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ONE MORE SYSTEM is expected to impact the area today bringing rain in the north and mainly gusty winds in the south. Next week chilly overnight temperatures and patchy frost is possible with generally dry conditions. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A rainy 51F this Sunday morning on the coast with another .31" of rainfall collected. Another day of showers then looking dry next week.
FOOTBALL: UKIAH STUNS ST. VINCENT 27-6, gains big advantage in league race
by Kienan O'Doherty
Ukiah rolled into Petaluma on Saturday afternoon and produced one of the biggest upsets of the season, stunning St. Vincent 27-6 and gaining a massive advantage in the Redwood Empire Conference’s Bay division title race.
The victory ends St. Vincent’s 20-game win streak, the longest in the state. The Mustangs have also lost at home twice in the past five seasons, both coming at the hands of Ukiah.
St. Vincent star running back Mason Caturegli suffered a bone bruise in the first quarter and didn’t return. Caturegli came into Saturday’s contest five touchdowns shy of the North Coast Section record of 99 set by Antioch’s Najee Harris.
How it happened
With overcast skies above the St. Vincent campus, both offenses stalled on their opening drives. The Wildcats (5-3, 3-0 REC-Bay) struck first on their second drive, as quarterback Beau David found Zach Martinez for a five-yard score with one minute remaining in the first quarter.
St. Vincent (7-1, 2-1) would answer almost immediately, as San Diego State commit Jack Ellis caught a nice pass from Gabe Casanovas in the front corner of the end zone. The point-after attempt was blocked, however, so Ukiah still led. That would be the only scoring of the first half.
Then the Wildcats took over on the first drive of the third quarter and never looked back. They picked off Casanovas to open the second half and turned that into seven points as David took it in himself for the score.
Ukiah got another pick on St. Vincent’s next possession but couldn’t capitalize, as the Mustangs’ defense forced a turnover on downs. St. Vincent would then be forced to punt (they had five three-and-outs on the day).
At the end of the third, it was 14-6. Ukiah then rattled off 13 points in the fourth to break the game open and ensure the victory. The highlight was David finding Dareon Dorsey for a 46-yard score.
Key play
Ukiah’s interception to start the third quarter. Facing third and six, Casanovas was under pressure and started to scramble.
He fired toward Barrett Chaput, but the ball went over his head and Dorsey caught it in stride and took it back. That killed one of the Mustangs’ best chances to get back in the game.
Quotable
“They played really hard today; I’m super excited about that. That was a great effort … now we need to focus in and do a great job in your preparation for next week. That’s a good team we’re playing next week (Maria Carrillo), and we’re going to get back on track tomorrow.” – Ukiah head coach Paul Cronin.
“Sometimes, something like this is a good thing. It was a good thing for us last year when we lost to Truckee, it was a good thing for us two years ago when we lost to Ukiah. You never want to lose, but my hat’s off to Paul Cronin and his team; they wanted it more. They played harder, outperformed us in all three aspects of the game and outcoached us. We have to come back on Monday ready to work.” – St. Vincent head coach Trent Herzog.
Takeaways
Lots to unpack here.
First off, Ukiah is back. The Wildcats’ defense was exceptional, and with Jordan Schwarm in his first game back after an injury suffered in Week 1 against Rancho Cotate, they looked like a completely different unit. Beau David and the offense was efficient when they needed to be, and again, if they play like that, they will be massive problem come playoff time.
Speaking of playoffs, this throws the NCS rankings into chaos. Say goodbye to any more chatter of St. Vincent’s potential to be in the Open/Division 1 bracket after this. While they still are No. 10 in the NCS, they are sure to drop and are more than likely favorites to nab the No. 1 seed in Division 5.
On the other hand, this may boost Ukiah’s chances of being in the Division 3 bracket rather than Division 4. The Wildcats will jump up plenty of spots when the new rankings come out in a few days.
Everyone in the St. Vincent community is holding their breath for Caturegli, who was injured on the third play of the game and spent the rest of it on crutches. While a postgame x-ray confirmed he suffered a bone bruise, his status is something to monitor going forward.
Up next
Ukiah will head to Maria Carrillo (6-2, 3-0) next Friday for another league-deciding clash, while the Mustangs will play at Montgomery (0-8, 0-3) on Thursday.
(The Press Democrat)
NEWSOM APPOINTS COUNTY COUNSEL CHARLOTTE SCOTT TO MENDO SUPERIOR COURT BENCH
by Dan McMenamin
Charlotte Scott, Mendocino County’s county counsel, has been appointed to serve as a Superior Court judge.
Scott since 2024 has served in the role of county counsel after serving as assistant county counsel from 2020-2024 and deputy county counsel for four years before that. The County Counsel’s Office provides legal advice to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and represents the county in litigation.
Newsom’s office says Scott is replacing Mendocino Superior Court Judge Cindee Mayfield, who retired.
A biography included in Newsom’s announcement of the appointment said Scott has also worked at the Lake County Counsel’s Office, at different law firms, and as a solo practioner before coming to the Mendocino County office.
Scott, a Democrat, received her law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, according to the governor’s office.
Newsom announced the appointment of 12 Superior Court judges in several counties around the state Wednesday.
(mendovoice.com)
HOPLAND CHURCH SET FOR $275,000 SALE
by Phil Barber
The sales prices suggest something modest, even forgettable. But the real estate transactions are weighted with meaning.
The Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa recently gained approval to sell two small churches — one near Cloverdale, one in Hopland — as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, a judicial process now two and a half years old.
They probably won’t be the last properties liquidated by the diocese as it continues mediation talks with insurance companies and with survivors of alleged sexual abuse, whose mountain of lawsuits pushed the church’s vast North Coast jurisdiction to file for bankruptcy in April 2023.
“There’s a list of properties that have been identified, and a number of those are in process,” said Bishop Robert F. Vasa, head of the Santa Rosa Diocese. “We’re working with realtors, and in some cases with surveyors. We have three or four other properties in a similar state.”
The diocese needs permission from the bankruptcy court to hire a realtor who can list and market each property and accept offers.
The sales are underway for Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Asti Road south of Cloverdale, and historic St. Francis Church on Spring Street in Hopland. Both are considered “mission churches,” meaning they did not have residential pastors but were served by nearby parishes. Neither has actively been hosting Mass.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a postmodern parabola reminiscent of a wine barrel. It was built in 1965 and sits on 1.3 acres. Services there ceased a couple years ago due to physical deterioration; Vasa said the structure is in need of significant repair. The diocese plans to sell it to a buyer named Arturo Jimenez for $450,000.
St. Francis, a vernacular-Gothic-style building constructed in 1897, functioned as a Catholic church for well over a century but ceased services in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A local group headed by John Fetzer, oldest of 11 children born to the couple that founded Mendocino County’s Fetzer Vineyards in 1968, is buying it for $275,000.
Fetzer told the Anderson Valley Advertiser in April that the group hopes to use it as an event center and community meeting place.
The pending transactions, and others in the works, are necessary, the diocese contends, because it is rapidly running out of money.
The bankruptcy filing signaled that its financial liabilities — especially in light of the 260 claims brought by people who say they were abused by faith leaders in the diocese — equaled or exceeded its assets. But a court document filed in April by the diocese’s legal counsel, the Sacramento-based firm Felderstein Fitzgerald, goes further.
