Upcoming events are listed at: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/08/days-of-rage-2025-666-days-of-war-and.html , durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/08/gpus-remembering-hiroshima-and-nagasaki.html , and durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/07/deep-river-riverkeeper-founded-upcoming.html For more upcoming anniversaries see: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2024/08/summer-came-in-with-buzz-and-whirr-goes.html [and durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/05/some-attempted-assassinations-killings.html , etc.] I plan to post some links here, good, bad, and neutral.
In August Google started 'offering' to add search links to posts, for 'engagement,' etc. I thought that I allowed it here as a test. MR has an article on the energy cost of searches, etc., but I avoid "AI" and the article itself is hosted online.
[I forgot to post this before; from World Beyond War: Venezuela – No War, No Overthrow, No Coup, No Sanctions / Ni Guerra, Ni Derrocamiento, Ni Golpe, Ni Sanciones Petition: worldbeyondwar.org/venezuela-no-war/ ]
The morning of August 25th: As with Palestine, NPR (in a report from the always pro-imperialist and pro-war Carrie Kahn) defended the idea of attacking Venezuela (they dragged out Corina Maria Machado or whatever her name is, interviewed on Fox; there was a quote from President Nicolas Maduro, but don't believe him, they always say; there were many quotes from two former US ambassadors to Latin American countries – don't be a tiger with fangs of paper – if a naval task force is sent to Venezuela, it needs to begin a war; why did Trump allow US oil investment in Venezuela before starting a war? ) and they minimized the ability of the defenders to extract a great deal of blood from any invaders from the US. They cover up the damage Israel has incurred, while pretending that Iran is going to 'collapse' and that Hezbollah and Hamas are done (don't bring up Ansar Allah in Yemen). The ships were to reach Venezuela around now, a week later. There was also a report on how the "new Syria" has given up on support for Palestinian liberation and wants to surrender to Israel; nothing about what Israel is still doing to Syria, even under HTS. NPR reports much of what Israel has been doing, yet they act like the prospect of Syria surrendering to Netanyahu is a great thing! I've noticed that NPR staff must not listen to NPR much. At the beginning of the year some on the pro-imperialist US "left" clamed that the fall of Syria to the "rebels" would help the cause of Palestinian liberation. What NPR doesn't like is "ideology" or an "agenda," but rule by "technocrats" and "market forces," and central bank "independence," is just neutral "expertise" and common sense, natural. Also on NPR, the sad plight of warmonger John Bolton. First they came for the war criminals and the warmongering agents of the "national security" "deep state" ... ? Laura Loomer, who apparently wants to be the 21st century McCarthy, was once banned by Uber and Lyft, for hate speech?! At 10am – we can't have voter-verified paper ballots, it is too slow and everything is just fine! "Dictator" Hugo Chavez can't get to the electronic voting machines, and was no longer alive in 2020 (on the 31st: now, under Trump, immigration judges demand evidence that Venezuela is a 'dictatorship'). Before Obama-Biden, the grassroots of the Democratic Party and leftists used to question electronic voting machines (BORDC?). A listener blames President Putin for Trump's recent election machinations. At 11am – we can't have vengeance either ("the science of revenge;" a 'deadly addiction;' the of psychological "dark triad;" Christianity, Buddhism, and liberalism; "science;" no social systems or political economy here; with Celeste Headley; that new late summer 2025 Australian liberal book on human history and the "dark triad," personified by the political triad they hate, 'psychopath' Putin, 'narcissist' Trump, and 'Machiavellian' Xi, etc. Is Biden 'Machiavellian' and are George W Bush and Netanyahu 'psychopaths?' What are Tony Bair and Keir Starmer? Can you diagnose someone you have never met?).
Israel bombed AP and Reuters reporters at a Gaza hospital and then bombed it again, killing others. The BBC host, Tim Frakes (?) didn't ask a former Israeli soldier about international law when he went on about how Israel has to get Hamas – at every hospital in Gaza, apparently. And Israel even attacked hospitals in a few countries.
NPR went heavy on anti-Trump fear- or scaremongering at the end of August, and WUNC changed its weekend schedule a lot August 30-31. Out of mind? On Saturday – I've already forgotten? – The Sam Saunders Show (?) replaced the culture show at 4pm that Sam Saunders himself founded [ remembered later, did a discussion/interview show replace Sound Opinions at 3pm? [No Small Endeavor with Lee Camp?]]. On Sunday, Ezra Klein's show replaced the TED Radio Hour (?) at 11am, the BBC afternoon news has returned, replacing The Reveal (now connected to Mother Jones magazine) at 4pm, Radio Lab is back, at 7pm, replacing The Moth. What else was there?
Over the top on WNYC's On the Media Saturday, August 30th. I can't believe that Romanian (young?) and Hungarian liberal journalists would think that the very TDS-afflicted (?), sarcastic, and smug (snarky?) On the Media staff are credible.
Trump is bad and threatening, and it does get to me sometimes, but think of what they omit (and the people talking about "fascism" haven't been silenced yet, even just on social media, or gone underground in preparation to fight the new Third Reich). [People make accusations along the line of "fascism denial" on CounterPunch, etc. but ignore the differences and the fact that some things often associated with fascism began under Biden and other Democrats. They talk about "fascism" but aren't acting like they are in imminent personal danger and the solution that many offered was voting for Biden/Harris and then going on with business as usual. If things are so bad that you have to vote for a Biden or Harris, doesn't that indicate that there is a problem with business as usual or even that the 'US left' has failed? The 'left' is so weak and without influence among the people that it had to back a major warmonger who was trying to silence it (and who is apparently a mentally incapacitated dotard), and then his protégé, and the 'left' couldn't make any demands in return for votes. Going back further, one or more Marxist organizations even openly endorsed Obama and working in his post-election organization. There might have been a good argument to vote for Biden, but then what? Organizations weren't calling for even symbolic protests after Biden won or for the "hard left" to vote for someone like Sanders or Williamson in the primaries, but then we have to vote for Biden to keep Trump 2.0 out of the White House, and it is our fault if Trump wins. They didn't organize to remove the rightist Senate Democrats who derailed Biden's alleged grand progressive agenda either. "Vote blue no matter who." I'm mainly talking about organizations with some amount of power, not grassroots individuals. Voting one's conscience is the right of any voter. I'm just writing here quickly and I don't have influence, unlike a well-known activist or a group of people. When people talked about defeating Trump in the streets, it sounded to me like 'vote for Biden,' without openly saying it, voting being the most direct way to 'defeat' Trump if that is your top priority. A revolution in the streets could topple Trump-Vance, but that can't be counted on if Trump is the main problem, and no one on the left seems to be capable of organizing an insurrection. Of course it would be a closely-guarded secret if someone were doing so, and a fascist government and even ordinary bourgeois democracy would try to prevent serious organization of such action, in the open. The large anti-Trump demonstrations in 2025 are being organized by the Democratic Party or connected organizations and are pro-NATO, etc. There is an argument to go where the masses and protests are, but these seem to be Democratic Party events, following that party's talking points. Grassroots Democrats were probably a major part of the anti-war movement under Bush-Cheney, but I have the impression that No Kings, etc. is much more Democratic Party-controlled, though I don't know and it might vary by location. Around the 2nd I read claims that in some places the vast majority of protesters in about June had a negative reaction to pro-Palestinian signs, while Ukrainian flags might have been very welcome. Their issues seems to be Trump and "Trumpism," defending NATO from "MAGA," etc., not the Biden-Trump warmongering, their new cold war, censorship, the bipartisan ballot access denial, climate change (wait for the return of an El Nino climate regime for it get very hot and dry here?), labor rights, etc. Maybe I have changed, but the current organizing explicitly against the 'Trump regime' doesn't motivate me to turn out, though I also haven't done enough regarding anti-war actions either (pro-Democratic Party groups condemned opposition to the US "regime change" effort in Syria and opposition to the US proxy war against Russia, keeping actions minor?). Defeatism to not do more? If I were near a 'blue' protest anyway, I might check it out.] The New Yorker Radio Hour on the 31st went on about the USSR, Stalin, and the importance of condemning both 'right' and 'left totalitarianism' – in talking about Trump, art, and the Kennedy Center. Such a comparison by Remnick, etc. ..... Liberals act like the Palestinians, Iranians, Yemenis, Venezuelans, US labor unions, etc. are powerless before a Trump (or a Biden). Meanwhile the Israel military doesn't have full control of Gaza after nearly two years of war, though they can assassinate journalists, medics, and aid workers. Captured in Gaza [in Zeitoun/Zaytoun, in Gaza City?]? –
They said that Israel assassinated non-Ansar Allah "technocrats" in the government of Yemen. The Yemeni government has arrested local UN staff (11+) in the capital Sana'a and the port of Hodeida, for spying for Israel, and some Yemeni-American woman (Fatima al Sura?) from the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies (I have never heard of this organization) is on the BBC with host Pria Rai (?) to say how Ansar Allah are just 'terrorists,' "paranoid,' doing it for power, copying and working for Iran, etc. On The Palestine Chronicle over the weekend: a plan for joint US, Israeli, and private control of post-ethnic cleansing Gaza was leaked.
