Warm | Crystal Cater | Ramón Billy Jr | Unhomed People | Home Games | DA Dinners | Antle Retirement | Fungal Clouds | ICE Horizon | Mixed Picture | Bari Podcast | Ed Note | Voice Recital | Farming Workshop | Local Events | James O’Donnell | Yesterday's Catch | No Smelt | Kennedy Quackery | Human Be-In | Retirement Plan | Remember Renee | NFL Playoffs | Cast Iron | Common Adjectives | Solitude | Blues Ride | Immigrant Detainees | On Fire | Younger Self | The Shooting | Disguise | Mass Resistance | Shucking Corn | Ordinary Americans | Pointless Argument | Moral People | Lead Stories | Staggering Cowardliness | Lindsey Heartbroken | Annexing Greenland | No Longer | Gaza Flotillas | White Horse
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): 41F under clear skies this Friday morning on the coast. The offshore flow I mentioned yesterday has pushed the fog south of us for now. Mentions of fog remain in the forecast for next week as does a hint of showers on Thursday from 1 forecast I checked, we'll see ?
CRYSTAL JANELLE CARTER
Crystal Janelle Cater was a beloved wife, mother, daughter, sister, nurse, teacher, friend to all, and a resident of more than thirty different places. She passed away on January 2, 2026, at the age of 39, after an eight-year battle with stage IV triple-negative metastatic breast cancer. She fought bravely and faithfully and passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by her family, who prayed and sang her into heaven.
Janelle is survived by her parents, Steve and Crystal Sconce; her husband, Jeffery Cater; her daughter, Katrin Cater; and her siblings: Heather, Nathanael, Andrew, Luke, Breeanna, Laura, Jedidiah, Hannah, and Meredith.
Janelle was born on March 10, 1986, in Hemet, California, to Steve and Crystal Sconce. She spent many of her adolescent years with her family on the mission field in Papua New Guinea. She was a secondary mother to all her younger siblings and was her mother’s right hand girl. On June 14, 2008, Janelle married her beloved Jeffery Cater. They met at Frontier School of the Bible in La Grange, Wyoming. They traveled the world together for their first years of marriage and then enrolled in nursing school. She graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in nursing and became a registered nurse. She truly loved her career, worked at many hospitals, and later became a nurse instructor, pouring her compassion and knowledge into others. For 18 years, Janelle was the center of her husband’s world. On October 10, 2016, they welcomed their beautiful daughter, Katrin, who quickly became the greatest joy of Janelle’s life, second only to her Savior. She was a selfless and devoted wife, and the best mommy, a hero to her daughter, Katrin, who truly loves everything her mother does. Janelle lived with courage, generosity, laughter, and an unwavering love for her family and for Christ. She was the most effervescent, vibrant, kind, caring, bubbly woman in the room and she always had a mischievous gleam in her eyes for the next special moment or adventure. She had a profound love for nature and sought out beauty in all of creation. From the obvious sunsets and thunderstorms to the barely noticeable cricket in the grass or raindrops on a leaf, she never missed an opportunity to take it all in. She would literally stop and smell every rose and flower in her path!
Her legacy is one of deepest friendship, joy, faith, and selfless love. Above all else, Janelle loved Jesus. Her family takes deep comfort in knowing she is now resting in His arms, free from pain and witnessing wonders far beyond anything this world could offer.
A Celebration of Life will be held at 2 pm on Saturday, January 17th at CrossFit Firefly. 511 S. School St. Ukiah, CA. Her life leaves an incredible legacy that will be joyfully celebrated by all who knew and loved her.
RAMON BILLY, JR. (April 30, 1980 - January 11, 2026)
Ramón Billy Jr was born in Santa Rosa on April 30th, 1980, to his loving parents Pamela Martinez née Billy and Ramón Billy, Sr. Ramon entered into rest at home on January 11th, 2026. Ramón was a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians. He resided on the Hopland Reservation admired for his lifetime. Ramón is preceded in death by his loving parents Pamela Martinez née Billy and Ramón Billy, Sr. his father-in-law Timote Kofutua. He is survived by his wife the love of his life Night Jasmine Boulevard Evailotoha’angana Mumui Billy, his sisters Noshtomin (Lorenzo) Merlin, Nichole Spears, Ursula Spears, Allison Spears, Mia “Mema” (Jr) Boyd, Kristen Rae Williams, Siueli Koula Mumui (Tevita) Palanite, brothers Jason (Vicky) Spears, Miyumeh Denis (Marianne) Billy, Timothy Mumui, Ronson (Losamalia) Kofutua, Malakai (Kelli) Mumuii and his loving mother-in-law Felofiaki Kofutua. Ramón is also survived by numerous cousins, friends and family.
Ramon was a leader of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians. He proudly served four years as a member at large for his Tribe. He was the keeper of knowledge and enjoyed sharing historical events, cultural traditions, beliefs, and family connections. Ramón was the Tribal I Historic Preservation Officer for Hopland Band of Pomo Indians for the past nine years.
Ramón was an intelligent, dogmatic, diplomatic, gentle hearted, and undeviating loyal man. He loved his family whole heartily and was always willing to help others. Ramon enjoyed talking and learning about other cultures and historical events. He was known for his sense of humor and Whittier banter.
Ramon’s major accomplishments were marrying the love of his life, graduating from Mendocino College and receiving his bachelor’s in business at Sonoma State. His true passion was taking time to learn the Hopland, Wappo, Hawaiian, and Tongan language.
Family and friends are welcome to assemble for a Celebration of Life which will be held on the Hopland Reservation at 13101 Nokomis Road, Hopland CA, 95449 on Saturday the 24th of January 2026 at 3:00 p.m. with dinner to follow.
LIFE IN UKIAH
I work at a place where children flood in and out on a daily basis. Lately we have been having issues with unhomed people dumping their trash, cigarette butts, drug paraphernalia and their own feces where our children like to play. What can be done though? Is it still illegal to dump trash? Is it illegal to trespass? Typically when we call the police they come and tell them to move on but cannot pick up the mess. What truly can businesses do?
WHAT ABOUT THE DA’S BROILER DINNERS THAT THE STATE AUDITOR SAID WERE ‘PROHIBITED’?
by Mark Scaramella
Near the end of Wednesday’s Board workshop Fifth District Supervisor Ted Williams asked his colleagues what they were going to do about the District Attorney‘s broiler dinners which the state auditor declared were “prohibited“ because “the District Attorney’s Office made a gift of public funds when it spent $3,600 on an end-of-year gathering and dinner event for its staff and their guests.”
The District Attorney wrote a lengthy rebuttal to the State Auditor saying he had done nothing wrong in using Asset Forfeiture funds to pay for those dinners and that the State Auditor was wrong.
Williams: “My read of the state audit told us, Don’t do these broiler dinners again. I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t want to be involved. I don’t think the board should be involved. The District Attorney – he has some arguments. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong. But that should be between the District Attorney and the State. I’m concerned that some of what they told us not to do, if it happens again after they told us, am I responsible? Is the board responsible for not setting policy?”
CEO Darcie Antle: “As you know, we have a new County Counsel. She is not up to full speed on that. Our prior Counsel said that said that we should bring something back at a different date.”
Williams: “Is it safe to assume that until we come up with a policy or we figure out what’s allowable that such activities are paused?”
Antle: “They should be paused, yes.”
Williams: “I am asking out of paranoia that someone will show up at one of these meetings and say, Hey this just happened and we are responsible. Until we figure it out I think that such transactions should be paused.”
Antle: “Yes. Those meetings typically happen towards the end of February. So hopefully we can have a discussion on February 3.”
Williams: “Anything that the state audit highlighted as violating best practices, we should pause until we decide how to be compliant. Some department heads may have arguments that they disagree with the report and I don’t know where that goes. But I think we should all agree to pause where we have been told, Don’t do this, or it’s a red flag the way you are operating. We should take note to halt such activities until Counsel can review and guide us.”
Supervisor John Haschak: “On the flipside, if, like the executive office is working toward compliance from those issues that were identified in the state audit they can continue on.”
According to the State Auditor, “[the District Attorney’s office] also stated that the CEO preapproved this expenditure, although we saw no independent evidence of that approval.” So whether that was true or not, the Board could simply declare that if the CEO (Carmel Angelo at the time) had “pre-approved” the DA’s “prohibited” expenditure, the Board hereby rescinds that “pre-approval.” The current CEO has not been asked if she too “pre-approved” the DA’s prohibited dinner expenditures. (There were several, not just one.)
