Mendocino County Today: Monday 8/11/2025

Hot Interior | Irish Creek | Legal Sharks | Dive Bar | Open-Meeting Law | Peckerwork | Nana Call | Treefrog Lived | Yorkville PO | Yesterday's Catch | Ferry Building | Need Help | Dystopian Nightmare | Science Hell | Torch Lighters | Giants Lose | Can't Read | Movie Reviews | Meditation 719 | Edelweiss | Gliding Journey | History Class | Smoke & Pianos | Project 2028 | Jolly Olde | Turning Ten | Killing Children | The Key | Lead Stories | Killing Journalists

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YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Covelo 104°, Ukiah 103°, Laytonville 103°, Boonville 100°, Fort Bragg 64°, Point Arena 56°

HOT AND DRIER weather conditions expected through Tuesday. Moderate to localized Major HeatRisk through Monday. A gradual cool down is expected by mid to late week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): BIG fog this Monday morning on the coast with a warm 54F. A return to the stratus quo is at hand for at least a few days.

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IRISH CREEK (on the trail to the beach, south of Elk)

(Kathy Shearn)

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LEGAL SHARKS CIRCLE UKIAH

Editor-

Mendocino County’s small businesses need legal reform. Starting and running a small business anywhere is difficult, but in California, it has become nearly impossible. The cost of goods is higher, regulations are out of control, and the tax burden is higher than any other state. On top of all that, business owners face predatory trial lawyers who file lawsuits that exploit broken state law to force outrageous fines and settlements. Among the worst sources of this lawsuit abuse, is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The ADA was initially designed to ensure equal access for people with disabilities, but the reality portrays a different story in California. Empowered by the California Legislature, trial lawyers have turned the ADA into an easy cash grab, targeting small businesses for the most minor infractions and forcing them to make changes that do little to nothing to improve accessibility.

Just a few years ago, an out-of-town attorney named Thomas Frankovich came to Mendocino County and targeted over two dozen local businesses, including a bookstore in Willits and a car dealership in Ukiah. He walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and settlements. Like most ADA cases, the alleged violations were minor-they could have been as simple as faded parking lot paint or a sink being two inches too high off the ground. Yet Mendocino was just the latest stop for Frankovich, who had previously sued thousands of businesses across California and had even been reprimanded by the federal courts.

Unfortunately, this issue is not unique to one rogue attorney. Nearly 30 percent of the nation’s ADA lawsuits were filed in California’s courts. The penalties for ADA violations in California are significantly higher than in other states, thanks to the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which mandates a minimum fine of $4,000 per violation. In contrast, other states facing these lawsuits have no law mandating a minimum fine, making California’s small businesses particularly vulnerable to excessive financial penalties from ADA lawsuits. In addition to these steep fines, business owners must also pay exorbitant attorney fees, which put their businesses even further in jeopardy and make it harder for them to keep their doors open.

This didn’t happen by accident-trial lawyers have funneled $15.5 million into political campaigns since 2017. It should come as no surprise that the State Legislature has been less than eager to address these critical issues.

Without reform, these frivolous lawsuits will continue to drain resources, force closures, and enrich trial lawyers at the expense of hardworking entrepreneurs in our state. It’s time that the State Legislature reign in ADA fines, allow businesses a correction period to fix any alleged issues before litigation, and restore balance in dealing with ADA compliance. This will also ensure the law serves those it was meant to help, especially individuals who rely on meaningful accessibility measures.

Taking commonsense steps to prevent lawsuit abuse will ensure fairness in our justice system and be a small step towards helping California small businesses thrive.

Warm regards,

Jacob S. Brown
Chairman
Mendocino County Central Republican Committee

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NEW DIVE BAR in Boonville! Come check them out! The Buckhorn is so back:) Downstairs of The Boonville Distillery

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OPEN-MEETING LAW FACING YET ANOTHER ATTACK

For the third year in a row, California lawmakers are trying to undermine the open-meeting law that for more than seven decades has mandated transparency for local government panels like city councils and school boards.

Democratic state Sens. Jesse Arreguin, the former mayor of Berkeley, and Maria Elena Durazo of Los Angeles are leading this year’s attack, which backers are championing as a modernization of the open-meeting rules.

In fact, Senate Bill 707 is a confusing mess that, most significantly, would allow key local government advisory committees to meet completely virtually.

These are important boards whose recommendations are often sent to the final decision-makers — a city council, school board or county board of supervisors — for quick and perfunctory ratification.

