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SEASONABLE TEMPERATURES are forecast through Thursday. Risk for heat-related illnesses will increase Friday through Sunday with triple digit high temperatures expected in the interior. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 48F with clear skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Mostly clear with a few clouds continues until I say otherwise.
NO LENIENCY FOR PAINTER
A 52-year-old Ukiah man with a staggering record of DUI-related offenses, reckless driving, and even assaulting a teenage fast-food worker was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in state prison, according to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.
Patrick Lee Painter Jr., a habitual traffic offender from the south end of Ukiah, received a 68-month sentence after pleading for leniency in Mendocino County Superior Court. The judge wasn’t swayed.
Painter was convicted of two felonies, 14 misdemeanors, and a sentencing enhancement tied to a string of dangerous incidents dating back to December 2022. Among the charges: felony evading police at speeds over 120 mph, multiple DUI-related offenses, and battery against a 16-year-old girl working at a fast-food restaurant.
His most recent charge was filed just last month—driving with a forged vehicle registration on July 18, 2024. Just days earlier, he was hit with felony bail jumping. His earlier rap sheet includes three separate arrests for driving under the influence with blood alcohol levels over twice the legal limit, including a .30% reading in February 2023.
Law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation include the Ukiah Police Department, California Highway Patrol, and the Department of Justice forensic lab, the DA’s office noted.
Retired Judge Jeanine Nadel, sitting on special assignment, handed down the sentence. Painter was immediately remanded into custody and is headed to state prison. The case was prosecuted by District Attorney David Eyster.
ALL ONLINE MENDOCINO COUNTY CRIMINAL COURT FILES VANISH OVER THE WEEKEND, never to return
by Frank Hartzell
In a blow to public access and openness in Mendocino County, all criminal court files became inaccessible on Friday and will never return online, if all goes to plan.
Once again, the internet, which many hoped would make more information available, has instead restricted it. Removing criminal court files from the internet follows a prohibition on publishing routine booking photos online. It follows laws that now allow all online and court files to be destroyed once a person has completed their sentence. Misuse of public information by the ubiquitous haters and angry trolls found on social media has resulted in numerous moves to prevent the internet from being “eternal” punishment for the accused and even the convicted.
Privacy concerns have come into conflict with the core American value of open and fully visible government. Journalists have always been biased in favor of keeping everything possible and decent in the public eyes, it’s our job and this is obviously a big intrusion into the public’s right to know. Court are not now, nor should ever be, only a place for attorneys and parties to access.
Court files have always been as open and public as possible, an effort led by the legal system itself. All once agreed that it is a core American belief that the workings of government should never be allowed to be invisible. Do they still? How did this come out of the blue like this across the state?
Now if anybody objective really wants to watch, they need to pay to play.…
ED NOTES
AFTER three years of dedicated service to the City of Fort Bragg, Police Chief Neil Cervenka has announced his retirement, with his final day of service set for September 30, 2025.'
WITH THE NOTABLE EXCEPTION OF JOHN NAULTY, FORT BRAGG POLICE CHIEF NEIL CERVENKA succeeded a series of pension padders while the free range deranged roamed downtown and drug dealers sold death without fear of consequence. Building on Naulty’s original idea, Cervanka systematically, humanely, sorted out the "homeless" — this one here, that one there, a bunch back where they came from. Supported by a clear-thinking city council, Cervenka showed it could be done, an encouraging fact wilfully ignored by the City of Ukiah, county headquarters for an array of "helping" agencies who aggressively resist effective strategies for humanely re-taking the town's public areas because, well, they live off human misery.
IN FACT, when the County paid an outside consultant to instruct local authorities on how to diminish the homeless population, the majority of whom, as we know, are drug and alcohol addicted, insane, and criminal, the helping pros, in a panic, convened a mass meeting in the Ukiah City Caverns vowing to resist any and all changes to more of the same. The County will miss Chief Cervenka.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL, and let me be the first in my rural neighborhood to say it isn't very interesting, less interesting to me even than the entire Epstein scandal, as if there's anything surprising about the depravity of rich degenerates. Degenerates of modest means don't have the reach of Epstein, and there are millions of them, as we know. In a porn-basted world it's surprising there aren't more sexual crimes against women. Make pornography seriously illegal and pull the plug on the internet and we'd be back to global normal, which is plenty awful on its own.
ADMIT IT, fellow lib-labs, wasn't there something fishy about Russiagate from the git? Of course the Rooskies preferred Trump over Hillary. Hillary was one more cold warrior — ice cold in her case — hostile to Russia, while Trump was some kind of a super vain clown the crafty Putin could easily have his way with.
WHEN Russiagate unraveled, and continues to unravel, it's one more sad example of mass media corruption. So eager were the big media to promote Hillary over Trump they simply ignored the evidence that Russiagate was front-to-back bullshit. Now the lib perps are reduced to saying, “Well, gosh, the Russians still tried to interfere with our elections.” Of course they did. That's what hostile powers do. You don't think we don't try to bamboozle the Russians, the Chinese?
TRUMP has always been appalling. You wouldn't think there would be such a huge need among the Democrats, rancid in their own right, of course, to make him out worse than he is. Russiagate seemed like piling on in 2016. But here he comes again, even more unfit than in 2016, talking about immigrants eating America's household pets, and he gets re-elected in a landslide! The excessive lying about Trump has probably made him even more vindictive and destructive than he might otherwise be. It's an incentive for him, for sure.
SPEAKING of Russian interference in America's seething mass mind, the Russian's anti-Ukraine propaganda has prompted the more weak-brained lefties, and the dependably gullible Magas, that Ukraine was and is a CIA manufactured entity created for the purpose of menacing Russia. Boiled down, untrue. At the time of Putin's invasion, and now, the vast Ukrainian opinion is of one independent people who prefer to be aligned with Western Europe, not Russian authoritarianism, and thousands of Ukranians have died trying. People don't risk their necks for a fake nation. (And you're telling me that you support a Russia that lobs missiles into civilian apartment buildings night after night?)
