Mendocino County Today: Friday 6/6/2025

WARMER temperatures inland this weekend. A slight chance of thunderstorms over the Klamath Mountains and the Yolla Bollas on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday afternoons. Windy afternoons return to NW California by the middle of next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 50F on the coast this Friday morning. Today should be a repeat of yesterday, the weekend is looking even nicer. More of the same in the long range forecast.

TWO ARRESTED AFTER TRAFFIC STOP REVEALS MULTIPLE POUNDS OF MARIJUANA

On 05/24/2025 at approximately 11 p.m., a Ukiah Police Department (UPD) Officer noticed a Ford Mustang traveling through downtown Ukiah that failed to stop at a controlled intersection, in violation of California Vehicle Code. The officer initiated a traffic enforcement stop on the Mustang, and the vehicle yielded in the 900 block of Helen Avenue.

The UPD Officer approached the Mustang and determined that the vehicle contained a male driver and another male passenger that was later determined to be a juvenile. The driver initially provided the UPD Officer with a false name but was later identified as 19-year-old, Ivan Aguilar.

As the UPD Officer spoke with the occupants of the vehicle he observed multiple pounds of bud marijuana behind the driver’s seat. Both subjects were removed from the vehicle, detained, and a probable cause search of the vehicle yielded approximately one-thousand dollars in cash, a commercial quantity of marijuana that was packaged in a manner consistent with being possessed for sales, and a loaded .38 Special revolver.

Aguilar and the juvenile were arrested for Concealed unregistered firearm (Felony), Carrying a Concealed Firearm in vehicle (Felony), Conspiracy (Felony), Possession of marijuana for sales (Misdemeanor) and transported to the Mendocino County Jail and the Mendocino County Juvenile Hall.

MAN DIES AFTER DEPUTIES DEPLOY TASERS NEAR WILLITS

by Matt LaFever

A large law enforcement and emergency medical response converged on the Willits area Thursday evening following a reported use-of-force incident involving Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office deputies. The incident occurred in the 2000 block of Hearst-Willits Road, near its intersection with Bray Road, on the eastern edge of Little Lake Valley.

According to initial information, deputies deployed two tasers on a subject described as resistant. The man lost vital signs shortly afterward. Despite the use of Narcan and roughly 20 minutes of CPR, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

The situation began around 7:00 p.m., when Mendocino County deputies responded to a request for assistance from the California Highway Patrol. Scanner traffic indicates a person driving a quad along Hearst-Willits Road had picked up a hitchhiker, and a physical altercation reportedly ensued shortly after.

The first arriving deputy radioed, “I’m out with one confirmed hostile, we need another unit.” Despite the arrival of a second deputy, the subject reportedly remained “uncooperative,” prompting two consecutive taser deployments.

Soon after, deputies reported the man was “non-responsive” and called for emergency medical aid with a Code 3 designation. Multiple doses of Narcan were administered and CPR was initiated. An air ambulance was requested, additional deputies were dispatched from Ukiah, and CPR efforts continued for approximately 20 minutes before the subject was declared dead by 7:45 p.m.

Around the same time, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office issued a public alert advising of “Law Enforcement activity in the Willits area,” and announced that “Road [is] closed both ways at Hearst-Willits Rd and Bray Rd. Please avoid the area.”

Sheriff Matt Kendall told MendoFever the department is actively managing the situation, and that investigators from the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office have been assigned to conduct an investigation.

(mendofever.com)

THE LONG-DELAYED LAMBERT LANE/ROBINSON CREEK BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT IS UNDERWAY.

Crews began prep work this week behind the Boonville Hotel to prepare for the replacement of the existing Bailey Bridge (a modular one-lane temporary bridge that has been in use since the underpinnings of the old bridge essentially washed out in the heavy rains back in 2014).

County Transportation Director Howard Dashiell told us Thursday that the plan is to install a temporary bridge just to the south and below the current Bailey Bridge, then remove the Bailey Bridge and construct the replacement bridge, and then remove the temporary bridge — all in one construction season before the winter rains of 2025-2026 — if all goes well. There will be occasional interruptions in traffic during the construction as heavy equipment is moved in and around, but most of the time, with the use of the temporary bridge during construction, traffic problems should be minimized. Dashiell said he expects the contractor to provide more detailed schedule and status information as the project rolls out which will be posted on the County Transportation road closure website when available. At present the County’s website says:

“Construction of the Lambert Lane Bridge Replacement over Robinson Creek begins June 2, 2025. Construction is anticipated to be completed by November 30, 2025. Mostly, there will be two lanes of traffic open during construction, however, during certain activities, there may be one-lane controlled traffic or a temporary road closure. Check the website for updates.”

That website is: https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/departments/transportation/road-closures-and-delays

(Mark Scaramella)

LOUISE MARIANA: Is Hospice Thrift Store Closing?

No. Not for the foreseeable future, but it might. Here’s the situation. Adventist Hospital no longer wants to assume administrative and financial responsibility for the store. They propose closing the store if another entity cannot be found to assume that responsibility.

Right now the best prospect for the store’s survival is the Hospital District’s Board of Directors. However they need to be persuaded to keep the store in the hospital family. You the community can play a critical role in preserving our essential thrift store.

The Board needs to hear from you. There will be a Board meeting at 5 p.m. on June 12 am on Thursday in the Redwood Room on the hospital campus. Public comments will be heard first. Please express your appreciation for the store and all it has offered to the community over all these many many years. Please urge the Board to assume responsibility in order to keep our store open and serving the community. Thank You.

Louise Mariana, Store Volunteer

Fort Bragg

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

SUPERVISOR MULHEREN’S COCK-EYED BUDGET OPTIMISM

by Mark Scaramella

Supervisor Maureen Mulheren posted an hilariously optimistic County budget summary on her facebook page on Thursday, following Tuesday’s budget presentation to the Board:

“At this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Mendocino County approved a series of important actions aimed at strengthening public health, improving hiring and retention, and balancing the County’s budget amid challenging state and federal constraints.

“Strategic Hiring and Staffing Progress:

“The Board approved the Vacancy Rate, Recruitment, and Retention Report as required under Assembly Bill 2561. This marks a significant milestone in a five-year effort to improve County hiring practices. While challenges remain, the County has made measurable progress by implementing a Strategic Hiring Plan that prioritizes intentional, efficient staffing for critical roles.

“Budget Breakdown: Closing Gaps, Preparing for the Future

With budget season underway, the County faces ongoing financial pressures from both state and federal levels. Still, County staff and leadership presented a balanced approach to meeting local needs while planning for long-term sustainability.

“Key budget details include:

Completion of the final $4.3 million payment on Pension Obligation Bonds, freeing future funds.
Use of $6.1 million in one-time funds to balance the current budget.
Over 46% of the County’s population is enrolled in Medi-Cal, the reprompting continued investment in health and social services.
Notable savings include $6.3 million projected from staff turnover and $338,000 from the Voluntary Separation Program.
The County is exploring the use of Opioid Settlement funds to support medical services in the jail, in partnership with the Sheriff’s Office.
$500,000 from the Drought Fund is being used to stabilize disaster recovery efforts.
Certain upgrades, including $441,000 in IT services, have been deferred.

“Looking ahead to Fiscal Year 2026–2027, conservative estimates show that rising expenses could consume anticipated pension savings. Revenue is projected to remain flat at $83 million, not including restricted funds from Measures P and O, which are designated for fire services and libraries.

“Departmental Impact and Response

“Several departments expressed concerns about deep budget cuts:

The District Attorney’s Office warned that Proposition 172 adjustments could hamper case closures.
Probation reported difficulty meeting state mandates with reduced funding.
The Sheriff’s Office will collaborate with County leadership on recruitment strategies, particularly for staffing the new Behavioral Health Wing of the jail.
Human Resources is reducing staffing and contracts while enhancing cross-training and internal efficiencies.
Animal Care Services will leave some positions vacant but expects no decline in service quality, thanks to strong collaboration between coastal and inland teams and dedicated volunteers.
Disaster Recovery and the Office of Emergency Services continue to wrap up past FEMA projects and focus on readiness for future events.

“The Board approved the budget as presented and appointed Supervisors Ted Williams and Madeline Cline to an Ad Hoc Committee focused on the ongoing Strategic Hiring process and broader budget planning.

“Personnel and Hiring

Approve the Vacancy Rate, Recruitment, and Retention Efforts Report per Assembly Bill 2561.
Acknowledge improvements in the hiring process over the last five years.
Continue using the Strategic Hiring Plan to fill vacancies more intentionally.

“Consent Calendar Items

Approve furnishing the new Sober Living Facility at Ukiah Recovery Center using Opioid Settlement Funding.
Approve the 2023–2026 Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Three-Year Program and Expenditure Plan, and the 2025–2026 Annual Update.

“Budget Highlights

Budget impacted by State and Federal constraints.
County has been more active in meeting healthcare needs:

Record number of children’s vaccines administered.

Increased In-Home Supportive Services to help seniors age at home.

46–48% of the county’s population is on Medi-Cal.

Ongoing need to support this population to reduce mental health issues, substance use disorder, and child/elder neglect.

Final payment made on Pension Obligation Bonds: $4.3 million.

Total of $6.1 million used in One-Time Funds to balance budget.

