Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 11/5/2025

Showers | Dyers Polypore | Voter Turnout | Local Events | County Notes | Chili Cookoff | LaFever Investigation | Quiz Returns | Teacher Leave | Davis Sentencing | Carol's Rendition | Weather Advisory | Jed Steele | Women Vote | Yesterday's Catch | 1957 | Lanes | Big Fear | End Shutdown | Removal Approved | Enormous Radio | Ripe Destruction | Dental Coverage | Balance | Approaching Thunderstorm | Hate Grind | Tijuana Streets | Sea Eyes | Existential Deal | If | Dershowitz Says | Mamdani Wins | Zo! | Short Walk | Lead Stories | Weak Men | Pervasive Immunity | Pursuit | Breaking Down | Penile Colony | This Day | Going Home

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RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Laytonville 1.99" - Yorkville 1.60" - Willits 1.40" - Boonville 1.23" - Covelo 1.13" - Ukiah 1.02" - Hopland 0.98"

THE RISK for strong and damaging wind gusts will persist into Wednesday. Widespread heavy rain and thunderstorms will increase the risk for urban and small stream flooding Wednesday. Additional moderate to heavy rainfall is forecast late Thursday through early Friday morning. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Power is on & 1.43" of rainfall collected with a warm 54F & breezy on the coast this Wednesday morning. Not the biggest storm we've ever had by far. A mix of showers & maybe some thunder today then dry skies Thursday thru Tuesday. More rain next Wednesday it looks like.

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VOTER TURNOUT HIGH so far in Mendocino County, election officials report

by Justine Frederiksen

Voter turnout in Mendocino County is very high so far for Tuesday’s Special Election, the Elections Office reported.

As of Monday Morning, Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie said her office had received almost 20,000 ballots, which is roughly 37-percent of Mendocino County’s registered voters.

“I don’t think we’ve ever gotten that many by a Monday before an election, even a presidential election,” said Bartolomie. “Usually we get most of our ballots on Election Day.”

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, California voters are being asked to approve Proposition 50, which local Rep. Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael), described in a press release as “a Constitutional Amendment that authorizes temporary changes to California’s Congressional District maps in response to Texas’ redistricting. It was put on the ballot by the California State Legislature.”

When asked if she thought the high number of ballots returned so far was an indication that more people were voting in this election, or just more were voting early, Bartolomie said she could not speak to that, but did urge everyone who had not returned their ballot yet, to do so as soon as possible.

“The most important thing is to vote,” she said. “And the safest way to do that is to drop your ballot in one of our ballot boxes.”

On Saturday, Bartolomie said 100 ballots were emptied from the drop box located in front of the county administration building on Low Gap Road, and first thing Monday morning, another 300 were pulled from the box.

Also on Monday morning, Bartolomie said her staff would soon be picking up ballots at the City of Ukiah drop box, as well as ballots collected in Fort Bragg and Willits, which include a large amount of the county’s overall voters.

For those who have not yet received their ballots, Bartolomie urged them to call her office at 707 234-6819 to find out their options for voting.

For those who are not registered to vote yet, Bartolomie said residents can register at her office, located at 501 Low Gap Road, on Election Day and still vote by 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4.

To have a mailed ballot be counted, it must be postmarked by Nov. 4, and received by Nov. 12.

Again, Bartolomie urged voters to use any one of several “Ballot Drop Box Locations,” where she explained that “only Elections Officials touch your ballot. Ballots are retrieved from the Drop Boxes twice daily, counted, logged and stored in a secure place within each location. The Elections office picks up ballots frequently and brings them to the Ukiah Election Office for processing. We have been using Ballot Drop Boxes for a few years with great success.”…

https://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/2025/11/04/voter-turnout-high-so-far-in-mendocino-county-election-officials-report/

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LOCAL EVENTS

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COUNTY NOTES: COUNTY FINDS FINDS $12 MILLION LYING AROUND. Or is is $16 million? Or $11 million? Nobody knows.

by Mark Scaramella

A chart buried deep in the the CEO’s “Q1-Budget Presentation for FY25-26” prompted a very surprised reaction from Mendo’s historically in the dark supervisors on Tuesday.

