Mendocino County Today: Tuesday 12/23/2025

Route 1 | Wind Tonight | Sinkhole | MacKerricher Drowning | Sharon Asbury | Food Insecurity | William Keller | Boonquiz | USDA PVP | Route 175 | Yesterday's Catch | Correct Thinking | Miller Home | Mental Health | Mistletoe | Pinups 1970s | NY Time | Jingle Bells | 49ers Win | Minimum Wage | Herring Run | Brussels Sprouts | Park Path | Green Ware | Weird Address | Dorothy Day | Cassius Speaks | Weiss Decision | Lead Stories | Nativity Figurines | Civic Groups | Weather Chat | Before Deluge | Miss Olson

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THE NEXT ROUND of heavy rain and strong wind returns Tuesday evening through early Wednesday. There may be a brief break in the weather Wednesday. More heavy rain, mountain snow, and strong winds are expected Wednesday night and Thursday. Drier weather is finally possible by the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A few sprinkles, clouds & 48F this Tuesday morning on the coast. Forecast updates includes smaller total rainfall amounts over the next few days (rainy yes, but less so) & some big wind tonight. Better get the generators ready & secure the wood pile. Currently Wednesday night appears when our biggest rain could fall but that could change of course. It's looking wet in general thru Friday now.

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CALTRANS [Monday 8:31am]:

Route 1 is OPEN to one-way traffic control near the Wages Creek Beach Campground north of Westport (PM 78.1-78.3) in Mendocino County due to a sinkhole. Please stay alert and drive with caution in the area.

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WOMAN DROWNS OFF MACKERRICHER STATE PARK ON MONDAY

A bystander pulled her to the shore but it was too late.

by Elise Cox

A woman died after being pulled into the ocean by waves Monday afternoon near MacKerricher State Park, according to California State Parks.

Park officials said they received a call at about 1:33 p.m. reporting that a woman had been swept into the water roughly 50 yards offshore on a beach just north of Laguna Point. A bystander witnessed the incident and was able to bring the woman back to shore.

The woman was initially conscious and had a pulse, but she later weakened and lost consciousness, officials said. Lifeguards with California State Parks and the Fort Bragg Fire Department arrived on scene and began CPR. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency investigating the death.

(Mendolocal.news)

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SHARON JOYCE ASBURY

Our beloved Sharon Asbury passed away peacefully on December 16, 2025. She has now joined the love of her life and husband, Bill, who preceded her to Heaven.

She enjoyed traveling with her family, Thursday night dinners with her friend group, walking with her dog to the post office, reading in her rocking chair, teaching her daughters and granddaughters how to sew, cooking for her family and listening to her birds sing. Her smile, warmth and laughter were like no other. She lives on in our hearts and our lives.

She is survived by her daughters, Sheryl and Susan (Nina), 9 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

The viewing will be held Friday, January 2, 2026 from 3 - 8pm at Eversole Mortuary. The funeral service will be Saturday, January 3, 2026 at 9:30am at Eversole Mortuary.

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FOOD INSECURITY NOT ‘CONQUERED’

Editor,

I'd like to comment on Tommy Wayne Kramer's article on Monday, where he says, "For the first time in history, hunger and starvation are all but conquered. America's impoverished are well fed, own automobiles, a full fridge, air-conditioning and free schools."

Aside from the homeless, many of whom have jobs, but can't afford a place to live and certainly don't have fridges or air-conditioning.

I don't know where he gets his information, but the Food, Research and Action Center's article on Hunger and Poverty in America paint a very different picture.

• About one in 7 households (13.5 percent) experienced food insecurity, or lack of access to an affordable, nutritious diet. An estimated 47.4 million Americans lived in these households.
• 5.1% of U.S. households (1 in 20) experienced very low food security, a more severe form of food insecurity, where households report regularly skipping meals or reducing intake because they could not afford more food.
• Children: 13.8 million children lived in households that experienced food insecurity, up 3.2 percent from 2022. • Race and ethnicity: Rates of food insecurity were higher for Black (23.3 percent) and Latinx (21.9 percent) households, both more than double the rate of White non-Latinx households (9.9 percent).
• Rural: A higher portion of households in urban areas (15.9 percent) and rural areas (15.4 percent) experienced food insecurity compared to suburbs (11.7 percent).
• Report: Household Food Security in the United States in 2023

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/109896/err-337.pdf?v=57.6

• Tables and charts: Statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2023

https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=109902

Updated 9/4/2024

https://frac.org/hunger-poverty-america#data

Overall poverty: According to the official poverty rate, 36.8 million people (11.1 percent) lived in poverty in 2023, unchanged from 2022.

• Children: 1 in 7 (13.7 percent or 9.9 million) children lived in poverty in 2023, an increase from 1 in 8 (12.4 percent or 8.9 million) children in 2022.*
• Geography: Nationally, the Western region had the highest average poverty rate (15 percent).*

Aside from children, Seniors, Vets and many working class people are similarly affected.

I don't know about Mr. Kramer, but every time I go to the store, food prices have gone up, along with rents, health insurance and just about everything else. Of course it doesn't have to be this way, in the "richest country in the world." But unfortunately, that's the reality right now.

Dobie Dolphin

Albion

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WILLIAM WAYNE KELLER

William “Bill” Wayne Keller was born on March 7, 1929, in Munising, Michigan. In his late teens, he moved to California with his brothers in search of work, where he would build a life rooted in family, service, and community.

Bill fell in love with Elaine Markham, his wife of 50 years, who preceded him in death. Together they raised their children and created a home filled with care, humor, and steadfast love. He is survived by his children Janet Eager (Gary), Thomas Keller (My), and Marie Keller (Frank Casian); his grandchildren Darien “Chase” Langstone, Ryan Langstone (Kimberly), Krystal Brink and Neil Keller; and his great-grandchildren Zakary Brink and Logan and Adam Langstone.

Bill served honorably as a mechanic during the Korean War and went on to work at the Georgia-Pacific Lumber Mill for 44 years. Known as a dependable and hardworking man, he was well respected by colleagues and friends alike. A devoted husband and father, Bill also enjoyed golfing, family vacations, watching sports, renovating houses, and taking his daily walks. He and Elaine were longtime members of Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church.