$5.5 million in departmental funding requests were unfunded.
$6.3 million in projected savings due to 6% staff turnover, supported by the Strategic Hiring Plan.
$338,000 in savings from the Voluntary Separation Program.
Exploring use of Opioid Settlement funds with the Sheriff’s Office for jail medical services (NaphCare).
Use of $500,000 from Drought Fund to help balance the Disaster Recovery budget.
Deferment of $441,000 in IT services.
Budget +1 year estimate (FY 2026–2027):

$4.3 million in pension bond savings consumed by a 3% increase in expenses. Flat revenue projection at $83 million.

Revenue Projections Slide Notes:

Measure P and Measure O revenues are excluded from the general budget as they are dedicated to Fire and Libraries.

FY 2025–2026 projected to bring in $1 million additional revenue.

Need to reserve PG&E Drought funds for: Emergency events, The Potter Valley Project, Coastal water security
Transportation:

”Requires ~$5.5 million/year to meet 20-year plan goals.

A new tax could potentially generate $90 million over 30 years to address roads not covered in the existing 20 year plan.

“Board Action

Board supported the proposed budget.
Appointed an Ad Hoc Committee (Supervisors Williams and Cline) to work on the Budget challenges and solutions with Public Safety and Strategic Hiring process improvements for the most efficient outcomes.”

The level of rose-colored gloss-over in Supervisor Mulheren’s rosy budget summary is impressive in its naivete, especially when she’s talking about the largest budget assumptions in next fiscal year’s budget, mainly in the Sheriff’s budget.

For example, Supervisor Mulheren says, “The Sheriff’s Office will collaborate with County leadership on recruitment strategies, particularly for staffing the new Behavioral Health Wing of the jail.”

Actually, on Tuesday the Sheriff said he’d do what he can, but he’s facing a Sheriff/Patrol/Jail deficit of more than $4 million with no plan in place to reduce it, meaning that the County will somehow have to address it somehow during the fiscal year.

Kendall: “Because we represent the largest ask from the General Fund, the Sheriff’s Office is expected to take the largest cut. That’s approximately $2.7 million on the patrol side, and $1.4 million on the jail side. I understand that the strategic hiring freeze is important. But we also have to remember that we will be opening the new behavioral health wing of the Mendocino County Jail soon. That will cost us about ten employees. I do not know where we are going to come up with those if we don’t have the money to pay for what we have right now. We have some concerns regarding being able to get these people hired in time. That’s very important because we have to get that jail opened by a certain date or the state can come back after us for various things. I don’t want to play that game. I want to be able to get the job done. When I look at my overall budget, we are in hard times. I understand that. I am not expecting you guys [the Supervisors] to wave a magic wand or rob a couple of banks, because that’s still wouldn’t get us where we need to be. My thought process behind this is we will continue going down the road working with the CEO and looking for quarterly shore-ups. My Undersheriff, Mr. John J Magnan, has started down the road of looking at office closures on certain dates and times so we would have less professional staff in there through attrition. It would mean we would basically close an office to catch up on work on certain days at certain times where we wouldn’t have a huge impact on the public. That’s probably going to be helpful. A lot of the work that we have to do is mandated. We have to report to the state. We have to get reports to the District Attorney. We have to have a certain number of people working at the Mendocino County Jail to keep it off of lockdown, to keep it open, to keep the services going. If we don’t, we begin looking at liability and lawsuits. These are the issues that we are all facing at a time when we see prices going up and revenue going down. We gave cost-of-living increases and raises to our employees. I appreciate that because if we hadn’t maybe what you wouldn’t have any employees maybe that would solve the budget problem, but it wouldn’t solve the problem for the public. Currently, we face issues in Mendocino County that absolutely demand that we do our job. There is a demand that we have deputy sheriffs on the street. I don’t know how many of you folks have the public crawling up your back about there not being enough patrols in various areas when we have two people on the street at any time on the coast and for the Central District or the North County. If you split 3500 square miles between six deputy sheriffs… And usually, if we are lucky, we have a couple of sergeants to help. So at this point in time, we are running at the bare bones minimum. Some of this is my fault because I requested that we work very hard to get some market parity and raises for our employees. But if we had not done that we would not have the employees we have right now. We do have attrition. I have separated myself from a few of my employees over the last several months because they were not quite meeting muster. But would we be able to replace those employees? My hope is that we can get through this budget cycle without causing too much pain and over time allow us to work with the CEO on a quarterly basis and let you know what success we have. Rome was not built in a day. We will not solve this problem in 24 hours. We have had a structural deficit for quite a while. My budget has a structural deficit of roughly $4 million. We have to all get in the boat and start pulling in the same direction if we are going to get through this. We can get a little passionate about our agencies and our offices. But now is the time to be passionate about each other, working our way through this, making cuts where we have to. Hopefully we can get some one-time funding from the state or the feds to do some of this. We were able to lean in on that for the recent homicides in marijuana grows. That will save us about $300,000. Every homicide that we have I can almost immediately say that it will cost us at least $150,000 by the time we get done getting and giving testimony and having a person convicted. I don’t envy you folks. I am sorry you are in the positions you are in. I am sorry I may have caused some of that. But that’s what I had to do, so all of us have to do what we have to do to be able to get through this. … We are looking at roughly a $16 million structural deficit for next year as a county. How do we continue on? We will be coming in and we will be saying we have to hire for that new wing of the jail. We will be coming in asking for about how to close a $4.1 million deficit. Right now. I am not going to be able to come in on budget. I know that. But I will try. We will see where we land. We expect the new jail wing to open as early as January of next year. But we have a few basic items to iron out and see how we are going to run it. The last time we had to do something like this it took us about a month to be able to get the kinks worked out and to get inmate movement worked out and things like that. Sometimes the best laid plans do not look like what is necessary on the ground. You have to react to what’s going on when you are into it.”

While the Sheriff may be working on whittling down his current $4 million deficit, he will also be swimming upstream against very predictable cost increased which could easily add significantly to the deficit he already faces.

Mulheren also says, “Notable savings include $6.3 million projected from staff turnover and $338,000 from the Voluntary Separation Program,” and, “$6.3 million in projected savings due to 6% staff turnover, supported by the Strategic Hiring Plan.”

As we have noted before those “Strategic Hiring Plan” savings (about two thirds of which are included in the Sheriff’s $4 million plus estimate), are simply not going to substantially materialize, not to mention that the numbers don’t add up (mainly because they include resignations and retirements in non-General Fund positions).

Mulheren says the County is going to “Use of $6.1 million in one-time funds to balance the current budget.”

But she does not say where those one-time funds are coming from or what the impact of not spending them for their intended purpose will be, or what the County will do next year when, even with the end of the Pension Obligation Bond payments, those funds are gone and the deficit is projected to be bigger than this year.

There are a couple of other significant gaps in Mulheren’s report.

There’s no mention of the consternation caused by the City of Ukiah’s massive annexation proposed, sparked, of course, by Mulheren’s ill-advised tax sharing agreement with Mendo’s incorporated cites, a deal which, if not withdrawn as many inlanders are calling for, will only make the County’s long-term financial viability worse.
Mulheren makes no mention of what the County could or should be doing to increase revenues.
There’s no mention of the cost of the Supervisors and the Executive office where the fewest cuts could result in the most savings with the least impact on services.

Rather than optimistically pretending that the budget is fine and everything they’re doing is routine and it will all work out in the end, Mulheren and her colleagues should take a page out of the Sheriff’s approach and honestly state that the County’s budget is seriously out of whack and drastic measures will need to be taken when, during the course of the coming fiscal year, they run out of bailing wire, duct tape and chewing gum to patch it.

ANDERSON VALLEY BREWING COMPANY

Free live music here at the brewery on Fridays! This Friday we’re excited to welcome the Black Horse Blues Band! Music starts at 5! Can’t wait to see you there!

JIM SHIELDS:

Inland Water Agencies Lay Out Potter Valley Project Plans

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. So be sure and check out the recent story on developments on this issue by Justine Frederiksen, “Life After The Potter Valley Project: The Water Will Not Be Cheap”.

Jim Shields

Frederiksen’s report: https://theava.com/archives/267452#3

ROUND VALLEY PRESCRIBED BURN ASSOCIATION: ‘BRINGING IT BACK AROUND’

by Sara Reith

The newly formed Round Valley Prescribed Burn Association held its first burn on May 30, scorching 55 acres of grass at the airport just outside town. Since grant funds became available through the county about a year ago, the PBA has been offering trainings and spreading the word about the benefits of controlled fire.

. . .

Riley Dizon has been working for Torchbearr for about a month, and says some of his family members in San Diego were initially a little worried about his career path. “When I started this whole fire thing, they got all mad at me, like, you better not be starting no fires,” he reported. “They still have a wary mindset, but I think as I tell them more about it, they’re getting more and more comfortable with it. I think it’s more about having the knowledge of what prescribed burning does, how it reduces wildfire risk. Wildfires are way more dangerous. There’s no resources on hand for whenever a wildfire happens, it just pops up out of nowhere. (With) controlled burns, we have resources in place, we pick the day, we do everything we can to make sure it’s the perfect situation to burn and get rid of the fuels, so if a fire does start there, it will go nowhere.”

