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INTERIOR thunderstorms around the Trinity Horn will be possible over the weekend, primarily on Sunday. Ridging into this coming week will warm temperatures with potential for another trough next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A clear 50F at 5am this Saturday morning on the coast. I'm thinking it could more sunny today as we have a little breeze building into tomorrow that should push the fog out. We'll see? UPDATE: foggy skies at 6:30am
ROBBERY SUSPECTS FLEE POLICE in wild pursuit through Mendocino County
by Matt LaFever (August 1, 2025)
A high-speed police pursuit is unfolding this afternoon along Highway 101 through inland Mendocino County, with law enforcement chasing two robbery suspects reportedly fleeing in a vehicle with a small dog on board, hitting speeds of 100 miles per hour.
The chase appears to have started near Willits shortly before 2:37 p.m., when officers attempted to stop a vehicle occupied by two Black male adults. By 2:39 p.m., the suspects were clocked at 60 mph heading through North Main Street in medium traffic, according to scanner traffic.
California Highway Patrol has been alerted, and officers have discussed deploying spike strips as the vehicle may be linked to multiple recent robberies.
As of 2:52 p.m., the pursuit is continuing southbound on Highway 101, and the vehicle is approaching the turn off to State Route 20.
UPDATE 3 p.m.: The two robbery suspects have been taken into custody following a high-speed pursuit that began near Willits this afternoon. The chase ended near the State Route 20 turnoff, where California Highway Patrol officers successfully apprehended both individuals.
Southbound Highway 101 was near the Lake Mendocino Drive exit as law enforcement secures the scene but has now reopened.
A small dog that was reportedly in the suspect vehicle has been located and appears unharmed.
Traffic on both sides of Highway 101 near Reeves Canyon is affected. Northbound is nearly at a stop. And southbound is moving very slowly.
UPDATE 3:14 p.m.: A reader passing the accident scene tells us, “It looked like a cop car wrecked and a semi truck was also involved as well as a large pickup.” This has not been confirmed by official sources.
(mendofever.com)
SUPES INSULT AMBULANCE VOLUNTEERS
by Mark Scaramella
It’s hard to imagine a more insulting and hypocritical but little noticed project initiated by the CEO and the Supervisors last May and described by CEO Darcy Antle in her July CEO Report:
“EMS Fiscal Assessment — At the May 6th Board of Supervisors meeting, LEMSA [Sonoma County’s Local Emergency Medical Services Agency] and OES [Mendocino County’s Office of Emergency Services] staff were directed to conduct a fiscal assessment of our rural EMS providers receiving County EMS enhancement funding. Laytonville, Anderson Valley, and Covelo Fire Departments all committed to completing a three-year fiscal assessment to include fiscal years 22/23, 23/24, 24/25. Reports are due on Friday, August 15, 2025, and will include:
Current billing rates
Current reimbursement rates
Number of EMS transports
Annual agency EMS budget
Identified gaps in budget
Agency efforts to improve identified funding gaps
Review of how County funding has been used since 2014
Intent of ongoing funding support into the future
Intergovernmental Transfer/ Ground Emergency Medical Transport (IGT/GEMT) funding enrollment and participation
Confirmation of 100 percent Patient Care Reporting (PCR) completed and submitted for billing of all patient contacts.”
A little history.
More than ten years ago after several consultant studies documented the fragile, fragmented and underfunded state of ambulance services in Mendocino County, the Supervisors grudgingly allocated around $66k per year to supplement the strained budgets of each of the three ambulance operations in the unincorporated area of the County: Covelo, Laytonville and Anderson Valley. Over the ensuing years the purchasing power of that $200k allocation has dropped dramatically while the cost of operations for ambulance services has risen.
All three of these ambulance operations are staff by VOLUNTEERS who at most get a small “shift stipend” to standby for 911 calls, stipends that are mostly covered by that County allocation. All of these small volunteer operations average one or two calls per day, frequently at night, often to stressful and grisly accident scenes. The VOLUNTEERS are required to undergo rigorous training and certifications, as are their vehicles and equipment which must meet standards imposed on professional, paid ambulance outfits.
On top of these challenges, billing for these operations is a complex, frustrating and hit-and-miss affair. Most of their calls require complex paperwork followed by structured bills to Medicare, Medi-Cal, private insurance and, occasionally, private individuals. Private insurers and Medicare/Medi-Cal have strict billing and review requirements. Because Medicare and Medi-Cal pay less than ten cents on the dollars (when they finally get around to paying) and private uninsured patients often can’t afford the cost, if an ambulance operation gets more than 20% of their bills paid in a given year they consider that a good year.
Plus, a significant percentage of emergency responses end up not needing a transport or are otherwise not billable.
Fortunately, in Anderson Valley, many local families are members of the ambulance service and pay $95 a year (for basic family membership) and $160 a year (to include air ambulance membership) as a form of insurance against the high sticker price of individual ambulance responses.
By law the ambulance operations cannot charge more than the cost of the service, even though they are not reimbursed at anywhere near the actual cost of the service, except for the minority of calls which are covered by patients with private health insurance.
Yet here’s Mendocino County conducting a formal review — a “fiscal assessment” — of how that grudging $200k per year (one third to each of the three ambulance operations) is being used. They even go so far as to question whether “100 percent Patient Care Reporting (PCR) is completed and submitted for billing of all patient contacts.”
This is the same county that hands out millions of dollars without question every year to well-paid professional, non-volunteer, sole-source Mental Health service providers with no comparable studies, analyses or budget reviews or reporting and certainly no “fiscal assessment.”
As you might imagine, most of the people targeted by these insulting studies, the people who provide bargain basement volunteer emergency responses in very difficult circumstances around the clock, are not exactly thrilled to have the grossly overpaid and underforming County bureaucrats pay top dollar to Sonoma County’s overpaid and underperforming LEMSA to “assess” their already underfunded operations as if they have to prove that they provide a worthwhile service deserving of a small supplementary budget band-aid.
(via Steve Derwinski)
MENDOCINO COUNTY RESIDENTS LAUNCH RECALL AGAINST CONTROVERSIAL DA
by Matt LaFever
A grassroots campaign in Mendocino County is mounting a serious challenge to one of the region’s most powerful figures: District Attorney David Eyster. After more than a decade in office — and amid mounting controversies and a surprise term extension — Eyster now faces a formal recall effort led by a coalition of local residents who say it’s time for change.
For 13 years, Eyster has held the top prosecutor seat in Mendocino County, winning three elections unopposed. He was widely expected to seek a fifth term in 2026, but a little-known provision in California’s Assembly Bill 759, passed in 2022, pushed that timeline back. The law moved district attorney and sheriff elections to presidential years to increase voter turnout, effectively extending Eyster’s term to 2028. For critics already uneasy with his record, those extra two years were the final straw.
Supporters say Eyster has made his mark as a tough, engaged prosecutor willing to take on challenging cases. After a mistrial disrupted the prosecution of Devaun Johnson — the man who ignited the devastating Hopkins Fire in 2021 — Eyster personally took over, securing a 15-year prison sentence and $4 million in restitution.
He also led the prosecution of the so-called “Covelo Six,” a brutal case involving the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Covelo residents Kyle McCartney and Traci Bland. The last defendant to be sentenced, Samson Musselini Little Bear Joaquin, admitted to killing both victims with a splitting maul, a kind of fire axe. Joaquin was sentenced to 31 years to life, the maximum allowed.
But while Eyster’s supporters view him as an effective prosecutor, critics point to a series of ethical and legal controversies that have eroded public trust.
One of the most contentious was the launch of his cannabis restitution program, quickly dubbed the “Mendo Shakedown.” The program —legal under state law — allowed defendants to avoid felony charges by paying restitution fees, which sometimes reached over $100,000. Those who paid walked away with misdemeanors. Those who couldn’t faced felony prosecution. The program netted more than $3.7 million for law enforcement agencies and drew harsh criticism from local judges and attorneys.
Public frustration surged again between 2021 and 2022, when three police officers — two in Ukiah and one in Willits — faced serious misconduct allegations. Willits officer Derek Hendry and Ukiah’s Noble Weidlich were fired but never criminally charged. Ukiah officer Kevin Murray, accused of sexual violence by multiple women, received what many called a “sweetheart” deal: two years of probation. Protesters picketed the courthouse with signs reading, “Justice must be served” and “Are you insane? Probation.”
The most recent and polarizing episode involved Eyster’s prosecution of Mendocino County Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison, a career civil servant whose fallout with the DA reportedly began after she flagged him for charging steakhouse dinners to county funds. By 2022, Eyster was publicly attacking her in board meetings. In October 2023, he had her arrested on felony charges of misusing $68,000 in COVID payroll funds. She was suspended without pay, forced to sue for her job back, and spent 17 months under legal scrutiny — until a judge dismissed the case, citing no evidence of fraud or concealment.
Even then, the county sought to move her civil case out of Mendocino, alleging local bias. For many, the case reeked of retaliation and abuse of power.
It was this controversy that motivated longtime Ukiah resident Helen Sizemore to take action.
