Evening Colors | High Pressure | Ribbon Cutting | River Plan | Chief Swift | Closed Sessions | Thanksgiving Message | Local Events | AI Talk | Model Railroad | Peaceful Towns | Weather Forecast | Pebbles Reading | Boonville Lodge | Yesterday's Catch | Offshore Faults | Dance Party | Salmon Return | King Pestilence | Foul Mouth | Do Nothing | Camarillo Brillo | Putin Calendar | Cats | Marcel Proust | Slum Life | Lead Stories | Charisma | Jair Stare | Trump-Mamdani Show | Jane Eyre | Mojo Hand | Whew! | Both Sides | Military Spending | Get Out | This Turkey | Melting Down | Sad Saturday | Take Charge | Thanksgiving Day | Cradling Wheat
HIGH PRESSURE will promote mild and dry weather today, with temperatures warming into the upper 60s across interior valleys. A weakening cold front is expected to bring increased cloudiness and chances for light rain primarily to Del Norte and northern Humboldt counties on Thanksgiving Day. A cooling trend follows for the weekend with dry conditions and a return of widespread interior freezing temperatures. Additionally, a building swell is expected to bring hazardous surf conditions by late Sunday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A brisk 39F under clear skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Nothing new to report today, have yourself a safe & happy holiday weekend with all this great weather ! A hint of rain for late next week, right.......
BIG RIBBON CUTTING FOR ANDERSON VALLEY’S NEW MAJOR SPORTS AMENITY
(Former AV superintendent Louise Simson got it done!)
by Terry Sites
Former AV Unified Superintendent and Principal of Anderson Valley High School Louise Simson held the ceremonial scissors as she cut the ribbon stretched across the new track at Anderson Valley High School. She threw back her head and laughed joyfully.
It has been a long and winding road since she first visualized what the track and field area could become. With profound persistence she headed up our little community with grant writer Chris Vetrano by her side.
Together they managed to win a $4.7 million grant. “CalTrans Clean California” is a multi-year $27 million dollar program dedicated to funding the most worthy projects submitting grant applications. In a conversation I had with grant writer Vetrano before the ribbon cutting, she told me that she initially advised Louise that in her professional opinion Anderson Valley had very little chance of winning. Despite this Louise kept the faith and they wrote the grant with the assistance of the Anderson Valley School District staff. They beat long odds and the grant was won!
In further discussion with Chris I learned that grant judging is based on the awarding of a series of points. Each section of the submitted grant needs to have almost perfect point scores. Because of the demographic profile of the Anderson Valley community each skillfully written section apparently hit the nail on the head for the grant judges. The track and field will function not only in their primary role as athletic field but also as a multi-use community gathering place. This will be a location where the entire community, not just students, can engage in activities supporting good health.
Because this is a CalTrans grant it was helpful that the High School is located so close to local roads including State Highway 128. Among many other benefits this project has improved the environment of Cal Trans highways. The demographics of the student body was another winning aspect as Anderson Valley is considered a high poverty area. All these things taken together quite literally “leveled the playing field.”
The entire student body population of Anderson Valley turned out for this big ribbon-cutting day including the elementary school, Jr. high and high school. The behavior of all the students throughout the series of speeches and thanks-yous was exemplary. The group was polite, enthusiastic and attentive. The planned “Ceremonial Laps” that concluded the program were accomplished in an orderly yet wildly enthusiastic way. The shoe-gripping surface of the new track gave running a whole new feel to their feet enabling every runner to hit a new personal best.
To say this was a proud day is to understate the feeling of the crowd. The field and track looked as handsome as they ever will - crisp, freshly painted and green, green, green. As each speaker stepped up to the podium the backdrop was the fine new field adding punch to each message.
First up was Superintendent Kristin Larson Balliet who thanked numerous people including special thanks to Louise Simson, Chris Vetrano, Congressman Huffman, Jenny Callaway, Jezreela Anderson, Preston Allen, Manny Machado, Pete Crudo, Rege Construction and crew, Don Alameida, Sally-Anne Jindra, Kim Campbell, AVUSD Board Members, AVUSD Staff and the Anderson Valley community.
Kristin introduced AVHS principal Heath McNerney who reflected on the strength of this exceptional this community that is so good at giving back. He also pledged to cherish this gift by taking care to keep it beautiful and using it to meet and celebrate.
Next up was CalTrans representative Brandon Larson who commented that among all the grants awarded this is absolutely the first sports field and that that was “very cool.” Congressman Huffman’s representative, Jezreela Anderson, presented a Congressional certificate of special recognition for this “state of the art athletic field”.
Four student speakers followed.
Student Body President Jennifer Solano who reminded us that this field will impact this generation and many more to come. She appreciated the faith that we were “worth investing in” a sentiment that was vocally seconded by the AVHS cheer squad.
Ananda Mayne and Aster Arbanovella, two AVHS athletes described the new track and field as a game changer replacing the disintegrating field of yesterday. The old days of running despite hazards and imprecise measurements is over. Nicholas Espinoza encouraged us all to “Get active and have fun in a place where records are broken and friends made.” Athletic Director Joel Casillas who is in his first year of teaching and directing athletics saluted our powerhouse soccer team, his energetic staff and everyone in the community who supports the athletic programs.
Superintendent Balliet stepped back up to the mike to introduce the cheer team doing a wild routine to the tune “Rock Your Body.” Finally it was time to let the combined student body take their first spin on the new track. Feelings ran high — there was no lack of go power as the “Small school- Loud roar” Panthers took off. One row after another on the freshly painted track lanes- ready-set- 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 GO!
Dear Anderson Valley Community,
It was great to come back and visit you last Friday. I had my family, including my son and some of my siblings, in tow because that new track was truly a miracle. I know it is not cool in public education to say you prayed on something to happen, but that is indeed true describing what I did on that field every morning to make a dream come true.
What I want to acknowledge today is the absolute amazing drive and care of Kristen Balliet Larson to make sure that track became a reality. When I left, the track was in for DSA approval, and I felt sure all was well. I don't know what mojo the heavens above had in mind, but she truly dug in DEEP and did not take no for an answer in order to make that project happen. She is a class act and I will be forever grateful for her resolve and drive to make the impossible come true.
There are many people to thank and I am sure I will screw up and leave someone off, but let's just try with Architect Don Alamedia, the co-grant writer Chris Vetrano, the AVUSD Board and District Office Staff, and Congressman Jared Huffman and staff, and most of all Caltrans who believed that no rural community should be left behind.
Education in this world has become defined by your zip code and that's not okay. All kids deserve a shot. Hats of Superintendent Larson. You did an amazing thing.
Just remember: Nothing is impossible. Dream the dream and work the dream and it will come true.
