Warm | Daffodils | Gualala Housing | Estate Sale | Patricia Hildebrand | Missing Kids | Nicola Boynoff | Street Reflection | Impact Study | Committee Assignments | Waiting Room | Cleaning Services | Funding Issues | Barbie Missing | Share Data | Farm School | Yesterday's Catch | How So? | Soggy Honeydew | Death Caps | Meetings | Delta Decision | Wrong Words | Masks | Republican Enablers | Same Guy | Armed Robbery | Suspended Worker | Embrace It | Got This | Pedal Blues | Klare Interview | World Champions | Free Yetti | Nonalcoholic Wine | Eudora Welty | Wyoming Wind | Cat Collisions | Acquainted Night | Fern Hill | Henriette Wyeth | Lead Stories | Between Here & Gone | They Shoot | NATO's Mission | Anatomy Lesson | Donald Destroyer | Snuffed | Trump's Plan | Finale?
HIGH PRESSURE is forecast to remain over NW California through the weekend resulting in dry weather and generally above normal daytime temperatures. Overnight and morning temperatures will remain chilly with night and morning fog in the river valleys. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 40F with clear skies this Thursday morning on the coast. The satellite pic indicates an offshore flow just to our north, hectic ? Yep, more fog then sun. My next hint of rain is a week from Saturday. We'll see.
BOONVILLE WINTER BLOOMS
(Photo by Mark Scaramella)
MARIE MEYER:
A local Veteran is losing his housing. He's been in Gualala for 54 years. Many locals know and love this character. He prefers to remain anonymous online. I've been approved to check for potential local friends for him. He is looking for a Gualalan (as close to town as possible) who is willing to rent a: room, cabin , or even a finished garage with plumbing. He can pay anywhere between $500- $1,000 per month. He has lived at his current place in Gualala for the past 24 years, raised kids here; and was on Iverson and MoonRise for 30 years before that. He is clean and quiet; has no pets; and has a paid helper who stops by almost daily to keep his space clean. Please reach out (facebook) if you have something available and would like to arrange a meeting. Thank you community.
ESTATE SALE, PHILO
Jan. 17 & Jan. 18, 9-1 pm, 2333 Guntly Rd. Philo
Tools, Furniture, Plants, TV, Wood, Motor Bike and lots more.
Thanks,
Val Muchowski
G. PATRICIA HILDEBRAND (May 20, 1937 – January 10, 2026)
G. Patricia Hildebrand, 88, of Potter Valley, California, passed away on January 10, 2026. Known fondly by family and friends as Grandma Pat, Patricia, Pat, Patsy, Gertie, Pitty Pat and Mom, she was a woman whose warmth and dedication left an indelible mark on everyone she met.
The oldest of four girls, Patricia was born to Evelyn and Francis Morrison on May 20, 1937, at her childhood home in Finley, California. She attended Kelseyville elementary and high schools, graduating in 1954. She then attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, graduating with a bachelor's degree and a California teaching credential in 1958.
Within weeks of graduation, she married her childhood sweetheart, John Ross Hildebrand, Jr. They first lived on Cobb Mountain in Lake County and had five children in six years (with Patricia proudly noting there were "no Irish twins!"). Eventually, the family moved to Healdsburg and Redwood Valley before settling in Potter Valley, where Patricia became a well-known community leader.
Patricia's professional life was defined by her 35-year career as a Home Economics and Social Studies teacher. She began at Potter Valley High School, moved to Ukiah High School, and finally Pomolita Middle School, where she greatly impacted the lives of thousands of students. Outside the classroom, Patricia loved to cook, sew, and solve crossword puzzles. An avid sports fan and a devoted supporter of Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, she never missed a game. Most important, according to her children, she knew how to laugh. She was a master entertainer who delighted in hosting her large family, especially her grandchildren.
A woman of deep faith and community spirit, Patricia was a longtime member of St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church. She was also active in Homemakers of America, Delta Kappa Gamma (retired teachers' association), and served as a 4-H/FFA advisor and homemaking competition judge.
Her grandson Tanner recently captured her spirit beautifully, sharing: "Grandma Patricia had a quiet strength, a kind heart, and a way of making people feel cared for just by being around her. She carried so much love for her family... I find comfort in knowing that her impact on our lives will never fade and she is with Grandpa John again."
Patricia is survived by her beloved cat, Gracie, and a large, devoted family including 11 grandchildren, 13 great grandchildren and another on the way, and 1 great great grandchild and many nieces and nephews. Also surviving are her sisters: Ann LaGrande (Dan) of Portland, OR; Christie Otto of Chico, CA; and Irene Kavanagh (Jack) of Sacramento, CA.
Patricia's 5 Children and their families:
Sheryn Hildebrand Wattenburger (Cook) of Ukiah, CA; grandchildren Matthew Wattenburger (Jordan) and family, Kenzi Wattenburger, and Linda Wattenburger and family.
Joanne Hildebrand Drake (William) of Thousand Oaks, CA; grandchildren Caitlin Drake Piemonte (Vinnie), and Danielle Drake-Keller (Brian).
John F. Hildebrand (Danya) of Potter Valley, CA; grandson Jarred Hildebrand (Darcie) and family.
Mary Hildebrand Merritt (Dr. Frank) of Ukiah, CA; grandchildren Brandon Merritt (Dr. Wendi) and family, and Miley Merritt.
Danny Hildebrand (Megan) of Post Falls, ID; grandchildren Kristofer, Kyle (Sara) and family and Tanner (Shayla) and family.
Pat was preceded in death by her husband, John Ross Hildebrand, Jr., in 2006 and her parents, Francis and Evelyn Morrison.
Visitation will be held at Chapel of the Lakes Mortuary, 1625 North High Street, Lakeport, CA on Thursday, January 22, 2026 from 4:00 to 5:30 with Rosary at 5:30.
Funeral Mass will be held at St. Peter Roman Catholic Church, 4085 Main Street, Kelseyville, CA on Friday, January 23, 2026 at 11:00 AM followed by Graveside Interment at Kelseyville Cemetery, 3375 Bell Hill Rd, Kelseyville, CA 95451.
Friends and family are invited back to a Coffee and Dessert Reception at Glebe Hall at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church following the interment.
In lieu of flowers, donations to the St. Peter's Men and Women's Club are appreciated.
You can mail donations to St. Mary Immaculate at 801 North Main Street, Lakeport, CA 95453.
*Please be sure to put on the check In Memory of Patricia Hildebrand and for St. Peter's Men and Women's Club.
NICOLA BOYNOFF
I am sad to inform the Mendocino Coast community of the passing last Sunday, 1/11/26, of my dear sweet wife Nicola "Nikki" Boynoff after a very long illness. I was with her when she took her last breath about 12 noon. We were together for 45 years and 8 months, from April 27, 1980 until her passing. She was born November 11, 1946 in Oakland and lived 79 years and 2 months exactly.
She had been re-admitted to Hospice care only last Tuesday, about 6 months following discharge from hospice last July because of Medicare rules. She suffered a years-long decline from Behavioral Variant Fronto-Temporal Degeneration (bvFTD), a form of dementia that is different from Alzheimers in that, rather than primarily affecting memory, it gradually takes away the victim's neurological control over bodily functions, including the ability to walk, stand, sit upright in a chair, swallow food or drink, and ultimately to speak.
Nicola worked as a registered pharmacy technician (one of the first in California), first at the side of her father, Morris Boynoff, Mendocino's community pharmacist for nearly 30 years, and then for nearly 20 years more at Mendocino Coast District Hospital, retiring due to health issues about five years ago.
I brought her home from a Ukiah nursing home in January 2024 so as to honor her wish not to be placed in a care facility but to remain at home until the end, as did both her mother Irma Boynoff and her father Morris Boynoff. She gradually lost the ability to speak over the past year, and was totally mute for the past few months, but she always had excellent hearing and a good sense of humor. I often saw her belly shake with laughter over something funny that she heard. A few months ago, when I told her I loved her, she said "I love you, too." Those were her last words.
I am grateful for the care given to her at Adventist Health Mendocino Coast Hospital during several stays there, and for the home caregiving she received through In Home Supportive Services (IHSS), individual IHSS caregivers, Adventist Home Care and ultimately Adventist Hospice. I also want to acknowledge support from the Redwood Caregiver Resource Center (RCRC) a grant-funded nonprofit serving Mendocino, Lake and Sonoma Counties.
Nikki is survived by her (our) niece Molly Boynoff Klein. Besides her parents, Nikki was preceded in death by her brother Michael Boynoff of San Jose, California.
-- Nicholas "Nick" Wilson
P.S. Nikki decided to keep her Boynoff maiden name so as to avoid mix-ups due to our first names being so similar. (Nicola is pronounced just like Nicholas except for the s on the end.) Also because Boynoff is such a rare name in this country, carried by only a handful of descendants of her paternal grandparents Nathan and Polya Boynoff, who came to this country from the same Ukrainian village about the turn of the previous century. When I'm better able to cope, I'll post a more complete biography and obituary, and we'll have a memorial and celebration of life for my dearest darling Nikki.
P.P.S. Thanks in advance for any replies to this notice. I would appreciate those who knew her sharing (off-list) stories and remembrances of her. Please forgive me if I don't acknowledge them right away. Much to do here.
M-BLOB
The Mendocino Council of Governments’ Sea Level Rise Roadway Impact Study is asking community members to complete an online survey by February 16, 2026, to help identify coastal roads most affected by flooding and erosion and guide selection of priority roadway segments for further analysis.
https://www.mendocinoslrstudy.org
PD HEADLINE: Santa Rosa City Council Member Stripped of her committee assignments after censure.
Mark Scaramella Notes: Is that supposed to be a punishment? Sounds like they gave the woman a perk.
ED NOTE: Bumpersticker spotted in San Rafael: “Say hello to your pooch for me,” me concluding that the anthromorphs are crazier than I thought. And this personalized license plate: “Ulyanov.” A descendent perhaps? Doctors waiting room. 9 sufferers including me, 8 of whom are buried in their cell phones, motel-quality art on the walls, untouched travel mags on a glass table, the whole of it a picture of sterility.
FEWER HOMICIDES, HARDER MATH FOR MENDOCINO COUNTY PUBLIC SAFETY
Cost of handling homelessness, drug-addiction and street-level crime is rising faster than revenues
by Elise Cox
Addressing the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, a panel of county public safety leaders said the challenges they face are increasingly driven by state policy decisions that shift responsibility to counties without adequate funding. From Proposition 36 to juvenile justice reforms and pretrial requirements, officials said Mendocino County is absorbing new duties and liabilities while operating with flat staffing levels and uncertain revenue, complicating efforts to reduce crime and recidivism.
Sheriff Matt Kendall said his office investigated two homicides this year, a sharp reduction compared with prior years. Kendall cautioned, however, that violent crime figures can mask close calls, noting several shooting victims survived due to advances in emergency medicine.
“We still struggle with homelessness, drug addiction and street-level crime,” Kendall said, adding that thefts, organized burglaries and fraud schemes remain prevalent across the county.
Kendall told supervisors that each homicide costs the county roughly $100,000 to $150,000 in investigative, forensic and overtime expenses, much of which falls on the Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office. Cannabis enforcement funds secured through state allocations were largely consumed by homicide investigations this year, he said, and those funds are expected to expire.
Public Defender Mick Hill said untreated mental illness and substance use disorders remain the dominant drivers of repeat contact with the justice system.
“People who are medicated, but they don’t like how their medication makes them feel, often times they will resort to street drugs because they think that makes them feel better and that helps them deal with issues a little bit,” Hill said. “That creates a vicious loop that they are in and out of jail.”
He credited closer coordination between his office, probation and prosecutors for streamlining diversion programs, including mental health diversion and treatment programs under Proposition 36.
District Attorney David Eyster said Proposition 36 — approved by voters statewide in 2024 — is successful in addressing repeat drug and theft offenses, but criticized the state for failing to fund the treatment and rehabilitation components required by the law.
Since the law took effect in December 2024, Eyster said his office has filed cases against 134 defendants for repeat drug offenses and about 80 defendants for serial theft. “This passed in all 58 counties,” Eyster said. “Yet the state is refusing to fund the rehabilitation side. That’s a serious problem.”
Eyster also reported that his office reviewed more than 2,500 crime reports in the first half of 2025, a 10% increase from the prior year, while securing an 86% conviction rate in jury trials. He said staffing levels in his office have remained unchanged since 2011.
Chief Probation Officer Izen Locatelli described mounting impacts from state reforms affecting juvenile justice, probation supervision and pretrial services. Locatelli said Probation has conducted more than 100 assessments under Proposition 36 but emphasized the lack of funding and accountability mechanisms.
The purpose of the assessments is to determine whether a person convicted of drug possession is eligible for mandatory drug or mental health treatment instead of incarceration, with successful completion of treatment leading to a dismissal of the case.
“This was an unfunded mandate with no implementation plan,” Locatelli said. He also warned that recent state laws limiting probation terms and closing state youth facilities have shifted costs and responsibility to counties without adequate reimbursement.
“Essentially no youth can be on probation for longer than 12 months,” Locatelli explained. “Doesn’t matter what the crime is. The only way to do that is to have a judge make a finding that it’s in the best interest of the public and the youth to continue after a year.”
Locatelli reported that the county’s pretrial monitoring program continues to show positive outcomes, with about 80% of monitored individuals appearing for court and 70% avoiding new criminal charges while awaiting trial.
Supervisors repeatedly raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of public safety funding, noting that public safety consumes more than 70% of the county’s discretionary budget while revenues remain largely flat.
Panel members agreed that without changes at the state level, counties will face increasingly difficult choices between maintaining public safety services and funding other essential programs.
Violent crime and homicides declined in Mendocino County over the past year, but local public safety leaders warned county supervisors this week that homelessness, drug addiction and a growing list of unfunded state mandates continue to strain law enforcement, courts and probation services.
