Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 12/31/2025

Rain Begins | Hendy Closed | Protest Saturday | Jack's Schedule | Dispatch Criticism | Yorkville Celebration | Goodbye 2025 | Missing Riley | Yesterday's Catch | Bear Hunt | Dadgum Pedophile | Dark Arts | Whoot! | Landmark Purchase | Gun Ownership | Aryan Gang | American River | Carson McCullers | Costco Wine | Treasure Island | Joe Training | Hersh Documentary | Lead Stories | Greed | Phineas Barnum | Careful Silence | Daily Soma | Greenland Ice | Crusader Francesca | Shit Gig | Tatiana Schlossberg | High Pressure

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STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A much warmer 45F under cloudy skies this last day of 2025. Rain returns by this evening & for the next week. Most of the rainfall amounts are for this Friday & Saturday & I do not see any high winds forecast during the period thankfully. I would fill the gas tank & cover all the firewood as per our usual pre-storm prep.

LIGHT TO MODERATE RAIN returns from south to north Wednesday into Thursday, followed by a frontal system with moderate to heavy rain, high mountain snow, and gusty winds on Friday into Friday night. Chances for moderate to perhaps locally major coastal flooding increase Thursday through Saturday. Bouts of rain and gusty winds are forecast to continue into the weekend and likely next week. (NWS)

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AS OF TUESDAY EVENING, HENDY WOODS IS STILL CLOSED

A lot of trees fell during the storm and it is taking a while to get things cleaned up so it's safe to drive in. Hendy Woods Community usually pays the Day Use Fee for all Mendocino County locals on New Year's Day. But at this time, it's more likely than not that the park will still be closed by then. People are parking outside and walking in but caution is definitely required.

— Kathy Bailey

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LET'S MAKE NOISE THIS SATURDAY, JANUARY 3RD, 11am to 12noon Main Street, sidewalk in front of Guest House Museum, 343 N. Main St., Fort Bragg, CA

Bring non-perishable food donations for the FB Food Bank, we'll deliver.

Each Saturday at 11 am! This is a peaceful protest. We're gathering to say NO to the erosion of civil rights and human rights and the loss of critical government functions. NO to unconstitutional deportations. NO to the destruction of social security. NO to authoritarianism! YES! to democracy & rule of law. Please stay on the sidewalk and avoid blocking entrances, exits, or traffic. Bring a sign, a friend, and your enthusiasm! And when you can, spend a little money at our local downtown businesses. We will keep up this joyful resistance until the rule of law is restored and the assault on the US Constitution ends. Our home-made signs are stellar - bring 'em on - they are a hallmark of our protests. Join us!

— Susan Nutter [MCN chatline]

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UKIAH POLICE DISPATCH RESPONDS TO CRITICISM FROM FORT BRAGG CITIZENS

"I don't believe you," a dispatcher told a long-time Fort Bragg resident who has been active in promoting public safety.

by Elise Cox

The City of Fort Bragg first contracted with the Ukiah Police Department for dispatch services in 2009. Since then, the initial five-year contract has been renewed three times, most recently in July 2024.

Officials say the contract saves the city money and makes good economic sense. But over the past year, citizens have questioned whether performance safeguards are strong enough, citing delays in officer notification and dispatcher conduct.

Marla Swan, a communications and records manager for the Ukiah Police Department, defended the Ukiah dispatchers to the Fort Bragg Public Safety committee at its most recent meeting on December 17, noting that close to 100% of all calls were handled within 15 seconds or better, based on the most recent numbers submitted to the state of California by the Ukiah Police Department This exceeds a state requirement that 90% of 911 calls be handled within 15 seconds and 95% within 20 seconds, she said.

“We were well above answering 90% of 911 calls in 10 seconds,” she said. “So that’s pretty amazing.”

Swan told the committee that dispatchers are “passionate” about their performance, and she pointed out that a failure to meet state standards could result in lost funding or city fines.

The meeting turned tense during public comment when citizens shared personal experiences and described frightening failures of the dispatch system.

Jenny Shattuck recounted a June incident involving an armed suspect who had jumped bail and was facing a felony warrant. She said that when she called to report the suspect’s location, the dispatcher asked, “Is this a joke?”

The dispatcher did not dispatch officers, Shattuck said. While Shattuck was waiting, a Fort Bragg Police Officer David Franco drove by. Shattuck flagged him down.

“I asked Franco, ‘Did you get dispatched out?’ And he said, “No.” According to Shattuck, Franco asked her to call again. “There’s somebody still at the station. They can dispatch this out right now.’

“So I called her,” Shattuck continued. She recalled the conversation: “I have an officer here. He’s asking me to call you to please dispatch somebody out.” According to the Shattuck, the dispatcher said: “I don’t believe you.”

Shattuck went on to cite several additional examples. “The issue hasn’t been not answering the phone. The issue has been sometimes our officers are not dispatched,” she said.

The owner of the Headlands Cafe reported a frightening delay after an employee called 911 regarding a threat made by an anonymous caller to “shoot the place up” in September. He stated that his staff was “freaked out” and had to call multiple times before an officer arrived.

Swan addressed the complaints directly, explaining that in the case of the “joke” comment, the dispatcher was struggling to understand a unique name. She said the dispatcher had actually entered the call for service within one minute. Regarding the threat to the Headlands Cafe, Swan said officers were dispatched within 17 minutes. She said that while the delay may have felt long to the callers, the call was prioritized based on whether the threat was “in progress” or if someone was in “physical peril.”

“It might feel like it took a long time, but they actually were on scene within 20, 25 minutes,” Swan said.

To address ongoing community concerns, Swan invited residents to participate in “sit-alongs” at the Ukiah dispatch center.

Fort Bragg resident Eric Schmidt urged residents to take Swan up on her invitation. He also invited anyone with questions or concerns about dispatch to bring them forward.

The committee also received an update on the implementation of a new computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, which launched in September. Swan said the system significantly improves officer safety and increases transparency by allowing officers to view call details on mobile data terminals in their vehicles. The system also enables dispatchers to map the real-time location of police vehicles.

“Before this, we couldn’t map our Fort Bragg units,” Swan said. “If an officer requested Code 3 cover from another unit, we had to rely on verbal communication to determine their location. If an officer was unable to speak and activated their emergency alert, we had no way to map where they were.”

The briefing on the new CAD system underscored the broader public safety concerns that were the focus of the meeting: how information moves from callers to dispatchers to officers in the field, the need for professional, unbiased handling and the difference that updated training and equipment can make.

