start another civil war, it will have its ass handed to it. Despite all the desperate, rear-guard lawfare underway now, the party is already withdrawing into the political thickets to hide while it considers some drastic reorganization of its purpose and personnel. It may skulk there for many years, just as it did between James Buchanan (1857) and Grover Cleveland (1885).

And despite his daunting agenda, Mr. Trump at least presents a sense of confident determination to get the country righted in some fashion, to recover a sense of purpose and enterprise after years of feckless, dissipative drift into the hallucinatory madness of the Left. You must give him a chance. There is no one else right now with no other way.

ADMINISTRATIUM

Investigators at a major research institution have discovered the heaviest element known to science. This startling new discovery has been tentatively named Administratium (Ad). This new element has no protons or electrons, thus having an atomic number of 0. It does, however, have 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.

Administratium has a normal half-life of approximately three years; it does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places.

In fact an Administratium sample's mass will actually increase over time, since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons, forming new isotopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as the "Critical Morass."

LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT

World Scientists Look Elsewhere as U.S. Labs Stagger Under Trump Cuts

Trump, Bashing the Federalist Society, Asserts Autonomy on Judge Picks

White House Unveils New Details of Stark Budget Cuts

Fact-Checking Musk and Trump’s Oval Office Press Conference

Blow to Biden-Era Program Plunges Migrants Into Further Uncertainty

Trump Pledges to Double Tariffs on Foreign Steel to 50%

Did Someone Punch Elon Musk?

Trump Says He Fired Director of National Portrait Gallery, Citing D.E.I.

Trump Says Chinese Students Are a Security Risk. Espionage Experts Are Skeptical.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The LAST person I would support to solve this mess… is Trump who will become a dictator…eventually… if he isn't already, but just being held back from total fruition by various political antics by his detractors. Face it, there is no one that can fix this mess. We are all going to eat shit and die until Mother Nature and gravity can bring it back to the way it's supposed to be.

JEFF BLANKFORT: What I Have Been Saying For Years And What Chomsky, Bennis And Zunes Have Stubbornly Denied:

Dr. Simon Goddek:

"As a European who has lived in America, I used to believe the myth that the United States was the freest and most democratic nation on Earth. That’s what we were all told. But now that I’ve spent time in these political circles and spoken with major right-wing influencers, what I’ve seen and heard has completely shattered that illusion.

Let me tell you the story I’ve heard over and over again, from different voices, in different cities, at different events. Influencers, some of the biggest names on the right, get pulled aside at private gatherings. Someone leans in, starts a casual conversation, and then comes the pitch: “Have you ever thought about going into politics? We can get you into Congress.”

But there’s always a condition. They’re told to go to Jerusalem. Kiss the wall. Symbolically pledge loyalty. Only then does the funding and institutional support start flowing, usually from AIPAC and its donor network. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s the same story every time.

And once you understand how things actually work, you start to see the pattern everywhere. Nearly every so-called “America First” politician in Congress takes AIPAC money. The few who refuse it—like Thomas Massie—get relentlessly targeted. AIPAC pours money into their opponents’ campaigns. Even Trump openly said they plan to get rid of him. And you still think this is the land of the free?

– How can you be the world’s greatest democracy when you’re not even ruling your own country?

– How can you be sovereign when another nation dictates your foreign policy, controls your lawmakers, and censors your speech through proxies like the ADL?

And let’s talk about the influencers who conveniently never mention any of this. Be they Jewish or Zionist, they’ll rant about Russian bots, Chinese spies, or any other manufactured threat. But not a word about AIPAC. Not a word about how U.S. foreign policy is openly shaped by another country’s interests.

Marco Rubio will get on stage and give passionate speeches about freedom and patriotism, but he won’t touch the topic of AIPAC. And he certainly won’t mention the ADL’s role in silencing anyone who does. Nor will influencers like Mike Benz, Mark Levin, and co.

You want to understand why the Epstein files are still sealed? Why this Mossad-linked blackmail operation remains untouched? It’s not because the system is slow. It’s because the people in charge of releasing that information were placed there by the same network that wants it buried. They don’t serve your country. They serve another one.

Try doing an early life check on the loudest defenders of the status quo. You’ll start to understand who they serve and why they’ll never say what needs to be said.