It’s at these advisory boards that important policy is debated, which is why the meetings should be exposed to full sunshine. This is the very sort of debate that the original drafters of the state’s open-meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, wanted subjected to public scrutiny.

The pending bill, which is similar to unsuccessful efforts in 2024 and 2023, would be a step toward government solely by teleconference, in which members of the public and press might never see meetings in person, never be able to approach board members with questions or suggestions, and never be able to observe the body language between them.

Opponents of this year’s assault on the open-meeting law include groups as disparate as the First Amendment Coalition, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, California News Publishers Association, California Broadcasters Association and the California arms of ACLU, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters.

The goal of the Brown Act — originally passed in 1953 and updated and strengthened since — was to sunshine not just the final decision-making, but also the process that led up to it. In the Brown Act, the Legislature declared its intent that local government boards’ “actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.”

To be sure, there is an important role today for virtual access. Which is why the portions of SB 707 designed to make it easier for members of the public to watch and offer comment remotely are laudable.

And there are legitimate reasons for remote participation by board members. People might have health issues or family emergencies that require videoconferencing. But, for board members, that should be the exception, not the rule.

In 2022, a coalition of open-government advocates and state lawmakers hammered out legislation, Assembly Bill 2449, that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, balancing the need for transparency with legitimate situations where remote participation is understandable.

Currently, participation by members of most boards is limited to a set number of meetings — for example, five times a year for a legislative body that meets twice a month. At least a quorum of members of the legislative body must participate from a single public location, such as a city council chamber, where the public can be present. That’s a reasonable compromise, one that SB 707 would unravel for advisory boards.

Backers of SB 707 claim the bill is needed “to promote the recruitment and retention” of board members. If recruitment hinges on the ability of board members to hide from interaction with the public and press, they are seeking the wrong positions.

Public service and sound policymaking require public accountability, public dialog and public interaction. That’s what the Legislature envisioned in 1953 and what the public should demand in 2025.

(Ukiah Daily Journal Editorial)

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MENDO MICHAEL (Coast Chatline):

A dude in Willits with my name got arrested, different middle name, different age, plus he drinks. Kinda strange getting a call from Nana saying she already knew it wasn't me. I guess not having Facebook leaves me blind to these things.

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TREEFROG LIVES ON

On Line Commenter D.N. Smith:

I was a prison guard at California Medical Facility for years. I ran across both Alex and Tree Frog there. High powered inmates had approached me a few days earlier about ”leaving an area unwatched” for a few minutes. I told them I could do no such a thing. The next day I saw Treefrog leave his housing unit, by himself, walking very rapid. Looking behind himself. He went down stairs to the chow hall. I heard him scream like a woman as he was stabbed in the back. They were laying in wait for him. Unfortunately treefrog lived.

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Background: https://theava.com/archives/211459

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RON PARKER (Mendocino County Way Back When): Yorkville PO

Jack Saunders [comment]: This was the 2nd post office, which if it stood today would be on the north side of Highway 128 just east of Hibbard Road, about mile marker 38.5. The guy on the porch was the postmaster, Charles Hiatt, born in 1863. If he were in his 50s at the time it would put the year as after 1913. The Bell Telephone sign on the west end of the porch would be another clue. This post office closed in 1937, apparently after Rancheria Creek flooded early in that year, and the next post office was opened about 3 miles further east.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, August 10, 2025

NAKOLO ANDERSON-JOENS-POULTON, 20, Willits. DUI.

MISAEL BOLANOS, 30, Ukiah. DUI, bringing controlled substance into jail.

DARRELL ELROD JR, 56, Ukiah. Criminal threats, paraphernalia.

WILIAM GOFORTH, 57, Willits Failure to appear.

BRYAN GONZALES, 22, Ukiah. Under influence, probation revocation.

CARLOS GONZALEZ, 22, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

EUGENE HARRIS, 51, Ukiah. Disobeying court order, failure to appear.

ZACKARY LAWSON, 35, Ukiah. DUI-any drug with priors, felon-addict with firearm, suspended license, county parole violation.

WILLOW MACE, 43, Eureka/Ukiah. Grand theft.

GERALD MILLER, 57, Ukiah. Battery with serious injury.

GEORGIA MILLSAP, 23, Willits. Suspended license for refusing chemical DUI test.

JONNIE MIZE, 50, Ukiah. Robbery, Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, elder abuse.

JUANCARLOS MORALES, 24, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs.

DEBORAH ROCK, 57, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI-alcohol&drugs.

RAMIRO ROJAS-AMBRIZ, 32, Lower Lake/Ukiah. DUI.

