Interior Moisture | Marge Pardini | Harr Carvings | GRT Budget | Pickett Fife | Smoke Drift | Pet Roo | AV Events | Alexander Cockburn | Yesterday's Catch | Climate Advocates | Ghislaine Interview | Interior Design | Abandoned House | Suboxone Addiction | Abandoned Ship | Marco Radio | Smack Some | Mundane Circumstances | Humboldt Crabs | Giants Win | Lance Returns | Always/Never | NYT Exile | Grassman | Whitewashing Slavery | Face Reality | Hillary's Defeat | Lead Stories | Seem Crazy | Salesman Death | Famine Report | Storm End | The Force | Red Wheelbarrow | Human Survivor
YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Covelo 102°, Ukiah 100°, Yorkville 98°, Laytonville 98°, Boonville 86°, Fort Bragg 63°, Point Arena 60°
HOT AND DRY weather will slightly ease Sunday as building interior moisture begins to create a chance of dry thunderstorms over interior mountains through early this week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 53F on the coast this Sunday morning. A lot mo' stratus quo weather fans. At least we're not burning hot like the valley.
MARGE PARDINI
Marge Pardini age 100 years and 7 months, of Ukiah, CA passed away peacefully in her sleep on the afternoon of Friday, August 1st, 2025.
Born Margaret Anne Cabral, in Niles, California on December 31st, 1924 to Portugese parents that had immigrated to the U.S. in 1920. She was the youngest of 6 children.
Marge married Richard Smith (divorced), and Aaron Compton (widowed), before marrying Julio Pardini in 1989 (who passed away in 2020). She ran the Arts & Crafts section of the Lake County Fair for many years in the late 1960’s and she was the Secretary at the Upper Lake Union High School in the 1970’s.
When she moved to Ukiah, CA in the 1980’s she helped run Compton Tax Service located in the Yokayo Center and in the 1990’s she helped run Mueller’s Victorian Jewelry Store in the Pear Tree Center.
One of the highlights of her life was taking her first trip to Portugal in 1987 to meet her then 74 year old sister Isabel (and her extended family) for the first time, face-to-face.
Marge was most happy helping others in need. In previous years, she was active at the St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, ready for whatever the current fund raising efforts were. But mostly, she was a very proud member and heavily involved in the Redwood Empire Lions Club for over 30 years, and served as the Secretary for over 15 years. She stayed active for as long as she physically could, which was well into her late 90’s.
Marge was honored in 2023 by the Redwood Empire Fair Board of Directors, with a Blue Ribbon Award of Appreciation and Recognition for being an exceptional person that embodies the spirit of community, cooperation, excellence and service-mirroring the vision of the Fair. She manned the Information Booth at the Redwood Empire Fair for many years, along with fellow Lion’s Club members, and her presence will be missed by many.
Marge is survived by her youngest son, Stan (Anna) Smith, of Eureka, CA, 4 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and 7 great-great-grandchildren, her daughter-in-law Aida Smith, of Modesto, CA, her granddaughter Ginger (Nick) Sparks, of Modesto, CA, with two great grandchildren, and her great-granddaughter Cordelia Smith, of Modesto, CA. She is also survived by her step-sons Wade (Brenda) Pardini, of Sparks, NV, and Wayne (Gail) Pardini, of Clarksville, TN, step-daughters Walori Pardini, of Phoenix, AZ, and Wayanne (Rick) Markley, of Oakhurst, CA, 12 step-grandchildren and 12 step-great- grandchildren. Marge was preceded in death by her father Cipriano Agusto, her mother Feliciana Araujo, two brothers Alvin and Frank, and three sisters Isabel, Guimar and Mary.
There will be no public service. Marge will be interned at the St. Stanislaus Catholic Cemetery in Modesto, CA. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Marge Pardini Philanthropy Scholarship Fund. Established by the Redwood Empire Lions Club in 2018 to honor Marge’s 30+ years of dedicated service. The Scholarship Fund, in perpetuity, will provide scholarships annually to Mendocino County High School Seniors who demonstrate exceptional community involvement. Marge was very honored and proud to be able to personally screen and award many scholarships in the years prior to her passing. Gifts can be made via PayPal Or a Check can be mailed to: Community Foundation of Mendocino County Memo line: Pardini Scholarship Fund 204 S. Oak Street Ukiah, CA 95482
A special thank you from Marge’s family, to the staff at Perla’s Place Residential Care Home in Ukiah, for taking excellent care of her for over a year, and helping make her passing a very peaceful transition.
CARVINGS BY JULIAN HARR at the SK gallery, Gualala Saturday art show (Randy Burke)
GREAT REDWOOD TRAIL: EXPLAINS THEIR $2.1-MILLION-A-YEAR-PLUS BUDGET
(Excerpts from the Great Redwood Trail’s FY-2025-2026 budget…)
Revenue Overview:
Income from GRTA revenue generating activities, grants and inter-agency agreements is anticipated to total $2,123,722.23 including funds from an allocation of State funds dispersed by the State Coastal Conservancy (SCC), CalRecycle’s Illegal Disposal Site Abatement Grant Program, encroachment permit application charges, the disposal of assets such as rail and other track material, and annual revenues generated from the private use of GRTA property through license and lease agreements, for which consideration is defined in the agency’s Schedule of Rates and Charges, last updated in July 2024 by the GRTA Board of Directors. Revenues generated from permit application charges, and charges for the private use of GRTA property are proposed to be utilized to offset maintenance of Agency-owned property. Estimates for these revenue sources are anticipated to increase marginally as the Agency gains capacity to manage additional permit applications and existing contractual agreements, resulting in additional funding to manage maintenance and property management expenses
Expenditure Overview:
GRTA annual expenses are estimated to be $2,073,722.23, covering all staff wages and benefit costs, payroll expenses, and regular annual operating needs. The FY 25-26 budget estimates that there will be a change in Net Position of the GRTA of $50,000, as anticipated expenses are expected to be fully covered by granted and appropriated State funds. The estimated revenue from sale of NCRA salvaged assets will be added to the GRTA Bank Account for future use, as funds from other sources are sufficient to cover annual expenses and have critical deadlines for full expenditure.
Labor Permanent Positions:
The FY 25-26 budget includes full costs associated with the personnel expenses for the three currently active employees working for GRTA, and the possible inclusion of an Administrative Analyst hired at mid-year to assist staff in all divisions with ongoing needs and Board meeting activities. The total amount of estimated costs, $512,480.23, includes sufficient encumbrance of scheduled wages to address any increases in pay through annual employee evaluation, the payout or accrual of leave-related benefits, and all anticipated taxes and fees paid by GRTA for costs associated with general payroll expenses. Increases in CalPERS retirement contributions, FICA, health insurance, worker’s compensation insurance and unfunded pension liability have also been proportionally increased as reported by various tax and benefit sources.