Sizemore is no newcomer to county politics. A resident for over 50 years, she’s worked for Assemblymember Dan Hauser, served as a state Democratic delegate, and currently acts as vice chair of the Inland Democratic Club. Now in her 70s, she’s channeling her grassroots organizing skills into leading the formal campaign to recall Eyster.
Sizemore says the tipping point was Eyster’s targeting of Cubbison. “He decided she needed to go,” Sizemore said, referencing the aftermath of the steakhouse spending dispute. She officially submitted the first round of signatures to launch the recall process.
Sizemore also pointed to the two-year term extension under Assembly Bill 759 as a key motivator. “He will be having too much time left in office,” she said. “If it was just going to be [the] end of 2026, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
Mendocino County Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie confirmed that the campaign has cleared its initial legal hurdles. Her office verified that all signatories were registered county voters and that their signatures matched those on file.
“We did receive the form proof of service, and then we received a copy of the certified mail receipt,” Bartolomie said.
The next step is publishing the notice of intent in a local newspaper. Bartolomie noted, “We haven’t done a recall election for years.”
If that hurdle is cleared, organizers will have 160 days to gather roughly 8,200 valid signatures. Bartolomie said that if the recall qualifies for the ballot, the county will foot the bill. A standalone special election could cost $250,000, while combining it with the June 2026 primary would result in “a prorated cost of whatever the total election was.”
If voters choose to recall Eyster, the same ballot would include a list of qualified candidates to replace him. “They have to qualify to be district attorney, and there’s a list of qualifications that they have to have,” Bartolomie explained.
Despite Bartolomie’s claim that voters would decide both the recall and the successor on the same ballot, California Elections Code §11382, codified in 2023, explicitly states, “There shall not be an election for a successor in a recall of a local officer.” Instead, the law only specifies that the office “shall be vacant until it is filled according to law.”
Asked what would happen if no one stepped up to run, Bartolomie said she would consult with County Counsel. “This is just the very beginning of it,” she said, adding that it remains unclear whether the Board of Supervisors or the Governor would appoint a replacement.
“Luckily, Mendocino County doesn’t have very many recalls,” she said.
MendoFever reached out to Eyster for comment about the recall effort but did not hear back before publication.
Looking ahead, Sizemore and her small team of determined residents face a steep road — collecting thousands of signatures in a rural county with a scattered population. But she remains resolute. “I’m not intimidated,” she told MendoFever. “I feel good that I can act on my feelings of justice.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect a 2023 change to California’s election code, which now separates the decision to recall a local official from the process of selecting their successor.
(mendofever.com)
IS IT WINDIER? (An on-line exchange)
It also seems exceptionally dry to me. We had a lot of early rain last fall but it really petered out. Plants (both wild and cultivated) seem more water stressed than normal. The wind and dryness together have me extra fire nervous.
Geoengineering? Interesting read: “The Geoengineered Transhuman” – Elana Freeland
I live further up the coast now, in Oregon. It’s been the same here and I’ve been complaining about it for months. It beating my flowers and garden worse than ever. It’s cold and dry and sometimes unrelenting. It’s always a bit like that here, but this spring/summer has been the worst.
Definitely not the only one! I remember when June 1 marked the beginning of the hot season here in the mountains — even now August 1st I have to put on a coat mornings and evenings with that cold wind blowing in off the ocean. PS The 24 hour outage of major local social media seems like a newsworthy event. Nothing on KMUD News either. Most thankfully, the posting of local news stories and emergency notifications remained unaffected. What the heck happened?
I am 80 years old and I don’t remember there ever being a summer this windy. That leaves two possibilities. Either I getting senile or it is a new windy record. Am I the only one to notice the incessant wind?
SOPHIE BATES (PENNYROYAL FARM):
It’s too late to plant your giant pumpkin to enter the #mendocinocountyfair, but there are lots of categories to enter and show off your fruits and vegetables, hand work, preserves, fine arts, photography. Entries can be made online or on paper. Check out https://mendocountyfair.com/exhibitors-guide-book-2025/
Or head over to the fair office for an exhibitors book! And if watching the #sheepdogtrials are more your thing, come watch the eliminations on August 16th and find out which of the top 8 of 20+ handlers and their dogs will go on to compete on Sunday September 14th at the fair! Jay’s cooking up his famous ribs in the grove after, join us in supporting the fair and the competitors!
MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
The Noyo Bida Truth Project presents a special program on Saturday, August 2, at 1 p.m. at Mendocino College, Coast Campus, 1211 Del Mar Drive, Fort Bragg, Room 112.
Our special Guest Speaker, will be Tatiana Cantrell, The Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) Director for the Pinoleville Pomo Nation.
Dr. Cantrell has worked with children and families in Lake and Mendocino Counties for the past 25 years. She has spent the past several years working with local indigenous communities to address historical and generational trauma by removing barriers to services, forming collaborative relationships with community agencies, and individualizing family and case plans to meet people where they are at. She is a current faculty member at Mendocino College in the Child Development Department.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples (MMIP) crisis refers to the disproportionately high rates of violence, including murder and disappearances, experienced by Indigenous people, particularly women and girls, in the United States and Canada. This crisis is a serious issue with deep historical roots in colonization and its ongoing impacts. Locally we can find its roots in the Mendocino Indian Reservation overseen here by soldiers at Fort Bragg (1857-1864) and continuing through the Indian schools in Mendocino County into the 20th Century, like the Round Valley Indian School, 1860-1924.
https://thenoyobidatruthproject.org
WRITING WORKSHOP TO SUPPORT EEL RIVER DAM REMOVAL 8/15 IN WILLITS
The Sierra Club Mendocino Group and Friends of the Eel River invite you to learn about the dam removal process and voice your support for timely removal of these antiquated barriers.
Please join us on Friday, August 15th from 4 - 7 pm at the Willits Environmental Center (630 S Main St, Willits) for a comment-writing workshop and meet-and-greet with the Redwood Chapter’s new Chapter Director Alicia Bales and FOER’s Executive Director Alicia Hamann. Refreshments and good company provided.
Get Involved in the Next Big Step Toward Eel River Dam Removal!
The Potter Valley Project includes two century-old dams in the Eel River headwaters and an out-of-basin diversion into the Russian River. The Project has failed in just about every way it can. It has long been uneconomic, no longer produces electricity, poses serious seismic risks, and the water supply is increasingly unreliable due to sedimentation of the reservoir.
On Friday, July 25th PG&E published their final License Surrender Application and Decommissioning Plan (LSA), bringing the Eel River one step closer to becoming California’s longest free-flowing river.
Removing the Eel River dams is the single most important restoration action we can take to support recovery of the Eel’s once-abundant native fish. The effort to Free the Eel is broadly supported by Tribes, commercial and recreational fishing folk, recreation advocates, and environmental NGOs. Take this opportunity to join your community and help correct a century of harm. Be a part of the movement to Free the Eel!
Cosponsored by The Sierra Club Mendocino Group and Friends of the Eel River
Alicia Bales, [email protected]
R.D. BEACON:
As a reminder, Ledford house restaurant in Albion, is the best restaurant in the county, last night I had their bistro special and headed duck leg with a guy, vegetables, mushrooms, small potatoes in a sauce, that I drank afterward, the silent was Caesar, with addressing, it only could be run rivaled, with what I make it home, lots of garlic, romaine lettuce cheese and croutons, when I ordered food, to go, I buy loaves of the bread, and tonight I will eat rabbit, the food is consistent, and in the many years, and I've been sending them customers, no one is ever complained, but not being treated fairly, a conscientious staff, people who really care, next time any of you go out to dinner on the coast, go to the Ledford house, great portions of food, for a fair price, we always appreciate, Tony and his staff for being so professional, remember they are open Wednesday through Sunday, serving dinner only, with an excellent view, of the Pacific Ocean, from the dining room, and the bar,.
PG&E MONTHLY BILLS HAVE ‘STABILIZED’ AND WILL DROP LOWER, UTILITY SAYS
New quarterly financial report sheds light on PG&E bill trends
by George Avalos
After reporting flat profits and reduced electricity and gas revenue in its second quarter, PG&E now has its sights set on lowering customer bills, according to its CEO.
The investor-owned utility posted a profit of $521 million during its April-through-June second quarter of 2025, up 0.2% from $520 million in profits for the same quarter a year ago, the company reported Thursday.
“We’ve stabilized bills over the past year and expect them to be down in 2026,” PG&E CEO Patricia Poppe said in connection with the financial results.
Electricity operations revenue totaled $4.41 billion in the second quarter of 2025, which was down 1% from the second quarter of 2024, PG&E reported. Gas operations revenue totaled $1.49 billion in the second quarter, a decline of 2.9% from the same time period a year ago.
Despite the relatively subdued increase in net income, Mark Toney, executive director with The Utility Reform Network, a consumer group, believes that the utility company’s profits are too high.
“It’s hard to believe, but PG&E is on its way to a third straight year of record-breaking profits,” Toney said.
During the second quarter of this year, the utility filed a general rate case covering the years 2027 through 2030. The proposal represents the smallest percentage increase that the company has filed with state regulators in a decade.
