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DRY WEATHER continues through at least Friday. Unseasonably warm afternoons and chilly mornings are likely through Thursday. Rain and high elevation snow likely returns this weekend. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 41F under clear skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. More of the same until some rain arrives Sunday. Scattered showers next week, hard to tell how much just yet ?
THE BELL GOES DING, DING, DING
On Monday, February 2, 2026, at approximately 7:28 p.m., officers from the Ukiah Police Department (UPD) were dispatched to the 500 block of North State Street regarding a report of a male subject in possession of a large knife who was yelling and acting erratically. The subject was reported to be shirtless.
Upon arrival, UPD officers contacted the male subject, later identified as Robert Wayne Bell, 43, of Willits, who was making sporadic and incoherent statements. With the assistance of Redwood Community Services (RCS), officers attempted for over an hour to negotiate with Bell in an effort to have him drop the knife and accept assistance.
While attempting to de-escalate and gain compliance from Bell, he actively cut himself and exposed his genitals to officers. It was apparent that Bell was under the influence of a controlled substance and not comprehending any negotiations or attempts to talk. Throughout the encounter Bell made multiple aggressive and threatening hand movements with the knife, pointed the knife at officers, and swung it through the air.
After an extended period of trying to reason with Bell, he stepped down from an MTA bus stop bench, while holding the knife in his right hand and began walking across the street directly toward a Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) Sergeant in an aggressive, fighting stance. Due to Bell’s agitated state, aggressive behavior, and continued possession of the knife, officers deployed less-lethal devices; however, these measures were initially ineffective.
Bell then fled northbound toward a multi-residential facility, where a brief standoff occurred at the entrance to the complex. Bell subsequently ran back to the east side of North State Street and into the parking lot of 605 North State Street, resulting in a second standoff. During this encounter, Tasers were again deployed and found to be effective. Bell was taken into custody without further incident and transported to Adventist Health Ukiah Valley for medical evaluation and treatment.
During the arrest one officer sustained a minor laceration which required medical treatment. The officer was later cleared and returned to duty.
Bell was charged with: Assault with a Deadly Weapon; Other than a Firearm, Brandish a Deadly Weapon; Other than a Firearm; Resist/Delay a Peace Officer by Use of force, Violation of formal Probation.
The Ukiah Police Department commends the coordination and response efforts of our allied agencies, including MCSO, CHP, UVFA, and RCS, which led to the safe resolution of this dangerous incident.
LOCAL EVENTS (this weekend)
MENDOCINO SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS REPORTED STANDISH HICKEY ASSAULT WAS FAMILY DISPUTE
by Kym Kemp
Initial scanner traffic Monday evening suggested a teenage male had been injured in an assault near Standish Hickey State Recreation Area, with reports around 8:25 p.m. describing a bloodied male emerging from the roadside near Highway 101.
However, information provided Tuesday by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office differs in several key respects and clarifies what happened.
According to Captain Quincy Cromer, sheriff’s deputies were dispatched on February 2 to a residence in the 68000 block of Highway 101 in northern Leggett near the southern part of Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area for a reported assault. Dispatch advised that CHP and medical personnel were already on scene when deputies arrived.
Deputies determined that a physical altercation had occurred between family members. The suspect was identified as a 54-year-old male from Leggett, and the victim as an 18-year-old male, also from Leggett. Medical personnel evaluated the 18-year-old at the scene, but he declined further medical treatment.
Cromer told us, “Sheriff’s Deputies interviewed all involved parties and witnesses to the incident and determined the assault was related to an argument over property between family members. After gathering evidence and photographs related to the altercation, Sheriff’s Deputies will be submitting a report to the Mendocino County District Attorney for possible charges.”
Cromer stated, “There is no known threat to the public or community as this was an isolated incident between subjects who are known and related to each other.”
Earlier scanner reports referenced a 16-year-old who was located near Standish-Hickey state park; authorities say the confirmed incident occurred at a nearby residence and involved an 18-year-old. As with many breaking incidents, initial information gathered over emergency radio traffic differed from details later confirmed by investigators.
(Redheaded Blackbelt/Kymkemp.com)
LAW ENFORCEMENT FROM MENDOCINO COUNTY, WILLITS NAMED IN FEDERAL WRONGFUL DEATH LAWSUIT
by Colin Atagi
Law enforcement officials from Mendocino County and Willits are named in a civil rights lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court this week by the family of a Willits man who died during a confrontation with authorities in June.
Nicholas Bakewell’s family alleges law enforcement held him down and cut off his air after confronting him about 7 p.m. June 5 near Bray and Hearst-Willits roads. They reference a coroner’s investigation that concluded last fall that the 36-year-old died from restraint-associated asphyxiation and a lack of oxygen to the heart.
The family’s attorney, Houman Sayaghi, said in a statement the activity is particularly egregious following George Floyd’s death in 2020. A Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes even as he gasped for breath and Floyd’s death sparked protests across the country.
“Following the death of George Floyd, law enforcement agencies nationwide recognized the dangers of positional asphyxia and updated training accordingly,” Sayaghi said. “This case raises serious questions about whether those safeguards were followed when they mattered most.”
Among other things, the complaint filed Monday, Feb. 2, names wrongful death, negligence, assault and battery and failure to train and provide medical care. It names Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, Willits Police Chief Brian Fay and the deputies and officers who were present on June 5.
Fay did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mendocino County sheriff’s Capt. Quincy Cromer said the office doesn’t comment on pending litigation and referred The Press Democrat to previous news releases issued on the matter, including those identifying Bakewell’s cause of death, naming the involved deputies and linking to body cam footage of the encounter.
The confrontation began when the Sheriff’s Office responded to a California Highway Patrol call about a fight between a hitchhiker, later identified as Bakewell, and the driver who had picked him up. Authorities said Bakewell assaulted the driver, who was hospitalized.
Mendocino County sheriff’s Deputy Jesus Lopez found Bakewell walking in the middle of Hearst-Willits Road. Body camera footage, which The Press Democrat reviewed in July, shows Bakewell raising his fists and lunging toward Lopez before the deputy backs away, draws his Taser and orders the man to get down.
Bakewell instead runs before sheriff’s Sgt. Sam Logan arrives. Footage shows Bakewell going into roadside brush after pepper spray is deployed. When he resisted being handcuffed, Logan fired his Taser twice, sheriff’s officials said.
According to the complaint, Willits officers Damian Angell, John Gale and Donovan Shively helped remove Bakewell from the brush, put him in handcuffs and placed him on his stomach “in a position and a physical manner that prevented (him) from breathing.”
The body cam footage shows Bakewell continuing to resist while pinned. Within 25 seconds of being restrained, officers urged Bakewell to “relax,” “breathe” and “take some breaths.” About half a minute later, they realized he was unresponsive. Deputies administered Narcan and CPR until medics arrived, but Bakewell was pronounced dead.
Footage doesn’t make clear how many men were on top of Bakewell, but the complaint alleges all five had their weight on him and are culpable in his death.
“(They) killed Mr. Bakewell despite the absence of an imminent threat of death or physical injury to themselves or others,” the complaint states.
The Sheriff’s Office disclosed the coroner’s findings in September and added contributing factors to Bakewell’s death included high blood pressure, class III obesity, and intoxication from methamphetamine; a cough suppressant; psilocybin, the hallucinogen found in psychedelic mushrooms; and GHB, a powerful depressant sometimes referred to as a “date-rape drug.”
Findings were referred to the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office for review of potential criminal charges but no decision had been made as of this week. Cromer previously defended the actions of law enforcement and said their use of force was appropriate.
Sayaghi disputes this.
“This case is about accountability and adherence to well-established safety principles,” Sayaghi said in the statement. “When restraint techniques known to impair breathing are used improperly, the consequences can be irreversible.”
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
On-Line Comments:
[1] Please explain how YOU would deal with a large, angry drug addict under investigation for assaulting the public.
[2] I don’t know Mr. Bakewell or anything about the situation beyond what has been reported by Kym Kemp et al, but…the article only mentions that he was suffering from a mental health crisis and says nothing about being an addict, being on drugs, or in the middle of an overdose. Do y’all have personal knowledge of this person’s habits? Not being combative, just asking for clarification.
[3] “Contributing conditions included acute combined drug toxicity involving methamphetamine, psilocin, dextromethorphan, and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), as well as hypertensive cardiomyopathy and obesity.”
[4] He is a drug addict. The officers did everything they could to try and save him. I know this young man and when he was living at his mom’s place a few years back, I had a run in with him. He was all drugged up and was drinking alcohol and yelling stuff you couldn’t understand sitting in the middle of the road near my home on a dangerous curve. I went out there and couldn’t believe what he was doing. I tried so hard to get him out of the road he was fighting me all the way. A car was coming from on top of the hill. It was his mom and she started yelling at me. He been doing drugs for quite some time.
[5] How are the police supposed to arrest a very large violent man on a cocktail of crazy-making drugs exactly?
MAZIE MALONE:
Re; Rest Padd Contract, PHF.
A $1 million contract for a 16 bed Psychiatric Health Facility equates to minimal, essentially bare minimum staffing. That matters, because the role of a PHF is immediate crisis stabilization through containment and medication, not long term care.
What needs to be understood is what happens after that stabilization period ends.
When people are released, there is no built in setup for success. Discharge often means the crisis is considered “resolved,” even though nothing in the person’s actual life has changed.
I have seen this repeatedly through my own son’s hospitalizations, including multiple stays at Restpadd, as well as through jail releases, which function much the same way. In each situation, the focus was on short term stabilization or containment, followed by release, without meaningful transition support.
I pushed for involvement and continuity every time. I asked for family counseling prior to discharge because my son did not understand what had happened to him, and I believed there needed to be shared understanding before he was sent back home with me. That request was refused. I was told that was not something they did.
I also demanded a psychiatric evaluation within the first few days after release. I was told the wait would be a month. A month is too long. In that gap, people decompensate, relapse, or end up right back in crisis.
There is also a financial reality that shapes how these facilities operate. Psychiatric hospital care is typically billed on a per day basis, with reimbursement highest at the beginning of a stay and decreasing over time. As a result, once someone is deemed more stabilized, not necessarily well, there is pressure to discharge them in order to free up a bed for a new admission at a higher reimbursement rate.
This creates a system where turnover is built in. People are moved through quickly, not because their situation has meaningfully changed, but because beds are limited and new crises are always waiting.
These experiences made something very clear to me. Families hold critical information and context, yet are routinely excluded, and when they are excluded, the transition out of crisis care is unstable by design.
And for people who are unhoused, the failure is even more obvious. If someone enters a PHF or jail while homeless, they are typically released still homeless. Stabilization does not come with housing, continuity of care, or a realistic plan for what comes next.
A PHF may be a necessary intervention in moments of acute crisis, but without accountable follow through, it remains a short term containment tool, not a pathway to stability.
DOES THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS appear to have fraud and corruption or is the board just badly mismanaging Medocino County? The Potter Valley Project appears to be highjacked by corrupt politicians and inside players with harm to those who don’t follow their (wrong) lead. The repair funds for our roads were disappeared and all PV residents get are excuses. The PV roads are literally worse than most third world countries. I travel widely internationally and they are really the worst I’ve seen even traveling remotely in India, Mexico and Indonesia. Audits show little fiscal understanding along with inappropriate use of public funds. The residents of PV and Mendocino County deserve better.
