Warm | Tomatillos | Audit Underway | Kirk Gathering | France Booked | Brent Twoomey | Local Events | No Decision | Oaken Sky | Yesterday's Catch | Salmon Opening | Big-Valley Cattlemen | Book Clubs | Hearing Postponed | MegaMillions Ten | Giants Lose | Modoc & Marin | Mycrow Brewery | Loud Commercials | Kinder Nap | Doctor Fenty | Do Nothing | Quake Mysteries | Mind Numbing | Tramp Steamer | Ave Maria | Milkman/Pieman | Kimmel Return | No Trespassing | Street Thugs | Catalog People | Miss Stein | Bop Bop | Yankee Doodle | Warning Signs | Lead Stories | You Are | Sick World | Covering Gaza | Handbaskets | Ode | Prince Palantir | Checking Price
WARMER AND DRIER weather will gradually build in through late Tuesday. A troughing pattern could emerge by mid week with a cut off low over coastal central/southern CA. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 50F under clear skies this Tuesday morning on the coast. I'll go with a sunny skies forecast for today & why the heck not try for clear skies again tomorrow. The stratus quo likely to return after that.
WE WERE TOLD RECENTLY that that big $800k state Auditor’s office audit of Mendocino County’s finances announced by the Supervisors and State Senator Mike McGuire last year is indeed underway and that the investigator(s) is asking some very pointed questions of County officials. If true, it’s possible that this audit may have real public interest value. We do not know what the release date of the results of the audit will be, but last year when it was announced it was supposed to be finished this year. (Mark Scaramella)
HUNDREDS GATHER IN UKIAH TO HONOR CHARLIE KIRK
by Matt LaFever
As the sun dipped below the horizon Sunday evening, hundreds of Mendocino County residents filled Todd Grove Park for a candlelight gathering honoring Charlie Kirk following his assassination. Dim lights flickered across the lawn as the program unfolded with a pledge of allegiance, an opening prayer, a young woman’s stirring performance of Amazing Grace, scripture reading, a moment of silence, and a tribute video.
Angle Ricord Slater, one of the event’s organizers, estimated that around 700 people attended. “We had 500 candles we disbursed, and I was told that people were lined up all the way back to the play structures,” she said, noting that in the darkness it was difficult to see the full extent of the crowd. Slater described the evening as “a beautiful evening that proved how our shared humanity and compassion can turn a tragedy into an evening of light and hope,” adding that people from “all walks of life, including both sides of the political aisle” came together in Kirk’s memory.
Pastor Mike Fenton of Trinity Baptist Church in Ukiah offered a message of forgiveness, saying he had recently read a reflection that struck him deeply: if Kirk’s assassin were to repent and believe in Jesus Christ, Kirk would embrace him in heaven. “That is what the gospel does,” Fenton said. “It reconciles sinners to God and to one another. It breaks down the walls of hatred, guilt and shame. It takes enemies and makes them family in Christ.”
Fenton also reflected on Kirk’s vision for the next generation, noting that he believed young men and women, when set free by Christ and guided by objective truth, could rise above fear and despair. That kind of faith and hope, he said, had the power to transform lives, raise the trajectory of the nation, and even influence the world.
The evening closed quietly, candles still glowing as the crowd stood together in silence, united in grief and remembrance.
(mendofever.com)
MICHAEL FRANCE + MOTEL 6 + GUNSHOTS…
On Tuesday, September 9, 2025 at approximately 10:47 P.M., Mendocino County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to 1340 North State Street (Motel 6 North) in Ukiah regarding a report of a male subject attempting to forcibly take a female subject. The reporting party observed the male chasing a female and believed a domestic incident had occurred.
Upon arrival, deputies observed the door to Room #134 open with a clear view inside. After completing a protective sweep, no victims were located in or around the room.
Deputies continued searching the area for possible involved parties or witnesses. During this search, witnesses reported that a possible robbery had occurred. One witness stated he heard a male screaming as he fled toward the rear of the motel, falling as though he had been shot before getting up and running. The witness also reported hearing four to five suspected gunshots coming from inside Room #134. After continued searching and canvassing of the area, Deputies were unable to locate anyone involved in this incident.
The next day a male subject contacted deputies and reported being a victim of robbery at Motel 6. He provided a statement confirming that a violent assault occurred on 09/09/2025 and further advised that his friend had been shot during the robbery. The male victim reported a male suspect attempted to shoot and kill him during the armed robbery.
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Bureau was briefed and began working alongside patrol deputies on this investigation.
The next day Sheriff’s Detectives processed Room #134 for evidence. Inside they located a suspected bullet hole in the wall facing the front door. Suspected blood was observed on the bathroom door trim, on the toilet, and on the wall below the opened bathroom window. Other evidence was located and processed, consistent with a violent act occurring with a firearm inside the motel room.
On September 13, 2025 at approximately 01:17 A.M., deputies learned that the second victim had arrived at Adventist Health Howard Memorial Emergency Room in Willits. The second male victim suffered a gunshot wound to his hand several days earlier. The victim provided a statement regarding his involvement in the incident.
During follow-up interviews, investigators learned that a female subject had also been involved in the robbery. She was later located and interviewed regarding this incident.
Through witness statements, surveillance video review, and evidence collection, Sheriff’s Detectives identified 36-year-old Michael France as a person of interest. Sufficient probable cause was developed to believe France was responsible for the robbery and shooting.
On September 13, 2025, Investigators learned that France was scheduled to appear at the Lake County Superior Courthouse. Additionally, France had an active misdemeanor warrant for his arrest, unrelated to the armed robbery.
Due to the severity of the current investigation (armed robbery/attempted murder) and detectives’ knowledge that France has a history of violent offenses and would more than likely attempt to avoid capture, it was decided to attempt to arrest France in a controlled setting at the Courthouse.
Detectives interacted with Investigators from the Lake County District Attorney’s Office regarding this investigation and France’s scheduled court date. Lake County District Attorney Investigators advised they would be present at the courthouse and would apprehend France if he appeared in Court.
On September 16, 2025, Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Detectives were contacted by the Lake County District Attorney Investigations Unit, who advised France was taken into custody without incident. France was in possession of keys to his BMW Motorcycle which was parked near the Lake County Superior Courthouse. The motorcycle was believed to be used during the armed robbery, and was also involved in a short, high-speed pursuit with the California Highway Patrol, minutes after the robbery on September 9, 2025. The motorcycle was seized as evidence, and a warrant was authored to search France’s motorcycle. Evidence related to the armed robbery on September 9, 2025 was found stored in the motorcycle.
While France was being arrested, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Detectives authored a warrant for charges of Attempted Murder, Robbery, Use of a firearm causing great-bodily injury, Assault with a firearm and prohibited person in possession of a firearm. France was subsequently booked into the Mendocino County Jail and is being held in lieu of $780,000 bail.
Anyone with information related to this investigation is requested to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Communications Center at 707-463-4086 (option 1). Information can also be provided anonymously by calling the non-emergency tip-line at 707-234-2100.
BRENT WILLIAM TWOOMEY
Brent Twoomey, Humboldt County horticultural entrepreneur, Rolling Stones super-fan, and fierce protector of Northern California’s natural resources, passed away on August 28 in Tiburon after a long illness. He was 75.
Born June 16, 1950, in Lincoln, Nebraska, Brent was the third of four sons of Frances and Vincent Twoomey. The family eventually settled in Marin County in the early 1960s, where Brent came of age during the height of the counterculture.
Brent graduated from Redwood High in 1969, working numerous jobs while immersing himself in the music and spirit of the era. He saw Janis Joplin grocery shopping and went to fifty Rolling Stones concerts, including Altamont, as well as countless Van Morrison shows. Brent was a familiar face at Marin’s iconic Lion’s Share, where Bill Champlin’s Sons of Champlin often played.
In the 1970s, Brent moved north with his brother Bruce, drawn to the beauty of Trinidad and the surrounding redwood forests and to attend Humboldt State University. He became a developer, one who believed in blending structures with the natural environment. His work to protect the Mill Creek Watershed was one of his proudest accomplishments.