PG&E believes monthly bills will be flat this year and should decline in 2026. The utility also suggests that the general rate case will lead to bills that will be flat in 2027 compared with 2025.
Also in the second quarter, the company re-licensed its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that the controversial and closely scrutinized electricity generator can operate safely for the next 20 years.
The utility also recently constructed 32 miles of underground power lines and 103 miles of strengthened poles and covered power lines in high wildfire-risk areas. In 2025 and 2026, PG&E intends to construct 700 miles of underground power lines.
A consumer group expressed skepticism that PG&E would be able to successfully keep bills flat or heading lower, considering the significant expenditures that the company is planning.
Among these: PG&E plans to spend $63 billion for capital projects in the coming years, an endeavor that alarmed Toney, the TURN official.
“I am very concerned about this $63 billion capital spending plan,” Toney said. “We don’t see an end in sight to rate increases.”
During the second quarter this year, PG&E’s pipeline to power up data centers has increased to 10 gigawatts of electricity.
The tech industry, hungry for massive data processing and storage to handle artificial intelligence technologies, has been pressing for the development of new data centers that require large amounts of power.
Oakland-based PG&E believes that if it can provide increased electricity capacity to meet the demand, it could also reduce monthly bills for existing residential customers. A demand for 10 gigawatts of data center electricity could lower bills by 10% or more, PG&E estimated.
In a recent interview with this news organization, Poppe compared the increased demand dynamic by using the analogy of people sharing a pizza who can reduce the per-slice cost if they can coax more people to share.
“It’s sharing the electricity resource across a bigger user base,” Poppe said. “When we share the grid with more customers, we can lower the cost for everyone else, especially when we have excess capacity on the electric grid, which we do.”
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
(AVA Recommended)
MEMO OF THE AIR: Good Night Radio all night tonight on KNYO and KAKX!
Soft deadline to email your writing for tonight's (Friday night's) MOTA show is 5pm or 6. If that's too soon, send it any time after that and I'll read it next Friday.
Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio is every Friday, 9pm to 5am PST on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg and KNYO.org. The first three hours of the show, meaning till midnight, are simulcast on KAKX 89.3fm Mendocino.
Plus you can always go to https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com and hear last week's MOTA show. By Saturday night I'll put up the recording of tonight's show. You'll find plenty of other educational amusements there to educate and amuse yourself with until showtime, or any time, such as:
Wings of Desire vs. City of Angels. It's not just a difference in style. https://kottke.org/25/07/two-ways-to-film-the-same-scene
Well, there's your problem. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fYCr58dBPhg
And the power of radio against loneliness. https://bitsandpieces.us/2025/07/28/brings-tears-to-my-eyes-reading-this/
Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
NEGATIVE/POSITIVE (mk)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, August 1, 2025
CARINA ALVAREZ, 32, Ukiah. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun.
ARIANA ARNOLD, 21, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-loitering, concealed dirk-dagger.
BRYAN CARRILLO, 24, Kelseyville/Ukiah. DUI.
CHADWICK FULLER, 54, Penngrove/Willits. Paraphernalia, resisting.
BIRDEAN GAINES, 52, Ukiah. Speeding over 100mph, evasion.
DAYMON GARRETT JR., 28, Fort Bragg. Drug possession in fire camp.
JENNA HATCHER, 39, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.
RICARDO HOAGLIN SR., 73, Covelo. Failure to register as sex offender with prior, failure to register as transient, suspended license for DUI, unspecified offense.
KEVIN KEMP, 66, Laytonville. Trespassing, retaking land after legal removal.
ALEXANDER MASON, 36, Fort Bragg. Drug possession in fire camp.
HEATHER MICHAEL, 43, Ukiah. Failure to appear.
IVAN PECH-GUTIERREZ, 50, Novato/Ukiah. DUI-any drug.
KELLEY ROGERS, 41, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors.
MIGUEL SIMON-CRUZ, 40, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
VALENTIN SORIANO-HUERTA, 53, Ukiah. DUI.
MINAKAY THEPPHAVONG, 27, Fresno/Ukiah. Attempt to acquire stolen property.
JONATHON THOMPSON, 31, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, registration tampering, probation revocation.
DEJON WILKES, 34, Oakland. Grand theft, burglary, robbery, elder abuse, false ID, resisting, petty theft with priors, county parole violation.
JASON WINEGAR, 48, Mendocino. Resisting.
BIKES MAKE SENSE
Editor,
It is widely implied that allowing bikes on the Richmond Bridge is insanity.
However, I think most people understand that the path is alongside (not on) the portion of Interstate 580 that includes the bridge — just the same as bike lanes alongside Interstate 80 on the Golden Gate and Al Zampa bridges. Meanwhile, motorists queue up to cross the bridge daily, perhaps expecting different results?
In densely populated areas, single-occupant automobiles become an issue of roadway real estate, where congestion will never be satisfied. It’s clear to me that improving one stretch of roadway just moves the problem down the road. Besides, being unsustainable it’s terribly expensive.
I don’t care to sit idly by while people whine about the “bike lobby” while ignoring the billions spent to convince us to drive. It’s at our peril, folks.
Certainly, there are those among us unburdened by much to carry to work, who could save money and time, improve our health and save roadway for our burdened brethren, all while enjoying a traffic-free commute on an electric-assist bike across the span.
I find peace of mind knowing that I’m part of the solution while using a bike — the world’s best sustainable vehicle. Cars make dollars (not for you), bikes make sense (for you). I urge all to make a vow and live a sane life.
Joe Breeze
Fairfax
HE'S NOT ON YOUR SIDE
To the Editor:
Rural supporters of President Trump across the country are now likely to lose public media upon which they rely. They are also threatened with the loss of Medicaid and Affordable Care Act benefits; the shuttering of rural hospitals; the arrest and deportation of respected community members; a shortage of farm workers at harvest time; a tariff-driven rise in prices of food, clothing and other essentials, combined with problems marketing produce overseas; the dismantling of effective warning systems for tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and wildfires; and a weakened FEMA response to the subsequent devastation.
Abandonment of green energy initiatives and infrastructure projects will eliminate much-needed jobs and community development opportunities and ultimately lead to more droughts and flooding. Cuts to school funding will disproportionately affect the education of Trump supporters’ children.
One might cynically observe that Trump voters are reaping what they have sown, but in truth, they were the victims of a con job. And no one deserves to be conned.
Lawrence Kaplan
Ardsley, New York
THE TOWERING 12-YEAR OLDS POWERING A BAY AREA LITTLE LEAGUE TO HISTORY
'I'm not trying to make anybody sound bad, but we're huge and people see it'
by Alex Simon
When Nolan Levinson walked into the opening ceremonies for the Northern California Little League baseball tournament last month, he stood out. The Alpine Little League star is used to it. After all, he’s 12 years old and already 6 feet tall.
“All the teams were staring at me,” Levinson told SFGATE on Wednesday. “This random kid came up and said, ‘Are you a coach or a player?’ I told him I was a coach and he believed me. So that was pretty funny.”
It’s been a lot of laughs and a lot of wins for the young all-star team representing Alpine, the league that covers the western side of wealthy Bay Area suburbs Portola Valley and the western side of Menlo Park. Alpine has won all 11 games so far through three different tournaments — the district, sectional and “state” tournament — to become Northern California champions. Now, they traveled down to San Bernardino on Thursday for the West regional tournament, which begins on Saturday.
If they can pull off three more wins? Then they’re off to the country’s most famous youth tournament: the Little League Baseball World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
“It’s just so special,” Alpine head coach Dave Levinson — who happens to be Nolan’s uncle — told SFGATE. “Everyone feels lucky. It’s awesome.”
The community hosted a send-off party at Alpine’s final home practice on Wednesday in Portola Valley before the team traveled down to Southern California on Thursday. The boys are scheduled to face a team from Arizona on Saturday and, if they win, they’ll play the winner of a game between teams from Southern California and Hawaii on Monday. That game is scheduled to be nationally broadcast on ESPN.
If the nation gets to watch, they’ll learn quickly that Nolan Levinson is a star. While he’s batting .548 and bashed a team-high four homers as the leadoff hitter, his biggest contribution has come on the mound. He’s been the starting pitcher in eight of the 11 games while head coach Dave Levinson has carefully managed his pitch count to follow Little League’s pitching rest rules — a pitcher must rest for one day if they throw from 21 to 35 pitches, for example. It’s paid off with an absurd stat line: In 29.1 innings pitched, Nolan Levinson has 60 strikeouts and only six walks.
The Levinsons in general are a tall bunch. Dave coaches the team at 6-foot-6 — and is currently sporting bleached blonde hair because, before their district tournament, he promised the team he would change his hair to match the players if they won the Northern California tournament — while both Nolan’s dad and another uncle are 6-foot-3. But already, Nolan wears a bigger shoe than either his uncle Dave (size 13) or his own father (size 14), and he’s still growing.
“God knows how big he’s going to be,” Dave Levinson said. “His hands are bigger than mine, substantially, already.”
There are other tall 12-year-olds on the team: Pitchers Derek Armstrong and Max Turner both check in at 5-foot-9, and each has been key behind Nolan Levinson on the mound. Dave Levinson quipped that Little League all-star season is a “puberty lottery” — and Alpine won it.
