Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 10/14/2025

Chilly | Bill Baker | Lawsuit Progress | Brian Burke | It's Fall | Giboli Calpella | Controlled Burn | Abalone Room | PVP Points | Great ShakeOut | No Kings | Local Events | Rainstorm Caught | Gala Brunch | Yesterday's Catch | Another Raid | First Crop | Homegrown Tomatoes | Big Gourd | Traffic Cameras | Ezra Cats | Pet Misconceptions | Drunk Stovetop | Dream Song | Nazified Theocracy | Music Biz | Losing Warner | Moody Wins | Ominous Words | Martial Law | AI Mirage | Food Stamp | Matrix Abides | Soul Test | Patriots & Traitors | Antifa 1945 | Dem Concerns | Lead Stories | The Adelsons | Attention Gaza | Gloom Pervades | Terrible Things | Shadow Ticket | Two Aisle

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THE AREA OF LOW PRESSURE continues to push southward pulling the precipitation towards the southern area of the CWA. There will be chances for interior frost this week, especially if cloud coverage clears with calm winds. Temperatures will warm later this week as high pressure builds back in. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 47F with .45" of new rainfall this Tuesday morning on the coast. Sunny skies mostly for our forecast until further notice. Roofing weather finally.

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ALWAYS THE FIRST TO HELP’: COVELO REMEMBERS FORMER FIRE CHIEF KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN

by Matt LaFever

The pedestrian killed in a hit-and-run crash Sunday night on Highway 162 has been identified by community members as Bill Baker, the beloved former chief of the Covelo Fire Department.

According to the California Highway Patrol’s Garberville office, the collision occurred around 7:59 p.m. Oct. 12, north of Poonkinney Road. Investigators said a 2019 Toyota 4Runner driven by 20-year-old Sandra Yocselin Acosta Deloera, of Covelo, struck Baker as he walked within the southbound lane of the highway.

For reasons still under investigation, Acosta Deloera allegedly fled the scene. The highway was closed for roughly four and a half hours while emergency crews attempted lifesaving measures, but Baker was pronounced dead at the scene.

About two hours later, CHP dispatchers received a call from a family member of the driver reporting the crash. Officers, assisted by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, located both Acosta Deloera and the vehicle at her residence. The investigation remains active, and anyone with information is asked to contact the CHP Garberville Office at (707) 932-6100.

Brittany Glass, a close friend who described herself as Baker’s “niece by choice,” said he had just received medical treatment earlier that day and was reportedly being delivered home by a medical transport service when the crash occurred. She said the hospital told Baker not to call her for a ride because “they had a service that would deliver him to his door.”

Glass said Baker dedicated his life to the fire and ambulance services in Covelo, mentoring generations of volunteers and caring for his neighbors with unwavering commitment. “He was always the first to help, no matter the problem,” she said. “He delivered babies of babies he had once helped deliver in the ambulance.”

She added that while Baker faced challenges in recent years, the community never stopped supporting him. “He had a way with people,” she said. “Most of the community knew him their entire life.”

The California Highway Patrol has not yet announced whether any charges have been filed.

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On Sunday, October 12, 2025 at about 8:06 P.M., Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Deputies overheard radio transmissions of a traffic incident involving a vehicle and pedestrian near the intersection of Highway 162 and Fairbanks Road in Covelo.

Deputies were in the area and arrived at the scene within minutes. When deputies arrived, they found members of the Covelo Volunteer Fire Department performing emergency life-saving efforts to include Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) on an elderly80-year old male. At 8:26 P.M., medical personnel pronounced the male deceased at which time the deputies initiated Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Coroner’s protocols.

During the subsequent coroner’s investigation, the decedent was identified as an 80-year-old male from Covelo. The decedent’s identity is being withheld to identify and notify the legal next of kin. A post-mortem examination will be conducted in the coming week to determine the official cause and manner of death. Preliminary findings during the coroner’s investigation were the male decedent succumbed to injuries after being struck by a vehicle.

The traffic incident related to this investigation is being handled by the California Highway Patrol. Additional information, to include the decedent’s identity, will be released when possible and pursuant to Sheriff’s Office protocols.

Anyone with information related to this coroner’s investigation is requested to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Communication Center at 707-463-4086 (option 1).

FACEBOOK COMMENTS:

[1] I have a problem understanding, if he was being delivered by a medical transport company, why was he a pedestrian on 162 after dark? RIP Chief.

[2] 20 year old girl, late at night, desolate road known for murders and mayhem hits a pedestrian who appears out of nowhere. Understandable that she’d freak out. Should have stopped but didn’t. Went home and told her family who called Highway Patrol. This is not great behavior - leaving the person in the road - but it is understandable. That area is sketchy AF and a solo young woman out at late night should be concerned. Not being sexist just saying there are some bad hombres out about there…

[3] As a former firefighter medical first responder, while on an emergency call on the highway, I often witnessed people who were disoriented walk out to the middle of the road. It seems like they believe that’s where they belong. You can never leave a disoriented person unattended. Is it possible that Chief Baker was disoriented? However, a hit and run is never forgivable. No matter how young the kid that hit him was. Driver responsibility should be question #1 on the driver test.

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SKUNK TRAIN, FORT BRAGG JOINTLY AGREE TO SET ASIDE DEFAULT IN MILL SITE SUIT

The agreement allows the case to proceed on its merits

by Elise Cox

The Sierra Northern Railway, the Mendocino Railway and the city of Fort Bragg have jointly agreed to set aside a court default in one of two ongoing lawsuits about the former Georgia-Pacific mill site.

In a stipulation filed Oct. 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the parties asked Judge John S. Tigar to approve an agreement restoring Fort Bragg’s right to respond to the railways’ lawsuit over stormwater contamination of Mill Pond 8. The agreement allows the dispute to proceed on the merits.

The railways filed their third amended complaint Aug. 4. A default was entered Sept. 9 after the city missed the deadline to respond. The stipulation says the lapse was inadvertent, caused by the departure of the attorney handling day-to-day matters from the law firm Edlin Gallagher Huie + Blum.

Both sides agreed that setting aside the default would not prejudice the plaintiffs and would allow the case to be decided on its merits. Fort Bragg must file an answer within 10 court days of Tigar’s order approving the stipulation.

Once filed, the case will move forward toward discovery and pre-trial motions. The agreement on procedural cooperation signals the city and the railways may be making progress in settling their long-running dispute around local and state jurisdiction of the mill site as well as cleanup of hazardous substances.

