Mendocino County Today: Thursday 8/28/2025

Seasonal Norms | Watercolor | Help Needed | Encampments Screening | DUI Checkpoint | LAMAC Meeting | Coast Bluff | Anti Sewer | Noyo Harbor | Conservation Easements | Rainwater Harvesting | Water Rights | Computer Wiping | Blue-Meadow Farm | Ed Notes | Greenwood Ranch | Yesterday's Catch | Garberville ER | Dog Restaurants | Dog Face | Nothing | Ohwha Tagoo Siam | MikeMcGuireforCongress | Sailors & Floosies | Giants Win | Life Ironies | Unintended Consequences | Prom Dates | Split California | Montana Bar | Muddy Man | Narciso Dress | Gun Law | New Roadshow | Psychological Adulthood | Lead Stories | Dems Dying | Never Again | Expert Elite | Species Guilt | Soir Bleu | Conspiracy Analysis | Reader | Designated Optimist | La Cavee

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TEMPERATURES remain around seasonal norms through at least early next week. Dry conditions will persist with no precipitation expected. Coastal cloudcover will remain relatively persistent through this week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 53F this Thursday morning on the coast. Yep, more of the same thru the holiday weekend.

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JIM MCVICKER:

A half sheet watercolor from this morning at Navarro Beach here in Mendocino County. It’s been a great week here with a wonderful group of painters.

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JEFF BURROUGHS: Help needed! I need to find someone who can help me with two things. First, I need someone who can do my paperwork stuff. Someone who can do bookkeeping, fill out forms, make sure my bills are paid, etc. Secondly, I am in need of an attorney who can help me put a stop to my old car insurance company who has continued taking money out of my bank account even though I did not renew the policy. So far they have taken over $2,000 from me and I have tried to contact them but my calls are never answered. Anyway, Because of my stage 4 cancer I am no longer able to deal with this kind of stuff. It is a horrible amount of stress that is detrimental to my immune system. Can anyone recommend an attorney that can help me recoup my money?

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MENDOCINO FOR PALESTINE will host a free screening of “The Encampments” on Friday in Mendocino. The documentary focuses on student encampments at Columbia University.

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CHP: DUI CHECKPOINT IN UKIAH, Friday, August 29, 2025 from 6pm to 2am, northbound North State Street, north of the Ukiah City Limits. Objective: drunk driving awareness and prevention, encouragement of designated drivers. Arrive alive, don’t drink and drive.

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JIM SHIELDS: I want to let everyone know that at this week’s Laytonville Municipal Advisory Council (LAMAC) meeting, we’ll be discussing developments with the county-wide Planning and Building Code Enforcement issue, where an anonymous person has papered P&B with over a hundred separate county-wide complaints alleging that businesses and individuals have allegedly violated building code provisions. Evidently, PBS Code Enforcement treat individuals and entities who file such complaints to do so “anonymously,” as is the case with those filing complaints regarding the county’s failed Cannabis Ordinance. One of the folks affected by these mass building code filings is Meadow Shere, co-owner with husband Paolo of the Long Valley Feed & Supply in Laytonville. Meadow has written a very informative letter-to-the-editor appearing on page 2 of this week’s Observer, so be sure and read it. [Also posted in the Wednesday, August 27, 2025 edition of the AVA’s Mendocino County Today collection.] As I said, the LAMAC will be discussing the issue at our Wednesday, August 27th meeting, at which Meadow will be present to address the issue. Two Supervisors, John Haschak and Bernie Norvell, will also be at the meeting, and I will report back to you next week.

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BOONVILLE RESIDENT URGES CSD BOARD TO STOP PURSUING SEWER SYSTEM PROJECT

by Mark Scaramella

Boonville resident Jim Lutticken sent the following letter to the Community Services District Board which was discussed at last Wednesday evening’s Board meeting.

“Dear AVCSD Board Members

The proposal to impose* a sewer system on every parcel within the sewer district boundary in Boonville is a bad idea.

The problem that the sewer system purports to solve, clean drinking water, is addressed by the proposed community water system which I fully support.

The sewer system proposal will hurt everyone who has a working septic system. They will be required to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the new sewer system they do not need. And their working septic systems will be permanently disabled.

There are also technological issues. For example, if there is a power outage of more than two or three days, there’s no viable plan to pump all the grinder pumps in a timely manner.

The currently estimated yearly cost for maintenance and operation is probably understated. It’s likely that some people cannot pay or will not pay the fee that they will owe forever. The cost of legal action to collect those fees, for example, put a lien on delinquent properties, is not included in the budget.

Also the yearly cost for labor to operate and maintain the sewer system seems very much understated.

Please reconsider your position on the proposed sewer system. Please withdraw your approval of it.

I hope for the sake of Boonville and for the sake of your legacy, that you stop this system from becoming a reality.

Thank You, Jim Lutticken

PS. * I say impose, because in this election, non-votes are counted as approving of the system. In most elections that I know of, non-votes aren’t counted. In this election, in order to vote “no” one must state one’s objection and mail their ballot back. Also, there’s no way for non-landowners to have a voice in this matter, although the cost will likely be passed on to tenants.”

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CSD Board members didn’t dispute Lutticken’s main points individually. Although, they think the engineers have accommodated the potential power-outage problem.

Instead, they said, basically that:

The sewer system project is too far along to stop at this point.

Many Boonville septic systems and leach fields are on the verge of collapse or of being declared unfunctional/red-tagged by county or state water authorities, especially as new regulations are enacted.

The aquifer from which the Boonville area draws water will be increasingly polluted by overburdened, aging or failed private septic systems.

Most of the construction cost will be covered by the state, and this is probably the last chance to deal with downtown Boonville’s historically poor septic systems.

The property owners in the proposed sewer system district will have plenty of opportunity to formally protest the project via the Environmental Impact Report, the soon to be published “rate letter” laying out the costs and rates for customers, and the parcel by parcel “protest vote” to be conducted when the consulting engineers finish estimating the project and operating/maintenance cost.

The Board thanked Mr. Lutticken for his input, but respectfully declined to change any of their plans.

For further information about the Boonville water and sewer projects go to the “water & wastewater projects” section of the Community Services District’s (newly upgraded) website: avcsd.org

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ENDANGERED MOUNTAIN BEAVER HABITAT SAFEGUARDED IN MENDOCINO COUNTY DONATION

by Sarah Stierch

Mendocino County land believed to house several federally endangered animals and plants will forever be protected from development thanks to a donation of conservation easements to the Mendocino Land Trust, the organization said.

In July, PG&E donated the conservation easement on 30 acres of grasslands and wetlands, known as Windy Hollow, to the trust. Windy Hollow sits in an unincorporated area near Point Arena.

According to the California Council of Land Trusts, a conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement in which the property owner restricts what types of activities can take place on their land. In this case, Windy Hollow will be forever protected from any form of development.