The fire at the airport finally started at about quarter to eight. One crew lit a test burn along the fenceline as the shadows of the mountains stretched across the grass. Ribbons of flame leapt through the fuel, merged, then subsided into crackling smoke. Emily Lord, a GrizzlyCorps fellow who is working with the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council, described how the flames were being deployed, less than fifteen minutes after the first spark. The fire was already about the length of a football field, and crew leads were calling in reports from their positions on walkie-talkies. Crews toting drip torches full of gasoline and diesel were lighting the grass on the north and south ends of the airport. The north edge of the fire was pointing straight into the wind, like a boat tacking sideways. The crews created strips of fire, and controlled its behavior by moderating the distance between the strips. “Depending on the spacing between the strips, we’ll see more extreme fire behavior if the strips are further apart. So if they want to keep it really controlled,” Lord explained, “they’ll put the strips close together. And because the wind is pushing the fire into the strip before it, the part of the fire that’s going to be the biggest and the fastest, going with the wind, is called head fire.” The crews made sure they kept the head fire off the road, and let the wind chase it across the grass within the area that had been designated as the burn site.

The sun went down fast, casting a pastel pinkish light over the smoke. As the last of the flames lit up the night, eight-year-old Asuxiim, also known as Sugar, cruised the perimeter in an ATV with Warlick. She had traveled to Covelo from Trinity County with Steinbring and her mother, and spent much of the day riding her scooter around the rec center. She’s been to a few burns, and has even lent a hand with a torch. She was prepared to indulge questions about fire, but didn’t seem to find it at all extraordinary. She thought the fire in the airport was “really fun, but when it gets too smoky, I have to hold my breath for a bit.” She added that she likes to light fires, “but not wildfires, because those are dangerous. These are safe fires, so I don’t freak out.” She recalls the first time she helped to light a fire: “It was up a little mountain, and there was a lot of grass. Scot, who I call Big Mac, gave me a drip torch and just told me to drip it, and then it would start a fire.” She stood waiting for the next question. Then she noticed that the moon shining through the smoke looked like the letter C, and that a friendly horse in the pasture across the road had two colors in its tail.

The fire subsided. It was time for a late dinner. The people of Round Valley had made a refuge from fire, on a patch of blackened ground.

RALPH’S SHOE REPAIR

by Paul Modic

I looked all over the Northcoast from Arcata to Ukiah and couldn’t find a shoe repair shop, except for Grundman’s in Eureka and Ralph’s in Ukiah. Grundman’s had fixed my Keens for years, always with a month wait, and now his hours were reduced as his machine message said he was attempting to recover from major health issues. He was closed on Mondays anyway, the day I had been planning to go up there for a haircut. (The old guy did good work and was very reasonable, like he was still stuck in last century’s prices.)

I was heading down to Ukiah anyway on some personal biz, Ralph’s didn’t answer the phone or have any room on his machine for a message, and I figured they were pretty swamped. He was still my first stop on my big trip south.

As I drove into town I was plotting my strategy, refining my whine so to speak, for pleading with whoever was Ralph: When I got the predictable month wait verdict for just a few crucial stitches, I’d ask if a friend coming north could pick them up for me and if I could make a photocopy of the ticket to give to her. Then I might mention that I was coming from out-of-town and since it was just a quick job around the heel that maybe I could just come back later in the day to pick them up?

I found the shop on State Street with a simple “Shoe Repair” sign on the street, and went into a small throwback place with the big sewing apparatus right behind the counter and another room off to the side with piles of boots and shoes on the table. A tall friendly guy with a pony-tailed beard was working on a boot and Ralph came into the office.

I showed him the problem shoe and said I’ve had a lot of Keens but this kind of damage has never happened before. He agreed that Keens were a good shoe and then said,” How about if I just do this right now?”

He put it on the big sewer, started working on it, wondered where I was from, and when I said Garberville he asked me about rattlesnakes.

“I don’t see any up there but my friend came down to Lake County last year and got one,” I said.

“What’d he do with it?” he asked.

“He put it in a terrarium and let his kids watch it and handle it for a while, then after a couple weeks they came back down and he put it back in the same log where he found it. He’s like a naturalist.”

“Well, I hate to say what I do with mine,” he said, motioning to the wall where a big rattlesnake skin was tacked up over the door to where the apprentice was working. “I’m teaching him everything I know. No one wants to do this. I’ve been doing it for thirty-six years.”

“Well, they want to get their shoes fixed,” I said.

“Now the kids come in with $600 shoes their parents buy them.”

He finished up the shoe, handed it to me and said no charge.

“Wow, thanks,” I said and headed out to my car with the fixed shoe. I could tell it was going to be a good day in Ukiah.

(Later, shopping in Costco, I saw a nice-looking woman wearing a red MAGA hat and thought about asking her how it makes America great to wipe out all my stock earnings? But I knew I’d probably not ask a dude MAGA so I didn’t say anything.

Then at Staples I was flustered in line not knowing how to operate the copy machine to run off some stragglers from my Gulch Mulch compilation project. She was standing next in line and offered to show me how to do it, which she did, then did a couple more times (I’m a very slower learner), though she wanted to get going as they couldn’t handle her printing job, and the alternate place on State Street. (The Copy Center) was closing soon. Nice lady…)

ON TAP AT THE KELLEY HOUSE: The History of Brewing on the Mendocino Coast

by Robert Dominy

This summer, it’s all about beer at the Kelley House Museum in Mendocino. From June 5 to September 29, 2025, the Museum invites you to explore the rich, foamy history of the Mendocino Coast’s brewing traditions in its new exhibit, On Tap: The History of Brewing on the Mendocino Coast. Whether you’re a beer enthusiast, history buff, or just curious about local culture, this exhibit promises to serve up a refreshing blend of stories, artifacts, and surprises.

Brewers Martin Brinzing and C. D. F. Sass sit in a horse drawn wagon loaded with barrels of beer in front of the Buffalo Saloon. (Gift of Emery Escola)

Beer making may be one of the world’s oldest crafts, but here on the Mendocino Coast, it has its own unique story to tell. On Tap traces the evolution of brewing from the 19th-century German immigrants who brought their lager-making skills to the redwood coast, to the innovative spirit that fueled the modern craft beer movement. Visitors will discover how beer has been both a business and a cultural force in the region—fueling the hard-working lumbermen of the past and shaping a vibrant brewing community that continues to evolve today.

The exhibit includes a fascinating array of archival photographs, newspaper clippings, and historical maps, showcasing the four 19th-century coastal breweries and two bottling plants that once operated in Mendocino, Pine Grove, Kibesillah, and Point Arena. From pioneer brewers to soda bottlers and bootleggers, On Tap tells the human stories behind the hops. In the 1860s American tastes shifted toward lagers—a lighter, crisper beer style that became the dominant brew across the country. On the Mendocino Coast, immigrant entrepreneurs exclusively brewed lagers, catering to local hotels, saloons, and workers in the booming lumber industry.

But not all was smooth pouring. In 1909, coastal towns voted to go dry, suspending liquor licenses and forcing breweries and saloons to shutter. National Prohibition followed ten years later, but the thirst for beer didn’t die. Museum visitors will learn how home brewers, bootleggers, and “blind pigs” kept the taps flowing in secret.

After the end of Prohibition, commercial beer brewing sprung back. Decades of consolidation in the beer industry followed and by 1979, only 89 breweries remained nationwide, leaving the U.S. beer landscape bland and homogenized. Then came the craft beer revolution.

Thanks to the 1978 legalization of home brewing, a new generation of experimental home brewers emerged. In increasing numbers these brewers began creating delightful ales that deserved an audience beyond friends and family, leading to the creation of craft breweries around the country. One of the movement’s early milestones occurred right here in Mendocino County. In 1983, the Hopland Brewery became California’s first brewpub. Founded by home brewers Michael Laybourn and Norman Franks, it later became the Mendocino Brewery in Ukiah—one of the earliest players in the national craft beer scene. The story continues with the founding of North Coast Brewing Company in Fort Bragg, which gained national acclaim for its dedication to quality and sustainability.

So come raise a glass to the past—this summer at the Kelley House Museum, where history and lager are best served cold.

LOGGING NEAR WILLITS, 1912 (via Marshall Newman)

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, June 5, 2025

MICHAEL ALPERS, 57, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

ALVARO ACOSTA-HERNANDEZ, 27, Ukiah. Controlled substance.

KELLY CLARK, 40, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DAVID COMSTOCK, 49, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale, conspiracy.

BRITTANY DAVIS, 36, Ukiah. Possession of personal ID of another with intent to defraud.

DYLAN DIXON, 19, Fort Bragg. Shooting at inhabited dwelling, vandalism, loaded firearm in public, contributing, participation in criminal street gang, battery on peace officer, offenses while on bail, violation of restraining order by obtaining firearm, contempt of court, offenses while on bail, resisting.

DAN FALLIS, 54, Hopland. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, criminal threats, false imprisonment, felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person.

KELLENE MADUENO, 44, Ukiah. False information to police officer.

JENINE PONCIANO, 46, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, conspiracy, contempt of court, bringing controlled substance into jail, offenses while on bail.

BOBBY RAY PARKS, 48, Clearlake/Ukiah. Controlled substance.

PETER ROSE JR., 31, Fort Bragg. Petty theft with two or more priors.

