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GUSTY NORTHERLY WINDS will continue to diminish into the middle of the week. Hot and dry conditions will continue this week as a ridge settles into Northwest California. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): So much for clear skies yesterday - it was freezing cold & foggy when I teed off at 8am at the Little River Inn...... A foggy 50 to get started this Tuesday morning on the coast. Clearing later today typically likely, some fog, clearing & breezy Wednesday, then lather rinse repeat to follow.
A VEHICLE DRIVING NORTHWEST on Highway 128 late Sunday night somehow veered off the highway and slammed into a power pole a few hundred yards northwest of the 128/253 junction. The incident shut off power for Boonville and parts of Yorkville for about two hours from around 10:15pm to 12:15am. Early reports said one person (presumably the driver) was observed “walking wounded,” and was transported by ambulance to medical care.
AV FIRE CHIEF ANDRES AVILA ADDS: AVFD was dispatched at 10:22 pm for a traffic collision at the intersection of Hwy 128 and 253. The wreck involved a burgundy Nissan pickup that had been traveling westbound on Highway 128. It left the roadway and took out one power pole, damaged a second, and involved the service drop to a nearby residence. The driver (unknown if local) was transported to Ukiah for moderate injuries by AV ambulance. Crews remained on scene for traffic control until PG&E could secure and restore power after midnight. I am told that the electrical power was out from Boonville at AV Way 3 to Haehl’s Grade.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA FACES DUAL WEATHER WARNINGS FOR WILDFIRE, HAZARDOUS SEAS
by Ida Mojadad
Large swaths of Northern California are under either warnings for fire weather inland or storms along the coast Monday.
The National Weather Service placed northern Sacramento Valley under a red flag warning as weather conditions were expected to increase fire risk until 8 p.m. Monday. With gusts up to 40 mph and humidity as low as 9%, forecasters are urging safety precautions to prevent a fire from sparking. The warning is in effect for the area starting north of Sacramento in Yuba City and stretching past Redding. The biggest threat is along Interstate 5, nestled between several national forests, including Tahoe, Mendocino and Lassen. Forecasters also warned of a moderate heat risk in the same area.
At the same time, the Northern California coast is hunkering down during unusual stormy weather. The National Weather Service issued a storm warning until 9 a.m. Monday due to “anomalously strong winds“ between 35 and 45 knots, or nautical miles per hour, between Cape Mendocino and Point Arena.
After the storm warning lapses, forecasters warn that “hazardous” seas remain and pose a risk of capsizing or damaging vessels while reducing visibility. Seas may reach up to 21 feet until 3 a.m. Wednesday. The National Weather Service recommends keeping ships at the port, changing course or securing vessels.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service’s Bay Area office forecasts temperatures in the high 60s along the coast to 80s inland. Thanks to the marine layer, “near or slightly below normal temperatures will continue this week,” the forecast briefing said. Temperatures are expected to increase again by the weekend.
(SF Chronicle)
MIKE JAMIESON:
The many excited fans here at the AVA (not, lol) of the Great Redwood Trail might be interested to know that work has started on the next segment: https://youtu.be/ggJNJK34Ejo?si=tbQBr3mhpOAzHeWd
Signs in this area have detailed warnings not to trespass (likely due to previous large encampments there).
CITY OF UKIAH TO HOST PUBLIC FORUM ON ANNEXATION ON TUESDAY, JUNE 3rd
The City of Ukiah invites community members to attend a public workshop on Tuesday, June 3rd, to learn about the annexation process currently under consideration. This workshop will provide an overview of the areas involved, the reasons why annexation is under consideration, and what the process means for residents, property owners, and the broader community.
City staff will be available to present information, answer questions, and gather public input. Community feedback is a critical part of this process, and all stakeholders are encouraged to participate.
Workshop Details:
Date: June 3, 2025
Time: 5:30pm-6:30pm
Location: Ukiah Valley Conference Center; 200 S School St, Ukiah, CA 95482
More information about proposed annexation can be found on the City’s website at: https://cityofukiah.com/annexation
AMADOR COUNTY TRIBE PULLS PLUG ON SACRED ROCK RESORT IN ELK
by Frank Hartzell
One of the Coast’s most spectacular view properties, the Sacred Rock Inn in Elk, has closed down, laid off all staff abruptly and announced a permanent closure and refunds to those who paid for rooms in the month of June. This came after the clifftop property was part of a big 2 year publicity campaign for the town of Elk that sought to wow the Bay Area with a chance to visit the small town with top-rated restaurants. Some felt the level of publicity was overdone and may have partly backfired.…
https://mendocinocoast.news/amador-county-tribe-pulls-plug-on-sacred-rock-resort-in-elk/
OFFICIALS PREDICT ‘ACTIVE’ FIRE SEASON IN CALIFORNIA
by Anthony Edwards
California’s door for rain is closing quickly and wildfire season is around the corner.
On the heels of last year’s dynamic season, which featured the state’s fourth-largest blaze in history and culminated in January’s deadly Los Angeles-area infernos, officials expect another year of fierce fires. Above-normal wildfire activity is predicted throughout much of California in July and August, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
“Overall, an active fire season is what I’m predicting,” said Brent Wachter, a fire meteorologist with the Northern Operations Predictive Services unit.
Officials say the hot summer forecast combined with lush and likely very flammable vegetation is fueling the active outlook.
Grasses are thick across Northern California after a healthy dose of winter rain. Most areas north of Interstate 80 received above-normal precipitation from October through May, which could tame the fire season at first, particularly in forested areas. But grasses are predicted to become flammable throughout June, especially in the valleys between the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada.
Measurements from May 1 found the grass crop to be 41% more dense than an average year in Browns Valley (Yuba County) at the Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center, a center under the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Grass is even thicker this year than in spring 2024 at the Browns Valley site. That summer, a bulletin issued by Cal Fire and other agencies warned of tall grasses contributing to rapid fire spread following a July heat wave.
With plenty of vegetation available across California, the stage is set for big fires this summer if hot, dry windy weather aligns with a spark.
“I firmly believe if everything is projected right with the heat and dryness, that we’re going to have some flash drought conditions develop, similar to what we had last year,” Wachter said.
Grasses and shrubs in mountainous areas will probably be ready to burn by the second half of July, contributing to the above-normal wildfire potential in the Sierra, Wachter said. An early melt-off of California’s snowpack means mountainous areas could dry up earlier than normal and allow wildfires to spread more rapidly.
Central and Southern California forecast
Central and Southern California picked up significantly less rainfall this winter. Drought has already emerged in many areas. However, rain that fell from late February to April spurred grass growth across Southern California, according to Jonathan O’Brien, a fire meteorologist with the Southern Operations Predictive Services unit.
“It only takes a couple weeks of hot and dry weather to really start zapping the finer vegetation and even into some of the heavier fuels,” O’Brien said.
There is a slight tilt in the odds toward above-normal large fire potential in the Sierra foothills, the Southern Sierra, the Central Coast, the Transverse Ranges and the South Coast in July and August, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Seasonal forecasts from multiple agencies predict above-normal temperatures from June through August, especially in the inland valleys and Sierra foothills. California typically lacks meaningful rainfall during summer, except in the mountains where the North American monsoon can yield occasional thunderstorms.
The hot, dry outlook suggests elevated fire weather conditions across much of inland California by midsummer as heat combines with ignition risks such as Santa Ana and Diablo winds.
“Warm summers predispose forested parts of the state to enhanced fire potential by curing fuels,” said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at UC Merced. “Years with significant and widespread heat waves have often ended up with plenty of fire.”
Short-term weather drivers, like heat waves and tropical moisture intrusions that can bring lightning risks, will shape week-to-week fire danger.
The outlook for those monsoonal intrusions is muddled. The Climate Prediction Center shows a slightly increased chance of above-normal precipitation across parts of Arizona and New Mexico in July, but it’s unclear how that could play out in California. Abatzoglou points out that the lingering effects of a weak La Niña have left behind cool ocean waters near California, which could “pad fog and abate summer fire danger” in coastal areas through June.
Andrew Hoell, a scientist at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, said the broader weather setup is unclear this early in the season.
“The key players this summer will be the large-scale atmospheric patterns, where ridges and troughs set up, and whether they persist,” Hoell said. “But we don’t tend to have a lot of forecast skill for those features beyond a few weeks.”
July may mark a turning point: more heat waves and increasing lightning potential setting the stage for fast-moving shifts in fire danger.
