Mendocino County Today: Friday 10/10/2025

Precipitation | Recall Rejected | Lawyers Win | Double DUI | Diana Honeycutt | Golden Eagle | Whisked Away | Construction Anecdote | Humboldt Heaven | Pioneer Walk | Carrole Haas | Edd Johns | Yesterday's Catch | October | By Half | Wine Shorts | Destroy Democracy | Grant & Sherman | Fisheries Challenged | Can't Sing | Steens Mountains | I Bled | America Great | Chasing Homer | Christmas Away | Octopus | Race Purification | Tolstoys | National Socialism | Lead Stories | Corporate Domination | Cease-Fire | Sheeit | Ceasefire Thoughts | Chinese Energy | Coffee

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A FRONTAL SYSTEM will bring periods of moderate to locally heavy rainfall and gusty southerly winds on Friday. Isolated thunderstorms expected over the coastal waters and along the North Coast. Colder air aloft will bring the potential for frost and some freezing conditions across the interior valleys this weekend. A colder storm system is forecast early next week, and will bring additional rainfall and the potential for some mountain snow. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cooler 47F under cloudy skies this Friday morning on the coast. Showers then maybe some thunder later today, sunny for the weekend then more rain early next week. I have no idea what kind of winter we might be in for with this early start to the pattern ?

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DISTRICT ATTORNEY RECALL EFFORT REJECTED

Registrar of Voters said recall group needs to start again

by Elise Cox

A citizen-led effort to recall Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster will have to start over after the county registrar of voters rejected its paperwork.

“The published Notice of Intent to Recall had several errors and did not match what was served to Mr. Eyster,” Mendocino County Registrar of Voters, Assessor, Clerk and Recorder Katrina Bartolomie said in an email to Mendo Local News.

Helen Sizemore, the recall’s lead organizer, did not respond to requests for comment.

If the group resubmits its paperwork and it is accepted, organizers will have 160 calendar days to collect 8,200 valid signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot.

Bartolomie said the cost of a countywide election could be as high as $300,000 to $350,000 — more than twice the amount the group alleges was misspent prosecuting elected Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison and defending the county against her ongoing civil suit.

A Change.org petition calling for Eyster’s recall, posted at least seven months ago, has received fewer than 350 signatures, suggesting the effort may not have broad voter support.

The errors found by the Registrar’s office are highlighted in the images below.

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ED NOTE: Among the signatures on the rejected Eyster recall petition was that of Raleigh Vroman (Page-Russell), widow of former Mendo DA Norm Vroman. There was also the name of Fidel Castro which seems to be a Ukiah Fidel, not the long gone Cuban jeffe. In Eyster's response to the now mooted recall petition was his eye-roller of a statement that his prosecution of Ms. Cubbison was thoroughly investigated by his and the Sheriff's personnel, as if a Mendo investigator would have dared tell Eyster there was no evidence that Cubbison had committed a crime.

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MENDOCINO SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE KEITH FAULDER: “Homeless encampment enforcement can be expensive: "From the San Francisco Daily Journal, a legal publication, dated September 23rd - the City of San Francisco paid $2.85 million dollars to settle a lawsuit with two ‘formerly homeless plaintiffs.’ They each got $11,000.00. The lawyers were paid $2,828,000.00.” (via John Sakowicz)

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A THREE-DAY TRIAL FOR THIS?

A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its Ukiah courthouse deliberations on Wednesday to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty of two DUI charges.

Defendant Michael Richard Graham, age 41, of Rohnert Park, was charged with and now stands convicted of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol of .08 or more, both as misdemeanors.

The jury was unable to agree on whether the defendant’s blood alcohol was .15 or greater and whether the defendant was driving when his driver’s license had been suspended by DMV.

Given that the jury had found the defendant guilty of the two most serious charges, the prosecutor dismissed the high blood alcohol allegation and the suspended driver’s license charge in the interest of justice and judicial economy.

In brief, the defendant was stopped by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office for bad driving after leaving the Coyote Valley gas station in July 2022. When the deputy observed that the defendant (driver) exhibited signs of intoxication, the California Highway Patrol was called to conduct a DUI investigation, an investigation that ultimately lead to the defendant’s arrest.

Personnel from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, the California Highway Patrol, and the California Department of Justice’s forensic laboratory were subpoenaed by the DA to appear and testify during this week’s trial.

The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney Nathan Mamo.

Retired Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke presided over the three-day trial.

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DIANA MARIE HONEYCUTT (1954-2025)

Diana Marie Honeycutt was born in Lodi, California on October 9, 1954, and died unexpectedly on June 12, 2025 at her home in Mendocino. She was raised and lived on the Mendocino Coast for most of her life. She was a beloved sister, aunt, friend to many, business owner, and a member of the Mendocino community. She graduated from Mendocino High School in 1972, and graduated from Chico State University in 1981, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree and a California Teaching Credential. Diana was an outstanding athlete and played competitive team sports at the college level in basketball, softball, and field hockey. In 1981, she was on the women’s U.S. Field Hockey elite team, and trained for the Olympics. She was inducted into the Chico State University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 for her athletic achievements. In addition, Diana was a gifted and creative artist, especially in textile arts, weaving, and silkscreening. Diana was the face of Sweetwater Gardens Eco Spa for over 35 years, working first as a massage therapist, manager, and then owner. Diana enjoyed traveling with family and friends to Hawaii, the Southwest U.S., Mexico, and Europe. A trip to Southeast Asia in 1997 was a highlight of her travels, where she trekked through the Himalayas. Diana will be dearly missed for her endearing smile, laughter, warmth, generosity, and love of all who knew her. She is survived by her sisters, Carrie Honeycutt and Cindy DelCampo, and brother Scott Honeycutt, and their respective families. In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests that donations be made to the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department in her honor. A Celebration of Life Reception will be held on Saturday, October 25, 2025, 1:30-4:30pm, at the home of Carrie Honeycutt. For any questions, please text message to (707) 357-1832.

