Mendocino County Today: Friday 11/21/2025

COLD temperatures overnight are to be expected inland this morning and Saturday morning. Conditions will quickly warm and dry into the weekend with light drizzle along the coast early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 41F under clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. Mostly clear skies thru Thanksgiving day then maybe a shot of rain into the holiday weekend, maybe, we'll see ?

CITY OF UKIAH POLICE DEPARTMENT PRESS RELEASE:

In September of 2025, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office referred an investigation to the Ukiah Police Department regarding a possible unlawful sexual relationship between a professor at the Mendocino College and an underage female student.

UPD began an investigation and confirmed that Jason Davis, a 54-year-old English professor at the Mendocino College had been in dating relationship with a student. It was also learned that Davis was the subject of a civil suit in the Superior Court of San Francisco, in which two former students had accused Davis of sexual abuse.

UPD Detectives obtained search warrants for Davis’ residence and electronic devices and confirmed that Davis had been in a sexual dating relationship and cohabitating with a former student that was 15 years old.

Detectives located photographs and videos on Davis’ electronic devices that confirmed that the sexual relationship began when the child was 13 years old.

On November 20, 2025, a Mendocino County Superior Court Judge signed an arrest warrant for Davis’ arrest for five felony charges involving sexual abuse of a minor with multiple special allegations based on the age of the victim.

At approximately 3:00 p.m. UPD Detectives located Davis and took him into custody without incident. Davis was transported to the Mendocino County Jail and booked for 288(a) PC- Lewd or Lascivious Acts with a Child Under 14 Years of Age, 288(c)(1) PC- Lewd or Lascivious Acts with a Child Under 15 Years of Age, 287(B)(2) PC- Oral Copulation with Person Under 16 Years of Age, 261.5(D) PC- Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with an Under Age Female, and 311.11(A) PC- Possession of Material Depicting Sexual Conduct of a Person Under 18. At the time of this press release Davis was being held at the Mendocino County Jail on a $1,000,000 bond.

DA EYSTER RECUSES HIMSELF FROM CASE OF FORMER UKIAH HIGH JOURNALISM TEACHER, MENDOFEVER PUBLISHER

by Sydney Fishman

Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster is recusing himself from considering charges against Matt LaFever, a 37-year-old Hopland resident and former Ukiah High School journalism teacher who was arrested for allegedly sending inappropriate messages to a 17-year-old girl.

Eyster has assigned the case to a senior attorney for review.

LaFever, who was also the publisher of the MendoFever news website that has since been taken down, is accused by Ukiah police of asking a 17-year-old girl to send him inappropriate photos while also sending scantily clad photos of himself.

He was arrested Nov. 3 on suspicion of knowingly annoying or molesting a minor and was placed on leave at the high school after the Ukiah Unified School District first learned of the allegations in October.

In an interview, Eyster said he recused himself from the case because several stories LaFever wrote were critical of him, and he did not want people to think he was holding a grudge.

“I did that because there’s been times where Matt LaFever or Mike Geniella reporting for Matt LaFever have been critical of me, so I didn’t want people to think that I had a grudge,” Eyster said. “So I referred it [the case] to one of my senior attorneys who has no clue who Matt LaFever is, to handle and decide what should happen.”

Eyster prosecutes many cases in court himself and said he is currently working with a very large caseload, which is common for district attorneys in rural areas like Mendocino County.

“What you’ll find is I’m not your typical DA. I actually have as large of a caseload in the office as any of my attorneys, and most of the time I have a larger caseload, so I’m in court all the time,” he added.

Eyster also spoke about his general distrust of local media outlets covering cases handled by his office. He also said that his caseload keeps him too busy to read each publication covering local news in the county.

“I don’t read a lot of the media … if I had time to read [local news], I wouldn’t have time to read another police report to get my job done,” he stated. “There’s a lot of people that say they are reporters and have falsely reported things on this office … There are people out there that would rather have drama than truth.”

(MendocinoVoice.com)

ED NOTE:

Hmm.

The DA refused to recuse himself in Sgt. Murray's case, fought recusal in the Cubbison case, and then stepped aside only after hiring a costly outsider to prosecute the losing case. Now he wants to step back and let "senior staff attorney" decide, a person DA Dave insists knows nothing about LaFever, a high-profile dude long before he landed on the front page.

FORT BRAGG WANTS TO TAX VACANT BUILDINGS

by Michelle Blackwell

During the November 10th Fort Bragg City Council meeting, the council held three public hearings, setting the priority for future projects, changing the requirements for fire sprinkler installations at local businesses, and addressing the ongoing issue of vacant buildings in the downtown area with new penalties for property owners.

The city is addressing the problem of vacant buildings in the downtown by setting up a registration and fee schedule. The ordinance applies to properties that are vacant for ninety days. Owners will be charged $100 to register their building and $150 per month for city inspections. The hope is that this will move property owners to act by either renting or selling buildings. Per Councilmember Peters, this program is long overdue and has been discussed since he was on the council twenty years ago. City

Manager Whippy provided a list of local cities, including Willits and Ukiah, that have similar programs.

One downtown businesswoman supported the program. She counted twelve vacant buildings in the downtown and said that at least one building has been vacant since 1996. Another speaker argued it was anti-business. A survey done by the city indicated that over 84% of respondents supported making this a priority at the city, and more than 60% supported a vacancy tax.

In addition to the fees, property owners must abide by rules regarding upkeep, and they are required to post a local contact and phone number on the building. If they do not live in the area, they must hire a local agent to be available to the city. Vacant lots are in the ordinance, but a fee schedule has not been set for them at this time. There was some disagreement over another requirement for no trespassing signs, with council member Albin Smith suggesting they are not welcoming to visitors. The new ordinance allows the city to place liens on properties that do not pay the fees.

The city changed its guidelines for requiring fire sprinkler installations and automatic fire alarm systems. At the September 8th meeting, the fire marshal and the city looked at ways to encourage building upgrades while not overburdening local property owners. The sentiment was that the previous sprinkler requirement discouraged any upgrades, leaving buildings in worse shape and more dangerous for firefighters and the public. The new program tries to balance public safety by including intelligent alarms, which can contact the fire department if a fire breaks out when no one is around. Councilmember Hockett pointed out that this type of system saved a building last year in the harbor.

While complicated, the fire sprinkler requirement has been changed to take into account multiple factors when remodeling, including building size, use, and the type of remodel. For example, a remodel that exposes the studs would require fire sprinklers, as would upgrades to two-story buildings with residential on the second floor. The intelligent alarms, which city consultant Marie Jones said cost around $5000, would be required for all upgrades. Property owners should consult the city to see if fire sprinklers are required for any upgrades they are planning.

Lacy Sallas, the City’s grant coordinator, provided a presentation and sought guidance on the next round of Community Development Block Grants applications. The federal program’s application period opens in December. The city can apply for up to $3.6 million in grants for construction and planning. Sallas provided a wish list of projects, which the council prioritized. The reconstruction of the fire stations’ north wing and planning for phase two of trash capture devices were prioritized. Both of these projects have a 2030 deadline and would require the maximum grant funding allowed, plus additional funding from the city or fire district. Backup projects included a sidewalk rehabilitation program and planning for an emergency shelter at the CV Starr Center. The projects that did not make the council’s priority list included construction of a residential care facility run by Parents and Friends, a street rehabilitation program for Azalea Circle and Penitenti Way, construction of phase one for trash capture devices, and planning for the east wing of city hall.

During matters from the council, Mayor Godeke expressed concerns about reported cutbacks at the Fort Bragg courthouse and how that would impact coastal residents. He will write a protest letter and bring it back to the council. The city announced a hazardous waste disposal event on December 4th and 5th in Caspar. Chief Swift announced that Ukiah Dispatch will attend the next public safety meeting. Several residents have complained about the dispatch service that Fort Bragg pays Ukiah to provide.

Whippy announced that the utility bill assistance program is up and running. The program offers low-income individuals up to $800 in assistance to pay utility bills if they have suffered a financial loss, like work hours being cut or loss of employment.

Previously, many residents have raised concerns about various alleged misconduct within the police force. Whippy announced that the city will outsource police conduct investigations to a third party.

The application opening for the police chief has now closed. Per Whippy, there are nine candidates. The next step will be to review the candidates. At a previous meeting, the consultant hoped to have a new police chief selected by the end of this year.

Mayor Godeke will be available at the November 19th farmer’s market from 3 pm to 4 pm.

The city also recognized November as Native American Heritage Month and November 11th as Veterans’ Appreciation Day.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)

CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION CITES IRISH BEACH IMPROVEMENT CLUB FOR UNPERMITTED DEVELOPMENT

Says public access predates creation of the subdivision

by Elise Cox

(This story was jointly reported by Elise Cox and Karen Elowitt and appears in the Thursday issue of the Independent Coast Observer.)

Irish Beach, a coastal subdivision in southern Mendocino County, is home to a mix of vacation houses and year-round residences perched on ocean bluffs with expansive views of the Pacific. For decades, the community has promoted its private beach access road as a key amenity.

But last month, that road became the center of an acrimonious dispute. According to California Coastal Commission staff, public access along the road to the beach predates the creation of subdivision. The issue was raised during the permitting process and, the commission asserts, public access continued until an unpermitted gate was erected to block it.

On October 23, 2025, the California Coastal Commission issued a Notice of Violation to the Irish Beach Improvement Club and three property owners whose land contains the road through longstanding easements. The immediate issue is unpermitted development. The underlying issue is public access to the road and the beach.

The Irish Beach Improvement Club — a voluntary homeowners association — maintains the road and the easement areas. Its work has included installing asphalt and a retaining wall, adding a solar-powered gate system and new signs, reinstalling traffic spikes, grading the beach to expand a parking area, and removing vegetation.

The problem: none of the work was permitted. Those improvements now threaten to cost the community millions of dollars in coastal commission penalties.