BRUCE McEWEN: "Hey, Chief, while you’re on the comment page, do you think it possible that the tedious antisemite Pat Kittle was involved in that zog conspiracy with this Bob Mathews and His Band Of Hooligans?. You always find amazing things in your tireless reading and research, and I have always envied the style and taste you use in laying out the paper—online or otherwise— so it comes off every week as a thematic masterpiece, hang in there, maestro…"
I VAGUELY recall encountering Kittle back in the early 90's. He may have been an Earth First!er, a group partial to wacky-think. But I think he's simply one more dupe of bad ideas. He's in the ZOG ballpark for sure. Why he glommed onto the ava I don't know. Kittle's obviously a charter member of that particular dunce confederacy, but lots of innocent people are getting tagged as anti-Semites these days for simply opposing Israel's ongoing attempt to extinguish Palestinians as a people. Way back, I was invited to speak in Berkeley when, during questions, this guy pops up to say, “Why is that anti-Semite Alexander Cockburn in your paper?” Cockburn, for years, was one of the few big gun intellectuals to regularly roll out to defend the Palestinians, and certainly no anti-Semite.
RE Mathews and The Order fanatics, you might be interested to know they were already planning an attack on Brinks' San Francisco headquarters before they successfully hijacked the Brinks truck north of Ukiah on Highway 20. I guess their thinking was, “Why knock off one truck at a time when we can plunder the entire NorCal headquarters down there in Frisco?”
ON-LINE JOB ADVICE TO THE YOUNG: “I've been working steady for the past 32 years, have never collected unemployment, never been out of work for more than a few weeks, so I feel like I know something about the job market, and I think if a young person just ready to enter the labor force were to ask me for advice, I would say, Don't follow my example. Don't plan on working for a paycheck from now until you retire. Plan on being an entrepreneur. Get your contractor's license, open a muffler shop, open a co-op bakery, start some online enterprise, if that's your thing, just get as far away as you can as fast as you can from the ‘job market’ and the resume game and the promotion game and all of that nonsense. One way or another, you're just going to be exploited, and you'll spend your life working to create wealth for somebody else, not for yourself.”
THE REDWOOD RAMBLE 2025
by Terry Sites
On July 17, 18, 19, and 20th Camp Navarro in Anderson Valley hosted the tenth annual “Redwood Ramble.” The stated purpose of the event is “Bringing people together in an environment that fosters a sense of community while at the same time supporting the common good. To offer support and opportunity for people at a four-day family friendly music-infused campout under the Redwoods.”
Growing out of the Strawberry Music Festival, the Ramble was originally christened “Joy Kills Sorrow” when it emerged as an alternative survival party following the cancellation of the Strawberry Fest due to the Yosemite Rim fire in 2013. It morphed into something so special that attendees vowed to keep it going. Rumor has it that each year 20 minutes after the 1200 tickets go on sale they are sold out. Leadership fell to Steve Zimmerman and family who picked the name to honor Levon Helm and his “Midnight Ramble” sessions.
The Redwood Ramble is indeed a different kind of festival and it’s about a lot more than the music, although a healthy number of bands play. There are rules that come with attending and the result is an amazingly peaceful gathering. It may be the largest group of polite people you’ ever see together in one place. The beauty of the setting seems to inspire people to be on their very best behavior. Litter is virtually non-existent. Everywhere you turn someone is wishing you a “Happy Ramble” or thanking you for some small courtesy. It is actually shocking to be immersed in such a civil and friendly environment reminiscent of a much earlier era.
The setting at Camp Navarro contributes a lot to that peaceful feeling. Cool and shady, the forest reaches out to embrace the crowd. The vibration is definitely chill. Many families attend and kids from infants to teenagers have a lot of freedom to roam. Teen boys and girls seems to wander in segregated packs — the girls looking winsome in their midriff bearing outfits and the boys looking longingly after them. There are art and music activities and lots of game areas.
The teen boys seem to especially like the meadow where balls, rackets, corn hole and other outdoor paraphanelia is available. Large hammocks, big enough for two or more, are also very popular with the younger set who lounge, chat, read and nap.
Almost half of the attendees buy the meal plan, which provides breakfast and dinner for three days.
Working in the kitchen we helped to crack 110 dozen eggs — that’s a lot of scrambled eggs baby! The service in the dining room is attractive with its rustic fireplace, wooden walls, linen-like tablecloths, and flower arrangements of redwood branches, laurel leaves and wild sweet peas picked right out of the forest. Also on site is a walk up café with pastries, sandwiches, and hot and cold beverages. A wood-fired oven produces pizza, an oyster shucker provides fresh oysters and the burger grill is busy.
There is a popular bar with beer, wine and the occasional marguerita. Of course everyone attending is camping, so many just return to their camp kitchen for meals and snacks.
The camping is mostly tents but there are designated areas for RVs. Accommodations are made for people with special needs. Many return year after year to camp together with their friends. Many campsites have names like “Crow” and colorful banners marking their spaces.
Nighttime at the stages and in the camps is made magical by strings of lights and all kinds of lighted accessories including capes, hoops, and balls. Colored light halos worn on many heads are very captivating as people shift and move through the dark night. A “Bubble man” creates gigantic bubbles with a simple pail, two wands and some string. In the daytime kids chase and pop them, some as big as 70 inches long. At night the bubble man sets up banks of lights that reflect off the giant bubbles making fantastical rainbows.
There are two stages, a small one that is an amphitheater and a large one where the bigger bands play. The crowd brings their chairs and seems to leave them in position for the duration to park and relax while coming and going at will. Much of the time the crowd is on its feet in front of the big stage dancing, singing and swaying with the bands. They look like an organic boogying herd moving together.
There are always a few who really “have the music in them” and they are especially fun to watch: old timers, teens and little kids too. Over all four days no drugs of any kind were in evidence aside from alcohol.
All meals are taken outdoors by everyone. The dining hall where the meal plan people get their food is set up for serving only, no indoor tables. Lots of tables and chairs are out under the trees. The tables are also used for board games and conversational gatherings. There are lots of places to perch. Also on offer is the river which, while not as full as one might like, is still wet and a magnet for water rats large and small. There is a rope for swinging out over the water where city kids can get a taste of country pleasures.
There are people who make attending multiple music festivals something of a hobby. One woman shared that she regularly attends seven festivals and that “The Ramble” is the most special of them all.