“Lightning is a huge wild card,” Abatzoglou said. “Monsoonal surges or other lightning outbreaks can quickly turn a dull fire season into an extremely active one.”
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE NEWSLETTER, June 2025 [excerpts]
The May Gathering: Lynne Sullivan, the Operations Manager for the Noyo Center of Marine Science, gave a compelling presentation on the state of the ocean.
To read more about it, click on this link: https://www.noyocenter.org/help-the-kelp/
Here is one of Helen Papke's stories presented at our April gathering of local writers:
Upcoming AV Village Events
AV Grange Pancake Breakfast: Sunday, June 8th 8:30am to 11am: Anderson Valley Grange (2nd Sundays of the Month): Organic and local pancakes (gluten free available) eggs, and bacon. Juice, coffee, tea.
Hendy Woods State Park - Free Entry for Locals: Sunday, June 8th 8:30 to 7pm: On the second Sunday of every month, local residents have a free pass to enjoy the flora and fauna right in our own backyard. Just know your zip code.
AV Village Monthly Gathering: Sunday, June 15th 4 to 6pm at Philip & Evette’s: Members & Volunteers Garden Party: BBQ ribs and drinks. Bring your favorite dish to share!
Preparation for the Rest of Our Lives Book Club: Monday, June 16th - 1pm to 2:30pm: Sandra’s House: “Creatures of a Day” by Irving Yalom. Contact Donna for more details: [email protected]
Climate Change Action Group: Thursday, June 19th - 2:15pm to 3:45pm: Sandra’s House: “Abundance” by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson Contact Lauren for more details: [email protected]
To see the rest of the newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/40c45c2b8f92/anderson-valley-village-newsletter-august-5852872?e=358077c1c9
NO KINGS DAY
Peaceful Protest on the Pacific Coast Highway!
Saturday June 14, 11am to 1pm: 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 participants to stay on the sidewalk at all times, keeping the entire roadway (including the shoulder / bike lanes) clear. Do not attempt to cross the highway on foot anywhere outside of the crosswalks, located at Boatyard Drive and at Cypress Street. Our event does not include the west side of the highway.
Please do not park on private property, which includes the Boatyard Shopping Center and the grassy areas near McDonald’s.
Updates and details can be found on the event page: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/787694/
For further information, contact [email protected].
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
LEVEL UP THIS SUMMER - With Mendocino County Library!
Mendocino County Library has “rolled a natural 20” and is celebrating a summer-long campaign during the Summer Reading Program, “Level Up at Your Library.”
“Our branches are excited to explore the adventure of reading by offering books to build personal libraries, both at the Library and in the community,” said Mellisa Hannum, Mendocino County Librarian. “Having a personal collection of books has been shown to support literacy development in children and teens.”
The learning opportunities include more than books, with professional entertainers and programs focused on science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Plus, there will be free lunches during Lunch at the Library, a summer meal program funded by the California Summer Meal Coalition (CSMC) and the California Library Association (CLA) in partnership with the USDA summer meal program.
“Anyone who has worked with kids knows that if they’re hungry, it’s impossible to learn,” said Hannum. “Mendocino County Library is pleased to coordinate with community partners once again to offer access to free lunches and library activities to youth 18 and under.”
For the third year in a row, Coast Community Library will have lunches available in its Community Room, and for the first time, the Willits Library will also offer lunches in the branch. Both locations have lunch and enrichment opportunities every Tuesday through Friday at noon. These are the same balanced, nutritious meals offered through the school districts. Hannum said she was grateful for the new and ongoing partnerships with the schools. Look for lunches from June 10 to August 8 in Willits and from June 17 to August 9 in Point Arena.
Additionally, for the third year running, Ukiah Branch Library will be providing a weekly pop-up event at Todd Grove Park in Ukiah every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. from June 17 to Aug 5. Summer lunches will be served with books and activities provided. Fort Bragg and Round Valley Libraries will continue participating in Lunch at the Library pop-up events in their communities. Fort Bragg will be at Dana Cook Elementary from 11 a.m. to noon on June 26, July 3, and July 10. Round Valley will offer events in collaboration with the Tis Bil Education Center every Wednesday in July from 1 to 3 p.m.
The Summer Reading Program always kicks off with fun performers. Join us for the Bri Crabtree Silly Circus Show on June 20 at Coast Community and Fort Bragg Branches and June 21 at Round Valley, Willits, and Ukiah Branches. In August, the libraries will be presenting Conservation Ambassadors’ Wild Things on August 1 at the Ukiah, Willits, and Round Valley branches, followed by an August 2 performance at the Fort Bragg and Coast Community branches. Gabe will discuss the diversity of life on Earth and tell the stories of the amazing animals in his care. These events are free and open to the public.
Slay that final boss of boredom! There are plenty of literacy activities in store this summer when you “Level Up at Your Library.”
For more information, please view www.mendolibrary.org or contact the Mendocino County Library at (707) 234-2873.
DISCOVERED ENRICHMENT
Editor,
Hello AVA,
Along with many others, I’m sure, I thank you for enriching my life since 1995 with your newspaper. When picking up around our cabin’s kindling box, I still find an old AVA once in a while. It’s a bit like finding old letters or to-do lists.
One of the pieces in the AVA which has stuck with me longest is Michael Nolan’s “When China was Communist.” More memorable than most full length books I’ve read, and just one example of unexpected AVA moonshots.
That’s the kind of thing I mean by “enriching.”
Anyway, thank you, and hopes for your continued fire fanning.
Charles Pugh
Oakland
ED NOTE: Michael Nolan’s story:
Part 1: https://theava.com/archives/228068
Part 2: https://theava.com/archives/229528
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, June 2, 2025
ILEANA AMRULL, 47, Ukiah. Arson, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
DANIEL CHECK, 37, Hopland. Failure to appear.
JUBAL CHILSON, 47, Willits. DUI.
DUSTIN JORDAN, 46, Willits. Burglary, burglary tools, vandalism, disorderly conduct-loitering.
CHRISTOPHER LOPEZ, 35, Ukiah. Probation revocation, resisting.
WILLIAM OWENS, 36, Ukiah. Parole violation.
JASON RAY III, 24, Redwood Valley. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, county parole violation, unspecified offense.
CHRISTINA ROBERTS, 22, Lakeport/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
CHRISTIAN SANCHEZ, 21, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI, suspended license, probation revocation.
PAUL SCHOCK, 34, Philo. Controlled substance with two or more priors, probation revocation.
FRED GARDNER:
About all the Tide behind lock & key at the Safeway… I should have added that two-pound bags of Peet’s coffee – much easier to shoplift than big plastic bottles – were on sale for $21.99 and stacked near the entrance. The difference? Laundry soap is a necessity (and twice as expensive at the laundromat than at the grocery store). So the Tide is a target for the poor, the Peet’s isn’t. Poverty causes crime!. (Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, maniacs commit crimes… But it’s the simple truth: Poverty Causes Crime.)
PENDING PG&E TREACHERY
Editor:
Now is a critical time for those who care about climate justice to contact their state representatives. Assembly member Lisa Calderon, a longtime utility company employee, is advancing a bill to break the contracts of homeowners and nonprofit developers who were pioneers in advancing rooftop solar energy.
As currently amended, AB 942 retroactively breaks the terms of the contract for anyone who installed rooftop solar before April 2023 and wants to sell their home. It would gut the value of their investment by not allowing the new owners to benefit from the terms of that contract for the years it was promised to remain
Who opposes this bill? A coalition that includes nonprofit affordable housing developers, the California Realtors Association, public housing finance agencies, the California Building Industry Association and the Center for Sustainable Energy. With such a diversity of interests against the bill, who could possibly be in favor of it? That would be PG&E and the other investor-owned utilities, along with their unions. You can find more information on how to take action at solarrights.org.
Cate Steane
Santa Rosa
SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SAKO BY…
Editor,
It’s my birthday on Tuesday, June 3rd. Please help me celebrate by going to my Facebook page (below) and supporting NPR: https://www.facebook.com/john.sakowicz
With the Trump Administration cutting funding at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR needs your help now more than ever!
Thanks for joining me in supporting public radio, like NPR affiliate KZYX, where I hosted “The Truth About Money” in Mendocino County CA.
Thank you for supporting community radio, like KMUD, where I currently co-host “Heroes and Patriots” in Humboldt County CA.
