Short Break | Road Closures | Armed Robbery | Arias Sentenced | Identity Theft | Temporarily Frozen | Evans 5th | Ukiah Fiber | Boonquiz | Familiar Carols | Brown Hills | Abalone Chowder | Yesterday's Catch | Humboldt Flooding | Esmeralda No | Human Consumption | Look! Nazis! | Prop 13 | Dangerous Lots | Dark Thinking | SF Outage | GG 1937 | Delta Collapse | Drink Alone | Self Portrait | Childless Women | Big Club | Feels Good | Liberal Democrat | Ten Righteous | Antelope Valley | Democratic Socialists | Cute Patti | Arbitrary Divide | Lead Stories | My Son | Sea Boots | Own Research | Christmas Angels
RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Laytonville 4.18" - Willits 3.98" - Yorkville 3.48" - Covelo 3.22" - Ukiah 2.54" - Boonville 2.53" - Hopland 2.33"
A SHORT BREAK in the rain is forecast Monday before the next round of heavy rain and strong wind returns Monday night through Tuesday night. Another brief break is expected Wednesday with more strong winds, heavy rain and now lower snow levels expected Wednesday night and Thursday. Drier weather is finally possible Friday. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Our weather maker moves south this Monday morning on the coast but not before dropping another 2.20" in the last 24 hours. Clear skies & 50F so far. Maybe a sprinkle later today before a lot more rain comes into Christmas Day. Drying skies into the weekend then more rain later next week ? We'll see as always.
CALTRANS CLOSURE NOTICES
Route 175 is FULLY CLOSED at Hopland (PM 0-0.7) in Mendocino County due to flooding. There is no expected time to be reopened. [Sunday 8:07pm]
Route 128 is FULLY CLOSED in Mendocino County from the Route 1 junction to east of Flynn Creek Road near Navarro (post miles 0-12) due to flooding. [Sunday 9:25pm]
State Route 1 is CLOSED north of Point Arena near the Garcia River in Mendocino County (PM 17-18.5) due to flooding. There is currently no estimated time of reopening. [Sunday 11:04pm]
TITAN FELLED BY FBPD
On December 20, 2025 at approximately 6:19 p.m., officers were dispatched to a report of an armed robbery that had just occurred at the Sinclair Gas Station located at 863 N. Main Street. The reporting party advised that a male subject entered the business, displayed a firearm, and took approximately $200 in U.S. currency.
Officer responded immediately, secured the scene, and initiated an investigation. Physical evidence was collected, including surveillance video. Officers conducted an area search and coordinated with allied agencies, including the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, California State Parks, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, in an effort to locate and identify the suspect.
During the investigation, officers learned that the subject, later identified as Titan Greene, had rented a room for the night at Motel 6.
Officers established a perimeter, contacted Greene via telephone and safely directed him to exit the room. Greene, who’s out of Nevada, was taken into custody without incident. A search of the motel room resulted in the recovery of a loaded .22 caliber Ruger Wrangler revolver, along with additional items of evidentiary value.
Greene was arrested and booked in the Mendocino County Jail for violations of Penal Code 211- Robbery and Penal Code 25850- Carry Concealed Firearm in Public.
The Fort Bragg Police Department extends its appreciation to all allied agencies who assisted in this investigation and contributes to ensuring our community’s safety.
Anyone with information on this incident is encouraged to contact Officer James of the Fort Bragg Police Department at (707)961-2800 ext. 231.
This information is being released by Commander McLaughlin. All media inquiries should contact him at [email protected]
OAKLAND MAN SENTENCED to Four Years for Running Identity Theft Operation Out of Ukiah Hotel; Unlocked residential mailboxes were targeted, many in Sonoma County.
by Elise Cox
An Oakland man who investigators say operated a sophisticated identity theft “factory” out of a Ukiah hotel room was sentenced last week to four years in state prison by Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Keith Faulder.
According to according to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office, James Robert Arias, 42, was sentenced Thursday to 48 months in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation after pleading guilty in mid-November to felony identity theft. Arias also admitted a prior felony identity theft conviction out of El Dorado County, as well as a prior Strike conviction.
The case began in late January 2025, when the Ukiah Police Department was contacted by Los Angeles-based private investigator reporting that his credit card information was being used in Ukiah to pay for a local hotel room. According to prosecutors, hotel staff identified Arias as the individual who had checked in using the victim’s stolen credit card number and associated personal information.
After Arias was arrested, investigators searched his hotel room and found what prosecutors described as an extensive identity theft operation. Items seized included printers, laptops, tablets, credit card processing devices, and both dark-web data and stolen mail containing personal identifying information.
Authorities said the equipment and data would have allowed Arias to manufacture counterfeit credit and debit cards, counterfeit checks, and digital payment wallets using stolen Social Security numbers and other identifiers. Investigators determined he possessed personal information tied to at least 47 potential victims, many of whom live and work in Sonoma County.
The District Attorney’s Office said Arias had been targeting unlocked residential mailboxes to obtain personal information, while also harvesting data from the dark web.
Prosecutors noted that Arias has a significant criminal history. In addition to his 2021 identity theft conviction in El Dorado County, he previously served a lengthy federal prison sentence for conspiracy to distribute hard drugs. His prior Strike conviction stems from a 2020 Yuba County case involving the furnishing of hard drugs to a minor.
The investigation was conducted by the Ukiah Police Department and the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigations. The case was prosecuted by District Attorney David Eyster.
