Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 9/10/2025

Showers | Westport Renovation | Aimless & Anonymous | Apple Cup | Development Issues | Sulphur Shelf | Apartment Project | Grange Booth | PVP Plan | Real Sarahs | Schmittville | Travel Pieces | Covelo Buckhorn | LWV Meeting | River Cleanup | Western Grisette | Yesterday's Catch | The Truth | Spring Haikus | Tunnel Protest | Roadless Rule | Bad Memory | Photo Exhibition | Sit Quiet | The Babysitter | Satya Yuga | DC Hellhole | Police Strike | Hate Pronouns | Criticizing Israel | Demonizing People | Giants Win | Moody Waived | Anti-Profanity | Hedrick Building | Autumn Song | Ollie & Fawn | Rabid Zealots | Lead Stories | New Ghetto | Antichrist Merch | Holocaust Industry | The Horsewoman

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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Boonville 1.30" - Covelo 0.52" - Willits 0.49" - Ukiah 0.39" - Yorkville 0.36" - Hopland 0.26" - Leggett 0.20" - Laytonville 0.04"

PERIODS OF RAIN and thunderstorms are forecast to continue today through Wednesday. Locally heavy rain will be possible with storms in the interior each day. Drier weather will be possible toward the end of the week, followed by another chance of rain during the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy & really warm 59F this Wednesday morning on the coast. I picked up .11" of early morning showers then nada the rest of the day. I mentioned I was not sold on rain yesterday....... There is a chance of a shower in the forecast today but likely little if nothing. Same tomorrow then dry into Saturday.

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WESTPORT READER ROBERT SOMER alerted us to the unsightly dilapidated building right on Highway 1 last year.

Back then, the entire front façade of the old building had fallen into the highway.

Mr. Somer is pleased to report that this week the building owner, a Mr. Stephan Passalacqua of Healdsburg has begun renovation. Reportedly, the renovation work is accompanied by applicable permits or permit applications.

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ANONYMOUS COMPLAINTS, AIMLESS DISCUSSIONS

by Mark Scaramella

The Supervisors left the main issues on their agenda unresolved on Tuesday.

Supervisor Williams said the County had spent about $20k in drafting a detailed negative response to the Grand Jury’s report that the County was lax in enforcing Class K requirements. After extensive discussion about how the Grand Jury arrived at their supposedly totally erroneous conclusions and why there was such a large gap between the Grand Jury’s view and the County’s, Board Chair John Haschak asked the Planning & Building Department to discuss one aspect of the dispute further with CalFire and bring back any clarifications in “a month or so.” They hope that the Grand Jury was paying attention and will either revise their view or explain themselves in next year’s Grand Jury report.

Supervisor John Haschak’s proposal that code enforcement complaints include identification of the complainer lead to no significant changes in code enforcement policy. Therefore, the department will continue to use its discretion in responding to anonymous neighbor complaints giving priority to those that involve immediate hazards and health and safety, while minimizing the risks to enforcement staff and complainers.

Board watcher Dee Pallesen sensibly told the Board that whether or not complainers identified themselves, the process could be improved by upgrading the on-line complaint form to obtain better info and more specifics with the initial complaint so that the code enforcers could better evaluate the complaints and determine how to respond.

It appeared that the problem still mainly revolves around Mendo’s controversial pot growing activity, chiefly in the north County inland area where pot growing continues to create conflict despite (or perhaps because of) the industry’s near-collapse. Haschak’s proposal was stemmed from claims that some complaints amounted to neighbor harassment more than valid concerns or code violations.

Supervisor Haschak said he proposed the item because there were too many “vindictive” anonymous complaints. He agreed that the County’s complaint form should be updated to include an instruction that anonymous complaints may not be responded to.

Haschak’s proposal to “Direct staff to modify the Code Violation Complaint System to require complainants to provide verifiable contact information while continuing to maintain complainant confidentiality in an effort to prevent abuse and protect County resources” was unanimously approved along with direction to upgrade the complaint form.

Hipcamps: Rural Nuisances Or ‘Economic Development’?

The Board also again discussed regulation rural commercial camping, aka “hipcamps” without any real progress.

Supervisor Maureen Mulheren is all for hipcamps which she characterized as “economic development” with a straight face because they are a way for surviving pot and grape growers to make a little side income, particularly in the north county where they have lost a significant portion of their income. Mulheren’s laughable description of hipcamps as “economic development” was picked up on by her Board colleagues as if allowing a few tents and RVs out in your backyard is the equivalent of a new Tesla assembly plant being built in Willits.

As usual, the hipcamps are supported by those who stand to make money out of it and opposed by everyone else unless they can be strictly regulated (which of course they cannot be). We’ll have more on Tuesday’s hipcamp discussion in the next few days, but for now, Sheriff Matt Kendall’s remarks to the Board provide a good overview. The Sheriff began by addressing a question about noise problems with hipcamps and whether noise can be treated as a crime:

“There must be malicious intent. We have to prove that the person is doing this with the intention of disturbing the peace of another. It cannot be the byproduct of throwing a birthday party and that byproduct is causing the disturbance or anything like that. We should not be able to hear this in the neighborhood because this should not be going on in neighborhoods. They should be going on in places where they are accepted, and where campers will not disturb neighbors. So if we permit these things, let’s do it in the right place where they are not affecting people or cattle or agriculture because some of those things will go on. If we approve this, I want to know who the person is, the person who is responsible, because that is the person who will get the wrath of the law when things go off the rails. When people start being jerks in state campgrounds because they are drunk, the State Parks people know that they do not throw them out of the campground where they can drive home drunk. Instead, that person goes to jail for drunk in public and then the problem stops. We have to be ready to take on some of those things when someone is acting like that. They will be arrested. If a problem continues, we would reach out to County Counsel and have a restraining order against violators and take them out of this business so that when I show up to a violation the person goes to jail for continuing. That’s how you can stop the problems. But it has to start with: let’s do it in the right place so that we don’t have those issues. Eventually other things will come up. Roads will get torn up and so forth which will cause issues with the neighbors. Most folks will be good neighbors, and they will put some funding forward to make sure roads are maintained. We’ve seen many things worked out when people are good neighbors. But all it takes is one person being a jerk. Lord knows the good Lord loves a jerk because he seems to make a lot of them every year. I run into them. There will be those rubs in the neighborhoods and we have to be ready to address those. If it causes a big issue, then we need to pull the permit and say no more. But that won’t be easy because you will have people coming in on both sides of the equation.”

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COASTAL COMMISSION TO WEIGH 83-UNIT FORT BRAGG DEVELOPMENT: Views, Water Traffic at Issue

The commission will consider seven appeals filed by local residents on Wednesday, September 10.

by Elise Cox

The fate of a proposed 83-unit mixed-use development in Fort Bragg hangs in the balance as state regulators weigh whether it complies with the city’s Local Coastal Program and the California Coastal Act. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to meet Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, to consider seven appeals filed by residents challenging the City of Fort Bragg’s approval of the project at 1151 S. Main St.

