STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Happy Valentine's Day weather lovers ! We might see a sprinkle this afternoon but it now looks the rain will arrive much later tonight. Our extended of rain forecast is notable for 2 things so far : moderate to small daily rainfall totals & very cold over night temps mid week. Of course should anything else catch my eye you'll be the next to know. A cloudy 43F this Saturday morning on the coast.
ONE MORE mainly dry day is expected on Saturday. Rain expected Saturday night through Sunday night with snow levels falling to 4,500 feet. Monday colder air is expected with snow levels falling to 2500 to 3500 feet by Monday afternoon. Monday night and Tuesday snow is expected above 1500 to 2500 feet impacting most highways through the interior. Lighter rain and snow are expected Wednesday and Thursday. (NWS)
DORA BRILEY: While on a recent walk I took some pics of plants starting to display their blooms. I liked the purple against the greens in this one. I shared it on my Instagram page. My granddaughter commented on the spider. Spider? When I looked closer there it was! The little guy provided a fun photo bomb moment. Hah!!
ONE INJURED BY BULLET AFTER SHOTS FIRED WEST OF LAYTONVILLE
by Kym Kemp
Law enforcement officers responded to reports of shots fired in the 11700 block of Branscomb Road west of Laytonville around noon on Friday, February 13, after multiple callers reported gunfire in the area, according to scanner traffic.
Initial reports indicated a suspect had fled the scene in a black lifted truck. Authorities issued a Be-On-the-LookOut alert to agencies.
Scanner traffic indicated one person was grazed in the head by a bullet and was bleeding. Medical personnel were requested to stage nearby and wait for law enforcement to respond
Credit Mendocino Action News for catching information we missed over the scanner.
UPDATE 4:40 p.m.: According to reports over the scanner, law enforcement has located a suspect in the 6900 block of Branscomb Road.
Scanner traffic indicates officers were making callouts over a public-address system at the location and that Branscomb Road was temporarily shut down in the area as multiple units, including CHP, arrived on scene. One individual was reportedly taken at gunpoint and detained.
During the detention, scanner traffic indicated the suspect may have ingested “a fair amount of” drugs and medical assistance was requested.
We have reached out to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Department. This remains a developing situation, and details may change as more verified information becomes available.
(kymkemp.com)
JOSHUA ZACHARIAH
Joshua Zachariah, youngest son of Dolly and Jacob Zachariah, has passed away on the 5th of February 2026 at Sonoma Specialty Hospital. Joshua was born in Orange, California and grew up in Redwood Valley, CA.
Joshua attended Deep Valley Christian School until the 7th grade and graduated from Eagle Peak Middle School and then Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, CA. He was an accomplished athlete in Fencing and Wrestling.
Joshua's fields of interest include mathematics, science, philosophy, and theology.
Joshua is survived by his father Jacob and two siblings Dr Jerome Zachariah (Jerome's wife Dr Nadia Zachariah with nephew Santino and niece Giuliana) and Dr Jerusha Zachariah.
His service of remembrance and viewing will be held on February 21st at his residence 9051 East Road, Redwood Valley, CA between 2pm - 4pm and funeral service on the 22nd at Holy Transfiguration/Mt. Tabor Monastery at 17001 Tomki Road, Redwood Valley.
NO BURN ON SATURDAY [Hendy Woods]
Yay. We just heard the burn contractor has agreed not to burn on Saturday. Thank you!
(KB)
COVELO SEARCH WARRANT TIED TO UKIAH FREEWAY SHOOTING
by Lisa Music
The investigation into a freeway shooting that occurred February 7 on U.S. Highway 101 in Ukiah remains active, according to CHP Warrant Service Team investigation contact Officer Colton Rickard. The incident, which prompted a law enforcement response and a search warrant operation in Covelo this week, is still under review, and authorities are releasing only limited details at this time.
Rickard confirmed that during the service of the search warrant in Covelo, the vehicle believed to have been used in the shooting was seized as evidence. No additional information about the incident has been released because the case is still under investigation, he said.
A CHP helicopter was also deployed during the operation, drawing attention from residents as it flew over the area. Rickard explained that the aircraft is one of several tools available to the warrant service team, noting that using multiple resources during warrant service operations is standard practice.
Anyone with information related to the February 7 freeway shooting is encouraged to contact the CHP Northern Division office at 530-242-4300.
(kymkemp.com)
SPECIAL MASTER REVIEWING LAFEVER CASE
by Justine Frederiksen
More than three months after his arrest by the Ukiah Police Department, local journalist and teacher Matthew P. LaFever has yet to be charged with a crime by the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.
As of this week, Mendocino County Superior Court documents only show a “miscellaneous criminal petition” was filed on Dec. 2, 2025. When asked for more details regarding that filing, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster said Thursday that he would not have characterized it as criminal “because it is only criminal when we file criminal charges,” which he said had not been done.
“I’m still the DA, but I am not handling this case,” Eyster said of any potential charges against LaFever, who ran a local news website and was working as a journalism teacher at Ukiah High School at the time of his arrest on Nov. 3, 2025.
In its initial press release, the UPD reported being informed the previous month by a concerned parent that a Ukiah High teacher identified as LaFever “had made an inappropriate sexual comment towards her daughter,” and later officers interviewed “a different UHS student who had information regarding LaFever contacting minors on social media.”
After obtaining a search warrant for the teacher’s cell phone, computers, and residence, the UPD reports that detectives contacted him at Ukiah High on Oct. 16 and “seized his cell phone and multiple laptops,” devices upon which they reportedly found evidence confirming that the interactions described by the 17-year-old had occurred.
When the UPD later forwarded its case against LaFever, at the time a 37-year-old Hopland resident, to Eyster’s office, the resulting charge was one misdemeanor count of “annoying or molesting a minor,” in this case a 17-year-old girl that LaFever allegedly sent inappropriate communications to while aware of her age.
Eyster then appointed what he described as a senior attorney in his office “with no prior knowledge” of LaFever to handle the case, a staff member he named Thursday as Robert Waner, whom he said previously worked for the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office.
When asked via email to provide an update on the potential case against LaFever, including why no charges had yet been filed, Waner responded simply that he was “unable to comment on a pending investigation.”
When Eyster asked Waner for an update last week on the case, the DA said he learned that his office is “still waiting for a determination from the Special Master,” whom he said has been appointed to evaluate whether any of the evidence seized was privileged due to LaFever’s work as a reporter.
At the time of LaFever’s arrest, the UPD reported learning that the teacher and journalist (who founded the formerly robust but now-deactivated local news website MendoFever.com) may have contacted multiple minors in Mendocino and Sonoma counties. When asked Thursday if he had ordered law enforcement not to access LaFever’s devices, Eyster said that Waner had.
After his arrest, the Ukiah Unified School District reported that LaFever was placed on administrative leave on “Oct. 16 when law enforcement first informed us of the situation. The staff member remains off campus, and will not return to the classroom while investigations continue.”
When asked Thursday about the status of LaFever’s employment, UUSD officials said he was “currently on paid leave.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
ANDY'S LAST DAY AT THE OFFICE.
Today, February 12, 2026, we proudly recognize and congratulate Andrew "Andy" Alvarado, retiring Chief District Attorney Investigator for Mendocino County, on an extraordinary career in public service.
Chief Alvarado’s leadership has exemplified integrity, professionalism, and an unwavering commitment to justice.
Throughout his tenure, he set the standard for thorough investigations, ethical conduct, and collaborative partnerships with law enforcement agencies across our county. His steady judgment, deep institutional knowledge, and dedication to doing things the right way have strengthened the work of the District Attorney’s Office and enhanced public trust in our system of justice.
Beyond his investigative expertise, Andy has been a mentor and role model — developing investigators, supporting prosecutors, and ensuring that victims were treated with dignity and respect. His impact will be felt for years to come in the culture of excellence and accountability he has helped to build.
While retirement marks the close of a remarkable chapter of service, the legacy of Chief Alvarado’s work will continue in every case handled with the professionalism he modeled.
Thank you, Chief, for your years of dedication to Mendocino County and to the rule of law. We wish you health, happiness, and well-earned time with family and friends in the years ahead.
— District Attorney David 'Broiler Dave' Eyster
Ed note: Smart guy managing to do honest work in the ethically flexible context of Mendocino County law enforcement.
GOBBI STREET ‘HUMP’ A JOKE
To the Editor:
“Take out the Gobbi Street hump!” It seems that there has now been adequate time to assess the Gobbi Street Hump “experiment.”
(1) Inadequate warning. The original poorly chosen white stripes were never enough to warn of the totally unexpected height of the hump. (Now worn off in six months.) The changing of the warning sign from “bump” to “hump” was a joke. I doubt that “Street Hump” is mentioned in the DMV manual.
(2) Totally unexpected height. Nowhere in the 50 states would you find a Hump of this height on a major city corridor. In a residential neighborhood, yes; but never on a city street expected to move major traffic smoothly. Gobbi is one of the only two streets with signage and exit ramps from Highway 101 into Ukiah. Certainly, that makes Gobbi a major city corridor.
The Hump is, of course, nothing but someone’s memorial to the Great Redwood Rail Trail.
As the warning signs of the “Hump” deteriorate and traffic congestion increases, will the city do anything to improve the situation? As I write this, I’m reminded that “You can’t fight city hall”. (“Regulations”.)
Has anyone on the City Council driven Gobbi and experienced the hump? I think this issue deserves to be put on the Council agenda.
Jon E. Telschow
Ukiah
BOB ABELES (Boonville):
Betcha the “additional administrative, enforcement and infrastructure costs” far exceed the paltry $75,000 in transient occupancy taxes the supervisors hallucinate raking in. On the other hand, this is going to be a gigantic headache for residents unfortunate enough to have these 900 new campgrounds as neighbors. Great work, supervisors!
TIM MCCLURE:
Every time I see an article about lack of housing and the property tax debacle, I think of all those vacant luxury properties that are sitting empty most of the time and wonder when a vacancy tax will come about. Meanwhile, I live in my house 365 days of the year, the property taxes go up every year, the homeowners exemption remains a paltry $7000, which is next to nothing. Prop. 13 turned out to be a bust for most homeowners but a bonanza for commercial giants like Safeway in keeping their properties at a lower tax rate for decades.
LONG TIME BETWEEN LESSONS; DUI DRIVER CONVICTED BY JURY.
A Mendocino County Superior Court jury returned from its deliberations Wednesday afternoon to announce it had found the trial defendant guilty as charged.
Defendant Christopher Brian Hoyle, age 53, of Upper Lake, was found guilty of driving a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol and driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or greater, both as misdemeanors.
The jury also found true a special allegation alleging that the defendant drove his motor vehicle with a blood alcohol concentration of .15 or greater.
The People’s evidence at trial was that the defendant’s blood alcohol concentration at the time of driving was .22. However, the defendant took the stand and changed his story from the drinking pattern information he had shared with the Highway Patrol officer back in July of 2023.
When the forensic criminalist from the Department of Justice was asked on the witness stand to evaluate the new information testified to by the defendant, she was of the scientific opinion that the defendant would have been driving with a blood alcohol concentration of .33, assuming for the sake of argument that what the defendant had told the jury was true.
The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence used against the defendant at trial were the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Justice forensic laboratory.
A younger version of defendant Hoyle was convicted in 2001 in the Mendocino County Superior Court of driving with a blood alcohol concentration of .08 or greater, though this information was not part of the People’s evidence shared with the jury at this week’s trial.
