Mendocino County Today: Sunday 12/7/2025

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A much warmer 52F with overcast skies this Saturday morning on the coast. We are supposed to see the sun later today, any bets ? Fog, sun & mentions of drizzle dot our forecast for the next week.

CLOUDY and misty conditions expected this morning. A warm front with light rain and drizzle passes over Del Norte and Humboldt counties today. Generally dry weather conditions is expected to prevail across NW CA this coming week, with periods of light rain/drizzle for the North Coast. (NWS)

CONGRATS TO THE PRIORY PANTHERS ON ANOTHER REDWOOD CLASSIC VICTORY!

JAYMA SHIELDS (Mendocino County Observer, Laytonville):

For those of you in the Laytonville area, hope to see you Sunday 12/7 from 10-4 at the Tin Gym for the annual arts & crafts bazaar. There will be 50 Mendo Locals vending all kinds of great things - from wooden bowls and planters to jewelry and goodies, photos on wood, metal art, wreaths and much more! I'll be in the See's Candy booth raising funds for the Park. Santa will be there noon to 2 for those Christmas Card worthy pics. Thanks to Joseph and 101 Nettling for getting wi-fi to the Tin Gym to support the vendors at this long-running community event.

NEW LEGGETT POST OFFICE ALMOST READY

Roughly one year and nine months ago, the Leggett Post Office was destroyed when a freak lightning storm went ‘postal’ on a nearby redwood tree; zapping and dropping half of the tree into the building, which caused an electrical fire that torched the joint. Since then, the mountain hamlet’s P.O. box holders have been forced to pick up their mail and conduct postal business some 23 miles away, at the Garberville office. General contractor, Rick Wise, of Laytonville, shares that the building is essentially ready and now they’re waiting for the U.S. Postal Service to outfit the interior.

— Roland Spence, Mendocino County Observer, Laytonville

LOUIS PETER DENNY (1932–2025)

Lou was born in Toledo Ohio, the son of Arthur Denny and Catherine Wildeman Denny on Jan. 24, 1932 and passed with family and friends by his side on September 20, 2025 in Ukiah California.

Lou was a graduate of Saint Meinard Seminary College earning a degree in philosophy and ordained a Roman Catholic priest serving 20 years in the Toledo Ohio Diocese. Continuing in human and social services, Lou moved to Northern California to be closer to family. His career choices were based in his desire to be a friend and to provide meaningful support to seniors in his community. Lou was a caring, kindhearted, generous man that truly made a difference in people’s lives. Lou was involved with many community based organizations including the Lake County Community Action Agency, Area Agency on Aging, Catholic Charities and the Redwood Food Bank. Lou also volunteered with the Hunger Task Force, the Health Leadership Network and the Lake County Food Round Table. He received the prestigious Lake County STARS” Man of the Year” award in 2017 for his dedication to improving the lives of Seniors.

Lou was a devoted and deeply cherished member of our family. He took great pride in supporting his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, celebrating each milestone in their lives. His steady presence, encouragement, and love will be profoundly missed, and his passing leaves a void that can never be filled. Lou will be lovingly remembered by his dedicated wife of 42 years Caroline, his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of Ukiah California.

The words of Francois Mauriac always meant so much to Lou “No love; no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark upon it forever”

JADE TIPPETT: Remembering the disappearance of Roy Mora, a trans child who walked away from Fort Bragg's Lighted Truck Parade a year ago tonight and jumped to his death off the Noyo Bridge. We live in a very odd time, where preying on the vulnerable is celebrated by our National leaders. Less than a week ago, an anti-gay hate crime was perpetrated, allegedly by three teens, blocks away from the Fort Bragg Middle School. We can do better than this. We have to.

WATERMEN'S ALLIANCE:

With Deep Sadness, We Share This News

Our Caspar Cove Project community has suffered a tremendous loss.

We are heartbroken to share that Joshua Russo passed away yesterday.

Josh was not only a driving force behind the Caspar Cove Project - he was its heartbeat. As the founder of Waterman’s Alliance and co-creator of the Caspar Cove Project, a passionate advocate for sustainable fisheries, and a dedicated leader in kelp restoration, Josh brought vision, courage, and a rare generosity of spirit to everything he touched.

If you’ve ever checked in at a community dive, learned how to safely remove urchins, shared a laugh on the beach, or tasted one of his legendary sous vide filet mignon … you’ve felt his impact.

If you’ve ever stood in Caspar Cove and believed restoration was possible… you were believing in something Josh helped build.

Just last week, he and I spoke about our excitement for next year’s dives - the plans, the momentum, the growing community.

His passion was undiminished. He was looking forward.

We don’t yet have details about what happened, but we will share more information as we learn it. For now, our focus is holding Josh’s family, friends, and all who loved him close in our hearts.

Josh gave everything to the ocean - and to us.

His legacy lives in every blade of returning kelp, every diver inspired to take action, and every moment we choose community over despair.

Please take care of yourselves and one another. Feel free to share memories or reflections below.

With grief, gratitude, and love for this community,

The Caspar Cove Project Team

AV EVENTS (today)

The Anderson Valley Museum Closed from Dec. through end of Jan.
Where: The Anderson Valley Museum, 12340 Highway 128, Boonville
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/5081)

Community Holiday Dinner: Click on link below to sign up for what to bring!
Sun 12 / 07 / 2025 at 5:00 PM
Where: Anderson Valley Grange, 9800 CA-128, Philo
More Information (https://andersonvalley.helpfulvillage.com/events/4300)

AS CAL FIRE SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON FOREST PLAN, Community Demands Stronger Protections and Accountability

An expanded commitment to tribal co-management

by Elise Cox, Mendolocal.news

There are just days left before the public comment period closes on the state’s proposed 2026 Forest Management Plan for Jackson Demonstration State Forest. For many residents, this remaining window represents one of the last chances to influence how the 48,652-acre public forest will be managed for the next decade. Whether CAL FIRE’s revisions narrow the divide with the community — or deepen long-standing disagreements over logging and land stewardship — remains an open question.

Jackson, the largest of California’s public demonstration state forests, operates under a contradictory statutory mandate: The Public Resources Code requires “maximum sustained production of high-quality forest products,” while state policy also calls for compatibility with recreation, wildlife, watershed health, cultural values, and aesthetics. Each 10-year forest plan attempts to reconcile those competing directives, and each has sparked conflict on the Mendocino Coast, where many residents oppose commercial logging on public land.

Work on the new plan began in late 2024, with CAL FIRE hosting public meetings on the coast and inland, posting agendas, presentations, and consolidated input online, and engaging tribal nations separately. A workshop was also held with the Jackson Advisory Group, created under the 2008 plan to advise the Board of Forestry and CAL FIRE leadership.

The draft plan, released in October 2025, drew comments from tribal representatives, scientists, and residents. CAL FIRE announced the comment period in local outlets, including Mendo Local (see above).

A Plan Aiming to Modernize — and a Community Wanting More

CAL FIRE officials describe the draft 2026 plan as a “goals-based” overhaul grounded in updated science, legal requirements, and evolving social priorities. A central change, they said, is an expanded commitment to tribal co-management.

“In 2019, Governor Newsom apologized for over a century of poor treatment of our Native American communities,” State Forests Program Manager Kevin Conway said at an October meeting in Caspar, noting that CAL FIRE now brings proposed actions “first to our tribal communities, then to the public through the Jackson Advisory Group before we decide what actions we’re going to take.”

Conway added that “climate change has come to the forefront of forest management,” and that the agency is “challenged to reintroduce beneficial fire” through cultural and prescribed burning.

But those updates did little to reassure critics, including scientists who said the plan lacks clarity and financially literate stakeholders who called for more budgetary detail and data to support economic claims.

“We see considerable potential to improve the draft plan’s rigor and its clarity,” said environmental scientist Evan Mills, arguing that the public cannot fully evaluate the plan without the context of what has been learned over the past decade. He also called for more transparency around spending: “For example, the costs associated with generating timber revenues should be separated from those that are legitimate costs for demonstration, for recreation, and for research.”

A resident named Fairyann asked CAL FIRE to open its books and share accounting that supported claims such as the forest generates $4.3 million in local wages or that eight jobs are created for every million board feet (MMBF) of harvest. “Are those books open to the public?” she asked.

CAL FIRE’s Balancing Act

CAL FIRE officials did not say whether the agency intends to scale back timber production at Jackson. Instead, they emphasized process — public meetings, tribal consultations, and assurances that all comments, including those delivered at the Caspar forum, will be transcribed and addressed in the next draft.

But many residents remain unconvinced that process alone can shift a management model built on commercial harvest.

“I really appreciate CAL FIRE for saving us from wild fires,” said a resident who identified himself as Sequoia. “But I do not appreciate CAL FIRE for approving sales of our timber.” He described the forest as a healthy, breathing organism and questioned the morality of cutting centuries-old trees to build “decks in Tennessee.”