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GOLDEN EAGLE SIGHTING ON COMPTCHE UKIAH ROAD

Taking the Comptche Ukiah road from Mendocino to Ukiah on Wednesday 10-8, up near the top ridge just before it sharply descends to Ukiah, near Greenfield Ranch. My sweetheart is driving, and through my cracked window I hear Ravens making quite a fuss, the shadows of circling birds fall upon the road below, I ask her to slow down so I can look, Suddenly a Golden Eagle surges ahead of us, followed by a cluster of Ravens trying to chase it off. There is a large turnout just ahead so we pull in there to watch the show. We get parked and the eagle is soaring to great heights, but still pursued. Suddenly it descends, and to our surprise starts flying straight at us. Just before it gets to us, it lands sharply in a dead fir tree, about 60-80 ft. feet from us, I hear its talons as they grasp the branch with a loud “clack.” Three of the ravens take a nearby watchful post, We can’t see the eagle as the stem of the dead tree shields us from it. But it is quite thrilling to know it’s right there. So we proceed to talk about it. After about five minutes the eagle lifts off, and with the ravens in close pursuit, descends into the valley below. After a short while the ravens return, clearly satisfied that they had made their point!

This is the first Golden Eagle I’ve seen in years in the coast range between the Mendocino Coast, and the 101 corridor. Although not common , neither was it unusual to see one or two on the drive. I am pretty sure the proliferation of vineyards has had severe impacts on their habitat, so I hope this sighting is a sign of things to come.

— Chris Skyhawk

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CONSTRUCTION ANECDOTE: According to the County’s contract with the Lambert Lane Bridge Replacement contractor, several specialized consultants must be hired and on-site to advise the contractor’s crew on various ancillary requirements: A biologist, an archeologist, a storm water run-off specialist, etc. A few weeks ago the contractor was dismantling the temporary Bailey Bridge which had been in place since 2017 after the old original bridge washed out from the heavy rains in the wet years prior to 2017. Pains are taken to safely salvage and re-use as much of the material from the old bridge and the construction as possible, including lumber, crumbled concrete, rock, dirt, gravel etc. The roadbed of the temporary Bailey Bridge was made of pressure treated slabs of lumber (probably not meant to be in place for years at a time) which the contractor crew had removed while dismantling the bridge sections so that the Bailey Bridge could be returned to the County yard for the next wash-out. The slabs were stacked and tied in pallet-sized piles about a hundred yards from Robinson Creek ready for pickup when the storm water specialist told the contractor that they had to be covered up with a tarp to prevent run-off into the Creek. The contractor crew was taken aback. Here were worn-down slabs of pressure treated lumber that had been driven over and worn down by traffic right over the Creek for more than eight years, but now they were worried about run-off when they were piled up a couple hundred yards from the Creek?

(Mark Scaramella)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

1972 was Humboldt heaven! There were fish in the rivers. The roads were clogged with log trucks coming to the mills and flatbeds hauling lumber out. The pulp mills were going full blast and stinking up Eureka. Hippies in the hills were figuring out how to grow dynamite weed. Good times all around. The only thing I don’t miss is teepee burners.

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CARROLE ELAINE HAAS (1942-2025)

Carrole Elaine Haas passed away August 27, 2025, at her home in Willits with her loving husband, Bill, by her side. Born in Clarmont, Oklahoma on December 26, 1942, to Roy Webster and Maydrene(Pasley) Webster, she was the third child in the Webster family having an older brother, Marvin and sister, Marie. The Webster family to moved to Davis, California in 1949. Carrole graduated from Davis High School in 1960. She worked at the University of Davis for a short time and then became a dental assistant. She married Bill Haas on Christmas Eve in 1960. In 1965 their son, David, was born. The Haas family moved to Fort Bragg in 1967. Carrole loved being a mother and homemaker but also had a desire for more formal education and often took classes at College of the Redwoods. She received her AA Degree and after David graduated from high school, she attended Sonoma State University and received her BA Degree, afterwards she received her teaching credentials from Dominican College. She taught fourth grade at Dana Gray for 16 years and due to health challenges had to take an early retirement. Carrole and Bill moved to Willits in 2009 to be closer to their son, David, and their grand-daughters, Megan and Loran. Carrole was a quilter, painter, gardener and after retirement an avid reader of all types of books. She was a dear friend to many people and always welcomed David’s friends to her home with love. She enjoyed being an educator and most of all being a mother to David, a grandmother to her girls, and a wife to Bill. Carrole always had a special place in her heart for the many cats and dogs that lived in the Haas household over the years. Thankfully, her cat, Joe, is keeping Bill company currently. Carrole is survived by her husband, Bill, son, David(Jennifer), grand-daughter’s, Megan and Loran, sister, Marie Andersaon, sister-in-law, Ruth Webster. A Celebration of Life will be held Saturday, October 11th at 1 P.M. at the Golden Rule Mobile Home Park, Willits, at their Community Club House. Donations may be made to the Adventist Health Home Care, 100 San Hedrin Circle, Willits, CA 95490 Memo: Carrole Haas/Hospice or a donation to a charity of your choice.

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ADELE MICALLEF: This is my Grandpa Edd Johns with this salmon, that he caught in the Russian River at the end of Gobbi St., Ukiah. Aug. 25, 1953. He's standing in the Favorland Drive-In parking lot on the south/west corner of Gobbi St and State St, Ukiah Ca with the 7-11 Club, on State St (Hwy 101) behind him.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, October 9, 2025

DEVON GOUBER, 26, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

LAMONT JONES JR., 48, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

SCOTT LINDEBLAD, 47, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

VILMA MCCUTCHEON, 56, Elk. Trespassing.

ALVINO MIRANDA, 43, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, resisting.

JOSE ROSAS, 63, Boonville. Disorderly conduct-lodging without owner’s consent, failure to appear.

PETER SARRI, 62, Ukiah. Controlled substance, parole violation.

DENNIS WESTLAKE, 72, Ukiah. Controlled substance for sale.

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OCTOBER

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

— Robert Frost (1913)

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ESTHER MOBLEY: What I'm Reading

In an uncommonly provocative column, Wine Spectator critic James Molesworth argues that Napa Valley wineries should have lowered their prices for the 2022 vintage, given how compromised the vintage was by a heat spike. He even gets star winemaking consultant Thomas Rivers Brown to admit that he “wouldn’t have bottled much of 2022” if it hadn’t followed the smoke-tainted 2020 vintage.

California regions (as we’ve written) keep enacting Wine Improvement Districts, which add a small fee to direct wine purchases to fund marketing efforts. In VinePair, John Sumners looks at why these supposedly helpful proposals have become “unexpectedly thorny,” with one vintner calling them “a half-assed fix.”