After retiring from the mill, Bill continued working in maintenance at Sherwood Oaks Senior Care Facility, where he was blessed to find love again with Betty Humphries, a longtime family friend. Bill and Betty shared ten happy years together, filled with family time and travel, and were members of the First Presbyterian Church. Betty preceded him in death. Bill is also lovingly remembered by Betty’s daughter, Patricia Osterhout, who helped care for him for several years before and after his stroke.

Bill spent his final weeks at Sherwood Oaks, where his granddaughter works, surrounded by familiar faces and compassionate care. Many staff members still fondly remember Bill and Betty’s love story and the warmth they brought with them.

Bill passed away peacefully on November 29, 2025, at the age of 96. He will be remembered as a kind and devoted family man, respected by many, and for his warm smile, twinkling eyes, and the quiet strength he carried throughout his life.

A memorial service will be held at First Presbyterian Church, 367 South Sanderson Way Fort Bragg, CA 95437, on January 17, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to any veterans’ or children’s care programs, in honor of Bill’s lifelong service to others.

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USDA STEPS INTO POTTER VALLEY PROJECT DECOMMISSIONING FIGHT

Attacks "the radical leadership of California" for a "war on agriculture"

by Elise Cox

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins on Friday filed a notice to intervene in federal proceedings over the proposed decommissioning of the Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project, responding to a letter from hundreds of elected officials, tribal leaders, ranchers and residents warning that dam removal could threaten water supplies, wildfire response and regional economies in Northern California.

The intervention comes amid growing opposition to Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s plan to surrender and decommission the century-old Potter Valley Project, which diverts water from the Eel River watershed into the Russian River system. The project includes Cape Horn Dam and Scott Dam, which forms Lake Pillsbury.

In a Sept. 29 letter addressed to Rollins and leaders of multiple federal agencies, the signatories urged regulators to halt or significantly revise PG&E’s plan, calling it legally deficient and environmentally risky. The letter argues that removing the dams would sharply reduce summer water diversions to the Russian River, raise water temperatures, release sediment downstream and undermine agricultural production, hydropower generation and wildfire suppression capabilities across Mendocino, Sonoma, Lake and Marin counties.

“The proposed dam removals threaten our region’s water supply, economic stability, and even our environment,” the letter states, while acknowledging support for environmental protection if paired with preservation of critical water infrastructure.

Rollins’ notice to intervene signals that the U.S. Department of Agriculture intends to participate formally in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process reviewing PG&E’s July 25 surrender application. The Potter Valley Project has long been intertwined with USDA-supported agricultural operations in the Russian River basin, where vineyards, ranches and family farms depend on imported Eel River water during dry months.

The letter asserts that PG&E’s plan identifies “unavoidable adverse effects” yet lacks transparency, meaningful tribal consultation and adequate mitigation. It claims that some tribes, including the Potter Valley Tribe, were excluded from discussions and that agencies responsible for protecting river resources were not fully engaged.

Signatories also raised concerns about endangered species, including Chinook salmon, steelhead and Pacific lamprey, arguing that sediment releases and altered flows could damage habitat for years. They contend the project requires a full environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act, along with additional federal permits under the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

Wildfire response featured prominently in the letter, which describes Lake Pillsbury and related water storage as “critical” water sources for firefighting. The authors warned that eliminating the reservoirs could hamper suppression efforts in an era of increasingly severe fires.

Among the signers are elected officials, fire chiefs, tribal members, business owners and hundreds of residents from communities throughout the Eel and Russian river watersheds. They urged FERC and cooperating agencies to reject PG&E’s plan “in its current form” and pursue a more transparent, science-based alternative.

USDA Secretary Brooke L.Rollins said he was concerned about “a profoundly negative and irreversible impact on local farmers, ranchers and agricultural producers.”

Rollins noted that the counties of Lake, Mendocino, Sonoma, Humboldt, and Marin together accounted or $1.4 billion in sales of agricultural products, according to the last census. According to the USDA, “That’s well over $4.2 billion in extra economic activity due to agriculture if you assume a standard multiplier of $3 to $1 which is standard in the nearby Central Valley.”

USDA’s comments, directed to Ms. Debbie-Anne Reese, Acting Secretary Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, require specific mitigations, which are laid out in the article: USDA to PG&E: Mitigation is Required for Potter Valley Decommissioning.

“Unless and until PG&E addresses the aforementioned issues included in these comments,” said Tucker Stewart, senior USDA adviser, “the Department respectfully requests that the Commission reject PG&E’s application to surrender its FERC license for Potter Valley Project dam because of the profoundly negative and irreversible impact on local farmers, ranchers, agricultural producers, communities, and USDA equities.”

PG&E has said it is pursuing decommissioning because the project no longer meets modern safety, environmental and economic standards, though opponents argue the utility has not adequately explored options to modernize or transfer ownership of the facility.

FERC has not yet issued a final decision on the surrender application. Rollins’ intervention ensures the Agriculture Department will have a direct role as the review moves forward.

(Mendolocal.news)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Monday, December 22, 2025

ARIANA ARNOLD, 21, Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

WILLIAM COODY JR., 55, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

TEVIN HOAGLEN, 28, Covelo. Burglary, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, conspiracy, probation revocation.

KENNETH HUTSELL, 50, Smith River/Ukiah. DUI-any drug, taking vehicle without owner’s consent, stolen property, grand theft, suspended license.

ELOY LOPEZ JR., 26, Ukiah. DUI causing bodily injury, controlled substance, disobeying court order, probation revocation.

KEAUNA MARTIN, 27, Crescent City/Ukiah. Grand theft, stolen vehicle, paraphernalia.

EVAN NELSON, 29, Ukiah. Under influence, disobeying court order.

JARON NUNNEMAKER, 51, Willits. Domestic abuse, child endangerment.

MICHAEL PARKER, 48, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, disobeying court order, failure to appear.

CURTIS REID, 54, Ukiah. Taking vehicle without owner’s consent, stolen property-vehicle, vandalism, controlled substance, probation revocation.