“Members of the public have reported, and commission staff has confirmed, that development has occurred on the above-described properties without the required CDP, constituting ‘unpermitted development’ and a violation of the Coastal Act and LCP,” the notice states, referring to a coastal development permit and Mendocino County’s Local Coastal Program.

The commission also asserts that the new gate and signage on Upper Beach Drive, along with signage and traffic spikes on Lower Beach Drive, restrict public access. “Furthermore, it appears that restrictions to public access have been installed and maintained in this area for many years,” the notice states.

Emily Thorne, president of the Irish Beach Improvement Club board, declined to comment ahead of the club’s November 22 meeting. In a private Facebook post to members, she said the board had met and developed an action plan. “We want to assure all members that the organization is fully prepared to address these matters in a timely and cooperative manner,” she wrote.

Thorne added that the electric gate on Beach Road must remain open. “Although the coastal commission was informed that Beach Road is a private road and that a gate has been in place since the development of the community, they are requiring proof of this,” she wrote.

Under the Coastal Act, the commission may impose penalties of up to $30,000 per violation and up to $11,250 per day for obstructing public access. The violations cited in the notice allegedly occurred between March 4, 2016, and March 4, 2019. The notice also emphasizes that the list of violations is not exhaustive.

In addition to the Improvement Club, the notice was sent to the three property owners affected by the road. Although the violations relate to activities “overseen by [the Irish Beach Improvement Club],” the commission notes that “violations run with the land, and each individual property owner here is also liable for violations on their property.”

One of the owners, Mark Rapelje, said the experience has pushed him to abandon the idea of building a home on the lot he purchased 27 years ago. “It took us five years to get a coastal development permit,” he said in an interview. He described facing opposition from the club and then losing a mortgage guarantee when the Great Recession hit. Rapelje said he reported the unpermitted development by the club on his land years ago — first to the county, then to the coastal commission.

He added that although his deed identifies the easement road as private, he has found documents suggesting the developers agreed to provide public access to the road and the beach it leads to. He believes that agreement lowers the value of his property, which he now hopes to sell, ideally to a conservation group.

To resolve the violations, the commission is requiring the Irish Beach Improvement Club and the property owners to submit a report by December 4, 2025, identifying all areas affected by the unpermitted development and including a forensic biological assessment by a licensed biologist. They must also submit a complete coastal development permit application for the corrective work by December 18, 2025.

OUTDOOR WISHLIST: MORE FIELDS, MORE DOG PARKS, MORE EVERYTHING

by Justine Frederiksen

Entrance to the City View Trail in Ukiah’s Low Gap Park. (Justine Frederiksen — Ukiah Daily Journal)

More sports fields, more dog parks and more time to use existing outdoor facilities were just some of the suggestions Ukiah residents had Tuesday after being asked by city officials how they should spend grant money they might receive for improving recreational opportunities in the Ukiah Valley.

“Whatever you build, they will come, because everyone here is passionate about something, and it is about getting people outside,” said one attendee of a meeting held Nov. 18 at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center, during which many other participants requested outdoor facilities of all kinds for activities ranging from soccer to cheerleading practice, and from pickleball to ping pong.

“What really got us going down this direction is Proposition 4,” said Community Services Director Neil Davis to begin the public forum held as part of the Public Spaces Commission meeting, and describing Prop 4 as statewide initiative approved by voters in 2024 that will provide communities $10 billion over the next few years.

Davis said there are eight “chapters” that funding from the Climate Bond has been divided into, and the ones most likely to apply to Ukiah include wildfire and forest resilience ($336 million this year), protection of biodiversity ($414 million this year), and parks and outdoor access ($518 million this year).

As part of pursing these grants, Davis said his department was polling the community now because “when we decide what grants we apply for, one of their questions will be: ‘Did you get community input, and how did that affect the grants you applied for?'”

Also, Davis said, the city recently completed a “Parks Gap Analysis” that helped his staff understand “where do we not have services that we want or need?” And not surprisingly, that analysis revealed “we need more parks,” but he also noted that the top three requests were: 1) trails, 2) picnic hang-outs and 3) river access and swimming.

“There were also lot of comments about shade, and a lot of interest in neighborhood basketball courts,” Davis said, adding that many people requested extending the hours that people could access the dog park and pickleball courts, as well.

One participant Tuesday said there was definitely a need for more dog parks, especially given the recent fencing erected around school campuses that effectively eliminated their use as informal, neighborhood dog parks.

“Now there’s just Low Gap,” he continued, also requesting lights for the pickleball courts at Oak Manor, facilities which another user requested be furbished in general.

While Recreation Supervisor Jake Burgess said that “lights are a pretty easy thing to do,” Davis noted that “we would need to package that with something else, since this is climate money, and the climate argument could be that you are using existing parks instead of building new ones.”

While another participant argued that more field of all kinds were needed for kids to play sports on, another said that while he was “all for more athletic fields, I’d like us not to forget the glaring absence of just a community park in the Wagenseller neighborhood, (with no place for kids) to even go down a slide or get on a see-saw.”

“Absolutely that is a need, and has been a target for like 20 years,” said Burgess, explaining that the city has been scouring the area for property to buy there, “but it is really hard to find a target location.” He noted the open field by Kohl’s is not a good location for a park because it is alongside the freeway, and “I don’t know how to find a place (for a park elsewhere) without bulldozing an apartment building.”

When someone else pointed out that the small park on South Orchard Avenue is also right along Highway 101, Davis pointed out that health concerns, such as the increased likelihood of kids playing hear freeways developing asthma, would prevent state grants from being used to build a park near the highway.

Another resident suggested that the city put in “concrete ping-pong tables” like the ones he saw in New York City, describing them as ideal because they are outdoor facilities that “no one can walk off with, and they’re pretty indestructible.”

In response, Davis said that was an example of a small community project that interested parties could make a reality themselves with little help from the city.

“It wouldn’t cost a lot, and if you find other like-minded people and pitch in, it’s easier for (the city) to match your funding, so you can actualize what you envision,” he said.

“In fact there are lots of small things that could be done,” Davis continued, explained that in the survey for the Parks Gap Analysis, “there were lots of parents who said they just want ‘one hoop that’s within 10 blocks of my house so I can shoot some hoops.’ So maybe we could get a grant to put up like 10 hoops, one each wherever there’s enough space.”

As for increasing the amount of sports fields, forum attendee John Strangio said he has been working for some time on a plan to build a sports complex on the north side of town.

“I own 16 acres near Ford Road, and will be closing soon on more acres,” Strangio said, describing the properties together as providing 24 acres on which he hoped to build a sports complex with courts for basketball and pickleball, both indoor and outdoor soccer fields, and at least three baseball fields.

Given all the money he currently spends while traveling with his kids to sports tournaments hosted by other cities, Strangio said such a complex would “be a great boost to our local economy,” bringing visiting families to the Ukiah Valley to spend money at local hotels, restaurants and other venues.

“You could also take the Rail Trail right to the Wagenseller neighborhood (from the complex),” Strangio continued, telling city staff that he would “love to work with you guys so we don’t overlap (our efforts)” to add more sports fields, and other facilities, to the local area.

(ukiahdailyjournal.com)

FROM EBAY, A POSTCARD OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST: Downtown Willits, circa 1950. (via Marshall Newman)

LINDY PETERS:

Here is some perspective on the Fort Bragg City Council pay scale. Every 2 weeks we receive a paycheck that amounts to roughly $215. So that comes to about $107.50 a week. If you are truly dedicated to serving the public and sit on three different standing committees along with various ad-hoc committees, you should be spending an average of 20 hours a week. I remind you that some Council meetings include closed sessions that can run up to 6-7 hours per meeting. Yes. You read that correctly. So let’s do some math. $107 divided by 20 equals $5.35 per hour. Yes. You also read that correctly. While it is true that you receive top-notch health coverage, this salary is still about 4 times less per hour than someone working at our local McDonalds. And at least at a fast food restaurant job you don’t have a line of people who constantly complain about the job you are doing while accusing you of corruption. At least at a fast food restaurant job you don’t lie awake at night worrying about a decision you will have to make that may effectively harm a friend of yours. I look at my position as Community Service and I truly do try to do the right thing for what is best for the common good. I think we all do. It is truly the epitome of a “ thankless job”. However helping those who need help is a reward beyond measure. Something money cannot buy. For this I am thankful. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Lindy Peters

Fort Bragg City Council

SPECIAL MEETING (Informational Public Workshop: The Future Of Our Water - The Potter Valley Project Decommissioning)

November 24, 2025 - 1:00 PM

Meeting Location(s): 200 S. School Street, Ukiah, CA. 95482 (Ukiah Valley Conference Center)

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82395871308

Zoom Phone Number (if joining via telephone): 1 669 900 9128; Zoom Webinar ID: 823 9587 1308

Main Agenda Items:

Decommissioning and Role of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of a Presentation Regarding an Overview of the New Eel Russian Facility (NERF)
Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of a Presentation Regarding the Water Diversion Agreement (WDA) Allowing Continued Diversion to the Russian River Watershed
Discussion and Possible Action Including Acceptance of a Presentation Regarding Options Under Consideration for Additional Storage in the Russian River Watershed

AV GRANGE/FOODSHED HOLIDAY DINNER

It’s time again for the annual Holiday Dinner celebration of our community!

AV Foodshed and AV Grange are teaming up again for the annual Community Holiday Dinner. This year it's on Sunday December 7th, starting at 5pm.

So, come have a delicious FREE dinner at the AV Grange, turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy along with coffee, tea, water and we hope apple juice provided by AV Foodshed and AV Grange and all the extras provided by everyone else, we're talking a monster potluck here with you bringing desserts,salads,drinks,vegetarian options etc., and we ask that you bring your own utensils, (there will be a wash station). Make a list of ingredients so people will know whats in your offering.

