Warming Interior | Pipe Sections | Hot State | Trail Closure | New Officers | Flood Control | James Trenam | Cannabis Busts | New Murals | Radon Detectors | Touring Plowshares | Father Damian | Art Walk | Pulling Beans | Dance Project | Poetry Reading | Yesterday's Catch | Carpool Hours | Malcolm Margolin | DC Horrors | Huddled Masses | Abalone Extension | Know Why? | Logging & Wildfires | Devil Girl | Hell No | Giants Lose | Kaepernick Docuseries | Gaucho | Caveat Lector | Long John | Good Luck | Removing Vaillancourt | Mean Mustache | Resuscitating Racism | Top Floor | Lead Stories | Palestine Action | Border | On Lincoln | Innocents Abroad | Modern Cosmology | Sidewalk Vendor | Weary Blues | Almost Over
HOT and very dry weather will build in through the week with a shallower and stronger marine layer along the coast. There is very slight potential for thunderstorms over the interior this weekend into early next week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 48F under clear for the 3rd day in a row. Increasing fog will start tomorrow with the help of some approaching weather from the south.
HEAT!
Nearly three-quarters of California is under an extreme heat warning or heat advisory as a late-summer heat wave peaks over the next two days. Temperatures could top 110 degrees Thursday in parts of the state, with much of the Central Valley near 105. Weak onshore flow means the heat will press unusually close to the coast, especially in Southern and Central California.
The heat wave will test daily temperature records from Los Angeles to Sacramento, strain overnight cooling, and increase health risks as humidity rises. After a relatively cool early summer, Thursday and Friday may bring the hottest conditions of the year for millions of Californians.
(sfchronicle.com)
CHP RESPONDS to residents’ worries about the walking trail closed by Mendocino school’s water project
Dear Editor:
I wanted to provide MendocinoCoast.news with an update on the MUSD/MCCSD Water Supply & Storage Project planned on MUSD property at 44020 Little Lake Road and the abrupt closure of the adjacent popular ped/bike path you so kindly reported upon:
After receiving little to no response from Mendocino County Planning & Building Services, the County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Ted Williams, MUSD Superintendent, MCCSD Superintendent, GHD, Inc.’s Project Manager, and the Division of State Architect, my colleagues and I reached out to CHP Headquarters in Sacramento. Their response was immediate. They sent two officers from CHP’s District Office in Ukiah to discuss the safety problems with concerned residents Monday morning. (The CalFire Woodlands Fire Station Battalion Chief is very concerned as well but was unable to attend.)
While touring the site with advocates of the Fury Town Water Association, a Project Coordinator from GHD (the construction contractor) arrived – as if on cue – and jumped into the conversation, informing us that a “Traffic Safety Control Plan” was under development and that public access to the path would be permanently restored – although somewhat rerouted. Unconfirmed is that MUSD is expected to discuss the path closure on August 28 at their Board of Trustees meeting. If so, GHD Project Manager, Matt Kennedy can be expected to speak; attendees should expect his usual velvet glove, “everything’s just fine”- style presentation.
After reviewing the site, CHP quickly recognized the problems created by the path’s closure and committed to increasing traffic patrols when school begins this Thursday, August 21. They will then determine if further patrols are needed. In addition, they also committed to writing a letter to MUSD and MCCSD supportive of reopening the path.
With recent ESHA (“Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area”) violations having been addressed, the primary issues remain: the depletion of private domestic wells caused and created by the extraction of groundwater by the projects’ wellfield – and the fact that the school district is under no obligation or requirement to supply members of the community with water. According to the county’s conditions of approval for the project, only a small area of property owners defined by an “Emergency Water Service Area” are expected to be supplied during drought conditions. (Note: the conditions of approval are not publicly-accessible on the county website and must be requested from Planning & Building Services: the public should ask for Resolution Number PC- 2024-00019.)
GHD’s Project Coordinator also reported on Monday of finding relatively little water in the wells punched and tested thus far, something that will not come as much of a surprise to adjacent residents, many of whom have historically experienced well depletion problems.
Thanks for reporting on this important subject. It takes a village – plus.
Sincerely,
Christina Aranguren
Member, Fury Town Water Association
Chair, MendoMatters.org
The Fury Town Water Association is a new name for an evolving group of community members who have been focused on groundwater issues in greater Mendocino. “Fury Town” hearkens back to the historic name for the area east of what is now Highway 1.
(mendocinocoast.news)
TWO NEW CHP OFFICERS IN UKIAH
Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Officer Garcia and Officer Marquez, the newest members of the California Highway Patrol family here in the Ukiah area!
Both officers recently graduated from the CHP Academy in Sacramento and are now proudly serving our community. We’re excited to have their dedication, training, and commitment to public safety on our local roads.
REDWOOD VALLEY FARMERS SOUND ALARM ON FLOOD CONTROL PLAN
by Monica Huettl
A proposal to annex the entire Redwood Valley County Water District into the Russian River Flood Control and Water Conservation Improvement District drew sharp opposition from farmers and property owners at the Flood Control Board’s August 4 meeting. The annexation application, which will be filed with the Mendocino County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), comes with a Negative Declaration—Flood Control’s assertion that the move will not have a significant impact on the environment and therefore does not require a full Environmental Impact Report.
When Russian River Flood Control was formed, only a sliver of Redwood Valley joined, as voters believed they would not need Lake Mendocino water. Today, just a narrow stretch—from north of Highway 20 to Calpella—falls under Flood Control’s service area. Under the proposal, Redwood Valley would be able to use its existing 328.85 acre-feet contract districtwide, though the total amount would not increase.
For many growers, that change raises old anxieties. During the drought of 2021–22, Redwood Valley residents were restricted to 55 gallons of water per person per day while farms were cut off entirely. Annexation might guarantee Redwood Valley access to its contracted water, but opponents worry it also means more competition in the next shortage, with every customer forced into pro-rata cutbacks.
Speakers at the meeting tied those fears to larger consolidation efforts in the Ukiah Valley. The City of Ukiah’s annexation campaign has already stirred resistance among farmers and business owners outside city limits, and many see Redwood Valley’s proposal as another step in shifting water away from agriculture toward residential demand.
A July 27 letter, updated August 4 and signed by farmers including James John Ronco, Kerri Vau, and Lee Howard, urged Flood Control to withdraw its Negative Declaration. The letter, posted to the district’s website, calls the document “legally defective” and demands a full CEQA review.
At the meeting, public commenters pressed Flood Control with questions about whether the State Water Resources Control Board was quietly driving the annexation, whether it would lift the moratorium on new residential hookups in Redwood Valley, and whether agricultural protections could be guaranteed. Others asked why the current system, where Redwood Valley purchases surplus water when available, could not continue. Some accused the board of backroom dealing, but members countered that annexation discussions have been public for months across multiple agencies.
Board Chair Chris Watt told the audience that annexation is not a merger and would not transfer Redwood Valley’s debts to Flood Control. LAFCO Executive Officer Uma Hinman has already requested more information, and district staff said they will continue accepting public comments. A full review of the environmental documents could take months.
(mendofever.com)
JAMES “JIM” RAYMOND TRENAM
April 21, 1950 - August 2, 2025
James “Jim” Raymond Trenam, a proud veteran of the United States Marine Corp, passed away on August 2, 2025. He was a member of LIMA-2-BRAVO and his service included the Vietnam War. He received numerous medals, including the Purple Heart. After returning home to Petaluma he worked for his family’s electrical business and raised his children, spending many hours as a volunteer coach for his children’s various athletic teams. Jim traveled whenever he could to see his USMC family and spent the last 20 years in Holly Pond, Alabama, where he enjoyed spending time with his wife, friends, and dogs.
Jim, son of Laurence and Marguerite Trenam, leaves behind his wife, Debbie Johnson Trenam, and siblings Larry (1949-1989), Patrick, and Gayle Trenam. He was the beloved father of: Christopher James Trenam (August 9, 1971-August 8, 1991), Shannon (Trenam) and Jose Salazar, Kevin and Becky Trenam, Kyle Trenam, Justin Trenam, and step-son Keith Barbee.
Jim leaves behind eleven grandchildren: Tyler (Wife Leesha), Jessica, Ana, Angelina, Gracie, Kevin, Carlie, Vivienne, Michael, Marguerite, and George, as well as two step-grandchildren: Josh and Frankie.
