Mendocino County Today: Monday 7/7/2025

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WARM temperatures expected again today in the interior, before some relief midweek. There is a slight chance for interior thunderstorms Monday. Hot weather with temperatures over 100 degrees possible Thursday into the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 50F this Monday morning on the coast. I expect mostly cloudy the next few days then more clear skies later in the week as temps warm up. So there.

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AFTER THE PARADE, MENDOCINO, JULY 4TH

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PERSPECTIVES ON MENDO’S 4TH OF JULY PARADE (Coast Chatline)

Daney Dawson

July 4th is one of the days in the year where Middle America comes to Mendocino. Judging from the response to Indivisible’s entry, with it’s pro-democracy, pro-constitution message, Middle America supports those ideals and rejects the destruction of our institutions by the current administration.

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Tom Tetzlaff

That”s really not how a lot of the people viewing it saw it. Daney, while you were in the parade, I was watching it. The hate and anger brought by “activists” turned the character of the day from something fun into something a little too dark and far too political for many of the people there.

The truck that had “86 47” on it was a bit over the top don”t ya think? Are you OK with that? I am surprised and saddened that the parade organizers allowed that to occur. Calling for an assassination does nothing to add to a fun and creative atmosphere that this parade was once known for. I can only imagine some little kid asking their parents what that really meant. I mean that bit certainly fits the definition of “hate speech” right?

I saw plenty of hostility for America in the form of upside down flags and people waving their hate filled signs. Sure, that is ones right in this free country, yet that only adds more to the tone of negativity for what is supposed to be a fun day that we can all celebrate together. Then there were all the flags being waved from other countries. Huh? That is a new one that I have never seen during a 4th of July parade.

There were more responses to judge Daney that you might have missed. Did you notice all of the people that were not cheering at all for your group and the others spewing rage? Yeah, there were a LOT of them. I stood at a random spot where about halfway through the parade the lady in front of me got up and said she couldn”t take anymore and left. Her hubby followed her shortly after that.

This year’s parade was ruined by “activists” who brought an abundance of negativity, hate and anger into what should have been a fun day of unity to celebrate the reason for the holiday in the first place. We got “activist” fatigue instead.

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John Johnson

I totally agree. Parades on the 4th of July are to celebrate the birth of our nation. Clearly it’s not to call for the assassination of our president. Hopefully someone sent a video or pictures to the secret service or the white house. Totally shameful and I’m thinking it may even be criminal.

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Daney Dawson

Furthermore, there would be no America if not for the rebels and revolutionaries that threw off the crown to form a republic. This was accomplished through a bloody, armed struggle that lasted years and killed who knows how many thousands of people. Nor will that republic stand if we go to sleep and let a new authoritarianism overtake us while we dream of past glory.

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Chris Hart

You have a person who has had 2 assassination attempts against him. A former FBI director started this by saying to 86 him, and while we don’t know what was in his mind he clearly knows how the term can be interpreted. If the anti-Trump people just let it go after that, the 86 term issue might be gone by now. But no, even though half of the nation is saying the 86 term is offensive because it calls for murder, those who dislike the president continue to use the term because it gets a rise out of the right. And when you’re pressed on the issue, you talk about bloody, armed struggles. It is like you’re saying of course we don’t mean violence while winking at the audience.

Either own up to using the term that many consider calling for murder, or stop. But playing it coy like 86 is simply a term used by wait staff is offensive, especially when a good chunk of the nation expresses they interpret it as the murder of our president. I don’t care if you are left, right, or in the middle, calls for violence against public officials is just plain wrong.

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LAWSUITS CHALLENGE COUNTY’S APPROVAL TO REMOVE MENDOCINO’S BELOVED MAIN STREET WATER TOWER

by Mandela Linder

The controversy over a 1904 water tower slated for demolition on Mendocino’s Main Street has sparked two lawsuits against Mendocino County and the county’s Board of Supervisors. 

The lawsuits allege violations of California’s environmental law after the board voted to allow removal, overruling the Mendocino Historical Review Board. The tower’s owners say it is structurally damaged beyond repair, but locals and historical board members argue it is a landmark that should be preserved.

The town of Mendocino is a federally recognized historic district and has been since 1971, according to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. 

On May 20, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors voted 4-to-1 in favor of the owner’s appeal, which sought to remove the water tower. Only 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams, who represents Mendocino, voted against the appeal. The vote overturned three previous decisions by the Mendocino Historical Review Board. 

At the meeting, which drew debate from community members on both sides of the issue, county planner Liam Crowley said that the tower does not meet the criteria for a historic structure.

“We don’t consider this structure to be historically, architecturally or culturally significant because it’s not listed in the Inventory of Historic Structures within the Mendocino Town Plan,” Crowley said.

The tower, which houses the staircase leading to Flow restaurant, was moved to its current location in 1976 from Mendosa’s market on Lansing Street, according to the Kelley House Museum. According to the museum, the tower was structurally unsafe at that time it was moved, and locals Barry Cusick, Jim Coupe, and Gus Costa salvaged and rebuilt the tower adjacent to what was then a deli owned by Coupe and is now Flow Restaurant and Lounge. 

According to the Kelley House, Coupe, who died several years ago, said that three men were working together to maintain the historical integrity of the tower. 

Coupe’s daughter, Cynthia Coupe, said her father loved Mendocino and after moving there in the early ‘70s became deeply involved in the community. She said in addition to saving the tower, he started the annual Mendocino Fourth of July Parade and helped found the Mendocino Land Trust. 

“It feels like such a piece of Mendocino history,” she said of the tower. “Every time I walk by there, I think of my childhood and my dad.” 

Coupe also said that even though she would be sad to see the tower go, she understands that the tower’s historical significance needs to come second to public safety.

The two lawsuits both separately allege that the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors violated the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, by not conducting an environmental review prior to approving the appeal to remove the water tower.

CEQA requires public agencies to evaluate the environmental consequences of their discretionary actions before approving projects, according to the Governor’s Office. 

The first suit, filed by local realtor Scott Roat on June 16, also alleges that the county “violated its own land use and procedural laws.” 

In his petition, Roat, representing himself, argued that the board relied on flawed evidence, including an engineering report that lacked structural analysis and failed to consider restoration. He also stated that the tower’s absence from the town’s historic inventory was meaningless because the list was labeled preliminary and incomplete.

“I have no ego involved in it, I just want to preserve the character of our charming Mendocino,” he said. 

The second lawsuit, filed ten days later on June 26 by the Mendocino Preservation Fund and Citizens to Save the Water Tower, alleges the Board of Supervisors violated CEQA and emphasizes that CEQA protects historic buildings as part of the environment.

“CEQA protects the historic ‘built’ environment to the same extent as the state’s natural resources, such as air, water and forests,” it states.