ERNEST TEPHENS, 53, Willits. Disobeying court order.

JORGE TAFOYA, 42, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Beware simple explanations of complex social phenomena, but consider this hypothesis: sometime ago, maybe a generation back, many schools—including universities—stopped teaching critical thinking (or critical analysis) and replaced it with “correct thinking.” This change facilitated the explosion of foolishness on social media. As long as you accept a priori some definition of what is correct, no evidence is necessary.

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FIXES FOR MENTAL HEALTH

Editor,

California does not need to make it easier for prosecutors to keep people locked in state mental hospitals after their prison sentences.

The vast majority of individuals living with serious mental illness present no danger, but exhibit behaviors that are inconvenient, uncomfortable or socially undesirable. Confining them without proof that they are a risk does not make the public safer; it would simply divert scarce clinical and court resources away from the cases that need the most attention.

There are better reforms.

Commitment hearings should happen in the community where the person will live, not in the county where the state hospital happens to be. Successful community transitions depend on the availability of community-based treatment, supportive services, housing resources, outpatient providers and county-level coordination.

The Department of State Hospitals should be required to use existing programs, such as the new CARE Court, to provide services when appropriate.

Both these reforms are easier and cheaper than what the Chronicle’s editorial board proposed in connection with the case of Bill Gene Hobbs.

Californians need to be skeptical any time high-profile cases are used to enact major policy changes.

Joseph Penrod, assistant public defender,

Alameda County Public Defender’s Office

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MISTLETOE

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there.

— Walter de la Mare (1922)

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PINUP ALBUM COVERS (mid 1970s)

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WONDERING ABOUT MY NEW YORK TIMES

by Paul Modic

I’ve been wondering about my time in New York City, how I was convinced by Connie to go to the Watkins Glen rock festival in upstate New York where I met Trudy and went with her to Manhattan, then met Pam in Cambridge and she took me to The Path in the Catskills, and then I moved down to the city to be with her and The Path.

What if I hadn’t spent those sixteen months in New York, from 1973 to 1975, with a summer in Mendocino and a month in Mexico in between? What if? What did I experience in New York which had a lasting effect on my life? Okay, well, The Path was interesting and intense, where I learned it was alright to hug and cry, and why I usually refer to it as “The Crying Cult.” That’s important, right? But I might have learned that eventually, “to be in touch with my feelings,” right?

Maybe not, that was major, a big lesson which was lasting to today, as in if someone’s crying I never say don’t cry, I always say just cry, but then again that rarely comes up, what, once every five years, same as actually crying? Back then handing someone a tissue or a box of tissues was forbidden, the tissues were saying don’t cry, when the best thing for anyone is to cry, right? (So I guess I’m still in The Path.)

But New York was so grimy and intense, living in a cockroach-infested slum apartment at 533 East 13th Street for $86 a month, riding my bike against traffic to the taxi company on 11th Avenue and driving nights, usually stopping at Washington Square Park at three in the morning to hang out with the late night jammers, maybe have a hit on a joint, or walking to the subway home a few blocks with an open jack knife in my hand. (I could have done without being a New York cabbie, I’d already done it in Indiana for a couple of months.)

I started writing a lot in New York, a lot of rambling prose and poetry, was I inspired?

There was a time in New York when the first thing I did upon waking was to pull on my pants and head down to Thompson Square Park a few blocks away to shoot hoops with my red white and blue ABA basketball. I don’t remember even taking a morning leak first, just out the door with my ball. (Yeah, dude from Indiana, makes sense, and I’ve been building basketball courts ever since, another story…)

There was also the one time I took the subway, Lexington Line, up to Harlem at midnight to my job at Reverend Samuel Windham’s Samuel’s Temple School, the 24-hour daycare center on 125th Street half a block from Lexington Avenue. (I guess they were testing me?) Working there was an experience I could write more about, already did in a notebook somewhere, but I could have lived just fine without that, right?

I did have some encounters with famous people: Toots Shor in my taxi, talked to Alan Ginsberg a couple times and then Peter Orlovsky on 14th Street outside the post office, babysat Abbie Hoffman’s kid and in the Greenwich Village nursery school where Anita Hoffman recruited me, the Tiny House Daycare, I once saw the singer Dave Mason picking up his son True (brat), Dean Martin’s grandson went there as well as Emerson, son of Jane Forth, who was one of Andy Warhol’s Superstars.(Very wild kid.)

But so what? I could have lived without those brief brushes with fame, or future fame like when I lived at the corner of First and First with fellow cabbie Heather Schreiber and her seven-year-old kid she called Huggy, who decades later I figured out was the actor Liev Schreiber. (She would send him walking across town every school day to the hip PS 41 elementary in Greenwich Village wearing a backpack half his size with his shoulder-length blond hair, an act which would probably get her arrested today.)

There was a period during the cab driver days when I hitched up to Newburgh, NY every week to stay with my grandmother in a spare cabin at her rental in the woods. She made us omelet breakfasts and drove me in her little gold Subaru to a spring where I loaded up my plastic bottles with water to take back to the city. She also taught me how to make tahini miso spread, which I haven’t made in decades but just bought the miso to do it again. All those visits with my grandma wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t accidentally ended up in New York, was that a good enough reason to walk those dirty though inspiring city streets, where even a doorman standing in front of his building was inspiration for a song? (About a doorman.)

Well, I did all that, do I regret it? I had no lasting relationships except friendship with fifteen-year-old Camilla, who I was infatuated with when nineteen, and am still in touch with. (We danced wildly to Led Zeppelin’s Sunrise Song when I met her on The Path, so I guess I was a dancing fool even back then.)

I did manage to get laid a few times with that crasher April, Keddy Ann Outlaw who I met on New Years Eve at WBAI, the girlfriend of Reverend Windham’s son, Trudy and Pam of course, a distant cousin by marriage and there must have been someone else, I’ll have to check the list.

No I’m not regretting or extolling those New York times, what would be the point of that? I had all those experiences and many more which contribute to who I am today, the decades in the hill which followed were more influential and now living near town for almost as long as those years way out in the hills.