Another resident, Ellen Buechner, echoed appreciation for CAL FIRE’s firefighting role but questioned the economic and ecological logic of continued logging. She urged the agency to conduct a cost-benefit analysis comparing who profits from timber removal to the benefits the living forest provides. “We have learned enough to know that there is a heart and spirit to that forest,” she said, “and that all species who live here should be interacting with it in vastly different ways than exploiting it, conquering it, extracting its very life blood.”

Buechner said the paradigm that guides the forest management plan — that timber sales will pay for research into forest management is outdated. “We don’t have time for that anymore,” she said. “And anyone who walks in the forest can feel it and know it.”

The debate underscores a fundamental tension: CAL FIRE is updating a management plan built on statutory timber production requirements that many residents no longer accept.

Next Steps

Public comments on the draft 2026 Forest Management Plan are due December 12 via CAL FIRE’s website. The agency says it will release a revised draft in March 2026, followed by another comment period. The final plan is expected in May 2026.

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

This sweet girl has been through more than she deserves. She was found alone, likely abandoned at a hotel by the person she once trusted. But even after all that, Chayanne’s spirit remains warm, hopeful, and ready for a fresh start with someone who will never leave her behind. Chayanne is the definition of mellow. She’s fully house-broken, easy to have around, and happiest when she’s curled up in a cozy spot, soaking in the peace and quiet. At her age, she’s not asking for much, just a calm home where she can rest her old bones and finally feel safe. Chayanne doesn’t appreciate young, bouncy dogs getting in her face, and honestly, who can blame her? But she may be able to live with another respectful, equally mellow dog who understands the beauty of taking life at a slower pace. If you’re looking for a loyal, gentle companion who will quietly fill your home with love, Chayanne is waiting for you. She’s not just looking for a place to stay, she’s looking for someone to cherish, and someone who will cherish her right back. Chayanne is a Border Collie mix, 8 years old and 64 sweet, loving pounds.

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional goat, sheep, tortoise, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us every first Saturday of the month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.

We're on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

MAGDALENA HOMES INVESTOR UPDATE, December 2025

Dear friends, partners, and supporters,

The past 30 days have been among the most transformative in Boonville-based Magdalena Homes’ history. Production is accelerating, new markets are opening, investor participation is expanding, and our model is resonating strongly with communities across California and beyond.

Below is a comprehensive update on our momentum and direction.

Production Acceleration and Global Supply Chain Expansion

Our current production output is averaging five homes per month, and we are especially excited about the homes now en route to California. The end of the year and the start of the new year will be a notably active period for us, with more than ten homes arriving around the holiday season. One of these homes is particularly meaningful, as it is expected to become the first of one hundred M1 studios purchased under the new fund we are establishing with Avery and Oliver Ramin. This milestone marks the beginning of a multi-year program that will significantly accelerate Magdalena’s presence across California.

We remain on track to scale to ten homes per month within the next three months and fifteen homes per month by mid-2026.

To diversify production, mitigate tariff risk, and expand capacity, we are launching pilots with new suppliers in both Panama and India. The Panama supplier is an experienced modular builder serving major enterprises and operating in a dollarized economy, eliminating FX risk and benefiting from efficient shipping lanes into the United States. Their operating model aligns well with Magdalena’s steady monthly order flow. Our India partner is a U.S.-based company with advanced overseas production capabilities, and we are exploring a co-branded Magdalena line with them. Early progress has been promising, though the details remain under NDA.

We also want to reaffirm our gratitude for our production team in Colombia. Their craftsmanship, pride, and consistency have been instrumental to Magdalena’s success. These new pilots are intended to complement—not replace—the extraordinary work happening there.

Rapid Geographic Expansion Across California

Magdalena is now deploying homes across a diverse range of environments, showcasing the versatility and durability of the M1 studio. We currently have active or upcoming installations in Anderson Valley, Blue Lake, Gualala (where a tentative pilot unit is expected to arrive in early 2026 and a resident has already been identified), Santa Rosa, and DeAnza Springs in Southern California. This breadth of locations—including rural, urban, coastal, lakeside, and desert regions—underscores the adaptability of our homes and the broad demand for dignified, resilient housing solutions.

Growing Investor Momentum

In the last 30 days we signed new investment agreements, and we are now proud to have a pool of 10 investors supporting

Magdalena’s continued growth. We are especially proud to welcome the Sanghvi and Clamp families into the Magdalena investor community this month, and we are deeply grateful for their support and partnership. We are also in active discussions with several prospective investors capable of making larger commitments as we scale.

We have also extended right of first refusal on future equity rounds to our early investors, ensuring they maintain the ability to participate meaningfully in Magdalena’s long-term growth.

Community Impact and Media Coverage

A front-page article in the Independent Coast Observer featured Magdalena’s vision for 20–30 homes in Gualala. Following publication, numerous residents reached out with gratitude and additional offers of land, opening the door to new opportunities.

We are now exploring a 40-unit development in Point Arena. Across Northern California, we have identified more than 200 potential host sites, reflecting strong alignment with property owners and local stakeholders.

Breethr Partnership

Breethr is preparing to install its climate-control and air-quality system in two existing M1 studios as part of our first joint pilot. The technology integrates heating, cooling, ventilation, moisture control, and advanced filtration into a single device—bringing environmental performance levels that exceed what is typically found even in luxury homes in the United States.

Hands Across Borders Documentary

We completed filming of Hands Across Borders in Colombia. The documentary includes emotional and inspiring stories from dozens of factory team members about their craft, personal journeys, and pride in building Magdalena homes. We will begin submitting the documentary to film festivals in early 2026.

Insurance and Resident Protection

We have developed a comprehensive insurance framework designed to protect residents, homes, investors, and site partners as we scale. This work has been made possible through our collaboration with Michael Zeldes at HUB, whose expertise and partnership have been instrumental in developing this program.

Field Work and Strategic Partnerships Across the Americas

The past month has included extensive field work across multiple regions. In Miami, we met with Joseph Ianoale, the CIO of Monument Capital Management, and with Michael Zeldes of HUB to strengthen our institutional investor relationships and celebrate progress on our insurance strategy. In New York, we visited with existing investors Harsh Sanghvi and Oliver Ramin and met several new prospective investors evaluating Magdalena.

In Bogotá, we held productive meetings with partners connected to the upcoming Panama production pilot and spent time with prospective investors. In Cartagena, we met with our long-standing logistics partners who have managed our export–import operations since the beginning. Their coordination is essential as we scale the number of homes shipping into California. In Barranquilla, we met with existing investors and with wastewater experts who are helping us refine infrastructure solutions for certain sites.

We also hosted several visitors in Anderson Valley, including David Levine, a highly respected leader in the real estate community whose guidance, introductions, and insight have been invaluable as we prepare for the next phase of Magdalena’s growth. We also continued our collaboration with Simon Fairweather of Fairweather Associates, whose design and engineering insights continue to shape the evolution of the M1 studio.

Community Engagement and Local Government

Our engagement with local government and community groups remains strong. We presented in front of the Gualala Municipal Advisory Council, where we received valuable input from civic leaders dedicated to improving local housing conditions. In Blue Lake, residents have already begun reserving homes even before they arrive, signaling robust local demand. Across several sites, early residents have been identified, reaffirming that community alignment is one of Magdalena’s greatest strengths.

Looking Ahead: Scaling Into 2026

Magdalena is now positioned to welcome larger investment commitments, enabling accelerated production, village development, site preparation, infrastructure planning, and installation logistics. We are incredibly grateful for the support of our investors, partners, and community members.

With gratitude,

Felipe, Hernando, and the Magdalena Team

VIOLINIST MARGIE SALCEDO RICE TO SOLO AT UKIAH SYMPHONY

by Carole Brodsky

On December 6th and 7th, the Ukiah Symphony is presenting “Musical Tales,” featuring guest conductor Richard Loheyde. The performance also features a special solo by virtuoso violinist, vocalist, music instructor and local attorney Margie Salcedo Rice, who will be performing the solo from Vaughn Williams iconic piece, The Lark Ascending.

Margie Salcedo Rice is the featured soloist this weekend at the Ukiah Symphony’s concert, “Musical Tales.” Salcedo is dedicating her solo to the memory of fellow Symphony member and cellist Joel Cohen, who passed away earlier this year. (Contributed)

Rice had the great fortune of being encouraged by both parents to study music.

“My mom started me out on piano, and when I was in second grade I began playing the violin,” says Rice. She continued to study violin through college, studying with Alfred Walters, beloved instructor at La Sierra University, and Claire Hodgkins, a student of renowned violinist Jascha Heifetz. “I must give a shout-out to my parents. They instilled the love of music in my life. My mom drove me every week to violin lessons in Beverly Hills. My father had a big collection of records. When Jascha Heifetz came to my University, I was lucky enough to get his autograph on the cover of a vinyl recording of a Sibelius concerto,” she smiles.

This is Rice’s 40th season with the Symphony. It started back in 1985, when she moved to Ukiah with her husband, Dr. Geoffrey Rice. “I was expecting my first daughter, Jessica when I met Carolyn Hawley, who was the Symphony conductor at that time. She invited me to join the Symphony. I told her I was pregnant, and she said, ‘No problem. You’re young. Just come when you’re ready. Ten days after my daughter was born, I went to my first rehearsal. The Symphony has been my musical home ever since.”