— Marilyn Brooks, Potter Valley
JULIE BEARDSLEY:
In the past, Mendocino County Councils contracts often lacked things like a clear objective, a time-frame to get it done, and consequences for non-performance. (I read the OMG contract, as an example). Lacking these makes them pretty hard to enforce if a party defaults. Contracts are not rocket science, but pretty basic stuff, so I assume it was incompetence on the part of the County’s well paid legal beagles? (Charlotte Scott was an exception to this, and her talents were recognized by the Governor in appointing her judge). I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve noticed deficiencies in contracting several times over my years with the county. I would urge the Board of Supervisors to create a policy to review each contract over a chosen monetary threshold.
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE February 2026 Newsletter
PAROLE WAIVED
John Arthur Annibel, a Mendocino County man serving a life sentence at Valley State Prison, voluntarily waived his parole suitability hearing in October 2025, delaying any parole review for roughly one year, according to records from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Annibel, now 68, has been incarcerated since December 22, 1999, following his conviction for the murder of Debra Sloan. Although he became eligible for parole in 2020, he was denied release at a 2021 hearing and has remained in custody. By waiving his October 23, 2025 hearing, Annibel postponed further parole consideration. Prison records now list a tentative parole suitability hearing date of January 2027, though that date is subject to change and could be scheduled earlier.
Under California’s parole system, incarcerated people serving indeterminate life sentences may choose to waive a parole hearing, typically for one year at a time. Such waivers are often strategic. A prisoner may believe they are unlikely to be found suitable for release and opt to wait rather than risk a formal denial, which can result in a longer deferral period. Waiving a hearing can also allow time to complete additional rehabilitative programming, address disciplinary issues, or prepare more fully for a future hearing.
For victims’ families, the impact of a waiver can be complicated. While it delays any possibility of release, it also postpones the emotionally difficult parole hearing process, which often requires families to revisit painful details of violent crimes, prepare statements, and participate in proceedings that can reopen long-standing trauma. Some families experience a waiver as a temporary reprieve; others see it as an extension of uncertainty.
Annibel’s parole proceedings have long drawn public interest in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, not only because of the crime for which he was convicted, but also because of his name’s repeated appearance in discussions of other unsolved deaths. Much of that attention stems from Deadfall, a book by Robert Scott that examines Annibel’s life and explores his possible connection to two unresolved cases: the 1976 murder of 15-year-old Sherry Lynn Smith of Miranda and the 1980 disappearance of Annibel’s live-in girlfriend, Andrea LaDeRoute.
Sherry Smith was found murdered in May 1976 off Eel Rock Road near Miranda after last being seen at a dance in Garberville. Deadfall recounts witness statements, investigative interest, and circumstantial details suggesting Annibel may have been among the last people to see Smith alive. Law enforcement questioned Annibel during the investigation, but no charges were filed, and Smith’s murder remains unsolved.
The book also discusses the disappearance of Andrea LaDeRoute, who lived with Annibel at the time of her disappearance in 1980. Annibel was considered a suspect at the time but was never arrested. LaDeRoute’s remains were discovered in 2002 on property owned by the Pacific Lumber Company, where Annibel had worked for years. Deadfall documents the circumstances and questions surrounding her death but does not present proof, and Annibel has never been charged in that case.
Annibel remains incarcerated at Valley State Prison.
SUSTAINABLY DELICIOUS
Organic Wines by Terra Sávia
by Terry Sites
When I arrived at Terra Sávia Winery in Hopland at 9:00 on a Monday morning, things were already bustling. Pallets of wine and olive oil were moved past the olive mill, through the tasting bar, under the art gallery, and into an adjacent storage area. I noticed a snappy looking vintage Porsche parked inside while a large grandfather clock ticked nearby. As their website states, “There is a lot going on under this roof.” Current owners Jurg Fischer and his wife Yvonne Hall have a great love for everything living including people, animals, and plants, a love that is evident through their interest in organic products, animal sanctuaries, native plants, and local art.
As a reflection of their varied interests, Terra Sávia Winery is just one aspect of a multifaceted operation that includes an active olive oil mill, an animal sanctuary, a native plant nursery, and an art gallery. Their 65 acres are located in the Sanel Valley of Hopland in Mendocino County. The winemaking operation includes two distinct labels: Terra Sávia and Ettore, and all the wines are organic, hand-harvested, and estate grown.
Resident winemaker Sofia Rivier is also the vineyard manager, and she explained how she has been privileged to work side-by-side with the two veteran winemakers who established these labels.
Sofia chatted with me warmly as we headed for the Ettore House further back on the property for a tasting. As we drove, she filled me in on the recent history of the property, which was established by Jim Milone, a winemaker and previous owner of the property with four generations of family history in the area. Jim stayed on for a transition period with Sofia, and she has maintained his “Mendocino style” for the Terra Sávia label wines, incorporating a bold structure, sharp tannins, big mouth feel, and strong aging potential.
Wine has always been a big part of Sofia’s life. Her grandparents emigrated to Argentina from Switzerland to establish vineyards and a winery, one her father continues today. She decided to pursue a winemaking career in 2006, ultimately earning a degree in Agricultural Engineering in Argentina before moving to Switzerland. There she continued her education by adding a B.S. in Viticulture and Enology, followed by a Master of Life Sciences in Enology and Viticulture degree, which she completed in 2017. During her education, she used internships to balance out her academics with “boots on the ground” experience.
Sofia came to Terra Sávia through her acquaintance with Ettore Biraghi, an Italian man she met in Switzerland. Ettore was looking for someone to help with the new wines he was planning to make in California with Jurg and Yvonne. His Ettore wines married old world Italian winemaking to new technology, resulting in lighter, higher in acid, and very fruit-forward wines. Ettore Chardonnay Pure, Ettore Chardonnay Reserve, Ettore Red, and Ettore Cabernet Signature are all organic wines, but Ettore Chardonnay Zero and Ettore Merlot Zero go one step further by allowing only naturally occurring sulfites. A method called “Purovino” controls the hyperoxygenation of grapes, and a CIP (Clean In Place) process on all the equipment with ozone-enriched water eliminates the need for any additional sulfites. For those wishing to avoid sulphites, the “zero” wines are a great pick. Sofia manages the developing Ettore wines day to day, with Ettore visiting from Europe every two months for a check-in.
The Ettore wine catalog states, “One hundred miles north of San Francisco in the timeless California frontier of Mendocino, wine finds a nuanced new expression seen nowhere else in the Golden State. In a vast expanse of wilderness that has for centuries captured the imagination of California’s farmers, environmentalists, winemakers, and mavericks alike, terroir is the key to crafting wines of character and distinction and here. Ettore Biraghi brings its old world Italian wine heritage to the new world in the pursuit of exceptional organic wines.”
Sofia’s grandfather was Swiss, and he originally considered settling in California instead of Argentina when he left Switzerland with his family, so her new life in America feels a little like fulfilling a family dream. She oversees both of the developing wines as well as the grapes produced by the estate vineyards.
Her work comes with a lot of responsibility, but she relishes the challenge. As a modern winemaker, Sofia takes advantage of new technology, utilizing computer analysis to gather and chart data. Yet she relies on the people who walk through the vineyards everyday for their insights and advice because, as she puts it, they “really know the grapes.”
Making wine is no easy pursuit. Making organic wines is even more of a challenge. Yet in addition to making two distinct lines of organic wines, Terra Sávia produces their own olive oil, presses olives for other oil producers, elevates local artists with their tasting room art gallery, pursues sustainability with a variety of measures, and maintains both a native plant nursery and an animal sanctuary. All of these ongoing ventures bring to mind a line from the Broadway show ‘Hamilton’ when Alexander Hamilton declares, “Immigrants—they get the job done!”
Terra Sávia is a business owned, created, and managed almost entirely by immigrants. Jurg is from Switzerland, Yvonne from the Dominican Republic, Sofia from Argentina, and Ettore from Italy. Carlos, the olive oil manager, and Fernando, the “reader of plants,” are both from Mexico, as are many of the rest of the staff. Together they’ve created a company that is multifaceted and dynamic, providing a multitude of benefits for the living people, plants, and creatures involved in and impacted by their work. Which is exactly what Yvonne and Jurg had in mind when they created Terra Sávia in the first place.
Terra Sávia
14200 Mountain House Rd, Hopland
(707) 744-1114 | [email protected]
Tasting Room Hours:
Monday-Saturday 10-5pm, Sundays 11-5
Families welcome. Pet-friendly.
(This article first appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Word of Mouth Magazine. WordOfMouthMendo.com.)
ISHI
He stepped from the shadows of history on a warm August day in 1911—thin, frightened, and utterly alone. Near a slaughterhouse corral outside Oroville, California, a man appeared who seemed to belong to another age. He was soon called “Ishi,” the last known survivor of the Yahi people, whose lives had once been woven into the hills and river valleys of Northern California. His true name was never spoken. In his culture, one did not say their own name aloud, and so he accepted “Ishi,” simply meaning “man,” becoming the final living voice of a language no one else could understand.
Born around 1860, Ishi entered a world already collapsing around him. The California Gold Rush had unleashed violence, disease, and environmental ruin. Mining poisoned streams with mercury, livestock stripped the land bare, and hunger drove the Yahi to raid cattle herds—acts that brought swift and merciless retaliation. In 1865, a massacre at Three Knolls left only about thirty Yahi alive. Branded as vermin, they disappeared into the wilderness, surviving in secrecy by gathering acorns, hunting small game, crafting tools, and speaking a language that would soon have no listeners left.
For nearly fifty years, Ishi lived hidden from the society that had destroyed his people. When his mother died, he became the last. After his capture, he was taken from the Oroville jail by University of California anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and T. T. Waterman, who treated him not as a curiosity, but as a human being carrying an irreplaceable history. At the university museum in San Francisco, Ishi taught what he could—how to flake obsidian into arrowheads, how to build fire, how to sing the old songs. He never revealed his real name, but through quiet patience and dignity, he became a bridge between worlds. When he died of tuberculosis in 1916, he was cremated according to his wishes, with his bow, his beads, and the fragile remnants of a people who vanished with him.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, February 3, 2025
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON, 45, Fort Bragg. Battery, criminal threats, petty theft.
CESAR BARRERA, 42, Covelo. Controlled substance, concentrated cannabis, stolen property, unspecified offense.
NOAH BEARD, 49, Fort Bragg. Suspended license for DUI, faure to appear, probation revocation.
ROBERT BELL, 43, Willits. Assault with deadly weapon not a gun, brandishing, resisting, probation revocation.
SETH COSTA, 23, Ukiah. Attempted car theft, burglary tools, ammo possession by prohibited person.
MICHAEL MARTINEZ, 37, Manchester. Domestic abuse.
U.S. UNDER TRUMP SETS NEW WORLD CRUDE OIL PRODUCTION RECORD AS CLIMATE DISASTERS RAVAGE THE PLANET
by Dan Bacher
As the very wise George Carlin once said so well, “The U.S. is an oil company with an army.”