New drink-centric developments in the Bay Area, as reported by my Chronicle colleagues: An “extremely French” wine bar is coming to North Beach; details emerge around Chez Panisse’s controversial bar expansion in Berkeley; and Steph Curry has opened a bourbon bar with Michael Mina.

(SF Chronicle)

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PROP. 50: ‘DESTROY DEMOCRACY IN ORDER TO SAVE IT’

Editor:

“We had to destroy the village in order to save it” was a report from the Vietnam War. If you believe that it makes sense, vote for Proposition 50. If you believe that two wrongs make a right, vote for Proposition 50. If you believe that a Democratic gerrymander in California will not escalate to more Republican gerrymanders in red states, vote for Proposition 50. If you believe that it’s democratic to make your opponents’ votes virtually worthless, vote for Proposition 50. If you believe Democrats will voluntarily return to impartial redistricting in 2030, after the Proposition 50 gerrymander will have given them near total power, vote for Proposition 50.

If you think spending $220 million of our taxpayer money on a transparently anti-democratic special election is a wise choice during a state budget crisis, vote for Proposition 50. If you believe that we have to destroy Democracy in order to save it, by all means vote for the Proposition 50 gerrymander.

Fred Bauer

Petaluma

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“GRANT STOOD BY ME when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.”

— William Tecumseh Sherman, circa 1865

I would also like to add that when critics complained to Lincoln about Grant’s heavy drinking during the Civil War, Lincoln said, “Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”

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WEST COAST FISHERIES ‘INCREDIBLY CHALLENGED’

by Robert Schaulis

Last week, the California State Senate’s Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture hosted its 50th annual Zeke Grader Fisheries Forum. Scientists and representatives from various state agencies, tribal government, industry and environmental groups met to discuss challenges facing kelp forests off our shores, the future of a later and later Dungeness crab season and a salmon fishery now in its third consecutive year of commercial fishing closure.

Committee Chair Senator Mike McGuire opened proceedings by noting the challenges the state’s fisheries are facing as well as some of the state’s redoubled efforts and funding, via Proposition 4 funding and other legislative commitments, to improve resiliency along the California coast and waterways.

“I think that we can all agree, fisheries on the West Coast, salmon and Dungeness crab both, … have been incredibly challenged over the past several years, and it seems for every step forward that we take, two steps are taken back,” McGuire said. “… We’ve had some wins, though. We had the first recreational salmon fishing season in California in three years. The challenge that we continue to see (is) no commercial salmon fishing for the third straight year, and that has had massive impacts on rural coastal communities, especially in Northern California …

“Protecting (and) preserving our state’s Fisheries and Aquaculture is vital. It’s vital to the long-term health of rural economies up and down this state, and it is also key to the social and cultural diversity we celebrate here in California, especially with tribal nations.”

California Natural Resources Agency Secretary Wade Crowfoot echoed those sentiments, praising Yurok and Karuk Tribe-led efforts to restore the Klamath River in the wake of historical dam removal and saying that he is increasingly inspired by tribally led land and water restoration projects. He said that greater collaboration, not zero-sum thinking, was required to address the “terribly disruptive” effects of climate change.

“It’s not fish versus farms, north versus south, urban versus rural,” Crowfoot said. “We need to balance these needs, and we need to take care of the health of our rivers and our people.”

The forum can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/56cvnvrv.

Illegal growing

In response to a question by Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San Jose), Crowfoot also addressed the impacts of illegal cannabis growing, which he characterized as “just horrible (from) the environmental standpoint.”

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “In certain parts of the state, these illegal cannabis grows are decimating the environment. Not only are they diverting water, but they’re introducing illegal pesticides, rodenticides, that are getting into the ecosystem.”

California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham said addressing the impacts was central to the mission.

“… The drying up streams, dewatering, habitat for fish leaving, water for infrastructure, that is a central focus of the filtering that we do, working with local law enforcement, coordinating with OES, our state water board and our highly focused marine enforcement team at the department,” Bonham said.

Humboldt County

“Our three years of complete, consecutive closures has been devastating to our coastal communities and, of course, individual fishermen,” Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association President George Bradshaw said, noting that fisheries in the state are “in desperate need of hatchery infrastructure” in California’s Central Valley.

“… I mean no disrespect to our commercial sector; (salmon season closure) has been harder on our tribal communities,” Bonham said. “Some of our most emotional moments, for me, have been when our tribal chairs tell me that they don’t have fish for their beginning of creation ceremonies. I saw Chair (Buster) Attebery of (the) Karuk (tribe) last week because the leaders were in town for their tribal forum, and he told me, for the first time in, I think, three years, they had fish for those ceremonies. That feels good …

“But on the commercial front … we’ve been, finally, able to get about $20 million in federal relief funds out to 1,200 qualifying commercial trawlers, processors, passenger fleet vessels and guides (for 2023).”

Barry McCovey, fisheries director for the Yurok Tribe, talked about a number of things including the “bad news” about salmon along the North Coast, saying that the tribe has not had a successful commercial fishing year since 2015.

“I think the run size prediction for 2025 has been one of the lowest on record since we’ve been keeping track of this, since the late-70s, early-80s,” McCovey said. “The state fishery was closed. The state recreational fishery on the Klamath was closed. The tribal fishery was very small, a very miniscule amount of fish available for the tribe to harvest, not nearly enough to meet our subsistence needs let alone our commercial needs.”

McCovey noted that post-dam removal restoration projects on the Klamath, the Scott and the Trinity have been helpful in the tribe’s efforts to restore salmon populations, as is AB 263, a bill securing river flows on the Klamath. He also noted that there is a need for federal funding related to monitoring fish populations and health that may have been cut in the last year.

Charlie Schneider, senior project manager with CalTrout, noted that “if current trends continue, 45% of California salmonids … are likely to be extinct in the next 50 years” and noted that improvements to water management and environmental policy could help improve the state’s fisheries and ensure the future of salmon and trout in the state.

Dungeness crab

“Last season was a lot like the year before and the year before and the year before, and that may be the predictor for next year,” Bonham said. “Last year, we conducted 13 risk assessments. We did 11 aerial surveys … We’re bringing in data streams from all the recreational whale touring vessels, and we’re engaging with the fleet and nonprofit groups on a regular frequency … and if you look at the last year, it feels a lot like the prior three or four years. That beginning, most loved traditional moment of November and December is not happening … what we’re seeing, it’s more like mid-January, end of January.”