It asserts the church’s “burn rate” for administrative expenses in the bankruptcy case has averaged about $345,000 per month, and that its pool of available funds will fall below $3 million by the end of this year.
The diocese referred to $3 million as its “minimum operating reserve.”
“We’re pushing that to the margin, because we need a certain amount to fund payroll, to fund insurance — both property liability and health insurance for employees,” Vasa said. “$3 million is what our finance officers suggest we don’t want to fall below.
“Is that an ironclad line in the sand? I can’t say with certainty.”
Melanie Sakoda, for one, treats the claim with skepticism.
“I’m from Missouri,” said Sakoda, an advocate for survivors of clergy abuse and Pleasant Hill resident. “If they’re out of money, they need to show me.”
Vasa insisted the diocese is eager to reach a global settlement as quickly as possible, so victims can be paid out without further delay. Sakoda believes that could have happened already if the church were motivated.
“Why would they rather pay attorneys than compensate the survivors who were hurt?” she wondered. “But that’s what they do.”
A month after filing for bankruptcy in 2023, the diocese filed a statement of financial affairs that included its assets and liabilities. That statement set the value of the diocese’s real estate holdings at $1.8 million. But the inventory included only three buildings — a single-family residence that houses the Newman Center at Sonoma State University, the chancery office off Airway Drive in northwest Santa Rosa and the bishop’s residence on a quiet street not far from there.
It did not include active houses of worship. That’s largely because, like many Catholic dioceses, the Santa Rosa jurisdiction moved in 2017 to transfer property titles to individual parishes before filing for Chapter 11, reducing available assets that might otherwise go to creditors. These transfers rely on civil incorporation laws that allow dioceses and parishes to function as business entities, and they have become controversial.
Dan McNevin, who is on the board of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, estimates the Santa Rosa Diocese and its parishes own 50-60 church campuses, schools and associated parcels. Their value could stand somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, McNevin estimates.
“Some of what they own in wine country has real value,” McNevin said. “They can sell some of it and come away with a lot more than $3 million. My question is, why not sell the real estate and rent it back? God is the people, not the real estate. The people will come to a rented facility and worship.”
Vasa has said the incorporation of parishes merely follows a century-old edict from the Vatican to ensure church entities are legally identified under civil law in a manner that mirrors their standing under Roman Catholic law.
“It is not shifting control,” he told The Press Democrat in 2022. “It is incorporating into civil law that which is already canonical reality.”
As that debate continues, the diocese is being accused of diverting money that might otherwise have gone into the compensation pool for survivors.
In late July, the committee of unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy case — an advocacy group composed of survivors — filed a complaint alleging the diocese made “fraudulent” transfers to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its charitable agency, Catholic Relief Services, over a three-year period preceding the Chapter 11 declaration.
The committee cites 30 monetary transfers totaling $760,000 between 2019 and 2022, and notes that the diocese was well into internal discussions about the possibility of bankruptcy at that time.
As far back as May 2019, according to the committee, Vasa lamented during a meeting of the Diocesan Finance Council that “mounting press surrounding claims of sexual abuse were a danger to the financial stability of the Diocese.” The bishop wrote to the Vatican in November 2021, seeking approval to file bankruptcy. It is among six dioceses in California and 16 nationwide that are currently in Chapter 11 amid a flood of new abuse claims.
In Santa Rosa’s case, the creditors’ committee wants the return of all 30 monetary transfers. So does McNevin, who was molested by a Catholic priest in the Oakland Diocese as a child.
“We see this shifting of money to third parties all the time,” he said. “Oakland sent $106 million to companies they claimed were no long theirs. Their (unsecured creditors) committee is challenging that. In Wisconsin, it went to a cemetery fund. These are transparent, obvious schemes to get money out of their bank account and shield it from survivors.”
In addition to his position in Santa Rosa, Vasa has “a role and a voice” in the governance of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the committee says. When he was named bishop of Santa Rosa, Vasa was a member of the Catholic Home Missions Subcommittee and also served on the Task Force on Health Care, both administered by the conference.
Vasa insisted the monetary transfers were not spurred by the looming bankruptcy.
Every year, he explained, the diocese’s 40 parishes take up a dozen or so collections for worldwide relief, earmarking money for missions in places like South America and Eastern Europe. The funds wind up with Catholic Relief Services.
“People write a check to their parish, it’s transferred to us and we then transfer it to (the Conference of Catholic Bishops) for charitable purposes,” Vasa said. “They can call them fraudulent. It just means they took place at a suspect time. But this has been the practice for decades. There was nothing fraudulent on the part of the diocese at all.”
The Conference of Catholic Bishops will defend the transfers in its negotiations with creditors, Vasa added.
“I have an obligation to utilize funds for the purpose they were donated. And (the committee has) an obligation to their clients to pursue that money,” he said. “We’ll see how it works out in the courts.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK
Handsome? Check. Smart? Double check. Total people-lover? Absolutely! Smit is a 3-year-old German Shepherd Dog with a big heart and an even bigger enthusiasm for life. He’s happiest when he’s hanging out with his favorite humans — whether that’s going for a walk (he might pull a bit, but he’s working on it!) or showing off his perfect “sit.” Smit enjoys toys, playtime, and good company. He recently met a mellow female dog and was all tail wags and good manners — what a gentleman! With his friendly personality and eager-to-please attitude, Smit will make a loyal and loving sidekick for someone ready to share their adventures (and maybe a few squeaky toys). Ideal home: A fun-loving human who enjoys walks, play, and plenty of Shepherd smarts! Smit is 3 years old and 73 pounds.
To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional goat, sheep, tortoise, horse, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event.
For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.
Our dog kennels are now open to the public Tuesday-Friday 1:30 to 4 pm, Saturday 10 am to 2:30 pm, closed for lunch Saturday from 1 to 1:30.
Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!
ED NOTES:
I should have realized I was in for a major bummer when I saw that I was the only person in the theater. Then, when ‘One Battle After Another’ kicked off, and the audio-visual filmic assault commenced with a series of cretinous scenes that seemed to reach out and punch me in the face… Well, I lasted another ten minutes before I walked out. At my late age, I’m not easily offended, but this thing was so dumb, so offensively and implausibly vulgar I marveled that the big name cast would agree to be part of it. Do they need money this bad?
One review was titled, “In ‘One Battle After Another,’ Thomas Pynchon’s genius becomes a cinematic masterpiece.” What? The reviewer must be on the take. But who am I, a guy who fled after a few minutes to assess this alleged consensus masterpiece? Well, for one thing, I’m not deaf and blind and I read the book, upon which this abomination is allegedly based. It was also partly filmed in Humboldt County, so I’m sure rural saps by the hundreds will pay to watch it.
THE COVER of the November Harper’s magazine asks, in giant type like it’s some kind of daring, breakthrough inquiry, “Why Don’t We Trust the Media?” Since most Americans get their info from television, and since media have lied all the way back to the Spanish American War, and visual media since forever, small wonder that even the most inattentive, low information Yank soon came to believe the Moon Shot was faked.
And now? The media, via the internet, have splintered into literal thousands of info-missiles, and all of us everyday citizens do the best we can to sort out what’s true and what isn’t.
Most of us, I daresay, choose the media that most closely resembles our psycho-social biases. The truly vengeful go to Fox or News Max and would approve Trump bulldozing the entire White House, while millions think they’re getting the straight skinny from the New York Times.