NICHOLAS TOW, 37, Willits. Domestic violence court order violation.

JOSEPH VARELA, 27, Petaluma/Ukiah. Suspended license for refusing chemical DUI test.

AARON WILSON, 40, Covelo. Contempt of court.

JUAN ZAZUETA-NORIEGA, 28, Ukiah. Domestic battery, failure to appear, probation revocation.

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BILL KIMBERLIN: Original S.F. Ferry Building 1885

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HUMANS NEED HELP, NOT CHICKENS

Editor:

As someone who joined the protest lines for the first time on “No Kings Day” and has been at it ever since, can I just say: It’s groups like Direct Action Everywhere that give protests a bad name. We’re in the middle of a full-on slow-moving coup, and DXE is standing outside someone’s home bullhorning a pregnant woman and her husband? Can they think of nothing better to protest than people who bring us organic (and delicious) Rocky and Rosie chicken? May the judges throw the book (or some eggs) at DXE.

In the November election, 85% of Sonoma County voters supported their local dairy, poultry, pork and beef farmers — not DXE. Go home or go try Marin County.

Better yet, start reading and watching the news, and protest something that really matters. Like ICE kidnapping people off the street and hauling them to concentration camps without even bothering to find out if they’re citizens or green card holders or other legal residents. Or just the fact that we’re now building concentration camps. Or Donald Trump abolishing foreign aid, the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency and FEMA.

It’s the humans who need help here. Not the chickens.

Teresa Mariani Hendrix

Windsor

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The California of the Beach Boys and Mommas and Papas, is well on its way to becoming the dystopian nightmare of Bladerunner. Charlie Manson’s wokeness morality where Willie Brown’s “girlfriend” moves, almost to the top, of the political food pyramid in Newsom's regime and Nancy’s family gets better percentage returns on their investments than Warren Buffet.

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TAKE IT FROM A FORMER METH ADDICT, SAN FRANCISCO NEEDS TO BAN TORCH LIGHTERS

The lighters are ideal for vaporizing substances like crystal methamphetamine in glass pipes

by Pete Sherman

In the heart of our vibrant city, a subtle yet destructive force is fueling the drug epidemic so evident on San Francisco’s streets: the widespread availability of disposable torch lighters.

Take a walk in the Tenderloin or the South of Market neighborhood, and you’re almost certain to see the lighters in use by people smoking crystal methamphetamine.

Unlike traditional lighters, disposable torch lighters produce a concentrated, high-temperature flame that is remarkably resistant to wind. This particular characteristic makes them ideal for vaporizing substances like crystal methamphetamine in glass pipes, even in the most exposed outdoor environments.

For those struggling with addiction and homelessness, this convenience translates directly into the ability to consume drugs virtually anywhere, at any time, with minimal impediment. The result is a disturbing proliferation of open drug use on our streets, contributing to an environment that feels increasingly unsafe and unpleasant for all.

My personal journey gives me a unique perspective on this issue. After 15 years of addiction to meth, in 2024, I was arrested and spent 18 days in San Francisco County Jail at 850 Bryant St. From there, I began attending 12-step meetings at First Unitarian Universalist Church on Franklin Street and have been clean for the past 14 months. I understand firsthand the insidious ways addiction can take hold and thrive, particularly when the tools for drug use are so readily available.

When I first started smoking, I used a refillable torch canister that belonged to a fellow user. But when that wasn’t available, I remember trying to use a Bic lighter and burning my thumb, frustrated that I didn’t have the right tool.

What policymakers may not grasp — because they haven’t lived it — is that the physics of disposable torch lighters are helping to fuel the smoking of meth. I suspect that for many, as it was for me, the arrival of these convenient, perfectly tailored lighters helped slide us into deeper addiction. It’s from this place of lived experience and hard-won recovery that I advocate so passionately for businesses and local leaders to do something that could have an impact.

I’ve made multiple visits to convenience stores in the city, where I’ve engaged local shopkeepers, urging them to voluntarily cease sales of disposable torch lighters. It’s especially frustrating that many of these stores also sell glass pipes and tinfoil alongside torch lighters, giving meth users one-stop convenience. But for many shopkeepers who take the point that the lighters they’re selling facilitate the smoking of meth, economic survival seems to trump all else.

To their credit, some business owners in the city have, on principle, refused to sell these lighters, recognizing the detrimental impact they have on the community. For example, Salem Grocery on Geary Street in the Tenderloin refuses to sell them. These businesses deserve our unwavering support and commendation. Yet finding torch lighters is by no means difficult. Right across the street from Salem Grocery, for instance, Woerner’s Liquors still sells them.