(www.mendolocal.news)

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BRIAN THOMAS BURKE (1945 - 2025)

Brian Thomas Burke, 80, died at home in Santa Monica on September 7, 2025, of complications related to blood and organ cancers.

Brian was born on February 21, 1945, in Seattle, WA, the youngest of five children to William Emmett Burke and Lillian Catherine Burke. Brian and his family lived in several cities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and California before settling down in Pasadena, CA, where Brian spent his high school years.

After graduating from Pasadena High in 1963, Brian worked for the US Forest Service, fighting fires.

He then began his educational journey, earning an AA from Pasadena City College, followed by a BA from UC Berkeley, a Master's in English from Sonoma State University, and finally a Master's in Education Administration from San Francisco State University in 1984.

When he wasn't attending school, he was teaching and serving the community. During his college years he worked as a counselor for the CA School for the Blind, the Ronoh Pre-school in Berkeley, as well as the Hanna Boys Center.

In 1973 Brian married Joan Molitor in the small rural community of Covelo in Northern California. There they purchased 70 acres of foothill land and designed a home which Brian built from the ground up. In 1976 their son, Julian, was born, followed by a daughter, Heather (1979-1980) and a son, Devin (1984-1991). Brian and Joan divorced in 1988, but remained close.

In Covelo Brian taught junior high and high school for Round Valley Schools, specializing in English and Drama. He produced and directed many productions in the valley, bringing high school students to the stage, and later shared his talents with adults in the community when he and others revived the Round Valley Community Theater.

In 2001, Brian shifted to administration and began his first role as principal at Round Valley Elementary School. In 2003, he moved to Sebastopol where he served as principal at Forestville High School and later Harmony High School. In 2006, he moved to Santa Monica and again took a role as principal. It was in Santa Monica that he met Robin McCaffery, and they married on October 19, 2015.

Brian was a brilliant teacher, director, father, and grandfather, who had a passion for learning, writing, nature, photography, fitness, and politics. He loved his family and community and will be deeply missed and always remembered. He was perpetually cheerful, positive, fun, kind and so very thoughtful about just about everything.

Brian is already deeply missed by many including his wife, Robin; her daughters, Katherine DePaulo of Los Angeles and Christine Gilland of New York and their families; his son, Julian Burke of Riverside; Julian's wife, Rachel; and their four boys. Additional surviving loved ones are Brian's brother, Emmett Burke, and wife, Mary Jo of Seattle; and brother, Padraic Burke, also of Seattle; as well as many nieces and nephews.

Celebrations of life have been private. Donations in Brian's memory can be made to the Yosemite Conservancy at Yosemite.org.

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SUDDENLY IT’S FALL! And it seems like it is, as well! We are experiencing colder nights and warmer rainy days, and our community is encircled by the fruits and vegetables which are the result of the gardener’s patience and skill! I love this time of year and I’ve heard other people saying the same. The deep gold of pumpkins, the dullish reds and yellows of squash, the tart brightness of crisp apples, the deep purple of figs, the prospect of approaching persimmons, as well as the amber and mauve tints of grapes, varying into reds and purples. What a world we experience at our doorsteps! And as usual, I’m glad I live here!

— Charmian Blattner, October 1997

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EEL RIVER RECOVERY PROJECT AND PARTNERS TO BEGIN CONTROLLED BURNING TUESDAY

Eel River Recovery Project (ERRP), in collaboration with Torchbearr and other partner groups, will begin burning in the Ten Mile Creek drainage northwest of Laytonville tomorrow, pending favorable conditions.

This controlled burn is part of a larger project that will treat as much as 881 acres of native grassland and forest understory fuels as part of a multi-year, watershed-wide forest health initiative. ERRP seeks to strategically thin forest and follow up with prescribed fire treatments, creating needed shaded fuel breaks and promoting tree biodiversity.

This project will help reintroduce fire on land near Highway 101 five miles north of downtown Laytonville, making the ground safer and more resilient in the face of oncoming wildfires and other ecological threats including invasive plant and pest infestation, loss of habitat for wildlife, and unhealthy forest composition after decades of intensive lFogging.

Members of the public can expect intermittent, short-duration smoke from these burns which can impact air quality or impair visibility for drivers on local roads. Burn practitioners applying fire will do everything they can to minimize smoke impacts to local communities, in keeping with their smoke management plans and permit requirements.

Per burn plan documents and permit requirements, all burns will be staffed with trained, professional personnel and fire engines assigned for contingency purposes, local agencies and authorities will be notified of burning, and all burning will proceed only if and when a test burn is declared successful by an on-site burn boss with approval from the resident landowner.

Funding for this project is provided by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Forest Health Program as part of the California Climate Investments Program.

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Upcoming Oak and Thorn Presents Concerts:
10/15/25 - Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas - Abalone Room, Little River Inn, Little River, CA
11/07/25 - Yann Falquet and Keith Murphy - Abalone Room, Little River Inn, Little River, CA
04/30/26 - Nuala Kennedy and Eamon O'Leary - Abalone Room, Little River Inn, Little River, CA

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EEL RIVER DAM REMOVAL MEETING

by Friends of the Eel River

401 Water Quality Certification The State Water Board has just begun scoping for the Water Quality Certification for dam decommissioning and removal. This process, also known as Section 401, is California’s most direct tool to ensure that dam removal improves water quality, restores habitat, and protects downstream communities and Tribal resources.

Here are a few simple, but important talking points we encourage members of the public to draw on at upcoming Potter Valley Project meetings:

1. Encourage the Water Board to complete this process quickly. The PVP causes significant water quality impacts to the Eel River every day that it remains in place. These impacts include increased water temperature, continued accumulation of methylated mercury, and disruption of sediment movement downstream. 401 Certifications are supposed to now be limited to a 1-year process, but it is still worth emphasizing the on-going negative impacts of the Project and the importance of timely dam removal.
2. The long-term effects of dam removal are a net positive. This dam removal project will be the second largest river restoration project in California history. The Water Board has a restoration policy which allows staff to certify projects with long-term benefits, despite short term impacts - that definitely applies to this Project.
3. The short-term impacts of dam removal must be analyzed and, to the extent possible, minimized and mitigated. Dam removal is expected to have short-term negative impacts. We need to better understand the conditions necessary to quickly transport sediment downstream, how to time the release of sediment to minimize impacts to aquatic life, and what additional mitigations like revegetation with native plants can do to limit erosion.
4. The Board needs to assess the current Project diversions to the Russian River as the baseline, not historic diversions. The days of diverting 150,000 acre feet per year from the Eel are over, no one should be using that as baseline conditions.