“One of the other parents said that when their kid saw Alpine walk on the field for the opening ceremonies, he was like, ‘How the hell are we supposed to beat these guys?’” Dave Levinson said. “I’m not trying to make anybody sound bad, but we’re huge and people see it.”
But everyone needs to be able to contribute on a team of 12, no matter their size. Patrick Breslin, who plays shortstop, catcher and pitcher, has a higher batting average than Nolan Levinson at .560. The Alpine team has mashed 15 homers in the 11 games, with three each from first baseman Kogan Flannery and third baseman Charles Saste. Armstrong has added two homers, each in back-to-back spots with Saste.
There’s also Teddy Hourigan, who may be the smallest player on the team, but the center fielder and second baseman has gotten on base in half of his plate appearances and drew a pivotal bases-loaded walk in the state tournament semifinals. He’s also matter-of-fact about what he’s enjoyed so far about this journey.
“Every time we win, we party,” Hourigan told SFGATE. “So I like that. I like winning.”
Hourigan’s family was supposed to move to Philadelphia this summer, but that’s on hold until the Little League run ends. Maybe, if Alpine wins and goes on to Williamsport, the family will just combine a cross-country move with a World Series win. (Talk about a story to tell.)
Up until this round, the postseason run had been an entirely self-funded effort for the kids and families. Little League will now cover lodging for the coaches and players at the West regional in Southern California. If the team advances to the World Series, Little League would also cover costs for the travel to Williamsport.
“We’re packing for San Bernardino and we hope they have laundry in Williamsport,” Dave Levinson quipped.
There’s a chance to make some history. Out of the 50 U.S. states, California’s taken home twice as many world championships as each of the next-closest states. Seven of those have come from teams out of Southern California, while Northern California’s only winner came from San Jose all the way back in 1962. Even on the regional level, it’s been hard for the Northern California teams to crack through the gantlet in the West, which also includes the state winners from Hawaii and Arizona. Only two teams from Northern California have made it to Williamsport in the last three decades: Aptos in 2002 and Petaluma in 2012. When Petaluma made it all the way to the championship game in 2012, the entire Bay Area seemed to be captivated by the team’s run. The team got frequent call-outs on the San Francisco Giants broadcasts and were celebrated at Oracle Park, then AT&T Park, after their third-place finish.
There are still a few wins needed to get to that point for Alpine. But no matter what, these kids will tell the story of their 2025 summers forever. They’ll also have a very 2025 memento of their run: All players were gifted customized wrestling championship belts at the send-off party on Wednesday, which had the very Gen Alpha phrase “Aura farming since ’25” printed on them.
“It’s kind of rerouted our summer plans, but it is so well worth it,” said Jason Armstrong, father of pitcher Derek. “It’s something they’re going to talk about for the rest of their lives — because I do about mine, and my team was terrible.”
GIANTS’ SEASON OF JOY UNDER BUSTER POSEY CAME TO AN ABRUPT END. WHAT COMES NEXT?
by Bruce Jenkins
One thing you can say about the San Francisco Giants with the trading deadline passed: Nobody’s happy. Things are bound to change, although no one is certain quite how, or when.
Buster Posey undoubtedly loves some of the up-and-coming prospects he acquired, but for now he has lost two excellent relief pitchers and a beloved outfielder, with no proven talent in return.
Most fans don’t know anything about the players arriving from the Yankees and Mets in the deals involving Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers, but they do know they’re sick about the season, with no real reason to believe otherwise.
The players were already depressed, speaking with grim resignation about Posey’s plight. (“We didn’t give Buster any reason to add,” said Matt Chapman after the club’s worst-ever homestand.) Now they’re checking the wild-card race, their only hope for the postseason, and discovering not one glimmer of encouragement.
Three National League teams will qualify, and the field is narrowing fast. The only real suspense could be the division races, in which Mets-Phillies and Cubs-Brewers are bound to send the second-place teams into October. The East really loaded up, the Phillies landing lights-out reliever Jhoan Duran and high-energy outfielder Harrison Bader, while the Mets added two highly respected relievers, Rogers and Ryan Helsley (49 saves last year), along with solving their center field issues with Baltimore’s Cedric Mullins.
As for the Giants and the NL West, forget it. Pencil in the San Diego Padres as a wild-card team right now. While Posey looks ahead to the prospect watch and how his 2026 team shapes up, the Padres — already vastly superior to San Francisco among position players — added A’s flamethrower Mason Miller to what was already the best bullpen in baseball. They also managed to keep first-rate starter Dylan Cease off the market while adding quality hitters Ryan O’Hearn and Ramon Laureano.
So it really comes to this for the Giants, well explained by Mike Krukow on KNBR Friday morning: “I can’t explain what has happened to this team mentally. That a team that looked so good in that realm — winning one-run games, playing good defense, just playing smart — can look so bad.”
It wasn’t just one or two games, but a veritable flood of amateurish mistakes that ripped the team’s high-quality advertisement right off the wall. But when you take a hard look at the veteran cornerstones — Logan Webb, Chapman, Willy Adames, Justin Verlander, Robbie Ray — you wonder whether some of that intelligent baseball can be revived.
Never forget that baseball momentum exists only within a single game. It might carry over to the following morning, or it could be erased in an instant. The Giants need some kind of spark, a spirit-lifting episode that could change everything: a team-bonding brawl as the benches clear, a kid arriving from the minor leagues to make a huge difference, or even something silly, like Cincinnati manager Terry Francona’s hilarious stunt the other day.
Francona loves to play pranks on Kevin Cash, the Tampa Bay manager who played for Francona in their days with the Boston Red Sox, and it’s a mutual thing. With the Rays in Cincinnati, Francona uncovered an old video showing Cash striking out in a Red Sox uniform and had it plastered all over the gigantic screen in center field before the game. Francona just watched, with a big smile on his face, and his players loved it.
Little things like that can loosen up an anxiety-ridden team, and as of Friday, when the Giants hit the road for New York, they seem tighter than a Ludwig snare drum.
A few other thoughts on deadline transition:
- The Giants had such a valuable piece in Mike Yastrzemski, with his clubhouse presence and stellar defense (best right fielder they’ve ever had at Oracle Park), they ignored the fact that he hadn’t been a reliable hitter since 2021. They should have traded him last winter (it was recommended here), when he had some value, and now he has been exchanged for a low-level pitching prospect, Kansas City’s Yunior Marte.
A wave of nostalgia swept over the fan base Thursday afternoon, a number of fans complaining, “Yaz wasn’t the problem.” And he wasn’t. But you can’t settle into the batter’s box with glaring weaknesses that get exposed, time after time. Drawing most of the playing time in right field, Yaz didn’t drive home a single run from May 6 to June 7 — then went 6-for-49 without an RBI to close out his San Francisco career. Sorry, but you just can’t have that.
- As he began this season with a flourish, earning himself instant cult-figure status in the stands, Jung Hoo Lee was being portrayed as an extremely smart hitter who rarely swung and missed. It’s not for this column to question a proven talent on the global scale, but he has a violent launch-angle swing that conflicts with his strengths — line drives, using the whole field, basically being a pest — and his strikeouts are up. Perhaps more to the point, he’s still adjusting to the power and velocity of MLB pitching — and he’s hardly alone. The National League had just two .300 hitters, Will Smith and Manny Machado, heading into the weekend.
- Even as they lose Miller and his fastball that averages 101.1 mph, the Sacramento A’s feel they’re building a club that will be far more entertaining than the Giants.
In one night, Denzel Clarke (currently injured) made the year’s greatest catch and belted a 471-foot homer. Nick Kurtz went 6-for-6 with four homers, arguably the greatest night in MLB history. Jacob Wilson’s hitting mechanics were a lively topic at the All-Star Game. Brent Rooker is a legitimate All-Star, and Lawrence Butler is on that path. There’s an obvious disparity in home ballparks, but while the Giants’ top two power hitters (Chapman and Adames) combine for 32 homers, the A’s get 37 from Shea Langeliers and Tyler Soderstrom — not to mention 23 each from Kurtz and Rooker. And most interesting of all, the 18-year-old shortstop they got from San Diego in the Miller deal, Leo De Vries, is universally listed as a can’t-miss star.
- With longtime standout Devin Williams still considered the Yankees’ closer and potential relief ace David Bednar in from Pittsburgh, Doval is likely to begin his Yankees career as a setup man.
- You can’t make this up: With the great Aaron Judge injured, the Yankees’ starting right fielder Thursday night was … Austin Slater, the ex-Giant now on his fifth team in nine seasons. It’s all quite temporary; Cody Bellinger will take that job when the injured Trent Grisham returns to center. But it’s a heavily left-handed lineup, and Slater will get his chances, perhaps using that opposite-field stroke to belt a couple of cheap homers down the line at Yankee Stadium.
- Perspective: The 2010 Giants were considered a lost cause at midseason, sitting at 42-40 and fourth place on July 5. But there’s no comparison between today’s roster and the barely tested young players back then: couple of guys named Posey and Madison Bumgarner, headed for a world championship.
