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CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS is forecast for the interior of Northwest California through at least Friday, with additional chances through the weekend. Storms may produce strong and gusty outflow winds, heavy rain and hail. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 50F under clear skies (at 5am) this Thursday morning on the coast. I mention the time as the fog has returned offshore & our forecast for today has a lot of cloud cover in it. It could easily be foggy by sunrise. Off & on clouds & clearing until further notice, aka more of the same.
TSUNAMI ADVISORY CANCELED FOR BAY AREA; California cities see minimal damage
by Julie Johnson, Jordan Parker, Aiden Vaziri and Ko Lyn Cheang
The far-Northern California coastline saw its tsunami warning downgraded to an advisory Wednesday morning. Tsunami advisories remained in effect for part of the California coast, as well as for Hawaii and portions of Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The San Francisco Bay Area was no longer under an advisory as of 11 a.m. Wednesday.
The worst-hit part of California, Crescent City, saw waves max out at eight feet early Wednesday morning – 4 feet from the tsunami on top of a 4-foot high tide.
The tsunami reached Hawaii on Tuesday evening, following the 8.8 magnitude quake off the Russian Pacific coast, though damage was minimal.
After a 2011 tsunami, triggered by a 9.0 earthquake off Japan’s coast significantly damaged the harbor in Crescent City, officials embarked on a $50 million upgrade aimed at creating the first “tsunami-resistant port” on the West Coast.
It appears to have worked as planned.
City Manager Eric Wier said Wednesday’s tsunami carried a similar potential for damage as the surge in 2011: Back then, the tsunami peaked with 9 or 10 foot waves on top of a negative one-foot tide.
On Wednesday, the tsunami peaked at 4 feet during a high tide measured at about four feet. But whereas there was widespread damage in 2011, this time the problems were limited.
A dock that was damaged Wednesday was intended to absorb the shock in a sacrificial way, according to Harbormaster Mike Rademaker.
“Absorbing the brunt of the surge helped to protect the interior docks,” Rademaker said. “We’re still doing some further damage assessments.”
Crescent City, which recorded the highest tsunami waves on the West Coast, has reported no damage so far, according to city officials.
“It was a long night for all of us,” said City Manager Eric Wier. “We were fortunate this time. There was significant tsunami surges. We’re still dealing with those now, but it did stay within the banks of Elk Creek.”
Wier said the city observed a 4-foot tsunami surge on top of a 4-foot tide, leading to wave heights of around 8 feet.
The National Weather Service reported the surge alone as 4 feet, which does not include the tidal height.
Still, the combined water levels were not enough to cause flooding in the city center. “The city downtown is at a high enough elevation that it is open,” Wier said.
The threat of powerful waves continued Wednesday even though officials downgraded tsunami warnings to advisories along the Northern California coast. State and local Del Norte County officials urged people to stay away from the water and remain vigilant.
“This is not a one wave incident,” said well-known geology/meteorology expert Assembly Member Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, during a Wednesday morning briefing. A lifelong politician, Rogers obtained his technical expertise in the subject of tsunamis while earning his bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara followed by a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the famously rigorous program at Sonoma State. Prior to being elected Assemblymember, Rogers held highly challenging technical positions as an aide for former Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey’s office followed by a tough stint as “senior staffer” for State Senator Mike McGuire, another Democratic politician with demonstrated expertise in whatever he talks about.
— SF Chronicle (mostly)
FORT BRAGG FOOD BANK NOTICE:
The Fort Bragg Food Bank is not a dumping ground. Unfortunately, today we've been left with large quantities of unacceptable clothing donations that are dirty, musty, and old.
Even if we were accepting clothing, these items wouldn't be suitable. Now, we're facing disposal costs. Please respect our guidelines and do not leave donations we're not accepting. Let's work together to keep our community clean and support those who can truly benefit from your generosity.
PHILO MAN FACING 7 FELONY SEX CHARGES alleging sex with a underage girl
by Frank Hartzell
A 41-year-old Philo man facing seven felony sex charges involving a teenage girl appeared in Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile Court on Monday. The case was filed March 27. The filing alleges Ryan Clayton Davis either performed sex acts or tried to contact the girl for sex acts beginning May 1, 2023, and ending Oct 28, 2024. There is no allegation of force or threats in the filing.
Davis hired private attorney Robert Boyd, who appeared with him in court on Monday to ask for and get a continuance in the case.
The prosecution alleges that the victim was “particularly vulnerable” as defined by several state laws. This is listed as a possible factor in aggravation, which can figure into sentencing should the case be decided unfavorably for Davis.
Another possible aggravating factor alleged was that Davis allegedly took advantage of a “position of trust.” Protective orders were filed to keep the suspect away from the victim and a 43-year-old local woman. On April 15, he signed an agreement with the court to be released on his own recognizance (A promise to appear in court).
That OR agreement specified he would be charged with a felony if he didn’t meet the terms of the release agreement. Davis appeared wearing a suit, sitting through four hours of court before Boyd was able to win him a continuance on the setting of a preliminary hearing. A preliminary hearing is when the prosecution tries to prove to a judge that there are enough facts to substantiate the charges against him and order him to face trial, or a negotiated settlement. When asked, Boyd said he had a policy of not commenting on ongoing court cases.
(The following are excerpts from the court files and contain sexual content. We have committed some specific graphic references. The capitals come from the court file and are simply meant to make the actual legal charge stand out from the rest of the verbage.)…
LOCAL EVENTS (this week)
A MENDOCINO COUNTY JURY took less than an hour on Thursday to find 54-year-old Karl Douglas Gage guilty of felony assault with a deadly weapon for a violent knife attack that occurred earlier this year on the outskirts of Ukiah.