Wednesday, October 15, 11:30am - 1:30pm Ukiah Valley Conference Center, Cabernet 1 & 2 Rooms 200 South School Street, Ukiah

There are many rules that PG&E must comply with in managing the Potter Valley Project. One of those is a set of rules outlining how much water can be diverted to the Russian River, both under their contract with the Potter Valley Irrigation District, and to help Sonoma Water provide for both their customers and for instream flows. These rules also determine how much water must be released downstream to the Eel River. The rules vary depending on the water year type; a very dry year has far more restrictions than a very wet year.

The result of waiting so long to approve the variance is that the temperature of water released from Scott Dam has been nearly lethal for steelhead since June, and PG&E is concerned that diversions to the Russian River may have to remain as low as possible before the fall rains arrive. But that’s not all — if significant rain doesn’t come soon enough, the utility said they may have to reduce flows in the Eel River below what is required by law. This would only be done to prevent sediment surrounding the singular water outlet from collapsing and blocking it. If this water outlet becomes clogged, no water can be released from Scott Dam unless the reservoir is completely full.

For the fish,

Alicia Hamann, Executive Director

Friend of the Eel River

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The Great ShakeOut will take place October 16, 2025, at 10:16 AM. Mendocino County OES encourages all residents to participate. This drill allows people across California to practice their earthquake safety, and how to be better prepared. For more information visit https://www.shakeout.org/california/

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NO KINGS PROTEST - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2025, 11 - 1

Where: East Side Of Highway 1 In Fort Bragg.

Remember the joyful time we had together at the first No Kings Day in June? This one's going to be even better! In small towns and big cities all around the country (and the world), we're building the resistance to save our freedom and stop the autoritarian takeover.

Same place as June's, same nationwide solidarity. Make your plans now - bring familly & friends, bring a sign, bring your peaceful goodwill & determination.

Help needed! We need a few more volunteers. Please reply to [email protected] to let us know if you can help with one of the following:

Peacekeepers (4 more needed): Work in pairs, wearing safety vests, to help make sure attendees stay out of the roadway. First Aid Helpers (2 needed): Participate in the protest from a spot near one of the 2 information tables, and assist attendees with minor injuries. Need to have basic first aid skills. First aid kits provided.

We will spread out over a half-mile of sidewalk, from McDonald's to the Harbor Lite Lodge, on the east side of Highway One in Fort Bragg. This includes the Noyo Bridge, but also lots of sidewalk space on solid ground for folks who don't want to be on the bridge.

Organizers are asking participants to stay on the sidewalk at all times, keeping the entire roadway clear (including the shoulder / bike lanes). Do not attempt to cross the highway on foot anywhere outside of the crosswalks, located at Boatyard Drive and at Cypress Street. Our event does not include the west side of the highway.

Please do not park on private property.

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LOCAL EVENTS (this week)

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TODAY A RAINSTORM CAUGHT ME

Today a rainstorm caught me
and I still have not recovered
myself with drier blankets
The brown leaves blowing
off the trees, squirrels
and robins cheering them on, but not

cheering me And anxiousness has an owl
by the throat, has me pill-popped up
to Heaven Hill, head spinning one hundred eighty
degrees, looking to the past and the future
for some news about the present

which of course is useless Even I know that Mean-
while, Agnes upstairs plays with Grace—
the little neighbor girl—not the idea of unmerited
forgiveness in light The two of them make up
words to no music or to My Fictions
and The Saddest Landscape

Sometimes it’s hard to say which,
no matter how hard I pretend to listen
I am no expert at thunder and lightning
I am no expert at eggbirds and ghost-
typing the air to remember a song

Today a rainstorm caught me up
The rain came down, and it still comes down
The rain comes down is all I know

about how sometimes life finds me stupid on the porch
with a couple of empty beer bottles,
humming and waiting for god knows what, some
warm weather to calm me, a few minor thoughts
All these days, reasons end somewhere

The water still rolls with an owl in its blood
We reverberate through it very softly

— Matt Hart (2014)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, October 13, 2025

BRIAN HURTADO, 35, Willits. Parole violation.

VILMA MCCUTCHEON, 56, Elk. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.

DANIEL MEINECKE, 48, Arcata/Ukiah. Parole violation.

DENA MORRIS, 63, Ukiah. Paraphernalia, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

SHAYNA STILLWELL, 39, Whitethorn. DUI.

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LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM IS A FAILED EXPERIMENT

Editor:

Someday, our society will realize that laissez-faire capitalism is a failed experiment. There will be a hail of allegations and some prosecutions. Yet the gorgon will survive, not because it deserves to, but because conservative politicians will attempt to protect the corporate marauder. The explosive nature of an unregulated market is spellbinding. During the 1980s, shady venture capitalists invented junk bonds, forensic accounting and a host of other financial mirages. Junk bonds promised hefty returns, and a frenzy of greedy investors engineered leveraged takeovers of asset-rich corporations. Such plots skyrocketed stock prices, but the marauders stripped their prey and left the carcasses for the vultures.

Once that grift stimulated litigation, the perpetrators moved to other sectors of the economy: medical insurance, banking, home loans, veterinary offices, local newspapers… Some major players were indicted, but corporate lawyers ran to the rescue; consequently, the punishments did not fit the crimes and, therefore, did not serve as a deterrent. The current downsizing of the government will open a bevy of new opportunities.

Soon, the crisis will send the economy into a tailspin. There’ll be indictments, but there will be a group of politicians portraying the perps as victims, thus setting up the economy for another raid.

Tom Fantulin

Fort Bragg

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DOBIE DOLPHIN: Anna Banana sang a great song about home grown tomatoes. It was written by Guy Clark.

Homegrown Tomatoes

Ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin' out in the garden

Get you a ripe one don't get a hard one
Plant 'em in the spring eat 'em in the summer
All winter with out 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' & diggin'
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one

Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love & homegrown tomatoes

You can go out to eat & that's for sure
But it's nothin' a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat 'em with egss, eat 'em with gravy
Eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put 'em on the site put 'em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle

If I's to change this life I lead
I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed
'Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin' up homegrown tomatoes

— Guy Clark (1983)

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CAN YOU FIGHT CITY HALL?

by Paul Modic

After leaving the dentist, I was driving up F Street in Eureka, made a very safe left turn onto Harris through a red light, before any other cars had driven into the intersection and then I saw it: the camera mounted high on the crossbar and a big sign on the lamp post saying $489 minimum fine for running a red light. Ouch, no, shit! Then I was bummed and pissed at myself, the guy who was on the phone to his bank for forty-five minutes the other day successfully disputing a $25 late charge.