In addition to supporting NPR via my Facebook page, you can also individually support KZYX and KMUD by becoming a member of the station.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
STROMBOLI
Just sitting here on a public computer at the Martin Luther King Jr. public library in Washington, D.C. listening on YouTube to the NYC Harinam group chanting the maha mantram LIVE. Read through today’s CBS News. Looked at the front pages of 1.The Washington Post, 2.The New York Times, and 3.The Wall Street Journal at Hudson News at Union Station. Ate a Sbarro’s stromboli, with a large coffee from Starbucks. Before that, I took a bus from the Queen’s Chapel Road bus stop without incident; the insane individual was not there. And before that, morning ablutions at 7 a.m. at the homeless shelter, after enjoying the 5 a.m. cereal breakfast along with the channel 4 weather report. That’s it in reverse. Contact me if you are enlightened.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
ANTI-SEMITISM?
Editor
I don’t get it. AI defines antisemitism as “negativity” toward Jews. I always thought it meant “negativity” toward Semitic people. Somehow the Israeli government has defined anti-Israeli positions against the genocide of the people of Gaza as antisemitic. I thought the people of Gaza were Semites, like the Jews.
Peter Lit (whose mother was a Ukrainian Jew)
Caspar
MARIE TOBIAS:
I think we can all agree that anyone who sets his neighbors on fire needs to be put in a lonely place for a very long time.
All the sadder, because this wasn’t an Anti Palestinian protest, but a public cry to bring the hostages home.
Made even worse by the recent shooting of starving Palestinian refugees (including children) by Israeli troops, while trying to get food at one of the few open support centers.
Violence by any source is unacceptable, and calls for immediate law enforcement.
CALIFORNIA WATER, ISRAELI INTERESTS, Part I: Venture Capitalist Stephen Deberry’s Israel Pandering at TUHSD Sheds Accidental Light on Israel's Interest in California Water/Ag
Closely linked with Newsom and Kapor Capital, DeBerry tries to wed a program for Black students to pro-Israel interests, and inadvertently exposes a California-Israeli network of thirsty billionaires
by Eva Chrysanthe
A new, successful, and much-loved support program for Black students at Tamalpais High School is on the chopping block. Suddenly, a interracial couple in Mill Valley linked to “woke” billionaire Mitch Kapor and Governor Newsom have appeared as rescuers. But is there a poison pill in their pitch? And what can Stephen Deberry’s long support for Israel tell us about an under-reported 2014 California-Israel trade agreement signed by then-Governor Jerry Brown?
Part I in this series introduces Stephen DeBerry and his wife Cristine Soto DeBerry and is divided into sections that cover the couples’ suddenly public involvement in rescuing a Black student support program; Cristine Soto DeBerry’s “progressive prosecutor” mien; Stephen DeBerry’s predatory “social justice” investments, his ties to Israeli-invested billionaires including Mitch Kapor and Lynda and Stewart Resnick, and his promotion of Israeli water technology.…
https://marincountyconfidential.substack.com/p/california-water-israeli-interests
“Teacher Notes”: there will be a very diverse gathering of educators at the West Berkeley Shellmound on June 7 starting at 11 AM. The teachers are trying to raise awareness about a variety of issues facing educators, including the disastrous anti-Free Speech Assembly Bill 715. I hope to attend and if you have any questions, please contact me and I will put you in touch with the organizers.
OFFENSE REMAINS A MYSTERY to Giants as Padres win 1-0 in 10 innings
by Susan Slusser
Perhaps we might have anticipated such an evening at Oracle Park, where the San Francisco Giants played host to division-rival San Diego.
Neither team is scoring much but both are still sticking around in the NL West. The Giants entered the day with a better run differential, despite the Padres’ high-profile lineup, and both teams have strong pitching. Logan Webb was tops in that category Monday, turning in eight shutout innings, but the Padres eked out a 1-0 win with a bunt and a sacrifice fly to send in the placed runner in the 10th inning against Ryan Walker.
The Giants had their own chance with placed runner Jung Hoo Lee, and Christian Koss moved him to third with a bunt, but Matt Chapman hit a 109.7 mph grounder, the hardest hit ball of the night, at third baseman Jose Iglesias for the second out and Jerar Encarnacion, just off the injured list, lined out to first against Robert Suarez at 101 mph.
“Extremely hard hit,” manager Bob Melvin said of the final two outs. “Really, the last couple innings were probably our best at-bats throughout the course of the game, we smoked some balls in the later innings.”
Entering the day, San Diego was in second place, two games behind the Dodgers but with a plus-15 run differential, while the Giants were three games back with a plus-42. But San Francisco has now been shut out three times over the past nine games and hasn’t scored more than four runs since May 17, the team’s longest such street since also doing so over 15 consecutive games Aug. 1-14, 1976.
“The best teams in history have gone through stretches where they have struggles like this, but everyone in this room believes in ourselves,” Webb said. “It’s the beginning of June, we’ve got four months of baseball left, and we really love our guys in here, it’s a really united team.”
Webb allowed six hits, walked none and struck out seven while lowering his ERA to 2.55, and he is starting to look like a legit All-Star candidate to go along with rotation-mate Robbie Ray.
“I think that’s the best I’ve ever seen him,” catcher Patrick Bailey said.
Webb’s home ERA is 1.12, the best by a Giants pitcher in their first six home starts since Juan Marichal had an 0.31 ERA to start 1966.
Using his slider more than usual, Webb was especially tough the few times the Padres had men in scoring position, striking out Tyler Wade with men at the corners and one out in the second — and Bailey turned it into a double play, throwing out Jake Cronenworth trying to steal second as Wade took his hack. The next inning, with runners at second and third, Webb got DH Manny Machado to pop up a 3-1 sweeper to end the inning.
Three players took pitches off their hands Monday, including San Francisco first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr., who exited the game after the inning. Wade has had a miserable season, batting .167 with a .271 on-base percentage, and the team activated Encarnacion earlier in the day, giving them three potential options at first, with Casey Schmitt and Wilmer Flores also available, though all three are right-handed hitters. Melvin said that Wade had an X-ray and was diagnosed with a right hand contusion.
When Stephen Kolek also added Flores to his hit-batter count in the third, the typically impassive Flores pointed at Kolek and barked a bit, even as Kolek tapped his chest to say “my bad.” The umpire crew huddled, then home-plate umpire Ryan Willis and crew chief Lance Barksdale had a chat with San Diego manager Mike Shildt. There were no more HBPs from that point on.
The Giants didn’t lack for baserunners, they just couldn’t do anything with them, especially in the second, when they loaded the bases in the second with no outs (their robust attack: walk, hit batter, walk). Stephen Kolek got Tyler Fitzgerald to bounce into a force that erased Willy Adames at the plate and Heliot Ramos to hit into a double play. The next inning’s double play came courtesy Chapman.
In the seventh, the Giants put together another stirring rally (walk, walk, walk) but with two outs, Jeremiah Estrada struck Lee out on three pitches, and in the eighth, with a chance to give Webb a W, the team had men at second and third after a Flores hit, an intentional walk to Adames and a wild pitch, but Schmitt struck out.
The team went 1-for-12 with men in scoring position. In the past 10 games, they’re batting .116 with runners in scoring position and have scored just 18 runs.
“I know we’re going to step it up eventually,” Bailey said. “Obviously we have hit a lot of balls hard off one of the best pitchers in the game and it just doesn’t go our way.”
Chapman did provide one of the few fun moments of the night with a leaping catch in the seventh that robbed Cronenworth of a hit.
(sfchronicle.com)
‘THEY TOOK MY MOMENT AWAY’: California High School Runner Loses Track Title Over Celebration
by Gabe Fernandez
A Central Coast high schooler had her state championship revoked Saturday following what officials determined to be an unsportsmanlike celebration.
After North Salinas High School sophomore Clara Adams finished first in the 400-meter state championship final, her father, David Adams, handed her a fire extinguisher from the stands. To celebrate the victory, she stepped off the track and sprayed her cleats with the extinguisher, which may have been a fun moment for the Adams family, but California Interscholastic Federation representatives did not agree. Not only did officials take away her state title, but she was also barred from running her next event, the 200-meter.
The high schooler told the Monterey Herald that officials “yelled at” her and “took my moment away from me.” Her dad insisted that because her celebration was off the track and not in front of her opponents, it wasn’t “disrespecting anyone.” David Adams later said he believes the punishment was “racially motivated.” The family tried to protest the decision, but it was to no avail.