- It had to happen: The Giants go into the tank, so let’s fix Oracle Park. Really? The Giants won three titles in five years there, with more distant dimensions than today’s. It’s also the most aesthetically beautiful ballpark/landscape in the big leagues. So leave it the hell alone.
(SF Chronicle)
GIANTS SNAP LOSING STREAK, beat Mets in extras; Wilmer Flores injured
by Susan Slusser
NEW YORK — Perhaps a shakeup at the trade deadline, with three of the longest tenured players departing, was the kick in the rear the San Francisco Giants needed.
Nothing much was working before that, with the Giants going a major-league worst 13-26 since June 14 and going winless on a six-game homestand for the first time since April 1896, when they dropped three to the Phillies and three to the Boston Beaneaters. After dealing away relievers Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski this week, though, things turned: Dom Smith’s pinch-hit RBI single off Edwin Diaz in the 10th inning gave San Francisco a 4-3 win over the NL East-leading Mets, who’d just swept the Giants last weekend.
“That was huge,” starter Robbie Ray said. “We talked before the game about (the trades) — you know, we got ourselves into this situation but we still have the big pieces we brought in. … The core group of guys are here, we didn’t do a major overhaul. This team is still good enough to win and to be able to come out after the rough homestand, and to win the first one here is big.”
New Giants closer Randy Rodriguez, plopped into the spot with the Doval deal, sealed the victory, though it wasn’t easy against the top of the Mets order. He got Brandon Nimmo to pop up, hit Francisco Lindor, got another pop-up from Juan Soto, walked Pete Alonso to load the bases and struck out Ronny Mauricio with a 100-mph fastball.
It was a high degree of difficulty, and add to that the fact Rodriguez appeared to have struck out Alonso but the Giants didn’t get the call on what looked like a check-swing strike, which manager Bob Melvin termed “ridiculous.”
“I was a little bit frustrated, especially because of the situation of the game,” Rodriguez said with Erwin Higueros interpreting.
Rodriguez’s first save since being named the closer was just another day for the second-year reliever.
“I don’t think about being the closer,” he said. “I just know that I’m going to pitch the last inning. You know, I’m a reliever. I get the ball, I have to do the same job that I’ve done in previous innings, just throw strikes.”
San Francisco led much of the way Friday before the Mets tied it with an Alonso homer in the seventh and two in the eighth off Joey Lucchesi, fueled by Soto’s hard comebacker that clanged off Lucchesi’s foot and bounced into the outfield to send in one run.
“We’re going through a lot of stuff right now and that one felt like, 'What else can go wrong?’ ” Melvin said. “To battle through that and get a win was huge.”
If the ball hadn’t struck Lucchesi, shortstop Willy Adames was lined up perfectly. “It was straight at me,” he said. “I was like, ‘What the heck?’ That was an easy double play, it wasn’t hit that hard and I was right there. It was crazy.”
Adames turned a beauty of a double play in the fourth, further highlighting how imperative it is for the Giants to get good defense; their dreadful six weeks was filled with mistakes in the field and on the bases.
“I feel like we’ve been losing a lot of games because we haven’t been playing clean baseball,” Adames said. “We knew we have to be better, we have to execute. … The boys are feeling it. They knew that tonight we had to make an adjustment and go out there and try to win that game.”
Ray is one of the club’s few consistently strong contributors this season, and he was again excellent Friday, allowing just one run in seven innings on the Alonso homer. But the star-crossed Giants also may have lost one of their regulars through at least the weekend: Wilmer Flores, who’d singled, doubled and walked, left the game after appearing to pull a muscle while hustling out an infield single in the eight. He said he has a tight hamstring but doesn’t think it’s major and he might just miss a day or two.
Flores was the Giants’ top run producer the first two months of the season but his RBIs had dried up over the past 52 games, when he drove in just 18 runs.
Even with all the moves this week, the goals for the season are unchanged, according to Melvin, who contended that president of baseball operations Buster Posey had left the team with enough significant contributors to have success.
“All our core pieces that we’ve signed here for the long term are all still here, so the mindset of the team has not changed on how we go out there and play and what our goals are,” he said. “For Buster, it was tough balancing the now and the future, but he didn’t take away enough of the now for us not to have the same aspirations that we did.
“We didn’t add but we’ve always felt like we’ve got the group here to be able to move forward and make a postseason bid.”
Justin Verlander, the oldest player in baseball, has been with underperforming teams at times in his 20-year career. “It’s really difficult,” he said Friday. “We can’t blame Buster, we kind of did this to ourselves. It’s just a shame with the way the season started to be sellers at this point.”
Verlander is one of two remaining free-agents-to-be, along with Flores. He knew he might be traded, as he was from the Mets to the Astros in mid-2023.
“I thought there might be a chance” of a deal, said Verlander, who has a no-trade clause. “I wasn’t really pressing the issue one way or the other, it was just like ‘Let the cards fall where they may.’ I’m enjoying being in San Francisco. I’m enjoying living there. My family’s there, we have a newborn. It wouldn’t be the easiest life decision to go somewhere else right now, which is kind of like what the universe figured out.”
Ray was in the same boat.
“I’ve been traded at the deadline before, so I know it’s possible, but I enjoy being here. I enjoy this team. I want to win here,” he said. “So I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it.”
Third baseman Matt Chapman, part of the core group of position players in place through at least 2030, said no one is writing off this season.
“We still believe in the group in the room, we still have a really good team, really good pitching,” he said. “No matter what, we’re going to go out there and try to win every game, and there’s no reason why we wouldn’t think that we were still in it.
“We’re building something here. I think this season is still within reach for us. If they’d wanted to, they could have traded Robbie or some other guys, but they didn’t. So I think that they still believe in us.”
Perhaps the roster readjustment could be the kick in the behind the Giants need.
“Maybe that’s part of the message to these guys: we’ve got to do things a little differently,” Melvin said.
“I think we can spin it as a positive,” Chapman said. “We have to. I think it could take pressure off, because there’s a sense that all the pressure’s on all the other guys in our division. We can go in and play with enough here and with nothing to lose.”
(sfchronicle.com)
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
For over a century baseball was America's pastime. Football overtook baseball in popularity some time in the 1960s but I really didn't notice until I was older and everyone had TV and "the game was on". The game was football, not the baseball I loved crackling from my father's transistor radio. I find basketball more exciting than football myself, but not every kid can dream of being a basketball player. Genetics limit that. I don't know how you convince kids, or their parents, that football causes brain damage. Even Muhammad Ali shaking from Parkinson's disease didn't dissuade boxing fans from enjoying watching men punch each other in the face.
ON A CHILLY JANUARY DAY in 1963, a restless 20-year-old named Janis Joplin left behind the familiar streets of Port Arthur, Texas, with nothing but a hopeful heart and a thumb pointed toward the west. Accompanied by Chet Helms, a scruffy friend who shared her yearning for something beyond the confines of small-town life, Janis set her sights on San Francisco—a city alive with promise, rebellion, and a pulsating beat of creativity. This wasn’t just a move; it was the first step in a journey that would change the face of music forever.
Chet saw in Janis a raw, fierce energy—untamed but magnetic—perfect for a band he knew called Big Brother and the Holding Company. Though Chet would later become a key figure in shaping San Francisco’s counterculture through his legendary “Family Dog” concerts, at that moment, he was simply a believer, walking beside a friend who was destined for greatness. His faith and support became a catalyst, helping Janis break into a scene that was redefining art, freedom, and expression.
That hitchhiked journey west was more than a physical trip; it marked the birth of an icon. Janis’s powerful, soul-stirring voice soon filled venues and captured the hearts of an entire generation hungry for authenticity and emotion. Her music resonated with raw vulnerability and unfiltered passion, making her one of the most unforgettable voices of the era. Nearly sixty years on, Janis Joplin’s story remains a testament to the power of taking a single bold step into the unknown—reminding us all that sometimes, the road less travelled leads not just to new places, but to legend.
CHET HELMS (1998 interview):
I had dropped out of the University of Texas in 1962, and I hitchhiked back and forth between the east coast and San Francisco a couple of times in that year. We’d go through Austin. On one of these occasions, I met Janis there at a place called the Ghetto, where all the “beatniks” from the University of Texas were. It was a very low-rent, barracks-like building — no amenities, really. A lot of red wine parties, peyote parties, crash-on-the-floor parties, and a more sexually libertine group of people in the general populace at the University of Texas. I met Janis there.
I had heard her sing. At that time, I would note that her manner of delivery was totally a different one. She needed to be intoxicated to sing at all at that time. I mean, just nerves, shyness, introversion, or whatever. She just wouldn’t sing unless she had a few belts in her. Then, she would stand very rigidly. Either someone else would accompany her, or with no accompaniment, more commonly, she would just stand there, perfectly rigid, and just belt these country blues songs.
For a few moments when I heard Janis, it raised the hair on the back of my neck. It was some core feeling that this person could provoke in me, it almost felt out of control on my part: Here’s someone who can have this effect on me.