Identity Theft Prevention: What Officials Recommend
The District Attorney’s Office reminds residents that identity theft remains widespread but says several basic steps can significantly reduce risk. Those include freezing your credit with the major bureaus, monitoring financial statements and credit reports regularly, securing mailboxes, shredding sensitive documents, and using strong passwords with multi-factor authentication.
Residents who suspect identity theft are encouraged to report it promptly to law enforcement and their financial institutions.
(Mendolocal.news)
YER BASIC ARBITRARY BAN
David Gurney:
This is what we received from the blind and Horribly declined "Mendocino Listserv Project" AKA the "Mlp Moderators"-
Mr Gurney,
This is to let you know that your account on MCN announce listserv has been temporarily frozen pending moderation of recent posts that you made, to determine whether or not they violate the listserv's AUP.
This action follows requests for moderation made by at least one other listserv member.
The MLP moderators will make a determination as soon as possible, and will inform you of their decision.
Thank you
MLP Staff
No confirmation of who the camplainer was, Or who this "Staff" person from MCN actually is? Enquiring minds want to know.
KEVIN EVANS FOR SUPERVISOR 2026:
We are off and running. Today Sylvia and I went to the County elections office to pull the signature in lieu papers for the 5th District Supervisor seat. The signature requirement to file the nomination papers is 788. If you live in the Mendocino 5th District and are a registered voter, please consider signing the candidate papers. Please reach out to us through this Facebook or leave a message on the campaign phone number 707-412-8154 if you would like to help with the campaign.
Mark Scaramella notes: Kevin Evans is Chairman of the Gualala Municipal Advisory Committee.)
UKIAH BREAKS GROUND ON CITYWIDE GIGABIT FIBER PROJECT TO EXPAND AFFORDABLE HIGH-SPEED INTERNET
The City of Ukiah and Vero Fiber Networks, LLC celebrated a major milestone on Tuesday, December 9th, with a groundbreaking ceremony for the Ukiah Gigabit Fiber Project, a transformative public–private partnership that will expand affordable, high-speed internet access citywide and close long-standing digital equity gaps.
The ceremony, held at the Ukiah Senior Center parking lot along the project route, was attended by Assemblymember Damon Connolly; representatives from Senator Mike McGuire’s office and Assemblymember Chris Roger’s office; Ukiah City Councilmember Juan Orozco; Mendocino County Supervisor Maureen Mulheren; and representatives from multiple local agencies.
The Ukiah Gigabit Fiber Project is made possible by a $5.58 million California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Federal Funding Account Last Mile grant, administered through the CPUC’s Last Mile Federal Funding Account program. The investment addresses long-standing challenges with broadband access in Ukiah, where limited and unaffordable high-speed internet has constrained economic opportunity, education, and healthcare—particularly for the 375 locations that are currently unserved.
The project will construct approximately 23 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure within the city—17 miles aerial and 6 miles underground—connecting an estimated 1,700 locations, including residences, schools, hospitals, and businesses. Of these, 375 locations currently lack adequate internet access. The network will be owned by the City of Ukiah and operated and maintained by Vero Fiber Networks under a 35-year agreement.
Under the public–private partnership, Vero Fiber Networks was selected through a competitive request for proposals based on strong qualifications, successful experience delivering CPUC-funded projects, and a demonstrated long-term commitment to the community. Vero will design and build the City-owned fiber network for approximately $3.27 million and operate and maintain the system over the 35-year term. Customer pricing will be fixed for the first five years, as required by the grant, with affordable service options anticipated to begin at $39.95 per month for eligible customers. For residents and businesses, the project expands access to reliable, high-speed internet to support education, healthcare, remote work, and economic development, while strengthening the City’s readiness for smart city technologies. Construction is expected to begin this winter, with project completion anticipated by late 2026.
“This groundbreaking marks the beginning of a project the City of Ukiah has pursued for many years,” said City Councilmember Juan Orozco. “This is not just a construction project; it is an investment in digital equity, economic opportunity, and Ukiah’s future. With the support of the CPUC and our partnership with Vero Fiber Networks, we are ensuring that every household—regardless of income or location—has the opportunity to fully participate in modern life.”
Orozco added, “This public–private partnership shows what’s possible when local government and private industry work together toward a shared goal. The economic benefits will be measured in the millions, but more importantly, this project is about connection—supporting our schools, businesses, and healthcare providers and positioning Ukiah for the future.”
The Ukiah Gigabit Fiber Project is expected to strengthen the City’s long-term economic competitiveness, attract job-creating businesses, and ensure that Ukiah is equipped with modern, resilient infrastructure as technology continues to evolve.
About the City of Ukiah
The City of Ukiah is committed to building infrastructure that supports economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and quality of life for all residents.
About Vero Fiber Networks
Vero Fiber Networks is a fiber-to-the-premises internet service provider delivering high-speed, affordable broadband through public–private partnerships across the western United States.
THEIR OLD, FAMILIAR CAROLS PLAY
by Tommy Wayne Kramer
We’re in the middle of a brief stretch in a long year when we pause to count blessings, give thanks and acknowledge our good luck.
We are finished with 2025, and look where we are: deep in the 21st century in a time of magic and a place of rare, unequalled bounty while surrounded, mostly, by friends or at least people who don’t hold a particular grudge against us. Lots of people in lots of countries are unable to say the same.
Welcome to America. Merry Christmas to you.
The magic of living here and now is in the miraculous wonders that surround us. Heart transplants? Got ’em, and hundreds more life-saving medical breakthroughs.