So no, America is not the greatest democracy in the world. It’s the most powerful vassal state on Earth. And the truth is, until America frees itself from foreign control, no election, no movement, and no slogan will make it truly free.

TIMELY POEM

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

— William Blake

THIS WEEK Dr. Feroze Sidhwa described to the UN Security Council his experiences treating victims of Israeli air and drone strikes in Gaza:

"In Gaza, I operated in hospitals without sterility, electricity or anesthetics. Surgeries took place on crowded and filthy floors. Children died not because their injuries were unsurvivable, but because we lacked blood, antibiotics and the most basic supplies that are readily available in any large hospital anywhere else in the world. I did not see or treat a single combatant during my 5 weeks in Gaza. My patients were 6-year-olds with shrapnel in their heart and bullets in their brains, and pregnant women whose pelvises had been obliterated and their fetuses cut into while still in the womb. Mothers sheltering in the hospital cooked bread on hot plates in the emergency department during mass casualty events as we dealt with the reign of fire and death falling around us everywhere."

(via Jeffrey St. Clair)

TIME FOR ISRAEL TO HALT ITS WAR OF DEVASTATION IN GAZA

by Ehud Olmert

The indiscriminate, cruel and criminal killing of civilians may see us be banished from the family of nations and summoned to the ICC, with no good defense

The government of Israel is currently waging a war without purpose, without goals or clear planning, and with no chances of success. Never since its establishment has the state of Israel waged such a war. The criminal gang headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has set a precedent without equal in Israel’s history in this area, too.

The obvious result of Operation Gideon’s Chariots is, first and foremost, the confused activity of Israeli military units deployed around Gaza. This is true particularly in neighborhoods where our soldiers have already fought, were hurt and fell while killing many Hamas combatants, who deserve to die, and many more innocent civilians. These have joined the statistics of pointless victims among the Palestinian population, reaching monstrous proportions.

Recent operations in Gaza have nothing to do with legitimate war goals. The government sends our soldiers – and the military obeys – to wander around Gaza City, Jabalya and Khan Younis neighborhoods in an illegitimate military operation. This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area.

Over the past year, harsh accusations were voiced worldwide against the Israeli government and its military’s conduct in Gaza, including accusations of genocide and war crimes. In public debates in Israel and on the international arena, I’ve rejected such accusations firmly, though I didn’t shrink from criticizing the government. The international media listens to all voices in the public debate in Israel. It can discern between those who serve as mouthpieces for Netanyahu and his lackeys and his opponents, who view him, as the media is currently fond of saying, as the head of a crime family. I didn’t hesitate to give interviews in Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere in the international arena. Quite often, I disappointed interviewers when I vehemently asserted that Israel wasn’t committing war crimes in Gaza. Excessive killing happened, but, I claimed firmly and with conviction, in no case did a government official give orders to hit Gazan civilians indiscriminately.

The great number of innocent civilians killed in Gaza was hard to fathom, unjustified, unacceptable. But all, as I have said on every media outlet in the world, resulted from a vicious war.

This war should have ended by early 2024. It continued without justification, without any clear goal, and with no political vision for the future of Gaza and the Middle East in general. The military, charged with and duty-bound to execute government orders, acted in many cases rashly, incautiously, over-aggressively. However, it did so without any order or instruction or directive from military top brass to hit civilians indiscriminately. Therefore, as I understood it at the time, no war crimes had been committed.

Genocide and war crimes are legal terms that very much refer to the intent and responsibility of the people authorized to formulate the war’s objectives, its conduct and its purpose, the boundaries of fighting and the limitations on the use of force. I took every available opportunity to distinguish between the crimes we have been accused of, which I refused to admit, and the carelessness and indifference regarding Gazan victims and the unbearable human cost we’ve been levying there. The first accusation I rejected, the second I admitted to.

In recent weeks I’ve been no longer able to do so. What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: the indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. We’re not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.

First, starving out Gaza. On this issue, the position of senior government figures is public and clear. Yes, we’ve been denying Gazans food, medicine and basic living needs as part of an explicit policy. Netanyahu, typically, is trying to blur the type of orders he’s been giving, in order to evade legal and criminal responsibility in due course. But some of his lackeys are saying so outright, in public, even with pride: Yes, we will starve out Gaza. Because all Gazans are Hamas, there’s no moral or operational limitation on exterminating them all, over 2 million people.