I was still very distracted and preoccupied with my unforced error, my costly mistake, and thought dude, don’t make it worse by having an accident and I tried to settle down. I stopped at Fed-ex Office, dropped off a batch of forty-nine more copies of my homemade book to be bound, then headed over to the library to get books on CD to burn.

I asked at the front desk if they still answered questions here or over the phone like libraries everywhere did pre-internet. (Remember when back in the old days you could call the libraries and ask any question, like how far away the moon is (225,000 miles?) or the sun (93 million) and they would look it up and tell you?) Well, I have some questions I said, she laughed and said they don’t let her answer the phone and directed me to the reference desk.

I needed to find out what I was up against, what to expect: Does everyone caught on the camera get a ticket? Can you pay the fine in installments? Can you appeal it? How much does Eureka rake in every year with the camera system? The nice woman at the desk behind the plastic screen gave me the number of the Traffic and Signal Division, the Transportation Dept Maintenance supervisor’s name, number, and email and the address of Eureka City Hall.

After I found a sufficient pile of books on CD, going a little more classy than my usual trashy with some Maugham, Waugh and Steinbeck, I went back and asked if she knew of a shady place I could eat my lunch and she directed me to Old Town. As I was leaving, a distressed homeless guy started yelling loudly about something, drawing a crowd including Security and I went back in for the show. I couldn’t hear what it was about and returned to my car, found a shady spot at the edge of the lot and ate a handful of seeds and nuts along with half an apple, just to keep me going on my town trip.

I was driving along Broadway to the food co-op, remembered the City Hall address and doubled back a few blocks to K Street. I told the receptionist I wanted information about how the traffic fines work with the cameras and after consulting her screen she said that the police handle all the fines and I should ask them. That didn’t seem like where I was going to get my answers, I told her my questions and asked if she had someone in the building who could answer them.

She got back on the phone, said an engineer would be down shortly, and a few minutes later a young man arrived with a smile on his face and I told him I’d just run a red light and asked my questions.

“No, no,” he said. “They don’t send out fines from camera photos of license plates like they do in San Diego where I used to live, that fine is if the police pull you over. They only use those cameras to study traffic patterns.”

“Well, they’re everywhere, how much do they have to study?” I said.

I was hopeful yet doubtful, asked if he was really sure and he assured me I had nothing to worry about. I asked him about his job and he said he engineers sewer lines going from houses to the city sewer system.

“Well, someone’s got to do it,” he said with a laugh.

“Okay, I’m holding you to it,” I said and he wrote down his name and number in my notebook.

I walked out of there feeling pretty good again but I’d been scared straight: No more careless and unnecessary aggressive driving! (Had I been channeling my New York cabbie days?)

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COMMON MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DOGS AND CATS, Part 3

by Colin Chaves, DVM

This is part 3 of my series on common myths that I hear over and over in my work. I appreciate all the positive feedback I’ve received from the previous two articles!

Myth: Your dog’s ears are infected/red/itchy/stinky because of ear mites.

Dogs commonly get inflamed, infected ears. The single most common cause of this is allergies. In our area, the second most common cause is a foxtail. While dogs can get ear mites, it is exceedingly rare. If you treat your dog for ear mites without the direction of a veterinarian, you are likely wasting money and delaying proper care for your dog while things get worse.

Myth: Your dog is constipated.

If your dog is posturing to defecate over and over without producing much, diarrhea is more likely than constipation. Dogs get diarrhea for a variety of reasons, but almost never get constipated. With bad diarrhea, after the intestines have essentially been emptied, the urge to defecate will continue, so a dog will strain even though there is nothing left to produce.

Myth: Your dog has cataracts.

If your dog is getting older and the eyes are starting to get cloudy, that probably isn’t cataracts. A more common cause of cloudy eyes in older dogs is a condition called nuclear sclerosis. This is where the lenses of the eyes change in a way that you can notice, but that doesn’t significantly affect a dog’s vision. Cataracts block light and affect vision. A veterinarian needs to look to tell you the difference for your dog, and if treatment is needed.

Myth: Hairballs in cats are normal.

A hairball is a form of vomiting. While hairballs are more common in long-haired than short-haired cats, seeing one more than once a month is reason for concern. Inappropriate diet is a significant cause of vomiting (hairballs or other material) in cats. Don’t forget that dry food is the enemy of your cat.

Myth: Your pet loves to travel.

Yes, I have seen pets that love to travel. These are the tiny minority. By far the majority of cats and dogs want to be in their familiar environment and follow their familiar routine. As we live in an area frequented by tourists, I get to see how often pets coming from other areas get stressed and sick. The worst version of this is bringing an elderly, unhealthy pet on a trip.

Myth: Your dog is a domesticated wolf.

While wolves and domestic dogs share common ancestry, they are by no means the same animal. If you are being told that behavior and training should be addressed as if your dog is a wolf, then that is wrong. If you are being told your dog should eat like a wolf, that is wrong. You are being told things in ignorance at best, or being marketed to at worst.

Myth: You read about it on the Internet so it must be true.

I shouldn’t have to explain this too much further. Anyone can post things on the Internet. Get your information and advice from experts. And there’s a reason that my very first myth of Part 1 was “beware the anecdote”. The anecdote is your enemy. Whenever possible, information should be backed by research.

Myth: Raw diets are the healthiest food for your dog.

Raw diets have long been a fad. Raw food is not safe food. The primary concern is food-borne illness. Just as I would not recommend any human eat raw meat, I don’t want your dog or cat to eat raw meat. Research has also shown that dogs that eat raw, even if seemingly healthy, shed higher amounts of zoonotic bacteria than dogs that eat properly prepared food. That means your dog eating raw food is a risk to the people around her as well.

(“Ask the Vet” is a monthly column written by local veterinarians including Colin Chaves of Covington Creek Veterinary, Karen Novak of Mendocino Village Veterinary, Clare Bartholomew of Mendocino Coast Humane Society and Kendall Willson of Mendocino Equine and Livestock. Past articles can be found on the Advocate-News and Beacon websites by searching “Ask the Vet.”)

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FRED GARDNER:

The Editor’s dream reminded me of a great song…

Do they dream of Hell in Heaven?
Are they restless with their reward?
Does God spend time with His angels
Or does He show them no regard?

Do they Dream of Hell in Heaven?
Do they regret how hard they tried?
And wish now they’d been much more sinful
and repent it just a minute before they died.

There’s something strange about Heaven
They just don’t want you to know
Do they dream of Hell in Heaven
Before life on this Earth was done?