I was very impressed with her. On that occasion, I hitchhiked on to the east coast. I came back several months later on my way back to the coast, hanging out a bit with her again. I was a very romantic figure to her. She had spent summer ’61 in Venice, California, hanging out in coffee shops, trying to be a beatnik poet person. At this time, she was in school. Here I was, on the road. I was free as a bird living my own life, a poet. I was a very romantic figure to her.
Also, I was part of the folk music scene here, as I had been in the University of Texas. Here, what you had at that time was the Kingston Trio, the New Christy Minstrels, etc. It was all very polished, very tight vocal harmony stuff. There was no funk, no roots to it, no discord in it. It was always very pure, very sleek, very orchestrated stuff. Yet, everyone was into the lingo of Alan Lomax’s books. “We’re fine in our roots. We’re fine in our musical roots. We’re getting that soul,” and all this.
When I first heard Janis, my first reaction was, “Jesus Christ, these people are yapping about roots all the time. If these people could hear this, this is roots. This is what it’s about.” Anyway, I pretty much told her how I felt. That I thought that if she came to California, she would knock people in San Francisco on their ass, because this was something they had imagined but not experienced, except through the records of Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) or somebody like that. Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Maybe Barbara Dane.
She decided to drop out of school and hitchhiked to California with me. We hitchhiked a little over 50 hours from Boston to San Francisco. We arrived sometime in ’63 in North Beach. When I had left, there was a club there called the Fox and the Hound. When I came back, it was called Coffee and Confusion. We went there on a Monday night, open-mic night. They didn’t pay anybody and they wouldn’t allow you to pass the hat. It’s a totally free gig. I persuaded he owner Sylvia Fennel to give Janis a chance. Janis had her autoharp and she stood up there perfectly rigidly and just belted all these country blues songs. I put the emphasis on country blues. She wasn’t doing Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday, stuff like that. She’s doing things like old country southern blues songs and stuff. More on the gospel side of blues and the urban blues from the north and stuff.
She got a standing ovation. Sylvia said, “Pass the hat.” She got about $50 or $60 — which, for two kids who’d been hitchhiking around and for whom meals were few and far between, 60 bucks was a lot of money.
People have always asked whether our… I think there was romance between us. It was never consummated sexually. We slept on the same bed often. We cuddled. We were very close friends but we were both cut from the same cloth a little too much, in that we both had these sexually repressive and fundamentalist family backgrounds, heavy religious backgrounds. I think that we were both in rebellion against it. When we tried to get together, we had too much baggage on either end.
Then over the next couple of years or so, she and I drifted apart. She became more involved in speed and various things. A couple of times her career almost took off, where she had record companies who’d heard her and wanted to sign her. In one instance, she walked out of the Anxious Asp, a lesbian and gay bar in North Beach, and a bunch of bikers were hanging around the street. They were drunk, she was drunk, they gave her a bad time, she mouthed off to them and they beat the crap out of her and put her in the hospital. She lost that big opportunity.
Then, on another occasion, when somebody was ready to sign her — and I was not representing her at this point, I was just her friend — she crashed a Vespa. She had a little Vespa motor scooter and she crashed and broke some bones and was rushed to the hospital. Again, a big opportunity missed.
Progressively, she got out strung on speed to the point where everyone was very concerned about her. Even people and friends who were doing speed with her were concerned about her. We had a big party on Minna Alley. I forgot what we put her on — a bus or a train or a plane or whatever — but we basically had a big party to raise money and gave her transportation back to her family.
She went back to Texas at that point. Meantime, in 1964… Let’s see. I’d been dabbling in speed, and I stopped doing it in late December of ’63. Also, right around that time, I took LSD for the first time. Someone handed me a sugar cube wrapped in aluminum foil. I said, “What’s this like?” They said, “It’s just like speed.” I said, “Okay.” Damn, I popped it in my mouth and had the trip of my life. I had this tremendous heaven-and-hell vision where I could see myself killing myself with speed going down this one path, and then I could see this positive, constructive, “I can recreate my life” path going this other way. It was clear what choice I had to make at that point. That was the last I did of speed. It was after I took LSD. It had no appeal for me after that.
When I put Big Brother & the Holding Company together and was first managing them, we were always weak on vocals. Peter Albin did all the lead vocals at that time. Not that he’s a bad singer, but he was fairly limited in range and the type of material he could do. We were constantly looking for a vocalist; over about seven or eight months of time, we mass-auditioned 50, 60, 80 vocalists. I don’t know how many but lots, lots. People would come and jam and sing and nothing just quite felt right.
I suggested to them that we try to contact Janis. Peter and James had both seen her in North Beach singing in the Coffee Gallery. They said, “Man, she’s great but she’s just too unique. She’s too weird. It just wouldn’t work out.” At the outset of starting Big Brother, there was a lot of resistance to Janis. Time went by, we auditioned all these people and nothing really worked out. My friend, Travis Rivers, another Austin person, came to me and said, “I’m going back to Austin. Any messages you wanna convey to anybody?” I said, “Yeah. Find Janis, tell Janis to call me collect.” He said, “Sure. I’ll do that.”
I talked to James and Peter and the band again about it. I said, “Listen. Travis is going back there. Janis is gonna call me and I’d like her to come out and try her out as a vocalist.” They said, “Well, okay. We’ll give her a shot.” She called me and had a couple of concerns. One of them was were all our friends still on speed, which I could truthfully tell her, at that moment in time, no, they were not. Most people I knew were on this real positive creation cycle. They were forming bands or they were writing plays or they were making live shows or they were designing costumes. It was beginning to be a very creative period.
Then, her other big concern was, “How will I live there? If it doesn’t work out, how will I get home?” I basically agreed to pay her and Travis’ rent for a few months and I agreed that I would give her a ticket home if she didn’t like it.
Anyway, she came out and rehearsed. The first time I heard her, it was on one of those little alleys over in the Duboce Triangle area — either Henry Street or Beaver Street. They had a big art studio over there, in an old carriage house. It was a space big enough for a band, and insulated and isolated from other buildings so that a band could rehearse.
It was, to my mind, just magic from the beginning. I have to say, I don’t think she ever played as well with any other band as Big Brother. Not to say that a lot of musicians she played with weren’t great as individuals or whatever, but nothing ever quite worked, I don’t think, as well as Janis and Big Brother together.…
https://www.kqed.org/arts/11528077/chet-helms-on-bringing-janis-to-s-f-starting-music-scene-1998-qa
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CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING TO SHUT DOWN AFTER BEING DEFUNDED BY CONGRESS, TARGETED BY TRUMP
by Ted Anthony & Kevin Freking
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a cornerstone of American culture for three generations, announced Friday it would take steps toward its own closure after being defunded by Congress — marking the end of a nearly six-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and even emergency alerts.
The demise of the corporation, known as CPB, is a direct result of President Donald Trump's targeting of public media, which he has repeatedly said is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing. The closure is expected to have a profound impact on the journalistic and cultural landscape — in particular, public radio and TV stations in small communities across the United States.
CPB helps fund both PBS and NPR, but most of its funding is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country.
The corporation also has deep ties to much of the nation’s most familiar programming, from NPR’s “All Things Considered” to, historically, “Sesame Street,” “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” and the documentaries of Ken Burns.
The corporation said its end, 58 years after being signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, would come in an “orderly wind-down.” In a statement, it said the decision came after the passage through Congress of a package that clawed back its funding for the next two budget years — about $1.1 billion. Then, the Senate Appropriations Committee reinforced that policy change Thursday by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president and CEO.
A Last-Gasp Attempt At Funding Fails
Democratic members of the Senate Appropriations Committee made a last-ditch effort this week to save the CBP's funding.
As part of Thursday's committee deliberations, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., authored but then withdrew an amendment to restore CPB funding for the coming budget year. She said she still believed there was a path forward “to fix this before there are devastating consequences for public radio and television stations across the country.”
“It's hard to believe we’ve ended up in the situation we’re in,” she said. “And I’m going to continue to work with my colleagues to fix it.”
But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., sounded a less optimistic tone.
“I understand your concerns, but we all know we litigated this two weeks ago,” Capito said. “Adopting this amendment would have been contrary to what we have already voted on.”
CPB said it informed employees Friday that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It said a small transition team will stay in place until January to finish any remaining work — including, it said, “ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.”
“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.”
The Impact Will Be Widespread
NPR stations use millions of dollars in federal money to pay music licensing fees. Now, many will have to renegotiate these deals. That could impact, in particular, outlets that build their programming around music discovery. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher estimated recently, for example, that some 96% of all classical music broadcast in the United States is on public radio stations.
Federal money for public radio and television has traditionally been appropriated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes it to NPR and PBS. Roughly 70% of the money goes directly to the 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country, although that’s only a shorthand way to describe its potential impact.
Trump, who has called the CPB a “monstrosity,” has long said that public broadcasting displays an extreme liberal bias, helped create the momentum in recent months for an anti-public broadcasting groundswell among his supporters in Congress and around the country. It is part of a larger initiative in which he has targeted institutions — particularly cultural ones — that produce content or espouse attitudes that he considers “un-American.” The CPB’s demise represents a political victory for those efforts.