Israeli media outlets, each for its own reasons (some understandable) are trying to present a moderate version of events in Gaza. But the picture displayed around the world is much broader, much more devastating. It’s impossible to view it with equanimity and a nod, as if the world’s reaction is merely a widespread outburst of antisemitism, because everybody hates us and they’re all antisemites.

Well, no. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is no antisemite. I know him well. I’ve been talking to him over the last few months. When the hour was at hand, the French military stood on the frontline to defend Israel and cooperated in intercepting Iran’s missile attacks. “We’re fighting with you against your enemies under my direction, and you’ve been accusing me of supporting terrorism,” Macron recently said. He is a friend of Israel, as are the British prime minister, Keir Starmer; the Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; and many others who’ve joined them from within the ranks of Europe’s most outstanding and important cabinet ministers and leaders.

They’ve been hearing the voices from Gaza. They see the suffering of hundreds of thousands of civilians. They’ve been hearing the voices from Israeli cabinet meetings and realize the obvious: Israeli cabinet ministers, headed by crime boss Netanyahu, are actively, unhesitatingly and with malice aforethought pursuing a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure, with potentially catastrophic results.

Voices are already rising from Israel-friendly governments such as Canada, the UK and France, calling for concrete measures against the government, though these could cause grievous harm to Israel. Macron suggested a review of the association agreement between Israel and the European Union, a suggestion seconded by the prime ministers of Spain, the Netherlands and Italy. These latter two, unlike Macron, are both rightwing leaders, and until recently had declined any move that could have embarrassed Israel.

These voices will grow. There’s a risk that tangible punishment will be directed at Israel beyond steps by the international criminal court at The Hague, with lethal financial and diplomatic results.

The Netanyahu government’s choir of thugs and the poison machine it has been operating will immediately decry typical victimization: the Gentiles are antisemites. They hate us. They’ve always been against us. They support terrorism – while we fight terrorism. In truth, these governments aren’t anti-Israeli, they oppose the Israeli government. They believe the government has declared war on the state of Israel and its inhabitants, and it may have caused irreversible damage.

I concur. I believe the government of Israel is now the enemy from within. It has declared war on the state and its inhabitants. No external foe we’ve fought against over the past 77 years has caused greater damage to Israel than what the Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich-led government has inflicted on us. No external foe managed to devastate the social solidarity that was the basis of Israeli society’s strength in all existential tests facing it since 1948, as the Netanyahu government has done and does.

I will briefly repeat here what has already become accepted wisdom in large parts of the Israeli public: this government is unworthy. It cannot, nor does it wish to do what is good for the country and its citizens. It’s entirely preoccupied with destroying any basis for internal unity, for cooperation between communities, which may disagree over core issues. It’s driven by some crazed enthusiasm to pit brother against brother, mother against children, soldiers against soldiers, punks and thugs against hostages and their families. It takes sadistic, sick, irresponsible and merry joy in this, while of course failing to bring back the hostages.

And while all this mess is going on, we keep on slaughtering Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, too. I have said so before, and I will not go back on my word. Members of the horrible hilltop youth are daily perpetrating heinous crimes all over the West Bank, while the police and military units deployed in the area are turning a blind eye.

The murder of Tzeela Gez is horrifying. One cannot but feel pain over the fate of this young woman and over the tragedy to which she fell victim on her way to the hospital to give birth to her son. May he survive and grow up in the bosom of his loving family, who will surely protect him. But the statement by head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, saying that Palestinian villages must be destroyed is a declaration of genocide.

When a Palestinian village burns down, and quite a few already have, they’ll tell us that the perpetrators are a small, violent group that does not represent settlers. This is a lie. They are many. The vanguard is always smaller. Behind it are the Yossi Dagans who are inspiring them, helping them to avoid exposure and preparing the next wave of rioters. Where are the police? Where is the military? Where are the tens of thousands of settlers who ought to say that these horrifying hilltop youths are criminals who should be sent to prison rather than wandering around olive orchards belonging to West Bank residents?

Nor is it possible to ignore what has been happening in some Israeli military units, including special forces, where the best and most daring soldiers serve. There have been too many incidents of cruel shooting at civilians, of destruction of property and homes, even when this should not happen. There is too much looting and theft from homes, about which in many cases Israeli soldiers have boasted. Some have gone as far as posting about their antics online.