(Mendolocal.news)
PROP 36 & MEASURE B: NO MORE EXCUSES
by Mark Scaramella
In Elise Cox’s useful recent report in Mendolocal.news on Wednesday, District Attorney David Eyster is quoted telling the Supervisors that Proposition 36 — approved by voters statewide in 2024 — is successful in addressing repeat drug and theft offenses [our emphasis], but criticized the state for failing to fund the treatment and rehabilitation components required by the law [our emphasis]. Since the law took effect in December 2024, Eyster said his office has filed cases against 134 defendants for repeat drug offenses and about 80 defendants for serial theft. “This passed in all 58 counties,” Eyster said. “Yet the state is refusing to fund the rehabilitation side. That’s a serious problem.”
Chief Probation Officer Izen Locatelli agreed, saying that Probation has conducted more than 100 assessments under Proposition 36 but “emphasized the lack of funding [our emphasis] and accountability mechanisms.”
The DA says that Proposition 36 has resulted in 134 cases filed against defendants for repeat drug offenses… Outcome? No info. All plead guilty? We don’t know. All denied treatment? We don’t know. Mr. Locatelli agrees with the DA, sort of, saying that there’s no funding for … ? We don’t know. If the DA filed charges against 214 (total) defendants charged under Prop 36, why were only 100 or so assessments done? We don’t know. Were there overlaps? We don’t know.
Two years ago, law enforcement, including Sheriff Kendall, told the public that if Prop 36 passed it would bring down the number of drug and petty theft crimes (many of which are linked to drug abuse) by fixing what law enforcement said was wrong with Prop 47 which let repeat drug and theft defendants get off with misdemeanors and no serious consequences. Prop 36 made repeat drug or theft crimes chargeable as felonies, giving law enforcement more leverage in dealing with these cases and (hopefully) convincing some of them to enter treatment rather than go to prison.
On Wednesday, Sheriff Kendall said on KZYX radio: “Proposition 36 has convinced a lot of people to change their lives.”
We have asked the Sheriff several times for the stats on this, both in the years before Prop 36 went into effect in December of 2024, and afterwards for comparison. Have arrests for former misdemeanor drug and theft cases really gone down? So far, despite assurances that he has the data (from arrest records and for those being released with re-entry plans) and would provide it, the Sheriff has not provided any data. You might think that if Prop 36 was producing the promised measurable results, not only would there be convincing data to back it up, but they’d be eager to provide it.
In addition, all the local law enforcement panelists at Tuesday’s Supervisors presentation cited the lack of treatment funding as the reason for … what? Failure of Prop 36 to produce results? For Mendo’s failure to provide treatment facilities and services? Are we to conclude that Prop 36 would have worked if treatment funding was available and that most of those Prop 36 arrests would have resulted in treatment but the treatment was denied for lack of funding?
The trouble with this convenient “lack of funding” excuse is that it’s just not true.
As of the last Measure B financial report (dated November 2025), there’s over $51 million of Measure B sales tax revenue plus well over $2.4 million in interest earned revenue against about $10 million in expenses, leaving a $33.5 million fund balance. This does not include about $10 million allocated to the soon to be opened Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane outside Ukiah.
That accumulated Measure B money is sitting in County coffers unspent. There’s no plan for it to be spent, despite Measure B’s very specific requirement that at least 25% of it be spent on mental health and drug abuse treatment services. (All the residual on-going 1/8-cent revenues are supposed to go to services too.)
We’re tired of hearing that law enforcement and mental health and Probation and even the public defender are unable to demonstrate measurable improvements when they not only have the tools they wanted in Proposition 36, but they have more than enough money — and a requirement of Measure B — to provide treatment to a few dozen local frequent flyers. (I.e., whatever fraction of those “assessed” defendants would accept treatment.)
Granted, there are some frequent flyers (repeat offenders) who won’t accept treatment. But for those who will, the public has given local officials the legal tools and the funding they asked for.
The assessments are being done. The candidates for treatment are being identified. Millions of Measure B dollars are available. Presumably our judges are explaining to Prop 36 defendants that they can enter treatment to avoid felony charges and prison.
No more excuses. Do your jobs. And show us the data.
THE SCHOOL OF ADAPTIVE AGRICULTURE’S 2026 FARM SCHOOL PROGRAM
by Monica Huettl
On January 13, Program Coordinator Katherine Flink presented an online overview of the School of Adaptive Agriculture’s 2026 Farm School Program.
The Farm School Program is located on the 5,000 acre historic Ridgewood Ranch in Willits, Mendocino County, California, where sustainable, local agriculture is a way of life. The SAA was founded in 2013 by the California State Granges. In addition to the yearly Farm School, the SAA offers a workshop series, a farm incubator program, and an artist residency program.
The SAA 13-Week Farm School is a wide-ranging introduction to methods developed and adapted for ecologically informed production of vegetables, fruits and grains, herbs and livestock. (From the School of Adaptive Agriculture Website)
The weekly schedule consists of two days of classes, one day for field trips to local farms, and two days of paid employment at a local farm or ranch. The students have weekends off to explore the area.
Placements vary for the two days of paid work. Students may work on market farms, homesteads, sheep ranching, grain production, orcharding, herbal medicine making, mushroom growing, and more. Students learn to use power tools, farm equipment and basic plumbing and carpentry.
Students live in 10 x 12 foot cabins containing beds, desks, and dressers, with two outdoor showers. Meals are prepared in a communal kitchen. Cooking and cleaning chores are shared by all.
Students are invited to attend the Ridgewood Ranch community dinners on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, where they can network with the other ranch residents.
Tuition is $4,500, including meals and housing. Some scholarships are available, but are not guaranteed. Tuition may be paid in installments. Students will earn money from their twice weekly jobs on outside farms, that is 144 hours of paid work during the 13 weeks at $16.50 per hour, for a total of $2,376.
A Capstone program running through November 1 offers more intensive or continuing study for students who want to continue past August 28.
There are typically 5 to 10 students in each class, coming from across the US and other countries.
It’s best to have a car, as this is a rural area without much public transportation, although there have been students in the past who managed without a car. Bikes are useful to ride around the ranch.
Farm School alumni have gone on to various types of farming, including sheep, pig, and dairy farming, flower, plant, and spice farms. Some alumni have continued their formal agricultural education at universities. Hatake Farm Kitchen in Willits is a take-out dining spot run by a Farm School graduate, who offers organic Japanese food. Another grad started Women with Bows which prepares food from indigenous tribal ingredients. Katherine Flink’s Black Dog Farm prepares Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes, even giving some away free to those in need.
Flink said, “Farm school offers people the opportunity to change their lives — to find meaningful work and relationships that support our earth and communities.”
The 2026 term runs from June 1 to August 28. See the School of Adaptive Agriculture website for complete details.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Wednesday, January 14
MANDY ARMS, 45, Willits. Probation revocation.
NATHANIEL BATES, 30, Westwood/Ukiah. DUI.
ANTHONY BONNETT, 35, Ukiah. Tampering with vehicle, burglary tools, conspiracy, unspecified offense.
ROBERT COBERN II, 40, Galion, Ohio/Ukiah. DUI.
WALKER FERREIRA, 29, Fort Bragg. DUI, probation revocation.
ROBERT JAMES JR., 30, Ukiah. County parole violation.
JUAN LOPEZ, 44, Cloverdale/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
TAMARA RENICK, 50, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse.
JAVIER ROSALES-PERAZA, 28, Lakeport/Ukiah. Burglary tools, paraphernalia, contempt of court, conspiracy.
KURTIS SMITH, 39, Willits. Parole violation.
AARON STILL, 44, Ukiah. Probation violation, resisting.
CHRISTOPHER WILEY, 33, Willits. Failure to appear.
HONEYDEW!
by Olivia Hebert
Deep in Northern California’s King Range, meteorologists have found that one rugged stretch of terrain has soaked up an unusually high amount of rain that can be measured in feet instead of inches.
A monitoring site near the small town of Honeydew in Humboldt County has recorded 73.2 inches of rainfall since the beginning of the water year on Oct. 1, meteorologist Jacob Boomsma with the National Weather Service’s Eureka office told SFGATE.
“It’s a pretty remote area, so there’s only a few roads that service it,” Boomsma said. “With that much rain, there can be landslides that cut people off for a little bit, but a lot of the people are pretty self-sufficient and aware of that possibility.”
The “above average” rainfall totals have put the area at about 140% of its typical water-year total for this point in the season. The water year typically runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, a calendar meteorologists use across the West to track precipitation tied to winter storms. The Honeydew area typically receives an average of 52 inches of rain by mid-January, Boomsma said, but this stormy winter has caused rainfall totals to surge.
The wet season is largely driven by the King Range’s topography.
“The King Range juts out a little bit to the west, so when you get those southerly winds with each cold front, it’ll just hit the King Range,” Boomsma explained. “We call it orographic lift, where the precipitation enhances in that area.”
At least two long-lasting atmospheric rivers earlier this winter contributed significantly to the accumulation, Boomsma noted. Those storm systems remained positioned over the King Range and areas to the south for extended periods, creating soaking conditions.
“It’s just a little bit extra wetter than usual,” Boomsma noted.
The rest of Northern California, meanwhile, is experiencing a dry stretch after weeks of stormy and wet weather. A high-pressure system over the West Coast is keeping conditions mostly dry and warmer than normal for mid-January, with the Bay Area weather service’s Wednesday forecast discussion noting that chilly mornings, continued valley fog and little rain are to be expected.
(sfgate.com)
CALIFORNIA REPORTS LARGEST OUTBREAK OF DEADLY MUSHROOM POISONING
by Gillian Mohney
California health officials are sounding the alarm about a deadly poisoning outbreak linked to Amanita phalloides, or the death cap mushroom.
The California Department of Public Health reported 35 people between the ages of 19 months and 67 years have been sickened in the outbreak since November. That number is far higher than the average number of mushroom poisonings in California, which is around five per year.
Three adult deaths in the state have been linked to ingesting poisonous mushrooms, and another three people have undergone liver transplants.
Dr. Craig Smollin, a professor of emergency medicine at UCSF Medical Center and medical director for the San Francisco Division of California Poison Control System, or CPCS, said during a Wednesday press conference this may be state’s largest poisoning outbreak related to the mushrooms ever. Currently, one person remains hospitalized with “significant” liver injury, he said.
Smollin said since CPCS came into its current form in 1999, “we have not had a season as deadly as this season, both in terms of total numbers of cases as well as deaths and liver transplants.”
“I believe this is probably the largest outbreak that we’ve seen in California ever,” he said.
Smollin and other health officials from the California Department of Public Health and CPCS used the press conference to warn California residents to avoid foraging for mushrooms, especially as recent rains led to ideal conditions for the death cap mushroom to flourish.
“There are just a very large number of Amanita phalloides mushrooms fruiting at this time, making them very easy to find,” Smollin said.
The deadly mushrooms involved in the outbreak were reportedly foraged in multiple Bay Area locations, including the Oakland Hills, Millbrae, Novato, Santa Rosa and Stinson Beach. The mushrooms were also found in locations in Central California including Castroville, Pinnacles National Park, Santa Cruz, and the Salinas area.
“A single bite of the mushroom could cause significant toxicity,” Smollin said. “I also want to just stress that there’s nothing, there’s no cooking of the mushroom or freezing of the mushroom, that would inactivate the toxin.”
Dr. Cyrus Rangan, pediatrician and medical toxicologist with CPCS, said when people consume the poisonous mushroom they can become very sick quickly. He advised anyone who thinks they may have consumed toxic mushrooms to call poison control at 800-222-1222.
“This is one of the most particularly dangerous chemicals out there that you can be exposed to that can cause liver injury, and it can cause it quite rapidly,” Rangan said. He pointed out initially many people will feel fine after eating the poisonous mushrooms.
“Maybe 12 to 24 hours later, you can start to see this rapidly progressive liver injury that can lead to liver failure very quickly, and that requires hospitalization and intensive care,” he said. “And if it gets worse enough, then the patient may wind up on a liver transplant list.”
(sfgate.com)
BUTTE AND PLUMAS COUNTIES WERE PART OF WINNING COURT FIGHT AGAINST THE NEWSOM ADMINISTRATION IN LATEST CLASH OVER FUTURE OF CALIFORNIA WATER
by Dan Bacher
Seven California counties – in coalition with environmental groups, fishing associations and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe – won their second big victory against the Newsom Administration and California Department of Water Resources when it comes to financing the proposed $20 billion Delta Conveyance Project, also known as “the Delta Tunnel.”
The Court of Appeal for the Third Appellate District just upheld a Sacramento County judge’s decision in 2024 that state authorities have an invalid bond plan to fund the highly embattled project. Specifically, the appellate court agreed with the original judge that the state Department of Water Resources, or DWR, lacks the authority to issue revenue bonds to pay for the massive tunnel that would benefit central and southern California Ag interests and a handful of Newsom mega-donors.…
BETSY CAWN:
Fifty-one years later I can still remember the cold shock, standing in that early December-dark supermarket parking lot when the enraged force of his fist met my trembling cold lips and my recoil was so explosive that I found my self 7 miles away across the San Mateo Bridge before I had a single thought. Which was, of course, what do I do now?
Go back or don’t go back? Give up all that you’ve worked for and instead now be viewed as a worthless woman who couldn’t “keep” her man. (And, later, as a formidable female boss who couldn’t find one.) Knowing that that fury, once unleashed, would always be there waiting for my next infraction.
My choice was easy, it seemed. It was made when I failed to satisfy my mate’s demand for an explanation as to why I was in that parking lot and not properly home making his dinner. I guess just being there, wrongly, was my original sin, to not be home “on time,” my first offense, and the second was failing to answer “correctly” — abjectly, sorrowfully, placatingly, falsely — whatever it was I said, instead.
I don’t remember now and didn’t then, driving madly across the rising summit that my body reached as the automotive alpen crossing, in the opposite direction of my proper place. From which I learned indelibly the importance of knowing one’s place, as we all do now, breathing horror deeply into our lungs with every new piece of unencrypted power aimed at our subjegation.
It wasn’t easy, of course. It was the end of all my hopes and fantasies about that most close relationship, my husband-to-be. The process was icy and always resonated with that barely concealed resentment and woundedness that justifies its own excesses.
That night it was all I could do to look for a place to go, to find some ice to slow the swelling in my jaw, to spend the night away from home for the first time in six years, and think about how to explain why I was wearing the same thing that I had yesterday, when I went to work.