(Mendolocal.news)

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YORKVILLE LET'S TOAST TO THE NEW YEAR.
We’ll move the festivities indoors if the rain begins before we do!

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GOODBYE 2025!

by Mazie Malone

2025: The year that tried very diligently to take me out, silence me, and put me in my place. Perceived place, that is. There are some who desire my presence to be diminished, shamed, and ignored. Try as they might, I still stand straight and short, lol, regardless of the methods used to contain my rogue tongue.

This year put me through the wringer of emotional turmoil, questioning my own worth and wondering where I belong. The ultimate goal of bullies and oppressive systems is to control the narrative and squash you into submission. Ssshhhhhhh. More often than not it is an overt bully takedown. Frequently it is a covert operation on the down low that catches you off guard. I have experienced both.

What is interesting is that men often have no shame in cutting you down to size without thinking twice. Women tend to keep the contempt veiled yet polite, with a dash of condescension and superiority. I much prefer the male approach. No holds barred. You know exactly where they stand. Sadly, they often fall short of any ounce of integrity.

I have never been able to be a cool kid or fit in, forever the outcast for non-compliance. I tried multiple times to belong to the system. It would not have me and spat me out like poison. I found conventional ways to be of service within the system.

I was hired as a Case Manager for Manzanita in 2020 and fired for saying “mental health services are inadequate.” I was then set to have my own radio show on KZYX to talk about these issues. I was working with Alicia Bales, but she was fired before I could go on the air. With diligence, I finally secured a meeting with KZYX Operations Manager Rich Culbertson. He was excited about what I had to bring to the table, but once again, the powers that be declined.

Later, a friend encouraged me to apply to the board for NAMI (National Alliance on Mentally Illness). At first I said no, then became delusional enough to think that maybe if I were on the board, things would change. Ignoring my intuition, for the good of all, I tried and was denied access. How was I to know that one of the people deciding my board “destiny” would be the same person who fired me in 2020?

All of this to say, do you recognize the recurring theme? Compliance, control, and silence. I make people and systems uncomfortable. I ask questions no one else will. I expose cracks others are oblivious to. My goal has not changed. Six years later, the focus remains bringing these issues to light, and that will not change in 2026.

Some of the bogus admonitions said to and about me to shut me up:

• Toe the line.
• Always the victim.
• Take your social justice warrior stuff somewhere else. Nobody wants it.
• You keep moving the goalposts.
• You are not worthy.
• Jail provides free housing and support.
• I guarantee perpetual failure through disempowering people.
• Do not speak or ask questions.

That is not even half of the ridiculous efforts to demean and ridicule me so I back down. I do sometimes consider giving up, because isolation is hard. It is the inconvenient consequence of speaking with honest clarity. These statements draw a clear line. I am not entitled to speak or have an opinion, unless it is theirs. God forbid.

The question for 2026 is simple. Will I cross the line?

I will, most definitely. Not out of spite or ill will, but because the illusion needs to be cracked.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, December 30, 2025

IVAN AGUILAR, 20, Ukiah. Burglary, grand theft, assault with firearm, petty theft, loaded firearm, pot for sale, conspiracy, resisting, unspecified offense.

PAMELA BRANDON-FORD, 60, Ukiah. Disobeying court order.

JESSICA DIAZ, 33, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

GEORGE GINOCHIO, 66, Ukiah. Domestic battery.

MATTHEW KELLY, 43, Willits. Saps or similar weapons, failure to appear, probation revocation, resisting.

VIKTORIA LADD, 30, Clearlake/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

ADRIAN MANRIQUEZ, 20, Ukiah. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, suspended license for reckless driving, conspiracy.

KYLE MASON, 38, Ukiah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

KATIE PASSQUINELLI, 34, Foster City/Ukiah. Shoplifting.

DARRELL PIKE JR., 31, Hopland. County parole violation.

COLTON SMITH, 37, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, pot and narcotics sale, failure to appear, offenses while on bail.

JORGE TAFOYA, 42, Ukiah. False imprisonment with violence, vandalism, brandishing, probation revocation.

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WORD OF THE YEAR (via Holly Tannen, Coast Chatline)

“Just because somebody flew on a plane doesn’t mean they’re a dadgum pedophile. I have a lot of wealthy friends. I aspire to be wealthy, but I’ve taken a vow of poverty because my daughter rides horses. I have a lot of wealthy friends, and they fly on people’s planes. So that’s one of the things I worry about, too, because you know, President Trump admitted that he flew on [Epstein’s] dadgum plane. And so I worry about some innocent people.”

— Rep. Tim Burchett, R, Tennessee

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AN EMBARRASSMENT TO JFK

Editor,

Instead of trying to remove Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Performing Arts Center, let’s remove Kennedy instead. There is little more embarrassing and false than seeing Trump’s name above that of JFK. We can re-instate the proper name, as well as sanity, once this era of darkness has ended.

Trump has been determined to remake the performing arts into the capitulating arts since taking office, like the art once created for kings and gods. Now, the performing arts center is only for MAGA-nificent artists to be watched by a lot of empty seats, its TV ratings far below those of Trump’s favorite late-night TV hosts.

Perhaps, the Center should be renamed The Trump Center of the Dark Arts.

Mitchell Goldman

Richmond

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BREAKING: Klamath Indigenous Land Trust purchases 10,000 acres on Klamath River from PacifiCorp

by Dan Bacher

Klamath Basin, CA/OR — As salmon return to the headwaters of the Klamath River for the first time in over 100 years after the removal of four dams, the newly formed Klamath Indigenous Land Trust (KILT) and PacifiCorp yesterday announced the landmark purchase of 10,000 acres in and around the former reservoir reach of the river, according to a press statement.

Representatives of the trust say the transaction represents “one of the largest private land purchases by an Indigenous-led land trust in U.S. history.”…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/29/2360565/-Breaking-Klamath-Indigenous-Land-Trust-purchases-10-000-acres-on-Klamath-River-from-PacifiCorp

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DENNIS L. MERWOOD:

Research indicates that gun ownership significantly increases the risk of death, particularly through homicide and suicide, highlighting serious public health concerns.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379725000248

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that individuals living in homes with guns face substantially higher risks of being fatally assaulted. This research analyzed data from 18 million adults in California and revealed that the presence of handguns in a household correlates with increased homicide rates, particularly affecting those who do not own guns but live with gun owners. The study emphasizes the "second-hand" risk of firearm ownership, indicating that cohabitants of handgun owners are at a greater risk of being killed, often by strangers.