Israelis are committing war crimes. I do not share the opinion of former chief of staff Moshe Yaalon, who said that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing. But we are nearing the point when it will be undeniable that such is the unavoidable result of what the government, the military and our brave soldiers have been doing in practice.

It is time to halt, before we are all banished from the family of nations and are summoned to the international criminal court for war crimes, with no good defense.

Enough is enough.

(Ehud Olmert is a former prime minister of Israel. This op-ed originally appeared in Haaretz.)

LORETTA SWIT, who played Major Houlihan on TV’s “MAS*H,” dies at 87. She won two Emmy Awards for her sympathetic portrayal of an Army major on the hit TV show and had a long career in TV and theater. (via Fred Gardner)

“JAIL POEMS” by Bob Kaufman (written in San Francisco City Prison, Cell 3, 1959)

I am sitting in a cell with a view of evil parallels,

Waiting thunder to splinter me into a thousand me's.

It is not enough to be in one cage with one self;

I want to sit opposite every prisoner in every hole.

Doors roll and bang, every slam a finality, bang!

The junkie disappeared into a red noise, stoning out his hell.

The odored wino congratulates himself on not smoking,

Fingerprints left lying on black inky gravestones,

Noises of pain seeping through steel walls crashing

Reach my own hurt. I become part of someone forever.

Wild accents of criminals are sweeter to me than hum of cops,

Busy battening down hatches of human souls; cargo

Destined for ports of accusations, harbors of guilt.

What do policemen eat, Socrates, still prisoner, old one?

Painter, paint me a crazy jail, mad water-color cells.

Poet, how old is suffering? Write it in yellow lead.

God, make me a sky on my glass ceiling. I need stars now,

To lead through this atmosphere of shrieks and private hells,

Entrances and exits, in . . . out . . . up . . . down, the civic seesaw.

Here — me — now — always here somehow.

In a universe of cells—who is not in jail? Jailers.

In a world of hospitals—who is not sick? Doctors.

A golden sardine is swimming in my head.

Oh we know some things, man, about some things

Like jazz and jails and God.

Saturday is a good day to go to jail.

Now they give a new form, quivering jelly-like,

That proves any boy can be president of Muscatel.

They are mad at him because he's one of Them.

Gray-speckled unplanned nakedness; stinking

Fingers grasping toilet bowl. Mr. America wants to bathe.

Look! On the floor, lying across America's face—

A real movie star featured in a million newsreels.

What am I doing—feeling compassion?

When he comes out of it, he will help kill me.

He probably hates living.

Nuts, skin bolts, clanking in his stomach, scrambled.

His society's gone to pieces in his belly, bloated.

See the great American windmill, tilting at itself,

Good solid stock, the kind that made America drunk.

Success written all over his street-streaked ass.

Successful-type success, forty home runs in one inning.

Stop suffering, Jack, you can't fool us. We know.

This is the greatest country in the world, ain't it?

He didn't make it. Wino in Cell 3.

There have been too many years in this short span of mine.

My soul demands a cave of its own, like the Jain god;

Yet I must make it go on, hard like jazz, glowing

In this dark plastic jungle, land of long night, chilled.

My navel is a button to push when I want inside out.

Am I not more than a mass of entrails and rough tissue?

Must I break my bones? Drink my wine-diluted blood?

Should I dredge old sadness from my chest?

Not again,

All those ancient balls of fire, hotly swallowed, let them lie.

Let me spit breath mists of introspection, bits of me,

So that when I am gone, I shall be in the air.

Someone whom I am is no one.

Something I have done is nothing.

Someplace I have been is nowhere.

I am not me.

What of the answers

I must find questions for?

All these strange streets

I must find cities for,

Thank God for beatniks.

All night the stink of rotting people,

Fumes rising from pyres of live men,

Fill my nose with gassy disgust,

Drown my exposed eyes in tears.

Traveling God salesmen, bursting my ear drum

With the dullest part of a good sexy book,

Impatient for Monday and adding machines.

Yellow-eyed dogs whistling in evening.

The baby came to jail today.

One more day to hell, filled with floating glands.

The jail, a huge hollow metal cube

Hanging from the moon by a silver chain.

Someday Johnny Appleseed is going to chop it down.

Three long strings of light

Braided into a ray.

I am apprehensive about my future;

My past has turned its back on me.

Shadows I see, forming on the wall,

Pictures of desires protected from my own eyes.