The vast majority of store clerks I’ve spoken to invariably respond to my request to pull the lighters from shelves with a question like, “Is there a law?” or “What about the other stores?”

When I note that doing so would be voluntary on their part, I often hear responses like, “I’m a business. I’m going to do what my competitors do.”

To me, this is evidence that it’s time for San Francisco to take a stand and prohibit the sale of disposable torch lighters.

A ban would level the playing field for all businesses, ensuring that no single shop is disadvantaged for choosing to act responsibly. It sends an unequivocal message that the city is serious about reducing the public visibility of drug use and, by extension, creating a less attractive scenario for drug users to congregate.

Of course, outlawing these lighters won’t alone solve the issue of drug addiction. To do so requires a multifaceted approach, including robust treatment programs, mental health services and housing initiatives.

But a ban on the sale of cheap torch lighters is a crucial tool in a larger harm-reduction strategy in a city where nearly 700 people have died since the beginning of 2024 from drug overdoses. It would disrupt the accessibility that facilitates open-air drug consumption and make it less convenient to use drugs publicly, and that’s a good place to start.

This is not about punishing individuals; it is about reclaiming our city, one responsible policy at a time.

(Born in the Bay Area, Pete Sherman has lived in San Francisco since 2002, working in the events and hospitality industry. He is a grateful recovering addict with over one year clean and serene.)

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GIANTS NEED TO GET ON A HEATER or they can start thinking about winter

by Ann Killion

In June, Buster Posey said it was “time to go.” But the Giants couldn’t find the gas pedal.

Now it’s August. The Giants are still — kinda sorta, mostly thanks to the freefalling New York Mets — in the wild-card race. And Posey, the Giants’ president of baseball operations, is still looking for traction.

“We need to go on a heater … we need to rattle off six or seven games,” he said before Sunday’s game. “These next 11 games are important.”

Well, scratch off Game 1 of those 11. It was, to use manager Bob Melvin’s term, “awful.”

The Giants put on a particularly lifeless display at Oracle Park in an 8-0 thumping by the lowly Nationals. What could have been a nice day for Justin Verlander, who became just the 10th pitcher to join the 3,500-strikeout club, turned into another frustrating outing. He gave up 11 hits for the first time since April of 2017 and took the loss for the ninth time in 10 decisions this season.

After showing signs of life on the road, the Giants returned home and, aside from Friday’s game, looked exactly like the hapless team they were before the trade deadline. They’ve had sellout, enthusiastic crowds and they can’t respond to the ballpark energy.

“We won two road series coming in here and we felt like we had a lot of momentum,” Melvin said. “We just couldn’t put anything together. I’m frustrated by that. I’m frustrated that our fans come out and support us every night and we gave them — literally — nothing today.”

Still, Posey is right: this would be a very good time for a heater. The Giants face a stretch that feels like a make-or-break moment in this season that has been alternately fueled by hope and stymied by disappointment.

Starting Monday, seven of the next 10 games were to be against the San Diego Padres, the team the Giants have been chasing in the wild-card standings for most of the season. Wedged between home and away series with the Padres are three games with the Rays. Following that 10-game stretch is a tough trip to Milwaukee to face the best team in baseball.

How will the Giants respond? Can they seize the moment and recapture any of their early season momentum? Or will they show up like they did Sunday, playing flat and tight?

“For us, it’s a great opportunity, and we should embrace it,” Melvin said before the game. “Because if we’re going to go where we feel like we can go, it’s going to be through teams like that. With San Diego there’s an opportunity for us to gain some ground. So I don’t think you run from it. I think you try to embrace it and know that when we play these guys it’s an opportunity to swing things.

“If we’re going to catch them, it’s going to be by playing them.”

While the Giants have gone through horrendous hitting slumps and rough pitching periods, at times they’ve looked bedeviled by something less tangible. During their midsummer skid, there seemed to be a collective tightness over meeting the moment. In July, Heliot Ramos, after committing yet another brutal error, put a voice to that perception, saying, “All I have in my mind is that I don’t want to mess up and that’s the wrong thought.”

Melvin has told the team, “sometimes you need to try easier, not harder.”

“The last thing you want to do in the clubhouse is create an environment where you feel like, if you make one mistake that people won’t like you or blame you,” said Logan Webb, who was scheduled to start Monday against the Padres. “I was the young guy before. My catcher was Buster Posey for two of my first three years. I just didn’t want to mess up with him. But he was great. He let me be myself. There’s a fine line between accountability and letting players do it themselves.