Take care,
Louise Simson, Superintendent
NOTICE OF OPPORTUNITY TO COMMENT - ACTION PLAN FOR PATHOGENS IN THE RUSSIAN RIVER WATERSHED
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) will accept comments on the proposed approval of the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board's (North Coast Water Board) Water Quality Control Plan from the North Coast (Basin Plan) that would 1) Incorporate the Action Plan for Pathogens in the Russian River Watershed (Action Plan) establishing a Fecal Waste Discharge Prohibition and a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for bacteria in the Russian River Watershed, and 2) Remove the Policy on the Control of Water Quality with respect to On-Site Waste Treatment and Disposal Practices Specific to the Russian River Watershed, including the Laguna de Santa Rosa (Basin Plan Amendment).
The Basin Plan Amendment and supporting documents are available for review at: Russian River | California Northcoast Regional Water Quality Control Board
Written comments should be emailed to [email protected] and must be received by noon on February 12, 2026.
FORT BRAGG’S NEW POLICE CHIEF
Please join us in welcoming Eric Swift as the permanent leader of the Fort Bragg Police Department.
With a strong background in law enforcement, a commitment to community engagement, and a vision for public safety, Chief Swift is ready to serve and protect our city with integrity and dedication.
TWO SEMI-CONNECTED CLOSED SESSIONS ITEMS are the only items on next Tuesday’s (December 2) Special Supervisors agenda. The closed session items are:
3a. “Audit by the California State Auditor’s office.”
3b. “Existing Litigation: Chamise Cubbison v. County of Mendocino et al.”
Presumably Item 3a is the report of the (reportedly) $800k state audit announced a year and a half ago.
How can they get away with discussing an audit in closed session? The agenda item cites Government Code section 54956.75, which is another one of those sneaky exceptions to the Brown Act: “Nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to prevent the legislative body of a local agency that has received a confidential final draft audit report from the Bureau of State Audits from holding closed sessions to discuss its response to that report. After the public release of an audit report by the Bureau of State Audits, if a legislative body of a local agency meets to discuss the audit report, it shall do so in an open session unless exempted from that requirement by some other provision of law.”
So they are claiming that the audit report they intend to discuss is a “confidential final draft.” But the agenda doesn’t describe it that way.
Back in May CEO Darcie Antle, replying to a question from retired Ukiah attorney Barry Vogel, said that the Audit was being conducted by the State Controller’s office (not the State Auditor’s office) and that a report was due in January of 2026 which would address “procurement and the election process.”
Some readers may recall that the audit was initiated by the Supervisors and approved and funded with $800k by State Senator Mike McGuire a few months after Cubbison was wrongfully suspended from her elected Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector position without pay. The Supervisor have since initiated action to “deconsolidate” the two offices and put them up for separate election in June — if they meet their election deadlines.
The Government Code does not say how long they can keep the “confidential draft” secret or when it must be finalized and released.
(Mark Scaramella)
JACK CAMBELLE FULLER:
I live in the Mill Street apartments in Willits and I see a horrible thing happening in our town. We have a major drug problem in our community. Not only is it a problem for me but I have witnessed the effects on children growing up around me. I'd appreciate if the Willits police department would do their job. I'm not sure what y’all are doing.
You can vote. You can influence your friends and family. You can make your community better by being the person that leads, picks up the trash, cuts the grass, paints the pickets, is polite while driving, a solution to the selfishness of today's societal makeup. Most of all you can pray for those that despise you. That is truly the best way to insult them and save them at the same time. Paul was once Saul and they know not what they do. It's hard to be the grownup. It is damn hard at times to bite your tongue, so don't - speak up and let people know there is a better, more sensible way to live. Do it with belief wrapped in understanding, and let the results be the results. Most of all just love your family. We don't have much time to enjoy them when it's all said and done. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
LOCAL EVENTS (this week)
BOB ABELES:
Note to The Major: There are several online sites that can analyze and report the probability of a text sample being human or AI generated. Because the analysis itself is AI driven, it’s not entirely reliable. But, the results can be illuminating.
Extracting what appears to be the portion directly quoted from the County IT policy document, it scores 29% AI, 70% Human. You might like to try a larger sample to obtain more meaningful results. Here is the tool I used: https://app.gptzero.me
CHUCK DUNBAR:
Mark Scaramella writes: “Not to be too cynical about it, but so much of what Mendo generates now might as well have been produced by a robot that identifying and proving that certain materials violate the policy will be nearly impossible. The policy itself seems like it was generated by AI. In fact, the draft policy is so vague and generic, how do we know wasn’t generated by AI?”
Well-said and true. The County bureaucracy–at least at the higher levels–often speaks the lingo of bureaucratize (which can be similar to the worst of AI’s communication), thinking it makes them look smart and important, though it is often just bluster and avoidance of real issues. It seemed to me, when I worked there, that so many upper level management kind of got infected with this manner of speech. To those doing the direct work, it was frustrating, maddening at its worst. If you had the temerity to confront management and demand something down to earth and real, something that made sense, you were in trouble– you’d violated the rules of the game. AI will only make it worse, and management will see it as progress. The best Child Welfare Services deputy director that we worked under spoke with feeling and passion, was direct and blunt–he’d done the work, and we respected him for his real communication. No human–or AI– BS there.
BOB ABELES:
Human writers can mimic AI writing, and in a bureaucratic setting often do.
I also think that The Major was not being the least bit cynical. I conducted an informal experiment where I ran random writing samples from the last two day’s MCT, plus the comments, through the AI detection tool. I saw scores of 98 to 100% human on everything except the County AI policy extract.
MENDOCINO COAST MODEL RAILROAD IS A TREAT FOR ALL AGES
by Carole Brodsky
Multiple generations of adults can vividly recall waking up on Christmas morning to find a model railroad train set circling around the holiday tree. The allure of model trains followed the growth of the rail industry- first, in Great Britain, where the railroad was born, and spreading to the United States, where millions of people found a hobby, passion, and community within the world of model trains.
The members of the Mendocino Coast Model Railroad and Historical Society represent a cross-section of model and actual train enthusiasts, fabricators, artists, and historians who come together to operate a beloved local non-profit dedicated to the construction, maintenance, and presentation of a model train layout that depicts life during the heyday of the logging industry along the Mendocino Coast.
The Society is headquartered in a large building next to the Skunk Train’s Fort Bragg depot, featuring a “G Scale” model railroad that traverses through the inside and outside of the building. Along with providing a delightful experience for lovers of model trains, the Society is dedicated to educating the public about the history of the region’s rail lines. A lending library houses over 1,000 publications, and the layout itself is chock-full of written information, with Society members available to answer questions and provide historical context about logging and the layout. For those wishing to dive deeper into local railroad lore, the layout’s history and the process of creating it, their YouTube channel and website offer hours of entertainment and education.