That was years before the stalker. The love of my life was long gone when a disturbed human being decided to scare me into submissiveness through anonymous whispered depictions of my future mutilation and excruciating pain whenever he decided to break into the house I had finally moved away to, only a week before, with all new phone and utility numbers and only a handful of those who knew them.
The Livermore police were kind and instructional: get a gun, and if you shoot him, be sure he’s actually IN the house when you do it. Keep your windows and doors locked (it was 98 degrees that night). Call 9-1-1. Have a good evening.
That anonymous rage that penetrated my sanity and haunts me today was never found by the local cops who didn’t take it seriously until a nurse from the Veterans Hospital was murdered in her residence two blocks away. By then I had already forfeited my security deposit and left for another location, but the knowing never went away.
That fear that is now real for millions at risk of being shot and killed because, obviously, the wrong words were said, unthinkingly: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”
REPUBLICAN ENABLERS
Keeping quiet they feed
The crocodile, just hoping
He will eat them last.
— Jim Luther
BILL KIMBERLIN:
There is a reason you don't put military people into civilian policing actions.
The Jan. 7 murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis was by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross who had been a machinegunner in Iraq.
"Last summer, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent found himself in a perilous situation.
His arm was pinned into the back window of a car as a suspect sped away, dragging him across the pavement for about 100 yards, according to court documents. The agent, who suffered injuries to his arm and hand, fired his Taser at the man during the encounter, records show.
Roughly six months later, the same officer faced another driver who hit the gas as he tried to stop her vehicle. This time, he fired with his service weapon – killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.
The officer in the June case is identified in court documents as Jonathan Ross. A senior Department Homeland Security official confirmed that case involved the same officer who fired the shots that killed Good this week."
TRUMP’S VENEZUELA ACTIONS AMOUNT TO ARMED ROBBERY
Editor:
Crime in America is and has always been a highly charged political issue. Conservatives seeking strict adherence to laws see a dangerous breach of societal mores. Liberals see explosive racial problems in crime fighting. Donald Trump, a self-styled conservative, ordered a military seizure of oil tankers in international waters because they carried oil from Venezuela and ordered a violent, military assault in Venezuela in which that country’s president and his wife were seized and some 75 people were reportedly killed.
Make no mistake, President Nicolás Maduro (who is a very bad man even without the New York indictment) was taken, hostage-like, so that Trump could extort up to 50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela (valued at around $2 billion) and clear the path for American oil companies to take over the oil industry in Venezuela. This is, in every important respect, akin to armed robbery. The next time Trump again exaggerates the crime problem in America, he should be, but will not be, ashamed. Law and order Americans — indeed, all Americans — should hold him accountable.
Stephen Olson
Santa Rosa
FREE SPEECH?
Ron Parker: Ford suspended the employee who heckled Trump. So much for free speech.
Mike Geniella: Good news is that a community fund-raising efforts on behalf of the suspended worker and his family have already raised $365,000
T.J. SABULA:
Walking back into the Ford auto factory that suspended him for yelling “p*dophile protecter” at Donald Trump — after a GoFundMe campaign set up in his name generated more than $350,000 and climbing.
‘EMBRACE THE S— OUT OF IT’ IS THE MOTTO THIS INCREDIBLE, UNLIKELY 49ERS SEASON NEEDED
by Ann Killion
Embrace the s— out of it.
That’s what the San Francisco 49ers are doing.
This has been the most unlikely, most impressive journey of Kyle Shanahan’s coaching career. His team that, by rights, should have been dead in the water, too young, too injured, is still alive in mid-January. And they’ve gotten here by wrapping their arms around the difficult.
Moments after the 49ers lost to the Seahawks two weeks ago, sealing their fate as a wild-card team having to play on the road, Shanahan inadvertently stumbled upon the slogan of the entire season.
“We’ll embrace the shit out of doing it the hard way,” he said, “and look forward to it.”
The latest challenge is hugging the bleep out of another short week that gives the 49ers five days between games versus their opponent’s 13 days.
“I feel great, showered, fresh, wearing my Crocs, I’m going to brush my teeth,” Shanahan joked at his Tuesday news conference. “This time of year, you’ve been in a hole for seven months. It really doesn’t matter. Everyone’s into it.”
Embrace it.
The 49ers have been doing it the hard way all season, even before the season started. They dumped veterans and decided to go young. Their relationship with Brandon Aiyuk became so toxic they voided his guaranteed money. Once the season started, they lost key piece after key piece: George Kittle, Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Ricky Pearsall — and those were only the headliners. “Decimated by injury” is not too strong a phrase.
Ugly. Gritty. Hard. And the result? Twelve regular-season wins.
And now they’re on this unplanned road journey, a dark twisting path that is taking them to two of their most loathed opponents: first Philadelphia and now to Seattle. Intimidating environments. Nasty history. Simmering feuds.
After the 49ers were crushed by the Seahawks in the regular-season finale, Shanahan said, “Hopefully we can earn the chance to see that team again.” And now that’s happened, the honor of facing the NFC’s No. 1 seed, on the road.
Embracing the s— out of it is a psychological mindset. One that allows no self-pity, no weariness, no time to be shocked by yet another injury. The hurt, the fatigue, the long odds — it’s all part of the challenge.
Losing Kittle was just the latest body blow the team has absorbed. When Kittle was felled by a torn Achilles tendon in the second quarter, the team gathered around him, watched him carted off and, seconds later, went back to work.
“This team has carried the character of George Kittle the entire year,” Christian McCaffrey said. “He’s the heart and soul of the team. … When you lose a leader like that, you never really lose him, because his presence is still in this locker room. His energy is still here.”
Kittle sat in the visiting locker room with his wife, Claire, watching on television as his team’s latest unlikely win unfolded, drinking tequila. The Patron was courtesy of Jed York, who met Kittle in the locker room and then, according to the Athletic, sent the bottle down after he asked his star tight end if he could get him anything. “Tequila” was the answer. The gesture probably does more for York’s image than anything he’s ever done: It’s the kind of action his Uncle Eddie would have taken.
While Kittle was watching he saw his good friend Kyle Juszczyk take over his spot as the trustworthy pass option, with four receptions for 49 yards. He saw the ragtag, anonymous defense rise up and shut down the Eagles offense at key moments. They were embracing the s— out of the hard.
In the days before the Eagles game, Juszczyk addressed the team and told them not to take the opportunity for granted. He felt the young players, those new to the playoffs, needed to hear his own story.
“My second year in the league, we made it to the second round of the playoffs,” Juszczyk told them. “We lost. It was a long season, my first year starting, and there was a little part of me that wasn’t even too sad, because I was like, ‘Man, I’m exhausted. We’ll be back next year. We’re a dominant team. Obviously, we’ll be back in the playoffs.’ And then I went five years not making the playoffs.
“So you just truly never know what’s going to happen. You don’t know what team you’re going to be on. You don’t know what’s going to happen to the guys around you, injuries, that type of stuff. So it’s really important for us to grasp right now. And understand there’s an opportunity right now.”
The 49ers grasped the right now in Philadelphia. And then they learned that things would keep being hard. As they were flying home, the official word came out that they would definitely play on Saturday. Another short week — their third in the past four weeks. They got to their homes around 3 a.m. on Monday morning, but — for the 49ers — that was really Tuesday morning. When they showed up at the facility Tuesday, it was really already Wednesday in their work week.
But time doesn’t matter. The calendar doesn’t matter. What matters is staying on this hard, exhausting, improbable journey and embracing the s— out of it.
Put it on a T-shirt. On a poster board. It’s the slogan of the season.
PEDAL YOUR BLUES AWAY
Pedal your blues away, forget all your troubles today
Hop on your bike any time you might, and pedal your blues away.
Pedal your blues away, as you ride down the old highway
Singing a song as you rode along, just peddling your blues away.
You'll find lots of happiness as you speed along
Things are honky dory as you fly
In the middle of your heart you'll find a new song
With your palsy walsy riding by your side.
Pedal your blues away, you'll find love in every bi-way
Hold up your chin and let them see your grin, and peddle your blues away.
You'll find lots of happiness as you spin along
Things are honky dory as you fly
In the middle of your heart you'll find a new song
With your palsy walsy riding by your side.
Pedal your blues away, you'll find love in every bi-way
Hold up your chin, let them see your grin, and peddle your blues away
— R.Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders (1993)
MICHAEL KLARE: RADICAL POLITICS WITH PASSION & CONVICTION
by Jonah Raskin
Every movement needs researchers and writers who present technical matters in ways that activists and organizers can understand and apply. Michael Klare has been doing that for more than 50 years and especially since the War in Vietnam and the protests against it. A diligent reporter with a deep-seated curiosity, passion and conviction, Klare has written about war and peace, the environment and energy, the military and its foes. I have known him since about 1960 when we were undergraduates at Columbia College in NY and created a campus political party that lobbied for the abolition of HUAC, an end to nuclear testing, the creation of a co-op bookstore on campus and scaling way back loco parentis, the administration’s medieval policy of treating students like children. Klare currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Administration and is the Defense Correspondent of The Nation. He is a Professor Emeritus of Peace & World Security Studies at Hampshire College.
His books include War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams, Supplying Repression, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, Blood and Oil, and most recently All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. In “Goodbye to American Century: China and India now Rising” published in Fair Observer he wrote “China, India, and the United States are likely to dominate any future world order. Sadly, that doesn’t mean they’re destined to cooperate—far from it.” He added, “Competition and conflict will undoubtedly remain an enduring characteristic of their relationships, with the ties between any two of them constantly waxing and waning.” We shall see.
Q: Friends and acquaintances tell me the political and economic situation is worse today than ever before. I usually remind them of Vietnam, the cold war, the red scares, the genocide against Indians, slavery, Jim Crow, racism and misogyny. But it doesn’t make sense to me to try to gauge whether now or then is worse. What do you think?
A: This is an interesting question, and I wonder about it all the time. I think the answer is both: Things are both better and worse than they were 50-75 years ago, when we first became involved in politics.
Back then, nuclear Armageddon could occur at almost any moment, the US had 100s of thousands of troops in Vietnam, Black people couldn’t vote in much of the US (let alone hold office anywhere), and gay people couldn’t marry or lead normal lives in most places; today, the risk of nuclear war is greatly reduced (if not eliminated entirely), the US is not engaged in large-scale military conflict, Black people can vote and hold office in most places, and gay people can marry and live together openly. So those are big differences.
But I also see trends that worry me deeply. Climate change didn’t exist as an issue 50 years ago; today it threatens to devastate the planet, erase food and water supplies for 100s of millions of people, and produce killer heat waves. Likewise, we didn’t worry about artificial intelligence 50 years ago (let alone 10 years ago), but now AI threatens to destroy jobs for 100s of millions of people, empower hatemongers everywhere, and turn us into nitwits. And then there’s Trump’s drive to turn the world into a battleground between competing imperial power—-an outcome that historically has ended in world war. All this leads me to believe that the future could prove a lot worse than the past.
Q: You have been in the business of tracking and writing about war, saber rattling, and the struggles for global power for decades. As a reporter, what are the challenges today that you face to go on covering the conflicts you have been covering? Is it more difficult to obtain accurate information? Is there more censorship?
A: Here again, it’s a mixed picture. The US Dept. of Defense has imposed much tighter controls over coverage of US military operations. I once flew as a reporter on a B-52 bomber during a simulated nuclear attack on Russia; that would be inconceivable today. On the other hand, the advent of social media makes it much harder to control news. Observers of the war in Ukraine for example, can view an abundance of video coverage of front-line combat.
Q: Your first book was titled War Without End. It was published in 1972. Did you mean that book to be a prophecy? If so, you seem to have been spot on.
A: Well, I meant it then as a prophecy of more counterinsurgency-type wars to come, akin to Vietnam. (The book’s subtitle is “American Planning for the Next Vietnams.”) I did not anticipate the Gulf War of 1991 or the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. However, Iraq turned into a counterinsurgency-type war, as did the war in Afghanistan. I see the potential for a lot more such conflicts in the years ahead.
Q: Two other books by you seem to hint at Venezuela and beyond. I’m thinking of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet and The Race for What’s Left. Is there still a lot of oil underground, and from an imperial perspective is it worth fighting for?
A: To answer this, I have to begin by saying that both books were concerned with other vital resources besides oil. But first, about oil: Yes, there remains a lot of oil underground, and that oil remains the world’s single most valuable commodity; the world is slowly moving away from oil as a major energy source, but nothing else has yet overtaken oil as the #1 economic commodity, so yes, it is worth fighting over.
Now, as I wrote in The Race for What’s Left, other resources are beginning to approach oil in value. As the world transitions to an AI-driven economy and an electricity-based energy system, certain minerals used in computer chips and car batteries—especially cobalt, lithium, and the rare earth elements—are becoming incredibly valuable. And, like oil, these minerals are only concentrated in a few, hotly-contested areas (like Greenland). So I anticipate conflict over these materials, like the wars over oil.
Q: You did the narration for the film “Blood and Oil.” What is the likelihood that American and Venezuelan blood will be spilled for Venezuelan oil?
A: Well, Venezuelan blood has already been spilled in the US attack on Caracas, which was supposedly intended to apprehend a drug suspect but, as Trump has made explicit, was designed to ensure US control over Venezuela’s oil. I expect more blood to flow in the future.
Q: Predicting the future seems to me to be a matter of reading accurately current trends and extrapolating them. Is that what you do? How do you know what’s going to happen tomorrow and the next day?
A: Yes, extrapolating from current trends is the most reliable way to predict future events. But one also has to look at things like science and geology: if we keep pumping CO2 into the air the way we are now, it will alter the chemistry of the atmosphere and produce irreversible climate effects. Likewise, oil, lithium, cobalt, and rare earths are only concentrated in a few areas, so you can be pretty certain that they will become areas of contestation. I wrote about Greenland in The Race for What’s Left not because I had a crystal ball showing the advent of Trump’s claims for it, but because it possesses valuable minerals and, with global warming, it’s bound to become a site for raw material contestation.
Q: When you were a college student US made cars and US controlled oil dominated world markets. That’s no longer the case is it? How did such a powerful nation lose its edge?