According to a press release from the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office, the verdict came at the conclusion of a three-day trial presided over by Judge Keith Faulder. Gage, who is reportedly from the Ukiah area, remains in custody at the Low Gap Jail Facility as the court prepares for a parole violation and sentencing hearing next month.
The charges stem from an incident on April 7, 2025, when Mendocino County Sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of an assault at a residence in the 600 block of Kunzler Ranch Road. According to the Sheriff’s Office, the 62-year-old victim told deputies that Gage entered his home around 3:30 a.m., and during an argument, used a knife to slash him across the face and arm.
Deputies said the victim sustained cuts to his lip and arm consistent with a sharp weapon and sought medical attention for the injuries. Gage fled the scene before law enforcement arrived but was later located and arrested. At the time, Gage was on parole through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which led to additional charges for parole violation.
Initially booked on multiple felonies — including mayhem, first-degree burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon — Gage ultimately faced trial only on the assault charge. Senior Deputy District Attorney Luke Oakley led the prosecution.
The case will return to Mendocino County Superior Court on August 15 for a bench trial to determine whether Gage has prior strike convictions and whether aggravating factors should influence his sentencing. The court will also rule on whether his actions violated parole.
Pending those findings, Gage’s case will be referred to the Mendocino County Adult Probation Department for a background study and sentencing recommendation.
AS WE PREVIOUSLY NOTED, there was no big report on vacancies and budget status in the July 29 Supervisors agenda packet as promised by Human Resources and the CEO in June. Instead, CEO Darcy Antle mentioned in passing in answer to a casual question from Supervisor Bernie Norvell that there had been no requests to fill vacancies in any general fund departments. That may be because the Department heads of the General Fund departments weren’t aware that they were supposed to ask. Earlier in the meeting, County Assessor-Clerk-Recorder Katrina Bartolomie casually told the Board that she had replaced one appraiser who had quit and one appraiser technician who had left. Bartolomie’s department is one of those General Fund departments. Yet she didn’t bother with the “Strategic Hiring Process” that the CEO and the Board put in place in June. It’s possible that the Assessor’s Office, being a “revenue generator” of sorts, is exempt from the Strategic Hiring Process, but wouldn’t that still be included in the report? With this kind of budget balancing “strategy,” we don’t see how the Board is going to meet their ridiculous $6 million savings target from the Strategic Hiring Process.
Appropo of nothing in particular and without context, Ms. Bartolomie also told the board that her office had somehow managed to review 4,914 parcels and had come up with a porch, a bunkhouse and some miscellaneus outbuildings that were not on the tax rolls. They also made 242 “discovery requests,” whatever those are (perhaps these are requests of a property owner to provide their own assessment of the “discovered” properties such as that porch), 71 of which were “still outstanding.” Bartolmie added that her office had “anticipated that there would have been more discovery requeats,” but that they had been slowed down because “we had to do extra work to make the system work.”
(Mark Scaramella)
TRAFFIC STOP LEADS TO LARGE-SCALE DRUG SEIZURE
At approximately 1:45 a.m. on July 26, 2025, a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy conducted a traffic stop on a transit-style van traveling along Highway 20 in Upper Lake.
The driver was identified as 31-year-old Alexander Abare of Arcata, California. Upon contact, the deputy observed signs consistent with recent marijuana use and noted a strong odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle. Abare stated he was returning to Arcata from the Sacramento area. During the interaction, he appeared visibly nervous. When questioned further, Abare admitted to having a bag of marijuana between the seats and a vape pen containing concentrated cannabis on the dashboard.
A search of the vehicle led to the discovery of approximately 400 pounds of psilocybin mushrooms, packaged in black plastic bags and large totes, each labeled with various strain names. Deputies also located more than $370,000 in cash, vacuum-sealed in multiple bundles.
Abare was arrested and booked on multiple charges, including felony transportation of a controlled substance for sale across county lines, possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of a switchblade, and possession of an open container of marijuana in a vehicle.
This investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Narcotics Taskforce Tipline at (707) 263-3663.
KMUD SHOW ON PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
On Thursday, July 31, at 9 am, Pacific Time (12 noon EST) our guest is Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics and director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Hashemi just wrote the piece “Why Did the U.S. Bomb Iran Now?” for The Guardian. He writes: “According to American and Israeli leaders, Iran was about to construct a nuclear weapon. No serious analyst of Iran’s nuclear program believes this to be true.”
Our second guest is Richard Silverstein, publisher of "Tikun Olam: Breaking News on the Israeli National Security State". We'll talk about recent developments in Gaza and Israel's continuing genocide against the Palestinian people.
KMUD
Our show, "Heroes and Patriots Radio", airs live on KMUD, on the first and fifth Thursdays of every month, at 9 AM, Pacific Time.
We simulcast our programming on two full power FM stations: KMUE 88.1 in Eureka and KLAI 90.3 in Laytonville. It also maintains a translator at 99.5 FM in Shelter Cove, California.
We also stream live from the web at https://kmud.org/
Speak with guests live and on-the-air at: KMUD Studio (707) 923-3911. Please call in.
We post our shows to our own website and Youtube channels. Shows may be distributed in other media outlets.
Wherever you live, KMUD is your community radio station. We are a true community of informed and progressive people. Please join us by becoming a member or underwriter.
— John Sakowicz
A BAHL TIDRICK WEEKEND of Music, Food, and Beer at Anderson Valley Brewing!