The golden gates of forever
Close tight on all the fun
And the golden gates of forever
Close tight on all the fun.

— Terry Allen

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Huffman’s saying that the Trump Government was “avoidable” is truly remarkable…

Huffman is how we got here in the first place…

I still can’t understand how a Fossil and a closet Republican like Biden managed to unseat Trump at all, but choosing that VP was the end of sensibility for everyone…

It’s supposed to be a Democracy, with separation of church and State, but we are now a Nazified Theocracy, with a deranged King fucking up everything…

The world reels and cowers, shocked that 500 Billionaires now own everything and control space itself…

Thanks to impotent Democrats and weak losers like Huffman, everyone will enjoy the loss of everything, and descend into the Dystopian Future you all deserve, for not voting in the first place…

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IS LOSING FRED WARNER FOR THE SEASON A KNOCKOUT BLOW FOR THE 49ERS?

by Ann Killion

Yeah, the San Francisco 49ers lost a game. But they lost so, so much more.

The 49ers fell to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, 30-19. Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield continued his MVP campaign and his team stayed atop the NFC rankings, while the 49ers took a step backward.

But it was difficult to compare the final outcome to the far most significant loss, which came midway through the first quarter. Fred Warner went down when teammate Ji’Ayir Brown rolled up on Warner’s ankle. The resulting injury was so gruesome that CBS opted not to show a replay of the play. A cart came out on the field, an air cast went onto Warner’s leg. The entire 49ers team and head coach Kyle Shanahan came out to wish the ailing All-Pro linebacker well.

Warner, according to reports, went directly to the imaging room and then spent the rest of the game in the locker room. After the game, Shanahan confirmed that Warner suffered a dislocated ankle that will require season-ending surgery.

“It’s obviously a huge blow,” Shanahan said.

The most important position on a football team is quarterback. Few would debate that. But the most important player on the 49ers is Fred Warner.

Warner is the 49ers’ fire and heart. Their defensive brain and conscience. He breaks down the team before the game. He organizes the defense. He flies around the field like a man possessed. And after the game he stands at the podium and gives a clear-eyed view of what just happened and what his team needs.

Other players may get more money and more accolades. But Warner has been the 49ers’ most transformative player, since the moment he stepped on the field in 2018 as a rookie third-round draft pick. Back then, defensive coordinator Robert Saleh recognized Warner as one of the smartest young players he ever had coached and gave him the green dot, signaling that he was entrusted with relaying all the defensive play calls on the field. Seven seasons later, Warner is the player who makes the defense — and the entire team — go.

The 49ers, to their credit, put up a fight after Warner left the field. Football is an insane test of human emotion and resilience: see a beloved teammate carted off the field with a horrible injury and be asked to immediately go back out and throw your body at the opposition.

“I’m sure they were crushed,” Shanahan said. “But that’s football. Everyone has a job to do.”

After Warner left the field, his defense forced a punt, an admirable rally. But the stand couldn’t last: the defense gave up two more touchdowns in the second quarter. The last one came on busted coverage that CBS analyst Tony Romo pinpointed was the result of the absence of Warner’s savvy and vocal leadership.

The Bucs had another second-half touchdown drive highlighted by a 15-yard Mayfield scramble on a 3rd-and-14 play on which he looked like vintage Steve Young and broke about four 49ers tackles. You have to think that had Warner been on the field, he would have made a tackle to prevent the first down.

Before the game began in the late Florida afternoon, all three of the 49ers division rivals had already finished playing. While Arizona continued its spiral, losing its fourth straight, both the Rams and the Seahawks won. That means that the 49ers are back in a three-way tie for first place in the NFC West, all with 4-2 records, though the 49ers are obviously in the driver’s seat because of sweeping that first round of divisional matchups.

But now general manager John Lynch has some serious decisions to make. Lynch has been honest about trying to pursue a trade to fill injured pass-rusher Nick Bosa’s role. Does the potential season-ending loss of Warner change that thinking in any way? Does it change what position they target? Change the level of urgency? Can a trade really save a Warner-less defense?

The 49ers made an intentional decision to go young and pare payroll in the offseason. Despite their hot start, they are still not in a Super Bowl-or-bust mentality. For his part, Shanahan said he’s only interested in something that can “help us get better this year without hurting us next year.” Which sounds decidedly more conservative than “we’re going all in.” And he said that before losing Warner.

Injuries happen: just look at how decimated Tampa Bay’s roster has been this season. And, so far, the 49ers have done a remarkable job of overcoming injuries. They’ve been resilient, gotten great coaching and played their hearts out, despite seeing their most important players fall, one after another, after another.

At some point though, there is a tipping point. There is one loss that simply becomes too much to bear. And losing your team’s heart could be the one.

(SF Chronicle)

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EX-49ERS KICKER HITS GAME-WINNER in first game with new team

By Jeff Carillo

A nightmare weekend for the 49ers got even more salt rubbed into the proverbial wound when their disgraced former kicker Jake Moody kicked a game-winning field goal on Monday Night Football with his new team.

Moody converted 4-of-5 field goal attempts on the night, with the lone blemish coming when a 48-yard field goal attempt was blocked. But he cashed in on the game-winner as time expired.

It’s a feat that Moody never accomplished in his two years, plus one awful game, with San Francisco after being drafted in the third round in 2023. He missed the only buzzer-beating chance he got with the Niners in a road game at Cleveland in 2023 and was cut after missing two field goals in Week 1 this season.

“It feels amazing, to get all that support after the game…for everybody to embrace me, it’s an amazing feeling,” Moody said in his postgame interview on Monday.

Moody, who the Bears signed to their practice squad on Sept. 12, was thrust into the situation only after the Bears’ first-string kicker Cairo Santos was ruled out due to injury.

“It’s always good to have a fresh start,” Moody said when asked about his disastrous time in San Francisco. “I always believed in myself.”

Ironically enough, Moody delivered the biggest kick of his career with another former 49er watching on the opposing sideline – Deebo Samuel.

The two were involved in one of the more ugly moments in recent 49ers history when Samuel confronted Moody after a series of missed kicks last season against the Buccaneers, prompting another former 49er, Taybor Pepper, to get involved, leading to Samuel grabbing Pepper by the neck.

The incident was just one in a series of lowlights for Moody in a 49ers uniform – ultimately leading to his departure from SF last month. 49ers fans were just starting to get over the Moody nightmare after Eddy Pineiro’s stellar start with the red and gold and the 49ers’ shiny 4-1 record prior to Sunday.