A: The post-World War II US domination of world markets and industrial production was an anomaly. The war destroyed the industrial capacities of Britain, Germany, Japan, and Russia—America’s leading industrial competitors at the time. But it is very hard to perpetuate a moment like that. Britain never fully recovered, but Germany, Japan, and Russia have re-emerged as major competitors and China has emerged as a powerful new competitor. (But recall that 500 years ago, China probably had the world’s biggest GDP). So the US did not so much lose its edge as the natural order of multiple world economic centers reasserted itself. (This, by the way, appears to be the underlying logic behind Trump’s strategic vision, such as it is.)
Q: I remember in the 1960s you and I and our friends talked about contradictions in the American ruling class. Is there a ruling class today and if so what are its main contradictions?
A: This deserves a long conversation over coffee or a beer. I think it’s more accurate to say that we have a small billionaire elite with inordinate wealth and power; unlike anything seen in our college days. Bernie Sanders talks about this, as do others. Right now, this class appears to be in full control of most key levers of power in America.
What are its contradictions? I would say its leading contradiction is an absolute lack of concern about anything but their own wealth and power, meaning they have no class loyalty but fight amongst themselves, causing havoc, and have no interest in preserving the institutions and processes necessary for maintaining global and national order (such as banking regulation, public health, environmental protection, pandemic prevention, and AI restraint), increasing the risks of global catastrophes they cannot prevent or control.
Q: Are there novels and works of fiction that you would recommend that outline the world to come? Are there successors to Orwell’s 1984?
A: I’m not the best person to answer this, as I mainly read non-fiction related to my work. But I would recommend a book that straddles the border between the two, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All, by AI gurus Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares (the title tells it all). There’s also a lot of climate change-disaster sci-fi that I would recommend, including The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi and Eiren Caffall’s All the Water in the World (the first about water scarcity in the American West, the other about a submerged NYC).
Q: Empires can take decades or longer to fall. The American Empire will likely be around for your lifetime and mine, won’t it? Or not?
A: What people call the “American Empire” (there’s a lot of disagreement on what that entails) once stretched across the globe, from Europe and the Middle East to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. President Trump has pretty much stated publicly that those days are over, and that the American Empire will now be confined to the Western Hemisphere, while China will rule in Asia and Russia in Europe. (This is precisely the world envisioned by George Orwell in 1984.) I don’t see this new order changing any time soon, but, as in 1984, we can expect constant fighting among these three imperial centers.
Q: What are the options for citizens who want to save the planet, protect human and civil rights and bring about lasting peace.
A: I would like to say we need mass popular movements around the world aimed at installing sane, honest, public-spirited, planet-respecting, minority-respecting, responsible leaders, as I have been saying for a long time. But I think the answer to this will have to come from younger generations and the growing populations of the non-Western world. It is their future that’s at stake, and they will need to fight for it, as we once did.
(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)
ONE THING I GOT out of the Carpentier fight was a letter from a woman in Georgia, who was a school teacher. She had sent it to some newspaper, and they had printed it, and she sent it to me in print, like that, clipped out of the paper. I've lost it, but what it said was: Isn't it a disgusting thing that people who do usefuI things in the world - she meant herself and her husband - should make barely enough to live on, and have to go shabby, while a big brute is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for beating another fellow up with his fists - for doing something that any Georgia mule couId do better with its hind legs!
Do you know that letter worried me. Because you hear and read a lot of stuff like that. People certainly treat me swell, but there are some left who give you sneers, and think every fighter is a big bum, and it gets under your skin. Besides, the money end of it puzzled me a little bit. A lot of people who had nothing against me personally, and who weren't even down on fighting, have said it was a shame for a fighter to be paid so much and other people so little.
But I think they've got the wrong end of it, and I'll tell you why. Please don't write anything that will make people think I've got a swelled head, for I haven't. If I'm proud of anything, it's not that I can poke some fellow on the jaw and put him to sleep - or that I am all puffed up over the profession I follow, though I'm not ashamed of it - but I am a little bit proud that I have found something I can do better than anybody eIse in the world can do it.
And there's your answer to the woman in Georgia. I don't get paid big money for fighting. I get paid big money because I can do it better than anybody else, and that's something different.
You take all the ring fighters in the country, and there's more shabby, broke ones than there are shabby schoolteachers or preachers.
If you think a man gets paid just for fighting, you ought to have seen me one night in Salt Lake City, in 1914, when Hardy Downey had me in three fights in one night. I knocked out three men for him and he paid me $2.50. You ought to have seen the fight with Johnny Sudenberg, in Goldfield, Nevada. I've forgotten how much I was paid for that, but it wasn't enough to buy a new suit of clothes. I was knocked down 10 times, and then I lost count. Finally I began knocking him down, and at last he stayed down. No, sir, you don't get paid for fighting - you get paid for being good at it.
I know many a slugger who is a sight poorer paid than any professor of a hick-town school. I say to the professor whose wife is shabby and whose pants are shiny in the seat; You don't have to go into the fight ring - you most likely get knocked for a row of ash cans if you did, the same as I'd make a monkey of myself trying to teach in a school room or studying bugs through a microscope - no, sir. I say to him, you go out and be as good as professor as I am a fighter and you'll get all the money you want.
I'm the world champion heavyweight, and I'm rich, and some people beef about it and say it's all wrong. My answer is that the world champion professors and the world champion preachers and the world champion doctors are all rich, too.
— Jack Dempsey
NONALCOHOLIC WINE IS STILL TERRIBLE. WILL IT EVER GET BETTER?
by Esther Mobley
Why, after all this time, is most nonalcoholic wine still so bad?
Nonalcoholic beer, the subject of a larger story I published this week, has become shockingly good. Delicious NA cocktails are available in many Bay Area restaurants. But much dealcoholized wine tastes rubbery, thin, artificial and — as I discovered in an exhaustive tasting last year — often bizarrely like oregano. Given the growing share of Americans who are cutting back on drinking and the huge potential of the NA beverage market, it’s surprising that nonalcoholic wine hasn’t achieved a higher quality level yet.
I called up Ron Runnebaum, a chemical engineering professor at UC Davis, to ask him about this. The main reason that nonalcoholic wine is so much more challenging to produce than nonalcoholic beer, he said, is an obvious one: Wine typically has a much higher alcohol content than beer, so its removal is much more jarring. Dealcoholizing a 14% ABV Cabernet Sauvignon changes the product more fundamentally than doing the same to a 4% ABV lager.
Many of the qualities intrinsic to a wine can be expressed only in the presence of alcohol. “For wine, (alcohol) impacts extraction of a lot of the flavor compounds and texture compounds that wouldn’t necessarily be as soluble without the presence of alcohol,” Runnebaum said.
Tannins, for example, which give a red wine its grip and astringency, won’t be extracted from grapes in a fermentation “until we see a good amount of ethanol form,” he said. (That’s one reason that nonalcoholic white wines, which have minimal tannins to begin with, tend to be more successful than reds.)
Then there’s the question of process. In nonalcoholic brewing, the availability of maltose-negative yeast — which allows the beer to ferment without creating very much alcohol — has revolutionized the game, allowing craft breweries to produce high-quality NA beer without huge technology investments, and without actually having to remove alcohol after the brewing process. But no such yeast is commercially available for wine.
That means that winemakers are left with existing dealcoholization techniques, usually either vacuum distillation or reverse osmosis. Each of these has major drawbacks, chiefly that by removing alcohol in a finished wine, they inevitably remove other flavor, aroma and texture compounds that made the wine delicious in the first place. The middling results of these processes are largely to blame for the disappointing crop of nonalcoholic wines available today.
Runnebaum cautions, however, that these technologies are rapidly improving. He also predicts a sea change in how winemakers approach NA winemaking: Just as a winemaker will farm, harvest and vinify a wine differently if they know it’s destined for sparkling rather than still wine, they might start the growing season by making decisions tailored for a nonalcoholic outcome.
Innovations along these lines have become a major focal point for Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates, one of the most powerful wine companies in the world. Treasury began producing dealcoholized wine — both nonalcoholic and low-alcohol — in 1993, but always outsourced the dealcoholization process to other companies. That changed last year, when the company unveiled a new facility designed for nonalcoholic winemaking as part of its site in the Barossa Valley, an investment of around $10 million.
“What we’re really keen on is we want to maintain the craft of winemaking,” Helen Shaw, who works in public affairs for Treasury, said, “making sure the winemaker’s hand is still evident in the finished product even though it’s being produced at a lower alcohol than the full-strength product.”
The core of the Barossa facility is a GoLo machine, which uses vacuum distillation to lower the air pressure to allow alcohol to evaporate at a low temperature. Treasury has “designed a proprietary bit of technology that works in tandem with the GoLo equipment,” which the company has taken out a patent on, Shaw said. It involves extracting what Treasury calls the “essence” of the wine — key flavor and aroma compounds — before dealcoholization, then reintroducing it at the end. That “essence” is reintroduced at low enough volumes that the resulting wine still falls below 0.5% ABV. “It’s really that essence that we believe is the next generation of no- and low-winemaking,” she said.
Although Treasury has begun releasing NA wines made in the new winery in Australia, none of them are sold in the U.S. at this time. But the company is bullish on the technology. While its nonalcoholic and low-alcohol offerings have so far largely been confined to cheaper price tiers — Lindeman’s, Pepperjack, Squealing Pig and a new brand called Sorbet, which combines low-alcohol wines with fruit flavors like passionfruit or lemon — the company is now experimenting with dealcoholizing higher-end wines like an Adelaide Hills Chardonnay.
Could this be the future — major investments in dedicated NA facilities from wine’s most monied corporations? Surely, eventually, the technology will improve; maybe it already has in Australia. The question will be whether companies view it as a worthwhile expense. Will NA turn out to be a fad? Can businesses founded on the ideals of traditional winemaking stomach the idea in the first place? Some in Napa are offering dedicated nonalcoholic tastings now. Treasury, for one, has its mind made up. “We don’t think it’s a flash in the pan,” Shaw said. “We certainly think it’s here to stay.”
EUDORA WELTY
She wrote the story in one night—and white Mississippi never forgave her.
June 12, 1963. Jackson, Mississippi.
Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary, was shot in the back in his own driveway. His assassin was a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith.
The murder shook the nation.
Eudora Welty—a soft-spoken white woman from Jackson—sat down at her typewriter that same night.
She was fifty-four years old. A celebrated writer known for gentle Southern stories. People expected her to write about magnolias and manners, not murder.
But Eudora Welty had been watching. Listening. Paying attention to what white Mississippi pretended not to see.
She wrote a short story called "Where Is the Voice Coming From?"
She wrote it from inside the mind of the killer.
Not to excuse him. Not to explain him away. But to show exactly how ordinary white supremacy actually was. How it lived in everyday thoughts. How it justified itself with casual cruelty.
The story was chilling, precise, and unflinching.
She finished it in hours and sent it to The New Yorker. They published it within days—before the actual killer had even been arrested.
When De La Beckwith was finally caught, investigators found Welty had gotten details eerily correct. The weapon. The language. The mindset.
Because she knew that world. She'd lived in it her entire life.
White Mississippi was furious.
How dare she? A respectable Southern woman writing about that? Making them uncomfortable?
Some readers and critics accused her of betraying the South. Of being disloyal. Of stepping outside her place.
Eudora Welty didn't apologize.
She had spent decades writing beautiful stories about Mississippi—its rhythms, its people, its complicated heart. But she refused to write about the South as if racial violence didn't exist.
She understood something crucial: silence was a choice. Comfort was a choice.
And she chose differently.
This wasn't her only act of courage.
During the civil rights movement, she quietly supported integration. She spoke out against racist violence when many white Southern writers stayed silent. She lost readers. She faced criticism from people who wanted her to "stay in her lane."
She kept writing the truth.
Welty never became a loud activist. She didn't march or give fiery speeches. That wasn't her style.
But she did something equally powerful: she refused to let her art serve white supremacy's comfort.
She showed that you don't have to shout to be dangerous to injustice.
You just have to refuse to lie.
Eudora Welty died in 2001 at ninety-two years old, one of America's most celebrated writers. A Pulitzer Prize winner. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.
But in 1963, when it mattered most, she made a choice.
She could have written safe stories that made white readers comfortable.
Instead, she wrote one dangerous night about a killer's voice—and forced her own community to hear what they'd been pretending not to know.
That's the kind of courage that doesn't announce itself.
It just shows up on the page, quiet and undeniable, refusing to look away.
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF CATS
We wanted to alert you to our current petition in hope you feel it is something your readers care passionately about. We have gained over 11k signatures in just the 3 weeks since it's been published, proving it matters to many people. We are hoping for it to smash the 100k mark and go straight to debate. We are currently awaiting the Governments response, which they give once a petition hits 10k. The link is; Legislate to require drivers to report collisions with cats - Petitions https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/750612
Although there has been a bit of a brush off by the Government before on this issue, we were thrilled to hear the Transport Minister say that they are actually looking into the issue of road accidents involving cats. You can catch the 2 min clip on this MPs page from when he raised it with her in Parliament last week; Road Safety Must Include Animals Too — Andrew Rosindell M.P.
We are hoping the Government elaborate on that when they give the response any day now.
We just feel that it can't be right that in this so called animal loving nation, it is perfectly legal to hit a cat when driving and leave them to unnecessarily suffer. Cats are much loved family members who deserve a chance at survival should the worst sadly happen. We find it hard to understand why the Government would not find a way to help these animals in their darkest hour because they are better than doing nothing and continuing to allow this. The UK is better than that. We urge drivers to do the right thing and stop to help cats they unfortunately hit when driving, and we urge the Government to introduce legislation for the morally bankrupt amongst us who can't do the right thing without a law in place.