The State Auditor was clear: “Determinations about whether an entity’s expenditures serve public purposes must be made by a governing legislative body [i.e., in this case the Supervisors, NOT the CEO]. None of the records we reviewed showed that the State’s Legislature or the county board approved of the expenditure of public funds for the end-of-year gathering. Because of this, we believe that it constitutes a gift of public funds. Such gifts are violations of the California Constitution’s prohibition of gifts of public funds. This use of asset forfeiture funds is another example of why Mendocino must take steps to better control and oversee this funding.”
So, if he was serious, Williams could simply make a motion declaring that the Supervisors do not approve of such expenditures. This in turn would give Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison the clear authority to deny the DA’s next request for a reimbursement check for the Broiler dinners and let the DA either pay for the dinners himself or take other steps. Given that Eyster’s term as DA runs out in a couple of years, he might finally decide to do the right thing and not submit another Broiler dinner bill. But history tells us that the DA can be quite stubborn on petty matters like this, even going so far as trying to engineer the ouster of the Auditor by filing bogus charges against her for rightly questioning his asset forfeiture spending.
MENDOCINO COUNTY CEO DARCIE ANTLE ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT
Acknowledges the county "has a long way to go" on increasing financial transparency
by Elise Cox
Darcie Antle, who has served as Mendocino County’s chief executive officer and assistant CEO through years marked by drought, floods, wildfires, the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent financial strain, announced Tuesday that she will retire at the end of June 2026.
Antle made the announcement Jan. 14 at the conclusion of a two-day Mendocino County Board of Supervisors workshop focused on setting county priorities for 2026, calling her four-year tenure “a wild ride” and one that included challenges few county executives encounter in an entire career.
“I came to the county after 22 years in health care thinking I was going to slow down,” Antle told supervisors. “That didn’t happen.”
Her remarks capped a workshop that spotlighted the need for better fiscal oversight, improved public confidence and the need for clearer, more accessible financial reporting — issues that have persisted throughout Antle’s tenure and remain unresolved as the county plans for the coming years.
Antle cited a range of accomplishments, including securing funding for a behavioral health wing at the county jail, relocating evidence storage to a county-owned facility, purchasing properties during the pandemic for mental health and housing uses, modernizing the county’s long-outdated financial and payroll systems, and creating a centralized grants division to improve oversight of external funding.
She also pointed to efforts to normalize cannabis permitting within planning and building services, renegotiate long-stalled memorandums of understanding with partner agencies, outsource fleet maintenance to private vendors, and expand emergency preparedness through updated mitigation and operations plans.
Several of those initiatives were framed as steps toward improving accountability, including audits by the state auditor and state controller, rescinding outdated policies and expanding internal financial training. Antle acknowledged, however, that the county still faces work ahead on transparency.
“Yes, Supervisor Williams, we’ve got a long way to go on that,” she said.
Concerns about public trust were underscored by a survey released in December by FM3 Research, which found that 52% of respondents held an unfavorable view of Mendocino County government. During the workshop, supervisors also expressed a lack of confidence in the county’s current cost allocation plan — a long-standing methodology for allocating indirect costs tied to central services such as accounting, human resources, information technology and legal support to the departments that use them.
Antle has also come under fire for her handling of a disputed pay transaction involving Mendocino County’s former payroll auditor and Antle’s testimony in a subsequent criminal case. Auditor-Controller/Treasurer Collector Chamise Cubbison was charged and exonerated of felony misappropriation of funds. Cubbison is currently suing the county for backpay after being relieved of her duties for 17 months.
Antle said she plans to spend the next six months supporting department leadership and ensuring continuity as the county prepares for a transition.
“There’s never enough. There’s always more to do,” she said. “But it’s been a joy.”
Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Bernie Norvell thanked Antle for her service following the announcement.
(Mendolocal.news)
IT COULD HAPPEN HERE
Dear Editor:
It is looking like there may be trouble on the horizon in our community with ICE blazing in and compromising the rights of many through imposing force, violence and lack of due process. We could and should be prepared to protest this. This is our life together here on the coast. Most of us deeply value what we have, value the people who make it possible, value our neighbors, value a solid measure of integrity.
This all speaks to motives when it comes to objecting to the tactics and illegalities of ICE and the current stampede to suppression the administration is insisting upon. A president is leading a tribunal of thugs, parolees and lowlifes not fit to determine our values!
Think about how we can fend for ourselves. First and foremost, we can be awake and respond together, as we are the law of We the People. We can represent ourselves if we are left to it. We can object in much greater numbers to do visible meet and greet in opposition (morally and, with some dread, in person). Letters and articles submitted to news outlets and government representatives start from the bottom up. Breaking the spell of ICE invasions begins at home with us coming out of our closets, off our couches and away from all our reading about this.
It would be a good idea to consider being involved. One never knows what could happen next. Do we sit passively and despondently, waiting for gazillions of weird people to roll like tanks over us? $40 billion is going to go a long way in massive suppression. That is where this is headed.
If you are not worried about yourself, do it because you care for your fellow human beings. We are, when all is said and done, in this together. Let’s start acting on that.
Anne Early
Gualala
MENDOCINO COUNTY FACES WORSENING STATEWIDE LIABILITY CLIMATE, BUT LIMITED LOCAL DATA SHOW A MIXED PICTURE
A new law extending the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse is increasing premiums locally and statewide, but local workers comp claims are falling
by Elise Cox
Mendocino County’s risk manager warned supervisors this week that California’s liability environment is deteriorating rapidly, driving up insurance costs for public agencies statewide — but data presented alongside that warning showed the county has so far avoided the worst financial impacts.
“Everything is bad,” said Heather Correll Rose, summarizing trends that include rising lawsuit frequency, escalating jury awards, and a new acceptance of decades old claims of sexual abuse. Insurance markets across California are also shrinking.
Claims filed against public entities statewide have increased 23% over the past decade, Rose said, while so-called “nuclear verdicts” — awards exceeding $10 million — have become increasingly common. Although large claims of $1 million or more represent less than 1% of total filings, they represent roughly 61% of all taxpayer dollars paid out, she said.
Those pressures affect Mendocino County because it shares insurers with cities and counties throughout California, Rose told the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors during a two-day workshop to discuss 2026 priorities.
But while Rose emphasized that statewide conditions are worsening, the limited county-specific data presented by Rose painted a more nuanced picture.
Workers’ compensation premiums for Mendocino County have declined “rather drastically,” she said, attributing the decrease to changes in claims handling and favorable claims development. New workers’ compensation claims so far this fiscal year are at a record low, she said, though she cautioned the year is only at its midpoint.
Liability claims also tend to unfold over long time horizons, Rose said, with cases often taking four to five years to resolve — and some lasting a decade. As a result, annual snapshots can exaggerate volatility, since insurance reimbursements typically arrive only after claims close.
Only about 45% of claims filed in 2023 and 2024 have been resolved, she said, meaning the county is still carrying costs that may later be reimbursed.
Much of the growing risk exposure, Rose said, stems from forces largely outside local control. Those include inflation in medical costs, increased litigation financing by outside investors, expanded liability tied to childhood sexual abuse claims under Assembly Bill 218, and escalating cyber threats targeting public agencies.
Los Angeles County alone has set aside $4 billion to settle AB 218 claims, Rose said — a figure she said reverberates across California’s insurance market. “ If you think that’s not going to impact the insurance market, boy is it,” she said.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the $4 billion settlement of nearly 7,000 claims of “horrific” sexual abuse last spring. The majority of the claims are alleged to have taken place at the MacLaren Children's Center and Probation Department facilities in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, with the alleged abuse stretching back to 1959.
AB 218, also known as the California Child Victims Act, dramatically extended the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse cases and expanded the definition to childhood sexual assault. The law extended the filing deadline from age 26 to age 40 and created a five-year “discovery window” allowing plaintiffs to file suit within five years of discovering that a psychological injury suffered in adulthood was caused by childhood sexual assault.
The law also established a three-year “look back” period (Jan 1,2020 — December 31, 2022) for all past survivors to file claims, regardless of age or when the abuse occurred.
Older claims can be particularly difficult for public agencies to defend, Rose said “Folks don’t work here anymore,” she said. “You might have a lack of documentation.”
To reduce future risk exposure, Rose proposed several policy approaches, including expanded use of virtual meetings to to limit exposure to travel-related injuries, updates existing policies and procedures, and closer coordination with neighboring counties and public entities “to make sure we are handling sensitive matters consistently.”
Supervisor Ted Williams questioned whether rising risk costs could eventually outpace county revenue growth and force budget cuts elsewhere. Rose said the trend bears monitoring and that she is working daily with county department to reduce exposure.
“Prevention costs way less than response,” she said.