Jim leaves behind six great grandchildren: Aarón, Avalina, RJ, Miyah, Madison, and Kaleb.
Jim will be laid to rest in a National Cemetery in California.
Rest in peace Daddy,
Semper Fi
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE
During the week of August 11, wildlife officers with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Cannabis Enforcement Program executed search warrants in the Ukiah and Laytonville areas of Mendocino County to investigate the illicit cultivation of cannabis with impacts on sensitive fish and wildlife habitat. Other CDFW staff, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, the Eradication and Prevention of Illicit Cannabis (EPIC) team, the State Water Resources Control Board, and the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board assisted with the search warrants. During the week:
- 21 search warrants were served.
- More than 46,000 cannabis plants were eradicated.
- More than 13,600 pounds of processed cannabis were destroyed.
- 13 guns were seized.
There was also one stolen vehicle recovered on one of the cultivation sites. Wildlife officers found two suspected poached deer, one of which was a doe. Seven people were detained, and these are ongoing investigations.
CDFW staff documented a total of 213 Fish and Game Code violations that directly and indirectly impacted the Eel River and Russian River, and tributaries. Of those violations, there were 19 water diversions, one of which was occurring on state lands. During one of the search warrants, a foothill yellow-legged frog (a California Species of Special Concern) was identified by CDFW staff. Lastly, CDFW staff found and documented an archaeological site impacted by cannabis cultivation operations at one location in the Spyrock area.
NEW MURALS COMING TO FORT BRAGG as Part of Downtown Revitalization—Biggest One Yet Underway!
The City of Fort Bragg is thrilled to announce the installation of The Gray Whale in Kelp by Larry Foster and painted by Marta Alonso Canillar - our largest mural yet—at North Coast Brewing Company!
This incredible piece is part of our partnership with the Alley Arts Project to bring 4 new murals to downtown as part of our revitalization efforts.
Join us for the official unveiling at KelpFest this October and be part of the celebration of local art, culture, and community.
Special thanks to Lia Wilson and the North Coast Brewery for helping make this vision a reality.
LIBRARY PROVIDES RADON DETECTOR KITS FOR CHECKOUT TO PROMOTE HOME SAFETY
Mendocino County Library, in partnership with the California Department of Public Health, is pleased to announce the launch of a program providing free radon detectors for checkout, enabling residents to easily test their homes for this invisible, odorless, and tasteless radioactive gas. The California Department of Public Health Indoor Radon Program and the library’s goal is to increase awareness and reduce the health risks associated with radon exposure.
Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can enter any building, including homes, and is a leading cause of lung cancer. Radon can’t be seen or smelled, and testing is the only way to know if your home has elevated levels.
"We are pleased to partner with the California Department of Public Health to provide this important tool to improve the health of our community," says Mellisa Hannum, County Librarian. "This program allows residents to monitor the safety of their homes by checking out the test kit and following the plug-and-play instructions."
How the program works:
- Free checkout at the library for up to 21 days. Use your library card and ask for a radon detector kit at the circulation desk.
- Plug-and-play. Simply plug it in to get real-time, daily, or weekly readings.
- Return. Once testing is complete, return the device to the library, making it available for other community members.
If a high radon level is indicated by the detector, residents should contact the California Department of Public Health Indoor Radon Program for a list of qualified providers who can conduct additional testing and recommend mitigation solutions.
For more information about radon and the state's program, please visit the California Department of Public Health Indoor Radon Program website at www.cdph.ca.gov/radon. Mendocino County Library provides much more than books. Find more information about the radon test kits and other “Library of Things” available for checkout at www.mendolibrary.org/borrow/library-of-things, visit your local branch, or contact the Mendocino County Library at 707-234-2873.
MIKE GENIELLA: "A dozen nuns from the Sisters of the Presentation order in San Francisco arrived by charter bus Wednesday to attend a Memorial Mass for Sister Jane Kelly at St. Mary in Ukiah. After they toured Plowshares, the legendary dining hall for the down and out. Sister Jane was a co-founder along with Debra Meek and Martin Bradley and Susan Crane. Generous Mendocino County donors covered the costs to transport the nuns to Ukiah and back to SF."
THE VANISHING POINT: Father Damian to speak at Grace Hudson Museum on the ancient art of painting icons
by Roberta Werdinger
On Saturday, Aug. 23, from 2 to 3 p.m., the Grace Hudson Museum presents a talk by Father Damian, Abbot of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Redwood Valley. Father Damian will speak about the ancient tradition of religious iconography, and the practice of creating iconographic art in the Byzantine tradition. Some of Father Damian’s own icon artworks are part of the Museum’s current exhibition, The Art of Wonder, on display until October 19. The event is free with Museum admission.
Byzantine iconography is a product of the Byzantine Empire, arising in the 5th century AD and lasting into the 15th century. This civilization comprised much of Eastern and southeastern Europe, North Africa and West Asia, with Istanbul as its centerpiece. The area fostered a unique and diverse blend of Christianity called Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, or Orthodox Christianity, practiced also in Russia, Greece, Ukraine, and neighboring nations. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, which Father Damian heads, belongs to a Ukrainian Catholic denomination, which preserves Ukrainian culture and practices iconography along with Eastern Orthodox congregations.
A lifelong lover of art and an icon painter for over 30 years, Father Damian soon found himself teaching the tradition to others. His classes now are full, mainly with young people 30 or younger, who have grown up in turbulent times and are seeking connection with disciplines that have withstood the test of time.
Unlike many conventional arts classes, icon painting is not about self-expression; it is about emptying the self in favor of what the icon represents: love, wisdom, tranquility. “I copy what is handed down a hundred years ago,” Father Damian says, having just celebrated the Feast of Dormition, commemorating the day when the apostles came to venerate Mary’s body, only to find her tomb already covered with flowers. “I don’t have to make it up.”
Icons, then, are taught as a form of prayer. Revered persons--Jesus, Mary, various saints--form the centerpieces of the painting. Since they represent only the light, no shadows are drawn. “I have a very small palette, only nine colors, that are made directly from the earth,” Father Damian says. He gets these colors from Natural Pigments, an arts supply store in Willits. He believes in using humble and available materials, such as egg yolk and clay. When traveling throughout the world, he found that “we can make something beautiful, wherever we are on this earth.”
The technique of icon painting is to reorient human perspective--in all senses of the word. “People think the icon artist is unable to communicate proper perspective.” Father Damian explains. A tree in the background, for example, looks further away when you get closer; if you step back it might look bigger. “We want to show a vanishing point. The sun, a huge element in creation, will just be a bump in the painting. In an icon we purposefully turn that around. Tables, buildings, trees, plants that for some strange reason don’t look right…You are going to be the one being seen.
“If there is a vanishing point, it is out here with you… a point where everything is disintegrating. I’m always disintegrating. I’m looking at people who have been dead for hundreds of years, and yet they’re fully alive.”
After celebrating another feast day attended by 80 to 90 visitors and which drew community members who took off work or came up from the Bay Area, Father Damian is satisfied. “When you go home and bake bread or grow vegetables, you can apply these principles of prayer. You are an artist.”
The Grace Hudson Museum is at 431 S. Main St. in Ukiah. The Museum is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 4:30 p.m. Contact the Museum for current admission fees. The Museum is free to all on the first Friday of the month; and always free to Museum members, Native Americans, and active-duty military personnel. For more information please go to www.gracehudsonmuseum.org or call (707) 467-2836.
BOONVILLE BARN COLLECTIVE
Our harvest season begins in the next few days with our Southwest Gold beans! Whether it is Friday or Monday, we're finishing up the final details to prep before we start pulling beans. We're waiting on the last bits of the plants to fully dry out from actively green growth, something that seemingly takes forever when 90% of the plant is dried out. If we don't wait, we will lose beans that can still mature into dried beans. Green plant matter also has a tendency to clog up the bean thresher while we clean the beans, making it a high priority not to pull beans until the whole plant is dried.
After we get these first Southwest Gold beans pulled, we will head over to the Tiger's Eye beans. Generally our first bean out of the ground, the Tiger's Eye also have an unfortunate tendency to "shatter", meaning that the pods will break open and drop the dried mature beans a bit earlier than ideal. I have definitely crawled through the Tiger's Eye field on my hands and knees trying to find every last bean that fell before we got them over to the thresher. I have a hard time leaving behind something we put so much effort into growing.