On Monday, less than two weeks after the first suit was filed and just days after the second, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new state budget that includes “sweeping CEQA exemptions.” While the changes are primarily aimed at accelerating affordable housing projects, it remains unclear whether they will have any impact on the two pending lawsuits.

Deirdre Lamb, also a local real estate agent and a member of the Mendocino Preservation Fund and the Historical Review Board, echoed Roat’s frustrations about the Board of Supervisors’ decision.

Like Roat, Lamb emphasized that the absence of the tower from the town’s inventory of historic buildings isn’t because the tower lacks historical significance, but because the volunteer who was cataloging structures didn’t have time to finish the list. 

“Mendocino has a skyline,” Lamb said. “There’s the skyline of New York and it has the Empire State Building, the skyline of San Francisco with the tower, our skyline is water towers.” 

Jennifer Raymond, who lives in Ferndale and co-owns the property with her brothers, said it “never crossed their minds” that they would be asking to take the iconic tower down. After inheriting the property, she hoped to repair the tower, which she said had been maintained for decades. 

But after walking through it with the property’s maintenance person, and later consulting two contractors and a structural engineer, she said it became clear the tower was a public safety hazard.

“When the engineer took a screwdriver and jammed it at the bottom of one of the main supports, it went all the way into the wood up to the handle,” said Raymond, who initially said she was shocked about the tower’s condition. “It was very convincing.”

She said both contractors told her they wouldn’t work on it, with one even going so far as to tell her he’d lose his license if he did. 

Raymond said they tried twice to get approval from the Historical Review Board for alternative designs, but were denied both times. After that, they listed the property for sale, but buyers were scared off by the tower’s condition. That’s when they decided to apply for removal.

She said she understands why people are upset, and that she was “devastated” when she found out about the tower’s condition. After listing it for sale she said she contacted MendoParks, which operates the Ford House, a museum and visitor center that’s across the street, about relocating the tower to that property and thus keeping it as part of the skyline.  But she said red tape ultimately killed that hope.

“We live in fear of a huge earthquake or something, even bad wind and rain, and a big part of it coming down and someone being hurt or killed,” Raymond said. 

In a press release, the attorney for the plaintiffs of the second suit addressed the owner’s assertion that the tower is unsafe, questioning why Flow Restaurant is still open if this is the case.

“The property owner raised issues regarding its structural integrity, although the County has not issued any kind of warning to the owner, nor has the owner limited the hundreds of customers who use the stairwell to access the restaurant upstairs,” the release reads. 

Another concern raised by Roat is the potential precedent of the Board of Supervisors overruling the Historical Review Board, especially since Williams voted to deny the appeal. 

In a Facebook post about a week before filing suit, Roat called out this issue. “This isn’t just about losing a structure. It’s about whether the Mendocino Historical Review Board — and the community it represents — has any real authority in shaping the future of this iconic village.” 

Along the same lines, Williams said he’s concerned about the impact it may have on his ability to find people to serve on the Historical Review Board, or MHRB. “It’s hard for me to find people willing to serve on MHRB,” he said. “It’ll be even harder if they know when they reach a decision that it’ll be overturned in Ukiah.” 

As for the tower itself, Williams highlighted the importance of the historic district for the local economy, noting a point that many involved voiced – that the historic nature of Mendocino is why tourists visit and spend money there. 

“I don’t know if the town were to open up and allow anything and you had Starbucks, McDonald’s, would it be the same visitor economy? Would you have people coming and spending money the way they do today? I think it would be diminished,” he said.

(mendovoice.com)

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EXPERT ADVICE RE: EXPERTS

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

You can take the loftiest and most confident predictions made by experts over the past few years, crumple them up, stuff them in a thimble, toss them into Lake Mendocino and not lose a square ounce of information.

Experts become expert by pontificating on a TV news network or by publishing a study purporting to be a breakthrough in one thing or another, or a government official explaining that inflation over the past year was at one-point-four-percent, but you just rented some eggs for $17.

Anyone who puts a lot of faith in the opinions of experts must have recently stood up, dusted himself off, and walked away from the overturned turnip truck. Most experts wouldn’t know a turnip from a rutabaga, by the way.

Experts are the ones who tell us the Dow-Jones shot up 100 points because storms in Iowa will soon cause corn prices to escalate. Next week the same experts will tell us the Dow-Jones dropped 100 points because storms in Iowa will soon cause an oversupply of corn.

Here in California Governor Brylcreem confidently announced the state had a billion dollar surplus, based on a theory of A) Counting his chickens, B) Checking with his astrologer. California is swamped in debt.

Climate change experts? First they need to figure out what the answer should be, then cook the numbers (or adjust the hockey stick) to get get the right (wrong) conclusions.

No “environmental scientist” has ever made a prediction that came within a mile or a decade of coming true. No worries; the same experts will soon have some bright and shiny predictions next week. Our credulous, if not dishonest, media will peddle them and six New York Times columnists will provide somber opinions that buttress the theory.

Ukiah City officials are happy to explain how their annexation plans will provide this, that, or something else to enhance revenues, streamline services and reduce waste, fraud, abuse and common sense while avoiding duplicating costly innovations and proven improvements, with lots and lots of transparency at no extra cost.

These are the same wily officials who have used proven methods to infuse forward thinking with strategic analyses that has sunk the City of Ukiah into a debt hole of $216 million.

Probably the worst expert opinions come from universities, which is also where the greatest number of expert opinions originate. Major colleges and universities have long been trading on their reputations for providing reliable, honest research in pursuit of truth and scientific advancement. These goals and methods have been abandoned in favor of research undertaken to arrive at a desired goal.

This deviation from historic scientific methodology results in fabulous new reports of miraculous discoveries that no other researcher(s) are able to duplicate.

Why not? Because the results are bogus, designed in advance to produce a desired outcome. Perverted science, at best.

Last week I was served an obvious platter of nonsense asking “Does AI Makes Us Stupid?” with a followup answer in the affirmative. The authors of the study, from MIT, know this is true because they tested a few people by seeing if they could best remember contents from their own written essays, or remember essays created by Artificial Intelligence.

And, armed with the desired results, I guess we know that AI today and in the future will make us stoopit. The New York Times swallowed the bait and ran a breathless story.

To recap: A few researchers dream up a dubious tool to measure results of a monumental new technology (Artificial Intelligence) via a clumsy test, the results of which prove the collective world IQ will decrease.

They’re gonna need another turnip truck over at MIT.

Want to know the experts I trust?

1) I absolutely trust Steve Mendoza at Steve’s Service Center to fix my car every time for every problem, guaranteed. I’ve never known an auto mechanic that wasn’t smarter than a lecture hall full of professors, and Steve’s the best of anyone who ever looked under the hood of any car of mine

2) I trust Jeff Trouette to take care of whatever plumbing issue I’m able to create. If you are an intellectual, meaning you A) Read the NYTimes, B) Read the New Yorker and C) Subscribe to KZYX you might think plumbers have IQs in the Dull-Normal range. But Jeff is a nationally known photographer, a baseball coach at Mendo College and has one of the most savvy minds I’ve encountered.