Windy Hollow is part of the Garcia River watershed, which is home to salmon.

The area is home to the federally endangered Point Arena mountain beaver, the land trust said.

A small, stocky beaver with black fur, the Point Arena mountain beaver was listed as endangered in 1991 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Windy Hollow is also believed to be home to Behren’s silverspot butterfly, another federally endangered species. The gold and brown butterfly is found from the town of Mendocino to Salt Point State Park in Sonoma County, the federal wildlife service said.

The conservative easement for a 2.3-acre piece of property, known as the Popow Redwoods, located in unincorporated Mendocino County, Calif. near Fort Bragg was donated to the Mendocino Land Trust on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025. The donation, made by the estate of ceramic artist Sonya Popow, forever protect the land from logging and development. (Mendocino Land Trust via Bay City News)

While the land is confirmed to house several protected plant species, the land trust also believes federally endangered plants are also found on the property.

According to the wildlife service, habitat loss and development is the biggest threat to these endangered species.

In August, the land trust received a second conservation easement donation of a 2.3-acre property in an unincorporated area near Fort Bragg. The property, known as the Popow Redwoods, was a gift from the estate of ceramic artist Sonya Popow, who died in March.

The property, which Popow owned for over 50 years, features large second-growth redwoods.

More information about the donations can be found at http://www.mendoclandtrust.org.

(Mendocino Voice)

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IF THEY DIDN’T WANT THE WATER, WHY DID THEY ASK FOR IT?

Richard Ettlelson responds to: Who has the rights to our local rivers and streams? Cal Fire water rights canceled in the JDSF, other water sources being expanded – MendocinoCoast.News (Frank Hartzell)

Dear Editor (of MendocinoCoastNews):

On July 14, 2025 the California Water Resources Board canceled two water-right applications filed by the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) to appropriate water from the Noyo River, Big River, Caspar Creek, and Hare Creek. Six formal protests, including the City of Fort Bragg and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, were filed to stop the JDSF applications because of public health and safety concerns, negative environmental impacts, and legal issues.

We are all reliant on a dependable water supply. Tributaries to The Noyo River and Hare Creek are major water sources for the city of Fort Bragg. These tributaries are on 2 of the 4 named sources in the water diversion permit application. The JDSF has a history of abusing the water resource. For example, after 3-years of drought conditions, Fort Bragg declared a “Water Emergency,” and even with State Water Board cooperation in opening a desalination plant the city was compelled to truck in water from Ukiah. Disregarding these severe conditions, the JDSF continued their water diversion program with no interruption, indifferent to how their actions can impact the public health and safety of neighboring communities. Their narrow priority is timber management on the JDSF, but the State Water Resources Board has a wider public trust responsibility since we all share the same water supply.

It’s understood that water for dust abatement is a required feature in timber harvesting, but siting the water sources are not required to be located in the same immediate vicinity where it’s sprayed on the roads. Transporting water does have a cost, but so does jeopardizing coho salmon habitat. Providing water at the cheapest cost so private timber harvest contractors can maximize their profits is not a JDSF responsibility. These private timber contractors have access to many other off-site alternative surface and groundwater sources that can be brought in from other places. There are alternatives to withdrawing water from identified coho salmon habitat in order for the JDSF to proceed with their timber harvest proposals.

The Noyo River and Big River have both been placed on the Clean Water Act Section 303(d) list as impaired water quality conditions due to excessive sediment loading. The JDSF manages a significant portion of both watersheds and their timber harvests and road projects are a significant source of sediments pouring into both rivers. Coho salmon populations on the JDSF have been declining for many years and to some extent, the JDSF bears some responsibility for the current situation. The ongoing viability of salmon in the Noyo and Big River can be better protected by avoiding additional burdens rather than introducing new risks that mitigations can only partially address.

California’s commercial salmon season has now been closed for an unprecedented third year in a row because of deteriorating conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year. The priority should be to save this endangered species from extinction, not slow its disappearance from the landscape. The trees will still be there for the cutting once this endangered species recovers.

There are economic values to cashing in the timber resource, but there are also unstated liabilities paid by the Fort Bragg fishing fleet. The salmon fishery is in a precarious state and JDSF management of their soil and water resources are partially responsible although they think they’re doing a good job. An assessment from the salmon’s perspective, if you can find any to ask, concerning adverse impacts would probably lead to a different conclusion.

I appreciate that the JDSF has now recognized that diverting water from area streams has: “the potential to impact aquatic environments.” So why did they file the two water-right applications? Are they just now responding with a sour grapes argument that because their applications were canceled, they didn’t need it anyway? Or did they just want to see what they could get away with since it was too much trouble to do the right thing in the first place?

Timber harvesting on state public lands has been the JDSF mission for the last 76-years. Even with mitigating measures in place this has caused direct and indirect cumulative impacts on our dwindling water resources that our community depends on. Diminishing our collective water resource in Mendocino County to facilitate cutting down our redwood forest on public land has never been a good idea.

-Richard Ettelson

Mendocino

The Caspar Kiosk, the public entrance of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest. (JDSF)

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ERASING YOUR HARD DRIVE? [Coast Chatline]

Liz Helenchild: Yo techies, can data be deleted from a hard drive some way other than shredding? Would a magnetic bulk eraser do the job? Thanx,

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Marco McClean here, Liz.

Usually when you give away a computer you want the next person to be able to use it without spending $50 to $100 and an hour replacing the hard drive, plus an afternoon using another computer, that they don’t have, to download an operating system, burn it to a bootable thumb drive, and install it.

I have two friends who wrecked half a dozen perfectly good computers before recycling them for scrap, by taking out the hard drives and drilling holes through them with power drills, because they read a comedy tech article that scared them to death. That’s unnecessary. Installing a fresh Linux operating system wipes the drive plenty enough. If you do that, great. If you trust the person you give it to to do that, also fine.

According to ChatGPT, which is correct here:

If you want to give away a computer and make sure your data is not readable, a safe approach is to completely wipe the hard drive. Here’s a clear, step-by-step guide:

1. Back up your data

Before doing anything, save your files, documents, photos, passwords, etc., to an external drive, cloud storage, or another computer.

2. Sign out and deauthorize accounts

Windows: Sign out of Microsoft accounts, iCloud (if you used iCloud for Windows), and any software with licenses (Adobe, Office, etc.).

Mac: Sign out of iCloud, iTunes, and other accounts.

This ensures the next user won’t be locked out by your accounts.

3. Use full-drive wiping tools

For Windows PCs:

Windows built-in “Reset this PC” (Windows 10/11):

Go to Settings — Update & Security — Recovery — Reset this PC — Remove everything.

When asked, choose “Remove files and clean the drive”.

This does multiple passes over the disk and is suitable for giving away.

Third-party secure erase tools (optional for extra security):

DBAN (Darik’s Boot and Nuke)

CCleaner Drive Wiper — overwrites free space and entire drives

For Macs:

Boot into macOS Recovery (Command + R on startup).