(My guest cabin got flooded yesterday, time to go down and check the damage.)

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THE ONE HORSE OPEN SLEIGH

Dashing thro' the snow,
In a one-horse open sleigh,
O'er the fields we go,
Laughing all the way;
Bells on bobtail ring,
Making spirits bright;
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight!

[Chorus]
Jingle, bells! Jingle, bells!
Jingle all the way!
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!
Jingle, bells! Jingle, bells!
Jingle all the way!
Oh! what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride;
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side.
The horse was lean and lank;
Misfortune seemed his lot;
He got into a drifted bank,
And we, we got upsot.

[Chorus]

Now the ground is white,
Go it while you're young;
Take the girls tonight,
And sing this sleighing song.
Just get a bob tailed bay,
Two forty for his speed;
Then hitch him to an open sleigh,
And crack! you'll take the lead.

[Chorus]

— James Lord Pierpont (original lyrics, 1857)

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BROCK PURDY THROWS FIVE TDs as 49ers outgun Colts in 48-27 bonanza

by Noah Furtado

INDIANAPOLIS — Vintage Philip Rivers showed up at Lucas Oil Stadium, where Colts fans lost their minds with each big-board Rivers cam, almost as much as they did when the 44-year-old was signed after a five-year hiatus from the sport. Composed and in control of the pre-snap chess game, Rivers reminded his 10 children, and their children, what their old man was like back in the day.

But the best new story in the NFL could not quite keep up with Brock Purdy, 18 years his junior, and the scorching-hot San Francisco 49ers.

The Niners beat the Colts in a 48-27 blowout, setting a new season high in points for their fifth straight win. Now two victories away from securing home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, Kyle Shanahan and company improved to 11-4 and moved up to the No. 5 seed in a tightly wound NFC conference.

“I don’t think we’ve dropped any games that we should’ve won,” the Niners’ head coach said.

A combined five touchdowns had already been scored with nearly 10 minutes to go in the second quarter. Purdy threw three of them. Rivers flicked his wrist for two. After four quarters, the Colts punted once. The 49ers have not punted since Nov. 30.

Purdy finished with five touchdown passes, a new career high, to four different players.

All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey accounted for two, with six catches total to tie Roger Craig’s franchise record for catches in a single season by a running back (92). Star tight end George Kittle, who led all receivers in receptions (7) and receiving yards (115) despite exiting with an ankle injury in the second half, caught another. Starting wide receiver Jauan Jennings extended his touchdown streak to five games. Even reserve wideout Demarcus Robinson, a starter Monday in place of the injured Ricky Pearsall, hauled in his first touchdown as a Niner.

“It was definitely a Christmas-y night,” Jennings said.

McCaffrey also surpassed 1,000 rushing yards on the season with 117 for the game, while rival Offensive Player of the Year candidate Jonathan Taylor was mostly a non-factor for the Colts. The league-leader in rushing attempts, yards and touchdowns ran for just 46 yards on 2.9 yards per carry and a TD.

The game initially appeared like it might belong to the team that last had the ball, but a costly kickoff return fumble by the Colts in the second quarter helped the 49ers gain separation. Safety Ji’Ayir Brown punched the ball out, and tight end Jake Tonges recovered the fumble. The Niners scored six soon thereafter.

The 49ers then added another touchdown to open the second half. The Colts won the coin toss but elected to receive. They apparently wanted Rivers to get the ball first.

“Our special teams has been unbelievable, and to get that first turnover was kind of the momentum that gave us the lead,” Shanahan said, “and we were able to keep it throughout the game.”

Colts fans began to filter out with a little more than four minutes left in regulation, paused for a late Purdy interception, then proceeded to leave after Rivers tossed a pick-six that 49ers linebacker Dee Winters returned 76 yards to clinch the game. It was Winters’ first career interception.

“When I caught the ball, all I heard was my heart beating, and I just saw the end zone,” said Winters, a first-year starter in his third season with the Niners.

(sfchronicle.com)

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CALIFORNIA’S MINIMUM WAGE IS INCREASING IN 2026 AS LOS ANGELES DEBATES $30 AN HOUR

by Cayla Mihalovich

Californians will see the minimum wage increase to $16.90 per hour starting Jan. 1. The adjustment — a boost of 40 cents per hour — was calculated in August by the Department of Finance as part of its minimum wage annual review required by state law.

California has been raising its minimum wage over the past decade. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 signed a watershed law to increase minimum wage from $10.50 per hour to $15 per hour, plus annual adjustments for inflation.

The current rate of $16.50 per hour suggests that a minimum wage worker needs to work 98 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental at fair market rent in California, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

California is one of 19 states to raise minimum wages in 2026, according to payroll company ADP. Cities and counties can also set their own minimum wages. This year, over two dozen local jurisdictions have increased local minimum wages. West Hollywood will have a $20.25 minimum wage starting in January — the highest of any California city, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Voters last November narrowly rejected a ballot measure that would have increased the minimum wage to $18 per hour. But some low-wage workers this year have successfully lobbied for bumps in pay in specific industries.

Under laws Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023, fast food workers earn a minimum wage wage of $20 an hour and health care workers are on track to make $25 an hour.

That momentum extended to Los Angeles hotel and airport employees. Labor organizers in May secured a city minimum wage increase to $30 per hour for those workers by the 2028 Olympics. Large businesses fought back, arguing that wage hikes will only increase challenges for the tourism industry, which is still struggling to find its footing after the pandemic.

After failing to gather enough signatures for a ballot measure to repeal the new minimum wage, business groups later filed a different measure that could gut millions of dollars of revenue from the city’s general fund.

Following the move, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson this month introduced a motion to delay the full wage increase from taking effect until 2030, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times.

Labor leaders rebuked the motion, calling it “repulsive.”

“You can’t threaten to blow a hole in our budget and then the only way to stop it is on the backs of workers,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the union that represents many hotel workers, UNITE HERE Local 11. “That kind of raw extortion and shakedown has no place in our city.”

According to Peterson, a coalition of community organizations and unions are beginning to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour for all workers in Los Angeles.