Rice has a special connection to the Vaughn Williams piece. “It’s such a beautiful piece. It was originally written for violin and piano in 1914, and then in 1920, Williams orchestrated it for violin and orchestra. When he was conceiving the piece, Britain was entering into World War I. It became this spiritually transcendent work, which describes a skylark floating above the meadows below- a symbol of what Williams wanted to see in the world around him. It’s one of the most cherished works of music from the British Isles.”

Her personal connection to the music goes back to 2008, when Rice was in Nashville recording a solo album. “I was performing a hymn entitled, His Eyes on the Sparrow. The orchestrator had incorporated a musical cadenza from the Lark Ascending into this hymn. It’s a real privilege to perform this entire piece, because it’s been a special, beloved song for me.”

Rice’s solo is made even more poignant due to the death of cellist Joel Cohen, one of the Symphony’s most cherished members, who passed away earlier this year. “I started practicing the piece in May of this year. My beloved friend Joel had passed away. He was the cello instructor for my daughter, Elizabeth Oliver, and inspired her to get her degree in music, which she did. I used to look at the cello section, and if Joel was sitting there, I knew we were going to have a great night. When he passed, it left a hole in our hearts, so I am dedicating this piece in Joel’s memory.”

When Rice settled in Ukiah, she knew she wanted to recreate some of the opportunities she received growing up in Southern California. “That was one of my motivations to become involved with the Symphony.” She also conducts a Glory of Christmas concert every year. This year the free concert will be held on December 14th at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Ukiah. “It’s a full symphony orchestra and children’s choir, and features a Nativity scene, reenacted with real baby lambs,” she smiles. And if performing and teaching doesn’t keep her busy, Rice recently fulfilled a lifelong dream, going back to school to obtain her law degree. “I work in the mornings at the Carter Rich law firm. Then I head to the Ukiah Junior Academy to teach music during my lunch break, and I’m back to the office in the afternoon,” she laughs. In college, she majored in business and minored in music. “I’d taken business law, and I was really intrigued by the concepts of justice and fairness. Then I met my husband on a blind date,” she laughs.

Geoffrey had seen Rice performing at a local school orchestra. “He had a friend who was a member of the same orchestra, and asked him to set us up on a blind date. We went to a baseball game, but when I found out he had season tickets to the LA Philharmonic, I was immediately intrigued,” she smiles. One thing led to another, and the couple married and had three daughters- Jessica, Patricia and Elizabeth. Rice’s interest in law never wavered. It just took a few extra years to come to fruition. “Working in law has deepened my appreciation for music. It’s that right-brain/left-brain thing.”

Rice’s parents now live with the family, and she is overjoyed that both her parents and her vocal instructor Joe Rubin- a student of Placido Domingo will be on hand for the concert. The Rice family has a passion for the arts. Geoffrey is an accomplished watercolorist, and if having season tickets to the Philharmonic wasn’t enough to win Margie’s heart, his hand-built harpsichord certainly helped. “He loves woodworking. He originally built a harpsichord, sold it and then built a spinet. He plays piano and trumpet. He’s like my walking encyclopedia for music- he can hear a piece of music and tell you the composer, the title of the piece- everything. We’re each other’s cheerleaders.” Geoff’s mother was a professional musician, and as fate would have it, she and Margie learned music theory from the same instructor.

Just as Rice’s parents did for her, Margie and Geoffrey provided musical opportunities for their daughters from an early age, and is now teaching her five grandsons. Jessica and Patricia play the violin, and Elizabeth plays the cello with the Ukiah Symphony. “In college, I had the opportunity to play the first movements of the Brook violin concerto and the Mozart violin concerto. Through my work with the Symphony, I’ve been able to play both entire concertos.” She has been teaching violin for 40 years at the Ukiah Junior Academy and teaches choir and strings at her private studio. She has recorded several albums- two with her sisters and one solo album. “My first album was recorded up the road in Redwood Valley by Spencer Brewer,” she notes.

“Music transcends divisions- political, social and economic. Music is a unifier. It transports hearts and minds, reminding us to marvel at this beautiful world, which is so much more than the discord around us. Music enables us to share our gifts through acts of kindness. This piece is a love offering. I get so emotional thinking about this piece,” she says, wiping away a tear. “It’s so personal. It lifts heart and mind heavenward. That’s my goal for performing this piece,” she concludes.

Along with The Lark Ascending, the Symphony will perform Joseph Haydn’s Armide Overture, Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Spiral, by Paul McCartney. The performances take place at the Mendocino College Center Theatre. Tickets are available at the door or online at https://www.ukiahsymphony.org.

Lou Davis, Ukiah Ca, 1901 (via Ron Parker)

GOING AUDIO

To the Editor:

I am a lifelong reader and, until recently, a snob about audiobooks. I too believed that audiobooks were fake reading. After the 2024 election, when our political climate became so toxic that I could no longer listen to the political podcasts I had used for many years to entertain and educate me when I was out for a run, I finally turned to listening to audiobooks instead.

Here’s the main thing I learned: I can now read two books at the same time — one while sitting in a comfortable chair at home with my dog in my lap and a second one while running. I am surprised by how much I enjoy the audiobooks. They keep me distracted from the effort required by long miles on the road, and a gifted audiobook actor adds an element of theater and fun to the experience.

Karin Kramer Baldwin

Petaluma

IT’S ABOUT THE READER

To the Editor:

Tired of listening to the radio during my daily two hours in the car commuting to work, I picked up my first audiobook at the library 30 years ago, when they were still on cassettes, and I was hooked. Hundreds of books later, mostly fiction, I am amazed by how a good reader’s voice can enhance the author’s work beyond the printed words.

When one reads printed dialogue, the mind does not “hear” in foreign accents or regional American dialects. A novel by a Scottish, Irish or Australian author is enriched by the reader’s accent, just as actors on a stage bring a playwright’s printed script to life. And no longer was I frustrated and impatient driving to work, as traffic jams just increased the time I had to enjoy reading.

Andrew Berman

Evanston, Illinois

PEARL HARBOR SURVIVOR (My Annual Remembrance)

by Bruce Anderson

Count me as one. I was two, my brother one, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

My brother and I were born in Honolulu, Our paternal grandfather, a Scots immigrant, was a principal in a successful business called the Honolulu Iron Works, with branches in Hilo and the Philppines. My father was a graduate of the Punahou School, same high school alma mater as President Obama three generations later. Pop, pre-War, spent much of his youth surfing and his evenings in white dinner jackets.

And then the world rushed in, along with reality.

By the end of the war Pop was loading submarines at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco. He’d cashed in his Honolulu chips because, like most Islanders, he assumed the Japanese would follow-up their successful aerial blitz of America’s Pacific defenses with a ground invasion so he loaded my mother and his two heirs on a evacuating troop ship headed for San Francisco while he wrapped up his affairs in his native Hawaii.

The morning of the infamous day, my brother and I had been up before dawn demanding, as family lore has it, ice cream cones. We were in the car as the sun rose and with it came wave after wave of low-flying planes swooping in over us and central Honolulu. We drove obliviously on as the invaders devastated the unawares American fleet where it was conveniently assembled in Pearl Harbor, their crews slumbering, many eternally.

“The planes were flying so low I could see the pilots,” my father remembered. “I thought it was some kind of maneuvers. There was smoke coming from Pearl Harbor, but most people simply assumed there had been an explosion and a fire. There were lots of people out in the streets watching the planes coming in.”

Kelso Daly photographed a man in his pajamas using binoculars to look towards Pearl Harbor as the Japanese attack on the American Naval base on the island of Oahu begins on December 7, 1941.

My father said quite a few of those spectators were recreationally strafed as the Japanese flew back out to sea. He didn’t know what was happening until we got home. It hadn’t occurred to him that the planes were hostile. That thought hadn’t occurred to much of anyone in Honolulu until they were either shot at or a stray bomb fell on their neighborhood. The Japanese, as always on-task, mostly confined themselves to military targets and, of course, forty years later, held the paper on our mortgages, including, for a spell, the Mendocino County Courthouse.

Some 20 minutes after the attack had begun, my father stopped to buy us our coveted ice cream cones, which were served up by an unperturbed clerk, and we drove on home. “Nobody had any idea that the Japanese would do such a thing,” my father said whenever he talked about December 7th. “They were too far away and America had no quarrel with them.” That he knew of, anyway.

Arriving home, my father famously complained to my mother that “These military maneuvers are getting a little too goddam realistic.” My mother, who’d always regarded her husband as something of a Magoo-like figure, informed her mate that the Japanese were attacking both Pearl Harbor and, it seemed, Honolulu, where errant bombs aimed at Hickham Field had already destroyed homes and businesses of non-combatants. She’d turned on the radio when she’d heard explosions. One of the first things she learned was that a bomb had obliterated the area where we’d made our ice cream purchase minutes earlier.