3) I’ll take advice from Dr. Robert Ruston before I’ll take advice from the New England Journal of Medicine or Dr. Fauci. I’ve been listening to Dr. Rushton for 40 years and he hasn’t missed a call yet.

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KATHY DAWN

My grandma was a photographer for the Press Democrat newspaper in Fort Bragg, CA in the 50’s and early 60’s. When she passed away, my aunt gave me one of her cameras, starting my journey into photography. My mom and I recently came across a stack of 4x5 large format negatives of some of my grandmother’s images that had been tucked away in a safe place years ago. I did a quick study on scanning and editing negatives with a DSLR and brought this one back to life yesterday.

This is Noyo harbor in Fort Bragg/Mendocino, looking downstream towards the Noyo bridge and the ocean, sometime in the late 50’s/early 60’s I think. They dug a larger mooring basin and moved all the boats upstream out of the river channel at some point, which is still in use today. My dad would grow up and become a fisherman, working on a few boats that are probably in this photo.

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THE MENDOCINO HOSPITAL COMPANY

by Carol Dominy

The Mendocino Hospital Company, founded in 1887 by Dr. William A. McCornack, marked a major milestone in healthcare for Mendocino and the surrounding coastal region. It was a cooperative enterprise aimed at providing reliable, affordable medical care for working men, particularly those laboring in the woods and mills, where injuries were common and often financially devastating. For just $2 to join and $1 per month, members received full hospital care, including treatment, medicine, board, and nursing during times of illness or injury. This model was not only innovative for its time but also deeply rooted in principles of community welfare and mutual aid.

The hospital initially operated from a rented residence at the southeast corner of Ukiah and Howard Streets (today’s Blue Door Inn). Originally built in 1883 for hotelier W.T. Wilson, the elegant home was described as one of the most desirable buildings in town, featuring large double parlors, multiple bathrooms, and ample space. The choice of such a well-appointed facility underscored the founders’ commitment to treating patients with dignity and comfort.

Dr. McCornack, a skilled and respected physician who had arrived on the Mendocino Coast in the 1870s, was joined in leadership by Charles C. Johnson as treasurer and Charles P. Thomas as manager. The company quickly gained traction; just three months after opening, the hospital boasted 700 members and had treated numerous patients. Testimonials from the time praised the institution’s effectiveness, particularly highlighting how it spared injured workers from financial ruin.

In 1895, McCornack partnered with pharmacist Herman Baum to purchase a larger building on Main Street (demolished in 1941) across from the Ford House. They moved the hospital there and expanded operations to include a drug store. The new venture, named the Mendocino Hospital & Drug Company, aimed to consolidate medical and pharmaceutical services under one roof.

Just two years later, the hospital relocated again, this time to Fort Bragg, where McCornack continued his practice until retiring in 1906. Though the Mendocino hospital closed, its decade-long run had introduced organized, cooperative healthcare to the region and created a safety net for those most vulnerable to workplace injury.

(kelleyhousemuseum.org)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, July 6, 2025

RICHARD BASSLER, 37, Fort Bragg. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

JACOB PARMELY, 39, Ukiah. Attempt to obtain obscene matter of minor, parole violation.

CASANDRA GUERRA, 34, Ukiah. Controlled substance, probation revocation.

BRYAN KANN, 54, Fort Bragg. DUI-any drug, narcotics for sale, controlled substance, false compartment.

ANGELA SCARBERRY, 46, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, registration tampering.

MARK STABLE, 36, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Grand theft.

JAIME VELASCO-RAMIREZ, 31, Ukiah. Domestic battery, false imprisonment, failure to appear.

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STATE NEEDS TO CREATIVELY BOLSTER FIREFIGHTER RANKS

Editor,

According to news reports, California faces a significant reduction in the number of firefighters this season. That does not bode well.

Over 50 years ago while on a backpacking trip to Canada I was faced with the closure of all hiking trails due to numerous lightning-caused forest fires. The alternatives were to sit out the backpacking adventure or go and fight the forest fire. Yes, the Canadian government had sign-ups for any able-bodied soul to fight the fires. I simply signed on. The next thing I knew, I was being helicoptered to hot spots on a huge mountain face.

The Canadian fire service was prepared to write me a check on the spot. Officials were careful not to put their new contractors near the most dangerous parts of the fire.

It seems we could do the same by getting Gov. Gavin Newsom to cut through the red tape and allow young capable bodies to assist in low-danger “pop up” operations. This is not to take away from the skills of our existing force of firefighters, however, clearing a fire break with a mattock digging tool is rather intuitive.

Certainly this would bolster the forces that will be required this significant fire season that we face. By the way, after five days of some pretty rough work, I headed back to the Bay Area with a little extra pocket change and an adventure that I never forgot.

Howard Ortman

Sleepy Hollow

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AMERICAN HISTORY 101

On the path to my eleven-o’clock,

crossing the Inner Quad,

1963 or 4,

.

there you were,

grinning patrician,

Kathy Brown,

“the Governor’s daughter”

.

1978 your newsprint image

absorbs my careless spillings,

linseed oil & kerosene. I rub

loppers, spade stocks,

sledge & rake handles — & you,

a still smiling hull,

.

Kathy Brown-Rice,

“the Governor’s sister”

— Don Shanley

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GIANTS TAKE SERIES from A’s as Willy Adames continues hitting surge

by Susan Slusser

WEST SACRAMENTO — A long, mostly mediocre road trip ending with two wins over the A’s was nice and needed for the San Francisco Giants. More important still: Willy Adames legitimately looks back to himself, the all-around shortstop Buster Posey signed to a $182 million deal this offseason.

Adames homered and drove in three runs Sunday in the Giants’ 6-2 victory at Sutter Health Park, and he was the driving force in the team’s win the previous night, too. With Matt Chapman back in the lineup and Rafael Devers joining the team last month, if San Francisco gets some consistent productions from Adames, who has a knack for the RBI, the disappointing offense might look a lot different in the second half.

Adames is batting .318 with six homers and 19 RBIs over his past 25 games. In the past five, he’s 8-for-15 with a homer, eight RBIs and three walks.

Through the first 60 games, he was hitting .193 with five homers and 26 RBIs.

“I feel like you have to have a good week or two weeks and then it comes, and I didn’t have that from the start until June, mid-June,” Adames said. “That’s how it goes sometimes. Unfortunately, it took too long this year, you know? Fans were worrying. Everybody was worrying. I was worrying. My parents were worrying.