September 2nd on the BBC: More anti-China fearmongering and smears with Laura Vicker – China has a big or the biggest navy in the number of ships and builds something like 200% more of whatever than the US, let alone the once formidable UK. I recognize that song from China's Maoist period. As if Japan and the US don't promote their navies with public events, ads, movies, books, videogames, etc. How dare China send ships around Australia like Australia, the US, Japan, etc. send their ships along China's coastline, though the live fire drills might be new. Aren't big, expensive, and crowded naval ships now likely to just be targets for long-range missiles and drones? The Fujian might go into service on the 3rd? Several weeks ago with Laura Vicker – criticism of rare earth mineral mining in China, as if there aren't environmental issues with mines operated by "Western" companies!
They can't let China talk about imperialism – "economic imperialism" in Africa – or a new world order. The pro-China (?) side versus host Rob Young was from SOAS. The Guyana-Venezuela border dispute again.
[September 4th update: The morning of the 2nd or 3rd NPR's Steve Inskeep voiced some skepticism regarding the Trump administration's claim that it had just assassinated 11 Venezuelan drug traffickers ("narcoterrorists") on a boat alleged to have been in international waters at the time. NPR dragged out their warmongering Venezuela correspondent John Otis to undermine "authoritarian" President Maduro while also having Democratic Party-approved disproval of Trump (with Inskeep?) the morning of 3rd. At some point (on All Things Considered on the 3rd?) they did likewise with a correspondent Manuel... [Rueda?], who twice quoted an anti-government Venezuelan immigrant [termed something like a 'human rights activist'] in Miami [?], Florida with a daily podcast; Venezuelan small business [?] people who weren't so vocally anti-government, but were also probably anti-government; [a man from the CSIS on how the naval group allows Trump to 'pressure' Venezuela, or "lob" a few missiles at the "regime;"] etc. [The story was broadcast again, on Here and Now, on the 4th (re-cut?), with the warmongering Scott Tong and softer Rachel Martin (?) [Rachel Young].] As with NPR's coverage of Ba'athist Syria and Iran, no pro-government sources were interviewed, and they rarely quote President Maduro or any other Venezuelan government officials [on NPR or the BBC, though they do seem to be quoting the Venezuelan president more often in 2025 than before, but not with very long clips.] On The World at 3pm on the 3rd they had a story on the German government and Israel, finally explaining Germany's "staatsraison" (spelling? ; they acted like I should know what prime minister Merkel was saying in German few years ago). They interviewed a random (?) Israeli Jewish woman who lives in Germany (Berlin?) and said that she had felt the support of the German authorities at first in 2023, but wouldn't talk in Hebrew on the phone or read a book in Hebrew in public now. She apparently thinks that "pro-Palestinian" equals "pro-Hamas," and I think no pro-Palestinian Germans were interviewed. She cast it as being hated for having been born in Israel, though she wants peace, (only?) for the return of the POWs held in Gaza. Apparently Germany was until recently Israel's second largest weapon supplier. Both the BBC and NPR made brief arguments around the 3rd that Taiwan (as the ROC, under the KMT), not the PRC, had defeated the Japanese and I think the BBC was skeptical about dating the beginning of WWII to before 1939 (on China in WWII, though not on the Communist forces, and the attack on the alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking boat: sonar21.com/donald-trump-authorizes-murder-and-pouts-about-china-russia-and-north-korea/ ). The post-war governments of the US, UK, and EU base themselves, in part, on having won WWII, but they accuse Russia and now China of this, and it is treated as being negative. [In 2023 or 2024 the were claims that Ukraine did more than Russia to defeat Germany in WWII, and that Ukraine was pivotal in outer space as well.]M The morning of the 4th NPR's business bureau rebroadcast a BBC report on a new Texas law banning land/office ownership or long-term renting by Chinese, Russian, Iranian, or North Korean people or entities (such as TikTok?), and it was called racist, though technically it doesn't cover authorized migrants. It does serve the government in vilifying "adversarial" governments and their citizens, though.
"Victory Day Parade in Beijing" (with many photos): cpcml.ca/ITN2025/TI55107.HTM ]
[WUNC aired a story about an anti-war mural removed at UNC only over the holiday weekend? I forget the details, but it was something like, the UNC administration forced Art Department to paint over a pro-Palestinian mural (I assume inside the Hanes Art Center, adjoining UNC's public art museum?) after less than a year, the first time the administration has taken such interest in the Department in 10 years? Free Palestine from brutal, US-NATO-backed occupation, and free UNC from the rule of administrators like Lee Roberts and the rightist Board of Governors? WUNC did not specify who ordered that the mural be removed, but Lee Roberts has ultimate responsibility for what the administration does.]
[A new interview with Lee Roberts, but nothing on the protests? – indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/lee-roberts-long-game/ ]
[On The World September 4th and in RT August 28th (I thought it was about a month ago) – the Finnish air force's controversial symbol, a swastika (Finland was an anti-Russian German ally decades ago and is again today): www.rt.com/news/623644-finland-swastika-flag-nazism/ ]
[All Things Considered or The World on the 4th cast Venezuela as isolated in its region and defenseless against a few US ships (not even including an aircraft carrier). Trinidad & Tobago welcomes Trump's brutal assassination of alleged drug traffickers and wants more bombing, NPR claimed. I read that most South American drug trafficking north is along the Pacific coastline, not through the Caribbean, and someone brought up the question of where is the US Coast Guard? Off China or Iran? NPR condemns Trump for some things, such as the military parade in June, searching John Bolton's house, the ICE raids, wanting to take control of Greenland, etc., and portrays him as a would be dictator, yet they encourage his foreign adventures and are for devoting ever more funding to the "national security state." The mainstream media liked his thrests against DPR Korea years ago, and now they cast attacking Venezuela as easy and a good idea, like their propaganda and fantasy several weeks ago that the government of Iran could be overthrown by a little Israeli bombing. It might be possible, but they acted like it was likely. They ask little if anything about what Iran's missiles did to Israel, or what years of war are doing. They still take what the Israeli government says seriously, as if the Israeli government isn't constantly covering things up. And when NPR's warmongering talk leads to bloodshed and disaster, they can pretend that they were misled and cover up their responsibility in softening up public opinion for war. They platform pacifist tactics for just about everything else, but not with the US government and NATO.]