The Loglifters this Friday, August 1st
5pm at the Beer Garden
Fire up your Friday evening with the distinct Western Surf, Rock vibes of The Loglifters.
This Ukiah-based quartet merges folk storytelling with vibrant, driving alternative sounds inspired by California's coast and countryside. Expect infectious rhythms, heartfelt vocals, and that laid-back yet raucous energy that only a hometown favorite can bring and deliver under the Boonville sky!
BoontMex will be serving up their tasty bites from the truck!
Bring your friends, grab your preferred craft brew, and settle into the beer garden for an unforgettable opener to your weekend, right here at Anderson Valley Brewing Company. No cover, all ages welcome.
Boontstock August 2nd
Join us on Saturday, August 2nd from Noon to 8PM for Boontstock, a free, all-day celebration of live music, cold beer, good food, and community vibes under the summer sky. Four stellar bands will take the stage.
www.avbc.com
FRENCH TOAST BREAKFAST
Relax on the deck overlooking the Noyo River and enjoy a scrumptious French Toast breakfast at the Noyo Center Marine Field Station on Sunday, August 3 from 10-12.
Includes French Toast (vegan and gluten free available) with choice of meat or fruit side. Coffee or tea included in price. $25. Juice and extra side dishes available for purchase. Watch the boats go buy, the seals frolic, and know that you're helping to support Noyo Center's many education programs.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, July 30, 2025
LINDA ALMOND, 67, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, disobeying court order, probation revocation.
JAMES DODD, 64, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, failure to appear.
DARRELL ELROD JR., 56, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, under influence, paraphernalia.
CASEY FAAHS, 46, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
SCOTT FABER, 46, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
CHRISTOPHER FRANCE, 28, Willits. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, tear gas.
LEVONN FREEMAN, 37, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
SERJIO GONZALEZ, 49, Ukiah. Controlled substance, evidence tampering, parole violation.
BOBBY GRAY, 45, Ukiah. Unspecified offense.
STEVEN LAWS, 63, San Francisco/Ukiah. Domestic battery, elder abuse.
NOEL MORALES, 44, Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance, smuggling controlled substance into jail.
PRISCILLA RONCO, 40, Ukiah. Domestic battery, parole violation.
GAYE ROSSOTTI, 61, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.
MARGARET SCHWARZ, 59, Mendocino. Illegal camping in Fort Bragg, blocking traffic, unlawful storage of camping paraphernalia.
ANTHONY TOLBERT, 37, Ukiah. Parole violation.
COKE IN THE EIGHTIES
by Paul Modic
Remember when we did coke in the eighties (what, you still do it?) and just the process of chopping it up into lines to snort, often through nasty booger-coated hundred dollar bills, made you want to take a crap? Sometimes just thinking about coke had that effect, or after snorting it. Today, whenever I think about rolling a joint, or having just rolled one, it makes me want to take one.
I heard the coke in the eighties was cut with a laxative, Mannitol, so maybe that’s why it had that effect, but weed today? A couple days ago after my doctor’s suggestion, I started drinking just one cuppa coffee in the morning to see if that helps with sleep and insomnia. (He had mentioned some study which said that coffee even just in the morning could affect sleep quality and quantity.)
On the second day of this experiment I was getting ready for my every-other-day hike around the woods and meadows of our nearby community park, after herb tea, coffee, and breakfast, but still hadn’t taken my usual coffee-inspired morning shit. Damn, what to do, bring a folded wad of toilet paper in my back pocket just in case, like the old days, when running up and down the mountain growing weed? One cup wasn’t cutting it and I had an idea: I reached into my weed drawer, took out a bag of last year’s smoke, visualized rolling a joint for a couple seconds and that did it.
The coke years were obsessively weird, I did it sometimes but my downfall was then I was trying to sell some weed and Doug C. said, “Hey, I’ll trade you a quarter ounce of coke for a quarter pound of buds.” I remember taking that stash down to the ocean later that day where the drum cult was having a ceremony, the men drumming and the women all dressed in white making offerings to the sea while singing “Yay Ma Ya Ya Lotay.” I thought about throwing all that coke into the ocean but didn’t, though what happened later makes me think I probably should have.
My coke years in the eighties were fun but obsessive, whoever had the coke was “The King” and I don’t know about others but I liked to snort about ten lines in an hour or two. Then in the morning wake up feeling like shit, well there was a cure for that: snort another line.
(Some coke memories: During the earthquake which knocked down the Rio Dell bridge on Highway 101, I was playing poker and snorting coke with Bruce and Rod in the middle of the night. Another time I was at a party at Bruce’s and went out with a woman to her truck to snort some lines, after which she rode me in the passenger seat. The craziest moment was probably when a friend and I were driving through Texas, on the way to Mexico, and snorting it under the dome light in the middle of the night.)
It used to be you’d see cars stopped by the side of the road during those years and you knew they were chopping out lines or already snorting it up. (Later when the lottery was legalized the cars along the road were doing the scratch-offs, couldn’t wait to get home.) Yeah we had all this weed money and were like Hollywood, baby, hoovering that coke.
Looking back, I’m probably lucky to have survived that era with minimal damage (I hope). Later coke lost it’s rep as a fun drug to do openly and became more of a secret guilty pleasure. (I eventually got over it and around 2002 when Alan Z. offered me a line I declined, I’d heard too much about the harmful effects it could have on the heart.)
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Cats should remain indoors considering all of the birds and lizards outdoor cats kill. There are many ways to control the scratching that cats will do, so the excuse that cats ruin furniture is null. We use a waste wood product for litter and we strictly limit how much food our cats eat so they are not overweight. We adopted our most recent cats from a cat shelter.