“I was like, ‘Chill out, chill out. It’s a long season. You’re good.’ But we were winning. I felt it more when we were losing. When I’m not doing good and we’re losing — you can’t have that.”

With Adames catching fire, the Giants took two of three games against the A’s, their first series win since June 20-22 against Boston. Despite losing eight of 13, San Francisco is tied with San Diego for the third wild-card spot.

“I think it’s a great sign,” Adames said. “Obviously now we kind of have the whole team almost healthy, and then guys can keep building from this.”

One who might is Tyler Fitzgerald, who, like Adames, has struggled much of the first half and who might cede playing time, or even a roster spot, to Casey Schmitt when Schmitt comes off the IL on Monday. Sunday, though, Fitzgerald hit his first homer since April 17, ending a 142-at-bat streak without one — 155 if you include his brief stint with Triple-A Sacramento last month.

“Man, I felt like it was never going to come,” he said.

Even then, it wasn’t easy — it ticked off Tyler Soderstrom’s glove in left before going over the fence. “I thought I got nothing at first, and then I saw him jump up there,” Fitzgerald said.

“We know he’s got that kind of power,” manager Bob Melvin said of Fitzgerald’s 15 homers in 96 games last season. “He was given a great opportunity this year based on what he accomplished last year, and a lot of it had to do with how he swung the bat. He’s just had a tough time kind of finding his way consistently. A swing like that hopefully does a lot for his confidence, because up until that point, he was having a difficult time.”

Giants starter Hayden Birdsong threw nearly as many balls as strikes yet eked out five innings and gave up only one run.

“Birdie was a little off with his command, he finished kind of 50-50 ball-strikes, but found a way to get outs when he needed to,” Melvin said, “and I think that’s progress from what he’s been dealing with here recently.”

When Birdsong issued two four-pitch walks in the first, it looked as if he might not have a long night. But he struck out Shea Langeliers to end that inning, then struck out all three men he faced in the second. The third inning was another trial, as he walked two and had to face Langeliers with two outs and the bases loaded and got him to fly out to left.

The only run he allowed came on Tyler Soderstrom’s homer leading off the fourth, and he struck out six. “I don’t know how I did it,” he said. “I battled a little bit. I’m happy I got through five.”

Birdsong walked five in all and only 46 of his 90 pitches were strikes. Over his past three starts, he’s walked 13 but allowed only 10 hits. He’s been a little homer-vulnerable; Soderstrom’s was the sixth he’s given up in his past five outings.

A’s starter Jacob Lopez struck out seven in a row in the early innings — he’s the first A’s starter to do so in the expansion era, since 1961, according to Elias Sports — with both starters possibly getting some help with the sun glaring off the batter’s eye in center. The Giants did get one run in the first via Adames’ bases-loaded walk. Lopez got ahead of Adames his next time up, leading off the fourth, and Adames blasted a slider over the wall in center.

No. 9 hitter Andrew Knizner, the Giants’ backup catcher, opened up the team’s big inning against Lopez with a base hit, and with one out Rafael Devers reached on a dribbler toward first, and Wilmer Flores followed with a soft single to right to load the bases; none of them registered over 72 mph. With two outs, Adames did his force-in-a-run walk thing again, and Luis Matos provided the only hard hit of the inning, lashing a two-run double at 102.2 mph.

Camilo Doval made things uncomfortable for the Giants in the ninth, loading the bases with one out and allowing a run before getting Jacob Wilson to ground out to end it.

(sfchronicle.com)

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WITH 6,000-FOOT TUNNEL AND $2.1 BILLION, CALIFORNIA SET TO SAVE REMOTE REGION

A 6,000-foot tunnel could give Crescent City the ‘safe and reliable’ infrastructure it needs

by Matt LaFever

A long-awaited fix is finally taking shape for one of the most hazardous and landslide-prone stretches of California’s Highway 101: a massive tunnel project that would become the longest in the state’s history.

The trouble spot lies deep in the so-called Redwood Curtain — the remote, forested region of California’s far North Coast, where Highway 101 clings to steep cliffs above the Pacific. It’s a rugged, isolated stretch of road, more than five hours north of San Francisco and nearly as far from Portland. When it fails, entire communities like Crescent City and the hamlet of Klamath are cut off.

This 3-mile stretch of highway sits on a tangled web of overlapping landslides, Caltrans spokesperson Myles Cochrane told SFGATE in an email. Caltrans faces a daunting task, Cochrane explained: keeping the road open and safe while also working toward a permanent fix. That has meant years of slope monitoring, field studies and emergency repairs — all while planning a massive tunnel to bypass the unstable zone entirely.

The California Transportation Commission recently allocated $40 million to support what Cochrane described as “part of the design phase of the Last Chance Grade Project along U.S. Highway 101 south of Crescent City in Del Norte County.” The funding will go toward designing a 6,000-foot tunnel that would avoid the notoriously unstable cliffs at Last Chance Grade — a section so prone to landslides it’s become infamous among travelers and engineers alike.

Currently, California’s longest highway tunnel is the Wawona Tunnel in Yosemite — a 4,233-foot passage blasted through granite in 1933. It’s still a vital route into the valley and delivers one of the park’s most iconic views just beyond its eastern end.

According to the Environmental Impact Report, the proposed tunnel would “avoid the most intense area of known landslides and geologic instability, thereby avoiding the portion of U.S. 101 most prone to closure” by replacing it altogether.

The stakes are especially high in this remote corner of the state. The Environmental Impact Report notes that “U.S. 101 is the only north/south state highway in the county, and the only viable route between Klamath and Crescent City; a closure of the highway between the two communities would result in a 449-mile detour.”

Cindy Vosburg, director of the Crescent City Chamber of Commerce, told SFGATE in an email that a landslide in February 2021 closed the road for months, “forcing the Klamath community, including schoolchildren, to take an eight-hour detour.”

That slide was major. Cochrane said roughly 40,000 cubic yards of rock and debris crashed down onto the highway on Feb. 15, 2021, following a major storm. The road was fully closed for a time, and lane restrictions dragged on for months as crews cleared debris and stabilized the slope, with repairs stretching into late August.

Landslides at Last Chance Grade typically occur one to three times per decade, Cochrane said, but they’ve been happening more often in recent years. The 2021 closure was just the latest in a string of costly emergencies. According to Cochrane, between 2015 and 2018, Caltrans spent $49 million on storm damage repairs — replacing three damaged retaining walls, building three more and restoring a southbound lane lost in 2017.

Cochrane said that despite these efforts, the hillside hasn’t stopped moving. In October 2023, crews completed yet another series of retaining walls, finally restoring two-way traffic for the first time in nearly a decade. The following winter, Caltrans remained on high alert, clearing debris from several smaller slides and patching pavement along the narrow, weather-beaten corridor between Wilson Creek and the northern end of Last Chance Grade.