The prosecutor who presented the People’s evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney David Moutrie.
Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Charlotte Scott presided over the three-day trial.
Ed note: A three-day trial for this? Who is Charlotte Scott?
UKIAH CITY COUNCIL: PLEASE REJECT THE PLAN THAT THREATENS FIFTY HEALTHY TREES ON SCHOOL STREET
by Andrew Lutsky
In December I wrote to Susan Sher, Mayor of Ukiah, regarding the fate of the fifty healthy middle-aged Chinese Pistache trees on School Street, which is in question due to an upcoming Council vote over whether to approve a plan to redesign School Street.
Here is the letter I sent to Mayor Sher:
Dear Mayor Sher,
I was happy to see you at the City of Ukiah’s workshop last Thursday (12/11), thank you for participating. After I encountered a bank of locked doors at the address the City indicated and found my way around a darkened city block to the rear entrance, I joined the workshop, and I learned a few things.
The most important thing I learned was that City staff has no intention of clarifying what may become of the existing fifty-or-so middle-age, healthy and gorgeous Chinese Pistache trees that line School Street before the results of the study come to the City Council for a vote.
This fact became clear to the workshop audience when, as you heard, an engineer from GHD pointedly ignored my request for him to explain clearly how each of the three options they are considering would impact those trees, and, instead of responding in any way, said, “Let’s move on to the next slide.”
So my question for you, Ms. Sher, is will you support city staff’s recommendation, which will be based on the results of the study and community input, if the recommendation does not specify what will become of the existing trees?
Since the infrastructure most of the public in Ukiah cares about are the existing trees-- not parking or sidewalks or the flow of vehicle traffic-- I hope you will take a strong stand against any Council approval of a plan or direction that does not explicitly prioritize the preservation of our community’s healthy, mature trees, our most valuable resource.
Thank you very much for your service to our city.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Andrew Lutsky
In response, Mayor Sher stated, “Since City staff has yet to come up with a plan for the future of School Street that will come before the Council, I cannot say what I will or will not support.”
Here is my reply to Mayor Sher:
Mayor Sher, thank you for your response. Since you and I participated in the same meeting on 12/11, you must know that not a single member of Ukiah city staff, GHD Engineering or Blue Zones LLC mentioned a single word indicating that preserving the existing trees on School Street is a priority. So while you may personally feel that “saving the trees is a priority,” I hope you will acknowledge that nothing we heard that evening from the presenters supported that claim.
In fact, everything we heard at the workshop indicated that City staff is determined for Council to adopt a resolution that deliberately ignores the fate of the existing trees.
If you and the rest of the Council allow that to happen, the fate of the trees will be sealed. No thinking person would believe that the existing trees will be preserved once the City finds the funding for the redesign if the Council does not explicitly direct the City to preserve them.
I’m especially disappointed by your statement that “I cannot say what I will or will not support.”
You could, for example, say you support doing whatever possible to preserve the middle-aged Chinese Pistache trees that have cast shade and brought comfort to Ukiah residents for over sixty years, and you could insist that specific, direct language to preserve the trees be included in any motion to approve a redesign plan for School Street that comes before the Council.
I hope you will take such action to protect Ukiah’s irreplaceable natural resources.
Respectfully,
Andrew Lutsky
Mayor Sher has not responded to that message.
When I contacted Councilmember Rodin, she initially stated “the trees are unhealthy.” When I asked her to share the evidence that supports such a claim, she stated, “I was not exactly correct. The trees aren’t currently unhealthy.”
Councilmember Criss noted “I was a certified Arborist through ISA for many years and co-owned and operated a tree service,” and went on to state, “I do know and understand the value of street trees, economically, socially, and the impacts on health and happiness.”
Councilmember Crane stated, “This will be coming to City Council near term for discussion, sans resolution. We have much to sort through before picking solution sets.”
When I asked what he meant by that statement, he replied, “Based on the age of the trees and unknown extent of their entanglement with utilities and buildings it is likely some tree would not survive. I believe we do not know enough to decide yes, maybe or no. That will be part of the continuing discussion. Desire and reality do not always align. I like the trees.”
Councilmember Orozco has not responded to my letter.
A week ago I sent this follow up to Mayor Sher (and a similar message to Councilmembers Crane, Criss and Rodin):
I would also like to mention that I believe the “visioning plan” that the Council will be asked to approve and which presumes the removal of all fifty middle-aged healthy Pistache trees is in direct conflict with the City of Ukiah’s Tree Management Guidelines, which state, “priority will be given to limiting removal, increasing forest canopy, and preserving appropriate vegetation and shade on city property and streets.” (https://cityofukiah.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Tree-Management-Guidelines-2023ApprovedFinal.pdf)
The guidelines further state that, “Tree preservation is arguably the single most important goal in maintaining the Urban Forest. A replacement tree requires decades of growth to achieve similar benefits of carbon sequestration, shade, habitat, and beauty. Additionally, there are a limited number of available sites for trees to be planted. ... [E]very tree should be treated as a precious resource with all efforts made to protect whenever possible.” (6.1)
Can you explain how approval of the results of this study-- which in the end presented three options, all of which will require removal of all fifty pistache trees-- is consistent with these guidelines?
I hope to receive a reply.
Andrew
I have not received a reply.
DOWNTOWN UKIAH’S HOMETOWN STORE AND KITCHEN GIFTS TO CLOSE
by Sydney Fishman
Hometown Store and Kitchen Gifts announced last week it will close its downtown Ukiah shop over the next two months. Employees told The Mendocino Voice the store aims to close by the end of March.
“We have bittersweet news that Hometown Store will begin our retirement sale and our shop will be closing…,” a Facebook announcement reads. “It has been our family’s absolute honor to serve you for the last 25 years in Ukiah.”
The shop, which has been open since 2001, was founded by locals Ken and Sharon Foster and is now managed by their daughter, Hannah.
The store was opened to provide a quaint, homey space with a variety of U.S.-made kitchen supplies and goods. Today, it offers everything from local jewelry, candles, jams and sauces to high-quality kitchenware and home goods. The shop focuses on long-lasting items that are staples for seasoned chefs, such as cast-iron skillets, professional-grade knives and other items like mortars and pestles for grinding herbs.
Sharon Foster told The Mendocino Voice she decided to close the shop mainly to spend more time with her family, specifically her grandchildren.
“I want to spend time with my grandson who lives in Idaho. I want to enjoy my life with my family,” Foster emphasized. “I would like to thank all of my customers who have been with us throughout the years.”
Hannah, who started managing the business during the COVID-19 pandemic, said that her family spent a lot of time thinking about their decision to close the shop.
“It was time for our family, even though we know it’s not time for Mendocino County,” she said. “Closing here was a super long and thoughtful decision in order for my parents to be able to retire and enjoy their time together.”
Hannah said all of the fixtures and inventory are available for purchase. She said that anyone interested in opening their own store in Ukiah is welcome to reach out; she’s happy to connect them with the companies and gift shows she’ from her time managing the shop.
The Hometown Store said it will have a closing sale and will discount all items by 20 percent. Specific items labeled with red dots will be up to 60 percent off. All sales are final, and items cannot be exchanged or returned.
(mendovoice.com)
ANDY CAFFREY [on Darryl Cherney]:
Dear Bruce,
FYI
So today, the Cherwitz interview dropped of the Rip Current podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bonus-interviewing-darryl-cherney/id1765522136?i=1000749206820
Rather amusing. I’ve never heard him delineate it like this before. He sounds more and more deranged as he ages. Total tinfoil hat stuff here. Shows a dearth of intelligence between his ears at this point.
Did I ever tell you that he is a diagnosed psychopath? “Assessed” in the 1990s and relayed to me during a drive with Cherwitz’s and my mutual friend Dr. Lorin Lindner of Westwood.
So, from this account, it’s obvious DC has no clue how other people think or feel about things, and that he thinks everyone else thinks and acts like a psychopath.
Andy
PS Cherwitz is still engaging in crimes against local activists. He engaged in an extortion conspiracy with former KMUD board president Charley Custer which drove me off the KMUD board in an illegitimate vote for no specified cause. I’m looking for legal assistance to sue him and get punitive damages to stop his now 35 years of extortion and slander crimes against me. I want enough in punitive damages so that he will never, ever think of attacking and assaulting me again. He organized a mob to go after me and three other board members for allegedly trying to “behead” Custer, who was voted out of the board presidency unanimously despite their extortion effort against the four of us.
“THE LAST WALTZ”—THE BAND’S FAREWELL
by Chuck Dunbar
I had the nostalgic pleasure of watching this fine concert film on the big screen at Coast Cinema recently. It was the second time I’d seen it at this theater, the last time a Mendo Film Festival showing a few years ago. The theater was filled for that festival performance. While I’ve viewed this concert on DVD many times, the big screen is far, far better. You’re right there, close-up with them all.
The Band, playing fifty years ago on Thanksgiving day at the Winterland Ballroom in SF, were celebrating their career, ending it in a joyful romp. They were joined by many musical friends and a young crowd of 5,000. Produced by Bill Graham, Martin Scorsese vividly captured much of it on film.
A couple of highlights that moved me, made me grin:
Ronnie Hawkins, long ago mentor to The Band members before they were so-named, devilishly grinning, singing-carousing his way through Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love.” “Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind/Just twenty-two and I don't mind dying.” An old man of music having a rowdy good time with his young musical buddies from way back.
Muddy Waters singing his “Mannish Boy,” a big smile through it all, and toward the end, jumping up and down. Singing, “I can make love to a woman in five minutes time,” a misplaced brag best not to admit, but there it is in a song celebrating manhood.
“I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead/I just need some place where I can lay my head.” The first lines of The Band’s classic, “The Weight.” In a stage-filmed special feature, The Band perform this song with the Staple Singers—the three daughters so young then, and their father, Pops Staples. Pops’ short solo, sweet and understated, follows Mavis and her gorgeous voice. It’s simply beautiful.
And near the concert’s end, Van Morrison—at full throttle from the first note—sings his heart out on “Caravan,” The smiling Band members playing behind him having a grand time. Van singing of love: “I long to hold you in my arms/So that I can feel you/Sweet lady of the night/I shall reveal you.” And sings of what really matters: “So you know it’s got SOUL, baby!” More urgently he sings on: “Turn it up, turn it up, turn up your radio/ and let me hear the song!” Then Van the Man high-kicks his way off the stage—he’s spent, gave us his all. Howling, the crowd loved it!
The final part of the show has the entire pack of musicians joining in to sing Dylan’s anthem, “I Shall Be Released.” “I see my light come shining/From the west unto the east/Any day now, any day now/I shall be released.” It’s just right.
There was a certain poignancy to this viewing. Half a century—hard to believe— gone by since this concert. And this last year, Garth Hudson, master musician-organ player, died. He was the last of them, all passed now—Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and Rick Danko. Before they became The Band, they played with Dylan way back in time, went on a tour of Europe with him, after their time with Ronnie Hawkins. They then made their own distinctive music for over a decade, harking back to the American past, though 4 bandmates were actually from Canada. Levon Helm, the lone American, from Arkansas.
Several of the other concert guests have also passed—Ronnie Hawkins, Pops Staples, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, and Muddy Waters. I think all the other musicians are still with us—old folks now—including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Mavis Staples, Neil Diamond, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood, and Emmylou Harris.