That has never been truer than this nation under the erratic, authoritarian regime of Donald Trump, who after bombing 8 countries in the first year of his second administration, on January 14, filed a lawsuit against a California law that requires oil companies to drill new wells 3200 feet from homes, schools, hospitals and churches.
Again and again, the Trump administration has promoted the Big Lie that modest laws minimizing the impacts of oil and gas drilling upon people and the environment are somehow “hampering” production when crude oil production in recent years has skyrocketed to record high levels!…
DEBORAH WHITE: When a player shoots from outside the three-point line, announcers say they shot from “downtown.” Shouldn't that be “uptown”? Especially since they talk about players coming “downhill” when they hone in on the hoop. Inquiring minds want to know.
OVER 10,000 CHINOOK SALMON RETURN TO CALIFORNIA RIVER TO SPAWN
by Sam Mauhey-Moore
Over 10,500 Chinook salmon swam from the Pacific Ocean into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to reach their spawning grounds in the Mokelumne River last fall. The salmon’s return helped the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s fish hatchery in the Sierra Nevada foothills reach its yearly goal of collecting and fertilizing 7.5 million salmon eggs, the agency announced last week.
Their numbers “represent a healthy count for natural spawning in the river,” EBMUD wrote.
The Mokelumne River is the primary source of drinking water in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and the river’s salmon population can make up about half of California’s commercial coastal catch. Its flows start in the Sierra Nevada and make their way west through Calaveras, San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties before reaching the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and eventually the Pacific Ocean.
The Mokelumne’s salmon typically spend two to five years maturing in the ocean before return to the river to spawn between September and January. According to EBMUD, this year’s count is on par with the river’s annual average of 11,100 salmon — though it is significantly lower than 2024’s record-setting count of over 35,450. The count in 2023 held the previous record at 28,698.
The river experienced record numbers of returning salmon in 2023 and 2024 partly due to the closure of commercial and recreational salmon fishing along the California coast during those years, according to Michelle Workman, EBMUD’s manager of natural resources. This closure stayed in place during 2025, although limited recreational salmon fishing reopened for the first time since 2022 and may have played a role in reducing numbers of returning salmon, Workman said via email.
Workman added that 2025 saw less rainfall than the previous years, which limited flows from the Camanche Reservoir into the Mokelumne. Additionally, many Mokelumne salmon likely strayed to the American River because the Delta Cross Channel — a diversion channel that moves fresh water from the Sacramento River into the Mokelumne and inner Delta — wasn’t closed last year. The channel is typically closed from December to May in order to protect local fisheries.
“I would characterize the change in fish numbers more as a return to our normal return rates, from two extremely high record years,” Workman said. “The number that returned signifies a stable population, and is plenty of fish to meet our in river spawning and hatchery goals.”
(sfgate.com)
BLACK HISTORY MONTH LESSON PLAN: 1
by Fred Gardner
“EthnoBotany of the Black Americans” by William Ed Grimé is a well-researched, succinct book listing 242 plant species introduced and/or used by Black slaves in the Americas. Among them were okra, peanut, akee, cannabis, African palm, blackeyed peas, certain types of yam, and broad beans.
The uses to which these plants were put, according to a chart summarizing Grimé’s research, were: “Medicinal,” “Food,” “Household,” “Relaxation,” “Traps and Poisons,” “Clothing,” and “Superstitions and Religion.” Cannabis was introduced by slaves and used for medicine and relaxation!
There is some evidence that Brazil was the point of entry. “‘Diamba’ and ‘riamba’ are terms [for cannabis] used by West African negroes,” according to a scholar cited by Grimé, “and the same terms are used in Brazil.”
Another researcher found that cannabis use among slaves “was extremely prevalent in Brazil… It was cultivated chiefly in certain regions in the northern part where it was smoked in special pipes which passed the smoke through water or it was sometimes smoked in the form of a cigarette or cigar.”
“Ethnobotany of the Black Americans” was brought out by Reference Publications in 1979 (237 Pages, $29.95). Grimé’s text was republished in full in Folk Medicine in America Today by John Heinerman, PhD (Kensington Publishing, New York, 1971).
ANOTHER BAY AREA CITY MOVES TO OUTLAW SHORT-TERM RENTALS
by Kasia Pawloska
A Santa Clara County town is on the way to joining Sausalito in prohibiting any kind of short-term rentals and making advertising any such property a punishable crime. At a Jan. 21 Saratoga City Council meeting, council members voted 4-1 to explicitly ban short-term rentals and promotion of the listings on any platform, with fines ranging from $1,500 for a first offense and up to $5,000 for a third violation.
Located at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the city of 30,000 appears to be closely following in Sausalito’s footsteps. In October of last year, the Marin County town passed an ordinance prohibiting any ads for short-term rentals, including Airbnb and Vrbo postings, with fines for each violation matching those proposed by Saratoga.
During the meeting, Saratoga’s community development director, Bryan Swanson, presented findings from the planning commission, noting that penalizing any promotion of the rentals would save staff time and make it easier to enforce the ordinance banning the illegal rentals. The city is looking to work with a third-party company that scours sites for listings to catch violators.
Swanson estimated that penalties could bring in between $60,000 and $80,000 each year, but the net profit for the city could be about half of that. The cost of an annual contract with a third-party company scanning for listings would be between $5,000 and $10,000, Swanson said.
A handful of people spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting in favor of the ordinance, citing safety concerns and quality-of-life issues, including big, loud parties and trash piling up.
One speaker, Anna Asnis, said people attending a party at a short-term rental on her street knocked on her door late at night, mistaking her home for the party house. They also spilled over from the party into surrounding neighbors’ yards, which are unfenced, she said.
Council member Belal Aftab was the only dissenting vote. Aftab cited the city’s aging older people population and rising loneliness. He also called attention to the high cost of living in Saratoga — noting a median home price of $4 million — and said people wouldn’t be buying property in the city for an investment opportunity.
Saratoga is set to waive the final reading and adopt the ordinance at the next City Council meeting, scheduled for Feb. 4.
(Bay Area Business Journal)
FAIR PLAY FOR CATS!
We wanted to alert you to the Governments response to our petition regarding cats hit by cars; Legislate to require drivers to report collisions with cats – Petitions
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/750612
At 10,000 signatures the Government gives their response. At 100,000 it goes to a debate in Parliament.
The Government have now responded since we smashed the 10k mark, proving many people do want to see this law in. Our thoughts on their response is, that they list how they are helping humans on the road, which is great, but there is nothing in the new road strategy that is aimed at animals. Animals have been left out of the plan all together. They say the legislation is focused around working animals, but we would argue that is dated now and point out that the most famous working animal job in the country, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, is actually held by a cat! Also, the Transport Department can not state drivers do not know they have hit a cat without sharing where they get their facts from. We know, through numerous dealings with drivers every day, that people do know they have hit a cat due to 'loud bangs' or 'a thud', as people report, as well as some revealing to us they physically felt the car go over them. For a spokesperson to say drivers do not know they have hit a cat, thankfully, shows they have never hit one or witnessed such an incident.
We would like them to commission YouGov polling to back up statements they give. All the response is for us is simply skirting round the fact that they don't value cats as being worthy of being helped should the worst happen.
230,000 cats are hit by cars annually in the UK, with statistics showing only 25% of hits are fatal. While 1% is too high, of course, what we take from the figures is that a huge 75% of cats could be saved following a road accident should help be given straight away. Cats now must be microchipped by law, and it is only right that cats are awarded help should the worst happen, with owners easily being notified through their microchip so they can pay whatever is needed at the vets they are taken too. Casts deserve better than being left roadside in excruciating pain all alone and scared. We, as an animal loving nation, are better than that and our Government needs to act to stop allowing this to happen. Numerous other animal welfare organisations in Britain also agree with us and have signed our open letter here; Advocating for Feline Road Safety and Better Protections for Cats on Roads https://www.catsmatter.org/single-post/advocating-for-feline-road-safety-and-better-protections-for-cats-on-roads
Best wishes
Carlie, Mandy and Tiya (CatsMatter)
www.catsmatter.org
BATTLE CREEK
A pig in the shape of me goes to the gas station.
Two ninety five is not bad for the Midwest, pressed
under great slabs of sun. Take it all in, what
you know and what you don’t. Don’t get it twisted
I would never in my life be the mayor
of Battle Creek, Michigan. Open your eyes!
You think it’s slick to imagine me so tall, so cool.
Let me out of the barn with sun-rimmed eyes.
In truth, I have no recollection of what it means:
three pink ducks left in the rain, groveling.
I don’t know what you want from me. This gecko
has been trapped in amber for 54 million years! Ask
the hollow of the tree where it came from,
what it saw. I am sweating like my pig because
you won’t tell me anything at all. The Kellogg factory
stands for not even you. We had a box with Tony’s
glossy face and his arm around my shoulder. Scourge!
You’ll let me rot in my own heart.
You want to touch my cheek like I’m
the mayor of Battle Creek, Michigan.
— Kathleen Ma (2025)
RITTENHOUSE & PRETTI…
[1] Was Kyle Rittenhouse demented when he bought an assault rifle and took it to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin where he openly flaunted it and actually shot people? Was he looking for trouble? Was he provoking and harrassing? Do you approve of Trump praising him and inviting him to Mar-a- Lago, or do you have a double standard? Pretti had a legal permit to carry a gun. He did not reach for it a single time. Look at the many videos. Look at all of them. Pretti was murdered by Trump's Brownshirts as he tried to help a woman pushed down to the ground by an ICE agent.
[2] I think Kyle made a mistake being there and it cost him a lot. But your comparison is meaningless.
Rittenhouse did not interfere with lawful police actions.
He did not taunt or spit at people.
He did not vandalize other people's property.
His being there was not wise and I would not have recommended it.
I have no obligation to defend Trump's actions. A number of people in the Trump administration made stupid, inflammatory and false comments before they knew the facts. That was inexcusable for people who deal with the media every day. But you need to take that up with them.
We now know that, without question, Pretti was a violent guy looking for trouble. Like you, he believed that federal agents who have. been given the unenviable task of rounding up millions of people who broke the law to come here, and who jumped ahead of people who were willing to play by the rules were "Brownshirts."
But while it has become a reflex by leftists to toss around terms like "Nazi"and "Brownshirt", those "Nazis" sure were willing to take a lot of shit from that asshole in previous encounters.
I have it on good authority that a proper committed Nazi-Brownshirt would have tuned his mouthy ass up when he smashed the taillight out of one of their Panzer tanks. But they didn't. They didn't even arrest him. And that's too bad for him because had they he might not be dead now.
You may think we have no right to borders. You may think anyone should be able to come here and be treated to a host of social welfare programs. But don't bitch when you get your medical insurance bill because you are paying for millions of people who came here without permission.
If you actually think ICE agents are comparable to Nazi's you have a pretty myopic view of history. Ice agents are showing remarkable restraint. Which is more than I can say for the clowns who run that state and city and are encouraging goobers like Pretti to get killed while they sit in their safe offices hoping they don't get investigated for billions in stolen taxpayer money.
[3] One clip of Pretti of the earlier altercation shows him screaming "fuck you" multiple times at the Fed agents. This was right before he spit at a Fed agent and kicked out their taillight.
It's mind-boggling that this type of behavior is becoming normalized in our society.