(Mark Scaramella)
PICKETT FIRE GROWS TO NEARLY 6,000 ACRES, firefighters battling ‘challenging’ conditions into Sunday morning
Prior to additional evacuations Saturday evening, between 110 and 170 people had been told to leave their neighborhoods, according to the Napa County Sheriff’s Office.
by Anna Armstrong
The Pickett Fire, the largest wildfire in the region this year, saw containment rise slightly Saturday after burning almost 6,000 acres in Napa County, prompting new evacuations and challenging fire control lines.
In a Saturday evening update, Cal Fire officials said the weather presented challenges in the afternoon with wind pushing the smoke further into Aetna Springs.
Smoke conditions temporarily grounded firefighting aircraft, officials said, and windy conditions were expected to continue overnight.
In the update, Cal Fire spokesperson Jason Clay said the day had been “challenging” for fire fighters and said the fire pushed “aggressively east.”
Still, he said firefighters have been able to hold control lines.
Containment remained at 11% as of 9:30 p.m. At the start of Saturday, containment stood at 7%.
Napa County Sheriff Oscar Ortiz said the fire was concentrated in a very sparsely populated area with some ranches and vineyards.
At around 5 p.m. Saturday, Cal Fire officials announced evacuations in the 1600 block of Aetna Springs Road.
By 5:30 p.m., additional evacuation orders were issued for zones POP-E001-A, NPA-E107-B and NPA-E108-A. Both of the latest evacuation areas were northeast of Calistoga.
Prior to the Saturday evening evacuations, between 110 and 170 people had been told to leave their neighborhoods, according to Henry Wofford, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
That number, he said, has grown, but the office did not have an updated estimate.
Earlier in the day, Napa County officials split evacuation zone POP-E002 into three zones. Zone E002-C was placed under an evacuation order, while zone E002-B remained under an evacuation warning.
Zone POP-E001-B, also under an evacuation order, includes Napa County’s historic Aetna Springs Resort, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Evacuation orders also remained in place for zones NPA-E114, NPA-E115, NPA-E120, NPA-E121-B, NPA-E121-C, and NPA-E122-B. Warnings remained in place for zones ANG-E001, NPA-E107, NPA-E121-A and NPA-E122-A.
The wildfire, which erupted Thursday on the northern outskirts of Calistoga in steep, forested terrain, was mapped at 5,863 acres as of Saturday evening.
Those numbers were expected to change Saturday night into Sunday morning after Cal Fire officials said they planned to create a new map of the fire using the Intel aircraft.
In a Saturday morning summary, Cal Fire officials said ground crews and three night-flying helicopters worked overnight Friday to successfully hold the blaze within established contingency lines.
Clay said the acreage growth seen overnight Friday was expected.
Saturday’s firefighting objectives included strengthening control lines along the fire’s right flank near Friesen Drive and right shoulder toward Ink Grade, officials said.
The fight still continues on the fire’s eastern front, Clay added.
A total of 1,230 personnel were assigned to the Pickett Fire as of Saturday morning.
Saturday marked the coolest day since the fire’s start, Clay said.
As of noon Saturday, air quality maps showed unhealthy levels in the areas surrounding the fire but better dispersion than Friday in neighboring communities like Calistoga and Pope Valley.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s air quality advisory for Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties is still in effect through Monday.
Saturday evening, commuters reported seeing plumes of smoke as far south as Novato and as far west as Occidental.
“Firefighter safety is a big focus for us,” Clay said. “We are making sure crews are well-supported with proper nutrition, hydration and rest cycles.”
Personnel from Cal Fire’s law enforcement arm were on-scene, working to determine the blaze’s cause.
Shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday, Clay said crews saw increased fire activity in the afternoon, which was expected.
Clay also said there had been no reports of any structures damaged or destroyed and no injuries were reported during the first three days of the fire.
(pressdemocrat.com)
SMOKE, an on-line comment:
Here in inland Mendo I think we’ve got smoke from the Pickett Fire in Napa.
That looks like it could become a bad one.
I know it is a stretch, but smoke can really travel in odd ways.
I once called CalFire to report smoke moving into my woods,
“Help there’s a fire it’s near me I see the smoke omg it’s coming closer!!”
Calm down, Ma’am. Ma’am, calm down. It’s in Oregon.
The Biscuit Fire, it was.
Smoke moved in from the south this morning.
First we’ve seen in many, many weeks.
I am grateful for all the blue this summer.
UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK
Roo - Superhero of Fun! Are you tired of the same old routines and in search of a hero who can bring excitement and fun into your life? Well, Roo is here to save the day! Despite his mysterious origins, this young pup has a lot of love to give and he’s bursting with energy and curiosity. With his adorable underbite and floppy ears, Roo’s cuteness is unbeatable, and his personality is the best! Our curious canine is always eager to explore the world around him and doesn’t miss a chance to investigate every intriguing scent and sound. Roo is a smart pup, and with the right training and patience, he has the potential to be your very own superhero sidekick. He’s working hard on his social skills and hopes to find a family who can give him the love and attention he’s yearning for. Roo’s waiting for you to give him a forever home where he can save the day, every day. So prepare for a lifetime of laughter, love, and adventure! Roo is a 10 month old mixed breed dog, weighing in at a delightful 43 pounds.
For information about all of our adoptable dogs and cats and our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.
Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event.
For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453. Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE: List of Events
JEFFREY ST. CLAIR: One of my favorite photos of Alexander Cockburn, taken on a hike that was meant to traverse the King Range to the mouth of the Mattole River. But we ended up descending into the wrong canyon, with none of us willing to admit that we were lost on the Lost Coast, heading vaguely east instead of west, each hour farther and farther from our destination. Alex was typically non-plussed about our embarrassing predicament, soaking up the sunshine on one of the King Range’s golden hillsides. He’d brought wine and hard cider in his leather satchel, which may or may not have diminished our navigational faculties. (Those socks!)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, August 23, 2025
SHANNA BAYLESS, 28, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, conspiracy, accessory, resisting.
RICKIE CURTIS, 52, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
JASON FULLBRIGHT, 29, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, conspiracy, resisting.
ZANDER GARAY, 24, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
HAYDEN HENDRICKS, 22, Ukiah. Vandalism.
ARION KELSEY, 29, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, conspiracy, battery on peace officer, resisting.
MICHAEL LANGLEY, 35, Ukiah. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)
ALEX MORA-WHITEHURST, 38, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation, resisting.
LARISSA NOBLE, 34, Willits. Battery with serious injury, under influence.
WILLIAM SANDERS, 59, Fort Bragg. DUI, ammo possession by prohibited person, felon-addict with firearm, suspended license, probation revocation.