In addition to homicide risks, gun ownership is also linked to a dramatic increase in suicide rates. A study from Stanford University found that men who owned handguns were eight times more likely to die from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, while women who owned handguns were over 35 times more likely to commit suicide with a firearm. This research tracked 26 million California residents over a 12-year period and confirmed that ready access to a gun is a major risk factor for suicide.

The mounting evidence suggests that bringing a gun into the home does not enhance safety; rather, it is associated with higher risks of both homicide and suicide. These findings underscore the need for careful consideration of the implications of gun ownership on personal and public safety.

Let the wailing and gnashing of teeth begin.

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AMERICAN RIVER UPDATE: Lack of Access to Folsom's Deep Water Pool Delays Salmon Spawning

by Dan Bacher

As an angler and journalist who has spent thousands of hours fishing on the American River, writing about its fisheries and fighting for the restoration of its once abundant fish populations, I would like to share an American River update from biologist Tom Cannon on the salmon fishery on this unique urban river that flows through the Sacramento Metropolitan Area.

On my many hundreds of trips to the river since I was a child, I have caught virtually every fish found on the river. I caught my first Chinook salmon, my first steelhead, my first legal-sized striped bass and my first American shad on the river — and many of each of those species at a variety of locations since then.…

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/29/2360529/-American-River-Update-Lack-of-Access-to-Folsom-s-Deep-Water-Pool-Delays-Salmon-Spawning

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CARSON MCCULLERS

Carson [McCullers] liked sherry with her tea, brandy with her coffee, and her purse with a large flask of whiskey. Between books, when she was neither famous nor monied, she claimed she existed almost exclusively on gin, cigarettes, and desperation for weeks at a time. During her most productive years she employed a round-the-clock drinking system: she’d start the day at her typewriter with a ritual glass of beer, a way of saying it was time to work, then steadily sip sherry as she typed. If it was cold and there was no wood for the stove, she’d turn up the heat with double shots of whiskey. She concluded her workday before dinner, which she primed with a martini. Then it was off to the parties, which meant more martinis, cognac, and, oftentimes, corn whiskey. Finally, she ended the day as it began, with a bedtime beer.

Her recuperative abilities are the stuff of legend—she would rise the following morning, shake off her hangover like so much dust, down her morning beer, and get back to work.

— Sadie Stein in @parisreview

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COSTCO’S MOST POPULAR WINES

by Esther Mobley

Anytime I’m at Costco, I’m simultaneously amazed by and skeptical of the crazy-low prices on certain items. There’s the $1.50 hot dog, whose price hasn’t risen in 40 years, and the $4.99 rotisserie chicken, which ranked very highly in a Chronicle blind tasting earlier this year.

But no Costco product’s pricing has puzzled me as much as the line of Kirkland Signature wines. Sonoma County Chardonnay for $7.99, when the average price is closer to $25? Carneros Pinot Noir for $8.99, when many examples are at least $40? No wonder they’re a staple at so many holiday parties.

But I wanted to find out whether they were actually any good, so I enlisted the help of wine steward Paul Ferris, who acts as a sommelier — another pretty astounding service that Costco offers at many of its stores — offering recommendations to any San Francisco customers who ask. He helped me choose three reds, a white and two sparkling wines, which he said represent some of the best of the Kirkland Signature line. They cost between $6.99 and $21.99.

One thing that struck me immediately about the Costco bottles was that many of them identify the name of the winemaker on the back. This is unusual for private labels — i.e., wines that are made by one winery but then sold under a different brand, often a restaurant, hotel or retailer. They typically obscure the original source, since the winery might sell a similar wine under its own label for more money than the private label. That’s the case with some of the wines that I bought, like the Kirkland Signature $14.99 Toscana. It’s produced by Tuscan winery Caiarossa, whose own Toscana costs $59.99 at K&L.

Overall, the six bottles I tasted were solid quality and faithful representations of their respective types. I wouldn’t say that any of them knocked my socks off — with the possible exception of my No. 1 pick — but it’s hard to argue with the value propositions.

Here are the Costco wines I tasted, ranked in order of my preference:

6. Kirkland Signature Brut Champagne ($21.99)

The most expensive wine in my shopping cart, Costco’s Champagne nevertheless represents a screaming deal for Champagne. High-quality sparkling wines from the actual Champagne region of France are hard to come by for less than $50. This bottle identifies its producer as Manuel Janisson, a winemaker I’m not familiar with.

This was the most disappointing of any wine in my tasting. I hoped for more complexity and finer bubbles. It does not have the yeasty, briochey flavors that I love in many Champagnes — and since it’s nonvintage, I don’t know how long it aged. But for less than half the price of entry-level Champagnes, is it OK to be half as good? Maybe. It’s still a decent bottle of wine for $22.

5. Kirkland Signature Russian River Valley Pinot Noir 2024 ($10.99)

This bottling comes from winemaker Alison Crowe of Napa’s Plata Wine Partners, a major force in the private-label game. At $10.99, it’s notably cheap for Russian River Pinot, which can cost at least $25 on the low end and exceed $100 on the higher end.

For those who love Russian River Pinot Noir, Kirkland’s wine will satisfy. It’s got the juicy flavors and aromas of maraschino cherry and cola that many wines from this area of Sonoma County express. Its fruitiness is a little over the top and heavy for my personal taste, but consumers who like a borderline-jammy Pinot should be pleased.

4. Kirkland Signature Ti Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2025 ($6.99)

This New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t force you to flip to the back label to learn the name of the vineyard it comes from — it says it right up front. Ti Point winery’s own Sauvignon Blancs usually sell for closer to $20 in the U.S. But I’d imagine the real competitive set for Costco’s wine are the likes of Kim Crawford and Oyster Bay, two mega-hit New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs that can be had for $11-$12.

I never have extremely high expectations for New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs in this price range, and I wouldn’t say that the Kirkland bottle exceeded them. Still, for those looking for the category’s archetypal flavors — sharp grassiness and a lemon-lime note that can border on ammonia-like — the wine delivers in spades. It’s acidic, light and citrusy, exactly the sort of wine that you won’t feel like you’re wasting by pouring into a tiny plastic cup at the office holiday shindig.