[4] To be clear, if I had been on the jury I would have found Rittenhouse innocent. I'm simply pointing out the hypocrisy. Also, I do believe in borders and border enforcement, though not in cruel or inhumane ways.
Pretti was not a violent guy. He was an ICU nurse in a VA hospital with no criminal record. Even if he had done far more than you mention, there is absolutely no justification for shooting him ten times in the back. It was murder.
The most important thing about illegal immigrants is that they came here because of American policies in Latin America. American agribusiness with the help of NAFTA, US supported death squads, and military coups, has destroyed their sustenance farming just so United Fruit Company etc can make big profits. The indigenous people, having no way to support themselves, so migrate. It is a human tragedy. And it is not their fault.
WINTER IN AMERICA
From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims
And to the buffalo who once ruled the plains
Like the vultures circling beneath the dark clouds
Looking for the rain
Looking for the rain
Just like the cities staggered on the coastline
Living in a nation that just can't stand much more
Like the forest buried beneath the highway
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow
And now it's winter
Winter in America
Yes and all of the healers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the people know, the people know
It's winter
Winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
'Cause nobody knows what to say
Save your soul, Lord knows
From Winter in America
The Constitution
A noble piece of paper
With free society
Struggled but it died in vain
And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain
Looks like it's hoping
Hoping for some rain
And I see the robins
Perched in barren treetops
Watching last-ditch racists marching across the floor
But just like the peace sign that vanished in our dreams
Never had a chance to grow
Never had a chance to grow
And now it's winter
It's winter in America
And all of the healers have been killed
Or been betrayed
Yeah, but the people know, people know
It's winter, Lord knows
It's winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your souls
From Winter in America
And now it's winter
Winter in America
And all of the healers done been killed or sent away
Yeah, and the people know, people know
It's winter
Winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows, nobody knows
And ain't nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows what to save
— Gil Scott-Heron (1975)
"THERE IS A LOT OF WRECKAGE in the fast lane these days. Not even the rich feel safe from it, and people are looking for reasons. The smart say they can’t understand it, and the dumb snort cocaine in rich discos and stomp to a feverish beat. Which is heard all over the country, or at least felt. The stomping of the rich is not a noise to be ignored in troubled times. It usually means they are feeling anxious or confused about something, and when the rich feel anxious and confused, they act like wild animals…. Nor shall privacy be breached. The rich have certain rules, and these are two of the big ones: maintain the privacy and the pipeline at all costs—although not necessarily in that order—it depends on the situation, they say; and everything has its price, even women."
— Hunter S. Thompson: A Dog Took My Place, Originally published 1983 in Rolling Stone
ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
The bullshit that qualifies for music today is nothing but mindless synthesized computer beats. The stuff is cheap, lacks all quality and creativity. They can produce it fast, easy and don't have to pay anyone for it and the idiots of the day gobble it up.
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
Renee Good’s Brothers Call on Congress to Rein In Immigration Crackdown
A Winter of Anguish for Minneapolis Children
Congress Targets Housing Crisis as Solutions Elude Trump
Ruptures in China’s Leadership Could Be Due to Paranoia and Power Plays
Catherine O’Hara, Star of ‘Best in Show,’ Honored in Westminster Tribute
JOKE OF THE DAY
What's the difference between a Black man and Batman?
A Black man doesn't need Robin to go out at night.
"THE FILTHY RICH in America were depicted as genuinely filthy, a tribe of wild sots and sodomites run amok on their own private island and crazed all day and all night on cocaine. The very name Palm Beach, long synonymous with old wealth and aristocratic style, was coming to be associated with berserk sleaziness, a place where price tags mean nothing and the rich are always in heat, where pampered animals are openly worshipped in church and naked millionaires gnaw brassieres off the chests of their own daughters in public."
— Hunter S. Thompson on the Roxanne Pulitzer Divorce Trial in Palm Beach: "A Dog Took My Place" 1983 Rolling Stone
A NOTE ON CHOMSKY & EPSTEIN
by Jeffrey St. Clair
I started getting press calls about Chomsky and Epstein yesterday, before I’d looked at the new revelations and saw just how deep the relationship was. (“Why is the press calling the press,” I said, “if I have anything to say, I’ll write it myself,” refusing any comment.)
The latest batch is very ugly and, I think, indefensible. It’s especially disgusting that Noam saw it necessary to shame the victims as hysterics. When it was first revealed that Chomsky had some kind of relationship with Epstein, I was surprised, but not terribly shocked. I assumed he was trying to pick Epstein’s very deep pockets for money for his MIT projects. Hell, Noam had taken money from the Pentagon, DIA and other unsavory sources in the past. There’s no such thing as clean money. But still…
It’s also very hard to understand how he could have maintained such close ties to someone who was a hardcore Zionist and, if not an Israeli agent himself, certainly an asset whom Israeli intelligence used frequently. It’s baffling. A couple of years ago, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and wrote off his dismissal of Epstein’s predatory sexual behavior as similar to Nader’s stubborn refusal to endorse gay rights during the 2000 campaign, when there were several gay marriage/rights initiatives on state ballots, by saying, “I don’t do gonadal politics.” But this is much more appalling and inexplicable.
What was it about Epstein that could cloud Chomsky’s judgment? If it wasn’t the money and wasn’t the opportunity to rape young women? Look at Epstein’s writing: it’s scarcely literate. The sex-trafficker masquerading as a financial genius and consciousness guru was just not that smart and you’d think Noam, of all people, would be immune to intellectual seduction and flattery.
The last time I talked to Noam, was a couple of years ago to beg for a blurb for our book ‘An Orgy of Thieves,’ which he graciously delivered almost immediately. He still seemed to have all of his faculties, which, as we know, are more faculties than almost anyone else on the planet has ever had. So I don’t think you can blame it on dementia–maybe the new wife (always the first reaction when your hero stumbles)? But Valeria apparently only wanted Epstein to put them up in NYC and Noam said, “I fantasize about the Caribbean.” Read that how you will.
The right, of course, is, as Doug Henwood pointed out, scurrilously trying to link this perplexing friendship to Chomsky’s politics, which is absurd. In fact, the relationship is a contradiction of nearly everything Chomsky has stood for over the last 60 years, which is why the revelations have proved so confounding for so many of us. (Chris Knight’s Decoding Chomsky may yet prove a useful source in untangling the motives and dynamics of the relationship.) I’m still a little stunned, mystified and can’t make the moral or intellectual math behind it add up.
(Jeffrey St. Clair is co-editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: [email protected] or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3. CounterPunch.org.)
ORGANIZED OPPOSITION
by Stephanie Burt
Before we left Minnesota in 2007, my family lived two blocks from the grounds of the State Fair in Falcon Heights, a tiny suburb right next to St Paul. The twelve-day event at the end of the summer draws more than two million visitors every year; its attractions include butter sculptures, bean and seed mosaics, arena rock bands, work by local artists, flower competitions and baby farm animals.
The food includes Somali street fries, Jamaican oxtail, Hmong shrimp and pork toast, and birthday cake cookie dough on a stick. An ‘international bazaar’ showcases the crafts of immigrant populations. There are exhibits run by Minnesota’s First Nations and a day devoted to Native life. The Republican Party and the DFL (formed by the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party with the Farmer-Labor Party in 1944) both have booths. I went to the fair every year that we lived there and returned in 2025.
Like Minnesota, the fair looks majority white, though half the residents of St Paul are people of color. Any day at the fair would show several generations together. Here, if anywhere, I thought, ‘every hue, trade, rank’, as Whitman put it, every ‘caste and religion’, ‘work-people, farmers and seamen’, might come together and breathe ‘the common air that bathes the globe’; here, with help from ticket-takers, seasonal employees, maintenance carts and volunteers, ‘the big doors of the country-barn stand open and ready.’
Each year the state fair shows an idealized (or airbrushed) version of Minnesota, with a flat class structure by American standards (not without capitalism, not without misery) and historically welcoming to new Americans (though not without backlash from virulent racists).
Beyond the fair, Minnesota regularly comes top of lists of states for civic engagement. Some locals thank the winter weather, which sometimes means you can’t leave your house until your neighbors have helped shovel the snow. Others thank decades-old institutions of center-left politics, which produced – through compromises and losses – Hubert Humphrey, Paul Wellstone and Kaohly Her, the first Asian American mayor of St Paul, whose city council now comprises seven women and no men. The state has persistent injustice, including the nation’s highest income disparity between white and non-white residents, but it also has a history of helping newcomers to thrive and stay.
In January a horde of masked thugs arrived in the Twin Cities as part of Donald Trump’s Operation Metro Surge to brutalize, kidnap and deport undocumented residents. The goons soon found themselves outnumbered, as well as watched, followed, tracked and sometimes stymied by rapidly organized networks of civilians, who use text chains, plastic whistles, car horns and in one case a trombone to discomfit the would-be kidnappers and warn their potential victims.
‘Kidnapping’ is not hyperbole: ICE took five-year-old Liam Ramos from his driveway and sent him with his father to a detention camp in Texas. ICE and Border Patrol have broken into pensioners’ houses, stormed a high school and gassed bystanders. On 7 January, an ICE agent shot dead Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. On 24 January, federal agents killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, shooting him repeatedly in the back while he was pinned on the ground. Videos of the killing make it hard (though not, alas, impossible) for Americans to believe the Trump administration’s lies about what happened.
In the face of this onslaught, many thousands of people in Minneapolis and St Paul have shown up to protect the vulnerable. Agents trying to grab people on the street have found knots of civilians documenting their actions, as Pretti was doing just before he was killed. With schools cancelled for fear of ICE, and immigrants and people of color afraid to leave their homes, neighbors are helping out with food, and money, and laundry. On 23 January, the people of Minnesota organized, for the first time in America in almost a century, a successful general strike. If you don’t live there you probably shouldn’t go there, but you can support the locals with money.
What we see in Minnesota looks like a reign of terror because it is one; everyone I know there has called the scale of the federal presence, the masked men and their vehicles all over town, not just frightening but unprecedented. It’s anyone’s guess how many weeks or months will go by before the Trump administration ends the so-called surge, and anyone’s guess how many more people die, either on the street or in the camps in Texas. The Customs and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino has left the city, but that looks more like a feint than a retreat. The squaddies remain, and on 31 January a few of them stopped a car and drew their guns on the driver just for following them down a road.
‘Rule by sheer violence,’ Hannah Arendt wrote, ‘comes into play when power is being lost.’ She continued: ‘The effectiveness of terror depends almost entirely on the degree of social atomization, the disappearance of … organized opposition.’ The resistance in the Twin Cities has not pushed ICE and CBP away yet, but it has turned a supposed projection of state power into a floundering tool of homicidal violence. It has also shown what kinds of rot must flourish in Washington in order to keep the goons in Minnesota.
The Minneapolis police chief, Brian O’Hara, has denounced ICE’s behavior and wants them gone. The federal forces behave like a counterinsurgency, going from house to house and block to block among a population that sees them, correctly, as hostile intruders. Counterinsurgency usually ends in one of two ways: either the occupiers reduce the city to rubble, or they give up, issue face-saving statements and go away.