For those who live and work here, the impacts go far beyond roadwork.

“Such closures not only cut off tourists who are essential to our local economy and the survival of many businesses,” Vosburg said, “but they also prevent community members from reaching critical doctor appointments or grocery stores.”

Cochrane called the recent $40 million allocation “a significant milestone toward securing a lasting solution to one of the state’s most geologically vulnerable stretches of highway.” He said it marks the first year of funding for the project’s next stage — the Plans, Specifications, and Estimates phase — which involves detailed engineering and design. That phase is expected to cost $225 million in total, with the remaining $185 million anticipated in 2026. In total, the project is expected to cost $2.1 billion.

Vosburg believes the region’s future depends on it. She wrote that the project “is a vital undertaking that will significantly impact the future of businesses and the community in Del Norte County.”

“Without a lasting solution to the constant landslides on Highway 101, we face an uncertain future regarding the accessibility of this main road into Crescent City and onward to Oregon,” she added.

Cochrane told SFGATE that Caltrans is exploring “options to accelerate the timeline,” but as it stands, “construction could begin as early as 2030, with the tunnel projected to open in 2038.”

Valerie Stuckey, a Del Norte County supervisor, told SFGATE via email, “Last Chance Grade has been a long standing concern for the residents of Del Norte County. We are very isolated, with only three real routes out of the region, and HWY 101 is our only direct connection to the south.”

“When the road is closed, our Klamath neighbors cannot access services in Crescent City. Likewise, emergency services cannot reach Klamath when slides shut down LCG,” she wrote.”We look forward to a secure and safe passage into one of the most beautiful areas of California.”

(SFGate.com)

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EXACT AMOUNT YOU NEED to earn for a ‘minimum quality of life’ in America revealed… and the percentage who do

by Kelly Gaarino

A family-of-four needs to earn over $100,000 a year just to maintain a ‘minimal’ quality of life in the land of the American Dream - yet less than half US households can afford to reach that threshold.

A recent study by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity explored what it takes for Americans to maintain a ‘minimal quality of life’ (MQL) - defined as the ability to afford basic necessities like housing, food, healthcare and modest leisure activities.

But the results revealed that the bottom 60 percent of households across the country fall far short of the income needed to reach even the baseline.

Over the past two decades alone, the study found that the cost of living in the U.S. has nearly doubled - soaring by a staggering 99.5 percent.

A single working adult with no children needs nearly $45,000 a year just to cover basic living expenses - while a working couple with two children must shell out a staggering $120,302 annually just to meet essential needs.

‘The MQL reveals the harsh reality that the American dream, with its promises of well-being, social connection, and advancement, is out of reach for many,’ the study’s conclusion read.

‘Rising costs in essential areas like housing, healthcare, and education significantly outpace wage growth, leaving millions struggling to attain even a minimal quality of life.’

The sobering study, published in May, put the American Dream under a harsh spotlight - asking whether the reality of today’s economy still lives up to the promise of a fulfilling life for those who work hard.

To get to the truth, the institute zeroed in on what it calls a ‘minimal quality of life’ - a no-frills basket of must-have goods and services that cover everyday expenses, letting families live decently and build a better future.

The essentials factored in included raising a family, housing, transportation, healthcare, food, technology, clothing and basic leisure - the core building blocks of everyday life.

Leisure costs were defined as simple ‘free-time’ activities - including access to cable TV and streaming services, plus enough money for six movie tickets and two baseball game tickets annually.

‘MQL Index goes beyond traditional cost-of-living measures to provide a more comprehensive understanding of what it takes to secure a foothold on the bottom rung of the American dream ladder and have a real opportunity to climb it over time,’ the authors explained.

However, the study painted a grim, harsh reality: the American Dream is slipping away, already out of reach for more than half of the country’s lower-income households.

The culprit? Soaring costs across nearly every aspect of life over the past two decades.

Shockingly, more than half of Americans can’t even afford something as critical as a $2,000 medical emergency, the study revealed.

Since 2001, the costs of housing and healthcare needed to maintain even a baseline quality of life have skyrocketed - soaring by 130 percent and 178 percent respectively.

This crisis is clearly reflected in the growing number of young adults still living with their parents - with the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds in multigenerational households jumping from just 9 percent in 1971 to 25 percent by 2021.

The number of Americans delaying medical treatment hit a record high in 2022, with 38 percent admitting they put off care due to the cost - a troubling sign of just how unaffordable basic health needs have become, according to the study.

More than half of US adults - specifically 53 percent - have reportedly delayed major life goals due to financial hardships.

Lower-income workers often turn to convenient options like eating out - but even that has become a luxury.

Since 2001, the cost of dining out has skyrocketed by 134 percent, outpacing overall food price increases by a staggering 92 percent, the study revealed.

Grocery store prices have surged even more dramatically, jumping by 24.6 percent since 2019 - putting even basic meals further out of reach for many families.

Raising a family is yet another area hit hard by rising costs, making it increasingly difficult for even a small, traditional household to reach the minimal standard of living.

Daycare costs have skyrocketed by more than 130 percent since 2001, the study revealed.

Meanwhile, the price of year-round care for school-aged children has surged 106 percent over the past two decades - placing an even greater burden on working families.

Since 2001, the average amount needed to attend an in-state college has soared by 122 percent, while even the cost of a simple trip has jumped 35 percent just since 2019.

‘I get tired of the ‘Stop your Starbucks latte habit’ advice, because in reality it’s not people’s fault,’ financial planner Laura Lynch told CNBC in regards to the study.

‘The structures around us have created an expectation of a lifestyle that is increasingly becoming unreachable for folks,’ she added.

(DailyMail.com)

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NOT YET 40, MY BEARD IS ALREADY WHITE.

by Lew Welch

Not yet 40, my beard is already white.
Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red,
like a child who has cried too much.

What is more disagreeable
than last night's wine?

I'll shave.
I'll stick my head in the cold spring and
look around at the pebbles.
Maybe I can eat a can of peaches.

Then I can finish the rest of the wine,
write poems 'til I'm drunk again,
and when the afternoon breeze comes up

I'll sleep until I see the moon
and the dark trees
and the nibbling deer

and hear
the quarreling coons

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NOT EVERYBODY who writes poems knows what a poem is. Lew Welch knew. I’m glad I got to meet him before he disappeared. He’s often called a San Francisco poet or a California poet. He studied music in Stockton. He lived with his wife, Magda, in a house on a slope in Marin City, which is a Black city.

They had been expecting Earll and me; Magda had made enough sandwiches for about ten people, then went outside to work in her garden. She probably fed lots of kid poets who came to see her husband. Being still young, we naturally expected food and attention from adults, and did not recognize largesse when we received it. Lew Welch then was working at the docks as a longshoremen’s clerk, and now that I’m a worker and writer myself, I know better than to take up a man’s time on his day off.