Any folks out there in AVA-land, I wonder, who had the good fortune to be at this concert 50 years ago? If so, share your memories, it you will.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
At the City Council Meeting on Monday, February 9th, 2026, Councilmember Lindy Peters, on behalf of the Fort Bragg City Council formally proclaimed the month of February as Black History Month.
This annual observance recognizes and honors the significant contributions, achievements, and history of African Americans in our nation and within our community. Black History Month provides an opportunity for all residents to learn more about the struggles and triumphs that have shaped our shared history and to celebrate the cultural heritage that enriches our society.
COOPERATIVE TASTING ROOM LAUNCHED
by Sarah Doyle
Disco Ranch — Anderson Valley’s beloved community wine shop — is launching a cooperative tasting space for three of Mendocino County’s darling wine labels.
Beginning Feb. 19, Minus Tide, Read Holland Wines and Lussier will offer wine tastings at the Boonville bar and specialty market on a regular basis.
Since launching Disco Ranch in 2019, Wendy Lamer has championed local, limited-production wines from brands without tasting rooms, as well as affordable imports. About 250 different wines are available for purchase by the bottle, with 24 available by the glass.
“I’ve been watching these brands grow over the last few years, and I’m so proud of the press and high scores they’ve received,” said Lamer. “Giving them a dedicated tasting space will give people another excuse to come to Anderson Valley.”
Producing 1,000 cases or less annually, Minus Tide, Read Holland Wines and Lussier are among the shop’s bestselling local labels. Without full-time tasting rooms, they’ve all had to rely on occasional pourings, events, media coverage and word of mouth to attract customers.
“Wendy has been one of Minus Tide’s biggest supporters since she opened,” said Miriam Jonas, who owns Minus Tide with her husband Brad Jonas and their friend Kyle Jeffrey. “We’re so excited to finally have a permanent place to pour our wines.”
Minus Tide’s owners all have jobs to support their small wine brand. While opening their own tasting room is out of financial reach, a cooperative tasting space makes sense.
“We live here, make our wines here and source all our grapes from Mendocino County,” said Jonas. “Having a home at Disco Ranch is a dream come true.”
Winemaker Ashley Holland, majority owner of Read Holland
Wines in Santa Rosa sources most of her grapes from Mendocino County. Producing 700 cases of wine per year, she donates all proceeds to charity.
“Pouring at Disco Ranch feels especially meaningful because it was the first retail location to carry Read Holland,” said Holland, who consults for three other wine labels.
“Wendy was one of the first people to believe in my brand, so being a part of the co-op space feels like a full circle moment.”
A Dedicated Home
Anderson Valley has not been immune to the wine industry’s ongoing challenges, including declining demand, rising costs and distribution challenges.
A drop in visitation has hit the small appellation hard, with four tasting rooms closing in the last few years.
Lamer, who carries various imported goods, has so far weathered the impact of Trump’s tariffs on foreign wine. It’s Disco Ranch’s selection of international foods that has taken the bigger hit.
“Some of these foods have shot up $5 to $10 thanks to tariffs,” said Lamer. “It doesn’t make sense to raise the price that much on a tin of imported fish.”
Still, Lamer is optimistic the new cooperative tasting space will draw visitors.
“I think it’s a really good move for the community,” she said. “So I’m committed to supporting these wonderful brands.”
G.W. Lussier produces Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley and Mendocino Ridge. A former U.S. Army infantry officer, he worked at Pahlmeyer in Napa Valley and Williams Selyem in Healdsburg before launching his label in 2019.
“Having a dedicated home at Disco Ranch gives us the space to present our wines with intention and authenticity,” said Lussier.
“It’s a rare opportunity to showcase small production wines in a collaborative space that values place, craft and connection.”
On Sunday, Feb. 15, Disco Ranch will host an open house during International White Wine Festival weekend, with all three winemakers pouring from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, visit discoranch.com.
Reservations for Minus Tide, Read Holland and Lussier can be made on Tock. Walk-ins welcome, depending on availability.
Disco Ranch: 14025 Highway 128, Boonville; 707-901-5002; discoranch.com.Hours: 1 a.m. — 3 p.m. Monday, 11 a.m. — 6 p.m. Thursday-Sunday.
(Santa Rosa Press Democrat/Ukiah Daily Journal)
THE LESSONS OF THE PAST: EXPLORING LOCAL HISTORY
Bruce Levene has chronicled the Mendocino Coast for decades, penning books on our local brushes with Hollywood in his book Mendocino and the Movies: Hollywood and Television Motion Pictures Filmed on the Mendocino Coast and James Dean in Mendocino: The Filming of East of Eden as well as our artistic history in Mendocino Art Center: A 50 Year Retrospective, our gastronomy in Mendocino Wines and Cooking, and our more violent history in Black Bart: The True Story of the West’s Most Famous Stagecoach Robber.
He formerly published The Mendocino Review magazine, highlighting the writing, art and photography of local residents.
However, we’d like to focus on his oral history work in: Fort Bragg Remembered, a Centennial Oral History, Mendocino County Remembered: An Oral History, and Voice and Dreams: A Mendocino County Native American Oral History.
He will talk about how he accomplished his histories, what he learned from this interviews, how our region has changed in the last 100 years, and the uses of the past.
Talk Saturday, February 21 at 2 p.m. in Town Hall, 363 N. Main Street, Fort Bragg.
CATCH OF THE DAY, Friday, February 13, 2026
LIDIA CANUL, 57, Fort Bragg. Hit&Run with injury or death.
NOE GARCIA JR., 92, Ukiah. Domestic abuse.
MICHAEL JIMENEZ, 46, Ukiah. Controlled su stance, paraphernalia, resisting.
MIRANDA MULLINS, 31, Willits. Paraphernalia, fugitive from justice, resisting.
LISA NELSON, 59, Ukiah. DUI.
MICHAEL NEWBOLDS, 50, Ukiah. County parole violation.
ALEXANDER RICHEY, 18, Nice/Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, vandalism, trespassing.
JOSEPH SOUTHWICK, 32, Willits. Failure to appear.
NICHOLAS TOW, 37, Willits. DUI with priors.
JULIE BEARDSLEY:
Justice has been served. Today is Sarah's birthday. James Oliver Unick was found guilty on all charges. I just wish Susan was alive to see this.
It is not only Sarah Greer’s 57th birthday, if she’d lived, but it’s Friday the 13th, and a planetary conjunction of the planets. Odd coincidences……
FORMER CLOVERDALE MAN GUILTY OF KILLING 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN 1982
by Colin Atagi
On what would have been Sarah Ann Geer‘s 57th birthday, a jury found a former Cloverdale man guilty Friday, Feb. 13, of killing her when she was 13 years old.
The verdict was reached after little more than two hours of deliberations and concluded the trial of James Unick in Sonoma County Superior Court.
The 64-year-old had been charged in the long-unsolved death of Geer, whose body was discovered in a Cloverdale alley the morning of May 24, 1982. A jury of six men and six women found Unick guilty of one count of murder and supported special circumstances of committing a lewd or lascivious act and raping a child.
Audience members in Judge Laura Passaglia’s courtroom let out gasps and sighs of relief when the verdict was read. Unick quickly turned his head before lowering his head into his hand.
He now faces life in prison without parole when sentenced on April 23. As the courtroom emptied, several attendees collectively said happy birthday to Geer.
Investigators told The Press Democrat in 1982 that Geer, a Washington School seventh grader, was the city’s first homicide victim to their recollection. By several accounts, her killing stunned and dismayed a quiet Sonoma County community where people knew their neighbors, doors were left unlocked while homeowners slept and children could walk around alone at night.
According to prosecutors, Geer and a friend were spending a weekend together and had gone to Santa Rosa before returning to Cloverdale Sunday, May 23, 1982. Later that night, Geer briefly visited another friend who lived on North Cloverdale Boulevard and left around 11:30 p.m. to go downtown.
The next morning, her body was found behind an apartment building on Main Street, in an alley between Second and Third streets. Two children made the grim discovery, including the 6-year-old granddaughter of a then-Cloverdale City Council member who lived in the building.
The alley was by the window of a former Cloverdale resident who testified the ground was covered in gravel and packed dirt, and she heard the sound of shuffling feet around midnight. She found Geer’s sandals the next morning on her way to breakfast and returned to police activity in the alley.
Officials said an autopsy found Geer died from “manual traumatic injuries,” consistent with strangulation or a beating. Whoever killed her used the shorts she wore and left Geer’s partially nude body under a fence.
“This is what sexual assault looks like. This is what rape looks like,” Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Christina Stevens told jurors as she displayed an image of Geer’s body during Wednesday’s closing arguments.
Unick lived on Cloverdale Boulevard in 1982 but denied knowing Geer when police briefly interviewed him after her death. Early in the trial, several of Geer’s friends testified they did not know Unick.
The case went cold, but Cloverdale police reopened it in 2021 and arrested Unick in the Glenn County community of Willows in July 2024. According to prosecutors, investigators matched DNA from his discarded cigarette to sperm that was found on Geer’s tampon. Several of his siblings were ruled out as matches.
Unick denied killing Geer and has been incarcerated at the Sonoma County jail ever since his arrest.
His trial began late last month and included testimony from investigators, DNA experts, Geer’s childhood friends and Cloverdale residents who were present in 1982. Testimony concluded Friday, Feb. 6, with Unick testifying his sperm was on the tampon because he and Geer engaged in sexual activity earlier on May 23.
He said Geer came onto him, claimed to be 16 years old and was alive when they parted ways. Unick was in bed by 11 p.m. May 23 and there’s “zero evidence” linking his encounter with Geer to her death, defense attorney Gabriel Quinnan said in his closing arguments Wednesday.
“He was surprised because murders didn’t happen in Cloverdale in 1982,” Quinnan said of Unick’s initial reaction to Geer’s death.
Quinnan said Unick regretted not telling anyone about what he did with Geer and praised him for coming forward and testifying.
Stevens said Unick shifted blame on a victim and admitted to activity that has no consequences. She added Geer was in Santa Rosa at the time Unick claimed he met her and it would have been impossible for her to be in two places at once.
The prosecutor called Unick “a chronic liar.”
(pressdemocrat.com)
TAX VEHICLES BY WEIGHT
The weight and speed of vehicles are what destroy our roads. We should consider what the Netherlands has done and tax vehicles by weight annually. Seems like a more equitable option than a mileage tax when you have two vehicles driving the same distances.
— Mark Proteau, Napa
DON'T VOTE FOR THIS ONE
Assembly Bill 1421 would push California toward a mileage-based driving tax, which would punish people who must drive farther for work, medical care or daily needs. Everyone should urge their state senator to vote no on this terrible policy. This would hit rural residents, seniors and working families the hardest, especially those with long commutes and no transit alternatives. A per-mile tax raises serious privacy concerns, since it relies on tracking or reporting how much and where people drive.
Californians already pay some of the highest gas taxes and vehicle fees in the country. We don’t need another tax layered on top. Even though the bill calls for a “study,” it clearly would move the state closer to implementing a new tax without voter approval. We must demand they stop the endless taxation and profligate spending in Sacramento.
— Moira Jacobs, Santa Rosa
ILLEGAL CANNABIS FARMS POISON CALIFORNIA’S FORESTS. Who’s cleaning them up?
Even after legalization, illicit cannabis grows continue to pollute California’s public lands. And the contamination, new research shows, lingers.
by Rachel Becker
Law enforcement raided the illegal cannabis operation in Shasta-Trinity National Forest months before, but rotting potatoes still sat on the growers’ makeshift kitchen worktop, waiting to be cooked.