Travels to Mars? We’re workin’ on it, and in a few years we’ll be selling tickets. Bonus: Elon Musk plans to colonize the Red Planet. Mere flying ‘round earth has become nothing but inexpensive and easy; leave Ukiah today, fly to Rome for dinner and be back in time for Monday Night Football. It would have taken longer for your grandparents to walk to Hopland and back.
For the first time in history hunger and starvation are all but conquered. America’s impoverished are well-fed, own automobiles, TVs, a full fridge, air conditioning and free schools.
An iPhone half the size of a pack of cigarettes holds more information than Harvard University’s library and the next teenager you meet has one in her back pocket. Everyone has a big flatscreen TV and a car with built in navigation systems that all but do the driving for us.
And of course there are cars that already do 100% of the driving for us. Wealth and luxury are everywhere.
Yes, we are blessed with valuable possessions and belongings, but simultaneously cursed by having so much stuff it won’t even fit in the garage, despite parking all three cars in the street and the boat under a blue tarp on the front lawn.
All these advances, all these breakthroughs and all this comfort swaddle us as if in fat satin quilts, a dozen soft pillows and a pair of warm and cuddly Golden Retrievers. And yet we are anxious, nervous and a little fearful we might lose everything or have it taken away.
We are told our planet is overcrowded, yet we are lonely. The world has never been so easy and safe to live in, but we are spiritually lost and confused. Our trust is tenuous; our faith is watery.
And now comes Christmas, a season of joy and a time of sharing, but our expectations are muted. In 2025 it’s difficult to know what it is we celebrate.
I believe we are kinder, gentler, more caring during Christmas. We slip a folded twenty into a Salvation Army kettle outside Raley’s to help someone we’ll never meet. We offer generous and meaningful holiday greetings to friends and strangers. We hear the bells and the old ancient carols and we pause to listen, and perhaps we move our lips to whisper the timeless words, the heart-healing sentiments.
On clear nights I sometimes stand in my back yard, looking up at the moon and the stars. I feel ignorant and insignificant. No insights, no profundities, no visions revealed.
So off I go on the treadmill called life, accompanied by all the magical gizmos and astounding leaps in technology that engulf us and make our lives grand (and confusing).
Care to join me?
T’is The Season
Plenty of publications hoping to lure advertising are running “Best Books of 2025” by various literary sorts. I’ve not seen a single title on any list that I’ve read or will ever read.
Here’s a handful of books I recommend, none published in 2025:
1) ‘The Awakening Land,’ a trilogy by Conrad Richter written in the 1930s about pioneers exploring and settling into unnamed, untamed territory. I’ve not read anything with a better sense of place.
2) ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt. She’s a gift, a sculptor of paragraphs and a marvelous storyteller. This is her first; you’ll finish it and go on to ‘The Little Friend’ and ‘The Goldfinch.’
3) A three part interwoven series by Kent Haruf, ‘Plainsong,’ ‘Eventide’ and ‘Benediction.’ A couple old farmers, brothers, take in a pregnant teen with nowhere to go.
4) ‘Postcards’ by Annie Proulx was written prior to ‘The Shipping News,’ also very good. ‘Postcards’ follows a broken family of hardscrabble Vermont farmers after WWII. Their inability to cope with changing times is a modern tragedy.
5) ‘As I Lay Dying’ by William Faulkner. Your introduction to the 20th century master. I’ve read it several times. A tip: It’s one wild story about one mad journey told by half a dozen family members; some of their versions overlap.
(Tom Hine has been writing the weekly Assignment: Ukiah column under the TWK byline since 2006. He/they (what are your pronouns?) has never missed a Sunday deadline.)
ABALONE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS
From a June 13, 1914, Mendocino Beacon:
Last Thursday afternoon the visiting Eagles [civic club] at Fort Bragg we were given a unique banquet at McKerricker’s lake near Cleone. On that occasion Abalone Chowder, in which 500 pounds of Abalone was used, 900 pounds of mussels and 175 pounds of potato salad was served. [How big was this crowd?]
Mrs. Kate Monroe of Alhambra was in charge aided by several assistants who prepared and cooked the food here, took it to Cleone on Thursday ready to serve. The abalones, 296 in number [those must have been BIG Abalones] and the mussels were taken from rocks in this vicinity.
(Contributed, annotated by Katy Tahja)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, December 21, 2025
BRITTANY ADAMS, 38, Ukiah. Illegal possession of explosives, assault weapon, ammo possession by prohibited person, felon-addict with firearm, resisting.
CHRISTOPHER BECK, 29, Ukiah. Resisting.
ELIZABETH ERICKSON, 65, Grass Valley/Ukiah. DUI.
WALKER FERREIRA, 29, Fort Bragg. DUI, probation revocation.
TITAN GREENE, 22, Sparks, Nevada/Fort Bragg. Robbery, loaded firearm in public.
MARTIN SCHMIDT, 46, Boulder Creek/Ukiah. Waste of game flesh, unspecified offense.
JOSEPH STARREETT, 53, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Illegal possession of explosives, assault weapon, ammo possession by prohibited person, felon-addict with firearm.
LESLI WALL, 37, La Grande, Oregon/Willits. Probation revocation.
JUSTIN WILLIAMSON, 43, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, probation revocation.
BREAKING: MASSIVE FLOODING SWEEPS HUMBOLDT COUNTY
An atmospheric river is unleashing widespread flooding across Humboldt County, with floodwaters surging into communities around Eureka, Arcata, Freshwater, and Loleta. Aerial views show neighborhoods and low lying areas swallowed by fast rising water as rivers spill over their banks.
Sections of U.S. 101 and nearby county roads are flooded and closed, with water rescues underway and travel strongly discouraged. Crews say conditions are dangerous and changing by the hour as heavy rain continues to fall.