Open Disk Utility — Erase.

Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or APFS and check Security Option: overwrite multiple times).

4. If you want to hand off a working computer, after removing your data, reinstall the operating system so the computer can boot cleanly for the next owner:

Windows: Use “Reset this PC” with reinstall Windows option.

Mac: Use macOS Recovery to reinstall macOS.

Or choose a Linux distribution. They are all free, and most come with all the software you need to use the web, listen to music, watch videos, participate in email and social media, write, play games, work, and create art.

This gives the new owner a working system without your data.

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THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM

Colorama! That’s corn in the background, it should ripen in September

Alberta Peaches & Comise Pears

Heirloom, Early Girl & Cherry tomatoes

Sweet Walla Walla Onions

Corno di Toro, Bell, Gypsy & Pimiento Peppers

Jalapeno, Padron, Anaheim & Poblano Chilis

Eggplant, Zucchini, Basil

Lisbon Lemons, local Olive Oil

Sunflowers & Zinnias

Blue Meadow Farm

Holmes Ranch Rd & Hwy 128, Philo

(707) 895-2071

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ED NOTES

I’d say the Anderson Valley, thanks to the wine industry, has devolved from a coherent community to just another roadside boutique booze stop, ice cream slurps for the kids. The wine juggernaut, beginning around 1980 with the importation of roughly a thousand unassimilable Mexican peasants and their families for whom the industry provided zero housing and other amenities, transformed Anderson Valley into two separate and mutually uncomprehending cultures, which took a generation to bridge unto today’s fully integrated but dramatically two-tier society — rich people and the rest of us, Mex and Anglo, most of us serving the tourist economy. Myself, I think the Mexicans were a radical improvement over the ‘necks. The mighty AVA chronicled the changes. (Quick anecdote: A Mexican guy I’ve known casually for many years came into the office one day, looked around and said, “What do you guys do in here?” He was totally unaware that there was a local newspaper.)

I’ve functioned more as a kind of ringleader for a variety of attacks on local, state and national government, all for naught of course, as recent events make emphatically clear. I have such little respect for traditional media I can’t imagine functioning in any of their seraglios.

I’ve managed to outlive most of my enemies, but over the long years I’d say the editors at the nearby Santa Rosa-based Press Democrat have served as both my favorite and least favorite enemies, them and a variety of local officials of the pseudo-liberal, Democrat sub-species. (Judges have been a ripe target over the years as they preside over an utterly corrupt justice system. One of them, and a DA, were particularly upset when I described the County Courthouse as the Proletariat Processing Center. Like a lot of libs they were and are delusional as to their true function.)

Successes? Quite a few I say in all modesty, one of them a series we did on the Fort Bragg Fires of ‘87 during which a couple of crooks burned down the town center. And got away with it. Predictably, the DA let the statute run on the case but we had to go to five printings — our best ever sales — because Fort Braggers had no idea of what had happened.

A minor triumph which has always pleased me is a story I did about how the local judges kept the public out of the publicly-funded law library. To get access you had to go to one of their majesties to get the key, an inconvenient insult to people trying to use the library. This story led to a total reform that included unimpeded access and a full-time clerk.

We’re much more locally focused now that print has gone away, but we still manage about 1500 subscribers behind an on-line paywall, making us uniquely semi-successful in this area. (At our most successful in the early 1990s we had about 4,000 paid subscribers, including a modest national circulation. Local authorities always tried to steer public advertising away from the AVA. I sued, won locally in a jury trial during which the jury was out for less than an hour, but the County beat me at the state appellate level. (The state’s opinion was a minor masterpiece of moronic reasoning, but I didn’t have the money to appeal it.) Public notices are crucial, or were crucial, to print papers. I remember two Frisco dailies suing each other over legals.

Print journalism is over, dead. The internet killed it. Everyone has their own paper these days. I think we’re doing pretty well surviving among all the cyber-tumult. I think there will always be a place for long-form print journalism of the LRB, NYRB, Harper’s etc., but mass circulation print publications are museum pieces. The few print papers still around are doomed, mere shadows of their pre-net selves. In a way, if you can sort through the daily deluge, journalism is better than ever with lots of good writers out there doing honest work, but the Orange Monster sails on, impervious.

My mainstream critics have always said I was irresponsible, but look who’s talking? The aforementioned Fort Bragg series was so popular because NorCal media had ignored it. I did a satire way back on the local congressman, a hack called Bosco, that was effective satire because the whole journalo-gang — Bagdikian in the Washington Post, that fat guy and alleged journalo-expert on the faculty where your mom taught, to name two I remember — denounced me as irresponsible for doing it. (The DesMoines Register threatened to sue me because I attributed the thing to one of their pompous reporters I’d seen on tv.) My enemies brought up the Bosco Interview for years as a primo example of my “irresponsibility.” It was a great success!

The paper has attracted a lot of good writers over the years because, I think, we were instantly accessible and, of course, welcoming to dissenting and/or off beat stuff that was shut out most places.

Here’s a confession I hope is not too startling. My book, ‘The Mendocino Papers’ was a draft but due to my confusion wound up in print.

We left Honolulu after Pearl Harbor. Lived in SF for a few years then moved to Marin where I went to high school in Mill Valley. In ‘55, my school was the site of a terrible race riot, the first and only of its kind in marvy Marin. The student body then was an odd mix of very wealthy kids, working class shlubs like me and black kids from the ghetto of Marin City. My main interest was sports, but I was already a proto-lib in close friendships with black teammates. From high school I went into the Marine Corps during a time of two-year enlistments and six years of reserve eligibility, and from there to junior colleges and two years at Cal Poly SLO where I played baseball on a kind of jock scholarship. I read a lot from high school on.

I joined the Peace Corps in ‘63 after a couple of years in early SF demonstrations with CORE where I first met a lot of commies and com-symps I re-met as editor of the AVA. I met my wife in Sarawak. We married in ‘65. Without her my life would not have been possible. She did all the grunt work at the AVA for all its years. In ‘67 I drove a cab in the city while trying to overthrow the government and support my young family doing work that didn’t add to the general oppression. I became a full time foster parent to delinquents in Boonville, work I did until I bought the paper in 1984.

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GRANDDAUGHTER, age 11, and a dedicated Swiftie, is not happy about Taylor’s engagement. She thinks Travis Kelce is dumb and that Taylor could do a lot better.

(The above was not intended for posting. I was responding to questions from an interviewer.)

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MENDOCINO COUNTY HISTORY (Chuck Ross)

One hundred years ago today:

The Greenwood Ranch was incorporated by Warren Dutton and Cap Ornbaum. It was made up of land purchased from the Goodyear Redwood Lumber Company at Elk, and may have only been around fifteen thousand acres at the time. Formerly the property had just been “the company ranch” and actually comprised three ranches, each complete with house, barns, sheds, corrals, loading chutes and other facilities. The oldest was the former Britt Greenwood homestead, then the former Clift Homestead, and finally Herrick Ranch at Elk Creek.