If everything goes according to plan, we might even be able to use our new bean cleaner towards the end of next week! This new machine is the final step in cleaning beans that sorts out split beans, dirt clods, any plant material, and also under or over sized beans. With this machine, we get to avoid sending our beans to a different facility to be sorted, can clean on our time, and will hopefully have beans ready a bit faster - I'm hopeful for October!
We have 10 more bags of Southwest Gold beans on hand and 33 bags of Tan Tepary beans. Help us clean out the remaining inventory before we need to find space for more beans!
We appreciate you,
Krissy & the Boonville Barn Team
MENDOCINO DANCE PROJECT PRESENTS: Dance The Redwoods 2025
Dates: September 20, 21, 27 & 28, 2025
Location: The Brambles, Philo
Tickets: mendocinodanceproject.ticketspice.com/dance-the-redwoods-2025
Mendocino Dance Project is thrilled to present Dance The Redwoods, a captivating outdoor performance set amidst the towering redwoods of The Brambles in Philo, California. This immersive experience will take place on September 20, 21, 27, and 28, 2025, offering audiences a unique opportunity to witness the fusion of movement, music, and nature.
Dance The Redwoods is a walking performance that guides attendees through The Brambles where they will encounter dancers performing on and with the trees. The show features breathtaking vertical dance pieces that celebrate the natural beauty and resilience of the redwood forest. Special guest performances by Steven Bates and Barb Murphy Music.
In addition to the performances, a Gala Fundraiser will be held on Saturday, September 28, from 4 to 8pm. This special performance is followed by a catered dinner by the Wickson Restaurant, local beer and wine, a silent auction, and live music, offering attendees the chance to support the ongoing work of Mendocino Dance Project.
Tickets for Dance The Redwoods are available now. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit
mendocinodanceproject.ticketspice.com/dance-the-redwoods-2025
CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, August 20, 2025
ANAMARIE BACCHI, 56, Willits. Failure to appear.
NOAH BEARD, 49, Mendocino. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.
CLINT HELLER, 51, Willits. Disobeying court order.
ALEXANDER JOHNSON, 49, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.
MARK MCCARTHY, 44, Lakeport/Ukiah. Damaging wireless communications device.
JONATHAN MIRAVALLE, 40, Ukiah. Controlled substance, resisting.
JUNIOR RENDON, 29, Ukiah. Controlled substance, paraphernalia, no license.
CODY TURPIN, 26, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.
LONGER CARPOOL HOURS WILL MAKE TRAFFIC WORSE
Editor:
Expanded carpool lane hours on Highway 101 will worsen, not improve, the commute for Sonoma and Marin County residents. CHP and Caltrans are extending the morning carpool window from 2½ hours to nearly five hours. This decision defies logic and traffic patterns. Also, it comes right before the Marin-Sonoma Narrows is set to open.
When I questioned the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrans, they cited a need to “better align times.” Yet this alignment adds over an hour to both ends of the previous schedule, forcing commuters into a single lane for longer periods. They dismissed the fact that significant traffic doesn’t begin until 6:30 a.m. and pointed to an unnamed study they could not produce. They claim they will evaluate after the change but couldn’t say how or when.
This move smells like a cash grab for CHP. For a daily commuter like me, who leaves home before dawn to beat traffic, these new hours negate any benefits from current road improvements. A more logical solution would have been to set the carpool hours from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., when they’re actually needed, not to expand them to suit some unknown agenda.
Benjamin Wallen
Petaluma
“A MIGHTY REDWOOD OF A MAN HAS FALLEN.”
Malcolm Margolin of Heyday Books died Wednesday.
Photo of Malcolm by Richard Nagler, a close friend of Malcolm’s.
It is the end of a remarkable man. From Berkeleyside: Malcolm Margolin, who founded the Berkeley-based Heyday Books in 1974 and helped turn it into an outlet for Native Californian writing, died from complications from Parkinson’s disease on Wednesday. He was at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, surrounded by his family. Margolin, who had been living in a skilled nursing wing at Piedmont Gardens in Oakland since the spring of 2023, was 84.
“The death of Malcolm Margolin leaves all of us at Heyday, the independent, nonprofit publishing company he founded more than fifty years ago, saddened beyond measure,” said Steve Wasserman, Heyday’s publisher.
BRING CRAIG BACK TO UKIAH!
Warmest spiritual greetings,
Washington D.C. Assessment:
I have been in the District of Columbia since September 2024 being supportive of the D.C. Peace Vigil across the street from the White House. This is my 16th time here since June of 1991. Catholic Charities gave me a bed and locker at a northeast homeless shelter so that I could do this. In the past year, my social security SSI timed out, the California EBT card stopped working (in spite of receiving emails stating that the benefit continued), and the federal housing voucher timed out. Otherwise, the experience of being here again has been edgy. Thirty years ago this was one helluva town! Today, it is fraught with violent criminal behavior. The bus stops and buses are not safe. Indeed, most riders are not even paying, continuing to free ride as was established during the Covid-19 pandemic. Race relations are openly hateful. There are intoxicated and narcotics fueled individuals everywhere. The District of Columbia has become a horror show.
I would like assistance to leave. I am in need of my SSI, Food Stamps, and Federal Voucher being restored. Efforts on my part to accomplish this have been met by receiving nothing substantial from the government. Well intentioned social service groups have not been successful. I am packed up every day and can exit the D.C. shelter in 20 minutes.
Thank you very much.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
STATE PROPOSES 10-YEAR EXTENSION OF CALIFORNIA RED ABALONE FISHERY CLOSURE, profoundly impacting Sonoma and Mendocino counties
Officials say more time for abalone populations to recover is needed, as kelp forests are still decimated while voracious purple sea urchins continue to thrive.
by Amie Windsor
Richard Hayman, in another era, remembers harvesting dozens of red abalone with fellow divers on his regular underwater excursions, so plentiful was the mollusk among the rocks below the kelp beds of the Northern California coast.
“There were tons and tons and tons of them,” Hayman, 61 said. “And then? Then there were none.”
In December 2017, the California Fish and Game Commission closed the recreational red abalone fishery, citing declining stocks and the collapse of the bull kelp forest.
The season was set to reopen April 1, 2026, but now state commissioners seek to extend the closure of the fishery another 10 years.
“I think we all feel it, as we’ve been trying to manage this resource, it just feels like the rug gets pulled out from underneath us,” Commissioner Jacque Hostler-Carmesin said during the commission’s Aug. 14 meeting.
The Sonoma-Mendocino coast had been Ground Zero for the red abalone fishery, drawing thousands to the region beginning April 1 of each year to dive for and then feast on the meaty mollusks. A CDFW report released in 2016 determined that abalone fishing brought more than $28 million to Sonoma and Mendocino counties, between food, lodging, gas, gear and other amenities.
But the coast is also the region most affected by the rapid collapse of the bull kelp forest, which left abalone starving and dying in masses.
Some commissioners would like to consider a five-year extension of the ban, noting that 10 years simply seems too long.
But the majority of the board’s five members are learning toward a decade-long extension, noting that red abalone require at least seven or eight years to grow large enough to be able to be legally harvested along the California coast.
As such, reopening too early could “likely lead to further collapse of the resource,” Brian Owens, a marine biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said.
The commission is slated to discuss the potential extension during its Oct. 8 meeting. Final adoption could be made Dec. 10. Both meetings are expected to be held in Sacramento, though a location has not yet been finalized.
Red abalone populations have declined by roughly 85% in Northern California since a massive marine heat wave in 2014 warmed ocean waters. The heat wave kicked off a perfect storm of ecological dominoes: the local population of sunflower sea stars died from disease, allowing for an unchecked explosion in the purple sea urchin population, which then preyed on the bull kelp forest.
The kelp forests — the main food source for red abalone — were decimated and remain that way.
“The biodiversity of the areas used to be amazing,” said Owen Mitchell, an abalone diver from Cotati. “Blue herons and egrets walked along the kelp, eating rock fish. It was absolutely stunning.”
Mitchell, 46, has spent decades diving and kayaking along the Sonoma and Mendocino counties coastline. Prior to the die-off, the kelp beds in the area used to be “massive,” supplying divers and fish alike with strategic safety from predators and respite from strong currents.