First responders are calling it, “beyond critical.”
Flood warnings remain in effect, with more rain expected to keep rivers rising. Please keep Humboldt County in your thoughts as residents and first responders battle this dangerous and rapidly unfolding flooding event.
ESMERALDA WOULD BE TOO MUCH CHANGE FOR CLOVERDALE
Editor:
Thank you for the thorough article regarding the seemingly utopian yet sprawling Esmeralda development that could be built in the area of Cloverdale. The amount of water required to build and sustain it is astonishing. This at a time when many homeowners here, at the urging of the city, county and state, have torn out lawns to save water and endured water rationing in recent years.
The water situation is so dire that the state has mandated all homeowners associations replace communal lawns with drought-tolerant plantings. In Cloverdale, the senior development of Clover Springs, with 362 homes, is in the process of doing just that, resulting in the first “special assessment” levied on homeowners in its 25 year history. It’s a hardship for many on fixed incomes.
In addition to the major issue of water, there are other concerns, including the fact that the investors behind Esmeralda wish to remain unknown. This should raise a red flag for residents. We want all the information up front, as this development could change our small community irreparably and forever.
Sally C. Evans
Cloverdale
EARTH’S CARBON FOOTPRINT IS LARGE AND GROWING
Editor:
Earth appears immense from our perspective, but scientists describe it as small. Astronaut Ronald Garan Jr. referred to Earth as an island. Since the advent of space travel, we can see Earth as it is: nothing more than an orb suspended in space. That thin halo surrounding Earth is our atmosphere. It takes a lot of plants to make so little.
No other creature uses as many resources as humans. Scientists have determined that humans are consuming more than our planet can provide. While the United States can’t take credit for everything, it is an overachiever.
The Trump administration prefers that all other countries curb their abuses so the U.S. can continue to overindulge. Globally, an average human consumes 2.8 global hectares of resources per year. Earth’s sustainable capacity is 1.6 GHAs. The average global person’s lifestyle uses almost 75% more resources than the planet can regenerate.
Some politicians want to revive the past, but the wasteful Industrial Age is in decline. Hopefully, we’ll escape from it before it is too late.
Joe Biden’s proposal to focus on green energy would have put us in a position to catch the next wave, but Donald Trump’s policies will increase our carbon footprint even more.
Tom Fantulin
Fort Bragg
ADJUST PROP 13
Editor,
While I welcome Proposition 13 protections, I’ve always felt there was a major defect.
The idea behind Prop 13 was to protect homeowners who couldn’t keep up with yearly real estate tax increases as property values rose. But then allowing them to accrue value on that asset while newer neighbors pay full freight is unacceptable and unnecessary.
The tax should be set on current appraisals of the property, with the added yearly increase instead posted as a lien on that property. When sold, the tax would then be applied to the proceeds of the sale.
This allows people to stay in their homes, contributes needed funding for governments and provides equity among all neighbors — old and new.
Sei Shin Peter Holden
Healdsburg
PARKING LOT HAZARD
Editor,
I recently had a silly accident while walking in a grocery store parking lot. I took my mind off where I was going for a second or two. A split-second later, I was on the concrete face down.
I was lucky. My face was bleeding, while my hand and face became swollen, but nothing was broken. I had tripped over one of those concrete blocks that are in most parking lots showing cars where to stop.
I am writing this two days after the accident. I haven’t exactly been out and about since (I’m not looking my best), but the few people I’ve told about this all have their own stories of themselves and/or friends with similar and much worse experiences from tripping over the same devices.
One friend who did the same thing in San Rafael was severely hurt, while another friend in Cincinnati needed dental and hand surgery (it took months to recover). I heard stories from women both younger and older than me.
I think these devices are dangerous. I don’t think we really need them in parking lots and elsewhere. If we do need some kind of device, can they be changed so they are not so dangerous?
I’ll bet there are hundreds of stories out there about all kinds of accidents with people tripping over them. Maybe we can start some kind of movement to make parking lots safer. Thank you all, and merry Christmas.
Marilyn Riede
Ross
MASSIVE SAN FRANCISCO POWER OUTAGE DARKENS ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOODS FOR HOURS
by Julie Johnson & Megan Fan Munce
A series of widespread power failures caused in part by a fire in a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. substation darkened entire neighborhoods of San Francisco from Saturday into Sunday, impacting roughly 130,000 homes and businesses — about one-third of all city customers served by the utility.
Traffic stalled as street lights went dark or into emergency blinking mode, confusing driverless Waymos until the company eventually suspended service. Restaurant workers put out candles for diners. BART trains bypassed Powell and Civic Center stations where there was no electricity, before service was restored, and Muni trains ceased traveling to underground stops. Holiday decorations went unlit in doorsteps and windows.
From across the Golden Gate Bridge, the usually-bright lights of the city were instead dark. The few parts of the city left with electricity were obscured by low-hanging fog.
Much of the city was still dark at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, when PG&E released a video saying power was expected to be restored by the end of the night. By 9 p.m., 90,000 customers had their power restored, according to PG&E. The company said it expected the remaining customers without power to have service restored overnight.
At 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, PG&E said its crews had restored power to 110,000 customers, leaving 21,000 without electricity in the Presidio, the Richmond District, Golden Gate Park and “small areas” downtown.
The damage from the substation fire was “significant and extensive and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex. We have mobilized additional engineers and electricians,” the company said. “At this time, we are unable to provide a precise timeframe for full restoration but will provide additional detail and information as our assessment and repair efforts continue.”