Meridel Le Sueur saw Minnesota as a source of mutual aid and solidarity during and after the Depression. Her book about those ideals, North Star Country (1945), concludes with the State Fair. There, ‘even in war’, she saw ‘exhibits of embroidery, spinning, canning, lacemaking, leatherwork, wood-carving’ that displayed ‘the vitality, craftsmanship and courage of the north country people … always present in the darkest days … arousing also liberty, in which they have never lost hope or belief’. Among the crowds of ‘Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Lithuanians, Italians, Finns’, Norwegians, Czechs and Icelanders, ‘the flood sound of their feet’ became for Le Sueur ‘cheer to the heart and a terror to despots’. Le Sueur’s Minnesota is still there.
(London Review of Books)
CHURCH DISRUPTIONS ARE JUSTIFIED
by Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler
Don Lemon, a high-profile personality, was arrested on orders from US Attorney Pam Bondi, accusing him of violating the Federal Civil Rights of worshippers. Don Lemon, an independent journalist, followed protesters into a church on January 18 to cover the event. The Trump administration, known for its vindictiveness and with no love for the outspoken Lemon, who has expressed outrage over the policies and racism of the administration, felt obliged to make him an example. We have seen these political rogues in the White House wield power in a punitive and targeted way. Arrested also were Trahern Jeen Crews, co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Minnesota, Jamael Lydell Lundy, and Georgia Fort. Each has a high profile in their own right. There were many other protesters and independent journalists who were in the church.
Pam Bondi wrote on X, “At my direction, early this morning, federal agents arrested Don Lemon, in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.” One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, heads the local ICE field office, and given the high tensions and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, coupled with the unrestrained hostilities and overwhelming presence of DHS and other so-called law enforcement agencies, was the reason this particular church was chosen. Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon posted on X that her investigation of Lemon and others has to do with these people “desecrating a house of worship and interfering with Christian worshippers.” The post went on to state, “A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest! It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws!”
This church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative church movement that has its own history of racism, including its support of slavery, its stance against women in ministry, and homophobia. There was immediate outrage that a church’s worship service would be disrupted. Immediately, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention recoiled, stating, “I believe we must be resolute in two areas: encouraging our churches to provide compassionate pastoral care to these (migrant) families and standing firm for the sanctity of our houses of worship,” said Trey Turner. “No cause – political or otherwise – justifies the desecration of a sacred space or the intimidation and trauma inflicted on families gathered peacefully in the house of God,” stated Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board of the convention. He went on to state, “What occurred was not protest; it was lawless harassment.”
I have served in ministries in Chicago and Boston, and for thirty years in DC, and I am perplexed why churches would think they are insulated from criticism from outside once they have made forays into the issues of the world? When churches intentionally enter into vital political discussions or take positions that affect people’s lives, they open themselves to critique and questions from those affected. This invites actions and disruptions that may manifest itself in worship. Disruptions to church services are not new. Civil Rights leader James Forman, in 1969, disrupted services at New York’s Riverside Church to demand $500 million in reparations from white churches. It was the Black Manifesto, an action aimed at forcing institutions to address their historical complicity in slavery. The protest led to increased discussion of religious accountability, with some institutions later adopting anti-poverty and anti-racism awareness initiatives. Also, Stop the Church was a demonstration organized by members of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In December 1989, that group disrupted Mass being led by Cardinal John O’Connor at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested. The main objective of the demonstration was to protest O’Connor’s opposition to the teaching of safe sex in the public school system and his opposition to the distribution of condoms to curb the spread of AIDS. During the Free South Africa Movement, there were several church disruptions to press churches and denominations to divest from South Africa. More recently, worship services were confronted over the genocide in Gaza. Church disruptions are not new, but they bring urgency and concern about evaluating the church’s public policy positions and, at times, point out contradictions within the church and with the pastor.
The conservative church, often referred to as the white evangelical or charismatic church, is one of the places where this right-wing Make America Great Again agenda garnered strength and energy to get elected. It was from the conservative pulpits that pastors presented to their members that it was “God’s will” and that God took a flawed person like King David, known in the scriptures for adultery and murder, and, like King David, God anointed Donald J. Trump, even with all of his flaws. These statements or those of a similar bent were made behind many church doors to parishioners across the country. It was in these circles that people like Charles Kirk gained his notoriety and political influence among young white evangelicals with his brand of ridicule of “woke-ness”, DEI, Black people, and other people of color.
Behind worship doors across the country, right-wing and predominantly white evangelical churches have impacted society in fascist ways. The theology of these churches holds that God establishes leadership. That leadership is appointed by God. But the reality is that divine leadership tends to be the assertion of those in positions to assert that point of view, dress it biblically, and assert it as divine will. Those of us fighting bias and exclusion in the church observe how God loves all the people that people in the church love, and hate all the people that people in the church hate!” That is hardly a divine equation. When Obama left the White House and Trump 1 took office, Paula White-Cain, a religious adviser to Trump, wrote that Jesus had finally returned to the White House. This was a peculiar comment because the Obamas were rooted in the church, and no one knew any church affiliation that Trump could claim.
Now I am not saying that people should indiscriminately target churches, but I am saying that when churches enter the political fray to reshape the world and make politics for all the rest of us, they open themselves up to the consequences of political discussions and critique, whether in worship or not. Also, Pastors and the positions they take theologically to influence the secular world do not insulate them or protect them from criticism or accusations of hypocrisy.
There are pastors doing secular work, and that has been called “tent” ministry. These secular jobs supplement their church income. The pastor in St. Paul was involved in a “tent” ministry. A “tent” ministry should maintain a secular position in addition to a church position. This raises another question of whether that secular job contradicts or complements a person’s overall ministry. In the St. Paul ministry, an important question emerged: the scriptures ask, ‘whether you can serve two masters,’ in this case, ICE and the church. How can the church comfort and advocate for immigrants, which it claims it does, while arresting and deporting them? The protesters were calling out the contradiction.
Pam Bondi and others are interested in protecting their right-wing religious base and, therefore, are not interested in the history of church disruptions and advocacy. Churches are not exempt from the political or theological fray once they enter the public debate. Institutional churches should be held accountable, as should pastors who serve full-time or in ‘tent’ ministries. What happened on January 18 in St. Paul, Minnesota, is not unreasonable or inappropriate. The pastor opened himself to the disruption and criticism. Instead of being outraged, the pastor and others need to comprehend why they drew the anger of protesters who were spotlighting the lack of congruence in serving ICE and claiming to offer comfort to immigrants.
(Graylan Scott Hagler is an advisor with FOR-USA and the founder and president of Faith Strategies USA. Until retiring from his position in 2022, Hagler was Senior Minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. CounterPunch.org.)
DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERS: STILL CORPORATE, COWARDLY & COASTING
by Ralph Nader
“How’s the Democratic Party’s ground game in Pennsylvania?” I asked a friend several weeks before the 2024 presidential election. He replied optimistically that there were far more door knockers this year than in 2022. It turned out these door knockers were just urging a vote for the Democrats without putting forth a compelling agenda attached to candidate commitments on issues that mean something to people where they live, work, and raise their families. There was no Democratic Party “Compact for the American People.” Biden visited Pennsylvania, which went Republican, many times, with his most memorable message being that he grew up in Scranton.
Once again, the vacuous, feeble Democratic Party is relying on the Republicans and the cruel, lawless dictator Trump to beat themselves to gain control of the Senate and the House.
Legendary reporter Seymour Hersh yesterday made the case for the Republicans taking themselves down, to wit: “I have been told by an insider that the internal polling numbers are not good …” and that “Anxiety in the White House that both the House and the Senate might fall to the Democrats is acute. Trump’s poll numbers are sliding …. The public lying of Cabinet members in defense of ICE has not helped the president or the party. Trump hasn’t delivered on the economy, except for the very rich, and he hasn’t made good on early promises to resolve the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine.”
GOP operatives are assuming the Democrats will take back the House by a comfortable number and now think the Senate, where the GOP holds a three-seat majority. There are six seats in play. The GOP’s biggest fear is that their negatives continue to increase, propelled by a pile of unpopular Trumpian actions, ugly behavior, and corruption. The combination of all these things could create a critical mass and produce a landslide comparable to the Reagan-led victory in 1980. In this election, the Republicans defeated seemingly unbeatable Senate veterans like Senator Magnuson, Senator Nelson, and Senator Church, and gave the GOP control of the Senate.
So, what is the Democratic Party doing during this GOP slump? It is Déjà vu all over again. The Dems are furiously raising money from commercial special interests and relying on vacuous television and social media ads. They are not engaging people with enough personal events, and they are not returning calls or reaching out to their historical base – progressive labor and citizen leaders. Most importantly, they are not presenting voters with a COMPACT FOR AMERICAN WORKERS. Such a compact would spark voter excitement and attract significant media coverage.
Their aversion to building their own momentum to answer the basic questions “Whose side are you on?” and “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” remains as pathetic as it was in 2022 and 2024. Ken Martin, head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), recently quashed a detailed report he commissioned about why the Democrats lost in 2024. He has refused to meet with leaders of progressive citizen organizations. We visited the DNC headquarters and could not even get anyone to take our materials on winning issues and tactics. We offered the compiled presentations of two dozen progressive civic leaders on how to landslide the GOP in 2022. This material is still relevant and offers a letter-perfect blueprint for how Democrats could win in 2026. (See winningamerica.net). (The DNC offices are like a mausoleum, except for visits by members of Congress entering to dial for dollars.)
Imagine a mere switch of 240,000 votes in three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) would have defeated Trump in 2024. That margin would have been easily accomplished had the Democratic Party supported the efforts of AFL-CIO and progressive union leaders who wanted the Dems to champion a “Compact for Workers” on Labor Day, with events throughout the country. (See letter sent to Liz Shuler, President of AFL-CIO, on August 27, 2024).
The compact would have emphasized: raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour, benefiting 25 million workers and increasing Social Security benefits frozen for over 45 years, could have benefited over 60 million elderly, paid for by higher Social Security taxes on the wealthy classes. The compact would also include: a genuine child tax credit would help over 60 million children, cutting child poverty in half; repeal of Trump’s massive tax cuts for the super-rich and giant corporations (which would pay for thousands of public works groups in communities around the nation); and Full Medicare for All (which is far more efficient and life-saving than the corporate-controlled nightmare of gouges, inscrutable billing fraud, and arbitrary denial of benefits).
Droves of conservative and liberal voters would attend events showcasing winning politics, authentically presented, as envisioned for the grassroots Labor Day gatherings, suicidally blocked by the smug, siloed leaders of the Democratic Party in 2022 and 2024.
Clearly, this is a Party that thinks it can win on the agenda of Wall Street and the military/industrial complexes. (See Norman Solomon’s book The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy. It can be downloaded for free at BlueRoad.info.) The Democratic Party scapegoats the tiny Green Party for its losses again and again at the federal and state levels to the worst Republican Party in history – BY FAR.
It is fair to say that, with few exceptions, the Democratic Party apparatus is coasting, playing “it safe,” and expecting that the Trumpsters will deliver the Congress to it in November.