Best wishes
Carlie, Mandy and Tiya
ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
— Robert Frost (1928)
FERN HILL
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
— Dylan Thomas (1945)
LEAD STORIES, THURSDAY'S NYT
Federal Agent Shoots Man in Minneapolis, Prompting Tense Protests
Lawyers for Renee Good’s Family Plan to Investigate Minnesota ICE Shooting
Republicans Block Effort to Check Trump’s Power in Venezuela
U.S. Races to Sell Venezuelan Oil, Transforming Ties With Former Foe
Trump’s Gulf Allies Do Not Want Him to Bomb Iran
F.B.I. Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist in a Leak Investigation
Boeing Knew About Flaws in UPS Plane That Crashed in Louisville, N.T.S.B. Says
NASA Space Station Medical Evacuation of Astronauts Gets Underway
BETWEEN HERE AND GONE
How can I press a city to my chest?
Embrace its streets, its homes, its windows?
How can my heart stretch wide,
To hold a longing this deep?
And how can I kiss its wounded ground,
Without my soul collapsing?
How do I hold a scream so deep,
In the alley where I used to play?
How do I wipe a silent tear,
On the stone where Dad once sat?
How do I bring our laughs once more,
To streets we knew?
And how do I say, I missed you so,
Without letting the heartbreak show?
How do I mend my shadow on her timeworn stone,
Where every crack once knew me as its own?
How do I walk the same streets of my young feet,
Without the weight of all that’s lost, replayed?
How do I hear the rising call to prayer,
And not let tears betray my hidden cries?
How do I say, I had to go away,
When my soul never left?
Gaza…
How can one hug hold all your scattered cries?
How can my heart survive the loss each time your name goes by?
I walk your streets, yet I’m not there,
I search your face—it’s lost.
You break inside me,
Without a reason I know why.
Gaza still stands—but not the same,
A shadow walks where once burned flame.
And the ache left within my chest
Is deeper, harsher—
A grief beyond a single death.
— Nour Abdel Latif (2025)
IF NATO DIES, DO WE REALLY HAVE TO MOURN?
Donald Trump's Greenland-gobbling may mean the end of the Atlanticist dream, which should have ended with the fall of communism
by Matt Taibbi
The New York Times wonders what Donald Trump taking over Greenland would mean for NATO:
“Over the past year, President Trump has pushed NATO with threats and coercion to make divisive changes. Now he is threatening to seize control of Greenland, potentially with military force, which has heightened concerns that he will destroy the trans-Atlantic security alliance…
“There is widespread public support in the United States for the alliance, which was created after World War II to deter the Soviet Union. If the president tried to thwart NATO by controlling Greenland, ‘I think Congress will stop him,’ said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia.”
NATO is history’s most expensive self-licking ice cream cone. Proponents spent much of the last three decades taking bold, often destructive policy actions to convince taxpayers of member nations the alliance needs to keep existing. We’ve redrawn the world map multiple times and even invented new forms of war just to give it something to do. It’s madness, but few have been willing to say so.
Now we’re told the issue with Trump possibly occupying Greenland isn’t that it might be crazy or bad for Greenland, but that it might hurt the “trans-Atlantic security alliance.” Unless it’s the good part? A brief history of the mad policy gambits undertaken to save NATO since the Soviet collapse:
The Times is right that NATO has “widespread public support” in the United States, though the favorability gap (60%-37%) is due mostly to positive feelings among Democrats, who used to have opposite feelings. Why any American should care about NATO is a more elusive question. The ostensible reason for the alliance ended decades ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union, while the real reasons for maintaining NATO have rarely been articulated, and for good reason. If the world grasped the true dynamics of the Atlanticist dream, the citizens of member countries would demand it be taken behind a shed and shot.
Most people assume NATO was created as a bulwark against Soviet expansion, in response to events like the 1948 communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. In reality NATO always had a multi-layered mission centered around America’s belief that a combination of bureaucracy and money could not only help keep Europeans from killing each other, but save the U.S. from having to go in later and clean up. The First Secretary-General of NATO, Lord Hastings Ismay, is credited with a famous quote: NATO existed to “keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.”
Former RAND Corporation National Security Analyst Ben Schwarz explains that in addition to the broader concept of using the NATO alliance structure to prevent the resurfacing of Euro-nationalist passions, the United States saw the alliance as a lever through which it could regulate European influence globally.
“The United States has always had a schizophrenic relationship with Europe, in that it has wanted a degree of unity in Western Europe because it thought that that was necessary for both European economic recovery and for the world economy,” Schwarz says. “But it also wanted to make sure that Europe didn’t develop into an independent power.”
An ascendant but not fully independent Europe was part of America’s interest, while Europe’s included massive security subsidies that enabled financing of cradle-to-grave social programming of the sort not offered to American citizens, who’d be lampooned for failing to demand such benefits. Europeans via NATO also won cheap guarantees against intramural conflicts and a resurgent Germany. One could perhaps justify all these goals during the Cold War, but once the Berlin Wall fell, it seemed inevitable someone would point out that transnational bureaucracies that exist for reasons other than their stated missions tend not to do well.
One of the few people who saw NATO’s burgeoning internal contradictions soon after communism’s fall is Schwarz, who was still at RAND in 1994 when wrote the controversial essay, “NATO at the Crossroads: Reexamining America’s Role in Europe.”
Most of the Foreign Policy establishment then was already pounding the table for eastward NATO expansion as a means of protecting against a possible Russian resurgence, but Schwarz reminded readers that NATO was never just about containing Soviets but all those other things, and expansion might just mean switching one cover story for another:
“While containing the Soviet Union is obviously no longer relevant, NATO still serves its other, usually unstated, purpose — pacifying relations among the states of Western Europe. Since, however, it is politically difficult to justify publicly the alliance on this ground, those who propose that NATO’s responsibilities be extended eastward freely acknowledge that one of their primary purposes is to find a new, acceptable rationale for preserving the alliance.”
I first read Schwarz’s piece after he and Christopher Layne wrote a Harpers cover story a few years ago called “Why Are We In Ukraine?” I remember thinking, “That can’t be right.” No way could there have been Western officials willing to ‘freely acknowledge’ that expanding NATO to the Baltics or Poland was a new rationale for maintaining an otherwise obsolete bureaucracy. A Russia resident during that time, I was sure I’d remember an idea that crazy. But Schwarz was right.
If you go back, you’ll see “expansionists” rallied under the lunatic slogan “Expand or Die,” with everyone from Zbignew Brzezinski to Henry Kissinger worrying that unless NATO successfully argued for eastward expansion, it would cease to exist, and if NATO ceased to exist, we couldn’t have eastward expansion. The idea was untenable.
As Kissinger put it in a Washington Post piece called Expand NATO Now, a failure to expand would sooner or later create a vacuum of influence between Germany and Russia, which could “imperil the very existence of NATO as a meaningful institution.”
Today Schwarz pooh-poohs the idea that his writings were predictive. “I don’t know if ‘prophetic’ is the right word,” he says. “It was so obvious.”
Eastward expansion would not be the last time American officials would justify a major foreign policy initiative or even a military engagement to reaffirm the importance of NATO. Before we went into Bosnia, the former head of the NSA William Odom explained that a NATO operation was necessary because “only a strong NATO with the U.S. centrally involved can prevent Western Europe from drifting into national parochialism.”
In a flash NATO went from a traditional alliance that prevented attacks on member states from outsiders to a policing organization with infinity possible missions. Its assertion of new authority in hindsight was humorously Trumpian, not that many cared at the time. After publishing a new transatlantic agenda in 1996 NATO was now empowered to fight crime, stop “drug-trafficking and terrorism,” address the needs of “displaced persons,” and help with “development” and “humanitarian assistance.”
Before we knew it, Bill Clinton was on national television announcing “humanitarian” air strikes in Serbia not just to prevent the crisis from pushing “refugees across borders,” but to keep Serbian intransigence from undermining “the credibility of NATO on which stability in Europe and our own credibility depend.”
One could go on, as NATO’s mission was reimagined again and again over the years, notably after 9/11 when Article 5 of the NATO treaty obligating member nations to fight was invoked or the first time, then again in 2010 when we learned that NATO wasn’t just a military alliance, but a “political community.” NATO’s mission grew so unwieldy that by the time Trump arrived, it was nearly impossible to say what it was. Was this a military alliance spreading an America-dominated “political community” around the world by force, or a Euro-American “political community” building a separate governance structure around the world outside the purview of nation-states, even ones as big as the U.S.?
About Greenland: the situation is viewed with panic for some obvious appropriate reasons, and some that are ironic, given that part of Trump’s stated rationale fits the mindset of old Cold Warriors and even some within the current version of NATO, who’ve long said the U.S. needs to have a more aggressive position in that part of the world (this viewpoint came up a lot in the early Russiagate period). Secretary-General Mark Rutte of the Netherlands was outspoken in saying a U.S. annexation would be less worrisome than “a risk that the Russians and the Chinese will be more active” in the Arctic.
“It’s hard to imagine any other president having this Greenland policy,” said Schwarz, “but if for some crazy reason Obama was doing what Trump was, the reaction wouldn’t be the same.” If some other president tried to militarily occupy the Danes’ territory in more a de facto than de jure fashion, with less of a Goodfellas vibe, Europe might have shrugged, as it did in a thousand other incidents. But it’s Trump, which means NATO may indeed finally crack and sink. Do we have to mourn?
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Bottom line fact is that Greenland doesn't belong to us. There probably is an upside to annexing it, just at the cost of any morals or ethics we might say we have.
Yesterday Venezuela. Today Greenland. Tomorrow Mexico. Sounds like an expansionist country to me. And if so, why shouldn't other countries expand their empires at the point of a gun? Which takes us back to the days of Great Power competition, with all the risks of world war that entails. And now the Great Powers have nukes. Sounds like a bad idea.
DONALD THE DESTROYER: ACT II
by Melvin Goodman
“I’ve had a lot of wars of my own, I’m really good at war. I love war….”
– Donald Trump, Campaigning in Iowa, 2016
“Yeah. There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law.”
– Trump responding to a question from a New York Times reporter regarding any limits to his global powers, January 8, 2026
“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”
– Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller responding to a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper, January 5, 2026
Donald Trump’s first term (2017-2021) was a disaster, culminating in an attempted self-coup, an attack at the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the electoral votes of the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s bombast had no limits, and Insurrection Day demonstrated the horror of his actions. This led to clemency in his second term for nearly all of the Americans who stormed the Capitol, including such key organizers as Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Torrio. Clemency was offered last year on Trump’s first day in office, and full pardons were issued a week later just after Vice President J.D. Vance stated “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”
In the first term Trump faced an unusual level of criticism from high-level officials, including chief of staff John Kelly, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, and even director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Since Kelly and McMaster were general officers and therefore not permitted to criticize a sitting president, so their criticism was particularly striking.
There are no in-house critics in Trump’s second term (2025-2029), which may be more apocalyptic, leading to the derogation of America’s democracy and greater use of force at home and abroad. The mainstream media is crediting Trump with seeking peaceful agreements to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, while the picture on the ground points to him throwing President Volodymyr Zelensky and several million Palestinians to Russian and Israeli wolves.
Trump’s obvious paranoia, narcissism, and lack of impulse control have already led to destructive acts, including the use of military power in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Western Africa, and now South America. Trump and Miller are also threatening the use of military force in Cuba, Mexico, and even Greenland, which would destroy the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and give a huge geopolitical victory to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s language is becoming increasingly bellicose. Iran has been threatened with additional use of force, and Trump the word merchant has warned the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to “watch his ass.” He told the acting leader of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, that if she didn’t do ”what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” He has become increasingly blunt about taking over Greenland, stating that “I would like to make a deal the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way.”
The most frightening aspect of Trump’s maneuverings is the emergence of a gradual slide toward autocracy, which has been observed previously in various nations over the past decade or so. A partial list would include Hungary (beginning in 2011), Turkey (2013), India (2014), Poland (2015), and Brazil (2019). Two Harvard professors, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, touched on this phenomenon in their book “How Democracies Die.” They warned in Trump’s first term about democratic backsliding and how elected leaders can gradually subvert the democratic process and increase their power.
In Trump’s second term, we witnessed the leaders of elite institutions in the fields of higher education, law, communications and the media, and corporations bend the knee in pandering to the bullying from the White House. This was reminiscent of Germany in 1934 in the response to another bully.
In less than a year, Trump has managed to get a series of free rides from the most reactionary Supreme Court in U.S. history, which gave him almost complete immunity from future prosecution; to neutralize the Congress; to ignore the Constitution and the War Powers Act; to politicize the Pentagon and the intelligence community; and to boast that “I’m the speaker (of the House) and the president.” Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has voted against the president on occasion, conceded that she curbs some of her actions and statements because she fears “violence from his supporters.”
Meanwhile, the political and legal systems have failed to punish him for his first and second term transgressions. As a result, the era of militarism and mendacity continues along with the enormous domestic price that we must pay due to excessive defense and intelligence spending, President Eisenhower was spot-on in describing the social costs of defense spending and in warning that “humanity was hanging from a cross of iron.”
The United States is in an arms race with itself; it must be stopped.
(Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.)
DECONSTRUCTING TRUMP'S GAZA ‘PEACE' PLAN’
The resolution, Finkelstein points out, annuls decades of precedent established under international law on Palestine — erasing its entire legal history.
by Chris Hedges (w/Norman Finkelstein)
Lawlessness has been a common theme characterizing the events of the first weeks of the year. The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the murder of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, the threat of bombing Iran by the Trump administration. Perhaps one of the worst violations of the law has slipped under the radar amidst the chaos — the continued genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the United Nations’ abetting of Israel and the U.S.’s efforts to ethnically cleanse the region.
Professor Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar of the Middle East, knows better than anyone how to interpret international action at the hands of the United Nations in relation to Palestine and Israel. As for the adoption of Resolution 2803 (2025) in November, Finkelstein tells host Chris Hedges, “[The resolution] abolished 70 years of UN history… [It] gave Gaza to Donald J. Trump.”
The resolution, Finkelstein points out, legitimizes Israel and the U.S.’s ethnonationalist and imperialist goals and delegitimizes the sanctity of international law. He explains, “there was a robust consensus on how to resolve the conflict, which means that Israel didn’t have a leg to stand on. But guess what? It now has a leg to stand on. It has you right here.”
Chris Hedges
The U.S. peace plan — “President Donald J. Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” — in an act of stunning betrayal of the Palestinian people, was endorsed by most of the U.N. Security Council in November, with China and Russia abstaining. Member states washed their hands of Gaza. They turned their backs on the genocide.