3. Kirkland Signature Toscana 2022 ($14.99)

The label on this Italian wine doesn’t divulge which grape varieties went into it, but Ferris, the wine steward, told me it’s a Super Tuscan — a blend that typically includes Tuscany’s signature grape, Sangiovese, along with imported French cultivars like Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah. It’s the work of winemaker Alexander Van Beek of Caiarossa winery, which also makes Toscana bottlings that retail for around $60.

It's a big, rich wine, leading with dense fruit flavors of blackberry and cherry, though there’s still a leathery, spicy aspect that keeps the fruitiness in balance. The profile is standard for a Super Tuscan (though I tend to prefer the earthier, more red fruit-driven Sangioveses of Tuscany’s Chianti Classico region). The wine would be a nice match for hearty red meat.

2. Kirkland Signature Asolo Prosecco Superiore ($7.99)

With inexpensive Prosecco, you’re not looking for much complexity: At best, you can expect a pleasantly fizzy wine with fruity flavors and a little sweetness. I appreciated that Costco’s Prosecco tasted much less sweet than other comparable options, with an green-apple flavor that doesn’t veer (as it often can) into the Jolly Rancher realm. For $7.99, I expected cloying, but what I got instead was something nicely balanced.

This wine would hold its own very nicely against popular Proseccos like La Marca, which usually costs between $10-$14 a bottle. It’s also worth noting that it’s classified as Prosecco DOCG, a designation from the Italian government that is reserved for the highest-quality Proseccos made according to the strictest requirements. I’d drink it on its own, though I’m more likely to buy it in the future as a mixer for spritzes and other bubbly cocktails.

1. Kirkland Signature Barolo 2021 ($19.99)

Barolo for $20 is nearly unheard of. This is the signature wine of Piedmont, in northern Italy, made from the Nebbiolo grape. It’s sometimes referred to as “the king of wines and the wine of kings.” Fine examples can start around $50, though the best Barolos — tragically — can cost hundreds of dollars. Although this bottling doesn’t name the winemaker, it is from Serralunga d’Alba, a prestigious growing area.

Ferris said that the Barolo is one of the best Kirkland Signature wines, and I don’t doubt it. It’s an impressive wine, showing the earthy and floral notes that are typical of Barolo; many wine aficionados characterize a prototypical Barolo as tasting like “tar and roses.” It’s light in color but formidable in tannin, and at four years old is ready to drink now.

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THE BEST CHEAP HOTEL ON THE VEGAS STRIP

by Katie Dowd

When I walked into my room at Treasure Island, I was met with a blast of unpleasantly cold air. It was late November and, even in Las Vegas, the night was nippy. I dropped my bags and searched for the thermostat. After a quick scan of the walls, I found it: a yellowing Honeywell that looked like it was installed during the Reagan administration.

Thermostats are something we’ve overengineered to uselessness; I regularly find myself messing with the temperature controls in high-end hotels for 10 minutes, never figuring out how to change the default setting from 70 degrees. But in Treasure Island, the thermostat had one switch for the fan (hi, med, lo) and one for the temperature (heat, off, cool). It might have been old, but it was effective.

I’ve stayed at some of the cheapest hotels on the Vegas Strip. The worst, without a doubt, is Luxor. The runner-up is Circus Circus. I know what rock bottom looks like. So color me astonished to find Treasure Island is the best cheap hotel, by far, on the Strip.

Treasure Island opened in the 1990s amid a heady time for Las Vegas developers. Everyone’s brain had been infected with the same virus, convincing them that children were the future of the Strip. Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand and others burst onto the scene, filled with over-the-top themes and attractions geared towards families.

After opening the Mirage, developer Steve Wynn announced he was building Treasure Island on the adjacent lot. He wore a pirate hat and long coat at the press event — kids love when billionaire real estate moguls wear costumes — and touted the affordable price point. Where the Mirage would set you back $130 a night, families could enjoy Treasure Island for just $40. Out front, a free hourly battle between full-size ships would take place across the lagoon.

Treasure Island debuted in October 1993 with the greatest opening salvo in Vegas history: The ships “shot” cannons at the shuttered Dunes hotel, kicking off its demolition.

In retrospect, this probably set a perilously high bar for the thrills Treasure Island could provide.

“Disneyland is Disneyland, Las Vegas is Las Vegas,” one of Wynn’s PR directors explained. “Kids don’t have money, kids don’t spend money.”

This, unfortunately for Treasure Island, proved to be true. Within the decade, practically every so-called family-friendly resort began undoing its themes, replacing wild fantasies with convention center carpet. By the 2000s, Treasure Island pivoted to a more grown-up vibe. The swashbuckling theme was toned down, and the pirate show became Sirens of TI, a sort of burlesque-meets-stunt show (or, as the LA Times put it, “sexed up with hot chicks”). Ed Hardy designer Christian Audigier was brought in to open a nightclub (“There were no cute guys here,” complained one Yelp review). The resort was rebranded to TI, which the hotel president referred to as “trendy” and “sexy” — your mileage on what the hottest initials are may vary.

The transformation to a bland, pirate-less resort was completed in 2009, when businessman Phil Ruffin bought the hotel. Overnight, he turned the sit-down restaurant into a pizzeria, closed the Rolex store and ended the free pirate show.

“People don’t want high-end these days, certainly not from this place,” Ruffin told the Las Vegas Sun. “We’re getting all kinds of business from the Venetian, the Wynn, the Mirage, from people who don’t want to pay $15 for orange juice.”

Time has borne out Ruffin’s hypothesis. As Vegas moves further and further away from middle class travel, Treasure Island has remained a reliably budget option. But I’ve stayed at Ruffin’s other hotel, Circus Circus, where my room had a leaky toilet and clothing from the previous guest. So I was coming in skeptical.

I arrived at Treasure Island around 7:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. Tired and hungry, I was in no mood to talk to someone at the check-in desk, so I tried my luck at the self-service kiosks. In about a minute, I had my keys and a little slip of paper with directions to my room. Although I’d paid $120 for a standard two-queen room, I was automatically upgraded to the 30th floor. The windows looked out onto the Strip, the airport and the mountains beyond.

After rectifying the room temperature, I inspected my digs. It was like stepping back in time. The decor was very Bombay Company circa 1990: dark walnut furniture, brown chairs, neutral finishes. There was an archaic surge protector on the desk. But despite its outdated style, everything was immaculately maintained. There were minimal dings on the furniture, the carpet was neat and clean, and the bathroom tile didn’t have a speck of mildew. The beds, although a bit lumpy in spots, even had four pillows each.