AARON STILL, 44, Ukiah. Burglary, burglary tools, vandalism.

JOHN STRAUSS-SHEALOR, 26, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment.

EMMETT WILLIAMS, 25, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, fighting in public, loaded firearm in public, felon-addict with firearm.

The “World’s Largest Redwood Tree Service Station” opened in 1936 when North State Street was Highway 101. The massive tree was over 1500 years old when it was carefully selected from a grove of monster redwoods 17 miles west of Ukiah. It was quartered and reassembled in its present location. Today the tree is a museum with many automotive relics, and vintage photographs. Visitors are always welcome to visit and experience the history of Ukiah’s iconic tree.

UNDERMINING EPA

Editor:

I am deeply frustrated by the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants. This reckless plan threatens our environment, undermines decades of progress and sets a dangerous precedent for rolling back other critical regulations meant to protect our air, water and health.

Under Lee Zeldin’s leadership, the EPA is no longer the watchdog protecting our air and water — it’s becoming an open door for industries to rewrite the rules. Without federal safeguards, corporations will have free rein to pollute, leaving future generations to deal with the devastating consequences — rising sea levels, extreme weather and worsening air quality.

This plan is more than an attack on climate policy; it signals an open door for further erosion of essential environmental protections. We cannot afford to be silent. I urge fellow readers to speak out, contact elected officials and demand accountability. The public will be able to submit comments at regulations.gov in the near future.

Marla Charbonneau

Cotati

KATHA UPANISHAD JONES III

Warmest spiritual greetings, This explanation from the ancient Indian upanishads explains how we may have solidarity. We may proceed in a unified fashion to perform eco-revolutionary direct action! I am ready to leave the homeless shelter in Washington, D.C., having been supportive of the Washington, D.C. Peace Vigil (i.e. anti-nuclear war vigil) for the sixteenth time since June of 1991. I have roughly $2800 dollars, and California food stamps. The mental/physical health is good at 75. Holding fast to the constant, the Dao works through me (dualistically speaking) without interference. You are welcome to make contact at your earliest convenience.

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

MITCH CLOGG:

I don’t share the fear of artificial intelligence. We still use abacuses 5,000 years after they were invented. The abacus does what the human brain can’t. Ditto adding machines, calculators, slide rules, PCs, smart phones and many, many other devices. Labor-saving devices are how Homo sapiens rolls. We surround ourselves with “artificial”. (What does “artificial” mean? Anything not made of stone or chipped from obsidian?)

Half of all people - everywhere, always - are dumber than average. That is not an arrogant wisecrack, just a statistical fact.

The below-average-IQ half of American society is over-represented in the current federal government, with predictable consequences.

Enter intelligence. Even dummies welcome it. Artificial, smartificial--who cares? This is the 21st century, and no matter how much our ruling classes, planet-wide, want to restore the vassal-peasant relation of previous millennia, the present world needs a modicum of intelligence, living or bot. Getting an abrupt and potent means to better this situation seems like a thing to celebrate more than something to run from.

AI will be disruptive: innovations disrupt. It will fall into evil hands, just as wealth and status tend to fall into evil hands. Things that are new and disruptive need to be guarded and protected, as well as studied. Otherwise the owning classes, fearful of losing a penny to new and unpredictable developments, will seize AI and change it to Intelligent Greed or some such.

I like how many basic mind skills are animated by this discussion. Plating them in gold, as my betters do with everything, is irrelevant and useless.

All in all, I can’t see how the potential benefits of artificial intelligence--its latest iteration--don’t outweigh the threats. I’m eager to hear opinions.

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I’ve been an internet addict to various degrees since 2005. I know a dopamine rush when I feel one. The kind of hit you can get from having real time dialogue with a chatbot that is customized to be exactly the kind of friend or lover you crave most… is more than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like switching from dirty heroin to pure fentanyl. Watch out!

GIANTS HANG ON TO BEAT PADRES AS NEW ROSTER ADDITIONS LEAD THE WAY

by Shayna Rubin

Giants first baseman Dominic Smith singles against the San Diego Padres on Thursday at Oracle Park. (Santiago Mejia/S.F. Chronicle)

A Bay Area native might recognize the beats blaring over the Oracle Park system when Dom Smith walks to the batter’s box.

His walk-up song is “Feelin’ Myself,” by the late Vallejo rapper Mac Dre. Most San Francisco Giants who choose songs by Bay Area artists also hail from the region. But Smith, a Southern California native in his first few days in San Francisco, felt it necessary to “pay his respects” to the local culture. His new home.

“I’m an L.A. kid, but I have respect for the Bay and culture here,” he said. “I’ve been a fan from afar. It’s been a surreal last few days being here, and I want to be part of this organization not just for now, but for a while. So I have to do the job, and I know the job.”

Smith, whose baseball career took him to the East Coast, kept his ties to the West Coast tight, and that includes reverence for Oracle Park and its unique, often frustrating dimensions.

The lefty idolized Barry Bonds growing up, so he sees the expansive grass in Triples Alley and the bricked right field porch above it as a familiar and welcome challenge. He used all that grass to get the game’s biggest hit Thursday afternoon, a ground-rule double that provided the go-ahead runs in the Giants’ 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres.

When Smith talks of “knowing the job,” he means he understands what it takes to get such a hit at this ballpark. With two runners in with two outs, he fell behind 0-2 to Padres starter Dylan Cease and went into battle mode. He fouled off three pitches, filled the count and then got a slider on the outer corner he sent into right-center. It bounced off the warning track into the stands.

“Not doing too much has helped my approach here because there is so much grass,” Smith said. “So when they make mistakes, not doing too much helps.”

Added manager Bob Melvin: “That was a professional at-bat. It really was. A (Wilmer) Flores type of at-bat. Fouled some pitches off a really good pitcher. Throws hard and his slider in all counts. … These guys that we brought in have been impactful.”

Smith’s double was one of his three hits — half the team total — he had Thursday, and marked the second straight game in which one of the new guys chipped in with key plays. He’d been passed the torch by Daniel Johnson, who was Wednesday’s hero with two hits, a stolen base and game-saving ninth-inning catch.

Smith, who signed with the Giants after opting out of his minor league contract with the Triple-A Yankees affiliate, came cross-country to San Francisco on a roll. He was batting .317 with a 1.011 OPS in May with the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Railriders with big league experience making him all the more appealing as an addition.

“We weren’t really looking for a power element,” Melvin said. “We got some guys who can hit the ball out of the ballpark. We’re looking for more that professional at-bat, not striking out, put a ball in play. A tough at-bat like that, that’s exactly what we got in a big situation. And actually drove it, too. You’re always looking, potentially, to get guys here when they’re playing well.”

With that, the Giants have won two straight since the big roster shakeup and split the series with San Diego. All four games were decided by one run, and Camilo Doval notched his 100th career save Thursday, becoming the seventh Giant to reach that mark. The others: Robb Nen, Rod Beck, Brian Wilson, Gary Lavelle, Greg Minton and Santiago Casilla.

Production from Johnson and Smith is just the medicine for a Giants offense that had grown anemic, frustrated and exhausted trying to pull itself out of a deep scoring slump. Johnson’s ability to play all outfield positions has given Melvin flexibility to rest Mike Yastrzemski for the past two games, though he was slotted into right field in the ninth inning to help protect a one-run lead.

Yastrzemski’s numbers (0-for-11 with eight strikeouts) against Cease were ugly enough to justify a rest, as was the 34-year-old’s hitting of late. A torrid April in which he recorded an .889 OPS spiraled into a dismal May, as indicated by his .574 OPS for the month. He’s 0-for-June in seven at-bats.

Smith and Jerar Encarnacion’s presence allowed a day of rest for Flores, who has played 61 games this year. Encarnacion had a big day without wielding his power bat. He reached on a fielder’s choice and stole his fourth career bag and, in the seventh inning, looked like a natural left fielder when he scooped up Jose Iglesias’ line drive off the wall and threw him out trying for second base.

Encarnacion’s seventh-inning heroics aided Robbie Ray in one of his best starts of the year in which he continued his dominant May into June; his 1.38 ERA last month earned him NL Pitcher of the Month.

Manny Machado’s two-run home run off a hanging curveball was the only blemish as Ray cruised through seven innings, tying a season high with nine strikeouts (for the third time) while allowing four hits and one walk. Of the 101 pitches Ray threw, 71 were four-seam fastballs with an average velocity of 94 mph, a tick higher than his season average. It marked Ray’s eighth win of the season, tied with Houston’s Hunter Brown for the major league lead.

“I leaned on that a little bit more. Just felt really good how it was coming out,” Ray said. “Threw a few good changeups. Just left a curveball up to Machado. If I throw a good one down maybe it’s a groundball, but was able to move past that and finish seven. Big team win, too.”

(SF Chronicle)

Mark Scaramella adds: Our favorite moment in Thursday afternoon’s game was right after Encarnacion threw out Iglesias at second base as mentioned above. Encarnation raised his right index finger to his mouth, casually blew on the end of his finger, then mimed putting his hand/gun back in an imaginary holster on his right hip. Only in baseball. Very cool, as some might say.

World Heavyweight Title fight between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson at Yankee Stadium. Bronx, New York June 26, 1959 (Neil Leifer)

BROOKS SCHMITT:

I am so fascinated by the science and magic of sandwiches. Nothing else in the world of food to me is more mysterious, deceptively simple and simultaneously complex, than a perfect sandwich.