(Mendolocal.news)
HANK SIMS: This guy Toby Ball made a really good podcast about the Judi Bari bombing and Redwood Summer. Through most of it he wisely focused on interviews with Mike Geniella and Larry Livermore and Mark Scaramella and Andy Caffrey and others, but here's the episode with the most me: https://www.ripcurrentpod.com/all-episodes/episode/265c8872/s2-e11-headwaters
Mark Scaramella notes: Mr. Ball also interviewed KQED Reporter Steve Talbot and his investigator David Helvarg, plus Greg King, and AVA contributor Crawdad Nelson and others. In his last episode Mr. Ball notes that Darryl Cherney and his acolytes refused to talk to him after they heard that Ball was talking to these and others who don’t buy Cherney’s version of events surrounding the bombing of Judy Bari. Then, at the last minute, apparently Cherney changed his mind and agreed to be interviewed in a “bonus episode” scheduled for next week.
Mike Kalantarian: Highly recommend listening to the entire series, as it is well done and informative. A remarkable story with a tantalizing mystery at its core. The complete list of episodes (in reverse order) can be found here: https://www.ripcurrentpod.com/all-episodes
ED NOTE:
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.
A NEW GROUP VOICE RECITAL IN FEBRUARY!
There will be another group voice recital at Preston Hall in Mendocino on February 7 at 2 pm.
We have assembled a group of vocalists, many renowned in our community, to sing opera arias, duets, art songs, and contemporary songs. Several are professional singers who have chosen the Mendocino Coast for their home. The vocalists are Vincent Russo, Matthew Miksak, Marius Constantin, Matthew Evans, Randy Knutson, Evelyn Harris, Cynthia Frank, James Blanton, John Redding, and Barbara Barkovich. They will be accompanied by pianists Robin Knutson and Marie-Claire Dizin (who will also play the accordion) and guitarist John Redding.
There will be no charge, but attendees are encouraged to make a donation to the Mendocino Food Network, which includes The Fort Bragg Food Bank. There will be a collection box at the recital.
FREE FARMING WORKSHOP
On The Ground: Planning for the Future of Farming and Ranching in Anderson Valley
Saturday, February 7, Doors open at 9:30 am. Program runs 10:00am - 1:00 pm, Anderson Valley Grange 669, 9800 CA-128, Boonville, CA 95415
We are excited to invite you to a free, practical workshop for ranchers, vineyard managers, farmers, orchardists, and community members who care about the long-term health of agriculture in Anderson Valley. This workshop focuses on real, on-the-ground solutions that are working now, as well as adaptive practices that will help our farms and ranches remain resilient into the future. We hope you will join us and bring a neighbor. This is a chance to share tools, build connections, and strengthen the future of farming in Anderson Valley. It is free to attend, but please register early so we can plan for you.
Speakers and topics include:
- Local is the Past, Local is the Future
Michael Foley, author of Farming for the Long Haul
A grounded look at strategies for agricultural resilience that have worked in the past and can guide us into the future.
- Adaptive Grazing Technology for Conservation, Profit, and Making it to Soccer Practice
Kyle Farmer, Split Rock Ranch Management
California's Mediterranean ecosystems evolved with fire and herbivory as process drivers. In our modern, fragmented landscape, we now rely on land managers to orchestrate these vital rhythms. Kyle and Grace Farmer are a bit over a year into harnessing a potent new tool, virtual fencing, that is remaking their approach to stewardship.
- Salmon, Sustainable Agriculture, and Farmer Support
Seth Myrick, Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager, and Linda MacElwee, Watershed Coordinator, Mendocino County Resource Conservation District
An update on the state of salmon in the Navarro Watershed, highlighting local land stewardship and sustainable practices that have been leading to a salmonid resurgence in the valley, and a rundown of MCRCD farmer support opportunities.
- Navigating Climate and Regulatory Challenges for Vineyards
Conner Bennett, Director of Certification and Climate Programs, California Land Stewardship Institute
Addressing climate and water related challenges and solutions for farmers in Anderson Valley. This presentation will review the water board's new vineyard permit and how CLSI is working to address it with the Fish Friendly Farming certification, regenerative certification, and carbon credit partnership to help farmers adapt to a changing climate.
- Recovering from Disasters and Staying Economically Strong
Natasha Ricetti, County Executive Director, USDA Farm Service Agency
• Highlighting key USDA Farm Service programs that can help producers recover from disasters, manage risk, and staying economically strong.
- Planning for Your Legacy
Price Sheppy, Conservation Director, Anderson Valley Land Trust
• Agricultural conservation easements are a powerful tool for keeping land in production. This talk will show how easements can support retirement planning, and make intergenerational transitions more achievable so farms and ranches can stay working.
- Affordable Housing for the Valley
Anderson Valley Housing Association
A presentation on what’s underway to expand affordable housing in Anderson Valley for farm workers and the broader community, including efforts to develop a community land trust model.
LOCAL EVENTS
JAMES O’DONNELL
Edited by Averee McNear
In 1886, Elizabeth “Lillie” Williams met John O’Donnell. He came from New York and had been rafting logs with a partner, O.M. Stone, on the Albion River before coming to Mendocino.
John and Lillie were married a few days before Christmas in 1887. Before their son James was born on February 4, 1889 (a hefty 12-pound baby), they moved into a house at the north end of Big River Bridge. It’s not known how long they lived there, but James was quite young when they moved to town. Two more children were born, Elizabeth Rosalind in 1890 (she died when she was 16) and John in 1891. The family lived a while at the Williams House, but uncles John, James, and George were full of high spirits, too boisterous and rough for Lillie’s small children.
James attended the elementary and secondary schools in Mendocino, preparing his lessons at night after his chores were done. “Remember,” he says, “fathers worked a six-day week, often a 12-hour day with a half hour for lunch; children were expected to help with the chores. So, also, were they expected to bring home their earnings if they worked for wages.”
Once James worked making bricks with some of the Mendosas. What he really liked to do was to go to the point and watch boats coming in with cargo for the stores of Eugene Brown, Brown & Gray, and Jarvis & Nichols, among others. He would watch the variety of items lifted to the loading platform on the bluff to be collected and placed on horse drawn wagons for delivery. There might be a job in this busy endeavor that would pay 50 cents to $1 if he were there on the spot.
Sometimes James was given a job helping to load a schooner, which was very hard work and the captains were always urging speed to get the lumber on board. Once, Captain Hammer worked James from 7am until midnight when the ship, the Cacique, sailed. If Lillie was disturbed about James being gone from home until late in the night, she must have been pleased to see the $20 gold piece he brought home. “I spent a lot of time on the old steamers,” he said. “You could leave here at 4 o’clock in the afternoon with a load of lumber and get to San Francisco at 6 or 7 the next morning. Coming back, it was the same thing, leave there about 4 and get to Mendocino with a load of freight.” If the wire cable and sling were not used for unloading, the boom and crane would lift the cargo from a small lighter that had brought the load from the ship to the base of the bluff.
Graduating from Mendocino High School with the class of 1908, James decided to continue his schooling in the city. Although he had saved money for expenses, he gave it to his hard-working mother (by now his father’s eyesight was gone and his mother was taking in boarders), confident that he could make his way. He entered the Oakland Polytechnic Business College and worked for his room and board at the Glendale Inn in Berkeley. One wonders how there was time for fun, but with the house full of university students he made many friends, and they took him to dances and ball games whenever he could spare the time.
Upon completion of the two-year course at Poly, James applied for and got a job with Armour & Company at the Oakland plant. Within three or four years he had learned so much of the operation that he was made Foreman of the packing plant, a well-paying position which he held for almost 20 years.
James and Nora Sheean met in 1916. They were married September 8th, 1917 and lived in San Francisco for two years. Their first son, James, was born there in 1919. Two more children were born in Oakland, Eleanor in 1921 and William in 1925.
Ownership of Armour & Company changed when the Depression came to Oakland. The new owners moved the plant from Oakland, but Jim and Nora didn’t want to leave. Jim opened his own general repair and contracting business in 1931. His business prospered for 10 years, but when World War II shipbuilding began in the Oakland estuary, and there was a need for workers, Jim closed his business and went to work for the Moore Shipyard.
The war ended in 1945, and Nora died in 1946. The children were grown, and Jim thought of Mendocino, and returned in 1947. His old interest in carpentry and building was reactivated and soon he was engaged in the construction field as a building contractor.
—Excerpted from Mendocino Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 2.
(Kelley House Museum)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Thursday, January 15, 2026
MICHAEL BROWN-SEALS, 65, Ukiah. Transient registration, parole violation.
SELENE GONZALEZ, 30, Ukiah. Probation revocation.
MERCEDES HOAGLEN-LOCKART, 28, Covelo. Domestic battery, vandalism, protective order violation resulting in injury, paraphernalia, resisting.
BOBBY JACKSON, 35, Clearlake/Ukiah. Bad check, forgery.