Turns out, according to the chart, inocuously labeled “FY 2025-25 Close Out,” that Mendo has an “unaudited General Fund carryforward” from last year of over $12 million dollars.

The chart provided a brief breakdown of the newfound carryforward (unspent revenues from the previous fiscal year) funds:

Property Taxes – increase of $4.15 million

Property Tax in lieu of VLF revenues - $815,000

Cost Plan – increase of $1.36 million

Transient Occupancy Tax – increase of $805,000

Interest — increase of $2.5 million.

Unavailable Fair Market Value — about $1 million.

The chart says there’s about $99 million in “year-end non-departmental revenue,” but the components listed on the chart add up to only about $9.6 million with actuals totaling about $83.6 million, with a carryforward of about $12.2 million. A footnote says that the $12.2 million “Includes unavailable Fair Market Value in the amount of $1,024,187 for a total of $11,133,578.” But $99 million minus $83.6 million is almost $16 million, almost $4 million more than the chart’s own claim of “unaudited carryforward.”

First some county finance lingo.

VLF is the County’s share of vehicle license fees. Nobody knows why they were higher than budgeted.

The “cost plan” is where the County can include qualified overhead costs when they bill the state and the feds for local (mostly) social services. So that $1.36 million probably means they got more overhead cost reimbursements than they thought they’d get for the prior year.

The “Unavailable Fair Market Value” simply means that the County’s investment pool of stocks and bonds has gone up in value but isn’t real cash on hand.

Nobody is quite sure why the property tax revenues were more than $4.1 million over what was budgeted, although a couple of the financial officials suspected that it had a lot to do with “escapes” (i.e., the County finally getting around to identifying and collecting delinquent taxes from as many as four years ago), and perhaps some reductions in overall county staffing levels.

Nevertheless, whether the apparently good news that the carryover is about $11 million or over $16 million — nobody at Tuesday’s meeting expressed the slightest interest in why the carryover chart’s numbers didn’t add up — it is being eyed very closely by the County’s general fund department heads, especially the Sheriff and the DA who make up most of it. Like other departments, they have had to cut their budgets by 6%, only to find out now that there’s millions of dollars in carryover/surplus.

CEO Darcie Antle and her staff as well as Auditor-Controller Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison said that the surplus is mostly one-time money and should not be expected to be realized in the future as ongoing revenue. Therefore, what the Board will do with the surprise surplus remains to be seen.

We’ll have more particulars on this in upcoming days, especially as the department heads weigh in.

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Also on Tuesday, Supervisors Maureen Mulheren and Ted Williams expressed a wish that the proposed “deconsolidation” of the Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector office back to separate offices be accompanied by a more formal “risk analysis” as opposed to the “risk assessment” provided by Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison. These are the same two supervisors who rashly voted to consolidate the offices in 2021 without any analysis at all as later noted in a formal complaint by the state Controller’s office. Nevertheless, after Board Chair/Supervisor John Haschak reminded his colleagues of the time line deadlines for the election of the two deconsolidated elected positions next June, they voted unanimously to support it so that the election process can begin. Neither Mulheren nor, especially Williams, made any attempt to justify their 2021 votes or to continue with the consolidated office despite their support for consolidation five years ago.

The long-overdue deconsolidation of the Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Tax Collector office can now be added to a series of corrective actions taken to correct major blunders by this and prior Boards supported. Most of these avoidable, costly and unnecessary blunders occurred against the advice of staff and the public when the Board included former members Dan Gjerde and Glenn McGourty, now replaced by Bernie Norvell and Madeline Cline respectively. But, of course, no one has stepped up and admitted the mistakes, apologized to the public, or taken any responsibility for them.

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ELISE COX:

Folks want to know why I juxtaposed Matt LaFever's alleged crime of knowingly annoying a minor (via a digital channel) with a sustained crime of sexual battery by a sergeant at the Fort Bragg Police Department at the home of his superior.