I’m as biased as the next guy. I watch David Muir nightly flex his gym biceps, I listen to NPR to get the Nice Peoples’ versions of events, I occasionally tune in the dead white men shows on Sunday mornings, and faithfully wade through the on-line NYT to get Lib Central’s perspective on things, but I go to long form, print journalism to flesh out the details. Of all media, I still read the Chron’s sports page first thing every morning, a habit begun in 1948. If all media disappeared, the Chron’s sports page would be the only one I’d miss.
SHERIFF MATT KENDALL: I just don’t see how we can continue being divided and expect to get out of this with all of our pieces. This little forum I think is a pretty good example to me. Every day I see so many political views written. Many of them don’t match mine but then I see some names of old friends writing them. People I absolutely trust and have worked with at my work and in the community. These are some good people and it makes me want to listen to what they have to say. We shouldn’t be more concerned with winning an argument than hearing what is being said.
ED NOTE: Agree, but it doesn’t help civic harmony to have a president making vulgar jokes like his flyover gag of last weekend and his constant denunciation of half the people in the country as “Marxist lunatics.” His behavior ignites militant opposition with barrages of insults aimed at him, and here we are with a basic split growing worse by the day. Not to be too pollyanny-ish here, but in Mendo, generally speaking, we still seem able to talk to each other without going for our guns. Our commendable Sheriff is certainly due all praise for the civil example he sets.
HEALTH UPDATE: I got my last radiation zap on Wednesday, I take two chemo pills every day, I get a shot every three months. The prognosis? No idea, and I prefer not to know. But I feel pretty good, good enough to step up my daily exercise regimen. The radiation process is no sweat. I lay on a table while this rotating machine like a giant microscope shoots death rays at the killers in my gut. Took about about twenty minutes each visit. (First day they asked me what kind of music I’d like while prone on the slab. Music? I wrote, Gangsta rap. Uh, sorry Mr. Anderson, we don’t have any of that, but we can get it for you.)
ROY STOCKTON:
I have been falling timber (and climbing) in the woods for 34 years now…
You talk about watching your back, Well in the woods/forest there are mountain lions, rattlesnakes,, wild boar, bees, hornets, bear, falling branches, leaning madrone and oak trees that decide to quietly fall on you with your back turned on them, scorpions, spiders, heat stroke, the danger of getting killed or seriously hurt at any moment during the 6 hours that OSHA approves you to work in the woods, poison oak everywhere sometimes, flying splinters trying to go into your eyes while cutting, logs that can roll down the hill onto you, lightning strike threats sometimes… The list goes on and on.
So people, next time you see or meet a legitimate timber faller give him a good hug and say thank you for him (or her, nowadays) for risking their lives daily for putting wood on the ground so you can enjoy all your wood products you use because it’s the most dangerous job on the planet because of so many predicaments that are out of our control. We are just hoping to get away with not getting killed every day. Most of us fallers get off on the challenge and the rush. WE ARE NOT doing it for the money. It’s very addictive, the rush. And just so you people know, I had 7 timber faller partners killed in Mendocino County cutting those huge trees for the public to have wood..
IT TAKES MOST KINDS ON THE COAST CHAT LINE
Over a number of years, I’ve noticed different sorts of people here.
Some people are always asking for things, year after year, but never offering anything back unless it’s for sale.
Some people offer lots of things for free or close to, or recommendations/kudos for workers and work well done.
Some people freely offer their opinions with no backup for them other than their feelings.
Some people rally others to various causes, and inform us about things going on in the community.
Some people offer information and knowledge, backed up with research and enough sourcing for the reader to decide whether to trust in it.
While other people like to stir up poop for fun.
My mother used to say, “It takes all kinds,” and I always responded silently, “Does it really HAVE to?” I’m still wondering.
Jean Arnold
LOCAL EVENTS (today)
SCIENCE SOCIAL & HALLOWEEN PARTY
The Weird And Wonderful: Ocean Oddballs And Peculiar Partnerships
Guest Presenter: Brianna Zuber, Mendocino College Biology Department
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Noyo Center Marine Field Station
32430 N. Harbor Dr., Fort Bragg
5:00 Halloween Happy Hour
Costumes Encouraged!
6:00 Presentation Begins
Dive into the strange and spectacular world of marine life! This talk will explore the biology behind some of the ocean’s most curious creatures and unexpected partnerships. Perfect for spooky season, learn about vampire squid, tongue-eating isopods, the slimy hagfish, unwanted visitors, ghost reefs, zombie fish, and much more!
Admission is free, though we kindly ask that you RSVP. Go to noyocenter.org for more information.
A suggested $10 donation at the door helps support our programs.
NOTE: Yesterday's puzzle was correctly solved by first responder Kirk Vodopals: "x = 60 degrees." (Drawing parallel lines through the central angles was a good way to tackle it.)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, October 25, 2025
YEKATERINA DRABKOV, 30, Mendocino. Domestic battery.
JESUS GONZALES, 50, Ukiah Parole violation.
FRANK ONETO JR., 51, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-peeking into inhabited building, parole violation.
ELIZABETH REYNOSO, 39, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
CALIFORNIA SHOULD NOT GO BACK TO PARTISAN REDISTRICTING
Editor,
There are some important reasons to vote no on Proposition 50 for congressional redistricting in the statewide special election on Nov. 4.
First, California Democrats already have a hold on House members: They have 43 of 52 of the seats (83%), while the Republican members have nine of 52 (17%). However, among California registered voters, only 47% are Democrat and a full 25% are Republican. We should not further skew those numbers.
Secondly, California voters passed the “Voters First Act” in 2008 and strengthened it with the “Congressional Voters First Act” (aka Proposition 11) in 2010 for the purpose of removing politics from influencing the redistricting process.
I understand that many California voters dislike the actions of President Donald Trump, however I do not want to take the power out of the voter-established election commission and put it back in the hands of politicians, despite promises to put it back the way it was in 2030. Doing so would be exactly what the voters voted against in 2008 and 2010.
Ken Fowler
Novato
PETER LIT:
I believe we still do have Constitutional Rights. I do not believe that Donald Trump, POTUS, supports them or will enforce them. I believe this is also true of his minions which I very much fear includes the Supreme Court. I do not understand how those who have sworn oaths can violate those oaths on a daily basis. I do not understand how law enforcement, at all levels, can violate their oaths to support the Constitution and the laws of the land, read ICE. I do not understand how elected officials, at all levels, can sacrifice the Common Good for their own personal gain. I do, unfortunately, understand fear.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN POLICY, RELIGION COMBINE?
by Ellen Taylor
The behavior of nations or groups of people can be controlled by policy objectives, or by prophecy and religion, and when the two combine, their joint power increases greatly.
The Ayatollah Khomenei once commented that the Iranian revolution for democracy, which overthrew the Shah in 1979, would never have succeeded if religion had not taken the lead.
The Plan for the New American Century, designed by a neoconservative think tank in 1997, has governed US policy to this day. Gen. Wesley Clark revealed its scope in 2007: to destroy Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
Meanwhile, Israeli policy, invoking Genesis 15 chapter 18, where God confers the Promised Land on Abraham, aspires to reclaim Greater Israel, stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
Thus combined, the objectives of both the US, following the PNAC, and Israel, aiming for Greater Israel, are currently being consummated. The destruction of Palestine has provided the signal occasion. The world sits in a huge amphitheater, in the center of which miserable, endless lines of ragged people inch northward to their homes, reduced to corpses and rubble. Itamar Ben Givir prays, blasphemously, in the Muslim Al Aqsa compound, claiming victory. Shofars, rams’ horns are blown symbolically at the corners of the Third Temple, which Israel will construct when it demolishes Al Aqsa.