But the biggest throwback awaited inside the entertainment console: a mini fridge with absolutely nothing inside it. I reeled. When was the last time you had a fridge in Las Vegas that wasn’t stuffed with liquor bottles, sodas and candies, pressed so close together that if you breathe too hard, you’re charged $50? I almost bought a meal with leftovers, just so I could put them in my sweet, sweet fridge. In this one regard, it must be said that Phil Ruffin is for the people.

Downstairs, though, Treasure Island doesn’t exactly impress. Without its pirate decor, the casino level has the aura of a suburban mall mixed with a business center, accentuated by occasional pops of the absurd. There’s a tattoo parlor decorated with a photo of a naked woman’s backside, showing an astonishing amount of butt crack. I’m no prude; I just think even that woman knows that’s not the most flattering angle. Across the way, there’s a mushroom-adorned wellness store called Lucid. But I was looking for dinner, not a psychedelic voyage next to a “Crazy Rich Asians” slot machine, so I walked on.

Treasure Island has two marquee restaurants: Señor Frog’s and Gilley’s, a cowboy-themed Hooters knockoff with line dancing and a mechanical bull. I wasn’t on spring break on the Gulf Coast so I skipped Señor Frog’s, and the thought of going alone to a Hooters-style restaurant gave me the shivers, so I ended up at Pizzeria Francesco’s. My slice of supreme pizza was $8.50 before tax. Maybe I was just starving, but it hit the spot — and I’ve had worse for far more on the Strip.

The public spaces of Treasure Island are nothing to write home about, but its real advantage isn’t the amenities: It’s the location. It’s surrounded by places to get a meal and see a show. The Wynn and Venetian are right across the street; a little way down the street is Caesars Palace. After a comfortable night at TI, I was a convert. If you’re on a budget and prioritizing a clean place to sleep each night, it’s hard to beat Treasure Island.

There was only one real hiccup. After I turned out the lamps and drew the blackout curtains, I noticed a bright light emanating from inside the closet. No matter what I did, it wouldn’t turn off. After ruling out the presence of a camera to deter me from stealing the hair dryer, I determined the door just didn’t close tightly enough anymore to shut the light off. Resigned to my fate, I crawled back into bed and, as I drifted off, I thought of the last pirates of Treasure Island, lured home by the closet light like a siren song.

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'IN THE MORNING, nobody has to touch me with an electric pole to get me up to do roadwork. I even been out late at night dancin' and when I get home, my body's still wide awake and I go get my runnin' clothes and do my roadwork, then get my eight hours sleep. And then nobody has to make me go to the gym. Boxing is willpower and knowing that you have to sacrifice.'

— Joe Frazier

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COVER UP/THE SEYMOUR HERSH STORY

A movie that just came out on Netflix.

A must watch for those boomers who grew up during Vietnam and Watergate all the way thru Iraq.

Especially relevant today of course.

Heroes are often hidden.

— David Lipkind

ED NOTE: Excellent doc about a great journalist.

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LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

How Russia’s War Machine Brutalizes and Exploits Its Own Soldiers

Justice Dept. Now Said to Be Reviewing 5.2 Million Pages of Epstein Files

Health Dept. Pauses Child Care Funding to Minnesota, Citing State’s Fraud Scandal

Gaza Aid Groups Face Suspensions Under New Israeli Rules

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Corruption in America permeates every nook and cranny of our society. From our charitable organizations to our churches, from our cities to our states, everything. It's all about money. Money, money, money. Insatiable greed. The unending desire to "get rich."

Money destroys everything and results in a ruined people, bent by greed and lust for stuff they do not need and can not possibly ever fully utilize. Greed is the greatest flaw of the human species. Until we find a way to overcome this, we as a species will never grow beyond the limits of MONEY.

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“ONE HAS A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them…. So, one must be very careful with one’s silences.”

— Roberto Bolano

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FREE SPEECH AND ITS ENEMIES

Brilliant essay by one of my favorite independent journalists: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/12/30/patrick-lawrence-free-speech-its-enemies/

… More than this, the suppression of speech transforms the future into a desolate tundra. Censoring speech, we need to know and never forget, amounts to thought control at one short remove.

When all alternative opinions and perspectives are effectively outlawed they survive only among the tenacious few and only underground — a term we ought to revive and get used to using. On the surface of life, where the orthodoxies reign, there are no alternative opinions or ways of seeing things.

To extend this thought, when authoritarian regimes posing as defenders of democratic rights ban free speech and, so, free thought, we are effectively confined like detainees in the prison of an eternal present — this the consequence when envisioning a different future is made a prohibition. Creativity, imagination, zones of possibility, and ultimately change — all are rendered beyond reach.

This is one of Huxley’s points in ‘Brave New World.’ The “what-is,” as I call it, is all there is or will be. The administration of Soma, the state-provided drug that transports those who take it into an anaesthetized euphoria, becomes essential to social control. We should think of this as we consider the prevalent assaults on free expression.

The New York Times or any similar mass-circulation daily fill their pages with all the things you must have and all the romance novels you must read and all the casserole dishes and cocktails you must try. This is more than mere frivolity: They offer readers their daily dosages on Soma. Those who are supposed to stand tallest for free speech now numb their readers to its absence.

It is time: Let us determine vigorously to speak in the year to come while accepting what consequences speech may impose…

— Patrick Lawrence

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FRANCESCA ALBANESE AND THE LONELY ROAD OF DEFIANCE

The U.N. special rapporteur is one of the most courageous crusaders against the genocide in Gaza. Because of this, she is blacklisted and treated as if she is a terrorist.

by Chris Hedges

NICE, France — It is a late November afternoon. I am driving to Genoa, Italy with Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. We are traveling to join striking dockworkers. The dockworkers call for a moratorium on weapons bound for Israel and a halt to the Italian government’s plans to increase military spending.

We speed past the inky waters of Baie des Anges on our right and the razor-backed French Alps on our left. Châteaus and clusters of houses with red-tiled roofs, shrouded in the fading light, are perched on the rolling hillsides. Palm trees line the seafront road.

Francesca — tall with flecks of gray in her hair and wearing large black-framed glasses and hoop earrings — is the bête noire of Israel and the United States. She was placed on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list of the U.S. Treasury Department — normally used to sanction those accused of money laundering or being involved with terrorist organizations — six days after the release of her report, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.”