First, this isn't a random juxtaposition — it's the investigation Matt was working just before his arrest.

Second, real life isn't a TV script. The connection isn't that the City of Fort Bragg colluded with the City of Ukiah to protect their departments. Time to throw away the TV and put on some John Prine. Time to take a walk in the rain and give your cat a scratch.

The relationship is the coincidence in timing and in the juxtaposition of the crimes.

The purpose is PERSPECTIVE.

Context matters. We've got a press release about an arrest here for “annoyance.” There was no press release when the sergeant committed sexual battery in front of other officers at the home of his superior. It appears there wasn't even a quiet referral of the sustained finding AS REQUIRED BY LAW. (POST, the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, may be working on it now since I called them to ask about it a few weeks ago. There's no transparency about their process, which can take up to three years.)

There's a line in the memorandum about how the sergeant “smelled” his finger afterwards. Other officers watched him do this. YUCK.

Good officers are leaving our departments. Good officers are getting hurt and suffering emotional trauma. Those who try to stand up for what's right get written up and driven out, if they don't voluntarily leave first.

Things are a mess right now. We need to keep it real in Mendocino County and support the first responders who have our backs. Matt LaFever is innocent until proven guilty. Let's let the case move through the court. Meanwhile, I invite you to join me in demanding that the supervising officers of our police departments, our city managers, and our city council people follow the law.

Third, I make mistakes and I acknowledge them and I correct them. I do this in public as soon as I can. This is the best I can do. Keep the corrections coming.

Journalism is not supposed to be a one-person job. We need a real local newspaper with a fully staffed newsroom — not mastheads that hire freelancers for a pittance. I'm going to need your help and support to rebuild local news. AND I'm going to make lots of mistakes in public along the way.

Also, an important note about the pull quote. Neil Cervenka did not write “Officer X.” He wrote the first name of the victim. I am not disclosing the name of the victim. The actual quote without ellipses is “You were wearing a white glove as part of your Santa costume. Your finger entered XXX's anus approximately a quarter inch to a half inch. You withdrew your finger, and then smelled it.”

Also, one more thing, I had a newsroom that was backed by an ad person and a membership director and a bookkeeper and an administrative person. It was shut down on a pretext? A panic? Press releases are now presented as local news. Wealthier members of the community are generously funding the organization that shut down the only locally run news department.

Why do you think that is happening?

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FROM UKIAH HIGH SCHOOL: Yesterday’s news of a staff member’s arrest is deeply disappointing for all of us – our district leadership, our staff, our students and parents, and our community. We take very seriously the trust that families place in us to protect and support our students.

As we shared directly with parents and staff, the employee was immediately placed on administrative leave when the allegations of inappropriate electronic communications with a student were first reported. He remains on leave while investigations continue.

We are working closely with law enforcement and following all legal requirements for personnel matters. These processes take time and must be handled carefully and correctly. We ask for the community’s patience and understanding as we move forward.

Counselors are available at the high school to support students and staff who may need to talk or process this news. We are grateful to the student and family who had the courage to come forward and to law enforcement for their partnership in addressing the situation.

Our commitment remains unwavering: to provide a safe environment where every student can learn, grow, and trust the adults who serve them.

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STEPHANIE MARTIN RASPER:

Right now seems like a great Time to remind everyone of another local child rapist. Ryan Davis groomed and sexually assaulted a local girl for years, all under the guise of musical mentorship. He’s was never arrested, never went to jail, and is still free right now, after pleading guilty to multiple felony sex crimes against a minor. His sentencing is November 12, 9am, in fort Bragg, and I implore the public to come see with their own eyes how lenient our county is with sexual predators.

Please, if you or someone you know has also been a victim to this man, reach out to local police.