His impact on the media landscape has been profound. He has also gone after U.S. government media that had independence charters, including the venerable Voice of America, ending that media outlet’s operations after many decades.
Trump also fired three members of the corporation’s board of directors in April. In legal action at the time, the fired directors said their dismissal was governmental overreach targeting an entity whose charter guarantees it independence.
(SF Chronicle)
NO DOUBT LEFT: RUSSIAGATE WAS A COVER-UP
The most infuriatingly complex scandal of all time has just been reduced to a page or two, thanks to another declassified release
by Matt Taibbi
It was a cover-up.
The Russiagate scandal has long been one of the most convoluted, hard-to-follow news stories of all time. It even has multiple names thanks to its peculiar chronology. From 2016 until April 2019 — while Democrats still held out hope of “presidency-wrecking” revelations that would topple Donald Trump — it was generally known as the Trump-Russia scandal. After Special Counsel Robert Mueller broke the hearts of MSNBC audiences by issuing a report without new indictments, attention began to be cast on the scandal’s fraudulent construction, how it was propped up by political spying, illegal leaks, and WMD-style intelligence fakery. Trump and others began to call it Spygate or the Russia hoax, but the name that stuck was Russiagate.
Those of us who covered the story from the start had a difficult time explaining to audiences what it was, as we ourselves didn’t know. Now we do, after a month of disclosures, capped yesterday by the release of an explosive (and inexplicably long-classified) annex to the report of Special Counsel John Durham. Finally, it seems, we can explain how the idea that Donald Trump was “gaffing his way toward treason” through a secret love affair (really!) with Vladimir Putin and extensive “ties” or “links” with Russia suddenly became The Biggest Story in the World in the summer of 2016.
It wasn’t the start of a corruption story about Trump, but the cover-up of a still-unresolved Hillary Clinton scandal. This is purely a Clinton corruption story, probably the last in a long line, as neither Bill nor Hillary will have careers when it’s finished, if they stay out of jail. Characteristically, the most powerful political family since the Kennedys won’t just bring many individuals down with them, but whole institutions, as the FBI, the CIA, the presidency of Barack Obama, and a dozen or so of the most celebrated brands in commercial media will see their names blackened forever through association with this idiotic caper. A fair number of those media companies should (and likely will) go out of business.
Now, we know. With the help of the declassified Durham material, we can explain the whole affair in three brushstrokes.
One, Hillary Clinton and her team apparently hoped to deflect from her email scandal and other problems via a campaign tying Trump to Putin. Two, American security services learned of these plans. Three — and this is the most important part — instead of outing them, authorities used state resources to massively expand and amplify her scheme. The last stage required the enthusiastic cooperation and canine incuriosity of the entire commercial news business, which cheered as conspirators made an enforcement target of Trump, actually an irrelevant bystander.
I’ve tiptoed for years around what I believed to be true about this case, worrying some mitigating fact might emerge. Now, there’s no doubt. Hillary Clinton got in a jam, and the FBI, CIA, and the Obama White House got her out of it by setting Trump up. That’s it. It was a cover-up, plain and simple…
https://www.racket.news/p/no-doubt-left-russiagate-was-a-cover
THE NEW YORK TIMES CAN'T STOP SUCKING
How many times can one newspaper screw up a story?
by Matt Taibbi
Predictably, the New York Times pooh-poohed the release of the classified annex to the Durham report. Charlie Savage wrote:
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and other Trump allies have declared that a newly declassified report on the Russia investigation provides “evidence that the Clinton campaign plotted to frame President Trump and fabricate the Russia collusion hoax.” The reality is almost precisely the opposite. The report shows that a purported email that Trump supporters have long tried to portray as a smoking gun is instead most likely a fake. Russian spies appear to have tried to make it seem authentic by assembling passages lifted from actual emails by different hacking victims.
Mr. Trump and his aides have coupled those releases with wild and inaccurate claims about what they show, spinning the reports as proof of his long-running narrative that the investigation was a hoax instigated by enemies for political reasons.
This whole “assembled by Russian spies” line is based on one assessment about a pair of emails likely pulled by Russians from other real American victims of hacking. Beyond this instance of a “composite,” the paper ignores the gigantic load of material from the same source, which has been described in multiple other reports as real and affecting numerous American “victims” from the Executive and Legislative branches, as well as think-tanks and NGOs.
More irritating is Savage’s diatribe against Patel and the hoax “narrative,” offered without mentioning the roughly ten million instances in which the Times botched its coverage of Patel and Republican investigations into Russiagate. When Patel and then-House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes released the much-denounced “Nunes memo” about FISA abuse in early 2018, Savage personally “annotated” the document, which would be vidicated more or less entirely by an Inspector General investigation nearly two years later. About the accusations of FISA abuse, which included use of the Steele dossier to obtain surveillance authority, Charlie wrote:
The FBI had ““grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,’” adding, “In accusing the F.B.I. of omitting important information, this memo’s critics say the memo itself omits crucial context: other evidence that did not come from Mr. Steele, much of which remains classified.”
This is the much-used initial argument that the Steele material wasn’t important to the FISA warrant. Savage went with this talking point multiple times, also saying in another piece, “Mr. Steele’s information was only one thread in a tapestry of evidence from various sources that the memo ignored, exaggerating its relative importance.” Inspector General Horowitz dashed that, concluding Steele “played a central and essential role”;
Savage went on in the “annotation”: “It makes no note of the fact that [Carter] Page attracted the F.B.I.’s interest in 2013, when agents came to believe that Russian spies were trying to recruit him.” Why didn’t Patel include that detail? Because Page was an informant in good standing with the CIA at the time, a fact an FBI lawyer was criminally convicted for omitting. Savage, who later wrote about Kevin Clinesmith’s conviction, omitted the same critical detail as Clinesmith — perhaps unknowingly, but still;
Savage wrote, “The language used here on Mr. Steele’s relationship with the F.B.I. suggests that it was formal. But he never entered into any formal relationship from which he could be suspended or terminated, according to people familiar…” Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI “for cause” on November 17, 2016, years before the annotation article, showing Savage’s “people familiar” either weren’t “familiar” or were yanking his chain. Colleague Scott Shane would describe the firing as a decision by the FBI to “end the formal relationship” with Steele. Oops.
For what it’s worth, the Times without Savage’s help also swallowed the Hamilton 68 hoax whole and described the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag as the work of Russian “bots”; ran an editorial called “The Nunes memo is all smoke, no fire”; and ran a full house editorial (one that again cited the phony Hamilton 68 dashboard, by the way) describing the Nunes report as a “fake scandal” designed, like the Clinton email investigation, to distract from the “real conspiracy” investigated by Robert Mueller. This sounds remarkably like today’s story, which described the Durham release as an effort to “change the subject from its broken promise to release Jeffrey Epstein files.” They write the same stories, over and over. It never ends.
The part that really infuriated today, however, was this section:
In reality, the F.B.I. opened its investigation based on a lead it received from the Australian government in late July 2016, after WikiLeaks released Democratic emails stolen by Russian hackers and disrupted the Democratic convention. The tip involved a Trump campaign adviser suggesting, before the hacking had become public, that the campaign had received outreach from Russia and knew what it would do.
This paragraph is an outrage. It’s carefully written to conceal how utterly the Times botched one of the most impactful stories of the Russiagate affair, a story called “How the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks and Talk of Political Dirt.” This professed to be the origin story of Russiagate, explaining that on July 26th, 2016, four days after Wikileaks leaked thousands of documents damaging to the Democratic Party, Australian authorities told American counterparts about a suspicious Russia-themed conversation Trump aide George Papadopoulos had with a diplomat named Alexander Downer.
The Times reported that Papadopoulos had been told of “dirt” Russia had, in the form of “thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton,” given to him by a Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud, presented as a cutout for Russia. This was described as a “driving factor” for the FBI opening its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump and Russia on July 31, 2016.
Almost everything about this story was wrong. It took a while, but Downer himself eventually admitted there was no “dirt” talk, or email talk. From the public Durham report:
According to Downer, Papadopoulos made no mention of Clinton emails, dirt or any specific approach by the Russian government to the Trump campaign team with an offer or suggestion of providing assistance. Rather, Downer's recollection was that Papadopoulos simply stated "the Russians have information” and that was all.
Downer also said he “did not get the sense Papadopoulos was the middle-man to coordinate with the Russians.” More infuriating? The FBI dropped Papadopoulos as a lead weeks into the Crossfire Hurricane inquiry, with Deputy Director Alexander McCabe testifying that his comments “didn’t particularly indicate” contact with Russians:
Screwing up “dirt” and “thousands of emails” is bad, but the McCabe testimony shows the FBI knew in in August of 2016 that Papadopoulos was a dead-end. But “current and former American officials” polished that turd and fed it to the Times a full year and a half later. The paper then used it for its blockbuster tale about how Papadopoulos played a “critical role” in the Russiagate drama.
This will go down as an infamous screw-up and smear. Papadopoulos was totally uninvolved with any intelligence scheme and merely used as a technical pretense to start what proved to be a bogus investigation. Still, the Times plastered his face all over its front page as the scandal’s poster child, in what in hindsight was a proud advertisement for how badly they’d been bent over by their sources.