“The message has been don’t try to do too much. Play hard but be smart. I think those mental mistakes happen more often when you’re trying so hard.”

Seven games against the Padres could be a time when players might try too hard. Everyone knows what’s at stake. Particularly since the Giants whiffed on the chance to use the Nationals as a springboard into the critical series.

“It sucks,” third baseman Matt Chapman said. “We lost every single game in the last home stand and then went on the road and turned it around a little bit. Then we drop this first series at home with a big one with the Padres coming up.

“Every game from here on out is huge for us. This one sucks. It stings. But we’ve got to turn the page.”

The Giants marching orders for the coming week: Turn the page. And try to get on a heater.

(sfchronicle.com)

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MOVIES I SAW IN JULY: MEGAN 2.0, JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH

by Justine Frederiksen

I didn’t see a lot of movies in July, but the two I did catch last month continued a trend I am quite enjoying: No-nonsense women having the lead role.

The first was ‘Megan 2.0’ (7/01/2025, in the theater), which I will give a B+, mostly because it was exactly what I wanted, then even better than I expected. I did not see the first Megan movie because it looked too scary for my taste, but I gleaned that the sequel would be more my tastes, and happily learned it is basically a female version of ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day,’ one of my all-time favorite movies.

Just like ‘Terminator 2,’ ‘Megan 2’ has a mom forced to trust a machine that initially terrorized her. In the first Terminator movie, for instance, Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor was hunted by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robot, but in the second, they team up to protect her son, as she realizes that the robot in many ways is even better at caring for the boy than a human father.

The mom (or aunt? I was never sure!) in ‘Megan 2’ realizes this as well, eventually forced to trust a machine that previously tried to kill her because it is the only way to protect the teen both want to keep safe. All in all, I enjoyed this mostly-female twist on ‘Terminator 2,’ as ‘Megan 2’ was pretty short with a good story, good action, and just enough inside jokes in its banter to keep adults like me interested in a movie that is definitely geared toward a much younger crowd.

The second movie I saw in July was ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ (7/29/2025) which I give a B-, a grade mostly earned by the presence of Scarlett Johansson, whom I’m glad to see has successfully engineered an action hero career. I enjoyed her playing the tough guy lead, as the other “tough guy” gets eaten as soon as the first dinosaur shows up. I also can’t help thinking her white tank top was a nod to the one Helen Hunt wore for most of ‘Twister,’ and wonder if it will again make a humble undershirt the sexiest fashion accessory for women.

But surrounding the calm charisma of Johansson is a mostly dull mix of people and props, including a criminally underused Mahershala Ali and a slew of completely underwhelming special effects.

Though the movie, produced by Steven Spielberg, was a lot like his original Jurassic Park movie with a big dose of Jaws and a small dose of Raiders of the Lost Ark mixed in, I still think all of those movies, even the one made in 1975, had better effects than this 2025 movie.

Heck, just one shot of the T-Rex’s gigantic foot in the original Jurassic Park, released nearly 30 years ago in 1993, was better than all the scenes in ‘Rebirth.’ In fact, I almost think JWR was not worth seeing on the big screen, as frankly both the napping T-Rex and its mutant cousin at the end would likely look much better on a smaller screen. And if this movie represents our film future, one full of the “magic” of AI but stripped of the magic of real, and really creative, effects, then I am very sad indeed.

One particularly disappointing scene has Dr. Loomis rappelling down a cliffside with supposedly gorgeous, but obviously fake, waterfalls in the background. Since about half of the YouTubers I follow could go to the jaw-dropping Burney Falls, a Grand Canyon like waterfall in Northern California, and easily film a better sequence without even having to break any park rules, there was no excuse for that scene to feel so canned.

Still, ‘Rebirth’ had a lot of the best parts of Jurassic Park, like punishing (or rather, grinding in a set of huge teeth) people who care more about money than the dinosaurs or even their fellow humans, but with the nice flip of having Sam Neil’s Dr. Grant, this time Dr. Loomis, be nerdier and less capable, often dependent on a woman for rescue.