Caption: Three civilians were killed in this shrapnel-riddled car by a bomb dropped from a Japanese plane eight miles from Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The attack took place in a residential district, near no military objective. Note: The above information is entirely from the original December 1941 caption. The actual circumstances: The occupants of the automobile were members of the McCabe family. They lost their lives when a U.S. five-inch anti-aircraft shell exploded nearby while they were driving through Honolulu, en route to their workplaces at Pearl Harbor. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Years later, a hippie told me that I’d eluded the random wrath of the Japanese because I had “good karma.” I think it was more a case of God’s high regard for idiots and children.

My father was exempt from military service because he had a wife and children, but he was pressed into service as a member of a sort of impromptu Honolulu home guard called the Business Man’s Training Corps, or BMTC. Honolulu in 1941 was about the size of today’s Santa Rosa. My mother had much ribald enjoyment at the abbreviation, and was even more delighted at the sight of my father togged out as a World War One Doughboy, the only uniforms available.

The BMTC wouldn’t have been much of a match for the Japanese Imperial Army which, fortunately, never appeared on Waikiki. The Japanese had surprised themselves by the unopposed success of their attack on Pearl Harbor and had not prepared to land an occupying ground force.

December 7th was a major trauma for America. For our family, too. Pop made plans to head for the Mainland as soon as he could, but he wanted to accomplish both without being derided as a slacker for fleeing. It took him another year to make it stateside. He continued to spend his days surfing and sitting around in the dark at night behind blackout curtains.

My mother was a registered nurse who’d worked at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, my birthplace and also the birthplace of President Obama.

While surfer dude lingered in Honolulu, we'd been packed on to a troop ship headed for the Golden Gate. My mother remembers daily submarine alerts all the way across the Pacific during which everyone, including the women and children on board, trundled over the side by rope nets into lifeboats. Mom recalls that the two of us infants loved being handed off like a couple of footballs up and down the side of the ship, but the daily alarms and exertions terrified her and everyone else on board.

But we made it unscathed, and were soon ensconced in, of all places, the Fairmont Hotel, the evacuation center for people fleeing Hawaii.

FROM EBAY, A PHOTOGRAPH OF SEMI-LOCAL INTEREST: Greenwood (Elk), circa 1900. The mill is on the left. (via Marshall Newman)

THOUGH the body grows old and bears
the ache and weight of many days,
the life by which it lives is young,
for life is young or it does not
exist, is not even dead. And so
as I walk in the land’s holy Sabbath
Under the tall trees, I come
at once into the old young joy
that has moved me all my life to be
here in the early morning light.

— Wendell Berry

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, December 6, 2025

ANGELICA CERVANTES-VARGAS, 23, Ukiah. Domestic battery, assault with deadly weapon not a gun.

DAVID DUMITRU, 19, Sacramento. Fugitive from justice.

JONATHAN GARCIA-CRUZ, 26, Ukiah. Rape by force, violence, duress, menace or fear of bodily injry, commission of sex acts with child of 14-15 years of age, sexual penetration with force or fear.

FRANK ONETO JR., 51, Ukiah. Parole violation.

DREW PRICE, 42, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

SHALA PUGH, 35, Boonville. Probation revocation.

DONALD RETTIG, 62, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors.

PETER SAARI, 62, Ukiah. Parole violation.

JAKE ZABOROWSKI, 29, Willits DUI, resisting.

SONG OF THE U.N. PEACEKEEPER: While walking through Central Park sometime after midnight at the start of a light snowfall, I saw a deflating black balloon on my path . The ballon was being blown around by the bleak winter wind. Who are you, dark soul, I asked? Who are you, you who are alone and dying? Who are you with your eyes closed? You who are without weight? You who are without presence? You who are without air or light? The deflating black balloon answered: I am Rwanda. I am the Central African Republic. I am Somalia. I am Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am Aleppo in Syria. I am Mali. I am Lebanon. I am Dafur in Sudan. I am war crimes. I am genocide. I am no body. I am the way to dust. I am death's deep obscurity. I am the one who has witnessed. I am the one who stands between two sides. I am the one who leaves God to sit in judgement.

— John Sakowicz

Protesting US involvement in the Vietnam War, San Francisco, April 1967 (photo by Ralph Crane)

MEMO OF THE AIR: The mao-niao seat.

"You displease the Dark Lord, Cardinal Spellman. You are hereby stripped of your title of Interim Anti-Pope."

Marco here. Here's the recording of Friday night's (9pm PDT, 2025-12-05) seven-hours-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO.org, on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://memo-of-the-air.s3.amazonaws.com/KNYO_0673_MOTA_2025-12-05.mp3

Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Tim Minchin on confirmation bias, a couple of years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1juPBoxBdc

Every time this surfaces on the web it reminds me again of Hit and Run Theater's /The Irish Persons – The Missile In The Silo/. "Ho-ro, the missile [missile here rhymes with exile] O, the missile in the si-lo! Ho-ro, the missile-O, the missile in the si-lo!" Juanita and I were in our twenties, Crown Hall was full to the rafters, and they had the whole steamy crowd belting it out as one. The structure of the 100-year-old church was shaking from everyone stamping their feet! I have always hated loud kinetic crowds and being in any kind of crowd, but that was an exception, a peak experience. https://misscellania.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-rattlin-bog.html

The coolest faucet ever. It reminds me of a mechanical metal coin bank toy I had when I was a little boy. It was a rocket on its side. You'd rest a coin in a slot, cock and release a spring, and it would shoot the coin inside through another slot hidden under a fin in front of that. It did it so fast it made the coin just vanish, that is, when the coin didn't miss the slot and go whanging around the room. It smelled like hobby oil. I remember obsessively playing with it, and I snapped the spring painfully on my index finger a few times, but I loved that thing. https://bustednuckles.net/a-cool-faucet/

And I had been waiting so long I thought Penn and Teller Fool Us finally stopped, but I just checked, and the new season started months ago. There are already eight or nine 45-min. episodes of Season 11 here to see. Also all the previous years of Fool Us are available, in case you've only just now been made aware of the series, for a hundred hours or so of tongue-in-cheek magical thrills, for free (with ads). M.C. Brooke Burke is in her middle fifties and she still looks like a million bucks. I have always liked the Peppermint Patty edgy scratchy sound of her voice. Before her there were six years of M.C. Allison Hannigan ("I remember this one time at band camp…") Did you know that Allison Hannigan is Teller's daughter? https://www.cwtv.com/shows/penn-teller-fool-us

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

READY TEDDY!

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Taking Spiritual Direct Action Immediately

As the days go slowly by in Washington, D.C. with nothing of particular importance happening here, the bank account is increasing due to social security benefits, the new District of Columbia Medicaid and United Healthcare-Medicare Advantage membership cards are still undelivered, and it snowed yesterday, but didn't stick. Am, as always, identified with the Immortal Self, which exists prior to consciousness.

Continuing to sleep at the Adam's Place Homeless Shelter in the northeast section of D.C. I look forward to moving on, since I've no reason to be there any further, because the D.C. Peace Vigil was swept away by edict of the president in the White House Oval Office. We were deemed too scruffy looking for the new gentrified look preferred in America's national capital. Therefore, I may leave the homeless shelter at any time. There is no reason for me to bull dog through another D.C. winter. I patiently await for whatever needs to happen, to happen. I'm ready!

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

REGGAE ON THE RIVER PARTNER EXITS AS ANNUAL FESTIVAL SHIFTS FOR 2026

by Robert Schaulis

The Mateel Community Center announced dates for its 2026 Reggae on the River festival this week — a second-week of August schedule that is slightly different from previous years. The organization also announced that it is parting ways with partnering organization Hot Milk Entertainment, a mutual decision, the organization said, that was made to ensure the continued profitability of the event.

The 2026 festival is slated for Aug. 14-16, a week later than its traditional first weekend of August start date, because of challenges associated with that departure.

Vice president of the Mateel Community Center’s Board of Directors, Shanon Taliaferro told the Times-Standard that Hot Milk Entertainment’s Leo Ahern had served as the events booking agent and talent liaison for the past two years, investing in the event and working with the Mateel Community Center in a 50-50 capacity. That relationship, Taliaferro said, was intended to help the event get back on its feet after challenges in recent years, which included the loss of the event’s traditional venue at French’s Camp, a property owned by event co-founder Jack Arthur.

“Leo’s main goal was to get Reggae on the River back on its feet after some turbulent times with High Times (leaving as a sponsor) and the overall cost of running the production over at the Arthur’s property, which we love and adore, and (we) admire the family lot,” Taliaferro said.

“… Because of the state regulations that have been put down, we were no longer able to make money utilizing that site,” the event’s organizers announced this week.

“The Mateel Community Center, alongside Hot Milk Entertainment, want to announce a change for Reggae on the River, but never fear — the event will continue in 2026. Stay tuned for more information on next years’ dates later this week.

“Both parties express deep mutual respect and pride in what they’ve achieved together. Hot Milk has chosen to move in a new direction and fully supports Reggae on the River’s continuation, while Reggae on the River/Mateel supports Hot Milk’s future path as well. They extend a public thank-you to CLR for hosting the festival over the past two years,” that joint statement reads. “Hot Milk adds a parting message: sharing heartfelt gratitude for being part of the event’s legacy and thanking fans for their support and the joy they brought, noting that their positive impact is beyond words.”