Of course, making something like this happen and run smoothly doesn’t just happen. A tremendous amount of planning goes into every aspect. The Zimmermans and their team work all year round producing the festival. Camp Navarro has an entirely engaged staff that keeps an eye on everything all the time throughout.
Site manager Nedjma Elliot has a unique leadership style. The consensus of her staff is that she “runs a tight ship,” but they all smile as they say it. She manages to keep morale exceedingly high with everyone on task and willing to go the extra mile while they enjoy being part of a well-oiled organization. As part of the staff during the festival, my husband and I were thrilled to be hired and trusted to deliver the goods even though, ahem, we are not spring chickens.
The bands cannot be readily pigeon-holed, but there was blues, some reggae, some funk and some folk music. Bands included our own local Real Sarahs, as well as Shiny Ribs, Magnolia Boulevard, Hattie & Joe Craven, Steve Poltz, Marin County Breakdown, Achilles Wheel, New Monsoon, Jason Carter Band, Handmade Moments, Jenerator, Rhiannon Giddens, Galactic, Miko Marks and Mojo, and Miller Blues Power. If any of this sounds like real fun to you, you might consider attending next year. A “Happy Ramble” to you.
A MAINSTAY OF THE VEGAS STRIP IS MENDOCINO COUNTY’S NEW NEIGHBOR
by Matt LaFever
Las Vegas has officially crept into wine country—and it’s parked itself just a half hour from Mendocino County.
On August 2, the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians broke ground on Caesars Republic Sonoma County, a flashy overhaul of Geyserville’s River Rock Casino. According to a press release from Caesars Entertainment, the project will bring 1,000 slot machines, 28 table games, a 100-room hotel, luxury spa, wine bar, and multiple high-end restaurants to a hillside above the Russian River.
“We are creating a world-class resort experience,” said Tribal Chairman Chris Wright in the announcement, calling the move “a bold leap into the future for our Tribe and our community.”
Also leaping in: Caesars Entertainment, which will manage the operation; Citizens Financial Group, which is bankrolling it; and Gaming and Leisure Properties, Inc., which is buying the dirt underneath it.
The press release pitches the resort as a fusion of “natural beauty” and “premier gaming.” But for Mendocino County residents used to redwoods and tasting rooms, the idea of neon-lit blackjack and steak tartare just down the road may feel a bit… off.
The plan is to rebrand the property under Caesars’ “Republic” label—what the company calls an “elevated” experience. Translation: this isn’t your standard roadside casino. Expect curated cocktails, a dedicated wine bar with a valley view, and a spa to unwind after losing at craps.
Caesars COO Anthony Carano said the location was ideal for expanding the brand, fresh off a similar launch in Lake Tahoe. “We’re excited to… offer a new, elevated and unique experience for our guests,” he said in the release.
Whether that experience meshes with sleepy Geyserville—or Mendocino County’s rural pace—is another matter entirely.
(MendoFever.com)
CONCRETIONS AND ANCIENT MOLARS AT BOWLING BALL BEACH
by David Bacon
…Schooner Gulch is one half of one of the strangest coastal parks in California. From a parking area on Highway 1, so small that can only fit six cars, one trail leads to the Gulch. The other heads to Bowling Ball Beach.
After climbing down the cliff and walking up the shore, you arrive at a flat stone platform beneath high cliffs. At low tide neat rows of huge round boulders, covered in seaweed and barnacles, sit on the playa, as though waiting for a game played by giants. At high tide they disappear beneath the surf.
The boulders are concretions, and were formed in the cliffs above when they were mud or sandstone. Inside the stone itself, while it was in the process of compaction over millions of years, a small hard item became a core around which minerals began to precipitate. Over time, the concretion grew inside the rock around it.
Twisted cliffs rise above Bowling Ball Beach. Layers of frozen stone sediment, originally the flat sea bottom, over time have been pushed up at disorienting angles. Their sharply eroded layers reach down to the shoreline, and continue on into the stone playa and the water.…
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2025/08/photos-from-edge-16-concretions-and.html
PG&E'S DAM REMOVAL PLAN IS FINALLY HERE
Eel River dam removal is just around the corner. 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.
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.
The Wild and Scenic Eel River presents unique opportunities for revitalization of native fish. The watershed has high-quality habitat protected in large tracts of wild spaces. Importantly, the Eel’s salmon, steelhead, lamprey, and other native fish still hold their wild genetics. Removing the Eel River dams will open access to hundreds of miles of excellent habitat in the upper headwaters, restore the natural flow of sediment, eliminate the accumulation of methylated mercury, and improve water quality downstream of the dams.
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!
— Friends of the Eel River
BOONTFLING IS THIS WEEKEND!
Open to Everyone – Spectators Welcome!
BoontFling is back at Anderson Valley Brewing Company this weekend, and it’s gonna be a great time. Three days of high-flying disc golf, glow rounds under the stars, creekside camping, food trucks, cold AVBC beer, and nightly live music. Whether you're ripping drives or draining putts, this is where disc golf meets music fest meets summer magic — all on our home turf.
This is open to everyone! It's the ultimate spectator sport, and the band lineup is pure fire! It's like if Burning Man and Disc Golf hooked up – Boontfling would fly out!
https://mailchi.mp/avbc/bahl-tidrick-17456844
BLAST FROM THE PAST
Some readers may recall that back in 2014, years before the Coast Listserve/Chatline was turned over to “moderators,” the chatline had some very nutty posts. So nutty that coast resident Holly Tannen wrote this parody of typical MCN ListServe conversations in 2013:
"For those of you who were unable to read every post on the 2013 Repercussion-list, here is a recap of the major conversations.
POSTER #1. Blah blah blah blah government blah blah blah blah assholes.
POSTER #2. R U CRAZY?! U don't know what ur talking about.
POSTER #1. Blah blah blah Obama blah blah Bush blah blah.
POSTER #2. Go back to Rhode Island, ur an idiot.
POSTER #3. Your conversation doesn't belong on this list.
POSTER #2. Mind ur own business, troll face.
POSTER #4. Anyone got any good seaweed recipes?
POSTER #5. Blah blah blah blah Julian blah.