But now, the arc of the 49ers’ season has completely flipped, along with potentially the narrative of Moody’s career apparently after his moment of redemption with the Bears, complete with him being hoisted on his new teammates’ shoulders after the win.

“I like to say you’re only as good as your next kick,” Moody said with a smile postgame, which may leave some of the 49er Faithful with emotional whiplash after Monday night.

The 49ers will have to pick up the pieces of their now seemingly lost season this Sunday night against the Falcons, with kickoff slated for 5:20 p.m. on NBC.

(sfgate.com)

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AVOID MARTIAL LAW TRAP

Editor,

The purpose of the White House sending troops to Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and other cities is the opposite of fighting crime and maintaining peace, but to provoke citizens into committing violent acts, which in turn will “justify” establishing martial law and control over elections.

I fear that even if citizens are able to control their anger and continue to demonstrate peacefully, President Donald Trump’s “brown shirts,” whom he has directed to “stand by,” will step up and create the violence needed for him to declare martial law.

Citizens can fight this by spreading photos of peaceful protest on social media, and non-violent shaming of any individuals engaging in violent acts.

Tom Miller

Oakland

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WHO’LL BE LEFT TO BUY AFTER AI ELIMINATES JOBS?

Editor,

Corporate America is celebrating a revolution it doesn’t understand. The promise of artificial intelligence — to slash payrolls, automate workflows and deliver “limitless productivity” — has become the new religion of the boardroom.

But behind the hype lies a fatal flaw: When companies replace half their workforce with machines, they’re not saving the economy, they’re strangling it.

Consumers are workers. Take away their jobs and you erase the spending that sustains every business. A nation where millions can’t afford groceries, rent or the latest iPhone isn’t a market, it’s a slow-motion collapse. Executives tout record efficiency while quietly eroding the foundation of capitalism itself: demand.

Every CEO chasing AI dreams assumes someone else’s customers will still have paychecks. But when automation spreads across every sector — tech, retail, health care, finance — who’s left to buy what these hyper-efficient systems produce? A productivity boom without purchasing power isn’t growth; it’s a mirage.

Unless corporate leaders recognize that human prosperity, not algorithms, is the engine of progress, they’ll automate themselves out of existence.

Steve Grossman, president, National Association of Medical Doctors

San Francisco

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THE MATRIX ABIDES

by James Kunstler

“[S]omebody once observed that so much of leftism is pretending not to understand things that everyone understands.” — Kurt Schlichter on “X”

Of the 251 hostages seized in the Oct 7, 2023, Hamas raid on Southern Israel, 20 came out alive today, all men. None of the captured 76 women and girls made it out alive. This should tell you something about the moral disposition of Hamas, on top of the shockingly low number of survivors altogether. World opinion has not processed this in the heat of this moment, with the Gaza War ostensibly resolved, for now. . . or so we’ll see. Soon, the captives’ stories will be told.

Of course, world opinion is not what it used to be even a few years ago. These days, it oscillates around the poles of sane / insane. The Lefty-Woke wine-ladies of the Boston suburbs and their nose-ring Ivy League daughters must have the blues today over the implicit surrender of their heroes, Hamas. The keffiyeh is headed out as a fashion accessory. Who will be their next pet oppressed minority? (The Eskimos? The New York Times will put out a whole cooking section on blubber.) Note to the men (so-called) in their orbits: the gals will be loading up on Paxil and Klonopin, on top of all that Chardonnay. Consider hiding the cars keys.

Meanwhile, over at Conflict Central, the action shifts to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, today for a “peace summit” among the various party’s involved in a war settlement, many of them Arab nations of the region, plus key Euroland players. Somebody will have to police the joint, probably some combo of Gulf State soldiers and American troops. The UK, France, and Germany will have to content themselves with pretending to participate, as they have their hands full just now pretending to ignite a war with Russia. Turkey could be in the mix, too, though the odor of pre-1918 Ottoman subjugation lingers on in that corner of the world. Don’t expect a whole lot to be sorted out quickly.

Donald Trump will take a few brief victory laps and, by Tuesday, all that nasty business might be behind him, at least for a while. . . maybe. Mr. Trump has a whole lot of fish to fry back here. He is fixing to disassemble the entire armature of Democratic Party sedition by wrecking the armature of NGOs that feed it — and you should not be surprised to learn that billions of the dollars sloshing through that colossal money-laundry originate in US government tax receipts.

For instance, the diligent “X” account known as “DataRepublican (small r)” reports that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) with gross receipts of $363,001,576 received $362,047,237 from taxpayers, mainly through the State Department (including pre-Trump 2.0 USAID). The org, initially founded by Reagan Republicans, is now controlled by Democrats and their Neocon cronies bent on “nation-building” and color revolutions. Wherever there is turmoil in the world — Ukraine, Sudan, Pakistan, Myanmar — the NED has a piece of the action.

Stanford University, with an endowment of $23,780, 883,880, received $1,518,836,616 in taxpayer funds (those are billions), used to sponsor its Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which spun off the Election Integrity Project (EIP) and the Virality Project. The former was dedicated, under “Joe Biden,” to assist Christophe Wray’s FBI and Homeland Security’s Global Engagement Center, in censoring social media on matters such as the Hunter Biden Laptop .

The Election Integrity Project ran a parallel op under “Joe Biden” tracing 2020 election “disinformation” — i.e., anybody who reported ballot fraud — and the EIP worked to censor such content across platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube with help from Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Global Engagement Center (GEC). The Virality Project likewise dedicated itself to Covid-19 speech suppression. A lot of this money was funneled through subsidiary NGOs such as the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Omydyar network (the eBay fortune).

You see what I mean by armature? (And that was a mere schematic sketch of a small part of it.) This is a vast edifice of funny-money. The Democratic Party had captured all of it, and has been using it largely to maintain its power, which is to say, to keep the colossal money-laundry operating, because the salaries of all the people employed in these supposedly beneficent endeavors support a huge managerial cohort of officers who circulate in and out of government and comprise much of what’s called the “Swamp,” the “blob” or the “Deep State.”

This matrix is the same source of funding for Antifa and other Lefty-Woke outfits seeking to sow chaos through our country. The next big event on the agenda is another national “No Kings” protest, scheduled for Saturday, October 18, in over 2,000 US towns and cities. It’s organized by the umbrella NGO, Indivisible, with cash from George and Alex Soros’s Open Society Foundation, the Berger Action Fund (the philanthropic vehicle of Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss), the Tides Foundation, and the Act Blue donation platform (currently under DOJ investigation for campaign contribution fraud). These outfits supply placards, transportation, and protester’s stipends for what amounts to an “astroturf” (fake grassroots) spectacle.