Through the late 1970s and 80s, Brent and his brothers expanded transportation services in the region, supporting the public, tourism, and the safe movement of federal and state firefighters. Later, his entrepreneurial spirit led to the creation of the Humboldt Composting Company and the Guano Company, pioneering fertilizer and plant nutrition products that became staples of the local economy.
Beyond work, Brent gave back to his community, planting rhododendrons, advocating for civic improvements, and hiking every Redwood National and State Parks trail. In later years, he found peace in Washington’s San Juan Islands, where he delighted in the Madrona trees, deer, orcas, and sunsets over Haro Strait.
Brent made friends wherever he went and will be remembered for his humor, generosity, and vision.
He is survived by his brother, Brad, of Trinidad, and by Sarah Mae Galligan, his devoted companion and confidant, and her daughters, Cocora and Lotus Low, whom he adored and with whom he shared many precious years of his life.
Brent also leaves behind his extended family at Guano Co., a dedicated team that worked alongside him to carry forward the legacy of his lifelong passion for cultivation, stewardship, and the natural world.
A Celebration of Life will be held on October 18 at the Trinidad Town Hall from 1:00 to 7:00 p.m.. Further information is available by emailing [email protected]
Donations to continue Brent’s environmental work can be made at his page at the Save the Redwoods League.
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
DA SAYS NO CHARGING DECISION YET in Willits man’s in-custody death ruled a homicide
by Madison Smalstig
The in-custody death of a Willits man after a struggle with Mendocino County sheriff’s deputies in June has been ruled a homicide, authorities said.
Following forensic testing, the county coroner’s office determined Nicholas Bakewell, 36, died June 5 from restraint-associated asphyxiation — when breathing is restricted during restraint — and a lack of oxygen to the heart. Both conditions can occur when airflow to the lungs or oxygen supply to the body is interrupted. That can happen, for example, when a person’s chest is compressed, their airway is blocked or their body position makes it difficult to breathe.
The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that contributing factors included high blood pressure, class III obesity, and intoxication from methamphetamine; a cough suppressant; psilocybin, the hallucinogen found in psychedelic mushrooms; and GHB, a powerful depressant sometimes referred to as a “date-rape drug.”
The coroner’s ruling is a medical determination and does not itself establish legal wrongdoing.
The findings were sent to the county District Attorney’s Office for review. District Attorney David Eyster told The Press Democrat his office has not received the final report from investigators and has not made any decisions about charges.
Under California law, a homicide can be considered justified if officers use force allowed by law. The District Attorney’s Office will decide whether the deputies’ actions in this case followed that law.
Deputy Jesus Lopez and Sgt. Sam Logan — who have five and 13 years of law enforcement experience, respectively — were placed on paid administrative leave after Bakewell’s death. Both returned to full duty later in June following internal reviews, Capt. Quincy Cromer told The Press Democrat.
Cromer said the coroner’s ruling does not affect the deputies’ work status.
“It doesn’t change what happened that day,” he said.
The sheriff’s internal investigation will resume once the DA’s Office completes its report.
The confrontation began around 7 p.m. June 5, when the Sheriff’s Office responded to a California Highway Patrol call about a fight between a hitchhiker, later identified as Bakewell, and the driver who had picked him up. Authorities said Bakewell assaulted the driver, who was hospitalized.
Lopez found Bakewell walking in the middle of Hearst Willits Road, east of Willits. When the deputy got out of his patrol vehicle, Bakewell raised his fists and lunged toward him, according to body camera footage released in July and reviewed by The Press Democrat. Lopez backed away, drew his Taser and ordered Bakewell to get down.
Instead, Bakewell ran. Logan soon arrived, and after a brief exchange, deputies used pepper spray as Bakewell darted into roadside brush. When he resisted being handcuffed, Logan fired his Taser twice, sheriff’s officials said.
Four officers eventually pulled Bakewell from the brush, pinned him on his stomach and handcuffed him as he continued to resist. The footage makes it unclear how many officers were on top of him, but Lopez is seen straddling his back while Logan held his legs.
Within 25 seconds of being restrained, officers urged Bakewell to “relax,” “breathe” and “take some breaths.”
About half a minute later, they realized he was unresponsive.
Deputies administered Narcan and CPR until medics arrived, but Bakewell was pronounced dead.
The Sheriff’s Office released dispatch audio and video of the encounter as required by state law. The video includes body camera footage from both Lopez and Logan, covering their arrival through the moment Bakewell was handcuffed. Lopez’s camera also captures deputies removing the cuffs but cuts off before CPR begins.
There are small edits throughout the video, including slowed-down clips of Bakewell lunging at and pushing Lopez. At times audio is absent; it’s unclear whether that was an edit or a camera malfunction. The video also contains audio from part of the dispatch call.
Cromer, addressing the findings and video release, defended his deputies’ actions.
“The force used by our personnel was legally permitted and appropriate within the standards established,” Cromer said, noting that state law lets officers use force to stop resistance, prevent an escape or make an arrest. “That is my opinion and assessment.”
(pressdemocrat.com)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, September 22, 2025
CHARLES ANDERSON, 58, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
SCOTT ANDREWS, 44, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
NICHOLAS DAVILA, 35, Leggett. Failure to appear.
MATTHEW HAYES, 39, Whitehorn. Assault on public safety officer with deadly weapon not a gun with likelihood of great bodily harm, battery on emergency personnel who was engaged in duties, resisting, evasion.
JONATHAN HENDERSON, 23, Ukiah. Under influence.
MATTHEW KELLY, 43, Willits. Pot possession for sale, paraphernalia, controlled substance for sale, failure to obey lawful order from peace officer, resisting.
SCOTT MAINGI, 50, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.
ERIC MCKNIGHT, 55, Clearlake/Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors.
CHERRAL MITCHELL, 41, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
JAIME RIVERA, 48, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, contempt of court.
KELLY STANTON, 49, Ukiah. Battery, probation revocation.
FALL SALMON OPENER YIELDS SALMON LIMITS, FISHING FOR ROCKFISH OPEN AT ALL DEPTHS
by Dan Bacher
The Marin County Coast was the hot spot for the four day fall ocean salmon season that ran from September 4 to September 7 from Point Reyes to Point Sur.…
https://fishsniffer.com/report/marin-coast-map-feature
BOOK CLUBS
by Paul Modic
I’m wondering why every local book club I’m aware of is segregated by gender? Is it because men have a reputation, probably deserved, of domineering conversations and discussions? More practically maybe it’s because many of the participants in these monthly groups are married or otherwise attached and it’s a good excuse to get away from the other half for an evening? (I would probably find it more boring without women, being single.)
Maybe even without a loud boring blathering man espousing his opinions, as if he is definitely correct, some women will still feel reserved and hesitant to get into the mix because of the accumulation of all their previous experiences with men, often known as “been through the mill.” Or maybe it’s more simple, just an archetypal psychological situation where the genders naturally seek their own kind and are more comfortable without the opposite sex sitting there with them? (Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the one about gay book clubs always turning into orgies.)
Maybe men put themselves in this deplorable women-less situation because they feel they can’t be their complete, possibly rude, crude and lewd selves (no wait, I’m projecting again) with women around and would have to worry that they might say something which could be offensive to a female but not to their buddies? (Women also might feel the need to self-censor so as not to be offensive, as the war of the sexes roars on.)
Like most things it probably comes down to fear and loathing: fear of offending, hell, maybe the men start out each meeting telling their fellow intellectuals (they read books, right?) their favorite dirty joke, or just a joke which is inadvertently offensive to someone? Humor and its delivery can be a dicey situation, a two way street: I’ve got a good sense of humor but you need one also to get the joke and not take it personally. (It depends who you are if you ever hope to be invited to a mythical mixed book group, though actually I’d prefer a women’s group.)
It is fun to tease people about who they are (and in fairness I’ve always teased myself twice as much), though I’ve found that they often hate it when you show them who they are. When you cut through their bullshit and have the temerity to call them on it, it feels offensive to the recipient but it’s just the facts, Jack. (Okay, mine anyway.)