After spending all night constructing a dream,

Morning came and blinded me with light.

Now I seek among mountains of crushed eggshells

For the God damned dream I never wanted.

Sitting here writing things on paper,

Instead of sticking the pencil into the air.

The Battle of Monumental Failures raging,

Both hoping for a good clean loss.

Now I see the night, silently overwhelming day.

Caught in imaginary webs of conscience,

I weep over my acts, yet believe.

Cities should be built on one side of the street.

People who can't cast shadows

Never die of freckles.

The end always comes last.

We sat at a corner table,

Devouring each other word by word,

Until nothing was left, repulsive skeletons.

I sit here writing, not daring to stop,

For fear of seeing what's outside my head.

There, Jesus, didn't hurt a bit, did it?

I am afraid to follow my flesh over those narrow

Wide hard soft female beds, but I do.

Link by link, we forged the chain.

Then, discovering the end around our necks,

We bugged out.

I have never seen a wild poetic loaf of bread,

But if I did, I would eat it, crust and all.

From how many years away does a baby come?

Universality, duality, totality . . . .one.

The defective on the floor, mumbling,

Was once a man who shouted across tables.

Come, help flatten a raindrop.

16 Comments

Mazie Malone May 31, 2025

Good Morning, 🌷☀️💕

Re, Mr. Norvell’s plans for homelessness/vagrancy/encampments……….

Mr. Norvell wants to expand the Care Response Unit countywide and push CORE as an innovative collaborative program. These programs sound good, but in reality cannot live up to their promises—because they’re rooted in control, not in the actual needs of the people they claim to serve.

CRU in Fort Bragg had direct control over shelter beds—meaning if you needed a safe place to sleep during bad weather, you had to go through a police-led outreach team. Now we’ve got CORE, which measures “progress” by how well people can follow the rules, enroll in Medi-Cal, attend appointments, show up in court. Not by how accessible the system actually is.

Add to that Heads Up, where only law enforcement can make referrals—and response time is up to seven days. Seven days. For someone in crisis.

These programs may look good on paper, but from a family perspective—what they offer feels more like a system to manage than real support. We have to be honest about how challenging it is for many street people to follow through on compliance. Addiction, mental illness, and cognitive challenges can make it nearly impossible to meet the expectations these programs are built around.

What actually helps people follow rules and engage is shelter and consistent support—not programs led by law enforcement and built on compliance.

If we want real solutions, then we need to take a hard look at the programs we already have and revise how they’re directed, utilized, and what protocols guide them.

mm 💕

Reply
- Mike Jamieson May 31, 2025
  
  I asked the Google AI to talk about Maslow’s needs pyramid to help underline your point:
  AI Overview
  +11
  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a psychological theory that suggests human motivation is driven by a hierarchy of five basic needs: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. These needs are often visualized as a pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom and the most advanced at the top.
  Elaboration:
  Physiological needs:
  These are the most basic needs for survival, including food, water, shelter, sleep, and homeostasis.
  Safety needs:
  Once physiological needs are met, individuals seek security, stability, and protection from harm.
  Love and belonging needs:
  This level involves the need for social connection, relationships, and a sense of belonging.
  Esteem needs:
  Individuals seek self-respect, confidence, achievement, and recognition from others.
  Self-actualization needs:
  This is the highest level, where individuals strive to realize their full potential, creativity, and personal growth.
  Maslow’s theory suggests that individuals must satisfy lower-level needs before moving on to higher-level needs. While the theory is influential, it has also faced criticism, including concerns about its validity and the potential for cultural biases.
  
  Reply
  - Mazie Malone May 31, 2025
    
    Hi Mike, 🌷
    
    If someone’s only option is sleeping outside and surviving horrid circumstances, they’re not in a space to access—or follow through on—services. Providers should implement the hierarchy of need. Maslow knew it in the ’40s—but we think its quackery? 🫶🏻😜💕
    
    mm 💕
    
    Reply
chuck dunbar May 31, 2025

BLUNT EXPLANATION

Whether it’s Trump at the national level, or the BOS in Mendocino County, the following explanation fits:

“Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.”
Scott Pelley, CBS 60 Minutes correspondent