The outages began Saturday morning on the west side of the city, but then spread, block by block. At least a portion of the blackouts that began in the afternoon were triggered by the fire inside the PG&E power substation, but the reasons for the other blackouts in portions of the Richmond, the Sunset and other west side neighborhoods remained unexplained for most of the day.
Even at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, a PG&E spokesperson said the company couldn’t provide an estimate for when power might be restored for any part of the city.
“It sucks,” said Samantha Lado, who works at Foghorn Taproom in the Inner Richmond. The blackouts left the bar’s televisions black and the beer warm — so the staff couldn’t draw a crowd of patrons to watch two football games, as they’d expected.
By mid-afternoon, San Francisco had opened its emergency operations center to coordinate the city’s response. Mayor Daniel Lurie posted a video from inside the center urging people “to be safe out on the roads.”
“A lot of the lights are out,” Lurie said. “Stay safe and we will continue to be in touch with PG&E.”
San Francisco Fire Department Lt. Mariano Elias said a fire broke out inside a PG&E substation at Eighth and Mission streets at about 2:15 p.m., which caused at least some of the blackouts. After PG&E employees called 911 at 2:16 p.m. to report smoke in the building, firefighters used specialized carbon monoxide equipment to extinguish the flames on the first floor of the four-story building, Elias said.
A spokesperson for PG&E said that, as of 6 p.m., the fire department had fully extinguished the blaze in the substation building, allowing company investigators to enter the building to begin determining the cause.
But by then, swaths of the city had already been in the dark.
The first outage, reported around 9:40 a.m., took out power to just over 14,600 residential and commercial customers in the Inner Sunset and down to Forest Hill, according to PG&E’s website.
A second outage started around 10:10 a.m., cutting electricity across the Presidio, the Richmond and some sections of Market Street. PG&E’s online outage tracker showed more than 24,800 customers were affected.
At 1:40 p.m., the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced that Muni trains would bypass the Van Ness station due to the outage.
By 3 p.m., the outages had spread south into the Outer Sunset and east across the city. One outage stretched from Hayes Valley to part of the Mission, leaving nearly 2,400 customers without power. Another near Alamo Square took out power to another 6,300 customers. Muni and BART trains began bypassing Civic Center and Powell.
By 6 p.m., the rain had lightened and traffic through the Presidio began to flow normally. Homes with Christmas trees in their windows and lights adorning their front porches instead sat dark save for flickering candles.
For hours, PG&E provided the public with little information, apart from the company’s online outage map, as the blackouts began to cover larger portions of the city.
The company posted its first public response to social media platform X at 4 p.m.: “We are working with first responders and city officials on an outage in #SanFrancisco affecting 130,000 customers. We will share more information as it becomes available.”
Some San Francisco residents reported receiving automated phone calls from PG&E saying there was no estimated time that power would be restored, while the company, in its social media post, said it would “continue to provide updates on the estimated time of restoration as crews assess the damage and make repairs.”
Businesses across the city were forced to close at the height of holiday shopping and socializing — from Julie’s Pizza in the Lower Haight to Miller & Lux at Chase Center. The Randall Museum in Corona Heights, the California Academy of Sciences and all city library branches sent patrons home. The iconic neon blade of the 500 Club bar in San Francisco’s Mission District went dark.
An hour into a symphonic take on the classic holiday movie “Home Alone” at Davies Symphony Hall, the lights went out and the show was, abruptly, over.
Storefronts along normally bustling commercial corridors were quiet.
As soon as the electricity went out at Bazaar Cafe in the Richmond, owner Josh Johnson said he had to close and ask customers to leave. Without power, he couldn’t run espresso machines and had to keep refrigerators shut to keep the contents — especially milk — as cold as possible. He lamented employees would lose a day of work.
At Black & Gold, a home goods and vintage shop on Valencia Street, an outage on the Saturday before Christmas was “devastating” for business, said the manager, Sam, who asked not to use his last name. A similar outage occurred around the same time last year, but it was earlier in the day and allowed him to prepare with flashlights, batteries and electric candles.
“I literally didn’t think it would happen again this year,” Sam said. “This is so shocking to me.”
Voices carrying on with Christmas carols floated from a Richmond stoop. The Billow family launched into a boisterous rendition of “Let it Snow” while Mike Billow and his daughter Bliss Billow strummed a ukulele and banjo, respectively.
“We’re stuck in the dark,” said Mike Billow, who noted that he hadn’t seen the power go down for this long since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake take out electricity for a full day. “It’s too dark to play board games, you can’t read, you can’t do much of anything.”
“But ukuleles,” Bliss Billow said, “don’t take batteries.”
THE TOP REASON FOR THE DELTA ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSE: MASSIVE WATER EXPORTS SOUTH
by Dan Bacher
Do you want to know why Delta smelt, longfin smelt, imperiled Chinook salmon, green sturgeon and other fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are on the edge of extinction?
It just might have something to do with the fact that huge amounts of water have been exported out of the Delta for decades, combined with the impacts of toxics, pollution, invasive species and climate change.…
I DRINK ALONE
I drink alone
Yeah, with nobody else
I drink alone
Yeah, with nobody else
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
Now, every morning, just before breakfast
I don't want no coffee or tea
Just me and my good Buddy-Weiser
That's all I ever need
‘Cause I drink alone
Yeah, with nobody else
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
Yeah, the other night I laid sleepin'
And I woke from a terrible dream
So I called up my pal Jack Daniel's
And his partner, Jimmy Beam
And we drank alone
Yeah, with nobody else
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
Yeah, the other day I got invited to a party
But I stayed home instead
Just me and my pal, Johnnie Walker
And his brothers, Blackie and Red
And we drank alone
Yeah, with nobody else
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
Yeah, my whole family done give up on me
And it makes me feel oh-so bad
The only one who will hang out with me
Is my dear Old Grand-Dad
And we drink alone
Yeah, with nobody else
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
Yeah, you know, when I drink alone
I prefer to be by myself
I drink alone
— George Thorogood (1985)
ROSIE RIOS:
My generation of childless women. They didn't see this in their lives because they didn't have sons.