The story begins with the Society’s founders, Tony Phillips and Roger Thornburn, who both hailed from Great Britain and had a passion for the Mendocino Coast and the trains that once inhabited the seafront communities.
Chuck Whitlock, the Society’s President Emeritus, explained that the Society went through several developmental iterations. “About 25 years ago, there was a collection of individuals who had their own layouts.” Both Phillips and Thornburn were far more than retirees with a passion for toy trains. “Tony was the Auditor for the Bank of England, and Rodger was the Vice-President of Hewlett-Packard’s European Division,” Whitlock continues.
There were about a dozen men who helped forge the foundation of the Society, including Paul Tay, who was the owner of the Blackberry Inn, and Dan Fetzler, former Chair of the California Public Utilities Commission and a law professor at the University of California.
“Scale” is an important component of model trains, which refers to specific measurements that model trains, tracks, and all the ancillary accessories are “scaled” to. Enthusiasts tend to gravitate to a specific scale size, with the public most familiar with the “HO” scale - the size of trains usually found chugging around the Christmas tree. “Most people had HO scale trains,” says Whitlock. “We decided to attempt to build an outdoor layout about 22 years ago. Dan was into G-scale trains. We decided to migrate to G scale and started to build a layout near the beach. We built a platform about three feet tall, but because of the sand, the platform’s sections kept moving. We definitely learned a lot from our mistakes,” he smiles.
After another attempt at a new location on Franklin Street, the group found themselves at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, where Phillips and his wife ran the food concessions. “Tony installed a little layout at the entrance, and from there, they built a temporary HO layout and migrated it to the vegetable garden area.” Times changed, and new management had different plans for the gardens, which is how the group ended up at their current location.
“This building was built sometime in the 1930s. It was used for repairing cars that the railroad owned,” Whitlock continues. Back then, as most locals know, the local railroad was a full-fledged commercial line, complete with box cars and flat cars that transported all manner of goods besides lumber. “Laura Scudder potatoes had a contract here, so potatoes, grapes, and lots of produce got shipped out from the coast.”
“Now we had a facility, so Tony, Roger, and Dan decided to create the organization. The bylaws were drawn up in about 2011. It took about two years to clean out the redwood building, which for many years had been used for refuse. The concrete floor was painted. We left the benchwork on the east side. Underneath, there were sand casting molds and tubes for steam locomotives. The bench itself was about 24 inches thick and 12-14 feet long- one huge, long piece of wood.”
Phillp’s vision was that the organization would become a world-class model railroad that also focused on historical relevance. “Tony patterned his vision off activity at the coast from about 1885 to 1950,” says Whitlock. The layout represents a coastal swath from Elk, Mendocino, Caspar, Albion, and Navarro, up to Cleone, DeHaven, Rockport, and Whitethorn, where logging railroads existed during the height of timber harvesting.
Thornburn, however, could give a hoot about trains. “Because of Roger’s background, he was very interested in the electronics that went along with creating the layout. Roger set up our original website and graphics.” Gradually, pieces of the layout began to come together. “Some people were modelers. One fellow was a background artist for Walt Disney, so he got into the landscaping. We had a father and son team who worked on creating the Mill Building for the layout. We had some redwood stock, and a young man sat at a card table, cutting the stock into small blocks that were to the scale of the shingles on the Mill building. He chiseled and hammered, making each one of those little shingles by hand.”
Authentic pieces of timber and other elements for the layout were scrounged and donated. “Some people donated actual timbers that came from the Greenwood Trestle. We have virgin redwood milled here around the turn of the century from the interior of the Colombi House on Main Street. The owners were putting in new wainscoting and donated all the old stuff to us. It’s stacked up in a good drying shed,” Whitlock continues.
“Dan created the original drawing for the layout. Originally, it didn’t include anything outdoors.” The layout went through several redesigns, including the construction of a U-shaped model utilizing “to and fro’s” so the trains could travel through the entire building. “Our first layout was just three rail lines and a ‘dog-bone,’ smiles Whitlock. “Then things started to grow. I can’t tell you the number of things we tore apart. Things didn’t always fit, so we’d readjust. That mountain at the end of the layout was our hidden workshop. There was a hollow space underneath, and that’s where Jim Williams did all our maintenance. We called it his troll cave,” laughs Whitlock. “That tiny hollow was our only workshop. We had no other structures at that time- only this building.”
Today, the Society has its own workshop, plus a meeting room and library, with the layout extending outside. “Toy” Brio-style trains and tracks are available for children to enjoy, as the layout itself is a “no-touch” museum-style installation.
Steve Worthen got into model trains as a child when his father took him to a live steam operation in Southeastern Massachusetts. “Those trains were used for cranberry bog harvesting until they realized that people wanted to ride them. That was the first train I ever rode.” The construction of model trains became a family project, and when he moved to Fort Bragg, Worthen decided to join the group, helping out with the layout installed at the Botanical Gardens. He is now a resident docent for the Skunk Train as well as for the Society, and attends to the local logging history- the maps, photos, books, and more.
The current layout, notes Worthen, is a mixture of reality and fantasy. “The outdoor trestles, the railroad station, and the logger’s mill houses are very accurate. There are other parts of the layout, like the turntable in the roundhouse that we didn’t have here, but that represent a historically accurate depiction of how trains operated at that time. The buildings in ‘Fort Bragg’ are representative, but not geographically accurate.” The library includes books on the history of railroads- both real and model- and includes scale models of trains so visitors can view different scale models. The library also includes lots of local history, including maps of Pomo People’s settlements, the history of the types of redwood trees, railroad magazines, and more. “We do our best to refresh our website,” says Worthen. “It’s got about 400 pages of content right now.” He notes that part of society’s success is seeing children tearing up outside, “because they just don’t want to leave us,” he smiles.
In addition to constantly upgrading the layout, Society members are rebuilding a full-scale caboose located in the Skunk Train’s Roundhouse. Originally constructed around the mid-20th century, the frame was rebuilt and placed in service in 1963 by California Western Railroad employees. The caboose remained in service until 1989, when it was placed in storage. Damaged by the damp coastal environment, the Skunk Train offered the caboose to the Society as a rebuild project. After completion, it will be used by The Skunk Train for special excursions, and the Society will have use of it for special events.
Jim Williams is the Society’s fix-it guy, who can usually be found in the maintenance shop. Grateful for now having a comfortable workspace, Williams has a full duty roster consisting of trains and accessories in various states of disrepair. “I was getting too old to crawl underneath that mountain every day,” he smiles. Williams and the team have converted the trains from electric to lithium battery operation, and do not shy away from employing whatever works to get the job done.
