Mendocino County Today: Friday 9/5/2025

Drizzle Coast | Laytonville Gate | Remembering Jim | Bid Protest | Italian Asters | Truck Trespass | Jody Retiring | Eyster's Dodge | Rough Neighborhood | Bunyan Days | Agenda Reveal | Parcels Acquired | Landlines Essential | AV Farmstands | Yesterday's Catch | Draw Bridge | Corporate Wine | No Good | Bad Pop | PG&E Bill | Bench Ladies | Sandwich Boards | Smallest Bar | Big Eraser | Matt Tourette | Tioga Pass | Under Attack | Reunion Stories | Lift Every | Gertrude Stein | Ego Distortion | Pedestal Girl | Recurring Dream | Lead Stories | Risk Opinions | Langlois Bridge | Kennedy Hearing | Wearing Masks | Drug War | Foresees Death | Charleston Rain | Can't Process | Confusion Hill | Our Riddle

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DRIZZLE AND STRATUS continues to blanket the coast. Interior temperatures trend downward into the weekend. Wet weather possibly returns late Sunday into early next week, with multiple chances of rain. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Another foggy sunrise with a warm 55F this Friday morning on the coast. Yep, more of the same thru the weekend. The NWS is really trying to bring some rain in on Monday, while the Weather Underground is not so bullish. as always, we'll see. Rain chances most days next week currently, sure not much of any I'd guess.

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REMEMBERING JIM SHIELDS

Mike Geniella:

Jim Shields’ first-rate reporting will be missed in Mendocino County. Jim took his role as a community watchdog seriously, and he did it well. RIP.

Sheriff Matt Kendall:

Jim was a damn good man, good friend and a person who would give advice for the betterment of all. I will miss him.

Julie Beardsley:

My condolences to the Shields family. He was not afraid to voice his opinions, which were spot on. The County has lost a good man.

Katherine Houston:

Amen to that.

Anon:

Sorry to hear about Jim Shields. I did not know Jim but enjoyed reading his articles and thoughts. It was obvious he cared about our County. My condolences to his family.

Chuck Dunbar:

I join with all who lament the passing of Jim Shields. Well said they are.

Bob Abeles:

Requiescat in pace, Jim Shields.

Lee Edmundson:

So sorry to hear of Jim Shields passing. A clear incisive voice has been stilled. And we are left with but his echos. RIP.

Linda Bailey:

So so sad. A loss to his family, his community, and all the county residents. His insight and information will be sorely missed.

Anon:

I am so sad to hear of Jim Shields passing. What a great loss to his daughter, family, friends, the Laytonville community and our county. He, along with the AVA editor and Mark Scaramella are the best protectors of truth and information re local government we have. To lose one of these protectors is devastating on many levels. My heart goes out to all who knew and loved him. Just so sad.

Randy Burke:

He will be missed. What a generous spirit of a man was he.

Ted Stephens:

He did such a good job keeping us updated on what was going on. RIP Jim Shields.

Norm Thurston:

RIP Jim Shields. Such a huge loss for our county.

John Sakowicz:

Jim Shields was a true journalist who loved Mendocino County. He followed our show, and we read his newspaper. Our hearts go out to the entire Shields family. Jim will be missed. He was a valuable human being.

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UKIAH CITY COUNCIL DELAYS VOTE ON BID PROTEST

by Justine Frederiksen

After a public hearing and discussion that lasted more than an hour, the Ukiah City Council Wednesday delayed a vote on the acceptance of a bid for the planned remodel of the former Bank of America building on South State Street that had been protested.

“We don’t take a bid protest lightly – that’s why we waited three days before we actually issued our bid protest, because we were doing our due diligence,” Casey Cupples of Cupples and Son Construction Inc., told the City Council Sept. 3 when explaining why his company, which was deemed the second lowest bidder for the planned remodel of the former B of A building in Ukiah, filed a protest after DMR Builders was declared the apparent low bidder for the project.

In their report prepared for the meeting, city staff note that the bid protest submitted on Aug. 22 “claims that DMR’s bid violates California Public Contract Code Section 4104, (and that) Cupples and Sons Construction’s bid protest alleges that DMR Builders failed to name a subcontractor for the roofing and painting, as required by the project’s technical specifications.”

The response from DMR Builders, staff explain, was “that they intend to self-perform the painting and that the proposal from their roofing subcontractor was $15,578.00. This amount is under the one-half of 1 percent requirement to be listed with the prime contractor’s bid. As a Class B licensed contractor, DMR Builders are authorized to self-perform the scope of work proposed, which falls within the limits permitted by their license classification. Based on its review of the bid protest, staff recommends rejecting the bid protest received from Cupples and Sons Construction Inc., waiving the irregularity in their bid, and awarding the bid to DMR Builders, for $3,487,850.”

During the lengthy discussion between council members and city staff Wednesday, Vice-Mayor Susan Sher expressed frustration that no representative from DMR appeared, either in-person or virtually, to present evidence, and “I kind of resent that; it’s not our job to try and interpret what the contractor is saying.”

City Manager Sage Sangiacomo agreed that there were “multiple interpretations from the information you have before you that you have to judge,” ultimately suggesting that city staff be given more time to research whether the apparent low bid was indeed properly submitted, “and that way (the council) would be making an informed decision. From my perspective, I think that (we should) let the city attorney’s office come back with more information. And it may still be clear as mud, but at least you’ll have the benefit of that additional research on this item.”

The City Council then voted to continue the item to its next meeting on Sept. 17.

(ukiahdailyjournal.com)

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CAT SPYDELL: We had a truck with two men trespass on our gated property off Signal Ridge today, has anyone heard of there being a problem with people scoping properties? Black work truck. They seem to have somehow gotten past the gate locks. I recall a recent situation involving chainsaw theft & wondered if it could be related.

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KAREN RIFKIN NOTIFIES US that “Jody Martinez, deputy editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal, is retiring after 39 years of dedicated service to the community as a behind-the-scenes editor, assisting in overseeing the daily operations of the paper, both creatively and administratively and, as an historian, has filled the pages, over the decades, with short stories and photos, retelling Ukiah’s history. Thank you Jody, you will be missed.”