By 1927 Calion Beacon began buying stock in the Greenwood Ranch. Two years later he was buying land adjacent and by 1935 he took over the Greenwood Ranch. Under Beacon it grew to over thirty thousand acres. It reached from the town of Elk to Buck’s Peak across the Mountain View Road. Today most of the timberland is in the hands of Mendocino Redwood, but the “front end” is still in the hands of Calion’s son R. D. and cattle are raised there to this day.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, August 27, 2025

RICKIE CURTIS, 52, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

GAGE GORMAN, 34, Ukiah. Mandatory supervision violation.

CASEY IRELAND, 31, Willits. County parole violation.

STEPHEN SERR, 30, Pasadena/Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s permission.

AZAIAH ZACARIAS, 24, Ukiah. County parole violation.

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ALEXA HAYWARD:

I am making this post to both thank and spread awareness to the awesome job the Garberville ER did for me. Sunday morning around 1:30am I was taken there by my husband. I had severe stomach pain that wouldn’t subside. We called in advance as this was our first time there, we are new to the area. We were met at the front door with a wheelchair and taken right into the hospital where they began running needed tests. It took no time at all for them to recognize the severity of the issue and made all arrangements to have a surgical team en route and transport ready to move me to Providence Redwood Memorial Hospital where I underwent life saving surgery to correct a twisted colon that turned septic. I couldn’t be more thankful or impressed with the knowledge, professionalism and attention i received from the Garberville ER. They literally saved my life. I hope they see this and understand what they did and how fast they did it means the world to me, literally!

Thank you

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ARF-ARF!

Editor,

I try to avoid restaurants that allow dogs. These days, people think they can take their dogs anywhere they want, regardless of any potential health issues.

There is little I can do about it, except for not eating in restaurants that allow dogs anywhere near my food.

John Neal

San Anselmo

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NOTHING (via Steve Derwinski)

lyrics by Tuli Kupferberg (1965)

Monday, nothing
Tuesday, nothing
Wednesday and Thursday nothing
Friday, for a change
a little more nothing
Saturday once more nothing

Sunday nothing
Monday nothing
Tuesday and Wednesday nothing
Thursday, for a change
a little more nothing
Friday once more nothing

Montik gornisht,
Dinstik Gornisht
Midwoch an Donnerstik gornisht
Fritik, far a noveneh gornisht pikveleh
Shabas nach a mool gornisht

Lunes nada
Martes nada
Miercoles y Jueves nada
Viernes, por cambia
un poco mas nada
Sabado otra vez nada

January nothing
February nothing
March and April nothing
May and June
a lot more nothing
July nothing

'29 nothing
'32 nothing
'39, '45 nothing
1965 a whole lot of nothing
1966 nothing

reading nothing
writing nothing
even arithmetic nothing
geography, philosophy, history, nothing
social anthropology a lot of nothing

oh, Village Voice nothing
New Yorker nothing
Sing Out and Folkways nothing
Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg
nothing, nothing, nothing

poetry nothing
music nothing
painting and dancing nothing
The world's great books
a great set of nothing
Audy and Foudy nothing

fucking nothing
sucking nothing
flesh and sex nothing
Church and Times Square
all a lot of nothing
nothing, nothing, nothing

Stevenson nothing
Humphrey nothing
Averell Harriman nothing
John Stuart Mill nil, nil
Franklin Delano nothing

Karlos Marx nothing
Engels nothing
Bakunin and Kropotkin nothing
Leon Trotsky lots of nothing
Stalin less than nothing

nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots and lots of nothing
nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots of it
nothing!
Not a God damn thing

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MCGUIRE MUM ON RUN FOR CONGRESS

by Austin Murphy

Well, that escalated quickly.

A week after Gov. Gavin Newsom urged Americans to “wake up” and announced his hope of redrawing California’s congressional map, the California Legislature delivered him bills that clear the way for a Nov. 4 special election that could do just that.

The governor’s quest to carve out five new safe Democratic seats — a counterpunch to the gerrymandered political map approved by the Texas Legislature — could also benefit Newsom personally, elevating his profile as he continues to emerge as a 2028 presidential contender.

But Newsom isn’t the only California Democrat whose career could get a boost if that measure, Prop. 50, passes in November.

Riding herd on the California State Senate this week, ensuring the orderly passage of that redistricting-related legislation in an excruciatingly tight time frame, was its president, Mike McGuire, the Healdsburg Democrat who terms out of office at the end of 2026.

As it happens, the reconfigured map released Aug. 15 features a redrawn, Democrat-friendly 1st District that takes in Santa Rosa, at its southern tip, then extends up the Highway 101 corridor — through Healdsburg, where two decades ago McGuire became the youngest mayor in that city’s history. The vast district expands north through Lake County, then east to Chico and the Nevada border beyond.

Were McGuire to consider Congress as his next challenge, the 46-year-old could hardly ask for a more ideal district in which to run.

“He would be phenomenal,” said Bill Dodd, the former state senator from Napa, and a longtime McGuire friend and confidant who helped whip the votes to get McGuire elected as Senate president in 2023.

The core of votes in the proposed redrawn 1st District reside in Sonoma County (population, 485,375), where McGuire is widely known and well-regarded, Dodd said, “because he’s served that community, in so many capacities, at such a high level.” Dodd cited as a recent example the senator’s key role in steering a $45 million rescue package to his chronically cash-crunched alma mater, Sonoma State University. That windfall has since been doubled to $90 million.

“So often in politics,” Dodd noted, “you can’t pick your time. Your time picks you. This is something that, if it happens, I couldn’t imagine a better candidate than Mike McGuire. In my opinion he would win going away.”

But will he run?

In a statement to The Press Democrat, McGuire said, “Folks have been asking me for years what my next steps are, and I tell everyone the same thing, every time: It’s the honor of a lifetime to work in the Senate, I’m laser-focused on my duties now and will keep people updated on any changes.”

He declined to elaborate, and his aides declined to make him available for an interview.

Also not available, according to the website GoDaddy.com, is the domain name “MikeMcGuireforCongress,” which was registered by an unknown party on Aug. 7, according to the site.

Still, “It’s not a done deal,” said David McCuan, the Sonoma State political science professor with deep Sacramento connections.

Should the senator take that leap, “there will be no other candidate that outworks him,” McCuan said. “He will run for that seat seven days a week, 20 hours a day. He’s not called the Energizer bunny for nothing.”

As presently constituted, the 1st District is far more conservative leaning, and represented by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, who recently told The Press Democrat he wasn’t going to get “too wound up about this” until Prop. 50 passes, if it passes.

LaMalfa also noted that some of the state legislators “who have a hand” in the redistricting push also stand to benefit from it, should the new maps come to fruition — a clear reference to McGuire.