The adoption of Resolution 2803 (2025), as the Middle East scholar Norman Finkelstein writes, “was simultaneously a revelation of moral insolvency and a declaration of war against Gaza. By proclaiming international law null and void, the Security Council proclaimed itself null and void. Vis-à-vis Gaza, the Council transmuted into a criminal conspiracy.”
The next phase is supposed to see Hamas surrender its weapons and Israel withdraw from Gaza. But these two steps will never happen. Hamas — along with other Palestinian factions — reject the Security Council resolution. They say they will disarm only when the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is created. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that if Hamas does not disarm, it will be done “the hard way.”
The “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump, will ostensibly govern Gaza along with armed mercenaries from the Israel-allied International Stabilization Force, although no country seems anxious to commit their troops. Trump promises a Gaza Rivierathat will function as a “special economic zone” — a territory operating outside of state law governed entirely by private investors, such as the Peter Thiel-backed charter city in Honduras.
This will be achieved through the “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians — with those fortunate enough to own land offered digital tokens in exchange. Trump declares that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip” and “own it.” It is a return to the rule of viceroys — though apparently not the odious Tony Blair. Palestinians, in one of the most laughable points in the plan, will be “deradicalized” by their new colonial masters.
But these fantasies will never come to fruition. Israel knows what it wants to do in Gaza. It knows no nation will intercede. Palestinians will struggle to survive in primitive and dehumanizing conditions. They will, as they have so many times in the past, be betrayed.
December saw an average of 140 aid trucks allowed into Gaza each day — instead of the promised 600 — to keep Palestinians on the edge of famine and ensure widespread malnutrition.
In October, some 9,300 children in Gaza under five were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF. Israel has opened the border crossing into Egypt at Rafah, but only for Palestinians leaving Gaza. It is not open for those who want to return to Gaza, as stipulated in the agreement.
Israel has seized some 58 percent of Gaza and is steadily moving its demarcation line — known as “the yellow line” — to expand its occupation. Palestinians who cross the arbitrary line — which constantly shifts and is poorly marked when it is marked at all — are often killed.
Ninety-two percent of Gaza’s residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed and around 81 percent of all structures are damaged, according to UN estimates. The Strip, some 20 miles long and seven-and-a-half miles wide, has been reduced to 61 million tons of rubble, including nine million tons of hazardous waste that includes asbestos, industrial waste, and heavy metals, in addition to unexploded ordinance and an estimated 10,000 decaying corpses.
There is almost no clean water, electricity or sewage treatment. Israel blocks shipments of construction supplies, including cement and steel, shelter materials, water infrastructure and fuel, so nothing can be rebuilt. Compounding the humanitarian crisis, Israel has revoked the licenses of 37 international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders.
This follows Israel’s banning of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which provides most of the humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora, and the cutting off off water, electricity, fuel, and communications from UNRWA facilities, as well as the passing of legislation that gives Israel the ability to expropriate UN properties in East Jerusalem, including UNRWA’s headquarters and its main vocational training center.
Joining me to discuss the continued assault on Palestinians and the failure of the international community to intervene is Professor Norman Finkelstein, author of numerous books on the Middle East, including Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom, The Holocaust Industry and his forthcoming book, which will be released in March, Gaza’s Gravediggers.
So Norm, let’s begin with the Security Council vote on November 17th, 2025. 13 votes to zero, two abstentions, as I mentioned in the introduction. I was as stunned by it as you were precisely because this isn’t in any way a serious proposal. Other proposals have been ignored in terms of ceasefires, agreements, et cetera but there was just no validity to this at all.
And you really, I think correctly, excoriate the member states for supporting it. And I think you make the point that this is a watershed moment in terms of the United Nations itself, as you have pointed out, at least has traditionally attempted to uphold international law. And this is just a complete tossing away of any pretense of international law. Can you explain this moment?
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, I think here it’s good to begin with the statements by Russia and China when they abstained from the resolution. Now, Russia and China are obviously great powers, and there’s a great deal of cynicism and calculation in anything they’re going to say. On the other hand, I personally found the Russian statement in particular, though the Chinese statement was also very good, I found it believable.
Some people said the Chinese abstained because it was a quid pro quo Gaza for Ukraine. And I’m sure that calculation entered into the picture. I’m not going to… I’m not naive, but I thought the Russian statement said two things of interest to us. Well, three things really.
Number one, basically Trump said to them, or Trump’s people said to them, if you don’t sign on to this, we’re going to give Israel the green light to annihilate Gaza. That it’s either this game or ceasefire is over and Israel goes in and we’re not putting any restraints on it, any constraints on it.
Well, that was a problem. We have to be honest about the problems. I was furious at what happened. I can’t tell you, I was walking the streets cursing these people. But I have to be honest about the problem they faced, the dilemma they faced. Number two, the Russians said, all the Arab and Muslim states and then the Palestinian Authority, the state of Palestine, welcomed the resolution. What were we supposed to do?
We would come off as more pious than the Pope. We had no choice. They hated the resolution, it was clear, as the Chinese, but they said they brought out Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, all the Gulf states, Jordan, what do you do? That was a real problem. We have to acknowledge that, they had a real problem there.
So the Russians were cornered, as were the Chinese. And then the Russians did say, however, they said that there was a lot of arm twisting. They used those words. There was a lot of arm twisting in the capitals and in the UN on the officials, the representative officials. And then they said, I was surprised by the bluntness, they said, “This is a black day in the history of the United Nations.”
And you know what their last words were? Their last words were, don’t say we didn’t warn you. I thought I was pretty telling. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of [Andrei] Gromyko’s speech in 1947, where, you know, Gromyko is Stalin’s henchman, not many warm spots in his heart, but he gave a very moving speech. And I think it’s…
Chris Hedges
This was on the establishment of the state of Israel, right?
Norman G Finkelstein
Yeah. Yeah. And it was a deeply moving speech. Every Jew remembers it from that era and I felt there was a certain amount… Yes, it’s a great power. Yes, it’s Russia. Yes, Putin is this and Putin is that. But still, I thought there was a degree of candor by Russia that something terrible had happened at the United Nations. A thug, a criminally deranged megalomaniac, this human wrecking ball had just destroyed the UN.
The UN is, for me at this point, I don’t want to say for me, I’m not the issue. The UN is now a rotting corpse. It’s dead. Because what that resolution did, for those who follow these things, and you know I’ve devoted a lifetime to following them at the level of hyper minutiae, it abolished 70 years of UN history. It did — the General Assembly, the Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and all sorts of other divisions, committees in the UN.
The UN record was an accumulation of debate, discussion, compromise over 70 years. That whole history vanished in this UN resolution. If you were to go put it up on your screen now, you go, for example, to the standard UN resolution called “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.”
It comes at the end of November, early December, each year, right? You know what it begins with? It begins with like a five to seven page preamble rehearsing the whole record, what this body has resolved in the course of decades. There’s no preamble in this new UN Security Council resolution.
It begins as if from a tabula rasa, that there was no history. It was abolished by this UN resolution. It vanished. So, it was a somber moment. Now, in the face of that fact and the fact that we’re dealing with, my late mother used to use the expression, “pigs with white gloves” to refer to the ruling elites. This was a pig without the white gloves. A thug. You know, no polish. No panache. A thug. What do you do?
Here, my opinion is, if you sign on because, one, you’re dealing with a thug, two, the thug is threatening if you don’t sign it, we’re not going to break your kneecaps, but we’re going to let Israel break Gaza’s kneecaps. And three, all the Arab-Muslim states, the largest states in the world, we’re talking about Indonesia. You know, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on Earth. Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia. What do you do?
What you could have done if you had some backbone, you could have signed on, we want to save Gaza from Israel’s annihilatory assault. Okay? But then you could have told the truth. Algeria didn’t have to sing the praises of Trump. You know what Algeria said? Trump has brought peace to the world. You didn’t have to do that. No, Algeria went on to be critical of the resolution. But you really have to kiss the master’s feet? No. It was pitiful. It was pathetic. You could have pointed up the dilemma, which is what Russia did. But you didn’t have to grovel. You didn’t have to be a sycophant. That was unacceptable.
Chris Hedges
I just want to explain what you do in your piece about why this is such a devastating moment. Because up until now, the UN at least paid lip service or fealty to entrenched law that Israel is an occupying power.
That, this is you,
“‘Israel must refrain from . . . imped[ing] the Palestinian people from exercising its right to self-determination, including its inalienable right to territorial integrity over the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory,’ that ‘Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal. . . . Consequently, Israel has an obligation to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible.’”
You’re quoting the ICJ, and this is you,
“This robust and enduring legal consensus crystallized after protracted deliberations spanning almost eight decades among multiple UN organs and was anchored in fundamental norms of international law: the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by war and the right of peoples to self-determination. The new UN resolution deposited this comprehensive legal framework into the dumpster.”
Norman G Finkelstein
That’s correct. That’s what happened. There is a view we… Listen, everybody who has even a faint knowledge of the subject knows we have acronyms like OPT, Occupied Palestinian Territories. There’s not a word about occupation in this resolution. There’s no occupation. Gaza is not in this resolution. Gaza is not occupied territory. Gaza is nothing in this resolution. There’s no connection with the West Bank.
Gaza is just suspended in midair in this resolution. Gaza is in the era of the European conquest of Africa. They used an expression, it was called res nullius, which means belonging to nobody. Africa belonged to nobody and therefore everybody was entitled to carve out a piece of it.
Chris Hedges
This was the League of Nations, right?
Norman G Finkelstein
You know, this is the Conference of Berlin at the end of the 19th century. The League of Nations comes along after World War I. And Gaza has no legal existence in this resolution. And I have to say, it was kind of breathtaking. It was kind of breathtaking. The UN resolution… Now everybody has a predilection for exaggeration, hyperbole, poetry. This is no exaggeration. It’s not hyperbole. It’s not poetry.
The UN resolution gave Gaza to Donald J. Trump. It literally did that. It declared that the presiding body in Gaza is what they call a “board of peace.” The modalities of this board of peace… Who belongs to it? How is it structured? There’s nothing there. There’s only one thing: Donald Trump is the head of the Board of Peace. Now, bear in mind, he was given personal title to Gaza. In fact, it was reiterated by the U.S. representative after the vote was taken.
Donald Trump is in charge of the Board of Peace. The Board of Peace is not in charge, is not, I should say, Donald Trump is not responsible to anyone internally in the Board of Peace. There are no modalities of the Board of Peace. And he’s not responsible to anyone externally. The only thing that was required of Trump was that he produce every six months, they say, we request, we don’t even order, we request that he provide every six months an update on the situation. That’s it.
Gaza is now one more property in the Trump organization’s portfolio. That is not an exaggeration. When Trump said in February 2024, he said, Gaza is going to belong to the United States and we’re going to turn it… Everyone thought this is a lunatic blowhard. Well, the lunatic blowhard turned it into a UN Security Council resolution, which is the final word.
I don’t agree with people who are saying that the UN Security Council resolutions are superseded by the body of law. I don’t think that’s correct. The Security Council resolution is the last word. Even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t make a difference. You can get into the technical argument till the end of time.
The fact of the matter is, as I tried to point out, and I pointed out over and over again over the years, there was a robust consensus on how to resolve the conflict, which means that Israel didn’t have a leg to stand on. But guess what? It now has a leg to stand on.
Chris Hedges
But you liken it to the decision to turn the Congo over to King Leopold.
Norman G Finkelstein
It was exactly the same thing. The Conference of Berlin, the great powers assembled at the Conference of Berlin, gave the Congo to one person, King Leopold. It was given to him. Technically it was given to the International Association of the Congo, but then the Belgian legislature subsequently designated him.
He was owner of the Congo. And now we have, and by the way for the viewers who are not aware, in the course of his tenure as president or presiding officer of the Congo, the estimates are between 10 and 15 million, not a small number, 10 and 15 million Congolese were killed off during the ivory and then the rubber trade. So, it’s a famous story. Unfortunately in the English language, there’s only one book, and it’s not a great book. The book, King Leopold’s…
Chris Hedges
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild.
Norman G Finkelstein
It’s not a great book, but there’s only one book on the subject. The famous two individuals who campaigned to end the horror in the Congo were E.D. Morel and Roger Casement. In any event, it was the Congo all over again. I had some correspondence with the great international lawyer John Dugard and he said the analogy I made with Leopold, he said it hadn’t occurred to him, but it really ought to be developed, what happened.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the provisions. We can begin with the call to disarm Hamas as a precondition that Israel has said. Israel, of course, will judge whether Hamas is disarmed or not. In the introduction, I quoted Netanyahu who said that if they didn’t disarm, they’d do it the hard way.
But let’s talk about that caveat and the other caveats in there that just give Israel utter and complete control with no… Everything comes down to Israel’s decision, Israel’s pronouncements about Gaza. The resolution is organized in such a way that they’re the final authority.
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, it says that the IDF and the, among the powers, there’s the so-called international security force, the IDF, Israel’s so-called defense forces, they have veto power on any withdrawal. Unless Israel agrees that Hamas has been disarmed, according to the resolution, it’s under no obligation to withdraw.
Now, first of all, Netanyahu doesn’t want Hamas to disarm. Hamas has never been the issue. From October 8th, Israel made very clear what the issue is. We’re going to ethnically cleanse Gaza, or if we’re not successful in stimulating a stampede, we’ll make Gaza unlivable. So as they said over and over again, there was no secret. This is not a state secret.
This is not like Hitler’s final solution where you’re looking for the Hitler order. Did Hitler issue an order? That’s always been a big question. Raul Hilberg, he was among those who still held out, he thought Hitler had issued an order. But it was still, if he had issued one, it would have been a secret order. But there’s no secrets here.
The Israelis from day one were saying we’re going to give the people of Gaza two choices: to stay and to starve, or to leave. That was very straightforward. So when you listen to the talk Netanyahu says, remember Amalek. Amalek is about every man, woman, and child, as well as oxen. Is that Hamas?
If you say that you’re not going to admit any food, fuel, or electricity. Is that Hamas? If you say you’re going to make Gaza unlivable, is that Hamas? It had nothing to do with Hamas. The ones who understood that from the get-go were the South Africans. They didn’t prosecute Israel on the grounds that it was violating the laws of war. No.