September 12th: [The topic on NPR's On Point at 1pm on Thursday, September 11th was Trump and "Stalinism," but I didn't hear it. A few months ago both NPR and China's 21st century capitalist roaders in academia were comparing Trump to Mao. It is a big insult to compare these great figures from the history to Trump, who changes his positions constantly, can't be negotiated with reliably, and is presiding over the decline of the US, ignoring the issue of what class they each served. The morning of the 10th or 9th (?) on Morning Edition Leila Faldil (?) luridly set up her interview with a woman from the Republic of Georgia – after idle talk (from their correspondent Mainz in Germany?) about Russia's 'hybrid war tactics' against Poland, using those downtrodden immigrants the Democratic Party loves so much here (and not at all when they are still in Venezuela or in a small boat in the Caribbean – being for EU accession as soon as possible is the dividing line between "democracy" and evil, the NPR host said, but the Georgian Dream Party turned to the dark side. I turned it off. The pro-EU/US Georgian compradors were over the top, like many pro-government/pro-war Israelis, on the BBC earlier in 2025. Maybe it was on the 10th or 11th when Inskeep, speaking with Mainz, concluded that Russian drones can reach Poland from Russia (not from Belarus or a pro-western Ukraine false flag operation?), if they were found in Poland, and it was done because of Russia's evil intentions. On NPR, nothing the Russian government says can be admitted to be true. Nothing about great US ally Latvia expelling (illegally rendering stateless?) its citizens who aren't proficient enough in Latvian. Little on NPR about the suppression of pro-Palestine free speech in the UK and no coverage of the crackdowns in several EU countries, Canada, and Australia. Maybe I will have to try anti-Ba'athist Syria Democracy Now! again, many years after I dropped it. Whatever happened to the also 'soft' Free Speech Radio News, also on NCCU's 90.7 FM at the beginning of the 2000's?]
[Hear from NPR's "domestic extremism" correspondent Oudette Yousef (?) on the morning of the 12th... And some academic (Robert Pate, of the University of Chicago) on 'violent populism' (not yet) or something, on both NPR and the BBC, or is he speaking 'right now' on Morning Edition (yes)? It is about major [radical?] 'social change' or 'upheaval,' and he means racial change. Since when is the beginning of a non-white majority in the US predicted to begin in a mere 10-15 years? The last I heard it was predicted to begin later than 2040 now, and a non-white majority of voters wouldn't begin for many years beyond that (2060??). ["Shock" at Trump's immigration policies on the Democratic Party 'left;" many "liked" the decline of the "non-Hispanic white" proportion of the US population, he said, though Latinos considered white and maybe elite south of the border become "brown" here. Venezuela's rightist Juan Guaido (?)?] Not a word about "globalization," "free trade," the "Global War on Terror," the new two or more-sided cold war, climate change, "our democracy," our geriatric Congress and presidency, the crushing of labor, the Great Recession, the lockdowns, the Federal Reserve, semi-open borders, poverty, etc. [Shaming, they said.] Some academic with Fresh Air's Tanya Moseley (?) around the evening of the 10th on how safe our elections are, except for Trump and the Republicans, though they tried to seem non-partisan. The morning of the 12th the BBC gave a Brazilian rightist a long and soft interview on the allegedly unfair treatment of Bolsonaro (?), but I don't remember the BBC being so friendly to Brazilian or other Latin American leftis allegedly targeted for "lawfare." Typhus, they say, and in Texas... ]
[Inskeep blaming the left (but = "Democrats") for violence in 2025 and onward. Did Yousef even say that? She said that white supremacists were the biggest source of violence historically. It sounded a lot like a former assistant secretary of homeland security [Juliette Kayyem?] was saying that they need to catch the Utah perpetrator quickly, because his freedom gives hope to anti-government elements, which must be crushed. They crushed non-violent pro-Palestine demonstrations and free speech across the "West"... On the other hand, now the elite is talking about the real "Years of Lead" instead of "(slow) civil war." Internal and foreign elements are fomenting division, she says. The right tried to make it a felony to approve an immigrant sanctuary law in Tennessee.]
[In my area, the new Democratic Party-led Resistance, or part of it, says to leave an area if the police command. What if the police are trying to violate your free speech rights, and don't have a legal reason to order you to vacate the area? I think they tried to do that in Chapel Hill around 20 years ago.
Trump claimed on the morning of the 12th that the alleged shooter has been captured (a pastor convinced him to surrender? [NPR and the BBC disagree on whether it was voluntary]).
NPR called the two US-backed wars and Hitler (?) unrelated to the trial of the man who allegedly tried to assassinate Trump in Florida a year ago? Following a ruling??]
[A younger, American professor Peter Dalick (?) on the BBC on the 12th on the current moment.]
[Shaming 10-11 am.
I think the public comment periods regarding the SSEP, roads on Federal public lands, etc. end soon; Carolina Wetland Association and NC State Park surveys.]
[There was allegedly an incendiary attack, carried out by drone. on the Portuguese-flagged Familia Madeira, moored in Tunis, Tunisia (?) the night of September 8-9th; there was a similar attack on the British-flagged Alma in Sidi Bou Saide, in Carthage, Tunis Governate, about a day later; mainstream media BBC, CNN , El País, France24, Bellingcat , etc. analyzed security camera videos as consistent with the activist claims of attacks by drone, but the Tunisian government denies that any drones were in the area when the Familia Madeira was attacked – are they covering something up, or was it internal sabotage? The ships are part of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF; أسطول الصمود العالمي , Usṭūl aṣ-Ṣumūd al-ʿĀlamī)/Global Freedom Flotilla (أسطول الحرية العالمي , Usṭūl al-Ḥurriyya al-ʿĀlamī; "Sumud "is "steadfastness" or "resilience" in Arabic), an effort to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, involving thousands of people, representing 44 countries or more, and a fleet of more than 50 ships; apparently ships occasionally got through the blockade prior to 2010. Israel threatened to designate the crewmembers as "terrorists" and accused the Flotilla of being connected to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Sumud_Flotilla To arrive in Gaza around September 24-28th?
The afternoon of September 9th Israel attempted to assassinate senior leaders of Hamas, meeting in Doha, Qatar (in the Leqtaifiya or West Bay Lagoon district) to discuss a ceasefire proposal from the US. The attempt failed, but six people were killed, including a Qatari and low-level members of Hamas, and two or more people were injured; others in Doha witnessed the attack and might have been terrorized. This is thought to be Israel's first attack on Qatar, though Israel had long been demonizing Qatar, and expands the "Western" war in the Middle East to another country. The US, which has a major military base in Qatar (home of CENTCOM), designates the country is a major non-NATO ally (if I'm not mistaken), and just received a Boeing 747-8 jetliner from ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_One#Boeing_747-8_from_the_royal_family_of_Qatar ), condemned the attack and voted for the unanimous condemnation by the UNSC, but it has been suggested online that this is yet another example of the Trump-Vance administration using false peace negotiations to set up an assassination attempt to be carried out by Israel. In which case, how can any country negotiate with the US under Trump, though the US (and other colonial powers) did that sort of thing during the Indian Wars as well Whatever happened, the US did not protect its ally: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_airstrike_on_Hamas_leadership_in_Qatar
September 9th, around 11:30 pm CEST in Poland: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursion_into_Poland A Russian drone allegedly entered Romania shortly afterward. A former or current Romanian journalist, who sounded British, was interviewed by Owen Bennett Jones (?) on the BBC the following Sunday and she gave warmongering opinions rather than reporting, claiming something like, the next step would be a declaration of NATO collective defense against Russia, because Russia is targeting Romania. Romania's "nationalist" or "populist" parties are pro-Russian, she said, but many of the voters don't know this. The parties wouldn't let the government shoot down the drone? She said something like 20% of Romanians are on the "nationalist" side, and that these parties have a larger share of the vote (40%?), but the majority of Romanians are pro-EU (80%?). Around the following Monday morning Romania's minister of defense and I think a historian were much more reasonable with Rebecca Qezby (?). Romania is at peace and the fighter pilot(s) had judged that it would endanger civilians if they shot down the drone, the minister said, and he agreed with their assessment. Russia allegedly interfered with the navigation of a flight carrying the EU's Ursula von der Leyen recently. EU countries interfered with a flight carrying Bolivia's Evo Morales at the behest of the US several years ago.
Wednesday, September 10th (?) Israel bombed the offices of the Al-Yaman and 26 September newspapers in Sanaa, Yemen, reportedly killing 58 people, including 32 media workers: the307.substack.com/p/in-yemen-israel-commits-the-most
Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA was assassinated September 10, 2025 around 12:20pm MDT while speaking at Utah Valley University (in Orem, Utah), at the beginning of his American Comeback Tour; according to Wikipedia, his last comments at the outdoor event were:
Audience member: 'Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?'
Kirk: Too many.
Audience member: Okay, well—[crowd cheers]—it's five, okay [DS: I only remember two.]. Now, five is a lot, right? I'll give you some credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?