“The power is everyone together,” said Peterson. “Working people need help and raising wages is the easiest, most straightforward thing to do. Going up 40 cents per hour in 2026 doesn’t move the needle at all.”

(CalMatters.org)

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FAMOUS SAN FRANCISCO PHOTOGRAPHER FRED LYON in 1955.

It was seen many times when the herring were running and mist was rising off San Francisco Bay in the morning. There is a dory man working off shore.

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EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT BRUSSELS SPROUTS IS WRONG

How the Bay Area helped make them cool.

by Kasia Pawlowska

The scene opens with a close-up of a pretty ceramic dinner plate. It’s empty except for the floral motif lining its edge and a cluster cowering on one side: eight sad little Brussels sprouts. In this 1960 episode of the wholesome television show “Leave It to Beaver,” 25 minutes are dedicated to the putridness of the vegetable.

The plot is straightforward: The youngest member of the Cleaver clan refuses to eat the sprouts, even after older brother Wally reveals his trick — “all you have to do is hold your breath and gulp them down” — and a number of punishments are levied at Beaver in return. First, he can’t leave the table. Then, he won’t be able to go to the big game with his family the following day.

Eventually a deal is struck, and all he has to do is eat the Brussels sprouts the next time they’re served. After a kerfuffle at a restaurant that evening, Beaver miserably ingests a sprout and proclaims, wide-eyed and amazed, “You know something? I think it’s gonna stay down there.”

Since the “Beaver Won’t Eat” episode aired over 60 years ago, similar scenarios have played out countless times in movies and other TV shows, ranging from “Desperate Housewives” to “Ernest Scared Stupid.” The endless anti-Brussels sprouts propaganda cemented the crop’s reputation as the vegetable equivalent of punishment, something you’d wish upon your worst enemy — and made its next chapter wholly confusing.

By the early 2010s, Brussels sprouts unexpectedly became the culinary darlings of San Francisco’s restaurant scene. From SPQR to La Folie, the prolific local crop once called “the weak member of the vegetable pack” by an LA Times food critic was now gracing dozens of menus, often in roasted and glazed form. So was that it? Did we simply alter its presentation and become enlightened to its virtues?

Not really. It was the sprouts that changed.

The moment Brussels sprouts quietly changed

The sprouts redemption tale began overseas in the Netherlands, a couple of hours away from their namesake, Brussels, Belgium. In 1999, a Dutch scientist named Hans van Doorn working for a company called Novartis Seeds published a paper identifying the two compounds that made Brussels sprouts bitter — sinigrin and progoitrin. With this knowledge in hand, scientists took stock of milder varieties of the crop and began a breeding program to change the sprouts’ maligned flavor profile. “It’s around 12 to 14 years before you really have a new variety,” said Joske van den Burg, a breeder at Syngenta — a global agricultural science company that acquired Novartis — during a phone call with SFGATE.

Van den Burg has been working with seeds for over two decades and is constantly developing new sprout varieties to keep up with issues growers are facing, including environmental changes and pesticide bans, in order to create strains “that are really future proof,” she said. Two new varieties are coming to the U.S. soon, which is why she was visiting a site in Salinas recently to get feedback from growers on crops.

“It’s all about easy-growing varieties, but also good-tasting ones, but also ones that look appealing,” she said. “The growers also have a preference for nice and smooth sprouts, and they have to look good and shiny and fresh.”

Van den Burg said that the change initiated in 1999 was particularly aimed at younger consumers who didn’t suffer bitter sprouts like older generations. “We developed a variety that was really nice tasting, almost sweet tasting,” she said. “But I usually don’t use the word sweet, because then people assume it’s kind of like candy, right?” That strain is still one of the top sellers, she said, “So you can imagine that this invention from like, 25 years ago was really, really big.”

According to her, Americans are ahead of the curve — having moved past seeing Brussels sprouts as something that belonged only on holidays or in winter meals. “I think in Europe, we can still learn from you guys,” she said.

The farmers who never gave up on Brussels sprouts

While scientists in the Netherlands were perfecting the sprout, California’s Central Coast had already become the country’s Brussels sprout epicenter. The crop arrived with Italian immigrants in the early 20th century who discovered that the region from Monterey to Half Moon Bay — with its cool, foggy coastal climate — mirrored conditions in their homeland, according to Dana Neitzel, a curator at the San Mateo County Historical Association. By the 1950s, the frozen food industry sparked a boom in Brussels sprouts production, and they became one of San Mateo County’s most prized exports. Their profile has only risen since.

Despite gargantuan pumpkins stealing the show every October, Brussels sprouts reign as San Mateo County’s top crop. In 2022, they were valued at $8.25 million, and last year, they were called out as one of the “large commodities” by Koren Widdel, the agricultural commissioner and sealer of weights and measures of San Mateo County.

One of these growers is John Giusti, whose family has been working in the county since 1949. Giusti, who runs Giusti Farms in Half Moon Bay with his son Jacob, said that two-thirds of their 300 acres of farmland flanking the lush Arroyo León are dedicated to the crop. “I have three main varieties that I’m raising, I’m trialing a fourth,” he said. This wasn’t always the case.

Giusti’s grandfather Guido was one of the Italian farmers who found his way to San Mateo County’s coast. He initially grew artichokes but started growing Brussels in response to the frozen food industry demand. Later, his father Aldo went all in on the crop and even invented a harvester that’s now displayed at the San Mateo County History Museum, yet John had reservations.

“I started raising a few artichokes again, a very small amount. But I’d tell people I was an artichoke farmer,” he said. The reason behind the lie was plain embarrassment. “I didn’t want to say I raised Brussels sprouts. People would plug their nose,” Giusti said.

Presently, he’s trying out Solidus — described as “high-yielding, nice quality sprout with a sturdy plant” on Syngenta’s site — as well as Gladius, which he describes favorably. “These varieties, they don’t last forever. … Just like a person, their genetics start to weaken, and they’re not as healthy of a plant as they were when they were a younger variety,” he said, supporting the need for van den Burg’s constant innovation.