(One example of this was when a friend of a friend was passing through town and didn’t try to contact me to finally meet in person. That’s fine, her right and I didn’t feel rejected, but then she said, “Oh, I didn't have your number, so…”
“Well,” I said. “I'm on email and facebook all day long, you could have contacted me if you wanted to. I understand, you were on a family trip and wanted to just do that.”
Silence. Never heard from her again, even after a couple more short emails on another subject. People just like you to let their bullshit slide without comment and maybe that's how it's done in polite society, a place I'm pretty unfamiliar with. Someone should call me on my shit so I know what it feels like, but apparently I'm perfect.)
However, many of us don’t have enough or any people listening to us so when there’s an opportunity the creature who can’t stop talking oozes out of the primordial muck, it becomes all about them (me), and they have to motormouth along making up for all the time they’re alone without an audience except their dog or possibly parrot.
Fortunately I am not one of those blatherers (except here of course), in fact my problem was always fear and shyness to express my opinion in social situations and in thirty years of community meetings out in the hills I rarely said a word or passed up a joint. Only recently, the last ten or so years, have I gotten a clue about the fine art of conversation: I say something, maybe then ask you a question, you say something, I listen and respond to what you said, maybe ask a followup question and on it goes. (Pausing to let the other person speak is like setting someone up with a nice pass while playing volleyball. The glory of a good set-up is actually better than just smashing it over the net with no teamwork, right? Conversation is teamwork.)
What got me thinking about this is that the other day I sold one of my books to a guy who said he’d bring it to his book group and maybe invite me to talk about it. That might be fun but if I drive all the way out there I better sell some copies, with printing costs the way they are I think I make a penny each, or maybe I lose one, can’t remember.
(Claire Keegan is my new favorite author, a joy to read.)
CALIFORNIA WATER BOARD POSTPONES BAY-DELTA WATER QUALITY HEARINGS AFTER NEWSOM'S LEGISLATIVE DEFEAT
Tribal, rural and environmental organizations and fishermen urge Board to abandon Voluntary Agreements
by Dan Bacher
Sacramento, California — On Sept.15, the California State Water Resources Control Board cancelled workshop dates scheduled for Sept. 24 and 25 that were intended to allow public comment on the proposed update to the failed 30-year-old Bay-Delta Plan, according to a press release from Save California Salmon.…
MAGICAL DAYS IN CHOCOLATE CITY
Went into the check cashing/Western Union/Lotto place on H Street in Washington, D.C. on Friday and purchased MegaMillions and Powerball tickets. Gave the clerk at the window a $20 bill, receiving $12 in change. Walked back to the counter, filled out the back of both tickets, and noticed that the ten dollar bill was missing. Mentioned it to the clerk at the window, who suggested checking my pockets, looking on the floor, etcetera. The ten dollar bill simply disappeared! The next day, I went into the same place because I had won $10 in the MegaMillions drawing. The same clerk laughed, and said: "The fairy folk are having fun with you!"
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
GIANTS FALL TO CARDS as Justin Verlander’s topsy turvy year continues
by Susan Slusser
If Justin Verlander’s time in San Francisco is coming to a close, what a strange sojourn he’s had with the Giants.
Verlander, an undisputed future first-ballot Hall of Famer, has pitched as well as anyone in the rotation much of the second half, and yet he’s still had little in the way of Ws, mostly because of poor run support. Monday night against the Cardinals, Verlander got some backing from the offense, but he had his worst outing in a month in the Giants’ 6-5 loss to St. Louis. An error by second baseman Casey Schmitt contributed to two runs, and the team also had two men thrown out on the bases.
“That’s one of those games that, shoot, we thought that we should have won,” said outfielder Heliot Ramos, who homered but also was one of the men thrown out on the bases. “Obviously, we’re trying to keep fighting. We’re trying to make it to the playoffs, so we just have to play better.”
San Francisco dipped 3½ games between the Mets and Reds, neither of which played Monday, in the wild-card standings with the Giants having five games to play. San Francisco could be eliminated as soon as Tuesday if the Mets win and the Giants lose; the Reds and Giants' tiebreaker remains undecided.
The nights Verlander pitches well, and there have been plenty, the Giants score little — in 22 of his 28 starts, they’ve managed no more than three runs — or the defense or bullpen falters, not much has aligned. For a 42-year-old chasing 300 wins (he’s 25 shy), this has got to be aggravating, but he hasn’t complained, despite the fact he’s allowed no more than one run in eight of his past 12 outings and has two wins to show for it.
He plans to make his last scheduled start for the Giants this weekend. And then who knows? Verlander’s second-half surge will make plenty of teams take notice, and while Oracle Park is a great spot for a starter, the results this season might outweigh the pitcher-friendly dimensions for the free agent-to-be.
Monday, things were a little different.
Ramos provided Verlander an early advantage with a leadoff homer, and after the Cardinals tied it in the third and took a one-run lead in the fourth, the Giants scored three more in the fourth. Patrick Bailey drove in one with a base hit, and with two outs and the bases loaded, Ramos rapped a single to right to send in two more.
Ramos took a wide turn around first and first baseman Alec Burleson cut off the throw to the plate and nailed Ramos for the final out. The play might have allowed the second run to score, or it might have denied San Francisco the chase to score more — Rafael Devers would have been up with men at the corners.
“I was trying to draw a throw,” Ramos said. “I thought the play was going to be close at home plate, but I read it bad, I should have stayed.”
Devers homered to open the fifth.
Before that Devers homer, though, the Cardinals had put up four runs on Verlander, who said he felt a little lethargic Monday, something that showed up in his velocity, with his fastball down 1.7 mph from his norm. “I tried to battle through the best I could,” he said.
Lars Nootbar singled and Iván Herrera homered to open the fifth; Schmitt had a shot at getting a runner at the plate had he fielded a bouncer by Pedro Pagés cleanly, but the spin carried the ball out of Schmitt’s hand and the Giants got no outs on the play.
“I think he might be a little bit on fumes right now,” manager Bob Melvin said of Verlander. “He’s been pitching on regular turn when we’ve been moving them up out of necessity, but I’ll tell you what, he still competes, and he was on his way to potentially pitching his way out of that inning. We ended up making an error, obviously, and at that point in time, it was time to go get him.”
In the sixth, Bailey was thrown out trying for a double; Melvin said the team has been trying to be a little more aggressive on the bases and push the action.
The Giants did get a standout catch from rookie Drew Gilbert, who ran down Thomas Saggese’s drive to deep left center and made a diving catch in the seventh.
(sfchronicle.com)
MODOC VOTERS NOT KEEN TO SHARE MARIN CONGRESSMAN
by Jeanne Kuang
Over several rivers and through even more woods, flags advocating secession from California flutter above hills dotted with cattle, which outnumber people at least sixfold.
This ranching region with a libertarian streak might have more in common with Texas than the Bay Area.
But it’s not Texas. About five hours northeast of Sacramento, Modoc County and its roughly 8,500 residents are still — begrudgingly — in California.
And California is dominated by Democrats, who are embroiled in a tit-for-tat redistricting war with the Lone Star state that will likely force conservative Modoc County residents to share a representative in Congress with parts of the Bay Area.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to split up the solidly Republican 1st Congressional District covering 10 rural, inland counties as part of his plan to create five more Democratic seats to offset a GOP-led effort to gain five red seats in Texas.
That would mean Republican Doug LaMalfa, the Richvale rice farmer who represents the district, would likely lose his seat.
Modoc County and two neighboring red counties would be shifted into a redrawn district that stretches 200 miles west to the Pacific Coast and then south, to include wealthier and more liberal areas such as Marin County, represented by San Rafael Democrat Jared Huffman.
“It’s like a smack in the face,” said local rancher Amie Martinez. “How could you put Marin County with Modoc County? It’s just a different perspective.”
The proposal would even likely force Modoc residents to share a district with the governor, who moved back to Marin County last year and splits his time between there and Sacramento. Modoc County voted 78% in favor of recalling him, and voters asked about redistricting there view it as a publicity stunt for Newsom’s presidential ambitions.