Kirk: Counting or not counting gang violence?
Audience member: Great—
There was only one bullet, thought to have come from a building relatively far away, which Kirk received in the neck, apparently causing him to bleed to death. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Charlie_Kirk ]
From memory, two persons of interest were questioned after the shooting, but the current suspect, Tyler James Robinson, 22 (born April 16, 2003) was identified by his parents (in Washington, Utah) and arrested 33 hours later, on... Robinson lived in Saint George, Utah, and reportedly comes from a Utah Mormon family that is pro-Trump and Republican. Robinson was allegedly in a romantic relationship and living with a transitioning transwoman, who cooperated with the authorities.
On NPR's 1A September 15th, Todd Zwillick (?) and maybe others were trying to tie the shooting to online memes, gaming, "the manosphere," etc., without offering any evidence that Robinson was into gaming, etc., and on Here and Now on the 16th (?) I think Rachel Young was questioning the charge of something like "leftist ideology." Again on the 17th, on NPR's Morning Edition, they tried to tie the shooting to online memes. NPR frequently refers to muddied or muddled ideology among recent shooters – are they ignorant of the facts/willfully covering them up (as they portrayed Elias Rodriquez as motivated by "anti-semitism?" On the other hand a 'muddied ideology' can be expected when the mainstream media portrays the Democratic Party as the entirety of the US left and progressive, "liberalism" as left (in economics "liberalism" is like what the US calls libertarianism), etc. "Left" and "right" are mixed up and bled of meaning in the US, and then they have to say "political left," etc., apparently because people don't know what the terms mean. NPR called the main right party in Slovakia "progressive," apparently because "progressive," is in its name and it shares positions with the US Democratic Party and the Atlanticists. NPR never explained the the October 1, 2017 Las Vegas shooting.
Trump allegedly considers Joe Biden and the Democratic Party "radical left" and ominous statements have been made by JD Vance and other senior government figures. I can see the Democrats uniting with the Republicans to throw the 1st Amendment and real leftists (note that there is a range of opinion on the left regarding the assassination, as the right has a range of opinion on violent acts tied to it, and opinion is not culpability in the USA, or not yet) under the bus, as they have in repressing perfectly legal, non-violent, pro-Palestine speech. The Trump-Vance administration tried to deport authorized migrants and visitors for being pro-Palestine, and now they want to 'cancel' people, physically, if they say the wrong thing about the assassination. Kirk is being praised as a champion of free speech on NPR (such as on Left, Right, and Center the night of the 16th), but the response to his assassination might be further curtailment of the 1st Amendment. On the other hand, Trump now has a "Trump Always Chickens Out" and 'declinist' reputation. The current issue of Harper's magazine has an article on the June 14, 2025 military parade in Washington, DC looking more like the decline of US government power than a sign of incipient fascism. I've often heard of Turning Point USA, but Charlie Kirk was not a familiar figure before the 10th.
On the 16th or 15th Robinson was charged; on the same day the terrorism charge against Luigi Mangione was dropped and Ryan Wesley Routh's trial for allegedly attempting to assassinate Trump September 15, 2024 continues: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Donald_Trump_in_Florida and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Wesley_Routh
The US military attacked small speed boats from Venezuela, allegedly in international waters, September 2nd, 15th, and 16th in 2025, killing 11 and 3 people in the first two attacks: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_strikes_on_Venezuelan_boats Reminiscent of the news broadcasts in Orwell's 1984.] [See an upcoming post.]
[September 24th: Around the 22nd NPR or the BBC admitted that NATO member Estonia doesn't even have an air force (Russia points out that neighboring Finland has an air force, until very recently symbolized by a swastika), though it called for the shooting down of any Russian aircraft that enter the air space of a NATO member country, as Turkey did during the war in Syria. Do NATO aircraft enter Russian air space? I thought that this was 'normal' Cold War behavior, but the European Atlanticists are making a big deal about "Russian hybrid warfare" with a few drones and aircraft. What do they call the US attacks on Venezuela and Russia, or Israel's attacks on Iran in recent years? They consider unauthorized immigration a Russian weapon, and now the Trump administration is treating immigration as warfare. If they don't ant mass migration out of Latin America, they could stop trying to wreck economies to overthrow governments, but instead causing people to emigrate for economic reasons. The NATO countries could have left Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine alone if they didn't want mass migration from Muslim countries. The "Western" imperialists try to wreck countries and then complain about massive immigration, and there are factors such as "free trade," and climate change encouraging emigration. It has been pointed out (by ROL, etc.?) that the right is biased against immigrants, while the imperialist left ignores the factors that uproot people and force them to emigrate and become low-wage workers 'picking our crops,' 'mowing our lawns,' building and cleaning buildings, etc., poorly-treated and paid jobs citizens 'don't want.' The imperialists say that they can't afford to pay more for this work or allow unionization, and they can't go without it. Around a year ago NPR had a capitalist on, making the self-serving argument that he tried, but can't get citizen labor. Maybe he should improve the pay and conditions. Then they can talk about that grasping working class causing inflation. They make similar arguments about the need for authorized, high-skill immigration. Maybe that was the subject of the NPR interview.
NPR is still pushing the Russiagate conspiracy theory (with Reality Winner).
A US Congressional delegation to China said that US and Chinese military vessels and aircraft are getting dangerously close together – but there is a simple way to prevent collisions on the other side of the world from the US. There hasn't been such an intergovernmental meeting since something like 2019 – when was it that outgoing House speaker Pelosi went to Taiwan to insult China?
An Artemis mission to seize the Moon for US imperialism might be launched as soon as February 2026. I would worry about the astronauts. September 23rd-24th the BBC cast China as having a lead in the new Moon race. They ran propaganda for Artemis in Astronomy magazine recently.
Trump on Russia being a "paper tiger" or something (a Democratic Party and Obama-era talking point; Steven Rosenberg – the Obama administration termed Russia a mere "regional power," and now here is Trump); a thuggish former ambassador (John Herpst?) to Ukraine, now leading a US Atlanticist organization, on Trump facing "loudmouths" (Tucker Carlson? Charlie Kirk regarding Israel?) who will shut up, as they did after Trump bombing of Iran, and 'Putin's little pals in NATO,' Orban and Fico. Inflict pain on Russia to win peace, he says... Of course the BBC brings in a member of Zelensky's party? An Israel-type over the top member of the 'Austrian Committee on NATO Enlargement' on how Ukraine will win and join NATO, if they it is given US weapons. Some on the US and EU left, even Marxist organizations, supported NATO imperialism in Syria and now in Ukraine. The BBC sent Olla Garren (?) to Syria to laud the new HTS ruler of the country, before he speaks at the UN General Assembly, a first for a Syrian leader since 1967. I can guess why a Syrian president wouldn't enter US territory from 1967 to 2025. One woman in Damascus (?) praised the president, but fears he won't last long in office.
The Global Sumud Flotilla aid ships were attacked by drone(s) again, this time in Greece, early on September 24th (?); the Flotilla is to arrive in Gaza around the 29th now.] [See an upcoming post.]
[I didn't hear the news on the 23rd [or overnight] – Ryan Routh was found guilty of attempting to assassinate Trump in Florida a year ago, and stabbed himself in the neck (?) after he was convicted.]
[Concern over the future of free speech after Jimmy Kimmel was silenced in 2025, but not so much after protesters were silenced around the country in 2024.]
[I'm having to re-post edits.] [Twice.] [And then three times.]