I recently was talking to someone about how my favorite sandwiches are actually two sandwiches, the initial experience when it is fresh and crunchy, and the secondary experience eating the other half a few hours later when it has changed into something else entirely.

Maybe part of that is because by the time I circle back to the sandwich I made earlier, it feels like someone else made it for me.

ESTHER MOBLEY: What I’m Reading

Republic National Distributing Co., one of the largest wine wholesalers in the country, will no longer sell products in California, reports Shanken News Daily. The distributor recently settled a major antitrust lawsuit, and has also recently lost several of its highest-profile brands — like High Noon, Korbel and Tito’s Vodka — to competing wholesalers.

Accendo, a Napa Valley wine brand launched a decade ago by the well-known Araujo family, has changed hands, reports James Molesworth in Wine Spectator. Siblings Jaime and Greg Araujo have sold Accendo to Jack Bittner, a former partner in Ovid winery, and the Bettinelli family, one of the largest-scale grapegrowers in Napa Valley.

An Oregon winery, Arabilis, claims to be the first in the U.S. to produce a sparkling wine using a method called tirage liège, which involves aging the wine under cork instead of the typical crown cap. This would presumably make the disgorgement process a lot more complicated, time-consuming and expensive. Gail Oberst has a short article in the Oregon Wine Press.

(SF Chronicle)

*Laozi Riding an Ox* by Zhang Lu (1464–1538)

COCKBURN & THE 41ers

by Fred Gardner

Alexander Cockburn, the most incisive political journalist of our time, was born on June 6, 1941 (the year of the snake). I sent him this in ‘91:

Greetings to our favorite lefty,

Alexander Cockburn, 50

Bob Dylan, Lynn O’Connor

Here’s to every ‘41er

Born to Win the Last Good War

Proud of what the fight was for

Raised to place our hope in Science,

Democracy, The Grand Alliance

Only to grow up and live in

Worlds by private Privilege driven

Social breakdown, wrong employment

Undermining life’s enjoyment…

Still we hear the people rappin’

When’s The Party gonna happen?

I’m looking at a file cabinet on which is shellacked a photo of Alex in the summer of 1990. He’s setting up to photograph a gravestone in Trinidad, California. We were on our way to or from the Redwood Summer protest in Samoa.

The stone said “E.B.Schnaubelt  Born April 5, 1855, Died May 22, 1913. Murdered by Capitalism.”

Alex had heard about Schnaubelt’s gravestone and wanted to pay homage. He later wrote (in his book ‘The Golden Age is in Us’), “E.B. had set up a lumber mill as a workers’ co-op but then the big companies cheated him out of the land where the mill stood, though he still owned the plant. One night Schnaubelt, living nearby, thought he heard someone messing with his machinery. He went to investigate and a watchman hired by the companies shot him dead. His widow put up the stone and moved away.”

Alex himself may have been murdered by Capitalism (in which case Capitalism could claim self-defense). We’re all being massively bombarded by radiation and exposed to carcinogens in the air, the water, the food, the receipt at the gas station… And it’s all in the pursuit of profit. America’s “War on Cancer” does not mean identifying and eliminating the causes of cancer but “the search for the cure.” Our corporate masters are unwilling to stop the plague by closing their nuclear power plants and eliminating cancer-causing chemicals in their production processes. That would cut into profits. They want to fight the war on cancer inside our bodies. That generates profits.

The day before Alex died, the New York Times ran a front-page article hedded ‘Genetic Aberrations Seen as Path to Stop Colon Cancer’ by Gina Kolata, a search-for-the-cure cheerleader. (Gina’s sister Judi Bari was an eliminate-the-causes ringleader. It was Bari who had organized the action in Samoa that led us to Schnaubelt’s grave.)

Kolata was enthusing over a paper published in ‘Nature’ by Raju Kucherlapati of Harvard Medical School and co-authored by “nearly every… leading scientist in colon cancer genomics.”

The paper describes a new approach to treatment: identifying the mutant genes driving a given tumor and finding drugs that can stop them. Kolata calls Kucherlapati’s colon cancer study “the first part of a sweeping effort that is expected to produce a flood of discoveries for a wide range of cancer.” She quotes him saying, “We have an opportunity to completely change the landscape.”

Another Harvard co-author calls the paper “transformative.”

Kolata writes: “For Dr. Kucherlapati, some of the most intriguing discoveries point to new treatment possibilities. For example, about 5 percent of the colon cancer tumors studied had extra copies of a gene, ERBB2, as do many breast cancer tumors. A drug, Herceptin, which greatly helps breast cancer patients with too many ERBB2 genes, might also help cancer patients with the same aberration. Scientists say they would like to put colon cancer patients with the mutation in clinical trials testing the effects of Herceptin.”

It had previously been determined that 15% of colon cancers have a mutation in a gene called BRAF, which, Kolata notes, “is often mutated in melanoma.” So researchers tried to treat colon cancer with a drug that’s sometimes effective in treating melanoma —and it didn’t work. “But,” Kolata goes on hopefully, “ these colon cancer patients often have an additional genetic aberration that can be attacked with a different drug, one that blocks the function of a cell protein EGFR.” So Kucherlapati et al propose treating this subset of patients with both a melanoma drug and the EGFR drug.

Kolata: “The possibility of helping selected colon cancer patients with drugs that are already on the market ‘is actually thrilling,’ Dr. Kucherlapati said.”

Kolata acknowledges that the scientists don’t how many genetic pathways enable various tumors to develop and how many new drugs will have to be developed to attack them all. She quotes Dr. S. Gail Eckhardt, head of medical oncology at the University of Colorado saying that the study (of which she was one of >200 co-authors) “confirms where some of the drug development should be going.”’

Pharma Pharma rah rah rah. War on Cancer rah rah rah. Genennnntech! Pharma Pharma rah rah rah. War on Cancer rah rah rah. Genennnntech!

In the 1990s Cockburn and I had written a piece about Big PhRMA’s marketing of antidepressants. In one of our last conversations I told him I planned to include it in The O’Shaughnessy’s Reader. He understood its relevance to the medical marijuana movement — of course — and said “Go for it,” although he himself was never into marijuana and he believed that smoking it had precipitated his beloved nephew’s break with reality. He was open-minded, tolerant, and liberal in the old John Stuart Mill sense. And he was a socialist, of course, and hoped that the pot-loving masses would someday throw off their single-issue chains.

Alex not only educated and entertained us, he set high standards and motivated us by example. The range of his interests, the depth of his education and the graceful way he drew on it, his sense of humor, the sharpness of his invective, his general cheerfulness and specific dislikes, his respect for craftsmanship in all areas, his delight in scandal, his contempt for jive, his insight into the ruling class, his worldwide network of friends and sources — Alexander Cockburn is irreplacable and his death is impossible. Is this what phantom limb pain feels like?

FIRST CLASS TO LAX

I consider your thighs. You are my seat partner and you are saying, “Left Boston this morning. God, am I tired.” You say many other things but I only hear and see the shape, the curve of your speech. I nod and smile appropriately, laughing only when cued by your flashing teeth.

What line are you in?

Caught off balance, the question stuns me. I realize that it is usual for a white, educated, 32 year old male of relatively keen wit and strong arm to be

in-a-line

of something

but I cannot answer. Stalling for an idea, a direction of speech, an inclination, a focused motor activity, I reply,

“It’s none of your business,”

and sip my gin & tonic.

“You know I ask that question ten maybe fifteen times a day and no one’s ever said that before.” You’re smiling now. I’ve always wanted to say it to someone… It’s none of your business! Oh Jesus so many times I wish I’d said, IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!. Then you go on and on about insensitive people and you quote Rod McKuen and Kahlil Gibran and I drink a second gin & tonic. You have herb tea and fill out forms held in your lap on a clipboard. The grey plastic letters of the TWA nametag clipped to your left breast inform me that your name is June. “Do you live in L.A.?”

“No,” I reply.

We are in descent. I have eaten my allotted peanuts. I close my eyes and hold the image of a full clipboard on your well-formed thighs. “Well, you must be coming to L.A. to visit friends?”

“No,” I snap, “actually I’m coming to L.A. to do some fence work and dig a few holes.”

You are mute now, watching me closely. Yes, these are holes in my jacket. Yes, my dinner was the two free gin & tonics. My pen continues to move. Yes, I have been writing down my perception of this event. You are lost in your forms. You are checking your seat belt. You are closing your eyes. You are saying, “God, am I tired.”

— Don Shanley

LIBERATION, COOPTATION & THE SIXTIES

Reflections on Thorne Dreyer’s Notes from the Underground (New Journalism Project, $27)

by Jonah Raskin

Have you noticed? Sixties folk—organizers, activists, pacifists, feminists and liberationists of all stripes — can’t seem to get enough of the era when they made history. For some it never really ended, though recent history has not been kind to the Sixties. In the 1980s conservatives co-opted the buzz words of the Sixties and touted “The Reagan Revolution.” These days, Trumpers have also scooped up and recycled the vocabulary of that era of protest. They have promoted “Liberation Day” and the arrival of tariffs meant to “make America Wealthy again.” The word underground, which the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky popularized in the title of his best known novella, Notes from the Underground, lost much of its bite when a website with information about the weather called itself “The Weather Underground.”