We aim to have live music to eat by and a kids zone as well. Don't forget the LOOOONG line where you get to hang out with friends and neighbors, (there will be a bit of finger food served as we wait),

As always there is much need for volunteers to cook turkeys, smash those potatoes and make stuffing before the event, AND folks to pitch in, working the kitchen, serve, set up, decorate, clean up and on and on. It's a great way to meet and greet both new and old members of our community.

If you have any questions you can call Rainbow at (707) 472-9189 or (707) 895-3807

All are welcome, put the date on your calendar. See you all soon.

T’TCETSA (aka Little Short, aka Lucy Lassik, aka Mrs. Lucy Young)

The niece of Chief Lassik, and the wife of Sam Young, on the Round Valley Reservation in northwestern California - Wailaki - before her death in 1944 at the age of 109.

CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, November 20, 2025

BRETT ADAME, 34, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.

JOSHUA BELL, 44, Fort Bragg. Domestic violence court order violation.

JASON DAVIS, 54, Ukiah. Lewd/lascivious acts upon child under 14, commission of acts with child of 14-15, oral copulation-suspect over 21 & victim under 16, unlawful sexual intercourse with minor-suspect over 21 & victim under 16, possession of obscene matter of minor in sexual act.

ENOCH GUTIERREZ, 26, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JULIO NAJERA-LEON, 33, Elk. Suspended license for DUI, probation violation, parole violation.

NOE PEREZ, 36, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

MICHAEL SANDERS, 24, Oakland. Burglary, grand theft, vandalism, reckless evasion.

ELAINA UNDERHILL, 60, Fort Bragg. Battery with serious injury.

IT WALKS, IT TALKS, IT RIDES THE METRO

Warmest spiritual greetings from Washington, D.C.,

Not Crawling on its Belly Like a Reptile…

Spent the morning going to Whole Foods on H Street to eat and drink coffee, and then took the Metro to check the mail at the post office box at 14th & L. Got back on the Metro and am now at the MLK Jr. public library on a computer. Not identified with the body nor the mind. The nameless formless Absolute utilizes the body-mind complex. It walks, it talks, but does not crawl on its belly like a reptile. I’ve no idea whatsoever what is going to happen in the next five minutes. Feel free to contact me, or else we could just let this world play itself out.

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

“EVEN AT THE TIME—twenty years old—I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born for the pleasure of work, fighting, love, we are born for that and nothing else.”

— Isaac Babel

THE CONSEQUENCES OF REELECTING TRUMP

Editor:

For every action there is a consequence. The action: election of Donald Trump to a second term. A partial list of consequences: defiance of laws and courts; refusal to fund SNAP; stating ICE “didn’t go far enough” in mistreatment of immigrants; mocking women of colors’ intelligence; demolishing the East Wing of the White House; appointing incompetent cronies to Cabinet positions; debasing the office of the presidency; accepting the gift of a plane from Qatar with refurbishing at taxpayer’s expense; a $40 billion bailout of Argentina: attacking and killing perceived drug runners off Venezuela’s coast; pardoning of Jan. 6 insurrectionists; refusal to accept responsibility for own actions. None of these consequences should have been a surprise after the first term of his presidency. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

Maryl Lindahl

Windsor

MURDERERS WELCOME AT THE WHITE HOUSE

To the Editor:

With the warm White House welcome that was afforded Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, the traditional and honorable stance of our country in support of human rights has been further extinguished.

The Saudi regime has been notorious for the denial of rights to women and ruthless crackdowns on dissenters. American intelligence agencies laid blame upon the crown prince for ordering the savage 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident, but the president has exonerated his friend.

President Trump proclaimed that the prince “knew nothing about it,” and Mr. Trump wrote off the killing by saying “things happen.” He also chastised a reporter who asked about Mr. Khashoggi in the prince’s presence.

The president values his deeply intertwined business relationship with the Saudi kingdom above all, so who cares about the life of Mr. Khashoggi or what the Saudi government inflicts upon its citizens? Certainly not this president.

Oren Spiegler

Peters Township, Pa.

LEE MARVIN stood on the set of “The Big Red One” in 1979 holding a prop rifle that felt insultingly light. The producers told him the real M1 Garand was too heavy for long shooting days. Marvin set the prop on the ground and said he would not fake the weight of a weapon he had once carried through the Pacific while men died around him. Everyone went quiet. They had forgotten he was not just an actor. He was a veteran who had earned his scars.

Lee Marvin lived two lives before Hollywood ever knew his name. The first was carved into the volcanic ridges of Saipan in 1944. He served in the Marine Corps, fought in brutal close-range combat, and took machine-gun fire that tore into his sciatic nerve. He spent thirteen months recovering at a naval hospital, walking with pain that never left him. He kept the names of the men he lost written in a small notebook he carried for decades. When he acted in war films, he made sure their memory shaped every frame.

His defiance on “The Big Red One” came from that past. Director Samuel Fuller was also a veteran and wanted truth, not glamor. But the studio pushed for shortcuts. Lighter rifles. Cleaner uniforms. More heroic poses. Marvin refused. He told Fuller, “A soldier looks like he carries weight.” He meant physical weight. He meant memory. He meant the heaviness that never leaves combat survivors. Fuller backed him. The studio relented.

Marvin carried that integrity into every set. During “Point Blank,” he rejected a rewrite that softened his character’s rage. He walked into the writer’s trailer, placed the new pages on the table, and said, “Men like this exist. Tell the truth or do not tell it at all.” The director later said Marvin’s stare felt like a verdict. The script returned to its original grit.

He was equally protective of the actors around him. While filming “Cat Ballou,” he insisted the stunt team get equal safety gear after noticing they were given cheaper padding than the cast. When a producer argued, Marvin threatened to walk. The next morning, every stuntman had upgraded equipment.

People often misunderstood the quiet behind his gravel voice. They thought it was a persona. It was not. It was a Marine who had seen enough death to know bravado was cheap and honesty was rare.

Late in life, when someone asked why he always fought for authenticity, Marvin rested his hand on his old Marine Corps ring and answered with a line that explained everything. “If you have lived the real thing, you do not pretend the real thing.”

NO JUSTICE FOR KHASHOGGI

To the Editor:

At his meeting with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, President Trump repeated Saudi falsehoods about the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi and berated a reporter who asked about it. “You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking something like that,” Mr. Trump said.

But it is the United States that should be embarrassed. Each morning at many schools across the nation, our children repeat the phrase “liberty and justice for all.” Then our president flouts those values, much like the dictator he was hosting.

Mr. Trump and his apologists like to beat their chests and proclaim American greatness. But their actions suggest that we’re no better than any other country. We can lie and cheat with the best of them.

Jonathan Zimmerman

Philadelphia

ESTHER MOBLEY: What I’m reading…

In Sonoma Magazine, John Beck has a nice story about several small Sonoma County wine labels that are launching right now, “undaunted by an industry in decline.”

Cognac has experienced a “recent, stunning” downturn, Clay Risen writes in the New York Times, and this time around celebrity endorsements — even from LeBron James — may not be enough to reverse it.

TRUMP WANTS TO DRILL FOR OIL IN THE PROTECTED MONUMENTS ALONG CALIFORNIA’S COASTLINE

by Kyle Benestad

President Donald Trump ran for reelection on a promise to “drill, baby, drill,” and since being sworn in, he has shown that he intends to follow through.

Recent leaks obtained by the Houston Chronicle detail the Trump administration’s plans to expand oil drilling along the California coast. This revelation spurred fears that the administration would target national marine sanctuaries off the state’s coast.

We are fortunate in California to be home to a strong network of marine protected areas that regulate activities along the coast to protect marine life. In 2000, President Bill Clinton established the California Coastal National Monument, and President Barack Obama twice expanded its boundaries.

Sanctuaries and other protected areas called marine national monuments stand in the way of Trump’s plans to expand oil drilling and other harmful activities in California waters. The leaked plans are part of broader attacks on marine protected areas that deserve our attention.

Marine protected areas limit destructive resource extraction and promote biodiversity, benefiting ecosystems and local communities. Protected areas are defined regions that vary in the degree of protection and how they are created and managed. Monuments, for example, are designated and modified through presidential proclamations. Sanctuaries incorporate significant public input during a complex designation process by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Congress, and are more difficult to modify after they are created. The federal government manages five monuments and 18 sanctuaries, according to NOAA. Four of these monuments and nine sanctuaries are found off the West Coast and in the Pacific Ocean.

In his first term, Trump issued an executive order to review all marine national sanctuaries and monuments, leading to the removal of significant protections. While the current threat is not new, recent attacks on marine protected areas are reflective of a more aggressive and destructive second term. The administration is entering this term with extensive experience eroding ocean protections and a stronger framework for its goals. This time around, they are moving faster and with plans to push legal boundaries.

On April 17, the Trump administration issued two executive actions initiating a review of existing marine national monuments and opening up the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. In response, conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s order and subsequent actions from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

On May 27, the Department of Justice released a legal opinion arguing that, under the Antiquities Act, which gives presidents the power to establish national monuments, presidents can also alter and eliminate monuments. Trump shrunk the sizes and protections of existing monuments in his first term, but did not go as far as seeking their elimination. While the Department of Justice opinion does not hold legal power, it still establishes a framework to secure that power.

If the first several months of Trump’s second term are indicative of what is to come, we should expect unusual and possibly illegal efforts to remove ocean protections and engage in destructive marine activities like oil drilling.

But on Aug. 8, a U.S. district judge in Hawaii ruled that commercial fishing could not continue in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. The judge’s ruling effectively nullified the immediate implementation of Trump’s executive order, arguing that legally required public engagement did not occur in the rulemaking process. While this victory gives hope for marine conservation, the fight will continue as future executive orders are brought to court.

In Trump’s first term, it took seven months for a review of monuments and sanctuaries before there were public recommendations for the removal of some protections. We can expect similar recommendations soon, but we should also be prepared for new, more aggressive sweeping attacks.