Today, he describes the areas along the coast as “a cemetery. It’s just dead. There are hardly any fish and what fish we do see are scraping to get by.”
While he understands the need to extend the closure of the fishery, Mitchell wants to see more effort to eradicate the purple sea urchin.
“I feel like nothing has been done by the state to combat this invasion. It has been left unchecked,” he said.
Some work has been done in areas like Mendocino County’s Caspar Cove and Sonoma County’s Ocean Cove, where local fishers and divers have banded together to remove the purple sea urchin.
At Mendocino County’s Noyo and Albion coves, commercial divers successfully removed nearly 50,000 pounds of the urchin. Bull kelp forests came back to 20% of their historical densities.
But the endeavor was expensive, costing the state and its nonprofit partners around $500,000.
Funding is the issue, says Susan Ashcraft, adviser with the Marine Resources Committee, a working group of the state commission. Since July 2024, financial challenges and staff reductions within the state put a pause on the abalone restoration plan.
When it did pick up in January, MRC’s goal was to rely on “citizen scientists” to understand the status of red abalone populations and help reduce the impact of the purple sea urchins.
But even that effort, might prove too expensive for the state, Ashcraft told the state commission.
“Doing surveys can be quite expensive, and I’ve had emails from former commercial abalone fishermen giving me estimates of what their vessel fuel costs would be,” Ashcraft said. “It’s unrealistic. They’re unlikely to volunteer without funding or a harvest opportunity.”
Mitchell and longtime red abalone fishery advocate Jack Likins hope for more.
“Frustrated is my exact feeling, too,” Likins said. “I agree with it being closed, but 10 years? That seems like they’re kicking the can down the road.”
Commissioners disagree, saying healing takes time.
“I thought we were gonna be able to get funding,” Commissioner Hostler-Carmesin said. “That’s when the state budget crisis started rolling in so we didn’t get outside funding. We then experienced budget shortfalls, budget cuts. So we are now committed to picking up those pieces, but I think we need to take a long view of this.”
Both men want to see the ocean heal, but note that the network of businesses tied to the fishery — and people within it — have felt the effects of the closure for far too long.
“It’s been like wildfire,” Mitchell said of the economic fallout from the red abalone closure. “It’s not just the fishing license and the dive shops. It’s the campsites and rentals. The restaurants, gasoline and grocery stores. There’s an entire ripple effect.
“I’d love to see the fishery come back,” Mitchell added. “It’s about the experience and what it brings to the community. This was probably the result of climate change so I feel like it’s our duty to do something to fix it.”
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
DOES LOGGING REALLY REDUCE WILDFIRE DANGER? New California study finds key exception
by Kurtis Alexander
The timber industry and its supporters, joined by many in the Trump administration, have long promoted logging as a way to reduce fire danger. Some even blame declining timber operations in recent decades for the uptick in catastrophic wildfire.
A growing body of research, however, suggests the benefits of logging are far more limited.
The latest study to examine the impact of harvesting trees on fire behavior, published Wednesday in the journal Global Change Biology, finds that lands administered by private timber companies were nearly 1½ times more likely to burn at “high severity” levels than public lands with less timber production.
The reason, say the authors, is that commercial logging sites tend to have trees that are tightly packed, evenly spaced out and structured with “laddered” rows of branches — all of which is ideal for starting and spreading flames.
“It’s pretty intuitive in a way,” said Jacob Levine, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Utah’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy and lead author of the new study. “If you have a continuous fuel bed, it’s going to vector fire across the landscape.”
The authors, from the University of Utah, UC Berkeley and the U.S. Forest Service, drew their conclusions by analyzing burned areas in Northern California, where wildfires have been particularly destructive in recent years.
Their findings build on previous studies that dispute the notion that removing trees invariably reduces “fuels” and diminishes fire risk. The authors, though, say that tree removal itself is not causing the hazard, just the way it’s done. Their paper points to a role for logging in reducing forest density and thereby improving fire resiliency.
According to the authors, selectively removing mostly small trees, clearing strips of forest to provide what is known as shaded fuel breaks, and thinning the understory can lower the intensity of a wildfire. Studies have shown various levels of success with these practices. The general consensus is that prescribed fire, because it mimics natural fire and organically purges overgrown vegetation, is the most effective tool for limiting high severity burns and should be added to any mix of forestry work.
Such targeted approaches, however, don’t generate as much wood production as plantation-style harvesting, in which large trees are generally clear cut before replanting compactly to maximize yields.
The mounting research has implications for forest policy, though success is often in the nuance of the execution.
The Trump administration recently identified a goal of increasing timber production on federal forests by 25%. It is hoping to do this largely by rolling back environmental reviews and expediting permitting of logging projects. Part of the impetus, as stated in a presidential order, is “wildfire risk reduction” and to “save American lives.”
Scott Stephens, a professor of fire ecology and forestry at UC Berkeley and a co-author of the new study, said setting numerical objectives for the amount of timber you want, instead of what is suited to forest conditions, is generally not the way to ward off damaging fires. Simply cutting down the biggest trees, which are generally the most fire-resistant, won’t increase resiliency, for example.
“You need to put fire mitigation upfront,” Stephens said. “Maybe you’re going to do a commercial harvest, maybe do some thinning, put in some shaded fuel breaks. But
if you’re only going to go in there and give every forest a (harvest) target, that doesn’t work.”
The need to limit high-severity fire, which is characterized by killing large numbers of trees, is becoming increasingly evident. Such burns are harder to put out, cause sometimes irrevocable damage to forests, wildlife and nearby communities and result in landscapes that sequester less planet-warming carbon. In some cases, a whole new, tree-less ecosystem of shrubs and grasses emerges.
The logging industry has cautioned against making broad claims about how their work affects fire risk.
George “YG” Gentry, senior vice president of regulatory affairs for the California Forestry Association, had not seen the latest study but said it’s hard for any single paper to capture all the factors that affect fire, from weather to elevation to terrain.
“Any one study that points to this or that, I’m kind of skeptical,” he said. “If you’re doing appropriate thinning, if you’re doing appropriate fuel management, you can really mitigate fire behavior.”
The new paper used the Plumas National Forest in the northern Sierra Nevada as the study site. The area was hit hard by five major wildfires between 2019 and 2021, including the 963,000-acre Dixie Fire, the second largest in state history.
It so happens that the Plumas National Forest and surrounding property, including private timber parcels, had been surveyed by overflights using airborne light detection and ranging, or LiDAR, in 2018 — providing a baseline of forest conditions before the fires.
By analyzing the changes, the researchers determined that private timberlands were 1.45 times more likely to experience high-severity fire than the federal holdings, which consisted largely of areas that had been leased for logging, though with more restrictions than the company-owned sites.
The study points out that the federal lands also often saw high-severity fire and were not a model for sound forest management. It was just that the private forests were less fire resilient because of their denser, more uniform make-up.
Identifying what was making the fires worse, the authors say, enables improvements to be made on both private and public lands. Certain forestry practices that aim to decrease density, according to the study, will help temper the severity of even the most extreme fires, which bodes well for the future as wildfires become increasingly intense.
“We’re not just fighting this losing battle automatically because of climate change,” Levine said. “As fire weather gets worse and worse with climate change, we can still implement management that reduces severity.”
Several studies over the past decade, and even earlier, have found that wildfires have often burned more intensely in areas where logging has occurred.
Some research, including a 2016 paper that analyzed 1,500 fires and found that burning was worse in places with more cut trees, suggests completely rethinking logging as a fire-mitigation tool. The wind and heat from the sun that gets into an exposed logging site, some say, regularly exacerbates fires. Other research has underscored the need to reduce tree density, after decades of fire suppression, but only with selective logging practices.
The authors of the new study say the timber industry and all consumers of wood products stand to benefit when forests are better protected from massive blazes.
“Logging is an important industry,” Levine said. “I don’t want to vilify timber companies, by any means, but I’m not sure the raw focus on timber production is the way we want to go about reducing fire severity.”
(SF Chronicle)
GROUPS SAY ‘HELL NO’ TO NEWSOM AND DWR’S PLAN TO FAST-TRACK DELTA TUNNEL
by Dan Bacher
Meet the “new” plan, same as the old plan.