The event’s current location, County Line Ranch, hosts Reggae on the River and other community events, and the event will take a year of intensive planning and effort on the part of the Mateel Community Center.

“I really just want to drill down on how positive of an event this is, and how much energy that this little community of Southern Humboldt has (and) how much energy we put into it and how much we do it.” Taliaferro said. “I mean, there’s a small amount of money being made, but nobody is making a large sum of money. All the money that comes in to the Mateel Community Center is sold out in benefits …. and I really just want to shine as big of a positive light as I possibly can.”

(Eureka Times-Standard)

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION APPROVES PLAN TO EXPORT MORE WATER OUT OF THE SACRAMENTO-SAN JOAQUIN DELTA

by Dan Bacher

The Trump administration yesterday released a draconian plan to divert more Delta water that will go into effect today, posing an extreme threat to already imperiled salmon, steelhead and other fish populations and Delta and tribal communities in California.

The plan released by the federal Bureau of Reclamation follows through on a federal order issued in January aimed at increasing agribusiness water deliveries to the valley south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/5/2357064/-Trump-administration-approves-plan-to-export-more-water-out-of-the-Sacramento-San-Joaquin-Delta

VINE REMOVALS TO CONTINUE AS WINE INDUSTRY SEES ‘STRUCTURAL CHANGE’

More significant removals are expected in 2026–2027 as growers confront years of oversupply, falling demand and bulk-wine inventories that remain stubbornly elevated.

by Jeff Quackenbush

The long-awaited wine industry rebound may be in sight in the next two years, but not before a dramatic supply contraction, including significant vineyard removals across California and even in the North Coast, according to experts at a major trade show in Santa Rosa on Thursday.

Analysts, lenders, accountants and marketers at the 13th WIN Expo Trade Show and Conference said the California wine business is undergoing a structural retrenching, not a cyclical dip, and a turnaround depends on eliminating excess inventory, reducing grape output and rebuilding how consumers are engaged.

‘This is a structural change’

San Rafael-based wine and grape brokerage Ciatti Co. revealed how severely the supply side has contracted and how far it still needs to go.

From about 2.8 million tons of wine grapes crushed statewide last year, “we think in 2025 it will be less than 2.4 million tons,” partner Glenn Proctor told a conference audience at Sonoma County Fairgrounds. The drop is far larger than normal vintage-to-vintage variation. It represents, Proctor said, a fundamental restructuring of California’s wine grape production and is affecting even the state’s highest-value regions.

For the North Coast, where premium wine dominates, the contraction is historic. Ciatti predicts Sonoma County vintners crushed this year roughly 150,000 tons.

“The last time we were at 150,000 without an environmental issue was 30 years ago.” Napa County is estimated at just 105,000 tons, in line with the wildfire-hampered 2020 harvest.

That short crop is only part of the story. Vineyard removals on a scale not seen in California in years are underway.

Pointing to new acreage analysis from Land IQ, released in November by the California Association of Winegrape Growers, Proctor noted how dramatically the state’s footprint has shrunk between October 2024 and August of this year:

California total wine grape acreage: Just over 477,000 acres
Acres removed statewide: Over 38,000 (13% of the total)

Here are North Coast removals from the report:

Sonoma County: 2,700 acres out of 58,000 total (4.65%)
Napa County: 3,100 acres of 42,000 (7.38%)
Mendocino County: 830 acres of 16,560 acres (5%)
Lake County: 780 acres of 11,400 (6.8%)
Solano County: 140 acres of 5,500 (2.5%)

Yet Proctor cautioned that even these dramatic numbers could be merely the beginning. More significant removals are expected in 2026–2027 as growers confront years of oversupply, falling demand and bulk-wine inventories that remain stubbornly elevated.

“We really think this is a structural change,” he said.

With U.S. wine sales annual growth declining across all but the highest price tiers, demand alone will not solve the imbalance. Proctor projected the earliest meaningful relief on the grape sales side would arrive in two years.

“We feel 2027 feels a lot better on the grape side than 2026,” he said.

Lots of wine available but weak demand

If vineyard removals are the dramatic symbol of supply adjustment, the bulk-wine market shows why those removals are necessary. This is a market where vintners with excess wine or growers with unsold grapes seek wine producers who want to buy wine for their own brands.

“The majority of the successful markets were in the private-label business. We didn’t see a lot of traditional buyers,” said Ciatti bulk broker Todd Azevedo.

North Coast Vintners Face Dual Challenge: Adverse Weather And Uncertain Market Demand

‘This is the worst year I’ve ever seen’: Local winegrowers confront tough harvests with unsold fruit and vine removals

White wine saw intermittent activity at just $1 to $3 per gallon. Red wines, especially Pinot Noir, were “particularly weak,” Azevedo said. More concerning was the failure of bulk-wine inventories, dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, to decline this year, despite reduced production and expectations that the correction would already be underway.

But West Coast vintners and growers aren’t the only ones reeling from oversupply. Ciatti’s Greg Livengood showed statistics that worldwide wine output for 2024 was the smallest since 1961, and major producers such as Chile in recent years have torn out 20%–25% of their vineyard base to realign supply.

“Everybody’s feeling the drop in consumption,” Livengood said.

U.S. wine exports are down by more than half since 2015, representing 350,000–400,000 tons worth of lost sales. Pandemic logistics, shipping disruptions and international trade wars further erased markets that once helped relieve domestic oversupply. For example, a boycott of U.S. wine in Canada has eliminated the top export market.

3 types of wineries today: strong, stable, struggling

Yet the supply-side crisis is only one dimension of the industry’s struggle. At a separate panel moderated by Proteo Financial founder Zane Stevens, winery financial experts shared a frank assessment of operating conditions on the ground.

Mark Evans of Triumph Advisors, whose firm works primarily with wineries producing under 10,000 cases, described the moment as unprecedented.

“For the first time in the industry, we’re seeing a major recalibration.”

Evans cited declining consumer confidence, lower drinking rates, and escalating operating costs across labor, packaging, shipping and insurance. The generational shift is especially significant: “Younger drinkers are either entering nature or drinking alternative beverages.”

Silicon Valley Bank Wine Division manager Marshall Graves said winery performance isn’t universal.

“About a third of the industry is performing very well,” he said, with top performers in the bank’s portfolio seeing 17% year-over-year growth. The middle third is roughly breaking even, but the bottom third is struggling more significantly.

Discipline, not despair, is what the moment requires, the panelists said.

How wineries survive until 2027

Speakers throughout the conference offered several survival strategies:

Direct-to-consumer remains the most reliable profit engine. Graves said the wineries showing the most growth are those with 50% or more of revenue from DTC, regardless of whether they source fruit or own vineyards.
Focus on core customers. If you don’t know who they are, study your data or start collecting the information.

“The most resilient brands are leaning into relationship-driven sales,” Evans said.

Wineries need “private client services, smarter segmentation, and creating genuine membership value,” he said.

Smarter financial management. Geni Whitehouse of accounting firm Brotemarkle Davis & Co. urged wineries to abandon the idea that bigger is automatically better:

“Don’t just drive more sales, sell smarter,” she said.

Understanding which products and variations actually make money — and which just inflate inventory — is essential in a period of contraction.

Inventory discipline.

“Wineries are carrying excessive inventories,” Evans said. That locks up cash and creates a drag on pricing strategy. So vintners must be producing as much as demand and margin warrant, not based on ego, he said.

Stevens said, “Creating demand for a product that no longer exists creates hype, and that will create more ego for you than producing 1,500 cases because you think you can sell it.”

Distributor partnerships have always mattered, but now they’re essential. While direct-to-consumer sales have far greater profit, sales through wholesalers to stores and restaurants can expand markets for smaller vintners and move volume for larger producers. But the tactic of allowing wines to sell themselves through distribution is no longer the solution when wholesaler inventories remain high, according to Ed LeMay, a principal of Napa-based Azur Associates.

“Find distributors that will return your phone call,” and be willing to “go out and help create demand for your product,” LeMay said.

Operational austerity in the vineyards. Proctor said growers without grape contracts should consider minimal pruning, reduced inputs and the ability to make “quick decisions” about whether vineyard blocks remain viable to grow grapes for sale.

Winning the consumers who will rule the future

Even if acreage removals and inventory reductions succeed, the industry won’t stabilize until demand rebounds, the experts said. And that depends on rebuilding relevance with younger consumers.

Brand strategist Adam Bird of Highway 29 Creative told attendees at his session that the wine category is experiencing what he called a “resilience gap.” That’s a mismatch between how producers see their brands and how consumers experience them.

“People aren’t changing with the times, or they do so by reacting chaotically,” Bird said.

That kind of panicked reinvention erodes consumer trust, he said. What matters more is consistency of identity, even when tactics evolve.

“The brands that won were the ones that didn’t chase the fads,” he said, pointing to the transition from jug wine to premium bottled wine in the 1970s and 1980s.

Younger consumers, especially those under 25, have lived entirely in a world of overwhelming choice.

“How does someone navigate that?” Bird asked. “The next generation of purchasers are buying based on their values.”