Project 2025, considered to be a policy framework for Trump’s second term, reveals what else we can expect. The conservative playbook calls for another review of monuments, reductions in their size and the repealing of the Antiquities Act. Further rollbacks of ocean protections are almost certain. All these observations and expectations are reflective of an administration that is dedicated to the consolidation of executive power and the weakening of democratic processes.

But this does not mean that we should be without hope. Conservation groups will continue to challenge the Trump administration in court. I urge the people of California to engage with marine conservation and to pressure representatives to pursue legislation that strengthens protections for threatened areas and limits executive power to eliminate national monuments.

Although it would be difficult to do so under the current administration, the pursuit of sanctuary designations in addition to monument designations could improve the resilience of marine protected areas. Sanctuaries are more difficult to establish, but are also more difficult than monuments to alter and remove protections from. As future executive orders are issued, rulemaking processes will have opportunities for public comment. Make your voice heard, find support with like-minded individuals and groups, and advocate for our oceans. The California coast depends on our organizing and collective action to defend it.

(Kyle Benestad is a UC Davis graduate student studying environmental policy and management.)

IN 1915, when I was nineteen, I fought Johnny Sudenberg ten rounds in the wild mining town of Goldfield, Nevada. I was in there with a good fighter, one much better than I was, but I took the fight because I was dead broke and my manager of the moment, Jack Gilfeather, had been able to jimmy a $100 guarantee because Sudenberg's scheduled opponent had taken a runout.

Sudenberg almost killed me. For two rounds it was a fight. For the next eight I was a helpless, bIood-soaked punching bag. It was the worst beating of my life. I don't remember going down once because I still don't remember the last three or four rounds.

Coldfield was a tough town. A stranger who got his brains knocked out in Goldfield was no rarity. So they dumped me into a wheelbarrow and some Samaritan pushed me through the hilly streets. He threw me on the bunk in my 'home', a cave in the side of a hill.

I woke up at three o'clock the next afternoon - nearly twenty hours after I'd been wheelbarrowed 'home.' Everything hurt, of course. But I was young, and I was hungry. I stumbled over to the saloon where Gilfeather hung out, to collect my share of the purse. I asked where I could find Gilfeather.

A bartender said, 'He left town last night, kid. He got drunk and blew his wad shooting crąps.' I had been damn near killed for nothing. I was broke and starving. It was the lowest point of my entire life. And, for the first time in my life, I longed for my childhood, tough as it was.

— Jack Dempsey

STACK O' LEE BLUES

Police officer, how can it be?
You can 'rest everybody but cruel Stack O' Lee
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

Billy de Lyon told Stack O' Lee, "Please don't take my life
I got two little babies, and a darlin' lovin' wife"
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

"What I care about your 2 little babies, your darlin' lovin' wife?
You done stole my Stetson hat, I'm bound to take your life"
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

Boom boom, boom boom, with the forty-four
When I spied Billy de Lyon, he was lyin' down on the floor
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

"Gentleman's of the jury, what do you think of that?
Stack O' Lee killed Billy de Lyon about a five-dollar Stetson hat"
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

Standing on the gallows, head way up high
At twelve o'clock they killed him, they's all glad to see him die
That bad man, oh, cruel Stack O' Lee

— Mississippi John Hurt (1928)

ANTHONY BOURDAIN:

The dangerous times when you are traveling around are often not military situations, they’re desperately poor countries where you are in a public market for instance and you have a cameraman walking backwards through crowds. There are desperately poor uninformed people, where that camera represents a year’s pay or more and their family will eat tonight. Your cameraman steps on one toe, someone across the room yells CIA and points at you and suddenly things get bad.

Though one of the most dangerous TV shoot we’ve ever done—Libya got bad quickly. We had security advisors on that show, and on day two, they wake us at 1 a.m. to say pack up, get your passports. Every day it was this bang bang bang, get up! in the middle of the night. … We couldn't shoot anywhere more than 20 minutes safely. Anyone with a cell phone was a problem. We ultimately hired this young, adorable militia (for additional security). Just getting me to the airport and out of the country was an accomplishment.

"I READ SOMEWHERE that my heroes are neurotic. But they forget that life in this world is dirty. And they usually call a neurotic man when things get tough. The bull is a neurotic type on the wheel, although a healthy type on the prairie; that's what it's all about."

— Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to Ilya Ehrenbu

IF SOMEONE TELLS ME that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, “I’m still waiting to hear what your point is.” I’m very depressed how in this country you can be told, “That’s offensive!” as if those two words constitute an argument. Those who are determined to be “offended” will always discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt. I have one consistency, which is being against the totalitarian – on the left and on the right. The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy; the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

— Christopher Hitchens

DANA WILLIAMSON’S INDICTMENT REVEALS A HIDDEN WORLD OF POLITICAL OPERATIVES

by Dan Walters

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff, Dana Williamson, exits the Robert T. Matsui Federal Courthouse in Sacramento after her arraignment on Nov. 12, 2025. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters

Most Californians probably see the Capitol as a place where governors, legislators and other state officials gather to do the public’s business. That’s true, at least superficially.

Elected officeholders come and go, but the Capitol has a permanent substructure of men and women who do the real, if often hidden, business of retail politics. Those in the “community,” as some dub it, constantly circulate among its three pillars — staff on the public payroll, lobbyists for interest groups, and managers of political campaigns.

It’s not uncommon for someone to have portfolios in all three. And as the revolving door opens and closes, it’s difficult to discern when and where one role ends and another begins, or even whether there is, in fact, a difference.

Dana Williamson typifies the species. And her arrest last week on federal criminal charges opens a window into the secretive world of California’s professional political operatives.

The 23-count indictment alleges Williamson — who had been Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff until her abrupt resignation a year ago — conspired with two other Sacramento figures to siphon money from a dormant political campaign fund maintained by Xavier Becerra, a former congressman, state attorney general and Biden administration cabinet member.

Williamson is also charged with falsifying documents to justify a COVID-era federal business loan, lying to FBI agents and falsely claiming income tax deductions as business expenses — for a lavish vacation and purchases of expensive designer goods.

The two men who were charged with Williamson, Sean McCluskie, Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California Department of Justice, and lobbyist Greg Campbell, have pleaded guilty. But Williamson insists that she is innocent.

It’s the juiciest scandal to hit the Capitol since the FBI’s undercover bribery investigation, dubbed “Shrimpgate,” erupted 37 years ago and sent some legislators and lobbyists to prison.

Among the Capitol’s power players, Williamson has stood near the top, working for three governors, lobbying for various interest groups and running ballot measure campaigns. She is known for a profanity-laced, take-no-prisoners style.

After Williamson was arrested, the question for many Capitol denizens was whether the case would adversely affect Becerra, who is running for governor, and Newsom, who is obviously, if not officially, running for president.

Becerra is a victim but may face questions about his judgment, since he was apparently being fleeced by those he hired.

Newsom’s office says Williamson resigned a year ago after telling him she was under investigation. At the time, he praised her as a dedicated public servant.

If there is something in the case that could harm Newsom, or at least give political rivals some ammunition, it is what happened shortly after Williamson became the governor’s top aide in 2023. According to the indictment, she used the position to intercede in a pending state discrimination suit against one of her lobbying clients, Activision Blizzard, a Santa Monica video game company, and then lied to FBI agents about the case.

In 2022 Janette Wipper, chief counsel of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which brought the case against Activision, was fired. Her assistant, Melanie Proctor, resigned in protest, citing pressure from the governor’s office to settle the case.

Proctor wrote in a public memo that the governor’s office “repeatedly demanded advance notice of litigation strategy and next steps in the litigation” in the case, and the interference “mimicked the interests of Activision’s counsel.”

The Williamson scandal could be a one-and-done incident if her attorney negotiates a plea agreement. Or it could drag out if she insists on a trial and the dirty linen is displayed for all to see, perhaps revealing even more politically embarrassing episodes of backroom maneuvers.

(CalMatters.org)

A GUIDE TO THE ABSOLUTELY LUDICROUS SCANDAL INVOLVING A JOURNALIST AND HER AFFAIR WITH RFK JR.

by Drew Magary

I already feel terrible for introducing you to Olivia Nuzzi. You’re just trying to go about your life as best you can, without having to hear about yet another awful person doing yet another awful thing. That’s your right as an American, to live in tranquility. Or at least, it was at one point.

Unfortunately, the ascension of Donald Trump has all but destroyed the chance for any of us to find shelter in the shitstorm. Not only must you and I hear about Trump every waking second, but you must also constantly hear about all of the side players in his orbit: your Gorkas, your Thiels, etc. Thus, the name “Nuzzi” has likely crossed by your eyeballs at some point already. Like the people I’ve already mentioned here, Nuzzi is a horrible, needy opportunist who thinks that her problems deserve to be the world’s problem. But few other characters in the Trump age have left as much personal wreckage as this woman. Even fewer have been able to mine that wreckage to secure a new book deal AND garner lavish spreads from two prominent media outlets, as Nuzzi has this week. If you’re a bit… fuzzi… on the details (that pun doesn’t even work, but I had to make it in lieu of taking a stiff drink), let me get you caught up as best I can.

Q: Who is Olivia Nuzzi? 

A: Nuzzi is a 32-year-old political correspondent who got her first big break in 2013 when the New York Daily News gave one of her stories a front cover slot. Then just a 20-year-old student at Fordham, Nuzzi sold the NYDN an inside chronicle of her time working as a campaign intern for disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. The story, like Weiner, grew big in a hurry.

Q: OMG! Anthony Weiner! I remember him! Sydney Leathers! 

A: Yes, he was the guy who sexted with Sydney Leathers. Anyway, Nuzzi’s career got fast-tracked after her Weiner expose went national. She dropped out of college for a writing gig for the Daily Beast. In 2017, she was tapped to fill a newly created national D.C. correspondent position for New York magazine. By that time, Trump was president, and a cottage industry of reporters quickly sprung up around him to record his every disgrace. Nuzzi was one of those reporters. Like Katy Tur, Jim Acosta and a handful of other poor souls who had the stomach for it, Nuzzi did her time in the muck. Unlike the other people I just mentioned, Nuzzi became so embedded in the muck that it became difficult to tell whether she was reporting on the machine, or simply part of it.