Longtime followers of track and field will recognize the celebration as reminiscent of what former world record holder and Olympian Maurice Greene did in a 2004 meet after winning a 100-meter race. Greene’s celebration was a bit more theatrical, as he ran to the middle of the track, threw off his shoes and had his coach run over to spray them with the extinguisher.
Clara Adams might not officially have a state title, but there’s little doubt as to who’s the best 400-meter runner in the state. On May 17, Clare Adams set a Central Coast Section record in the race with 53.23, which is still the fastest time in California this season. She was only a tick behind that time in the state title race, crossing the line at 53.24 in Clovis on Saturday. After she was disqualified, Madison Mosby of Saint Mary’s Academy in Inglewood was named the state champion with a time of 53.52.
WHEN I CAME TO A TEACHABLE AGE, I was, as most youngsters are, directed toward the acquisition of knowledge, meaning not so much ideas but demonstrated facts. Education as I knew it was made up of such a preestablished collection of certainties.
Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me and it has failed me. Something in me still starves. In what is probably the most serious inquiry of my life, I have begun to look past reason, past the provable, in other directions. Now I think there is only one subject worth my attention and that is the precognition of the spiritual side of the world and, within this recognition, the condition of my own spiritual state. I am not talking about having faith necessarily, although one hopes to. What I mean by spirituality is not theology, but attitude. Such interest nourishes me beyond the finest compendium of facts. In my mind now, in any comparison of demonstrated truths and unproven but vivid intuitions, the truths lose.
I would therefore write a kind of elemental poetry that doesn’t just avoid indoors but doesn’t even see the doors that lead inward — to laboratories, to textbooks, to knowledge. I would not talk about the wind, and the oak tree, and the leaf on the oak tree, but on their behalf. I would talk about the owl and the thunderworm and the daffodil and the red-spotted newt as a company of spirits, as well as bodies. I would say that the fox stepping out over the snow has nerves as fine as mine, and a better courage. I would write praise poems that might serve as comforts, reminders, or even cautions if needed, to wayward minds and unawakened hearts.
I would say that there exist a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves — we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together. We are each other’s destiny.
— Mary Oliver, from "Winter Hours"
ZOMBIE BILLS: WHY CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS BRING BACK LEGISLATION GOVERNORS KILL
by Ryan Sabalow
The bill was dead. Twice dead, in fact: Two times in the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation to ban California companies from deploying driverless trucks.
Yet lawmakers have resurrected the idea and inserted it into a new bill — with the Teamsters union hoping the third time will be the charm.
There’s no indication Newsom has changed his mind. Still, Democratic Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, representing the Davis area, said she brought the autonomous trucking bill back because it’s good policy aimed at “protecting our public safety and our jobs.” She said it has nothing to do with the Teamsters’ large donations to lawmakers.
Assembly Bill 33 is an example of a phenomenon in the California Legislature: Even when a bill dies one year, and even if a governor kills it, there’s a strong likelihood it will return, especially if big money interests like labor unions and business groups want it signed into law.
A CalMatters analysis using the Digital Democracy database that tracks the more than 2,000 bills introduced this year found at least 80 measures that are similar – some identical – to legislation that Newsom or other governors have vetoed in previous years. Around a quarter of the resurrected bills had support from prominent labor groups; an almost equal number were backed by business.
CalMatters relied on the Legislature’s bill analyses to determine whether a measure had been vetoed before. If a previous veto was not noted in the bill analysis it wouldn’t show up, meaning the figure is likely an undercount. The analysis didn’t tally the dozens of other resurrected bills pending in the Legislature this year that already died before reaching the governor’s desk.
The previously vetoed bills tackle issues large and small including dangerous cigarette lighters, prevailing wage, jury duty for probation officers, colorectal cancer screenings, reproductive health care access, groundwater use at duck-hunting clubs, statewide guaranteed income, newspaper ads and environmental, labor and social justice measures.
The number of failed bills returning year after year helps fuel one of the Legislature’s most troubling issues. The massive number of bills introduced each year contributes to lawmakers rushing through the democratic process and fosters a culture of secrecy at the Capitol. As CalMatters reported, lawmakers routinely silence members of the public during hearings in order to jam through the huge volume of bills. Lawmakers also regularly make their decisions behind closed doors, in part because there is so little time to debate their hundreds of bills in public.
Experts say that doesn’t necessarily mean bills shouldn’t come back after failing. Some good ideas take time to gain political support. Alex Vassar, a legislative historian at the California State Library, noted that it took decades of failed legislation to pass laws that eventually built the state’s highway system and that gave women the right to vote.
“You can keep an issue on the front of the public’s mind, keep it alive in Sacramento, by using the vehicle of the bill to advance conversations happening outside the capital,” said Thad Kousser, a former California legislative staffer who’s now a political science professor at UC San Diego. “Sometimes, it’s part of a longer-term strategy to move policy forward.”
‘Not here to serve the lobbyists’
The Teamsters union is a major funder in the California statehouse, contributing at least $2.7 million to lawmakers’ campaigns since 2015. Aguiar-Curry received at least $15,950 in campaign cash from the Teamsters and its affiliate unions in that time, according to the Digital Democracy database.
But she said that didn’t influence her decision to try again on autonomous trucking.
“I’m not here to serve the lobbyists,” she said.
Aguiar-Curry said she hopes that tweaks she made to the latest legislation could appeal to Newsom, who has tended to be friendlier to Big Tech companies than legislators are to big labor. The latest proposal would prohibit driverless trucks from delivering commercial goods directly to a residence or to a business, instead of barring all driverless trucks over 10,001 pounds as in previous legislation. Newsom’s press office declined to do an on-the-record interview for this story.
“The governor’s veto messages speak for themselves,” his spokesperson, Izzy Gardon, said in an email. “And our office does not typically comment on pending legislation.”
Citing polling that shows Californians are leery of fully autonomous trucks, supporters say that if Newsom vetoes it again, they’ll just keep bringing it back until he signs it – or until the next governor does.
“We’re right on this issue,” said Peter Finn, the Western region vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The only person that’s wrong on this issue is the governor, and just because one person is choosing Big Tech over people and drivers doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing this issue.”
This year’s bill easily passed the Assembly floor on Thursday with only a handful of Republicans voting “no.”
Doctors Again Fight Private Equity
Business groups, meanwhile, are pushing at least 20 other bills that Newsom or other governors have vetoed.
A prominent example is Senate Bill 351, co-sponsored by the California Medical Association, which lobbies on behalf of the state’s physicians. The organization wants to regulate private equity groups and hedge funds when they try to buy medical and dental practices.
Last year’s legislation sought to give the California attorney general power to block the sale of health care companies to for-profit investors.
In vetoing the measure, Newsom said it wasn’t necessary. This year’s bill doesn’t go as far, but it contains nearly identical language that would prohibit investors from “interfering with the professional judgment of physicians or dentists in making health care decisions,” according to the bill’s analysis. The measure also would allow the attorney general to sue if an investment firm violates the rules.
“Private equity firms are gaining influence in our health care system, leading to rising costs and undermining the quality of care,” Erin Mellon, a spokesperson for the medical association, said in an email.
CMA has given at least $3.5 million to legislators since 2015, according to Digital Democracy. The doctors lobby also has donated at least $9,500 to this year’s author, freshman Democratic Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, the former mayor of West Sacramento.
Cabaldon said in an interview that he introduced the bill because it’s about “taking care of the patients.”
“Doctors and other health care providers,” he said, “are leaving their practices, or in some cases, leaving the industry altogether, because their ability to practice as clinicians and deliver the best possible care has been under threat by overly aggressive private equity operators who are putting the profits first.”
Cabaldon’s proposal passed the Senate last week with Republican opposition.
Lawmakers Bring Back Passion Topics
While wealthy groups push for their favored bills to come back, other pieces of legislation return simply because a lawmaker is passionate about the subject matter.
That’s why Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher, who represents the Chico area, reintroduced a bill Newsom vetoed last year that would have given families legal authority to visit loved ones in health care facilities during pandemics. Gallagher said he hated not being able to visit his dying aunt during the Covid-19 outbreak.
“It’s wrong, man, especially if it’s a loved one,” he said.
Newsom vetoed the first measure, saying that California’s pandemic visitation policies struck the right balance, and he was concerned Gallagher’s bill would “result in confusion and create different access to patients.”
Gallagher’s newest version of the bill didn’t get a hearing this year.
For Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican representing the Palmdale area, it bothers him that victims of the 2020 Bobcat Fire in his district have to pay state taxes on settlement payments they received from the power company whose lines started the fire.
“It’s brutal,” he said. “I mean, ‘Here’s your money to try to restore yourself, but, oh, by the way, you can’t have it all. We want some of it back.’ … It’s a second kick in the mouth.”
It’s why he reintroduced a settlement tax relief bill this year after Newsom vetoed it last year along with a number of other similar bills.
Lackey said he hopes his latest bill is unnecessary. Newsom noted in his veto message that the settlement tax provisions “should be included as part of the annual budget process.” Newsom’s proposed budget this year includes tax breaks for some disaster settlements. Lackey hopes that will include the Bobcat Fire.
Social justice bills come back
Other previously vetoed bills seek to address social justice issues that are important to lawmakers. They include proposals to create anti-discrimination awareness campaigns, putting non-English language accent marks on government forms and diversity audits for gubernatorial appointees. Newsom has vetoed “substantially similar” diversity audit bills six consecutive times.
Democratic Assemblymember James Ramos, representing the San Bernardino area, is the Legislature’s first Native American member. He believes that California’s first peoples have been silenced and marginalized for too long.
It’s why he’s authored two bills that have been previously vetoed. One would remove requirements from school administrators to approve the cultural regalia students wear at graduations. Former Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill, saying “principals and democratically elected school boards” should decide what’s appropriate to wear. Another previously vetoed Ramos bill seeks to expand tribal police forces. He’s also a co-author of a previously vetoed measure seeking to provide resources to locate missing Indigenous people.
Ramos said he applauds Newsom for doing more than other governors have to apologize for the historic harms done to Native people, but more work needs to be done.
“When the state became a state, they did not include the voices of California’s first people,” he said. “So these bills do a lot more than other bills in the Legislature. These bills educate, and they move forward for reckoning and atonement.”
Should Newsom decide to veto Ramos’ bills again – or any of the others he or other governors have previously killed – it’s unlikely lawmakers will push back.
As CalMatters reported, nearly all of the 189 bills Newsom vetoed last year had support from more than two-thirds of lawmakers — a threshold large enough to override the governor’s veto.
But that almost never happens. The last time the Legislature overrode a governor’s veto was in 1979 on a bill that banned banks from selling insurance.
(CalMatters.org)
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR CANDIDATES GOING ANTI-NEWSOM: ‘NEVER STEPPED FOOT IN THE FRENCH LAUNDRY’
by Joe Garofoli
ANAHEIM — Nearly all the Democrats running to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom share a common trait: They are defining themselves as the anti-Newsom.
Former state Controller Betty Yee, who grew up working in her family’s San Francisco business, delivered the definitive anti-Newsom money line during the three-day California Democratic Party convention, which ended Sunday, when she said: “I have never stepped foot in the French Laundry, but I grew up in a Chinese laundry that taught me the value of work, of hard work, and it’s a sacrifice that I carry, that my parents made, to be able to, within one generation, see their daughter run for the highest office in California.”
The line cuts to the heart of anti-Newsomism beyond the reference to the governor’s maskless meal at the bougie Napa Valley restaurant after he urged Californians to maintain social distancing. It draws a stark class contrast at a time when Democrats are blasting billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk for cutting programs for the poorest Americans. And it tweaks Newsom for his purportedly patrician mien — though he was raised largely by a single mom who worked three jobs — while hinting that California’s next governor will probably not be a white man for the first time since 1875.
Even though Newsom remains marginally popular with California voters and is likely to be a top tier candidate for the White House in 2028 when his term ends, his potential successors see him as a symbol of today’s Democratic Party at a time when many Democrats are looking for something new in the wake of losing the White House and Congress in November.
Californians are split on their opinion of Newsom. An even number approve of the job he’s doing as disapprove — 46%, according to a Berkeley IGS survey in May.
But the same survey showed his vulnerabilities. By a more than 2-1 margin, more voters believe Newsom in his final two years in Sacramento “is devoting more of his attention to things that might benefit himself as a possible candidate for president” (54%) than “governing the state and helping to solve its problems” (26%).
Veteran Democratic strategist Roger Salazar said the Democratic rivals are “trying to take a lesson from the last election, which is that people really cared about working class issues. And so they’re trying to try to get voters to see them as champions for the working class, for working families who are struggling to get by.”
Yee, whose campaign manager proudly calls a “nerd,” told a union worker audience Saturday: “What you see is what you get from me. It’s true. I’m not an 8-by-10 glossy. This is me, OK?”
Yee wasn’t the only candidate who stressed humble beginnings. Former state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins leads most speeches by sharing how she grew up in a four-room home with no plumbing in rural Virginia, the daughter of a coal miner and a seamstress. Newsom, by contrast, purchased a six-bedroom, $9.1 million home in Kentfield last year with a swimming pool and a spa.
Former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter introduces herself to audiences as a “mom who drives a minivan.” Can’t get more anti-Newsom than that.
Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra frames his pitch to voters through the lives of his parents, who were immigrants from Mexico. “A construction worker and a clerical worker lived the California dream and made it even better for their kids,” Becerra said. “That’s why I’m running to be governor of the state of California, so a worker today can work hard and have that California dream.”
State schools Superintendent Tony Thurmond talks about his grandparents cleaning houses and how he was raised by a cousin after his mother died when he was 6.
While Thurmond’s ancestors were cleaning homes, Newsom’s were establishing political connections that would establish deep roots in California over decades. Newsom’s grandfather supported Pat Brown’s unsuccessful 1939 campaign for San Francisco district attorney, before Brown won the subsequent race and then ascended to become state attorney general and governor. When his son, Jerry Brown, became governor, he appointed Newsom’s father, Bill Newsom, to the Placer County Superior Court and later to the state Court of Appeals.
Bill Newsom was childhood friends and St. Ignatius High School classmates with Gordon Getty, son of J. Paul Getty and heir to the Getty oil fortune. Bill Newsom later served as a Getty lawyer and a trusted family friend and adviser. The Getty connection would help Newsom in the business world. A 2003 Chronicle investigation found that Gordon Getty, or trusts and firms he controlled, was the lead investor on most of Newsom’s earliest business ventures.
The only potential 2026 candidate who didn’t subtly poke Newsom was former Vice President Kamala Harris — and that was because she didn’t deign to make the 90-minute drive from her home in Los Angeles’ Brentwood neighborhood to the convention full of the state’s most devoted activists. Instead, she spoke via a two-minute video in which she largely repeated the anti-Trump remarks she made during a speech in San Francisco last month. She didn’t mention her next move. Harris has said she will decide whether she is running by the end of summer.
Other candidates obliquely criticized Newsom’s shortcomings as governor as a way to highlight what they propose to do. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who lost to Newsom in the 2018 gubernatorial primary, alluded to the governor’s incessant bragging about California being the world’s fourth-largest economy.
“This is a great state. We’re the fourth-largest economy in the world (with) the highest effective poverty rate because of the cost of living. Gas: highest in the country. Utilities have gone up 66% in the last six years. Home prices: highest in the country,” Villaraigosa said. “We can’t continue as a state and with an economy that’s not paying people what they deserve and where the cost of living is insane.”
One leading candidate largely avoids even subtle Newsom comparisons. That’s the person who has spent the past eight years being a heartbeat away from replacing him, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. As the daughter of a wealthy Sacramento developer who donated several million dollars toward her first run for the office, she can’t emphasize her humble roots. Instead, she often basks in his reflected glow, noting that she is the daughter of a Greek immigrant who rose from being a farmworker and later a waiter in the governor’s mansion.
Yet Kounalakis subtly draws a comparison to Newsom by emphasizing her previous job as president of her family’s development company. “I’m going to be a builder,” she said — a jab at how Newsom, in his first run for governor in 2018, wrote in a Medium post that he would “lead the effort to develop the 3.5 million new housing units we need by 2025 because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is.” Newsom has tried to walk back that comment many times, frequently saying he was referring to the housing target as a “stretch goal.” The state has not built more than 116,683 units annually since he took office.
Salazar said that the challenge with all of the Democrats trying to appeal to working class voters is that it makes them all sound the same at a time “when they’re trying to differentiate themselves.”
(SF Chronicle)
“Late one night, riding home in a taxi that had stopped at a red light, I saw two young punks running for the cab from both sides. The cabby was frozen with fear as they flung the doors open, so I took care of the situation by swiftly belting one with a right and the other with a left hook, flattening them both.