MARIJUANA FARMS AND VIOLENT CRIME
Editor:
I have nothing against cannabis. I smoked it for years and feel it has not hurt me physical or mentally. I no longer smoke it since I no longer crave the pleasures it once gave me. There is a market for the product and profit to be made. Our federal government has it listed as an illegal item, and it is against the law to grow or possess. Many states have made it legal, but it is still against federal law.
Those who do grow want to grow it in your neighborhood. Why do they not want to grow it where they live? Unfortunately, there is a large criminal element that goes along with the product. A violent one. The permit board is asked to give permission to people to grow this illegal item. What if there is criminal activity and someone gets seriously hurt or killed? Are the people who gave permission to grow this federally banned item responsible for this criminal action? It would not have happened if they had denied the permit. I wonder if they would have approved it if the application was for a grow in their neighborhood.
Paul Benkover
Sebastopol
MESSAGE FROM THE DAO CENTER
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Awoke early at the homeless shelter for the Wednesday "deep cleaning", and therefore was first in at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Washington, D.C. this humid summer morning. Enjoyed a breakfast sandwich at Marianne's Kitchen on the first floor, and am now blissfully on a computer listening to Daoist chanting, with traditional Chinese music. Aside from not being attached to anything at all, you tell me: What Else Is There?
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
ED REPLY: 49er Football.
STATE WATER BOARD RELEASES CONTROVERSIAL BAY-DELTA WATER PLAN Update Amid Civil Rights Investigation
by Dan Bacher
The California State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) released its long-awaited proposed updates to the San Francisco Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan (“Bay-Delta Plan”), a critical policy governing water quality and ecosystem health for California’s largest and most imperiled estuary, according to a press release from Restore the Delta.
The updates and revisions include “voluntary agreements” (VAs), in which powerful water districts commit to provide limited additional river flows and funding in exchange for regulatory exemptions. This approach is drawing sharp criticism from Tribes, environmental justice organizations, and conservation advocates, who argue it represents a step backward for ecological protection and water rights.…
ADVOCATES FOR FISH IN THE FEATHER RIVER and surrounding waterways respond to State Water Board updates with deep alarm
by Dan Bacher
The State Water Resources Control Board has just released its controversial proposed updates to the Sacramento Delta portions of the Bay-Delta Plan. The proposal includes both the Big Ag-backed voluntary agreements on water, strongly opposed by tribes, environmental groups, fishing organizations and environmental justice organizations, and what is being described as a “regulatory pathway.” Opposition is particularly worried about how the board’s updates could effect highly threatened wild salmon populations in the Feather and Sacramento rivers, which also swim through the Delta.…
GIANTS LOSE EVERY GAME OF HOMESTAND, SWEPT BY PIRATES AS TRADE DEADLINE OVERSHADOWS SLUMP
by Shayna Rubin
As had become tradition for the pair, Ryan Walker and Tyler Rogers were sitting in the San Francisco Giants clubhouse as Wednesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates began. They’d walk out to the bullpen soon, but given the way their team had been playing of late and with the trade deadline looming, both had a sinking feeling their daily routine would be different.
Sure enough, a club official summoned Rogers to a nearby office with news: the 34-year-old who’d spent his entire career in San Francisco had been traded to the New York Mets.
“Everyone is pretty disappointed about it. No one wanted to see a guy like Ty go,” Walker said.
Word trickled out of the clubhouse and into the dugout, where the Giants were desperately trying to salvage one of the worst homestands imaginable while trying to prove to president of baseball operations Buster Posey they could turn back into a contender.
Those efforts fell short and reality hit hard; Pittsburgh completed a three-game series sweep, handing the Giants a 2-1, extra-inning loss, marking the second time in franchise history they’ve been swept across a homestand of at least six games. The first came in 1896 when they lost three to the Phillies and three to the Boston Beaneaters.
The Giants’ loss dropped them to below .500 for the first time this season, pushed them six back of a wild-card spot, and only piled on to the sting that came from seeing Posey trade away one of the team’s best veteran relievers. A sign of lost faith.
“It sucks,” Giants third baseman Matt Chapman said. “We lost the last six in a row and haven’t given Buster and the front office any reason to add. We did it to ourselves. It sucks. Obviously you can tell that everyone is pretty upset and it’s not how we saw this coming.”
San Francisco’s clubhouse has experienced its share of sadness, especially following the high of the Rafael Devers trade. Since June 13, two days before that deal, when they were tied for first in the National League West, they’ve gone 13-26, including 9-15 in July. The clubhouse was especially somber when they lost two of three to the lowly Chicago White Sox at the end of June and players gave each other a stern talking to after a sloppy loss to the Atlanta Braves last week. After Wednesday’s loss and the trade, as the team packed up for a trip to New York and Pittsburgh, a few players were consoling each other at their lockers.
The vibe was decidedly bad.
“You guys are in here right now. It’s pretty sh—y,” pitcher Logan Webb said. “Not playing good, plain and simple.”
Rogers and Webb are close friends, both having come up through the Giants’ farm system together. The news didn’t get to Webb — who started Wednesday’s game and was in his own zone — until he returned to the clubhouse after his 5⅔-inning stint was done. Fellow pitchers Justin Verlander and Robbie Ray looked at Webb funny once he walked through the door, and he knew it couldn’t have been about his performance. He’d bounced back from three straight iffy starts by allowing one run and striking out 11.
They told Webb that Rogers was headed to New York.