“I knew a guy who had the account for all the CD jukeboxes back in the day,” he says. “So he had hundreds of empty jewel cases for the CDs. I took them off his hands, and they form the basis for one of the mountains in the layout,” he smiles. A ton of creative thinking goes into building a model train layout. “See these rivets on this engine?” he points out. “Those are all hundreds of straight pins, painted black. If you looked inside this engine, you’d see the pins sticking all over the place.” Modern technology, such as the use of CNC, is welcomed.
The Society is a 501(c)3 organization, so all donations are appreciated. What they really like to receive is train-related “stuff.”
“Give us your old trains,” smiles Worthen. “We recently attended the International Rail Fair at Cal Expo, and we were able to liquidate some of the donations we’d received, which helps to keep the organization solvent.” Objects, ephemera, and anything that has to do with railroading, logging, model railroading, and more are appreciated.
The layout’s hours revolve around the hours of the operation of the Skunk Train’s Pudding Creek Express, notes Vice-President Don Landers. “Basically, when the Pudding Creek Train runs, we’re open. If there’s one train a day, we open before and after that train runs. If there are two trains, it’s the same - we’ll be open between 10:00-2:00 and 12:00-4:00. We try to put our hours on our website calendar, based on the operation of the Pudding Creek Express.” The layout is generally open Saturdays/Sundays through the holiday season, and almost every day during the summer, starting around Memorial Day. “The price of your Skunk Train admission includes admission to the historical center and the model railroad,” notes Worthen, and more than a few visitors have called it the perfect capstone to their ride on the Skunk Train.
For those without a Skunk Train ticket, admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children ages 2-12, with annual, regular, or supporting memberships available. School field trips are welcome by appointment, and the public is invited to attend the Society’s monthly breakfast meetings. The best way to access the layout is to drive to the end of West Redwood Street and park in the parking lot to the right. Walk north through the double gates to the building entrance.
For information, visit the website at https://mcmrhs.org. The Society’s YouTube channel can also be accessed from its website.
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
AMONG THE MOST PEACEFUL SMALL TOWNS IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA are Mendocino & Fort Bragg
Northern California is renowned for its dramatic coastlines, towering redwoods, and vibrant cities, but tucked between the famous landmarks are small towns that offer a slower pace, breathtaking scenery, and a true sense of calm. For travelers and residents alike seeking a quieter lifestyle, these towns provide the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle. From charming coastal villages to serene mountain enclaves, here are nine of the most peaceful small towns in Northern California, where nature, history, and tranquility come together beautifully, with a sneak peek at places like Murphys and Mendocino.
Settled along California’s stunning Pacific coastline, the historic town of Mendocino is home to just under 1,000 residents, contributing to its quiet, welcoming charm. Established in the 1850s and named after a Spanish colonial administrator, Mendocino stands out as a fully preserved historic gem; most of the town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its 19th-century character is reflected in its Victorian-era architecture, iconic landmarks, and cultural heritage as an artists’ colony. Notable sites include the Mendocino Presbyterian Church in the Headlands Historic District, alongside quaint galleries, boutique shops, and sweeping ocean views that exude timeless coastal charm.
Nature lovers can explore the Mendocino Headlands State Park, featuring scenic cliffs, walking trails, and opportunities to spot local wildlife. For a deeper immersion in nature, the nearby Woodlands State Park brings tranquil forested paths and an escape into lush greenery. Art enthusiasts will enjoy browsing through local galleries and shops, such as the Lansing Street Gallery, Mendocino Country Store, and Folklore, all of which reflect the town’s thriving creative spirit. For a leisurely outing, take in the stunning beauty of the Mendocino Cliffs Trail, a gentle coastal walk that combines fresh ocean air with unforgettable panoramic views.
Fort Bragg
Just about 10 miles north of Mendocino, Fort Bragg is a charming coastal town on California’s Pacific shoreline. Home to just under 7,000 residents, this picturesque community traces its roots back to the 1850s when it was founded as a military garrison. Today, Fort Bragg stands out for its blend of natural beauty and peaceful, small-town vibe that attracts visitors seeking a quiet retreat amidst rugged coastline and lush landscapes.
Visitors can wander the trails and beaches of MacKerricher State Park, explore the vibrant flora at the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, or hunt for colorful sea glass at the iconic Glass Beach. The town also boasts stunning wetlands, dunes, and scenic coves perfect for hiking, cycling, and photography. Fort Bragg is generally a quiet and peaceful town. While there are tourist spots like Glass Beach and the Botanical Gardens, the pace of life is slower compared to bigger coastal cities, making it ideal for those seeking tranquility amidst nature.
Whether you’re looking to unwind by the ocean, explore scenic trails, or simply enjoy the slower rhythm of small-town life, Northern California is full of hidden gems that promise peace and tranquility. These nine towns showcase the region’s natural beauty, rich history, and warm community spirit, making them ideal destinations for anyone seeking a quiet escape from the everyday hustle.
(WorldAtlas.com)
PEBBLES TRIPPET:
I’m reading classic books lately, the most important being A People’s History of the United States 1492-The Present by Howard Zinn. 700 pages of insights from everyday people: women, workers, indigenous, people of color, socialists, artists, immigrants, the works.
The story about Eugene Debs & Susan Anthony. comes to mind. “When Susan Anthony, at 80, went to hear Eugene Debs speak (25 years before, he had gone to hear her speak, & they had not met sine then), they clasped hands warmly, then had a brief exchange. She said laughing, ‘Give us suffrage & we’ll give you socialism.’ Debs replied, ‘Give us socialism & we’ll give you suffrage.’
Under the headline, ‘The Impossible Victory: Vietnam. From 1964-1972, the wealthiest & most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort. with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country–& faiiled. When the US fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology vs. organized human beings, & the human beings won.. In the course of that war, there developed in the United States, the greatest anti-war movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end.’
Another book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, summarizes it’s main point in one sentence: “Isn’t there a way to have all slaves made free.” When Lincoln met the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, he said, “So you’re the woman who wrote the book that started the Civil War.”
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, exposing the dangers of pesticides like DDT, was published in 1862. Carson was invited to speak to Congress the following year, 1863. She finished the book despite having lost the use of her writing hand and died of cancer two years later. She is considered by many to be the Mother of the Environmental Movement.
These are some of my favorite books these days.
FROM EBAY, AN ITEM OF LOCAL INTEREST (via Marshall Newman)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, November 25, 2025
BRIANNA BELL, 22, Ukiah. Smuggling controlled substance into jail, offenses while on bail.
JASON DELCARLO, 42, Fort Bragg. Disobeying court order.
TONY HANOVER, 20, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
EDY PALAFOX-LOPEZ, 49, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.
HERIBERTO PEREZ, 25, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI-any drug, controlled substance, marijuana for sale, paraphernalia, evidence tampering.