In a widely read Facebook post questioning the long-term wisdom of California’s proposed gerrymanders — which she ultimately supported — Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said she detected “a dash of cronyism” in the redrawn maps.

Asked if she was referring to McGuire in that passage, Hopkins replied, “People will draw their own conclusions.”

Amy Thoma Tan, a spokesperson for the anti-Prop. 50 campaign “Protect Voters First,” said the proposed new districts were drawn “by politicians and party insiders behind closed doors with no transparency and no input from the public.”

Her group is funded by Charles Munger Jr., a passionate, deep-pocketed advocate for the Citizens Redistricting Committee, which was founded in 2008, and took the power to draw district lines away from state legislators in a bid to make the process more nonpartisan.

“Several elected politicians with open congressional committees will vote on these self-serving districts,” Tan said. “That is a clear conflict of interest and undermines public trust in the fairness of our elections.”

Paul Mitchell, founder of Redistricting Partners, the Sacramento-based demography firm hired by the California Legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map, pushed back against the idea that any of the five newly configured, safely Democratic districts, was designed for any one person.

“We drew the maps to push back on Texas, to create five new opportunities in what are currently Republican districts,” Mitchell said.

“There is only one way to draw Northern California to create three Democratic districts” — it now has two. “And that is to keep Marin County whole in one district, Santa Rosa whole in the other, and Napa whole in the third.

“The decision to create a new seat in Northern California was made the moment we decided we wanted to pick up five seats. It had nothing to do with any candidate,” Mitchell said.

Yes, the newly drawn 1st District is “massive,” said Jim Wood of Alexander Valley, whose decade in the state Assembly ended in December 2024.

“But I’m not sure it’s that much bigger than the one he represents now.”

California’s 2nd Senate District, which McGuire has represented since 2015, stretches down the North Coast from Oregon to the Golden Gate, taking in all of Del Norte, Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino, Lake and Marin counties, and most of Sonoma County.

When McGuire was growing up in Healdsburg, being raised in modest circumstances by a single mom, the city was “still considered rural,” Wood said. To him, that helps explain why McGuire is equally comfortable in the company of his suburban and rural constituents.

The rejiggered 1st Congressional District would include the top two-thirds of Lake County, which McGuire already represents. McGuire has been “hugely important” to those constituents, according to McCuan, delivering wildfire relief, advocating for rural health care, financing for hospitals “and other issues that affect rural counties.”

“And he will do that as a member of Congress,” Wood said. “I would argue he’ll do a better job getting results than some Republican members of Congress. Because they are not delivering for rural California right now.”

It doesn’t surprise Wood that McGuire isn’t talking about a run for Congress right now, at least not in public.

“Beyond the obvious things people see about Mike — he’s very engaging, very energetic — he’s also very measured, and puts a tremendous amount of thought into what he’s going to pursue,” Wood said.

That said, he added, “I think this will be an opportunity that will be hard for him, if not impossible, to pass up.”

(Santa Rosa Press Democrat/Ukiah Daily Journal)

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GIANTS BLAST CUBS behind Rafael Devers' 2 HRs, Matt Chapman's 200th

by Shayna Rubin

Hits with runners in scoring position have been hard to come by for the San Francisco Giants this season, particularly during a recent stretch that saw them lose 15 of 18 at Oracle Park.

Their fortune has taken such a sharp pivot in the first two games against the Chicago Cubs that their 12-3 win on Wednesday night included a run scored off Matt Chapman’s noggin. The sequence told the story of all the good that can happen when a ball is put in play.

With two outs and two runners on with San Francisco nursing a one-run lead, Chapman flipped a sinker into shallow right field. Outfielder Kyle Tucker’s attempted throw home to stop the bleeding bounced off Chapman’s helmet as he stood at first base and caromed to the backstop, allowing Dom Smith to score. Chapman, who advanced to second, raised his arm in celebration of his inadvertent run-headbutted-in.

“I don’t know if you get an RBI for hitting one off your head, but hopefully,” Chapman said.

It was one of a trio of three-run innings the Giants put together, decimating a two-run lead the Cubs took in the second inning.

Chapman’s heads-up play was just one highlight amid a run-scoring parade; he later hit his 18th home run — the 200th of his career. But Rafael Devers was the primary catalyst, going 4-for-4.

He got the scoring started with a solo home run off Colin Rea hit to dead center field, hit an RBI ground-rule double into Triple’s Alley to ignite the go-ahead third inning and crushed an opposite-field, three-run home run off lefty Taylor Rogers in the sixth to break the game open. His five RBIs are the most he’s had as a Giant.

“This is the guy that everybody is accustomed to seeing,” Chapman said. “It’s not easy to get traded and come in and instantly be yourself, for him to get more settled in and comfortable every day he’s here. When he’s comfortable he’s capable of big things.”

Added manager Bob Melvin: “He hit it everywhere today. Nice warm night, carries a little. First one is going out anywhere. Then going to left field and showing off what he can do in any ballpark. Right-center, Triple’s Alley. Games like this go a long way. Big night for him and for us, too. He’s pretty embraced here and we know he’s capable of having games like that.”

This is the eighth time the Giants have scored in double digits this year and the second time they’ve done it against the Cubs. They scored a season-high 14 in extra innings at Wrigley Field in May and came close to that in this nine-inning game, prompting the Cubs to send a position player to pitch the eighth.

The convincing win gave starter Carson Whisenhunt the second victory of his career. He pitched five innings, struck out three and walked three. The only ding was Bay Area native Nico Hoerner’s three-run home run off him in the second inning.

All that run scoring shouldn’t overshadow a key defensive play with the bases loaded in the fifth that kept Whisenhunt’s line cleaner. Justin Turner’s grounder up the middle deflected off Whisenhunt’s glove to Willy Adames, who made a clean grab and flick to second baseman Casey Schmitt, who then rifled a throw to first to get an inning-ending double play. It was one of two times, including a first-inning jam, that the rookie got a bases-loaded double play.

“For a younger pitcher, it tests you,” Melvin said. “When you’re able to get through those, it battle tests you and makes you a little tougher. I think getting out of the first one gave him confidence to get out of the second one, knowing that when he locates he can get out of a ground ball …Especially against a lineup like this that score a lot of runs.”

The Giants had 13 hits and went 4-for-9 with runners in scoring position. They’ve won four straight games and back-to-back series against National League Central opponents that are postseason bound. Since losing a series in San Diego last week, they’re playing the type of ball that, if continued, could salvage the end of a disappointing 2025 season.

“It’s been a wild couple months for us,” Chapman said. “But I like the way we’re playing right now and we’re just trying to keep that momentum rolling.”

(sfchronicle.com)

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CALIFORNIA’S POLITICIANS OVERLOOK POTENTIAL PITFALLS IN THEIR ZEAL FOR NEW LAWS

by Dan Walters

Sociologist Robert Merton coined the term “unintended consequences” in a 1936 essay, exploring how people take actions they believe will have positive outcomes, but later learn they have negative impacts. Someone could — and should — write a book about the seemingly countless incidents of adverse consequences from the decrees issued by California legislators and governors.