Bonham said that the future of Dungeness crab fishing might shift toward fishing with ropeless gear in the spring rather than the holiday season. He also noted that oceanic warming has been the cause of late starts to the season, not the regulatory environment.

He said that last season’s $55 million was in line with the 10-year average, and said that “at some point this is the kind of dynamic that will drive a person like me out of the position I’m in, because trying to square all these corners and balance all these interests is just becoming increasingly difficult as we see these dramatic climate disruptions.”

The report can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/56cvnvrv.

(Ukiah Daily Journal/Eureka Times Standard)

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OREGON’S VERTIGO INDUCING STEENS MOUNTAINS

by Katy Tahja

In my more than seven decades of life I have traveled to places weird and unusual, but never did a view make me light-headed and dizzy, but the Steens Mountains East Rim Viewpoint did that to me. So I did what any sensible senior would do…I sat down on the nearest big rock knowing I would enjoy the view much better without wobbling.

Friends and readers often ask “How do you find these weird places out in the middle of nowhere?” “Easy,” I say, “We’ve been driving by the turnoff for years, but never made the turn…” until last month. My husband and I were celebrating 50 years of marriage with a trip to the middle of nowhere. In this case it was south central Oregon and the Steens Mountains.

”Next services 118 miles” the road sign outside of Lakeview said as we drove through the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge. And yes, we saw Pronghorn Antelope. We saw more cows than people on open range and real live cowboys heading cattle. The one restaurant we dined in while in rural Oregon served all their food in take-out containers, even if you dined inside at tables and coffee was $2.50 a cup. Yep! We love empty landscapes with friendly locals.

We stayed at Frenchglen in a 110 year old hotel built to accommodate travelers from Burns OR to Winnemucca NV., Entry into town is down a road with a 14% grade for three miles. The whole town is two blocks long with the hotel, a K-8 one room school, a store with a gas pump and a highway maintenance station but no post office.

Meals at the Frenchglen Hotel, a state historic site, were served family style at long tables, seated with strangers who became friends. Most guests were older bird watchers and photographers. Most everyone planned to drive the 68 mile Steens Mountains Byway which began nearby. The drive has something for everyone.

First, about those Steens Mountains…From the west this fault block 30 mile long mountain range gently rises to over 9000’ and is about 16 million years old. For seven million years basalt eruptions put down layers over flatlands, then for nine million years the land was uplifted. Glaciers formed and carved grooves into the surface. The eastern escarpment with an amazing vertical drop is what brings the tourists.

The road is only open a few months in the summer due to the snow pack and the paved and gravel road lets you travel through lands cooperatively managed by state and federal agencies and local ranchers. The road creeps gently upward through eight vegetation zones, including one full of Aspens in full fall colors until you arrive above the tree line. On the way up are glacier carved U-shaped trenches a half mile deep. It looks like you should be driving through a national park. Then you reach East Rim Viewpoint.

Look west and the land descends miles toward far off mountains. Look east and you see nothing but sky, then land in Nevada and Idaho. Walk to the edge of the precipice and your body goes “Oh NO you don’t…don’t even THINK about it…” and vertigo sets in. Your mind goes “Can you believe what you’re seeing?” And I quickly sat my aged body down on a rock because I didn’t want to be a splat on a rock a mile below.

I kid you not…at 9700’ at the viewpoint the dry lake bed below you is 5200’ straight down. The mind has trouble reconciling the almost 3-D vision tumbling down below you and perspective is out of whack. Given this eastern rim has been sloughing material off for millions of years, and it was glaciated, there is about a mile wide stretch of rock debris before the flat land begins below…the Alvord Desert.

This mountain range produces a rain shadow east of it and makes this desert the driest place in Oregon with only 6” of rainfall a year. The view from the east rim is a patchwork of desert, lakes, ranches, and irrigated alfalfa farms below. Cattleman Peter French once owned 20000 acres holding 45000 cows, 5000 horses, with 200 cowboys controlling 200 square miles. Now most of it is a wildlife refuge

Some people come to the viewpoint and bring folding chairs so they can sit in comfort all day and enjoy the view. Binoculars help you look down on browsing Big Horn Sheep. Unique species of birds and bugs were being sought after by folks with field guides, as well as botanical curiosities. Rockhounds were looking for “Turkey Track” basalt inclusions. Everyone had a camera or cell phone out capturing the beauty.

Of course you don’t get a paved road this high unless the windswept environment was aiding mankind somehow. A short walk beyond a locked gate took a hiker to a telecommunications array at the very highest point.The view was powerful and beautiful and spoke of solitude and the memory will remain forever in our minds. Next time we pass through this area we will be on the road between Burns and Fields, we’ll be looking up to see that east rim escarpment from below, and I will be free of vertigo.

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'LET'S FACE IT, I bled. I never considered myself a great fighter. I beat a lot of guys in good condition and I never shunned an interview. And I finished well-ranked…A lot of fighters expect to be subsidized for the rest of their lives because they're boxers. I never wanted to be subsidized. I had my shot, and I'm grateful.'

— Chuck Wepner, the boxer who was the inspiration for ‘Rocky.’

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WHAT MADE AMERICA GREAT?

by Robert Nuese

We are now experiencing a paroxysm of efforts to Make America Great … Again. This should raise questions in every American mind: which greatness are we hoping to re-create? How was that greatness initially achieved? I suspect most would like to re-create the best aspects of the long period, in the middle of the 20th century, when prosperity was becoming more widespread in America. From 1933 until 1980, the U.S. experienced generally steady improvements in many fields. From 1933, at the nadir of an extreme economic depression, the nation recovered, and then prospered. There were largely unbroken advances in Americans’ shared infrastructure, in their social safety net, and in housing, education and healthcare for most Americans. There was also progress in the status and opportunities of marginalized Americans. Many of these changes, especially those for the marginalized, were fitful, and woefully incomplete, but were still significant advancements.

During this period, there were substantial improvements in rates of home ownership, level of education achieved, life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and other important metrics.