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EYSTER’S DODGE

Just A Reminder. Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster routinely posts this on the office’s Facebook site: ”Mendocino County District Attorney has limited who can comment on this post.”

The U.S. Supreme Court sees it differently: https://bbklaw.com/resources/la-032124-when-can-a-government-official-limit-comments-or-block-users-on-social-media

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HARVEY READING: An extraterrestrial would have be a moron to have the slightest interest in us or our gutted, over-populated planet.

SHERIFF MATT KENDALL: I’m with Harvey. I’ve long said anything that has the intelligence to get to our universe would likely do a little observation before they rolled in. With the way we have been behaving lately… Theres a good chance they would roll up the windows and drive past quickly while pointing out to the wife and kids what a really rough neighborhood looks like.

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PAUL BUNYAN DAYS photos by Frank Hartzell and Bob Dominy

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LET’S HAVE AGENDA REVEAL PARTY!

by Mark Scaramella

The Supervisors are coming back from their six-week hiatus (briefly interrupted by a brief meeting to rubberstamp some fund juggling). The Big Agenda Reveal was made Thursday. Everyone was giddy with anticipation for what the Supervisors and their staff had accomplished during their long vacation. Would sparks fly? Would fireworks go off? Would Lady Gaga go gaga?

Good gawd, no.

Here are the big highlights:

A Noyo Harbor report.

A Block Grant update.

A Very Long and Detailed Refutation of the Grand Jury’s Planning and Building Report about Class K. To each and every Grand Jury Finding the Board replies: “Wholly Disagree.”

A Proposal from Supervisor Haschak that code violation complaints include contact information.

A Cell Tower in Willits.

An early outline of a hipcamp (neighbors renting their backyard vineyard to city slickers for rural camping for a fee) ordinance prepared by Planning & Building.

Nothing about County finances or the budget, no vacancy reports. (There have been no monthly vacancy reports as promised by the CEO in June.) Nothing about labor negotiations, nothing about revenue generation/tax collection, nothing about the ambulance service review that the CEO promised would be completed in August…

So what aGenda is it? Somewhere between neuter and castrati. As usual. Maybe the late, great Jim Shields was right when he wrote in one of his last columns: ‘When Doing Nothing Is A Good Thing.’

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LAND TRUST ACQUIRES TWO PARCELS ON THE MENDOCINO COAST

Two more large properties along the Mendocino Coast have been protected from future development, the Mendocino Land Trust recently reported.

In a press release, MLT officials announced that they “acquired two new conservation easements in the past month,” and provided these details:

Windy Hollow:

On July 17, Pacific Gas and Electric donated a conservation easement to MLT that prevents future development on a 30-acre parcel just outside of Point Arena.

The Windy Hollow property encompasses open grasslands and several protected special status plant communities and special status wildlife habitats. In particular, it contains habitat for the federally endangered Point Arena Mountain Beaver as well as possible habitat for federally endangered flora. It is also a potential habitat for the federally endangered Behren’s Silverspot butterfly, which MLT is actively working to protect.

The property also contains important riparian and wetland areas in the Garcia River watershed, including water that flows to the salmon-bearing Garcia River. The Windy Hollow Conservation Easement permanently protects this property from any kind of future development.

Popow Redwoods:

On Aug. 4, MLT accepted the donation of a conservation easement from the trust established by the late Sonya Popow, a longtime MLT supporter and renowned ceramic artist. Sonya’s legacy now includes protecting the beautiful redwood trees on the land she owned for over 50 years.

The Popow Redwoods Conservation Easement covers her 2.3-acre property between Pudding Creek and the Noyo River just east of Fort Bragg, including her beloved “Grandmother Tree,” a magnificent second-growth redwood in the backyard. MLT’s conservation easement will ensure that these trees are never cut down, and we will work with future property owners to restrict development and use of the property so that the redwoods and wildlife habitat will continue to flourish, and not be harmed.

For more information about conservation easements, land protection, and MLT’s habitat restoration projects, visit MLT’s website, www.mendocinolandtrust.org.

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LANDLINES ESSENTIAL FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

Editor,

For all of us in Northen California who were following AT&T’s attempt to be relieved of their duties as carrier of last resort, we received some good news about this last week.

I, along with several Northern California Sheriffs attended hearings before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) explaining our concerns regarding any loss of communication in our rural areas which have seen many natural disasters. We were able to provide several examples and information regarding the lack of infrastructure for emerging technologies (wireless, cellular etc) in our communities.

The CPUC was very receptive and clearly understood what was at risk, they did not allow the phone company to step out of their responsibility. Shortly thereafter AB 470 was brought forward by Assembly Member Tina McKinnor in an attempt to remove the COLR responsibility legislatively.

Many Northern California Sheriffs and emergency managers have been watching this bill closely realizing the concerns it could bring to the rural areas. Assembly member McKinnor represents the Inglewood area and likely doesn’t realize the ramifications this bill could have in Northern California. Let’s face it the needs across our state are vastly different and often Northen California is forgotten.

Last week, AB 470 was held in committee, which means, absent a miraculous resurrection, this bill is likely not moving forward this year. This doesn’t mean someone couldn’t amend and attempt to bring it back during the legislative session next year.

This could have been a huge problem for our rural communities, and I appreciate all of our residents making their voices heard during this process.

We will continue to keep a close watch on this legislation and we will keep you posted.

Thank you.

Sheriff Matt Kendall

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VELMA’S FARM STAND AT FILIGREEN FARM

Friday 2-5 pm; Open Saturday & Sunday 11-4pm

This week’s offerings include: sweet corn, melons, table grapes, french prune plums, Flavor King pluots, ‘Red Gravenstein,’ ‘Gala’ and ‘Honeycrisp’ apples, Hosui Asian pears, tomatoes (heirlooms, cherry, new girls), eggplant, sweet peppers, hot peppers, shishito peppers, new potatoes, carrots, sprouting broccoli, onions, summer squash, kale, celery, beets, cabbage, garlic, basil, olive oil, and dried fruit!

Follow us on Instagram for updates @filigreenfarm or email [email protected] with any questions. All produce is certified biodynamic and organic.