The California Department of Water Resources released a controversial report today the “State Water Project Adaptation Strategy,” claiming that a combination of strategies, led by the Delta Conveyance Project, can help the State Water Project maintain “reliable water deliveries” to California cities and agribusiness “despite hotter temperatures, more extreme storms, more severe droughts, and higher sea levels.”…
FERNADO TATIS ROBS RAFAEL DEVERS as the Padres beat the Giants 8-1
Tatis made a sensational leaping catch to rob the Giants slugger in the first after the left-hander hit a high fly ball to right field.
by Bernie Wilson
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Gavin Sheets hit two of San Diego’s four home runs and drove in four runs, and Fernando Tatis Jr. robbed San Francisco's Rafael Devers of a homer as the Padres beat the Giants 8-1 on Wednesday night.
Manny Machado and Ryan O’Hearn also homered for the Padres, who pulled within one game of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.
Giants starter Landen Roupp (7-7) was carted off the field after being hit in the back of his right thigh by a line drive by Ramón Laureano in the third inning. He slipped on the mound and his left knee buckled before he fell face-first to the ground. He was holding his left knee as he was checked by a trainer before being loaded onto a cart.
Tatis made a sensational leaping catch to rob Devers in the first after the left-hander hit a high fly ball to right field off left-hander JP Sears. Tatis tracked it to his left, perfectly timed his leap and got his glove high above the wall to make the catch. Tatis landed on his backside and sat against the wall for a moment. He popped up and tossed the ball from his glove to his right hand and threw it in.
Sears (8-10) pointed and smiled at Tatis. Devers smiled, too.
Tatis doubled to open the Padres’ first and scored on O’Hearn’s single.
Sheets hit a leadoff homer in the second and, after Roupp was knocked out, greeted reliever Joey Lucchesi with a three-run homer. He has a career-high 17.
Machado homered in the third, his 21st, and O’Hearn connected in the seventh, his 16th.
San Francisco’s Casey Schmitt, who grew up in San Diego, homered off Sears in the fourth. It was his eighth.
Tatis’ home run-robbing catch thrilled the Petco Park crowd.
Sears and three relievers combined on a four-hitter.
Giants RHP Justin Verlander (1-9, 4.23 ERA) and Padres RHP Dylan Cease (5-11, 4.61) are scheduled to start the series finale on Thursday.
ESPN TAKING A KNEE ON KAEPERNICK DOCUSERIES REEKS OF CAPITULATION TO TRUMP
by Scott Ostler
For Colin Kaepernick, taking a knee in protest was a simple act.
Making that act and its turbulent aftermath into a film and presenting it to the masses is a much more complex task.
ESPN announced on Saturday that it was pulling the plug on “Da Saga of Colin Kaepernick,” a seven-part docuseries directed by Spike Lee. ESPN commissioned the project in 2020.
Said the sports network in a news release: “ESPN, Colin Kaepernick, and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with the project as a result of certain creative differences.”
But since “Da Saga” was either in the can — completely finished — or close, the news release leaves a lot of mystery.
If Kaepernick and Lee have “creative differences,” as was rumored at one point, why is “Da Saga” seemingly ready to go? If it’s ESPN that has the creative issues, why did it let the project play out to completion, or near completion?
This might be a clue: ESPN’s surprise plug-pull came 11 days after an announcement that the NFL is selling its NFL Network to ESPN. The league will get a 10% equity stake in ESPN.
Are the NFL and ESPN taking a knee on the Kaepernick documentary, in order to avoid angering the president and possibly kneecapping the ESPN-NFL deal? Did the NFL make the plug-pulling part of the deal?
This has the feel of a mighty sports network, a subsidiary of even mightier Disney, bowing down to the heavy-handed media pressure being exerted everywhere by the Trump administration.
Trump once led the movement to ban Kaepernick from polite society — in 2017 he called players who knelt during the national anthem “sons of bitches” — and he gained political traction by doing so. Did the president just bigfoot Kaepernick again, directly or indirectly?
Another question: Who cares?
To some, including those who protested Kaepernick’s protest back in 2016, this guy’s so-called saga is a dead horse unworthy of even mild flogging. A seven-part docuseries? RIP.
But even though Kaepernick went away, he never really went away. He was blackballed by the NFL, but that only added to his mystique and cultural relevance. He remains a player in the ongoing fight for social justice, and a symbol of courageous defiance.
Kaepernick was canceled as a player before cancel culture became a thing, and now he’s being canceled again. “The Killing of Da Saga” might be a worthy documentary of its own.
It’s not conspiracy-theorizing to see a possible connection between the plug pulling of “Da Saga” and the current heat being applied to the media from forces high in the government. There are connectible dots, such as:
- The megadeal between ESPN and NFL Network requires the approval of the federal government. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, appointed by Trump in January, stated he would block any merger of companies that had DEI programs, and he launched an investigation of Disney. Heading off trouble, Paramount ended its DEI policies in February.
- Trump is determined to make an impact on the sports world, including pro golf, college sports and the NFL. He has threatened to withhold crucial government funding for a new Washington, D.C., football stadium unless the Washington Commanders go back to calling themselves by their former name.
If Trump is that passionate about nicknames, might he pressure his FCC chief to kill the ESPN-Disney sale if one of ESPN’s hottest upcoming shows is “Da Saga,” which is “full of incendiary critiques of conservative politicians and Donald Trump,” per Matthew Belloni in Puck News?
- The NFL has to play nice. They are in the stadium-building business, and most stadiums are built with public subsidies that require sign-off by the federal government. The Shield needs to stay on Trump’s good side, and doing big business with the network of “Da Saga” probably isn’t a smart move.
- Trump “fired” late-night TV host Stephen Colbert. Trump didn’t take credit for the firing, but it happened just days after Colbert ripped CBS and its parent company Paramount for settling a lawsuit brought by Trump for $16 million. Pending at the time of the settlement was a merger between Paramount and Skydance Media that required FCC approval.
- Trump has said that the broadcast licenses of ABC and NBC “could, and should, be revoked.” He has shut down funding for NPR and PBS, and is working on Voice of America. He has called MSNBC and CNN “corrupt” and “illegal.” Again, this is a bad time for a network to be on Trump’s “naughty” list.
- Disney has been practicing its white-flag waving. In December, Disney settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump, a suit many experts considered unwinnable, paying legal fees and donating to Trump’s presidential library.
The fellow who is doing all this media cleansing, how do you think he feels about the prospect of tens of millions of viewers watching a weeks-long, high-ratings glorification of Colin Kaepernick?
It’s possible that the docuseries blew up due to an ego clash. A year ago Puck reported “heated disagreements between Kaepernick and (Lee) over the direction of the project.”
And, yet, a year later the project seemed near completion, with Kaepernick and Lee both still involved.
Why would ESPN commission the project in 2020 and dump it in 2025?
Well, times have changed. When the deal was struck, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said, “As the nation continues to confront racism and social injustice, it feels particularly relevant to hear Colin’s voice on his evolution and motivations.”
No network exec in his or her right mind would issue a statement like that now. It would be like taping a “Kick me” sign to your own back.
Since the Kaepernick story is a Northern California and Bay Area saga — he was raised in Turlock, played his college ball in Reno and made his impact with the San Francisco 49ers — who better to weigh in on the subject than Harry Edwards, the man who invented sports sociology, and who worked with the 49ers when Kaepernick played.
Edwards points out that there are big challenges to telling Kaepernick’s saga. It’s not a story that happened, it’s a story that’s still happening. Kaepernick is evolving and the world around him is — evolving? Devolving?
“It has been nearly a decade since the Kaepernick ‘take a knee’ protest,” Edwards said, “but even after all this time, ESPN has decided that either the messaging of the Kap saga and/or their audience is inappropriate.”
It’s not surprising, Edwards said. He knows how tricky this stuff can be. He masterminded the Tommie Smith and John Carlos protest at the 1968 Olympics.
“That was 57 years ago,” Edwards pointed out, “and though there have been at least a half-dozen movie proposals and three fully developed scripts that I am aware of, there has never been a film. Under the circumstances, it is not beyond reason that it might take some time still — Spike Lee’s legendary determination and persistence notwithstanding — for a Kap film or series to be made and distributed across mainstream viewing venues.”