As well as the objectives, the names for both these achievements are congruent. For the US, we use the legal term, Crime. For Israel, it is the religious and moral term, Sin.
(Ellen Taylor lives in Petrolia.)
MEMO OF THE AIR: Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome.
“My fundamental concern with how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted in the future? I don’t feel comfortable building a robot army if I don’t have, at least, influence over it.” -Elon Musk
Marco here. Here’s the recording of last night’s (9pm PDT, 2025-10-24) eight-hours-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO.org, on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://memo-of-the-air.s3.amazonaws.com/KNYO_0667_MOTA_2025-10-24.mp3
Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I’ll take it from there and read it on the air.
Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:
“Vatch her take za pleasure from za serpent zat vunce corrupted man!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPpwXUZNbNs
Satellite photos of progress on the Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Ballroom. https://boingboing.net/2025/10/24/satellite-image-shows-east-wing-of-white-house-completely-demolished-to-make-way-for-epstein-ballroom.html
Results of a study on muggers’ victim-selection criteria. In a nutshell: Don’t look down. Don’t look up. Don’t step too long or too short or swing your arms wrong or smile or frown. Don’t look nervous. And they’ll pick somebody else to mug. This reminds me of Meryn Caddell’s poem that begins, “Martina hobbled home,” and ends, “Don’t get raped, knock on wood.” https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/how_to_avoid_getting_mugged
World championship boogie-woogie dancing. One, two, a-one-two-three-GO. https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2013/12/world-championship-boogie-woogie-dancing.html
And rerun: Scooter lady in 1916. The last time I saw this I misread it as an electric scooter. I see the heat-engine cylinder now. Um, the other day I was walking home from the grocery store and a modern stand-up scooter zipped by at car speed, 35 or 40 mph (!), its tiny front wheel twitching alarmingly, kept upright by constant white-knuckled concentration of the rider struggling with its ridiculous design. The woman in this picture is probably going four miles an hour, max, which would be safe and comfortable, even with the bad steering-balance leverage and high center of gravity of the combined rider and device. But the guy I saw was risking his life (for what? to get where?) and clearly not having a drop of fun. A couple of blocks away from there, maybe thirty years ago, I saw a boy on a kick-scooter /working! working! working!/ to keep up with his friends riding bicycles. They suddenly had enough of restraining themselves, accelerated as one, laughing, and effortlessly abandoned him. My impression was, those scooter things are stupid in every way and they’ll never catch on. Bicycles are close to free, they’re fun and perfected so you nearly have to try to fall off them. People can still hit you with a car, or a truck side-view mirror, or open a door in your path, but just getting onto a scooter is an obvious mistake. With all that in mind, but one time I saw a good-looking young Hispanic boy and girl zip past on an electric scooter. They were shining with happiness. The boy driving, the girl standing behind him, her arms around him, holding on for dear life, the side of her face against his shoulder. They were /so happy together/. I still feel like that with Juanita, but those kids were feeling it maybe for the first time, and… Try to remember how you felt when you were that age and you were with that person, flying through the world together on an open dangerous vehicle, shouting a conversation to each other from zero distance apart. https://twitter.com/pickover/status/1980821807134323193
Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
ATTENTION STONERS: Is Cannabis Safe As You Age?
Doctors see dangers — and the main risk may not be what you expect
by Erin Allday
Recently Dr. Salomeh Keyhani, a UCSF professor of medicine, had a visit with an older patient with heart disease who mentioned they were smoking cannabis regularly.
That’s concerning, she said to the patient, and talked about the risks of cannabis use — in particular smoking it — on heart disease. The patient was unimpressed. “They said everything they read doesn’t agree with what I’m saying,” Keyhani recalled.
“Patients view this as it must be safe,” she said, “and I don’t think we have the evidence to say it’s safe.”
Older adults, like the rest of Americans, are increasingly using cannabis as the drug becomes legalized for medical and recreational uses across the country. Medical marijuana is now legal in 39 states, and it’s legal for recreational use in 24, including California.
Surveys taken over the years show that as recently as the 1990s, cannabis use was so low among older adults that it was almost negligible; as of 2023, 7% of adults 65 and older had used cannabis in the prior month, according to a study published earlier this year.
“It’s remarkable that we went from zero to approaching 8%, and it’s increasing,” said Keyhani, who is leading multiple studies on the health effects of cannabis.
Experts in geriatric medicine say there remain many questions about the safety of cannabis use for all ages, and those questions are particularly important to address for older adults, who may be especially vulnerable to risks from any drug use.
Why people use cannabis
In surveys, people who turn to cannabis for health reasons report using it for sleep, anxiety and pain. But doctors say there’s little evidence that cannabis is effective for those purposes, and in fact it may make sleep and anxiety issues worse.
The results for pain are varied; studies show that cannabis can be effective at reducing pain and nausea for some conditions, including cancer and neuropathy, for which there aren’t good alternative treatments. “We should acknowledge that some patients say it helps with pain, and if we don’t have treatments, I’m sympathetic to that,” Keyhani said.
But for sleep and anxiety, cannabis has not been shown to help in the long run, doctors said. People may notice relief, but it is often short-lived. There are far better treatments for both sleep and anxiety than cannabis, including cognitive behavioral therapy and medication, said Dr. Smita Das, a Stanford psychiatrist who specializes in addiction.
“Cannabis is not, according to any practice guidelines, going to be effective for sleep or anxiety,” Das said. “In fact it can worsen sleep or anxiety over time, even though it can feel in the moment like it’s helpful for these things.”
Though Das said she generally recommends against cannabis use, “I feel a lot of compassion when individuals are looking for relief and there’s so much advertising, especially on social media, about the potentials of cannabis.
“I can see where my patients are coming from,” Das said, “but I’d love for them to be able to access and explore the evidence-based treatments instead.”
Dr. Laura Vollen is a self-described medical marijuana specialist who has been prescribing cannabis for a variety of health reasons since 2000. She said she’s cognizant of her colleagues’ concerns about the drug, including the risks and questionable benefits. But in her experience, she said, it can be an effective alternative for people who haven’t had success with other methods for treating issues like insomnia or anxiety.
She warned that most patients, especially if they don’t have experience with cannabis, should not be using marijuana for health reasons without a doctor’s input. Vollen prescribes very low doses for her patients, who are mostly over age 60 and often tell her that they don’t want to get high. The doses she uses are so low, in fact, that they usually can’t be obtained from a dispensary and must be special ordered.
“I wish I could tell you overall what percentage of the elderly population this could be helpful for, but I can’t,” said Vollen, who is based in Berkeley. “I can tell you that in my experience, most but not all patients find it helpful” for conditions including insomnia, anxiety and pain.
Risk for older adults
The main risk for older adults using cannabis is falls, doctors say.
“The most common side effects of cannabis are dizziness, dry mouth, nausea, fatigue and somnolence,” Keyhani said. “And in older adults, dizziness is especially concerning because of falls.”