The language and the vocabulary of the Sixties isn’t what it used to be. In some cases the meanings of words have turned into their opposite. Thorne Dreyer, the founder of The Rag and the host of Rag Radio, calls his new collection of 77 articles, “Notes from Underground” and means to honor the past. I’ve been interviewed on Rag Radio at least half-a-dozen times and have enjoyed the conversations and the onair and behind-the-scenes contributions by engineer Tracey Schulz.

Some of the pieces appeared in Austin’s signature underground paper and others in the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Observer, “sea level publications,” as they were called. Underground reporters and editors like Dreyer sometimes migrated from media down under the surface to media up above. The gap between the two doesn’t seem as wide as it once did. As someone famous once observed, “yesterday’s heresy is tomorrow’s orthodoxy.”

In a 1976 article published in the Texas Monthly, Dreyer asked if the Sixties generation made “any difference?” And whether it left “its mark on the world?” His answer, “Who knows?” He adds “I have no intention here of constructing some grandiose analytical overview of the Sixties explosion.” Fair enough. He wasn’t then and isn’t now a theorist. In that 1976 piece, Dreyer goes on to offer sketches of some of his friends who were movement organizers and who were “white, thirtyish and come from moderately affluent family backgrounds.” That sounds like Dreyer himself. He adds that the folks he profiles are like him “mostly native Texans.” He ends the piece with a quotation from Stoney Burns, a Texas writer and hippie who ran for Dallas County sheriff in 1972 and who says it was an “exciting time” and that “I sure had fun.”

Half-a-century after Dreyer first asked his relevant question about the Sixties generation it’s still worth asking whether it made its mark on history. In my view it did and it didn’t. It helped to end the War in Vietnam, undo the wrongs of legal racial segregation, altered white middle class lifestyles in the cauldron of the counterculture and freed women from some of the chains of the patriarchy.

But now in the age of Trump and with a counter revolution in full force many of the achievements of the Sixties generation seem to have been undone or faded into a sea of reaction the likes of which has not been seen since the era of Jim Crow when the achievements of Reconstruction were undone by white supremacists, racists, bigots and members of the KKK.

Some of my friends who were activists in the Sixties tell me they don’t know what to do now to counteract Trump and his cronies. In my recollection they weren’t all that savvy in the Sixties, but were often carried along helter-skelter by the current of contemporary events. Where, one wonders, was Dreyer in the Sixties? An article he wrote in 1969 with Victoria Smith which was originally published in Liberation News Service and is contained in Notes from the Underground and that provides some answers.

“We cannot individually remold our lives,” he and Smith wrote. “No matter how beautiful the vibrations you emanated, you couldn’t create the good society in the entrails of the decaying body.” No mention is made of the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW), the radical labor union whose members argued that it was essential to “build a new world from the shell of the old.”

Feminist Gloria Steinem recycled the IWW notion not long ago and called for “a revolution from within” which gained traction in feminist circles and among Sixties radicals who turned to meditation, Buddhism and spirituality. Dreyer and Smith, argued in their 1969 article that a “new kind of left has emerged in America that combines the positive and the negative, the vision of a better way and the need to destroy the old, the loving and the burning.” Depending on where you stood on the spectrum and whether you trashed or sat-in nonviolently you emphasized either the loving or the burning.

The authors denounce “chickenshit liberalism,” the sectarian cliquishness of the Old Left and hail the arrival of the underground press as a “revolutionary departure from the traditions of American journalism. They allow that “radical journalists came and went” and suggest that “their work never approached the stylistic or contextual impact that today’s Movement press is having.” That remark and others similar to it might remind readers that Sixties radicals sometimes rejected radical history and the achievements of the past, including benchmark publications like The Masses and The New Masses.

Notes from the Underground is divided into seven parts; “Years of Protest and Upheaval,” “Night Riders and the New Politics,” “Echoes of the Resistance,” which includes articles from the 21st century”; “Special Reporting” with news of Houston; and “Progressive Voices” which offers interviews with folk singer Judy Collins, SDSer Carl Davidson, Yippies Judy Gumbo and Nancy Kurshan, Weather Undergrounders and more, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and Bernie Sanders often a lone voice in the wilderness of American politics today. No one I know has done more to transcend the sectarianism of the old New Left than Dreyer.

In the last section of his book, “Remembrances,” he offers profiles of folks little known outside of Texas such as Stoney Burns, Jack A. Smith, Daniel Jay Schacht and Thorne’s accomplished artist mother Maggie. Here, as elsewhere he honors Texas radicals and radicalism often neglected by underground newspapers on both coasts.

Dreyer has always rightly insisted that Austin ought to be included in accounts of the Sixties, and not be forgotten in the barrage of stories about New York, Madison and Berkeley. Parts I and II bring the past to life and thereby achieve the author’s stated goals. “Echoes of the Resistance” feels less timely, and the profiles at the end don’t significantly enhance the portrait of the era of protest and upheaval.

Dreyer backs away from the language of the Sixties and refrains from calling it a revolutionary period. He uses words like “progressive,” “protest” and “upheaval.” When asked why he unearthed, collected and published the articles in Notes, Dreyer said be wanted to write a memoir, a history of the movement from the perspective of a personally-involved writer, a journalist/participant,” and to “fill in a gap of knowledge about the out-sized role that Austin and Houston played in the story of the Sixties.” He has done that.

It has often been said that a picture is worth 1,000 words and that’s true of some of the pictures in this volume that depict a protester surrounded by marines, young men at a headshop talking about “police harassment” — a constant threat — and the reproduction of a stunning front page of the Rag from 1972 that offers an iconic image by artist Jim Franklin of an armadillo about to cross what looks like an endless highway littered with broken automobile tires.

*Perpetual Provincetown* by Anne Packard

ANIMAL ATTRACTION

Editor,

James Vincent remarks in a recent edition of the London Review of Books that “some creatures instinctively align their bodies with the Earth’s magnetic field during moments of repose” — dogs, for example, “while defecating.”

For almost a month now since I read his piece, I have been systematically observing my dogs defecating and can report that there seems to be no observable alignment at all with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Could it be that my dogs are short of magnetite? (Perhaps a special dietary supplement is called for?) Or are they perversely anti-magnetic, pooping triumphantly at any angle to the Earth’s magnetic field they like, in order to defy the natural order and show me who’s boss?

The same goes for deer, which are supposed to align when resting. The large herd that roams our fields rests all over the place in disorderly groups, angled every which way. My dogs and the deer, I think, need magnetizing.

Martin Rose

Saffron Walden, Essex

LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Trump and Musk’s Unlikely Alliance Breaks Down in Rapid and Public Fashion

After Trump and Xi Speak, U.S. and China Agree to Revive Trade Talks

Israel Armed Palestinian Militia to Fight Hamas, Officials Say

Whooping Cough Is Surging. Do You Need Another Shot?

Land Snorkeling? Townsizing? A User’s Guide to the Latest Travel Lingo.

JAKE TAPPER IS THE REASON AMERICA IS DOOMED

by Drew Magary

Last month, the New York Times conducted a survey that found that nearly half of the respondents who approved of President Donald Trump “had not heard much” about anything Trump has done over his first 100 days back in office. The government-sanctioned kidnapping and false imprisonment of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil? Nope. Trump allowing Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency to gut vital departments such as the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration? No idea. Tariff-fueled stock market losses? That was news to these people.

How could so many Americans, enough to potentially swing an election one way or the other, be in the dark about all of this horrible shit? Well, here’s one answer for you:

Jake Tapper discusses his new book, “Original Sin,” on May 27, 2025, in New York City.

That’s CNN anchor Jake Tapper, currently barnstorming the media to promote “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.” It’s a good exposé of a book. A juicy one, even. It’s also — even to those Trump supporters who apparently DO live under a rock — a familiar story.

Did you know that, by the summer of 2024, Joe Biden could barely walk, let alone speak? Did you know that his inner circle continuously made hollow excuses for their boss until it was too late? Did you know, as Obama operative David Plouffe told Tapper on the record, that Biden “totally fucked us”? You did.

How do you know all of this? Because Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024, almost a full year ago. And because his proxy nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, lost decisively to Trump not even four months later. And BECAUSE IT WAS ALL OVER THE FUCKING NEWS. That’s how news is supposed to work.

But with people like Jake Tapper around, news isn’t working the way it’s supposed to. Tapper, the face of an entire news organization, would like you to believe that Biden’s downfall is still news in June 2025. In fact, he’s carrying on as if it were the only news story that matters, even as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are kidnapping people in plain sight. Even as Trump and his ghouls attempt to pass a bill that will annihilate Medicaid. Even as Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services secretary cancels vaccine research contracts that could save tens of millions of lives. While all of that wanton destruction is going on, CNN’s top anchor is busy telling the world that the “cover-up” surrounding Biden’s health is “worse than Watergate.”

That’s a laughable assertion given not just Trump’s current offenses but all of the offenses he committed the LAST time he was in office. These were scandals so grievous that they have their own names: Charlottesville, the first impeachment, the second impeachment, the insurrection. How many worse-than-Watergates did you and I witness Trump commit those first four years? How many are taking place right now, as I write this?