Ecologist Greta Wengert stared down the pockmarked hillside at a pile of pesticide sprayers left behind, long after the raid. Wild animals had gnawed through the pressurized canisters, releasing the chemicals inside.
“They’re just these little death bombs, waiting for any wildlife that is going to investigate,” said Wengert, co-founder of the Integral Ecology Research Center, a non-profit that studies the harms caused by cannabis grows on public lands. For all her stoic professionalism, she sounded a little sad.
For over a decade, Wengert and her colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows like this one dangerously pollute California’s public lands and pristine watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems, water and wildlife.
Now, they’re sounding another alarm — that inadequate federal funding, disjointed communication, dangerous conditions and agencies stretched thin at both the state and federal level are leaving thousands of grow sites – and their trash, pesticides, fertilizers and more – to foul California’s forests.
Dozens of fertilizer bags wept blue fluid onto the forest floor. Irrigation tubes snaked across the craters of empty plant holes. The cold stillness felt temporary — as if the growers would return at any moment to prop up the crumpled tents, replant their crop and fling more beer cans and dirty underwear into the woods.
Wengert has tallied nearly 7,000 abandoned sites like this one on California’s public lands. It’s almost certainly an underestimate, she said. Her team knows of only 587 that have been at least partly cleaned up.
No government agency can provide a comprehensive count; several referred CalMatters back to Wengert’s nonprofit for an unofficial tally.
Most of the sites Wengert’s team identified are in national forests, where “limited funding and a shortage of personnel trained to safely identify and remove hazardous materials” is driving a backlog in clean ups, a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson told CalMatters via an unsigned email.
The federal government, the spokesperson said, has dedicated no funding for the forest service to clean them up. And it’s leaving a mess in California.
A new playbook
The federal government owns nearly half of the more than 100 million acres in California. But it’s California’s agencies and lawmakers taking the lead on tackling the environmental harms of illegal grows — even as the problem sprawls across state, federal and privately managed lands.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s policy is to clean up all grows spotted on its 1.1 million acres of wildlife areas, ecological reserves, and other properties, officials say.
Staff assist with clean ups on federal lands “when asked,” said cannabis program director Amelia Wright — typically on California’s dime. But, she said, “That’s not our mandate.”
Fees and taxes on California’s legalized cannabis market fuel state efforts — supporting the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s cannabis program and funding tens of millions of dollars in grants for rehabilitating places damaged by cultivation. These grants can cover clean-ups and sustainable cultivation projects, or even related efforts like fish conservation.
The department has helped remove almost 350,000 pounds of trash and more than 920 pesticide containers from grows on public lands over nearly a decade.
But former Assemblymember Jim Wood, a North Coast Democrat, said that as he prepared to leave office in 2024, progress on clean ups was still too slow.
“It doesn’t reflect what I see is the urgency to watersheds, and the water and the people that are served by them,” he said.
In 2024, lawmakers passed Wood’s bill directing the Fish and Wildlife department to conduct a study to inform a statewide cleanup strategy for cannabis grows. The law requires the department to provide regular reports to the legislature about illegal cultivation and restoration efforts on lands both public and private.
To Wright, that’s a path forward, however prospective it may be.
“It just feels like such redemption right now for many of us,” Wright said. “It’s a one of a kind program. So we didn’t have a playbook — we’re still creating it.”
But the study, which Wengert’s organization is conducting on the state’s behalf, isn’t due until next year. Meanwhile, the bloom of illicit pot grows on private land has been demanding California’s attention, a growing problem since voters legalized cannabis in 2016.
“It’s like whack a mole. They pop up in a new location, and then we have to go there — but the impacts are occurring across the landscape,” said Scott Bauer, an environmental program manager with the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s cannabis office.
The California Department of Justice told CalMatters it recently identified a “substantial increase of illicit cannabis cultivations on or adjacent to public lands.” Of the 605 sites where a multi-agency state and federal task force ripped out illicit cannabis plants, roughly 9% were on public lands — up from an average of 3 to 4%.
“Everybody thought with legalization that a lot of these problems would go away,” said Wood, the former assemblymember.
But, he added, the sites remain. “It’s a ticking environmental time bomb.”
And the contamination, new research confirms, lingers.
‘This site will sit on this landscape’
On a cold November morning, down one dirt road and up another, ecologist Mourad Gabriel led a safety briefing at the grow site in Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
Gabriel, who previously spearheaded a U.S. Forest Service effort tackling trespass grows on public lands, co-founded the research center with Wengert and now co-directs it with her. He’s also her spouse, and a foil to her calm watchfulness — dismayed by the state of the forest one moment, and bounding off to investigate an interesting mushroom or animal scat the next.
“Please don’t push the red shiny buttons, or lick the big pink things,” Gabriel joked at the mouth of a well-worn path growers had carved into the woods. (Carbofuran, a dangerous and illegal pesticide often found on grow sites, is bright pink.)
The team, Gabriel explained, wasn’t there to clean up the grow. They didn’t have the money for that. Instead, he said, shouldering his backpack and strapping on a first aid kit, they were there to document the contaminants as part of a U.S. Forest Service-funded investigation into wildlife around cultivation sites.
“This site will sit on this landscape until someone acquires some level of funding,” Gabriel said. “And no one can really push it, until we actually get that data.”
Wengert and Gabriel have spent years collecting data at grow sites like this one. They’ve found carcasses of creatures so poisoned even the flies feeding on them died, and detected dangerous pesticides in nearby creeks more than a year after raids.
In recent work they published with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the team found that illegal grows pulsed pollutants from plastic, painkillers, personal care products, pot and pesticides into the soil that could be detected months or even years later. Some contaminants also showed up in nearby streams.
The pollutants diminished over time — absorbed into the landscape and washed into waterways. By the time the researchers tested for them, the concentrations had declined to levels lower than those found in agricultural soils.
But, they point out, remote habitats and sensitive headwaters are not where these chemicals are supposed to be. Past a marshy flat cratered with holes and piled with poison-green insecticide bags, Gabriel, Wengert and ecologist Ivan Medel trailed an armed U.S. Forest Service officer to a massive trash heap cordoned off by barbed wire.
Medel wedged himself through the strands and handed empty fertilizer bags dripping blue liquid out to Gabriel.
Force-feeding waterways the excess nutrients in fertilizer can upend entire ecosystems and spur algae blooms. The site is in the greater South Fork Trinity River watershed — vital, undammed habitat for protected salmon and other fish species.
“That was pretty nasty,” Gabriel said, as one bag spilled liquid over his gloved hands. He counted up the haul. “Twelve bags right there.”
By day’s end, the team discovered enough empty bags and bottles to have held 2,150 pounds of fertilizer and more than 29 gallons of liquid concentrate. All of that, the growers had poured into the land.
A federal void
In 2018, a federal audit lambasted the U.S. Forest Service for failing to clean up — or even document — trespass grows in national forests.
The agency was finding and eradicating cannabis grows in national forests effectively. But its failure to consistently clean them up, the audit said, put “the public, wildlife, and environment at risk of contamination” and could allow growers to return more easily.
Little has changed. From 2020 through 2024, when Gabriel worked for the agency, a spokesperson said the Forest Service “prioritized reclaiming sites over investigating active grows.”
But the agency said it still has received too little funding and has too few personnel trained to work with often hazardous materials. And the backlog persists. How big it is, the Forest Service wouldn’t say. After declining an interview request and taking two months to reply to emailed inquiries, a spokesperson said CalMatters must submit a public records request.
The Forest Service now is shifting the responsibility for cleanups to individual forests. That, too, contributes to the backlog, the spokesperson said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he has tried repeatedly to direct more funding to cleaning up trespass grows on federal lands, but with little success in Congress.
“We have tried just about everything,” said Huffman. “It’s clearly not enough.”
Now, under the Trump administration, the Forest Service is even more understaffed. A spokesperson said while law enforcement staffing “has remained steady,” roughly 5,000 non-fire employees “have either offboarded or are in the process of doing so” through “multiple voluntary separation programs.”
Huffman put it more starkly. “They’ve been gutted,” he said. “The Forest Service right now has a sign on the door that says, ‘We’re out of the office. We’re not sure when we’ll ever be back.’”
Cleaning it up
The Shasta-Trinity grow stretched for more than 6 acres through national forest land. Trash, and the smell of pot, were everywhere.
Law enforcement officers had removed the mouth of the irrigation tube diverting water from a nearby creek, but all the piping remained. It slithered over downed trees, past the craters of another abandoned grow to a waterfall where leaves and black tubing snarled in the rocks.
Gabriel clambered up the waterfall, where he discovered a sock and a plastic bottle with the top sliced off — a makeshift filter the growers used to keep the line clear of debris. He hung the bottle on a tree branch, like a ghoulish Christmas ornament.
Few organizations are qualified to do science-informed cleanups, and none work as widely as Wengert and Gabriel’s.
California’s Cannabis Restoration Grant Program is paying the team more than $5.3 million to conduct the legislatively mandated study on cleaning up grow sites, and also to train and support tribal teams and other organizations to do this work.
The study, and the training, include best practices for handling and disposing of hazardous waste, Gabriel said. More teams means more competition for the pot of state-allocated money, but he wants more allies in the fight.
“Until someone cleans it up, it stays out here,” Gabriel said from his perch in the waterfall, surrounded by a tangle of black irrigation pipes. He expected it could take years.
But that’s not what happened.
Two weeks later, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife choppered away nearly 1,500 pounds of trash, 4,000 feet of irrigation pipe and 7 pesticide containers — restoring the rugged, remote forest.
The department had offered to help out the U.S. Forest Service and take the lead on the clean up, with its own helicopter, on its own budget, according to spokesperson Sarah Sol.
Months later, when Gabriel learned about it, he was shocked — and concerned. Sol said that fish and wildlife staff did not encounter any banned or restricted pesticides, and all had masks and nitrile gloves available to them.
But Gabriel’s team found residue in the pesticide sprayers on the hillside from a class of chemicals that includes banned and dangerous carbofuran. He worried that the clean up team could have unknowingly put themselves and others at risk.
“There is a proper way to do it, and there is a cowboy way to do it,” Gabriel said.
It’s one site down — one patch of forest cleared. But thousands like it remain, littering California’s landscape.
(calmatters.org)
'WHEN I WAS SEVEN years old, in the small town of Manassa in southern Colorado, l had a run-in with a boy named Fred Daniels, about my own size, who went to school with me. Just what started us fighting l can't remember; in fact, it is from my father that the description of the set-to comes - but at any rate we tangled in one of the wide, dusty, road-like streets of the country town. We went to it hammer and tongs, as small boys will, with ferocious swinging blows that missed a mile. The noise attracted men from the country store, and a half-circle gathered, amused, to watch us, as they might watch a dogfight.
Apparently, in that pioneer atmosphere of the Rockies, nobody thought of interfering. Fred's father was there, and so was mine, laughing and slapping their thighs, watching us scrap it out. The going kept getting rougher and rougher. The two of us tried everything we could think of, wrestling and butting and kicking and everything else. Presently Fred's father yelled encouragingly, 'Bite him, Fred!' Everybody laughed, and Fred turned his head to find out what his father had said. It left him wide open, and they tell me l instantly took advantage of it and bopped him on the chin as hard as I could. Over he went! The fight was finished.'