ELIZABETH SMITH-VALLEY, 40, Hopland. Under influence, brandishing a weapon (non-gun) in rude, threatening, or angry manner.
CLIMATE ADVOCATES DEMAND THAT NEWSOM, LEGISLATURE STOP SELLING OUT TO BIG OIL
by Dan Bacher
“Lawmakers promised a legislative session focused on affordability, yet what we have seen is a commitment to the status quo with more profits for polluters while communities continue to bear the steep health and financial costs of pollution,” said Raquel Mason, Senior Legislative Manager of the California Environmental Justice Alliance.
While Governor Gavin Newsom has constantly trolled Trump on social media, drawing praise people all over the country, he and the California Legislature have at the same time incurred the wrath of environmental justice advocates for pushing an array of controversial bills that they consider to amount to “selling out to Big Oil.”
On the morning of Wednesday, August 20, climate advocates representing a coalition of 140 organizations held a press conference on the Capitol lawn calling out Governor Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers for reversing course on their promises to take concrete steps against Big Oil that would move California towards a clean energy future.
Newsom and legislative leaders are trying to ramrod environmentally destructive bills through the Legislature, including one that would expand oil drilling in California and another that would extend cap and trade through 2045 without amendments to spending guardrails, emission caps and regulatory oversight.…
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2025/08/23/18879208.php
GHISLAINE MAXWELL’S DOJ INTERVIEWS
Editor:
I’m listening to the interview of Ghislaine Maxwell by DOJ attorney Todd Blanche. It’s a complete farce. Ghis spinning fables like Scheherazade in a demure ladylike voice, while Blanche lobs softball questions.
I’m following this because of my interest in true crime, politics, and pop culture, but I don’t expect to ever learn the true story. This is going to have more iterations than the Kennedy assassination, and will never go away. There seem to be guilty parties on both sides of the aisle. Trump is using this to distract from the fact that he’s unleashing a military dictatorship.
Here is a link to the written transcript and the audio recordings. The first two audio episodes have bad sound quality but it gets better after that: https://www.justice.gov/maxwell-interview
Monica Huettl
Redwood Valley
DESECRATING THE HALLOWED HALLS OF GOVERNMENT
Editor:
How much money will it take to undo Donald Trump’s ghastly, gaudy, tasteless White House decor once he leaves office? How many hungry mouths could it feed? Where is the outcry to make him stop? I think the American public is in a state of shock. As a long-retired successful commercial interior designer, I would have been run out of town on a pitchfork for desecrating the hallowed halls of our government in the way Trump has managed at the White House. It would be important to know what design team, if any, had a hand in it. They’re to be avoided at all costs. How many hungry mouths could be fed? How many lives could be impacted in a positive way if only the money was used to do good instead of feeding his insatiable ego? It’s sickening!
Pearl Seymore
Sonoma
JUST ONE MORE REFILL…
by Marilyn Davin
A couple weeks back the New York Times Magazine featured a laudatory article on the miracle of the opioid addiction medication Suboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone), itself an opioid), hailed first as an “orphan” drug initially unattractive to Big Pharma due to its presumed low earnings potential, all the way to its blockbuster embrace by same as a huge cash cow as the aggressively marketed new drug became the latest, newest thing for kicking an opioid addiction.
The dangers of treating a bunch of addicts with another addictive drug were barely mentioned in the article, which was based on the soon-to-be-released book, “Rehab: An American Scandal,” by Simon & Schuster (NYT attribution). In response to the question, “Is Suboxone addictive?” addictioncenter.com offered the less-than-rousing testimonial that “…the risk of becoming addicted to Suboxone is less than the risk of becoming addicted to other opioids.”
What a deal.
Take the case of my younger brother, referred to here as “Bro.” My parents were gone to their rewards by the time my only sib began his latest rehab (Suboxone-based) experience, so I was the one tasked with helping him (to the dubious extent that anyone can “help” a drug addict). This would have been sometime in the early 2000s. At that point Suboxone was becoming available as a one-stop, one-step addiction treatment, prescribed without other supportive resources (unlike Methadone, where patients had to show up every day for their doses). When Bro attended his mandatory “training” class to get the drug initially, the class facilitator called Suboxone “the Cadillac of addiction treatment.”
Get the pills, go home, take them, and Voilá! You’re cured, by the kindly good graces of Big Pharma! No sweat!
At first everything was fine and dandy. Bro took the pills, refilled his scripts (with many extensions), and things seemed suspiciously right in his addiction world. But he had, after all, been a drug addict and occasional dealer for nearly half a century: Could it really be this easy to quit?
And it seemed to be, until the inevitable day when even his “addiction doc” on Shattuck (many regular PCP doctors had off-loaded their “addiction services” to satellite offices in Berkeley so non-addict patients could be spared the sight of a roomful of addicts angling for their meds) began to question whether contributing to the making of a life-long Suboxone addict was really in the best interests of either Bro himself or the rest of the world.
Thus began the final chapter of Bro’s Suboxone story.
First there were attempts to cut back, a milligram at a time ─ which wasn’t great but still bearable. Then it became impossible to get off the final milligram. Tears ran down his face as he described his torments during this time: nausea, fevers, depression, and other horrors of opioid withdrawal.
He heard about a treatment clinic in Southern California that specialized in Suboxone withdrawal; for (as I recall) around $20-grand at the time, the clinic would manually “cleanse” your blood and return it to your body “Suboxone-free.” He even explored assisted suicide in Switzerland, but found that, like in California, the practice was restricted to patients with diagnosed terminal illnesses (advanced cancers and the like).
Psych problems and addicts need not apply.
In between all of this I drove Bro to various pharmacies along both Shattuck and Telegraph Ave where he tearfully pled his case that his life depended on just one more refill. All to no avail, pharmacists in Berkeley are a tough bunch. As I recall he finally white-knuckled it in a haze of unfettered cannabis oblivion, some of it in the form of high-dose liquid THC.
Suboxone is still available today (though it’s described now as part of a comprehensive treatment process rather than a stand-alone miracle) and I’m sure there are addicts who credit Suboxone with ending their addictions, addicts who took it responsibly for a short period then quit.
But my brother’s story is a cautionary tale and an important one since you’ll never hear it from the über-rich drug companies eager for addiction docs to sign you up. Treating addictions of any kind with another addictive drug can be a crapshoot, though it’s understandably popular with addicts looking for the elusive quick fix. I can just take another drug? Easy peasy.
We see this trend everywhere in our hurry-up culture, especially with the outsized influence of Big Pharma. Overweight? An Ozempic-type drug might be just the thing: one jab a day and you can eat whatever you want! Anxious? Forget that your life sucks, let me get out my prescription pad…
Drug addictions are physical, and withdrawal from them may require medical support. But they’re also psychological and demand the hard work of self-reflection that may in turn require counseling, peer feedback, and other ways to both illuminate what got you there in the first place and to create the lifelong resolve and structure essential for keeping your addictions at bay – neither of which is found solely in either a bottle or a syringe.