The exceptions are warning about this hazardous complacency, such as adopting James Carville’s ridiculous advice just to let the GOP self-destruct (though recently he also has urged a progressive economic agenda). There are progressive young Democrats challenging incumbent corporate Democrats in the House. They are not waiting for a turnover in the Party’s aging leadership. They believe the country can’t wait for such a transformation. Our Republic has been invaded by the Trumpsters, who are taking down its institutional pillars, its safety nets, and its rule of law. Our democracy is crumbling by the day.
As for the non-voters, disgusted with politics, just go vote for a raise, vote for health insurance, vote for a crackdown on corporate crooks seizing your consumer dollars and savings, and vote for taxing the rich. That’s what your vote should demand, and these are the issues that should be conveyed to the candidates campaigning in your communities.
Tell the candidates you want a shakeup, not a handshake. (See, the primer for victory, “Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People” 2024).
THE HARDEST PART OF FIGHTING FASCISM COMES AFTER THE FASCISTS HAVE FALLEN
Having lived in Argentina after dictatorship, I know restoring democracy requires far more than just deposing fascists.
by Joel Westheimer
I lived in Argentina in the mid-1980s, just after the fall of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. The country was taking its first, shaky steps back toward democracy. It was a time of great hope, but also of grave uncertainty — because while the generals were gone, the political culture that enabled them remained.
Like most of the nation, I was captivated by the pioneering trials of the military generals that promised to restore justice. But watching the trials, reading the commentary, and witnessing the national response, it became increasingly clear that after a dictatorship collapses, its shadow lingers. Institutions that propped it up may be quick to pivot but slow to reform. And a political culture conditioned to authoritarian rule does not easily snap back.
I see that same danger now in the United States.
Let’s be clear: Fascism isn’t some distant or hypothetical threat — it is already here. Unmarked vans and masked agents snatch students off the streets without due process. Judges and lawyers are intimidated. The most powerful institutions in society — universities, tech firms, law firms, billionaires, legislators — preemptively prostrate themselves to an autocratic leader’s whims, not because they are forced to, but because they calculate that accommodation is safer than resistance. Tens of millions of people are demonized while the military is deployed against civilian populations. These are not warning signs. They are the thing itself. Of course we must resist. We must speak out, organize, and push back against creeping authoritarianism wherever it appears. But resistance alone is not enough. Post-dictatorship Argentina demonstrates that the harder question comes later: What happens if — and when — authoritarianism is pushed back? What happens after?
Democracy is not just a system of government. It is a way of thinking, of arguing, of living together.
In Argentina, the military junta was defeated, but the nation’s political culture remained deeply scarred. The public had seen generals on trial, but many still struggled to grasp why their crimes mattered. The substance of the prosecution — that to fight terrorism, members of the military became terrorists themselves — was incomprehensible not only to the defendants but also to an alarming number of legislators who had returned to power. Even after convictions, defendants like Jorge Rafael Videla, commander of the first and most ruthless of the three military juntas, proclaimed innocence, maintaining that the proceedings were nothing more than a “trial generated by political motivations.” Ex-president Roberto Eduardo Viola, convicted of responsibility for torture and murder, echoed Videla, adding that “had the military not won [the dirty war] the country would not now be living in democracy. Instead, we would now be a Marxist international dictatorship.”
It was not only these men who needed to face their crimes. Early in the trials, nearly an entire day was spent hearing the defense counsel’s attempt to prove that the daughter of a prominent human rights lawyer might have been a terrorist, and therefore her murder was justified. The claim was not only false; it inverted the very idea of justice. The spectacle continued until the editor of the English-language newspaper that had illegally published the names of the disappeared was called to testify. When a defense attorney asked him how he knew the woman was not a terrorist, the editor replied simply: “Because everyone knows that a person is innocent until proven guilty.”
That moment was electric. It was also sobering. A foundational democratic principle had to be restated aloud, as if newly rediscovered. Years of authoritarian rule had so corroded civic norms that even the presumption of innocence could no longer be assumed as common sense.
A public culture trained to reward cruelty, spectacle, and domination does not revert on its own to one grounded in deliberation and care.
Democracy is not just a system of government. It is a way of thinking, of arguing, of living together. It rests on habits of mind — about truth, responsibility, evidence, dissent, and the limits of power. Once those habits are degraded, they are not easily restored.
Argentina faced a powerful temptation in the years after the trials to move on. The central call of human rights organizations was for “castigo a los culpables” (punishment to the guilty). But conviction of these brutal authoritarian generals would not restore democratic culture. To treat justice as an endpoint — try the guilty, punish them, close the chapter — does not ensure a robust democracy capable of resisting the next aspiring fascist leader. Punishment alone could not repair what had been broken. Fear had reshaped social life and cynicism had replaced trust. Many people had internalized the idea that the right strong leader who didn’t have to deal with interference from independent legislatures or courts might fix the nation’s problems.
The United States now risks a similar fate. Even if authoritarian leadership is removed through elections or legal action, the damage will persist. Institutions that learned to comply will not automatically relearn courage. Citizens who learned that politics is dangerous, rigged, or pointless will not suddenly reengage. A public culture trained to reward cruelty, spectacle, and domination does not revert on its own to one grounded in deliberation and care.
This is why focusing solely on an individual villainous leader misses the deeper problem. Authoritarianism is not just a personality; it is a political project that reshapes institutions and habits alike. When it recedes, what remains are organizations that survived by accommodating power, and citizens unsure of what democracy is for. Without a deliberate effort to rebuild democratic culture, post-authoritarian societies risk becoming democracies in name only. Elections return, but fear and distrust remain. Free speech exists on paper, but silence persists in practice.
Without a deliberate effort to rebuild democratic culture, post-authoritarian societies risk becoming democracies in name only.
In the long aftermath of military rule, Argentine democracy moved unevenly forward, struggling at times to sustain public trust and institutional legitimacy. Fast-forward to today, and the country has entered a new phase of democratic erosion — one in which elections still occur, but many citizens place their faith in an anti-democratic populist who treats democracy as a means rather than a shared project. Javier Milei, elected president in 2023, treats democratic institutions as obstacles rather than aspirations. He governs through permanent crisis rhetoric, stokes division, and routinely questions the legitimacy of political opposition, not merely their policies. In doing so, he undermines the idea that democracy exists to balance interests, protect minorities, or sustain public goods.
In the years following 1983, Argentina did many things right: civilian control of the military; war crimes trials; and memory, truth, and justice initiatives. Milei emerges not despite that history, but partly because of what remained unresolved, what was never fully repaired. Deep distrust of political institutions remained and economic precarity hollowed out solidarity. Milei is not a return to military dictatorship, but he is a symptom of democratic exhaustion — an anti-democratic populist who exploits the failures of democratic culture rather than openly rejecting democracy itself.
If the United States manages to restore democratic governance after this authoritarian moment, it will need far more than new leaders. It will require a massive cultural and educational project — one that re-teaches not only how democracy works, but why it matters. One that confronts institutional complicity rather than glossing over it. And one that restores civility, compassion, and trust.
Schools and universities are among the few public institutions capable of cultivating democratic habits at scale.
Schools and universities will be central to this work. They are among the few public institutions capable of cultivating democratic habits at scale (which is why they are among the first institutions to be attacked by authoritarian regimes). But they, too, will have to reckon with their own failures — with the ways they rewarded obedience over inquiry and collapsed in the face of political pressure. Democratic renewal will demand that education once again be understood not as workforce preparation, but as preparation for shared self-government.
When the military dictatorship in Argentina fell, one could still see in the streets of Buenos Aires the green Ford Falcons which were used to transport many of the desaparecidos to and from clandestine prisons in the countryside. They stood as monuments to tragedy and as metaphors for the remnants of authoritarian rule. Yet, every Thursday afternoon, the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (mothers demanding truth about their sons and daughters who were murdered during the military dictatorship) continue even today to march in front of the Casa Rosada to remind the nation of the fragility of the rule of law.
When the violent power-grabbers who currently lead the U.S. government are held accountable for their abuses, we will breathe a sigh of relief. Accountability is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Justice and fair and free elections matter, but democracy does not survive on procedures alone. It survives when people believe it is worth defending — when they experience it not as an abstract ideal, but as a way of living together that makes dignity, disagreement, and solidarity possible.
That work does not end when autocrats fall. In many ways, it only begins.
SUPER BOWL LX OPENING NIGHT: SEAHAWKS, PATRIOTS TAKE STAGE FOR THE WORST THREE HOURS ON TELEVISION
(Chronicle Sports Staff)
Monday’s Opening Night festivities for Super Bowl LX featured the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks live on the NFL Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT, broadcast on the NFL Network coming to you from the San Jose Convention Center.
The two teams arrived in the Bay Area on Sunday, and with reporters Eric Branch and Noah Furtado on-site while columnists Ann Killion and Scott Ostler follow the broadcast, we’ll provide you with what the players have to say and try to capture the full swirl of one of sports’ most chaotic live events.
8 p.m. Ann Killion: Well, that's three hours of my life I can never get back. Fortunately, I was able to monitor "Opening Night" from my couch, otherwise it would have been seven or eight hours of my life I can't get back. There are good stories to be told and good journalists in town to tell them. But you would never know that from watching the "Opening Night" idiocy and the NFL Network's coverage of it. The only bigger dopes than then ones tuning into NFL Network are the fans who actually paid to be somewhere in the vicinity of NFL players. When does the game start?
Scott Ostler: Worst produced TV program ever. It was our first chance to really meet the players, and they were almost an afterthought, waiting their turn behind the network's babblers. They dressed up the players like guys in a karate tournament, then gave 'em short shrift. This is threatening the NBA All-Star Game as the Most Boring Three Hours in Sports.
Eric Branch: We aren’t supposed to root, but: Ernest Jones for Super Bowl MVP!
Noah Furtado: The event just ended, and the lights turned on. Seems backward. Opening night for one of the biggest sporting events took three hours to fall flat. “Ham for Sam” was somehow the highlight that stood out most to me.
Mike Lerseth: NFL changed the Pro Bowl. It changed the kickoff rules. It needs to change Opening Night.
Christina Kahrl: I'm just sad they gave Earl Morrall short shrift in a graphic.
7:40 p.m. Eric Branch: This is my fifth Super Bowl media night (not to brag). It’s also the worst.
7:37 p.m. Ann Killion: We’re having a documentary on Derick Hall in the middle of “Opening Night.” Why does the NFL stage this extravaganza and then decide it is too boring for the air?
7:34 p.m. Scott Ostler: OK, the coaches are low-key, but just a pleasant change from faux-cool Pete Carroll, and bitter-beer-face Bill Belichick.
Ann Killion: Dude, Pete Carroll actually is cool. He’s from Marin.
Scott Ostler: Thanks for making my point.
7:30 p.m. Ann Killion: Fun fact: Seahawks coach Mike McDonald was born in Boston. He said he was “one of them” — meaning a Patriots fan.
7:26 p.m. Eric Branch: Seahawks LB Ernest Jones just stopped in mid-answer when he saw the dragon Pokémon guy walk by his riser. He’s a big Pokemon and wants to meet him, the dragon dude.
7:24 p.m. Noah Furtado: The more I walk around, the more I’m seeing abandoned warehouse with some booths in the middle. So much empty space on the periphery. Does not scream Super Bowl. Just bowl.
Ann Killion: The NFL Network is really doing an embarrassing job on this. It’s almost as though they were taken by surprise that it’s Super Bowl week.