The ballot measure known as Proposition 50, on voters’ ballots Nov. 4, has sparked outrage in the northern parts of the state. Yet for a region known for its rebellious spirit, residents are also resigned: They know they’re collateral damage in a partisan numbers game.
The map would dilute conservative voting power in one of the state’s traditional Republican strongholds. It would cut short the career growth of politicians from the state’s minority party and make room for the growing cadre of Democrats rising up from state and county seats, jockeying for bigger platforms.
But locals say they’re most concerned it’s a death-knell for rural representation. They worry their agricultural interests and their views on water, wildlife and forest management would be overshadowed in a district that includes Bay Area communities that have long championed environmental protection.
“They’ve taken every rural district and made it an urban district,” said Nadine Bailey, a former staffer for a Republican state senator who now advocates for agricultural water users and the rural north. “It just feels like an assault on rural California.”
Though Modoc County supervisors have declared their opposition to Prop. 50, there’s little else locals can do. Registered Republicans are outnumbered by Democrats statewide nearly two-to-one. Rural residents represent an even smaller share of the state’s electorate.
“It’ll be very hard to fight back,” said Tim Babcock, owner of a general store in Lassen County, a similar and neighboring community that’s proposed to be drawn into a different liberal-leaning congressional district. “Unless we split the state. And that’s never going to happen.”
Modoc County went for Trump by over 70% last fall. Its sheriff, Tex Dowdy, proudly refuses to fly the California flag over his station out of grievance with the state’s liberal governance. In 2013, Modoc made headlines for declaring its intent to secede from California and form the “State of Jefferson” with neighboring counties in the North State and southwest Oregon.
County Supervisor Geri Byrne said she knew it was a long shot — but thought, “When’s the last time the New York Times called someone in Modoc County?”
Byrne, who is also chair of the Rural County Representatives of California and of the upcoming National Sheepdog Finals, said the secession resolution was about sending a message.
“It wasn’t conservative-liberal,” she said. “It was the urban-rural divide, and that’s what this whole Prop. 50 is about.”
Even a Democratic resident running a produce pickup center in Alturas observed that her neighbors are “not that Trumpy.” Instead, there’s a pervasive general distrust of politics on any side of the aisle.
In particular, residents who live by swaths of national forests bemoan how successive federal administrations of both parties have flip-flopped on how to manage public lands, which they say have worsened the risk of wildfire and prioritized conservation over their livelihoods.
As California’s battlegrounds increasingly take shape in exurban and suburban districts, rural north state conservatives at times feel almost as out of touch with their fellow Republicans as they do with Democrats.
Few Republicans in the state and nation understand “public lands districts,” said Modoc County Supervisor Shane Starr, a Republican who used to work in LaMalfa’s office. “Doug’s the closest thing we’ve got.”
“This whole thing with DEI and ‘woke culture’ and stuff,” he said, referring to the diversity and inclusion efforts under attack from the right, “it’s like, yeah, we had a kid who goes to the high school who dyed his hair a certain color. Cool, we don’t care. All of these things going on at the national stage are not based in our reality whatsoever.”
Martinez said she once ran into LaMalfa at a local barbecue fundraiser for firefighters and approached him about a proposal to designate parts of northwestern Nevada as protected federal wilderness. Her 700-person town of Cedarville in east Modoc County is 10 minutes from the state line.
Martinez worried about rules that prohibit driving motorized vehicles in wilderness, which she said would discourage the hunters who pass through during deer season and book lodging in town. Even though the proposal was in Nevada, LaMalfa sent staff, including Starr, to meetings to raise objections on behalf of the small town, she said.
“I know we won’t get that kind of representation from Marin County,” she said.
Huffman defends his qualifications to represent the area.
Adding Siskiyou, Shasta and Modoc counties would mean many more hours of travel to meet constituents, but Huffman pointed out his district is already huge, covering 350 miles of the North Coast. And it includes many conservative-leaning, forested areas in Trinity and Del Norte counties.
Huffman, a former attorney for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, is the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, where LaMalfa also sits.
Huffman said he would run for re-election in the district if voters approve its redrawing, and “would work my tail off to give them great representation.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats in the north are gearing up to support Prop. 50, even as parts of it make them uneasy.
Nancy Richardson, an office manager at the free weekly paper in Modoc County, said she doesn’t like that it will cost the state as much as $280 million to run the statewide election on redistricting.
But she thinks it has to be done.
“I don’t like that Texas is causing this problem,” she said.
In Siskiyou County’s liberal enclave of Mount Shasta, Greg Dinger said he supports the redistricting plan because he wants to fight back against the Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants, erosion of democratic norms and a federal budget that is estimated to cut $28 billion from health care in California over the next 10 years.
The effects are expected to be particularly acute in struggling rural hospitals, which disproportionately rely on Medicare and Medicaid funding. LaMalfa voted for the budget bill.
Dinger, who owns a web development company, said normally he would only support bipartisan redistricting. But he was swayed by the fact that Trump had called for Republicans to draw more GOP seats in Texas.
“Under the circumstances, I don’t think there’s any option,” he said. “There’s the phrase that came from Michelle Obama, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ Well, that doesn’t work anymore.”
LaMalfa says the impacts to rural hospitals were exaggerated. He blamed impending Medicaid cuts instead on California’s health care system being billions of dollars over budget this year, in part because of rising pharmaceutical costs and higher-than-expected enrollment of undocumented immigrants who recently became eligible. (California doesn’t use federal dollars to pay for undocumented immigrants’ coverage.)
“Basically what it boils down to is they want illegal immigrants to be getting these benefits,” he said in response to criticism of the spending bill. “Are the other 49 states supposed to pay for that?”
LaMalfa has criticized Prop. 50 and said no state should engage in partisan redistricting in the middle of the decade. But he stopped short of endorsing his Republican colleague Rep. Kevin Kiley’s bill in Congress to ban it nationwide, saying states should still retain their rights to run their own elections systems.
The proposed new maps would make Kiley’s Republican-leaning district blue. They would turn LaMalfa’s 1st District into a dramatically more liberal one that stretches into Santa Rosa.
But LaMalfa said he’s leaning toward running for re-election even if the maps pass, though he’s focused for now on campaigning against the proposition.
“I intend to give it my all no matter what the district is,” he said.
He would likely face Audrey Denney, a Chico State professor and two-time prior Democratic challenger who has already said she’d run again if the maps pass. Outgoing state Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Healdsburg Democrat who was instrumental in coming up with the proposed new maps, is also reportedly interested in the seat. McGuire’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In her renovated Queen Anne cottage in downtown Chico, Denney buzzed with excitement describing how the proposition has galvanized rural Democrats. She emphasized her own family’s roots as ranchers in the Central Coast region, and said she has bipartisan relationships across the North State.
“I have credibility in those spaces, growing up in rural America and spending my career advocating for rural America and real, actual, practical solutions for people,” she said.
(CalMatters.org)
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE PASSES BAN ON OBNOXIOUS NETFLIX PROBLEM
by Anabel Sosa
The California Legislature passed a bill earlier this month that could change how Californians experience streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and other platforms.
Despite major pushback at the start of the year from Hollywood, Senate Bill 576 passed the Legislature with bipartisan support and, if signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would put a muzzle on commercials that air on these streaming platforms, requiring that ads play no louder than the programs they accompany.
State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat from Santa Ana, who authored the bill, said he was inspired when one of his staffers said her baby was woken up — twice — because of excessively loud commercial breaks while watching a show.
“I think everyone has been irritated by the increase in volume when commercials blast much louder than the program you’re watching,” Umberg told SFGATE during a phone call. “Anyone who has a baby knows one of the most important things in life is keeping a sleeping baby asleep. I thought I should do something about that.”
The bill is similar to a measure signed by Barack Obama in 2010, which prevents commercials on cable television from being louder than the volume of the normal programming. The same rules would be applied to streaming services for users in California.
The Motion Picture Association of America and Streaming Innovators Alliance, both powerful entertainment groups that represent major streamers including Netflix, Disney and Paramount, originally opposed the bill, writing in a letter that they were already finding ways to adjust volume.