Q: (Jules Winnfield voice) Example.

A: Well, she wrote this needlessly evenhanded profile of alt-right troll Mike Cernovich. Later into Trump’s first term, Nuzzi admitted to being chums with professional bigot Milo Yiannopoulos, but clarified that was only when Milo was “a silly troll.” (Three years before Nuzzi made this excuse, Yiannopoulos was one of the leaders of the GamerGate harassment campaign against female journalists). Oh, and she publicly campaigned to become best friends with Ann Coulter, another professional bigot. But Nuzzi got enough decent copy from her sources that the magazine turned a blind eye to those warning signs. If the bosses at New York suspected that Nuzzi was growing far too cozy with her sources, they didn’t seem to care.

Q: So Nuzzi got cozier.

A: Enough to make you want to take a daylong cold shower, yes.

Q: Spill it.

A: First off, Nuzzi started up a relationship with then-New Yorker political insider Ryan Lizza around the same time he got divorced. Then Lizza was fired from that magazine for an undisclosed act of sexual misconduct, slinking over to Politico afterward. Lizza left his family and got engaged to Nuzzi, content to forever s—t where he ate. They would never marry.

Q: Why?

A: Because Nuzzi got horny with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Q: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. 

A: Ew.

Q: Do I really wanna know more about this?

A: No turning back now. Last year, New York fired Nuzzi for having “a personal relationship” with one of her subjects. The subject in question turned out to be fucking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the dead whale head collector. The magazine then commissioned an independent investigation into the matter that concluded, hilariously, that Nuzzi’s reporting on her secret lover included “no inaccuracies nor evidence of bias.” RFK’s team did damage control by saying that Nuzzi cyberforced herself on Kennedy and repeatedly sent him sexy pictures of herself, even when he tried to block her from doing so. For her part, Nuzzi claims that RFK sexted her back (sexy!), and that their sexts represented the totality of their relationship. They were in love, Nuzzi recounts, but never actually did it.

Q: Do you believe her?

A: Given RFK’s romantic history, no. This guy would fuck JD Vance’s couch, he’s so hard up all the time. So why would he pass on sleeping with a statuesque blonde woman 40 years his junior? Because it’s wrong? HA! I don’t believe any of the principals in this story, nor should you. There’s more money in lying than in truth these days, and all of these people are shameless enough to capitalize on that fact.

So capitalize Nuzzi did. After a brief time in limbo, Nuzzi reemerged this year as the new West Coast editor for Vanity Fair magazine. She also came armed with a new memoir of the RFK non-romance, complete with the ludicrously self-important title, “American Canto.” A media blitz quickly followed. The New York Times published a lengthy profile of Nuzzi, including glam shots of her in her new hometown of Malibu. Nuzzi’s new employer also just published an excerpt from “Canto,” giving Nuzzi’s book the classic ex-Trump orbit member treatment. Throughout this press tour, Nuzzi has maintained that she was in honest-to-God love with our nation’s leading anti-vaxxer, and that he was in love with her. Which is funny, given that Nuzzi was still engaged to Ryan Lizza at the time of the sexts.

Q: Oh right! I forgot about him!

A: So did Nuzzi. Not one to sit out a good content cycle, Lizza has used Nuzzi’s posh second coming as a chance to blow up her spot.

Q: Did he?

A: Ohhhhhh boy, did he ever. On Monday, Lizza posted the first in a series of journal entries about how Nuzzi betrayed him. The opening salvo details how Lizza found out that his then-fiancée was stepping out on him with one of her reporting subjects. You think he’s talking about RFK Jr. all throughout this piece, but then Lizza ends with an all-timer of a twist:

“I called my agent. ‘We have a big problem,’ I said. ‘Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford’.”

Everyone working in media is now dying for Part II to drop.

Q: Wait, Mark Sanford?? The Appalachian Trail guy?

A: Yes. The former South Carolina governor who said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was really paying a visit to his mistress in Argentina. That guy. And while I warned you that no one in this story is credible, the circumstantial evidence isn’t good for Nuzzi. Because she profiled Sanford. And after that profile dropped and a reader noted that Sanford looked happy, Nuzzi replied, “I tend to have that effect.” Draw your own conclusions from there.

Q: My God! SHE is the Anthony Weiner in this story!

A: If Weiner was more Instagram-genic, yes.

Q: So why does any of this matter, apart from the salacious entertainment of it all?

A: Because just like RFK, and Bari Weiss, and even Trump himself, Nuzzi has failed upward so many times that she has now established herself as an inescapable fixture in our cultural landscape. You won’t be able to avoid her going forward. So it’s my duty to make you aware of her, and of her fellow ideological grifters. Because knowledge is just about the only power that you and I have left. And Nuzzi, along with her former sexting buddy, doesn’t want you to have any of it.

(SFGate.com)

“AN OLD MAN with no destiny with our never knowing who he was, or what he was like, or even if he was only a figment of the imagination, a comic tyrant who never knew where the reverse side was and where the right of this life which we loved with an insatiable passion that you never dared even to imagine out of the fear of knowing what we knew only too well that it was arduous and ephemeral but there wasn't any other, general, because we knew who we were while he was left never knowing it forever with the soft whistle of his rupture of a dead old man cut off at the roots by the slash of death, flying through the dark sound of the last frozen leaves of his autumn toward the homeland of shadows of the truth of oblivion, clinging to his fear of the rotting cloth of death's hooded cassock and alien to the clamor of the frantic crowds who took to the streets singing hymns of joy at the jubilant news of his death and alien forevermore to the music of liberation and the rockets of jubilation and the bells of glory that announced to the world the good news that the uncountable time of eternity had come to an end.”

― Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT

Trump and Mamdani Are Meeting for the First Time. Will They Play Nice?

Trump Accuses Democrats of Sedition, ‘Punishable by Death,’ Over Message to the Military

Trump Plans to Open More Than a Billion Acres of U.S. Waters to Drilling

Coast Guard Says Swastika and Noose Displays Are No Longer Hate Incidents

Zelensky Says Ukraine Ready to ‘Honestly’ Engage With U.S. Peace Plan

Netflix, Comcast and Paramount Submit Warner Bros. Discovery Bids

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Right-wingers in general, and particularly right-wing Zionists, have spent years fostering animosity toward the Other--toward immigrants, toward queer people, and particularly toward Muslims. And now they act shocked that the chickens have come home to roost, and some people on the Right have started to say, "Hey, how come we can be critical of every other minority group, but not Jews, too?"

2015 Golden Globes After Party: (l-r) Taylor Swift, Este Haim, Jaime King, Harvey Weinstein, and Lorde.

THE EPSTEIN EMAILS REVEAL THE SLIMY MORAL DEPRAVITY OF ELITE SOCIETY

by Carl Gibson

Comedian George Carlin had a famous quote from a set he performed toward the end of his career: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

The latest tranche of emails from deceased child predator Jeffrey Epstein are damning in more ways than one. Obviously, the most horrifying thing about them is Epstein’s cavalier attitude toward his monstrous crimes. There are numerous examples in the searchable database created by Yale School of Management professor Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, but one particular email from 2014 stands out. When former Obama White House counsel and Goldman Sachs partner Kathy Ruemmler lamented to Epstein that “most girls don’t have to deal with this crap” in reference to a professional dispute, Epstein responded with “girls? Careful I will renew an old habit.”

However, the second-worst element of these emails—which are all from well after Epstein pleaded guilty to sex crimes in 2008 and was required to register as a sex offender—is just how many members of elite society knowingly associated with and befriended a convicted pedophile. Virtually every facet of the upper echelons of American society is represented in the emails, from legacy media to academia, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Washington DC. Their casual and warm tone toward Epstein shows that there are apparently no depths to which elites will sink in order to advance their careers.

While President Donald Trump’s associations with Epstein are obviously the biggest news item from the House Oversight Committee’s newest email release (including Epstein calling Trump “that dog that hasn’t barked” who “knew about the girls”), the less-discussed element is just how deeply intertwined Epstein was with some of the biggest names in both politics and big business. The credibility of elite American institutions took a major hit in the latest Epstein emails, and the fact that there is still so much evidence pertaining to Epstein being withheld from the public by the Department of Justice (DOJ) means these emails may just be the tip of the iceberg.

Elites’ warmth toward Epstein was apparently universal Epstein was a “serial emailer,” according to The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel, who emailed as often as most people send text messages or post to social media. And his rolodex included top members of both political parties and decision-makers at numerous publicly traded companies.

It’s important to note that not all of the people Epstein emailed have been charged with or convicted of crimes (though some have, like former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon) and that the emails—while shocking—are not by themselves enough to convict anyone of a crime. And some mentioned in the emails, like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, have advocated for the full release of the Epstein files in order to prove their innocence (Hoffman said his lone association with Epstein was in the context of fundraising for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Other emails, however, are damning all on their own. Former New York Times financial reporter Landon Thomas maintained a friendly tone with Epstein between 2015 and 2018. Emails show him giving Epstein advice on how to rehabilitate his reputation, and even tipping him off about a journalist “digging around again.” In December of 2015, Epstein asked Thomas in his signature style of lowercase letters and sometimes frequent spelling errors “would you like photos of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?” Thomas responded affirmatively, but also told Epstein that he wouldn’t personally write about it and that Epstein should shop the photos around to other reporters.

Thomas maintained as recently as November of 2025 that Epstein was a “longstanding and productive source.” For its part, the Times has yet to elaborate on what it knew about Trump and Epstein, and how long the paper sat on that knowledge while writing dozens of stories about 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email server and former President Joe Biden’s age. A recent article about the newest Epstein emails by New York Times White House correspondent Shawn McCreesh had a noticeably fond tone lamenting about “a lost Manhattan power scene.”