Perhaps the most spectacular example is the ill-named “deregulation” of California’s electrical power system 29 years ago, embraced by legislators of both parties and then-Gov. Pete Wilson. Advocates hailed the overhaul as a bold act that would assure ample power supplies while reducing consumers’ utility bills.

However, it was an unmitigated disaster that invited manipulation of the electricity market and drove up costs. It plunged Pacific Gas and Electric Co. into bankruptcy and pushed Southern California Edison to the brink of insolvency.

Oddly, it did not curb the urge of California politicians to tamper with how their constituents obtain and pay for electricity. This year’s example is Senate Bill 540, a controversial measure which would, if enacted, have California join a regional power consortium with unpredictable consequences.

There are other major examples of legislation that backfired and is worth noting. One is Assembly Bill 218, a 2019 bill that temporarily suspended the statute of limitations on sexual abuse lawsuits. Proponents said it would allow victims to finally receive justice, brushing aside criticism that it would be a bonanza for lawyers. Hundreds of suits against local governments and school systems have been filed, resulting in multibillion-dollar settlements, including a $4 billion payout by Los Angeles County to settle 6,800 claims from former foster children and formerly incarcerated minors.

The spate of abuse suits has also distorted the ability of public entities to acquire liability insurance. The bill’s author, former Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, has called for changes.

“When I authored AB 218 my priority was to protect kids from sex abuse & ensure victims could have some justice,” Gonzalez, now head of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said in social media post. “Now, some unscrupulous attorneys are treating it like feeding frenzy. I support reforms to cap attorneys’ fees or other measures to reel the costs in for public entities.”

There also are many other current examples of potentially harmful consequences, including the late-blooming effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators to alter — temporarily, they say — California’s 52 congressional districts to produce more Democratic members and offset a Republican-sponsored gerrymander in Texas.

The electric power and gerrymandering measures are not the only pieces of pending litigation with potentially negative consequences. Two of them involve school operations. One is Assembly Bill 1264, aimed at removing ultra-processed foods from the millions of meals public schools serve to their students.

Advocates say such foods adversely affect children’s health, which is certainly a legitimate issue if proven. However, critics say that the legislation, which tasks defining such foods to a state agency, could ban foods that Californians commonly consume and result in a flood of lawsuits, not unlike what happened after Gonzalez’s child abuse law was enacted.

The other is Assembly Bill 495, which would expand the list of people who could take charge of public school students in the absence of their parents or designated caregivers. It’s aimed at protecting children of parents who have been swept up in the federal government’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. However, critics say just about anyone could claim to be a substitute caregiver under the legislation’s loose definition, thereby potentially endangering children rather than protecting them.

As Merton pointed out in his essay, advocates of new policies or programs always stress their positive intentions, while downplaying or ignoring downside risks. It’s a dangerous syndrome, as California politicians should have learned by now.

(CalMatters.org)

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REPUBLICANS’ PLAN TO SPLIT CALIFORNIA IS DOOMED. BUT IT DOES REVEAL A NEW REALITY

by Sara Libby

The latest Republican-led attempt to let rural portions of California separate and form their own state is perhaps the least serious yet.

Not only does it face long odds of passing the California Legislature, where Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses, and surviving a Gov. Gavin Newsom veto, the idea being pushed by Republican Assembly Leader James Gallagher is a resolution that would merely offer lawmakers’ blessing for such a change; it would not actually create a new state.

While the proposal itself has little chance, it does underscore a new reality of California politics. Whereas previous plans to carve up the state focused on letting the rural north peel off — sometimes in combination with portions of southern Oregon or Idaho — Gallagher’s plan would split the state between east and west. It’s a reflection of how influential the Inland Empire region around Riverside and San Bernardino has become in driving California’s Republican agenda.

“Forgotten people mostly in the inland counties of the state, they have no voice,” Gallagher, R-Yuba City, said Wednesday at a news conference in Sacramento. “Farmers, their prices have dropped, costs have gone through the roof. Ranchers, cows are being killed because some genius thought it was a great idea to introduce the gray wolf to California. … Their representation could be completely stripped by the Gavin-mander proposal.”

Gallagher has billed the effort as a tit-for-tat response to Newsom’s plan to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries to the benefit of Democratic candidates, which was itself a response to GOP-led gerrymandering in Texas. California lawmakers placed the proposal on the ballot last week and it will go before voters in November.

But Gallagher’s resolution also carries the burden of history. It is the latest in a long series of attempts to divide off red portions of the state where many people feel California’s Democratic politics don’t reflect their values. An adjacent movement advocating for California to secede from the United States has been dominated by white supremacists and dogged by dysfunction.

In 2018, Bay Area venture capitalist Timothy Draper collected enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot that would divide California into three states — one running from San Diego and Orange County north to Madera County, another from Los Angeles along the coast to Monterey, and the third from Santa Cruz north to the Oregon border. If passed by the voters, it would have been submitted to Congress for final approval of the creation of the new states and four new U.S. senators.

But the California Supreme Court removed the measure from the ballot, saying there had been “significant questions regarding the proposition’s validity,” and Draper then withdrew it. The court did not describe those questions, but opponents said the measure was so sweeping that it might amount to a “revision” of the state Constitution, which would require legislative approval to be submitted to voters. It was also unclear whether ballot initiatives, authorized by law in 2011, include the power to break up the state — and create new states with their own lawmaking bodies.

Draper also led one of the more recent revivals of a decades-long push to peel off California’s northern-most counties, combine them with southern portions of Oregon, to create a new state called Jefferson. A 2016 effort to carve the state in six — with Jefferson being one of the new states — failed to make the ballot.

By emphasizing the Inland Empire with his plan, Gallagher has given a nod to one area of the state where Republicans have begun to amass real power at the local level — power that they’ve struggled to translate statewide.

Megachurches drive the ‘parents’ rights’ movement

The Inland Empire has been the front line of California’s battle over parental rights in education — a movement driven by Christian megachurch leaders like Tim Thompson, pastor of 412 Church in the Riverside County city of Temecula, and the Rev. Jack Hibbs, pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.

Thompson’s Inland Empire Family PAC helped a slate of candidates take control of two Riverside County school boards in 2022. Trustees supported by Thompson “banned critical race theory” and installed conservative superintendents and legal counsel in their districts, he said at a rally last year. (One of the school board presidents he’d backed on the Temecula Valley Unified School District board was recalled from office, though he later re-joined the board by winning his seat back in the following election.)

Hibbs runs Real Impact, a political group that says it aims to influence “the culture with a biblical worldview.” That group helped swing the Chino Valley Unified school board, which has led the fight against state officials over so-called parental notification policies, which require school officials to notify parents if their children identify as transgender at school. California banned those policies, and the district doubled down on its rules.