Applicant Kosh Grewal proposes seven apartment buildings ranging from 32 to 38 feet tall with 86 residential units, including eight designated as affordable for very low-income households. The plan also includes a 1,000-square-foot commercial/retail space and four visitor-serving hotel suites on the ground floors of buildings facing Highway 1, with one suite offered at a low-cost rate. Other features include a 107-space parking lot, an outdoor play area, landscaping, a 5-foot-high sound wall, and a public access path with signage to Pomo Bluffs Park.

The Fort Bragg City Council approved the project in March amid significant neighborhood opposition focused on the project’s scale and the city’s approval process.

At Monday’s council meeting, appellant Paul Clark criticized the city for not using story poles—temporary framing that shows a project’s height and massing—before approval. Neighbors erected their own poles over the weekend to illustrate the scale, which Clark said drew strong reactions from passersby.

The appeals raise four main issues:

Land use and zoning.

Appellants argue the project does not conform to requirements for the Highway Visitor Commercial (CH) district, which restricts residential uses to upper floors or—if on the ground floor—to the rear of buildings. They contend the project prioritizes private residential uses over visitor-serving uses, designated as priority uses in the CH district, and exceeds the allowed residential density of 24 dwelling units per acre. The site is a 2.6-acre vacant lot.

Water quality and hydrology.

Appellants cite concerns about potential contamination and impacts on local water sources. They say the city did not address 10 bore holes drilled on the site about five years ago and provided no evidence they were properly sealed or decommissioned. They also argue the city relied on an outdated groundwater report for an adjacent site and did not require a project-specific hydrologic analysis, leaving potential effects on the Todd Point aquifer unknown.

Visual resources.

Opponents say the buildings would obstruct public views from Highway 1 to the coastline and could undermine the “small-town” character that draws visitors.

Traffic and public access.

Residents, including Kathleen Zarrabi, questioned whether added traffic would overwhelm local roads and discourage visitors. “Do they really want to be stuck at Ocean Drive and Highway 1 for 20 minutes?” she asked.

Coastal Commission staff recommended a “no substantial issue” determination on the seven appeals, which would allow the project to proceed. The staff report noted several issues raised by appellants that are outside the Commission’s purview because they do not allege inconsistencies with the certified Local Coastal Program or the Coastal Act’s public access policies. Those excluded topics include a flawed noise study and noise levels, inadequate public hearing notices, and failure to conduct meaningful environmental review under CEQA.

Despite the staff recommendation, appellants Paul Clark and Dave Skarr urged council members to attend Wednesday’s hearing, expressing hope the Commission will take a closer look.

(If you enjoyed this post, you can tell Mendo Local that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments. [email protected].)

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COASTAL COMMISSION WON’T BE TAKING PUBLIC INPUT on apartment project on Todd Point—proposal has already been litigated 5 times!

by Frank Hartzell

https://mendocinocoast.news/coastal-commission-wont-be-taking-public-input-on-apartment-project-on-todd-point-proposal-has-already-been-litigated-5-times/

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AV GRANGE:

We are building our Fair Booth on Wednesday 9/10 starting at 4PM till complete, est. 8PM

It's our annual fundraiser for our scholarship fund and we need many hands to complete the project.

The major parts are ready to be hung, Wednesday is about placing items and all the fill in around the booth.

The Fair theme this year is "Mendocino County Coastal Adventures” so beside the veggies we are looking for some coastal items.

• Sea shells
• smaller size driftwood
• rounded stones from the beach (or river-on the way to the coast)
• Lots of cucumbers for a specific area.

Remember if you want your items returned, please put your name on them

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PG&E LAYS OUT PLAN TO PULL POTTER VALLEY DAMS

by Monica Huettl

The century-old Potter Valley Project is now on a path to closure. In a video briefing, PG&E said the dams would come down in stages tied to wet and dry seasons, diversions would continue during construction, and a new facility would handle reduced transfers to Lake Mendocino—pending FERC’s approval.…

https://mendofever.com/2025/09/10/pge-lays-out-plan-to-pull-potter-valley-dams/

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FRENCH LAUNDRY FOUNDING FAMILY TURNS TINY NORCAL TOWN INTO A DINING DESTINATION

They're transforming a stretch of Highway 128 in Mendocino County

by Anh-Minh Le

Chef Perry Hoffman’s first job was at the French Laundry when he was just 5 years old. And, yes, he is aware of how wild that sounds.

A typical day started with vacuuming the iconic Napa Valley restaurant before turning to “The Perry Prep List”: roasting bell peppers, cutting baguettes for crostini, zesting citrus, picking and chopping Italian parsley.

It was the late 1980s and his grandparents, Don and Sally Schmitt, still owned the French Laundry, which they founded in Yountville in 1978.

“She had a crazy amount of trust,” Hoffman said of the tasks his grandmother gave him at such a young age. “It hooked me. I loved it.”

He wound up cooking in a Napa restaurant during high school, and, upon graduating, headed to his uncle Johnny’s Boonville Hotel and Restaurant, a modern roadhouse set on 4 idyllic acres in Mendocino County. In 2009, at age 25, while helming Domaine Chandon’s Étoile in Napa, he became the youngest chef in the U.S. to garner a Michelin star. The next year, the San Francisco Chronicle named him a Rising Star Chef. In 2012, he won Food & Wine magazine’s People’s Best New Chef in California.

Fast forward to 2019: Nearly two decades after his initial stint at the Boonville Hotel, Hoffman returned. Today, he is the executive chef at the hotel restaurant, known for seasonally driven cuisine with California and French influences. And earlier this year, just across the street in this tiny town of 985, he officially launched Offspring, a pizza and pasta joint.

Of course, much has happened between these milestones — for Hoffman and the Schmitt family.

The Next Yountville

In 1994, the Schmitts sold their esteemed French Laundry to Thomas Keller. That year, Don, once mayor of Yountville, told the Napa Valley Register that his kids grew up with a pioneering spirit and were searching for the next Yountville.

Clearly, they found it in the Boonville vicinity. Today, the family seems to have ties to practically everything food- and drink-related there, including the 32-acre Apple Farm in Philo, which Don and Sally purchased in the mid-1980s, in anticipation of post-French Laundry life. Karen Bates, the Schmitts’ daughter and Hoffman’s aunt, continues to run the heirloom apple orchard with her husband, Tim.

The Schmitts’ son, Johnny, who had cooked in France as well as alongside his mother at the French Laundry, started Floodgate Cafe in Philo with Jerry and Kathleen Cox in 1985. Three years later, they teamed up for a restaurant in the Boonville Hotel, a venture that also involved Schmitt’s then-wife, Jeanne Eliades.