MEMO OF THE AIR: No springs, honest weight.
/”That Epstein list disappeared faster than the bullet hole in Trump’s ear.”/
Marco here. Here’s the recording of last night’s (9pm PDT, 2025-08-22) 8-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0658
Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I’ll take it from there and read it on the air.
Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:
How to recognize the red flags of cruelty within a relationship. https://laughingsquid.com/red-flags-of-cruelty-relationship/
Lightning burn. If it didn’t scramble your brains and painfully almost kill you, people would do this to themselves on purpose. This is what it looks like for a white woman. I can’t find a picture of a black person with this kind of injury, but its probably even better. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-lichtenberg-figure.html
Louis C.K. back in the old days. The sign language lady is so happy and wonderful. Now, here’s the weird thing: I know a local woman who looks and smiles just like her, but I can’t remember where I used to see her all the time. The coffeeshop? One of the hardware stores or theater companies? She is so familiar. Where? Wherever it was, she worked there, I’m pretty sure, but… behind a counter? I don’t even know. Dithering about it just now, I’ve dredged up that she’s like Janet the A.I. in clips I saw from /The Good Place/. That’s clear. But who is the local woman I’m thinking of? Crap, this is driving me nuts… [Edit: A-ha! She was a barista in Headlands Coffeehouse in the early 1990s, and when I got tea there she would say, “A spot of tea,” in a giddy fake British accent with a glottal stop on spot (spaw’). I liked her, but for some reason that always made me cringe, and I didn’t want to embarrass her so I said nothing about it. Then, apparently, I blocked it out.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZYE73QRxA
Archy Jay – Toss the Feathers. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2025/08/frantic-feathers.html
“Kidnapping is an immoral assault! The rights of other races must be respected!” They call it detaining now, so it’s okay. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0EWSAfGBljg
And “Constipation poisons the blood and pollutes the whole of the body. It brings on aches and pains, dizziness, anaemia and digestive troubles. It makes the skin sallow and the eyes dull, brings lines to the face and steals away vitality.” I looked it up: Beecham’s Pills were made of aloe, ginger, soap and, for awhile, mercury. “Beecham’s Pills were one of the most famous patent medicines in Britain from the mid-19th century onward, marketed heavily as a cure for constipation, biliousness, and disorders of the stomach, liver and bowels.” https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/conquer_constipation
Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
CRAIG’S READY!
Wake Up Postmodern America! Your Ass Is On Fire!!
Warmest spiritual greetings, Sitting here on a pleasant Saturday morning at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Public Library in Washington, D.C., digesting an excellent breakfast sandwich from Marianne’s Kitchen, located on the first floor, and listening to Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj discuss the subject of death from the perspective of a liberated sage, or Jivan Mukta who attained Self Realization on the jnana yoga path.
At this time, I am continuing to await a change in mundane circumstances. With no further reason to be at the homeless shelter now, having sufficiently participated for the sixteenth time at the D.C. Peace Vigil across the street from the White House, it is time to move on! Networking has produced nothing, particularly after contacting the government of the United States of America to do something about my profoundly insane social circumstances, in the confusion which defines 1. Social Security Administration, 2. EBT Supplemental Food Program, and 3. Federal Housing Voucher Program.
Right now, I have $375.04 in the Chase checking account, $79.36 in the wallet, and general health is good at age 75. Am packed up every morning at the shelter, and can be outta there in 20 minutes. I’m ready.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
ONE OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA'S HIPPIE STRONGHOLDS HAS A ROWDY SUMMER TRADITION
Northern California's Humboldt Crabs keep small-town baseball alive as the nation's oldest summer collegiate team
by Matt LaFever
Arcata Plaza is the beating heart of Humboldt County’s college-town counterculture. Nag champa wafts from storefronts while dreadlocked hitchhikers kick hacky sacks or strum out-of-tune guitars. Clusters of 20-somethings swap stories about their botany professor at Cal Poly Humboldt or trade memories of high school back in the Bay Area or Los Angeles, the far-off hometowns that supply Arcata with its steady stream of student transplants.
But just a hundred yards east of the plaza sits a very different institution: baseball. The Humboldt Crabs, who just completed their 81st season, are the longest-running summer collegiate team in the nation. Each year, players from across the country head to the fog-soaked North Coast, keeping their fundamentals sharp while immersing themselves in one of the most vibrant small-town baseball cultures America has to offer.
It was an unusually warm evening on Humboldt Bay on July 19 — perfect weather for one of the Crabs’ quirkiest traditions: Pajama Night, paired this year with a fireworks show. Fans in sleepwear lined up at the gate as Arcata’s team prepared to face their Pacific Empire League rivals, Wine Country’s Healdsburg Prune Packers, in the final game of a three-game set. The Crabs had dropped the first two contests, and the crowd was eager for redemption. Kids waved foam crab claws, more than a thousand fans packed the bleachers, and the ballpark buzzed with anticipation.
The ballpark itself is stitched into civic life. Highway 101 runs just beyond the outfield wall. Arcata City Hall and the police department sit close enough to hear the crack of the bat. Fans pass beneath the firehouse balcony at the gate, where off-duty firefighters often watch games from above.
“All ages of fans” come out, said 18-year-old security staffer Wyatt Zerlang, the grandson of longtime Crabs board member Larry Zerlang. “It’s been around forever.” The place feels less like a stadium and more like a town square.
The Humboldt Crabs were founded in 1945, and according to their website, they are “the oldest, continuously-operated, collegiate, independent, wood-bat, summer baseball team in the country.” As Scott Gourley reported in his Humboldt Historian article “Seventy Years of Humboldt County Baseball,” team founder Lou Bonomini launched the franchise with sponsorship from Paladini Fish Company and a stubborn belief that Arcata deserved baseball. “We’ll be known as Crabs. Sounds funny but we’re serious,” Bonomini promised fans, adding, “We might drop a few this summer but we’ll be in there trying every inning.”
For more than 40 years, Bonomini coached and managed the team, transforming it from a ragtag local squad into a summer ritual that packed Arcata Ball Park and even carried Humboldt to national tournaments in Wichita. By the 1960s, he had help from general manager Ned Barsuglia, who recruited college players from up and down the West Coast and kept the Crabs competitive as summer ball shifted into a collegiate pipeline.
When Bonomini retired in 1986, Barsuglia kept the operation afloat. But by 1995, after half a century of Humboldt summers, he, too, was ready to quit. As Gourley reported, the Crabs suddenly faced an existential crisis: Without new leadership, the team that had become Humboldt’s summer heartbeat was about to fold.