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PG&E WEATHER ADVISORY

We are seeing some wet and windy weather hitting the North Bay and North Coast starting Tuesday evening, with the greatest impact throughout Wednesday. The most significant adverse weather is expected north of the Bay Area where winds could gust in excess of 35-45 mph and rainfall amounts could reach two or three inches. We’ve had a few storms this season, but this is one of the more significant ones - the incoming adverse weather could result in trees, limbs and other debris falling into powerlines, damaging equipment and interrupting electric service.

PG&E is prepared for this storm. As the weather approaches, we are using our storm outage prediction models that help us determine the potential timing, location and number of power outages. If there are outages, poised to respond are PG&E electric crews, troubleworkers, distribution line technicians and system inspectors who serve as the utility's first responders, along with personnel who will monitor electric incidents for public safety.

We are encouraging customers to prepare as well. Here are a few preparedness and safety tips:

• Update your contact information: Got to PGE.com to update your contact information. This way, if you do lose power, PG&E can contact you with updates.
  • Keep a battery-operated flashlight and radio within easy reach. Ensure those items are always accessible and that your batteries are fresh. Listen for updates on storm conditions and power outages.
• Know where to go for outage information: Customers can get updates on outages in their neighborhood through a variety of channels.
• Access our Electric Outage Map online at pge.com/outages
• Contact our outage information line at 1-800-743-5002.
• Customers can also log-in to their account through pge.com and sign up to receive proactive outage alerts through email, text or phone.
• Use generators safely: Customers with standby electric generators should ensure they are properly installed by a licensed electrician in a well-ventilated area. Improperly installed generators pose a significant danger to customers, as well as crews working on powerlines. If using portable generators, be sure they are in a well-ventilated area.
• Use flashlights, not candles: During a power outage, use battery-operated flashlights and not candles, due to the risk of fire. And keep extra batteries on hand. If you must use candles, please keep them away from drapes, lampshades, animals and small children. Do not leave candles unattended.
• Never touch downed wires: If you see a downed power line, assume it is energized and extremely dangerous. Do not touch or try to move it — and keep children and animals away. Report downed power lines immediately by calling 9-1-1 and then PG&E at 1-800-743-5002.
• Visit www.pge.com/stormsafety for preparedness tips.

Megan McFarland| Marketing & Communications| Pacific Gas & Electric

415.298.8177, mobile | [email protected]

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JED STEELE HAS PASSED

Many in Anderson Valley will remember him as an early groundbreaking, award-winning winemaker for Edmeades Vineyards in Philo, back when the Edmeades owned it. Steele and his family moved to Lake County in the early 90s where he went on to wine industry promise there.

Grower Spotlight: Jed Steele

An Integral Part of Lake County’s Past, Present, and Future

Jed Steele’s pioneering roots in Lake County winemaking sprawl across the North Coast wine region and span five decades.

Jed began his winemaking career working in the cellar at Stony Hill Winery in Napa Valley before obtaining his master’s degree in enology from UC Davis in 1974. He spent the next eight years as the winemaker and vineyard manager at Edmeades Winery in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley before a phone call altered the course of his life and career, leading him to Lake County.

Creating Appeal With A First Lady’s Palate

Fetzer winemaker Paul Dolan was on the other end of the line, urging Jed to join a startup winery in Lake County called Kendall-Jackson. That resulted in a meeting between Jed and Jess Jackson, owner of the fledgling winery. The pair huddled over hamburgers at the Gaslight Grill in Lakeport. “I was very impressed with him,” Jed recalls.

Soon, Jed set off on an adventure that is still unfolding. He was heavily involved as Kendall-Jackson bloomed over the first nine years of its existence. Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay became a favorite of first lady Nancy Reagan, who insisted on it being served at the White House. Word of her preference for K-J Chardonnay got around when Pulitzer Prize-winning San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote a piece in which he referred to the Chardonnay as “Nancy’s wine.”

But as Kendall-Jackson’s size grew in proportion to its fortunes, Jed chafed at the shift toward a more corporate environment. “Going to board meetings and having to wear a tie all the time didn’t sit comfortably with me,” he says. After nine years with Kendall-Jackson, Jed decided to strike out on his own. He considered Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino, but realized he already was where he wanted to be: Lake County.