How did this happen, and why did it end? Fortunately, the essential answers to these questions are simple, and the historical evidence is clear. There were a number of factors that contributed to our prosperity, but the following four were critical:

1) In the mid-1930s, the New Deal put Americans to work building and staffing schools, hospitals, clinics, parks, libraries, bridges, public art, electrical generation plants, roads, railways, ports - you name it - thousands of projects that helped to make Americans healthier, better educated, and more satisfied, and to provide and improve infrastructure to facilitate every sector of industry, agriculture and commerce. This laid the groundwork for the US to become, for decades, the most productive and most prosperous nation in the world. It included many projects to protect the natural environment, planting trees, establishing protected wilderness areas, limiting erosion and protecting topsoil. Alongside the infrastructure initiatives, the New Deal created social safety nets. In 1934 FDIC insurance on bank deposits was established, to prevent the loss of family savings, as had repeatedly devastated millions up to that point. In 1935 Social Security was created, raising millions of the disabled and elderly out of poverty. Many of the structures and institutions initiated during the 1930s continue to usefully serve us today. These programs built immense capital that was owned not by a few oligarchs, but by the public: you, me, and everyone. These programs also lowered the unemployment rate, and helped raise the wages and improve the benefits of workers. Since the New Deal period, there have been similarly inspired programs to further improve Americans’ lives. The most important are Medicare and Medicaid, passed in 1965, which have paid for critical healthcare for hundreds of millions of Americans, and saved many of these from financial ruin.

2) Before the great depression, the U.S. federal government had been antagonistic to the trade union movement, and was frequently quite belligerent. Under President Franklin Roosevelt, this stance was largely reversed, and laws were established and policies adopted that guaranteed workers’ rights to unionize and to strike, and banned certain employer anti-union tactics. This allowed growth of union membership, which peaked at 1/3 of all non-agricultural workers, and led to considerable rises in pay and improvements in benefits and working conditions for most of the population. Non-organized workers had always been free to ask for fairer conditions … and then been free to become unemployed. Organized workers had the ability to demand fairer conditions, and the capacity to have that demand met. And as the strength of the labor movement grew, workers in non-unionized businesses and sectors also benefited: bosses were induced to improve workers conditions pre-emptively.

3) During the 30s the federal income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was increased substantially, reaching 79% in 1936. Then, during the Second World War, the rate was further increased, peaking at 94% in 1944, and staying high, at 91% from 1945 through 1963. It was then reduced, but kept in the 70+% range until 1982. Similarly, the estate tax rates for the largest inheritances were raised into the 70+% range from 1935 until 1982, when they started to drop. These high rates helped to pay for the government programs described in item one above, limited and then paid off the federal deficits incurred during the depression, and the larger deficits incurred during WWII, and dramatically reduced wealth inequality in the US. This last is one of the most important aspects of being a great nation. Working class Americans of the middle of the last century had improved security and confidence, which helped them to be healthier, happier, smarter, more productive, and more satisfied citizens. Wealthier Americans were less prone to the arrogance and incompetence which are hallmarks of gilded ages. They were more likely to see themselves as fellow citizens, to treat others with respect, and to gladly contribute their efforts to common goals.

4) During the period from 1933 to 1980, important scientific and educational institutions were founded or expanded to benefit Americans and open our horizons. Federal bodies such as NIH, CDC, NASA, NOAA, EPA, the National Laboratories of the Department of Energy, the Smithsonian Museums, etc., were advanced, along with collaboration with universities and non-governmental research institutions. These institutions conducted a very wide range of research, including basic non-applied research that private companies would never have paid for, but which provided a foundation for deeper understanding of our world and the cosmos, and for the invention of a startling range of modern technologies. The development of the transistor, the printed circuit, the internet, and the decoding of the human genome were among the achievements of government labs or funded by government money. In addition to massive research achievements, the government did tremendous work to educate and inform citizens in almost every field.

If we would have America recover its prior greatness, we need to resume and reinforce these projects. However, since 1980, when Ronald Reagan claimed that government was inherently bad, the trend has been to limit and reduce these programs, to facilitate concentration of wealth in fewer hands, to weaken the social safety net, and to let public infrastructure deteriorate. This has been done with zealous relish by Republican administrations, and with feeble compliance by some Democratic ones. But the current administration really seizes the proverbial cake. In every one of the above areas, Trump and his sycophants are methodically working to make America weak, poor, ignorant, unhealthy and subservient. While exceeding their proper authority in many spheres, they are failing to meet their responsibility in any. Instead of building America, they are focused with laser-like precision on targeting innocent scapegoats, manipulating the gullible, disempowering the capable, exalting the incompetent, punishing the weak, alienating allies, humiliating the excellent, rewarding the avaricious, and comprehensively demolishing every public institution of our nation, and profaning the democratic principles it rests upon. They have managed to do this while demonstrating remarkable ignorance of every art and letter, and every science, save those of deceit, bullying and self-aggrandizement. Atop the ruins of American democracy, they are pasting together a paper mache idiocracy.

We do know what must be done to make America great again: pursue the measures that actually worked in the past, and are the opposite of what the Trump administration is doing. Replacing the government in future elections is obviously essential, but simply waiting for elections will be disastrous: every day more destruction is done, and it becomes harder to rebuild. Every one of us must stand up and work diligently in every way we know, and every way we can invent, to stop the destruction, reverse the nation’s course, and to inform, mobilize and nurture opposition.

(Mr. Nuese resides in Sebastopol, California.)

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CONGRATULATIONS to László Krasznahorkai, who has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature! World Literature Today’s pages have reviews of English translations of three of his works, most recently Elaine Margolin’s review of Chasing Homer, translated into English by John Batki.

A 2021 review of Chasing Homer by Will Fenstermaker begins:

When the Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai releases a new short work, you can immediately infer a few things: it will be mad (ravingly so) and preoccupied with its own madness; it will consist of fewer sentences than pages; it’s likely to include works of art; and it will be far, far denser than its length seems to allow. Krasznahorkai’s new book, Chasing Homer (2021), is a cacophonous, confounding work with 19 brief chapters – only a few consisting of more than a single long sentence – each accompanied by a painting by the German artist Max Neumann and a percussive score by the Hungarian jazz musician Szilveszter Miklós (accessible via QR codes).

It would be inaccurate to call Neumann’s paintings ‘illustrations’ or Miklós’s tracks an ‘accompaniment’. Krasznahorkai excels at opening an otherwise impenetrable dialogue between image, word and sound. This book marks Krasznahorkai’s second collaboration with Neumann, continuing a process they began in Animalinside (2010), wherein the language and images alternatively disrupt each other and threaten the book’s coherence. Neumann’s paintings – influenced by expressionist cinema, doppelgängers and a uniquely East German brand of paranoia – present doubles and silhouettes, planes that overlap but do not cohere. Miklós’s music adds a further destabilizing dimension: at times, the score provides a steady drum cadence, but mostly it syncopates against the rhythmic tempo sustaining Krasznahorkai’s long sentences. The lengths of the tracks and the chapters seem to be uncorrelated; one song continued as if a cymbal had fallen on the floor and rolled away just as I reached the chapter’s final words: ‘No, I won’t stop there, that’s for sure, to gawk at the cliff dropping away down to the water, where the south comes abruptly to an end.’