Older adults are more at risk of severe injury or a poor outcome compared to younger adults if they take a tumble. In addition, older adults may be especially vulnerable because they are more likely than younger people to be taking multiple medications that could interact poorly with marijuana.
“One of the first questions I ask patients they’re presenting with confusion is, ‘Do you use cannabis? ‘” Keyhani said. “I worry that in combination with other medication it causes sedation.”
There are also known health risks associated with inhaling anything, whether it’s tobacco or marijuana smoke. Studies also have shown a strong link between cannabis use and heart attack risk, which is especially troubling for older adults who may already have heart disease.
“And there’s increasing data that cognitive impairment can worsen with older adults and cannabis use,” Das said.
Das also advised that addiction is a concern among regular cannabis users. Many people aren’t aware that marijuana can be addictive, Das said, but if individuals are struggling with how much they’re using and feel it’s interfering with their life, it may be a problem they need to address.
Using cannabis safely
Several doctors said they don’t think there’s any safe level of marijuana use — just as they would advise there’s no safe level of alcohol use. They are both drugs that can have deleterious effects on health, and both can be addictive.
If people are using cannabis for something like insomnia or anxiety, Das recommends they reach out to their doctor for a referral to get appropriate treatment, whether it’s therapy or medication, instead of relying on an unproved and potentially dangerous drug.
Das said she’s seen patients in their 70s report significant improvements in their sleep after participating in cognitive behavioral therapy — and she notes that though therapy is expensive out of pocket, it’s cheaper in the long run than using marijuana to fall asleep every night.
For those who want to keep using, Keyhani and others recommend using the lowest dose possible and avoiding frequent use.
“If you’re going to use, I would recommend low potency THC,” she said, “and don’t use it every day.”
(SF Chronicle)
WARRIORS BRASS REACT TO NBA GAMBLING SCANDAL
by Evan Webeck
Shortly before the season tipped off, the Warriors welcomed the organization’s legal counsel for a meeting with players and staff that has become a routine part of the preseason in the modern NBA.
On Sunday Woodie Dixon, Golden State’s chief legal officer, reminded the team of the potential pitfalls of fixing games, sharing proprietary information and other ways they could help bettors illicitly gain an upper hand. Just four days later, the league was rocked by a gambling scandal.
An active player and an active head coach were arrested early Thursday morning, just hours after participating in their respective season openers, in a federal sting that rounded up 34 alleged participants in an illegal sports gambling ring.
“Every team in the league does this, goes through bullet points of what’s not allowed,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said before his team tipped off against the Nuggets. “So our players are well aware. All players are well aware of what they’re allowed to do and what they’re not allowed to do.”
No Warriors were involved, but Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups as well as Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier wwere arrested and charged with scheming to rig underground poker games. The charging documents also indicate Billups shared information about the injury status of his Blazers players before a 2023 game.
Billups’ brother, Rodney, is a member of the Nuggets’ coaching staff.
Denver coach David Adelman said “whatever Rodney needs for his family is all I care about” but added that “I only know what I read.”
“Obviously it’s a tricky situation with some of the don’t text, don’t talk, all this kind of stuff,” Adelman said of the league’s guidance. “You just have to be careful in casual conversation with what you say. It’s a story that’s evolving. … This is not how we want to start the season in the NBA.”
Rozier, who was arrested at the Heat’s hotel in Orlando following their game against the Magic, is accused of providing nonpublic information to gamblers that involved at least seven games from 2023 to 2024. Kerr was asked if he was concerned about the integrity of the league.
“No,” he said.
That said, Adelman noted, sports betting “is a part of our culture now; it’s not going anywhere.” The NBA, like other major profession leagues, has “co-official gambling partners” in DraftKings and FanDuel.
The optics weren’t any better on ESPN, a key rightsholder, where pundits discussed the scandal while an advertisement for ESPN Bet, the company’s gambling service, ran on the ticker below.
Kerr Praises Mayor of San Francisco
On a day when protests broke out in the East Bay over an influx of federal immigration agents into the region, Kerr praised San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie for his part in ensuring that a “surge” of personnel did not enter the city.
Lurie announced on Thursday morning that after a phone call with President Donald Trump, that federal personnel would not come to the city.
Before the team’s home opener, Kerr expressed admiration for the mayor in how he handled the situation.
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
IN GOLDEN GATE PARK, Vilma Tilden was challenged with riding the sail on the Dutch windmill. For every revolution she would get a box of chocolates. She lasted 25 rotations and at the height of the rotation was 100 feet off the ground. - I dont think insurance companies would allow this today.
ONE DAY I printed what I thought was a fascinating array of occupations listed by the U. S. Department of Labor — crotch piece boaster, bung dropper, bladder blower, clinker cooler and so on. Charles Roumasset, a Department of Labor official here, added a sidelight. From the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the following jobs have now been dropped: beachcomber, button marker (boot and shoe), circus detective, coconut shaver, flat-fifties checker (tobacco) and rumble-seat assembler. I must say the Department doesn’t rush into things. Newly added to the list are these: assembler-rocket engines, audiovisual specialists, flight information expediter, baker (pizza) and artificial inseminator. I don’t think that last one is as exciting as it sounds, and how come it took Labor so long to discover pizza?
— Herb Caen, 1976
JACK LONDON’S LIFE challenges began before birth when his father denied paternity and abandoned the family while Jack’s mother, Flora, was pregnant. Then, when Jack was born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, Flora, suffering from emotional instability, felt unable to care for her son. She arranged for a local woman who had recently lost her own newborn to raise Jack during his first year. Flora recovered and married a kind and gentle man during that time, and together they brought Jack back home.
But the challenges continued. While Jack’s parents were loving and wanted to provide him stability, they struggled financially and moved often. The family lived some in San Francisco, then in nearby Oakland, and eventually relocated to rural parts of the Bay Area as Jack’s stepfather attempted to make a living as a farmer. This change didn’t go well for Jack, as he despised farm life, feeling stifled by its monotony. “The hills and valleys around were eyesores and aching pits,” he wrote. Ironically, he would later crave and love nature as an adult.
When the farm failed, the family returned to Oakland, and Jack began working to help with the household finances. It was a grueling schedule for the young boy who wasn’t even a teenager yet. “Up at three o’clock in the morning to carry papers. When that was finished I did not go home but continued on to school. School out, my evening papers. Saturday I worked on an ice wagon; Sunday I went to a bowling alley and set up pins for drunken Dutchmen,” he later wrote to a friend, describing the routine.
His work life became more difficult as Jack took a job in a local cannery at the age of fifteen. The hours were hard, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., with only a one-hour break. But even more challenging for Jack was the monotonous work. He did the same thing over and over all day. Exhausted and feeling trapped, Jack sought an escape.
As a young boy, Jack developed two great loves. The first was for reading, his refuge from some of the difficulties of his upbringing. He devoured a wide array of literature from the local library. Jack’s passion for books was matched only by a love for the water, where he found solace and the potential for new experiences. He would watch ships come and go around the San Francisco Bay Area, imagining the distant lands they visited and the adventures that awaited beyond the horizon.