WILLIAM JUSTINO, (age not indicated), Ukiah. DUI causing bodily injury.
ALISA KVASNICKA, 36, Ukiah. Domestic battery.
RONALD MAIN, 50, Laytonville. Annoying or molesting child under 18, probation revocation.
SHEENA MONDRAGON, 32, Covelo. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, cruelty to child-infliction of injury, paraphernalia, resisting.
MICHAEL NEWBOLDS, 50, Ukiah. County parole violation.
JONATHON THOMPSON, 43, Ukiah. DUI-any drug.
BO XU, 47, Laytonville. Domestic abuse.
DANIEL YEOMANS, 55, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, criminal threats, probation violation. (Frequent flyer.)
NO DELTA SMELT FOUND IN FALL MIDWATER TRAWL FOR EIGHTH YEAR IN A ROW
The collapse of the Delta fish and salmon populations has been caused by the export of vast quantities of water to corporate agribusiness interests
by Dan Bacher
For the eighth year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has found zero Delta Smelt in their annual Fall Midwater Trawl survey in the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta in September, October and November of 2025. The results for December haven’t been compiled yet.
The smelt, once the most abundant fish in the entire Delta, is an indicator species found only in the Delta. Its decline to virtual extinction in the wild is a symptom of a larger decline, the Pelagic Organism Decline (POD), of the once robust open water fish populations of the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary.…
TRUMP ROLLS BACK CRITICAL CLEAN WATER AND AIR QUALITY PROTECTIONS AS DELTA ECOSYSTEM COLLAPSES
by Dan Bacher
The Trump Administration on Jan. 13 took action to roll back sections of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act incurring the wrath of environmental justice advocates around the nation.
The proposed rules “fundamentally weaken” Section 401 of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act standards for particulate pollution, according to advocates. These are landmark environmental laws that have been in effect for many decades.…
KENNEDY QUACKERY
Editor:
As a child I received a smallpox vaccination. In 1971 the practice was discontinued because the vaccine had eliminated the disease. We came close to achieving the same with measles and polio, but false association of the MMR vaccine with autism and foreign paranoia toward the polio vaccine has so far prevented this. The new federal guideline to reduce the number of childhood immunizations will unfortunately send the message that immunizations might not be safe, or that they are optional, and it may take away insurance coverage.
Vaccines for children are one of the most effective public health measures ever. I practiced pediatrics for over 50 years, and during that time I witnessed the near elimination of polio, measles, mumps, rubella and meningitis and a reduction in pneumonia and ear infections. Unfortunately, this success has led to complacency because people have not witnessed these diseases.
Some viral vaccines, such as measles and polio, confer lifelong immunity, and that is the rationale for giving these immunizations at the youngest effective age. It is truly sad that all the experts on the immunization advisory board were replaced with anti-vaxxers. Fever children will be immunized and diseases will reemerge.
Dr. Leland Davis
Santa Rosa
ECO-REVOLUTION
Warmest spiritual greetings,
As soon as one more medical insurance membership card arrives, the situation is "totally free in the USA" and beyond. There is now sufficient health coverage for a family of four. Social security will be auto-deposited in two weeks, bringing the bank account to around $6,000. The EBT monthly benefit is $300, and will bump the total in the account to around $600.
I am available on the planet earth. Creative spiritual writing paired with global eco-revolution is the retirement plan. You are welcome to contact me.
Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]
HOW I’LL REMEMBER RENEE
Gonna keep listening
To Brahms’ 4th Symphony and
Stay up on patrol.
— Jim Luther
DEBORAH WHITE: NFL playoffs provide me with the opportunity to speak with strangers. Yesterday a man in a suit was wearing a Steelers hat. I consoled him on the loss of their coach. He said it was time. I asked if he was from the Pittsburgh area. No, just a longtime fan. Two other guys were talking. One was wearing a Chargers hat, and he was from San Diego. The other was rooting for Denver. I like to think they're amused by an old lady who cares and is knowledgeable about the NFL.
BILL KIMBERLIN: This is an antique Ives Cast Iron Walking Horse. Ives was a well known early toy maker long before they started making trains, which is a part of what I collect. This model represents a mail wagon and shows great design/style, worthy of being considered art. These have sold for thousands of dollars, but it is the history they represent that interests me. Seeing these, you are looking at an American era that no longer exists. These toys and models are emblematic of our past and I choose to own some of our history if only for a brief time.
COMMON ADJECTIVES USED TO DESCRIBE HITLER
from adjectiveshub.com
Evil: The evil dictator was responsible for countless deaths.
Tyrannical: His tyrannical rule suppressed all dissent.
Charismatic: Despite his dark intentions, he was a charismatic speaker.
Manipulative: He was a manipulative leader who exploited people’s fears.
Ruthless: The ruthless dictator showed no mercy to his enemies.
Despotic: His regime was despotic and oppressive.
Authoritarian: He established an authoritarian government.
Fanatical: His fanatical beliefs led to horrific consequences.
Infamous: He is an infamous figure in history.
Notorious: He gained notorious recognition for his acts.
Dictatorial: His dictatorial power was absolute.
Aggressive: His aggressive foreign policy led to war.
Hateful: His hateful rhetoric incited violence.
Bigoted: He was a bigoted leader who promoted discrimination.
Delusional: His delusional visions drove his actions.
Paranoid: His paranoid nature led to mistrust and suspicion.
Megalomaniacal: His megalomaniacal ambition knew no bounds.
Brutal: His brutal regime was characterized by violence.
Sadistic: Some historians describe him as having sadistic tendencies.
Totalitarian: He established a totalitarian state.
Destructive: His destructive policies devastated Europe.
Oppressive: His oppressive rule stifled freedom and creativity.
Inhumane: His inhumane treatment of minorities is well-documented.
Monstrous: His actions can only be described as monstrous.
Atrocious: The atrocious crimes committed under his regime are unforgettable.
How many of these apply to Trump?
— Marilyn Davin
I got into bed, opened the bottle, worked the pillow into a hard knot behind my back, took a deep breath, and sat in the dark looking out of the window. It was the first time I had been alone for five days. I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me. I took a drink of wine.
— Charles Bukowski
BLUES GAVE ME A RIDE
I was walkin' down the road
When blues gave me a ride
You know blues tells the truth in a
World that's full of lies
I was raised up in Memphis
Left down on 61
But you'll find me in Clarksdale
Where I have my fun
Now if blues starts for you
Won't you jump on board?
You can forget all your troubles and
Roll on down the road
Well now, baby
Hear that sound
Hear that howlin' wind
You know if blues is life
This whole world is about to end
— Charlie Musselwhite (2022)
JOAN YOST: Please educate yourself about how state, local, and federal law enforcement intersect. “Sanctuary City” does not mean what you think it means. Only federal authorities are responsible for immigration enforcement. At most, local governments can optionally sign detainer contracts with the federal government to identify and house detained immigrants. It is optional. The federal government has no legal means to coerce this. Cities often object to detainer agreements because the federal government does not reimburse them for the costs. States and municipalities are currently having to relocate their own prisoners to house immigrant detainees for whom they are not being paid. This is true in my own very red state.
“I TELL YOU ONE THING, man, when that fire hits your ass, that will sober your ass up quick! I mean, I was standing there on fire and then something said, "Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like fire!" I'm talkin' about fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I did the 100 dash in 4-3. And you know somethin' I found out? When you on fire and runnin' down the street, people will get out of your way.”
— Richard Pryor
I MET MY YOUNGER SELF for coffee today.
I lit the cigarette, he left the table.
I spoke of money, he spoke of dreams.
I showed him my watch,
he showed me his sketch.
I told him how the world works,
he asked me when I stopped believing.
I laughed about bills and deadlines,
he smiled sadly,
as if I had mistaken chains for trophies.
The cigarette burned low,
ash crumbling like promises.
He stood, chair scraping against the floor
"I can’t breathe here,"
he whispered and walked out.
Only when the door chimed shut
did I notice he’d left something behind
the sketch, folded once
edges soft with handling.
I opened it.
A drawing of me,
not as I am,
but as I was
eyes full of horizons,
fingers ink‑stained,
a heart unarmored.
At the bottom,
in hurried graphite,
he’d written:
"Don’t let me become you."
— Selene (2025)
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
The shooting in Minneapolis has generated a great deal of interest, far and wide.
I just got a message from a friend who is currently on a fishing boat in the south Pacific and he heard about the shooting from locals in a drinking establishment after he got into port a few days ago. Apparently it's been the talk of the village. A few hours ago he sent me this unsolicited comment:
"I had independently formulated the view from analysing the footage from multiple angles and cameras that Ross had positioned himself (just) in front of the vehicle as it moved back so that he could shoot the driver as soon as it started to move forwards. He is drawing (but not aiming) his gun as he steps in front of the reversing vehicle. The trajectory of the car is of course towards him as it begins to move but moving forward from a reverse means that the actually velocity of the (accelerating) car is quite low.