Though Chasing Homer is described as a ‘chase thriller’ by publisher New Directions, the action is mostly internal. Krasznahorkai, who was awarded the Booker Prize in 2015, is a writer of pathologies rather than plots. Yes, the narrator is being hunted – Krasznahorkai’s characters often are, or believe they are, or are hunting something themselves – but the unnerving power of his prose is how it propagates its subject’s paranoia within the reader’s mind. Reading Krasznahorkai is an unnerving experience, never more so than in his experimental works. Each sentence in Chasing Homer unspools like a ball of yarn, its tightly woven form (the sentences are grammatically sound despite their length) moving irregularly towards a singular conclusion. Mysteriously pursued, the narrator determines that ‘an existence concentrated in such a frantic manner, with your attention focused so exclusively upon a single point, carries the risk of, if not actually inviting, insanity […] and so your relation to your own insanity is best characterized by a perpetual ambiguity wherein you yourself, as well as your insanity, exist in a permanent, billowing state of potentiality’.…

https://www.frieze.com/article/laszlo-krasznahorkai-chasing-homer-book-2021-review

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CHRISTMAS AWAY FROM HOME

by Jane Kenyon

Her sickness brought me to Connecticut.
Mornings I walk the dog: that part of life
is intact. Who's painted, who's insulated
or put siding on, who's burned the lawn
with lime—that's the news on Ardmore Street.

The leaves of the neighbor's respectable
rhododendrons curl under in the cold.
He has backed the car
through the white nimbus of its exhaust
and disappeared for the day.

In the hiatus between mayors
the city has left leaves in the gutters,
and passing cars lift them in maelstroms.

We pass the house two doors down, the one
with the wildest lights in the neighborhood,
an establishment without irony.
All summer their putto empties a water jar,
their St. Francis feeds the birds.
Now it's angels, festoons, waist-high
candles, and swans pulling sleighs.

Two hundred miles north I'd let the dog
run among birches and the black shade of pines.
I miss the hills, the woods and stony
streams, where the swish of jacket sleeves
against my sides seems loud, and a crow
caws sleepily at dawn.

By now the streams must run under a skin
of ice, white air-bubbles passing erratically,
like blood cells through a vein. Soon the mail,
forwarded, will begin to reach me here.

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HEADS

Let’s start with some comparative anatomy. You and I have bones. An octopus doesn’t. It has three hearts — two for its gills — pumping coppery blue blood. Instead of gills we have lungs, and our lone hearts pumps iron-based red blood. Bony skulls protect our large, unified brains. An octopus’s brain is distributed throughout its soft, amorphous body: nine brainlike nerve clusters, one at the base of each arm and another in its head. Yet the word “head,” when applied to an octopus, is a little puzzling. It’s all too easy to think of everything above the tentacles as its head, where there appears to be plenty of room for a sizable globular brain.

This is a cranial shape we recognize from many sources, like the invading Martians in the 1996 movie ‘Mars Attacks!’ Nearly everything about it says “head” to us, even if it also says “alien.”

But it’s not a head. It’s a mantle. What looks headlike to us actually encloses — mantles — nearly all of an octopus’s organs: its digestive, reproductive, and circulatory systems, which have functions roughly similar to ours. It also contains some distinctly nonhuman parts, like a poison gland, an ink sac, and a funnel for breathing and propulsion. You can have a pretty good feel for octopus anatomy and still be susceptible to the impression that this mollusk — for octopuses belong to the phylum Mollusea — has an immense yet oddly indeterminate occiput, as erect sometimes as a hot air balloon rising on a cold morning from the desert floor and sometimes as floppy as an old beret.

— Vernon Klinken Borg (New York Review of Books)

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ALIEN TO THE COMMUNITY

by Richard J. Evans

At ten past ten on the morning of June 2, 1948, Karl Brandt climbed on the black gallows in the courtyard of Landsberg Prison in Bavaria. An American military tribunal had sentenced him to death for crimes including “planning and performing the mass murder of prisoners of war and civilians of occupied countries, stigmatized as aged, insane, incurably ill, deformed and so on, by gas, lethal injections and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals and asylums during the Euthanasia Program and participating in the mass murder of concentration camp inmates.”

As the executioner and his assistants completed their preparations, Brandt delivered an impassioned speech to the handful of journalists and officials standing in the courtyard. He had done nothing wrong, he declared. He had only done his best to help humanity — above all, German humanity. His death was an act of political murder.

The Americans had no right to condemn him, least of all after they had killed nearly a quarter of a million people by dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As he ranted on, the executioner, who had warned Brandt to keep his remarks short, lost patience, placed a hood over his head, took a step back and pulled the trapdoor lever, sending him plunging to his death.

Tall, good-looking and married to a glamorous swimming champion, Brandt had been appointed Hitler’s escort physician in 1934 after he had used the surgical skills honed on victims of mining accidents in the Ruhr to treat a Nazi official injured while driving in the Führer’s motorcade. A member of Hitler’s inner circle from then on, Brandt was in 1939 ordered by him to investigate a petition by the parents of a severely disabled child asking for the infant to be killed. Brandt approved the murder and supervised it himself. This led to his being appointed to run what was termed a “euthanasia” program, Aktion T4, carried out with Hitler’s authorization under the cloak of the war. On Brandt’s advice, first children, then adults were rounded up from their homes and from institutions, taken to killing centers in mental hospitals and gassed with carbon monoxide.

In the summer of 1941, after Clemens von Galen, a Catholic bishop, condemned the murders in a series of public sermons, copies of which he distributed across the country, the gassing teams were transferred to new sites in Eastern Europe, where they set up the gas chambers in which millions of Jews were killed. But the “euthanasia” program continued in secret, by means of lethal injection, starvation and the denial of medical treatment. Up to three hundred thousand victims, most though not all of them German, had been killed by the end of the war.