POSTER #6. All the seaweed is radioactive from Baja to the San Juans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
POSTER #3. WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
POSTER #6. STOP SCREAMING!!!
POSTER #1. Blah blah blah blah government blah blah them blah Cheney blah blah.
POSTER #6. Can't we just love each other? We're all One in the sight of God.
POSTER #2. I'm not.
POSTER #3. SOMEONE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE F*CKING TROLLS!
POSTER #7. Macerated seal brains?
POSTER #6. The Universe is perfect and everything is evolving towards the Greater Good.
POSTER #2. I'm going to puke. (Pukes)
POSTER #4. Blah blah blah blah blah Fukishima blah blah tunafish.
POSTER #2. I'm posting a video of what u did to those parakeets.
POSTER #1. Blah blah Constitution blah blah blah patriot blah deluded.
POSTER #6. Hummingbirds! Migrating whales! All One!"
D.J. KEN STEELY:
Originally: Highway 101, a.k.a. the Redwood Highway
Now: Mountain House Road.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, August 5, 2025
JOSE SALTAZAR-JIMENEZ, 34, Point Arena. DUI, suspended license for DUI, failure to appear, probation revocation.
VERONICA CASTILLO, 44, Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.
CHRISTOPHER CURTIS, 41, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, probation revocation.
JARED KIDD, 34, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, brandishing of imitation firearm, resisting, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)
BRANDI MANJAPREZ, 59, Loleta/Ukiah. Under influence.
WILLIAM MARSHALL, 45, Willits. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, suspended license, smuggling controlled substance into jail.
MICHAEL MCINERNEY, 41, Ukiah. Parole violation.
CORT MILLER SR., 31, Willits. Elder abuse, battery, parole violation.
ILIJAH NELSON, 38, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation, resisting.
SEAN NICHOLS, 48, Milwaukee, Oregon/Ukiah. Pot for sale.
PATRICK PAINTER JR., 52, Ukiah. DUI, no license, reckless evasion, registration tampering, suspended license for DUI, child endangerment, false ID, resisting.
JESSICA STAMNESS, 40, Willits. Probation revocation.
GREGORY THOMPKINS, 56, Ukiah. Parole violation.
LARRY WOLFE JR., 35, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, contempt of court.
THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOMES FOR GIANTS IN THEIR FIRST BUSTER POSEY SEASON
by Scott Ostler
For the San Francisco Giants, the rest of this season and the near future comes down to the old question posed in 1965 by the Lovin’ Spoonful: Do you believe in magic?
The Giants can’t look for hope from the cold numbers. The computers don’t like this team’s chances the rest of this year. Baseball-Reference’s analytics show the Giants with an 8.6% chance to make the playoffs. In the last 30 days, their odds have taken a 35.5% dive, biggest in the National League, second-largest swoon in MLB beyond the plummeting Rays.
Teams that are sellers at the trading deadline are supposed to surrender their playoff hopes, and the Giants cooperated, at least analytically.
So you have to look beyond the numbers to find hope, and as any Giants follower knows, if you’re looking for rays of sunshine, chat with Mike Krukow.
“To me, this feels like ’86,” Krukow said in a brief conversation Monday. “We knew we were putting stuff together. After losing 196 (combined losses the previous two seasons), we won 83, and carried it right into ’87, we just knew it was working, and we went into the World Series in ’89. That’s what it feels like now.”
What happened in ’86 was that the Giants got a spiritual infusion in their first full season with Roger “Humm Baby” Craig after he took over as manager at the tail end of the previous campaign.
That was the hope in the current Giants organization, and in the clubhouse and in the grandstands, when Buster Posey took over as president of baseball ops after last season — that he would bring some magic, the kind of cosmic stuff that resulted in World Series titles in 2010, ’12 and ’14.
Buster’s magic factor as an executive is still an unknown.
On paper, this is not a great Giants team, and that’s likely to be the case next season, too. To succeed, the Giants will have to do what Olympic rowers call “catch your swing,” which is when everyone pulls together so perfectly and the boat seems to leap out of the water.
It’s probably not fair to expect that to happen before next season, but you never know. Krukow pointed out that a trade deadline selloff can be a kick in the pants to the guys who survive the mini purge.
“You are vulnerable when you go through a deadline and watch some of your main players walk out the door,” Krukow said. “How you respond to that as a team determines if you have any chemistry at all for the rest of the season.”
Friday, the day after the deadline, was a rousing win for the Giants. That showed, to Krukow anyway, that the players heard Posey’s unspoken message.
“There’s no greater motivation for a professional athlete than to know you need to produce to stay, and you need a kick in the ass to remind you.”
Beyond that, maybe the players are getting a vibe from Posey that he believes in them, and he is willing to proceed boldly, as he expects them to do.
Looking for rays of hope? Here are a few:
- Jung Hoo Lee has been underwhelming this season, but he went 8-for-12 in the series win over the Mets. It’s possible that Lee is heeding the coaches’ urging to do less pulling and make more contact. Coincidence that the mini surge happened just after the deadline?
Maybe Lee is motivated — let’s say inspired — by the arrival of call-up Grant McCray in right field.
McCray is a legit center fielder, and he’s got a bit of swagger. In Sacramento this season, McCray stole 26 bases in 29 attempts. The Giants have been encouraging Lee to run more — hey, he is the Grandson of the Wind — and he stole a bag Saturday. The Giants need to run more, and maybe Lee and McCray will bring that.
Lee has played less than half a season in the big leagues. In Korea, he faced mostly slow stuff and is still adjusting to nightly 98 mph gas. The Rays’ shortstop, Ha-Seong Kim, hit .202 as an MLB rookie after he came over from Korea in 2021, adjusted to the power pitching, and hit .251 his second season.
Lee has a much higher ceiling. Kim was a .300 hitter in Korea; Lee hit .349 his last full season in the KBL and was a career .340 hitter there (and a career .491 slugger).
- Also intriguing is Jesus Rodriguez, the catcher obtained from the Yankees. He’s 23 and is hitting .315 in his first season at Triple-A. Giants catchers are hitting a collective .202/.262/.295 this season (through Sunday). Could Rodriguez wind up in an offense/defense platoon of sorts with Patrick Bailey, maybe even later this season?