Leasing Lower Lake Winery, Steele Wines launched in 1991. Five years later, Jed purchased the former Konocti Winery facility and moved production to Kelseyville. Over the years, he has been an integral player in the region’s winemaking resurgence.

Seeing Promise in an Emerging Lake County

Lake County’s viticulture and winemaking history trace to the 1870s. By the early 1900s, Lake wines were gaining international recognition. But Prohibition threw the industry into a tailspin. Vineyards were plowed under. Pear and walnut orchards sprung up, thriving on the rich soil in the county lowlands.

In the 1960s, demand for grapes began to soar, and vineyards re-emerged. But interest did not immediately correspond with success in Lake County winemaking’s second act. “Soil that’s good for pears is not necessarily good for grapes,” Jed explains. “For some white grapes, it’s fine. But for most reds, it’s a little too heavy..”

Fortunately for Lake County’s resurging wine industry, the region features a range of soils and terrains, much of it created by volcanic activity thousands of years ago. Soils in the uplands – the Red Hills, High Valley, the upper areas of Kelsey Bench – were formed from relatively recent lava flows, providing a base from which reds can thrive. As winegrape growers recognized this, they gradually planted vineyards in these locations and the resulting grapes began to attract interest from winemakers.“So once that change started to happen,” Jed says, “the quality of the wines increased significantly.”

When Jed began planting for his own winery, Bordeaux and Rhone varieties were instant winners and they continue to be successful. Seventy percent of the grapes his winery uses today are harvested in Lake County.

“It’s a really good place to grow grapes,” Jed says. “The soils are great. The land is still, compared to neighboring counties, relatively inexpensive. So it’s a great investment for a lot of wineries who tapped out in Napa and Sonoma. Lake County still remains a location where people can grow good-quality grapes very economically.”

In addition to inspiring Lake County grape growers, Jed has also influenced and mentored several winemakers in the region. He continues to accrue accolades and provides a benchmark for the ever-increasing quality of Lake County wines. In these and many other ways, Jed embodies the past, present, and future of Lake County winemaking.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, November 4, 2025

MICHAEL DEATON, 41, Willits. Controlled substance for sale.

ROLAND ESKIND JR., 55, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ELEANOR HAGANS, 59, Bellingham,Washington/Fort Bragg. Resisting.

CHYNA HARVEY, 20, Willits. Domestic battery.

JEREMY KENYON, 45, Fort Bragg. County parole violation.

BRANDY LEES, 52, Clearlake/Ukiah. Controlled substance.

JENNIFER PAZ, 19, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

JOSHUA WINN, 40, Redwood Valley. Paraphernalia, concealed dirk-dagger, probation violation, resisting.

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1957

When I was 20
I got myself a real job
At the New York Times.

$55 a week
To be the Blind Ad Clerk there
In Times Classified.

Nothing like “Mad Men.”
Ag Journalism dropouts,
Esp. Cal Poly Rats,

Couldn’t be choosers.
But I was in New York so
I acted like it.

Wrote home to the Rats
—“Hello, Rats! Look at me now!”—
On Times letterhead.

— Jim Luther

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THE BIG FEAR

Editor,

Regarding “Under the threat of immigration crackdowns, Bay Area communities rethink Día de los Muertos” (Bay Area, SFChronicle.com, Oct. 28):

It is a tragedy that Bay Area communities are canceling or scaling back cultural celebrations due to fear of immigration raids. This should alarm us all and reveals something fundamental: The Trump administration is employing terrorism.

The government is using fear to coerce people into changing their behavior. When people cancel trips or avoid public gatherings because they’re afraid, terrorism has succeeded.

As the story reports, families are now afraid to celebrate their cultural heritage in public. Communities are canceling events that have nothing to do with immigration status. The fear isn’t incidental — it’s the point.