“It’s not the position you want to be in but I don’t blame Buster for doing something like that,” Webb said.“Ty is one of my best friends in baseball. We live right near each other in the offseason, been with him for a long time. Our entire big league careers we’ve been together.”
Compounding the frustration was the uncertainty. Rogers will be an offseason free agent, but the Giants nevertheless got a hefty return for him, including Jose Butto, who is expected to slide into the bullpen and contribute immediately. Walker and Camilo Doval are both under team control beyond this season, and fit the bill for players who might interest contenders if Posey continues his sell-off, as might veterans Mike Yastrzemski, Wilmer Flores and Verlander, all playing on expiring deals.
But the bigger picture is that the Rogers trade doesn’t take this team out of its goal to contend again.
“We’re still trying to win games here,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We have a pretty deep bullpen and got a bullpen arm back, too. So it doesn’t change in our expectations of ourselves. You also understand that we put the front office in a tough spot, too, and they have to look at the future and the now. And this is a combination of where we have some depth in the bullpen and got something back we really liked.”
Yastrzemski, who made one of the catches of the year, jumping full-bodied over the low fence into the netting that protects right field to catch Jack Suwinski’s foul ball, added his thoughts.
“It’s kind of a tough place where we haven’t played well enough to force them to add pieces,” Yastrzemski said. “As big as Ty was, it’s not like the whole team is dismantled. It’s not something I’m overconcerned with other than the emotional side of a friend and teammate going to another team.”
Why did the Giants lose this game? The offense, again, stalled at the plate. They scored once off right-handed starter Mike Burrows in the fourth inning, when Dom Smith singled to right to score Heliot Ramos.
The bullpen did fine without Rogers in a tie game. Doval, conceivably a reliever teams will inquire about before Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline, struck out Andrew McCutchen, Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz in the ninth to give the Giants an opportunity to walk off. With Randy Rodriguez unavailable — he didn’t feel great after pitching back-to-back games — Walker made the one mistake that cost them in the 10th inning. With the go-ahead run at third, Walker got a comebacker and tried to end the inning with a 1-4-3 double play that came short. He knew he should have looked to get the out at home.
“It was a mental mistake,” Walker said. “I take full responsibility for today.”
The Giants had runners at second and third with one out in the 10th inning, but Patrick Bailey and Ramos struck out to end the game.
(SF Chronicle)
WEDNESDAY’S EARTHQUAKE COULD BE ONE OF THE LARGEST ON RECORD
It is the most powerful quake since the 2011 earthquake off the coast of Japan that triggered a 50-foot tsunami and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
The colossal magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s coast early Wednesday is set to be one of the largest ever recorded if its magnitude is not revised down by scientists studying the data.
The quake is tied for the sixth-largest on record, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It is the most powerful since the 2011 earthquake off Japan’s east coast, that triggered the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster.
That quake, which had a magnitude of 9.1, was about 2.8 times stronger than Wednesday’s. It created a tsunami 50 feet tall that rushed inland for miles with the speed of a locomotive, swallowing everything in its path and flooding more than 200 miles of shoreline. More than 19,000 people were killed.
The earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s reactors, leading to one of worst nuclear calamities in history and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from town and farming villages around the plant. Some still have not returned.
Just as strong, was the temblor that struck near the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra in 2004. It triggered the deadliest tsunami in recorded history, with waves as tall as 160 feet slamming into the coasts of more than a dozen countries. About 230,000 people were killed, over half of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.
For each whole-number increase in magnitude, the seismic energy released by a quake increases by about 31.6 times, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. This means that a magnitude 8.8 earthquake produces about 31.6 times more energy than a magnitude 7.8 quake.The strongest earthquake ever recorded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, was the magnitude 9.5 quake off the coast of Chile in 1960. It killed 1,655 people and displaced two million more.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that Wednesday’s quake would result in tens of billions of dollars of economic damage for Russia, although there were no immediate reports of widespread destruction.
“Extensive damage is probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” the agency said, adding, “Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response.”
Here are the five strongest earthquakes on record, according to the U.S. Geological Survey:
- Valdivia, Chile, 1960, magnitude 9.5
- Alaska, United States, 1964, magnitude 9.2
- Sumatra, Indonesia, 2004, magnitude 9.1
- Tohoku, Japan, 2011, magnitude 9.1
- Kamchatka, Russia, 1952, magnitude 9.0
(NY Times)
ANOTHER REASON WHY I DON'T KEEP A GUN IN THE HOUSE
by Billy Collins (1988)
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.
The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,
and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.
When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton
while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.
CLINT EASTWOOD BIOGRAPHY IS BOTH SALACIOUS AND MEASURED IN ALL THE RIGHT WAYS
In ‘Clint: The Man and the Movies,’ author Shawn Levy spares us a rib-elbowing, congratulatory tone in recounting the celeb’s notorious affairs.
by Lily Janiak
It’s not just the crow’s-foot squint, the larynx-scraping rasp, the cool economy of gesture.
Nor is it the singular career, from Oakland lifeguard to cowpoke TV sidekick, from bankable leading man to restlessly prolific auteur.
The real reason there will never be another Clint Eastwood, a new biography makes clear, is how much the world around him has changed.
Take the philandering. In “Clint: The Man and the Movies,” author Shawn Levy spares us a rib-elbowing, congratulatory tone in recounting the celeb’s notorious affairs. But there’s no way to write honestly about the San Francisco-born, Oakland-bred star of “Dirty Harry” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” the director of “Unforgiven,” “Mystic River” and “Million Dollar Baby,” without talking about sex — his seemingly insatiable (and reciprocated) attraction to women, not to mention what Levy describes as a fixation on rape in his films.