- Jack Dempsey
IMPEACH HIM. NOW.
Donald Trump, during one of his late-night social media rants, posted a video that in part portrayed Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. This was condemned as racist, so his press secretary defended it was a meme. When this didn’t stop the condemnation, a second explanation was provided placing the blame on a staffer instead. Congress members from both parties expressed outrage, although a more appropriate response might have been a unanimous condemnation by the entire Congress.
President Harry Truman said there is a certain dignity associated with being president, clearly not something Trump’s actions uphold. I would add that sanity is required too, another attribute Trump lacks. In fact, Trump has demonstrably gone off the rails. His speeches, regardless of the audience, still include a section with him dwelling on the supposedly “rigged” 2020 presidential election. Further, Trump is obsessed with attacking those he perceives as opposing him; and he is consistently finding new ways to enrich himself, be it in glory or wealth.
One might conclude the president prefers to spend his time on non-presidential pursuits, not to mention golf, so perhaps it’s time for Congress to support him in these efforts. Let the impeachment proceedings begin.
— Sherman Schapiro, Eureka
UNTIL NOW
Donald Trump’s promises. Let’s see. End Ukraine war day one. Nope Bring down grocery prices. Nope, they went up. Inflation is about the same. But that is Joe Biden’s fault. Increase manufacturing jobs. Nope, they went down. Health care reform. Not in the first term, and not in this one. Immigration reform. No improvement in illegal immigration is worth the cost of Americans who don’t look white enough being dragged from their homes in their underwear or shot in the back while being held down by masked storm troopers.
I am a 71-year-old disabled Marine Corps veteran, and while I have not always agreed with my government, I have never feared it. Until now.
— Chris O’Neill, Forestville
CALIFORNIA SUES AS TRUMP CUTS $600M IN PUBLIC HEALTH GRANTS TO FOUR STATES
by Ana B. Ibarra
California is suing the Trump Administration over its plans to cut $600 million in public health funding from California and three other Democratic states, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday.
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Congress it would end Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grants in California, Colorado, Illinois and Minnesota. The attorneys general in those states filed a joint lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Wednesday, arguing the cuts are based on “arbitrary political animus” and would cause irreparable harm.
The grants under threat help fund workforce and data modernization as well as testing and treatment for diseases like HIV.
The cuts target grants provided to state and local health departments as well as universities and providers. According to the complaint, one of the grants at stake is the Public Health Infrastructure Grant, considered the “backbone” of public health nationwide.
California is due $130 million from that grant, according to Bonta’s office; the money pays for more than 400 jobs, including in areas lacking healthcare workers. It also goes to update the state’s ability to send electronic laboratory data and to provide urgent dental care to underserved children, the state claims.
Losing those dollars would cause layoffs and weaken the state’s ability to prepare for public health emergencies, according to the lawsuit.
Another grant under threat, according to the lawsuit, supports planning for extreme heat events.
Other grants at risk include $6 million for Los Angeles County to address health inequities, $1.1 million that could be withdrawn from the Los Angeles County’s National HIV Behavioral Surveillance Project; $876,000 for the Prevention Research Center at USCF to address social isolation among older L.G.B.T.Q. adults; $383,000 for the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and $1.3 million for health staffing at Alameda County.
The U.S. Health and Human Services agency has not said why cuts to the Public Health Infrastructure Grant are happening only in four states, even though the program funds health departments in all 50. An agency spokesperson said only that “these grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities.”
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, a San Francisco Democrat, called the agency’s reasoning “a transparent excuse to punish states and communities it disagrees with, at the direct expense of lives and readiness.”
California Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff called the cancellation of grants “dangerous” and “deliberate.” “The Trump administration’s targeting of blue states is illegal and must end,” he said on X.
The California Department of Public Health and local health departments contacted by CalMatters said that they had not received official notice of the reported cuts. The Los Angeles Department of Public Health said the impact to Angelenos would be long-lasting.
“As local health departments across the nation face simultaneous health emergencies, cancelling federal investments will make our communities less healthy, less safe, and less prosperous,” the department said in an unsigned email.
Los Angeles County anticipates the cuts would undermine its capacity to respond to natural disasters and outbreaks like measles, avian flu and influenza, as well as its work monitoring sexually transmitted diseases and chronic conditions.
This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has targeted public health funding. Last spring, it tried to claw back billions of dollars from states meant to respond to public health threats, including COVID-19. A federal judge in Rhode Island ruled those cuts unlawfu
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
(CalMatters.org)
WELCOME TO THE VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED
by Maureen Dowd
When President Trump vitiated scientific facts on Thursday, helping fossil fuel fat cats by eliminating the government’s ability to regulate treacherous gases, a reporter asked what he says to people worried about the very real hazards of a hotter planet.
“I tell them don’t worry about it,” he shot back.
The administration has even coined a word to denigrate those who push back on Trump’s rash policies: “panican,” as in one who panics.
In a world steeped in violence and menace, we are constantly being told by the people in charge not to worry.
Don’t worry about a sweltering Earth. Don’t worry about all those powerful creeps getting away with abusing young women exploited by Jeffrey Epstein; instead, just behold the beauty of the rising Dow, as the abrasive, evasive Pam Bondi suggested at a congressional hearing Wednesday.
Don’t worry about the Trump family’s unethical get-rich-quick schemes. Don’t worry about an economy increasingly catering to the well connected. Don’t worry about the president threatening to unilaterally set the rules for state elections — Congress be damned.
The pueri aeterni of Silicon Valley have greased the palm of our King Joffrey in the White House. And now we are told not to worry about safeguards for A.I., the most spine-tingling technology ever created.
I interviewed Elon Musk in 2017, when he still cared about A.I. safety as much as he once cared about going to the wildest party on Epstein’s island and now cares about constantly sharing deranged posts about race on X. He told me that the fate of humanity depends on not allowing the algorithms to be concealed and concentrated in the hands of tech and government elites.
“It’s great when the emperor is Marcus Aurelius,” Musk said then. “It’s not so great when the emperor is Caligula.”
Let’s just say that our man in the White House is no Marcus Aurelius.
When I reported in Silicon Valley back then, the debate was whether A.I. would jump to the dark side once it got smarter than us.
But since then, even the tech gods who once had good intentions have gone to the dark side, seduced by the billions to be made on A.I., including on erotica. These geniuses who were supposed to escort us into a better, safer future turned out to be the biggest sellouts of all time.
Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, has welcomed erotica, or “adult mode,” as it’s called, saying he wants to “treat adult users like adults.”
Once Musk put up an A.I.-generated picture of himself in a bikini to demonstrate his A.I. model’s new feature, people used it to manipulate pictures of women online, stripping off their clothes.
The tech bros are thrilled with their ability to buy influence in Trump world. (Yes, Jeff Bezos, I’m talking about “Melania.”)
As Wired reported, the president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, was one of Trump’s biggest individual donors in 2025, to the tune of $25 million. Another $25 million is on the way to a PAC that fights politicians who favor regulating A.I. OpenAI’s original mission was to protect humanity, but where’s the money in that?
The tech universe shuddered this week at alarms from several Paul Reveres.
An urgent post on X titled “Something Big Is Happening,” by Matt Shumer, the C.E.O. of two small tech companies, went viral. He warned that A.I. is leaping ahead faster than we think.
“The future is being shaped by a remarkably small number of people: a few hundred researchers at a handful of companies … Open AI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind,” he wrote, adding: “I am no longer needed for the actual technical work of my job … I tell the A.I. what I want, walk away from my computer for four hours, and come back to find the work done. Done well, done better than I would have done it myself.” Now, he wrote, OpenAI’s newest model is showing judgment, and it knows how to make the right call on its own.
On Monday, an Anthropic A.I. safety researcher, Mrinank Sharma, quit his job, posting an apocalyptic warning on X that the “world is in peril” from A.I., bioweapons and cascading crises.
Anthropic’s C.E.O., Dario Amodei, has been the most responsible tech executive in acknowledging the awesome, hair-curling power of A.I., saying it will “test who we are as a species” and reveal whether humanity has the maturity to handle this “almost unimaginable power.” (The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the company’s A.I. tool, Claude, had helped the American military capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.)
Sharma is not sure if humanity has the maturity to handle A.I. “I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions,” he wrote.
He said he will disappear to England and pursue a poetry degree, signing off with a William Stafford poem containing a line that augured A.I. dominance: “Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.”
Zoë Hitzig, a researcher at OpenAI, also quit on Monday. In a guest essay for The New York Times, she said she had lost faith that OpenAI still wanted to back her work on the two outcomes she fears most: “a technology that manipulates the people who use it at no cost and one that exclusively benefits the few who can afford to use it.”
Another OpenAI executive, Ryan Beiermeister, lost her job in the safety division after complaining about ChatGPT’s rollout of A.I. erotica, The Journal disclosed.
Beiermeister, The Journal said, did not think the company had enough guardrails in place to stop child-exploitation content and wall off adult content from teens.
OpenAI claimed Beiermeister’s departure was due to sexual discrimination against a male colleague. She adamantly denied that to The Journal.
Despite the smarmy reassurances of the tech lords, some A.I. insiders are alarmed by what they’re seeing.
The people in charge tell us not to worry. But we should worry. It’s getting scary out there. There’s nothing artificial about that.
(nytimes.com)
SUPERBOWL SIMULCAST
by David Yearsley
Up to kick-off and even after it, I was expecting the Executive Order. Or the Black Shirts. Or both.
If Commander-in-Chief Trump can, while flipping through his own large-print rulebook, change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Greenland to Iceland, the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center (with plans to do the same to the new RFK Stadium to be built in DC) then he can damn well rechristen — or, I guess, unchristen, or just plain rebrand—Santa Clara into Santa Claus. Rip off the hair habit of the 13th-century Italian nun whose life was dedicated to radical poverty, put a white beard and red coat with fur piping on her, and declare it henceforth Christmas all year round.
What better moment than at the Super Bowl to issue the Proclamation, since, like Christmas, this peculiar institution is all about hedonistic consumption, binge eating, drunk uncles, vital distraction, fleeting elation, bad bets, dreams for sale, dashed hopes, and, at last, numbing boredom? From now on in America, the streets will be paved with Bitcoin and every day will be a holiday. Consumer confidence lifts off with that flyover F-35 to the stratosphere and beyond. Amazon opens its flagship fulfillment center on Alpha Centauri. Retail rejoices with the angels. Bombs away!
But wait: who’s that Rubenesque figure plummeting from the bomb bay of the B-1 leading that chevron of fighter jets of various vintages, a tight-formation advertisement for some of the most corrupt and wasteful weapons systems ever stuffed into the stockings of the Military-Industrial-Football complex? Who is that Evel Knievel hurtling toward earth only to pull his ripcord at the last possible sub-second and land upright at the 50-yard line of Levi’s Stadium just as singer-songwriter Charlie Puth—his noodling fingers having teased his Fender Rhodes with bluesy sweet nothings, then caressed it toward arousal through gently probing harmonies before pounding it toward climax—finally lets his fabric-softener voice foam up in ardent falsetto, then erupt in ballistic release with the rocket’s red glare and the bombs bursting in air?