Last week, Hibbs rallied hundreds of supporters outside the California Capitol in Sacramento to oppose a bill aimed at giving deported parents more say about what happens to their children if they’re seized by immigration authorities.

Republican leaders rising

Two of the state’s most prominent Republican leaders, whose profiles are growing under Trump, hail from the Inland Empire and have frequently criticized the state’s leaders for failing to consider their residents’ needs.

Bill Essayli, a firebrand lawmaker representing the Inland Empire in the state Assembly, was tapped by President Donald Trump in April to become the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, a high-profile role that makes him the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles. As an Assembly member, Essayli seized on many of the parents’ rights narratives and pushed multiple bills aimed at limiting the rights of transgender people.

Chad Bianco, the Riverside County sheriff who has for years criticized California’s sanctuary policies that limit local law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, is now running to replace Newsom in 2026. This week, he touted polling that showed him as the top Republican candidate.

Bianco has spoken out against Newsom’s redistricting plan but has not said whether he’d support the move to sequester the Inland Empire into its own state.

Gallagher, meanwhile, said his map “is not set in stone” and could be changed before supporters of the plan try to get it on the ballot. He compared himself to Moses speaking to the pharaoh of Egypt in the Bible: “This morning I’m saying, ‘Gavin, let my people go.’ ‘

He said he had no name yet for the proposed inland state. “It would not necessarily be a red state” dominated by Republicans, he said.

(SF Chronicle)

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A MONTANA BAR filled with dam workers, photographed by Margaret Bourke-White for the very first issue of LIFE magazine, 1936.

— Margaret Bourke-White / The LIFE Picture Collection

Bourke-White had a gift for capturing not just events, but the human stories behind them — here, a moment of grit, camaraderie, and exhaustion at the end of a workday. From documenting the rise of American industry to the front lines of World War II, her lens defined an era.

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‘STRAIGHT-UP F—KING MUD’: BURNING MAN JUST KEEPS GETTING WETTER

by Timothy Karoff

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — A quick mental exercise: Imagine a bowl of oatmeal. Now, imagine that same bowl of oatmeal if it were 7 miles wide — so wide that, if you stood on the rim of the bowl, you’d just barely be able to make out the opposite rim hovering over the horizon. Finally, imagine trying to walk across the surface of mushy, wet oats, crossing your fingers that no oat water soaks through your shoes. If you can picture that, you have some sense of what it was like at Burning Man on Tuesday night.

For the second time this week, a rainstorm turned the Black Rock Desert into the world’s largest bowl of oatmeal. With the desert’s surface softened into clay, Burning Man’s gates closed again on Tuesday night, and at the time of writing, they had only just reopened. Some Burning Man attendees opted to hunker down in their RVs and wait out hostile weather patterns. Others chose to double down and party harder, as evidenced by the clusters of muddy, bare feet at the makeshift bars around the festival.

Mud is everywhere. Mud cakes the floors of the portable toilets, the tarps under shade structures, the bottoms of boots and the insides of tents. Splatters of mud cling to bare legs, and the dried dust stays on the skin until it’s sprayed with water or vinegar. (Spray bottles of vinegar are highly valuable. Playa dust is alkaline, and vinegar’s acidity helps break it down.) Mud even worms its way into places you wouldn’t expect. At a New Orleans-style bar, I spent half an hour arguing with a young Italian man who, inexplicably, had streaks of mud around his left eye.

By this reporter’s estimation, Tuesday was an even wetter night than Sunday. After a sustained spell of heavy rain around 6:30 p.m., the playa settled into a pattern of on-and-off showers, which continued through about 10 p.m. (Times are loose estimates; checking one’s watch is low on the list of priorities.) Several horizontal streaks of lightning arced across the mountains.

The playa’s surface, saturated with water, morphed into squelchy, clingy clay. Excess water pooled up and spilled out of tire tracks and footprints, leaving roads covered in tan water. Pedestrians walking down Black Rock City’s streets could either splash through the murky water or attempt to trudge through the mud, which slides the feet in unexpected directions, and leaves the walker feeling like he’s stumbled into an unwanted game of Twister. After a long walk, the legs are sore in unexpected places.

At one intersection, I passed by two barefoot Burners, both slightly hunched with exhaustion, and overheard their exchange:

Burner 1: “Where are you headed?

Burner 2: “[Black Rock City address].”

Burner 1: “You’re so close!

Burner 2: (Exasperated) “I’m 90% of the way there…”

One camp adorned in pink called Priscilla offered shelter from the rain, along with some killer Moscow mules. Inside, a DJ played electronic music. The floor was a patchwork of wet tarps and soaked carpets, and tarps covered the camp’s couches, pooling up rainwater in their folds. It was a bit hard to dance because the ground is a slip and slide, but there’s a giddiness here at having escaped the rain — like the people in the room are taunting an angry god. I witnessed one unlucky man wearing a tutu slip and fall while attempting to walk under the awning.

After the sun set and the rain slowed to a mist, we stumbled across a group warming their hands around a fire barrel, which one Burner had apparently welded together. As we approached their circle, a mutant car zoomed by, blasting music, and a naked man (except for his shoes and glasses) shouted in its direction.

“Bad idea! F—k you!” (Cars driving through the mud here leave tire tracks that are very, very hard to smooth out. After the rains in 2023, Burning Man volunteers had to smooth out the surface of the desert using construction equipment.)

I spotted Carly Lane, a first-time Burner, smoking a cigarette at the corner of two of Black Rock City’s streets, cheering on one passerby who was practicing sliding through the mud.

Spirits at her camp were high, she said, despite the rain. Before she went out for a smoke, she was sitting in the back of a semitruck for shelter.

I asked Lane what the rest of the night had in store for her. “Mud,” she said, laughing. “Straight-up f—king mud.”

(SFGate.com)

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NO MATTER HOW HOPELESS IT SEEMS, WE SHOULD PRESS FOR BETTER, STRICTER GUN LAWS

by German Lopez

Among the many tragedies of the Minneapolis school shooting is how commonplace a story like this has become. The details are horrific — what was supposed to be a celebration of God and the start of the school year ended with an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old dead and at least 17 others injured. We have seen similar disasters before, with very little change afterward. If the shooting of 20 children, all 6 or 7 years old, didn’t move the country to act in 2012, it’s hard to know what would get the country to do so. This is what makes covering gun violence more depressing than any other topic I know of.

But it bears repeating: The prevalence of this problem is not normal, no other country has to deal with it to this extent, and we are not powerless to act.

The basic facts are shocking. From 1998 to 2023, the United States had 126 mass shootings in which four or more people were killed, according to Jason Silva at William Paterson University. That’s five times the total across all of Britain, Canada, Germany, France and Italy, which have a combined population similar to ours. It’s not just mass shootings, either. The U.S. gun homicide rate, accounting for population, is 450 times as high as Britain’s.