“[The emails] depict the twilight of an old guard made up of Wall Street billionaires, media-industry heavyweights, politicians and old-money socialites, many of whom gathered at Mr. Epstein’s seven-story townhouse on the Upper East Side—a mansion that one guest, Woody Allen, compared to Dracula’s castle,” McCreesh wrote.

Epstein was also on close enough terms with former Obama and Clinton administration official (and former Harvard University president) Larry Summers for Summers to lament about women to the convicted child sex trafficker. The Times reported that Summers once sent an email he received from a woman in November of 2018 and then commented: “think no response for a while probably appropriate.” Epstein responded with “She’s already beginning to sound needy nice.”

“I’m trying to figure why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank,” Summers wrote in a 2017 email, before telling Epstein “DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”

Steve Bannon was also a regular in Epstein’s inbox, both before and after his time as Trump’s White House chief strategist during his first term. In one series of emails from late September of 2018, Epstein is seen advising Bannon on how to attack Christine Blasey Ford, who accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party. Epstein sent Bannon a 2015 article about medications that have been associated with memory loss. Bannon replied with “is this a hint” to which Epstein responded “duh.”

That same year, Epstein exchanged emails with former DOJ independent counsel Kenneth Starr (famous for authoring the Starr Report that accused then-President Bill Clinton of perjury) who mentored Kavanaugh. Epstein was hoping to help an unnamed friend with a sexual misconduct allegation, and Starr offered to introduce Epstein to Yale University law professor Jed Rubenfeld, and ended his email to the convicted pedophile with “Hugs, Ken.”

Just two years prior to that email exchange, Starr was fired as president of Baylor Universityfor covering up sexual assault allegations on campus. And in 2020, Yale placed Rubenfeld on leave amid his own sexual misconduct allegations. And as further proof that the world Epstein inhabited was so small, Rubenfeld is married to Yale law professor Amy Chua, who mentored eventual Vice President JD Vance.

Other emails are more innocuous, though still merit further investigation. One cryptic 2014 email Epstein sent Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel (who also bankrolled Vance’s 2022 US Senate campaign to the tune of $15 million) simply reads: “That was fun, see you in 3 weeks.” and on June 30, 2019 — roughly 40 days before Epstein was found dead in his prison cell—Epstein sent an email to himself with the subject line “list for Bannon Steve” with numerous names listed.

The context of those names remains unknown and the list itself is rife with typos, but several names are noticeable. The list mentions “thiel,” “leahy,” schumer,” “summers,” “prince andrews,” “clinton,” and “rockefeller,” among others. The “prince andrews” Epstein mentioned could be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was recently stripped of all royal titles. Andrew’s expulsion from the British Royal Family came after Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre detailed a time in her posthumously published memoir when Epstein and his chief accomplice, Ghisliane Maxwell, forced her to have sex with Andrew when she was 17 years old.

Trump has even more lingering Epstein questions to answer Trump biographer Michael Wolff—who was also seen on friendly terms with Epstein in the Oversight Committee’s latest release—has maintained that he personally saw Polaroid photos of Trump with several topless young women on his lap. Wolff said Epstein kept the photos in a safe, and fanned them out on his dining room table “like a deck of cards.” The author said he was visiting Epstein’s home at his invitation, as Epstein was hoping that Wolff would write a book about him.

Epstein had bragged in the past about how he and Trump were best friends for more than a decade. Trump referred to Epstein as a “terrific guy” who was “a lot of fun to be with” in a 2002 interview with New York Magazine. He famously said Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” The two later had a falling out sometime between 2004 and 2007. The Trump White House has repeatedly said that Trump revoked Epstein’s Mar-a-Lago membership because he was a “pedophile” and a “creep.” Trump himself said Epstein “stole” young women from Mar-a-Lago’s spa, including Giuffre.

The facts of Epstein and Trump’s falling out remain murky, however, as the newest emails show Epstein was apparently with Trump on Thanksgiving Day in 2017, during Trump’s first term in the White House. While emailing with Faith Kates (co-founder of NEXT Model Management) on November 23, 2017, Epstein told her he was spending Thanksgiving with “eva,” which USA TODAY reports is likely a reference to Epstein’s former girlfriend, Eva Andersson-Dubin, who is married to hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin (Kates exclaimed over the “red hair” on “glenn” in the exchange). When Kates asked Epstein who else he was with, Epstein responded: “david fizel. hanson. trump.” David Fiszel is a co-founder of the hedge fund Honeycomb Asset Management. It’s unknown who “hanson” is, but the mention of “trump” means that Epstein may have been at Mar-a-Lago, where CNN reported Trump spent November 23, 2017.

In the same exchange that the Times’ Landon Thomas had with Epstein where the convicted pedophile mentioned having compromising photos of Trump, Epstein sent Thomas a link to an article about Norwegian heir Celina Midelfart, referring to her as “my 20 year old girlfriend I had in 93, that after two years i gave to donald.” Trump and Midelfart were dating in 1998, when the eventual president first met Melania Trump (nÃ©e Knauss) at New York’s Kit Kat Club.

Epstein also mentioned “hawaian tropic girl Lauren Petrella” to Thomas after the two discussed the photos of Trump and “girls in bikinis.” Petrella was mentioned in a now-withdrawn lawsuit by New York City-based makeup artist Jill Harth, who accused Trump of sexual misconduct in 1993. Petrella—a contestant in a Trump-sponsored beauty pageant who was staying at Mar-a-Lago at Trump’s invitation along with other contestants—accused Trump of showing up uninvited in her room (which was Ivanka Trump’s childhood bedroom, according to Harth).

“You said you don’t sleep with men on the first date,” Trump allegedly said. “Now it’s the second date, and here I am.”

Epstein is dead and many of his secrets may have died with him. But should Democrats reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives after the 2026 midterms, they could issue subpoenas to Dubin and Fiszel, and ask them if they indeed spent Thanksgiving 2017 with Trump and Epstein at Mar-a-Lago. Kates could also be subpoenaed on her connections to Epstein, given her association with NEXT Model Management co-founder Jean-Luc Brenel, who died by suicide in his Paris prison cell in 2022 while awaiting trial for Epstein-related sex crimes.

Regardless of how any Epstein-related investigations proceed, it’s clear that the true depths of Trump’s closeness to the convicted child predator have yet to be plumbed. Connor Ewing, who is a University of Toronto assistant professor of political science, posted to Bluesky that it was “important to remember” that “if the worst of the Epstein stuff had already been released, there would be no reason for Trump to keep fighting it.”

“If he’s trying to stop it, there’s a reason why,” Ewing added.

Prior to her death by suicide in April of this year, Virginia Giuffre said Trump never forced himself on her or did anything untoward while in her presence. And to date, none of the materials released to the public suggest Trump personally committed any crimes in Epstein’s presence. However, the newest batch of emails suggest that Epstein had some form of incriminating knowledge about Trump, writing in 2018 that he was “the one able to take him down.”

Michael Wolff told Epstein in 2016 that he would soon be interviewing then-candidate Trump and asked for advice on types of questions to ask him. Epstein referenced the now-defunct “Trump Shuttle” airline that folded in 1992, and said that questions about a casino bankruptcy could prove to be “provocative.”

In June of 2019, Epstein’s accountant emailed him to let him know that while President Trump’s financial disclosure forms were “100 pages of nonsense,” he said he had “interesting findings” relating to Trump’s income, debts, and charitable foundation. Epstein’s response to that email has not yet been made public, nor the reason why he asked his accountant to probe Trump’s finances.

All of these lingering questions are all the more reason the DOJ needs to release all of the remaining evidence pertaining to Epstein that it continues to keep under lock and key. ABC News reported in July that the FBI’s categorized index of Epstein evidence includes “40 computers and electronic devices, 26 storage drives, more than 70 CDs and six recording devices” containing “more than 300 gigabytes of data.” There are also “approximately 60 pieces of physical evidence, including photographs, travel logs, employee lists, more than $17,000 in cash, five massage tables, blueprints of Epstein’s island and Manhattan home, four busts of female body parts, a pair of women’s cowboy boots and one stuffed dog.”

Perhaps most interestingly, the FBI has in its possession a “logbook” of visitors to Epstein’s “Little Saint James” island, which housed his private compound, along with a record of boat trips to and from the island. There is also a list described as a “document with names,” which could potentially be the rumored “Epstein client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi said does not exist.

As long as Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel continue to sit on this evidence, it’s incumbent on Congress to pass the discharge petition compelling the DOJ to release it. Not only so Epstein’s victims can have justice, but so there can finally be accountability for Epstein’s associates and accomplices.

(Occupy.com)

*The Tribe of Asher* (1964) by Marc Chagall

TEMPORARY MEASURES

by Zinaida Miller

The map of Palestine has been shrinking for decades. On 9 October, a ceasefire was declared in Gaza and Israeli forces redeployed to a new ‘Yellow Line’ that cleaves off more than half the territory into an Israeli-controlled zone. At least 93 Palestinians were killed in the first six days of the ceasefire for approaching or crossing the line.

The Yellow Line is supposed to be temporary, but history suggests otherwise. Under ostensibly transient arrangements, Israel has annexed Palestinian land, displaced large numbers of people and expanded its control. Each time, Palestinians are told to wait for the next stage of the plan, while Israel’s gains become the baseline for the next round of negotiations. And the waiting never ends. Each phase is temporary, but every loss is permanent.

Under international law, military occupation must be temporary to be legal. Israel has occupied the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, claiming that the occupation would end when its security was guaranteed. Yet, as the International Court of Justice has found, both the length of time that Israel has held the territory and its unlawful actions in establishing settlements there reveal an illegal agenda for permanent annexation.