Melissa Patack, a representative for the group, testified in June during a committee hearing that “streaming ads come from several different sources and cannot necessarily or practically be controlled … the streaming platform may not be able to control the loudness of a particular ad.”
Umberg postulated that there could be pressure from advertisers who “want the commercials boosted to grab your attention” over a more quiet program playing on your screen. He questioned the industry’s claims that changing volume levels was “not technologically feasible,” suggesting that developing the technology would be a low lift they can do “quickly.”
“I personally have confidence that if we don’t have that [technology], we can quickly develop it,” the senator told SFGATE.
Umberg said he doesn’t know what Newsom will decide, given the power the entertainment industry has on policymaking. CalMatters reported that the industry has given at least $204,000 since 2015 to lawmakers.
“They obviously have a voice in Sacramento, and I think we’ve addressed their concerns,” he said. “Whenever I put a bill on the governor’s desk, I’m worried who may change his mind.”
In August, the industry formally changed its position on the bill to neutral, after an amendment was made to ensure only prosecutors or the attorney general, not private attorneys, have the power to sue them. The bill, if signed, will be enforced starting July 2026.
(SFGate.com)
WHAT SAN FRANCISCO’S FENTANYL CRISIS TAUGHT ME ABOUT BEING A DOCTOR
by Katie Taylor
Six months ago, while working an urgent care shift at a walk-in clinic just south of the Tenderloin, a patient tells me that he, too, is a doctor. That is, he laughs, he is known as a doctor for his skill at injecting fentanyl into other people’s veins.
It’s the first time I have heard this specific definition of “doctor,” and I find it somewhat creative — in the same way that I call my most argumentative friend The Lawyer, and a leftover-eating friend The Garbage Man.
After years of intravenous drug use, many of the San Franciscans who inject drugs come to need street doctors because the surface veins in their forearms and hands are rendered unusable. Punctured over and over, they become inflamed, narrowed and sclerosed. Those who inject shift to smaller, deeper veins in the neck, the groin and the feet, but finding these can prove technically difficult.
With a steadying, calming presence and what must be an even steadier hand, my patient tells me he excels at administering fentanyl injections and, as a result, earned a reputation as being a good doctor.
I ask him where he obtains his needles, if he shares or reuses them, if he has Narcan, and if he would be interested in treatments to help decrease or stop his use. He cuts me off at the pass. “Did I mention I’m good at what I do?” he says.
A month later, I am walking to the Civic Center BART Station after a shift. Since arriving at work that morning, a new homeless encampment has sprung up under the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium facade. Huddled together to get out of the rain, 20 people or so have tucked into its three sets of arched doorways along with their tents. Suddenly, someone calls out, “I need a doctor! A doctor,” I stop, urgently scan the sidewalk to find the source of the distress and feel in my bag for Narcan spray when the voice finishes the sentence, “… to hit me with that medicine.”
This time, the use of “doctor” doesn’t strike me as humorous or creative.
On my train ride home, I am angry. Am I mad that I feel tricked, that I was made to briefly panic? Or am I resentful that, for a section of our city’s population, doctoring has become synonymous with the pushing of fentanyl into veins?
There are similarities between street doctors and licensed ones. We both, for instance, offer drugs to those addicted to opioids. But while fentanyl is obliterative, methadone and buprenorphine are slow-acting and stabilizing.
I wonder, too, about my street doctor’s bedside manner, how he makes his patients feel. Every presentation, lecture and addiction seminar that I’ve ever attended endlessly stresses a nonjudgmental approach. I’m sure he gives them that.
The clinic where I work, by contrast, is full of judgment — from the desk-to-ceiling glass that greets patients where they sign in, to the locked supply cabinet, the computer power strip zip-tied to the desk and the security guard and the sheriff’s deputy at the front. It’s there, best intentions be damned.
We are both people of knowledge. He is someone who can get the job done. Every vein successfully entered is a testament to his honed technical ability. Medical doctors bring years of schooling and the scientific method to bear, and the constant hope that those things inspire trust.
We both offer a path, a course of action. He facilitates ongoing fentanyl use, which will stave off withdrawal, numb pain and create a semiconscious state. I offer a different rhythm, an increase in consciousness, an assertion of self. In some patients, newfound abstinence leads to an encountering, a reacquainting with past traumas — darkness deferred comes thundering back.
Starting buprenorphine also comes with a degree of physical discomfort, as a moderate amount of withdrawal is required to begin the medication. And so, for many, it doesn’t seem worth it. Sitting with those patients who have tried and could not tolerate the withdrawal or the pain, the fight doesn’t feel fair. Medicine is overmatched, with a poor reach. With just a few prescriptions in our pockets, it doesn’t feel like we can knock out the heavyweight of fentanyl.
A month later, the doctor ends up in my office for treatment for cellulitis. Intravenous use brings with it the constant scepter of infection. While attending to his skin, I ask how he got into doctoring.
“I wanted to help my friends,” he says, stating that they often seek him out when they are dope sick.
Withdrawal is a savage possessor, a brutal overlord. With time, those who once tried to chase highs start using it simply to avoid the crushing, multiday, belly-emptying low. And yet, despite being inundated with one of the most powerful synthetic opioids ever made, this street doctor’s brain registers the pleasure of being of service.
The neural rewards for helping others are well-described: The “helper’s high” is a rush of dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin known as the “happiness trifecta.” It is why I got into the business of doctoring, too. I wanted to help, and my brain gives me an assorted gift basket of feel-good proteins when I do.
We are both dope (amine) fiends. Or perhaps one could say, we all are.
But his injecting others and himself results in a mortality rate too high not to address each time he visits. So, I ask him if he has had any overdoses since the last time we spoke. I offer him Narcan, and I ask the doctor again if he’s interested in talking with me about methadone or buprenorphine.
He tells me he has a lot of Narcan, that he has saved many lives.
“And no thanks,” he says to my offer of meds. “Did I mention I am good at what I do?”
(Kathryn Taylor is a family physician and addiction specialist who works at a clinic for people experiencing homelessness near the Tenderloin in San Francisco.)
CALIFORNIA SCIENTISTS SOLVED A 1954 QUAKE PUZZLE
by Jack Lee
Scientists have solved a longtime mystery about the origins of a magnitude 6.5 quake that struck Humboldt County in 1954. The discovery could have implications for earthquake activity across California’s North Coast region now and in the future.
In a recent study, researchers mapped the quake to a surprising spot in the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs from British Columbia to Northern California and has the potential to produce megaquakes of magnitude 9 or greater. The researchers revisited the historical event by collecting eyewitness accounts and reanalyzing 70-year-old seismic data using modern computer programs.
“It really was a detective story,” said lead author Peggy Hellweg, a seismologist who retired from the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab.
Scientists have long thought that the Cascadia subduction zone could produce the next “Big One.” In 1700, a magnitude 9 earthquake produced devastating landslides and destructive tsunami waves over 50 feet high. Based on damage reports, experts estimate that waves up to 16 feet high reached the Japanese coast.
The southern end of the Cascadia subduction zone lies just offshore of Cape Mendocino, where the oceanic Gorda tectonic plate steadily moves eastward and dives beneath the less dense North American plate.
In the new study, the authors conclude that the 1954 quake likely occurred about 7 miles beneath the Fickle Hill area, a few miles east of downtown Arcata (Humboldt County), on an interface of the Cascadia subduction zone. Researchers had never tracked an earthquake occurring in such a location before.
The subduction zone interface is “the peanut butter and jelly between the two pieces of bread that are the North American plate above and the Gorda plate below,” Hellweg explained. “Where they slide next to each other or get stuck, that’s where the big earthquakes happen.”
Experts have generally thought that the Cascadia subduction zone remains “totally locked” between huge earthquakes, said study author Lori Dengler, a professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.
The new study reveals, for the first time, that this isn’t the case. The interface has the potential for smaller, but still damaging, earthquakes. It’s “absolutely intriguing that we can have a relatively small patch that can slip without triggering something bigger,” Dengler said.