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THIS WEEK AT BLUE MEADOW FARM

Heirloom, Early Girl, Roma & Cherry tomatoes

Last of the 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

3301 Holmes Ranch Road,

Philo (707) 895-2071

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THE APPLE FARM (Philo)

18501 Greenwood Rd

Philo Ca 95466

707 621 0336

philoapplefarm.com

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BROCK FARMS

Brock Farms in Boonville is open Wed-Sun 10-6, closed Mon and Tues

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, September 4, 2025

AUSTIN CASSIDY, 39, Ukiah. DUI-drugs&alcohol, leaving scene of accident with property damage, evasion, resisting.

JOSE CORNEJO-OLVERA, 26, Ukiah. More than an ounce of pot, parole violation.

DEREK FLORES, 42, Williams/Ukiah. Controlled substance.

CHRISTOHER HEANEY, 37, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

JAMEIRA LEWIS, 25, Baltimore, Maryland/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

FRANK ONETO JR., 51, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ALIJANDRA ROJAS, 19, Ukiah. DUI, suspended license for DUI, false ID, probation violation.

TIMOTHY SHANOFF, 32, Willits. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia, saps or similar weapons, probation revocation.

CARLOS WHITE, 39, Covelo. Felon-addict with firearm, ammo possession by prohibited person.

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FAMILY WINERIES ARE NOT CORPORATE WINERIES

Editor:

As a teen in the 1960s, I picked prunes (plums) in west county. My friends and I would drive from Santa Rosa to Salmon Creek through the apple orchards necklacing Highway 12. While still around, those orchards are pretty much replaced with vineyards.

I never developed a taste for wine and in my youth saw winery tasting rooms as an opportunity to drink for free and party. Fifty years later, we have a whole tourism industry revolving around wine.

I wonder how many “family” wineries come from venture capital. What percentage of vineyards and wineries are majority owned by corporations? How many wine businesses have intergenerational and county roots? My guess is not many. Small, family-owned wineries are at a disadvantage as fewer people appreciate nuance in taste enough to pay more for a bottle.

Let the corporate-owned vineyards and wineries fight for market share. If we knew who the family/county businesses were, perhaps persons like me would buy a bottle from one of them for a special occasion and, if well-marketed, might visit. Maybe that’s a little too niche for a business to thrive and only corporate wine can survive.

Jeffrey J. Olson

Clearlake Oaks

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NO GOOD WILL COME FROM IT

To the Editor:

I am someone whose public health career has now spanned half a century, and my heart breaks for the professionals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their mission is now greatly compromised. And it breaks for the untold numbers of people in the United States whose health or lives will be lost to preventable disease.

We can reasonably predict a mounting toll of casualties from the policies emerging from the damaged politics of today. History will harshly judge those who acted with willful ignorance in the face of the best scientific evidence to gain short-term political advantage.

Cutting disease surveillance efforts, ignoring scientific research and eliminating prevention programs in the name of improving the health of America make no sense. It is cruel, and no good can come from it.

Lawrence Wallack

Portland, Oregon

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CHANGES ARE COMING TO YOUR PG&E BILL

by Julie Johnson

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. electricity bills will drop by about $5 for average households this month as charges for wildfire safety upgrades and emergency response are removed.

PG&E estimated that average household bills would be about $293 for September. Bills will drop in October when electric customers will also get a credit of $58.23 on their October bills from California’s cap-and-trade program, which requires polluting companies like oil refineries to pay into a state fund that goes toward climate investments and offsets Californians’ high utility bills twice a year.

PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo said the company has no other rate changes — up or down — planned for the rest of 2025. Combined gas and electric bills are expected to decrease again at the start of 2026, she said. That amount will be announced in late December once end-of-the year-calculations are finalized.

“We are driving toward reducing prices further, and we’re making progress,” Paulo said. “You’ll see it again in 2026.”

Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, said the $5 bill reduction was “cold comfort” given the unprecedented bill hikes from last year. In 2024, PG&E residential customers began paying about $440 more annually for gas and electricity compared to 2023, according to a Chronicle analysis of PG&E data.

PG&E bills have changed only moderately this year, starting with a $1 increase for typical households in January and another $3 added charge to average residential bills that began in March. In both cases, new charges were partly offset by temporary charges that were removed.

So far this year, the typical residential monthly bill has hovered around $294.

If there are no changes through December, which PG&E expects, typical residential customers will be paying about $72 more annually this year compared to 2024.

“People are still having a hard time paying their bills,” Toney said.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office reported that one of every five customers of one of the state’s three investor-owned utilities, which includes PG&E, is behind on bill payments. The average amount owed by PG&E customers was $710, according to the office’s latest report published in May.

PG&E’s electricity rates have soared in the last decade, largely driven by wildfire costs. Electricity rates have doubled since 2015 — with 41% of that increase occurring since 2022.

The Public Advocates Office has said that wildfire spending is behind much of that rise, in addition to major costs to modernize and improve the safety of the state’s electric grid. The office has said that electricity rates have also increased due to state subsidy programs that provide credits to rooftop solar customers and add costs to non-solar customers — a cost shift that rooftop solar proponents say is exaggerated.

Patti Poppe, PG&E’s chief executive, has acknowledged the hardship rising bills has caused for some customers. The company, she has said, will limit future rate increases closer to the rate of inflation, which is typically between 2% and 4%, in part by driving down operating costs.

September’s decrease in bills comes from a 2.1% reduction in the rate PG&E charges per unit of electricity (called a kilowatt hour) and a 0.5% decrease for each unit of natural gas, called a therm. Those disappearing charges covered wildfire prevention work, wildfire response and safety work on both electric and gas systems.

State regulators at the commission determine how much utilities like PG&E can charge its customers. Some rate increases are planned far in advance through the typical four-year budgeting process and others are brought to the commission throughout the year.

The commission is currently considering additional rate increase requests from PG&E, but those won’t be resolved in time to be applied to bills this year.

One of those requests came in March when PG&E asked state energy regulators to increase shareholder profits to help the company attract investments in California’s electric and gas infrastructure. PG&E said that, if approved, the proposal would increase residential customer bills by about $5.50 per month and could take effect in January at the earliest.

Paulo said that even if the commission granted all pending requests, which is rare, the company still estimates that bills will decrease in 2026 as other temporary rate increases end, and go back up to 2025 levels in 2027.