ESPN reportedly gave its blessing to Kaepernick and Lee to shop their docuseries elsewhere. Surely someone will be interested. Hey, it’s Spike Lee and Colin Kaepernick, right?
But these are troubled times. Caution trumps creativity. A story about courage just might go untold because courage has gone out of style.
(SF Chronicle)
CAVEAT LECTOR
Dear Friends of Caveat Lector:
249 years after our nation’s birth-quake, after all the protests, marches, lynchings, bloodshed, wars (domestic and foreign), civil rights progress, and we end up with THIS??? A cabal of hucksters, thugs, carnival barkers and jackboot authoritarians hijacking the nation’s soul and rhythm? Oh brother, oh sister. Best to tighten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a long and bumpy ride.
Meanwhile…
Our new issue of Caveat Lector continues our mission of presenting adventurous and provocative work to inspire and enlighten our readers, even in the darkest of times. In the vein of pleasing ourselves, pushing back against the rising floodwaters and having our say no matter how early it gets late out there, we present to you this latest assemblage of art, essay, fiction, poetry, photography and theater.
This issue’s fiction entries confront the exasperations of our current age, like that guy at the bar who just won’t stop spouting idiocy in John Cody Bennett’s “An Audience of One,” or the unwelcome passengers in Steven Hill’s short-short “The Train Seat Next to Me.” Stories that enter more surreal territory include Ho Lin’s “Fame,” in which an old man with a faulty memory discovers he may or may not be a person of note, and Patrick Sweeney’s “Empathology,“ which finds a group of test subjects rebelling against their benefactors.
Caveat Lector editor Jonah Raskin’s “My Symmetrical Life“ is a revealing and introspective reflection about his life, art and politics, from his 1960s anarchist days to tenured professor, and the learned humility that comes with recognizing one’s own personal contradictions.
In this issue we have new poetry, from calls for renewal (Stella Brice’s “The Resurgence,” Kathleen Hellen’s “bird woman“ and James Croal Jackson’s “it’s happening new series of birds“) to bemused musings on the state of modern living (Joseph Serra’s four prose poems), to Jonah Raskin’s moody Morrison-like “A Night in LA“ and John Cody Bennett’s “Audience of One.” Caveat Lectorprincipal Steven Hill’s epic horror poem, “Passage Through the 21st of the Centuries (As We Count These Things),” winds inside a Dantean cave haunted by historical chapters of human fragility to arrive at this fearful populist moment of Trumpian proportions. Also we have new poems from Mary-Marcia Casoly and Royal Rhodes.
Speaking of The Age of Trump, we also are publishing Caveat Lector co-founder Christopher Bernard’s adaptation and mammoth reimagining of Alfred Jarry’s epic absurdist classic Ubu Roi: Ubu Triumphant!, a “farce in five fits,” which demonstrates that the Absurdists have something to say about our, well, absurd state.
Speaking of the end of civilization, we would be remiss not to announce that in October, Regent Press will be reissuing Christopher Bernard’s debut experimental novel, A Spy in the Ruins, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its publication. You won’t find many apocalypses (and deconstructions) more engrossing. Christopher’s story received high praise a generation ago, being called by one critic “an invasion of Joycean territory,” and included this gem from Juan Goytisolo, author of Count Julian and The Blind Rider and winner of the Miguel de Cervantes Award: “Magnificent … the best American novel I have read since those of Thomas Pynchon and William Gass.”
That’s all folksies, until the next time. We are grateful for our readers and contributors, and we hope and pray that everyone is surviving these perilous times and the worrying news from perilous places near and far. Please send us your own creative musings for the next issue (submission link here). Let us write together, let us amuse, inspire and conspire, during the days and months ahead.
Yours,
Christopher Bernard, Ho Lin, Jonah Raskin and Steven Hill
The Editors
Caveat Lector
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
My father had a few sayings he thought were pretty funny. On meeting a child for the first time he’d ask, “How old are you? Ten? When I was your age,” he’d continue, “I was 21!” A favorite of his was: “For once in my life, I’m right again.” He’d make that joke whenever he’d been proven right about anything. I sometimes think it’s the fate of many progressives for once in our lives to be right — over and over. This isn’t because we’re particularly good people, although some of my heroes are indeed good people. It’s at least in part because we are people with good luck. It’s been our good luck that, at some time in our lives, somebody offered us a place to stand, a viewpoint, an ethical way of grasping the world.
S.F. OFFICIALS TAKE FIRST FORMAL STEP TO REMOVE CONTROVERSIAL FOUNTAIN FROM EMBARCADERO PLAZA
by Sam Whiting
San Francisco parks officials this week requested the removal of the massive Vaillancourt Fountain from Embarcadero Plaza, the first written acknowledgement that they do not intend to include the controversial 710-ton sculpture in the plaza’s planned redesign.
“We respectfully request the Arts Commission’s consideration and approval to proceed with the formal deaccession of the Vaillancourt Fountain from the Civic Art Collection and its removal from Embarcadero Plaza,” read a letter from Recreation and Parks Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg sent Monday to top management of the Arts Commission, which owns the fountain.
“This step is necessary to ensure public safety, uphold responsible stewardship of civic assets, and realize a reimagined Embarcadero Plaza that serves all San Franciscans.”
The letter, a copy of which was provided to the Chronicle by park department officials, notes that it would cost an estimated $29 million to restore the broken-down fountain to working order. That sum almost equals the entire $32.5 million budget for the ambitious park makeover to combine the area formerly known as Justin Herman Plaza with Sue Bierman Park, creating a seamless 5-acre multiuse destination across from the Ferry Building.
The concrete Brutalist fountain, which has been a lightning rod for public opinion since its debut a half-century ago, sits in the middle of the planned multiuse area. A park department report estimates that it would cost $2.5 million to remove it.
The park department owns the property and is in charge of the plaza renovation project, which is a public-private partnership. But the Arts Commission will ultimately determine the fountain’s fate.
The letter was received by the Arts Commission on Monday afternoon, and staff is considering next steps, which will include evaluation and a presentation to the Visual Arts Committee and full commission at a meeting this fall. The fountain cannot be removed without the commission’s approval.
If the commission votes to deaccession it, the sculpture will no longer be part of San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection, in which case it would either be destroyed or offered back to the artist who created it, Armand Vaillancourt, or even a private collector. Either party would have to cover the cost of its removal, according to Coma Te, director of communications for the Arts Commission, the city agency in charge of art and culture.
“Due to the size and nature of the work it would prove difficult to relocate elsewhere in the city,” said Te. “The full commission will have the final say, and if they decide to keep it we will need to find a funding source to renovate it.”
The cost of its removal, should that be the final decision, is included in the budget for the Embarcadero Plaza project, which is currently in the design phase. Initial renderings did not include the fountain, prompting an outcry from preservationists who want the sculpture, opened in 1972, to remain. Those concerns even brought a visit from Vaillancourt, now 95, from his home in Canada to San Francisco in May to argue for its restoration and preservation.
“This survived a 7.1 earthquake with no damage, not a scratch, but they never took care of it,” he told the Chronicle, during the June visit. “There’s nothing wrong with it except the dirt.”
But the fountain, which has been inoperable for more than a year, was determined to be a public hazard and fenced off indefinitely in June.
At a community outreach meeting in July, Project Manager Eoanna Goodwin told the audience that it was impractical to keep the fountain, a statement that moved the artist’s daughter, Oceania Vaillancourt, who lives in San Francisco, to tears.
The letter sent Monday was the written follow-up to that determination.
“The current location, scale, and orientation of the fountain fragment the plaza, hinder sightlines, and constrain circulation and event programming,” read the letter. “The scale of the fountain is incompatible with the open lawn and gathering spaces envisioned in the new design. Simply put, the design cannot meet community needs or project goals while retaining the fountain in place.”
Alexis Vaillancourt, who represents his Montreal-based father, said he still held a glimmer of hope when reached by phone Wednesday. ”We are not surprised. Everything was going that way,” he said. “We are still trying to see what is possible to do, in order to preserve it.”
MEAN MR. MUSTACHE
by Matt Taibbi
Metaphor master Thomas Friedman, in the New York Times this morning.