Things should heat up and get spicy this week as that great day approaches. Antifa is not done trolling the ICE buildings in Portland, Chicago, and the Boston field office in Burlington, Mass. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton will likely get indicted in the days ahead for possessing classified documents he was not entitled to keep (boo hoo). And don’t be surprised if tremors rock the financial markets. Gold (nearing $4100) and silver (nearing $50) are sending ominous signals.

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“CAN YOU TELL ME who is fighting who in Ishmaelia?”

“I think it’s the Patriots and the Traitors.”

“Yes, but which is which?”

“Oh, I don’t know that. That’s Policy, you see. It’s nothing to do with me. You should have asked Lord Copper.”

“I gather it’s between the Reds and the Blacks.”

“Yes, but it’s not quite as easy as that. You see they are all negroes. And the fascists won’t be called black because of their racial pride, so they are called White after the White Russians. And the Bolshevists want to be called black because of their racial pride. So when you say black you mean red, and when you mean red you say white and when the party who call themselves blacks say traitors they mean what we call blacks, but what we mean when we say traitors I really couldn’t tell you. But from your point of view it will be quite simple. Lord Copper only wants Patriot victories and both sides call themselves patriots and of course both sides will claim all the victories. But of course it’s really a war between Russia and Germany and Italy and Japan who are all against one another on the patriotic side. I hope I make myself plain?”

— Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

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A READER WRITES: Isn’t it fairly obvious that the Dems have read their own polling data and see political advantage in blaming Trump for the shutdown so they’re holding out for health insurance subsidies because that’s the issue that polls best? I’m a Democrat and I agree that the subsidies should continue and the Republicans are wrong to hold it up. But does anyone think the Democrats really care about healthcare rather than their own political advantage? If they really cared about healthcare they’d push for single-payer and eliminate the parasitic health insurance companies. But of course that horse left the barn decades ago thanks to Clinton.

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

Trump Takes a Victory Lap, but Avoids Questions About What’s Next

Trump Ramps Up Trade War as Tariffs on Lumber and Furniture Kick In

Several News Outlets Reject Pentagon’s Reporting Restrictions

Coal Miners With Black Lung Say They Are ‘Cast Aside to Die’ Under Trump

California Raises Minimum Payout for Wildfire Victims’ Items

Shein Chose Paris for Its First Boutique. Paris Isn’t Pleased.

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JEFFREY ST. CLAIR: President Trump on the fanatical Zionist, political mega-donor and all-round weirdo Miriam Adelson, who was sitting in the Knesset during his speech: “I kept my promise. Moved the capital to Jerusalem. Stand up Miriam. Look at Miriam, she’s back there. Stand up. Miriam and Sheldon they’d call me. I think they have had more trips to the White House than anyone. $60 Billion in the bank. Look at at her sitting in the back so innocently.”

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PALESTINIANS SEE LITTLE TO CELEBRATE EVEN THOUGH THE BOMBS HAVE STOPPED

The cease-fire in Gaza has taken hold. Hostages and prisoners have been exchanged. But amid the utter devastation of two years of war, a sense of gloom pervades.

by Adam RasgonBilal Shbair and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad

Palestinians in Gaza expressed relief on Monday that Israel had halted its two-year military offensive in the territory, and that hostages and prisoners had been exchanged. Still, many felt there was little to celebrate.

Two years of war left the enclave in ruins, its cities reduced to rubble, tens of thousands dead and the health system devastated. Despair and hopelessness are pervasive and many no longer see a future.

“It’s important that the bombing has stopped, but there’s nothing to be happy about,” said Saed Abu Aita, 44, who is displaced in central Gaza. “My two daughters were killed, my home was destroyed and my health has deteriorated.”

Israel’s military campaign against Hamas killed more than 67,000 people in Gaza, according to local health officials. Their tolls do not specify the number of combatants, but they say thousands were children.

Some in Gaza said they do not see the release on Monday of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners — one of Hamas’s stated reasons for launching the war in the first place — as an achievement worth the cost.

Hamas secured the exchange by trading the remaining hostages out of the some 250 seized during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war.

Mr. Abu Aita said that a fragment of shrapnel penetrated his rib cage when an Israeli airstrike hit his hometown, Jabaliya, in northern Gaza in October 2023, soon after the war began. For more than a year, he said, he has not been able to find a doctor who could remove the fragment.

He said he hoped that the return of the last 20 living hostages to Israel on Monday — a crucial element of the cease-fire that went into effect last week — would pave the way to an end to the war.

“They needed to go home a long time ago,” he said. “Holding them in Gaza gave Israel a pretext to continue its bombing.”

Palestinians in Gaza have lived through hunger, fear and bombardment. With a cease-fire now in effect, aid groups say they are attempting to scale up relief as much as possible to blunt the humanitarian catastrophe and allow people to rebuild their shattered lives.

Many relief officials blamed Israeli restrictions for shortages that led to hunger and malnutrition throughout the enclave. While Israel blocked all supplies entering Gaza for nearly three months earlier in 2025, Israeli officials have recently said they were no longer limiting the amount of aid that can go into the territory.

Under the cease-fire agreement, Israel committed to allowing a surge of desperately needed supplies into the enclave.

On Sunday, the United Nations said it was working to boost its aid to Gaza, including by bringing in cooking gas for the first time since March. Many in Gaza have had to resort to making bread with firewood, because there was little gas or electricity available.

“For two years, we’ve dreamed of this moment,” said Amani Nasir, 30. “We’ve had enough of tents, fire, displacement and thirst.”

Under the deal, at least 600 trucks of supplies will enter Gaza per day, and Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt will be reopened.

Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami, the head of Gaza’s Bakers’ Union, which works with the World Food Program to distribute subsidized bread, said the humanitarian situation in Gaza has been steadily improving since the announcement of the cease-fire last week.

“Today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will hopefully be better,” he said, adding that 17 bakeries were now operating across central and southern Gaza.

But there is some skepticism that the cease-fire will hold.

The deal clinched last week by U.S., Qatari, Turkish and Egyptian mediators did not resolve some of the toughest sticking points between the warring sides and left Hamas still armed and the dominant force in parts of Gaza for the time being.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said his government will not agree to end the war until Hamas’s government and military wing in Gaza are dismantled.

While Hamas has expressed willingness to hand civilian rule over Gaza to another Palestinian entity, it has not committed to giving up its weapons.

Since Israel halted its military offensive and pulled back from parts of Gaza in the past few days, Hamas has begun reasserting itself on the streets of the territory.