With his frustrations of working at the cannery, Jack turned to this latter love for the water. He borrowed money from the woman who had cared for him as a baby and bought a small sailboat, the Razzle-Dazzle, from a local oyster pirate named “French Frank.” Then Jack joined the ranks of illegal oyster pirates, harvesting oysters from the bay under cover of night. Though the work was dangerous and involved frequent clashes with authorities, it gave Jack the excitement he craved and paid far better than his previous jobs. As he would write, “I made more money in one week than I do [at the previous job] in a year.” This rough-and-tumble life also introduced Jack to a world of outlaws and seamen, who affectionately dubbed him “The Prince of the Oyster Pirates.” Unfortunately, it was during this time that Jack began drinking, eager to prove himself among the men.
“So I went to Spain to see bullfights and to try to write about them for myself. I thought they would be simple and barbarous and cruel and that I would not like them, but I would see certain definite action which would give me the feeling of life and death that I was working for… I was not able to write anything about it for five years -- and I wish I would have waited ten.”
— Ernest Hemingway, ‘Death in the Afternoon’
“THE STORY IS TOLD that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Wait, Joe, where are you going? What did ol’ Santa bring you?’ According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. ‘Brought me a bran’-new pony but he got away. I’ll catch ‘em if I hurry.’ And ever since then it seemed that Joe had been accepting more than his share of hardship as good fortune, and more than his share of shit as a sign of Shetland ponies just around the corner, Thoroughbred stallions just up the road.”
― Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
ROBERT FROST wasn’t the kindly old poet America imagined — he was a man who clawed beauty out of heartbreak.
His poems sounded calm, but his life was anything but. Frost grew up poor, anxious, and fiercely intelligent — a boy who read by candlelight and lost faith in stability before he even found it. His father drank himself to death when Robert was eleven. His mother turned to spiritualism. By the time Frost was twenty, he had already buried his first child. The rest of his life would be a tug-of-war between creation and collapse.
He tried everything but poetry first — farmhand, schoolteacher, newspaper editor — all failures. By 38, broke and desperate, he sold the family farm and took his wife and kids to England. That decision changed everything. In a rented cottage near Beaconsfield, Frost wrote the work that would make him immortal: The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, After Apple-Picking. His poems looked pastoral, but they hid razor blades inside — loneliness, indecision, the violence of choice. He once said, “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” His began in pain and ended in survival.
Tragedy followed him like a shadow. Two more children died young. His wife, Elinor, whom he adored, grew frail and depressed. One son took his own life. Frost carried that grief into every poem. That’s why his woods felt real — not as scenery, but as sanctuary. He wrote about nature not to escape people, but to forgive them, and himself.
In 1961, at 86, he stood in the freezing sunlight at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, ready to read a new poem he’d written for the moment. The glare blinded him, the paper shook in his hands, and he couldn’t see a word. So he lifted his head and recited “The Gift Outright” entirely from memory — turning what could have been humiliation into one of the most moving performances in American history.
Robert Frost wasn’t a soft poet of snowy woods. He was a survivor who stitched philosophy to grief.
He didn’t write about nature’s peace — he wrote about how to keep walking when peace is gone, and the only sound left is your own heartbeat against the cold.
TATTOO
The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there—
Its two webs.
The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.
There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.
— Wallace Stevens (1916)
CHARLIE BIRGER
He smiled as the hood came down. Then, on April 19, 1928, in Benton, Illinois, Shachnai “Charlie” Birger met his end beneath a spring sky and the gaze of thousands.
Once a soldier in the Russian Empire, born in 1881 in Adygea, he had crossed an ocean to chase fortune—and found it in gun smoke and bootleg whiskey. As the roaring twenties burned through the Midwest, Birger built an empire from vice and violence, his name was feared from saloon floors to courthouse steps. He waged war against the Ku Klux Klan and the Shelton Brothers Gang alike, turning Southern Illinois into a battlefield of greed, pride, and fire. But empires built on bullets don’t last forever, and by the time the law caught up, Birger was already halfway to legend.
They said he laughed during his trial, trading jokes with the reporters who packed the courtroom. When the sentence came—death by hanging—he tipped his hat and said, “It’s fair.” On the morning of his execution, he stood straight in his dark suit, a cigar stub between his teeth, as the gallows loomed against the pale sky. The sheriff asked if he had any last words. Birger just grinned and said, “It’s a beautiful world.” The hood was drawn, the rope adjusted, and the air went still. Then the trap fell, and the man who had ruled with a tommy gun and a smile swung silent before the crowd.
By noon, his body was gone, the gallows dismantled, and Illinois had seen its last public hanging. But the legend of Charlie Birger lived on—in the whispers of speakeasies, in the cracked bottles buried beneath the hills, and in the stories of a man who fought the Klan, defied the law, and met death laughing. Some called him a villain, others a folk hero, but all agreed on one thing: when the rope tightened in Benton that day, he faced it like he faced everything else—with a grin and no regrets.
THEA MCGINNIS:
This is just my observation but I think back to the Charlottesville protests where lots of people swarmed a really small town. And I don’t remember what the original protest was about. Oh. nazis. But the then democrat governor told local law enforcement to stand down and it all went sideways and innocents were injured and killed. Few went to jail. Then all the riots for George Floyd and other racially triggered protests. Again. No preventive measures and cities burned and folks got hurt. Few went to jail. And Portland. VP offers bail money. No prevention and few went to jail. Then J6. No preventive measures put into place and still nobody owns that decision. Lots of undercover cops. Lots of arrests and jail time. One protester shot dead which pretty much ended the protest. These incidents were all a big mess. So this years LA ice protests. Guard and marines to prevent violence and escalation and some arrests, not many convictions. But it dissipated quick. I think prevention and the awareness that local govt is in prevention mode that deters is tamping down violence albeit not the hateful words. But folks know now there will be consequences. I think a good investigative reporter should analyse the positive and neg consequences of preventative actions v stand down approaches. Can we protest without burning down the house?
“THE BORDER between the State of Israel and the occupied Gaza Strip had always reminded him of the line between Tijuana and greater San Diego. There, too, ragged men the color of earth waited with the mystical patience of the very poor on the pleasure of crisply uniformed, well-nourished officials. Some months before, Lucas had come down for the dawn shape-up at the checkpoint, and he had not forgotten the drawn faces in the half-light, the terrible smiles of the weak, straining to make themselves agreeable to the strong.”
― Robert Stone, ‘Damascus Gate‘
BOB ABELES:
I normally do not read Kuntsler, but today I’ve made an exception. While he does have a facile understanding of the “huffing your own farts” problem of model degradation, he erroneously attributes A.I. hallucinations to it. In fact, A.I. hallucinations are due to a fundamental problem that occurs in LLMs (Large Language Models) when the relative weights of nodes in several pathways through its neural network are too close together to yield a definitive result. When this happens the LLM effectively guesses, generating a result that the LLM then presents as authoritative.
Of course Kunstler wouldn’t be Kunstler without jumping to a purely alarmist set of conclusions that are nothing more than his own imagination hallucinating the worst possible outcomes. Never afraid to wax political, he paints LLMs as agents of a terrifying (in his own mind) woke conspiracy.
I’m no fan of the A.I., but the technology does have its uses. Sadly, its utility and societal effects have been vastly over-hyped. We will witness the collapse of one of the largest investment bubbles in human history. The con artists that created the A.I. bubble (Sam Altman, et al) are now flooding the zone with all manner of business partnerships and other noise in a vain effort to keep the milk train running just a little longer.
SHERIFF MATT KENDALL:
I think AI is an incredible opportunity and a frightening thought all at the same time.