The new report provides fresh insights into one of the most seismically active regions in the contiguous United States. A magnitude 6.4 December 2022 temblor near Ferndale (Humboldt County) caused nearly $100 million in damage, according to Dengler; two people died. A December 2024 earthquake off of Cape Mendocino triggered tsunami warnings along California’s coast.
One reason the area often experiences earthquakes is because just offshore, the North American, Gorda and Pacific tectonic plates all meet at the Mendocino Triple Junction. Quakes can occur on any of the major faults there and within the tectonic plates.
The scientists are applying a similar methodology to other historical quakes, like a 1957 earthquake in Daly City.
“There’s still a lot to be learned from the old earthquakes,” said John Ebel, a professor of geophysics at Boston College and a senior research scientist at the university’s Weston Observatory. The new analysis put the 1954 earthquake “in a light that no one had appreciated before,” said Ebel, who peer-reviewed the manuscript.
Scientists regularly update earthquake hazard maps using new data and techniques, so the new results could potentially influence how experts compute the probabilities of future quakes and their impacts.
“It changes what’s under the hood in our hazard calculation of … the shaking that we can expect,” said Valerie Sahakian, an associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Oregon and a lead investigator with the Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center.
Dengler and Hellweg say the new findings don’t change scientists’ expectations that another great earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone will shake the entire region. But they emphasize that experts can’t predict exactly when the “Big One” will strike.
“We’re one day closer today than we were yesterday,” Dengler said.
(SF Chronicle)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
All the nice ladies were sewing cloth face masks. I put one on one day and exhaled. I could feel the warmth from my exhaled air. I put a mirror in front of the mask and did it again. Water vapor appeared on the mirror. If the fucking mask can't filter water vapor, how is it filtering viruses.
I couldn't take it. I took off the filthy face diaper and I never put one on again. If I was forced to cover my face I used a bright tie-dyed handkerchief. I also made sure to don a baseball cap and sunglasses and completely obscure my face. If I was going to be forced to act like an asshole, I always took it the distance. My goal was to try and get people to see the absurdity of their behavior but nobody noticed. The apex of the insanity came when I went into a Wells Fargo bank with my bandana, baseball cap and sunglasses to conduct financial business and the tellers didn't think twice about my concealment. A year earlier only a robber would do this.
Man, that was a mind numbing time to live.
AVE MARIA
by Frank O'Hara (1964)
Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies
get them out of the house so they won't
know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by
silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you
must
they won't hate you
they won't criticize you they won't know
they'll be in some glamorous
country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or
playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn't upset the peaceful
home
they will know where candy bars come
from
and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before
it's over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment
is in the Heaven on
Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made
the little
tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick
them up in the movies
they won't know the difference
and if somebody does it'll be
sheer gravy
and they'll have been truly entertained
either way
instead of hanging around the yard
or up in their room hating you
prematurely since you won't have done
anything horribly mean
yet
except keeping them from life's darker joys
it's unforgivable the latter
so don't blame me if you won't take this
advice
and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in
front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn't let them see when
they were young
JIMMY KIMMEL’S SHOW TO RETURN TO ABC ON TUESDAY NIGHT
The network’s removal of Mr. Kimmel’s show last week almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.
by John Koblin, Brooks Barnes, Michael M. Grynbaum & Benjamin Mullin
Jimmy Kimmel is coming back.
ABC said on Monday that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would return to its airwaves on Tuesday, ending an impasse that began last week.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive,” the statement said. “We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
Disney did not say whether all ABC affiliates, some of which balked at carrying “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” last week, would carry Tuesday’s show.
The network had removed Mr. Kimmel “indefinitely” last week after a top Trump regulator and many conservatives said he inaccurately described the politics of the man accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
The subsequent suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” almost immediately morphed into a flashpoint for free speech in America.
ABC pulled the show just hours after Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people,” and that the agency was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson.
Mr. Kimmel had planned to address the growing firestorm during his opening monologue for the Wednesday episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” But after senior Disney executives — including its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, and its head of television, Dana Walden — reviewed Mr. Kimmel’s planned remarks, they worried his monologue would make the situation worse, and decided to bench him and his show instead.
Disney did not publicly explain its decision at the time, and Mr. Kimmel has not commented publicly on the show’s suspension.
Conversations between Disney and Mr. Kimmel to return his show to the air formally began on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. Mr. Iger, Ms. Walden and Rob Mills, the ABC executive who directly oversees the show, met with Mr. Kimmel at the office of his lawyer, Andy Galker, in the Century City neighborhood of Los Angeles. Mr. Kimmel’s manager, James Dixon, participated in the meeting via a video call.
The session ended without Mr. Kimmel’s agreeing to changes in the monologue he had planned to deliver on Wednesday, which had sought to clarify his earlier commentary but also punched back against figures on the right who he believed had misrepresented those comments.
Mr. Iger and Ms. Walden continued to communicate with Mr. Kimmel throughout the weekend, the two people said. An agreement about when to bring the show back, and what Mr. Kimmel would say upon his return, was made on Monday morning.
A representative for Mr. Kimmel did not respond to requests for comment.
It is still unclear whether Nexstar and Sinclair — two major television operators that own many ABC affiliates and have vowed to pre-empt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in the aftermath of his comments — will air future episodes of the show. Sinclair and Nexstar control just over 20 percent of ABC affiliates combined, according to BIA Advisory Services, a research firm.
Representatives for Nexstar and Sinclair did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The imbroglio began last Monday when Mr. Kimmel used his opening monologue to say “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Conservatives pounced, saying the comments mischaracterized the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Robinson objected to Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” but the authorities have not said which of Mr. Kirk’s views Mr. Robinson had found hateful. Mr. Robinson’s mother said that her son had recently shifted toward the political left and become “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented.”
In the days since ABC’s decision, at least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, publicly condemned the company.
The screenwriters’ union decried what they called “corporate cowardice,” and organized a protest last week outside the main gate at Disney headquarters in Burbank, Calif. Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said that if Mr. Kimmel’s program did not return from suspension, he couldn’t “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.” Michael Eisner, a former chief executive of Disney, issued a rare rebuke on social media on Friday, as well. Some conservatives expressed misgivings, too. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, likened Mr. Carr’s comments to a mob boss, arguing that his comments to potentially retaliate against media companies were “dangerous as hell.”
“I like Brendan Carr, but we should not be in this business,” Mr. Cruz said on his podcast last week. “We should denounce it.”
Disney also came under pressure from its customers, some of whom canceled Disney+ subscriptions and Disney World vacations in protest.
Mr. Carr, for his part, used an appearance in Manhattan before Disney’s announcement on Monday to try to minimize his own role in the events that led to Mr. Kimmel’s suspension.
He said that Disney had merely made a “business decision” in response to feedback from viewers and affiliates, and he argued that Democrats’ claims of undue government pressure were “a campaign of projection and distortion.”
“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Mr. Carr said. (Ratings for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” played no role in Disney’s decision making, according to the two people briefed on the matter.)
Anna M. Gomez, the sole Democratic commissioner of the F.C.C., has rejected Mr. Carr’s argument that ABC was only making a “business decision.” In social media posts on Monday, she wrote, “This regrettable chapter is a stain on the FCC,” and she applauded Mr. Kimmel’s reinstatement, saying that Disney found “its courage in the face of clear government intimidation.”
Mr. Kimmel’s return on Tuesday will make for one of the most anticipated episodes of a late-night television show in years. Over the past few days, many other late-night hosts — including Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers — used their shows and platforms to strongly speak out against Mr. Kimmel’s temporary removal.
(NY Times)
JIMMY KIMMEL'S COMEBACK IS DERAILED as major ABC affiliate refuses to air show after MAGA erupts at Disney
by Stephen M. Lepore and Alex Hammer
Jimmy Kimmel's comeback to late night has been dealt a massive blow with ABC affiliates refusing to broadcast it in nearly 40 major markets after Disney announced the liberal TV host will return Tuesday.
Sinclair, whose local stations pay to run Jimmy Kimmel Live!, is standing by its policy from last week that it would keep the show off the air indefinitely, though the two sides were in talks.