I am part of that generation. I married. I'm blessed with a son and a daughter. Thirty years ago I was the lone voice who spoke up on "Take Our Daughters To Work Day!" I had the temerity to say, "Hey! What about our sons?"
No one listened to me. Or they rolled their eyes.
Twenty years later, I found myself in a position to at least contribute to the hiring process at a newspaper. The Ladies who ran the place kept hiring women of dubious qualifications. (Swear to God: they hired a functional illiterate.) I was routinely ignored when I recommended talented young male job applicants, particularly white men. The Ladies regularly bullied the few guys--all Hispanic, BTW--and I found myself running interference for these young men.
Three co-workers, all men and in my generation (read: journalism dinosaurs), would complain over after-work drinks about the "girlification of newspapers." After several sessions, we decided that the ideal job candidate, a sure-fire guaranteed hire, was a one-legged Black lesbian with an Hispanic surname,
I'm now happily retired and I enjoy my grandchildren. I remain in contact with those young guys, now middle-aged, who've described me as a mentor. One calls me "a tough old broad," and I think I prefer that.
I never called in sick with "cramps"; I didn't faint at dirty jokes; I was never "sexually harassed" at work. If any (male) co-worker was out of line, I silenced them with a STFU.
Too many women were placed in positions to exact revenge on every man who ever cut them off in a parking lot. They refused to get over it and move on.
As part of that first generation who probably benefited from Affirmative Action, I can say that all I ever wanted was a fair chance. I didn't want--or expect--the scales to dramatically tip in my favor, and certainly not to the exclusion of anyone else. In reflection, I can say with confidence that I was the most qualified candidate for every job I ever had--and not because I have ovaries.
There. That's my rant.
"THEY'LL GET IT ALL from you sooner or later 'cause they own this fuckin' place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on."
— George Carlin
ROB REINER used to call once every six months or so during Bush Time. I’d answer the phone.
“Rob Reiner’s office calling,” a pert but authoritative voice instructs. “Please hold for Mr. Reiner.”
Reiner comes on, “Alex, what are we…”
Me: “Jeffrey.”
Rob: “What?”
Me: “It’s Jeffrey, not Alex.” [Cockburn had stopped answering his calls after he couldn’t squeeze any money for CounterPunch out of him.]
Rob: “Ok, whatever. But what the hell are we going to do about these Bush fuckers, man…?” Then he’d laugh into a hilarious rant of expletives and invective about Cheney and Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, his voice rising in volume like an approaching tsunami. Concluding with, “Got any ideas? Huh? Do ya? Just send them down to me. You’ve got the address, right?” Click.
This ritual went on for eight years. Then, after we started laying into Obama for committing many of the same acts of governmental malfeasance as Bush, he stopped calling. And I never heard from him again.
Reiner was a liberal Democrat to the core. Blinded by party loyalty, he became a hardboiled Russiagater and offered excuses for many inexcusable acts by HRC and Biden.
But he was more passionate than most of the soulless post-Clinton suits who have run the party for the last three decades. Reiner was funny and had a sense of irony about himself, which few self-righteous Hollywood liberals seem to possess. I sensed that he genuinely cared about the poor and the marginalized and knew the system was rotten at its core and needed change, even if the only change he could envision was so incremental it was barely noticeable and easily erased once the Berserkers took power.
— Jeffrey St. Clair
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
God said he would spare Sodom if ten righteous men could be found. Lot couldn't find them. So He nuked it from space.
INSIDE A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST CONVENTION GALVANIZED BY MAMDANI’S BIG WIN
by Mara Gay
At a New Orleans Hilton along the banks of the Mississippi River this month, rice farmers met to discuss agricultural futures. High school football players roamed the lobby.
On the third floor, the topics turned toward leftist political theory, with people debating ways to tax the rich and holding sessions with names like Socialists and “the Establishment” and Transitioning to Governing Power: Learning From Latin America.
This was a convention for the Democratic Socialists of America, a left-wing political group that is savoring a year of victories, such as Zohran Mamdani’s for mayor of New York City, and plotting its way to more.
For much of its 43-year history, the D.S.A.’s role in American politics was obscure, at best. But since Senator Bernie Sanders’s run for the White House in 2016, the group says, it has grown to more than 90,000 members. The D.S.A. also says it now has 250 Democratic Socialists in elected office across 40 states, a vast majority elected since 2018. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a member of New York City’s D.S.A. chapter. Mr. Sanders is a democratic socialist — lowercase d and s — but not a D.S.A. member. Many D.S.A. elected officials, like Mr. Mamdani, are members of the Democratic Party.
Compared with the country’s two major political parties, the D.S.A. remains tiny. But as income inequality soars, the group is attracting intense interest, and Mr. Mamdani’s victory in New York showed that for a candidate to be a Democratic Socialist is no longer disqualifying for many voters.