That’s when Jerry Nutter, a retired YMCA executive and father of former Crabs pitcher Matt Nutter, stepped in. Drawing on his administrative experience, Nutter reorganized the team as a nonprofit run by a volunteer board — a structure that not only saved the Crabs but carried them into the modern era.
The Crabs rebuild their roster every summer, drawing college players from across the country. Erik Fraser, a Crabs board member and former sports reporter for the Times-Standard, told SFGATE that recruiting “is mostly currently handled by the manager and one of our coaches.” The team also develops local talent through its regional “Crabs Camps,” held in Arcata, McKinleyville, Eureka and Fortuna.
The players do not get paid, keeping their NCAA eligibility intact. “They get no money. … They give them a place to live, and find them a job, and give them a hat,” Larry Zerlang, the longest serving board member, explained.
Fraser said Humboldt Crabs players either stay in team-arranged apartments or with host families in the community. Another volunteer noted that some prefer houses because “they get meals, they get their laundry done.” The players’ youth is always apparent, Fraser added: “Every once in a while you’ll find a kid who can’t last a whole summer because he gets homesick.”
Culture at Arcata Ball Park is as rowdy as it is local. The Crab Grass Band fires up their horns at many home games — Fridays, Sundays and often midweek — always opening with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” their brass and drums rolling over the fog. Between innings, they swing into the Great American Songbook, blasting out baseball standards like “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and even Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary.” It’s the proud, slightly off-kilter blare of brass instruments giving a ragged but heartfelt soundtrack to America’s pastime.
From there, the set list veers wildly: The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” Bob Marley classics, even the occasional Ozzy Osbourne riff. Founded in 1983, the band is a mash of Humboldt State alumni and locals, with enough irreverence and zaniness to keep the bleachers buzzing.
Then there’s the heckling section, a rowdy institution all its own. On that July night, SFGATE watched a Crabs old-timer jaw back and forth with a Healdsburg Prune Packer until the player’s teammates finally tugged him into the dugout. Unlike major league hecklers who vanish into the roar of a 40,000-seat stadium, in Arcata, the jeers cut straight to the field — never getting too personal, but sharp enough that visiting players sometimes crack.
“We got good hecklers here,” said Jesse Vasquez, one of the Crabs’ staff. “… There’s a few guys in there that are just like, they’re the hecklers. They’re the best.”
That night the heckler section locked onto a Prune Packer’s routine, counting each bat tap as he readied himself until he started to fidget. Later, after another Packer struck out, they followed him back to the dugout with a booming step count, pushing him into an awkward stutter as the bleachers erupted.
SFGATE met Conor Fitzgerald, a 27-year-old cameraman for the Oakland A’s who has been quietly assembling a feature-length documentary on the Humboldt Crabs. He traces his ties to the North Coast back to childhood: “I was born in Eureka … lived in Arcata for four years and then grew up in Redding.” The passion project has meant constant long drives north. “It’s a five-hour drive to get up here,” he said, estimating that he makes it to “three to six games a year if I can.”
In documenting the team and its connection to the community, Fitzgerald said he’s come to see how the Crabs and Arcata move in tandem. On Saturdays, for example, the team schedules night games “because you have the farmers’ market and they don’t want to take from the farmers’ market.” What surprised him most, though, was the Crabs’ role in the broader baseball pipeline. “The team in the ’70s had like 20 major leaguers,” Fitzgerald said. The Giants have had quite a few former Crabs come through San Francisco, including Craig Lefferts, Brett Pill and Scott Alexander.
That pipeline continues today. This summer, Humboldt Crabs infielder Elijah McNeal was drafted by the Giants in the 2025 MLB Draft. McNeal ultimately chose not to turn pro and instead play college ball for the UC Davis Aggies — another reminder that Arcata’s summer team is still shaping the next generation of baseball careers.
Noah Lurtz, 35, has been part of that scene for most of his life. Selling treats under a pop-up behind third base, his long hair tucked under a Crabs cap, he said he has worked at the ballpark for 23 years. A childhood car accident left him with lasting challenges, but summers in Arcata take on a different meaning when the Crabs are in season. “Oh, I just have enjoyed working here so much,” he said.
The Healdsburg Prune Packers edged the Crabs 3-2 that July night, the game ending with a muted frustration for the home crowd. But when the players cleared the field and the stadium lights went dark, the boom of fireworks cracked open the Arcata sky. Fans craned their necks from the bleachers, kids sprawled out on the grass, and for a few minutes, the little ballpark felt bigger than baseball. As board member Robert Jimenez said earlier that evening, being in Arcata for a Crabs game is “like something out of a Hallmark movie. … It’s really a little special thing.”
(sfgate.com)
CASEY SCHMITT RAKES 3-RUN HR as Giants bust out, beat Brewers bullpen
by Shayna Rubin
MILWAUKEE — Mired in a draining losing stretch and up against one of baseball’s hottest teams, the San Francisco Giants played one of their best games of this road trip and turned the tables on the Brewers.
The Giants stole a pair of bags and tamed Milwaukee’s baserunning. Logan Webb pitched one of his best, nearly drama-free outings on the road of the year. Most importantly, the Giants lineup forced a tough starting pitcher in Freddy Peralta out of the game early and laid into the bullpen for an easy 7-1 win on Saturday night to snap a four-game losing streak.
Perhaps Matt Chapman’s return to the lineup balanced this team back to its more patient state. Peralta doesn’t get hitters to chase out of the zone regularly, but has the sweeping offspeed pitches and high fastball to entice batters into ugly swings once he gets ahead in the count.
The Giants didn’t bite, extended at-bats and drew four walks to crowd the bases and make Peralta work. Though they couldn’t cash in with runners on, San Francisco forced him out of the game after five innings and 96 pitches.
“It was very important,” Casey Schmitt said. “We took some pretty good at-bats against him and got his pitch count up…For me, my approach is to try to get deep into the count and see as many pitches as I can. I saw like six pitches in the first at-bat — just seeing the pitches he had to throw.”
Said manager Bob Melvin: “You look at a matchup like this and you expect it to be 1-0 in the seventh or whatever, but we’re much better about working the count.”
The Brewers’ defense — the difference in Friday’s game — made a handful of flubs Saturday to help the Giants erase and then demolish an early one-run deficit.
Willy Adames reached in the sixth on shortstop Andruw Monasterio’s throwing error to first base and Dominic Smith singled to advance him into scoring position. Schmitt, back at second base, kicked off a four-RBI night with a double down the third-base line to tie the game, 1-1. Luis Matos’ sharp ground ball skipped by third baseman Anthony Seigler to score the go-ahead runs — another error.
The Giants broke it open in the seventh. Rafael Devers and Smith were aboard for Schmitt when he launched a three-run home run just over the left-field fence.
Webb’s strength pitching to contact wouldn’t be expected to jive with Milwaukee’s strategy to put the ball in play and pressure defenses, but he’s historically pitched well against this team.