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Craig Stehr May 31, 2025

TAKE TWO: INSANE INCIDENT AT D.C. BUS STOP IN DECLINING CHOCOLATE CITY
At 10:20 a.m. on May 31st, at the Queen’s Chapel Road & Bladensburg Road (west side) bus stop, the same insane individual violently threatened me, screaming that he hated white people. He is 5’10”, black, slightly fat, and wears black square rimmed sunglasses. And he growls a lot. He did not physically assault me as he did yesterday. I jogged northward to the previous bus stop. First paying, and then informing the bus driver of the situation, I asked that the Metropolitan Police be called, and that he not let the insane individual on at the next stop. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority bus driver replied: “We don’t call the police”. The driver then drove to the next stop and let the insane individual on! The insane individual proceeded to sit across from me in the rear portion of the bus and did not cause a problem. He simply glared at me for the entire ride to H Street, whereupon I deboarded. End of report.
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone Messages: (202) 832-8317
Email: craiglouisstehr@gmail.com
May 31, 2025 A.D.

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Call It As I See It May 31, 2025

Because journalists have become an arm of the Democratic Party. Americans have finally realized that media has been lying to them for 10 years.
NYT won a Pulitzer on a lie constructed by Hillary Clinton’s lawyer. They refuse to return it even though the story has been debunked. Jake Tapper wants you to believe he just recently discovered Biden didn’t have all his faculties. Meanwhile we watched with our own eyes a President suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s.

I guess you write this post because of Ted Williams latest lies. You can’t just address that, you feel need to go after Trump. Ironically all you America Hater’s blame Trump for everything bad in life. Want to bet that if you got hit by a car in a crosswalk, Trump’s fault, right.

Everything you America Hater’s called a Trump conspiracy. Miraculously Trump was right, imagine that!

Journalism should be attacked, they are failing America and prove they are a threat to democracy, not orange man.

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- Bruce Anderson May 31, 2025
  
  Nailed it, Call! We’re so afraid of Williams as the supervisor slimes his way through Lilliput, we ridicule Trump, who ridicules himself every day. Got it, and now for some reality. Lots of left journalists wrote about Biden’s obvious decline. The right has its journalo-seraglio, the libs have theirs with the NYT and its lesser clones, the left has a bunch of great reporting at The Nation, CounterPunch, on substack, Mother Jones and so on. I know I’m wasting my time even bothering to point this out to an outback lunkhead, but..
  
  Reply
- Fascism For Fun and Profit! May 31, 2025
  
  Everyone I disagree with hates America!
  
  All the women who don’t want to have sex with me are lesbians!
  
  That guy that looked at me sideways is a communo-fascisti-pedophilic-opiod pusher/addict who abuses cute puppies! Aieeeeeeeee!!!!!
  
  Epstein didn’t kill himself! Wait… Epstein DID kill himself – we’re working on the video now you America-haters!!!!
  
  (Don’t get me wrong… the Democraps are all filthy criminals who drop bombs on children…. just like their filthy cousins, you and your Rethuglicans.)
  
  Reply
- Bruce McEwen May 31, 2025
  
  Great call, Umpire! I have loathed those Mickey Mouse Club goodie-two-shoes at NPR and the snooty elites at the NYT lo, these many decades, since Ronnie Reagan and New Gingrich branded these so-called journalists with the ugly L-word. Howsomever, our esteemed editor does have a point (although explaining the subtle differences between say, a Democratic Party shill like Jake Tapper and a real honest-to-god journalist like Chris Hedges is tantamount to a fly fisherman telling the difference between a cutthroat trout and a cottonmouth sucker to a bait fisherman who had never known aught for tackle other than a treble hook packed with PowerBait, sitting on a bucket of beer watching the river flow), not that you should be expected to try and grasp it…still and all, good call!
  
  Reply
  - Bruce McEwen May 31, 2025
    
    Make that a flannelmouth sucker, if you please, Ms Autocorrect (I hope you can cut bait and gut fish, Autocorrect, cause you’re about as useful as a blind umpire when it comes to piscean taxonomy.)
    
    Reply
Chris Hart May 31, 2025

McNamee Comments on Fort Bragg.
Peter McNamee continues to attack first and ask questions second, if he even bothers getting information. While the leader of an “Institute” he spreads rumors and creates friction. This is his third attempt in a month to undermine the efforts to resolve the fight. At this point, it appears his primary goal is perpetuate fighting and prevent redevelopment of the Fort Bragg millsite.