When I was still a young man, a long time ago according to the kids, I was in a professional office. I can’t recall if it was the dentist or optometrist, it doesn’t really matter. But I was reading a magazine which I wouldn’t normally read.
There was an article which discussed the The collective knowledge of humanity. The author basically summed it up as the total accumulated experience, understanding, and wisdom shared across individuals, generations, and cultures.
This author talked about how this knowledge had doubled many times, and he gave markers in time which I don’t totally recall and I’m simply not interested in chasing down now. The authors point was, there were significant moments when knowledge had roughly doubled.
From the stone ages to the dark ages this knowledge had doubled. From the dark ages to the Industrial Revolution it seemed to double again. Following that were the Industrial Revolution to the 1980s when computers were becoming a main stream product, again.
This author also spoke of Moores law and described “The doubling effect” The law predicts that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles at a consistent rate, leading to increased performance over time. Strangely the doubling effect began happening in a shorter and shorter time frame. The point was the amount of time it took to double our knowledge was becoming less and less.
All of this was a lead up to making his point and, here’s the point that he eventually made.
The author made a frightening prediction. Knowledge and technology would eventually be our downfall. His concerns were that knowledge and technology would eventually outpace our humanity. The ability to build an atomic bomb, grow anthrax, or radiate a building full of people could eventually end up in the hands of a teenager who was having a bad day. The outcome would be devastating to humanity.
What I have seen when I turn on the news is evidence this is already occurring. Mass casualty events are happening constantly across the globe. Mass shootings, people being run over by vehicles at gatherings, grenade attacks are common in some nations.
If we can’t get in front of the technology we will have to step up our game teaching humanity. That’s the only thing I can think of to help us navigate what is to come.
BOB ABELES:
Energy consumption during the training of an AI model is one of several drawbacks inherent in the current state of the technology. To gain insight into why so much energy is required, have a look at this video: https://youtu.be/LPZh9BOjkQs?si=IvE5Qc6pA2iK3CTZ
CAPITALISM IS SHOVING AI DOWN OUR THROATS Because It Can’t Give Us What We Actually Want
by Caitlin Johnstone
At some point capitalism lost the ability to give us new things that we need and started giving us new things we don’t need, and now it’s giving us new things we never needed and don’t even really want.
Nobody needs all this generative AI crap. We were doing fine with online search functions and the ability to write and make art for ourselves. Only the most shallow and vapid of individuals find any appeal in the idea of talking to a chatbot like a companion, consuming “art” generated by a computer program, or letting the technology of some plutocratic megacorporation do their thinking, researching and expressing for them.
The economy is now balancing on a giant bubble of a fledgeling industry that is already underperforming expectations and hitting points of diminishing returns on multiple fronts, all while being really bad for the environment. And it doesn’t improve anyone’s life in any meaningful way.
Nobody asked for this.
And it’s not like people aren’t asking for things; capitalism just doesn’t have the ability to give them the things they are asking for. World peace. Affordable housing. Good health. Fast and efficient public transportation systems. Solutions to the various environmental catastrophes that status quo human behavior is driving us toward. The ability to have our needs met without spending all our time at work. Care for the needful. General human thriving. These are not demands that a system driven by the pursuit of profit for its own sake can supply.
When capitalism first showed up it delivered plenty of new things which people had a need and a desire for that weren’t available under previous systems like feudalism. The greatly increased material abundance and explosions of scientific and technological innovation ushered in with the dawn of capitalism caused human quality of life to improve by leaps and bounds.
But now we’re at a point where that just isn’t happening anymore. Things have stagnated, and we’re starting to backslide. People are getting dumber, sicker, lonelier, and more and more miserable. And the profit-driven systems we live under have no answers, besides throwing increasingly shitbrained technology at us so we can distract ourselves from how fucked up everything has gotten.
We are being driven into dystopia and annihilation by systems of our own making. We’re meant to be the smartest species on earth, but we locked ourselves in our invention — a self-reinforcing labor camp that makes us miserable — and then we get all huffy when people dare to question if it’s the only way of doing things. Literally every other species is smarter than us. Amoebas are having a better time of it.
This will change when humanity replaces capitalism with something better, in the same way we replaced feudalism with the superior system of capitalism. I don’t know what that system is going to look like, but it’s going to have to involve a move from a model that is driven by competition to one that is driven by collaboration. That’s the only way humanity will be able to channel all its brilliance toward the immense project of overcoming all the obstacles we now face as a species, along with all terrestrial organisms.
Until then, all we can do is try to help awaken as many of our fellow humans as possible to the reality of our circumstances. Use every means at our disposal to teach people how dire our plight is, how deceived we’ve been by the propaganda and indoctrination of the empire we live under, how sorely change is needed, and that a better world is possible. Once we get enough eyes open, we’ll have the numbers to force things to change.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
HE WAS ALONE. He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life. He was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight…
— James Joyce
SUNDAY'S LEAD STORIES, NYT
Chinese and U.S. Officials Reach Framework of a Trade Deal
Trump Opens Trip With Trade Deals in Southeast Asia
Trump Announces 10% Tariff Increase on Canada Over Reagan Ad Spat
The ‘Sleeper Issue’ at the Heart of Trump’s Trade War on China
A Malaysian Furniture Town Reels From Tariffs (and Braces for More)
Police Make Arrests in Louvre Robbery, Authorities Say
TIMOTHY MELLON, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Trump announced the donation on Thursday night, but he declined to name the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend. But the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the donation was private, identified him as Mr. Mellon.
Shortly after departing Washington on Friday, Mr. Trump again declined to identify Mr. Mellon while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One. He only said the individual was “a great American citizen” and a “substantial man.”
“He doesn’t want publicity,” Mr. Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefers that his name not be mentioned which is pretty unusual in the world I come from, and in the world of politics, you want your name mentioned.”
(NY Times)
KAMALA HARRIS SUGGESTS SHE IS CONSIDERING ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL RUN
Ms. Harris, in an interview with the BBC, gave her strongest indication yet that she was thinking about making another bid for the Oval Office.
by Lisa Lerer
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said that her time in politics has not come to an end, offering her strongest indication to date that she would consider a third presidential run.
In an interview with the BBC, Ms. Harris said she remained confident a woman will become president one day and that it could “possibly” be her.
“I am not done,” she said. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.”
Ms. Harris made the remarks on “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg”, a prime weekend political show in Britain, as part of a media blitz promoting the book she released last month that recounts her 107-day campaign for the White House.
Ms. Harris stressed that she has made no decisions about the 2028 campaign, which is widely expected to feature an expansive field of ambitious governors, members of Congress and political outsiders.
She dismissed early polls showing her trailing in the potentially crowded contest.
“If I listened to polls, I would have not run for my first office, or my second office — and I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here,” she said.
Even in the midst of her book tour, Ms. Harris has taken a relatively cautious approach to the Trump administration. Earlier this year, she announced that she would not run for governor of California, declining to make a bid for one of the country’s most powerful perches to push back on the administration and set the future direction for the Democratic Party.
While Democratic governors like JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California and Tim Walz of Minnesota, who ran with Ms. Harris on the 2024 Democratic ticket, have been vocal critics of the president, Ms. Harris has carefully picked her moments to speak out.
In the interview, she argued that her predictions during the 2024 campaign that Mr. Trump would run an authoritarian government had come true.