(SF Chronicle)

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WALK-IN TASTINGS ARE BACK IN NAPA VALLEY

by Jess Lander

Cruising north on Napa Valley’s Highway 29, I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia. As a Zoomer might say, it’s giving 2010.

That’s because a classic Napa Valley winery accessory has made a sudden comeback: sandwich boards.

It appears that at least half of the wineries along the region’s main thoroughfare have a sandwich board at their entrance, beckoning tourists to pull over with messaging like, “Walk-ins welcome!” and “Tastings available today!”

When I first moved to Napa Valley 15 years ago, this was common practice. I don’t recall ever making a reservation to visit a winery. There was no such thing as Tock, and some wineries didn’t even have a website. But five years ago, the sandwich boards disappeared overnight.

The vanishing act coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. Wineries were limited in the number of guests they could host each day. Reservations were required. As a result, most wineries retired the standard bar tasting and replaced it with a more formal, seated experience. When restrictions were lifted, the industry largely decided to stick to their new normal; seated tastings resulted in higher wine sales and more wine club sign-ups than casual flights at the bar. Plus, the by-appointment model enabled them to plan for staffing.

The good old days of spontaneously popping into a winery seemed gone forever, and many of our readers weren’t happy about it. People have emailed me claiming they were actually turned away from empty tasting rooms because they didn’t have a reservation. To help, in 2023, the Chronicle wine team created a list of the best Napa Valley wineries that accept walk-ins. (We did another one for Sonoma.)

Yet there’s another reason that many Napa Valley wineries remain hesitant to condone impulse visits: It may be prohibited, depending on the individual winery’s circumstances. In 1990, Napa County passed an ordinance regulating the operation of wineries, including the amount of wine they can produce and whether they can host tastings and events. “There is no blanket ban on walk-in tastings,” said Holly Dawson, a spokesperson for Napa County. “The ability to offer them depends on the conditions of each winery’s use permit.”

Napa County has not often enforced violations over walk-ins; Dawson said enforcement typically occurs “on a complaint-driven basis rather than through proactive inspections.” But the County’s regulation of the wine industry has been a contentious topic of debate in recent years, and the government has been embroiled in multiple legal battles with small wineries. It seems likely that some of the wineries allowing walk-ins have preferred to fly under the radar — until this year’s return of the sandwich boards.

“As more Napa Valley wineries shift to reservation-only models, we believe it’s important to clearly share that walk-ins are always welcome,” said Holly Evans, senior marketing manager at Peju Winery in Rutherford.

I suspect the not-so-subtle comeback is primarily driven by the tourism woes that have plagued wineries since 2023. Desperate for visitors, wineries are finding ways to be more accessible, including lowering tasting fees (or even offering tastings for free) and allowing kids. At Peju, Evans said walk-ins represent about half of the winery’s total visitors each year.

According to a 2025 Silicon Valley Bank report, 66% of California wineries allowed drop-ins in 2024, in addition to offering reservations. In 2020, that number was just 32%. Unsurprisingly, price point factors into accessibility. Wineries with an average bottle price above $70 are the least flexible and generally do not accommodate walk-ins, the report stated.

One mile north of Peju, there’s another board in front of Grgich Hills Estate. “Welcoming walk-ins was our modus operandi until the pandemic hit in 2020,” said winery co-owner and CEO Violet Grgich. “We reorganized our hospitality and went to a seated reservation-only model like everyone else.”

But, visitation “has continued to be a huge issue for all of us in Napa Valley,” she continued, and the winery is back to allowing drop-in visitors to partake in a tasting flight or order wine by the glass. “We never turn anyone away.”

(SF Chronicle)

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CALIFORNIA’S SMALLEST BAR SEATS ONLY ONE PERSON AT A TIME

The Madaket has carried Humboldt Bay passengers for 115 years, and it boasts California’s smallest licensed bar

by Matt LaFever

Pelicans plunge into the blue waters of Humboldt Bay, California’s second-largest enclosed bay after the San Francisco Bay, as a cool breeze carries salt air across the Eureka waterfront. From the city’s boardwalk, the MV Madaket — a century-old passenger boat — rounds Woodley Island with its deck full of sightseers. Below the commotion of the top deck lies a North Coast oddity: The Madaket claims California’s smallest working bar — a bamboo counter with just one stool that’s four steps down a narrow stairwell, in a cabin less than 6 feet tall.

“People are always like, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’” said longtime operator Dalene Zerlang.

Built in 1910, the Madaket claims the distinction of being the oldest passenger-carrying vessel in continuous service in the United States —115 years and counting. Once a workhorse ferry transporting thousands of mill workers between Eureka, Arcata and the Samoa Peninsula, it lost its purpose when the Samoa Bridge was built in the 1970s.

According to the Humboldt County Historical Society, a band of local maritime enthusiasts stepped in to save the aging vessel. Zerlang recalls how they rolled up their sleeves, “repowered it, and did a bunch of work to it, put a little bar on it.”

Today, passengers breathe in salt air and take in sweeping bay views while learning about everything from the Indigenous Wiyot people and Humboldt’s oyster beds to the shipwreck of the USS Milwaukee in 1917.

The Madaket is part museum, part novelty attraction, kept alive through fundraising drives, volunteers and the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum. Declared a California Historic Landmark in 1994, she still departs with her bell ringing and horn sounding, a living link to Humboldt’s maritime past.

For Capt. Doby Class, who has spent two seasons piloting the boat, the draw of the ferry was instant. “When I first came to Humboldt, I saw the Madaket and fell in love with it and always said I want to drive that boat,” he said. After retiring from a career with the city of Arcata, he finally got his chance. “Kind of like a dream job as a retired public employee.” he said.

When first installed in the 1970s, the bar was little more than “a line of alcohol. Real simple. … Scotch, bourbon … whiskey and water stuff,” Zerlang recalled.

Over time, it grew into what’s likely the “smallest licensed bar in California,” according to the Humboldt County Historical Society.

“No one from the Guinness Book of World Records showed up,” Zerlang laughed.

Passengers still get a kick out of the novelty. As Doby put it, “We always pretty much guaranteed to get a chuckle out of that … It’s just a great little bar.”