7:17 p.m. Ann Killion: Cooper Kupp, MVP of Super Bowl LVI, said the players will have “a very strong” opinion about adding an 18th game. He does not say what that opinion will be. … Kupp just went way up in my book. He said he’s a big Noah Kahan fan and would like to see Noah play a Super Bowl halftime show. SO WOULD I!!
Scott Ostler: The opinion will be, “No freaking way, absolutely not. Unless you pay us more money.”
7:12 p.m Ann Killion: In terms of entertainment value, this is about as exciting as a screening of “Melania.”
7:10 p.m. Eric Branch: Seahawks CB Devon Witherspoon, asked for his earliest Super Bowl memory, replies “I have no idea.”
7:09 p.m. Ann Killion: Jaxon Smith-Njigba says he would like to play flag football at the 2028 Olympics. He said he’d like to play with Tom Brady at the Olympics. Is he allowed to say that when his team is playing the Patriots?
NFL Network spending a lot of time lauding JSN. I approve. He’s the best offensive player in this game.
7:08 p.m. Noah Furtado: I just realized the dragon Eric mentioned earlier is dressed as Dragonite, a type of Pokémon. He just had a Seahawks player open his pack of Pokémon cards. The Seahawks player said, “If you would’ve brought a better pack, I might’ve taken them.” Ouch.
7:06 p.m. Ann Killion: Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba is wearing sunglasses at the podium! Let’s hear it for wide receiver diva behavior!
Mike Lerseth: With the glasses, he looks like the Johnny Depp version of Willie Wonka.
7:02 p.m. Mike Lerseth (editor): (Stuff) you learn from the interwebs: Sam Darnold’s grandpa was the Marlboro Man in the 1970s ads.
Ann Killion: That ad was at Candlestick Park. It shows up in the “Rise of the 49ers” documentary.
6:58 p.m. Ann Killion: Sam Darnold is being asked about his resilience. No one is asking him to rank baked goods. At least not yet. But someone did throw him a hat shaped like a ham, so we’re making progress. “Ham for Sam.”
6:55 p.m. Ann Killion: NFL Network has been waiting to drop their Sam Darnold film montage. Darnold is definitely going to be the biggest story of this Super Bowl week.
Scott Ostler: It’s a classic reclamation-project story, but if he messes up in a key moment in the Super Bowl, his rep is right back to square one.
6:47 p.m. Scott Ostler: “To me, this game is going to come down to playmakers making plays.” I’m already worn out by these NFL Network dudes.
6:41 p.m. Scott Ostler: Shout out to Curtis Robinson, the 49ers’s nominee for Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. One of the 32 dudes who really get it.
Speaking of betting, who’s the favorite to become the TV ad pitchman we get most sick of this week? Kevin Hart?
Ann Killion: Hart is always on the leaderboard. But in terms of the voice we may be most of sick of, between the Super Bowl and the Olympics, my money is on Mike Tirico.
6:32 p.m. Ann Killion: Sam Darnold with an interesting point: these teams have no common opponents. Makes scouting a little trickier.
That was supposed to be very dramatic; they won’t be in the same building again until they’re in Levi’s next Sunday. The reality? It was not very dramatic
6:31 p.m. Scott Ostler: (With Drake Maye and Sam Darnold, the opposing teams’ QBs, being interviewed) These two quarterbacks should have hired Mac Jones to write them some good lines.
6:25 p.m. Ann Killion: I’m not sure if the NFL could orchestrate a more awkward moment than the team “meeting” on stage. Full cringe.
6:24 p.m. Scott Ostler: Whoever outfitted these guys, they didn’t have any color to choose from other than white? I hope both teams don’t wear white Sunday.
6:13 p.m. Scott Ostler: Drake Maye was asked who his hero is. My wife said, “Certainly not his barber.” Ouch. And she’s a Patriots fan.
6:10 p.m. Ann Killion: If you’re a diehard 49ers fan, you may want to avert your eyes. Based on coverage on NFL Network, there’s going to be a lot of footage of Seattle throttling the 49ers. Seems to be more of that than even of the Seahawks beating the Rams in the NFC Championship game.
6:08 p.m. Eric Branch: Let me summarize super-smart QB Josh Dobbs on if there could be negative impact from electrical substation: Maybe?
6:05 p.m. Scott Ostler: I’m truly disappointed in NFL Network. This was the night to start meeting the players, not to listen to more breakdown/analysis that we’ll be getting ad nauseum for the next week.
6 p.m. Eric Branch: Pats QB Josh Dobbs on his favorite teammates with the 49ers? TE Eric Saubert (now with the Seahawks) and QB Brock Purdy. On Purdy: “He’s a class act. Does it the right way.”
5:59 p.m. Ann Killion: In a preparation for the actual game, the NFL Network is showing approximately 10 commercials per one player soundbite.
5:59 p.m. Scott Ostler: On the other hand, Patriots WR Mack Hollins, barefoot. Teaser: Tomorrow I will try to get his take on electromagnetism and the body. He’s a believer in that weird science.
5:58 p.m. Noah Furtado: Patriots long snapper Julian Ashby was a physics major at Furman. Good news for the Jon Weeks contingency plan, 49ers faithful: Ashby is not an EMF guy. Said he did some banana experiment in college that quelled any fears. And so he continued to use his cellphone regularly.
5:57 p.m. Eric Branch: Super-smart Patriots backup QB Josh Dobbs, who was with the 49ers in 2024 (remember the Passtronaut?) patiently answers his ninth question about being an aerospace engineering major.
5:53 p.m. Scott Ostler: It’s bothering me that the Gatorade lightning bolt is poking into each player’s head on the podiums on the broadcast. Anyone hear about our EMF problem?
5:52 p.m. Ann Killion: Hunter Henry may get his New England card revoked. He was asked about his preference West Coast or East Coast (he played with the Chargers). He lauded the weather and then said he “prefers Starbucks.” The Dunkin' posse will be after him!
5:48 Noah Furtado: Unfortunately he did not get his question in before I moved on. I can tell you he tried to ask the question on the other side of the sign. I’m paraphrasing: What’s more difficult, winning a Super Bowl or a Grammy? He tried and failed multiple times. Someone else in the scrum eventually said: “That’s a bad question, bro.”
5:46 p.m. Ann Killion: The Patriots seem so very, very young, but maybe that is just because I work in the Bay Area where our athletes seem to be aging at a very rapid rate. So Noah: what Cardi B song did Diggs have at the top? WAP?
5:45 p.m. Eric Branch: Patriots punter Bryce Baringer is very much aware of 49ers’ electrical substation! Mom made sure he had EMF blocker on his phone at an early age.
5:40 p.m. Ann Killion: First airing tonight of the Pete Carroll disaster moment, when he failed to give the ball to Marshawn Lynch. We will only see that about 7,346,321 more times.
5:38 p.m. Noah Furtado: Patriots first-round draft pick Will Campbell was asked about his “Welcome to the NFL” moment. Then a bright camera light was flashed in his face, to which he winced. There’s his answer.
5:32 p.m. Scott Ostler: My favorite part, as a journalist, from these things is getting a player going on a really interesting topic, and he gets cut off by, “Who’s your favorite Beatle?”
5:31 p.m. Ann Killion: I hope someone asks Maye about the pettiest thing Bill Belichick has ever done: banning University of North Carolina’s social media from crowing about the exploits of their famous young Tar Heel, Drake Maye, because the kid plays for the team that got rid of Belichick.
5:30 p.m. Noah Furtado: As star Pats receiver Stefon Diggs earnestly discusses his relationship with his dad, a sign in front of his booth reads: Rank these Cardi B songs… Girls Like You, WAP, I Like It, Bodak Yellow, Up, Outside. The people want to know.
5:30 p.m. Scott Ostler: If we’re going to listen to prattle, NFL Network, we’d prefer it be prattling from the, you know, Super Bowl participants.
5:27 p.m. Eric Branch: Among the endless media at Super Bowl is faith-based “Athletes in Action.” Pats punter Bryce Baringer currently discussing his faith.
5:27 p.m. Scott Ostler: Come on, Vrabel. I’m not expecting Elton John, but come to the podium rocking something zippier than what looks like a smoking jacket.
5:26 p.m. Ann Killion: George Seifert’s name makes an appearance: Vrabel just tied him for most wins in first season as head coach.
5:25 p.m. Scott Ostler: I hope somebody asks Vrabel if he would make the Giannis trade.
5:25 p.m. Ann Killion: Mike Vrabel is answering questions with full sentences and lots of words and a smile on his face. Longtime Patriots reporters are likely in shock. Apparently he didn’t learn podium behavior from his former coach.
5:24 p.m. Scott Ostler: I can tell already: Mike Vrabel, great story, good coach, but not a Super Bowl ball of fire. Bring back Jimmy Johnson or Jimmy Harbaugh.
5:22 p.m. Noah Furtado: Fans in attendance can download an app to hear the audios of each booth.
5:22 p.m. Eric Branch: The fans have been herded, like cattle, into a far corner of this ginormous room. They can see basically nothing. They bought tickets for this privilege.
5:20 p.m. Ann Killion: NFL Network cuts away from Drake Maye in order to show some talking heads in studio. Apparently they don’t understand the urgency of the cinnamon roll question.
5:19 p.m. Scott Ostler: Why do we need these talking heads now? Let’s hear from the PLAYERS.
5:18 p.m. Ann Killion: Poor Drake Maye just sat at the podium. The second youngest quarterback to play in a Super Bowl looked concerned by the mob in front of him. He’s speaking very rapidly. We’ll see how long he lasts at this pace.
Someone is holding up a sign asking Maye to rank certain baked items including a cinnamon roll and some kind of pistachio bread. This is groundbreaking stuff.
5:16 p.m. Ann Killion: It would be reminiscent of the 49ers-Ravens Super Bowl in New Orleans. We blamed that on Beyonce’s blow dryers. Maybe the Saints need to invest in a toxic substation.
5:16 p.m. Scott Ostler: 49ers bigwigs are saying, “Pleeease, nobody bring up the power substation.” So don’t tell them we just did. It would be so sad and awkward if there was a power failure during tonight’s festivities.
5:14 p.m. Ann Killion: Why are the players dressed like astronauts?
5:14 p.m. Scott Ostler: Now NFL Network is showing the trolleys on the Embarcadero. (Which is in San Francisco.) When are they going to show the Santa Clara substation at Levi’s that’s providing all the energy for this extravaganza?
5:13 p.m. Ann Killion: NFL Network is showing a flashback to the 49ers’ last media day when Brock Purdy was asked if he was “prepared to disappoint Taylor Swift.” Purdy smiled and said, “Yes.” Alas for Purdy, Tay-Tay went home happy.
5:12 p.m. Eric Branch: The New England Patriots cheerleaders are dancing on stage. Stevie Nicks is blasting. A man — a journalist, perhaps? — in a dragon costume in being interviewed by another journalist.
5:12 p.m. Noah Furtado: Fans are going to need more than binoculars to see Drake Maye. His booth is on the other side of the room. Superman vision would help.