Still, he remembers the one that kicked off the gold rush, the aptly named Confidant, which he considers “the backbone.” “When that variety came out, it was bulletproof. That thing was just, it was a game changer,” he said. “With that variety … people started eating Brussels sprouts again.”

How Brussels sprouts took over restaurant menus

With looks and flavor dialed in, the budding sprouts were ready for their big moment, which is largely credited to Momofuku’s founder, superstar chef David Chang. A 2019 NPR article talks about Chang’s revolutionary approach, transforming the stinky orbs into the hot new thing by roasting them in bacon. This was the peak bacon era, when it’d appear in many places it shouldn’t be — like on donuts — and became something people hinged their personality on.

Magazine articles at the time covered the trend. Among the people hailed for kicking off this renaissance was Amy Murray of Revival Bar & Kitchen in Berkeley. Murray had forgotten the earlier stories when we spoke but clearly remembered the shift. “I remember when they started showing up on the stalk, and I was just mesmerized by this giant stalk,” she said, recalling seeing the new batch of Brussels at Berkeley Bowl for the first time.

“We salt them and let them sit on salt for a couple of hours and then marinate them in a pretty complex apple cider, Dijon, thyme, roasted garlic, apple cider vinegar, garlic oil kind of situation,” she said, explaining how they’re handled in her kitchen. “I also use a little red chili flake. It’s not spicy, but it’s just balanced with the combination of the apple cider. I also use lemon juice.”

Her culinary tip? Resist the “gut bomb” deep-fried trend.

“It’s like a little baby cabbage,” she said, suggesting that their flavor could be amplified through similar means without drowning them in oil.

The most unlikely culinary turnaround

I don’t even remember eating Brussels sprouts in elementary school, but admitting you had was pariah territory. They were the punch line of every lunchtime joke, the vegetable that garnered the most theatrical complaints.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and something remarkable has happened. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Brussels sprouts consumption nationwide more than doubled, from 0.33 pounds in 2011 to 0.78 pounds in 2019. California is the leading producer in the country. In 2022, sprouts accounted for a $189 million industry in the state, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

It might be the greatest culinary comeback of all time. The vegetable that Beaver Cleaver could barely choke down has become a fixture of American menus, not through a big marketing effort or a change in our palates but through actual transformation. Van den Burg said the campaign to make Brussels sprouts a year-round staple rather than a holiday side dish is working. “I think now the whole U.S. market is as big as a complete European market altogether,” she said.

This fall, two eighth graders came through the SFGATE newsroom to be our apprentices for a week. The curious girls sat in on meetings and calls and overheard some of the research that went into writing this story. During lunch at Delarosa, the conversation turned back to Brussels sprouts, as they — of course — were on the menu. I braced myself for the eye rolls and groans I remembered so well from my own school days and was stunned that the girls were seriously considering ordering them.

“You really want the Brussels?” I asked them.

They looked at each other and said, almost in unison: “We like them!”

(SFGate.com)

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CALIFORNIANS ARE ABOUT TO PAY hundreds more for electricity next year, while the same utility corporation that burned our towns to the ground continues to enjoy guaranteed profits.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has killed hundreds of people over the decades with reckless negligence across California.

These deaths were the direct result of boardroom decisions that put profit above human life, by a corporation that controls the electricity needs for 60% of Californians.

In 2010, a PG&E gas pipeline exploded in San Bruno, killing 8 people after the company ignored basic safety warnings.

In 2017, their equipment sparked fires across the North Bay that killed more than 40 people.

And in 2018, faulty PG&E transmission lines ignited the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, killing 85 people and wiping the town of Paradise off the map.

Instead of real consequences, Governor Newsom stepped in with bailouts.

Taxpayers paid millions to private lawyers to draft laws that protected the company from full liability.

Now, after all that corruption, we are rewarded with price hikes that funnel billions more to these corporate killers.

The California Public Utilities Commission approves risk-free returns for monopoly utilities while families choose between groceries and heat.

The governor appoints those commissioners! Every one of these decisions reflects political will, and under Democratic leadership, PG&E has been shielded, rescued, and unleashed to gouge again.

Liberals defend this mess because Gavin Newsom sounds good on television when he yells at Trump.

But behind the flashy anti-Trump social media grift, Newsom serves as a rubber stamp for a company that killed people and then charged their communities more to survive.

Every Democrat in this race promises to double down on that warped continuity.

We offer a clean break.

As governor, I will break up these monopolies and together, we will move all essential utilities into public ownership.

I will use the power of the office to appoint commissioners who protect ratepayers rather than corporate profits.

And I will pursue antitrust enforcement and criminal accountability for executives whose decisions led to death and destruction.

If you are tired of being robbed by monopoly utilities and lied to by politicians who serve them, chip in today and help us win this fight against those who have been getting away with it for far too long.

Peace and Power,

Butch Ware

Butch Ware is running for Governor of California as a Green Party candidate to fight for a government that puts people first, not corporations. An anti-imperialist historian, scholar of revolution, and lifelong champion for justice, Dr. Ware is committed to building a California where healthcare is a right, housing is affordable, and our environment is protected. Join the fight and help us create a better future for all. Donate today, and let’s show the corporate parties that the people are in charge!

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DONALD TRUMP’S SCARY WEIRD ADDRESS TO THE NATION

by Paul Street

The debased and deranged wannabe fascist strongman-for-life Donald Trump’s bizarre, nationally televised speech to the American people last Wednesday night was quite insane.

The wild 18-minute oration was full of absurd and boastful misrepresentations of reality meant to support his ridiculous claim that the United States is entering a new economic Golden Age under his rule:

• He claimed to have cut drug prices by 400, 500 or even 600 percent, all mathematical impossibilities. Drug prices would be zero after a 100 percent cut
• He claimed to have slashed inflation when in fact the most recent available data shows that the rate of inflation is 3 percent, right where it was at the end of the Biden administration.
• He claimed that his tariffs are sparking a boom in factory employment when in fact industrial jobs are declining thanks in no small part to how his tariffs are disrupting the global supply chains on which US manufacturers depend.
• He cited absurdly false data to claim that foreign investment capital is pouring into the United States.
• He said gas prices are $2.50 a gallon in much of the country and that there are states where its $1.99 even through his own Department of Energy reports an average of $2.90 and AAA reports that no state has an average gas price as low as $1.99.
• He absurdly claimed that his tariffs will permit a massive reduction in income taxes.