The bar has its own claustrophobic charm. “It’s short,” Zerlang said. “… We don’t want you to hit your head.” She estimated it at roughly a 5-foot-5-inch to 5-foot-7-inch clearance. A bamboo bar top anchors the space. The menu keeps things simple but fitting: The Salty Dog offers a citrus kick in a salt-rimmed glass, the Anchors Aweigh swirls rum with pineapple juice, and the Tuluwat Island Tea pays tribute to a bay island with a local spin on the Long Island Iced Tea.

For Zerlang, who spent 15 years tending the bar, the cramped space comes alive in memory. On rainy nights, she said, passengers packed below deck would “steam up the windows,” body heat turning the cabin into a warm, crowded refuge. “Some of the best cruises have been in the rain,” she remembered. She even made a show of the limits: The garbage can was on the far end of the room, so she’d slice limes and hurl them over passengers’ heads. “I’d warn them, you know — hey, I’m going to throw this in the garbage can,” she said. Guests loved it, snapping photos and marveling at the novelty of ordering cocktails from a deckhand who, just minutes before, had tied off lines or given safety instructions.

That dual role remains a defining part of the experience. As Doby explained, “They’re critical to the mission, you know, landing the boat safely … and then also, they’re all skilled bartenders.” For him, the energy of the bar is inseparable from the fun of the cruise: “It makes it fun to make drinks when people are happy.”

Keeping the Madaket afloat has always been a community effort. Today, the Humboldt Bay Maritime Museum owns the century-old vessel and it’s powered almost entirely by its own ticket sales. “It’s all nonprofit, so it’s all pro bono. I don’t get paid, I volunteer,” said Zerlang. For her, “the boat pays for itself … that’s the goal for me, was to make sure that it paid for itself. And paid for its retrofitting.”

COVID-19 hit especially hard, forcing a pause in cruises, but also giving time for repairs. The return of tourism after the early pandemic helped bring the boat back. Each summer, as part of Eureka’s “Get Out and Play Day,” the crew offers free short rides on the bay to locals. The tradition keeps the Madaket tied to her hometown, even as visitors come for cocktails and novelty.

One of Class’ favorite stories to share is from the Madaket’s passenger ferry days. He said older folks told him, “They’d be playing cards down below.” The stakes, he added, were high: “You never quite knew if you were going to win a fortune or you were going to lose your whole paycheck, potentially, crossing the bay over to the North Spit to go to work.”

There’s no official recognition of the Madaket’s smallest-bar claim. Zerlang said she believes the claim itself began nearly half a century ago. “It’s just something that started. Somebody started it, kind of like word of mouth, back in the day, back in the ‘70s… and that just continued on.”

Still, she tells passengers with a grin, “You got to go to Texas for the longest one.”

(SFGate.com)

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GIANTS’ MATT CHAPMAN ON HIS LIFE WITH TOURETTE SYNDROME: ‘YOU CAN STILL ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING’

by Susan Slusser

Matt Chapman makes it all look so easy, especially on defense, where he’s one of the smoothest third basemen of the past decade or two. In the clubhouse, he’s one of the San Francisco Giants‘ team leaders.

You’d assume he’s one of those people who’s good at everything, popular, fortune-kissed. But Chapman was bullied as a child into his teens, even as a star athlete, and despite having plenty of friends in school and on his teams.

“Sixth grade was probably the worst,” Chapman’s dad, Jim, said. “Matt got teased a lot. His mom, Lisa, was a teacher at the school and we weren’t even aware of the extent of it, we were shocked when we found out what he had to endure. It was really upsetting.

“He didn’t want to bother us. He suppressed it, he didn’t share. He kept it inside.”

Chapman is opening up about things now: At age 7, he was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome. This week, for the first time, he chose to discuss his experiences with the neurological disorder in depth with a reporter.

“I’ve dealt with it my whole life,” he told the Chronicle. “It’s something that I was not thrilled about when I was younger — kids can be rough, that was not fun, but it’s made me who I am. So I’m not embarrassed by it.

“When I first got to the big leagues, I was still pretty shy about it, so I didn’t talk about it. But now I’m in a place where I’m not worried about it, and if talking about it helps someone else out, that’s great.”

When Chapman started rubbing his face constantly and vocalizing involuntarily while in kindergarten, “we really didn’t know what it meant,” Jim Chapman said. “But there was a player in the major leagues, Jim Eisenreich, we could use as an example. We said, ‘This is not going to hinder you from doing anything you want to do.’”

That doesn’t mean that the early years were easy for Chapman, with sudden movements and sounds that made him a target for classmates. Some with Tourette syndrome can see it dramatically affect their daily lives. Eisenreich’s life in MLB was interrupted mid-career as he went into retirement from 1984-87 for treatment. He came back and played 12 more seasons.

“When you’re a young kid, you don’t understand,” Chapman said. “You just don’t want to be different. But it’s really just that a part of my brain, that in most people’s brains is kind of dormant, is active and tells me to do these things.”

There are medications to tamp down symptoms and Chapman tried some as a child, but they made him tired and groggy.

“We told him, ‘The only reason to take them is for yourself, because if you think your tics bother us — they don’t,’” Jim Chapman said.

Matt’s symptoms were much more pronounced back then. During an elite-level travel-ball game, Jim Chapman said, “His tics were kind of violent, everyone kept asking if Matt was OK, because he was throwing his head back a lot. He was OK, but it looked alarming and I’m sure he was embarrassed.

“By the time he got to college, most people didn’t know he had Tourette’s. In baseball, everyone has their weird movements, and it never affected him on the field.”

Over the years, Chapman has developed methods for dealing with involuntary movements, including breathing exercises and shaking himself out when he feels any extra stress, which can bring on twitching; he usually does a quick shake before he gets in the batter’s box.

Mostly, he doesn’t think much about it at all, and he’s so comfortable he doesn’t avoid potential triggers.

“I’m sure drinking a lot of coffee doesn’t help,” he said. “I don’t really need more energy, but I like to drink coffee, so that kind of probably amps it up. I just have learned to navigate it. The only time I remember that I have it is when I see videos of myself.”