“He said he would weaponize the Department of Justice — and he has done exactly that,” she said.
She reiterated her criticism of corporations, universities, media companies and law firms that she said had capitulated to Mr. Trump’s demands, citing ABC’s decision to suspend the late night host Jimmy Kimmel over his remarks following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist.
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which was one of the first law firms that cut a deal to avoid being sanctioned by the Trump administration. Mr. Emhoff has said he disagreed with the decision by his firm to pledge $100 million in pro bono legal work for causes the president has championed.
(nytimes.com)
ISRAEL AND US SCORN ICJ RULING AGAINST STARVING CIVILIANS AS METHOD OF WARFARE
The World Court says Israel has a duty as the occupying power to cooperate with UN relief efforts, not impede them.
by Marjorie Cohn
This week the International Court of Justice (ICJ or World Court) told Israel what seems obvious to any reasonable person — that it cannot starve civilians as a method of warfare. But Israel does not act in accordance with international law, as evidenced by its two-year campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, during which it has killed over 68,000 Gazans (more likely 680,000, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said on September 15).
In its 71-page advisory opinion, issued on October 22, the ICJ reiterated that Israel is illegally occupying the Gaza Strip. The court unanimously held that as the occupying power, Israel has obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza, has essential supplies of everyday life, including water, food, shelter, clothing, bedding, and fuel, as well as medical equipment and services. The court also held that Israel must respect and protect all medical and relief personnel and facilities.
The ICJ ruled 10-1 in its advisory opinion that Israel has an obligation to facilitate humanitarian relief by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other international organizations and third states, and must refrain from impeding that relief. And the court unanimously held that Israel must respect the prohibition on deportation and forcible transfer in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and the right of the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel to be visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The court noted that transfer is forcible not just when it is achieved by physical force, but also when people have no choice but to leave because the occupying power has inflicted conditions of life that are intolerable.
Israel has obligations under international humanitarian law to ensure that the population of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza, has essential supplies of everyday life.
The ICJ rejected Israel’s bogus defense that its national security trumped its obligations under international humanitarian law, saying that the protection of security interests is not a “free-standing exception” allowing a state to violate its international humanitarian law obligations.…
Today’s puzzle….9?
I got 9 as well.
Looks like 9 to me also
Today’s puzzle is so stupid simple that I did it in my head. Which is by the way, pretty simple. (9)
Yesterday’s Puzzle was also simple. The lines drawn through the middle of the Angles was a good way to solve it. Being a contractor and correcting years of engineer’s mistakes make some of this stuff pretty simple. I drew full 360 degree circles around all the apexes and drew lines through the two angles in between that top and bottom lines than simply filled in the blanks. The thing that bothered me was the angles were so incorrect from the numbers that I was curious if the top and bottom were actually parallel.
RE: I should have realized I was in for a major bummer when I saw that I was the only person in the theater. Then, when ‘One Battle After Another’ kicked off, and the audio-visual filmic assault commenced with a series of cretinous scenes that seemed to reach out and punch me in the face… Well, I lasted another ten minutes before I walked out. – ED NOTES
—>. I mostly agree with the editor, In this day and age, most non prime time movie theatre audiences often seem to be in single digits. However with One Battle After Another, I resisted leaving the showing after the first 20 minutes, and as it got much better in certain ways, I was not restless to get up, and stayed to the end.
In retrospect, I thought the film was a lesson in the abuse of power and surveillance, and of course, not as detailed as a literary novel. Toying with the idea to see it again, now that thought has been supplanted, by the Springsteen film which is now sloshing in my bucket list, to see on discount day, as a current movie house marquee banner header.
I did see Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, which along with song recording sales, broke some records in the two days of theatre showings. The 9pm Sunday showgirl film, had six people in the audience, so perhaps was not a gauge of intrinsic genius, though now I recognize Swifty women by their extended horizontal eye liners and pleasant disposition. One Battle After Another’s fiscal problem is that it cost too much to create, but has been otherwise an attendance success, so one thumb up in my bucket.
Sheriff, Daniel 12:4 speaks to the increase of knowledge in the end times. Interesting read and study whether you believe or not.
I have read the passage a few times it also talks about a period of great turmoil, movement, and searching for understanding.For me it seemed the knowledge and tech became to new God to man.
That was my take on it but like many verses it’s Just vague enough that I interpret it as what makes sense to me at the time.
Israel and the IDF are starving Gazans as a method of warfare (and genocide) to extort surrender from Hamas, which still rules Gaza with an iron fist and regards Gazan civilians as expendable. Trump and the Republicans threaten to starve Americans dependent on SNAP food assistance to extort capitulation from the Democrats on cutting 20-30 million American citizens off from health care. Seems politics is still war by other means, the only difference being the scale and lethality of the suffering inflicted.
Well put!
Newsom is anti-Christ, but he did us a solid by appointing Charlotte Scott to a judgeship. I personally pushed her and the BOS to give her the shot at County Counsel, and she has kept them out of any further troubles after a history of internal conflict coming from that office. That all stopped when she stepped up. I am proud to own a Brown Act training certificate with her signature. Good luck Charlotte, I am sure you are the one to finally take some load off a Keith for whom I have the greatest respect. We are fortunate to have them both on the bench.
Completely agree Mark. She’s a dandy and a really good person.
I guess the “lesson” from today’s issue is that the mess we’re in now aint much different from the messes monkeys have caused since the species evolved…and, there’s probably a lot of truth to that. Maybe the technology will extinct us this time. Here’s hoping! We’ve run our course and it’s time to give ‘way and let nature create a new “top species”. All we have done is make things worse. Maybe they’ll be more imaginative in the creation of gods, too, instead of giving them human characteristics, like having “chosen ones…”
Religion can easily evolve into self hate, and Environmental religion is no exception.
LOL! As usual, you make no sense at all, but delivered with a pompousness unparalleled…
As is the self love of the misanthrope.
The odd and self-contradicting thing abut a misanthrope—that this a person who dislikes humankind and avoids human society,—is that they are forever seeking contact with human society by telling human kind how bad they are. Should not avoiding be their first rule?
You nailed it. I guess there is a role they play, because they have been with us from before written history. The inconsistencies are obvious, and many. Harv is a part of the human condition, and tradition.
LOL. You folks seem to live in a dream world where redwoods take in water through their leaves (needles).
Marco McClean
Wonder why he didn’t say ‘Bienvenidos’ to his fellow Americans in MEMO OF THE AIR ?
Since February of 1997, I have always begun my show with “Welcome to Memo of the Air.”
But the title of that particular show, /Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome/, was meant to recall the story and feeling of /Cabaret/, set in the period of Nazi Germany parallel to our own current ominously wrong steps as a people. It’s the first three words in the lyrics of the opening song, /Willkommen/, that’s all.
For my part, I wonder why anyone would sign anything but his own real name on what he writes.
It’s a tradition going back to Ben Franklin, and before, allowing for example the anon ones to not worry about possibly saying something stupid and then being branded as a fool, or some other pejorative. As a former anon, it probably comes down to fear, as do most things.
(If Trump moves the military into Democratic cities to disrupt the voting before the mid-terms next year, I wonder if his supporters among the elected officials who have commented here in opposition to Prop 50, will finally say oh shit, I can’t support that. (Probably not, tribalism runs deep…)
Congratulations Charlotte! You and Anne are some of the best!