As he told Americans that a glorious new age of prosperity was dawning under his reign, Trump left out the latest jobless numbers, which show the highest official unemployment rate in four years, fueled in no small part by his massive government layoffs. He also failed to mention that his assault on Obamacare means that health insurance premiums are going to skyrocket for tens of millions of Americans, forcing many to drop coverage altogether.

There were other ridiculous claims beyond the economic ones.

Trump repeated his preposterous xenophobic nationalist claims that Latin American countries have emptied their jails and prisons to invade the United States with dangerous “illegal immigrants.” He said that Joe Biden opened the US to an influx of “drug dealers, gang members and even 11,888 murderers, more than 50% of whom killed more than one person.”

Trump ridiculously claimed to be a great peacemaker who has “settled eight wars in ten months.”

He preposterously said that under Biden, “we had transgender for everybody, crime at record levels, law enforcement and words such as that just absolutely forbidden.”

Under the “radical Left” Biden administration, Trump told US-Americans, “the United States was ruled by politicians who flooded your cities and towns with illegal aliens…decimated your hard-earned savings, indoctrinated your children with hate for America” and “released a level of violent felons that we had never seen to prey on innocent.”

But all this absurdity was NOT the most remarkable thing about Trump’s speech.

There’s nothing remotely new about Trump lying and purveying falsehoods. There’s never been a bigger dissembler than Trump: The Washington Post calculated that Trump misrepresented reality 30,573 times during his first presidency; Mein Trumpf is the all-time world record holder when it comes to fibbing and falsification.

The most extraordinary aspect of Trump’s address was the wild way it was delivered. Barely stopping for a breath and sounding like he was late for an orgy at an Epstein property, Trump yelled his lies at the camera at a ridiculously rapid pace. The speech was barked out in a strange monotone staccato as if the orange-brushed ogre was both enraged and desperate to be believed. I half-wondered if he was on Adderall or some other stimulant drug that could help send him into cardiac arrest during his unhinged harangue. Were medical personnel nearby?

(On an optimistic note, it struck me at one point that he was he speaking like a man desperate to make his case before getting booted from office or drawing his last breath.)

The next most remarkable thing about last Wednesday night’s nutso Trump rant was the lunatic’s total silence about the preparations he is making for an epically criminal war on Venezuela. How strange. On the false claim that Venezuela is waging a narco-terrorist war on the US, Trump and his flying fascist monkey of a War Secretary Pete Hegseth have so far massacred 80-plus people in a string of arch-criminal extrajudicial executions on the high seas. Trump has declared the air space above Venezuela closed. He has seized a Venezuelan oil tanker right off Venezuela’s coast. He has declared fentanyl, which he falsely accuses Venezuela of shipping to the US, to be “a weapon of mass destruction.” He has assembled a giant “armada” of US military assets in the Caribbean to menace Venezuela and Colombia. Three nights ago, he ordered a blockade on tankers coming in and out of Venezuela. He said that Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered and claimed that Venezuela has “stolen our oil and land” (no doubt a reference to past nationalizations under Hugo Chavez).

This is deranged imperial war talk, an odd fit for a self-declared “peacemaker” who is demanding a Nobel Peace Prize.

How does a POTUS get up in front of the cameras in a rare nationally televised special address and say literally nothing about a regime change war he appears to be on the verge of starting in the Americas?!

What madness.

(Paul Street’s latest book is ‘This Happened Here: Amerikaners, Neoliberals, and the Trumping of America (London: Routledge, 2022).CounterPunch.org)

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DOROTHY DAY sat in a Washington jail cell in 1917, refusing food, refusing silence, and refusing to apologize for demanding that women be allowed to vote.

She was twenty years old, a journalist barely earning enough to survive, already familiar with protest and police batons. Outside the White House gates, banners calling President Wilson a hypocrite had earned her arrest. Inside the cell, guards mocked her hunger strike. Day answered by pressing her body further into resistance, discovering for the first time how far conviction could push a person past fear.

By line five of her life, the contradiction was set. Dorothy Day loved beauty, poetry, s3x, conversation, and intellectual rebellion. She also carried a fierce moral seriousness that refused compromise. She marched with radicals, wrote for socialist papers, and lived among people society preferred to forget. Long before faith defined her, defiance did.

Motherhood changed the stakes. After the birth of her daughter Tamar, Day found herself torn between revolutionary politics and a growing pull toward Catholicism—a faith she had once dismissed as ritual without justice. Conversion cost her friendships, credibility, and her romantic partner. She accepted the losses quietly, believing truth rarely arrives without collateral damage.

The real test came during the Great Depression. In 1933, Day co-founded The Catholic Worker newspaper and opened houses of hospitality for the poor—not as charity, but as shared life. Soup lines were not enough. Beds mattered. Presence mattered. Refusing state funding, she insisted that personal responsibility could not be outsourced to institutions.

That stance made her difficult. She opposed war consistently, even after Pearl Harbor. She rejected violence even when it would have strengthened her political standing. She frustrated allies and angered critics by choosing conscience over strategy, again and again.

Dorothy Day was arrested more than once in old age, protesting nuclear weapons and unjust wars with the same stubbornness she had shown as a young suffragist. She never claimed sainthood. She claimed responsibility.

History often tries to soften her into a symbol of kindness. That misses the point. Day’s life was not about gentleness. It was about refusal—the refusal to separate faith from action, belief from cost, love from inconvenience.

She didn’t ask whether justice was practical.

She asked whether it was necessary, and lived as if the answer allowed no delay.

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"I STILL REMEMBER my shock when I finally heard these lines from the murder scene in Julius Caesar. The assassins are washing their hands in Caesar’s blood.

Cassius says:

Stoop then, and wash. — How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,

In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

What I suddenly heard, for the first time, was manifold. It was the voice of lonely, dedicated, deluded Cassius, whose life had never been real for me before — I suddenly seemed to know what this moment meant to him."