The company said: 'Beginning Tuesday night, Sinclair will be preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live! across our ABC affiliate stations and replacing it with news programming. Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show's potential return.'…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/media/article-15124189/Jimmy-Kimmel-comeback-derailed-major-blow.html
BULL HUBBARD:
"There's an honesty and directness in dealing with street thugs that's not as perverse as the parasitic passive-aggressive psyop ghoulish behavior on social media."
No doubt. But now even thugs record their shit on phones for the edification of their buddies and the general public.
"Reduced human interaction" is sure enough happening. It's at it's worst when you see recordings of people just sitting and watching as someone gets shanked on the subway or, worse, records it on their fucking "smart" phones.
Getting old is interesting, isn't it?
Take care, homie.
I FIRST BECAME FASCINATED with the Sears catalogue because all the people in its pages were perfect. Nearly everybody I knew had something missing, a finger cut off, a toe split, an ear half-chewed away, an eye clouded with blindness from a glancing fence staple. And if they didn’t have something missing, they were carrying scars from barbed wire, or knives, or fishhooks. But the people in the catalogue had no such hurts. They were not only whole, had all their arms and legs and eyes on their unscarred bodies, but they were also beautiful.
— Harry Crews
“MY WIFE AND I had called on Miss Stein, and she and the friend who lived with her had been very cordial and friendly and we had loved the big studio with the great paintings. It was like one of the best rooms in the finest museum except there was a big fireplace and it was warm and comfortable and they gave you good things to eat and tea… Miss Stein was very big but not tall and was heavily built like a peasant woman. She had beautiful eyes and a strong German-Jewish face that also could have been Friulano and she reminded me of a northern Italian peasant woman with her clothes, her mobile face and her lovely, thick, alive immigrant hair which she wore put up in the same way she had probably worn it in college.”
— A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
WHAT ARE THE REAL WORDS TO "YANKEE DOODLE?"
by Kate Van Winkle Keller
The lyrics that George Washington probably heard sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle" are not the words now known around the world. The earliest known appearance of the common words relating to "pony, feather, and macaroni" is in James Orchard Halliwell's The Nursery Rhymes of England. No earlier reference to these lyrics has been found.
Washington probably did know the chorus about minding the music and the step. It comes from the Boston area in 1775 and was set to the tune we all know. The song must have struck home because by 1830, over one hundred more topical lyrics were printed, sung to the same tune and using the same basic chorus. In the twentieth century, this chorus was added to the "macaroni" verse from 1842, making up the song we know today.
The 1775 Lyrics
After the battles at Lexington and Concord, the British controlled Boston from April 1775 until March 1776. In June 1775, George Washington arrived to take command of the patriot army that had assembled outside of the city to defend the rest of Massachusetts and lay siege to the British stronghold. The following song was probably written sometime after his arrival. It was created from story elements from three earlier New England-made lyrics. The uncomplimentary nature of verses 11-13 comes from the early months of Washington's command. The New England militia officers who were elected to their commands grumbled openly against the Virginian who was appointed by Congress. But by 1776, Washington was a hero in the eyes of most patriots and new songs lauded him as "God-like Washington."
The Farmer and his Son's return from a visit to the CAMP
by Edward Bangs (1776)
Father and I went down to camp,
Along with Captain Gooding,
And there we see the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.
Yankey doodle keep it up,
Yankey doodle dandy,
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy
And there we see a thousand men,
As rich as 'Squire David,
And what they wasted every day,
I wish it had been saved.
Yankey doodle, &c.
The 'lasses they eat every day,
Would keep an house a winter;
They have as much that I'll be bound,
They eat it when they're mind to.
Yankey doodle, &c.
And there we see a swamping gun,
Large as a log of maple,
Upon a ducid little cart,
A load for father's cattle.
Yankey doodle, &c.
And every time they shoot it off,
It takes a horn of powder,
And makes a noise like father's gun,
Only a nation louder.
Yankey doodle, &c.
I went as nigh to one myself,
As 'Siah's underpinning;
And father when as nigh again,
I thought the duce was in him.
Yankey doodle, &c.
Cousin Simon grew so bold,
I thought he would have cock'd it;
It scar'd me so I shriek'd it off,
And hung by father's pocket.
Yankey doodle, &c.
And captain Davis had a gun,
He kind of clapt his hand on't,
And stuck a crooked stabbing iron
Upon the little end on't.
Yankey doodle, &c.
And there I see a pumpkin shell,
As big as mother's bason,
And every time they touch'd it off,
They scamper'd like the nation.
Yankey doodle, &c.
I see a little barrel too,
The heads were made of leather,
They knock upon with little clubs,
And call'd the folks together.
Yankey doodle, &c.
And there was captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him,
They say he's grown so tarnal proud,
He will not ride without them.
Yankey doodle, &c.
He got him on his meeting clothes,
Upon a slapping stallion,
He set the world along in rows,
In hundreds and in millions.
Yankey doodle, &c.
The flaming ribbons in his hat,
They look'd so taring fine ah,
I wanted pockily to get,
To give to my Jemimah.
Yankey doodle, &c.
I see another snarl of men,
A digging graves they told me,
So tarnal long, so tarnal deep,
They 'tended they should hold me.
Yankey doodle, &c.
If scar'd me so I hook'd it off,
Nor stopt as I remember,
Nor turn'd about 'till I got home,
Lock'd up in mother's chamber.
Yankey doodle, &c.
Many later settings of the tune of “Yankee Doodle” reflect other events, such as the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.
Cornwallis led a country dance
The like was never seen, sir,
Much retrograde, and much advance,
And all with General Greene, sir
A blaze of patriotic passion was ignited in 1798 by French spoliation of American shipping. The following song even refers to the use of the tune for many purposes.
Sing Yankee Doodle, that fine tune,
Americans delight in;
It suits for peace, it suits for fun,
It suits as well for fighting.
Yankee doodle (mind the tune)
Yankee doodle dandy,
If Frenchmen come with naked bum,
We’ll spank ‘em hard and handy.
(mountvernon.org)
TEXT BELOW LIST: "Laurence W. Britt wrote about the common signs of fascism in April 2003, after researching seven fascists regimes. Those were Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, Benito Mussolini's Italy, Francisco Franco's Spain, Antontio de Oliveira Salazar's Portual, George Papadopoulos's Greece, August Pinochet's Chile, Mohamed Suharto's Indonesia. These signs resonate with the political and economic direction of the United states under Bush/Cheney. Get involved in reversing this anti-democratic direction while you still can!"
LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT
Trump Issues Warning Based on Unproven Link Between Tylenol and Autism
Supreme Court Allows Trump to Fire F.T.C. Commissioner
Jimmy Kimmel’s Show to Return to ABC on Tuesday Night
Women Outnumber Men in NASA’s Newest Astronaut Class
STEPHEN MILLER, Trump's Goebbels, at Charlie Kirk's send off: "We stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing.”
WHAT THE MEDIA NEEDS TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE GAZA GENOCIDE
by Ralph Nader
Some serious readers would like to see mainstream media and independent media cover several events and matters involving the Israeli war in tiny Gaza and the mass slaughter of its defenseless citizens.
- Israel keeps exaggerating the status and threat by the Hamas government, which is ridiculous. What about an article on what is left of Hamas, never a threat with a few thousand fighters with small arms and limited ammunition, hiding in tunnels, until the mysterious collapse on October 7, 2023 of the super-modern, multi-tiered border security system, all at the same time? What are the Israeli casualty figures in the past year in Gaza besides accidents and friendly fire?
- What About The Vast Death And Serious Injury Undercount? (See, “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza” by Feroze Sidhwa, New York TimesSunday, October 13, 2024; The Lancet, “Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential”, my column of March 28, 2025, “The Vast Gaza Death Undercount– Undermines Civic, Diplomatic and Political Pressures”and my article in the August/September 2024 Capitol Hill Citizen).
- What is the situation in the Israeli prisons housing many thousands of Palestinians without charges (they are hostages too), and their mistreatment, including torture, documented by some Israeli prison doctors and domestic Israeli reports? Most of the media attention has been on the Israeli hostages in Gaza.