The D.S.A.’s vision for America is a multiracial democracy with an economy that benefits working-class and middle-income people. Members’ views are varied, but fundamentally they believe that American capitalism has been captured by corporate interests. They argue that markets should be strongly regulated or even controlled by democratic governments. Though the modern group was formed in 1982, the organization has roots in the United States dating to the late 19th century and the early socialist leader Eugene Debs.
Some of its policies, even if pursued, may not work. And many in the country’s establishment disagree with its views or consider it zealous. But the D.S.A.’s influence is growing anyway. For some Americans tired of living paycheck to paycheck and determined to stop the rise of the antidemocratic right, that radicalism is exactly the group’s appeal.
Now that Democratic Socialists are getting elected to office and winning power, the pressure is on. In New York City, Mr. Mamdani’s mayoralty will be seen as a test of whether socialists can govern. The D.S.A. is fiercely nonhierarchical, with a labyrinthine structure that tends to lend itself to infighting. But the conference in New Orleans by the group’s advocacy arm, the D.S.A. Fund, was highly organized. There were workshops on zoning reform, seminars on the dangers of Big Tech and sessions on the transition from activism to governing.
Much of the D.S.A.’s political activity is focused on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans — a fight underway in states such as Colorado, Michigan and New York. Delegations from each state shared various strategies. Kate Logan, a Vermont state representative, said she was supporting a proposed property tax increase on people who own second homes. Jessica Newman from Michigan said D.S.A. members there were campaigning for a tax on single filers with annual incomes of more than $500,000 and married joint filers with incomes of more than $1 million to fund public schools. Francesca Hong, a Wisconsin state representative and candidate for governor, said the political environment in the state remained difficult. “A lot of folks still get squeamish around the word ‘socialism,’” she said.
Many eyes were on Grace Mausser, a chair of New York City’s D.S.A., the group’s largest chapter, fresh off the most stunning political upset in the country. Around the table, heads nodded as she said she had come to feel strongly that campaigns to increase taxes on the rich needed to be paired with specific new or existing programs the revenue is intended for. (In New York, Mr. Mamdani has proposed increasing taxes on residents earning over $1 million a year and large corporations to pay for a free child care initiative.) “You guys may have heard of Zohran,” Ms. Mausser told the group. “We’ve had a shift in power. We’re adjusting to it.”
In New Orleans, I met a racially diverse array of Democratic Socialists of many backgrounds. There was a silver-haired councilor from Portland, Maine, fighting for city-owned mixed-income housing and an alderman from Chicago who has braved tear gas to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the city. Liz Everhart from Kentucky told me she joined the D.S.A. when she became a mother during the first Trump administration, in 2020. Her young family struggled to pay the bills, and she worried about the kind of world her daughter would grow up in. “A better world needed to come into existence,” she said. Robert Hughes from Indianapolis said he became a Democratic Socialist after experiencing homelessness.
At the conference were Grace Mausser of New York City; Robert Bell of Louisville; Liz Everhart of Jefferson County, Ky.; Eric McGuire from Beaverton, Ore.; Lesly Muñoz from Oregon's 22nd District; and Robert Hughes from central Indiana.
Even in the most diverse group of socialists, incrementalists can be hard to find. Eric McGuire, a social studies teacher from Oregon, sported a tattoo of the radical abolitionist John Brown on his arm. Robert Bell, a middle school English teacher in Louisville, Ky., running for the State House, told me socialism seemed like the pragmatic choice. “In my heart, I’m still an anarchist,” he said with a smile.
As their potential for influence in American politics grows with Mr. Mamdani’s rise, scrutiny of some of the group’s more radical positions, tactics and language is likely to intensify. In one example, though D.S.A. members hold a wide spectrum of views, the group’s policy platform includes positions like working toward the abolition of the police and prisons. In New Orleans the Democratic Socialists sometimes called one another comrade, evoking the language of Communism even though the group is not Communist and is wholly committed to democracy. (“‘Comrade’ is just a politicized term of endearment,” Gabe Tobias, the executive director of the D.S.A. Fund, told me in an email later.)
In one small sign that the group is thinking about how to appeal to a broader audience, the D.S.A. Fund has retained Lauren Hitt, a Democratic strategist who once worked as a spokeswoman for Kamala Harris and, before that, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Ms. Hitt held a workshop for D.S.A. elected officials in New Orleans, using a recent television interview with Mr. Mamdani as an example of effective press strategy. “He drove hard the entire time on affordability,” Ms. Hitt told the group, after playing the video clip. “Thank you, Zohran, for giving that to us.”
As the door to wider influence in American politics swings open, debates are unfolding within the D.S.A. and its allies about how to work with power and when to challenge it. Mr. Sanders addressed D.S.A. members at the conference by speakerphone to offer some friendly advice. “Knock on every door in your district,” he told them, saying there is “a lot more commonality of interests than you might have appreciated.”
There are also tensions within the group about how to govern. Some attendees at the conference told me they were disappointed by Mr. Mamdani’s decision to apologize to New York City’s police officers after calling them racist and anti-queer in 2020. Last year the D.S.A.’s National Political Committee declined to endorse Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, among the highest-profile Democratic Socialists, over her refusal to oppose funding for Israel’s Iron Dome and actions the D.S.A. described as a “betrayal” of the cause of Palestinian freedom.
The Democratic Socialists often address these divisions openly. At the Hilton in December, Mr. Tobias moderated a debate about socialists and the establishment.
He asked people arguing for a friendlier relationship with the establishment to sit on one side of the room and those arguing for a more antagonistic relationship with the establishment on the other. Then he placed four chairs in the center of the room, where members debated the issue. Though only four people debated at a time, anyone who wanted could join in by tapping a comrade on the shoulder to take the person’s seat.