The OFAC list — weaponized by the Trump administration to persecute Francesca and in clear violation of the diplomatic immunity granted to U.N. officials — prohibits any financial institution from having someone on the list as a client. A bank that permits someone on the OFAC list to engage in financial transactions is banned from operating in dollars, faces multimillion-dollar fines and is blocked from international payment systems.

In her report, Francesca lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.

The report, which includes a database of over 1,000 corporate entities that collaborate with Israel, demands these firms and institutions sever ties with Israel or be held accountable for complicity in war crimes. It describes “Israel’s “forever-occupation” as “the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and big tech — providing boundless supply and demand, little oversight and zero accountability — while investors and private and public institutions profit freely.”

You can see my interview about the report with Francesca here.

Francesca, whose previous reports including “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime” and “Genocide as colonial erasure” along with her empassioned denunciations of Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza, have made her a lightning rod. She is excoriated every time she deviates from the approved script, including when pro-Palestine demonstrators stormed the headquarters of the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa while we were in Italy.

Francesca condemned the incursion and property destruction — protesters scattered newspapers and spray-painted slogans on the walls such as “Free Palestine” and “Newspapers complicit with Israel” — but added that it should serve as a “warning to the press” to do its job. That qualification expressed her frustration with the media’s discrediting of the reporting of Palestinian journalists — over 278 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since Oct. 7 along with over 700 of their family members — and uncritical amplification of Israeli propaganda. But it was seized upon by her critics, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, to lynch her.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on Francesca in July.

“The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur,” the State Department’s press release read. “Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West. That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.”

“She has recently escalated this effort by writing threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy, and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC [International Criminal Court ] pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives,” it went on. “We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty.”

The sanctions followed those imposed in February and June on the court’s prosecutor Karim Khan along with two judges for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

Francesca is barred from entering the U.S. even to appear at the United Nations in New York City, to present one of her two annual reports. The other is delivered at the United Nations Office at Geneva.

Francesca’s assets in the U.S. have been frozen, including her bank account and her U.S. apartment. The sanctions cut her off from the international banking system, including blocking her use of credit cards. Her private medical insurance refuses to reimburse her medical expenses. Hotel rooms booked under her name have been cancelled. She can only operate using cash or by borrowing a bank card.

Institutions, including U.S. universities, human rights groups, professors and NGOs, that once cooperated with Francesca, have severed ties, fearful of penalties established for any U.S. citizen who collaborates with her. She and her family receive frequent death threats. Israel and the U.S. have mounted a campaign to get her removed from her U.N post.

Francesa is proof that when you stand steadfastly with the oppressed, you will be treated like the oppressed.

She is unsure if her book, “When the World Sleeps: Stories, Words, and Wounds of Palestine,” which has been translated into English and is expected to be released in April next year, will be distributed in the U.S.

“I’m a sanctioned person,” she says ruefully.

But she is not cowed. Her next salvo will be a report that documents the torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. While torture, she says, was “not widespread,” before Oct. 7, it has now become ubiquitous. She is collecting testimonies of those released from Israeli detention.

“It reminds me of the stories and testimonies I read from Argentina’s dictatorship,” Francesca tells me. “It’s that bad. It’s systemic torture against the same people. The same people are taken, raped and brought back, taken, raped and brought back.”

“Women?” I ask.

“Both,” she answers.

“To have women tell you they have been raped, multiple times. They’ve been asked to masturbate soldiers. This is incredible,” Francesca says. “For a woman to say that. Imagine what they have endured? There are people who have lost their words. They cannot talk. They cannot speak after what they’ve endured.”

Establishment media organizations, she says, not only dutifully parrot back Israeli lies, but routinely block reporting that reflects negatively on Israel.

“In April, I reported the first cases of sexual harassment and rape that had taken place in January and February 2024,” she says. “People didn’t want to listen. The New York Times interviewed me for two hours. Two hours. They didn’t write a line about it.”

“The Financial Times had — because of the relevance of the topic — an embargo’d version of ‘From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,’” she says. “They didn’t publish it. They didn’t even publish a review, an article, days after the press conference. But they did publish a critique of my report. I had a meeting with them. I said, ‘This is really depressing. Who are you? Are you paid for the work you do? Who are you loyal to, your readers?’ I pushed them. They said, ‘Well, we didn’t find that it was up to our standards.’”

This, I tell her, is how the New York Times would spike stories by reporters that editors deem too incendiary.

“They discredit your sources regardless of what your sources are,” I tell her. “That becomes the vehicle by which they don’t publish. This isn’t a good faith discussion. They’re not giving a fair analysis of what your sources are. They are categorically dismissing them. They’re not telling you the truth, which is, ‘We don’t want to deal with Israel and the Israel lobby.’ That’s the truth. They don’t say that. It is always, ‘It’s not up to our standards.’”

“There is no free media, no free press in Italy anymore,” Francesca laments. “There is, but it’s fringe or on the margins. It is an exception. The main newspapers are held by groups connected to big powers, financial and economic powers. The government controls — directly or indirectly — much of Italian TV.”

The drift towards fascism in Europe and the United States, Francesca says, is intimately tied to the genocide, as is the emerging resistance.

“There is a brewing anger and dissatisfaction with political leadership in Europe,” she says. “There is also a fear that lingers in many countries because of the rise of the right. We’ve been there. There are people who have living memories of fascism in Europe. The scars of Nazi-fascism are still there, even the trauma. People cannot process what has happened and why it’s happened. Palestine has shocked people. Italians in particular. Maybe because we are who we are in the sense that we cannot be silenced that easily, we cannot be scared as has happened to the Germans and the French. I was shocked in France. The fear and repression is incredible. It is not as bad as Germany, but it’s much worse than it was two years ago. The minister of education in France cancelled an academic conference on Palestine at the Collège de France — the highest institution in France. The minister of education! And he bragged about it.”

Francesca says our only hope now is civil disobedience, embodied in actions such as strikes that disrupt commerce and government or the attempts by the flotillas to reach Gaza.

“The flotillas created this sense of ‘Oh, something can be done,’” she says. “We are not powerless. We can make a difference even in shaking the ground, rocking the boat. Then the workers have come in. The students have already been mobilized. There has been a sense through the various protests that we can still change things. People have started to connect the dots.”

Francesca presented her 24-page report “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime” to the U.N. General Assembly in October, a report that had to be delivered remotely from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, because of the sanctions.