He had cut his red hair for the summer. He had written about that: “In summer I usually cut it all off. / I do it myself, with scissors and a / little Jim Beam.” He looked exactly as he said in his poem:

Not yet 40, my beard is already white. Not yet awake, my eyes are puffy and red, like a child who has cried too much.

Only, I think, he had reached forty already; he had lines in his face, but though his eyes were red, they opened wide. He looked at you out of bright blue eyes, but at a part of you that isn’t your appearance or even your personality; he addressed that part of you that is like everybody. I would like to learn to look at people that way.

He went for his papers and books and got down to business. He read to us. He cried. He sang…

(from "Lew Welch: An Appreciation" by Maxine Hong Kingston)

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THE POET WHO WANTED TO BE EATEN BY VULTURES

by Matthew Wills

In an appreciation of Beat poet Lew Welch, Maxine Hong Kingston says, “Not everybody who writes poems knows what a poem is. Lew Welch knew.”

And yet Welch is probably best remembered for his curious burial request and mysterious disappearance. In “Song of the Turkey Buzzard,” arguably his best-known poem, Welch urged his friends to “place my meat” before the vultures in a sky burial. Sky burials, in which a person’s remains are placed on a mountaintop to be eaten by carrion birds, are a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, considered an act of compassion and kindness for the other creatures of earth, who, after all, need to eat, too. Similar traditions of recycling and/or purification have been performed by Zoroastrians, Australian Aboriginal peoples, and some Native American tribes.

Welch’s college roommate and close friend Gary Snyder referred to him as a worshipper of the Goddess Gaia and “the beauty of that ecstatic Mutual Offering called the Food Chain.” Welch didn’t want to be put in a box. He ends his song in all-caps: “NOT THE BRONZE CASKET BUT THE BRAZEN WING / SOARING FOREVER ABOVE THEE O PERFECT / O SWEETEST WATER O GLORIOUS // WHEELING // BIRD”

Born in 1926 in Arizona, Welch attended Reed College in the late 1940s. His roommates were Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen, both of whom also became well-known poets. They all turned each other on to the adventure of post-World War II American verse. Of course, poetry never made anybody much money, so Welch worked a variety of jobs. He was an advertising copywriter for Montgomery Ward, a cabbie, a longshoremen’s clerk, a commercial fisherman, and a teacher. (He also helped his longtime partner raise her son, Hugh, who as an adult musician chose the stage name Huey Lewis in Lewis Welch’s honor. Yes, that Huey Lewis.)

According to poetry scholar Rod Phillips, in between the gigs and the drinking and the breakdowns, Welch produced “a finely crafted and innovative body of work” in poetry. Phillips examines Welch’s “strategic withdrawal” into nature and his “discomfort with modern, urban America” during the go-go years of the post-war boom. Phillips quotes another take on Welch’s collected poetry (collected in a volume called Ring of Bone), “a group of poems that are among the purest and most precise of all the Beat creations.”

Welch got his fill of urban America working in New York and Chicago. Central Park’s cage of green depressed him. Welch wrote about nature: “It is all that goes on whether we look at it or not. All-that-goes-on-whether-we-look-at-it-or-not will always go on (though we almost never look at it) and we are in it, in this form, for a little while at least.” He didn’t see eye-to-eye with Carl Sandburg on Chicago: “The land’s too flat. Ugly sullen and big it / pounds men down past humbleness.” He went back west in the late 1950s, lost his job and marriage, and joined the San Francisco Beat scene. There he took interest in countercultural ideas like communal living, Buddhism, and ecology, a generation before the hippies.

Then one day in 1971, the hard-drinking Beat poet—an inspiration for one of Jack Kerouac’s characters in Big Sur—walked into the woods of Nevada County, northeast of San Francisco. He took a gun and left behind a suicide note. No body was ever found, which is why biographies end his dates with a question mark. This is also why his friends took to looking at vultures overhead to see if they recognized anything: “Is that you, Lew?”

(jstor.org)

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AS THE WORLD WARMS, EXTREME RAIN IS BECOMING EVEN MORE EXTREME

Even in places, like Central Texas, with a long history of floods, human-caused warming is creating the conditions for more frequent and severe deluges.

by Raymond Zhong

Colossal bursts of rain like the ones that caused the deadly flooding in Texas are becoming more frequent and intense around the globe as the burning of fossil fuels heats the planet, scientists say.

Warm air holds more moisture than cool air, and as temperatures rise, storms can produce bigger downpours. When met on the ground with outdated infrastructure or inadequate warning systems, the results can be catastrophic.

These were the ingredients for tragedy in Texas, a state that is well acquainted with weather extremes of all kinds: high heat and deep cold, deluges and droughts, tornadoes and hurricanes, hail and snow. Indeed, the Hill Country, the part of the state where the Guadalupe River swelled on Friday, is sometimes called “flash flood alley” for how at risk it is to seemingly out-of-nowhere surges of water.

Humid air blows into the area from two main sources, the Gulf of Mexico and the tropical Pacific Ocean. When this air collides with cool air drifting down across the Great Plains, severe storms can erupt. The hilly terrain and steep canyons quickly funnel the rain into river valleys, transforming lazy streams into roaring cascades.

In parts of Texas that were flooded on Friday, the quantities of rain that poured down in a six-hour stretch were so great that they had less than a tenth of 1 percent chance of falling there in any given year, according to data analyzed by Russ Schumacher, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University.

The Guadalupe River rose from three feet to 34 feet in about 90 minutes, according to data from a river gauge near the town of Comfort, Texas. The volume of water exploded from 95 cubic feet per second to 166,000 cubic feet per second.

And the warming climate is creating the conditions in Texas for more of these sharp, deadly deluges.

In the eastern part of the state, the number of days per year with at least two inches of rain or snow has increased by 20 percent since 1900, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the United States. Across Texas, the intensity of extreme rain could increase another 10 percent by 2036, according to a report last year by John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist.

To understand patterns of heavy rain at a more local level, communities and officials rely on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency has for decades published nationwide estimates of the probabilities of various precipitation events — that is, a certain number of inches falling in a particular location over a given amount of time, from five minutes to 24 hours to 60 days.

Engineers use NOAA’s estimates to design storm drains and culverts. City planners use them to guide development and regulations in flood-prone areas.

NOAA’s next updates to the estimates are scheduled to be released starting next year. For the first time, they are expected to include projections of how extreme precipitation will evolve as the climate changes, in order to help officials plan further ahead.

But in recent months, the Trump administration has cut staff at the agency and at the National Weather Service, which sits within NOAA. The administration has also dismissed the hundreds of experts who had been compiling the next edition of the National Climate Assessment, which was scheduled to come out in 2028. And it is proposing deep cuts to NOAA’s 2026 budget, including eliminating the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which conducts and coordinates climate research.