“Can anyone identify a single U.S. diplomat in Moscow or C.I.A. analyst who is advising [U.S. chief negotiator Steve] Witkoff and Trump today? My bet is there are none, because no serious analyst or expert on Russia would tell them: “We have concluded that you are right and all of us have been wrong: Putin is not a bad guy, he just wants a just peace with Ukraine — and when he tells you he went to church and prayed for President Trump, you should believe him.”
Why wouldn’t Trump want a CIA analyst stapled to his side at all times? That’s a tough one. Can we make a list of possible reasons?
Before Trump was even a Republican nominee, a CIA Director relayed “concerns” to the FBI that “served as the basis” for years of grueling investigation that would paralyze his presidency; after his election, as we’ve learned all summer, CIA then cooked up a bogus intelligence report saying Trump won with Russian help; CIA leaked its balls off to papers like the New York Times about how Moscow worked to “install” Trump in the White House; CIA helped topple Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn by telling every reporter on earth he was a “clown” who said mean things about the CIA and secretly conspired with Russia; CIA warned foreign countries not to share intelligence with Trump because Russia held “leverages of pressure” on him; CIA stuck fictional campaign research about “compromising personal and financial information” Russia had in a report that was leaked to CNN in less time than it takes for fleas to mate; CIA accused Trump of treason; CIA got Trump impeached; CIA leaked stories that Trump let Russians kill Americans for sport; CIA banded together to call a true Hunter Biden story a Russian influence operation; CIA spent the last half-century overturning foreign governments and in this one is trying do the same at home, in such blatant violation of its charter that 77 million people last year voted to have it shot like a lame horse.
But sure, yes, let’s make sure the CIA is at the President’s side when we’re trying to negotiate a peace settlement. What could go wrong?
Friedman’s piece today is awful, but I’m here to tell you I miss him. I bet Friedman misses himself. His columns used to feature a charming goofiness that made them fun reads even if you disagreed, but this era has robbed even his work of humor. In the Age of Trump, the old-school folksy columnist who chatted you up in the waiting room of life has been replaced by what Thomas Frank calls the “Utopia of Scolding,” which has no charm at all. Watching this disease overtake the Buster Keaton of American letters has been a colossal bummer, with today marking a new low. The Mustache of Understanding turned mean…
https://www.racket.news/p/mean-mr-mustache
“The street that ran up toward the Pantheon and the other that he always took with the bicycle, the only asphalted street in all that quarter, smooth under the tires, with the high narrow houses and the cheap tall hotel where Paul Verlaine had died. There were only two rooms in the apartments where they lived and he had a room on the top floor of that hotel that cost him sixty francs a month where he did his writing, and from it he could see the roofs and chimney pots and all the hills of Paris “
— Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’
LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT
‘We Can’t Take It Anymore’: Gazans Fear Looming Israeli Operation
With Moves on West Bank and Gaza City, Israel Defies Global Outcry
In Pursuing Trump Rival, Weaponization Czar Sidesteps Justice Dept. Norms
Amid Threats From Trump, Adam Schiff Forms Legal Defense Fund
Stalking Has Become an Unsettling Part of Sports Landscape
Why Magic, Dragons and Explicit Sex Are in Bookstores Everywhere
KEN LOACH IN EDINBURGH: Palestine Action ban is “legal monstrosity”
by Alistair Grant
The ban on Palestine Action is a "legal monstrosity" and must be opposed, filmmaker Ken Loach has said, as he appeared alongside activists in Edinburgh.
Mr Loach said the decision to designate the organisation a terrorist group was taken to "intimidate" anyone who opposes what is happening in Gaza and the UK government’s “collusion”.…
BORDER
by Taslima Nasrin
I'm going to move ahead.
Behind me my whole family is calling,
My child is pulling my sari-end,
My husband stands blocking the door,
But I will go.
There's nothing ahead but a river.
I will cross.
I know how to swim,
but they won't let me swim, won't let me cross.
There's nothing on the other side of the river
but a vast expanse of fields,
But I'll touch this emptiness once
and run against the wind, whose whooshing sound
makes me want to dance.
I'll dance someday
and then return.
I've not played keep-away for years
as I did in childhood.
I'll raise a great commotion playing keep-away someday
and then return.
For years I haven't cried with my head
in the lap of solitude.
I'll cry to my heart's content someday
and then return.
There's nothing ahead but a river,
and I know how to swim.
Why shouldn't I go?
I'll go.
TOLSTOY ON LINCOLN
“Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Ceasar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.
“If one would know the greatness of Lincoln one should listen to the stories which are told about him in other parts of the world. I have been in wild places, where one hears the name of America uttered with such mystery as if it were some heaven or hell. I have heard various tribes of barbarians discussing the New World, but I heard this only in connection with the name of Lincoln. Lincoln as the wonderful hero of America is known by the most primitive nations of Asia. This may be illustrated through the following incident:
“Once while traveling in the Caucasus I happened to be the guest of a Caucasian chief of the Circassians, who, living far away from civilized life in the mountains, had but a fragmentary and childish comprehension of the world and its history. The fingers of civilization had never reached him nor his tribe, and all life beyond his native valleys was a dark mystery. Being a Mussulman he was naturally opposed to all ideas of progress and education.
“I was received with the usual Oriental hospitality and after our meal was asked by my host to tell him something of my life. Yielding to his request I began to tell him of my profession, of the development of our industries and inventions and of the schools. He listened to everything with indifference, but when I began to tell about the great statesmen and the great generals of the world he seemed at once to become very much interested.
“‘Wait a moment,’ he interrupted, after I had talked a few minutes. ‘I want all my neighbors and my sons to listen to you. I will call them immediately.’
“He soon returned with a score of wild looking riders and asked me politely to continue. It was indeed a solemn moment when those sons of the wilderness sat around me on the floor and gazed at me as if hungering for knowledge. I spoke at first of our Czars and of their victories; then I spoke of the foreign rulers and of some of the greatest military leaders. My talk seemed to impress them deeply. The story of Napoleon was so interesting to them that I had to tell them every detail, as, for instance, how his hands looked, how tall he was, who made his guns and pistols and the color of his horse. It was very difficult to satisfy them and to meet their point of view, but I did my best. When I declared that I had finished my talk, my host, a gray-bearded, tall rider, rose, lifted his hand and said very gravely:
“‘But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.’
“‘Tell us, please, and we will present you with the best horse of our stock,’ shouted the others.
“I looked at them and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend. I told them of Lincoln and his wisdom, of his home life and youth. They asked me ten questions to one which I was able to answer. They wanted to know all about his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength. But they were very astonished to hear that Lincoln made a sorry figure on a horse and that he lived such a simple life.
“‘Tell us why he was killed,’ one of them said.
“I had to tell everything. After all my knowledge of Lincoln was exhausted they seemed to be satisfied. I can hardly forget the great enthusiasm which they expressed in their wild thanks and desire to get a picture of the great American hero. I said that I probably could secure one from my friend in the nearest town, and this seemed to give them great pleasure.
“The next morning when I left the chief a wonderful Arabian horse was brought me as a present for my marvelous story, and our farewell was very impressive.
“One of the riders agreed to accompany me to the town and get the promised picture, which I was now bound to secure at any price. I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend, and I handed it to the man with my greetings to his associates. It was interesting to witness the gravity of his face and the trembling of his hands when he received my present. He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer; his eyes filled with tears. He was deeply touched and I asked him why he became so sad. After pondering my question for a few moments he replied:
“‘I am sad because I feel sorry that he had to die by the hand of a villain. Don’t you find, judging from his picture, that his eyes are full of tears and that his lips are sad with a secret sorrow?’
“Like all Orientals, he spoke in a poetical way and left me with many deep bows.
“This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshiped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become.
“Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character. He had come through many hardships and much experience to the realization that the greatest human achievement is love. He was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, and Christ in the philosophy of life. He aspired to be divine— and he was.
“It is natural that before he reached his goal he had to walk the highway of mistakes. But we find him, nevertheless, in every tendency true to one main motive, and that was to benefit mankind. He was one who wanted to be great through his smallness. If he had failed to become President he would be, no doubt, just as great as he is now, but only God could appreciate it. The judgment of the world is usually wrong in the beginning, and it takes centuries to correct it. But in the case of Lincoln the world was right from the start. Sooner or later Lincoln would have been seen to be a great man, even though he had never been an American President. But it would have taken a great generation to place him where he belongs.