Trump currently has the cognitive abilities of a tadpole and is letting his party burn the fucking house down. So I’m just a touch more concerned about all of that than about example No. 7,856 of Democrats being eternally clueless.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper looks on during a Presidential Town Hall event at Sun Center Studios on Oct. 23, 2024, in Aston, Penn. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

As Trump continues his rampage, we have precious few journalists remaining to report on them. We need good journalism, and a lot of it, if we’re to prevent Trump from plunging us into meme-aided fascism. That’s why it matters what Jake Tapper decides is news right now. He’s one of the few people left in my field with both the profile and the influence to keep Americans informed of all this dime-store Nazi fuckery.

In this task, Tapper has failed. This isn’t surprising, of course. Jake Tapper has long been more a tool for the nation’s power structure than an effective critic of it. He’s the one who failed to fact-check Trump in the slightest while co-moderating that fateful 2024 debate with Biden. He’s the one who has gleefully portrayed pro-Palestinian Rep. Rashida Tlaib as antisemitic despite Tlaib going out of her way to condemn hatred of all Jews. And he’s the unfunny asshole who once wrote an entire column essentially in blackface at the beginning of the Iraq War (sample line: “Franzen, Moody, whatever young nizza was livin’ lizzarge, L.W. Cool-L and his posse would sidewhow in their P-ride and turn the Charlie Rose green room into a killin’ field”).

When you remember all of that, it makes perfect sense that this monstrously self-absorbed dipshit wants you to believe that Joe Biden, currently dying of aggressive prostate cancer, is the biggest threat America is facing right now.

In 2025. Jake Tapper clearly gives much more of a shit about his book sales than he does the fate of our national education system. And he wears his cravenness in the guise of a Serious Newsman, which makes it all the more insulting.

That’s one reason voters are in the dark about the Category 5 shitstorm barreling down their street. Tapper is less a journalist now than he is one of the many prominent media figures eager to profit off the Trump news industrial complex. When he and his avaricious ilk get distracted from the mission of journalism, there are no longer enough trusted yet high-profile voices to help pick up the slack.

I fucking hate this. I fucking hate that this man — this haughty, grossly egotistical man — is one of our last remaining guardians of democracy. I need Tapper to communicate, repeatedly, the life-or-death stakes of our current predicament. The imprimatur of CNN gives him an authority that few of my brethren are privileged to have. He could use his pulpit to keep a bright light shining on the dissolution of the American government, rather than on a book detailing past events that you and I were already well aware of. Most important, Tapper could use his platform to clearly identify the people responsible for that dissolution.

But I know he’ll never do that, because that would require naming himself as one the co-conspirators. It’s not Joe Biden who’s fucked us, kid. It’s you.

NOTHING STOPS GOLDMAN SACHS

As the 1MDB scandal comes to a close, Goldman continues to defy reputation risk

by Eric Salzman

Will Rodgers once said, ”It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.”

One way or another we have all been given this sage advice, and some of us have learned the lesson the hard way. Reputation is everything. Except for Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs seems to defy reputation risk time and time again. The story of the 1MDB (Malaysian Development Berhad) scandal shows beyond much doubt, Goldman can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants. If Goldman gets caught, it enters a deferred prosecution agreement, — as was the case with 1MDB — or pays a fine and then goes on its way as if nothing happened.

In the case of 1MDB, Goldman reached a deferred prosecution agreement with the feds in 2020, but until last week, its former partner and Southeast Asia chairman, Tim Leissner, stubbornly stuck around as annoying residue from the scandal.

Leissner pleaded guilty in 2018 to money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by arranging over $1 billion in bribes to officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to obtain lucrative underwriting mandates for Goldman.

Those mandates earned Goldman Sachs at least $600 million in underwriting fees. Leissner alsoÂ vigorously rattedÂ on fellow Goldman-ite Roger Ng, who received a 10 year sentence in 2023. Prosecutors asked for leniency, saying in a March 15 letter to the judge that “Leissner’s cooperation was of tremendous value and was central to the government’s ability to swiftly indict and successfully prosecute numerous individuals and entities involved in the 1MDB scheme.”

Goldman’s general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, responded May 21 with a letter to the judge that argued against leniency.

Leissner’s serial lies, fraud and deception at Goldman Sachs continued from the day he first brought the transactions to the firm through the day he left. Mr. Leissner’s efforts in this regard are worthy of sanction, not praise.

Before sentencing Leissner, U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie asked Prosecutor Drew Rolle what he thought of the letter.

Hilariously, Rolle retorted that Goldman’s letter was “the equivalent of a getaway driver showing up at a cooperator’s sentencing and saying: ‘You know judge, we wouldn’t be in this mess if he hadn’t decided to rob a bank’.”…

https://www.racket.news/p/nothing-stops-goldman-sachs

TRUMP AND MUSK’S BROMANCE BREAKUP HAS THE INTERNET IN STITCHES

by Zara Irshad & Aidin Vaziri

Donald Trump and Elon Musk‘s relationship has officially imploded, captivating the internet as if it were a high-profile celebrity breakup.

“Normally a breakup this messy is on Bravo not C-Span,” wrote Ben Jacobs, a reporter at Politico, on X.

The president and Tesla founder developed a quick bond after the then-candidate was nearly assassinated on stage at a Pennsylvania rally last July. Musk spent approximately $250 million backing Trump’s campaign and remained a close supporter throughout the 2024 election.

When Trump took office earlier this year, Musk was appointed head of the new administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, a role that he held until last week.

But it wasn’t until Musk’s criticism of Trump’s controversial so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that set off an internet war that culminated on Thursday, June 5, with both men hurling strongly-worded accusations and criticisms at each other on social media.

Early in the day, Musk called on Trump to “ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.”

Musk then claimed that without him, Trump would not have secured the presidency, setting off threats from Trump to cut off government contracts with Musk’s companies, including Starlink and Space X.

“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk replied. “@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

Senator Scott Wiener was one among those who reacted to the allegation online, specifically calling out Trump supporters who have labeled him and other members of the LGBTQ community pedophiles.

“Let’s see if the MAGAs who’ve been slandering me & other queer people as pedophiles for years say a damn thing about Trump’s close association with an actual pedophilia network,” Wiener wrote on BlueSky.

Social media users were quick to turn the dramatic feud into comedic gold, with some cracking jokes about the irony of this drama unfolding at the beginning of Pride Month, likening their broken bond to the end of a romance. Both public figures have made homophobic statements and actions in the past.

Another irony: Trump threatening to rip away Musk’s federal funding when they have been doing that to the arts and science communities for months.

“Must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away,” Adam Sternberg, Culture editor for the New York Times, posted to Bluesky.

Amid the public spectacle, many couldn’t help but mock the emotional nature of the feud, describing the bickering immature given their ages — Musk is 53, while Trump is 78.

The phrase “THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING” quickly became a top trending topic on X.

“Hey @realDonaldTrump lmk if u need any breakup advice,” Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, wrote in a post.

In addition to firing off no less than 80 tweets and endorsing other users’ posts criticizing the president, including one that called for Trump’s impeachment, Musk also unfollowed several of the president’s supporters, including Charlie Kirk and Stephen Miller.

“Today is a huge win for every woman concerned she acted like a psycho during her last breakup,” wrote comedian Ginny Hogan, the star of “Regression.”

Poking fun at the misogyny that Trump and Musk have been known to display, MSNBC reporter Sam Stein wrote “Are men maybe too emotional for positions of leadership?”

Some internet users even likened the drama to that between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar, who have infamously been feuding for about a year.

Mike Nelson, a political commentator with more than 25,000 followers, simply shared a photo of the moment Lamar name dropped Drake during his Super Bowl LIX performance of “Not Like Us,” captioning the post “Elon dropping that tweet.”

Even Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, weighed in on the feud. He has been a vocal supporter of both Trump and Musk in the past.

“Broooos please noooooo,” he wrote on X. “We love you both so much.”

Trump and Musk continued their online brawl for several hours Thursday, each on their respective social media platforms — Trump on his Truth Social and Musk on X, which he owns.

The president was supposed to spend the day discussing an end to the Russia-Ukraine war with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Meanwhile, people joked about Trump potentially deporting Musk, a South African native, given his administration’s frequent ICE raids.

As the online spat hit fever pitch on Thursday, Musk paused his attacks on Trump briefly for a moment to take stock of the carnage.

“One thing’s for sure,” Musk wrote on X, “it ain’t boring!”

(SF Chronicle)

THE ALL-AMERICAN BOY

by Richard Klin

The installation of the malevolent Trump regime has spawned endless analogies to Hitler, Nazi Germany, Mussolini. It has been pointed out that Trump is in thrall to Kim Jong-Un, North Korea’s strongman. Then there is the linkage to Vladimir Putin: Trump is under the sway—if not a direct employee—of the Russian dictator.

All of this is understandable–to an extent. Trump, at times, conveys the bearing of the stereotypical foreign potentate. A military parade on his birthday, for example, feels intrinsically foreign.

One flaw in this reasoning are the assumptions that Trump has a firm grasp on anything outside his narrow interests, which revolve around making lots of money, avenging himself for perceived slights, playing golf, and hot babes. His awareness of the outside world is extremely limited; his attention span is fleeting.