While the others have since departed the hotel/restaurant, Schmitt remained as proprietor and chef. About seven years ago, wanting to step away from the stove, he approached Hoffman, who by then had honed his skills as sous chef under Robert Curry at Michelin-starred Auberge du Soleil in Rutherford, earned a star at Étoile, and gained acclaim as culinary director of Shed in Healdsburg.

He said yes. Hoffman, 41, always figured he would come back to Boonville — just not this soon. “It was my retirement spot,” he said as we settled into Adirondack and butterfly chairs in the hotel’s garden, where herbs and other ingredients for the restaurant are grown. “I thought I’d be back here in my mid-50s, after my kids were raised.”

But on the heels of Shed, which shuttered in 2018, a change of pace and scenery beckoned. Hoffman’s return echoed his grandparents’ move to Anderson Valley — that desire for better work/life balance — and his food style now more closely hews to his grandmother’s.

“She wasn’t trying to do fine dining,” he said. “I don’t think we could pull that off here, nor do I want to.”

Culinary Buzz in Boonville

Invoking the adage that “you can’t make a good apple pie with bad apples,” Hoffman characterized his approach at the hotel’s restaurant as “ingredient-first. You start with tasty things first. Then you just use little ingredients and techniques — some are new, that you may have invented, and some are 500 years old.”

Dinner at the Boonville Hotel is prix fixe — five courses ($125) on Friday and Saturday, and four courses ($75) on Sunday and Monday. From Memorial Day through mid-October, the Sunday supper revolves around paella, made in a custom 42-inch-diameter pan in the garden.

On a Monday in July, I savored an alfresco meal with the hotel’s cat-in-residence, Robin, beside me and a view of Hoffman and his cousin, sous chef Michael Hoffman, in the kitchen. The dreamy courtyard setting was a bonus.

The evening began with Ukiah’s Grainsong sourdough, followed by a mix of little gems, endive hearts, Filigreen Farm plums and avocado. Creamy corn polenta, prepared like risotto, featured Little River lobster mushrooms and stracciatella. Crisp chicken leg confit, finished in the wood-fired oven, was accompanied by Sungold tomatoes and Lungo Bianco squash, all atop a roasted red pepper sauce. For dessert, cherries garnished a luscious duck egg crème brûlée.

At least once a month, Hoffman offers his grandmother’s coffee pot de crème, a dessert she served at the French Laundry. The recipe appears in “Six California Kitchens,” her award-winning cookbook/memoir that came out a month after she died in 2022 at age 90. (Don passed away in 2017.)

For Johnny Schmitt, the middle child of Don and Sally’s five kids, the memories and influence of the French Laundry also endure. “I remember working on the building,” he said of the circa-1900 fieldstone venue. “The whole family jumped in and started tearing it apart.”

Over the years, it had reportedly been a saloon, residence, brothel and French steam laundry. Under his parents’ purview, from 1978 to 1994, it was a one-seating, fixed-menu restaurant. Since Don and Sally had developed a following through their previous Yountville establishments, the Vintage Cafe and Chutney Kitchen, the French Laundry was an instant hit.

“People were lined up,” Schmitt said.

The menu consisted of a choice of appetizers, a soup, the main course, a salad, cheeses and dessert options. In the early ’90s, toward the end of the Schmitts’ ownership, dinner at the French Laundry was $46. Three decades later, with three Michelin stars, Keller’s tasting menu starts at $425.

“It was a huge relief for my parents to walk away from the French Laundry and have someone not just live off their legacy, but take it to a whole ’nother plane,” Schmitt said. Since selling it, family members have continued to enjoy dining there, including for his father’s 80th birthday. “It was 29 courses; it just went on and on and on,” Schmitt recalled with amusement. “Thomas pulled out all the stops.”

These days, Schmitt is focused on the design-and-build side — which was a passion for his parents, too. “My mom and dad loved to remodel,” he said. “We would get home from school and my mom would give us a sledgehammer and say, ‘We’re taking that wall out.’ They always made a beautiful home.”

When Schmitt bought the Boonville Hotel, the 1880s two-story structure that originated as a hotel had been vacant for two years. The previous owners operated a fine dining restaurant with a garden and animals, including goats, on the premises, but no accommodations.

After opening his restaurant in 1988, Schmitt renovated the eight rooms above it and began welcoming overnight guests in 1991. Lodging has since expanded to 17 unique rooms and cottages featuring wood tones, patterned rugs, corrugated metal, striped textiles and whimsical accents such as wallpaper that mimics bookshelves. (My room had a deck with an outdoor tub.)

Tripling Down on the Same Block

In addition to Hoffman and Schmitt, the managing partners are Schmitt’s husband, Marcus Magdaleno, and general manager Melinda Ellis. She came on board in 2010, but goes way back with the Schmitts — she cooked at the French Laundry in the early ’90s. Today, she said, “The notion of family and food continue on here at the hotel — that life should be beautiful every day.”

In 2010, across the street from the hotel, Ellis opened Paysanne. The darling ice cream and sweets shop is part of the Farrer Building complex, which dates back to the 1800s and is also home to the Farmhouse Mercantile (co-founded by Karen Bates of Apple Farm renown) and Hoffman’s pizzeria, Offspring.

The latter started as a pop-up and became a permanent eatery in February, drawing crowds for its housemade pastas and wood-fired pizzas.

When I dined in July, I couldn’t resist a pizza topped with sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, crème fraîche, mozzarella, stracciatella and basil. But the sleeper hit was the cauliflower “Caesar” — florets in a velvety Caesar dressing, showered with parmigiano, bread crumbs and black pepper.

With their various entities, Schmitt and Hoffman are continually responding to what the community needs and wants. For example, when Schmitt debuted his restaurant in the Boonville Hotel decades ago, the lack of dining options in the area meant “we had to be everything to everyone; we had to be casual and fancy,” he said, pointing to the burgers served early on. “When new restaurants open, we all readjust to find our customer base.”

Offspring has been a welcome development for not only their lodgers, but also locals. The repeat diners seated next to me — former Bay Area residents who moved to Mendocino to be closer to family — were happy to share their recommendations.

Although Hoffman sometimes misses fine dining, he has no Michelin ambitions in Boonville. “Modern Michelin is not really us,” he said, distinguishing it from “Old Michelin — the original concept of getting in your car and driving on a windy, curvy road, that spirit of adventure, to go to a small country inn with a family, a garden, a great meal.”

More important than stars is creating a place where his daughter Charlie, 7, and son Teddy, 6, relish spending time, whether folding napkins or coloring books. “My kids can’t play Lego here when the Michelin inspector comes in,” Hoffman quipped. “My brothers and I were all raised in my grandmother’s restaurant, running around. It was like magic and it’s really cool to see that come full circle.”