At this point he does the classic matador footwork firing down and at an angle through the windscreen. He then completes this classic footwork pivot (I have trained and used this many times with non projectile weapons - technically this is a 'nice' application) and fires twice into the drivers side window as the (now faster) car moves by. He then yells "fucking bitch" at the woman who he has shot and walks down after the car to check the outcome. His team then prevents immediate medical help from a passing doctor ensuring that the victim will bleed out before anyone else gets close to her.
A MINNEAPOLIS TEACHER WANTS THE WHOLE COUNTRY IN THE STREETS CONFRONTING ICE
by Dave Zirin
Thousands of ICE thugs roam the streets, attacking schools, smashing car windows, shooting residents, and “visiting” activists in their homes. Now President Donald Trump is threatening to impose the Insurrection Act, allowing him to deploy troops. Welcome to Minneapolis during the Trump regime.
What is happening in Minneapolis is a fascist shitshow, but there is also mass, grassroots resistance. The oppression is all over the news, but the stories of ordinary people fighting back needs to be circulated as well. Dan Troccoli, a public school teacher at Justice Page Middle School and union activist, says that the battle for Minneapolis is not a one-sided rout by ICE if it was there would not be these threats to impose martial law.).
“Many people around the city have been going around patrolling and keeping an eye on these agents,” he told me. “There are estimates as high as 10,000 people that have been involved in the city in these efforts in the last six weeks. Given the legacy of the uprisings after [the 2020 police murder of] George Floyd, people in the city have been activated for years now. I would argue we were Trump's target for that reason, but it’s not going exactly like they planned, and people need to know that.”
One example of things “not going exactly like they planned” happened at Roosevelt High School. Only hours after the ICE killing of Renee Good, ICE tried to storm the gates of Roosevelt, when a person they were pursuing ran onto school grounds just as students were heading home. Instead of retreating, ICE assaulted and gassed students and educators. But their attack was met. “In our union, in the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, there has been now for about a year and a half, a group of educators calling themselves the Deportation Defense Group,” Trocolli explained. “So at Roosevelt, they were ready, and we had a network of people ready to go on this, and we have been doing training around how to be an observer, how to go on patrol, what are the most risky times for students to be dropped off or picked up, and how can we do mutual aid for families who can't even pick up their kids. So the staff members at Roosevelt were outside of the building ready to ID ICE and physically get in between them and their students.”
But ICE aggressively pushed forward and then struck and sprayed chemical agents on students and staff. After all of that, ICE arrested one educator who was then let go hours after the union’s lawyers were on the scene.
The Minneapolis teachers’ unions (there are two) have been front and center in this fight: opening up their halls for meetings every night, partnering with parent organizations, and holding training sessions.
“This past weekend,” Troccoli recalled, “we had a training at one of our high schools, and there were something like 300 parents and staff mixed together, working together to try and organize in their buildings. At recent meetings of this same network of Unionists in MFE, there have been something like 60 to 70 percent of schools represented. And I would imagine it's much higher now since Renee's murder, with more buildings getting activated, involved, mostly out of fear and concern for their students' safety.”
Troccoli stressed that the union’s leadership and active response to the crisis comes from having a unique union president: Marcia Howard. Howard taught at Roosevelt for 20 years. When George Floyd was murdered, she, still a teacher, “was the coordinator, and hub of George Floyd Square.”
Howard took the entire year off then to do this work, turning George Floyd Square into a kind of autonomous zone, and both teachers’ unions made sure she was paid during this time. This drew her closer to the union. Howard, with grassroots encouragement, ran for union vice president and president. “She's just been a fiery and amazing leader for our union, especially in terms of trying to marry union struggles with other social justice struggles in the city,” Troccoli said.
In the face of this resistance, ICE is upping its oppression. Agents are showing up at the homes of people who follow ICE in their cars even at a safe distance are —no matter their citizenship. Troccoli also said that when these ICE-watchers leave their cars, phones in hand, to document their violence, they have been hit, without warning, with mace, pepper balls, and “non-lethal” bullet rounds.
And yet ICE violence has yielded not compliance and pacification but even more resistance. Troccoli said, “a number of unions in the city are now committing to a day long-strike on January 23.” This call already includes the backings of some of the biggest unions in the city including, according to the PayDay report, The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, CWA Local 7250, and St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28, with more coming. “We're not sure exactly what's going to happen that day yet,” Troccoli said. “But it’s happening.
As far as what people can do Troccoli told me that social-media support definitely keeps spirits up but “in addition to appreciation, we want emulation. We need that out there in the streets in every city”
“If you had asked some of the teachers at Roosevelt about ICE and immigration maybe even just weeks ago, they would have felt differently than they do now,” Troccoli added. “They just got right up in these agents' faces, standing up for their students. And I think the whole city feels this way, and that part of this is electrifying.”
THEY WERE ORDINARY GERMANS. WE ARE ORDINARY AMERICANS.
by Shalom Auslander
One summer day, years ago, I chanced upon the diary of a German soldier from the early 1940s in a flea market in New York City. It was buried among a bunch of other random items — hat blocks, Matchbox cars, an Underwood typewriter. There was so much I might have missed it, but I am Jewish; books adorned with eagles perched on swastikas tend to catch my eye.
It was a small notebook, filled with German writing. Though I don’t speak German, I was able to make out the months — Februar, März, April — and the year. The black-and-white photographs of the soldier’s life, tucked into the yellowing pages, were what interested me most: a photo of the beaming young diarist in his sharp new uniform, a rifle slung over his shoulder; one with his fellow soldiers in a countryside somewhere on what appeared to be a pleasurable weekend furlough of some kind, their field caps tipped back upon their heads; others featured him with what I assumed to be his family — an older couple, perhaps his parents, and a group who might have been siblings, gathered at a festive dinner. There were a number of him posed beside a pretty young woman I assumed to be his wife or girlfriend.
Young love.
To me, what was most notable was what I didn’t find: There were no photos of death camps, or mass graves, or starving prisoners. Instead, there was one of him with his parents in front of their house. Proud.
I shook my head at what I saw as this man’s almost pathological ability to compartmentalize the madness he likely played a role in and the quaint, pastoral life he led at the same time. It reminded me of something I was told as a child.
“How could people do such things?” I often asked, around age 9 or 10.
That’s Germans, I was told by my parents and teachers. They were evil. It was in their blood. The only good German is a dead German, they would say.
Most of my grandparents’ families were murdered in the Holocaust. And so in my upbringing, there were no “ordinary” Germans, to borrow a phrase from the Holocaust historian Christopher Browning. They were all hateful, fascist murderers — fools who could be led by a fearmonger to commit atrocities he claimed were necessary and good. How the Germans came to be this way, no one could say. One thing was certain, though: We, thank goodness, were not like them.
We were Americans.
We weren’t so easily fooled.
We were different.
I recalled that certainty in recent days, reading about the killing of Renee Good. I read about how the Trump administration quickly labeled her a terrorist. About how federal officials blocked the investigation by Minnesota. About how our leaders accused her of trying to ram an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent when the videos of the incident seemed to clearly show otherwise. “Who are you going to believe,” asked Chico Marx, “me or your own eyes?” I suppose, in the eyes of this administration, that makes me a Marxist now.
None of this surprised me. After all, the shooting was just one day after the administration published a propaganda website saying the Jan. 6 insurrection was the fault of the Democrats and the Capitol Police.
I am a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, proudly so, and don’t trust any state, religious or corporate entity. So I knew that a lie told enough becomes the truth, that terror is a government’s method of control, that fear is its greatest motivator.
But that’s the Trump administration, I reassured myself, not the American people.
Americans aren’t so easily fooled.
Americans are different.
Alas, my comfort was short-lived, as I made the mistake, then, of sinking into social media. There I encountered ordinary Americans who believed the Trump administration without question. Ordinary Americans who blamed Ms. Good, who repeated the things they learned from the government, like that she was a paid agitator, a far-left radical who got what she deserved. Ordinary Americans who said the armed agent who killed an apparently unarmed woman was a hero, defending his nation from undesirables. Ordinary Americans who, soon enough, lay the blame for the whole thing on Democrats, antifa, Gov. Tim Walz, Jews, women and gays.
Past or present, it’s not the leaders who disappoint me. It’s the led.
Which brings me back to that flea market find, to that old diary I didn’t buy. I was a young, broke writer at the time. I opted to spend what money I had on the old typewriter.
But I miss those days.
I miss the comfort of believing Germans were different.