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Movies I saw in June with more no-nonsense women: Ballerina, Thelma

Finally, just for fun, here are my grandmother’s much shorter movie reviews for July of 1999:

• 7/5/1999 “Notting Hill.” 4th time. (My grandmother obviously loved this movie, as she saw it more than 10 times in the theater, then bought the DVD and watched it countless more times. I remember at the time that we both liked the movie, but I don’t remember her ever talking about why she LOVED it so much.)
• 7/8/1999: “The General’s Daughter.” Exciting. Lunch KFC in Aptos.
• 7/10/1999: To show, “An Ideal Husband.” Trouble with audio.
• 7/11/1999: “Arlington Road.” Enjoyed, but Siskel & Ebert said “no.” Last 20 minutes bad, not logical.
• 7/14/1999: “Ideal Husband.” Enjoyed, I think, but thought about bad breath, etc. Takes place in 1895.
• 7/16/1999: To show, “Tea With Mussolini.” Good. Maggie Smith, Cher, Lily Tomlin, Judi Dench.
• 7/18/1999: To show, “Notting Hill.” (5th)
• 7/23/1999: Saw “Notting Hill.” 6th. Look for She!
• 7/27/1999: To “Notting Hill,” 7th.
• 7/28/1999: “The Haunting.” Over the top. Some intriguing preliminaries.
• 7/29/1999: “Notting Hill.” (8th!)
• 7/31/1999: Bought sound track of Notting Hill. Not too good.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

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DENNIS O’BRIEN

Last week I saw The Sound of Music for the first time. I hadn't realized it was so political, set in Austria during the months preceding the takeover by Nazi Germany (the Anschluss of 1938). Most of my mother's family came from Austria, and I felt a great affinity for those who were resisting the growth of fascism in their beloved country. I was/am brought to tears by the song Edelweiss, which has become my personal shield, the tender embrace of Nature in these times of turmoil.

Edelweiss, edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss, edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever

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SEVEN of us, and one dog, are aboard the boat. It has a single wide sail. Built years ago by the parents of our young captain, after the manner of a Bahama dinghy, it is a workboat, fairly wide, with a deep keel — a lovely creation if there ever was one. Josiah sits with the lines in his hands. He seems to be in a kind of friendly correspondence with the sail and the wind.


So we become, for the afternoon, sea creatures ourselves. How light our bodies feel as we lounge against the planks and trail our hands in the water. Ahead is the sandy point of our destination, and between us and it, not a single apportioning marker but the wide water’s drowsy lap and slide, its abundance and gleam. We stroll on its surface freely, citizens of the water world. How different from the foot on stone, the hand opening the gate, the gravel path of the garden, the trudge through loose sand, the heel sticking in the clay of the field! Such weight, on the earth, is on our shoulders: gravity keeping us at home. But on the water we shake off the harness of weight; we glide; we are passengers of a sleek ocean bird with its single white wing filled with wind.

At the sandy point, Josiah throws out the anchor. Some of us swim. Some of us sit and stare through the afternoon light. Then slowly, we come home, joking, laughing, and silent too. Once a loon breaks from the water, it runs for a long while upon the surface before the noble body can rise. Shearwaters and petrels fly around us; clouds passing by, darken patches of the water as they hurry to their tasks in the distance.


All through our gliding journey, on this day as on so many others, a little song runs through my mind. I say a song because it passes musically, but it is really just words, a thought that is neither strange nor complex. In fact, how strange it would be not to think it — not to have such music inside one’s head and body, on such an afternoon. What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?

— Mary Oliver, Long Life (2004)

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SMOKE & PIANOS

by David Yearsley

The evening light was a sickly sepia. The haze from the wildfires gave the clapboard houses on the steep hillside above one of Ithaca’s many gorges a simultaneously antique and apocalyptic cast. Down below in the valley extending south from Cayuga Lake, the town seemed two-dimensional—a flat, fugitive memory soon to fade completely away.

The tonality of the light may have suggested the past, but everyone knew that it was the future that was rolling in across the Allegheny plateau, not on little cat feet, but scorched hooves.

Nearing the top of the hill, we arrived at the Eddy Gate at the southeast corner of the Cornell University campus. Built in the last years of the 19th century, the handsome monument of brick and stone is spanned by a wrought-iron arch with a medallion of Ezra Cornell at its center. Peering through the smog as if puzzled by the strange smog, Ezra silently muttered the wise words inscribed on the gate:

“So enter that thou mayest become more learned; more thoughtful; so depart that daily thou mayest become more useful to thy country and to mankind.” This motto is said to be derived from a similar phrase found on a gate at the University of Padua, which was established in the 13th century. By drawing on these words of wisdom, Cornell sought to establish its own intellectual lineage, especially as it had been founded only in 1865, just a couple of weeks after the end of the Civil War.