“I knew it was going to happen from the first at-bat,” Webb said. “They do a really good job of putting the ball in play, causing havoc on the base paths, it’s just a really good team, it’s why they have the most win sin baseball. I didn’t have my best stuff in baseball, it was just trying to — I didn’t have my best stuff today, was missing a lot, but it’s one of those things I have to grind through.”
He didn’t have his best command of any pitch, but managed to keep Milwaukee to one run over six innings with five strikeouts and a walk to remain undefeated in seven career starts against them, now with a 2.09 ERA over that stretch.
“I feel like I had trouble commanding every pitch,” Webb said. “It felt like every time (Patrick Bailey) threw a location I was throwing it to the other side of the plate. It’s one of those days you can’t explain, but you have to bear down and grind through it.”
(sfchronicle.com)
49ERS WIN PRESEASON FINALE as Lance’s return ends in Chargers’ defeat
by Eric Branch
Jim Harbaugh is known as a quarterback whisperer, but he’s also the ultimate QB cheerleader.
The Chargers head coach lavishes his passers with praise when he’s not pounding them on the shoulder pads before kickoffs. He’s termed his current starting QB, Justin Herbert, a “complete beast” and a “human computer chip,” which sounds similar to how he praised San Francisco 49ers QB Alex Smith when Harbaugh arrived in Santa Clara in 2011.
At the time, Smith was a downtrodden former No. 1 draft pick, but Harbaugh propped up the oft-benched punching bag whose grit had been questioned by one of his previous head coaches. Smith, he said, had the talent and toughness — he memorably hailed Smith’s “armadillo skin” — to become a successful starter.
Given that history, it was no surprise that Harbaugh extolled another down-on-his luck 49ers’ first-round pick, Trey Lance, after the 49ers’ 30-23 win in the preseason finale at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday night.
Lance, the No. 3 pick in 2021, was back at Levi’s to play Saturday for the first time since shortly before the 49ers traded him to the Cowboys for a fourth-round pick in August 2023. Lance is already on the third team of a career that’s included five starts, a 56.6% completion percentage and two seasons spent as Dallas’ third-stringer.
But Harbaugh had interest. The Chargers signed Lance in March. What did Harbaugh like about him?
“Twenty-five years old,” Harbaugh said. “Just in life, that’s the fat part of the bat. For a quarterback, that’s the fat part of the bat.”
Harbaugh went on about Lance. Of course he did. He also liked the “skillset” and the “player.” He’s enjoyed Lance personality and appreciated his drive. On Saturday, Lance completed 5 of 8 passes for 38 yards and each of his three drives ended in punts. Harbaugh’s assessment?
“Good again,” Harbaugh said. “He’s just had a really good preseason. In game action, he’s been poised and good. No turnovers the entire preseason.”
Lance entered Saturday ranked 10th in the NFL in preseason passer rating (86.8). In the exhibition season, he completed 32 of 57 passes for 344 yards with two touchdowns, and he rushed for 81 yards on 14 carries and a score. It was noted that Lance, who was often frantic in the pocket with the 49ers, appeared calmer when he dropped back Saturday.
“He’s really been the way since he’s been here,” Harbaugh said. “When its good, you just roll with it. I don’t want to make him a victim of overcoaching.”
Here’s the thing about Harbaugh’s coaching — and cheerleading: It tends to work. Smith realized Harbaugh’s vision, becoming a three-time Pro Bowl selection. As for Lance, his career appears to be on a mild upswing five months into his partnership with Harbaugh. Lance signed a one-year, $2 million contract, but Harbaugh said he’s put himself in a “really good position” to beat out higher-priced Taylor Heinicke as the No. 2 behind Herbert.
After Harbaugh said Lance was in the fat-part-of-his-bat point in his career, Lance indicated he felt he was in a sweet spot with Harbaugh.
“He’s one of a kind,” Lance said. “Personality. Coaching style. Everything. He played the position for a long time so I think just the way he communicates with us is different than what I’ve been around, in Dallas, especially.”
Lance only had positive things to say about his time with the 49ers, a two-season tenure that ended, in effect, when he suffered a broken ankle in Week 2 of the 2022 season, his last meaningful snap with the franchise. Lance spoke briefly before kickoff with general manager John Lynch and he met with head coach Kyle Shanahan’s son, Carter, after the game, along with former teammates such as QB Brock Purdy and running back Jeff Wilson.
“I’m unbelievably thankful for my time here in San Francisco,” Lance said. “For Kyle. For John. It was open and honest the whole time, throughout my time here, that’s all you can ask for.”
Lance said he didn’t reflect on his first two seasons because he was “thinking about the game” and insisted he “approached it like any another game.”
And it makes sense that Lance is focused on the present — and his future — with a head coach who is intent on both pushing and praising him.
“I want to be coached. I want to be coached hard,” Lance said. “And he’s done that. So I’m very thankful for him.”
(sfchronicle.com)
TAIBBI & KIRN
Matt Taibbi: Welcome to America This Week. I am Matt Taibbi.
Walter Kirn: And I’m Walter Kirn.
Matt Taibbi: Walter, how are you doing?
Walter Kirn: Good. I’m out in the woods. You can see a little bit of woods over my shoulder there.
Matt Taibbi: I can.
Walter Kirn: Framed in the window. Yeah. There are the sounds of mooing cows because they’ve been let out onto the meadow in front of my cabin, so as to give us a tax write-off as an agricultural place.
Matt Taibbi: So you’re like a small scale version of Bass Pro Shop?
Walter Kirn: Exactly, yeah. And so also, there might be bears out. There’re preparing for their winter hibernation already, I mean, in August and it hasn’t snowed yet, but it could happen at any time.
Matt Taibbi: If there are any bears listening, Walter is unguarded in the house right now and the front door, it’s probably locked.
Walter Kirn: But there are new woodpecker holes in my house since I last was here. So as you know, they are world’s deadliest creature in terms of-
Matt Taibbi: And horniest.
Walter Kirn: … in terms of siding. Yeah, and horniest.
Matt Taibbi: Right?
Walter Kirn: Exactly. They drill on your house in order to make sounds to attract mates from long distances.
Matt Taibbi: Who would do that? Make a lot of noise to attract attention from the opposite sex. It’s just unconscionable.
Walter Kirn: But I want to know what it is in American or human females that responds to whatever the equivalent is of pecking loudly. In other words, there’s something that they can’t, that human females can’t resist and we don’t know what it is, and I’m sure to woodpeckers, it seems just as irrational as woodpeckers do to us.
Matt Taibbi: But that’s true in every species. There’s that bird that makes pebble pyramids and whichever one builds the tallest one gets the girl.