During the debate, John Lewis — a member of the D.S.A.’s leadership, wearing a red shirt that read, “Y’allidarity” — said the D.S.A. should organize Democratic voters, not antagonize them. “Nobody in this room popped out a socialist,” Mr. Lewis, who once worked in the Democratic Party establishment, including for the mayor of Baton Rouge, La., told the room.
But he said conflict with the Democratic Party was unavoidable. “The momentum of the Democratic Party is captured by mass finance capital, people that we call the oligarchs,” he said. “Whether we’re going to realign the Democratic Party, whether we’re making a socialist party, whatever your path is, if you’re going against that momentum, it still is antagonistic.”
Outside a seminar on Saturday afternoon, two hotel employees lingered, then approached me. “What’s a Democratic Socialist?” one asked me. When Mr. Mamdani takes office Jan. 1, eyes will be on the D.S.A., too. It’s a chance for Democratic Socialists to prove they can govern and to introduce themselves to Americans looking for something new.
(NY Times)
I MYSELF FIND the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.
— Niels Bohr
LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT
What to Know on the Initial Release of Materials From the Epstein Files
U.S. Coast Guard Pursues Oil Tanker Linked to Venezuela
R.F.K. Jr. Likely to Swap U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule for Denmark’s
As U.S. Guns Pour Into Canada, the Bodies Pile Up
Waymo Suspended Service in San Francisco After Its Cars Stalled During Power Outage
MY SON THE MAN
Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,
the way Houdini would expand his body
while people were putting him in chains. It seems
no time since I would help him to put on his sleeper,
guide his calves into the gold interior,
zip him up and toss him up and
catch his weight. I cannot imagine him
no longer a child, and I know I must get ready,
get over my fear of men now my son
is going to be one. This was not
what I had in mind when he pressed up through me like a
sealed trunk through the ice of the Hudson,
snapped the padlock, unsnaked the chains,
and appeared in my arms. Now he looks at me
the way Houdini studied a box
to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled.
— Sharon Olds (1996)
DOING THEIR OWN RESEARCH
by Hari Kunzru
In August 2020 Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, suggested that Covid-19 could be a "plandemic," "part of a sinister scheme." In July 2023 he was recorded telling dinner companions that "Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people," whereas "the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese." Vaccine research, he said at a panel discussion, could well be responsible for many major pathogens, including HIV and the Spanish flu of 1918.
Kennedy is part of a cohort of medical influencers who gained prominence early in the pandemic, peddling miracle cures such as bleach, hydroxychloroquine, and the livestock dewormer ivermectin, or offering "natural" or "alternative" ways to beat the virus, through diet or exercise or competitively priced supplements. The "anti-vaxxer" subculture that made him a celebrity grew powerful in the late 1990s, following a panic about the MMR vaccine and autism initiated by a subsequently retracted paper in ‘The Lancet.’ Participants came to consider themselves freedom fighters, free-thinkers opposing tyranny.
When the pandemic started, many people, scared by the news and already suspicious of the medical establishment, found the threat to freedom of Covid-19 mitigation policies even more alarming than Covid-19. The pandemic appeared to them a kind of epidemiological Reichstag fire, an emergency fabricated as a pretext for an intensification of government control, on either a national or a global scale. Fears of a "world government" or "new world order" have been bubbling under the American cultural surface for a very long time, at least since the growth of the system of international organizations that followed World War I. Villains such as the UN or the Trilateral Commission are sometimes "revealed" as vehicles. for a global totalitarianism identified with the reign of the Antichrist prophesied in the book of Revelation.
During the first year of the pandemic this long-standing complex of conspiratorial thinking was reactivated by powerful images of authoritarianism in the news — Chinese government workers in hazmat suits transporting the infected to isolation centers, police drones hovering above English hill walkers. The mask was seen as a symbol of compliance, a muzzle worn by "sheeple" who had already surrendered and were possibly even under a sinister form of mind control, robbed of their autonomy by some ingredient in the experimental drugs the authorities were so keen to pump into the populace. In Kennedy's opinion, the development of a Covid-19 vaccine was "a pharmaceutical-driven, bio-security agenda that will enslave the entire human race and plunge us into a dystopian nightmare." With his elevation, conspiracy — which usually presents the government as a distant object of obsession or fantasy — has become governmental logic.
(New York Review of Books)
A very reassuring read today. It appears that we dumb monkeys are steadfast in our quest to make the planet completely unlivable.
Now, why would ET be interested in such a goofy place? Makes for good propaganda, though, helping to keep us in line on our way to extinction.
The primary draw to this planet, as evidenced by thousands of reported encounters observing non humans in action (beings associated with landed craft), are our biological resources. Factor in that of the several thousand exoplanets discerned so far, very few are seen as possibly biologically rich like us. The dramatic rise in observing advanced craft monitoring ww2 and then nuclear sites certainly suggests concern over our tech developments threatening our biological resources. As it turns out, ET interactions with human individuals often include messaging on how our practices threaten life here. ET should give you, Harvey, something under the tree this year, given your own messaging on this front.
LOL! You are extremely gullible. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of ET after 75 years of inhabiting this planet, not even during the Xmas holidaze. Seen and read a lot of science fiction movies and books and seen and heard a lot of lying politicians, spooks, and military types, though. Dream on, little feller, then take a nappy poo.
PS, I don’t have a Xmas tree.
Rainfall in Point Arena overnight was 1.7″ — we’ve had 5.85″ since 12/15, with more on the way!
“…soulless post-Clinton suits”
Really? I guess you never met James Carville.