[Juliette Kayyem ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliette_Kayyem ) was on Morning Edition or 1A again around September 25th regarding political violence or something. She was connected to the Israeli ISO Group (creator of the Pegasus spyware program). Later, at 11am, 1A had Cynthia Miller-Idriss, founder of the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University (?) regarding her new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, just out from Princeton University Press ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Miller-Idriss ). [She referred to alleged sexual violence committed by Trump and Hamas' forces. Nothing about the 'unfavorable' allegations against Joe Biden and the Israeli military, or against the US military recently in Okinawa and after WWII, in Vietnam, etc. They know not to bring up charges that include the countries of NATOland or high level Democrats.] They make sure to have rightist guests (only) for 1A's Friday News Roundup, and a woman answered a question regarding Gaza by talking about the allegedly difficult "logistics" of getting supplies to the starving non-combatants, aid trucks are robbed by gunmen (only Hamas was mentioned by name, the implication being that they are a major part of the problem in feeding the population), etc., and they focused on after the war ends. Listening to the Israeli government, I get the feeling that when they say "Hamas" they mean the entire Palestinian population, and that the war won't end until Israel and the NATO countries decide that they have committed enough genocide and cowed the rest of the world sufficiently (or someone stops them). On the 27th an NPR news brief (Rom?) referred to the "famine" in Gaza (caused by...?). On the other hand, Greece, Italy, and Spain have sent naval vessels along with the Global Sumud Flotilla aid ships. Maybe Israel's plan is to let them reach Gaza, but then have their criminal anti-Hamas operatives there carry out false flag attacks on the aid workers. There was something else... Maybe it was that NPR and maybe the BBC cast Netanyahu as the main problem in Israel, and Trump is allegedly getting frustrated with him again. On the 28th the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones admitted that the "West" is or must be meddling in the election just held in allegedly vital Moldova, a very small former Soviet republic between Romania and Ukraine. I've been wondering how the Russian peacekeepers in or around Transnistria there get resupplied. Aren't they surrounded by NATO and western Ukrainian forces? A 'lay' commenter brought up the GDR and fascism in the same sentence September 29th at 10am as 1A tried to fearmonger with Mary McCord, Glenn Thrush, and the author of competitive authoritarianism... about Trump and the 'authoritarian playbook,' the new liberal martyr/hero Comey (they didn't like him in 2016), etc. They brought up Stalin as well. The alleged drones and fighter jets in Poland, Romania, Estonia, and now Denmark. The BBC recently talked about mandatory military service by women or drafting them in Denmark, referencing the alleged threat from far away Russia, when it is Trump's US that openly threatens to seize the Danish territory of Greenland. Before an author talk at 11am (The Thursday Murder Club?), they interviewed a young-sounding, very British accented woman from the AP (Emma Burroughs?) on that Russian "hybrid warfare"/"active measures" (she says it in Russian and brings up those old "secret police")/"grayzone attack[s]." In a recent issue of Astronomy magazine they deny the existence of the unidentified 2024 New Jersey drones, as does ever "skeptical" Wikipedia, while allegedly 'fact-based' NPR and the BBC spread their ("conspiracy") theories about alleged "Russian drones." Are there even real drones flying around over Denmark? What about the alleged drones in the UK a few years ago? NATOland missiles have certainly been coming down and exploding in Russia, Iran, etc. "Russian drones" are 'fact-based,' and "UAPs" are not, and don't even mention old UFOs... Over the weekend one of them referred to a mouthpiece of the CP of China. A lot of love for Syria's new name-changing HTS ruler on NPR and the BBC last week. Maybe it was on 1A's Friday News Roundup where someone highly praised HTS' unnamed economic policies. The doors have been thrown open for ("Western") business?...]
[There was a "mass shooting" near Columbine High School in Colorado September 10th, at a church in Michigan recently, and in southeastern North Carolina (a drive-by with a boat?) recently? NPR talked about a survey on crime a few days ago, highlighting lack of support for Trump deploying the National Guard (?), but it did indicate a bipartisan belief that there is a crime problem, though I think NPR says that it has declined since a peak in 2023 (is it a post-pandemic backlash??). I'm worried about people around here acting on their belief or perception that there is a high crime problem... There is crime in my area, but I think it isn't very high and mainly 'property crime,' as was the case before the coronavirus.]
[The debate program on NPR the evening of September 28th looked at public health and the pandemic. Ezra Klein discussed the new McCarthyism and a third "Red Scare" (= fascism?) in the morning. The leader of Princeton University is on On Point regarding free speech on the afternoon of the 29th. He wrote a book praising the climate for speech at universities, The alleged "anti-semitism" on university campuses will be brought up, eventually (?). They didn't talk about threats to free speech much when it was Biden-Harris who were presiding over the duopoly's gradual dismantling the Bill of Rights. NPR cut to a Trump-Netanyahu press conference at about 1:40pm (even though it is going to be half an hour late??). Don't listen to the Russian government ("Russian propaganda" or their "narrative"), they have said or implied for years (and before that, don't listen to Ba'athist Iraq's PR), yet they knowingly spread Israeli government propaganda they must know is likely to be untrue and to help them carry out war crimes.] [Mara Laissan (?) pretends that the Democratic Party cares about Palestine, and that Trump has a free hand there, other than with MTG in Congress.]
[Added October 3rd: A large group allegedly attacked the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas around 10:37pm on July 4, 2025: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Alvarado_ICE_facility_attack ] [See also this statement from the NLG: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/08/nlg-stands-in-support-of-prairieland.html ]
[Willem van Spronsen (born April 24, 1950) allegedly attacked the private Northwest Detention Center around 4am on July 13, 2019, and was killed by Tacoma police; Van Spronsen reportedly had a rifle, firebombs, etc. and tried to set the Center, including "a large propane tank," on fire: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Tacoma_immigration_detention_center_attack
[The sixth leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri ( محمد دياب إبراهيم المصري, Muḥammad Diyāb Ibrāhīm al-Maṣrī) or Mohammed Deif ( محمد الضيف ) was born August 12, 1965 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip – assassinated by Israel July 13, 2024 in Al-Mawasi, Khan Yunis, Gaza, Palestine): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Deif ]
[Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades leader Salah Mustafa Muhammad Shehade (or Shehadeh, Shahadeh; صلاح شحادة ; born in February 1953 in Beit Hanoun, Gaza – assassinated by Israel July 22, 2002 in Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salah_Shehade ]
[The third chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau and former Palestinian National Authority prime minister and Gaza political leader Ismail Haniyeh ( إسماعيل هنية, Ismāʿīl Haniyyah; born January 29, 1962 in the Al-Shati refugee camp, in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip – assassinated by Israel July 31, 2024 in Tehran, Iran, prefiguring the air war in 2025): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Haniyeh ]
[Robert Somerlott, author of books such as "Here Mr Splitfoot:" An Informal Exploration Into Modern Occultism (1971) and The Death of the Fifth Sun (1987) was reportedly born September 17, 1928 in Huntington, Indiana and passed way July 22, 2001 in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico; he was an expat living near Lake Chapala, between the Mexican states of Jalisco and Michoacán ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chapala ) – lakechapalaartists.com/?p=5681 ]
[There was an attack [at about 6:40am CDT September 24, 2025] at an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas that allegedly targeted ICE agents, but the only victims were three detainees, apparently from El Salvador, Mexico, and Venezuela, two of whom are now deceased; the shooter was allegedly Joshua Jahn, 29, born in April 1996 and apparently from the Collin County area of Texas; he reportedly committed suicide in the attack and seemingly wasn't very political: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Dallas_ICE_facility_shooting ]
[["Gen Z" protests began in Madagascar September 25th and followed by protests in Morocco on the 27th; there were protests in Nepal September 8-13th; there have been many "Gen Z" protest movements around the world in recent years, and several began in September 2025: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Malagasy_protests and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Z_protests ]
[Black Liberation Army (BLA) member Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron, July 16, 1947 in New York City – September 25, 2025 in Havana, Cuba): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assata_Shakur I'm not sure if NPR mentioned her death, but the BBC did?]