In the first decades of the twentieth century, a motion picture industry flourished in the area, and a scene from “If Women Only Knew” of 1920 by Cayuga Pictures shows the gate and its surroundings in their former glory.

In the movie, smartly clad students stream through the portal into the pleasant street in the section of Ithaca known as Collegetown. Looking at the footage now, one could almost imagine that the young men of yore are fleeing the smokey menace.

The Eddy Gate is now set in rutted asphalt. The view towards the gorge when looking in from the scrappy corner of Collegtown at present ends in a chain-link fence on the edge of the Cascadilla Gorge.

The gate was restored in 2018, but its reclaimed elegance only highlights the blight that now surrounds it.

We passed through this entrance to campus. Our clothes were soaked with sweat. We could taste the smoke at the back of our throats. On this of campus along the shoulder of the gorge is university’s first completed building, Cascadilla Hall, a student dormitory. This time of year, a dumpster just outside the residence is full garbage: furniture, poster, plates, beer bottles, minifridges.

Just uphill from Cascadilla Hall is the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Completed in 1989, it was designed by the famous—to some, infamous—British architect, Sir James Stirling. The complex is a hulking modernist riff on an Italian renaissance church: unornamented pediment; a bell-less belltower; a baptistry-like bus-stop whose only function is one of coy reference.

The building has not aged well over the last three decades and some. Many of gray-and-white marble panels that cover the façade are stained with algae and mildew. A terrace runs length of the building and would give onto the gorge if the building were closer to this natural wonder. Cornell’s architectural approach is militantly opposed to responding to, never mind communing with, the canyons that border the central campus. The terrace is covered with the same marble squares and for years have shifted dangerously under the feet of visitors entering the building. A recent adhesive job seems to have stabilized this hazard—at least for now. The green paint of the metal balustrade—a winking reference to the green stone of the Siena Cathedral—is peeling, rust taking its place.

We lingered in the smoke-bleached shadows of the maples along the gorge, then made our way up the steps to the performing arts center. The weird light conjured one of those 1920s Ithaca screen comedies like the one shot just below at the gate. It was as if the world had become an old movie, not seen on the flat screen—a version of real life quite in three dimensions.

We went inside the building to a concert of late 18th and early 19th-century music played on old keyboards: an American copy of a Viennese piano from 1800 and two original instruments—one built in Vienna in 1835, and another Parisian model made in 1868, coincidentally the same year that students first arrived at Cornell.

The performing arts center—as befits the name of these one-stop arts emporia—houses different spaces for theatre, dance, and other offerings, though cuts in the university budget during the Great Recession reduced the program significantly.

Stirling lavished much attention on the proscenium theatre of 450 seats. The space has a flattened horseshoe shape. Its light fixtures evoke vintage lamps that could almost have candles behind the shades. The oak-veneered paneling and brass handrails strike a classy note, as do the balconies divided into what could be boxes in a European opera house. The pastel pinks, greens and purples of the color scheme strive for a louche refinement.

The concert comes in the midst of a festival that has brought musicians from around the world to perform on instruments in the Cornell collection. The university’s rich and diverse holdings span the piano’s three-hundred year history.

Wednesday evening’s concert was a celebration of the renown fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, who taught and Cornell for several decades and is soon to celebrate his 90th birthday. Several of his students, now distinguished musicians in their own right, played music suited to the instruments: Mozart and C. P. E. Bach on the Viennese-style piano from 1800; Debussy on a Parisian grand from 1868; Schubert on the 1835 antique.

Set on the big black stage, the old pianos with their warmly variegated veneers of rosewood and maple looked lonely in the surrounding post-modern opulence. They seemed and sounded far away, marooned in an alien environment. Stirling’s evocations of 19th-century grandeur out in the auditorium did not pull the pianos towards the listeners. Maybe it was the smoke outside that had affected my vision and hearing. Or maybe it was that fact that the repertoire was conceived for the salon, the intimate bourgeois drawing room or the somewhat grander aristocratic one, not the concert hall.

Bilson was last on the program, though I’d heard that he’d thought about withdrawing since he was having issue with his hands. But he did play—the first three of Schubert’s Moments musicaux, just after one of his students had done the final three numbers of this same, cherished six-piece collection.

Bilson drew us in. The old piano came close. The world vanished, the theater with it. Old familiar themes were greeted with warmth and wit, melancholy and hope. Bilson holds an uncanny sensitivity to the personalities of these melodies, an ever-renewable appreciation of the colors of the harmonies, magically conjured by his 89-year-old hands from this wing-shaped box of wood and wire.