The “euthanasia” program was preceded by an even more widespread program of compulsory sterilization. After attaining power Hitler lost no time in issuing a Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring: it came into effect on January 1, 1934. 400,000 people were subjected to forcible sterilization — a practice common in countries from Sweden to the US, and used in some places well after the end of the Second World War, but nowhere so widely as in Germany.

Behind the program lay a belief that the quality of the German race had been badly affected by the First World War, in which more than two million soldiers, thought to be the best and bravest of their generation, had lost their lives. It was urgently necessary to replenish and rebalance the race, a goal that for the Nazis involved not only encouraging the “fit” and healthy to have more children but also preventing the “unfit” and unhealthy from reproducing. In Hitler’s mind, this was part of Germany’s long-term preparation for victory in the struggle between races. The effects of Nazi eugenic policies would not be immediate, but no matter: he was planning the “thousand-year Reich.” Medical opinion in Germany was overwhelmingly in support of what doctors deemed to be a scientifically informed policy aimed at improving the quality of the population.

Not all Germans supported it. The American historian Dagmar Herzog points out in her new book that the Catholic Church, to which more than a third of Germans belonged, was opposed to eugenics and to “euthanasia”: “life was to be protected from the moment of conception through to a natural death.” This was not entirely true, since the Church and its pre-1933 political wing, the Center Party, had consistently supported the death penalty; priests attended executions and absolved malefactors of their sins. But since it was firmly opposed to contraception and abortion, the Church was not likely to approve of a law interfering with the God-given right of humans to reproduce.

The Protestant Church was a different matter. The main Protestant welfare organization, the Inner Mission (so called to distinguish its work from that of overseas missionaries), was not opposed to compulsory sterilization. Many pastors shared the anxieties that were driving the program.

Pastor Ernst Klessmann, an associate of the Inner Mission, articulated a widespread view when he declared in 1934 that “the continued existence of our Volk is lethally threatened by the strong expansion of the biologically inferior.” There was, he added, “much common ground between National Socialism and the gospel.”

During the 19th century a system of classification of mentally disabled people had emerged in Germany alongside the establishment of care institutions and the rise of the medical profession. The key criterion from the beginning was: could the disabled work? Care institutions generally welcomed inmates who could do menial domestic tasks or some kind of paid labor. As hereditarian thinking began to spread across the medical profession in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, anxieties emerged about the “feeble-minded” passing on their “defects” to future generations. It was claimed that mentally disabled people had a strong sexual drive and that it was better, therefore, to keep them confined in institutions or render them incapable of “infecting” the body of the race.

The concept of “feeble-mindedness” medicalized the consequences of social problems. One sub-category was “moral feeble-mindedness,” a diagnosis applied to social deviants like prostitutes and petty thieves.

A growing body of pseudo-statistical literature was devoted to the supposedly hereditary effects of alcoholism, which, it was argued, led to generations of deviants and criminals, costing the state huge amounts of money. The overwhelming majority of intellectually impaired people were from a working class background, but increasingly commentators ascribed their condition to hereditary rather than environmental factors. Three quarters of all sterilizations under the Nazis were carried out for “congenital feeble-mindedness,” a definition so arbitrary that it was easy to apply it to individuals whose only crime was to be a member of the underclass or to deviate from bourgeois social norms.

As Herzog points out, the sterilized and the euthanized belonged to two distinct categories. Those diagnosed as suffering from inherited blindness or deafness, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, “congenital feeble-mindedness” or alcoholism, most of them living in the community, were earmarked by doctors for compulsory sterilization by vasectomy or tubal ligation. The surgical procedures were often carried out clumsily and caused lifelong problems.

Sterilizations became so common during the Third Reich that one Protestant care institution held a “sterilization day” every week. More than half the pupils in remedial schools were forcibly sterilized — the schools became popularly known as “eunuch institutions.”

The “euthanasia” program, by contrast, especially affected those who suffered from profound brain damage or a physical disability that rendered them unable to perform even simple physical tasks. These people were, in the words of an essay published in 1920 by the lawyer Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, “unworthy of life” (the title of Herzog’s book — ‘The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics & German’s 20th Century’ fails to convey the full import of the term).

The rationale was above all economic. These were what Hoche called “ballast existences,’ weighing society down; they necessitated expenditure on care while bringing, in his view, no discernible benefit to the community. Nazi films and other propaganda justifying the killings during the war stressed above all the cost of care, while trying to arouse the public’s revulsion by portraying severely disabled people as monsters of deformity.

(London Review of Books)

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ATHEISM BY ITSELF is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind; it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension. For you to say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of Charles Darwin is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience. Darwin’s thought was not taught in Germany; Darwinism was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, Darwin, Einstein and Freud were alike despised by the National Socialist regime.

Now, just to take the most notorious of the 20th century totalitarianisms – the most finished example, the most perfected one, the most ruthless and refined one: that of National Socialism, the one that fortunately allowed the escape of all these great atheists, thinkers and many others, to the United States, a country of separation of church and state, that gave them welcome – if it’s an atheistic regime, then how come that in the first chapter of Mein Kampf, that Hitler says that he’s doing God’s work and executing God’s will in destroying the Jewish people? How come the fuhrer oath that every officer of the Party and the Army had to take, making Hitler into a minor god, begins, “I swear in the name of almighty God, my loyalty to the Fuhrer?” How come that on the belt buckle of every Nazi soldier it says Gott mit uns, God on our side? How come that the first treaty made by the Nationalist Socialist dictatorship, the very first is with the Vatican? It’s exchanging political control of Germany for Catholic control of German education. How come that the church has celebrated the birthday of the Fuhrer every year, on that day until democracy put an end to this filthy, quasi-religious, superstitious, barbarous, reactionary system?

Again, this is not a difference of emphasis between us. To suggest that there’s something fascistic about me and about my beliefs is something I won't hear said and you shouldn't believe.”

― Christopher Hitchens

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LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Aid Groups Prepare to Provide Quick Relief to Gaza Under Cease-Fire

U.S. to Send 200 Troops to Israel in Support Roles

A Closer Look at the Counts in the Letitia James Indictment

María Corina Machado Is Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Curious Reindeer and Hungry Polar Bears: Warming Is Upending an Arctic Island

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“IT’S RIDICULOUS to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.”

― Noam Chomsky

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ISRAEL SAYS CEASE-FIRE IS IN EFFECT IN GAZA

by Liam Stack and Aaron Boxerman

The Israeli military said on Friday that a cease-fire had come into effect at noon as its soldiers were repositioning themselves within Gaza, a step that mediators hope will lead to the end of the two-year war.