What’s clear is that Posey and manager Bob Melvin can’t sit back now. They have to decide whether to go kid-heavy the rest of the season, taking a good look at youngsters, or, if the Giants surge in the next couple weeks, making the most of a renewed, if long shot, run at a wild-card berth.
Whatever the Giants do, this season and next, will demonstrate whether Posey is merely another baseball-savvy, hard-working player personnel boss, or if he has something special.
When he was a player, Posey made the team better. It was hard work and talent, but it was also magic. Should the Giants believe in magic?
(SF Chronicle)
GIANTS’ NEW LINEUP POUNDS PIRATES as Logan Webb notches his 10th win
by Susan Slusser
PITTSBURGH — This wasn’t your standard San Francisco Giants lineup, with Christian Koss starting at second, Jerar Encarnacion in right.
Koss thumped a two-run homer his first at-bat, the Giants’ first hit, Encarnacion hit a solo shot in the fourth and San Francisco was off and running. Willy Adames added a two-run homer in the fifth as the Giants cruised 8-1 over the Pirates at PNC Park on Tuesday night.
Every member of the Giants lineup got at least one hit and Adames and Heliot Ramos had two.
“I’d say it was probably the best baseball game we played in a long time,” starter Logan Webb said. “That’s a good thing. I think we’ve just got to keep that momentum, keep going and just kind of let everyone be themselves and play good baseball out there with a lot of energy, not trying to do too much. Don’t be the hero, and everyone do their job.”
Webb did exactly that while reaping rewards of all that relatively rare run support and while his strikeouts, 10 of them, ran up his pitch count, he made it through six innings and somehow only allowed one run, even with a weird Pirates spurt of four singles in a row in the third, which netted that run and no more. Webb struck out Oneil Cruz and got Nick Gonzales to ground out to end that inning, stranding three.
Webb, who improved to 10-8 and lowered his ERA to 3.24, didn’t walk a batter — the fourth time this season he’s struck out 10 or more and walked none. According to MLB stats expert Sarah Langs, that’s the most by a Giants starter in at least 125 years. He also passed 1,000 career innings.
“It’s cool,” he said, adding with a grin, “I’m just 2,500 away from Justin (Verlander) so I have some work to do.”
After a little funk in which he’d given up 16 runs in 15⅓ innings over three starts, he’s put together two strong starts in a row against the Pirates, allowing one run in 11 ⅔ innings. “Those last three weren’t very good,” he said. “This is a step in the right direction.”
Matt Gage worked two hitless innings in relief and Tristan Beck worked a perfect ninth.
Koss and Encarnacion were making their first starts since coming off the IL, making their contributions all the more meaningful.
“I love watching Koss play, man, he’s just a gamer,” Webb said. “He does everything. And then when you get Jerry going, we saw in spring what he can do and everyone was super excited to see him get an opportunity. He’s just been hampered by injuries.
“It’s going to take all of us and we’ve missed them.”
Koss’ homer was his third in 103 at-bats (“I kind of had a game plan — not ground into a double play,” he said), while Encarnacion’s was his first of the season, most of which he’s missed — first with a broken hand and then an oblique strain.
“Super good, there is nothing bothering me,” he said, with Erwin Higueros interpreting. “The swing is perfect.”
After a slow start, Adames, San Francisco’s major offseason addition, has 18 homers, most among the Giants who started the season with the club. Thirteen of them have come in the past 48 games, a stretch in which he’s batted .287. Through his first 65 games with the Giants, Adames hit .193 with five homers.
Wednesday (9:35 a.m. San Francisco start), the Giants could clinch their second series in a row against a team that just swept them at home. Robbie Ray goes for San Francisco, lefty Andrew Heaney for the Pirates.
“Especially with where we’re at as a team, we know we’re better,” Koss said of the third-place Giants. “We’re a playoff team trying to make a push. When you see guys patch together good at-bats like that against a good pitcher (Mike Burrows) who pretty much had our number last time, it’s a good sign. The more consistently that we can put good together at-bats like that, we’re a pretty dangerous team.”
Wilmer Flores, a pillar of the Giants’ lineups against lefties, hasn’t played since incurring hamstring tightness Friday at New York, so if he doesn’t start, the injury might be more of an issue than initially thought. Melvin said he believes Flores will be able to go.
Should Flores need to go on the IL, however, there might be increasing temptation to bring up top prospect Bryce Eldridge, even though he’s a left-handed hitter. Entering Tuesday, Eldridge had seven homers, 22 RBIs and a .999 OPS over the previous 15 games. The top right-handed options at Triple-A Sacramento are infielder Tyler Fitzgerald and outfielders Luis Matos and Marco Luciano.
(sfchronicle.com)
EYESORE OF THE MONTH, August 2025
Retro profundis with fries. . . .
by James Kunstler
Thar she blows: Elon Musk’s new / retro Tesla Diner on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Orange Street in Hollywood, CA. Designed to appeal to the deepest techno-narcissistic yearnings of the tech genius class of Americans. . . a very small demographic. It’s all sleek chrome and glass, with overtones of UFO. Cutting Edge! Transhuman chic! America is probably as sick of the tech fantasia trend as it is with Woke ideology. We’re beginning to grok that the future isn’t what it was cracked up to be. I predict the Tesla Diner will soon become the target of flash mobs seeking Rolex watches, Hermès Birkin handbags, and the keys to hot cars parked in its modest lot.
Note (in shot below, which is likely a rendering, not a real photo) that the structure actually addresses the street-corner properly. It’s brought up to the sidewalk edge as a truly urban building with ground-floor retail should be. Parking is in mid-block. Points for that. The neighborhood is attempting to densify with multistory apartment buildings. But LA, as we know, is struggling with suicidal tendencies, what with massive homeless squalor, the “undocumented” La Raza invasion, and Marxist municipal politics. I’m not so sure the densification project will continue.
Also note (photo following the one below) just how weak and squalid the urban condition is right across Santa Monica Blvd from the diner.
You might as well be in Jolliet, Illinois.