(SFGate.com)

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BOB ABELES (Boonville): commenting on the latest AV Travel article from Forbes in the Monday edition of Mendocino County Today:

The article reads to me like it’s AI generated, at least in part. For example, this paragraph: “Greenwood State Beach unfolds below the bluff, a crescent of sand often empty but for driftwood piles and the occasional bonfire ring. Some visitors come just to walk the bluff trails, scan the water for whales, or sit on the beach with a thermos and a dog.” While syntactically correct, the “occasional bonfire ring” and the “thermos and a dog” make no sense.

Bruce Anderson replies:

These travel pieces pre-date AI by many years. Anderson Valley has been discovered at least a dozen times annually since 1950 when the first article on Boontling appeared, carefully edited to exclude the sexual innuendo and ethnic slurs comprising about a third of the lingo. The best story, at least in terms of pure delusion, was published by the NY Times back in the early 80s when the Rollins’ New Boonville Hotel was discovered by agog gastro-maniacs several times a week. The writer described how the food came straight from the hotel’s backyard, fresher than fresh! But if she’d looked closer, or hadn’t been bribed by a free meal, she would have seen a kind of backyard petting zoo, where a bedraggled collection of fowl, a goat, a starving pig, and an ancient sheep posed for the yard-to-table fantasy, all the while Chef Charlene was across the street at AV Market frantically buying pork chops for the visiting gourmets.

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COVELO, SITE OF MENDOCINO COUNTY'S MOST EXCITING BAR

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LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS MEET & GREET

The League of Women Voters of Mendocino County will kick off its fall schedule with the return of their popular “Meet & Greet Your Local Officials” reception, Friday, September 19, from 5-7pm. There is a new venue this year — the reception will be held at the Stanford Inn, just south of Mendocino. As always, there will be no speeches or agenda, just a chance to chat one-on-one with county and city officials, school, fire and other special district board members in a beautiful garden setting. Wine, other beverages, and vegan hors d’oeuvres will be served. For more information, visit the League website https://my.lwv.org/california/mendocino-county, or call 707-937-4952.

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FROM STREETS TO CREEKS:

2025 Ukiah Valley Russian River Cleanup to be Held Saturday, Sept. 20

Volunteers Needed for Annual Pollution Prevention and Stewardship Event

Would you like to make an immediate improvement to the environment and have fun doing it? Does the sight of litter in our creeks make you want to take action? Then come join the annual Ukiah Valley Russian River Cleanup, held on Coastal Cleanup Day, Saturday, September 20, from 8:30 AM to Noon.

The 110-mile-long Russian River snakes around serpentine hills of blue oak woodlands from northern Ukiah down south of Healdsburg, before winding westward through steep, fir-studded valleys past Guerneville, and spilling past myriad Harbor seals into the Pacific at Jenner. The Russian River is home to snails, dragonflies, turtles, newts, snakes, toads, frogs, fish, otters, ducks, hawks, and so many other important friends in our ecosystem. Many sea-dwelling fishes including Coho salmon, Steelhead trout, and Pacific lamprey visit the Russian River to reproduce.

The Russian River watershed is also home to many dedicated human stewards. Last year, in the Ukiah Valley alone, over 130 volunteers collected 3.62 tons of trash! Cigarette butts are the most frequently collected item, followed by single-use plastic packaging, such as food wrappers. It’s tempting to pull out large objects like tires and bicycles, but small litter is just as important, and cigarette butts release toxic chemicals into the water, which can pose enormous harm to aquatic species.

Be part of the solution! To join the cleanup, pre-register through MCRCD’s website, Facebook page, or directly at https://tinyurl.com/RRCleanup25 by September 15th. Volunteers will gather for a safety talk at Low Gap Park and to divide into teams. Come early at 8:30 to sign in and get a cup of coffee donated by Black Oak Coffee Roasters. Bring a water bottle, sturdy shoes, and work gloves. No flip flops!

The event is co-sponsored by the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, Mendocino County Water Agency, and Redwood Waste Solutions, along with numerous local partners including the City of Ukiah and Black Oak Coffee Roasters. For questions or for more information, contact Joe Scriven at [email protected].

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, September 9, 2025

DAVID BERGER, 57, Point Arena. Assault with deadly weapon with possible great bodily injury.

BENJAMIN BICKNELL, 36, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation violation.

ANTONIO DELOSSANTOS-ROJAS, 33, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

CLAUDIA JUAREZ, 52, Clearlake/Ukiah. More than six pot plants.

ZACKARY LEONARD, 29, Fort Bragg. DUI.

COURTNEY LUSCKO-HAMILTON, 41, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

RONALD MAIN, 49, Laytonville. Failure to appear.

GERARDO PRADO-BARAJAS, 34, Stockton. More than six pot plants.

FERNANDO TAFOLLA, 35, Clearlake/Ukiah. More than six pot plants.

ANTHONY TOLBERT, 37, Ukiah. Parole violation, resisting.

DAVID WILLIS, 45, Lower Lake/Ukiah. DUI.

DAVID WOLF, 68, Ukiah. Domestic violence, domestic violence court order violation, witness intimidation.

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SPRING HAIKU 2025 (Part One)

by Paul Modic

birds sparkle upwards
munching my food on Spring days
sometimes a crow comes

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rain sings me awake
one more day in paradise
drift boats floating by

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rainy Spring mistake
broke omelette egg in compost
greens grow in windows

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rainy wintry walk
under trees skirting puddles
soaked satisfaction

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ecstatic spring sleep
night raining turkey soup dreams
joyous dawn dancing

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chautauqua blossomed
buzzing with new connections
rain lovers smiling

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rainy salad day
munching boring nutrition
fresh broccoli meds

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groggy post party
stoned regrets rejuvenate
sip the coffee cure

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something is not right
rainy fog brain triumphant
doubt creeps slowly in

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end on a fake high note
paint positive memories
but can’t fool myself

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‘WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH!’

Tribes, Enviros and Delta advocates rally in Sacramento as Newsom tries pushing anti-CEQA bills for tunnel

by Dan Bacher

Tribal leaders, Delta farmers, conservationists and environmental justice advocates rallied for the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta on the west steps of the Capitol last Friday. As they held signs proclaiming “Pro Delta Means No Tunnel” and “Stop the $100 Billion Delta Tunnel,” they called on lawmakers to defend the state’s water rights, environmental protections and public due process from Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative leaders’ attempts to bypass all of those via new trailer bills benefiting Big Ag and water agencies in Southern California.…

https://sacramento.newsreview.com/2025/09/08/we-have-had-enough-tribes-enviros-and-delta-advocates-rally-in-sacramento-as-newsom-tries-pushing-anti-ceqa-bills-for-tunnel/

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SIERRA CLUB ACTION ALERT: PROPOSED ROADLESS RULE

Hello Everyone,

We need your help to save the Roadless Rule! The Trump Administration has moved to repeal the 25-year-old rule that protects undeveloped backcountry forest land managed by the U.S. Forest Service. These lands contain some of the United States’ last intact old-growth forests. Now, 45 million of the 58.5 million acres protected by the rule are at risk of being opened up to mining, drilling, and logging by big corporations.