[Hezbollah's third secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah (August 31, 1960 in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon – assassinated by Israel September 27, 2024 in Haret Hreik, Lebanon): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Nasrallah ]
[[Jane Morris Goodall (April 3, 1934 in London, UK – October 1, 2025 in Los Angeles, California): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall was in
[There was a knife attack outside a synagogue in Manchester, in the north of England, in the UK; the allegedly perpetrator was killed in the attack, but at least alleged three people have been arrested; June 15, 1996 the IRA carried out a truck bombing on Corporation Street in downtown Manchester, causing very expenaive damage, but no fatalities; Salman Ramadan Abedi (born December 31, 1994) carried out an suicide attack May 17, 2017 at the Manchester Arena, following an Ariana Grande concert; younger brother Hashem Abedi (born April 8, 1997) attacked guards at HM Prison Frankland with hot cooking oil and improvised weapons April 12, 2025 and attacked staff at HM Prison Belmarsh in 2022. The Peterloo Massacre against protesting workers and others was in Manchester's Saint Peter's Square August 16, 1819. Engels (especially) and Marx were associated with the City. The North West Green Belt is near Manchester. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing ]
[Jihad al-Shamie, 35, allegedly carried out the October 2nd attack outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in the Crumpsall area of Manchester, England and was killed; Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, were killed, but one of them [Daulby] might have been shot by the police: www.rt.com/news/625862-manchester-synagogue-victim-shot-police/ ]
[Al-Shamie lived in Prestwich; he had immigrated from Homs, Syria and became a naturalized UK citizen as a minor. Six, men and women, were arrested over the attack. The governments of the UK and Israel used the attack as another opportunity to condemn opposition to the "Western" war in the Middle East and genocide in Gaza: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_synagogue_attack ]
[Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine (1964 in Deir Qanoun En Nahr, Lebanon – assassinated by Israel around October 3, 2024): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashem_Safieddine ]
[October 1st-3rd (?) [around Yom Kippur] the Global Sumud Flotilla aid ships were captured at sea by the Israeli occupation naval forces; the Marinette was the last to approach Gaza, and came within 70 nautical miles, a first since 2009 [another ship also got that far?]; NPR (briefly) covered the seizures, and then went mostly silent about it; they gave the fleet, and Gaza itself, little coverage in the weeks prior; I never heard the large protests in Italy mentioned on NPR and only briefly on the BBC; they don't explain why southern European countries are often more pro-Palestine than those in the north (Ireland being an honorable exception) and they don't give much of a sense of that difference; four Italian parliamentarians were allowed to leave Israel on the 3rd. The evening off the 3rd NPR seemed to imply that detainees are being threatened with mistreatment/torture (they will be allowed to 'smell' the part of the prison where so-called terrorists are being held?), but they haven't reported the treatment claimed on Wikipedia, and there aren't many details there (yet?). The detainees are apparently being held at the Ktzi'ot Prison in the Negev. Itamar Ben-Gvir insulted the detainees and they are being recorded for later degradation (illegal if they were POWs?)? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Sumud_Flotilla ] [On prison conditions: cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/TS5541.HTM ] [NPR: Greta Thunberg might have been mistreated.] [Much more on the mistreatment or even torture of Thunberg and others on Democracy Now! October 6th.] [Satirized: www.normalisland.co.uk/p/israel-tortured-greta-to-demonstrate ] [ caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/10/16/israel-tortured-and-sexually-humiliated-greta-thunberg/ ]
[Around October 3rd Hamas tentatively [the BBC: "in principle"] accepted Trump's vague peace proposal (?); Trump then immediately demanded that Israel stop bombing Gaza; the BBC reported on the 4th that Israel is reducing or "scaling back" (not stopping) its bombing? Even NPR and the BBC seem to have implied that the proposed peace deal lacks many details, doesn't offer much to the Palestinians, and that the Israeli government doesn't want the war to end (so Gaza will be like the "peace" in Lebanon, characterized, I think by a BBC reporter, as 'Hezbollah ceasing and Israel firing,' and what about the West Bank?). ]
[Satirized: www.normalisland.co.uk/p/panic-in-israel-as-hamas-agrees-to ]
[October 3rd Sophie Roske (Nicholas John Roske), 26, of Simi Valley, California was sentenced to 97 months imprisonment and supervised release without end after that, for going to the home of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh around 1:05am on June 8, 2022 with the intention of killing the associate justice and then herself, but she turned herself in, apparently before doing anything other than going to the location with weapons and being observed getting out of a cab by two US Marshals: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_assassination_plot ]
[A fourth boat from Venezuela (?) was bombed by the US around October 3rd; NPR's Aider Peralta (based in Mexico City and whose parents came to the US from Sandinista Nicaragua, if I remember correctly) called President Maduro or Venezuela leftist authoritarian on the evening of the 3rd; early on the 4th the BBC's Julian Warwicker (?) said that a quarter of Venezuela's population has fled the country, due to political repression and economic --, in that order; nothing about the decades of "Western" economic warfare and other hostile activity; a long spiel from the Venezuelan "opposition" woman underground on the need for such "Western" aggression against Venezuela, which the region allegedly supports; a legal expert on how this is illegal killing by the US; a studio guest brings up the possibility of heavy weapons on the boats (that possibility didn't deter the US Navy in the Indian Ocean); they didn't bring up the Philippines, but this is like Duterte having alleged drug dealers and users murdered, except that Trump-Vance are murdering non-citizens abroad, and are probably aiming at the government of Venezuela, not drug mafia.
The Venezuelan government said that a few US fighter jets violated its airspace a few days ago.
Alleged unidentified drones (meaning UFOs?) caused the temporary closure of an airport in Munich, Germany at the end of Oktoberfest [and again on October 4th?]. Are they really there? If so, where are the from and what are they doing? The European Atlanticists want to generate fear about Russia so they can slash social spending, increase military spending, raise the retirement age, and repress dissent?
[More unidentified drones were reportedly detected in... over the weekend. The prime minister of Germany alleged that the drones over Munich were sent to scare the public and spy (but the BBC, etc. are the parties spreading fear)?]
The BBC is playing up recent Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities that serve the general public and the military.] [Around the 3rd NPR pretended that Ukraine is doing this without the help or input of NATO countries, something like, Trump could help with the attacks...]
[The first woman to lead the Anglican Church.]
[The first woman to lead Japan, (an LDP rightist)?] [On the right even in the rightist LDP, Japan's Margret Thatcher? – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanae_Takaichi ]
[Steve Inskeep the morning of October 3rd – something like, 'the Trump administration increases or spreads the suffering of Americans during the government shutdown' (I wrote down the exact quote somewhere) – they wouldn't speak that way about a Bidenist Democrat in the White House, NATO, or Israel. Democracy Now! October 2nd mentioned the (?) Heritage Foundation plan author being in the government and Latino USA's report on the draconian ban on abortion in El Salvador ("obstetric emergencies?").]
[No news about the civil wars in Sudan (supposedly a worse humanitarian crisis than the one in Gaza; the siege of El Fasher or Al Fashir?) or Myanmar (ending?), but the NATO and the US don't seem to be heavily involved there, as opposed to the wars in eastern Europe and the Middle East.]
[[The first] First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania Enver Halil Hoxha (Wikipedia claims these pronunciations – "UK: /ˈhɒdʒə/ HOJ-ə, US: /ˈhɔːdʒɑː/ HAW-jah;[2] Albanian: [ɛnˈvɛɾ ˈhɔdʒa]" with a sound file; October 16, 1908 in Gjirokastër, Ottoman Empire (now in southern Albania) – April 11, 1985 in Tirana, Albania): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha ] [Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_of_Labour_of_Albania ]
[The fourth chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar ( يحيى إبراهيم حسن السنوار, Yaḥyá Ibrāhīm Ḥasan al-Sinwār; October 29, 1962 in Khan Yunis, in the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip– [killed in action] October 16, 2024 iin Tel al-Sultan, Rafah, Gaza, Palestine): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Sinwar ]
[A leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Emad Akel or Imad Akel (عماد عقل ; born June 19, 1971 in the Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza – assassinated by Israel November 24, 1993 in Shuja'iyya, Gaza): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emad_Akel ]
["The Engineer" (المهندس, al-Muhandis), an official in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Yahya Abd-al-Latif Ayyash ( يحيى عياش, Yaḥyā ʿAyyāš; March 6, 1966 in Rafat, Jordanian West Bank– assassinated by Israel January 5, 1996 in Beit Lahia, Gaza Strip): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_Ayyash ]
[An official in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Marwan Abdel Karim Ali Issa (مروان عبد الكريم علي عيسى, Marwān ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿAlī ʿĪsā; 1965 in Bureij, in the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip – assassinated by Israel March 10, 2024 in Nuseirat, Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Palestine): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwan_Issa ]
[Hamas' leader in Gaza and the 7th leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades Mohammed Ibrahim Hassan al-Sinwar (محمد إبراهيم حسن السنوار, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Ḥasan as-Sinwār; September 16, 1975 in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, Gaza Strip – assassinated by Israel May 13, 2025, reportedly below the Gaza European Hospital, Al-Fukhari, Khan Yunis, Gaza; the one time Israel attacked a hospital and found a high-level member of Hamas hiding underneath?): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Sinwar ]
[Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin ( الشيخ أحمد إسماعيل حسن ياسين; June 1936 in Al-Jura, Mandatory Palestine, now Ashkelon, Israel – assassinated by Israel March 22, 2004 in Gaza City, Gaza): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Yassin ]
[They recommended the Lazarus Heist on a BBC science show on the 3rd, and here it is airing on the 4th.] [They admitted that the ROK bans its citizens from talking to any North Korean. A journalist reportedly interviewed a North Korean soldier held by Ukraine (he was captured in Kursk, Russia).]