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, following her presentation, said, “Ms. Albanese, you are a witch and this report is another page in your spellbook.” He accused her of trying to “curse Israel with lies and hatred.”

“Every page of this report is an empty spell, every accusation, a charm that does not work, because you are a failed witch,” Danon continued.

“It triggered a moment of enlightenment.” Francesca says of the insults. “I connected it to the injustice that women have suffered through the centuries.”

“What is happening to the Palestinians and to those who are speaking out for the Palestinians, is the 2025 equivalent of burning witches in the public square,” she goes on. “It was done to scientists and theologians who didn’t align with the Catholic Church. It was done to women who held the power of herbs. It was done to religious minorities, to indigenous people, like the Sámi people.”

“Palestine,” Francesca says, “has opened a portal to history, to where we come from and to what we risk if we don’t pull the brakes.”

(chrishedges.substack.com)

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ON BEING DIAGNOSED WITH LEUKEMIA AFTER GIVING BIRTH

by Tatiana Schlossberg

When you are dying, at least in my limited experience, you start remembering everything. Images come in flashes—people and places and stray conversations—and refuse to stop. I see my best friend from elementary school as we make a mud pie in her back yard, top it with candles and a tiny American flag, and watch, in panic, as the flag catches fire. I see my college boyfriend, wearing boat shoes a few days after a record-breaking snowstorm, slipping and falling into a slush puddle. I want to break up with him, so I laugh until I can’t breathe.

Maybe my brain is replaying my life now because I have a terminal diagnosis, and all these memories will be lost. Maybe it’s because I don’t have much time to make new ones, and some part of me is sifting through the sands.

On May 25, 2024, my daughter was born at 7:05 in the morning, ten minutes after I arrived at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital, in New York. My husband, George, and I held her and stared at her and admired her newness. A few hours later, my doctor noticed that my blood count looked strange. A normal white-blood-cell count is around four thousand to eleven thousand cells per microlitre. Mine was a hundred and thirty-one thousand cells per microlitre. It could just be something related to pregnancy and delivery, the doctor said, or it could be leukemia. “It’s not leukemia,” I told George. “What are they talking about?”

George, who was then a urology resident at the hospital, began calling friends who were primary-care doctors and ob-gyns. Everyone thought it was something to do with the pregnancy or the delivery. After a few hours, my doctors thought it was leukemia. My parents, Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, had brought my two-year-old son to the hospital to meet his sister, but suddenly I was being moved to another floor. My daughter was carried off to the nursery. My son didn’t want to leave; he wanted to drive my hospital bed like a bus. I said goodbye to him and my parents and was wheeled away.

The diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia, with a rare mutation called Inversion 3. It was mostly seen in older patients. Every doctor I saw asked me if I had spent a lot of time at Ground Zero, given how common blood cancers are among first responders. I was in New York on 9/11, in the sixth grade, but I didn’t visit the site until years later. I am not elderly—I had just turned thirty-four.

I could not be cured by a standard course of treatment. I would need a few months, at least, of chemotherapy, which would aim to reduce the number of blast cells in my bone marrow. (Blast cells are immature blood cells; a high count can be a sign of leukemia.) Then I would need a bone-marrow transplant, which could cure me. After the transplant, I would probably need more chemotherapy, on a regular basis, to try to prevent the cancer from returning.

I did not—could not—believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew. I regularly ran five to ten miles in Central Park. I once swam three miles across the Hudson River—eerily, to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I work as an environmental journalist, and for one article I skied the Birkebeiner, a fifty-kilometre cross-country race in Wisconsin, which took me seven and a half hours. I loved to have people over for dinner and to make cakes for my friends’ birthdays. I went to museums and plays and got to jump in a cranberry bog for my job. I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of. This could not possibly be my life.

I ended up spending five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian, and the strangeness and sadness of what I was being told about myself made me hunt for the humor in it. I didn’t know what else to do. I decided that everyone in the hospital had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and I was their target. It was a joke that I found funnier than everyone else did. Later, when I was bald and had a scrape on my face from a fall, my joke was that I was a busted-up Voldemort.

There were indignities and humiliations. I had a postpartum hemorrhage and almost bled to death, before being saved by my obstetrician. (She had already saved my life once, by noticing my blood count and giving me the chance to be cured. This time felt like overkill.) Little things made it easier, or somehow made it feel like everything was going to be fine. My son came to visit almost every day. When friends heard that I liked Spindrift seltzer, they sent cases of it; they also sent pajamas and watercolor kits and good gossip. People made paintings and drawings to decorate my walls. They dropped off food at my parents’ apartment, where George and the kids had moved. The nurses brought me warm blankets and let me sit on the floor of the skyway with my son, even though I wasn’t supposed to leave my room. They ate up the gossip that I gathered; they looked the other way when they saw that I had a contraband teakettle and toaster. They told me about their kids and their dating lives and their first trips to Europe. I have never encountered a group of people who are more competent, more full of grace and empathy, more willing to serve others than nurses. Nurses should take over.

Eventually, my blast-cell count went down and I was allowed to do a round of treatment at home, with my family. My care was transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the largest centers for bone-marrow transplants in the country. Whenever I needed to be back in the hospital, my oncologist visited me almost daily, talking about my disease, of course, but also about foxhunting, who was annoying me that week, his new cat. He’s Orthodox Jewish and observes the Sabbath, but he would still answer texts that I rudely sent on Saturdays. He has scoured every inch of the earth for more treatments for me; he knows I don’t want to die and he is trying to stop it. My transplant doctor, always in a bow tie, always shouting a big hello, is a mad scientist in disguise as one of the country’s foremost experts on bone-marrow transplants, who safely got me through a lung infection and didn’t bat an eye when I pulled out a rosary and a bottle of holy water, blessed by Pope Francis and sent from Rome. He looked at me and said, “Vaya con Dios. Go with God.”

After the at-home chemo, I was admitted to M.S.K. for an even stronger dose of poison. Then I was ready for a transplant. My sister had turned out to be a match and would donate her stem cells. (My brother was a half-match, but he still asked every doctor if maybe a half-match was better, just in case.) My sister held her arms straight for hours as the doctors drained blood from one, scooped out and froze her stem cells, and pumped the blood back in the other.

The cells smelled like canned tomato soup. When the transfusion began, I sneezed twelve times and threw up. Then I waited—for my blood counts to recover, for my sister’s cells to heal and change my body. We wondered if I would get her banana allergy or her personality. My hair started to fall out and I wore scarves to cover my head, remembering, vainly, each time I tied one on, how great my hair used to be; when my son came to visit, he wore them, too. After a few days, I couldn’t speak or swallow because of sores in my mouth; food turned to dust on my tongue.