Courts have repeatedly found Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s actions under Trump to be illegal or extrajudicial. The targeting is based on ethnicity, not legal status. The goal isn’t law enforcement — it’s intimidation of specific communities.

When a government deliberately uses fear to suppress the lawful activities of an ethnic population, we need to call it what it is: state terrorism. The badge and uniform don’t change the fundamental nature of the tactic.

Jessica Flores’ excellent reporting shows us the human cost. We should recognize it for what it represents.

Barry Lake

Belmont

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DEMOCRATS, END THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Editor:

I am a tried-and-true Democrat and never have voted for a Republican. But I think the Democrats should fold on the government shutdown. Although these are Donald Trump’s decisions, they are hurting a lot of people. Federal employees are getting fired (and losing their paychecks, along with job-related benefits, including health care.) SNAP payments are on the line. Though giving in will take away health coverage for many people, it is under a program that was started during COVID and was supposed to be a stop-gap measure. If you agree, write your congressman and senators, so that we have a chance to make our voices heard.

Barbara Parnow

Santa Rosa

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THE GOOD NEWS

Removal of Controversial Fountain from S.F.’s Embarcadero Plaza Formally Approved

by Sam Whiting

A divided San Francisco Arts Commission on Monday approved a plan to at least temporarily remove the Vaillancourt Fountain from Embarcadero Plaza, a final sign-off that means the massive artwork could be dismantled as soon as early next year.

The half-century-old sculpture’s fate has been increasingly in doubt as plans come together for a $32.5 million remodeling of Embarcadero Plaza that will merge it with adjacent Sue Bierman Park.

The vote Monday came at the regular monthly hearing of the Arts Commission, which owns the concrete artwork. Action was requested by the Recreation and Park Department, which manages the site as a city park and is responsible for its upkeep.

The fountain, which was created by Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt and debuted in 1971, has deteriorated over the decades and has been dry since the pumps failed a year ago. Rec and Park officials pressed for the removal, saying it is necessary to protect the public from the site, which has been fenced off since the summer after it was deemed a public safety hazard.

The removal can proceed in 90 days, according to the California art Preservation Act, which requires that the artist be given a chance to come up with a plan for any piece of public art.

The vote Monday was 8-5 for removal with many commissioners first trying to abstain. When that was not allowed, at least three of the votes to remove were made reluctantly, commissioners said.

“The power of this piece is real,” said commissioner Debra Walker before casting her vote. “It exemplifies the power of public art. But it can’t stay here, in my opinion, in this condition.”

Commissioner Patrick Carney countered, “My fear is that once it is removed it opens the door to never coming back. I don’t want to put an art piece on the path to deaccession. This is a big step.”

Vaillancourt, the 96-year-old creator of the fountain, and a vocal group of supporters have argued that it should be renovated and remain at the center of the plaza.

Reached Monday in Montreal, the artist's son and spokesperson, Alexis Vaillancourt, said, “We are disappointed,” noting that a law firm representing his father has already filed a cease-and-desist letter to stop the permanent removal of the sculpture. He said attorneys may be filing an amendment to also prevent its temporary removal.

“This thing about public safety is exaggerated. I’m not sure they are being totally transparent,” Alexis Vaillancourt said. “I’m sure it won’t fall down in the next days or even in the next years.”

The Department of Building Inspection surveyed the site in October and concurred with an earlier study commissioned by Rec and Park that the site presented a public safety hazard.

The disassembly of the piece is estimated to cost $4.4 million which will be paid for by Rec and Park. It is expected to take two months, once the 90-day requirement for notification of the state is executed.

The sculpture will be moved to undisclosed off-site storage for a maximum of three years while it is determined whether it can be repaired to working order with its fountain flowing, or should be deaccessioned and returned to the artist. There is also the possibility of moving it to another location in the city.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

The USA and its people have become so wicked, decadent, slothful and greedy that they are ripe for destruction. Question is how?