(NY Times)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Theoretically, people should be intelligent, critical consumers of information and able to separate the wheat from the chaff in the marketplace of ideas, but too often they are not. Case in point, they do not have the sophistication to sort out the medical data and latch onto faulty advice about vaccines. I agree that content moderation can be a slippery slope especially when imposed by the government. In the old fashioned media climate there were editors who required reporters to verify information before they would publish an article. On social media the opposite occurs. The more outrageous, conspiratorial, or emotional the information the more likely it is to generate ad revenue for the platform. It’s a cliche, but I believe we have freedom of speech but not freedom of reach. No one has the right to have their views amplified over other people’s views. Social media algorithms do not serve the public interest in freedom of information.

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Harrowing Tales Emerge in Texas as Rescuers Keep Up Search for Missing

As Floods Hit, Key Roles Were Vacant at Weather Service Offices in Texas

Social Security Email Says Policy Bill Eliminates Tax on Benefits. Does It?

Tax Cuts Now, Benefit Cuts Later: The Timeline in the Republican Megabill

U.S. Turns Eight Migrants Over to South Sudan, Ending Weeks of Legal Limbo

Trump Keeps Foreign Countries on Edge as Tariff Deadline Nears

With One War Over, Netanyahu Heads to Washington Amid Calls to End Another

Yes, Your TV Is Probably Spying on You. Your Fridge, Too. Here’s What They Know

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“BUT IF THOUGHT CORRUPTS LANGUAGE, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning’s post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he “felt impelled” to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: “[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany’s social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe.” You see, he “feels impelled” to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”

“(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.”

― George Orwell, ‘Politics and the English Language’

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“WHAT A LOUSY EARTH! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.”

— Joseph Heller, ‘Catch 22’

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IN TOO MUCH OF THE US, Israel's Gaza Genocide Has Been Made Invisible

With only rare exceptions, U.S. news media and members of Congress continue to dodge the reality of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, normalizing atrocities on a mass scale.

by Norman Solomon

Whatever the outcomes of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday and the latest scenario for a ceasefire in Gaza, a bilateral policy of genocide has united the Israeli and U.S. governments in a pact of literally breath-taking cruelty. That pact and its horrific consequences for Palestinian people either continue to shock Americans or gradually normalize indifference toward ongoing atrocities on a massive scale.

Recent news reporting that President Donald Trump has pushed for a ceasefire in Gaza is an echo of a familiar refrain about peace-seeking efforts from the Biden and Trump administrations. The spin remained in sync with the killing–not only with American bombs and bullets but also with Israel’s refusal to allow more than a pittance of food and other essentials into Gaza.

Last year began with a United Nations statement that “Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege.” The UN quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

In late February 2024, President Joe Biden talked to journalists about prospects for a “ceasefire” (which did not take place) while holding a vanilla ice cream cone. “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close, we’re close, we’re not done yet,” Biden said, before sauntering off. He spoke during a photo op at an ice cream parlor in Manhattan, while the UN was sounding an alarm that “very little humanitarian aid has entered besieged Gaza this month.”

During the 16 months since then, variants of facile verbiage from top U.S. government officials have repeated endlessly, while normalizing genocide with a steep race to the ethical bottom, so that—in Orwellian terms, much like “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength”—genocide is not genocide.

Refusal to acknowledge the complicity and impunity is most of all maintained by avoidance and silence. The process makes a terrible truth inadmissible rather than admittable.

All the doublethink and newspeak must detour around the reality that the U.S.-supported Israeli siege of Gaza is genocide, which the international Genocide Convention defines as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”—with such actions as “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Israel’s actions in Gaza clearly meet that definition, as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have unequivocally concluded with exhaustive reports.

But under the cloaks of the Israeli and American flags, the official stories insist that the unconscionable should be invisible.

Liberal Zionist groups in the United States are part of the process. Here’s what I wrote in an article for The Nation early this year after examining public statements by the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street:

Routinely, while calling for the release of the Israeli hostages, the organization also expressed concern about the deaths and suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. But none of J Street’s 132 news releases between October 7 and the start of the [temporary] ceasefire in late January 2025 called for an end to shipments of the U.S. bombs and weapons that were killing those civilians while enforcing Israel’s policy of using starvation as a weapon of war – a glaring omission for a group that declares itself to be ‘pro-peace.’ It was as if J Street thought that vague humanistic pleas could paper over these gaping cracks in its stance.

However, J Street felt comfortable taking a firm line on the question of whether Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Here, it aligned itself completely with the position of the U.S. and Israeli governments. In mid-January 2024, when oral arguments ended at the International Court of Justice in the case brought by South Africa that charged the Israeli government with violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza, a news release declared that ‘J Street rejects the allegation of genocide against the State of Israel.’ Four months later, on May 24, J Street responded quickly when the ICJ ordered Israel to ‘immediately halt its military offensive’ in Rafah. ‘J Street continues to reject the allegation of genocide in this case,’ a news release said.

Likewise, with rare exceptions, U.S. news media and members of Congress dodge the reality of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the events in Gaza and the evasions in the United States have been enormously instructive, shattering illusions along the way. Many Americans, especially young people, know much more about their country and its government than they did just two years ago.

What has come to light includes mass murder of certain other human beings as de facto policy and functional ideology.

(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.)

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RAMMELLZZEE, COME HOME!

by David Yearsley

We saw her hanging from lamp posts all over Paris—one of those women from a 19th-century Japanese woodcut, her hair pinned up in a two-tiered bun, her kimono adorned with prints of branches bearing buds and flowers. Instead of kneeling over a koto, she held her hands, fingers splayed, over a Minimoog synthesizer.

Gawking at the Meiji Mod Girl whenever we encountered her had its dangers. Paris is being reclaimed from the automobile. Bike paths proliferate. Insurgent cyclists, many whizzing by on electric bikes, wage a two-front war—against cars and against pedestrians.

The Moog playing courtesan had been concocted by the Musée de la Musique. The poster projected a message of global and transhistorical connection: Old meets New, East meets West, Plugged-in meets Unplugged.

The museum’s huge collection of instruments is housed in the Cité de la Musique, home to the Paris Philharmonie—one of those marquee concert halls that have sprung up in major European cities over the last couple of decades as a means of buffing the prestige of capitals and the egos of star architects. Most of these sleek, gleaming structures are expensive and over-designed, the mix of air handling, noise canceling, and acoustic engineering often providing proof that technological progress can serve as an end in itself. The building becomes the performance, the music often of secondary importance, heard better and enjoyed more richly in older venues or even spaces not purpose-built in pursuit of culture-cred.

The museum and concert hall are in the so-called Cité de la Musique in the 19th Arrondissement on the northwest periphery of central Paris.