Now, years later, Savage not only re-writes this passage without the name “Papadopoulos” and without references to “dirt” or “thousands of emails,” but uses sleight-of-hand to suggest what was said between the young Trump aide and the Australian diplomat was meaningful. He describes a “Trump campaign adviser suggesting, before the [Russian] hacking had become public, that the campaign had received outreach from Russia and knew what it would do.” Knew what it would do? Savage leaves out the fact that Papadopoulos had not, in fact, received outreach from Russia, and did not have or claim to have foreknowledge of hacking. He played no meaningful role. It’s part of the Times legend that he did, however, so Charlie twisted the prose like a pipe cleaner to fit the few remaining usable factoids.
The irony is that while Papadopoulos was not the real beginning of Russiagate, the story Durham told about the U.S. acquiring a large chunk of intelligence from Russia far earlier in 2016 likely was. This was real intelligence concerning Russia that was embarrassing to Clinton, not Trump. Even at this late date, after so many Russiagate stories the paper screwed up, they continue to vomit up this nonsense. Give back your Pulitzer, you clowns!
(racket.news)
GAZA: A GHASTLY WINDOW INTO THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM
by William I. Robinson and Hoai-An Nguyen
As the world watches in horror over the mounting death toll of Palestinian civilians and Israel faces charges before the International Court of Justice for the Crime of Genocide, the carnage in Gaza gives us a ghastly window into the rapidly escalating crisis of global capitalism. Connecting the dots from the merciless Israeli destruction of Gaza to this global crisis requires that we step back to bring into focus the big picture. Global capitalism faces a structural crisis of overaccumulation and chronic stagnation. But the ruling groups also face a political crisis of state legitimacy, capitalist hegemony, and widespread social disintegration, an international crisis of geopolitical confrontation, and an ecological crisis of epochal proportions.
Global corporate and political elites are in a drunkard’s hangover from the world capitalist boom of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They have had to acknowledge that the crisis is out of control. In its 2023 Global Risk Report, the World Economic Forum warned that the world confronts a “polycrisis” involving escalating economic, political, social, and climactic impacts that “are converging to shape a unique, uncertain and turbulent decade to come.” The Davos elite may be clueless as to how to resolve the crisis but other factions of the ruling groups are experimenting with how to mold interminable political chaos and financial instability into a new and more deadly phase of global capitalism.
While the military outcome of the Gaza war has yet to be determined, there is no doubt that Israel its enablers in the core states of world capitalist system are losing the political war for legitimacy. The initial months of siege on Gaza appeared to crystallize a Washington-NATO-Tel Aviv axis prepared to normalize genocide even at great political cost. Yet the Palestinian plight has touched a raw nerve among mass publics around the world, especially among youth, giving new energy to the global revolt of the working and popular classes that has been gaining momentum in recent years and heightening the political contradictions of the crisis. In the United States, from where we pen these lines, there has been an extraordinary outpouring of solidarity with Palestine led by a younger generation of Jews who do not identify with Zionism and the Jewish state. The Palestinian flag, raised around the world in street demonstrations, sporting events, and social media platforms, has become a symbol of popular rage and global intifada against the prevailing status quo.
The twentieth century saw at least five cases of acknowledged genocide, defined by the United Nations Convention as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. The century started with the genocide of the Herero and Nama by German colonialists from 1904 to 1908 in what is today Namibia. This was followed by the Ottoman genocide of Armenians in 1915 and 1916, the Nazi holocaust of 1939-1945, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994. As Israeli genocide in Gaza is livestreamed the rules of warfare no longer apply, if they ever did, for Tel Aviv and Washington. There were more civilian deaths recorded in Gaza in the first two months of the conflict, nearly 20,000, than in the first 20 months of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which took 9,614 civilian lives. Whether the Israeli siege consummates genocide in the first twenty-first century may be determined less on the military than on the global political battlefield. Israel may be a testing ground for the ruling groups from the Washington-NATO-Tel Aviv axis to see just how far they can enjoy impunity before the costs of Israel’s siege become too high.…
https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/gaza-a-ghastly-window-into-the-crisis-of-global-capitalism/
R.D.Beacon-Proof read your posting before sending.
Gordon,
Capitalize your name.
If you ever met the man, the myth, the legend, you might be humbled to your own surprise. His message gets across to those who know the man, and we don’t waste too much time worried about grammer correctness.
It’s poetry exactly the way it is. Read it aloud, emphasize the close-enough words with a smile, and pause for a breath at every comma like it’s a new line. Fixing it right would ruin it. Let the man work.
I am surprised that his friends (AVA included) allow Beacon to parade his decline.
You just don’t understand how to translate the throwback linguistics of this here the Coast. Sounds like a right smart plan fer you to learn. And don’t even attempt Boontling.
R.D. BEACON (edited):
As a reminder, Ledford House restaurant in Albion is the best restaurant in the county and last night I had their bistro special with another guy: breaded duck leg, vegetables, mushrooms, and small potatoes in a sauce which I drank afterward. The salad with Caesar dressing was as good as what I make at home, with lots of garlic, romaine lettuce, cheese and croutons.
When I order food to go, I buy loaves of the bread and tonight I will eat rabbit. The food is always consistent and over the many years I’ve been sending them customers, none of whom have ever complained about not being treated fairly. Ledford has a conscientious staff, people who really care, and next time any of you go out to dinner on the coast, check out the Ledford House. There’s great portions of food for a fair price and we always appreciate Tony and his staff for being so professional. Remember that they are open Wednesday through Sunday, serving dinner only, with an excellent view of the Pacific Ocean from the dining room and the bar.
CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING TO SHUT DOWN AFTER BEING DEFUNDED BY CONGRESS, TARGETED BY TRUMP
The trash we elect…just after PBS became watchable again! The bastards we elect should be flogged…and deported permanently, to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of MEXICO.
+1 With you, Mr. Harvey. Hope all is well out there in the big wilds.
I wonder if we will ever recover from Trump’s daily tantrums.
In the past there was high quality programming on PBS. Nova and Nature were excellent programs. Not any more. The Science Chanel does better. I stopped watching news there as well. They became partisan mouth pieces like everyone else. Good riddance.
What channels do you watch for news, George?
“Nova” and “Nature” were worthwhile pretty much through the 90s. Then they turned to pure crap. They now are worth watching again, which surprised me. Never saw your science channel (though its name makes me suspect it is aimed at kids, or adults who never matured or developed much of a brain), since my antenna reception gives me only a limited number of channels, and damned if I’m going back to the pay TV ripoff.
https://youtube.com/@petersantenello?si=2MsdHjXtagK7ef9C
I’ll miss Mike Yastrzemski — great defensive player but no offense. He was only batting .231 with only 8 HRs and 28 RBIs in 321 At Bats.
Me too. From all accounts, he was a class act and always gave his best. The kind of guy you might want in the clubhouse.
Exactly right, Norm. Yaz was a leader in the clubhouse.
Re: Supes Insult …:
Mr. Scaramella,
I looked at the May 6 Minutes and Agenda and can’t find anything close to the directions from the July CEO report. Is she just making stuff up?
What Matt Tiabbi and others consistently overlook is the fact that the Trump ‘Russia-gate’ files were initially commissioned by the Republican National Committee in their attempt to scuttle DJT’s 2016 presidential nomination bid.
It is a virtual and real waste of time, attention, and energy re-litigating events of almost a decade ago.
What is uncontested — even by Mr. Durham’s most recent investigation (at DJT’s behest) — is that Putin favored DJT over HRC for the presidency of the United States.
So? Russia-gate: Basta!
+1 Thank you for your wise overview. Be Gone this issue–much more urgent stuff to address, like the daily craziness, lawlessness, destruction that afflicts the nation at the hands of those in power.
Mainstream News Directors: I offer a bit of free, undoubtedly unwelcome advice on your current news coverage:
1.) Our uneducated, opportunistic president could care less about antisemitism, or for that matter the welfare of any individual group. More Jews live in New York than in Tel Aviv: Trump only cares about this educated and well-heeled voting block to gain its support, ironically blackmailing universities and colleges as the hammer to cement that support. Critically, as news directors, you have a moral and factual obligation to remind your gullible audiences that “antisemitism” is a misleading cop-out interpretation of demonstrations held here and around the world. Most of those demonstrators wouldn’t recognize the Torah if it hit them over the head. It’s the State of Israel’s genocide in Gaza that’s driving the bus. You are responsible for pointing out this critical factual difference.
2.) I get it: There’s nothing easier to gather or more provocative to present than “justice for the families” as part of your coverage of an increasing number of highly publicized murders. What do you expect a family to say about the brutal murder of a loved one? Shame on you, the only lazier way to “report” a story is the dread “man on the street” interview. Violent crime is a matter for our courts, not some vague, incendiary notion of family “justice” (revenge in a nicer package). If families increase their high-profile posturing in these legal proceedings, apparently with every elected official’s public agreement, we might as well go back to clans killing one another directly for wrongdoing, real or perceived. And what if anything does revenge accomplish? “Closure” is a myth, as anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one knows only too well.