Outside, night had fallen. The smoke lingered, caught the streetlights. Bilson’s Schubert followed us down the hill.

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

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ENGLAND ON $5000 A DAY

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

If you are thinking of traveling abroad it would be wise to read the following, or better yet write it down. Your bank account will thank you.

The tribal elders have trod these paths before, and when it comes to vacationing our combined wisdom is this:

“Bring half as many clothes as you think you’ll need, and twice as much money.”

Especially now, and definitely in England, where a dollar stretches like a piece of angle iron. British merchants look at dollars as if they were scraps of litter you found on the sidewalk. They will be happier trading their overpriced goods for your dirty socks. They will not take your filthy money.

Worry not, reader and fellow citizen, because there are ATMs along that same littered sidewalk, and their silent swindling will happily provide you with several Pounds Sterling in exchange for your weekly salary. That should be enough to get you into tomorrow.

We are staying at a London hotel, the St. James, and it’s a dandy. We are able to afford it only because wife Trophy called Expedia, impersonated a Trump niece and got the Family and Friends Discount.

Expensive? The St. James hotel hosts a morning breakfast priced at an intimidating 60 monetary units each, which translates to about $80 (US dollars) per person. So a morning buffet at $160 for cornflakes and stewed prunes is roughly the quality equivalent of the free breakfast buffet at a Holiday Inn outside Redding.

Trophy had granola (no extra charge for the quarter-cup milk) some chopped fruit and coffee. I had the fruit, a croissant a little bigger than my thumb with a complimentary pat of butter, and a couple strips of “bacon” that wasn’t.

The one-percenters lodging here and dining in the same elegant hotel facilities as us Ukiahans, also dress like Ukiahans when dandied up for a wedding or funeral.

Fellow guests were outfitted like they’d spent the early morning hours playing rugby or trimming their precious roses, or Ukiahans who’d spent the morning pruning their crop of star thistle.

The only people appropriately dressed were hotel staff in crisp white shirts, sharply creased black trousers and neatly trimmed hairdos. Take that, Left Coast Fishery!

Much later, we had dinner in an ancient British pub and I finally had the chance to watch a solid hour of Cricket, a local foreign game I’ve always assumed was an immature version of baseball. You know, a guy throws the ball, another guy whacks it with a bat and some other guys randomly loiter about. White uniforms and all that sort, right matey?

Hardly. I studied the TV screen intently and for a long time, and it never made any sense. Cricket is to Baseball what Futbol is to Football.

I couldn’t understand it so I won’t try to explain it. The only thing we recognized was when a camera zeroed in on a spectator clearly enjoying himself: Mick Jagger.

We’d been warned about the heat wave that would be sizzling through England during the weeks of early August, but “blistering temperatures” in Great Britain simply means it isn’t raining. On the hottest day Trophy went out with two layers of sweater, a coat, and a scarf around her neck. And gloves.

Instead of being warned of a nonexistent heat wave I wish there’d been notification about the semi-scandalous coffee in England. If you aren’t careful “coffee” is routinely defined as instant: a cup of warm water with brown granules stirred in.

So I’m back to Guinness Stout for breakfast.

We had haphazard plans to meet up with Jim Mastin and his modest posse, but hopes were dashed on the second day by divergent travel plans. That is, until those plans were clarified and it turns out that he and we will bump into each other in a coastal Cornwall town called Tintagel.

Tintagel is so small it isn’t on a map but is probably on google. I call our potential meet-up an astonishing coincidence but Trophy shrugged it off as “typical Ukiah.”

We’re taking a taxi to Tintagel and will probably see Jim & Co., hitchhiking along the road.

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TURNING TEN

by Billy Collins (1995)

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

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The key
to heaven
is realizing
you are there.

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AHEAD of a planned Israeli assault on Gaza City which UN officials warn will further exacerbate death and suffering for the Palestinian people, Israel has chosen to assassinate five Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been stationed there. Among those killed was Anas al-Sharif, one of the most high-profile surviving reporters in Gaza.

The IDF is of course claiming that al-Sharif was Hamas, because that’s what they always do. They’ve been murdering a historically unprecedented number of journalists and defending their systematic effort to blind the world to their actions in Gaza by claiming that every journalist they kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the peace activists are Hamas, the demonstrations are Hamas, telling the truth is Hamas, human empathy is Hamas, objective reality is Hamas. It’s all Hamas.

That Israel would feel the need to draw attention to its depravity with this targeted strike at this time shows it has some very ugly intentions for Gaza City that it doesn’t want the world to see.

— Caitlin Johnstone