I miss believing that we Americans could never be led by a fearmonger to commit atrocities he claimed were necessary and good.
I miss believing we are not like them.
I am forced to wonder, now, if that long-ago German diarist wasn’t evil after all. If he had been led to believe by a terrorizing state that what he was doing was good. That he was defending his nation from undesirables. That he was a hero.
And I wonder if someday, at some distant flea market, a young man will chance upon an old iPhone from 2026, and scrolling through it — through pics of the owner’s friends, vacations, festive dinners — will wonder how this unbothered American went about his normal life as the country was descending into fear-induced psychosis at the hands of an autocrat.
“Thank goodness,” he will comfort himself, “we’re not like them.”
(Shalom Auslander writes the newsletter Fetal Position and is the author of the book “Feh: A Memoir.”)
"THE BUSINESS OF PHILOSOPHY is to teach man to live in uncertainty… not to reassure him, but to upset him. Moral people are the most revengeful of mankind, they employ their morality as the best and most subtle weapon of vengeance."
— Lev Shestov
LEAD STORIES, FRIDAY'S NYT
Trump Threatens to Invoke the Insurrection Act and Send Troops to Minnesota
Calling Trump ‘Authoritarian,’ Judge Seeks to Restrict Student Deportations
U.S. Says It Erred in Deporting Student Traveling for Thanksgiving
Machado Presents Trump With Her Nobel Peace Prize Medal
Despite Trump’s Claims, Grocery Prices Are Rising
A.I. Has Arrived in Gmail. Here’s What to Know.
“THE STAGGERING COWARDLINESS by four ex-Presidents…living lives of luxury and personal pursuits…the feeble Democratic Party leaders…Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo…the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify…the further condemnation of history.”
— Ralph Nader
ENCOURAGING NEWS: LINDSEY GRAHAM LOOKS HEARTBROKEN ABOUT IRAN
People often say Lindsey Graham is gay, but I don’t think that’s true. I don’t know if there’s a word for an orientation where someone is only sexually attracted to mass military violence, but it’s not gay.
by Caitlin Johnstone
You can always tell how murderous the US empire is being from day to day from the expression on warmongering senator Lindsey Graham’s face, and right now he looks like he just found his mother dead in the bathtub.
Earlier this month Graham looked positively giddy while posing with President Trump holding a Make Iran Great Again hat and gushing about how Cuba will be the next Latin American socialist government the US takes out after Venezuela, but in a Fox News clip the South Carolina senator shared on Twitter he looks and sounds like he spent all night crying and punishing his internal organs with intoxicants.
“President Trump’s resolve is not the question,” Graham glumly told reporters on Thursday regarding the possibility of an attack on Iran. “Question is, when we do an operation like this, should it be bigger or smaller? I’m in the camp of bigger. Time will tell. I’m hopeful and optimistic that the regime days are numbered.”
I personally place a lot more hope in Graham’s long face than I do in recent news reports that US airstrikes on Iran now appear unlikely, because the US and Israel have a track record of circulating disinformation about their intentions before attacking. In June Trump falsely announced on social media that he had hope for a diplomatic solution with Iran regarding its nuclear program hours before bombing Iranian nuclear sites, so reports that Israel and Arab states had successfully convinced Trump to hold off on attacking Iran should be considered untrustworthy.
But Lindsey Graham’s heartbroken whimper? I personally find that encouraging. Maybe war with Iran really has been put off for the time being. One less nightmare to have to worry about.
Sometimes I think it would be helpful to publish a daily Graham-o-Meter which shows Lindsey Graham’s face on a scale from dour to ecstatic to illustrate how evil the US empire is being on a given day. When the US launches airstrikes or orchestrates a regime change operation the Graham-o-Meter features a Delighted Lindsey, and when it looks like the empire has been forced to postpone a given power grab it shows a Depressed Lindsey.
People often say Lindsey Graham is gay, but I don’t think that’s true. I don’t know if there’s a word for an orientation where someone is only sexually attracted to mass military violence, but it’s not gay.
Here’s hoping we see a lot more Depressed Lindseys going forward.
(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)
DON’T CRACK YOUR TEETH
by Tom Stevenson
“The US needs Greenland for the purpose of national security,” Donald Trump has said. “Anything less” than “Greenland in the hands of the United States” is “unacceptable.”
The US desire to annex Greenland is traceable to at least 1867 and the ambitions of the Secretary Of State William H. Seward, who negotiated the Alaska purchase that same year.
Though Denmark was occupied by Germany during the Second World War, Greenland remained under the control of a free Danish delegation based in Washington. In April 1941, the US Secretary Of State Cordell Hull and the Danish Ambassador to the US signed a defense treaty for Greenland which led to the first US military bases there. After the war, the US offered to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold bullion but settled for a more capacious security agreement, signed by the US and Denmark in April 1951.
In the 1960s, US Strategic Air Command kept long-range bombers with nuclear weapons continuously circling over Greenland, ready to be diverted towards the Soviet Union. In 1968, a B-52 carrying four nuclear bombs crashed in Thule harbor. Three of the bombs were recovered but one was lost.
The New START Treaty between Russia and the US, which limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and strategic bombers, is set to expire next month. Both countries have replaced much of their Cold War nuclear arsenal with more modern equipment. But Russia’s strategic nuclear doctrine has not changed very much. It has stuck to its long-standing policy of keeping parity with the combined nuclear arsenals of the US, UK and France.
Russia’s nuclear-armed submarine fleet is based at Gadzhiyevo naval base on the Kola Peninsula in Arctic northwest Russia. The Olenya strategic air bases are nearby. The submarines and strategic bombers, however, are mobile. Russia has more than 300 ICBMs, of which around 200 can be transported by road. The remaining hundred or so are mostly in silos in southern Russia, in Saratov Oblast, Irkutsk, Orenburg Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai and out of the way places a couple of hundred kilometers from Moscow.
An ICBM launched from somewhere near Moscow towards the East Coast of the US would fly over Scandinavia and skim the southern tip of Greenland. That is why one of the five US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radars is located at Pituffik Space Base (formerly Thule Air Base). The others are at Fylingdales on the North York Moors, Cape Cod, Beale Air Force Base in Northern California and Clear Space Force Station, Alaska.
In 1979, Commander Finn B. Sørensen of the Royal Danish Navy wrote in the Naval War College Review that “Greenland and the surrounding waters are of great strategic importance to the United States”: “Military strategy in the North Atlantic stresses the importance of eastern Greenland.”
To reach the Atlantic, Russia’s Northern Fleet must pass through the GIUK gap between Greenland, Iceland and the UK (there is a back route between Greenland and Canada’s Ellesmere Island but it is very narrow). During the Cold War, the US Navy operated around Greenland to be ready to keep the Soviet fleet bottled up in the Barents Sea. In 1988, it issued a handbook on operating in Arctic conditions that included advice for seamen on how to take hot drinks without cracking their teeth.
US ocean surveillance ships towing sonar systems still operate in those waters, searching for Russian submarines. Greenland may become more important to both the US and Russian navies as global heating increases the viability of Arctic shipping routes.
What about the island’s mineral wealth? Large iron ore deposits have been confirmed. At Kvanefjeld, Kringlerne, Motzfeldt and a handful of other sites there are confirmed rare earth elements. But at Kvanefjeld, where they are intruded by radioactive thorium and uranium, the Greenland government has prohibited their extraction. The ban has been challenged by an Australian mining company.
The last major study, conducted by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in 2023, reported good potential for niobium, tantalum, molybdenum, titanium and gallium, which is of interest to the Pentagon.
Much of Greenland’s sub-ice terrain remains poorly explored. Mining at any scale would require considerable capital investment. Road transport is often very difficult or impossible. Even stable electricity generation on the scale necessary for large mines is not easy.
Whatever the motivation – fancy cannot be dismissed – Trump has a vision of Greenland as a second Alaska. There are options besides annexation. The head of the US Arctic Research Commission, Thomas Dans, has suggested that a Compact of Free Association, such as the US already has with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau in the Pacific, could be the “first station on a train journey.” Under the 1951 treaty (which was updated in 2004), Trump could greatly increase the number of troops deployed to the Pituffik base.
Germany, France and the UK are frantically trying to head this off, and planning to push for a joint NATO mission in the Arctic modeled on Operation Baltic Sentry (it is said to include a British military contribution). The European Commission is talking of doubling its funding to Greenland in the next EU budget.
Europe does not often have to face the fact of US imperialism without some consoling dishonesty about alliances and partnerships. Now its leaders are scrambling. The Financial Times columnist Edward Luce has argued that in annexing Greenland, the US “would kill NATO in one swoop.” But would it? Trump appears to think Europe’s leaders are cowed enough to accept even this.