Formula for authenticity

Bird offered a simple equation: promise + delivery = authenticity. Whether on social media, in a tasting room or via packaging, consumer perception of trust comes from brands that express the same core identity across touchpoints.

He pointed to examples like Ford and Apple as brands that stayed relatively consistent over time, the car maker with dependability and the computer maker with approachable and interconnected technology.

“When a brand understands their core identity and they adapt the expression of that identity, they can say things in vertical video, horizontal video, short-form or long-form content without changing who they are at the core,” Bird said, reflecting the various formats popular on different social media.

The power of archetypes and influencer guidance

Bird encouraged wineries to adopt Jungian brand archetypes, such as the everyman, hero or jester, for their brands to maintain consistency when communicating.

He said influencer marketing is now the primary way young consumers navigate choices.

“Frankly, everyone’s drowning in choice, and that’s the life raft that they’re reaching for,” Bird said.

Lifestyle influencers, not wine-only personalities, often provide the most resonance because they speak to audiences who aren’t already convinced.

A reset, if the industry is disciplined

A theme through the conference sessions was the wine industry will not correct quickly, but its long-term fundamentals remain viable if producers accept that supply reduction must run its course.

From Ciatti’s vantage point, vineyard removals and lower crush volumes are prerequisites for repairing the supply-demand imbalance.

“We do think we’re getting closer to a reset,” Proctor said. “At some point, I think we are going to hit this reset where at least we’re going to start to see some stability to the wine and grape market.”

From the financial perspective, the path to stability runs through inventory management, direct-to-consumer engagement, cost control and better use of financial data.

From the branding side, long-term relevance hinges on forging authentic, values-driven consumer connections.

Even in their harshest assessments, the conference participants consistently rejected the idea of collapse.

“For the first time in the industry, we’re seeing a major recalibration” — a reset, not an end to the industry, Evans said.

(North Bay Business Journal)

LEAVING HUNGRY POLS TO HELP HUNGRY KIDS

by Maureen Dowd

Billy Shore always seemed too sweet to be in politics.

I met him way back when pols and officials had the decency to creep away if they were caught doing something shameful.

Shore was an aide to Gary Hart in the Senate and in his presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988. Hart dropped out in 1987 after a sex scandal but later got back in the race, pursuing a lonely quest with his wife, Lee, and a handful of reporters (including me). Shore was also Bob Kerrey’s chief of staff in the Senate and helped with his losing presidential run in 1992.

But even before his two candidates came a cropper, Shore had another passion: eradicating hunger. In 1984, when a brutal famine in Ethiopia was killing hundreds of thousands, he founded Share Our Strength, a hunger relief organization, with his sister, Debbie Shore.

“Knowing that I was going to spend another four years on the road doing campaign stuff, I also wanted to have a more immediate, direct, hands-on way of trying to make a difference,” Shore, now 70, told me Wednesday at his D.C. office.

He realized he’d rather help hungry children than politicians hungry for the White House. He used to wrangle reporters on the campaign trail. But he decided he would rather spend an afternoon, as he once did, wrangling 101 children, including 20 from a homeless shelter, dressing them up in black-and-white spotted costumes and taking them to see the movie “101 Dalmatians.”

But this week, Shore is more focused on striped rodents than spotted dogs. The actor and Share Our Strength patron Jeff Bridges had put him in touch with the producer of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies who was producing a Chipettes cover of “Golden,” the hit from “KPop Demon Hunters,” and wanted all proceeds to go to the organization.

The organization, which began in the basement of a rowhouse on Capitol Hill, is now an intrinsic part of the fight against hunger across the United States, waged at the local, state and national levels. In 2010 it started its “No Kid Hungry” campaign. That is a mission that everyone agrees with, and yet one we somehow fail to achieve in an America larded with billionaires cavorting in a new tech-driven Gilded Age. Billionaires who are, Shore said, only “giving away a very small percentage of their revenue.”

Hunger, Shore added, “is a solvable problem, relative to so many other things we care about. You don’t even need facts or figures. People know it intuitively.”

But here’s a shocking figure anyhow: According to the latest data, from 2023, nearly 50 million Americans, including one in five children, are food insecure.

The Trump administration’s Dickensian gutting of SNAP benefits during the government shutdown this fall showed how easy it is for millions of Americans to slip back into choosing between heating their house and feeding their families.

Shore said that there is no ideological bent to his operation. “I think both parties are almost equally to blame,” he said. “I think people at the bottom of the economic ladder are just politically invisible. They’re voiceless. And even a lot of my favorite politicians don’t pay attention to them the way I wish they would.”

Given President Trump’s flickering interest in affordability and attacks on food assistance programs, Shore said “the saving grace” is that a lot of his work is done at the state and local levels. He said about the Trump White House press secretary-turned-Arkansas governor: “Sarah Huckabee Sanders is one of our biggest champions.”

Shore splits his time between Washington and the rocky shores of Kennebunkport, Maine, where he joined the all-volunteer fire department seven years ago at the urging of his son because, he said wryly, the fire chief wanted to “lower the average age of the department.” That inspired him to start writing a book framed around the question: “What if we responded to a child trapped in poverty the way the fire department responds to a child trapped in a burning building?”

Shore said “one of the things that’s really impressed me since I’ve been a firefighter is this mentality of ‘Do whatever it takes,’ rather than ‘Let’s study it for six months.’”

Please help support Share Our Strength’s fight. When you’re talking about hungry kids, by all means, let’s do whatever it takes.

(NY Times)

JOIN ICE

Well, if you're lookin' for purpose in the current circus
If you're seekin' respect and attention
If you're in need of a gig that'll make you feel big
Come with me and put some folks in detention

Just last week was kind of tough, I put a kid in cuffs
I zip tied a lady to a van
We can sneak around town, hunt workin' folks down
I hear they got a great benefit plan

Join ICE, boy, ain't it nice?
Join ICE, take my advice
If you're lackin' control and authority
Come with me and hunt down minorities
Join ICE

Well, I failed the academy, the cops weren't havin' me
The Army didn't sound that fun
So I found me a paramilitary operation
That was keen to hand me a gun

I got picked on at school, I never felt that cool
There's a hole in my soul that just a-rages
All the ladies turned me down, and I felt like a clown
But will you look at me now, I'm puttin' folks in cages

At ICE, we're respectin' power
Join ICE, I hear they got great hours
There's a sign-on bonus of 50 grand
They're in need of you, needin' to feel like a man
Join ICE

(Look at him go!)

— Jessie Wells (2025)

"I THINK you have to be schizoid three different ways to be an actor. You’ve got to be three different people. You have to be a human being. Then you have to be the character you’re playing. And on top of that you’ve got to be the guy sitting out there in Row 10, watching yourself and judging yourself. That’s why most of us are crazy to start with, or go nuts once we get into it. I mean, don’t you think it’s a pretty spooky way to earn a living?"

— George C. Scott

He has an uncanny command of stagecraft, that arsenal of small gestures and bits of business that an actor uses to establish his character for the audience. In the final scene of a 1962 production of "The Merchant of Venice," Scott, playing Shylock, held a handkerchief belonging to his daughter Jessica. The production was staged outdoors, near a lake in New York’s Central Park, and every night a gentle wind blew across the stage. To signify Shylock’s loss of Jessica, Scott simply released the handkerchief, and the wind carried it away. In O’Neill’s "Desire Under the Elms," he had two loads of farm equipment of clearly different weights placed just off the stage. When he and his son made their first entrance, the father carried the heavier one. The audience was silently but clearly told what O’Neill wanted them to know about the old man’s strength and his relationship with his son. As Shakespeare’s Richard III, he taped a piece of metal to his leg to keep it from bending, then attached a rigid aluminum strip to his arm to make it virtually inflexible. “As I continued to rehearse the play, though,” Scott says, “I found I needed these restrictions less and less. The knee taping went on during the first week’s performance, then the arm. I found I had been programmed to move as though they were there, and I never had to worry about falling out of the character movements again.” Scott is also a perfectionist with makeup, and he has the devotion and knowledge to fill the demand he makes on himself. For "Patton," he borrowed old newsreels of the general and watched them so often, recalls Producer Frank McCarthy, “that they were completely worn out when he finally returned them.” Scott also read 13 Patton biographies several times each, had his dentist mold him a set of caps to duplicate Patton’s teeth, shaved his head and wore a wig of realistic white fuzz. He even insisted on having moles on his face identical to Patton’s and filled in part of his nose to make it more like the general’s. When she saw the film, Patton’s daughter was astonished. “Once it gets rolling, a character is never off my mind,” Scott says.

Actor George C. Scott in a scene from the film *Patton* (1970)

TAIBBI & KIRN

TAIBBI: The underlying question of you can refuse illegal orders went into hyperdrive last Friday when the Washington Post published a still disputed story, well, still partially disputed, about the idea that there were survivors on a drug boat, on the first drug boat that was blown up in these Venezuelan operations that the Trump administration’s been doing, and the idea was that the commander, Frank Mitchell Bradley, a.k.a. Mitch Bradley, apparently, fired a second shot to blow away the boat, to finish off the boat, and ostensibly the people in it.