The Department of Agriculture is accepting comments through September 19th, and we need as many comments as possible to save the rule.

A Sierra Club tool which has some pre-prepared statements you can edit (first link) OR directly to the USDA (second link)

The Sierra Club link has a few paragraphs to get you started, but below you will find additional talking points on why repealing the Roadless Rule is a misguided idea. Use your own words and add any of the information that resonates with you. The more personalized you make your comment, the bigger impact it will have! If you have any personal experiences with roadless areas, be sure to include them.

Talking Points:

What’s at Stake: The proposed rollback of the 2001 Roadless Rule jeopardizes nearly 45 million acres of undeveloped backcountry forestland managed by the U.S. Forest Service, comprising around a third of the territory in our national forest system. These old growth and mature forests have remained intact in part because of the Forest Service's nearly 25-year-old commitment not to build roads in these areas for harmful activities like major logging operations, mining or oil-and-gas drilling.

Rollback Paves the Way for Logging of Old Growth and Mature Forests: A reason a rollback of the Roadless Rule is being proposed is to reopen roadless forests to logging and other industrial development. This proposal follows other administrative actions that have called for a significant increase in logging and oil and gas drilling on federal lands. An increase in these industrial activities could destroy thriving biodiverse ecosystems, harm recreation areas, put lands at greater risk of wildfire, destroy wildlife habitat, and threaten drinking water sources.

Taxpayers on the Hook: Building more roads in national forests could be a drain on taxpayers. Even with the Roadless Rule in place, the Forest Service already has a 371,000-mile road system crisscrossing national forests. The Forest Service already has a maintenance backlog that has ballooned to $8.6 billion in needed repairs per the USFS’s own FY23 estimate. Taxpayers have subsidized this already unwieldy road network and could be stuck footing the bill for any new roads built in backcountry forest areas following this rollback.

More Roads Mean More Wildfires: Although proponents of rolling back the Roadless Rule have suggested that this is somehow being done in response to wildfire, this will only likely lead to more wildfires. Emerging research described in a Factsheet from Wilderness Society shows that from 1992-2024, wildfires were two to four times as likely to start in areas with roads than in roadless forest tracts.

In 2001, 1.6 million people submitted comments in favor of protecting backcountry forests from corporate development, paving the way for the establishment of the Roadless Rule. If we are going to save the rule today, we must come together in a similarly big way. The more people you can share this comment link with, the better our chance is at saving these forests!

Thank you for your dedication to our forests and our campaign,

Karen Maki

https://www.sierraclub.org/oregon/blog/2025/07/what-roadless-rule

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IN CAMPS, UNDER TREES AND EVICTED

Farmworkers and people living close to the line in Northern California

An exhibition of photographs by David Bacon

September 13 - December 1

Reception: Saturday, September 13, 2025, 6 - 7:30 p.m.

Peter J. Shields Library, UC Davis

First Floor

100 North West Quad, Davis, CA 95616

Shield Library Parking: UCD Parking Lot 10

Join us for the opening reception for In Camps, Under Trees and Evicted: Farmworkers and People Living Close to the Line in Northern California, an exhibition of photography by acclaimed photojournalist David Bacon, sponsored by the UC Davis Labor and Community Center. ​Over 35 years, Bacon has captured the often-invisible lives of farmworkers and working-class communities, showcasing their resilience, struggles, and movements for justice. ​This powerful collection offers a window into their fight for decent living conditions, fair wages, and legal immigration status. ​The evening will include a Q&A session with David Bacon, providing an opportunity to hear firsthand about his experiences documenting these stories and his hopes for inspiring a new generation of documentary artists and activists. Don't miss this chance to engage with this powerful artwork and the artist behind it.

Please contact Joseph de Groot with any questions.

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ALL OF MAN’S TROUBLES come from his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room, for any length of time.

— Blaise Pascal

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KALI YUGA SEGUES INTO SATYA YUGA SEGUES INTO SALTEN PEPPA

Warmest spiritual greetings,

It is now starkly plain that the abominable dark phase of Kali Yuga is slowly segueing into the Satya Yuga, or age of truth and light. This is the time when Kalki is forecast to appear on planet earth astride a white horse brandishing a flaming sword, to kill the demons and return this world to righteousness. It is recommended that all Jivan Muktas take leave of the planet earth, and go up to the eternal spiritual abode, before the appearance of Kalki (the tenth and final avatar of Vishnu).

Meanwhile, enjoy listening to Vedic chants and remain centered in the svarupa (heart chakra).

This assures the non-dualistic condition of Sahaja Samadhi Avastha. 🕉️

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

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ELISHEVA LEVIN:

Oh, for heaven's sake. Spare me the liberal whining and drama. DC was a hellhole the last time I was there. Two Jews were killed while we were there, and we were told not to go out at night. Frankly, the city was disgusting, and even in the daytime going out alone was a dicey proposition. DC belongs to the United States. It is our capitol city. I am happy that Trump had the good sense to put his foot down and make the place better. If it is not yet perfect, so maybe the national guard should patrol the areas where the nightlife happens, so that people can enjoy themselves day and night.

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STEERSMAN:

As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order.

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THE OPPOSITE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Editor:

Regarding “Safe schools for every child: Why AB715 is the right step for San Francisco and California” (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, Sept. 6): While I appreciate that Rabbi Bauer opines that Assembly Bill 715 does not prohibit anyone from criticizing Israel or its policies, his opinion is contrary to what the bill actually says: It prohibits comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in any way.

Bauer never addresses the actual language of the bill.

As a former attorney for teachers, I know that laws that tell teachers they cannot encourage students to think through the comparison between different regimes chill speech similarly to the efforts of President Donald Trump to stop discussion of our own country’s history of slavery.

There are millions of Jews, who just like me, believe criticism of Israel, whether calling what is happening genocide or questioning it as an ethno-religious undemocratic state, honors our heritage of standing up for the oppressed and is the opposite of anti-Semitism.

David Weintraub

Oakland

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WHAT'S THE DIFF?

Editor:

How is what the Trump administration is doing to immigrants different from what Hitler did to Germany’s Jewish population in 1933?

Hitler demonized the Jews and stripped them of their rights. Trump is demonizing undocumented immigrants, or those who may look like them, and denying them their legal rights.

Most of those being detained by the Trump administration are law-abiding people (most have no criminal convictions), and many are American citizens.