And so we get a characteristically well-chosen anecdote of Eastwood falling asleep while Cosmopolitan writer Gael Greene was interviewing him, only for him to invite her to bed the instant she tapped him awake. (It would be only their first dalliance, and she would later comment, “My knees buckled from the impact of his Clinteastwoodness.”)
With our own era’s male idols, it’s impossible to imagine such an incident passing without an endless pop-psych analysis of the power dynamics involved.
By contrast, we indulge Eastwood both this episode and when he has his sexual partner and film collaborator Sondra Locke call him “Daddy” and tells her he finds birth control uncomfortable. His teammates made allowances too, keeping mum to his wife when a mistress and child (one of at least eight by six women) showed up on the set of “Rawhide.” We tell ourselves it was the times. But can a masculine ideal, with its air of invincibility, get molded without such kid gloves?
Levy, a former film critic for the Oregonian and the author of “Dolce Vita Confidential: Fellini, Loren, Pucci, Paparazzi, and the Swinging High Life of 1950s Rome” as well as biographies of Paul Newman and Jerry Lewis, paints young Eastwood’s Hollywood as indulgent too. By everyone’s admission, including Levy’s and Eastwood’s own, the “Dirty Harry” star started out a terrible actor — stiff, clueless. “Clint’s method of depicting fear for the camera is to bat his eyelashes speedily,” Levy notes of an early performance.
But it was an era when film studios had their own acting schools for good-looking young people such as Eastwood, a 6-foot-4-inch fitness buff, and just having a good attitude and being hardworking could get you a renewed contract at Universal. For all Eastwood and Levy’s claims that our hero smirked his way to success through Hollywood’s back door, today’s struggling actors might rejoin that they’d love to know where the back door is.
Levy positions his account as the Goldilocks between two previous biographies, neither too credulous nor too censorious, and for the most part he strikes just the right balance, championing Eastwood when he’s underrated as actor, director or both but not letting him off the hook when he coasts or harps.
If Eastwood, with his filmmaking penchants for minimalism, earnest realism and troubled lone wolves, feels like a man from another time, Levy’s account of him does too, in that it’s a connoisseur’s deep dive. For those who lament the thinning out of arts coverage, “Clint” is a feast of criticism. Juicy assessments of individual films make you thirst to watch or rewatch old titles. On “Dirty Harry”: “When Harry tells his superiors that Scorpio will kill again because ‘he likes it,’ he seems to be speaking from personal knowledge.” On a scene in “The Bridges of Madison County” when a fly intruded on camera but Eastwood, as both director and co-star, and Meryl Streep kept going: “You get a hyper-real moment within an already agonizingly real moment, a perfect heightening of the immersion of the actors in the scene, a reverence for the emotions being captured and rendered.”
Such insight and enthusiasm help paper over a movie-by-movie book structure — idea germ, filmmaking anecdote, plot summary, critical reception, Levy’s own critique — that grows repetitive given the sheer length of its subject’s résumé. Readers who aren’t Eastwood completists might wish the author would combine analyses of a few middling titles once in a while.
One omission sticks out. Levy keeps referring to how Eastwood’s first, three-decade marriage, to Maggie Johnson, who died in 2023, was open as far as Eastwood was concerned. But he never definitively says how much Johnson knew, what her attitude about Eastwood’s philandering was, and whether she saw herself as free to take similar liberties; more glaringly, he neglects to take the journalistic step of explaining to what extent he tried to find out. “Clint” isn’t a biography of her, of course, but the question comes up so often and seems so seminal to its subject’s self-formation that skirting it replicates the biases of an earlier era. Johnson’s experience just wasn’t important enough to pursue.
One comes away from “Clint,” conversely, with a sense of the nuance behind the titan and the “Dirty Harry” catch phrase. He’s a workhorse not in his element unless he’s filming, editing and promoting at the same time; a skinflint who shops at Ross Dress for Less even after making millions; a rogue and outlaw onscreen who’s mayor of Carmel in real life. Eastwood is famously a man of few words, but who needs more when the ones you’ve got are so well chosen?
(SF Chronicle)
OBVIOUSLY, where art has it over life is in the matter of editing. Life can be seen to suffer from a drastic lack of editing. It stops too quick, or else it goes on too long. Worse, its pacing is erratic. Some chapters are little more than a few sentences in length, while others stretch into volumes. Life, for all its raw talent, has little sense of structure. It creates amazing textures, but it can't be counted on for snappy beginnings or good endings either. Indeed, in many cases no ending is provided at all.
— Larry McMurtry
LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT
South Korea Reaches Trade Deal With Trump
Trump Threatens India With Steep Tariffs, Including Penalty Over Russian Oil
Trump Escalates Fight With Brazil, Taking Aim at Its Economy and Politics
Trump Administration Authorizes Deployment of National Guard at ICE Facilities
Brown University Makes a Deal With the White House to Restore Funding
Fed Keeps Rates Steady Despite Internal Divisions and Political Pressure
Texas Republicans Unveil Gerrymandered House Map, Trying to Please Trump
Why Did Such a Powerful Earthquake Produce Such a Weak Tsunami?
MURDERLAND
by Joyce Carol Oates
Ted Bundy best embodies the single-minded commitment to kill, kill, and kill again. Not for Bundy (once called a “terrific looking man,” an “all-American boy,” and “Kennedyesque” in The New York Times Magazine) would be the timidity of holding back. It might be said that devotees of true crime are as familiar with his sordid life story as devotees of boxing are with the triumphant life story of Muhammad Ali—must it be recounted yet again? And at such length, with such unsparing details?