In a way I felt sorry for them, having to hustle what they thought was the perfect victim – a nicely dressed older gentleman who would have forked over his money immediately rather than risk a fight.
These were the kids that boxing would have helped, by rerouting their hostility and aggression until they developed a sensible defensive or offensive skill with pride instead of vengeance.”
— Jack Dempsey—no longer in gloves but still a fighter at heart—knocked out two young punks who thought they’d found an easy target. But instead of pride, he felt pity. He saw in them the kind of anger that boxing could’ve tamed. To him, the ring wasn’t just about violence—it was about turning raw aggression into discipline and self-respect.
WHAT IF ROBERT FROST’S NEIGHBOR WAS RIGHT?
by Margaret Renkl
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, / That wants it down,” Robert Frost observed in his poem “Mending Wall.” I am one of those somethings. When the speaker of Frost’s poem wonders what use a wall might be that encloses no livestock, I wonder that, too. When he asks his neighbor just how it is that good fences make good neighbors, he is asking the question of my own heart.
I was irked 30 years ago when our neighbor said she intended to install a free-standing fence between our driveways. “For privacy,” she said. My husband and I raised no objection, but we disliked the very idea of the fence, which would block our view of the woods behind our neighbor’s house and make things unnecessarily difficult for the creatures that came and went from there. It seemed unneighborly to humans and wildlife alike.
We were a family who spent more time outdoors than in, always nearby when our neighbor pulled into her driveway. Once the fence was up, she was no longer obliged to speak to us. This, we suddenly understood, was the whole point of a privacy fence. Not to keep anything in or anything out but to render invisibility. To offer some approximation of solitude.
We never became close, but as the years passed, we settled into an ordinary sort of neighborliness, stopping to chat when we happened to meet on the street, helping each other out in emergencies. She mostly stayed on her side of the fence, and we mostly stayed on ours.
By the time she died two years ago, the unbeloved fence had become the scaffolding for pokeweed and native vines. Some of them I planted, and some came courtesy of our avian neighbors. Good fences, it turns out, make good perching places for birds with bellies full of berries and seeds.
The fence had been built in a shadowbox style, and the gaps between the boards gave reaching vines room for twisting. Their flowers fed pollinators, their leaves fed caterpillars, and their berries fed birds and other animals. Carpenter bees nested in the fence’s wood, and small birds nested on its crossbeams, perfectly camouflaged by vines.
Whatever I might have feared, the wild world made good use of the fence. Much better use than wildness had ever made of the strip of grass the fence replaced.
After our neighbor passed, a developer bought her modest, meticulously maintained house and reduced it to rubble. The backhoes took her flower beds and her flowering trees with them. For the past 18 months, a shiny three-story McMansion has been rising in their place.
As workers came and went, I thought about my fiercely independent neighbor, who had spent so much time tending her flower beds. Over the years, her fence had become, in my mind, an emblem of the many principles and beliefs that separated us. She was different from me in nearly every way imaginable, except for our mutual love for flowers.
During our 30 years in this house, we have given over more and more of this yard to the needs of our wild neighbors. The large brush pile in back is a place for them to hide. The pollinator beds are filled with nectar-producing flowers and the host plants of butterflies. Fruit-bearing trees grow alongside one street on this corner lot, and the yard on that side of the house is a miniature meadow.
Ours is a carefully tended but scruffy-looking place, at odds with what is fashionable in home landscaping. After the workmen next door tore the old fence down, I had no doubt that a new fence would go up in time. The developer understands that anyone who buys his sort of house will want boxwoods and turf grass. They will want to be visibly isolated from the wild yard next door.
Against my noblest inclinations, I found myself hoping he would install an even taller fence, something that would hide the villa rising high above the old fence line. When I look out the window above my writing table, I have grown accustomed to seeing hummingbirds darting among climbing vines. I want to keep my focus on them. Not on the monstrous house behind them.
The new fence sits on top of a concrete wall — taller than the fence it replaced, as I had hoped, but far less neighborly. Unlike the old shadowbox fence, this new fence has a front side and a back side, and it’s the back side that faces us. Worse, its unbroken expanse gives climbing vines no purchase.
It took 30 years for the realization to dawn, but once the new flat-board fence went up, I finally understood that my late neighbor had gone to some expense to make the fence she built as attractive on our side as on hers. This choice was her version of neighborliness. I was just too caught up in my own contrary definition of neighborliness to see it.
All this long, lovely spring, I’ve been thinking of her, and of Robert Frost and his neighbor. I thought of them while the carpenter we hired was building a trellis made from framed-out cattle panels that he installed on our side of the new fence. I thought of my neighbor again as I shopped for vines at the new native-plant nursery, aptly called Wonder, just outside Nashville. Now native honeysuckle and Carolina jasmine and pipeline, among others, grow in place of the vines that did not survive the construction next door.
The young families here must see all this unnecessary trellis-building, this house-hiding activity, and think of me the way I once thought of my late neighbor. I am now the opinionated old woman on the street.
I still number myself among the somethings that do not love a wall, for too many of them interrupt wildlife patterns at a time when wild creatures are already struggling, but I’ve also lived long enough to know that love is a mutable thing. Truth sometimes dawns too late. Time shifts more than stones. Tumbled-down walls can’t always be mended.
Two months ago, the soil beneath the new fence was all but ruined, packed hard by heavy equipment, pocked by spilled gravel, but spring’s generous rains have softened and swelled the hard, tight earth. New vines are pushing upward, their tendrils twisting around the wire of the new trellis. It won’t be long before those wire panels have become a solid mass of green, dense with leaves and flowers.
Surely even Frost could not fault a wall made of leaves and flowers. I think my late neighbor would have loved this fence that feeds bees and butterflies and glittering emerald hummingbirds and all manner of winged creatures that will never love a wall.
(Margaret Renkl is the author of the books “The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year,“ “Graceland, at Last“ and “Late Migrations.”)
SCARY AI RESULT
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
The average person does not want war. A nice life filled with supportive people… a couple kids to leave your property to… meaningful work… a roof over our heads… food in the belly… and a little fun on the weekend is all most ask for. Nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong that is – except for the Ruling Class that seems to have a perpetual death wish for the Planet. Not for themselves of course because they are basically sore-afraid cowards who hide behind heavy office doors and thuggish security people so their mostly wasted lives are kept safe and secure. No, it is death for a great deal of humanity that they seek.
And why? Because they hate what they are – human beings. They are a human-species-hating deformity in the human family. They do not even see themselves as human but more like faux gods that rule over the collection of The Worthless as just so much garbage.
They hate everything human so much that they are committed to either cleansing the Planet of humanity – or fully merging us with machinery so that we become better and more compliant slaves for Them. How nice for them.
They seem to have no souls. And so, They do not want the rest of us to have any, either.
We did not sign up to live out our lives among such Madman and Madwomen but here we are. We stubbornly refuse to accept the hellscape that They have planned for us and we go about our lives anyway… finding as many supportive people as we cam… having kids if we so choose… engaging in meaningful work (or deciding to waste our lives with eyes forever glued to the screen of the Little Magic Box of Dancing Pixels)… finding food for our belly… and as much fun as we can squeeze out of life in between the madness and hellscape that we find ourselves in.
No one promised us a Rose Garden. But it could be said that neither did they promise us lives filled with nothing but Thorns and Pests constantly eating away at us.
Where there’s Life there’s Hope, so they say. Let’s hope so… because living without Hope doesn’t seem to bring happiness… or food for our bellies.
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Israeli Soldiers Open Fire Near Gaza Aid Site. Gaza Health Officials Say 27 Are Killed
Trump and Allies Sell Domestic Policy Bill With Falsehoods
After Staff Cuts, the National Weather Service Is Hiring Again
He Built an Airstrip on Protected Land. Now He’s in Line to Lead the Forest Service
The U.S. Lit a Beacon for Science. Under Trump, Scientists Fear It’s Dimming
That Cup of Coffee May Have a Longer-Term Perk
21 Nonfiction Books Coming This Summer
THE WIDENING GYRE
by James Kunstler
Do you hear those alarm bells ringing? Looks like June is bustin’ out all over, as the old Broadway ditty goes. Bedlam is in the air, and in more varieties than Heinz has pickles. Take your pick: civil war blooming in France and the UK, maybe even Germany — if it can shake off its psychotic stupor. World War III flutters over the continent like an answered prayer coming in for a landing. And here in the USA, genuine insurrection ripens with the summer’s peaches.