George did everything for me that he possibly could. He talked to all the doctors and insurance people that I didn’t want to talk to; he slept on the floor of the hospital; he didn’t get mad when I was raging on steroids and yelled at him that I did not like Schweppes ginger ale, only Canada Dry. He would go home to put our kids to bed and come back to bring me dinner. I know that not everyone can be married to a doctor, but, if you can, it’s a very good idea. He is perfect, and I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.

My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half. They have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it. This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day. For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I went home after fifty days at Memorial Sloan Kettering. The transplant had put me in remission, but I had no immune system, and would have to get all my childhood vaccines again. I started a new round of chemotherapy to keep the cancer at bay. I relapsed. My transplant doctor said that leukemia with my mutation “liked to come back.”

In January, I joined a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy that has proved effective against certain blood cancers. Scientists would engineer my sister’s T cells, directing them to attack my cancer cells. It was dark all the time outside my hospital window. I was given more chemotherapy; after the CAR-T treatment, I had cytokine-release syndrome, in which a storm of inflammation left me unable to breathe without high-flow oxygen. My lungs filled with fluid and my liver was unhappy and I was constantly on the brink of going to the I.C.U. A few weeks later, I was in remission again, though I had lost about twenty pounds. The doctors were happy with the results: I had done better than several other patients in the trial, which beggared belief, but I went home.

It didn’t really feel as if I was home: I had to go to the outpatient clinic most days, to treat infections or receive transfusions, sitting in a recliner for hours on end, waiting to know when I would need to go back to the hospital. In early April, I did go back, on just a few days’ notice, for my second transplant. I hoped that this would work. Actually, I decided that it would work. I dutifully copied Seamus Heaney poems into my notebook: “The Cure at Troy” (“Believe that a further shore / Is reachable from here. / Believe in miracles / And cures and healing wells.”) and “The Gravel Walks” (“So walk on air against your better judgement”). I tried to be the perfect patient: if I did everything right, if I was nice to everyone all the time, if I didn’t need any help or have any problems, then it would work.

This time, I had an unrelated donor, the logic being that the cells would be distinct from those of my sister and me, and thus better suited to take on the cancer. All I know about the donor is that he is a man in his twenties from the Pacific Northwest. I imagined a Portland woodcutter or a Seattle tech bro. Either way, I wished I could thank him. I went into remission again; I relapsed again. I joined another clinical trial. I was hospitalized twice more—weeks I don’t remember, during which I lost another ten pounds. First, I had graft-versus-host disease, in which new cells attack old ones, and then, in late September, I was downed by a form of Epstein-Barr virus that blasted my kidneys. When I got home a few weeks later, I had to learn how to walk again and couldn’t pick up my children. My leg muscles wasted and my arms seemed whittled into bone.

During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe. My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me. My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears. I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter—I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants. I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.

Meanwhile, during the CAR-T treatment, a method developed over many decades with millions of dollars of government funding, my cousin Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was in the process of being nominated and confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage: previously a Democrat, he was running for President as an Independent, but mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.

In August, 2024, he suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, who said that he was going to “let Bobby go wild” on health. My mother wrote a letter to the Senate, to try and stop his confirmation; my brother had been speaking out against his lies for months. I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health, or the government.

Suddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky. Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, didn’t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs. (Columbia was one of the Trump Administration’s first targets in its crusade against alleged antisemitism on campuses; in May, the university laid off a hundred and eighty researchers after federal-funding cuts.) If George changed jobs, we didn’t know if we’d be able to get insurance, now that I had a preëxisting condition. Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly. Bobby has said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” Bobby probably doesn’t remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available. My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom.

As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly half a billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings. Hundreds of N.I.H. grants and clinical trials were cancelled, affecting thousands of patients. I worried about funding for leukemia and bone-marrow research at Memorial Sloan Kettering. I worried about the trials that were my only shot at remission. Early in my illness, when I had the postpartum hemorrhage, I was given a dose of misoprostol to help stop the bleeding. This drug is part of medication abortion, which, at Bobby’s urging, is currently “under review” by the Food and Drug Administration. I freeze when I think about what would have happened if it had not been immediately available to me and to millions of other women who need it to save their lives or to get the care they deserve.

My plan, had I not gotten sick, was to write a book about the oceans—their destruction, but also the possibilities they offer. During treatment, I learned that one of my chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine, owes its existence to an ocean animal: a sponge that lives in the Caribbean Sea, Tectitethya crypta. This discovery was made by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, who first synthesized the drug in 1959, and who almost certainly relied on government funding, the very thing that Bobby has already cut.

I won’t write about cytarabine. I won’t find out if we were able to harness the power of the oceans, or if we let them boil and turn into a garbage dump. My son knows that I am a writer and that I write about our planet. Since I’ve been sick, I remind him a lot, so that he will know that I was not just a sick person.

When I look at him, I try to fill my brain with memories. How many more times can I watch the video of him trying to say “Anna Karenina”? What about when I told him I didn’t want ice cream from the ice-cream truck, and he hugged me, patted me on the back, and said, “I hear you, buddy, I hear you”? I think about the first time I came home from the hospital. He walked into my bathroom, looked at me, and said, “It’s so nice to meet you in here.”

Then there’s my daughter, her curly red hair like a flame, squinting her eyes and grinning a gap-toothed grin after taking a sip of seltzer. She stomps around the house in bright-yellow rain boots, pretending to talk on my mother’s phone, a string of fake pearls around her neck, no pants, giggling and running away from anyone who tries to catch her. She asks us to play James Brown’s “I Got the Feelin’ ” by picking up a portable speaker and saying, “Baby, baby.”

Mostly, I try to live and be with them now. But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go. So many of them are from my childhood that I feel as if I’m watching myself and my kids grow up at the same time. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I’ll remember this forever, I’ll remember this when I’m dead. Obviously, I won’t. But since I don’t know what death is like and there’s no one to tell me what comes after it, I’ll keep pretending. I will keep trying to remember.

(newyorker.com)

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AP [December 31, 2025]: Environmental journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, one of three grandchildren of the late President John F. Kennedy, has died after a battle with leukemia. Her family disclosed her death in a statement released Tuesday by the John. F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

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