Trump is also asking the Supreme Court to allow immigration agents to racially profile people: pick up anyone who looks Latino or speaks Spanish or is in a location believed to be frequented by Latinos.

The Trump administration is rapidly expanding immigration detention through lucrative contracts with private prison companies, including GEO Group and CoreCivic.

These businesses need to keep incarcerating people to make a profit. What group of non-MAGA conforming people will be demonized next?

Don’t say, “It can’t happen here.” That is what they said in Germany in 1932.

Louise Kimball

Berkeley

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GIANTS' POWER SURGE CONTINUES to propel late-season postseason push

by Shayna Rubin

In his first at-bat, Willy Adames fouled a ball off his right knee and crumpled to the ground in pain. He needed a few minutes to shake it off, talk with trainers and get back in the box. Turns out, the pain wasn’t too much of a bother.

He launched the next pitch he saw from Zac Gallen, a 94 mph fastball down and in, 394 feet into left field for a three-run home run.

“I got myself pretty good,” Adames said “That never happens. In my case, until tonight, it’s never happened before. I was happy I did it.”

Adames has had a flair for the dramatic home runs lately. His first-pitch bomb in Milwaukee, his two-homer game against the Chicago Cubs. A leading force in this home run derby the Giants have engaged in over the last few weeks, he’s hit eight over the last 17 games.

His 28th home run of the year on Tuesday set the tone for the San Francisco Giants’ 5-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, taking the series from their division rival and securing their 13th win over their past 16 games.

With the New York Mets’ loss to the Philadelphia Phillies earlier in the evening, San Francisco is two games back of the third wild card — technically, though, they are three back as the Mets hold the tiebreaker advantage.

The long ball has powered the Giants’ late-season run — Monday, they hit five home runs, their most at home since 2021 — and did so again on Tuesday.

Adames’ home run moved him two shy of becoming the first Giant to hit 30 home runs in a season since Barry Bonds in 2004. It also ensured that he is the first Giant, since Bonds in 2003, to hit a home run in eight straight series.

“He fouled it off his knee pretty good,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I was a little concerned he’d have to come out of the game, but he’s really a tough guy. Obviously has a flair for the dramatic.”

“I was just happy it went out. After that, it put the team in a really good spot,” Adames said. “Go out and play defense, Robbie (Ray) doing his job and doing what he does every time. For us to be more comfortable a little bit, a lot. Everybody calmed down and played their game.”

It helps these momentous home runs have come early in games, as Adames’ did. That early security permeates into the rest of the lineup; rarely of late have San Francisco’s hitters looked to be pressing. Even Patrick Bailey is getting in on the derby.

Bailey hit all of two home runs in the first half — one, an inside the parker — but hit his second in as many nights Tuesday in the fifth for the Giants’ final run. It’s been a tough year at the plate for Bailey as he’s struggled to put together quality at-bats for extended stretches. But he’s caught the hitting bug along with the rest of his team through this winning stretch: dating back to their first win in Milwaukee on Aug. 23, Bailey is batting .288 with nine RBIs and three home runs.

“I think it shows you something about him,” Melvin said. “You get to September and the numbers aren’t great. You know you’re better than that — we all know he’s better than that offensively — and now he’s doing his best work offensively. That tells me something about Patrick Bailey, that he’s in it to win right now.”

Ray got a bit of bad luck from a bad call in his previous outing in Colorado, and wasn’t getting a ton of favorable calls with Doug Eddings behind the plate Tuesday.

That the Diamondbacks found ways to spoil a bunch of Ray’s offerings made his outing arduous, but he survived five innings in which he allowed two runs in the fifth. Tim Tawa, who has some ownage on Ray, doubled to the left-field corner and scored on Jordan Lawler’s double off the wall in left-center. A second run scored on a sacrifice fly.

Arizona kept it close, scoring another on a trio of singles off lefty Matt Gage. That prompted Melvin to go to their power source in the bullpen, Joel Peguero, who pumps 101 mph fastballs, struck out Tawa and Adrian Del Castillo swinging at biting 92 mph sliders to strand the tying run in scoring position.

“There’s certain points of the game that are bigger than others and there was nothing bigger than that today,” Melvin said. “Coming in, one out, rookie, and a little different coming in with guys on base and getting punchouts like that threw a lot of momentum back in our dugout.”

Peguero hasn’t allowed a run over 12 1/3 innings since his first big league call up on Aug. 21, just before this run began. He’s struck out 11 and walked one.

(sfchronicle.com)

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49ERS WAIVE KICKER JAKE MOODY, 2023 THIRD-ROUND PICK WHO HAS UNDERPERFORMED

by Eric Branch

The kicker taken with a third-round pick didn’t last three seasons with the San Francisco 49ers.

After two wobbly years, the 49ers waived Jake Moody on Tuesday after his third season began with a wretched performance in a 17-13 season-opening win Sunday at Seattle, NFL Network reported. Moody missed a 29-yard attempt that clanged off the left upright, had a 36-yarder blocked due to poor protection and narrowly snuck in a 32-yarder inside the right upright to tie the game at 10-10 in the fourth quarter.

The 49ers made Moody the highest-drafted kicker in seven years in 2023, but they parted ways after he finished 32nd in the NFL in field-goal percentage last year and had made 12 of his last 23 attempts. Moody changed his kicking style in the offseason, shortening his stride, and the 49ers signed Greg Joseph in May to compete with him in training camp.

None of it had the desired effect. There is no immediate news about Moody’s replacement, but Joseph, 31, is a logical candidate.

Joseph, a seven-year veteran who has played for six teams, has made 116 of 141 career field-goal attempts, and his career field-goal percentage (82.3%) ranked 20th among active kickers at the end of last season. In 2024, Joseph made 16 of 20 attempts while playing for three teams: the Giants (six games), Commanders (one) and Jets (one). The Jets special teams coordinator was Brant Boyer, who was hired by the 49ers in January.

The 49ers released Joseph in August after nine training-camp practices after he statistically outperformed Moody. Joseph made 22 of 24 attempts in practices and had made drilled 16 straight since missing fro 38 and 53 yards. Moody had made 21 of 24 attempts, with misses from 48, 53 and 54.

(SF Chronicle)

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ANTI-PROFANITY

by Robert Service

I do not swear because I am
A sweet and sober guy;
I cannot vent a single damn
However hard I try.
And in vituperative way,
Though I recall it well,
I never, never, never say
A naughty word like hell.

To rouse my wrath you need not try,
I'm milder than a lamb;
However you may rile me I
Refuse to say: Goddam!
In circumstances fury-fraught
My tongue is always civil,
And though you goad me I will not
Consign you to the divvle.

An no, I never, never swear;
Profanity don't pay;
To cuss won't get you anywhere,
(And neither will to pray.)
And so all blasphemy I stem.
When milk of kindness curds:
But though I never utter them -
Gosh! how I know the words.