CLIFTON PHILLIPS, 39, Covelo. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, domestic abuse.
DANIEL YEOMANS, 54, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, resisting.
OFFSHORE EARTHQUAKE FAULTS ADD RISK TO DRILLING
Editor:
Regarding the proposed oil drilling leases in California ocean waters. This is a critical issue for our coast. As a former U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist, I mapped offshore earthquake faults. Offshore California is cut by numerous faults related to the onshore San Andreas fault system. Some offshore faults produce significant earthquakes, some larger than the onshore 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.
Active and inactive faults crisscross the seafloor in areas possibly leased for oil drilling. Active faulting can constitute a direct hazard to offshore drilling and provide migration pathways for petroleum to leak upward into ocean waters. Inactive faults can also allow petroleum to leak outside the well and reach the ocean. This was the source of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which leaked more than 4 million gallons of crude oil into California waters and onto beaches.
California has not suffered a catastrophic offshore oil spill in 56 years, largely because a moratorium was enacted following the Santa Barbara disaster. We can keep our pristine California coast free from oil spills by stopping offshore drilling.
Stephen Lewis
Santa Rosa
GREAT NEWS: Nearly 10,000 salmon have migrated up the Klamath River above the former dam sites!
by Dan Bacher
The return of salmon on the Klamath River above the former PacifiCorp dam sites has exceeded all expectations.
Preliminary data from California Trout’s SONAR fish counting station below the former Iron Gate Dam site reveals nearly 10,000 salmon and counting this fall. The nearly 10,000 adult-sized fish (over 2 feet) migrated upstream between September 12 and November 14, according to a social media post by CalTrout.
This preliminary estimate is 30 percent higher that the group’s fish counts at this same time last year. The peak passage day was on October 9 with 681 fish, the group said.
“It is a relatively compressed run: 90% passed in just 25 days (Sept 26 - Oct 19),” the group revealed.…
KING PESTILENCE
Editor:
Once upon a time there were four very mean children named Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Polio who had been banned from the kingdom by Queen Vaccination. But after being gone for over 25 years, they returned because King Donald and his court said vaccinations were bad and people stopped getting vaccinated. Subsequently, in all parts of the kingdom, King Donald’s subjects became infected, sick, suffered and died, and they never lived happily ever after again. Thank you, King Donald, for nothing!
Dr. Joe Clendenin
Santa Rosa
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Trump lately has been using street-level four-letter words (including the f-word) in his public pronouncements, and probably in his tweets (which I don't read). That kind of language has unfortunately infiltrated everyday speech, but should be beneath the dignity of a president when the world is within earshot.
CAMARILLO BRILLO
She had that
Camarillo brillo
Flamin' out along her head,
I mean her Mendocino bean-o
By where some bugs had made it red
She ruled the Toads of the Short Forest
And every newt in Idaho
And every cricket who had chorused
By the bush in Buffalo
She said she was
A Magic Mama
And she could throw a mean Tarot
And carried on without a comma
That she was someone I should know
She had a snake for a pet
And an amulet
And she was breeding a dwarf
But she wasn't done yet
She had gray-green skin
A doll with a pin
I told her she was awright
But I couldn't come in
(I couldn't come in right then . . . )
And so she wandered
Through the door-way
Just like a shadow from the tomb
She said her stereo was four-way
An' I'd just love it in her room
Well, I was born
To have adventure
So I just followed up the steps
Right past her fuming incense stencher
To where she hung her castanets
She stripped away
Her rancid poncho
An' laid out naked by the door
We did it till we were un-concho
An' it was useless any more
She had a snake for a pet
And an amulet
And she was breeding a dwarf
But she wasn't done yet
She had gray-green skin
A doll with a pin
I told her she was awright
But I couldn't come in
(actually, I was very busy then)
And so she wandered
Through the door-way
Just like a shadow from the tomb
She said her stereo was four-way
An' I'd just love it in her room
Well, I was born
To have adventure
So I just followed up the steps
Right past her fuming incense stencher
To where she hung her castanets
She said she was
A Magic Mama
And she could throw a mean Tarot
And carried on without a comma
That she was someone I should know
(Is that a real poncho . . . I mean
Is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
Hmmm . . . no foolin' . . . )
— Frank Zappa (1973)
“CATS are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their "evil" look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it”
― Camille Paglia
MARCEL PROUST died in Paris on November 18, 1922. This notice appeared the next day in the U.K paper The Guardian:
Marcel Proust: Death of well-known French novelist
(From our Correspondent.)
PARIS, SUNDAY.
Marcel Proust, foremost of “young novelists” of France, died yesterday. He was fifty years old and had been in poor health from childhood. It is probable that he was as well-known abroad, especially in Holland and England, where Marcel Proust Societies have recently been formed, as in Paris, where his work was enjoyed by a select minority. His style was difficult and obscure, and his intricate, exquisitely delicate meditations and analysis of emotions could never have appealed to the mass of readers. Outwardly and in his habits he was a strange being. Very pale, with burning black eyes, frail and short in stature, he lived like a hermit in his home, which was open to a few privileged friends, amongst precious furniture. Yet by fits and starts he loved to re-enter the fashionable “night-life” of Paris. His apartment was lined throughout with cork in an ineffectual attempt to keep out the uproar of the noisiest city in the world. Most of his best-known work was done after he reached the age of forty-five years. Of all idols and masters of present-day literature in France he is most likely to have won a place which time will not take away.
“THE TRAIN BORE ME AWAY, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that ‘It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her—understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.”
― George Orwell, ‘The Road To Wigan Pier’
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Democrats Say F.B.I. Is Investigating Them Over Illegal Orders Video
U.S. Announces Negotiated Prices for 15 Drugs Under Medicare
A Year Later, Donors to Trump’s Transition Come to Light
Trump Administration Will Raise Prices for Foreign Tourists at National Parks
U.S. Plans Compounds to House Palestinians in Israeli-Held Half of Gaza
61 Hot Takes to Fight About at Thanksgiving
CHARISMA is the numinous aura around a narcissistic personality. It flows outward from a simplicity or unity of being and a composure and controlled vitality. There is gracious accommodation, yet commanding impersonality. Charisma is the radiance produced by the interaction of male and female elements in a gifted personality. The charismatic woman has a masculine force and severity. The charismatic man has an entrancing female beauty. Both are hot and cold, glowing with presexual self love.
— Camille Paglia
THE TRUMP-MAMDANI SHOW WAS AMAZING. BUT DOWNSIDES FOR PROGRESSIVES COULD TURN OUT TO BE STEEP
by Norman Solomon
Across the political spectrum – with alarm on the right and delight on the left – the display of warmth from President Trump toward Zohran Mamdani on Friday set off shock waves. Trump’s lavish praise of New York’s mayor-elect in the Oval Office was a 180-degree turn from his condemnation of the democratic socialist as “a pure true communist” and “a total nut job.” The stunning about-face made for a great political drama. But what does it portend?