(London Review of Books)
THE FLOTILLAS TO GAZA ARE THE WORLD’S CONSCIENCE
The numerous attempts by activists in flotillas, to break the siege on Gaza, are a potent reminder that hope comes through acts of resistance and that we must never accept the status quo.
by Chris Hedges
There will be a new flotilla in April 2026 that will attempt to break the 18-year-old Israeli blockade of Gaza. The mission is expected to be the largest maritime action for Palestine to date, involving more than 3,000 activists from 100 countries on 100 boats, including a medical fleet of 1,000 health care workers to deliver 500 tons of life-saving aid, equipment and medical supplies that Israel has blocked from entering Gaza.
Once again, activists from all over the world will sail toward Gaza in an attempt to end one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet. Once again, their journey will be minutely tracked on social media. Once again, Israeli drones will be sent out in international waters to intercept and attack the boats. Once again, the boats will be boarded by masked, heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Once again, activists will be arrested. Once again, they will be sent to high-security prisons. Once again, they will be physically abused, placed in solitary confinement, insulted, berated, forced to watch Israeli propaganda videos about Oct. 7, or raped by Israeli prison guards. Once again, Palestinians, many of whom wait on the beach in the hope that the latest flotilla will get through, will see they are not alone. And once again, the world will look away, ignoring its legal mandate to intervene to end the genocide, as per Article I of the Genocide Convention.
And yet, despite the almost certain outcome, the flotillas are imperceptibly chipping away at the Israeli stranglehold on Gaza. They are reminding the world of its moral and legal duty to intervene. They are shaming not only Israel, but the Western governments whose complicity sustains the genocide. They are illustrating that we are not powerless. We can act.
“How did you feel when you watched the flotilla?” I asked the Palestine ambassador to Italy, Mona Abuamara, when I joined the Italian dock workers strike in Genoa and national demonstration for Palestine in Rome at the end of November 2025.
“Like a child,” she answered. “You know how when you know the end of a movie but you still want it to be different. I kept thinking, ‘Let it pass. Let it pass.’ As if it could. We knew it wouldn’t. That’s part of the beauty of those people on those boats. They knew they’re not going to be allowed to pass, but they refused to accept the status quo.”
I met Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian activist, and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg early in the morning at the MAAM Museum in Rome, its labyrinth of halls, corridors and rooms filled with street art, including a sign that reads, “Spoiler YOU WILL DIE.” Some 200 migrants from various countries live as squatters in the abandoned slaughterhouse and museum. Artworks, including huge, elaborate murals by some of Italy’s best artists, cover the cement walls of the former meat factory. At the entrance, satirizing the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, in huge letters, is the word “FART.”
“For all the years I’ve been an activist, I have, every day, lost more and more hope — if I even had any — in the institutions and our so-called leaders, corporations, elected officials, banks, whatever it is, to come to our rescue,” Thunberg said. “They are the ones who have put us in this situation. The system is not flawed. It is designed to be destructive. It is designed, in my view, to have unequal power structures. It is designed to keep some people oppressed. It is designed to keep nature as a distant, separate entity that is not a part of us in order to exploit it. In order to oppress people, we have to dehumanize them. The only way out is to reclaim power, which is one of the main reasons why I’m here supporting the striking workers in Italy. This is such a clear, textbook example of what it looks like when people take back power and show where the real power is.”
Ávila organized the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the newly formed Global Sumud Flotilla. He was part of the crew of the Madleen, a boat that departed in June 2025 with, among others, Thunberg and Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament who was beaten in custody by Israeli prison guards.
The Madleen was intercepted by the Israeli navy in international waters and towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Ávila was held in solitary confinement in Ayalon Prison, where he took part in a dry hunger strike until he was deported.
“I’ve been on so many failed attempts I can’t count,” Ávila told me. “I’ve been in boats that were unfortunately bombed. I’ve been in boats that were sabotaged. Boats that were defeated bureaucratically by countries pressured by Israel. We’ve been trying for years to break that horrific siege. Eighteen years. The last two attempts I was with Greta. I made it close to Gaza twice.”
While in prison, he said, Israeli guards kicked him and slammed his head onto the asphalt. They interrogated him for hours in an attempt to extract details about the flotillas while a guard pointed a shotgun at him. They sent snarling guard dogs into his cell. They constantly moved him from one cell to another. They woke him up repeatedly during the night.
“How many countries have you managed to mobilize?” Israeli interrogators asked Ávila.
“Who are the representatives in the countries?” they demanded to know.
“I’m not going to give you any information that would put anybody into a dangerous position,” Ávila answered. “But anything that is public, you can check on our website. We are very transparent.”
“Look, what you make your people go through,” the interrogators sneered. “Look at all the money that you spent, that you wasted. Think of what you could have done with this money?”
“Why are you doing this?” the army interrogators, intelligence agents and Israeli judges invariably asked.
“Because for eight decades you have been committing genocide and ethnic cleansing,” Ávila always answered. “You have structured an apartheid and colonial state. You are ruling this land, not by a religion, but by a racist and supremacist ideology, which is Zionism.”
“What’s their reaction?” I asked Ávila.
“They hate it,” he said.
“Most of the Israeli government wanted us out of there as soon as they could the last time we were held,” Ávila said. “It was a horrible PR situation. But Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security — who manages the Israeli prison system — didn’t want to let us out. He wanted to punish us. He wanted to make a political statement. There was this internal struggle. Eventually they tried to get rid of people.”
“International solidarity has the responsibility to be more useful to the Palestinian cause,” Ávila said. “We need to have a bigger impact. This time, we managed. When we went with the Madleen, we had been trying for the previous five months. We tried three other missions that failed. And to be honest, the world barely knew about them.”
On one of the failed missions, shortly after midnight on May 1, 2025, 20 miles off the coast of Malta, one of the flotilla’s boats — the Conscience, registered under the flag of Palau — was struck by missiles launched from two drones. The missiles appeared to target the ship’s generators. The strikes caused a fire and a breach in the hull. Communication with the ship was lost. It was loaded with humanitarian supplies.
“The European Union didn’t condemn the attack,” Ávila says of the strike. “It was a hard defeat for us. But we knew we had to keep trying. We didn’t have any more big boats. All we had was a small boat for 12 people. It could only carry a symbolic shipment of aid. But that is when the world paid attention. There was a huge mobilization to support us.”
There is always the possibility the Israeli assaults will turn deadly.
In May 2010, the Mavi Marmara, carrying activists and humanitarian aid, was raided by Israeli naval commandos in international waters as it sailed toward Gaza. Nine people — eight Turkish citizens and one with dual Turkish American citizenship — were killed by the Israelis who claimed they were attacked by activists armed with clubs and knives. Another 24 were seriously injured by live ammunition fired by Israeli forces.
“I’m 39 years old and I’ve been dedicated to social struggles as an internationalist for 21 years,” Ávila said. “And Palestine was always part of that. I’ve been to Palestine before. Palestine is the most important cause of our generation. It symbolizes everything — the struggle against exploitation, oppression, destruction of nature. The same system that enables a genocide in Palestine carries out genocides in the Sudan and the Congo. It is the same system that carries out an ecocide in Brazil and against the biomes on this planet. If we can defeat imperialism and Zionism in Palestine, we can defeat it anywhere.”
At 9 p.m. on the night before we spoke, Ávila was in his hotel room when he heard a knock on his door.
“I thought it was Greta bringing me food,” he said. “It was the police. They were not violent. They’ve been worse with me here before. They entered. They searched the room, the closets, everything. They started asking about my plans. They were not very concerned about the strike or the mobilization. They wanted to know about flotillas. They wanted to know about boats. Whenever I’m in Italy, the police and security service, all they keep asking is, ‘Are there boats coming here? Are there boats coming here?’ We don’t have an ongoing mission right now. I guess they understood that. We are on the eve of a big demonstration in Italy, so it’s also a way for them to try to intimidate, to show their presence, because, to be very frank, they know how transparent we are. We always make our missions public. If we had a mission, they would know. They didn’t need to show up in my room in the middle of the night.”
“Whenever we are in the context of anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles, the final victory is not a click of the button,” Ávila continued. “It’s a process. We never know when the system will collapse. When it does, we will not be intercepted. We need to be the ones that keep on coming until Zionism does not exist, then we will be able to pass. Or at least when it’s weak enough and we are able to pass. Then we will understand it’s gone. We need to keep on going until the day when the political cost for them to intercept us is too high for them to pay and they need to stay out of our way.”
I asked him if he has political heroes.