(We interrupt this lurid scene depicted in purple-mountain-majesty prose for a bit of pretentious music theory coupled with hermeneutic reflection: the final deceptive cadence with which Puth groped the national anthem onto the louche lowered submediant triad and then proceeded by faux-heroic, if utterly hackneyed, whole step up to the home-key tonic was like mixing lethal doses of Quaaludes into the good old-fashioned ale of this 18th-century English drinking song. Let’s hope that revered racist Francis Scott Key never wakes up from having had the brew funneled—deservedly—down his throat.)
You guessed it! The intrepid skydiver who has landed back on Silicon Valley turf, where he made his millions under the Luciferian wing of Peter Thiel, is none other than VP Vance. The first deployment of the latest noise-canceling, signal-crossing, ear-and-soul-busting weaponry recently touted, if obscurely, by his boss, Donald Trump, converts the hailstorm of Super Bowl boos into a Chorus of Hallelujahs as VPJD doffs his helmet, grabs the mic, his plump and bearded face filling the Jumbotrons, and sings out: “Hello, Santa Claus!”
Still smarting from the humiliation of having had to witness the long, unutterable name of the football franchise based in the nation’s capital renounced and changed to the Commanders, at least VPJD doesn’t also have to enforce a rebrand of the two contenders now on the Super Bowl gridiron sidelines with their hands on their hearts, no knee even infinitesimally flexing toward the Levi’s grass where banished 49er (yet another mythical mascot of American Manifest Destiny) Colin Kaepernick knelt in protest. What could be more American than Patriots, especially since the team’s ownership is fiercely loyal to the Revered Leader? Plus, it’s historically resonant and storyline-potent that these Tea Partiers should tangle with a team dressed up in ersatz Native outfits whose totemic symbol on their headgear was lifted from the Salish-speaking peoples of the Pacific Northwest—never mind that the “Seahawk” itself is Seattle-specific alliterative bunkum.
A first half of field goals only stoked the fervor for halftime.
Encased in faultless white, Bad Bunny wasn’t being bad at all, but goodness through and through—or so it seemed to the linguistically lazy millions who didn’t know a word of Spanish other than Dorito®.
The fabric of Bad Bunny’s outfit wasn’t fluffy, but he still stroked it—and himself—as he sang, in what I took to be signs of pride or pleasure. Since his words were indecipherable to millions watching, one wondered why, in the heart of Silicon Valley, the AI bunny wasn’t serving up a simultaneous translation. The answer: the goodly shepherds of the internet at Microsoft and Meta and other prelates of the high-tech curia don’t let AI traffic in smut, at least not on Super Bowl Sunday.
The fury of Monday morning moralists, like that of the suspiciously named Republican congressman from Tennessee, Andy Ogles, tickled my own curiosity. He got hot under the collar—and perhaps the belt, too—at the tale of the tape, as, for example, at the 1:38 mark when Bad Bunny sang the line “Mi bicho es cabrón”—“My dick is hard.” That was just one of a long litany of supposed FTC no-nos that followed over the next dozen minutes.
This shouldn’t have been surprising even to outraged Ogles. This Bunny, who is the first-ever male of the species to grace the cover of Playboy, wears sex positivity on his sleeve, whether his abundantly tattooed forearm is bare or demurely clad in pressed white linen.
All around him, a dynamically choreographed dance party had broken out at a beachside house in Puerto Rico, whirled into the stadium not by an out-of-season, off-piste tropical storm but by the much more powerful forces of global capitalism.
The show was full of clever visual call-outs of the exploitation and neglect suffered by his native island under the boot of the colonizing behemoth to the north: male models cut sugarcane; nimble dancers scaled power poles and flirted with transformers to draw attention to the devastation to life and infrastructure wrought by Hurricanes Irma and Maria back in 2017; Bad Bunny waved a Puerto Rican flag with a white star on a triangle of light blue rather than the darker shade behind the U.S. stars, this color match being a mark of enforced fealty to conquerors.
Enacting his island’s resilience, Bad Bunny crashed down through the ceiling of the pop-up beachside retreat. He not only survived the calamity but also popped up from it dancing and smiling and singing. Later, he embodied his trust in humanity by falling backward from a high ledge several meters (not yards!) down into the waiting hands of revelers below. Woven into the tapestry of the spectacle was a lightning wedding over which he presided, an act of love and a signal of regenerative faith in the future.
Super Bowl headliner alumna Lady Gaga stuck a manicured thumb into the eye of heteronormativity in her reprise of “Born This Way” in plain English. Fellow Puerto Rican Ricky Martin offered a searing rendition of “Lo Que Le Pasó a Hawaii” (also heard on Bad Bunny’s just-released album), a plea against statehood like the one forced on that island in the Pacific.
At the end, the Bunny broke into a Bad Benediction, uttered in English: “God Bless America.” Some—but definitely not many—may have seen the ghost of Irving Berlin shed his tuxedo and start into perreo—that hip-swiveling, close-grinding dance of reggaeton. Backed by Black, Brown, and White flag-waving dancers from every nation in the Americas, Bad Bunny proceeded to recite the name of each country (said in Spanish) in the hemisphere from south to north, including the “United States” (in English). As the euphoric beat from the surrounding cane fields crescendoed toward utopian paydirt, he spiked the football and issued his thanks to all.
Against the seemingly impossible shade of blue conjured by the Golden State just before sunset, it was all love and light, eros and ecstasy, wedding white and Caribbean color—the sight and sound of itdrunk in by some 133 million believers.
At the same time, from a subterranean studio stocked with an audience of a few dozen (their cheers boosted in post-production) and beamed toward a faithful MAGA few came the “All-American Halftime Show.” This beast was the spawn of right-wing disgust at the selection of Bad Bunny for the national ritual. The simulcast was launched under the banner of TPUSA, which sounds like the surname of a Czech luge rider or a mustachioed Romantic composer from Prague, but actually is the acronym for Turning Point USA—a “movement” for “freedom” and “truth” and “family” and “sacrifice” and “greatness,” founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
The grim spectacle was rumored to have been pre-taped in Atlanta, but might as well have been broadcast from Abu Ghraib. From the TPUSA black site came fury and flames, howls for punishment and cries of pain emitted by acid-and-gravel-etched voices harried by impotently beaten drums and guitar phalluses, strummed most violently at the start of these MAGA rites in an ersatz Jimi Hendrix “Star-Spangled Banner.”
After the guitar trio had sawed up Francis Scott Key, his body having been emergency-FedExed from California (now renamed Melanomia) to the MAGA morgue, Brantley Gilbert entered the BDSM dungeon. The titles of his selections said it all: “Real American” and “Dirt Road Anthem” (“Dirt Road” can be slang for anus, but never mind). Like the rest of the All-American playlist, these were odes to hard-working, hard-drinking, hard-smoking, lawn-mowing, TV-watching, dog-loving, church-going, gun-wielding rural folk and urban cosplayers like Kristi Noem. The boozing and gasping in these songs is relentless, the most reliable buddies being “the king in the can and the Marlboro Man,” as smoke pours out of the cracked window of the pickup. When something harder is needed, it’s “Jack [Daniel’s] and Jim [Beam].” Brantley sang into a microphone welded with big brass knuckles. No Bad Bunny or liberal lady was going to wrest any solos or stage time from this singing troll.
Another barrel-chested, leather-jacketed brawler called Lee Brice, biggie-sizing his hurt at being so misunderstood, complained that “being country in this country nowadays is hard.” These were melodies and men the Proud Boys could indeed be proud of.
There was no wedding.
Kid Rock did not rock.
He babbled at high decibels in heavy metal tongues in “Bawitdaba,” whose lyrics, in a moment of paradoxical clarity, grab for a bottle of Southern Comfort. As he shrieked and skipped about like a man possessed—more likely (said oddsmakers in Las Vegas) by Satan than Jesus—rectangular screens showed close-ups of the American flag as the stage spewed fire.
Returning later under his real name, Robert Ritchie, he did “Til You Can’t.” I wish he hadn’t.
A closing film offered a flag-wrapped tribute to Charlie Kirk.
I thought of the Horst Wessel Song. It commemorates an SA brownshirt who was assassinated in 1930 by members of the Communist Party in his apartment in what was then the Große Frankfurter Straße in Berlin, and since World War II has been called Karl-Marx-Allee. After Hitler took power two years later, the Horst Wessel Song became the mandatory coda to the national anthem, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles”:
Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed!
The SA marches with calm, steady step.
Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries
March in spirit within our ranks.
Clear the streets for the brown battalions,
Clear the streets for the storm division man!
Millions are looking upon the hooked cross (swastika) full of hope,
The day of freedom and of bread dawns!
For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!
For the fight, we all stand prepared!
Already Hitler’s banners fly over all streets.
The time of bondage will last but a little while now!
The jaunty parade-ground melody goose-steps right out of the 19th century and frightens still. The TPUSA call-to-arms rumbles and frets way down in its pre-apocalyptic bunker.
In the Situation Room of Musical Patriotism, recently relocated to a safe house in an unnamed European country, I turned my attention back to the screen showing the game.
Protecting the sanctity of the Super Bowl was only a pretext. I waited for the Blackshirts of ICE to storm the stadium and get the Bunny.
(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)
BASEBALL CANTO
Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,
reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders.
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everybody stands up for the National Anthem,
with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers,
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops in their black suits and little
black caps pressed over their hearts,
Standing straight and still like at some funeral of a blarney bartender,
and all facing east,
as if expecting some Great White Hope or the Founding Fathers to
appear on the horizon like 1066 or 1776.
But Willie Mays appears instead,
in the bottom of the first,
and a roar goes up as he clouts the first one into the sun and takes
off, like a footrunner from Thebes.
The ball is lost in the sun and maidens wail after him
as he keeps running through the Anglo-Saxon epic.
And Tito Fuentes comes up looking like a bullfighter
in his tight pants and small pointy shoes.
And the right field bleechers go mad with Chicanos and blacks
and Brooklyn beer-drinkers,
"Tito! Sock it to him, sweet Tito!"
And sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket
and smacks one that don't come back at all,
and flees around the bases
like he's escaping from the United Fruit Company.
As the gringo dollar beats out the pound.
And sweet Tito beats it out like he's beating out usury,
not to mention fascism and anti-semitism.
And Juan Marichal comes up,
and the Chicano bleechers go loco again,
as Juan belts the first ball out of sight,
and rounds first and keeps going
and rounds second and rounds third,
and keeps going and hits paydirt
to the roars of the grungy populace.
As some nut presses the backstage panic button
for the tape-recorded National Anthem again,
to save the situation.
But it don't stop nobody this time,
in their revolution round the loaded white bases,
in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics,
in the territorio libre of Baseball.
— Lawrence Ferlinghetti
IS HEATHCLIFF JEWISH?
Emily Bronte’s Revolutionary Novel of Repression and Reversals…
by Jonah Raskin
“The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him: they crush those beneath them.”
– Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.
Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights, published first under the alias, Ellis Bell, has appeared on movie screens at least nine times, most recently in a 2026 version directed by Emerald Lilly Fennell and starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, an Australian of Basque descent who boasts a dark complexion that makes him suitable to play dark-skinned Heathcliff. Previously, the role belonged largely to men with white skin— Laurence Olivier, Timothy Dalton and Ralph Fiennes. All miscast. But the Spanish actor Jorge Mistral took the part in a Spanish-language adaptation by Luis Buñuel from 1954. Before Buñuel directed his Wuthering Heights, there were two Indian versions, both in Hindi, with the main characters indigenized.
Filmmakers have not tired of the tangled plot or grown impatient with the two star-crossed Shakespearean lovers, Heathcliff and Catherine, who cries out not long before she dies, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks.” She adds, “I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure…but as my own being.”