[Good news for the Stop Cop City defendants in Atlanta, Georgia recently, but "Cop City" is asready in operation?]
[UNC suspended and then reinstated a professor Dwayne Dixon, for political reasons; there was a protest on his behalf (WUNC advertised it beforehand) the afternoon of October 2nd or1st?]
[UNC suspended and then reinstated professor Dwayne Dixon: indyweek.com/news/unc-reinstates-suspended-professor-following-investigation-threat-of-legal-action/ ]
[Satire: www.normalisland.co.uk/p/panic-in-israel-as-hamas-agrees-to ]
[By October 5th Trump implied that the US will attack alleged drug cartel targets on land (in Venezuela?) next. The Democrats tried to impeach Trump for just about anything but unlawful aggression abroad, war crimes, and murder. He openly ordered attacks in and around the Middle East during his first term, and now in Iran and off the coast of Venezuela, and they seem to be more and more blatantly criminal, though maybe he thinks that he has been given immunity by the Supreme Court. Instead of shooting someone in the street in New York City, he had them blown up in the Caribbean.]
[Around September 30th France seized the oil tanker Boracay, alleged to be part of a supposed Russian "shadow fleet" and a mothership for drones, but it was later released: sonar21.com/donald-trumps-dangerous-tilt-towards-war/ and www.rt.com/news/625854-drone-tanker-released-france/
Under the Trump administration, a law to protect abortion clinics was re-purposed to target protests for Palestine: www.rt.com/news/625686-us-synagogue-face-act/
The 10am 1A on October 6th looked at "our military" and Trump-Vance, but they talked like war crimes aren't going on now and haven't been going on for a long time. Trump ordering soldiers to shoot civilians in the US would be an "illegal order" (but killing civilians out in the Caribbean or Iraq or at Kent State is not)? It was claimed that JAGs, not the individual soldiers, get to decide what is an "illegal order." Like relying on an HR department to protect workers' rights? The Germans wanted to surrender to the Americans, not to the Soviets, Stalin and the Soviet military leadership, etc., yet even in WWII US forces purposely killed enemy soldiers who were trying to surrender, etc. The guests were from the Washington Post, AEI, and a former general (from the Middle East theatre, so he should know the 21st century war crimes very well?).]
[On the BBC's The Media Show early on October 9th Steve Rosenberg (?; to receive an award from the King??) claimed that newspapers are freer to discuss current events in Russia than is broadcast media – but it seems similar in the "West."] [He claimed to love Russia or Russian culture. In other news, France is honoring a jurist (?) for the guillotine being banned for capital punishment in 1981 (!).]
[ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Tennessee_manufacturing_plant_explosion ]
[October 17th: I hope to post something new soon. On NPR's Morning Edition today they spoke like US "gunboat diplomacy" is something from the past that Trump is resurrecting. The liberals have gotten 'cold feet' about the "regime change" in "communist" (capitalist) Venezuela that they've been pushing for on NPR, the BBC, etc. for over a decade? (No, they just want it to be like a "color revolution," or maybe an air campaign like the Libya War or the Balkan wars, without much US blood loss or risk, not something flashy like the invasions of Grenada, Panama, Iraq, etc.?). The Nobel committee 'jumped the shark' and joined in with Trump-Vance recently. Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani has vilified Venezuela (and Cuba) at such a time, though I wanted Mamdani to 'beat' the warmongering David Remnick on the New Yorker Radio Hour about a week ago. This morning McFaul also changed his tune on ending the Ukraine War? On the more in depth BBC someone claimed that Tomahawk missiles no longer carry nuclear warheads. Does the US have enough missiles to expend attacking Russia, now? Trump's empty (?) talk about disarming Hamas, when Israel failed in two years of barbarism? The Quaker House in Fayetteville is hosting an online "No Kings" event in the afternoon on the 18th. NPR didn't follow up on Morning Edition when a sociologist said that some recent demonstrations have gone wrong (which ones and how so?). Earlier they asked if protest no longer works in the US (!). Sam Husseini on October 18th: husseini.substack.com/p/no-kings-another-chapter-in-the-quest ...]
[On the Global Sumud Flotilla to relieve Gaza: masarbadil.org/en/2025/09/6816/
Masar Badil salutes the port workers and labor movements in Genoa and Athens: masarbadil.org/en/2025/09/6810/
Marked in Lebanon – "On Monday, 1 September, an international day of media action and solidarity with journalists targeted for assassination by the Zionist regime as part of its genocide in Gaza" – samidoun.net/2025/09/beirut-event-stands-in-solidarity-with-assassinated-and-imprisoned-palestinian-journalists/
Political prisoner hunger striking in the UK: samidoun.net/2025/08/call-to-action-political-prisoners-for-palestine-on-hunger-strike-from-britain-to-the-u-s/
Pro-Palestinian speech in Brazil: samidoun.net/2025/08/against-the-attempt-to-silence-palestine-week-in-salvador-brazil/ ]
Upcoming protests:
Week of action in Canada this week, from September 2nd:
[Demand that the Canada Revenue Agency stop subsidizing genocide (there are events around the country September 2nd-5th, the UN International Day of Charity): bdscoalition.ca/2025/08/29/cra-registered-actions/
March to Ottawa September 15-19th "Canada is not neutral in the Gaza genocide." – www.marchtoottawa.com/
actionnetwork.org/letters/hands-off-venezuela ]
[From Veterans for Peace:
There was a protest against Allianz in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 17th, kicking off the BDS Global Weekend of Disruption – #BDS #Gaza #EndUSComplicity #GlobalDisruption #AllianzOut
"Support the Global Sumud Flotilla as it approaches Gaza. Veterans are among those sailing under threat of violence to deliver urgently needed food and aid. |
|
All the while, state repression is targeting activists in the U.S. who are taking a stand against the Gaza genocide and ICE attacks in our communities. Zahid Chaudhry, a longtime VFP member from Pakistan, was kidnapped by ICE at his Citizenship Hearing, and is currently in ICE detention. Take action to support Zahid |
Resist US Military Bases! Fight for Land, Liberation, Sovereignty, and Just Peace! US Out of Everywhere!
"RESIST U.S. MILITARY BASES: September 18
In coalition with the International League of People’s Struggle, we encourage you to be at your local base. Invite your local coalition partners, be sure to make a video statement with the resources which will be shared internationally. Feel free to modify the placard messages to this campaign message. Invite the coalition as collaborators on socials: @ilps_official, @internationalwomensalliance, @resistusledwar, @aprnetwork, @bayan.intl, @apwld_, @veteransforpeace, See resources here!"
MACDILL FUELS GENOCIDE: Thursday, September 18
Join us at 8:30am for a protest at the MacDill AFB gate to demand an end to U.S. support for Israel's genocide.
Instagram livestream will start at 9am EST.
STRIKE & WEEKEND OF GLOBAL DISRUPTION: September 18-21
A global strike and weekend of coordinated disruption will take place, led by Palestinian and international civil society groups.
The strike demands governments take immediate action to stop the genocide in Gaza and enforce the United Nations order.
GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION - NYC United Nations Headquarters: September 18 at noon on the New York Public Library steps (41st & 5th Ave). Join mass mobilization march to the United Nations headquarters in New York City to coincide with the U.N. deadline for Israel to end its occupation and blockade. The event will demand accountability from world leaders and an immediate ceasefire."