Think about this practically. In every country, people get into arguments, suffer from mental health issues and have extreme views — all common explanations for shootings. But in America, these people can much more easily pick up a firearm and shoot someone. When a country makes something easy to do, people are more likely to do it.

The good news, demonstrated by other countries’ experiences, is that policy changes could make a real difference. If the problem is that people can too easily pick up a gun and carry out violence, we can make it harder for people, especially those at the highest risk of violence, to do so. Studies have repeatedly found that stricter gun laws, including background checks and waiting periods, can help prevent violence and suicide. A promising approach is requiring a permit to purchase a gun, one of the key measures that makes Massachusetts the state with the lowest rate of gun deaths.

Crucially, these restrictions don’t make it impossible for most people to get a gun. If you don’t have a criminal record, a documented history of violence or a serious mental health issue, you can still get a firearm under these laws. You can even buy dozens. Despite its relatively tight laws, individuals in Massachusetts still keep big collections. (I know; I’ve seen some of them.)

The laws aren’t perfect and won’t stop every shooting. But they would help. America’s leaders can do something to reduce the number of these horrific stories. We should push them to do so, no matter how hopeless it might feel.

(NY Times Editorial)

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“SOMEONE who is permanently surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood.”

– Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others

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LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT

White House Says New C.D.C. Director Is Fired, but She Refuses to Leave

Minneapolis Suspect Knew Her Target, but Motive Is a Mystery

Israel’s Exhausted Soldiers Complicate Plans for Gaza Assault

Rented Robots Get the Worst Jobs and Help Factories Keep the Humans

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THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY is going the way of the Whigs. Everybody hates Trump, but no one wants to join the Democratic Party of broken promises, corporate money grabbers and senile leaders, who hold on to their seats by killing off every youth movement fueled by new popular ideas. They can’t raise money and they can’t register new voters. Since 2020, the Democrats have lost ground to the Republicans in all 30 states where voter registration is tracked. In the last four and a half years, the Republicans have registered 4.5 million more new voters than the Democrats.

— Jeffrey St. Clair

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ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Over-schooled and Under-educated. We have systematically been having our ability to think for ourselves bred out of us by the newest class to arise in our society, the credentialed elite, the “experts.” Since over-schooled, credentialed “experts” took control of our institutions some time ago their ranks have swelled with true believers and those who touch the hem of the garments of the Elite. That was the genesis of the decline of our democracy, and the marginalization of common sense. Because this new class controls the main stream media, they control the meaning of words, and thus can distort any issue. Opinion becomes fact. Dissenter becomes threat/”enemy.” “He who defines the terms wins the debate.” This new elite credentialed class also controls government so they can enforce their self affirmed edicts. Our last vestige of hope for protecting Truth in the face of this self-serving credentialed dictatorship was Science which is dedicated to holding every idea open to scrutiny, to testing and honest reporting of findings. Sadly, we saw during Covid that this, too, had been corrupted by the credentialed elite who held power over the scientists. As much as I might criticize some actions by the Trump administration, I see his victory and continuing support as an indication that common sense is still alive. So, maybe this is neo-neo Marxism, with the combatants being Elites versus Everyman.

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IT MAY well be that part of humanity's present angst is a deep "species guilt" — a profound inward awareness that human-kind itself has become a tyrannical and destructive breed in the biological scheme and is ripe for correction.

— Gary Snyder, A Virus Runs Through It (1962)

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HOPPER’S SOIR BLEU (1914)

– a rare, haunting glimpse into the alienation behind the masquerade.

His only major oil painting in Paris, capturing the clash of class, culture, and solitude. A close-up that whispers volumes…

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ONE OF THE REASONS socialists don’t focus on conspiracy analysis and the deep state as much as the right is because it’s not our only argument. It’s not that conspiracies and parapolitical power structures don’t exist, they absolutely do, but because we’re not ideologically compelled to make excuses for the unavoidable abuses of capitalism we don’t need to act like any specific cabal of machiavellian elites is the source and summit of all our problems.

The rightist suffers from the delusion that capitalism would be working perfectly fine if a few nefarious individuals weren’t scheming behind the scenes ruining the capitalism for everyone. The leftist recognizes that corruption, corporatism, inequality and domination are the inevitable products of a profit-driven system under which the capitalist class are able to exploit the working class who have nothing to sell but their labor. We therefore often find it less important to focus on the specifics of the way those abuses are playing out, because we understand that even if you eliminated all the current oligarchs and their secret plans and the strings they pull to manipulate the official government, if you didn’t also replace our entire system with something radically different they’d be replaced by new oligarchic manipulators in short order.

For those who understand the inherently exploitative, ecocidal, unjust and violent nature of capitalism, the strongest arguments against status quo power structures are not invisible conspiracies happening in secret, but the monstrous abuses that are happening right out in the open. The genocide in Gaza. Our dying biosphere. The fact that people struggle to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table while others fly private jets to private islands paid for by the exploitation of thousands of impoverished workers. The fact that the most powerful country on earth doesn’t have a real healthcare system. The fact that an empire-like alliance of western governments and their proxies keeps expanding its warmongering, militarism and nuclear brinkmanship around the world with the goal of complete planetary domination.

It is an indisputable fact that rich and powerful individuals conspire with each other to the detriment of ordinary people, and at times it can be useful to highlight who those individuals are and the things that they are doing. But the leftist sees people opening their eyes to these abuses as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. When the rightist spotlights those abuses it’s to say “Look what these individuals are doing! If we just removed these individuals from power everything would be working fine!” When the leftist does so, it’s to say “See these are the kinds of people who rise to the top under a system where human behavior is driven by the pursuit of profit, and profit is most readily obtained through exploitation, injustice and ecocide. These kinds of people will always rule over us until we have replaced that system with a different one.”

— Caitlin Johnstone

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AFTER AN ILLNESS, WALKING THE DOG

by Jane Kenyon

Wet things smell stronger,
and I suppose his main regret is that
he can sniff just one at a time.
In a frenzy of delight
he runs way up the sandy road—
scored by freshets after five days
of rain. Every pebble gleams, every leaf.

When I whistle he halts abruptly
and steps in a circle,
swings his extravagant tail.
Then he rolls and rubs his muzzle
in a particular place, while the drizzle
falls without cease, and Queen Anne’s lace
and Goldenrod bend low.

The top of the logging road stands open
and light. Another day, before
hunting starts, we’ll see how far it goes,
leaving word first at home.
The footing is ambiguous.

Soaked and muddy, the dog drops,
panting, and looks up with what amounts
to a grin. It’s so good to be uphill with him,
nicely winded, and looking down on the pond.

A sound commences in my left ear
like the sound of the sea in a shell;
a downward, vertiginous drag comes with it.
Time to head home. I wait
until we’re nearly out to the main road
to put him back on the leash, and he
—the designated optimist—
imagines to the end that he is free.

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