They didn’t call, for example, for a meeting of the signatories to the Geneva Convention. You could have called that, a meeting of the signatories of the Geneva Convention to prosecute Israel’s violations of the laws of war, what’s called international humanitarian law, IHL. That’s not what South Africa did. It prosecuted Israel for the crime of genocide.
If you read their application, the one that was submitted on December 29th, 2023, and all their other statements, Hamas is barely mentioned. Not because they are trying to aid and abet Hamas, but because they understood that given what was unfolding in Gaza from October 8th, Hamas was a sideshow. Hamas was an irrelevance. The issue was, I don’t believe — we want to be careful about formulations — I don’t believe their goal was genocide. I think their means was genocide. The objective was to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
However, they were willing to not only destroy a part of the population, they were ready to destroy the whole population to achieve that end. There was no compunction on the part of the Israelis. So I don’t believe Hamas ever had much to do with what’s been unfolding.
Now the Israelis say, you might recall at the beginning they said there were 20,000 Hamas terrorists, right? Where they got that number, just pulled out of thin air, like all their numbers, all their numbers are, they’re just fake fakery.
How many Hamas terrorists they’ve killed? They don’t have a clue how many they’ve, they don’t, how would they know? They were engaging in saturated bombing, carpet bombing of Gaza. 95% of the people they killed who “belonged to Hamas” was just because they happened to be besides somebody else, it was completely indiscriminate. They don’t know how many Hamas terrorists they killed. They don’t have a clue. But they said 20,000.
And then, you know what they said last month? Their new figures show there are still 20,000 Hamas, that’s what they said. There are 20,000. Because for them, the more the merrier. The more Hamas terrorists there are, the more they can say, we’re not withdrawing, we’re not reconstructing, we’re not admitting humanitarian aid because the Hamas terrorists are going to confiscate it. So Hamas is just, it’s just a prop in the exterminatory enterprise.
Chris Hedges
I want to ask you about humanitarian aid. You write,
“The resolution charged the BoP with coordinating both humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Neither will come to pass. A 2025 ICJ advisory opinion found that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was the only humanitarian organization in Gaza technically competent to provide aid at scale, and that Israel must cooperate with it.”
But of course, they have banned Hamas and now, just recently, announced that they’re going to legislate the ability to confiscate their property in East Jerusalem. And you write a little later on,
“Israel won’t admit more than a ‘humanitarian minimum’ of aid, if that much and probably a lot less. The days of weaponizing starvation as a method of warfare won’t be over until and unless the Gaza ‘question’ has been ‘solved.’ The reconstruction of Gaza won’t happen because it can’t happen and because Israel won’t let it happen.”
But within the Board of Peace is this provision of providing aid and there is a number, isn’t it 600 trucks a day that are supposed to come in?
Norman G Finkelstein
They were supposed to resume the level during the last ceasefire. It’s never going to happen. I have to say there was so much naivete even by people who should have known better about the resolution. Just take the question of reconstruction. Isn’t it just devoted to two years plus to turning Gaza into a parking lot?
Can anybody in his or her right mind believe that suddenly they’re going to start chanting Om, give peace a chance, singing Kumbaya, linking arms and rebuilding Gaza with those people, with the people of Gaza?
It was just so stupid how anyone could possibly believe these things. So they said Trump was going to have a meeting with Netanyahu and they’re going to discuss reconstruction. That’s what was said last week. First of all, he does that all for theater because he has to placate Saudi Arabia. Not that Saudi Arabia cares, but they need a fig leaf.
They need a fig leaf because they want to sign on to the Abraham Accords. So that was the whole purpose of the ceasefire, to enable MBS to come to the White House, because he can’t come to the White House in the middle of a genocide. That’s just a really bad photo op. So he has to put on the pretense that he’s going to talk to Netanyahu about reconstruction.
And you know exactly, first of all it’s all wink wink. It’s all wink wink. And you know exactly what Netanyahu says — we can’t begin reconstruction until Hamas has disarmed, that’s in your 20 point peace plan. And Trump says yeah. Now of course there will still be the need to placate the peace, the Saudis, with face saving gestures.
The thing is, the moment it’s no longer front page news, it’s over. Israel does what it wants. And so occasionally there’ll be some flare-up, there’ll be some remonstrants from the White House, but it’ll be business as usual until Gaza has been emptied.
Chris Hedges
Which you say, now, Israel had hoped that it would be a flood. That’s what we’re trying to orchestrate. But now it’ll just be a trickle, I think are your words.
Norman G Finkelstein
I think they were, when they set up what was called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or fund or foundation, I can’t remember now, there were four sites. One was in the center of Gaza, but the other three were right on the border with Egypt, with the Sinai. And the purpose was obvious: to force everybody to go to the humanitarian sites and then to provoke an expulsion.
It didn’t work. It didn’t work. Probably Egypt put a lot of pressure on the U.S. So then they had to reconcile themselves to a trickle. But reconstruction, humanitarian aid, it’s never going to happen.
Chris Hedges
I want to ask about the International Stabilization Force. You write,
“The resolution authorized the establishment of a ‘temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF),’ the charge of which was to ‘stabilize the security environment in Gaza by ensuring the process of demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.’ The ISF was to operate in ‘close consultation and cooperation’ with Egypt and Israel.”
And you write,
“It must be conceded that the resolution recruited a pair of virtuosos at pacification: Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi seized power in a military coup that climaxed ‘in one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history,’ while Israel had invested the previous two years in comprehensively stabilizing Gaza by erasing it. Although emphatic that Gaza must be disarmed ‘us[ing] all necessary measures,’ the resolution was conspicuously mute as to why it must be. The reason for this silence wasn’t hard to find. If Gaza had to be demilitarized because of the 7 October massacre, then the obvious question arose: After committing a genocide that killed incomparably more innocents, didn’t Israel also need to be demilitarized?”
Norman G Finkelstein
They were at least discreet enough to leave out certain things. How can you possibly argue that Israel, excuse me, Hamas has to be demilitarized because of October 7th, 2023, whereas Israel doesn’t have to be demilitarized after October 8th onto the present, 2025?
That doesn’t really make very much logical sense. I mean, I even managed to convince Piers Morgan that if you demilitarize Gaza, then Netanyahu can’t be returned to power. I mean, he understood that basic quid pro quo, though I think it goes well beyond Mr. Netanyahu’s culpability for the genocide. Genocide was unusual because it was not a state project. That’s incorrect.
The genocide in Gaza, I won’t say it’s unprecedented, but the genocide in Gaza was a national project. It was endorsed, embraced, and executed at the grassroots, at the actual physical implementation by the country, was executed, it was a genocide that was executed by a citizen army.
Chris Hedges
Well, and we know from the poll numbers that the vast majority of Israel, half of all Israelis, if I have that right, in one poll said they should all be killed.
Norman G Finkelstein
There have been several polls, let’s just begin with the basic ones. From the beginning right after October 7th, the poll showed that roughly 95% of Jewish Israelis thought that Israel was either using sufficient force or too little force. Only 5% thought Israel was using too much force. That was consistent over the whole two years.
Number two, one poll showed that 47% of Israeli Jews said that Israel should commit genocide in Gaza. The army should commit genocide. They were asked a very specific question: When the army enters a city, should it kill everybody? And 47% of Israeli Jews said yes. Then there was another poll that asked are there any innocents in Gaza? That was across all of Israeli society, about 15, depending on if they count East Jerusalem, 15 to 20 percent of Israelis are non-Jewish. It showed 62 percent said there are no innocents in Gaza.
Bear in mind, one half of Gaza’s population are children. If you factor out non-Israeli Jews, it would come to about 70 to 75% supported that. So this is a national project. And that poses a question, which is, it’s not just about Netanyahu. It’s not even just about the leadership class. It’s about a whole society that’s been effectively Nazified by…
There’s no sane person who would say this gleefully. On the other hand, it would be extremely dishonest to avoid those facts. This was a national undertaking, the destruction of the people of Gaza.
Chris Hedges
And as you point out, a people under occupation are not legally debarred from armed resistance.
Norman G Finkelstein
That’s the consistent finding of all international lawyers. I should bear in mind they reached this conclusion on the basis of UN General Assembly resolutions. When you try to determine what the law is, UN Security Council and UN… I don’t want to get into the technicalities about UN General Assembly because it doesn’t have legislative power, yes that’s all true, but the UN can still, if there’s an overwhelming majority in the General Assembly, it does speak to the broad consensus on whether or not a certain undertaking is legal or illegal.
And there is no aspect of international law that debars people living under occupation from using armed force to free themselves. On the other hand, occupying powers are debarred from using armed force to suppress the mass uprising. They are debarred from doing that.
Chris Hedges
Let’s talk about the political roadmap. So the resolution states that the Board of Peace will cede sovereign power over Gaza only “when the Palestinian Authority has satisfactorily completed its reform program and that after the PA, the Palestinian Authority Reform Program, is faithfully carried out and Gaza redevelopment has advanced, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” Talk about that provision.
Norman G Finkelstein
Well, first of all, I mean every step of the way, not just to laugh, but to guffaw at what’s being said there. First of all, it provides no benchmarks and how do you know whether or not the Palestinian Authority has reformed? Number two, who’s going to judge? We have to reach the august standards of Egypt or the divine standards of Jordan or the incomparable standards of Saudi Arabia? Is that the benchmark?
You just came back from Egypt. I was talking to a friend yesterday from Iran and he has an Egyptian doctor as a friend and he said, my friend, he’s afraid to go back because you get just snatched for no reason, just get snatched off the airplane and you disappear.
Chris Hedges
Yeah, and let’s be clear that the Sisi regime, like the Jordanian regime, are deeply hostile to Hamas. They hate Hamas.
Norman G Finkelstein
They hate Hamas and I don’t think they are the best judges of when the Palestinian Authority has achieved a degree of reform. So that’s number one. Then what are the benchmarks and who’s going to decide when the benchmarks have been met?
Number two, it says it may lead, if the Palestinian Authority reforms, can you just read the wording again? It may lead to a pathway. It may lead to a pathway. So even if it reforms, that doesn’t mean Palestinians will have the right to exercise self-determination. It may. And it doesn’t say it may lead to a state.
Chris Hedges
It says it may finally be in place for a credible pathway. That’s the wording.
Norman G Finkelstein
A credible pathway. And then the pathway to what? Well, to what, that has to be decided in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. So as you can see, the entire record of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly and the International Court Justice calling for two states and the Palestinians’ inalienable right to self-determination and statehood.
All of that has been annulled. All we have now is if the Palestinian Authority reforms it may lead to a credible pathway to, well, to what Israel decides when it negotiates with the Palestinians. It’s, you know, you can laugh. It’s just really sickening.
Chris Hedges
You write,
“In other words, were Palestinians to meet all the—nebulous—demands put on them, they still could not exercise their ‘inalienable right’ to self-determination and statehood even in the distant future until and unless Israel agreed to it.”
And then you say,
“…based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors [?], and the United States, save for a security perimeter presence(emphasis added).”
That, in essence, Israel has, “veto power over both the exercise of Palestinian self-determination and any withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, thus ensuring that neither would ever come to pass.”
Norman G Finkelstein
Does anyone believe that the Israeli government is going, not just the government, the polls show that people overwhelmingly oppose the Palestinian state. Does anyone believe they’re going to agree to it now?
Chris Hedges
Right. So I have to ask you why the member states, I mean, Trump is making war on the UN, it’s defunding it. He is no friend of the United Nations. And yet the member states essentially knelt before the Trump administration to pass this farcical supposed peace agreement, abetted it. I just wonder if you have any idea of the motives.
Norman G Finkelstein
The motives, I think, are pretty straightforward. Gaza has no power. There was a time when Gaza had what you might call symbolic power. Namely, the cause of Palestine resonated throughout the Arab world. It somehow embodied, incarnated the aspirations and the sufferings of the people in the Arab Muslim world. But that all has pretty much disappeared.
Not least because the Arab world endured so many catastrophes in the meantime — Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan — that, in many ways, the horrors in Gaza paled beside what was endured elsewhere. And so Gaza was depleted of its symbolic power.
And without any material power and having lost its symbolic power, it’s not surprising that states would put their own “self-interest” first. And second of all, you’re dealing with a mafia thug. Now, I want to be clear that as my late mother used the expression, you’re dealing with a pig without white gloves.
But even with white gloves, you’re still a pig. Now, you might remember, I don’t know if you remember, it’s so long ago now, during what was called the First Gulf War, President George Bush Sr. and his Secretary of State, James Baker, they tried to do everything in conformity with international law. And so they were very proud that they carved together what was called an international coalition.
And they had managed to pass from the time that Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 until when they launched the first Gulf War, I believe it was March 1991, they managed to get past eight UN Security Council resolutions condemning Saddam Hussein. And then came that last resolution.
And the resolution was, even though it didn’t literally say it, it clearly could be read to say that it empowered the US to launch the war. And they wanted a unanimous vote. Because these are sort of what you might call old school. They like the finesse of having a Security Council resolution, one country dissented. Do you remember what country that was?
Chris Hedges
I do not. It was in the Gulf. I went into Kuwait with the Marine Corps and then I was in Basrah with the Shiite rebels until I was taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. So I wasn’t in the States. I don’t remember.
Norman G Finkelstein
It was Yemen, which, bear in mind, Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East. And Baker went over to the Yemeni representative, and you know what he said to him? You can Google it. This is going to be the most expensive vote you have ever had in the United Nations, you ever made in the United Nations.
Why do I bring it up? That’s doing it with subtlety. You could imagine what Trump said to the other countries like Algeria, you can easily imagine him saying, we’re going to increase your tariff by 300%. We’ll bankrupt your country if you don’t vote. Because he’s a criminally deranged megalomaniac and the people around him want to please the criminally deranged megalomaniac, they gotta get no negative votes.
So you can imagine, and the Russians are very straightforward. They said there was a lot of arm twisting. Now you know there’s always arm twisting at the UN, this is the UN, but it must have been of a magnitude pretty high for the Russians to call it, because Russians arm twist also, but it must have been of a kind of really brazen magnitude that the Russians called attention to it.