The latest cinematic version has brought out the culture vultures, including Rosemary Counter, who writes in Vanity Fair that Emily “may have been autistic, antisocial, agoraphobic, and/or anorexic. She may have been a lesbian, or in an incestuous relationship with her brother.” Forget it! Counter adds, “In any case, the author of Wuthering Heights—arguably the horniest Gothic novel ever written—was probably a virgin with a vivid imagination.” Pleeasse!
Sister Charlotte, who knew Emily better than anyone else, noted that she had a “spark of honorable ambition,” and that, like her siblings, the “mode” of her writing was “not what is called ‘feminine’.” Charlotte added that books written by women and published under their real names were likely “to be looked on with prejudice.” The sisters took aliases and thereby aimed to undermine and survive the onslaughts of the patriarchy. Emily died in 1848, a year after Wuthering Heights was published; she never knew the fame that would accrue to her novel or herself as an author.
Over the past century—including a silent film version screened in 1920— movie audiences have watched over and over again, ad infinitum, albeit with variations, a narrative about two lost souls who love one another too much for their own good, and who rain down disaster on one another and on those around them. No Jane Austen-like happy ending for Catherine and Heathcliff, or for the two main families who inhabit the novel, the Earnshaws and the Lintons. After Heathcliff dies, Hareton Earnshaw marries Cathy Linton; finally, generational conflicts are put to rest and the two houses come together as one.
Yes, there are more characters than one might want or like, but Emily aimed to convey a sense of family history and family feuds and offer a sense of redemption.
To ask, “Is Heathcliff Jewish?” might provoke cultural disturbances akin to the kinds of friction that the protagonist himself generates at Wuthering Heights after he’s snatched from the streets of Liverpool and flung into the untamed Yorkshire moors where he’s exploited, abused, beaten and treated as an inferior.
The tables are soon turned.
The short answer to the question, “Is Heathcliff Jewish?” is an emphatic “No,” though that hasn’t stopped Emily Brontë scholars from suggesting that he is in fact Jewish, or at least that he has “Jewish roots.” That’s what Professor Sharon Lynne Joffe argues in a recent issue of Brontë Studies, the Journal of the Brontë Society, which was founded in 1893 and still going strong. Joffe writes that Brontë “incorporated nineteenth-century stereotypes of Jews into her character,” and that she “would have been familiar with these stereotypes through her reading of Blackwood’s Magazine.”
Not so fast, professor. Joffe takes a leap of faith–not a logical step–and adds that “Heathcliff’s physical characteristics, his initial inability to speak English, his lineage, and his eventual success support my contention that Brontë used Jewish stereotypes to create Heathcliff.” Nothing in the novel itself supports the notion that he’s Jewish, though like Jewish characters in fiction and Old Testament figures like Jonah, he’s the Outsider. Of course, Jews aren’t the only literary outsiders.
Nor does it help Professor Joffe’s case to summon Blackwoods to support her claims. My own reading of that magazine and others from the Victorian era, including Punch and Cornhill (I was conducting research for my book about British literature and the British Empire) taught me that editors, publishers and writers used racial stereotypes to describe anyone and nearly everyone on the planet, including the “wild” Irish. The word “wog, and the letters WOG, which stood for “Worthy Oriental Gentleman,” were used to describe the French, the Italians, the Indians from India and anyone with brown or black skin who didn’t speak proper English. Racism and anti-Semitism lurked at the heart of an empire where the sun supposedly never set.
In the page of the novel, Heathcliff is called all kinds of names: “gipsy” (Roma in today’s lingo), “Afreet” (a dangerous figure in Islamic cultures) and a “Lascar” (an East Indian sailor who worked on English ships). But he’s never called a Jew, Jewish or Semitic.
In chapter four, readers learn that Mr. Earnshaw, the master of Wuthering Heights, encounters “in the streets of Liverpool…a dirty, ragged black-haired child” who speaks “gibberish that nobody could understand.” Gender and ethnicity unknown. The child is initially referred to as an “it,” and neither masculine nor feminine. Earnshaw sees “it starving, and homeless and as good as dumb,” and refers to “it” as a “poor, fatherless child.” The child is adopted and brought to Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire, which is as much a character with a personality as any of the humans.
Once it’s apparent that “it” is “a sullen boy,” he’s called “Heathcliff.” The name fits. After all, the orphaned child from Liverpool, becomes a creature of the wild and rugged moors. An archetype of man in “the open air,” to borrow a phrase Herman Melville uses to describe Captain Ahab, he’s unlike the gentlemen who appear in the stuff drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s novels. If Heathcliff takes on the identity of an anti-hero, Wuthering Heights, like Moby-Dick, becomes an anti-novel; a revolutionary work that deconstructs and reconstructs the very form of the novel itself as a genre. Multiple narrators and a non-linear narrative break the paradigm.
Emily’s older sister, Charlotte Brontë —the author of Jane Eyre— noted that Heathcliff was “a man’s shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul,” and that her sister’s book was “half statue, half rock…hewn in a wild workshop with simple tools and of homely materials.” She described Heathcliff as a “little black-haired swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the Devil.” That sounds racist to me. In Charlotte’s eyes, Wuthering Heights wasn’t a proper novel, though she allows that it evolved into something powerful that was “savage, swart, sinister.” That’s not like Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility.
For Charlotte, the question about the novel that was meant be answered wasn’t so much Heathcliff’s ethnicity, but rather the ethics of the novel itself that’s haunted by a “horror of great darkness.” The phrase echoes Melville talking about the “blackness” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s stories. (If Melville had written an English novel, it would have been Wuthering Heights.) At the end of Charlotte’s preface to Emily’s tour de force, she writes, “Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know; I scarcely think it is.” She could have asked the same question about Mary Shelley’s monster in the Gothic novel, Frankenstein.
Charlotte added insightfully, “This I know: the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master…something that works for itself.” Like Moby-Dick, Wuthering Heights has a mind of its own.
Bronte’s novel has usually been called a love story and a tale of revenge. Indeed, Heathcliff is determined to punish those who treat him badly, as well as everyone who is in his eyes guilty by association with his foes, including his wife, Isabella, whom he drives mad with psychological warfare. But the novel is also an epic about reversals, repression and resistance. Published a year before the revolutions of 1848, which shook the capitals of Europe,
Wuthering Heights reflects the zeitgeist of the Age of Revolution, which began in 1776, with the outbreak of the American Revolution and that exploded again with the French Revolution of 1789 and that culminated in 1848. Wuthering Heights begins in the 1770s and ends at the start of the 19th century. Revolutionary in form as well as in content, it breaks all kinds of literary boundaries. No wonder it has survived for nearly 200 years. Not the new movie. Toss it in the bin to be rewound.
Heathcliff would have found himself at home in the company of French revolutionaries such as Robespierre and Danton and Napoleon, too. He would also have enjoyed the company of the English romantic poets, Shelley, Keats and Coleridge. At a critical point in the narrative, he observes, “The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him: they crush those beneath them.” Brontë uses the word “grind” repeatedly. It paints a picture.
In Wuthering Heights, repression doesn’t automatically lead to resistance. It can lead, as in the case of Heathcliff to tyranny. The Brazilian author, Paolo Freire, makes an observation similar to Heathcliff’s in his classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed, published in 1968, another year of revolution. For Freire, pedagogy is the essential element that turns the oppressed into rebels. A pedagogy for the oppressed is precisely what Heathcliff is denied, even as he becomes an educated, wealthy gentleman–albeit still a tyrant. Charlotte claimed that Emily observed the world around her and that her “imagination found material whence it wrought creations like Heathcliff, like Earnshaw, like Catherine,” adding, “having formed these beings she did not know what she had done.”
But she might have. Heathcliff’s remark about slaves and tyrants, grinding down and crushing, suggests that she understood his sentiments, perhaps shared them and meant to express them through her own unequivocal voice of anger and defiance.
(Jonah Raskin is the author of Beat Blues, San Francisco, 1955.)
DAWOKEFARMER, WILLIAM KELLY
Where There's a Will, There's a Way
by Closer to the Edge and Rook T. Winchester
This story starts at the airport, where logistics do their best to smother meaning.
Five weeks ago, I sat in my SUV outside of baggage claim and watched as William Kelly exited through the sliding glass doors carrying exactly what you’d expect from a man who hadn’t come to spectate. No entourage. No theatrics. Just a posture that said he’d already decided something and the paperwork hadn’t caught up yet.
Minnesota cold doesn’t negotiate. It checks your lungs and keeps moving. Will took it in stride, nodded once, like someone greeting an old adversary. That was the first tell.
We didn’t go to a hotel. We didn’t drop bags. We didn’t diverge. We drove straight from the airport to the Whipple Federal Building because when you’re paying attention, you go look at the object before it mutates into a symbol and starts lying about itself. Back then, Whipple was still exposed. No concrete barriers. No extra chain-link fencing stacked like an apology. Just a federal building sitting there, quiet, pretending it hadn’t already picked a side.
Will didn’t narrate the moment. He didn’t posture. He read the place the way veterans read terrain, filing away angles, imagining what it would look like once fear got budgeted. That moment matters, because later, when the fences multiplied and the posture hardened, we could point back and say we saw it before it learned how to bare its rotten teeth.
From there, we went to the vigil for Renee Good. Candles shaking in the cold. People standing shoulder to shoulder because grief collapses personal space. This wasn’t a rally. There was no choreography. It was an open wound breathing in public. It still is.
From there, we drove to the Up-Down barcade on Lyndale Avenue near Lake Street. Neon buzzing. Craft beer. Pizza grease. Pinball machines clattering like they were determined to drown out the news cycle. We ate a couple giant slices of pizza and waited for Echo Romeo to arrive from Michigan, because the people who matter always seem to be driving all night to get somewhere they shouldn’t have to fight to reach.
The next day I flew to Miami. Chance Meeting and I tore through America in ten days, from Alligator Alcatraz to Broadview, cutting a jagged line through institutional cruelty. Miles stacked on miles. Conversations that didn’t always end cleanly. While I was gone, Minneapolis tightened like a jaw grinding its molars together. Pressure built. Federal posture hardened. The city started bracing itself whether it wanted to or not.
By the time I returned to Minneapolis on Monday, January 19, the atmosphere had changed. You could feel it in your chest.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Nekima Levy Armstrong and others had entered Cities Church to let the congregation know that a pastor at the church was also serving in a senior ICE enforcement role. Will did not help organize anything. Will was simply there. Present. Like several others. Witnessing. Existing in a space he was legally allowed to occupy. His offense was volume. He’s louder than most, and this country has a pathological fear of loud moral clarity.
That distinction was deliberately blurred because truth is inconvenient and scapegoats are efficient. Presence became participation. Participation became leadership. Leadership became guilt. It’s a cheap trick, but it works if enough people stop asking questions.
Chance and I were at the press conference with Nekima and others as the narrative began to calcify. Cameras everywhere. Statements shaved down to the millimeter. The familiar ritual where people try to make something dangerous sound manageable. Will didn’t disappear. He didn’t hide behind anyone else’s words. He stood there and spoke plainly. That scared people more than shouting ever could.
A few weeks later, Will made the decision that finally broke the brains of his critics. He made the decision to move to Minnesota permanently. Not symbolically. Literally. He aligned his rent, his sleep, his daily life with the consequences of standing where he stood. You can dismiss a visitor. You can smear a tourist. You cannot easily erase a neighbor who refuses to shut up.