Witnesses in Gaza said they had begun to see small groups of Hamas’s internal security fighters standing guard at some intersections.

On Sunday night, Hamas fighters clashed in Gaza City with a rival gang of gunmen and attempted to capture its members, according to the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.

During a visit to Israel on Monday to coincide with the hostage release, President Trump was asked by a reporter what he thought about the possibility of Hamas reasserting itself as a police force and shooting rivals.

He replied that this was because “they do want to stop the problems” and suggested the United States was not opposed, temporarily.

“They’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump’s ambitious vision for Gaza includes bringing in a postwar security force to stabilize the enclave, as well as training a new Palestinian police force to maintain law and order. But that prospect will be difficult should Hamas insist on continuing to play a dominant role in the enclave.

Abdullah Shehab, 32, said he was worried that the respite in fighting would only be temporary because Hamas had not agreed to Israel’s conditions for ending the war.

In recent days, Mr. Shehab said, Hamas was trying to show that it “hasn’t given up its rule” in Gaza.

On Sunday, he said, masked gunmen who he believed were members of Hamas stopped him on the way to the dentist and inspected his car.

“The situation is very fragile,” he said. “The weak party, Hamas, hasn’t been convinced to accept the strong party’s demands.”

(NY Times)

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THE WORLD IS INSANE AND THOMAS PYNCHON KNOWS IT

by Ron Jacobs

I just finished reading the new book by Thomas Pynchon titled Shadow Ticket. The novel tells us there’s a war on or a war coming picking up where the last one let off. Those peace talks in Versailles weren’t as much about peace as they were about setting up the competition for the next round. There’s a tough guy who calls himself Hicks operating out of a private investigation company office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with headquarters in New York City, Manhattan. Like most of the US PI shops, this one got its start busting unions and union organizers heads for corporate America in the years of the robber barons and thereafter. The company shortens its registered name to U-Ops and the Milwaukee chief’s name is Boynt. Hicks knows the town of Chicago but not like he knows Milwaukee with its bratwurst, beer and what the pulp detective writers call cheap dames. Cheap in this realm has little to do with character or job descriptions and much of the time it means something like down to earth, not fancy and with minimal bullshit, sometimes less bullshit than men. You know, straightforward as a fist in the gut or a cop not on the take.

The time is the early 1930s, the fascists are making a name for themselves in Milwaukee, Washington, Italy, Germany and most of Europe. They’re also making a mess of the world like fascists tend to do. There’s a girl named Daphne who’s running away from her rich daddy but not his money and another young woman named April who sings in local clubs, dives and a theater or two. Both have a connection and occasional thing with Hicks, who spends a good part of Shadow Ticket chasing down Daphne for her daddy, the Al Capone of cheese, who says he doesn’t know what she’s up to even though he gets hotel bills she puts on his tab all the time.

In case you don’t know, most definitions of the phrase say a shadow ticket is a temporary reservation for a trip that holds the price without requiring immediate payment. Like when someone is playing cards without any chips of their own on the table but has enough bullshit in the tank to get the dealer to front a few hundred dollars worth of chips and deal a couple hands. At least that’s an approximate take. I suppose it’s something one can punch, too. I think I’ve punched a couple shadow tickets myself over time.

The fellow Hicks is a hard-boiled private eye, almost as hard-boiled as the language of Pynchon’s narrative. While reading the text I could hear the voice of some actor or the other in one of those black and white films I catch nowadays on a streaming device in the middle of some uneventful evening. I used to watch them on UHF television. You know the character, the hat and a suit off the rack, a small pistol and a non-filter cigarette, the smoke wisping in front of his face and a wisecrack on the tip of his tongue. Then on Pynchon’s next page I’m visualizing a pretty woman who’s not exactly a moll but she’s got a few tough guys and maybe even a cop, a pinky finger coaxing away. There’s an extremely rich guy named Bruno who seems to have a monopoly on the cheese market. He’s known as the Al Capone of cheese. He’s a liar, a crook and a conman whose relationship with his daughter bears some scrutiny. His business success is related to selling fake cheese, his bluster and his lies, his borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and his understanding that power and threats are often more useful in the pursuit of profits than any assets one might have in hand. I couldn’t help thinking about the guy currently in the White House and the con he’s done for years.

As is often the case in a Pynchon novel, the women tend to be the most adventurous. Unlike Hicks, who just ends up in eventful circumstances, the women in Shadow Ticket — the heiress Daphne, the singer April and the previously unmentioned Tirikun, a motorcycle riding woman of intrigue, seek adventure and hope for disruption. Indeed, they create disruption, intentionally and otherwise. Sometimes the disruption is in their personal relationships and other times the disruption occurs in the world at large. Sometimes the former anticipates and provokes the latter. Like the Eve of Genesis, the role of women in Pynchon’s works is not to follow orders but to disrupt the conventional order. In other words, nothing is certain: not the patriarchy, not the nature and performance of love, and not the conduct of the business so often performed by the males of the species.

The reader (and a few of Shadow Ticket’s characters) knows the war that is coming is another imperial war. New nations are being created by the powerful nations and their “armies are stooging for the entente that created them.” Mirroring Pynchon, our daily reality provides us with daily events that suggest this world is heading to its end. The media presents us with their version of those events, usually tailored to the sources of their funding. It’s a reason things often don’t make sense. Pynchon’s novels provide a different version, beholden not to money and its evils but to visions deeper, stranger and often darker. Ultimately, I would argue that they probably contain more truth. This novel is both prescient and a cleverly composed fiction reminding the reader who knows history how often it repeats itself yet never becomes any clearer.

Pynchon’s novels often contain a variety of conspiracies. Shadow Ticket is no exception. There are real ones, imaginary ones and allegorical ones. They include conspiracies between businessmen and conspiracies between political organizations. Like many if not most conspiracies, their aim is power and profit; their result is confusion and chaos. The world he writes about is a mad world — gangsters, dynamite junkies, anarchists, V-2 rockets, paranoid pot growers, paranoid cops, descendants of the Mayflower manifest whose erection predicts V-2 targets, and Internet whizkids with Wall Street crooks. How does one make sense of the insanity that surrounds and involves us?

Bob Dylan writes his songs, restructuring myths from the annals of history and tales from a row called Desolation. Pynchon writes about a world he seems to see as being filled with insanity despite pretenses to the opposite, so he presents his perception of it, seemingly believing that the madness is all there is. The longer I live on this planet the more I’m convinced that belief is the essential truth.

(Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: [email protected]. CounterPunch.org.)

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