Walter Kirn: Yeah, the grouse that do dances in little-
Matt Taibbi: Yeah, the dancing. And in human beings, it’s just who’s the biggest douchebag, basically.
Walter Kirn: It’s driving a McLaren.
Matt Taibbi: Right. Yeah.
Walter Kirn: It’s driving a McLaren.
Matt Taibbi: Wow. He’s a douchebag and he’s got a McLaren.
Walter Kirn: Yeah, exactly.
Matt Taibbi: This is probably a good reproductive choice.
Walter Kirn: You see, the McLaren and the Porsche and the sports car were recent inventions, so it can’t be hardwired into females genetically to respond to them. The McLaren must evoke something from our deep past, and what could it be?
Matt Taibbi: Mustaches?
Walter Kirn: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Matt Taibbi: I don’t know. Does a McLaren go with a mustache? I don’t know. We’ll work this out off camera.
All right, so we had a lot of stuff happen this week. It wasn’t the rollicking, exploding news development that we’ve seen in recent weeks, although I’m reliably sure that there is stuff coming by the end of the week, so then we may be liars by the time the show comes out.
Walter Kirn: But that is a slight distortion. On Monday, we had every single European leader sitting in a semicircle around Donald Trump who was basically a cross between a Montessori teacher and the President of the United States. I think that the problem with the Trump years is that we don’t have relative graphs for news compared to non-Trump years.
Matt Taibbi: That’s right.
Walter Kirn: We had every European leader sitting around Joe Biden’s desk, I mean, it would’ve been a US postage stamp by now, but it was just another day in the life.
Matt Taibbi: It’s true. I guess I’m so laser focused on document releases at this point that the absence of them this week has been a little bit disappointing, but a lot of stuff happened and it’s stemming from … It’s really one continuous narrative that goes back to Trump meeting Putin in Alaska that apparently not working out as well as they thought, or at least that was the narrative after it was over. There was an enormous amount of paranoia in which we’re going to get to in a moment.
And then there was a subsequent series of developments on the Ukraine score this week, and we are going to get to that, but we’re going to do it through an unusual lens, which is we’re going to ask the question. Is The New York Times America’s government in exile? It behaves like it. It represents itself as something like America’s government in exile, and its message is essentially your fealty is owed to our government and not theirs. I don’t know. Walter, would you have any preliminary thoughts about this before we get into some of the reasons why one might think this?
Walter Kirn: Yeah. They’re acting and behaving like they are, for sure. Across the board, they don’t only question the decisions, policies, comportment, style of the elected government. They are now at a point where they’re recommending reforms, even constitutional reforms that will, I think, give them a leg up, frankly. They are considering what could change about the government that would allow The New York Times to be more powerful than it is…
I KNOW MORE ABOUT GRASS THAN ANY HUMAN BEING
TRUMP’S SLAVISH STUPIDITY
by Maureen Dowd
I raised my hand. The nun called on me.
She was telling my grade-school class at Nativity — 7-year-olds in green uniforms — about the pitiless epoch of slavery.
I thought I had an important counterintuitive point to make — even though it would be another decade before I knew what “counterintuitive” meant.
“One thing,” I piped up, “is that we got all these really great people in our country.”
Although Washington has always been very segregated, my family lived in an integrated neighborhood and my two best friends were Black sisters named Deborah and Peaches. I was about to tell the nun about them when she crooked her finger and beckoned me to the front of the room.
When I got there, she roughly pulled me over her lap, yanked my pinafore up and spanked me hard — delivering many whacks. The other students gawked.
I got the message: There was no silver lining to slavery. There is nothing positive to say. Ever. Under any circumstances.
If only that nun were still around to drill that into the president’s thick skull.
Donald Trump is what the nuns called “a bold, brazen piece,” transgressing in nefarious and damaging ways. He said this week that he’s worried about getting into heaven. He should be. The no-nonsense Franciscan sisters at Nativity would have warned him to worry. He has invented new commandments, beyond the usual 10, to break.
He told “Fox & Friends” he hoped that if he brokered peace between Russia and Ukraine, he could slip through the Pearly Gates.
“I want to try and get to heaven if possible,” he mused. “I’m hearing that I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole.”
Trump unveiled a dramatic new painting of himself hanging in the West Wing, with his favorite scowl, striding away from a conflagration. It’s a perfect metaphor — he sets fires and leaves destruction in his wake.
On Tuesday, the president posted a screed against the Smithsonian. It was jarring to read, given how many happy childhood memories I have of the beloved “nation’s attic.” I saw Dorothy’s ruby-red slippers there and the first ladies’ inaugural dresses and the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk plane and the ominous Enola Gay bomber.
Back in 1982, working at Time, I covered the cleaning and inventory of the Smithsonian’s 78 million items — only 3 percent were on display — and saw all the wild, wonderful and weird detritus behind the scenes, including Teddy Roosevelt’s Teddy Bear, Mrs. Grover Cleveland’s wedding cake box, leftover Tang from the astronauts, stuffed white rats that had been used in a Soviet space shot, a miniature compass embedded in an acorn from an oak tree that George Washington planted at Mount Vernon, 100,000 bats, 24,797 woodpeckers, 10 specimens of dinosaur excrement, a male gorilla preserved in formaldehyde, and the pickled brains of some former Smithsonian officials.
Trump is unmoved. He wants to live in the Whiter House. On Truth Social, he ranted: “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” adding, “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE.”
He said that he had “instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.”
If Barack Obama was the first to use the presidency as a springboard to Netflix, Donald Trump is the first to use the presidency to be a gadfly, flitting around and sticking his vindictive nose where it doesn’t belong — like John Bolton’s closets and the nation’s attic. It’s going to take a long time to fix all the horrible overreaches of this president.
Trump is a dark genius at distorting reality into deceptive narratives to reshape history — insisting the 2020 election was stolen and turning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists into pardoned “patriots.” Now he’s trying to say that we shouldn’t dwell so much on slavery. He’s a walking, talking deepfake.
He thinks our tortured history of slavery is getting in the way of America being “the HOTTEST country in the world.” (The Saudis told this to Trump to puff him up, and he’s been repeating it ever since.)
Trump whitewashing slavery is the ultimate act of white privilege from a nepo baby who is the apotheosis of white privilege.
We had about 700,000 Americans die in a war over slavery. As the presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told The Times’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs, “It’s the epitome of dumbness to criticize the Smithsonian for dealing with the reality of slavery in America.”
Abe Lincoln, whose top hat and rifles are in the Smithsonian, urged Americans to move past the Civil War “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Trump has malice for all, charity toward none.
He’s tried to restore Confederate statues and names. He’s retreating from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His flunkies have downplayed Black icons like Harriet Tubman, the Tuskegee Airmen and Jackie Robinson.
That kind of behavior could make a nun kick in a stained-glass window. And it certainly won’t get you into heaven.