- What is the nature and scope of the Israeli resistance groups, dissenting reservists, and retired officials, the human rights groups, and others? It takes a lot of courage on their part to stand up to Netanyahu. In May of this year, Yair Golan, former Israeli Deputy Minister of Economy, said, “A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies as a pastime, and does not engage in mass population displacement.”
- When Netanyahu rarely admits a “mistake” in hitting, for example, the medic team, the World Food Program vehicles, the ancient Catholic Church, and just recently Nasser hospital with a “double tap,” is there any demand for payment of damages to next of kin and property? The U.S. Army in Afghanistan paid families $20,000 when they admitted to a civilian homicide.
- Why isn’t there a follow-up every time the Israeli government promises an investigation? What are the findings and sanctions of these many official inquiries that are announced to get the media off the Israeli government’s back on the day of the atrocity?
- What about a story on the sadistic snipers, who operate without rules of engagement, in this Palestinian Holocaust, and savagely kill infants, children, people desperately digging into the rubble to rescue loved ones, etc.? How are they chosen? They compete with one another with the most brutal, touted examples of their executions, their favorite prey being pregnant women, according to Israeli reporters.
- Why isn’t more made of what is being denied the American public (aka taxpayers) when no U.S. journalists are allowed into Gaza, along with other foreign and Israeli journalists similarly barred? Genocides thrive in darkness.
- What about some reporting on claims that some Israeli opponents of the Netanyahu regime believe it has a devastating dossier on Trump, which accounts for the 100% backing by toady Trump, even more than by toady Biden?
- Why is so little written about Israel enforcing an illegal embargo on Gaza that became far more savage after October 7th – “no food, water, medicine, healthcare, fuel, electricity,” etc.? How come there seems to be an ample supply of shrouds? Some observers in Israel believe there is an underground trade in this product. There is no capacity to produce them in the tens of thousands or more inside Gaza, which is almost totally destroyed.
- What about long-overdue features on AIPAC’s power or a feature on Veterans for Peace blacked out by the major newspapers? Go to veteransforpeace.org and see for yourself if they are newsworthy. More coverage of the 50 Flotilla ships, which have passengers from 43 countries, and their safety is in order.
- Why is the “other anti-Semitism” totally ignored by the media? This “other anti-Semitism” is far more violent, with F-16s and other American-built weaponry daily and genocidally mass slaughtering starving civilian Palestinian semites.
Scholar Dr. Jim Zogby delivered an address years ago at an Israeli University titled “The Other Anti-Semitism,” and also engaged two Jewish-Americans on this topic in a civil exchange seen on the website DebatingTaboos.org.
Thank you for your professional curiosity.
Ralph Nader
On behalf of other serious readers of the news.
ODE
by Théophile de Viau [died 1626], translated from the French by Richard Sieburth
A crow caws ahead of me,
A shadow afflicts my eye,
Two foxes and two weasels
Cross my way nearby,
My horse loses its footing,
My groom blacks out and falls,
I hear the crack of thunder,
A spirit appears,
I hear Charon call me nigh,
I see the center of the earth,
This stream flows back to its source,
A steer climbs a belfry,
Blood spurts from a rock,
An asp couples with a she-bear,
Atop an ancient tower
A snake rips a vulture apart,
The fire burns in the mirror,
The sun has gone black,
I see the moon about to plunge,
This tree has blown its stack.
THE PRICE OF PALANTIR
by Mark O’Connell
Last year, according to a recent report in The New York Times, Alexander Karp received a total of $6.8 billion for his services as CEO of the data analytics software company Palantir Technologies. This “compensation actually paid” — a metric that takes into account not just salary but also the amount by which stock holdings increase — made Karp, by a large margin, the highest-paid CEO in the United States.
For anyone paying attention to Palantir's recent fortunes, this was no great surprise. The stock value of the company — whose revenue comes largely from government contracts for data surveillance and the military application of artificial intelligence — is, one might say, negatively indexed to the peace and freedom of humanity. Over the past year the company's stock has increased in value by a factor of almost six. At the time of writing Palantir was worth $375 billion, making it the 22nd most valuable company in the S&P 500, just ahead of Coca-Cola and behind Bank of America. “Bad times,” as Karp put it in a recent CNBC appearance, “are incredibly good for Palantir.”
And the times, of course, have been incredibly bad. Russia's long and brutal war of imperial aggression in Ukraine.
Israel's campaign of mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The outbreak of a larger war in the Middle East (now in a fragile détente) amid expressions of enthusiasm for a violent overthrow of the Iranian leadership. In the US an unprecedented campaign of deportations, leading to civil unrest in Los Angeles and elsewhere. And in all of these situations, there is a great deal of money to be made by a company providing data surveillance and AI systems for military use.
The most vivid illustration of this dynamic I have seen is a meme posted to r/PLTR, Reddit's “unofficial, independent community for retail investors of PLTR to chat about the company, its mission, Alex Karp, and all things pertaining to the stock.” In the background of a photograph taken in a deli or fast-food restaurant, we see a cluster of men involved in a chaotic physical altercation, while in the foreground a middle-aged man sits at a table, entirely unbothered, absorbed in his smartphone. The fighting men are labeled "EUROPE," "USA," "ISRAEL," and "IRAN," while over the man in the foreground are the words "ME CHECKING THE PRICE OF PALANTIR."
(New York Review of Books)
Why is it that there are all these people, who claim to be christians, doing such unchristian like things?
Because they follow man made religious rules, not God. Look at who they worship, that is who they emulate. They worship mere mortals, “religious” leaders, political figures, etc. It is very sad.
+1 and +1–Scary stuff out there…
God who? It’s just another imaginary being created by humans. What else would proclaim Jews the “chosen ones”?
The evangelical pastor in my family, who is also a very skilled physician diagnostician (and Republican), feels that this is exactly the role of an Antichrist – deceiving and corrupting otherwise good Christians into believing and doing evil.. And that we now seem to have one in the White House.
Loud commercials. It is annoying. As is the trend for shows to have background music louder than the actors speaking. Or actors who mumble.
WHAT ARE THE REAL WORDS TO “YANKEE DOODLE?”……
“Battle Hymn of the Republic” uses the same tune as the Civil War camp song “John Brown’s Body,” with Julia Ward Howe writing the new, more religious lyrics for her famous work after hearing soldiers sing “John Brown’s Body”. While “John Brown’s Body” was a popular Union army anthem celebrating the abolitionist John Brown’s efforts to end slavery, Howe’s lyrics transformed the melody into a more sacred and patriotic song, also with the message of divine justice and freedom.”
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway….
Gertrude Stein’s father owned a San Francisco cable car company. That’s where the money came from for her to live in Europe. As a Jew she was never bothered by the Nazi’s when they took over Paris during the War occupation. She had friends in high places.
Gertrude told Hemingway that if he wanted to learn how to write he needed to read, “Grant’s Memoirs” by the former President and General that won the American Civil War and was made ultimate commander, the only other since General Washington.
Doesn’t Dwight Eisenhower also fit that that description?
Actually no, only John J. Pershing and Ulysses S. Grant held the rank of General of the Armies of the United States. If I remember correctly Washington was posthumously promoted.
“General of the Armies”? Of course that’s what you meant to say, how silly of me. ;-)
Re: mask madness…
Here’s a link model of the spike protein, one of a thousand or more on the surface of a Covid virus: https://cdn.rcsb.org/pdb101/motm/246/246-SARSCoV2_Spike-6crz_6vxx3.jpg
By comparison, a water molecule is smaller than one of the little bumps on the spike protein.
By the numbers:
Water molecule: 0.000275 micron
SARS virus: 0.07 to 0.09 micron, or about 1,000 times larger,
SARS virus in a respiratory moisture droplet: 10 microns, or 10,000 times larger than a water vapor molecule.
It’s called science for a reason.
Can I really have been the first and only person to notice that Yank Ye Doodle was the British calling rebel colonists a pack of wankers.
Anyone know what Marie Jones said about Lindy Peters woeful knowledge at the City Council meeting last night? I was on Zoom and the feed broke up just as she blasted the disrespect.