So I don’t think, as I said when we began the conversation, I don’t really fault them for having signed on. But you had the option of telling the truth. You really did. And they were such cowards. Except for the two powers which have power, you know, Russia and China, they didn’t shy away from speaking in their statements, from speaking to what actually happened.
Chris Hedges
I just want to close by what this means for Gaza. In some ways it’s obvious, but I want you to address it. Israel has seized, what, 56, 58% of Gaza, which is already one of the most populated spots on the planet. It’s blocking any kind of reconstruction aid, as I mentioned in the introduction. As you write, humanitarian aid is at subsistence level at best. No clean water, no medical facilities, people are not living in dwellings. What’s going to happen?
Norman G Finkelstein
I see no grounds for optimism. I see no grounds for optimism. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean we give up. You know people, I think, draw the wrong conclusions from some of the things I say. Things are terrible. I think they’re lost, in my opinion. On the other hand, all history shows us is, however bad it is, it can always be worse.
We can be doing our best just to keep things the same. You know, not Alice in Wonderland, but what was the sequel to Alice in Wonderland? Through the Looking Glass? Was it Through the Looking Glass?
Chris Hedges
Yeah, Through the Looking Glass.
Norman G Finkelstein
Yeah. Where the Queen, I think the Queen of Hearts says, I’m running as fast as I can to stay in place. Well, we’re doing everything we can so it doesn’t get worse.
It can always be worse. Nobody should think that by giving up, you are, because you think it’s hopeless, that it’s not going to have consequences. It has consequences. It definitely has. It could be worse. Israel is a lunatic state. I’ve said that for 10 years. Israel is a lunatic state.
And if they’re left with a completely free hand, they have largely a free hand. If they’re left with a completely free hand, it could get even worse. So I’m pretty hopeless. But there are, look, I’ve always said, because I’m careful about this, I have deference to my parents’ suffering, there’s no silver lining in a genocide.
There’s no silver lining, so I’m not going to look for a silver lining. I’ll just say, in addition, we should pay attention to phenomena like the [Zohran] Mamdaniphenomenon — that was a huge blow to Israel and its supporters. And we have to, in my opinion, as you remember, Che Guevara saying in the 1960s, one, two, three many Vietnams.
Well, right now we need one, two, three many Mamdani’s on the local level, strike while the iron is hot, and try to get elected into office people who are unequivocal on the question of Israel and Gaza and the West Bank, obviously. So that’s something to do. It’s something to do.
One of the things that struck me, I’ll just mention too, because this may seem far afield, but I don’t believe it’s far afield at all. I’ve been reading a lot of Charles Sumner, the great abolitionist, who was really a person of extraordinary intellect and extraordinary character. And a number of things come to mind.
I was reading one of his speeches last night where he says: Everything looked hopeless for the struggle against slavery until, he said, we finally won the battle for free speech. It was a very deep insight for me, coming from reading it in him, because he said there was a period where states had successfully illegalized abolition societies.
So you had lost the right to free speech. But he said, over a decade, we struggled, the abolitionist movement, we struggled. And he said, we won the right to free speech. And for him, this was a turning point. He said, now victory was inevitable. Why was it inevitable? Because, he said, we can match any one of their arguments when it comes to free speech.
Once they have to confront us in the battle for public opinion, we are going to win. That’s why they crushed free speech. And to me, beginning in the spring of 2024, when I met with students and I spoke and I talked to audiences, I kept saying, you have to wrest back that right to free speech.
Because if we win that right, we’re going to win. We’re going to win the battle. They have nothing to stand on anymore. So that to me is another lesson. One of the things we have to do now in addition to 1,2,3 many Mamdani’s, one of the things we have to do is we have to put at the top of the agenda to win back that right to free speech.
What did Mamdani do yesterday, his first act of office? He cancelled the IRHA definition, the International Holocaust Remembrance [Alliance] definition of anti-Semitism, which was just a writ to cancel free speech. That’s what IRHA was. First act, cancel IRHA, annul it. It’s over. You know, that was a good victory because our strongest weapon right now is free speech.
That’s why the Bill Ackmans, the whole crowd of them, the Jewish supremacist billionaires on the Upper East Side, that’s why their objective was to crush on college campuses the right to free speech. Because they know, if you have that free speech, they lose. They lose. So, I thought it was a deep insight by Sumner when he said, it looked hopeless, it looked hopeless, it looked hopeless until, he said, we had won the right to speak.
Because he said from any angle we’re going to win. They have no right to stand on. Another interesting thing to watch him is, in 1850, the U.S. signed into law the Fugitive Slave Law. He didn’t consider it a law because it was illegal under the Constitution, he meaning Sumner. So he refers to it as the Fugitive Slave Act because he thought it was illegal under the Constitution.
In any case, it was interesting to read because he was very eloquent. He was mesmerizing. You know, back in those days, people in Congress, I know you’re going to find it hard to believe, they gave three-hour speeches.
They gave three-hour speeches. You know what? Sumner never looked at notes, memorized everything. It was a very impressive standard. I was humbled. I was humbled. I did not recognize the degree of erudition, the command of language back then in the U.S.
In any case, Sumner was asked once in Congress by one of the southern states, I think it was Virginia, the person from Virginia, he said, will you implement the Fugitive Slave Act? And he replied, is thy servant a dog that he will carry out such an act? And that created a huge hullabaloo. Is thy servant a dog that he will carry out such an act?
Meaning Sumner was advocating he has an oath of office to uphold the Constitution. And was now Sumner saying he was not going to uphold the law? And he gave one of his most famous speeches. And he dwelled on it and dwelled on it and dwelled on it, the Fugitive Slave Act. And you know they called those who enforced the slave hunters, they call them bloodhounds.
Frederick Douglass called them biped bloodhounds. Why do I mention all this? Because in the fugitive slave law, it says states have to give up runaway slaves who have fled to their states. So somebody flees from South Carolina to Virginia and South Carolina to Massachusetts, Massachusetts has to give up the slave. And that fugitive slave law was our ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. It’s our ICE. It’s exactly the same. Biped bloodhounds.
And they summoned the wherewithal, Sumner with grand erudition, going through the Constitution to try to explain why. But at the end of the day, with all due regard for him, a lawyer is a lawyer. They make a case. You can make the same case as he made not to enforce the fugitive slave law. I’m sure you can make the same case to not enforce ICE and not give up these people. He made basically the same arguments.
He said you have a right to a trial by jury. He said a slave has the right to a trial, well then so does an undocumented worker have the right. So there’s a lot that we could still do now. And there’s actually, in my opinion, speaking humbly, because I’m only now reading this. I’m too old to read, what I would love to have read Sumner’s collected works, which run to some 20 volumes. I would really love to have, but I’m not, right now that’s not gonna happen.
There’s a lot to learn from our own history. You know what’s the most important thing to learn? When Sumner was asked, what’s needed now? What do we need now? You know what his answer was? Backbone.
Backbone and more backbone. He said we need three things. Backbone and backbone and more backbone. And that’s the bottom line. Backbone. If we have the backbone and we have the numbers on our side, we can win. I do believe that. I don’t say these things, these are not exhortations to raise the hopes and spirits of the masses. I really believe it. I really believe it.
The biggest challenge now for Mamdani, obviously he needs competence and obviously he needs efficiency. No question, but the most, the biggest challenge is very, in my opinion, it’s the last thing he said in his speech. I wish he had emphasized it more, but it did come at the very end.
He said, this is not the end, this is the beginning. We’ve got to organize. If we organize and organize and organize, and we have backbone and more backbone and more backbones, it could happen. I don’t know how far he can get. You know, these people in power, I won’t be surprised if they blow up a subway tunnel and blame it on him, not serious, buddy, when you got that kind of money, you’re not giving it up. You’re not giving it up.
I don’t know, but if Mr. Mamdani thinks he’s going to seduce them with his smile, that’s not going to happen. And they don’t really fear him. They fear an energized population. They want hopeless, despondent people, for the poor to be hopeless and despondent. So that’s what they fear, that these people are entertaining hope that they may get a piece of the pie.
So with a combination of organize, organize, organize, and backbone, backbone, backbone, we could do things. We could do things. I’m not going to say… maybe I’ll be wrong. And maybe there are ways to undo the horror that was inflicted on Gaza. In this case, I’ll use the cliche, I’ll be glad to be proven wrong.
Chris Hedges
Great. Thanks, Norm. And I want to thank Diego [Ramos], Thomas [Hedges], Max [Jones], Sofia [Menemenlis], and Victor [Padilla], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com.
Good Morning, 👮♂️🤗
On the Prop 36 item, I have questions. They keep saying assessments are being done, but I don’t actually know what they’re assessing. I’d like to see the actual assessment questionnaire.
Also, the claim that the lack of accountability lies with the state feels like blame-shifting. What about accountability here in Mendocino County? There is a long-standing culture of poor follow-through, if you know, you know.
Regardless, there are very few treatment facilities available even if someone does qualify, and many people need dual-diagnosis care, which is especially hard to find. Follow-through is vital, and without it, assessments don’t mean much.
The answer never really changes: if the goal is to reduce crime, we have to provide housing, intervention, treatment, and ongoing support.
And yes, measure B funds should be used to invest ina local dual diagnosis facility.
mm💕
The astronaut’s return went across the western sky early this morning at 12:30.
Quite spectacular ball of fire with glowing tail, lasting about a minute.
Don’t mourn, organize
-Joe Hill
How Ai will “destroy the world” is not necessarily a rogue Ai teaching and training other Ai’s to do evil, though that’s probably already happening in basements around the world as dim vultures prematurely feast on the promise of chaos.
What will destroy the world is the Ai frenzy sweeping it, where governments are welcoming big tech companies to build data centers, often financing them and using up water and electricity, because they don’t want their countries to be left behind. A recent article in the New York Times quoted officials in Mexico and Chile (and now everywhere) saying they have to keep up with the Ai arms race and why? Because others are building for it so we have to also, think those government leaders?
The frenzy of thinking they need Ai, you need Ai, and I need Ai is what will destroy the world as more jobs disappear, there is more unrest among the unemployed as the natural recourses are stressed. (Then in an amusing plot twist the Ai’s will be used against the struggling people to regulate then quickly neutralize any rebellion.)
The frenzy making so much money for investors and building out exponentially is creating a new world order where the wild men of big tech, the would-be titans of Ai battle it out for the title of King Of The World. We don’t need it but it’s coming, it’s here…
As seen on European social media…
‘Depressed, but well dressed’
“Be depressed, but well dressed”
When I was a kid, growing up in Calaveras County, and stuffed to the brim with Southern Baptist hokum, I often thought I would live to see the “second coming”. Looks like maybe I will, but it doesn’t look like anything like what was described in their holy book. Just another monkey species becoming extinct, or in this case, extincting itself. Guess the AI bots will be the last go, as the last electricity generators peter out. Good riddance to both “creations”!
Dear Readers,
My first paragraph didn’t make the editorial cut this morning:
“Fifty-one years later I can still remember the cold shock, standing in that early December-dark supermarket parking lot when the enraged force of his fist met my trembling cold lips and my recoil was so explosive that I found my self 7 miles away across the San Mateo Bridge before I had a single thought. Which was, of course, what do I do now?”
The fabric of our society is in tatters and shreds. Maybe not here, maybe not obviously, but close enough in Portland, Minneapolis, DC and LA. Men in suits, it seems, acting out their god-given right to “dominate”? Must be some rush, that fire-breathing convulsion that ejaculates death and destruction and then congratulates itself. The question is always, what do we do now?
Sorry about that! Now fixed.
Most moving account I’ve read on violence against a woman.
Taking a break from the rampaging Orange Plague, I watched two Netflix docs I can safely recommend. to AVA readers, the most sophisticated and knowledgeable people between here and Covelo. (1) ‘1994’ is about that pivotal year in Mexican history. Kinda slow unless you’re interested in the subject, and if you’re not you should be given the givens of recent Gringolandia history .(2) ‘The Last Czars.’ As a fervid outback book reader and youthful commie, I thought I knew a lot about Russian history, but having had no interest in Russia’s last monarchy I skipped that crucial part. Turns out, I didn’t know the half of it, and certainly had no idea that the Czar, and especially the Czarina, had been taken over by a charismatic, perpetually priapic monk called Rasputin. The evidence is, at least by this fascinating film, this Mad Monk was running the whole Russian show as the Czar’s curtain came down. Of course both the Czar and his drug-addicted wife were oblivious to the Revolution rising everywhere beyond the palace gates. As we know, the Bolsheviks simply moved into the power vacuum left by the fleeing monarch, whose entire family was soon murdered, probably on Lenin’s direct order, in the basement of a dacha where they’d been held prisoner as they tried to get out of the country.
“The Anatomy Lesson” hits an unwitting funny bone: As part of their early 2000s new marketing plan for Lake County, the Supervisors came up with a rating system for visitor accommodations, using as its “metric” a number of pears, a la the Michelin scale. Before the wine industry succeeded pears as the county’s premier agricultural product, parochial volunteers who had rarely experienced an international destination with true lux, visited the cozy shoreline cottages, rural beds and breakfasts, and meditative architectures of unique religious retreats, with their plebeian checklists and indelible markers (this was well before portable computers disguised as telephones, and “apps”) to calculate the guest facility’s “Pear Rating,” which was often eased upward with the complementary flight of local wines.
The nauseating illumination, the pure anonymity of the inspectors, and the rotting corpse on display echo the sad last meeting of the Board that abandoned the program, to the chagrin of the “chamber” of “commerce,” everyone looking askance at the ceiling tiles.
An inspired observation. Thank you, Betsy Cawn, for sharing it.
This post is belated, was away on a short trip. Thank you, dear Betsy Cawn, for speaking out.
Free idea for a Hank Williams song: “She Said ‘Honey, Don’t’ in Honeydew”
Betsy is my besty
though we’ve never met
She seems more serious
than anybody yet.
The roots of those Bartlett pear trees around Kelseyville must have been picking up some unusual trace elements in the soil. They had a unique taste… What a shame to lose them!
Me too you, Fred. Solidaridaj.