WHAT WOULD CLEMENTE DO?
by Dave Zirin
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss says that he never speaks for the dead, but in this one case, he’ll make an exception. I had asked the best-selling author of Clemente: The Passion And Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero what baseball Hall of Famer and Latin American icon Roberto Clemente would say about Trump’s sadistic immigration policies and Major League Baseball’s silence in the face of these policies.
Maraniss told me, “In this case I have no doubt: Clemente would speak out on behalf of the many thousands of Latino jibaros and trabajadores who give so much to this country and are now living in fear of ICE shock troops. Clemente would be clearly denouncing Trump’s overtly racist policies.” Maraniss said that Puerto Rico’s favorite son would also be agitating for a league so dependent upon Latin American talent to stand up for its players.
Major League Baseball’s silence over (or perhaps silent support for) Trump’s denaturalization dictates would have been shattering for Clemente because his era was one of progress. When he entered the league in 1954, Clemente was one of the first Latino players with the dark skin-tone that would have kept him out of the game before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Clemente later said that he first learned about racism—and first truly learned about what it meant to be Black—upon entering Major League Baseball and coming to the US mainland. Clemente fervently supported the rising Black Freedom Struggle. It was Clemente’s generation that changed the complexion—and languages—of MLB clubhouses forever. Clemente entered a league with racial quotas, which on some teams was still zero. He left in 1973 as captain of a Pirates team that could field an entire lineup of African American and Afro Latino players; a team beloved in what was then a white, blue-collar town.
Today one can imagine Clemente, if somehow reanimated for the present, initially ebullient over the state of Major League Baseball. He would see a record six managers of Latino descent. He would hear his first language and music in the clubhouse, including the reggaetón of Puerto Rico’s own Bad Bunny. He would appreciate stars like Manny Machado and Julio Rodriguez. And then his heart would break to see the national pastime take a pass on standing up for these players and their families. Not even the ballpark, that place of escape and community connectivity, is a sanctuary. If anything, they are ICE target zones.
Mari Corugedo, vice president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, wrote me, "The fact that you can’t go to a favorite pastime of the United States, like a baseball game, without thinking in the back of your head, that someone in a mask, someone who won’t show you their badge or name, can come and separate and use this as a weapon against your parents, your family members, your friends, anyone who attends these sports events.”
If the NFL’s tagline is “Football is Family,” MLB’s might as well be, “Baseball: Your family is not at present in an undisclosed location. Enjoy the game.”
Maraniss made another point about Clemente. “As a strong member of the players union,” Maraniss said, “he'd be pushing for them to take an unequivocal stand.”
Indeed, Clemente was an active unionist, so much so that he helped lead baseball’s first union strike in 1971 and was one of the few Major League Baseball players to defend fellow All-Star Curt Flood’s efforts in 1969 to win free agency for all baseball players.
Clemente’s instincts to look to his union to fight Trumpism would have been spot-on. The Major League Baseball Player’s Association could be a uniquely powerful force against Trump’s anti-Latino assault.
This is a union where a quarter of its members were born in Latin America and most of the rest are players mostly from comfortable suburban backgrounds and college with names like Gunnar, Colton, and Adley (to just use my favorite team as an example). What a statement to a divided country and a nativist president if this union of Kades and Eduardos could publicly condemn the terror being imposed on their members. The players would become leaders giving voice to people who right now are living in shadows, deliberately unheard.
We reached out to the MLBPA, but on this issue, it has been less deliberately unheard and more deliberately silent. “The PA is closely monitoring all U.S. immigration developments that could impact our members,” a representative of the MLBPA wrote. “We have advised non-U.S. citizen Players to carry proper immigration documentation with them when they travel and to ensure that their paperwork and personal information is up to date with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We are available to Players and agents around the clock as a source of information and support, and we will remain attentive to any enforcement trends that could impact Players and their families.”
This echoes what Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLBPA, told the Baseball Writers Association of America during the All-Star break. The following was sent to us by the union, complete with vocalized pauses. After Clark made the same declaration of legal support, he said, “We told them to carry their documentation, uh, uh, wherever they go… we've got immigration counsel and immigration lawyers on staff to provide, support in a way that we have in the past, but not to the extent that we do now in order to ensure guys are in the best position possible to get to the ballpark and do their job.”
There is no way this would be good enough for Clemente. Make sure you have your papers? Here is a number of a good lawyer? That doesn’t meet the moment. It accedes to it.
There is no shortage of bold and brave people speaking truth to this administration. Yet while the people speak, institution after institution refuses to stand up, even to an alleged child rapist using racism to ransack this country. Baseball isn’t special. It is just one institution on a list. But Clemente would still be calling out the league for not raising hell. After winning MVP of the 1971 World Series, Clemente, being interviewed on the field, said, “Before I say anything in English, I would like to say something in Spanish to my mother and father in Puerto Rico.” His words were simple: “En el día más grande de mi vida, para los nenes la benedición mia y que mis padres me échen la benedición.”
The crowd’s response was rapturous—even those fans who couldn’t understand him roared. The great Clemente was never ashamed of who he was. And he would never cower before that angry, burning rash known as Stephen Miller.
Clemente’s heroism turned into mythos on December 31 1973 when, despite a crippling fear of flying, he attempted to travel with aid to Nicaragua following a massive earthquake. Almost immediately, his plane went down off the coast of Puerto Rico’s Piñones Beach. Since that day, MLB has celebrated his legacy as a humanitarian, but he was more than that. He was someone who would die before surrendering an inch of dignity.
It is staggering how much Clemente gave to Major League Baseball, how many doors he opened, how much life he brought to the game. And it is equally staggering how comfortable MLB owners are that the families of 25 percent percent of their players live in terror. It is staggering they have said nothing about the 63 players from Venezuela whose families must live in a particular state of fear. It is staggering that white MLB players have said nothing on behalf of their teammates. And it is staggering that the union’s approach is just “carry your papers and we have lawyers if you need them.” None of this is good enough.
Yes, David Maraniss is correct that we should be wary of speaking for the dead, but we also cannot let MLB erase the dead: their beliefs, their words, or their sacrifices. They cannot erase Clemente’s fierce pride. They cannot erase that Clemente, if alive, would use his moral authority to stand up to an aspiring dictator and condemn the cowardice of the sport that he loved so dearly.