5:11 p.m. Ann Killion: The competing GMs for the Super Bowl teams — who happen to be longtime friends, both natives of Green Bay — sat down with NFL Network before Opening Night and were asked, “when was the moment you knew this could be a special season?” Seattle’s John Schneider — who was wearing a T-shirt with a black and white image of late owner Paul Allen — said training camp. He saw how Sam Darnold was quickly bonding with the offensive staff. He already felt good about the defense and thought they might be a complete team. Eliot Wolf said his “aha” moment came in Week 5, when the young team went to Buffalo for a primetime Sunday night game and won 23-20, defeating the league’s only unbeaten team.
5:06 p.m. Ann Killion: This is turning out to be a fantastic week for Green Day. Not only will the iconic East Bay band be the opening act at the Super Bowl, and also play a concert in San Francisco a few days before the game, not only has their favorite villain Trump openly ripped them, but their tunes are being used as the bumper music for NFL Network coming in and out of ad breaks. Great exposure.
5:05 p.m. Scott Ostler: By the way, players like to act like this stuff is a distraction from their mission, this hoopla. Reality: They get into it. Watch them at the podiums. You don’t get to the Super Bowl and suddenly hate attention and adulation.
5:04 p.m. Eric Branch: Media night is in a massive room on the second floor of the San Jose Convention Center. Not great for fans who waited in a huge line outside and might need binoculars to see Drake Maye.
5:04 p.m. Noah Furtado: Fans are lined up blocks away from the San Jose Convention Center, waiting to squeeze into the smallest corner of the main hall. Worth every penny.
5:02 p.m. Scott Ostler: Painful reminder to Cal fans, in NFL Network’s runup to their Opening Night telecast: Talk about how Seahawks offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak will be taking over the Raiders and possibly coaching a rookie quarterback Fernando Mendoza. If this was the old days, before the move to Vegas, Mendoza might soon be coming back home to where his fame/fortune got started.
5 p.m. Ann Killion: How confused are newcomers to the Bay Area going to be, based on the information they get from their television screens from football broadcasters? For a full decade, networks have visually implied that fans in the top rows at Levi’s can see the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. On Tuesday night, NFL Network used the iconic shot, despite being based at “Super Bowl Opening Night” at the San Jose Convention Center, a mere 52 miles away. Also deceptively orienting the viewer: live action shots from the crookedest street in the World, San Francisco’s Lombard. If you run into a lost tourist this week, be kind.
Earlier in the day, San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, participating in the Pro Bowl media availability before Tuesday night’s game, spoke to Furtado about his own concerns involving the viral theory that a power substation adjacent to the 49ers’ practice field was responsible for the team’s considerable problems with player injuries. He said he’s doing his own research, reflecting the scope of the problem for the Bay Area’s NFL team as it tries to alleviate player concerns.
Good morning, 🙃🍾
Regarding the arrest of Mr. Bell, this is exactly the type of situation Dual Crisis Response was intended for. However, the way this incident is described raises important questions about how crisis response is being represented to the public.
The article states that, with the assistance of Redwood Community Services, officers attempted for over an hour to negotiate with Bell. RCS operates the crisis line and provides triage; they do not typically respond to street level incidents. In person co response should come from Dual Crisis Response, pairing County Behavioral Health with law enforcement. If that structure has changed, it has not been clearly communicated to the community.
This incident occurred after 7:00 p.m., when Dual Crisis Response may not be available. Most people are unaware this option exists at all and, in real world situations, call police because they do not know any other entry point exists when someone is in visible crisis.
At the end of the report, UPD commends coordination with multiple allied agencies, yet the encounter still escalated to repeated use of force after more than an hour. When coordination is cited as a success but de escalation fails, the public is left without a clear understanding of what support was actually present on scene.
This is why transparency matters, and why crisis response cannot rely on vague references to assistance or coordination. The person in crisis, their family, and the community all deserve a clear, cohesive response, with everyone involved trained in crisis intervention and de escalation.
mm💕
A lotta places, Bell would have rung for the last time. The only way to “intervene” with a dope head this far gone is to try to restrain the fool without killing him.
Hiya Bruce, 🍾👮♂️🤘
My original point wasn’t about whether officers avoided killing him or about making judgments about who is or isn’t “beyond help.” It was about understanding what the actual response was.
The article states that RCS assisted, yet RCS does not respond to street-level crises. Multiple agencies were involved for over an hour, and de-escalation still failed. Those distinctions matter and need to be clearly addressed and understood.
I’m asking for clarity and accuracy here, not to assign blame to anyone including the person in crisis.
mm💕
Gotcha, Mazie. The nut (sic) of the prob, as I see it, with the kind of street crazies who cause extreme anxiety in Mendo’s non-crazies (at least publicly) is the obvious fact that area “helping professionals only help the docile “reimbursibles.” The Sheriff and other local cops, as always, deal with people like Bell.
Bruce, my concern is the contradiction in how these responses are presented.
We don’t actually know how this call came in, or what coordination occurred between agencies. Yet the language in the press release suggests a mental health response, even though it never uses the term dual crisis response. All that hard work and those MHSA funds were used to initiate a protocol meant to keep law enforcement from being the default response to mental health calls, so those distinctions matter.
Regardless of assumptions or beliefs about drug use, this was clearly a situation involving mental decompensation. When roles and terminology are muddied, it creates confusion in the public about what to do in a crisis and who to call. For all we know, there could have been multiple calls for intervention or assistance before this point, when the person wasn’t considered “reimbursable.” But once escalation has peaked, the inevitable outcome seems to be incarceration.
mm💕
All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.
-Pat Paulsen
I’d be more inclined to blame it on the uppity white colonists from Europe, who shoulda stayed home rather than have come here with their “enlightened” sense of superiority. Native Americans, also immigrants but from long ago, were doing just fine before the Eurotrash showed up.
RITTENHOUSE & PRETTI…
Want to reduce illegal immigration? When I managed a department at a California movie company we had a manager’s meeting where we were told that our company would be fined $100,000 for every employee found to be here illegally. Guess what? That stopped illegal immigration until the Republicans dropped the law and instead went on a jihad against…wait for it… illegal immigration. They have now stepped up the jihad. You couldn’t make this a plot of a movie, no one would believe it.
Couldn’t agree more, but the uniparty makes too much money and power from not enacting sensible legislation.
I consider ICE agents sheeple until they agree to take off their masks.
That is one approach, but likely would have to include some other approaches to go with it. Disallow illegals from being used for reapportionment, disallow any federal money to go for illegal assistance, and institute a guest worker program for agriculture.
Deporting MAGAts would be more productive.
Correction: Folk Medicine in America was published in 2001.
Nurses Face Horrific Violence at Work. We’re Striking to Change That
Feb. 4, 2026
By Sheryl Ostroff
N Y Times
More than 80 percent of nurses experience workplace violence each year, according to one industry survey. The rate of violent incidents is reportedly increasing, too. Almost all of these assaults are perpetrated by patients, though patients’ family members can also threaten our safety. People don’t realize that hospitals are increasingly dangerous places to work in. Because nurses spend more time than anyone else with patients, we often get the brunt of their anger with the health care industry, lack of adequate services and long wait times.
Throughout my career, I have sustained many injuries and threats. In a recent eight-month period, I was scratched in the face (which left a scar that I cover with makeup daily), kicked in the chest so hard it left bruises, bitten multiple times and spat on. I’ve been pushed, sexually assaulted and punched. I’ve been thrown across the ambulance bay. In the emergency room, we see our patients at their most vulnerable. With cuts to Medicaid, patients can’t get the care they need elsewhere. They delay visits to routine screenings and pediatricians, then come to us when their health has become an emergency. We see people with substance abuse issues who can’t get into rehab programs, people without homes who don’t have shelter and people with mental health conditions who struggle to get the care they need.
The emergency department has become the safety net for all of these failures within the health care system. But this system is breaking down. We need the resources to continue to uphold our nursing oath — to raise the standards of nursing and to do all we can to help those in our care.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/opinion/nurse-strike-new-york-workplace-violence.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
Nurses see people with substance abuse issues who can’t get into rehab programs, people without homes who don’t have shelter and people with mental health conditions who struggle to get the care they need.
The emergency department has become the safety net for all of these failures within the health care system. But this system is breaking down.
Hi Cellist, 🙃🤘
Just for some clarification
The system isn’t “breaking down” it’s already broken. Emergency departments are being used to hold people in crisis because there is nowhere else for them to go.
The PHF is being framed as a way to relieve pressure on the ER, but it remains a crisis-level response. Access is still governed by involuntary hold criteria which means a person must meet 5150 standards to be admitted. It does not provide early access to care, and it does not replace accessible housing, treatment, or ongoing support.
When housing, public and professional education, and cohesive, appropriate intervention are missing, people end up in the ER or in jail. In the ER, that often means being medicated and held anywhere from 24 hours to four or five days, simply because there are not enough psychiatric beds.
Until cohesive intervention exists outside of crisis settings, ERs, nurses, and law enforcement will continue to be placed in this role. One they do not want but have as a duty to serve until we address the conditions of housing, illness, poverty.
mm💕
Thanks Stephen Dunlap – LOVE your “views from the roof” what a fun idea!
Now we need “views from the honey bucket man.”
Re: Ralph Nader on the Democrats…
Democrats suffer from schizophrenic allegiance. They claim, going back to the 1930’s, that they speak for working people and work to protect the downtrodden. At the same time, Nancy Pelosi’s riposte, “We are a capitalist country!” being apt evidence, establishment Democrats who control the party, fully support a neoliberal view of capitalism as an economic system whose primary mission is to extract maximum value from resources, employees, and consumers, and deliver that value to investors. The two positions are not compatible. They are diametrically opposed. To resolve the conflict, instead of advancing proposals to improve work conditions and working people’s lives, establishment Democrats’ only message is, “They’re worse than we are.” Period. Fortunately, emerging progressive Democrats are challenging “shareholder value” capitalism’s extractive mission, much to the establishment’s dismay.
Republicans, on the other hand enjoy no such conflicts of mission. Their whole mission is removing government from the way so that investors can achieve maximum ROI, return on investment. Their problem is keeping working people hating the Democrats any way they can.
Hell of a way to run a political system!
Bingo! You summed it up nicely. The question is how can a third party gain any traction in the US of A? Americans have been conditioned from the get go to vehemently reject any policy that is labeled socialist, democratic or otherwise. Meanwhile the military industrial complex, the biggest corporate welfare system ever, routinely receives more money than God.
Why can i not email the AVA or WordPress? And find out why i cannot download and read the AVA without using google to register? No data collection to enshittified companies AI please
0xac47cf6792 doesn’t have any significance that I can find, nor does 0x47cf6792. A more useful hexadecimal number is 0x5f3759df, which happens to be the floating point representation of the square root of 2 raised to the 127th power. The approximate reciprocal square root of a number may be found efficiently by a right shift of the number whose square root we wish to find, a subtraction from 0x5f2759df, and a single iteration of Newton’s method. This method has proven to be extremely useful in graphics programming, and is often implemented in hardware for many current microprocessors and graphics processors.
Not sure exactly what you are driving at, but Marco did bring something to our attention yesterday, regarding the email notices that go out when a new article is posted. Clicking on the “Read More” button doesn’t take you to the new post anymore. So until this bug gets fixed, ignore the “Read More” button and click on the title instead (which still works properly).