Chapman has a minor facial tic at times when speaking and that’s all most people might notice, but there have been occasions he has more pronounced movements. Melvin remembers Chapman standing next to him during an A’s rally at Baltimore in 2017, Chapman’s rookie year with Oakland. He was up later in the eighth, and the team had cut the difference to one against tough sidearmer Mychal Givens.

“He was about to go to the on-deck circle, and it’s the first time I kind of saw it kick in,” Melvin said. “It kind of surprised me for a minute. I had a look on my face like, ‘What’s going on here?’

“But it pops up in stressful times, and he was saying, ‘I don’t feel real comfortable with this guy.’ And I go, ‘Well, try dropping down a bunt or something like that.’ He just kind of looked at me, but it was the first time I noticed it.”

Melvin got the full back story from former A’s director of player development Keith Lieppman the next day.

“It is so in character with Matt, with who he is,” Melvin said. “As fiery as he is, it’s almost like it’s made for him, especially the way he embraces it.”

“In a high-pressure situation, you might see it a little more,” Jim Chapman said. “But Matt’s a pro. He processes it and moves on.”

Chapman didn’t talk about his diagnosis when he got to the big leagues because he didn’t want to be known for that rather than his baseball skills.

“Matt didn’t want that to be the first thing people thought of when they heard his name,” Jim Chapman said. “It really doesn’t affect him. But it does make him pretty special — it’s made him a stronger person, for sure.”

Melvin, who knows Chapman better than anyone else in the game, said that Chapman has used the diagnosis in the most positive way possible.

“It works for him,” Melvin said. “He has a very powerful personality, and that’s part of it, in dealing with all of it. I’m proud of him.”

The fact that his son speaks to kids with Tourette syndrome now and has decided to be public about his diagnosis gladdens Jim Chapman’s heart; Matt Chapman can be that role model for the next young player dealing with an unexpected diagnosis and bullying. Jim Chapman suspects that his son becoming a father himself (his daughter Gia is nearly 1) has made Chapman ready to be more open.

“I told him, ‘When you’re ready to talk, you should, because it will help people,’” Jim Chapman said. “People think this is some kind of death sentence — it’s not at all.”

Chapman’s experiences with bullying have made him more empathetic and a better leader, willing to stick up for teammates instantly (see: Rafael Devers and Tuesday’s brawl in Denver).

“It’s something that I think a lot of people have that other people don’t know about,” Chapman said. “I’m glad people can look to me and see that you can still accomplish anything. It’s not the biggest deal in the world.”

(SF Chronicle)

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GRAND CANYON: From every direction, the place is under assault—and unlike in the past, the adversary is not concentrated in a single force, such as the Bureau of Reclamation, but takes the form of separate outfits conducting smaller attacks that are, in many ways, far more insidious. From directly above, the air-tour industry has succeeded in scuttling all efforts to dial it back, most recently through the intervention of Arizona’s senators, John Kyl and John McCain, and is continuing to destroy one of the canyon’s greatest treasures, which is its silence. From the east has come a dramatic increase in uranium-mining claims, while the once remote and untrammeled country of the North Rim now suffers from an ever-growing influx of recreational ATVs. On the South Rim, an Italian real estate company recently secured approval for a massive development whose water demands are all but guaranteed to compromise many of the canyon’s springs, along with the oases that they nourish. Worst of all, the Navajo tribe is currently planning to cooperate in constructing a monstrous tramway to the bottom of the canyon, complete with a restaurant and a resort, at the confluence of the Little Colorado and the Colorado, the very spot where John Wesley Powell made his famous journal entry in the summer of 1869 about venturing “down the Great Unknown.” As vexing as all these things are, what Litton finds even more disheartening is the country’s failure to rally to the canyon’s defense—or for that matter, to the defense of its other imperiled natural wonders. The movement that he and David Brower helped build is not only in retreat but finds itself the target of bottomless contempt. On talk radio and cable TV, environmentalists are derided as “wackos” and “extremists.” The country has swung decisively toward something smaller and more selfish than what it once was, and in addition to ushering in a disdain for the notion that wilderness might have a value that extends beyond the metrics of economics or business, much of the nation ignorantly embraces the benefits of engineering and technology while simultaneously rejecting basic science.

— Kevin Fedarko (The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon)

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LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING

by James Weldon Johnson (1917)

Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

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SHE CALLED HERSELF A GENIUS—and for once, the world didn’t argue. Gertrude Stein was more than a writer. She was a force of nature. In her Paris salon, beneath the glow of oil lamps and the haze of cigarette smoke, some of the 20th century’s most influential artists and writers gathered to drink, argue, read, and be seen. She didn’t just host them—she shaped them. Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and many others passed through her doors and left transformed. If they were raw talent, she was the whetstone.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1874 and raised across America and Europe, Stein arrived in Paris in her early thirties with her brother Leo, a sharp eye for art, and a bold disregard for tradition. While Leo collected canvases, Gertrude collected minds. Her home on Rue de Fleurus became the unofficial headquarters of the modernist revolution.

But Stein didn’t just influence great men—she lived openly and unapologetically with her partner, Alice B. Toklas, at a time when most queer women were erased or forced underground. Their partnership was quiet but unshakable. Toklas typed Stein’s manuscripts, managed their home, and became her most trusted critic. Gertrude called her “my wife,” and wrote an entire memoir—The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas—as a tribute to their life together, cleverly telling her own story through Alice’s voice.

Her writing wasn’t always easy. Dense, repetitive, strange—some found it frustrating, others revolutionary. But Gertrude didn’t write for approval. She wrote to experiment, to deconstruct, to challenge language itself. In doing so, she laid the groundwork for generations of writers, especially women, to claim their intellectual space.

During the war, she stayed in France—even under Nazi occupation. That part of her life remains complicated. She translated speeches by Marshal Pétain, the leader of the Vichy regime, and questions about her political loyalties still linger. But like everything about Stein, the story is complex. She was a woman of contradictions: Jewish, yet protected by collaborators; a radical literary voice, yet sometimes conservative in politics.

Gertrude Stein was never meant to be easily understood. She was brilliant, blunt, funny, opinionated, and impossible to ignore. She made her salon a battleground for ideas and turned her life into art. She didn’t just witness a cultural revolution—she sparked it.