The Champs Elysees was a battlefield Saturday night as a soccer celebration went all Jihad, leaving two rioters dead and hundreds arrested (unreported inThe New York Times, of course, because. . . reasons). The two Alexanders at The Duran report that a plot is underway in London to deep-six (not eighty-six) Labour PM Sir Keir Starmer, who enjoys the lowest poll ratings in the history of British polling. Ol’ Keir likes to throw grannies in jail for rude Facebook posts while Islamic rape gangs do their thing and knife attacks multiply on the indigenous population. Not a good look. Perennial nationalist irritant Tommy Robinson was released from prison the other day, too, and you can expect fury arising around — and at him — as the sceptered isle day-by-day disappears under a burqa.
Starmer, Macron, new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, plus the unelected EU apparatus under Ursula von der Leyen all seem to be avid for war with Russia. They are insane, of course, and not just because their combined militaries are joke. They stirred the pot badly over the weekend, helping Ukraine carry out drone attacks against Russian air defense bases as far afield as Siberia and outside Murmansk, way up north on the Barents Sea. The bold attack was apparently carried out after a year-and-a-half of planning, using tractor-trailer trucks to transport concealed drones in on-board shipping containers deep into Russia. The drones took out Russian aircraft enabled to launch cruise missiles and long-range radar detection planes, all tolled estimated at $7-billion damage. The gambit would have required NATO satellite targeting assistance.
You might recall a week ago, Chancellor Merz declared that Germany gave Ukraine “permission” to carry out long-range strikes into Russia. Smooth move, Friedrich. He is, apparently, unaware that in so-doing he automatically gave Russia permission to strike deep into Germany as well, which Russia has not yet done. Instead, it replied with missile strikes against Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kyiv, little more than a routine smack-back, but perhaps an ominous prelude to worse in the offing. You understand that things are escalating steeply now in this conflict. A lot high ranking officials in Russia have lost patience with Mr. Putin’s slow-moving, on-the-ground grind and refusal so far to inflict more serious damage on the Ukrainian capital, which he could turn into an ashtray on a half-hour’s notice, if required. You might suppose he has sought strategically to avoid the total destruction of this cousin-country so that it would not be a failed state in the aftermath of war. It would be to Russia’s advantage if Ukraine could function as a neutralized, sovereign, self-supporting buffer state rather than an ungovernable basket-case / money pit region harboring non-state terrorists of various stripes. The former outcome is surely still preferable to the latter, despite the most recent provocations.
All of this puts Mr. Trump in a bind. His efforts to negotiate peace are on-the-rocks for now, as is his (America’s) ability to control the maniac globalist warmongers of NATO. Many in the US, and Mr. Trump himself, make noises about backing off the big mess altogether and dissociating from a NATO alliance that has lost its purpose and meaning, becoming, in fact, a menace to our interests.
Against all this expanding havoc, peace talks are still scheduled for Istanbul today. Ukraine and Russia have both exchanged ceasefire proposals. Mr. Trump reportedly conferred with President Putin about it.
The finalized memorandum said, “Russia is ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum on a possible future peace treaty defining a number of positions.” Take-away? Russia wants to conclude this war. Mr. Trump wants to end it, too. Mr. Zelenskyy, maybe not so much, since his fate is only secure as long as the war keeps going and he is not overthrown by his own wing-men.
Neither the US nor the NATO / EU axis will participate in the Istanbul peace talks directly, but you can suppose that Merz, Macron, Starmer, and von der Leyen are looking to stir-the-pot in the background. You might conclude that war is all they’ve got left as summer draws near and each of them face a European population primed to explode at its feckless, noxious, incompetent leadership. I would expect much more fighting in the streets of the European capitals going forward, and falling governments. It could prove hard to put these Humpty-dumpties back together, with years of political chaos following.
Things are heating up in the USA, too, as an Egyptian national torched a crowd of pro-Israel marchers with a home-made flamethrower in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday, while “Trans-tifa,” as it styled itself, went to work on Christians assembled in a Seattle park last week. The Democratic Party — like the EU’s warmonger parties — has nothing left but violence against anything that looks like nationalism and traditional values. It’s so bad, and Democratic leadership is so demented that they are liable to turn Donald Trump into another Abe Lincoln.
MEDIA SHORTCOMINGS IN COVERING TERRORIST NETANYAHU’S DAILY GAZA MASS MURDERING
by Ralph Nader
Opposition by former high officials in Israeli’s military and national security establishment and Israeli allies – France, England, and Germany – to the aimless killing of civilian families in Gaza is increasing. The mainstream, U.S. media has no excuse to cease its incomplete and biased reporting on the horrific genocidal mass slaughter in Gaza. Former Deputy Minister of Economy Yair Golan called out Netanyahu for “engaging in baby killing as a hobby.”
These denunciations fortify the long-standing documented condemnations by sixteen Israeli human rights groups, including “Breaking the Silence,” whose most recent report details how Israeli platoons in Gaza use Palestinians as “human shields.”
It is time to examine the shortcomings – some imposed and some self-inflicted – in the U.S. mass media’s coverage of an out-of-control brutal Israeli regime, weaponized and funded daily first by Biden and now by Trump.
- Start with the vast undercount of deaths in Gaza (population 2.3 million) since October 7, 2023. Curiously, the media disbelieves Hamas claims, except for its Ministry of Health report of fatalities. Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, only reports the deaths that can be confirmed by name from hospitals, clinics, and mortuaries most of which have been destroyed or gutted. So, day after day, newspapers dutifully reported Hamas’ fatality toll – now at 54,300.
Nobody in the academic community, UN, and international relief world believes this low number. Their unofficial estimates ranging from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. Most of these groups readily agree that almost all the survivors of the deadly bombardments of civilians and their homes, markets, hospitals, and food, fuel and other emergency infrastructures, such as destroyed water mains and electric circuits, are either sick, injured, near death and starving.
The media has no hesitation in estimating the number of Syrians killed during the civil war over the Assad dictatorship (500,000), or the number of Ukrainian deaths following Russia’s invasion. Somehow, they can’t see that Hamas has an interest in undercounting to avoid greater condemnations by its people for not protecting them. The media should put their reporters to work on documenting a more realistic death toll. At 500,000 fatalities, the intensity of political, diplomatic, and civic pressure is quite different than the fictional 54,300 figure.
- Netanyahu’s ban on all independent journalists from entering Gaza, including U.S. and Israeli reporters, makes it difficult to get more facts and sources on the ground. The Israeli army has killed over 300 Palestinian journalists, some with their families. Some of their apartments were targeted by U.S.-made missiles. Last year, 75 major media organizations protested this exclusion in a full-page ad in the New York Times. Signers included the New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press. Their effort to cover the carnage in Gaza was to no avail. Bibi Biden would not back them up. The censorship continues under Trump.
However, these are powerful media outfits with reporters close by in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They can do much more to get the gates to Gaza opened to tell the world the grim stories of the mass killing fields that are creating the risk of a wider Middle East War. Why the media does not press harder is itself an untold media story.
- All this world-shaking violence started when, whether by colossal blunder or contrivance, Netanyahu’s ultra-modern border security apparatus collapsed in all its parts on October 7, 2023. He has tellingly blocked any official investigation. This is a story that must be probed until Netanyahu’s responsibility for enabling Hamas is exposed. Earlier he had bragged about supporting and helping to fund Hamas year after year because of Hamas’ opposition to a two-state solution.
Instead, absence of a full investigation allowed Netanyahu to turn his blunder into a U.S.-backed series of attacks against Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. As an elderly Nazi holocaust survivor told the New York Times after October 7th, “This should never have happened.”
- The coverage of courageous Israeli human rights groups – including soldiers, rabbis and joint Israeli and Palestinian initiatives inside Israel – is very thin. The U.S. media has given vastly more coverage to disputed claims by Netanyahu et. al of mass rapes on October 7th, debunked by Israeli media scrutiny, then it gives these truthful strivers for peace. Why?
Moreover, what could possibly be the reason for the major U.S. newspapers completely ignoring the Veterans for Peace’s (VFP) constant street protests via its 100 Chapters in the U.S. including its present 40 Day Fast in communion with the starving Palestinian families in Gaza? Just this week, The Washington Post had a prominent two-page spread showing adopted dogs in Ukraine since the invasion.