Trump and his MAGA followers are hardly going to forsake their standard mix of bigotry, anti-immigrant mania and other political toxins. Demagoguery fuels the Republican engine – and in the 11 months until the midterm elections, skullduggery to thwart democracy will accelerate rather than slow down.
While countless media outlets have marveled at the appearance of a sudden Trump-Mamdani “bromance,” the spectacle has rekindled hopes that America can become less polarized and find more common ground. But what kind of common ground can – or should – be found with the leader of today’s fascistic GOP?
It’s true that Mamdani has a huge stake in diverting the Trump bull from goring New York. Billions of dollars are at stake in federal aid to the city. And the metropolis would be thrown into a chaotic crisis if Trump goes ahead with his threats to send in federal troops. Mamdani seems to have deftly prevented such repressive actions against his city, at least for a while.
Understandably, Mamdani’s main concern is his upcoming responsibility for New York City and its 8.5 million residents. But important as the Big Apple is, Trump’s draconian and dictatorial orders nationwide are at stake. It’s unclear that the chemistry between the two leaders will do anything at all to help protect immigrants in Chicago or Los Angeles or anywhere else in the country.
The president’s accolades for a leftist certainly confounded the perennial left-bashers at Fox News and many other right-wing outlets. Such discombobulation among pro-MAGA media operatives has been a pleasure to behold. But there’s more than a wisp of wishful thinking in the air from progressives eager to believe that Trump’s effusive statements about Mamdani, an avowed socialist, will help to legitimize socialism for the U.S. public.
Trump’s widely reported and astonishing turnaround about Mamdani might cause some Americans to reconsider their anti-left reflexes. But it’s also plausible that ripple effects of the episode could help to legitimize, in some people’s eyes, Trump’s leadership even while it continues to inflict horrific policies and anti-democratic politics on the United States. Gracious and avuncular performances by despots are nothing new. Neither are cosmetics on the face of a fascist.
A hazard is that the image of Trump as a tolerant and open-minded leader, in convivial discourse with New York’s progressive leader, could undercut the solid accusations that Trump is imposing tyrannical policies on America. Just a day before he met with Mamdani, the president publicly suggested the execution of several Democrats in Congress.
The most publicized few seconds of the Trump-Mamdani session with reporters was when a journalist asked about Mamdani’s past charge that Trump is a fascist. The interchange was widely reported as an amusing moment.
The danger of normalizing autocracy is heightened when the utterly serious appraisal of Trump as a fascist can be recast as a media punchline.
Over the weekend, Mamdani stood his ground during an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, pointing out that in the Oval Office he had said “yes” to the reporter’s question about Trump being a fascist. And he added, “Everything that I’ve said in the past, I continue to believe.”
How long Mamdani will remain in Trump’s good graces is anyone’s guess. No doubt the mayor-elect is fully aware that Trump could turn on him with a vengeance. If Trump can do that to one of his most loyal ideological fighters, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, as he did recently, he can certainly do it to Mamdani.
To call Trump “mercurial” is a vast understatement. And yet, in countless ways, with rhetoric and with the power of the presidency, he has been unwavering and consistent – as immigrants being terrorized by ICE agents, or single mothers trying to feed their families, know all too well. Given all the harm his policies are doing every minute, it would be unwise to take seriously Trump’s broken-clock pronouncements that are occasionally accurate and decent.
Democratic socialists don’t need Trump’s approval. We need to defeat his MAGA forces. It’s unclear whether what happened with him and Mamdani in the Oval Office will make that defeat any more likely.
None of this is a criticism of Zohran Mamdani. This is an assessment of how the follow-up to his Oval Office drama with Trump could go sideways.
Trump and Mamdani found each other newly useful last Friday. Only later will we know who was more effectively using whom.
It’s all well and good to laud Mamdani’s extraordinary political talents and inspiring leadership for social justice. At the same time, we should recognize that he has entered into an embrace with a viperous president.
And when a rattlesnake purrs, it’s still a rattlesnake.
(Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.)
MOJO HAND
I'm goin' to Louisiana and get me a mojo hand
I'm goin' to Louisiana and get me a mojo hand
I'm gonna fix my woman so
She can't have no other man
Cold ground was my bed last night
Rocks were my pillow too
Cold ground was my bed last night
Rocks were my pillow too
I woke up this morning, I was wondering
What am I gonna do?
I lay down thinking
Buy me a mojo hand
I lay down thinking
Buy me a mojo hand
I did wanna fix my woman so
She can't have no other man
But don't let your woman
Fix you like mine fixed me
Don't let your woman, boy
Fix you like mine fixed me
She make a fool about her
Uh, 'bout as a fool can be
Now, can't a woman act funny,
When she got another man?
Can't a woman act funny
When she got another man?
You know, she won't look straight at you
That she's always raisin' sin, sin
Well, I'm goin' tomorrow
But I won't be gone long
I'm goin' tomorrow
But I won't be gone very long
I'm gonna get me a mojo hand
I'm gonna bring it back home
That's what I'm gon' do
— Sam Hopkins (1960)
YES, BOTH SIDES
The major political parties deploy escalating insanities on the road to oblivion
by Matt Taibbi
Days before Thanksgiving, when I must be like millions of Americans in just wanting to reach five days of permission to ignore the madness, the country is unraveling. Unlike most of us, who will look for ways this week to set aside differences for the good of our families, our political leaders are bitterly, senselessly escalating. American politics has become a suicidal farce, in which two teams locked in mutual hatred keep trying to finish the “guilty” side off, but instead end up cheek-to-cheek, dancing us all toward the cliff-edge of history. The idiotic framework has never been more evident than in the fast-worsening “illegal orders” crisis, where both sides are clearly at fault:
The circus started a week ago today, when Democratic Party Senators Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona launched a high-stakes gambit along with House members Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Jason Crow of Colorado, and Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, telling “members of the military and the intelligence community” that “you can refuse illegal orders.”
This slick composition was designed to send several messages at once. Despite the firm-but-soothing score (it sounds like the background music for a military massage parlor) and repeat reassurances along the lines of “We know it’s a difficult time” and “We have your back,” the real subtext is threat. The You must refuse illegal orders line about obligation and culpability is as important as their more-publicized You can refuse illegal orders message, about conscience and saving the nation. “Don’t give up the ship” was the dying gasp of Captain James Lawrence, killed in June 1813 in a Boston Harbor battle with the HMS Shannon, but the modern Lawrences aren’t planning on dying at British hands but looking to the future. This came out in later media appearances.