Chance and I were at Will’s Airbnb ten minutes before the feds showed up. Ten minutes. We were sitting there talking like exhausted humans trying to keep pace with a situation that refused to slow down. No dramatic countdown. No sense of a trap being sprung. Just the low hum of life under pressure.
We left.
Ten minutes later, federal agents arrested Will at gunpoint.
That’s not metaphor. That’s not rhetoric. That’s armed power deciding one man had gotten too visible, too loud, too comfortable exercising his rights. If you’re still pretending this was about decorum or wrongdoing, you’re lying to yourself. This was about proximity. This was about presence. This was about someone refusing to be managed.
When Will was ultimately released, we returned to the AirBNB and gathered in solidarity because that’s what you do when someone takes that kind of hit and doesn’t break. Relief poured out sideways. Rage hummed underneath. Laughter came out jagged, like it had scraped its way free. No victory lap. No martyr performance. Just steadiness.
Since then, he’s been exactly where he said he’d be. Outside Whipple as the fences multiplied and the building completed its transformation into a confession. In the streets when things went sideways and people needed someone willing to absorb risk. In front of cameras when it would have been safer to disappear. Saying the same thing over and over because the truth doesn’t need a remix.
Watch Will’s social media if you want the real story. No whiplash. No clout gymnastics. Just consistency. Constitutional rights are not optional. Fear does not erase humanity. Patriotism does not mean obedience. It means accountability. It means showing up early, staying late, and accepting the consequences without pretending to be surprised.
This is why William Kelly is a fucking patriot, in the only sense of the word that has ever mattered. Not because he waved a flag. Not because he wrapped himself in slogans. But because he treated citizenship like a responsibility instead of a costume. Because he moved his life toward the fire instead of demanding someone else handle it. Because he stood in the cold before the barricades went up and didn’t blink once they did.
He did not interrupt a church service. He did not break the law. He did nothing wrong.
What he did do was step off a plane, feel the cold, look a federal building in the eye before it mutated, and refuse to leave when the cost went up. He made neutrality uncomfortable. He made silence expensive. He reminded people that rights are not self-executing and never have been.
I was there from the beginning. From baggage claim to barricades. From a naked building to a fortified one with dildos in the roadway. From quiet grief to armed arrests and back again.
If this sounds unhinged, good. Reality has been unhinged for a while. If it sounds loud, even better. Silence has done enough damage.
The world doesn’t need fewer people like Will Kelly.
It needs more people willing to stand up, speak up, and keep showing up to support one another each and every day.
(closertotheedge.net)
I'M NOT A REPORTER, I’m a writer. Nobody gives Norman Mailer this kind of shit. I’ve never tried to pose as a goddamn reporter. I don’t defend what I do in the context of straight journalism, and if some people regard me as a reporter who’s gone bad rather than a writer who’s just doing his job— well, they’re probably the same dingbats who think John Chancellor’s an acid freak and Cronkite is a white slaver.
— Hunter S. Thompson
LEAD STORIES, SATURDAY'S NYT
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
Agents Suspended After Their Story of Shooting an Immigrant Falls Apart
ICE Agents Menaced Minnesota Protesters at Their Homes, Filings Say
Department of Homeland Security Shuts Down, Though Essential Work Continues
Judge Orders U.S. to Facilitate Return of College Student Deported in Error
Texas University Closes Exhibition With Anti-ICE Artwork
Kennedy Allies Target States to Overturn Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
My understanding of the Senate is in essence it's a debate society. This feature functions to slow everything down. Slowing whatever legislation is making its way through the process should help prevent spur of the moment enactments largely based on the emotions of the moment.
With media able to control narratives to their liking more than ever (at least this is the appearance) in the history of the country, having a mechanism to slow down the process should be a good idea.
One fly in the ointment is the occupants make a career out of the position. My understanding is the Founders did not intend for election to Congress to become a full-time job for life with massive benefits and perks.
UNLAWFUL
by Daniella Lock
The British High Court has ruled that the British government’s proscription of Palestine Action – which has led to the arrest of more than 2700 peaceful protesters – is unlawful: it contradicts the home secretary’s own policy on proscription and violates the UK’s human rights framework.
UK government policy requires the home secretary to exercise her discretion when deciding whether or not to proscribe an organisation. ‘The purpose of the policy is that not all organisations that meet the concerned-in-terrorism requirement should be proscribed.’ One of the government’s reasons for banning Palestine Action was that proscription would provide ‘significant disruptive benefits’. But the High Court observes that ‘operational consequences and advantages … will apply equally to any organisation that could be proscribed’, so they can’t be grounds for banning one organisation in particular. ‘Notwithstanding the latitude that the policy provides, the home secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was not consistent with her policy.’
The second reason the proscription was found to be unlawful was its disproportionate interference with the right to protest, which is underpinned in UK law by the rights to freedom of expression and assembly. The High Court judges emphasised that the criminal law consequences of proscription are ‘very significant’ and involve ‘heavy penalties’, though they acknowledged that the adverse effects of proscription do not have a widespread or general impact on expressions of support for the Palestinian cause.
‘Deciding where the balance should be struck in this case is difficult,’ the judges said:
the court must permit some latitude to the home secretary given that she has both political and practical responsibility to secure public safety. Nevertheless, we are satisfied that the decision to proscribe Palestine Action was disproportionate. At its core, Palestine Action is an organisation that promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality. A very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action … For those actions, regardless of proscription, the criminal law is available to prosecute those concerned.
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary who introduced the proscription, has since been shuffled to the Foreign Office. Her replacement, Shabana Mahmood, has said she intends to appeal the decision. The proscription remains in force in the meantime, but the police have said they will no longer arrest those expressing support for Palestine Action – a sign, perhaps, of how unlikely the appeal is to succeed. It may also be a tacit acknowledgment that the requirement to arrest has been a drain on police resources (yet more public money will be spent on the appeal).
The High Court ruling show that those who challenged the government’s national security assessment of Palestine Action at the time of the decision were right to do so. The UN high commissioner for human rights described the ban as ‘disproportionate’ and ‘unnecessary’. MI5’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) had advised Cooper that most of Palestine Action’s activity would not meet the statutory definition of terrorism. Last August, Cooper said that ‘there may be people who are objecting to proscription who don’t know the full nature of this organisation.’ The High Court judges however said that ‘the closed material does not affect our conclusion.’
It wasn’t a given that the High Court would even be able to scrutinise the Palestine Action ban: first, the Court of Appeal had to uphold ordinary judicial review as a remedy in this context. Otherwise it would have fallen to the Proscribed Organisations Appeals Commission. Since that body can consider an appeal only after the Home Office has refused a request to remove a group from the list of proscribed organisations, the scrutiny process would have been significantly delayed.
The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, meanwhile, has been a vocal defender of the proscription. Jonathan Hall KC, who has held the position since 2019, wrote last August that his ‘only reservation’ was the manner in which Palestine Action was bundled along with other organisations on the proscription order voted on by Parliament. The divergence between the High Court judgment and the independent reviewer’s assessment is striking. Hall has made other interventions that could be interpreted as calling for a more restrictive approach to rights, including a lecture he gave last year at Policy Exchange, a think tank at the vanguard of calls for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Overall, the Palestine Action ruling is another warning against always taking the government at its word. Too often there is a tendency to treat official national security assessments as solemn expressions of a neutral truth by the elected guardians of the people. Yet the case of Peter Mandelson shows just how lopsided and politically motivated those assessments can be at the highest levels of decision-making. And the Palestine Action case demonstrates how important it is that our governments can be challenged in the courts and on the streets.
(London Review of Books)
YOU KNOW the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.
— Charles Bukowski
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling
I'm happy again
I'm laughing the clouds
So dark up above
The sun's in my heart
And I'm ready for love
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I have a smile on my face
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
And I'm singing
Just singing in the rain
I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feeling
I'm so happy again
I'm laughing the clouds
So dark up above
The sun's in my heart
And I'm ready for love
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I have a smile on my face
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
And I'm singing
Just singing in the rain
— Arthur Freed
“WHEN I HAVE BEEN hungry or scared or broke, I called on my friends—agents of the Lord, you might say—and I received from them food and drink, comfort and kindness, money or a bed to sleep in for a time. I would have discarded—as you should also—anyone who heard a plea from a friend or a fellow human and offered only a prayer. We are, as Martha Graham always stated, the answered prayer. We are here to move the mountains and heal the sick and raise the dead—in spirit, of course.
“Stop praying, except to call on your God for the strength and the courage to move forward, to help those who need your help, and to fill the space you’re taking up with things of honor and beauty and worth.
“We are always capable of doing something to help people, without relying on the spiritual cop-out of a prayer. Talk to someone. Feed someone. Make them laugh. Offer a hand or a shoulder. Pray only when you are exhausted from your efforts and are asking for more strength to keep doing your work.
“Do not make prayer an evil thing.”
— Tennessee Williams/Interview with James Grissom/1982/
ALWAYS you have to contend with the stupidity of men. It is like a stiff soil, a hard-pan. If you go deeper than usual, you are sure to meet with a pan made harder even by the superficial cultivation, The stupid you have always with you. Men are more obedient at first to words than ideas. They mind names more than things. Read to them a lecture on 'Education,' naming that subject, and they will think that they have heard something important, but call it 'Transcendentalism,' and they will think it moonshine.
Or halve your lecture, and put a psalm at the beginning and a prayer at the end of it and read it from a pulpit, and they will pronounce it good without thinking.
— from Thoreau's Journal; February 13, 1860
I DON'T KNOW the meaning of life. I don't know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it's a complete mystery.
— Charles Schulz, nicknamed Sparky, was an American cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Peanuts
Charlotte Scott was Mendocino County Counsel, apparently appointed as judge a couple of months ago by the Newsom administration. She was Assistant County Counsel under the inarticulate Christian Curtis who resigned to take a job as the City of Redding city counsel a couple of years ago. After Curtis left, the County hired a $400 contract attorney from their SF contract law firm (Mr. Ross) who lasted about half a year before the Board finally replaced him with Scott. We had heard that Scott was at first reluctant to replace Curtis, but eventually accepted the position. She was only the “permanent” County Counsel for about a year before being appointed judge. Curtis was County Counsel during most of the Cubbison fiasco, but her civil case against the County has outlasted all of them and remains unresolved. We do not know what role any of them had or has in postponing and dragging out the resolution.
Agreed, that E Gobbi St hump is ridiculous and very much not properly marked! When residents of W Gobbi asked for speed bumps/humps they were told NO because Gobbi is deemed a “feeder” street by CalTrans. What? then the city allows this on E Gobbi but not in the truly residential blocks of W Gobbi where it is a race way through a neighborhood? It’s also a major walking route for school children to Yokayo, but oh no, NO speed bumps for you W Gobbi. So stupid.
In 1979 an old friend–Brenda Belanda– that I had not seen for a couple years walked into Bob’s boatyard In Sausalito where I was working at the time.She asked me if I could look at a leaky roof in the house she was livIng in with Van Morrison. Van wasn’t home–he was away In Ireland
I followed her up the hill to look at the roof. A long hallway in the house displayed all of Van’s gold records . In the center was a framed
picture of Van on stage wIth the members of the Band taken during the Last Waltz concert. Brenda told me that the picture meant more to hIm than any or all of hIs gold records.