Now this became the example of the illegal order because firing upon the shipwreck is literally the paradigmatic example of a war crime. There’s not much you can’t do in war. In the United States Pentagon manual, The Law Of Armed Conflict, there’s only a few things that are utterly prohibited, including-

Walter Kirn: Can you shoot twice at a crashing plane?

Matt Taibbi: I don’t know about that, but you can’t shoot at somebody parachuting out of a plane, a crashed plane.

Walter Kirn: Okay.

Matt Taibbi: You can’t shoot on the wounded, you can’t shoot on the sick, shoot at the sick, which is interesting, and we’ll get to that because we had a policy of doing exactly that for years, and we even interviewed people who investigated that this week. But this whole idea of the Pentagon firing on survivors became the driving issue because now everybody could point to an order that everybody agreed was illegal, like every legal expert, right?

Walter Kirn: Mm-hmm.

Matt Taibbi: Once that happened, before the Washington Post story came out, Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, and Donald Trump could not have been more outspoken on the subject of all of this was entirely appropriate and they were fully within their rights to do it, blah, blah, blah.

Walter Kirn: And they were referring to this specific case or…

Matt Taibbi: Actually, yes, but yes. So we had Karoline Leavitt saying he was fully within his authority to do that, the admiral, then there were a series of statements. Hegseth’s original tweet in response talked about how these strikes are designed to be lethal, the Biden administration was coddling these terrorists, we kill them. And then there were… Let’s look at an example. Here’s Trump and Hegseth sitting together and they’re sharing sort of a joke about how there aren’t many boats left to attack because they’ve done such a good job of wiping everybody out.

Video: … said, “No, we’re taking the gloves off. We’re taking the fight to these designated terror organizations,” and it’s exactly what we’re doing. So we’re stopping the drugs, we’re striking the boats, we’re defeating narco terrorists, and we’re standing-

And you may say one thing that drugs coming in through the sea, by sea, are down 91%, and I don’t know who the 9% is.

I’m not sure either, sir, because-

But down 91% by sea.

We’ve had a bit of a pause because it’s hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter, not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse and repeat approach of previous administrations. This is meant to get after that approach. And I will just end by saying, as President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations…

Matt Taibbi: Okay. So again, the entire point of this is to-

Walter Kirn: They’re feeling pretty good about what they’re doing.

Matt Taibbi: Right. So the entire point is to put everybody at the bottom of the ocean. This is one of the all-caps phrases that he was tweeting out.

Walter Kirn: They’re dissuading people from launching new boats. The traffic across the seas has dropped according to them by 90%. I don’t know if it’s been made up by 90% in other realms, traffic across the deserts, wherever.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. I mean, who knows, right?

Walter Kirn: But their mission objectives they feel are being reached, but there’s this problem.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And so the story comes out and then Hegseth, this is one of the things that he tweeted in the immediate aftermath of the Post story, “Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made on the September 2nd mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us. When this Department of War says we have the back of our warriors, we mean it.” But this one also goes through some of the same things. “These strikes are intending to be lethal and kinetic. The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco boats, and kill the narco terrorists,” right? What’s important about this is that this is the response to the accusation of killing survivors. Okay? “Biden preferred kid gloves. Biden coddled terrorists. We kill them.” And then after Monday, there was kind of a switch. We started to see-

Walter Kirn: We’re talking about one incident, is that correct?

Matt Taibbi: Yes. Well, we are, and the Washington Post is. We called a gazillion lawyers this week, and there are so many different issues just with the missions as constituted. Forget about the firing on survivors. The reason the firing on survivors story, I think, is important or I think is being emphasized is because it’s a clean example of something that you can’t do under any circumstances, right? Even according to the post 9/11 America version of The Law Of Armed Combat, you can’t fire on the shipwrecked, right? That’s in our current Pentagon manuals.

But as of Monday, we started to see, oddly enough, and I thought this was an interesting media detail, the New York Times began running these stories that had a different take than the Washington Post stories, and the essence of them was that Hegseth did not give a kill everybody order specifically about those survivors, and that essentially this was a problem that rested solely on the shoulders of Admiral Bradley-

Walter Kirn: Whose order had been what?

Matt Taibbi: Well, so Bradley or somebody close to Bradley or somebody in the services, these were the people who were talking to the Post saying that this second shot was done in order to comply with a general spoken directive of Hegseth, but the New York Times began putting out a bunch of different stories. The first one on Monday said that it was true that Hegseth ordered a strike that would kill people on the boat, but that, quote, “His directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things.” And then by the next morning, there’s like a full profile of Mitch Bradley or Frank Bradley, the stoic and cerebral-

Walter Kirn: It’s the admiral.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. The stoic and cerebral SEAL known as Mitch. And it’s always a bad sign when there’s a scandal and somebody like the New York Times does a full-fledged profile of you, like a biographical profile of you, because that’s a signal that you’re about to be made the main character in the drama…

“AT THE AGE OF 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”

— Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Has anyone proven that the ‘unnamed witnesses’ actually exist? A friend of mine saw an alien spacecraft landing in his backyard and chased it off with his garden hose. I can’t reveal his name because we’re under watering restrictions and he’s way up there in the city water department, but when I went over his yard was wet. So yeah The Post should really get the word out.

"MANKIND has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. […] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time."

— H.L. Mencken

WITH the neutron bomb, which destroys life but not property, capitalism has found the weapon of its dreams.

— Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (1990)

I personally am glad the US has swapped out the name Department of Defense for the far more honest name Department of War. When was the last time the American military was used to defend the United States? It never happens. Call it what it is. Only thing more honest would be to call it the Department of Perpetual War.

— Caitlin Johnstone

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

For Landmark Test of Executive Power, Echoes of a 1930s Supreme Court Battle

Hegseth Skirts Questions About Releasing Video of Sept. 2 Boat Attack

Judge Stalls Justice Dept. Effort to Seek New Comey Indictment

Confusion and Anxiety for Parents as Vaccine Guidelines Are Upended

Criminals Are Using a Cryptocurrency to Launder Money and Evade Sanctions

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry (1968)

The visible presence of phytoplankton in the aftermath of Kilauea’s eruption in 2018 (Karin Bjorkman, University of Hawaii)

ADVENT LESSONS

by David Yearsley

The Christian church year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, which falls either in late November or early December. Many traditions mark the occasion with festive pomp as befits a New Year celebration: organ fireworks; choral exclamations; trumpet blasts and timpani thunder. After these joyous outbursts, the ensuing weeks before Christmas were generally a penitential period, often forbidding elaborate music during the liturgy.

Devil capitalism has long since put paid to such pious restraint. Now Advent contends with Black Friday, metastasizing even as I write into full-blown seasonhood. Against its dark advances, even Cyber Monday seems fragile, cloaked in mysticism, a relic of the distant past of 2005.

But human rituals—partly ancient, partly reinvented—hold out against the madness, as at the Advent Carol Service of Trinity College, Cambridge, sixty miles north of central London. Paradoxically, it is in this Disney-esque dreamworld that the real retains its power.

One of many magical moments in the service comes after the organ has concluded its lengthy, multi-part prelude—this year a mini-recital of Advent masterpieces from J. S. Bach. The electric lights are then dimmed and candles are passed down the long, raked stalls that run the length of the chapel. Each congregant lights the candle in holders in the pew in front of them. In slow crescendo, the chapel illuminates, glowing and shimmering as it did after dark when it was built nearly five hundred years ago.

Only two artificial lights remain: one up at the console of the organ that sits on the rood screen dividing the chapel from the ante-chapel; the other just below the organ, a green exit sign with its white arrow and running man. This compulsory blemish appeases the law if not logic. Since everyone entered through that door, one would think that they’d try to exit from it too in case of an emergency. There must be another little white man against a green background at the far end of the chapel, too, but I couldn’t see it from my perch.

The chapel is a palimpsest: 19th-century Pre-Raphaelite stained-glass windows set in 16th-century stone, keeping company with America-born Benjamin West’s 18th-century altarpiece that depicts St. Michael trampling on Satan and about to finish him off with a sharp lance. The organ pipes from the 1970s are housed in woodwork from around 1700.

Sung by the fabulous, compelling choir of undergraduates, the linguistic, chronological, and stylistic diversity of the service’s choral anthems complemented and conversed with these many-layered architectural surroundings, muted and moody in the candlelight. Abetted at dramatic moments by organ, timpani, and descants, the hymns were sung with gusto by the congregation; these carols intermixed with scriptural passages read by a succession of students and faculty.

I had gotten a much-sought-after ticket of admission thanks to a fellow—i.e., faculty member—of the college. Fellow does not now mean male, though it did up until the election of the first woman to the Trinity in 1977, the year before female undergraduates were admitted to the college. My host was the first female fellow in the sciences. Trinity is renowned for its scientists. In the ante-chapel, statues of 17th-century polymaths Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon, both former fellows, don’t so much welcome visitors as literally and figuratively look down on them. Tennyson is also there, along with a few other Great Minds: all white men, indeed far whiter than they ever were during their jaundiced, dietary-supplement-free lives, since they have been carved in marble of Apollonian brightness.