We have some complex things to work out the we’re trying to make progress while under the clock. Not easy. Mendocino Railway was fully participating in a public planning process regarding our plans for the millsite up until this legal fight. And more recently, we had public meetings in February and March, with another meeting scheduled on June 26. Further, our two parties are working to craft the goals and tasks to be done in the future through a public process.

I am not aware of anyone with the City or my company doing anything illegal or morally wrong while trying to resolve this fight. If you know different, then lets hear it.

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David Stanford May 31, 2025

PEACEFUL PROTEST ON HIGHWAY ONE

What a great day,!!!!!!!! that is my Birthday and I will be in Fort Bragg to bury my uncle on the same day I will bring my TRUMP BANNER to help the protesters appreciate what he is doing for AMERICA:)

Thank you Protesters

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Fascism For Fun and Profit! May 31, 2025

Counterculture…. I ran into an old friend of mine at a punk rock concert in the City in that tiny corner of Cargo Way where the culture lives on (if you know, you know)… I’ve known him for 40 years. In ’67, as a member of The Diggers he was part of the “Death of Hippie” funeral in The Haight, then went across the country to help Levitate The Pentagon. We sat down and he immediately launched into a prolix defense of LBJ, eventually landing on, “LBJ was the best president by far!” Then he got mad at me when I said “Uhm, ok, but, uhm, he killed, like, 2 or 3 million completely innocent people.” I should have left then, but the conversation drifted to Biden – another of the “best” according to him. When I, of course, brought up Gaza, he rolled his eyes and gave me an “oh sure, gaaaaah-za.”

I would ask ‘what the hell happened,’ but as our esteemed editor has explained it on this these pages many times, we already know.

-x-x-x-

The Niners best offseason moves were the signing of Saleh and the trading of Deebo. With the recent noise from Aiyuk and his agent, the WR should be the next to go. The Niners can make it to the playoffs this year, but are unlikely to get past Detroit or Philadelphia. But hey, at least The Cowboys will still suck.

-x-x-x-

Kuntsler descends further into mental illness… “….Mr. Trump, a businessman-outsider to government trying to pull off an escape from the deadly debt quandary. ” Uhhhhhhm, his ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill adds $4 to $6 trillion to the deficit, which of course is funded with debt. In addition, his policies have increased interest rates as the world loses faith in the dollar, making the debt more expensive. A master of declaring bankruptcy, perhaps his plan is to default and declare the $TRUMP meme coin as the new reserve.

-x-x-x-

Meanwhile, Dr. Goddek nails it. The US is wholly subservient to a tiny country of 9 million people (2 millions of whom are relegated to second class under their apartheid system). Marco Rubio recently stated that new visa applicants will have their social media screened, and if they said something bad about our Zionist masters the will be denied entry. The NSA and CIA are wholly owned subsidiaries.

“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” The quote is often falsely attributed to Voltaire, but was actually said by a less-than-savory American character. It’s still true though.

-x-x-x-

“I did not see or treat a single combatant during my 5 weeks in Gaza. ” I watch the combat videos that get posted to Telegram. The resistance fighters routinely ambush the IDF p*****s, snipe them, and blow up their fancy tanks. Unlike the IDF Nazis, they refuse to fire on evac helicopters or ambulances. The only thing the IDF can do is murder women, children, and the elderly.

Whether anyone likes it or not, the path to peace is paved with dead IDF, just like Vietnam had to kill 57,000 Americans to liberate themselves.

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- Bruce McEwen May 31, 2025
  
  Whether Voltaire borrows the formula from Tom Paine or not, it referred to his hasty departure to Geneva, in the wake of the execution of Chevalier LeBarre (whose acuity was as acerbic as yours). LeBarre had his hands chopped off, his tongue torn out, and broke to death on the wheel before they burnt what was left..
  
  “I see a few heads of that Hydra, Fanaticism, in this, the Age of Reason. Therefore, shall we light the flambeau, at which calumny and envy will rekindle their torches? Or would we refrain from eating for fear of being poisoned?”
  
  — Voltaire
  
  Reply
  - Fascism For Fun and Profit! May 31, 2025
    
    A comment of many layers, good sir.
    
    “Every man who searches for truth incurs the danger of persecution.”
    
    Reply
    - Lilian Rose June 1, 2025
      
      Why?
      
      Reply

Mendocino County Today: Saturday 5/31/2025

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