— James Baldwin (1924–1987), “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare” (1964)

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REBECCA SOLNIT:

As many of you know, Bari Weiss, the new headmistress of CBS, cut a 60 Minutes segment on the horrific gulag to which the Trump Administration sent people this year. But they forgot to cut it in Canada and now everyone is bootlegging it and you can watch it lots of places--but not CBS. It is getting lots of attention, for the censorship, that like some of the Epstein censorship, did not exactly serve its purpose well.

https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment

Brian Schatz: What is happening to CBS is a terrible embarrassment and if executives think they can build shareholder value by avoiding journalism that might offend the Mad King they are about to learn a tough lesson. This is still America and we don’t enjoy bullshit like this.

Melissa Gira Grant: watching the CECOT 60 Minutes segment that CBS suppressed, it’s striking that Weiss specifically called out as unnecessary some of the most rigorous investigative work in the segment, including an explanation of how it was done (by human rights researchers)

NYT: In a move that drew harsh criticism from its own correspondent, CBS News abruptly removed a segment from Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was to feature the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador.

CBS announced the change three hours before the broadcast, a highly unusual last-minute switch. The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment. CBS News said in a statement that the segment would air at a later date and “needed additional reporting.”

But Sharyn Alfonsi, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, rejected that criticism in a private note to CBS colleagues on Sunday, in which she accused CBS News of pulling the segment for “political” reasons.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

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BARI WEISS ISSUED DERANGED MEMO TO 60 MINUTES STAFF ON AXED SEGMENT

The CBS editor-in-chief had a pathetic explanation for her decision to halt the 60 Minutes segment on Trump’s deportations.

by Malcolm Ferguson

CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss told 60 Minutes producers she was killing their story on the CECOT megaprison in El Salvador, where Trump deported more than 250 Venezuelan immigrants, because it did “not present the administration’s argument.”

“What we have is Karoline Leavitt’s soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn’t there much more to ask in light of the torture that we are revealing?” Weiss wrote in a Sunday memo. “Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realize we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.”

Weiss’s decision to kill the story because it didn’t have enough perspective from DHS officials—who had already declined to speak with 60 Minutes—was met with uproar when it was leaked on Monday. But she doubled down.

“We need to be able to get the principals on the record and on camera,” she said on a Monday staffing call, insinuating that the testimonies of CECOT inmates were insufficient.

Killing a story about a brutal megaprison because the folks that are sending people to the brutal megaprison aren’t featured prominently enough has not been favorably received.

“The Trump administration sent dozens [of] young men with no criminal record to be tortured and abused in a foreign prison,” podcaster Jon Favreau wrote. “@bariweiss can keep reporting, delaying, or kill the story altogether, but the basic facts have been well-documented in multiple court cases, including by Trump’s own DOJ and Trump-appointed judges.”

“Bari Weiss’s main criticism is that 60 Minutes doesn’t advance the story,” writer Randye Hoder chimed. “But her solution is to ask Stephen Miller to regurgitate the same talking points this admin has given from the get-go, which we’ve heard a gazillion times)!”

The Trump administration has yet to comment. View the trailer for the scrapped segment here.

(newrepublic.com)

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LEAD STORIES, TUESDAY'S NYT

Angering Denmark, Trump Appoints Special Envoy to Greenland

Trump Administration Orders Nearly 30 U.S. Ambassadors to Leave Their Posts

Trump Halts 5 Wind Farms Off the East Coast

Trump Announces New ‘Trump Class’ of Warships

F.D.A. Approves New Weight-Loss Pill

Jim Beam Halts Production, as Whiskey Market Struggles

Here Are the 10 Biggest U.S. Lottery Jackpots Ever

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YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT OF WORKING CIVIC GROUPS MATTERS

by Ralph Nader

People of generous intent often ask us about giving to nonprofit civic organizations making this a better world. They want to be sure any deductible contributions they make are put to good use and not used to pay for high executive salaries or bureaucratic overload.

The list of groups compiled for you below are very worthy, effective, honest groups – all 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations – that I have contributed to over the years. You can see for yourselves by visiting their websites.

I’ve added two unique organizations started by alumni classes of Princeton (Princeton Alumni Corps, formerly Princeton Project 55) and Harvard Law School (Appleseed Foundation), which you may want to learn about in case your alumni class (starting with its 25th reunion) wants to launch a civic advocacy group with a full-time staff. My alumni classes at these universities pioneered this model decades ago, and you can see what they are accomplishing by going to their respective websites, noted below.

If you wish to tell me what you’ve done with your alumni class, email [email protected]. There are few citizen endeavors more important than starting new civic institutions to strengthen our dwindling democracy.

• Akiing: akiing.org
• Alternative Radio: alternativeradio.org
• Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest: appalachia-spi.org
• Appleseed Foundation: appleseednetwork.org
• Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest: aclpi.org
• Beyond Nuclear: beyondnuclear.org
• Beyond Pesticides: beyondpesticides.org
• Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment: crpe-ej.org
• Children’s Advocacy Institute: sandiego.edu/cai
• Clean Air Campaign, Inc. [Send donations to 307 7th Avenue, Room 1705, New York, NY 10001.]
• Doctors Without Borders USA: doctorswithoutborders.org
• Earth Island Institute: earthisland.org
• FlyersRights.org: flyersrights.org
• Family Farm Defenders: familyfarmers.org
• Indian Law Resource Center: indianlaw.org
• Nuclear Information and Resource Service: nirs.org
• Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance: orepa.org
• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: peer.org
• Veterans for Peace: veteransforpeace.org
• Western Organization of Resource Councils Education Project: worc.org/ep
• Whirlwind Wheelchair: whirlwindwheelchair.org

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BEFORE THE DELUGE

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by…
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

Some of them were angry
At the way the earth was abused
By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power
And they struggled to protect her from them
Only to be confused
By the magnitude of her fury in the final hour
And when the sand was gone and the time arrived
In the naked dawn only a few survived
And in attempts to understand a thing so simple and so huge
Believed that they were meant to live after the deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by…
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

— Jackson Browne (1975)

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