When ABC News Sunday interviewed Slotkin, anchor Martha Raddatz elicited several damning admissions. (Incidentally, the slog back toward occasional difficult questions for both parties by news networks is one of the few encouraging developments of this past horrible year.) First, Raddatz interrupted after Slotkin claimed Trump “asked his secretary of defense and his chairman of the Joint Chiefs to ‘shoot at their legs’ at unarmed protesters,” reminding the ex-CIA official-turned-Senator that though this was mentioned in former Defense chief Mark Esper’s A Sacred Oath, Trump “didn’t exactly say that. [Esper] said the president suggested that, but they were never ordered to do that.” Raddatz then pressed further, asking, “Do you believe President Trump has issued any illegal orders?”
Slotkin offered a curious reply: “To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal.” When Raddatz kept after her, Slotkin mentioned “legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela,” then talked about “the use of U.S. military on American shores, on our city, in our cities and in our streets,” where “people in uniformed military get nervous, get stressed, shoot at American civilians.” Raddatz from here asked the obvious question, namely that Slotkin sounded like a person describing murky or unclear situations, so “couldn’t you have done a video saying just what you just said?” In other words, if you’re unsure if something is legal, here’s the proper procedure. That would be the truly apolitical, public service announcement version of a “You can refuse illegal orders” video.
That’s not the only message they wanted to send, however, as became clear when Slotkin laid out “Don’t Give Up The Ship” in greater detail:
I mean, going back to Nuremberg, right, that, “Well, they told me to do it, that’s why I murdered people,” is not an excuse. If you look at popular culture, like, you watch, you know, “A Few Good Men,” like we have plenty of examples since World War II, in Vietnam, where people were told to follow illegal orders, and they did it, and they were prosecuted for it.
Invoking a movie as if it were a real-world example of being “told to follow illegal orders” exposed the cynicism of Slotkin and Kelly’s ploy. They could have mentioned specifics in the video, explaining what to do about the administration’s drug boat bombing campaign, under a cloud after the resignation of Southern Command chief Admiral Alvin Holsey, or the deployment of National Guard troops to streets of Democratic-run cities, already interrupted in some cases by judges.
Steering so far from specifics that the Code Red from A Few Good Men became the example, though, invited the entire population of military and intelligence officers to ponder their orders, not just in terms of legality but the potential to be “prosecuted for it,” as Slotkin put it. Underneath its lawyered veneer, the video was a clear message to the rank-and-file that they might be Nuremberged by a future administration, one presumably run by a party already comparing this one to the Third Reich.
That’s not just a legal calculation, but a political one. Trump is deriving authority for the boat strikes from memos drafted by his own Office of Legal Counsel, the same dubious framework the Bush administration successfully used to sanctify torture and the Obama administration used to “legalize” droning American citizens. If I were an officer in the current drone program and watched both the funeral of Dick Cheney (lavishly attended by former leaders of both parties) and the Slotkin-Kelly video, I’d find myself paralyzed by calculations. Will I be held accountable for the questionable practices in which we’ve been engaging all along, or just the new policies unique to Trump? How clear are those lines?
It’s a nightmare that will force officers to keep tabs on polls as they consider what orders to obey. Because of this, high-level resignations by career professionals anxious to stay out of politics are almost certain to accelerate no matter how this dangerous flame war plays out. That’s a loss for everyone. Worse, it’s all a result of a virtually undisguised intelligence community provocation, a scheme cooked up by the kind of people whose entire raison d’être under normal circumstances is pushing presidents to ignore the law, deployed in the middle of a period of extremely conspicuous, sudden support for absurd conspiratorial movements aimed up Trump’s other orifice:
Trump handled all of this in Trumpian fashion. He tweeted — excuse me, Truthed — a series of whacked-out messages. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Then: “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand. President DJT.” Then: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.” Time passed, and there was a re-truth of “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!” Truth Social is often a beyond-bizarre experience, but it’s not easy for any sane person to scroll past ads for the goofiest Santa sweaters and the AVP Badlands game and then digest a Trump re-Truth like the following:
Not exactly “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” The old saw about “acting presidential” may be overblown, but at a moment when any observant person has to be worried about this political situation spiraling out of control, you can’t have the president joking about hanging enemies and “stacking traitors like firewood.” The easiest part of Trump’s second-term equation was cutting back on saying things that scare the crap out of people, and he either can’t be bothered to do it or else he can’t control his impulses, neither of which is a reassuring thing to know about the commander of a potentially planet-destroying military force.
Vice President J.D. Vance, the Yale-educated author ostensibly elected to carry a polished version of Trump’s MAGA movement into the future, also dove into the war of words. After Slotkin’s mumbling “To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal” answer, the Vice President with the Yale Law degree tweeted:
Slotkin and Kelly may be playing a dangerous dice game with continuity of government, but they didn’t tell the military to “defy the president.” They said something vaguer, but true: “You can refuse illegal orders.” Vance’s attempt at law-by-syllogism was a missed viral dunk that put words in Slotkin’s mouth and reinforced the general impression that no one on either side understands the gravity of this tightrope moment. We’re fast becoming the kind of country where things like this can go very wrong quickly. The way an old-school president would deal with “Don’t Give Up The Ship” would be to ignore it/them as buzzing flies for now, and engage in a quiet mop-up and nut-crushing later. It’s not like this crew doesn’t have other things to do, like end two wars instead of starting a new one.
If the tone of this article feels different from some others of late it’s because I have plans to return from Thanksgiving guns-ablazing for a long Racket project that seems guaranteed to make me one of the most hated people in media, if not the most hated. In an effort to make clear I’ll be doing this for no reason beyond spite and the fact that the coming material is true, I’m embracing the “both sides” trope, long despised as a fetish for disgraced old-heads. Conventional wisdom has insisted for over ten years there are no more “both sides” stories, that “moral clarity” demands we highlight the sins of the wronger side and not traffic in “false equivalencies.” Demonstrably however there are two sides in American politics, and it would be better if they fought less and less dangerously. For the sake of the holiday, can’t we also laugh at them both? Why are there so few people who still do?