We came in by car from the fellow’s house in a village on the Fens, the former marshlands of East Anglia drained by the Romans in the pre-Christian era and Dutchmen a millennium and so later. The flat, treeless farmscape dotted by the towers of churches and scissored by power lines is increasingly encroached upon by business parks and population pressures that push outward from the science-centric university. Fellows and heads of colleges speak enthusiastically of High-Tech Fens. What the English lovingly call “the countryside” is inexorably being paved over by the forces of progress that Newton and Bacon set in motion four centuries ago. An apple drops next to little Isaac and the next thing you know, you’ve got legions of jerkined robots espaliering vast tracts of GMO Granny Smiths in the shadow of glassy Google office blocks peopled by robot-nerds decked out in Casual Friday finery every day of the week and weekend.

In a big Audi moving at significant speeds, the fellow motored into town from her satellite village. She eased her car through the intricate wrought-iron gate that initially allowed slenderer carriages to pass through towards Trinity. That opening barely admits Bavarian muscle cars. Safely onto college property, she proceeded slowly down the tree-lined avenue over the meadows along the River Cam and towards the uplit spires and parapets ahead. The so-called Backs present a pastoral landscape in the middle of the city and on these fields the richest colleges graze their livestock for picturesque effect and as a symbol of their wealth and power. It will be a long, long time before Trinity goes vegetarian, throws open—or is made to throw open—its pastures for free public camping and recreation, community vegetable gardens, and collaborative composting. There is a housing crisis in this country, though the Hereford cattle grazing of a misty morn on the Trinity Backs don’t seem overly concerned about it.

We continued down the avenue past mantled groups walking single file towards the portal into the first of many courtyards. The fellow deftly pulled past them and through the archway into the first enclosure, and the Audi glided into a parking place below Tudor-Gothic crenellations—19th-century retro, rather than the “real” thing, whatever that is. We made our way through the ensemble of buildings to the Great Court, said to be the biggest courtyard in Europe. Or is it the world?

The chapel forms one side of the square. A long line of soon-to-be caroling congregants extended towards the front gate of the college. We skirted the queue and I followed my host through the special fellows’ doorway as the organ began to play Bach.

Trinity was founded in the 16th century by Henry VIII. I haven’t heard folks at, nor fellows of, the college apologize for the crimes of the founder, a maniac and murderer. But then our own aristos and would-be royals, including many Robber Barons and at least one Duke, have avoided posthumous asterisks by their names on charters, sweatshirts, and college coats of arms. Down on Tobacco Row, that asterisk would acknowledge that the Duke’s philanthropic dollars were extracted from his lethal cigarettes and the countless deaths that came with the profits. There’s a reason that Duke University’s chapel, also a site of uplifting music through of the quantity and quality of Trinity’s, was done in Campus Gothic. The ersatz medieval cathedral is not yet even a hundred years old, but its architecture is meant to embody timeless truth and selfless scholastic values. If those ducal stones could cough or the ghosts of the Tudor Terror could scream, you wouldn’t be able to make out a note from the choir or organ, whether down on Tobacco Row or along the banks of the Cam.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)

PREACHIN’ BLUES

I was up this mornin', ah, blues walkin' like a man
I was up this mornin', ah, blues walkin' like a man
Worried blues, give me your right hand

And the blues fell mama's child, tore me all upside down
Blues fell mama's child, and it tore me all upside down
Travel on, poor Bob, just can't turn you 'round

The blues, is a low-down shakin' chill, yes, preach 'em now
Is a low-down shakin' chill
You ain't never had 'em I, hope you never will

Well, the blues, is a achin' old heart disease
Do it now, you gon' do it? Tell me all about it
The blues, is a low-down achin' heart disease
Like consumption, killing me by degrees

I can study rain, oh oh drive, oh oh drive my blues
I been studyin' the rain, I'm 'on drive my blues away
Goin' to the 'stil'ry, stay out there all day

— Son House (1930)

THE OLD ELM TREE BY THE RIVER

Shrugging in the flight of its leaves,
it is dying. Death is slowly
standing up in its trunk and branches
like a camouflaged hunter. In the night
I am wakened by one of its branches
crashing down, heavy as a wall, and then
lie sleepless, the world changed.
That is a life I know the country by.
Mine is a life I know the country by.
Willing to live and die, we stand here,
timely and at home, neighborly as two men.
Our place is changing in us as we stand,
and we hold up the weight that will bring us down.
In us the land enacts its history.
When we stood it was beneath us, and was
the strength by which we held to it
and stood, the daylight over it
a mighty blessing we cannot bear for long.

— Wendell Berry (1971)

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Harvey Reading December 7, 2025

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION APPROVES PLAN TO EXPORT MORE WATER OUT OF THE SACRAMENTO-SAN JOAQUIN DELTA

Utter stupidity, but not surprising, as the US continues its slow suicide. We monkeys won’t be missed…

Chuck Dunbar December 7, 2025

Quotes of the Day

Billy Shore (Maureen Dowd) tells the truth on helping to feed the poor: “I think people at the bottom of the economic ladder are just politically invisible. They’re voiceless. And even a lot of my favorite politicians don’t pay attention to them the way I wish they would.”

And yet: “Hunger is a solvable problem, relative to so many other things we care about. You don’t even need facts or figures. People know it intuitively.”

George Hollister December 7, 2025

AS CAL FIRE SEEKS PUBLIC COMMENT ON FOREST PLAN

“Jackson, the largest of California’s public demonstration state forests, operates under a contradictory statutory mandate: The Public Resources Code requires “maximum sustained production of high-quality forest products,” while state policy also calls for compatibility with recreation, wildlife, watershed health, cultural values, and aesthetics. Each 10-year forest plan attempts to reconcile those competing directives, and each has sparked conflict on the Mendocino Coast, where many residents oppose commercial logging on public land.”

What is contradictory? Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) offers the most and easiest to access recreation opportunities of any area in California. On JDSF thousands of people every year hike, bike, camp, horseback ride, pick mushrooms, bird watch, shoot, and hunt at no charge, or at a minimal fee. The timber sale program provides that.

JDSF has demonstrated its timber sale program is comparable with wildlife and fish. The most robust Coho Salmon fishery in California is locate there. Various on going wildlife assessments indicate a robust and diverse presence of wildlife from arthropods, mollusks, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals.

World class watershed studies have been conducted on JDSF for more 70 years, and these studies have led to improvements in watershed health at Jackson, and in the rest of California, and the US. Sediment production from timber harvesting approaches zero. While a definition of watershed health can be subjective, quantitate studies of watershed metrics indicate healthy watersheds on JDSF.

JDSF has relationships with local tribes that are largely confidential between the Governor’s office, CalFire, and the tribes. Often individuals who are not tribal members, or don’t represent tribes speak for tribes. This only presents confusion.

Aesthetics is a challenge for JDSF that shouldn’t be. Most visitors expect a good looking forest, and it is their forest. This can be done if properly considered when timber is harvested. Communicating with the public has also been a challenge for CalFire. In order to demonstrate forest management, communication with the public at large is essential, and on going.

JDSF is a jewel on the Mendocino Coast, both economically, and educationally. The timber sale program is fundamental to keeping that jewel alive.

- Harvey Reading December 7, 2025
  
  https://www.wildcalifornia.org/post/jdsf-is-not-30×30-yet
  
  Another take on the subject…
  
  - George Hollister December 8, 2025
    
    The differences of opinion are rooted in philosophy and faith. JDSF is rooted in science. What we know is for thousands of years our landscapes were created by managing for economic gain and human benefit. Preservation of land is a new Western concept that has been demonstrated over and over to be unsustainable, just as much as the exploitation of land is. The largest challenge is over 90% of the population is disconnected from the land, yet have the power to manage it. That is how we have ended up with the policy dysfunction we are currently experiencing.
    
    - Harvey Reading December 8, 2025
      
      LOL. I’ll stick with the science rather than the fairy tales you peddle. What you state is as imaginary as your bad-mouthing of instream habitat restoration efforts, with your claim that the destructive process of logging does a better job!
      
      As far as your above sermon immediately preceding, there is a solution: get the human population down to the carrying capacity of its habitat! Real simple. Encouraging vasectomies and tubal ligations, along with limiting how many children are allowed per couple would be a good start in that direction.
      
Tom Smythe December 7, 2025

Well put George.

I had a neighbor here in Laytonville that was on the repair ship Vestal that was tied up to the Arizona when it was bombed by Japanese at Pearl Harbor. He said his Captain was blown overboard when Arizona was hit but managed to get back on board and run the ship aground so it wouldn’t be sunk by torpedoes. He was also in the first car to cross the Golden Gate from Marin County when the bridge opened. Interesting guy Scotty MacLean.

Dale Carey December 7, 2025

that same story was recalled by a pearl harbor veteran on c-span this very AM.
the vestal nesxt to the ariz. and the capt. overboard.
did you hear that this AM,, or is it a coincidence, tom?

- Tom Smythe December 7, 2025
  
  The man I mentioned above was on the Vestal. He was my neighbor from 1978 until about 2000.

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