“I come from a Marxist education,” Ávila continued. “We have a lot to benefit from the history of revolutions. Definitely Che Guevara. Rosa Luxemburg. Marx. Engels. We are here in Italy, so Antonio Gramsci. We have a lot of beautiful people in anticolonial struggles. Thomas Sankara. Frantz Fanon. Nelson Mandela. We have people who led nonviolent direct action — beautifully inspiring things. Mahatma Gandhi. Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks. These are many references. These are tools. They save us time. We do not have to make their mistakes. They carried a banner and passed it on. If we do not receive this banner, full of experiences, it’s a complete mistake. We can’t be lazy. We need to study.”
Dock workers in Italy threatened Israel with a total block on trade if they harmed the 462 activists, parliamentarians and lawyers on the 42 vessels attempting to breach Israel’s blockade. When Thunberg learned of this act of solidarity by the dock workers while on the flotilla, she broke down in tears.
Israel intercepted all the boats and arrested every crew member. Most of the activists were held at Ktzi’ot Prison, also known as Ansar III, a high-security detention facility in the Negev Desert used to detain Palestinians, many of whom Israel accuses of involvement in militant or terrorist activities. They were crammed into cells with often a dozen or more people and slept on mattresses on the floor.
I sat at a small table with Thunberg in the former meat factory. We were bundled in our winter jackets.
Thunberg was a special target for Israeli prison guards, who beat her, dragged her by her hair and photographed her wrapped in an Israeli flag in an attempt to humiliate her. She was kept in a cell filled with bedbugs and denied sufficient food and water.
I asked her if the time has come — as the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Roger Hallam has said — to accept greater risks, including long prison terms. Hallam was sentenced to five years in a British prison for his role in organizing the shutting down of the M25 motorway around London.
“The personal costs are different for everyone,” Thunberg said. “For some people, going out on the street with a sign, they risk their lives. I do not. I’m forced to face repression by being slandered in the media and in the worst case, ending up in prison, where I, as a white, Swedish person, do not face the worst. So, we all have to take our personal risks into account in terms of making personal sacrifices, but it is different for everyone. But, I definitely believe we have to step out of our comfort zones and accept sacrifices and recognize all of these countless people who have made priceless sacrifices up to this date. Because if they hadn’t done that, the situation would be far worse.”
“We saw only a glimpse of what Palestinian hostages are facing,” Thunberg added, of her time in an Israeli prison. “There are thousands of Palestinians — hundreds of whom are children — who are stuck in Israeli dungeons where they are most likely being tortured. And we are seeing more and more witnesses telling that reality. Most of us had passport privileges. We had the extreme privilege of media coverage and diplomatic ties, which they do not have.”
“The flotilla was not about us,” Thunberg said. “The flotilla was a political stance as well as a humanitarian mission, but mainly a political stance. It was yet another attempt to break the siege.”
Beatrice Lio is an Italian boat captain who skippered a 41-foot monohull sloop in the flotilla. I met her in Italy. She is raising funds for the next flotilla.
Her boat was intercepted around 120 nautical miles from Gaza an hour before dawn. The full moon had just set. She was surrounded by military boats with flashing lights. One of the Israeli boats rammed her vessel. Heavily armed soldiers, their faces covered, boarded and took control of her boat. They shouted at the nine people aboard to sit down on the deck with their hands raised. They ripped down the Palestinian flag. They ransacked the contents of the boat and destroyed the communications equipment. The activists onboard were transferred to a military boat and taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The boat, like all the boats in the flotilla, was seized.
“We were forced to kneel on the cement and wait to be called,” she said of her arrival in Israel. “We were strip searched. They confiscated all our belongings. They photographed our passports, our fingerprints and our faces. I think I faced a judge. I’m not really sure.”
The activists were blindfolded and handcuffed. They were transported to Ktz’iot Prison in a truck where each person was locked in a tiny, individual metal cage. It was cold, especially with everyone stripped to T-shirts. The drive took three hours. They stayed in Ktz’iot for two days before being transferred to the Hadarim Detention Center, located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They were incarcerated there for five days. Some were placed in isolation cells.
“Those were the people treated most badly,” Lio said of those put in isolation. “I wasn’t one of them. Those in isolation were tortured. They were beaten with sticks. Guards would sit on their faces until their eyes turned blue. They were handcuffed so tight their skin would bleed. They denied menstrual pads to menstruating women and pills to those on medication.”
“They shouted that we were criminals,” she said. “They did not acknowledge they had kidnapped us. They said, ‘You want to come to Israel and destroy my country! You deserve this!’ They talked constantly about Oct. 7. They made us watch propaganda videos about Oct. 7.”
She and other detained activists frequently heard screaming. They assumed these were Palestinians being interrogated and tortured. They were woken up every hour or every hour and a half during the night.
“They’d bang on the door,” Lio said. “They’d play loud music. They’d flash a light in your face. They’d force you to get up and say your name. I’m a small size. They gave me extra large clothes, so it wouldn’t be easy for me to walk.”
“They looked at us as humans, criminals, but human,” she said. “But when they spoke about Palestinians, they didn’t consider them as human beings. They would say, ‘I’ve killed so many in Gaza!’ They said this with happiness and pride. There was a huge picture in the prison of Gaza destroyed. It was written next to it, ‘The new Gaza.’ They bragged about it, as if it was the most beautiful picture, and it was literally soil and rubble.”
Several of the activists went on hunger strike.
“The most heartbreaking thing was to be so close to Palestinians and at the same time not able to stop, for a second, the violence,” Lio said.
No nation, with the exception of Yemen, has made any effort to physically halt the genocide. The United States and European nations have supplied Israel with billions in weapons – the U.S. alone has provided $ 21.7 billion to Israel since Oct. 7 – to sustain the mass slaughter. These nations have criminalized those, such as members of Palestine Action, several of whom are in perilous physical conditions from a prolonged hunger strike in prison, who protest the genocide. They have shut down free speech in the media and on college campuses. They will support Israel until the final phase of the genocide – the mass deportation of the Palestinians from Gaza – is complete. It is up to us to act. If we fail, there will be no rule of law. Genocide will become another tool in the arsenal of industrial nations and the Palestinians, once again, will be betrayed.
The flotillas not only keep alive resistance, they keep alive hope.
(chrishedges.substack.com)
The Mendocino County Board Of Supervisors has 5 months to find a new CEO. My suggestion is to consider an accomplished city manager from out of the county.
Call me crazy, George, but I think the next County Executive Officer should have experience working for a California county.
A professional manager is important. I say city manager because the role of a county CEO is similar to the role of a city manager. The city manager runs the operation, the city council makes policy and provides oversight. A county with a CEO should be doing the same thing. In a county there are other elected county officers that a CEO needs to deal with that a city manager is free of. A good manager should be able to handle that. In Mendocino County, for as long as I have been paying attention, the Board has had a tendency to fail to appreciate their role and dysfunction is the long running result.
I agree that someone from outside the county with the requisite qualifications would be ideal. But, one doesn’t have to be Nostradamus to predict that someone who is already part of the problem will be promoted into the role.
If the County is looking for a new CEO, they have no farther to look than to Anne Molgaard, ESQ. She is an attorney-at-law, and is currently running the law library and assistance program at the courthouse. She has extensive experience running County departments, (Child Support, Health and Human Services, Public Health and maybe others I don’t know about), and she knows what the problems are. She’s tough, fair-minded and smart and we’d be lucky to have her. She probably won’t do it though.
I strongly suggest the County find someone who is an attorney, has degrees in finance and public administration, and has experience running County governments. We need experienced leadership, someone who will address the sloppy financial practices, endless excuses, bad management, staff turnover, loss of institutional knowledge, and poor morale among our valuable employees. We don’t need more amateur hour or learning on the job, it’s serious business that affects everyone in our community.
Just my two cents as a former employee and SEIU 1021 President.
She probably won’t do it though.
If she is good, and she won’t do it, it’s not because of staff, it’s because of who is hiring her.
Mendocino County staff no longer file workman’s comp claims because they know they will not received adequate care. Nobody is the system cares about the patient from the County on up. The system is broken and anyone who has been through it would rather use their own insurance and say that they were not hurt at work. It’s the environment the County and its insurers created.
It’s the environment the County and its insurers created.
Insurers, and plaintiff attorneys go hand in hand.
“So, if he was serious, Williams could simply make a motion declaring that the Supervisors do not approve of such expenditures”
Agenda didn’t allow for action:
“No formal action will be taken by the Board of Supervisors. Any action items will be added to an agenda for a future meeting of the Board of Supervisors.”
Hah! All kinda ways to amend an agenda, esp one as fuzzy as yours. Do you intend to add it?
Prior to developing a new policy, how about using the existing one? https://www.mendocinocounty.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/63534/638460251280770000
LIFE IN UKIAH
To the business:
It’s called JOB SECURITY… you have it, therefore take pride in getting out there early everyday, and cleaning up. Interact with the people, if you can.