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“NOBODY SEES ANYBODY truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see …each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition -- all such distortions within our own egos -- condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That’s how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each other’s naked hearts.”

― Tennessee Williams

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

I keep having this recurring dream that Walter Cronkite is climbing into my bedroom window while I am sleeping--which is really weird because my window is on the third floor. I wonder what it means. Anyway, next time I get that dream I’ll tell him you spoke up on his behalf. :)

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LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart

Is the Jobs Data Still Reliable? Yes, at Least for Now

Members of Congress Grasp for a Stopgap Deal to Avert a Shutdown

Trump to Sign Order Renaming the Defense Department as the Department of War

Appeals Court Says ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detention Center Can Stay Open

The Doctors Are Real, but the Sales Pitches Are Frauds

Giorgio Armani Changed the Way People Dress. Twice

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If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.

— Ezra Pound

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KENNEDY HEARING TURNS RANCOROUS AS DEMOCRATS PRESS HIM ON COVID VACCINE CHANGES

by Matt Brown & Mike Stobbe

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, about — among other things — turmoil at federal health agencies and efforts to pull back recommendations for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Kennedy’s exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.

But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies.

The GOP senators noted Kennedy said President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for the 2020 Operation Warp Speed initiative to quickly develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, but that he also had attacked the safety and continued use of those shots.

“I can’t tell where you are on Operation Warp Speed,” said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.

Tillis and others asked him why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired last week, less than a month into her tenure.

Kennedy said she was dishonest, and that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired.

He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies, and claimed — wrongly — that they “failed to do anything about the disease itself.”

“The people who at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said. He later said they deserved to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease.

The Senate Finance Committee had called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to “Make America Healthy Again,” but Democratic senators pressed Kennedy on his actions around vaccines.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Kennedy had “stacked the deck” of a vaccines committee, replacing scientists with “skeptics and conspiracy theorists.”

He had tried to have Kennedy formally sworn in as a witness, saying the HHS secretary has a history of lying to the committee. The committee’s chair, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, denied the request, saying “the bottom line is we will let the secretary make his own case.”

Last week, when the Trump administration fired the CDC’s director less than a month into her tenure. Several top CDC leaders resigned in protest, leaving the agency in turmoil.

The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.

“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote. “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”

Kennedy told senators he didn’t make such an ultimatum, though he did concede that he ordered Monarez to fire career CDC scientists.

Kennedy pushed back on concerns raised by multiple Republican senators, including Tillis and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Both Barrasso and Cassidy are physicians.

Kennedy repeatedly pushed back against Democrats.

When Sen. Raphael Warnock questioned Kennedy about his disparaging rhetoric about CDC employees before a deadly shooting at the agency this summer, Kennedy fired back at the Georgia Democrat: “Are you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump?”

“I didn’t even hear your question,” Kennedy replied to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the Nevada Democrat repeatedly asked what the agency was doing to lower drug costs for seniors.

Kennedy called Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico “ridiculous,” said he was “talking gibberish” and accused him of “not understanding how the world works” as Lujan asked about Kennedy’s past comments on autism and vaccines.

Kennedy also told Sen. Bernie Sanders that the Vermont independent was not “making any sense” during his line of questioning and engaged in a heated, near shouting exchanges with Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota.

In May, Kennedy — a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement — announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.

In June, he abruptly fired a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committee’s recommendations.

A number of medical groups say Kennedy can’t be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on Kennedy to resign.

“Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,” the statement said.

Many of the nation’s leading public health and medical societies, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have decried Kennedy’s policies and warn they will drive up rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.

(AP)

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BY ORDERING the U.S. military to summarily kill a group of people aboard what he said was a drug-smuggling boat, President Trump used the military in a way that had no clear legal precedent or basis, according to specialists in the laws of war and executive power.

Mr. Trump is claiming the power to shift maritime counterdrug efforts from law enforcement rules to wartime rules. The police arrest criminal suspects for prosecution and cannot instead simply gun suspects down, except in rare circumstances where they pose an imminent threat to someone.

By contrast, in armed conflicts, troops can lawfully kill enemy combatants on sight.

Because killing people is so extreme — and doing it without due process risks killing the wrong people by mistake — the question of which rules apply is not simply a matter of policy choice. Domestic and international law both set standards constraining when presidents and nations can lawfully use wartime force.

After breaking new ground by labeling drug cartels as “terrorists,” the president is now redefining the peacetime criminal problem of drug trafficking as an armed conflict, and telling the U.S. military to treat even suspected low-level drug smugglers as combatants.

— Charlie Savage, NY Times

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AN IRISH AIRMAN FORESEES HIS DEATH

by W.B. Yeats (1919)

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

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NO LONGER ABLE TO PROCESS

by Selma Dabbagh

When I wrote the first London Review of Books post about Gaza in November 2023 I thought it would be a one-off. That was many lifetimes and more than 50,000 extinguished lives ago. I have nightmares of starving figures wandering through scorched terrain, with fire coming from the sky and the earth, nightmares that are replicated by the images I find on my screens when I wake up. I am used to being with people who do not flinch when I tell them that friends have lost thirty, fifty, a hundred family members, sometimes in one night; I am used to looking at babies and thinking: “At least they have their limbs.”

To reread the anger and outrage voiced by Palestinians when the carpet bombing started in October 2023 seems almost refreshing. We actually believed that somebody might care? I think in my darkest moments.

Last Tuesday night I listened to the actor and former artistic director of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, Ahmed Tobasi, from Artists on the Frontline, speak about his performance work in Jenin refugee camp, in Israeli prisons and in European theatre spaces. “Theatre is everything,” he said: not just a way of entertaining people, but a form of resistance, cultural resistance, a third intifada. Touring Europe with a play about his life, he says it drives him crazy to hear artists say they are not involved in politics ‘because they are artists’. ‘What? They are out there already using their voices! That’s already political.”