The larger issue, though, is that these constant comparisons to Hitler or Putin or Mussolini are inadvertent cop-outs: As if Trump is such an aberration that his pathology must originate from foreign sources. In reality, authoritarianism, viciousness, and violence are part and parcel of the American schema. As is censorship. And notions of racial superiority and inferiority—the purity of blood—have entrenched roots in the United States. When Trump spreads alarm that “illegals” are polluting the precious American bloodline, he is recycling an American trope. Hitler borrowed some of this from us.

If one is looking for Trump’s antecedents from the 1930s and 1940s, a more honest reckoning would be to basically disregard Hitler and Mussolini and devote some attention to, say, Theodore Bilbo, Mississippi’s arch-racist governor and senator from the 1920s to 1940s.

Bilbo inveighed against racial “mongrelization” and generated proposals to deport America’s African-American population to Africa. As governor, he “fired many faculty members of Mississippi’s colleges and universities and brought the state almost to bankruptcy.” (Britannica) That sounds awfully familiar. Bilbo’s career was mired in scandal and he became a famous synonym for racial intolerance—and earned the “clownish” appellation, which also sounds familiar. Bilbo is actually referenced in the 1947 film Gentleman’s Agreement—without explanation, which suggests the extent of his infamy. Infamous or not, though, the Honorable Theodore Bilbo—champion of racial purity and advocate for mass deportation—held high office in the Land of the Free.

Trump also bears some striking similarities—although not in demeanor and presentation—to George Wallace, who combined populist grievances with ugly racist tropes and leaped to prominence—and not just in the South.

There is a very real link from Joseph McCarthy to Trump —not just in the tactics of spreading baseless conspiracies and a gusto for ruining lives—but a flesh-and-blood link in the person of former McCarthy right-hand man Roy Cohn, one of Trump’s charming mentors.

Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon’s first vice president, has faded from public memory, but at one point he was a household name. Agnew was a prime example of a frightening American archetype: the malevolent doofus. (Trump is the malevolent doofus par excellence.) Agnew launched a ferocious attack against the (supposed) elitist, biased press. He was full of pithy comments, like “if you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen them all” and referred to a Japanese-American reporter as a “fat Jap.”

There was Nixon himself. A meteoric political rise took him to the vice presidency at the uncommonly young age of thirty-nine, yet Nixon was perpetually aggrieved, complaining constantly about biased media coverage. He cast himself as the president of “law and order” and the spokesman for the “silent majority,” a fierce opponent of protestors, do-nothings, radicals, eggheads. And it was Nixon who—by means of what was deemed the “Southern strategy”—brought the Dixiecrat strain into the Republican fold.

Frank Rizzo, the repulsive mayor of Philadelphia in the 1970s—cited approvingly by Trump—also merits inclusion. Rizzo—at the time so notorious as to make an appearance in Doonesbury—promised to “make Attila the Hun look like a faggot,” inveighed against the press, and urged his supporters to “vote white.”

There is also a direct line from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump that is more instructive than comparisons to Hitler or Putin. Reagan and Trump both came to prominence as entertainers, dispensers of carefully crafted media images.

Reagan spoke in code. When he referred to “welfare queens,” the inference was apparent: Chiselers and spongers—of a darker skin hue—were running rampant. When Reagan castigated government overreach, he meant civil rights legislation and social programs, not a bloated military and corporate welfare. Trump has upped the ante: He does not speak in code and his positions are more extreme than Reagan’s. But there is a real link.

The veneration of Ronald Reagan also speaks to a certain bizarre American mythos. Reagan, it was said, brought back a sorely needed blood and guts to American politics. He embodied the tall-in-the-saddle Western ethos. He reintroduced piety and those cherished American values. He brought class and elegance back to the White House. He was warm and avuncular, always with a ready quip. Leaving aside the blatant discrepancies—Reagan was a pampered movie star—no one person could embody all these different, contradictory traits.

And so it is with Trump, with even more hypocrisy: The New York City rich kid whose policies aid his fellow plutocrats is deeply in tune with the problems of the average American. The foul-mouthed rapist is a paragon of religious values. He is tough and resolute, although he has daily hissy fits. He has restored law and order, yet is also a badass, a gangster. He upholds tradition, yet is a disruptor. Like Reagan, these traits simply don’t add up in any one person.

And since Trump is more of a gross manifestation and not a person with normal human responses, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to offer comparisons to fictional characters. There has been mention of Buzz Windrip, malevolent doofus in Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, and Lonesome Rhodes, hayseed demagogue (played by Andy Griffith) in the 1957 film A Face in the Crowd, based on a Budd Schulberg short story. There’s a good deal of Trump in the sniveling, vindictive—and incompetent– Frank Burns of MAS*H. Trump can be construed as the cannier, pathological version of Ted Baxter, the vain, dim-bulb anchorman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And Trump is an utterly fake Archie Bunker, but his viewpoints are the same: stupid, misinformed, brutal.

Trump is also firmly ensconced in the tradition of proud, emphatic provincialism. A stock character in movies and television was the oddball foreigner, most often in a position of culture and intellect: classical musician, painter, chef, scientist. Psychologists were lampooned with a German accent. For real culture and intellectual rigor, one looked to Europe. We really didn’t need those strange people with their funny accents and weird food. This is source of some of the animus against non-Americans that so preoccupies Trump and his supporters. There’s no need for fancy-pants foreign graduate students or academics. There is nothing whatsoever to be gained by exposure to the outside world.

None of this is meant to minimize the unprecedented danger we’re now facing. The lethal strands that contributed to the ascent of Donald Trump are not unprecedented, but the fact that they have all coalesced is a new, perilous phenomenon. Reagan and other malignant figures were worshipped, but it is the degree of worship and veneration for Donald Trump that is unprecedented. It is a perfect storm, a confluence of the baser elements in the American tradition, with flimsy democratic guardrails shunted aside.

When I read accounts of ICE snatching people off the street, my visceral response is that this is a totalitarian dystopia of some obscure foreign origin. When there are accusations that Haitians eat household pets, it does remind me of Nazi archetypes. But this is not dystopian fiction or Nazi Germany. It is an inevitable outgrowth of a distinctly American horror.

References to Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip, once very common, are hard to come by these days. The eponymous protagonist—an insightful possum–was once so famous as to run for president. “We have met the enemy,” Pogo opined in what became a famous catchphrase, “and he is us.”

(CounterPunch.org)

Sadie McGowan with her mother, Suzie, in Yosemite Valley, Ca. 1901, taken by J. T. Boysen

12 Comments

Mike Jamieson June 6, 2025

6 x 240=1440

- Bonnie Brayton June 6, 2025
  
  Correct. But you could explain your reasoning/logic.
  
  - Rick Swanson June 6, 2025
    
    Hey Bonnie-He probably used Mr. Preisig’s logic. :}
    
  - Mike Jamieson June 7, 2025
    
    I could see that the multiplier number rose sequentially
    
Kirk Vodopals June 6, 2025

Brooks Schmitt:
“Enjoy Every Sandwich” —Warren Zevon

Jim Armstrong June 6, 2025

ED/Bruce:
The answer to your D*** question is up on last Friday’s (5/30) MCD.

- Bruce Anderson June 6, 2025
  
  Got it and enlightened, although I think Justine Frederickson’s piece on the subject is the best I’ve read.
  
Craig Stehr June 6, 2025

Warmest spiritual greetings, Just sitting here online at the MLK Public Library in Washington, D.C., listening to the Panchakshara Mantra of Lord Shiva, God of Destruction in the Hindu Trinity. I am continuing to send out emails to attract a critical mass for spiritually directed eco-revolutionary direct action. As the summer heat begins to make its appearance, and the deadly global ramifications become certain, isn’t it time to take effective action in response to this insane situation on planet earth? I am more than ready to leave the homeless shelter, having supported for the sixteenth time the D.C. Anti-Nuclear War Vigil; we are directly across from the White House, in Lafayette Park. With around $2600 in the bank, I can get to wherever. It is time for the Eco-Revolution to commence. Either that, or wait until we are all killed off. The choice is ours. ;-))
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 6, 2025 A.D.

Bruce McEwen June 6, 2025

Elon and Don fight like bitches. They sulk and hiss catty digs at each other. Elon wanted to brawl in a cage with Mark but I’d bet $10. Old Don could deck the punk in three rounds.

- Jurgen Stoll June 6, 2025
  
  I’m 75 and my fishing partner is 80. We’re both retired CWA Union members who climbed telephone poles for a living and never crossed a picket line in our lives or forgot where our medical and pension benefits came from. We’ll take a tag team wrestling cage fight, MMA match, or just a plain old bar fight at a San Francisco working man’s bar like Harrington’s used to be with these two sissies any day of the week with one arm tied behind our backs to even out for Trump’s bone spurs. Even let the Secretary of Education referee it.
  
  - Bruce McEwen June 6, 2025
    
    Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton dead on the field of honor for a comment from Hamilton —very similarly to Musk’s Cho-mo accusation, that Trump is in the Epstein tapes. And after the way all these MAGA males set out to make American manhood macho again… well well well, so much for manly posturing, and I’d like to see a ring set up in your Harringtons for these two wannabe American Gladiators ha ha ha ha ha.
    
Julie Beardsley June 6, 2025

This fight is the gayest thing ever for Pride Month.

12 Comments

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