The largest reorganization of Palestinian governance since 1967 took place under the auspices of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s. The model launched there – temporary, limited Palestinian autonomy as a transition towards an ever-unrealized sovereignty – borrowed from the negotiations that followed the 1978 Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt. As Seth Anziska has written, there is a direct line from the failed negotiations over Palestinian autonomy in the early 1980s to the truncated version of self-governance created by Oslo.

Signed in 1993, the first Oslo Accord was designed to be superseded within five years. An interim Palestinian Authority would govern Palestinians and co-ordinate security with Israel. International aid was indispensable. The map dividing the West Bank into Areas A, B and C gave Israel formal control over most of the territory while the Palestinian Authority took on the traditional duties of the occupier to provide for the welfare of the occupied population. The most critical issues – borders, settlements, Jerusalem and refugees – were deferred till undefined ‘final status’ talks.

Oslo was sold as a half-step towards peace, with the other half to come through further negotiation. Instead, Israel took a full step unilaterally, building more settlements and checkpoints across the West Bank and Gaza. The arrangements were not static – settlements grew, violence flared, the PA lost legitimacy – but neither were they transient. Thirty years later, discussion still revolves around ‘reviving the peace process’ rather than ending the occupation that Oslo was meant to replace.

In 2005, Israel disengaged from Gaza. It withdrew its settlers and troops and claimed that it therefore no longer occupied the territory despite still controlling its borders, airspace and waters. It also closed Gaza off from the world, claiming this was necessary for its own security. The isolation was framed as temporary, to be lifted once Hamas left or the rockets stopped – in other words, ending the Israeli siege was supposedly up to the Palestinians. It lasted until the attacks of 7 October 2023, after which it was replaced by a genocidal assault.

Palestinians now face yet another hollow promise of temporary governance. Nearly 60 per cent of Gaza is behind the Yellow Line, under direct Israeli control. Further withdrawal depends on Palestinian disarmament and an international force with a very vague mandate. A UN Security Council resolution adopted on Monday says that an international ‘Board of Peace’ will administer Gaza ‘until such time as the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program’. The language of trusteeship, self-improvement and conditional self-governance carries an eerie echo of Mandatory rule. Meanwhile, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza is contingent on Palestinian behavior rather than its own legal obligations.

As Diana Buttu has observed, it is extraordinary for the victims of a genocide to be required to negotiate its end with the perpetrators. In any case what is being negotiated is not an end but a transformation: from one supposedly temporary governance framework to another. Not for the first time, large-scale, spectacular violence has been paused, to be replaced with a form of transitional rule. The new arrangement re-entrenches different forms of violence – dispossession, displacement, slow destruction – under cover of being provisional, with permanent advantages for Israel and permanent transition for Palestinians.

(London Review of Books)

*House by the Railroad* (1925) by Edward Hopper

EDWARD HOPPER AND THE HOUSE BY THE RAILROAD

Out here in the exact middle of the day,
This strange, gawky house has the expression
Of someone being stared at, someone holding
His breath underwater, hushed and expectant;

This house is ashamed of itself, ashamed
Of its fantastic mansard rooftop
And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed
of its shoulders and large, awkward hands.

But the man behind the easel is relentless.
He is as brutal as sunlight, and believes
The house must have done something horrible
To the people who once lived here

Because now it is so desperately empty,
It must have done something to the sky
Because the sky, too, is utterly vacant
And devoid of meaning. There are no

Trees or shrubs anywhere--the house
Must have done something against the earth.
All that is present is a single pair of tracks
Straightening into the distance. No trains pass.

Now the stranger returns to this place daily
Until the house begins to suspect
That the man, too, is desolate, desolate
And even ashamed. Soon the house starts

To stare frankly at the man. And somehow
The empty white canvas slowly takes on
The expression of someone who is unnerved,
Someone holding his breath underwater.

And then one day the man simply disappears.
He is a last afternoon shadow moving
Across the tracks, making its way
Through the vast, darkening fields.

This man will paint other abandoned mansions,
And faded cafeteria windows, and poorly lettered
Storefronts on the edges of small towns.
Always they will have this same expression,

The utterly naked look of someone
Being stared at, someone American and gawky.
Someone who is about to be left alone
Again, and can no longer stand it.

— Edward Hirsch (1995)

Frederick Douglass (circa 1879) by George Kendall Warren

THE POLITICAL, THE PERSONAL AND THE POLEMICAL: ERIC FONER ON FREEDOM

by Jonah Raskin

“The past is the key to the present and the mirror of the future.”
— Robert G. Fitzgerald (1840-1919), free African American and a founder of the Freedom Bureau’s schools in North Carolina quoted in Foner’s Our Fragile Freedoms.

“We’re all fighting over what it means to be an American right now,” Oscar-winning actress and Hollywood producer Jennifer Lawrence, the star of The Hunger Games and Winter’s Bone, recently observed. If Lawrence sees it, who doesn’t? It’s everywhere. The fight she has in mind—call it a chapter in the ongoing culture wars — has been waged in the streets of LA and Chicago, in courtrooms, classrooms, the workplace, homes and in the pages of newspapers and magazines.

How will it end? That’s not clear. It might end with more democratic socialists elected to public office, or it might end with a conflagration engineered by Trump & Co. We the people will have a say in how it plays out.

Not many American historians have joined the fray with more gusto and integrity than Eric Foner, a professor emeritus at Columbia University—which recently knuckled under to Trump and mangled the cause and the practice of academic freedom.

Foner is the author of more than two-dozen books, including biographies of Tom Paine, Nat Turner and Abraham Lincoln, as well as comprehensive studies of Reconstruction, the Civil War, the underground railroad and two aptly titled volumes, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World and Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History. A student of historiography and the study of history, as well as history itself, Foner would like yet another American Revolution, one which would fulfill the promise of Reconstruction when Blacks held public office and the nation made strides toward equality until a counterrevolution came along and installed Jim Crow.

Our Fragile Freedoms, Foner’s latest book, brings together topical and timely essays reprinted from The Nation, The London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. They originally appeared in print from 1992 to 2024, many of them from the second decade of the twenty-first century. They are still fresh.

Insights and electrifying observations abound. In the introduction, Foner echoes and endorses a quotation from Thomas Wentworth Higgginson—the commander of a unit of African American soldiers in the Civil War. “Revolutions may go backward,” Wentworth wisely observed. Foner explains that Americans suffer from “amnesia” as well as ignorance about the past. He reminds readers that contrary to popular belief, “segregation was not enshrined in law until the 1890s.” That’s useful to know.

The first essay, chronologically speaking, is about Richard Hofstadter, the author of the classic, The American Political Tradition, a longtime Columbia Professor and, along with James P. Shenton, one of Foner’s mentors.

Foner explains that Hofstadter joined the American Communist Party in 1938, remained a member briefly, then abandoned the left in 1939 and withdrew from all active politics in 1952 when Adlai Stevenson lost the race for the White House to Eisenhower. “I can no longer describe myself as a radical, though I don’t consider myself to be a conservative either,” Hofstadter told his brother-in-law, the lefty novelist Harvey Swados, the author of Out Went the Candle, Standing Fast and a collection of stories titled Nights in the Gardens of Brooklyn. Other lefties took the path Hofstadter took and helped to purge radicals and radicalism from academia.

In his essay on C. Van Woodward— the author of The Strange Case of Jim Crow, who aimed to prevent the historian and Communist Party member Herbert Aptheker from teaching at Yale— Foner notes that “most historians are not very introspective and lead uneventful lives, making things difficult for the aspiring biographer.” As long as I have known Foner, which goes back to the late 1950s, when we were both undergraduates at Columbia, Foner has mostly not been introspective.

But it would not be fair to say that he has led an uneventful life. In 1960, he and I created a campus political party called Action, which was meant to lift students out of apathy. We campaigned against the House Un-American Activities Committee, sponsored a concert by Pete Seeger, who was then blacklisted, and hosted a talk at Columbia by Benjamin Davis, an African American and a member of the American Communist Party, who was banned from speaking at City College.

We also lampooned Governor Rockefeller’s fallout shelter program, a real boondoggle that would have done little or nothing to protect citizens in a nuclear war.

Foner was, and still is in some ways, a child of the early 1960s, the era of the Civil Rights Movement and before the advent of Black Power. At the very end of an essay titled “Chicago, 1968,” in which he mentions my biography of Abbie Hoffman (Foner wrote the introduction to that volume), he asks, “When did the decade of the Sixties end? Did it end at all?” He adds, “We sometimes seem to be reliving those years that did so much to shape the world we live in.”

It’s characteristic that he asks a question about the Sixties and doesn’t make a blanket assertion one way or another about the era, and that he offers the phrase “sometimes seem” rather than state something more definitive. I think I understand where he’s coming from. After all, when the Chinese Communist leader, Zhou Enlai, was asked for his opinion about the French Revolution, he apparently said, “It’s too early to tell.” Indeed, it is, and in some ways it’s too early to make a definitive statement about the Sixties. That era continues to shape our world.

Foner knows that our views of history are continually shifting, that today’s events frame our perspectives on the past, and that a study of the past can illuminate the present and shed light on the future.

No, there’s no autobiographical section in Our Fragile Freedoms, but there are isolated bits and pieces of valuable information about the author himself. In an essay titled “Du Bois,” he explains that he met the founder of the NAACP and the author of The Souls of Black Folk in Brooklyn in 1960 and that Du Bois was a friend of his parents, Jack and Liza, and that earlier that day same he and his brother, Tommy Foner had picketed a Woolworth store in New York to protest against segregation and to “demonstrate solidarity with the sit-ins taking place in the South.”

Du Bois, then 92, explained that he wanted to join the protests, but that his wife, Shirley Graham, wouldn’t let him. Foner adds, “Age had not dimmed his passion for political action or social change.” I would suggest that age has not dimmed Foner’s passion for political action and social change, though he has not ventured into the streets. There is more than one way to express passion for political action.