“Lincoln died prematurely by the hand of the assassin, and naturally we condemn the criminal from our viewpoint of justice. But the question is, was his death not predestined by a divine wisdom, and was it not better for the nation and for his greatness that he died just in that way and at that particular moment? We know so little about that divine law which we call fate that no one can answer. Christ had a presentiment of His death, and there are indications that also Lincoln had strange dreams and presentiments of something tragic. If that was really the fact, can we conceive that human will could have prevented the outcome of the universal or divine will? I doubt it. I doubt also that Lincoln could have done more to prove his greatness than he did. I am convinced we are but instruments in the hands of an unknown power and that we have to follow its bidding to the end. We have a certain apparent independence, according to our moral character, wherein we may benefit our fellows, but in all eternal and universal questions we follow blindly a divine predestination. According to that eternal law the greatest of national heroes had to die, but an immortal glory still shines on his deeds.
“However, the highest heroism is that which is based on humanity, truth, justice and pity; all other forms are doomed to forgetfulness. The greatness of Aristotle or Kant is insignificant compared with the greatness of Buddha, Moses and Christ. The greatness of Napoleon, Cesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. Washington was a typical American, Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country— bigger than all the Presidents together. Why? Because he loved his enemies as himself and because he was a universal individualist who wanted to see himself in the world— not the world in himself. He was great through his simplicity and was noble through his charity.
“Lincoln is a strong type of those who make for truth and justice, for brotherhood and freedom. Love is the foundation of his life. That is what makes him immortal and that is the quality of a giant. I hope that his centenary birth day will create an impulse toward righteousness among the nations. Lincoln lived and died a hero, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives. May his life long bless humanity!”
FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
by Sean S. Carroll
Should scientists be embarrassed that they can’t settle on a definition for the Big Bang? The cosmologist Will Kinney describes it as the “physical theory of the hot infant universe,” while Wikipedia goes for the more elaborate “a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature.” The first refers only to early times, while the latter seems to extend to subsequent times as well. The physicist and science writer Tony Rothman offers the pithier “the universe’s origin,” the theoretical physicist Thomas Hertog suggests that it is the “primeval state” of cosmic history, and a NASA website gives us “the idea that the universe began as just a single point.” These seem to refer to one moment at the start of things, rather than the universe’s life since then.
All of these sources (except NASA, unfortunately) capture something correct. The confusion stems both from the inherent ambiguity of using ordinary language to describe novel scientific concepts and from the state of modern cosmology itself. Cosmology is the study of the universe on the largest scales. So it ignores details of stars and planets, focusing on galaxies and even bigger structures, up to the universe as a whole. Modern cosmology is only about a century old, as it wasn’t until the 1920s that astronomers determined that our own Milky Way is just one of a large number of galaxies and the origin and evolution of them all could be studied together. And it wasn’t until the 1990s that the field matured into the one that exists featuring precision measurements and ultralarge datasets.
Dealing as it does with some of the most profound questions about the nature of the cosmos, cosmological research has always involved a vigorous give-and-take between rampant speculation and unanticipated discoveries. Its practitioners have long been fond of spinning purportedly inviolate physical principles from their personal intuitions about how reality should work. But cosmology remains an empirical science — a cherished belief can be quickly swept away by a solid measurement.
The present moment in the science of cosmology is one of consolidation, as we have successfully incorporated the lessons of some impressive discoveries made near the turn of the 21st century. Yet crucially important questions remain unanswered, especially about what exactly happened at the onset of the expanding space that evolved into our contemporary universe. It is therefore a good time for books that take stock of where we are and what might come next, and that illustrate which puzzles modern physicists choose to take seriously.
This much we know: we live in a galaxy, the Milky Way, containing around 200 billion stars. There are something like a trillion galaxies in our observable universe, distributed almost uniformly through space. Stars and galaxies condensed out of an originally nearly smooth distribution of matter. Distant galaxies are moving apart from one another. Extrapolating backward, we reach a hot, densely packed configuration about 13.8 billion years ago. We can observe the remnants of this early period in nearly uniform cosmic background radiation coming from every direction in the sky.
The Big Bang model is precisely this general picture, of a universe that expands and cools out of a smooth, hot primordial state. It is well understood and almost universally accepted among modern cosmologists. The Big Bang event is a hypothetical moment when the whole thing might have started, at which the temperature and density are supposed to have been literally in-finite — a “singularity,” in physics parlance. This is why the NASA definition above is unambiguously wrong: the Big Bang event has nothing to do with “a single point” in space—it refers to a moment in time.
Nobody knows whether there actually was such an event. To be honest, there probably wasn’t. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that such a singularity would have happened, but most physicists think this signals a breakdown in the theory rather than being an accurate description of the physical world. A prediction of infinitely big physical quantities is apt to be a sign that we don’t have the right theoretical understanding.
Space and time were unified into space-time in 1905 by Einstein’s theory of special relativity, and ten years later he incorporated the force of gravity to make his theory of general relativity. His fundamental insight was that gravity shouldn’t be thought of as a force propagating within space-time, like electromagnetism or the subnuclear forces, but as a feature of space-time itself—in particular its curvature. Matter and energy cause space-time to warp, that warping pushes them around, and we interpret this pushing as the action of gravity.
Over the last century general relativity has proved enormously successful, predicting and accounting for such diverse phenomena as gravitational waves and the existence of black holes. One such success was the prediction that the universe itself does not act as a fixed background but rather expands or contracts. When Einstein first proposed his theory this seemed like an outlandish prospect and one that conflicted with what astronomers had actually observed about the universe. So a couple of years later he suggested a way to fudge it, the “cosmological constant,” representing a fixed amount of energy inherent in the fabric of space-time itself. This new ingredient in the cosmic cocktail would push the universe apart, counteracting the pull of ordinary gravity and leading to a perfect balance that could keep the universe static.
It’s easy for us to say — and people have — that Einstein should have stuck his neck out and predicted a universe that is either expanding or contracting. As it happened, Edwin Hubble and others showed in the 1920s that distant galaxies are moving away from us, exactly as we would expect if the universe is expanding, and the cosmological constant was abandoned as a short-lived wrong turn. And then, because the universe appreciates irony, in 1998 astronomers discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. The simplest explanation for this is that the cosmological constant is real after all, but it contributes to pushing the universe apart rather than helping it balance at a fixed size.
To be safe, since we’ve verified the acceleration but aren’t completely sure that Einstein’s cosmological constant is the correct explanation, cosmologists use “dark energy” to refer to whatever substance is speeding up the universal expansion. This intentionally parallels “dark matter,” an invisible matter-like substance that can’t be any known particle but whose existence is confirmed through its gravitational pull on galaxies and light rays. Altogether we have a picture in which about 5% of the energy in the universe comes from “ordinary” matter (the kinds of particles we’ve detected here on Earth), 25% from dark matter, and the remaining 70% from dark energy.
One other big discovery occurred around the year 2000 when a series of observations by satellites and radio telescopes mapped the temperature pattern of the cosmic microwave background, the leftover radiation from the high-temperature early universe. This radiation looks almost the same in every direction in the sky, but not quite. Its temperature varies in tiny ripples of about one part in 100,000 from place to place. By analyzing statistical patterns in these ripples, cosmologists were able to verify that the 5/25/70 mixture of ordinary matter/dark matter/dark energy is indeed on the right track. That overall picture has become the standard cosmological model, and astronomers are putting considerable effort into further refining and testing it.
(New York Review of Books)
THE WEARY BLUES
by Langston Hughes (1925)
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied—
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
No photos from the Kalantarians this morning?
IMHO, the problem of the over abundance of purple urchins cannot be solved by humans removing them from the ocean.
I say this from my experience working as a volunteer hose tender on an urchin boat removing the urchins from Caspar Cove off and on over the past few years.
Even under ideal conditions a diver can only gather a maximum of 125 lbs an hour. And there are only so many days a month where ocean conditions allow work to proceed.
I have no magic solution and fear that our magnificent and massive kelp forests, that used to bring me so much joy, are thing of the past that I will not see again in my lifetime.
The fact is that this is not the same ocean as we knew in past or that future generations will experience.
From my understanding there are two life forms that eat Purple Urchins, Sunflower Sea Stars and Sea Otters. We could reintroduce Sea Otters but they also eat Abalone. Sunflower Sea Stars are making a slow recovery. Not all is lost.