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HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Due to a death in Washington, D.C.’s Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter dorm area yesterday, we all had to leave and go to the Drop-in Center located in the back half of the building for several hours, accommodating the coroner. While sitting there watching the pointless science fiction tv programs, in walks a representative from United Health Care-Medicare Advantage to clue everybody on the specifics of Medicare. During my interview, I explained that I’ve been trying for awhile to get my new UHC OTC card. I was informed that the problem is that I had changed residences from California to D.C., and had not signed up for D.C. Medicaid. He asked the drop-in center’s supervisor to sign me up, (avoiding another trip into the bowels of the Washington, D.C. social services maze).

During the interview with the UHC agent, I explained that I had received notification that I will be receiving my Medical membership card in the mail, that I thought that Medical was changed to Partnership of California (which paid for three dental crowns when I was still in Ukiah), and that I might end up with insurance both here and from California, which would be okay, since the California insurance pays for dental work. He looked at me as though he had just received a report from the Twilight Zone. All I know is that I have been strictly honest with everyone. My social situation continues to improve exponentially. Take care everybody. Enjoy the holidays.

Craig Louis Stehr

(Email: [email protected])

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“I MUST HOLD in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to 'succeed' — and, more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the high intentions of the future. If I could do this through the common ills — domestic, professional and personal — then the ego would continue as an arrow shot from nothingness to nothingness with such force that only gravity would bring it to earth at last.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The Crack-Up’

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“IT IS CURIOUS, too, that though the modern man in the street is a robot, and incapable of love he is capable of an endless, grinding, nihilistic hate: that is the only strong feeling he is capable of; and therein lies the danger of robot-democracy and all the men in the street, they move in a great grind of hate, slowly but inevitably.”

— D. H. Lawrence

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POVERTY AND DEPORTEES ON THE STREETS IN TIJUANA

Photos by David Bacon and an Interview with Laura Velasco

In the U.S. media, even in progressive media, we pay very little attention to what happens to most people when they're deported, or when they choose self-deportation as a result of fear. Most people who are deported or who self-deport go home to communities far south of the border. But the people who are just dumped through the border gate and have no home to go to find themselves in cities like Tijuana, Mexico. For many years deportees from the United States have lived on the street or in the concrete Tijuana River channel.…

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/poverty-and-deportees-on-the-streets-in-tijuana

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“EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM was old except his eyes which were the same color as of the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

— Ernest Hemingway, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’

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IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

— Rudyard Kipling (1896)

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MAMDANI SEALS VICTORY IN IMPROBABLE RUN

Democratic Socialist Wins Mayor’s Office in Surge of Anti-Establishment Discontent

Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, became an electrifying voice for New Yorkers disillusioned with runaway living costs and a scandal-plagued old guard.

A Little-Noted Element Propelled Mamdani’s Rise: Gen Z Loneliness

N.Y.C. Mayoral Election Results ›

Mamdani: 1,009,470, 50.3%

Cuomo: 834,693, 41.6%

Sliwa: 143,810, 7.2%

88% of votes in

(Associated Press)

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"IT WAS A SHORT WALK across the Austerlitz bridge, then through the Jardin des Plantes with the chestnut trees cropped close for winter and on up the hill to where rue Mouffetard ran into one side of Place de la Contrescarpe and came out the other side rue Descartes. The small square, now empty of drunks, led him to the front door where he banged awake the smelly concierge. He climbed the twisted stairs passing at every level the urinous stench of the W.C. In their small rented rooms, the odor of Hadley’s perfume hung faintly in the air. Sheet music lay open on her piano. He must have stopped for a moment before moving to the dining room cupboard – a moment to focus and taste the anger welling up inside. He could see so clearly the three folders as he left them: manuscripts in one, typescripts in another; carbons in the third. He opened the drawer.

Nothing.

Empty.

Put out the light.

From the bal musette below the sound of an accordion drifted up through the light rain falling.

— Hemingway, The Paris Years

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"THE DEMOCRACY of thou-shalt-not is bound to be a collection of weak men. And then the sacred "will of the people" becomes blinder, baser, colder and more dangerous than the will of any tyrant.