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JAMES KUNSTLER:

The old ten-story Hedrick Building (erected 1928) at St. Mary’s and Martin Streets in downtown San Antonio gets a severe facial to take off the make-up applied sometime in the early 1960s. Note the revealed, original, intricate “Spanish Baroque” detailing (with grace-notes of “Aztec Terminalissimo”) in the applied terracotta ornaments. There’s quite an inventory of similar period office towers in the old downtown of America’s seventh largest city, a great many of them already rehabbed and sparkling again. Very impressive! The city must have been roaring like all git-out in the 1920s. (Oil money, would be my guess.)

Of course, this prompts you to wonder: what on earth was going on in their brains in the 1960s that would prompt such an horrific defacement of this building? It really boggles the mind. Perhaps it was a simply shame. . . for being less than up-to-date in the new GoGo decade. All those lovely figured ornaments embarrassed them, like looking at grandma’s old flapper outfit from the 1929 Roughneck’s Ball, where she drank too much gin, danced the Black Bottom on an ice sculpture of the Alamo, and passed out face down in a bowl of chili. Or perhaps the darn thing had just grown dingy from forty years of auto emissions and, rather than clean it, they opted for a cheap “skin job,” as the architects say, on some sales-pitch that the rain would keep it clean.

But, good Gawd. . . that hideous matrix of blue and red enamel panels? If architecture is a kind of language, the new dress-up said, “Look, I’m a moron now!”

Finally, the new owners who bought it out of foreclosure did the honorable thing and saved it, returned it to its former glory. Looks like it will be re-purposed as a hotel. Kudos to ya!

And salutes to Breck Breckenridge for the nomination!

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SONG FOR AUTUMN

by Mary Oliver

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little
longing to be on its way.

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OLIVER NORTH AND FAWN HALL, KEY FIGURES IN IRAN-CONTRA SCANDAL, ARE MARRIED
[A reader suggests: Keep reading ‘til the end.]

by Michael Levenson

Oliver L. North, a decorated former Marine and onetime national security aide in the Reagan administration, and Fawn Hall, his former secretary, were married in Virginia last month, four decades after they became central figures in the arms-for-cash scandal known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Mr. North, 81, and Ms. Hall, 65, were married on Aug. 27 in a civil ceremony in Arlington County that was officiated by Dean S. Worcester, a retired Virginia district court judge, according to a copy of their marriage certificate. Mr. North and Ms. Hall did not immediately respond on Tuesday to messages left at numbers listed under their names. The wedding was reported on Substack by the journalist Michael Isikoff.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/us/oliver-north-fawn-hall-married-iran-contra.html

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Am I the only one who sees the Palestinian people as victims of Hamas just as much as the Jews are? Granted that the stupid bastards voted them into office in 2007, however they have subsequently been the victims of these rabid zealots for as long as the Jews.

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LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

Israel Attempts to Kill Hamas Leadership in Airstrike on Qatar, a Gaza War Mediator

Judge Rules Fed Governor Can Remain in Role, for Now

Trump Administration Halts I.R.S. Crackdown on Major Tax Shelters

6 Takeaways From Kennedy’s Childhood Health Report

Trump Moves to Crack Down on Drug Advertising

The Forces Behind Nepal’s Explosive Gen Z Protests

Is America Ready for Japanese-Style 7-Elevens?

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GUY MONTAG:

“In 1948, Hannah Arendt wrote an open letter that began, “Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the ‘Freedom Party’ (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” … Arendt based her comparison on an attack carried out in part by the Irgun, a paramilitary predecessor of the Freedom Party, on the Arab village of Deir Yassin …”

“Netanyahu has been brandishing Amalek in the wake of the Hamas attack … for the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyper densely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time—in other words, a ghetto. … like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany. … The term “open-air prison” … the more fitting term “ghetto” would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

From “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” by Masha Gessen December 9, 2023 https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/in-the-shadow-of-the-holocaust

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DEATH OF THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY

The genocide in Gaza has exposed the weaponization of the Holocaust as a vehicle not to prevent genocide, but to perpetuate it, not to examine the past, but to manipulate the present.

by Chris Hedges

Nearly all Holocaust scholars, who see in any criticism of Israel a betrayal of the Holocaust, have refused to condemn the genocide in Gaza. Not one of the institutions dedicated to researching and commemorating the Holocaust have drawn the obvious historical parallels or decried the mass slaughter of Palestinians.

Holocaust scholars, with a handful of exceptions, have exposed their true purpose, which is not to examine the dark side of human nature, the frightening propensity we all have to commit evil, but to sanctify Jews as eternal victims and absolve the ethnonationalist state of Israel of the crimes of settler colonialism, apartheid and genocide.

The hijacking of the Holocaust, the failure to defend Palestinian victims because they are Palestinian, has imploded the moral authority of Holocaust studies and Holocaust memorials. They have been exposed as a vehicles not to prevent genocide but to perpetrate it, not to explore the past, but manipulate the present.

Any tepid recognition that the Holocaust may not be the exclusive property of Israel and its Zionist supporters is swiftly shut down. The Holocaust Museum LA deleted an Instagram post that read: “NEVER AGAIN” CAN’T ONLY MEAN NEVER AGAIN FOR JEWS” after a backlash. In the hands of Zionists, “never again” means precisely that, never again only for Jews.

Aimé Césaire, in “Discourse on Colonialism,” writes that Hitler seemed exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man,” applying to Europe the “colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India and the nègres d’Afrique.”

It was this distortion of the Holocaust as unique that troubled Primo Levi, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz from 1944 to 1945 and wrote “Survival in Auschwitz.” He was a fierce critic of the apartheid state of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. He saw the Shoah as “an inexhaustible source of evil” that “is perpetuated as hatred in the survivors, and springs up in a thousand ways, against the very will of all, as a thirst for revenge, as moral breakdown, as negation, as weariness, as resignation.”

He deplored “Manichaeanism,” those who “shun nuance and complexity” and who “reduce the river of human events to conflicts, and conflicts to duals, us and them.” He warned that the “network of human relationships inside the concentration camps was not simple: It could not be reduced to two blocs, victims and persecutors.” The enemy, he knew, “was outside but also inside.”

Levi writes about Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, a Jewish collaborator who ruled the Lodz ghetto. Rumkowski, known as “King Chaim,” turned the ghetto into a slave labor camp which enriched the Nazis and himself. He deported opponents to death camps. He raped and molested girls and women. He demanded unquestioned obedience and embodied the evil of his oppressors. For Levi, he was an example of what many of us, under similar circumstances, are capable of becoming.

“We are all mirrored in Rumkowski, his ambiguity is ours, it is our second nature, we hybrids molded from clay and spirit,” Levi wrote in “The Drowned and the Saved.” “[H]is fever is ours, the fever of our Western civilization that ‘descends into hell with trumpets and drums,’ and its miserable adornments are the distorting image of our symbols of social prestige.”