In her book ‘Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers,’ Caroline Fraser seems to think so, reimagining Bundy's rape-murder sprees in a sort of hyperventilating prose, providing a painstakingly precise record disproportionate to the larger project of ‘Murderland,’ and often quick-cutting to the rape-murder sprees of Bundy's contemporaries Dennis Rader, Richard Ramirez, the Zodiac Killer, and the Green River Killer at exhaustive length.
If the thesis of ‘Murderland’ is that there's a lethal connection between environmental contamination and violent crime, it is probably not necessary to evoke sexual-sadistic murders one by one or to appear to be vicariously reliving Bundy's most thrilling moments, especially since thousands of pages have been published about him, starting with Ann Rule's now-classic ‘The Stranger Beside Me’ (1980).
Bearing the ignominy, in the 1940s, of being “illegitimate,” Bundy seemed always to be in a polluted environment. In 1953, for instance, when he was seven, he was living close to the Ruston smelter near Tacoma, where in a single year 630 tons of arsenic and 200 tons of lead were released into the air—“more airborne arsenic than anywhere else in the country.” Soon he began to exhibit antisocial, violent behavior, particularly directed toward girls. It is likely that he committed his first murder at the age of 14, of an eight-year-old girl who disappeared from the neighborhood; her body was never recovered.
Through the 1960s and 1970s Bundy was continually in motion: “He is buying gas, leaded gas, virtually every day of every month.” He moved about restlessly in Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Florida (after escaping from jail in Colorado), sexually assaulting and brutally murdering young women, often raping their bodies after their deaths. He was romantically involved with young women in apparently normal relationships and was even engaged for a while to a young divorced mother named Elizabeth Kloepfer, who as early as December 1975 contacted Salt Lake City police to alert them that her fiancé might be the killer they were looking for and was assured that they'd already checked him out—“nothing to worry about.” In one of his numerous jobs he was an affable, well-liked staffer for the Republican Party of Washington state. (Is it surprising that Bundy was a staunch believer in law and order and a counterprotester after the Kent State shootings who railed against “radical socialist types”?)
Fraser's accounts of Bundy's many stalkings and killings suggest that his behavior was near-robotic, compulsive; most of his (more than 30) young women victims resembled one another closely enough to be relatives, with long dark hair. His assaults were usually opportunistic, a matter of chance. In May 1973 “he picks up a hitchhiker near Olympia and murders her and doesn't catch her name.” In February 1974, “on an isolated mountain hillside, where there is no one within screaming distance, [Bundy] removes her from the car, rapes her again, and strangles her. He spends the night with her body.” (Fraser's euphemism for necrophilia.) In October 1974 “he spends the night raping her. He murders her the next day, dumping her body somewhere in the vast Utah wilderness… Her remains are never found.” Eventually, like many compulsive killers, Bundy becomes more reckless. Fraser calls it “riding a doomsday high”:
“After years of sporadic attacks on stewardesses and hitchhiking teenagers and random strangers, he is graduating to ever riskier pursuits, assaulting women in his own neighborhood, on his own street. His sorties are growing ever more complex as he enters the giddy-making higher atmosphere of the true aesthete, the collector, the marathon killer… He is becoming addicted to these activities, and, like any user, he is finding that it takes more and more product to meet his needs.”
HOW HOT WILL IT GET?
Uncertainty and Certainty in Climate Models
by Lance Olsen
I think of climate as a package in 3 basic parts – temperature, water, and wind. Here in the US, this trio is basic to the Forest Service “Hot Dry Windy Index” for measuring likely risk of dangerous wildfire.
The future of temperature is a key point of interest, because increased heat can make a difference to other parts of the package. Jason Smerdon, a Lamont-Doherty paleoclimatologist, provides an example in plain language — “Precipitation is just the supply side. Temperature is on the demand side, the part that dries things out.”
How High Might Temperatures Go?
One climate model’s peek down the road shows a world with temperatures 2.4C hotter than back before we started setting the torch to coal, oil, and gas.
Another model shows us a possibility of getting 2.7C hotter, while yet another points to the possibility of heat increased to 3.1C over and above temperatures common to the 1850s
An attention-getting article of some years back warned of a “Hothouse Earth” at 5C. There’s even been a more recent study suggesting that we might, just maybe, if worse comes to worst, be on course to barreling past 3.5C on our way to 7C.
Given this smorgasbord of possible futures, it’s utterly realistic to be thinking about uncertainty. After all, the fact of disagreements among the models is plain to see.
And yet, at the same time, it’s equally plain that these varied and otherwise disagreeing models all agree on the direction we’re headed – toward and increasingly into a hotter world. This agreement leaves some elbow room for thinking about a bit of certainty in the mix.
The Thing About Models
Anyone who’s built a model car, plane, ship or train can be certain of two truths about models. They aren’t the real thing. They’re judged on how well they match up to the real thing. It’s basically the same for climate models.
The building of climate models has been going on for a long time. Consider the case of Svante Arrhenius, in the 1890s, for example. Arrhenius has been credited with playing a leading role in uniting physicists and chemists to recognize a new scientific topic for scientific thought, physical chemistry.
Based on the model he built, the crudest, most-simplistic model in the history of climate science, just a back-of-the-envelope kind of thing, Arrhenius concluded that an increasing scale of fossil fuel combustion would leave the world hotter-enough to make things hard for the likes of snow.
Has Arrhenilus’ Model Matched Up With The Real World?