When the will of the people becomes the sum of the weakness of a multitude of weak men, it is time to make a break. So today.

Society consists of a mass of weak individuals trying to protect themselves, out of fear, from every possible imaginary evil, and, of course, by their very fear, bringing the evil into being."

— D. H Lawrence

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PERVASIVE IMMUNITY

by Cora Currier

In early 2017 my colleagues at The Intercept and I published a series of articles about the FBI's counterterrorism policies. The articles were based on leaked documents that showed the wide latitude the bureau gave itself to surveil students, journalists, or civil society, and detailed its policy on the use of informants. The FBI, the documents specified, targeted Muslim student groups and recruited into informants at airports. Agents would offer potential sources help with their migration status as a “dangle” to get them to cooperate — something that defense and civil liberties attorneys had long suspected but that the FBI officially denied.

Our timing was not fortuitous. Donald Trump had just taken office. The Steele dossier was circulating, with its salacious allegations about the new president's supposed romps in Moscow. Former FBI directors Robert Mueller and James Comey were soon to become unlikely symbols of “the resistance.” When, in October 2018, the FBI agent Terry Albury was convicted of disclosing documents to The Intercept-which he did, he said, to expose anti-Muslim bias and surveillance over-reach — his case got a fraction of the attention that those of previous national security whistleblowers had received.

All of this seemed to be an early indication of how much the “war on terror,” which was the focus of our investigation, had receded, or at least been overshadowed, now that Trump was in power.

Trump's so-called Muslim ban — the executive order forbidding people from several Muslim-majority countries to enter the US — feels in retrospect more a harbinger of hard-line immigration policies and general chaotic showmanship than a sign of a particular emphasis on terror threats. At the same time, Trump's posturing as an antiwar candidate did not prevent him from continuing, and even intensifying, the disparate military actions involved in the “war on terror” that the country has waged since the September 11 attacks.

Trump's first administration changed the rules of engagement in Afghanistan and other countries, leading to an increase in bombings and civilian casualties. Deadly night raids in Afghanistan continued, as did strikes in Iraq and Syria (where, even before Trump's presidency, the extensive air campaign against the Islamic State had rendered debates over precision drone strikes and kill lists somewhat quaint).

Under Joe Biden, crises in Gaza and Ukraine further eclipsed counterterrorism as a central public concern. The US withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021. Worries about government spying on US citizens were overtaken by increased awareness of (and acquiescence to) corporate data harvesting:

And yet the various templates of the “war on terror” are still very much in use today. Trump, for instance, declared “antifa” a terror organization after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The Department of Homeland Security was created in late 2002, and the extensive surveillance capabilities it has built up in the years since are enabling the administration's ramped-up immigration enforcement. The US military, to say nothing of the special forces and the CIA, still carries out counterterrorism trainings and operations around the world. The continued existence of the military commissions and the detention center at Guantánamo, the occasional drone strike in Somalia, the batch of trainers dispatched to Niger — these once controversial policies have turned into mere state functions. Trump's strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, which the White House has justified by designating cartels as terror groups, have been greeted with alarm, but it's unfortunately easy to imagine them becoming accepted in the same way.

In reporting on the subject myself, I have often felt, as the writer and Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay put it in ‘Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War’ (2022), “unsure of whether I'm fulfilling a civic obligation, exploring a personal obsession… or simply screaming into the void."

(New York Review of Books)

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“OF COURSE ALL LIFE is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work — the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside — the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within — that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick — the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘The Crack-Up’

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PENILE COLONY

by C.S. Lewis

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sending the man into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival.

Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself.

The true exercise of imagination, in my view, is (a) to help us to understand other people and (b) to respond to, and, for some of us, to produce, art. But it has also a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions, etc. which ought to be sought outside in the real world— e.g. picturing all I'd do if I were rich instead of earning and saving.

Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which 1 think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of ourselves, out of the little dark prison we are all born into.

Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love that prison.

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"THIS DAY will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…You must play your part and sing a song, one of your best."

— Hermann Hesse

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