“Like Rumkowski, we too are so dazzled by power and prestige as to forget our essential fragility,” Levi adds. “[W]illingly or not, we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death and that close by the train is waiting.”

These bitter lessons of the Holocaust, which warn that the line between the victim and victimizer is razor thin, that we can all become willing executioners, that there is nothing intrinsically moral about being Jewish or a survivor of the Holocaust, are what Zionists seek to deny. Levi, for this reason, was persona non grata in Israel.

Holocaust studies, which exploded in the 1970s and were epitomized by the deification of the Holocaust survivor and fervent Zionist Elie Wiesel — literary critic Alfred Kazin called him a “Jesus of the Holocaust” — have now surrendered any claim to championing universal truths. These Holocaust scholars use a benchmark evil, as Norman Finkelstein points out, “not as a moral compass but rather as an ideological club.” The mantra “Do not compare,” Finkelstein writes, “is the mantra of moral blackmailers.”

Zionists find in the Holocaust and the Jewish state a sense of purpose and meaning, as well as a cloying moral superiority. After the 1967 war, when Israel seized Gaza and the West Bank, Israel, as Nathan Glazer approvingly observed, became “the religion of the American Jews.”

Holocaust studies are based on the fallacy that unique suffering confers unique entitlement. This was always the purpose of what Finkelstein calls “The Holocaust Industry.”

“Jewish suffering is depicted as ineffable, uncommunicable, and yet always to be proclaimed,” writes the European historian Charles Maier in “The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity.” “It is intensely private, not to be diluted, but simultaneously public so that gentile society will confirm the crimes. A very peculiar suffering must be enshrined in public sites: Holocaust museums, memory gardens, deportation sites, dedicated not as Jewish but civic memorials. But what is the role of a museum in a country, such as the United States, far from the site of the Holocaust? … Under what circumstances can a private sorrow serve simultaneously as public grief? And if genocide is certified as a public sorrow, then must we not accept the credentials of other particular sorrows too? Do Armenians and Cambodians also have a right to publicly funded holocaust museums? And do we need memorials to Seventh Day Adventists and homosexuals for their persecution at the hands of the Third Reich?”

Any crime Israel carries out in the name of its survival — its “right to exist” — is justified in the name of this uniqueness. There are no limits. The world is black and white, a never-ending battle against Nazism, which is protean depending on who Israel targets. To challenge this bloodlust is to be an anti-Semite facilitating another genocide of Jews.

This simplistic formula not only serves the interests of Israel, but also the interests of colonial powers that carried out their own genocides, ones they seek to obscure. What was the annihilation of Native Americans by European settlers, the Armenians by Turks, the Indians in the Bengal famine by the British or the Soviet-orchestrated famine in the Ukraine? What was the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Is Manifest Destiny any different from the Nazis’ embrace of the concept of Lebensraum? These too were holocausts, fueled by the same dehumanization and bloodlusts.

The sacralization of the Nazi Holocaust offers a bizarre quid pro quo. Arming and funding the state of Israel, preventing U.N. resolutions and sanctions from being adopted to condemn its crimes, and demonizing Palestinians and their supporters, is proof of atonement and support for Jews. Israel, in return, absolves the West of its indifference to the plight of Jews during the Holocaust, and Germany for perpetrating it.

Germany uses this unholy alliance to separate Nazism from the rest of German history, including the genocide German colonists carried out against the Nama and Herero in German South-West Africa, now Namibia.

“[S]uch magic,” Israeli historian and genocide scholar Raz Segal writes, “legitimizes racism against Palestinians at the very moment that Israel perpetrates genocide against them. The idea of Holocaust uniqueness thus reproduces rather than challenges the exclusionary nationalism and settler colonialism that led to the Holocaust.”

Segal, the director of the program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, wrote an article on Gaza on Oct. 13, 2023 — six days after the incursion by Hamas and other Palestinian fighters into Israel — titled: “A Textbook Case of Genocide.” This denunciation from an Israeli Holocaust scholar, whose family members perished in the Holocaust, was a very lonely stance.

Segal saw in the Israeli government’s immediate demand that Palestinians evacuate the north of Gaza, and the blood-curdling demonization of the Palestinians by Israeli officials — the defense minister said Israel was “fighting human animals” — the stench of genocide.

“The whole idea about prevention and ‘never again’ is that — as we teach our students — there are red flags that once we notice them, we're supposed to work in order to stop the process that could escalate to genocide,” Segal said when I interviewed him, “even if it's not genocidal yet.”

You can watch my interview with Segal here.

“Holocaust studies as a field might be dead, which is not necessarily a bad thing,” he continued. “If indeed Holocaust studies is intertwined from the beginning with the ideology of global Holocaust memory, maybe it's good that we won't have Holocaust studies anymore. And maybe it will open the door for even more interesting and important research on the Holocaust as history, as real history.”

Segal paid for his courage and his honesty. The offer to lead the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies — which has issued no condemnation of the genocide — was revoked.

Nearly two years into the genocide, the International Association of Genocide Scholars finally issued a statement saying that Israel’s conduct meets the legal definition set out in the U.N. Convention on Genocide.

But the vast majority of Holocaust scholars remain mute, endlessly condemning the atrocities committed by Hamas while ignoring those committed by Israel. They were mute when South Africa argued before the International Court of Justice that Israel was committing genocide. They were mute when Amnesty International published a report in December 2024 accusing Israel of genocide.

“How many Palestinian students apply to graduate programmes in Holocaust and Genocide Studies around the world? Usually none. How many Palestinian scholars identify themselves as scholars in this field? They, too, can be counted on one hand,” Segal writes in a co-authored article in the Journal of Genocide Research.

Genocide is coded in the DNA of Western imperialism. Palestine has made this clear. The genocide is the next stage in what the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai calls “a vast worldwide Malthusian correction” that is “geared to preparing the world for the winners of globalization, minus the inconvenient noise of its losers.”

The funding and arming of Israel by the United States and European nations as it carries out genocide has imploded the post-World War II international legal order. It no longer has credibility. The West cannot lecture anyone now about democracy, human rights or the supposed virtues of Western civilization.

“At the same time that Gaza induces vertigo, a feeling of chaos and emptiness, it becomes for countless powerless people the essential condition of political and ethical consciousness in the twenty-first century — just as the First World War was for a generation in the West,” Pankaj Mishra writes in “The World After Gaza.”

The ability to peddle the fiction that the Nazi Holocaust is unique, or that Jews are uniquely entitled, has ended. The genocide presages a new world order, one where Europe and the United States, along with their proxy Israel, are pariahs. Gaza has illuminated a dark truth — barbarism and Western civilization are inseparable.

(chrishedges.substack.com)

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