MARRIAGE
by Gregory Corso (1959)
Should I get married? Should I be good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky-
When she introduces me to her parents
back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,
should I sit with my knees together on their 3rd degree sofa
and not ask Where's the bathroom?
How else to feel other than I am,
often thinking Flash Gordon soap-
O how terrible it must be for a young man
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?
Should I tell them? Would they like me then?
Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter
but we're gaining a son-
And should I then ask Where's the bathroom?
O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends
and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded
just wait to get at the drinks and food-
And the priest! he looking at me as if I masturbated
asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?
And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!
I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back
She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!
And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on-
Then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes
Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!
All streaming into cozy hotels
All going to do the same thing tonight
The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen
The lobby zombies they knowing what
The whistling elevator man he knowing
Everybody knowing! I'd almost be inclined not to do anything!
Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!
Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!
running rampant into those almost climactic suites
yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!
O I'd live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls
I'd sit there the Mad Honeymooner
devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy
a saint of divorce-
But I should get married I should be good
How nice it'd be to come home to her
and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen
aproned young and lovely wanting my baby
and so happy about me she burns the roast beef
and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair
saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!
God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married!
So much to do! Like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night
and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books
Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower
like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence
like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!
And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle
Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust-
Yes if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow
and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn,
up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,
finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man
knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear nor Roman coin soup-
O what would that be like!
Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus
For a rattle a bag of broken Bach records
Tack Della Francesca all over its crib
Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib
And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon
No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father
Not rural not snow no quiet window
but hot smelly tight New York City
seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls
a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!
And five nose running brats in love with Batman
And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired
like those hag masses of the 18th century
all wanting to come in and watch TV
The landlord wants his rent
Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus
impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking-
No! I should not get married! I should never get married!
But-imagine if I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman
tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves
holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other
and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window
from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days
No, can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream-
O but what about love? I forget love
not that I am incapable of love
It's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes-
I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother
And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible
And there's maybe a girl now but she's already married
And I don't like men and-
But there's got to be somebody!
Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married,
all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear
and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me!
Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible
then marriage would be possible-
Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover
so i wait-bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
At this moment I am negotiating a possible asset sale of the small manufacturing company I founded and have been running for over 20 years. Looks like I won't make very much for my trouble. That is because I made a poor decision two decades ago to get into a business of making high quality tangible goods in the US, instead of running some elaborate tech, crypto or medical grift. Or making mid six figures in the government administration space (I haven't made six figures in a quarter century).
Sometimes I am appalled at how younger people seem to be chasing so many scams these days, but maybe, looking at who wins and who loses in modern America, I shouldn't blame them.
FIRE-WOOD MAN
by Sonny Scott (1933)
Lord, a fire will burn wood and coal, and a man sit down to warm.
Lord, a fire will burn wood and coal, and a man will sit down to warm.
And if his woman ain’t right, she will do something wrong.
Lord, a good girl can jump a rope, baby, and a duck can swim a pond.
Lord, a good girl can jump a rope, baby, and a duck can swim a pond.
I come home late last night and she was out and gone.
Oh babe, you don’t mean your fire-wood man no good.
Oh babe, you don’t mean your fire-wood man no good.
Well you treat me so mean, I had to leave my neighborhood.
Lord, a man come in this world, and he have but a few minutes to stay.
Lord, a man come in this world, and he have but a few minutes to stay.
Lawd his head is full of nonsense, and his feet’s all full of clay.
I got cold last night love, I got up to warm.
I got cold last night, and I got up to warm.
But you had your habits on and I had to leave my home.
TRUMP COULD USE SOME HELP WITH HIS ARITHMETIC
Editor:
As a retired math teacher, I am both amused and horrified by President Donald Trump’s math failure. He says he is going to reduce pharmaceutical drug prices by up to 1500%. If you have one whole object, you have 100% of it. If you cut 10% off, you still have 90%, and so on. The most you can get rid of is 100%, or all of it. Not even Trump can do more than that, and to say so is either ignorance or lying, or maybe in this case it is both. Don’t be surprised if the next insurrection is from a bunch of math teachers.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia
TRUMP’S HARSH POLICIES ARE CAUSING MALNOURISHMENT
Editor:
I woke up to see Donald Trump in Scotland saying his administration is going to spend $40 million to help the starving children in Gaza. This is the same man who eliminated the U.S. Agency for International Development — the very agency designed to feed hungry children around the world. We’ve just heard how the Trump administration is destroying food designed to feed malnourished children that was already purchased by the government. On top of this, Trump is slashing SNAP (food stamps) and other child nutrition programs that help feed hungry people, mainly children, here at home. All this in the name of eliminating waste and fraud. Note that the total USAID budget was less than 1% of the federal budget. The same with SNAP. Eliminating these programs is not going to balance the budget or reduce the deficit. His sudden concern about starving, dying children in Gaza is pure hypocrisy. It fits into the current news cycle, but it’s not sincere. His actions prove that.
Bud Johnson
Lower Lake
POLITICS — who collects what tax money and how much in order to benefit whom — is the one subject no politician is allowed to address. That's why we get nothing but junk news while the fact that corporations pay little or no tax on profits is a non-subject, as is the citizen's income tax (large), for which he gets no health service.
— Gore Vidal
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Uber’s Festering Sexual Assault Problem
Kennedy Cancels Nearly $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Contracts
Officials Move to Open Inquiry on Trump’s ‘Russia Hoax’ Grievance
ICE Offers, Then Quickly Withdraws, Cash Bonuses for Swiftly Deporting Immigrants
Israel, Facing Anger Over Starvation in Gaza, Tries to Shift the Focus
Bite Club: The Fraternity That Awaits You After a Shark Attack
“GAZA is an experiment by the mega-rich to show the peoples of the world how they will respond to a rebellion of humanity - they plan to bomb us all.”
— Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the recent Hague Group Summit
EIGHTY YEARS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS ENOUGH
by Terumi Tanaka
I was 13 years old on Aug. 9, 1945, when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. We lived less than two miles from ground zero, but by some miracle, I survived. The glass door that collapsed on top of me didn’t shatter.