(racket.news)
WE GOTTA GET OUTTA THIS PLACE
In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refuse to shine
People tell me there ain't no use in trying
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You'll be dead before your time is due
I know
Watch my daddy in bed and tired
Watch his hair been turning gray
He's been working and slaving his life away
Oh yes, I know it
He's been working so hard
I've been working too babe
Every night and day
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
'Cause girl, there's a better life
For me and you
Now my girl you're so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true, yeah
You'll be dead before your time is due
I know it
Watch my daddy in bed and tired
Watch his hair been turning gray
He's been working and slaving his life away
I know
He's been working so hard
I've been working too babe
Every day baby
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life
For me and you
Somewhere baby
Somehow I know it baby
We gotta get out of this place
If its the last thing we ever do
We gotta get out of this place
Girl, there's a better life for me and you
Believe me baby
I know it baby
You know it too
— Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil (1965)
TRUMP IS MELTING DOWN: IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END?
by Melvin Goodman
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
– Bertrand Russell, 1905
The mainstream media have been concerned with the politics, policies, and propaganda of Donald Trump’s terms in office, but have virtually ignored the central question of his presidency: Is Trump psychologically fit to be president of the United States and commander in chief? Various psychologists and psychiatrists have warned that our dangerously disordered president is a threat to domestic and international security. The threat has become more dire in recent weeks.
The mental health experts who have discussed these issues have not been interviewed by the press. They took some professional risk in ignoring the ethical principle of the American Psychiatric Association known as the “Goldwater Rule.” This rule prohibits diagnosing public figures they have not personally interviewed. Trump’s recent public behavior and his outrageous remarks suggest that the “duty to warn” among psychologists and psychiatrists calls for greater scrutiny of Trump by the overall public, particularly members of the medical community and the media.
Trump’s signs of malignant narcissism are well known; he claims to know more than anyone else and that only he can fix our problems. His demonization of the media and his perceived opponents as well as his treatment of minorities and the handling of immigration issues point to paranoia. His misuse of the national guard and the professional military in our major cities, violating the Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, points to political paranoia. Trump’s reference to himself as the “Boss of the Americas” points to personal paranoia.
In recent months, Trump has claimed that non-existent political groups justify his deployment of the U.S. military in American cities and in Caribbean waters. He ignored the lawyers from the intelligence agencies, who oppose the use of force against Venezuela. Civilian lawyers from the Department of Defense were cut out of the discussion. The legal staff of the National Security Council was sent packing months ago.
To justify his illegal use of the military and the national guard in American cities, Trump cites his opposition to “antifa,” a non-existent political group and merely a label for anti-fascist groups in Europe and the United States. Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio has labeled groups in Germany, Italy, and Greece as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” Without any evidence, Trump has referred to antifa as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise.”
To justify his illegal and unconstitutional use of military force in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean against small boats from Venezuela and Colombia, Trump assails a non-existent group, the “Cartel de los Soles,” which is a label created by Venezuelan journalists, but not an organization. Secretary of State Rubio, who is one of the most bellicose actors on Trump’s national security team, describes Cartel de los Soles as a “criminal organization that happens to masquerade as a government.” Trump himself refers to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a “fugitive head of the cartel” who has been indicted in the U.S. for trafficking drugs into the country.
Trump’s meltdown can also be seen in his ugly and aggressive attacks on two female journalists who dared to raise the issue of the Epstein files with the president. Trump has a long history of hostility toward women, and this has been manifested over the years in his inability to deal with questions from female journalists, especially when it comes to the Epstein files or his recent glorification of Mohammed bin Salman during last week’s summit meeting. Trump dismissed MbS’s role in the horrible killing of a Saudi journalist by stating that the journalist was a “controversial” man and “things happen.”
Two recent developments in the Congress have knocked Trump off his feed. The fact that three MAGA representatives in the Congress are leading the opposition to Trump on the failure of the White House to release the Epstein files must be particularly loathsome to Trump. Then, last week, six Democratic congressmen—all military veterans—proclaimed that the military has a duty to ignore illegal orders. Trump’s maniacal response was to brand the group as “seditious” and remind the U.S. public about what should be done with those who commit treason. Trump’s conclusion to what is to be done: “Death.”
Trump is clearly losing his bearings, and there is no one in the White House who can calm him or get him to modify his actions or his provocative statements. Trump’s irrational and impulsive behavior is becoming particularly worrisome as the possible use of military force in Venezuela, or the CIA’s attempt to assassinate Venezuelan President Maduro, hang in the balance. Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional orders are compromising the integrity of the military and possibly returning the CIA to the perilous times of regime change and attempted assassinations during the Cold War.
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.
WE CANNOT HAVE a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.
― Camille Paglia
THANKSGIVING DAY
Over the river, and through the wood,
To grandfather's house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh
Through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood—
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes
And bites the nose
As over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood,
To have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring
"Ting-a-ling-ding",
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood
Trot fast, my dapple-gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting-hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood,
And straight through the barn-yard gate.
We seem to go
Extremely slow,—
It is so hard to wait!
Over the river and through the wood—
Now grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun!
Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin-pie!
— Lydia Maria Child (1844)
Pebbles’
Rachel Carson should have her in 1962, not 1862
The town of Mendocino, “Established in the 1850s and named after a Spanish colonial administrator…”
This is incorrect, the original name of Mendocino was, “Meiggsville”, after the founder and lumber mill owner Henry Meiggs of San Francisco. The name of the town was changed after Mr. Meiggs absconded to South America to escape his debts and avoid prosecution for fraud and forgery in San Francisco.
Pretty sure Lightnin’ Hopkins was talking about rasing sand, not sin.
Now, can’t a woman act funny,
When she got another man?
Can’t a woman act funny
When she got another man?
You know, she won’t look straight at you
That she’s always raisin’ sin, sin
“Since early September, the U.S. military has killed at least 83 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.”
I’m wondering how long it is going to take for the “smugglers” to pack one of these boats with kidnapped Americans.
“CATS are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their “evil” look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it”
I’d differ, as a cat lover, with Camille Paglia, about this judgement , though the first sentence has it right. But, shifting gears, the whole of it does fit Donald Trump quite well.
gotta love that Mendocino Beano!
Former school Superintendent Louise Simson’s letter of congratulations to the community on the new track and field area, reads so beautifully. She writes and speaks like a real human being, not like a typical bureaucrat, not like AI, just a real person with caring and feelings and emotions, having helped get something wonderful done:
“…I know it is not cool in public education to say you prayed on something to happen, but that is indeed true describing what I did on that field every morning to make a dream come true… I don’t know what mojo the heavens above had in mind, but she (Ms. Balliet) truly dug in DEEP and did not take no for an answer in order to make that project happen. She is a class act and I will be forever grateful for her resolve and drive to make the impossible come true…”
Great job by all for the good of the kids, Ms. Simson there at the beginning, coming back to see it all done, a true leader of many human qualities.
You are very kind, Mr. Dunbar. This is one of those magical times in life that you just can’t believe that a whole bunch of people worked together to get something so cool done. Hats off to my successor, Superintendent Larson and may the AV community thrive with this amenity for a generation to come.
Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and wishing Mr. Anderson, the Major, Terry Sites, and the staff continued good health as they provide this on-line forum that is essential for local discourse and information. The mighty AVA lives on!
Happy holidays!
Louise