(NY Times)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I remember coming home the night of the 2016 election and seeing that NYT “Needle” giving Hillary a 95% chance of winning. And there was a sub-head on “why is it taking so long to call Florida for Hillary?”
And I put a pillow over my head and went to sleep.
And woke up two hours later in a different reality altogether.
Had I known that Colbert was melting down live, I’d have watched that feed instead, but what I got was a bunch of very somber and scared News pundits trying to talk everyone off the ledge, that things would still work out.
If only they had a Camera in Hillary’s victory suite, I’d watch that video every time I felt a sad, just to lift my spirits and remind myself that the favorites don’t always get their way.
Reframing Jan. 6: After the Pardons, the Purge
A Muted Homecoming for Abrego Garcia
Fed Officials Try to Keep Focus on Economy as Trump Intensifies Attacks
Peace Talks in Ukraine All Lead to the Donbas
Zelensky Marks Independence Day With Diplomacy in Kyiv and a Plea for Peace
Why Haven’t Sanctions on Russia Stopped the War? The Money Is Still Flowing.
“THE THING about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
— Stephen Hawking
AFTER GAZA FAMINE REPORT, U.S. IS MOSTLY SILENT AND ISRAEL DEFIANT
Despite outrage from its allies, the White House has not commented on a report that found famine in Gaza. Analysts say that without U.S. pressure, Israel’s war will not likely change course.
by Aaron Boxerman
A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration.
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza.
“Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent,” Mr. Huckabee wrote on X.
Without pressure from the United States, Mr. Netanyahu is unlikely to shift his conduct in the nearly two-year war in Gaza, analysts say. President Trump has yet to comment on the report, which was released Friday, although he suggested last month that there was starvation in Gaza.
Mr. Netanyahu is “clearly more comfortable with the fact that Donald Trump is not going to impose costs or consequences that would constitute real pressure,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat who joined negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians during the 1990s.
After months of warnings, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a panel of food security experts backed by the United Nations, said Friday that it had found that Gaza City and its surrounding areas were suffering from famine. The group blamed a number of factors for the dire situation, including stringent Israeli restrictions on aid and warned that, by September, central and southern Gaza also could face famine.
Israel denied that it intended to starve Gazans and said it was doing everything possible to deliver food into the devastated territory. In a statement, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged that there had been some “temporary shortages” but said those were swiftly remedied.
Israel and the United States have backed their own, much-criticized aid initiative in Gaza, in which American security contractors oversee the distribution of boxes of food at sites behind Israeli military lines. Hundreds of people have been killed near the sites, according to Gaza health officials.
Many of Israel’s traditional allies, including Britain, were far from swayed. “The Israeli government’s refusal to allow sufficient aid into Gaza has caused this man-made catastrophe,” David Lammy, the British foreign minister, said in a statement on Friday. “This is a moral outrage.”
(New York Times)
THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER
by Dylan Thomas
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
“THE DAY MAY COME when, contemplating a world given back to the primeval forest, a human survivor will have no means of even guessing how much intelligence Man once imposed upon the forms of the earth, when he set up the stones of Florence in the billowing expanse of the Tuscan olive-groves. No trace will be left then of the palaces that saw Michelangelo pass by, nursing his grievances against Raphael; and nothing of the little Paris cafes where Renoir once sat beside Cezanne, Van Gogh beside Gauguin. Solitude, vicegerent of Eternity, vanquishes men’s dreams no less than armies, and men have known this ever since they came into being and realized that they must die.”
— Andre Malraux
Great article on the Humboldt Crabs. A couple of summers ago I was driving through Eureka and Arcata, I caught part of a Crabs game on local radio. The Crabs were in the midst of a rally as the announcer says, “the bases are loaded with Crustaceans.” Current major league outfielder Josh Outman played for the Crabs a few summers ago.
If you never attended a Crab game, it is a taste of nostalgia. The Arcada Ballpark nestled near the downtown provides small town baseball from yesterday. Put it on your bucket list!
One of my ex-players is an alumni and is on the coaching staff, Jeff Giacomini. Some of you might recognize the name. Jeff’s father, Warren, was a CDF fireman in our area. Warren and his brother’s grew up somewhere on the coast, Les and Mike.
A little local connection.
RE: “THE THING about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
— Stephen Hawking
RE: TRUMP’S SLAVISH STUPIDITY
— Maureen Dowd
—>. August 24, 2025. By Bill Barrow — The Associated Press
In office, Trump leaned on his ability to control news cycles and narratives.
He largely ignored party mechanics and was not intimately involved in the 2018 midterm campaign, when Democrats won back a U.S. House majority. People around Trump laid long-term groundwork despite his seeming detachment from the party.…
Evan Power, chair of the Florida GOP and a onetime Rubio aide, agreed that some Republicans still prefer conservative orthodoxy on global trade and international alliances. But he said Trump speaks to voter anger over an uneven economy and that Trump’s confrontational approach toward other nations is no different from how the president conducts domestic politics.
“Now people know that his combative fighting style is what wins elections,” Power said. Miller pointed to National Guard troops on the streets of the District of Columbia and acknowledged questions about using armed federal military power to police an American city. “I’m OK with it — as long as we remain within the confines of the law, the way it’s set up” for military personnel to be “only in supporting roles,” he said…
Vice President JD Vance chairs the RNC’s finance operations in an unusually high-ranking link between the White House and the party’s fundraising apparatus. And with nearly every new turnover across the party’s organizational chart, the scales tip further in Trump’s direction.
— The Marin Independent Journal
LAzz
“Oye Lo” by Poncho Sanchez on Pandora.
https://pandora.app.link/ubX8Z5sQ6Vb
From Laredo, TX, grew up in California
“Tons of food has gone into Gaza but Hamas savages stole it, ate lots of it to become corpulent,” Mr. Huckabee wrote on X.”
Our State Department at work!
God help Gaza and damn us for not stepping in.
Jim, I just read that same Huckabee comment, 15 minutes ago. It’s shockingly stupid and shockingly false. The man is a liar and an idiot, another dolt selected by Trump to serve the American people and our interests.
Yes, to your last sentence. We could stop this by confronting Israel, saying,” No More!”– using our power to force a halt to their monstrous actions.
Died
Azúcar” Eddie Palmieri on Pandora.
https://pandora.app.link/so6rguNV6Vb
“Oye Lo” Poncho Sanchez
https://pandora.app.link/ubX8Z5sQ6Vb
This music is probably available elsewhere like You Tube without having to sign up. Links like these that require signing up are rejected by me and I imagine most people.
Hi, Gary
You do NOT have to sign up.
Learn to navigate Pandora (excellent sound) to hear sounds, without making a commitment, unless you want to.
Thanks for the feedback, I will offer you tube, as well, next time.