Other members of my family were not so fortunate. When my mother and I went to look for them, we found the bomb had taken the lives of five of our relatives: two of my aunts, my grandfather and my cousin all died from severe burns. My uncle, we discovered a bit later, died of radiation sickness after going to look for help.
By the end of 1945, the number of people who had been killed in Nagasaki was estimated at around 70,000. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima just days before killed 140,000. Altogether, an estimated 400,000 people were exposed to the two bombs. A large majority of them were civilians — mainly women, children and the elderly.
I recounted this experience in my speech at last December’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, when I accepted the award on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. The committee bestowed the prize on us in recognition of the work we have done over the past 70 years to build and strengthen the global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons. We’ve done this by using the testimonies of hibakusha, as atomic bomb survivors like me and my fellow members of Nihon Hidankyo are known, to spread the knowledge around the world of what nuclear weapons actually do to human beings.
The explosion is seared in the memories of those who survived it.
Yoshie Oka, age 14, was on watch duty in a bunker in Hiroshima. “As I looked over to the other side of the room to speak to the person next to me, there was this flash of white,” she remembered. Ms. Oka was blown under some equipment but was able to get outside with a classmate who also survived. “The radioactive gas was like a fog, and we couldn’t even see 10 meters in front of us,” she said.
Another Hiroshima survivor, Setsuko Thurlow, has described what happened near ground zero, where thousands of students were helping clear fire lanes. “Nearly all of them were incinerated and were vaporized without a trace, and more died within days,” she said. “In this way, my age group in the city was almost wiped out.”
After a nuclear detonation, a large shock wave travels at hundreds of miles an hour. Beyond the immediate area, the blast causes lung injuries, ear damage and internal bleeding. The heat wave leads to severe burns and fires over a vast area, often leading to a giant firestorm.
Sumiteru Taniguchi, who was 16 and in Nagasaki, was riding his bicycle. “In the flash of the explosion I was blown off the bicycle from behind and slapped down against the ground,” he said. Mr. Taniguchi saw that the children who had been playing all around him were dead. He was more than a mile from the detonation but suffered severe burns to his back, left arm and left leg that quickly became infected. He spent nearly four years in a hospital recovering.
There is then the devastating impact of radiation poisoning. In Hiroshima, a boy, 7-year-old Toru Ikemoto, and his 9-year-old sister, Aiko, were indoors at the time of the blast, but within days they began losing their hair, developed fevers and could not eat, and their gums started bleeding. Though they both recovered from the acute stage of the condition, they succumbed from the delayed effects. Toru died when he was 11, and Aiko when she was 29.
Many children who were still in their mothers’ wombs at the time were stillborn or suffered birth defects. The fear of harming our own unborn children, combined with the stigma associated with being exposed to the bomb, has prevented many of us from ever starting families.
Today, the nuclear taboo is on the verge of collapse. The current wars in Europe and the Middle East involving nuclear-armed states, in which there are strong grounds for believing international law is being violated on a regular basis, and threats by the belligerents to use nuclear weapons are weakening the taboo over deploying them. India and Pakistan thankfully did not use their nuclear arsenals in a recent conflict, but the skirmish reminded us how wars between nuclear powers can happen.
Our Nobel Peace Prize sends a message to younger people that they need to be aware that we are facing an emergency — and the need to see a larger movement of young activists working to address the nuclear threat. Even here in Japan, not enough people see this as a pressing issue.
We have the solution in our hands: the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty not only bans nuclear weapons and all activities related to their production, deployment and use, but also mandates that countries that joined the treaty provide support for people harmed by nuclear weapons in the past and for the cleanup of areas that were used for nuclear testing.
Over four years after the treaty coming into force, half of all nations in the world have signed or ratified or acceded directly to it. But more must join. Worryingly, we are instead seeing some countries, particularly those that have nuclear weapons and their allies that effectively endorse their use — which, unfortunately, includes Japan — turning to increased reliance on nuclear deterrence as a military strategy.
There is no such thing as protection by nuclear weapons. If the people advocating greater reliance on nuclear weapons really understood what happened 80 years ago in my city and in Hiroshima, they would see how unrealistic it is to think that these weapons keep you safe. Nuclear deterrence is nothing more than the power to intimidate.
If humanity does not pursue peace through international law based on the United Nations and its treaties, the next generation may very well live to see World War III — and that would be truly catastrophic for us all. As President John F. Kennedy once said about the existential nature of the nuclear threat: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”
Dr. Tanaka is a co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations.
(nytimes.com)
NUCLEAR BOMB CLUB
An obvious fake, the “Atomic Bomb” poster has been re-posted ad nauseam on just about every social media site on the planet. Stunning 11×14″ reproductions are available from a wide selection of bottom feeders on etsy and ebay.
I suggested the following to the Washington Post.
There are about 600 billionaires in this country. The major gun manufactures are about three in number that make most of the guns. These companies could be purchased by just a few billionaire investors and required to stop the heavy lobbying and manufacturing of assault weapons except for police and military clients.
These companies are on the stock exchanges and control could be gotten either by buying their stock in large quantities or if private bought with cash. They are actually not all that valuable. It would not be necessary to put them out of business, just to reform them. This would be using capitalism against them because at this point laws will never be passed to control them. But if you own it, you control it.
Good piece about Roberto Clemente and America today. Not many like him for sure.
He said this: “I am from the poor people; I represent the poor people. I like workers. I like people that suffer because these people have a different approach to life from the people that have everything and don’t know what suffering is.” If Clemente were here now, Trump would work hard to deport him, or at least put him in jail.
EYESORE OF THE MONTH, August 2025
Retro profundis with fries. . . .
by James Kunstler
I wonder what ecstasies of rapture JHK will swoon to when he sees the Walmart parking lot his hero president turned the Rose Garden into; nor, yet, the sumptuous gilt ballroom !
The “Lot Long, a Wiltshire thatcher in a 1892 photograph” by Ernest Howard Farmer is famed for being used on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, one of the biggest in rock history, in 1971 but it was unidentified until half a century later.
Gregory Coro’s poem “Marriage” is a classic and very funny and he was considered a poetic genius by many, but still, Corso got married at least three times.