- The slant in coverage is on the other side as well. The immensely powerful “Israel government can do no wrong” domestic lobby, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), has escaped investigation or even an arm’s length deep feature in major newspapers. Yet in Congress, powerful AIPAC has a “minder” attached to every Senator and Representative and has sponsored primary challenges to lawmakers brave enough to mildly criticize it for being Netanyahu’s bullhorn. AIPAC won’t even support getting American reporters inside Gaza or allowing airlifts of horribly burned or amputated Gaza children to ready and able hospitals in the U.S.
The slant infects words used and words suppressed. The New York Times and CBS regularly refer to Hamas’ terrorism, but Netanyahu has killed vastly greater numbers of Palestinian civilians for political purposes, and that mass slaughter is referred to as “Israeli military operations.” In repeating day after day that 1200 Israelis were killed, the press does not say, as they do for Hamas, that Israel’s government does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. In fact, about 400 of the 1200 were Israeli soldiers and some police officers.
All this mass bloodshed is getting to former elected Israelis. This week in an op-ed in Haaretz, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Netanyahu of “war crimes” in Gaza. Look for many more members of Israel’s political and security establishment to start speaking out and protesting.
“What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: 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.”
Shockingly, Donald Trump is still afraid of Netanyahu who arrogantly broke the ceasefire Trump took credit for and thumbed his nose at Trump by doubling down on the deepening Palestinian Holocaust and ignoring Trump’s warnings about people starving in Gaza. Month after month, Netanyahu blocks thousands of trucks with humanitarian aid on Gaza’s borders paid for by American taxpayers.
Soon this pressure cooker will explode in ways either predicted by the Pentagon or unforeseen as a “Black Swan” event. The deadly impact of Israel’s war against a long-defeated small Hamas guerilla force on our own country’s weakening democratic institutions – from freedom of speech to Congress – is reaching the awareness of ever more Americans.
“All this world-shaking violence started when, whether by colossal blunder or contrivance, Netanyahu’s ultra-modern border security apparatus collapsed in all its parts on October 7, 2023. He has tellingly blocked any official investigation. This is a story that must be probed until Netanyahu’s responsibility for enabling Hamas is exposed.”
Another story I would like to see investigated is whether or not that international arms dealer Biden released from prison (ostensibly to trade for the basketball stoner Putin had arrested) just before the Hamas commandos came into a nice cache of arms and those way cool little hang glider type airplanes… that was just too much of a coincidence.
“Poverty Causes Crime.” If a person believes this about themselves, then they are likely in poverty and committing crimes. How about crime causes poverty? Of course is living outside the law the same as committing crimes? We are all, to some extent, living outside the law, and most of us don’t live in poverty.
Your mind works in what seem to me odd ways…as though you manipulate facts to suit your mental and philosophical needs.
Please provide substantiation for the conclusion part of your second sentence…
A functional economy on a basic level is dependent on trust. A person can be doing financially well but commit crimes that alienate them from anyone who might otherwise hire them, or do business with them.
That is NOT an answer to my request for substantiation of your second-sentence statement. It’s simply more diversionary speculation.
It is not the answer you wanted, but it is the answer. People who lie, cheat, or steal compromise their ability to be profitable. Of course they can also double down on this dishonorable activity, and increase their chances of ending up in jail, or dead.
Still no REAL support for your assertion, just more editorializing of your opinion. You oughta be ashamed of such childish behavior. The truth is, you have no hard evidence to support your original statement. All you have is your biased opinion. Why not just admit it?
Really? If someone was ever engaged, they would understand from experience. If someone was visiting from Mars, well they would need a reference from a book.
Now, you’re changing the subject. You must have finally realized that your statement that I referenced is pure nonsense and that you have no actual evidence to offer in its defense, which is why you avoid addressing it, even to the point of bad science fiction. I can see why you had problems at Berkeley, too…and had to go get your degree elsewhere.
“People who lie, cheat, or steal compromise their ability to be profitable.”
I sort of remember something about the Mafia living pretty large.
where exactly is Haehl’s grade?
About three miles southeast of Yorkville where the Anderson Valley rises on 128’s Haehl’s Grade to separate the Anderson Valley from the Russian River watershed and Cloverdale. Mr. Haehl was a lifelong resident of Yorkville and a former Mendocino County supervisor.
PS. Ed Haehl was also a county roads guy.
Rod Serling Saw Donald Trump Coming
From Yesterday’s AVA—The Twilight Zone and the cunning reference to a special Donald J. Trump episode: “…Mr. Donald Trump, a man with one foot in his mouth and the other…in the Twilight Zone.”
It seems that Rod Serling, a genius of the twisted and surreal, may have anticipated a leader such as Trump—along with a fitting episode—or maybe a whole season—of the Twilight Zone. Here are some actual titles from seasons 1-5 of the Twilight Zone that give one a Trumpian chill:
A WORLD OF HIS OWN
THE FEVER
THE HOWLING MAN
THE JUNGLE
THE DUMMY
VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
DEATH SHIP
CAESAR AND ME
THE FEAR
No King Event: people coming together in communities across the country to reject strongman politics and corruption. Back to weakman politics, I guess, but I do appreciate that this time around we’re going to reject weakman’s corruption.
Regarding the cartoon: What Donald Trump does not comprehend, is that Satan is buying the Prez’s soul with counterfeit money!
Regarding the President’s Florida domicile, I prefer the fictional name in “Squeeze Me”: Casa Bellacosa.
Click on this link: https://asitis.com/16
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 4, Verse: 7-8
Click on this link: https://vivekavani.com/bhagavad-gita-chapter-4-verse-7-8/
Warmest spiritual greetings Jivan Muktas,
Please accept these verses from the Bhagavad Gita, in which the difference is defined between the Divine and the Demonic, and secondly, the role of the Avatar, which is to destroy the Demonic and return this world to righteousness.
At this time, I am ready to leave the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. and go where I need to go and do what I need to do. The monthly Social Security disbursement of $488 came in last night, so there is $2,696.41 in the Chase checking account. There is also about $125 in the wallet. Physical/mental health is good. Let us unite and be guided by the Divine Absolute!
Here is my contact information:
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone Messages: (202) 832-8317
Email: [email protected]
June 3, 2025 A.D.
I think they might be locking up the laundry soap because not too long ago there was a nationwide fad among children for daring each other to put it in their mouth. Cheese has always been the most shoplifted item by far, despite the caves of blocks of government cheese that are just sitting there in the dark, under the earth. Mozzarella is the best cheese, though. I don’t know why they make any other kind. Whenever I’m in Mendo and I have a few dollars in my pocket, I like to go to Corners of the Mouth and get a baseball-size chunk of it and eat it like an apple.
“Even though Newsom remains marginally popular with California voters and is likely to be a top tier candidate for the White House in 2028”.
Newsom has refused to meet with law enforcement leaders and continually pushed against what our public wants to see. His battle against Prop 36 was a clear indication how his mind works. His plan to drain state prison populations and give the funds to NGOs was simply buying votes. Ultimately what did it do for our state?
His refusal to hear anything from law enforcement leaders including District Attorneys was, and still is, a recipe for disaster. What on earth does he know about enforcing the law? It’s like a stock broker trying to fly a jumbo jet and refusing to listen to the pilots, nothing good is coming from that. The real question is, have we gotten better in California? I don’t think we have.
If we want to drain the incarcerated populations it starts with creating an environment of education, accountability and opportunity. Killing jobs through legislation causes poverty and a reliance on the government that isn’t healthy for anyone, not those paying into the system of government assistance and not good for the folks living on government
I see our legislators creating laws which turn the law abiding into criminals while other laws come forward to release serious criminals onto the streets. Perhaps the real mental health issues need to be dealt with in Sacramento then we can move out from there. Just my 2 cents.
Oh, you mean the Son of Satan. Your kind of long winded there, Sheriff, I helped you out. Remember, I helped you out, ok pal…? Can I at least ask for a view? Damn sure ain’t nobody gonna pay my bail, in fact, they may take up a collection to keep me there.
lol same here. God bless you Mark
Good morning Sheriff Kendall,
Curious, how many people do you arrest who are living in poverty or receiving government assistance? Is that something your department tracks?
If we’re waiting on the government to solve mental health and poverty before we act—haha, yeah right. These are urgent crises the require appropriate action in the moment of need. Expecting accountability when we have a system that takes none is destruction for those on and below the poverty line.
mm 💕