Growing up in Jenin refugee camp, he said, boys learned that they had three options for the future: to be a prisoner, a martyr or physically maimed. When the Jenin Freedom Theatre’s founder, Juliano Mer Khamis, was assassinated, the importance of theatre, that it could be perceived as a threat, became clear to Tobasi, as it did when the Israeli prison guards called everyone out of their cells in the middle of the night after a disc showing a production he’d staged in the prison fell into the hands of the governor. Theatre, Tobasi believes, can help explain not only what is wrong with the occupation and with Israeli society (they’re a mess, he says; the only things that brings them together is us, the Palestinians) but what needs to improve in Palestinian society too.

“I am no longer able to process what is about to happen.” The message from my friend Ghassan Abu Sita gets stuck in my head, going round and round, hanging between me and the sunny London streets, making me wonder again what I could be doing that I am not doing to try to stop this. What is happening has been clearly announced by the Israeli government: the eradication of Gaza City, of the north of Gaza. The displacement once again of a population that has been expelled multiple times with nowhere to go, with crippled access to food, water, shelter, the internet. More journalists and civil defence workers killed. More hospitals bombed. More young men killed by sniper fire as they try to reach aid or return with it to their families. Ghassan recently tried to return to Gaza to work as a doctor, but was denied entry to the ‘only place in the world where he feels at home’. Another friend tells me that of thirty doctors seeking to enter Gaza via Jordan with Médecins sans Frontières, only six were allowed in.

K wrote from the north of Gaza: “Gaza’s children haven’t been to school in two years. They’re changing. They’re beginning to think: ‘I will never go to school. I will just work to bring my family food or water’.”

Last month, the White Kite Collective brought the words of writers from Gaza to the stage of the Bush Theatre. Akram Sourani imagined a new high school exam for Gaza’s children:

What’s the difference between Emirati, Qatari and Unicef tents in terms of the number of flies in each?

Calculate how many hours you can walk barefoot on scorching sand from the tent to the bathroom and back.

How many times have you gone to the bathroom without ‘toilet paper’, and how many times have you gone to the bathroom without a ‘bathroom’?

What’s the difference between the sound of fava bean cans, kidney bean cans, and the sound of your stomach after eating lentils?

If you still have teeth, do you brush them with sand or seawater?

Ahmad Abo Amreen:

“As you bit into the loaf of bread made from spoiled flour

You try hard to ignore its foul taste and revolting stench

Then suddenly – a worm, or maybe a cluster of them

Writhing at the heart of the bread

You push them aside with practical indifference

And keep eating as if nothing happened

Other times, you might not even notice them at all –

Swallowing them whole without realising

Thanks to God”

Sami:

“On day seven, they took seven of us to a hall, empty of any furniture, nothing but soldiers. We all of us were still in our underwear. They took the youngest one of us – he was maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. In front of us, they tore his underwear. They raped him. Three soldiers raped him one after another. I tried to close my eyes but they beat me on my head threatening that I would be next if I closed my eyes. The young boy was screaming with pain and shame.”

Omar Hamad:

“I kept walking and walking and walking seeking a refuge to protect us from the weariness of the empty days. Upon a bare patch of sand, barely eight square metres – if even that – we claimed a space. Twenty metres of nylon, some overpriced wood, and a few ropes: this is how a scar is carved into the land and named a ‘tent’. A structure tasked with sheltering an entire family and containing all their needs within its thin, flapping sheets. Inside, there is no bathroom, no kitchen, no floor, no supports, no covers, no warmth – nothing but a heavy heart, a wandering mind, an empty stomach, thick fog and an unbearably long night whose only companions are sorrow, the loss of loved ones, the wind, the rain and a cold that pierces the bones. And so, we wait for death. Then, I pick up my pen and write on the outside of the tent: ‘Everything was deadly, but we did not die’.”

Ahmad al-Adawi:

“I am an artist … I have never carried a weapon. I carried a brush and kept painting life amidst death so that my heart wouldn’t collapse. But I am also a father. A father trying to steal moments of warmth in a storm of fear. Trying to draw a smile on the faces of his three daughters while the walls tremble and the ground splits beneath their feet. Every night, I hold them close, wrapping their souls in mine. I invent colourful bedtime stories, because reality is only fit for tears. I hide the sound of drones with songs from my imagination, So they won’t know that the world has chosen silence as we burn.”

Sameh Shahrouj:

“You think I’m here to die.

You think that’s all we know how to do –

bleed, bury, break.

But listen.

I grow things.

Tomatoes in rusted cans.”

Hiba Abu Nada, killed aged 32 with her family under bombardment on the evening of 20 October 2023:

“In our books, hunger and bread are synonyms,

light and darkness all broken shards.

I have learned to find hope in the extremes of love

and rainclouds in the desert of rhymes.”

Fatima Hassouna, a photojournalist featured in the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, killed with her family in an airstrike on 16 April 2025:

“We, we’re dying here every day in many colours and shapes. I die a thousand times when I see a child suffer; I splinter, I turn into ashes. It hurts me, what we’ve become. This nonsense hurts me, and this monster that eats us every day: it hurts.”

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It is hard to process what is happening now. Israeli forces are destroying Gaza City by bombing entire blocks. No buildings remain in the Zeytoun area, once part of the walled old city, home to the fifth-century church of St Porphyrius and the 14th-century Mamluk al-Shamah mosque.

Israeli officials declared on 27 August that the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City was ‘inevitable’ and ‘unavoidable’ but claimed there was space for them in the south, in Deir al-Balah and al-Mawasi.

The mayor of Deir al-Balah responded by saying there is not a single spot left to accommodate more tents for displaced Palestinians. The coast is overcrowded, the eastern part of the city is under bombardment, infrastructure has collapsed and the water desalination plant is barely operational. The Mezan Centre for Human Rights reports that people are sleeping on the streets and in public squares.

On 22 August, famine was confirmed in Gaza. “After 22 months of relentless conflict,” the IPC reported, “over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterized by starvation, destitution and death.”

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XII, SABBATHS 2008

by Wendell Berry

We forget the land we stand on
and live from. We set ourselves
free in an economy founded
on nothing, on greed verified
by fantasy, on which we entirely
depend. We depend on fire
that consumes the world without
lighting it. To this dark blaze
driving the inert metal
of our most high desire
we offer our land as fuel,
thus offering ourselves at last
to be burned. This is our riddle
to which the answer is a life
that none of us has lived.