We planned to walk the hour-and-some there, but we never made it. Our survey of its keyboard holdings will have to wait for another day, or, more likely, another trip.

At the Place de la Republique, we stood in the searing June heat for a long time, taking in the pro-Palestinian graffiti adorning the bronze lion and plinth on which stands the statute of France, personified since the Revolution as Marianne. She was undecorated with pain, at least for now. Bouldering up to her with a spray can in hand looked dangerous, though a siege ladder could do the trick. Marianne holds an olive branch in her right hand and extends it towards the godless heavens. This symbol of peace glinted indifferently above the Gaza outrage scrawled on the stone and bronze below.

From a patch of morning shade along the north side of the square, a group of drummers lofted their decibels of discontent towards the sun.

Temperatures were already in the high 80s. We turned back towards the river. Past the Centre Pompidou, we ducked into the Church of St. Gervais, a block from the Seine. Its organ, one of the oldest in Paris, was presided over by the famed Couperin family for nearly two centuries, their tenure even surviving the Revolution. At this magnificent relic of the ancien régime the organist was playing a transcription of a cross-Channel classic, Purcell’s “Cold Song,” as if to cool themselves and any visitors. But besides the person up on the organ bench gingerly navigating through Purcell’s frigid, shattering dissonances, we were alone in the church.

The tourists were elsewhere. The white façade of the renovated Notre Dame, where many of the Couperins also served as organists, gleamed at us from just across the Seine. From our side of the river we could take in the backside of the cathedral swarming with cranes and scaffolding, almost all of it artfully hidden from the throngs of tourists. When it comes to the sights that drive global tourism, appearances are everything: the background for the selfie-shot was ready for business.

We crossed over to the Île de la Cité on the Pont dArcole. We hadn’t made reservations for Notre Dame, but the massive queue snaking across the square in front appeared to be moving briskly. Reclaimed from the 2019 fire, Notre Dame is a must-see on every tourist’s check-list. They weren’t tarrying inside. Make the long circuit, but make it quickly: down the north aisle running alongside the nave and around the choir, then back up the south aisle and out and towards the next necessary destination.

We milled eastward in the cavernous space that shone like new, maybe even like it did the better part of a millennium ago. Suddenly, an amplified, omnidirectional voice began to hush the vast crowd in a rhythmic cadence: “sssshh — sssshh — ssshh … ssshh — ssshh.” It wasn’t God, though it could have been. An elderly priest in a white cassock had mounted the steps at the edge of the choir and was shushing the flock through a microphone on a stand.

Miraculously, the hubbub died down. Massed attention turned towards the outbreak of religion that somehow seemed unlikely even a church. The priest informed the visitors that a service was about to begin, then sang a Gregorian melody in his rich tenor. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of cellphones were simultaneously raised on arms extended overhead, like Marianna with her olive branch. The handful of parishioners attending the prayer service were outnumbered by the tourists by at least a hundred to one. After a couple of minutes the hubbub had inexorably returned to its previous level. Even rituals devoted to the eternal must deal with everyday realities. The service continued with prayer, song, and shushing—a modern liturgy in the age of mass tourism.

We left the cathedral and walked down the river to the Palais de Tokyo directly across from the Eiffel Tower. Built for the 1937 World’s Fair, the huge building’s stark colonnade and high windows rising from ground level look more Nuremberg-Nazi than French moderne.

The crowds were here too, but almost all of them in the finished wing that was hosting a blockbuster exhibition pairing two ever-marketable names: Matisse and Magritte.

The other wing has the look and feel of a vast warehouse-like space, its big-boxiness that of an Ikea market hall. First, we took in hundreds of Vivian Suter‘s simple, semi-abstract canvases hanging down like beach towels, unframed and unstretched. Down a flight of stairs four huge rooms presented the diverse works of—and influences on—the Vietnamese artist Thao Nguyen Phan: handheld sculptures, videos (on big and small screens) grappling with war and repression; and exquisite, neo-traditionalist paintings done on the pages of a French narrative of colonial Indochina.

A couple hours of this and I was exhausted. I lay down on the edge of a giant Ottoman the size of a large life raft. After a time, my eye wandered to a distant, unassuming doorway leading into the recesses of the basement. I read the black lettering above the portal: RAMMELLZEE: ALPHABETA SIGMA (SIDE A). I’d never heard of Rammellzee (1960-2010) and was out of museum gas, but somehow I rose from the cushion, drawn towards the unknown entrance as if by some strange, invisible force.

Once inside I was suddenly awake and aware as I hadn’t been all day, all day, all week ….

Why had I never heard of this outsized, irrepressible artistic phenomenon, this one-man Gesamtkunstwerker, this Queens-born dental-school dropout, theorist of the Afro-Gothic, the off-world, the intergalactic; this artistic animator of the subway car as surface and mobile messenger of aesthetic truth; this founding figure of Hip-Hop; this Gotham Graffiti Kandinksy of color and line, framed and stretched; this aesthetic evangelist for kids and the aged, his work uncontainable by rectangular boundaries, instead rattling, radiating beyond them in impossibly riotous motion. Past the wall plastered with the pages of Rammellzee’s IONIC TREATISE GOTHIC FUTURISM ASSASSIN KNOWLEDGES OF THE REMANIPULATED SQUARE POINTS ONE TO 720˚” TO 1440˚intermingled with MTA masterpieces, was an army of life-size figures in mind-blowing, body-morphing costumes that make the Black Panther movies look like a Victorian tea party.

Next were giant anti-capitalist sculptures of found objects, long glass cases of spectacular jewelry, and crazy-brilliant toys intended to teach the kids about art through play. Archival footage showed Rammellzee rapping while thumbing and fore-fingering a mini-keyboard; other video captured him working, unmasked, with tubs of toxic paint in the studio he called his Battlestation. The imagination and craft glowed around him like a magnetic field. From moving images of man in action, I turned towards the luminosity of his deep coffin-like paintings in resin., a substance he first learned to manipulate while in dental school, and presented at the Palais de Tokyo for the first time in non-toxic condition thanks to the work of health -and-safety minded Swiss curators.

More than two hours on, I came to the final room, the smallest of the show. The “Last Samurai” stood, rotating menacingly, yet mercifully on his low, circular plinth—an off-world warrior, the artist’s alter ego, landed on earth, but here for how long? Affixed to the wall a few feet away was the last piece in the exhibition—another sculpture rich in careful chaos. At its heart was a keyboard. That Japanese woman seen on posters all around the Paris should let her hair down, change her kimono for some Rammellzzee rig and have a go at this keyboard, this ventriloquist—or perhaps controller center—of the harmony of the spheres, silent for now but ready for some intrepid soul to intone a mind-blowing, eye-frying, ear-boggling hymn to a multi-dimensional future.

Rammellzee needs to land again in New York City! Bring this show home!

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)