The statement came after the Israeli government approved a cease-fire deal early on Friday between Israel and Hamas. As part of the agreement, Hamas would release the remaining captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, while Israeli troops would partially withdraw.

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Mideast envoy, said the U.S. military had verified that Israeli troops had withdrawn to the agreed-upon line inside Gaza. That, he said on social media, opened a 72-hour window in which Hamas must hand over the remaining hostages.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said in a recorded statement on Friday that the cease-fire deal would allow Israel to bring back the remaining hostages while maintaining its forces in Gaza.

Israel would not compromise on the rest of its demands, he added, including that Hamas lay down its weapons and that Gaza be demilitarized. But Hamas regards disarmament as tantamount to surrender and views armed struggle as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli control over Palestinian lands.

“If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. If not, it will be done the hard way,” Mr. Netanyahu said.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/world/middleeast/gaza-cease-fire-israel-hamas.html

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THOUGHTS ON THE CEASEFIRE NEWS

by Caitlin Johnstone

Israel continued to hammer Gaza with military explosives on Thursday despite the announcement of the first stages of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

Israel always does this. When normal people get a ceasefire agreement they think “Good, this means we can finally stop fighting and killing.” Whenever Israelis get a ceasefire agreement they go, “This means we have to hurry up and kill as many people as possible before it takes effect.”

But it does appear that the killing and abuse will at least diminish for a time, which is an objectively good thing no matter how you slice it.

The first stages of the agreement reportedly entail a partial withdrawal of IDF troops, Israel’s starvation blockade officially ending, humanitarian aid being allowed into the enclave, and both Israel and Hamas releasing captives and stopping the fighting.

Drop Site News reports that according to Hamas sources, subsequent ceasefire phases will entail “No surrender, no disarming, no mass exile, but most of all a permanent end to the war.”

It remains to be seen if there will be any movement toward a lasting ceasefire beyond the first stage. When an agreement was reached late last year it never made it beyond the first phase and then the Trumpanyahu administration declared a siege and resumed the killing.

The far right members of the Netanyahu regime certainly seem like they don’t expect the ceasefire to hold.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement that Israel has a “tremendous responsibility to ensure that this is not, God forbid, a deal of ‘hostages in exchange for stopping the war,’ as Hamas thinks and boasts,” and that “immediately after the hostages return home, the State of Israel will continue to strive with all its might for the true eradication of Hamas and the genuine disarmament of Gaza.”

Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued similar remarks, saying that he and his Jewish Power party will use their leverage to dismantle the Netanyahu government if it “allows the continued existence of Hamas rule in Gaza.”

Netanyahu himself has been studiously avoiding any talk of commitment to a lasting ceasefire, mostly limiting his public statements to the significance of freeing Israeli hostages.

So there’s not a whole lot to feel optimistic about here. If the killing does stop on a lasting basis, it will be a pleasant surprise.

If it does, we can only surmise that the US and Israel calculated that the worldwide PR crisis created by the genocide was getting too severe to sustain, which would be a win for all of us. Trump has gone on record to say that “Bibi took it very far and Israel lost a lot of support in the world. Now I am gonna get all that support back.”

Either that, or they calculated that they’re going to need all their firepower for a planned war with Iran. Which would of course be terrible for everyone.

We shall see. For now at least it will be nice for everyone to have a breather. If things really do calm down I’m going to do something I’ve never done in my entire writing career and try to take a full weekend off work to decompress. Focusing on a live-streamed genocide for two years takes a toll on the mind and body.

Here’s hoping for a better future.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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WHY CHINA BUILT 162 SQUARE MILES OF SOLAR PANELS ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST PLATEAU

by Keith Bradsher

This summer, I got a good look at China’s clean-energy future, nearly 10,000 feet above sea level in Tibet. Solar panels stretch to the horizon and cover an area seven times the size of Manhattan. (They soak up sunlight that is much brighter than at sea level because the air is so thin.) Wind turbines dot nearby ridgelines, capturing night breezes. Hydropower dams sit where rivers spill down long chasms at the edges of the plateau. And high-voltage power lines carry this electricity to businesses and homes more than 1,000 miles away.

The intention is to harness the region’s bright sunshine, cold temperatures and sky-touching altitude to power the plateau and beyond, including data centers used in China’s artificial intelligence development.

While China still burns as much coal as the rest of the world combined, last month President Xi Jinping promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and expand renewable energy sixfold in coming years. A big part of that effort is in sparsely inhabited Qinghai, a province in western China in a region known among the Tibetans as Amdo. I came as part of a government-organized media tour of clean energy sites in Qinghai, which usually bars foreign journalists to hide dissent by its large ethnic Tibetan population. (The Times paid for my travel.) Today, I’ll tell you what I saw.

China is not the first country to experiment with high-altitude clean energy. But other places — in Switzerland and Chile, for instance — are mountainous and steep. Qinghai, slightly bigger than Texas, is mostly flat. That’s perfect for solar panels and the roads needed to bring them in. And the cold air improves the efficiency of solar panels. The ones here can could run every household in Chicago. And China is building more, including panels at 17,000 feet.

The main group of solar farms, known as the Talatan Solar Park, dwarfs every other cluster of solar farms in the world. It covers 162 square miles in Gonghe County, an alpine desert.

Electricity from solar and wind power in Qinghai (the birthplace of the current Dalai Lama, now in exile) costs about 40 percent less than coal-fired power. As a result, several electricity-intensive industries are moving to the region. One type of plant turns quartzite from mines into polysilicon to make solar panels. And Qinghai plans to quintuple the number of data centers in the province. At this altitude, they consume 40 percent less electricity than centers at sea level, because they barely need air-conditioning here. (Air warmed by the servers is piped away to heat other buildings.)

As an incentive to build solar farms, many western Chinese provinces initially offered free land to companies. When the Talatan solar project installed its first panels in 2012, they were low to the ground. Ethnic Tibetan herders use the sparse vegetation here to graze their sheep, but the animals had trouble getting to the grass. Now installers place the panels on higher mountings.

Dislocating people for power projects is politically sensitive all over the world. But high-altitude projects affect relatively few people. China pushed more than one million people out of their homes in west-central China a quarter-century ago and flooded a vast area for the reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam. This year, China has been installing enough solar panels every three weeks to match the power generation capacity of that dam.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/china-solar-tibetan-plateau.html

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