Foner has expressed his passion by writing and teaching and mentoring dozens of students who have earned doctorates, found teaching positions in academia and who have aimed to explore in the classroom and their writings controversial chapters in American history, including slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, now all under assault by Trump, the MAGA folks and Republicans.

On the subject of the past, one might quote the Southern novelist, William Faulkner, author of The Sound and the Fury and Light in August, who noted famously, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Perhaps that comment has never been truer than right now with the Trumpers rewriting history, censoring textbooks, outlawing the teaching of subjects like racism, and bringing back statues of Confederate generals.

It might be that given the family history, Foner has been somewhat reluctant to join causes. In the introduction to Our Fragile Freedom, he explains that “In 1942, during a purge of ‘subversive’ instructors at the City University of New York, his father and uncle lost their teaching positions,” and that his mother was “dismissed from her job as a high school art teacher.”

Foner observes that their experience taught him an “important historical lesson…the fragility of civil liberties” and that “freedom of speech and the right to dissent” are not “ingrained in the American system.” Today, citizens are learning that lesson all over again, the hard way, by losing their jobs, their civil rights and even their citizenship.

Foner is fearless when he writes about history, historians and contemporary political figures. In a long trenchant essay about Barack Obama titled “The First Black President,” he writes that Obama rejected idealism and became a “pragmatist,” that he rejected the suggestions of Black activists who wanted him to be braver and more outspoken than he was, and that, like Bush and Trump, he misled the American public about the war in Afghanistan.

“Obama characteristically sought a middle ground,” Foner writes, “laying out the historical basis for Black grievances, while suggesting that white fears and resentments also had legitimate roots.” By fueling white fears and resentments, Obama might have helped to pave the way for Trump. Foner does not reach that conclusion, but it seems a strong possibility.

Our Fragile Freedoms is probably Foner’s last book. It is also the capstone to a long and illustrious career as a courageous and dedicated American historian who has celebrated John Brown, Eugene Victor Debs, Frederick Douglass and Rosa Parks, and who has exposed racism and the enslavement of African Americans as a blight on our national identity as a land or freedom and democracy. He has carried on the work of his father, Jack, his mother, Liza, and his uncle Phil. Three cheers for the Foners.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)

THE AFTERLIFE

While you are preparing for sleep, brushing your teeth,
or riffling through a magazine in bed,
the dead of the day are setting out on their journey.

They are moving off in all imaginable directions,
each according to his own private belief,
and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal:
that everyone is right, as it turns out.
You go to the place you always thought you would go,
the place you kept lit in an alcove in your head.

Some are being shot up a funnel of flashing colors
into a zone of light, white as a January sun.
Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits
with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute on the other.

Some have already joined the celestial choir
and are singing as if they have been doing this forever,
while the less inventive find themselves stuck
in a big air-conditioned room full of food and chorus girls.

Some are approaching the apartment of the female God,
a woman in her forties with short wiry hair
and glasses hanging from her neck by a string.
With one eye she regards the dead through a hole in her door.

There are those who are squeezing into the bodies
of animals–eagles and leopards–and one trying on
the skin of a monkey like a tight suit,
ready to begin another life in a more simple key,

while others float off into some benign vagueness,
little units of energy heading for the ultimate elsewhere.

There are even a few classicists being led to an underworld
by a mythological creature with a beard and hooves.
He will bring them to the mouth of a furious cave
guarded over by Edith Hamilton and her three-headed dog.

The rest just lie on their backs in their coffins
wishing they could return so they could learn Italian
or see the pyramids, or play some golf in a light rain.
They wish they could wake in the morning like you
and stand at a window examining the winter trees,
every branch traced with the ghost writing of snow.

— Billy Collins (1990)

20 Comments

Jacob November 21, 2025

RE LINDY PETERS ON FB CITY COUNCIL PAY

Lindy raises a very good point that the monthly pay for FB City Council, which is really little more than a stipend, is very low. It is permitted to be higher and should be increased. Lindy’s points are all good but he didn’t mention that it doesn’t even cover a councilmember’s hard costs for serving if they have any dependant care expenses for participating in meetings, like child or elder care expenses for family members. This is a big barrier for some people who literally couldn’t afford to serve. The pay should be increased so anyone willing to serve no matter their financial means can without having to spend a lot of their monthly budget on things like babysitters for those six or seven hour meetings.

George Hollister November 21, 2025

THE CONSEQUENCES OF REELECTING TRUMP

All true as stated, but remember who and what the alternative was.

- Chuck Dunbar November 21, 2025
  
  Poor, compromised, candidate that Harris was, her administration would not have been filled to the brim with the crazies found in this one. America would not have been subjected to all the chaos, corruption and lawlessness that Trump and all have brought.
  
  - Norm Thurston November 21, 2025
    
    +1
    
    - Jeanne Eliades November 21, 2025
      
      +2
      
- Marshall Newman November 21, 2025
  
  Kamala was hardly perfect. That said, I would have voted for a talking dog over Trump, were those the choices.
  
- Chuck Wilcher November 21, 2025
  
  That alternative wouldn’t have torn down the East Wing, paved over the Rose Garden or hosted MMA fights on White House grounds.
  
- Paul Modic November 21, 2025
  
  Okay, I’m game Mr H,
  Tell me a couple things you think Harris would have done, which Trump has done better?
  
  - George Hollister November 21, 2025
    
    Control the border. Bring an end to the war in Gaza. Make DC relatively crime free. Take Iran out of the ME equation, at least for now. End the Climate Change folly, at least for now. End DEI. Trump has not even been in office a year. Has he done a lot of predictably crazy things? Yes. And the courts are busy as a result.
    
    - Paul Modic November 21, 2025
      
      Okay, I see you got nothing that’s settled, just the usual partisan talking points and opinions straight out of Fox News…I do have to hand it to your guy though, murdering all those people in their boats in the Caribbean, though brutally illegal, probably has been successful in stemming immigration to some degree, or at least fishing…
      
      - George Hollister November 21, 2025
        
        Another thing Trump has done is force Europe to start paying for their own national defense, and stop relying on the US military gravy train that helps drive our government debt. Trump’s apparent ease on Putin is pushing the point. Europe should be taking the burden and the lead in supporting Ukraine. Indulging in expensive social programs, and green policies should be on them and not us. Wow, having your own state of the art military is important.
        
    - Jim Armstrong November 21, 2025
      
      Sorry, Mr. Hollister, but you are totally full of the proverbial “it.”
      
- Harvey Reading November 21, 2025
  
  Except for her support of Israeli-imposed genocide against Palestinians, that continues to this day, I would have gladly voted for her over the current, lying POS.
  
Mike Jamieson November 21, 2025

The biggest story ever is emerging:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/movies/the-age-of-disclosure-congress.html

Watching Jake Tapper sober reporting on this film was a demonstration that the policy of cultivating ridicule and denial thru media contacts (instituted by the CIA Robertson Panel in February 1953) is now becoming impotent.

- Harvey Reading November 21, 2025
  
  LOL! This game is ridiculous and should end. ET wouldn’t give a damn about the plundered pile of waste that Earth has become. By the way, Space Case, where’s that report on trade talks with ET that you peddled, O so long ago?
  
Eric Sunswheat November 21, 2025

RE: LEAD STORIES. The Cars – domestic intelligence operation build out – constitutional questions
—>. November 20, 2025
This active role beyond the borders is part of the quiet transformation of its parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, into something more akin to a domestic intelligence operation.

Under the Trump administration’s heightened immigration enforcement efforts, CBP is now poised to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems such as the license plate reader program by layering in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The result is a mass surveillance network with a particularly American focus: cars…

The Border Patrol has for years hidden details of its license plate reader program, trying to keep any mention of the program out of court documents and police reports, former officials say, even going so far as to propose dropping charges rather than risk revealing any details about the placement and use of their covert license plate readers. Readers are often disguised along highways in traffic safety equipment like drums and barrels…

“For national security reasons, we do not detail the specific operational applications,” the agency said. While the U.S. Border Patrol primarily operates within 100 miles of the border, it is legally allowed “to operate anywhere in the United States,” the agency added.

While collecting license plates from cars on public roads has generally been upheld by courts, some legal scholars see the growth of large digital surveillance networks such as Border Patrol’s as raising constitutional questions.
https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2025/11/border-patrol-monitoring-millions-of-us-drivers-for-suspicious-travel-patterns.html

—> September 11, 2025
Flock Safety was found to have allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to create accounts with the company and scour driver data from the thousands of local law enforcement agencies that comprise Flock’s national network…

All the federal agents needed was a single law enforcement agency in the national network to agree to share data with CBP. When some agencies did agree, the federal agents gained access to every shared database in Flock’s national network.
https://centralcurrent.org/federal-immigration-agents-accessed-syracuse-drivers-data-through-secret-flock-safety-deal/

gary smith November 21, 2025

Inre FLOCK cameras:
https://www.ksbw.com/article/santa-cruz-flock-camera-data-sharing-illegal/69490747?fbclid=IwY2xjawONP3BleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA80MDk5NjI2MjMwODU2MDkAAR63igSAcqvSKuUnjtoK0WksNz4ayAUkd9W2Je0Ldah9pA4AFfG0xZyYBJea3A_aem_B0GR1VgRO1-HEzW6WDU_0w

Get rid of them. They are obviously not secure. Ripe for abuse.

- Harvey Reading November 22, 2025
  
  As is anything embraced by our current “administration”. I have never seen this country acting quite so stupidly as it is now.
  
Jim Armstrong November 21, 2025

IMHO, what Lee Marvin said about war movies holds for almost all the ones about Vietnam.
“The Anderson Platoon, ” “84 Charlie Mopic” and “Good Morning, Vietnam” are the only ones I have watched more than once.

Andrew Lutsky November 21, 2025

Digging Justine Frederiksen‘s photo of the City View trail sign, a fitting tribute to one of Ukiah’s true gems. Nearby Orr’s Creek Trail also merits that treatment.

20 Comments

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