In essence, Arrhenius’ crude little 1890s model pointed ahead to some future world hot enough to make snow an endangered form of water.
The current real-world low flows of the Colorado River have been traced back to loss of snow. Low flows in Montana rivers are traceable back to the same thing – a shortage of snow. There’s nuance here, and detail. But an increasing retreat of snow is a real thing, in lots of places, and Arrhenius wasn’t the last to think about it.
The April 20, 2004 Issue of Science published interviews with researchers known for investigating the future of snow. One researcher told Science that, “Snow is our water storage in the West,” and where snow is lost there is no way to make up for it.
Arrhenius likely had to shovel snow during winters in his home country, Sweden. Maybe that’s why he noted that life with less snow looked pretty good.
(Lance Olsen, a Montana native, was president of the Missoula, Montana-based Great Bear Foundation from 1982-1992. He has also served on the governing council of the Montana Wilderness Association and the advisory council of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. He was previously a college teacher and associate of the American Psychological Association and its Division on Population and Environmental Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. Now retired, he runs a restricted listserv of global scope for climate researchers, wildlife researchers, agency staff, graduate students, and NGOs concerned about the consequences of a changing climate. He can be contacted at [email protected].)
THE ARGUMENT
by Jane Kenyon
On the way to the village store
I drive through a down-draft
from the neighbor’s chimney.
Woodsmoke tumbles from the eaves
backlit by sun, reminding me
of the fire and sulfur of Grandmother’s
vengeful God, the one who disapproves
of jeans and shorts for girls,
dancing, strong waters, and adultery.
A moment later the smoke enters
the car, although the windows are tight,
insinuating that I might, like Judas,
and the foolish virgins, and the rich
young man, have been made for unquenchable
fire. God will need something to burn
if the fire is to be unquenchable.
“All things work together for the good
for those who love God,” she said
to comfort me at Uncle Hazen’s funeral,
where Father held me up to see
the maroon gladiolus that trembled
as we approached the bier, the elaborate
shirred satin, brass fittings, anything,
oh, anything but Uncle’s squelched
and made-up face.
“No! NO! How is it good to be dead?”
I cried afterward, wild-eyed and flushed.
“God’s ways are not our ways,”
she said then out of pity
and the wish to forestall the argument.
STATE WATER BOARD RELEASES CONTROVERSIAL BAY-DELTA WATER PLAN
Stupid, greedy monkeys in action. Proof that Trump is a brainless mutant!
GIANTS LOSE EVERY GAME OF HOMESTAND, SWEPT BY PIRATES AS TRADE DEADLINE OVERSHADOWS SLUMP
The Giants are consistent. They are the main reason I lost interest in “professional” sports…
Eternal Witness
“The mind and body are also part of nature. Nature changes, so they too must constantly change. Allow them to play their part. Be a witness—the Eternal Witness.” –Swami Satchidananda
Jun 05, 2016: “Eternal Witness”, by Swami Sarvapriyananda
The very warmest spiritual greetings,
Eternal Witness is the supreme condition, in which the individual is continuously established in Sahaja Samadhi Avastha, or continuous superconscious condition. 24/7 365 witnessing everything without attachment. The jivan mukta (liberated spirit) effortlessly goes where it needs to go and does what it needs to do. Simple as that. Forever free!
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]
July 31, 2025 Anno Domini
ARRHT
WHO be the Curator for the AVA?
Highest praise.
“Large scale drug seizure”
$370 thousand in cash is about $370,000.
400 pounds of ‘shrooms is about $2,000,00.
“Abare…seemed nervous”
Never keep the product and the cash in the same place
Good Luck Humans
It sounds so wonderful! We can’t wait! Mark Zuckerberg, a man to be trusted for sure, promises great results for his fellow humans, and, incidentally, for his company:
“ ‘Superintelligence’ Will Create a New Era of Empowerment, Mark Zuckerberg Says”
“Meta has spent billions of dollars to revamp its artificial intelligence strategy in recent months, including on a new team of researchers dedicated to creating a ‘superintelligent’ A.I.
On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, told investors why the team would be worth its return on investment.
Superintelligence, which Mr. Zuckerberg defined as an A.I. model more powerful than the human brain, will improve ‘nearly every aspect of what we do,’ he said on a call with investors. The A.I. will help Meta’s advertising business by improving its social media feed to keep users on its apps longer, which is already happening, he said. A.I. will also serve as a personal tool for users to create ‘a new era of individual empowerment,’ he added.
The main way people will interact with superintelligence will be through Meta’s smart glasses, which have cameras and software that can shoot and process videos,
Mr. Zuckerberg said. ‘I think that if history is a guide, then an even more important role will be how superintelligence empowers people to be more creative, develop culture and communities, connect with each other, and lead more fulfilling lives,’ he said.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments came as Meta reported revenue of $47.5 billion for the second quarter, up 22 percent from a year earlier and above Wall Street estimates of $44.8 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet. Profit was $18.3 billion, up 36 percent from a year earlier and surpassing estimates of $15.1 billion…”
NY TIMES, 7/31/25
It would be interesting to know much we contribute to the many zillionaires without realizing it.
I guess Zucker somehow profits from my use of Facebook, but I am not sure how.
Musk et al, no clue.
Ebay and Amazon etc. sometimes seem unavoidable.
Craig Stehr
July 31, 2025
Eternal Witness
It appears that the eternal witness is allowing you to remain in the Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter because obviously, your work is not yet done there.
CLINT EASTWOOD BIOGRAPHY
I worked on three Clint Eastwood films and the least important thing you could write about him are his girlfriends.
I liked his relationship with Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County.