Flood the UN General Assembly for Gaza September 23rd in New York City:
[From the NC PPC:
Founder Day Rally at Duke University September 25th:
"At this moment of crisis for working people, Duke has a choice to make: side with the billionaires or stand with the people of Durham who truly make Duke run.
The North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign is joining the Durham Rising march and rally on September 25 to kick off Duke’s Founders’ Day weekend and send a clear message to Duke to stand with Durham and stand with workers. We know that Duke’s founders didn’t build Duke alone. This year, we will celebrate the legacy of the working people who built Duke and all of us who have kept Duke running day after day, year after year.
Duke Founders' Day 2025: Stand with Durham, Stand with Workers
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Gather at 5:00 PM at Saint Joseph’s Episcopal Church, 1902 West Main St., Durham, NC
March to the intersection of Main St. and Campus Dr.
Right now, working people in Durham are facing attacks from the Trump administration, including attacks on our public schools, our healthcare and our freedom of speech. We can’t afford to have Duke turn its back on us. We have rent to cover and bills to pay. We need Duke to stand with us and fight back.
On Founders’ Day 2025, we are calling on Duke University to show bold leadership by protecting higher education and raising standards across the region through good, union jobs and giving back to the community that makes Duke run by investing in our public schools, affordable housing, and city infrastructure. Click here to see the full list of Durham Rising demands and sign on to the petition that we will deliver to Duke on the 25th.
As the largest employer in Durham, Duke has a responsibility at this moment to protect and invest in the workers and families who keep the university and our community running — not the billionaires who care more about their stock portfolios than our families.
Join us!
North Carolina Poor People's Campaign
www.ppc-nc.org "
Sent out the morning of August 22nd:
- Issue a statement to better inform the peoples of the Caribbean about U.S. aggression: the deployment of U.S. military resources in the southern Caribbean and the threat to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela; the revocation of visas of CARICOM government ministers due to the presence of Cuban medical brigades in our countries; the intensification of the illegal and illegitimate blockade of Cuba; and the deployment of mercenaries to Haiti.
- Call on CARICOM governments to stand firm in defending the sovereignty of the region and its status as a zone of peace;
- Call on the peoples of the Caribbean, including those in the diaspora, to participate in actions of collective solidarity and to demonstrate our opposition to the warmongering of the United States;
- Organize a regional press conference to achieve these objectives.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 28, 2025
media [at adc org]
Washington, D.C. | A new Quinnipiac University poll shows that a majority of Americans believe Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, and oppose continued U.S. military aid. The findings are clear: 77% of Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide, and six in ten U.S. voters say Washington should stop sending weapons to Israel—the highest share since Quinnipiac began tracking the issue in 2023. Furthermore, a recent Economist/YouGov survey reported that 80% of those polled support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while a Gallup poll showed that 59% of Democrats now say they are more sympathetic to Palestinians, compared to only 21% who say they are more sympathetic to Israelis.
Despite overwhelming data, on Tuesday, the DNC blocked votes on resolutions calling for a weapons embargo on Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza— both measures widely supported by Democratic voters.
“Democratic voters are not divided on this question; party leaders are,” said Abed Ayoub, ADC National Executive Director. “When an overwhelming majority of Democrats support a ceasefire in Gaza, there is no divide—there is a definitive consensus. To cancel a vote under the guise of unity is hypocrisy. The only division is between the DNC leadership and the voters they claim to represent.”
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) condemns the Democratic National Committee for killing a resolution calling on the U.S. to halt arms sales to Israel. Rather than allowing a full vote on the arms embargo, the committee advanced a weaker resolution that paired calls for a ceasefire with language reaffirming U.S. military support for Israel. That resolution was later withdrawn, with DNC Chair Ken Martin announcing it would be sent to a task force for further discussion. Party leaders described the move as a gesture toward “unity.” In reality, it was an effort to delay confronting a hard truth: Democratic leadership is bending to the will of its donors and outside pressure groups rather than listening to the will of their voters.
“Leadership means catching up to your voters before they give up on you,” added Ayoub. “Time and again, the DNC has made clear it fears its donors more than it respects its base. A ceasefire and an end to unconditional weapons transfers are not controversial among Democrats—they are overwhelmingly popular demands.”
ADC calls on the DNC to respect its members and its voters by holding a vote on both the weapons embargo and ceasefire resolutions. Anything less is a betrayal of democratic principles and a dangerous signal that party leaders care more about donor appeasement than the conscience of their base.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2025
media [at adc org]
Washington, D.C. | The American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee (ADC) condemns Israel’s violent invasion and ground assault on Gaza City and surrounding towns. Tanks and warplanes have pounded neighborhoods including Zeitoun, Shejaiya, and Sabra as Israeli leaders vow to seize the city, even as international agencies confirm famine conditions there. This invasion is tearing through a population already pushed to the brink by displacement, siege, and starvation– a gross violation of U.S. and international law and a moral catastrophe of historic scale.
Famine, mass displacement, and bombardment are converging on a population trapped without safe exit or care. Israel claims it targets fighters, not civilians. Yet, a joint investigation based on Israel’s own internal military intelligence database confirms that 83% of those killed in Gaza are civilians, a figure that exposes the enormity of this atrocity and contradicts repeated official claims. Despite the Gaza Health Ministry recording over 62,000 deaths and more than 157,000 wounded, credible research—including analysis published in The Lancet—warns the true toll is far higher, with tens of thousands of bodies still trapped under rubble and unaccounted for.
In leaked audio aired on Israel’s Channel 12, Aharon Haliva, former head of military intelligence, chillingly declared: “The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations. For each [victim] on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die … There’s no choice, they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the consequences.” [This is what it sounded like they let a guest journalist defend or excuse on 1A's Friday News Roundup on NPR around the 29th or 22nd, without any "push back."]
These admissions reveal not just reckless disregard for human life but an intentional policy of ethnic cleansing. ADC has long affirmed that, since the Nakba of 1948, Israel’s central objective has been the systematic elimination of Palestinians—an agenda made possible only through continued U.S. support and complicity. This staggering civilian death rate places Gaza among the worst genocides in modern history, a deliberate campaign of mass killing and starvation against a besieged population.
The invasion of Gaza City is the latest development in their unabetted extermination campaign. Israel’s leaders have made clear this genocide is the deliberate destruction of Palestinian life. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly demanded harsher measures against Palestinians who remain, stating: “Whoever doesn’t evacuate [Gaza City], don’t let them. No water, no electricity – let them die of hunger or surrender. This is what we want, and you’re [IDF] capable of doing it.”
These chilling words expose the genocidal intent behind Israel’s actions.
Since Israel tightened its blockade on Gaza in March, Palestinians on the ground have consistently reported widespread famine—yet only now have so-called ‘reputable’ international bodies acknowledged it. This delay is a true travesty. On Friday, the world’s leading food crisis ‘authority,’ The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), finally declared a phase 5 catastrophic famine in Gaza. Nearly one-third of Gaza’s population, 641,000 people, face starvation, destitution, and death, while another 1.14 million are in phase 4 emergency conditions. Food supplies have collapsed: 87% of UN aid trucks were intercepted in July, bakeries shuttered, wheat flour prices have soared 3,400% since February, and families are scavenging through rubble for food. The IPC’s Famine Review Committee warns this crisis is “entirely man-made” and that avoidable deaths will rise exponentially without a ceasefire.
ADC calls on President Trump to use the full weight of U.S. power to end this genocide immediately; we demand an immediate halt to all U.S. military aid to Israel, because there can be no meaningful ceasefire while weapons continue to flow; we insist that all crossings and points of entry be opened at once so UN‑managed humanitarian assistance can move freely and at scale to every part of Gaza; and we demand full accountability, under U.S. and international law, for every official and entity responsible for this genocide and for those enabling it– an eternal stain on the United States and on all who support this genocide.
Americans have had enough of their taxpayer dollars funding this horrific genocide – we must hold accountable every official who has supported Israel’s actions. ADC, together with our hundreds of thousands of members, will work to ensure these individuals never return to power.
U.S. complicity must end now.
Originally posted at: adc.org/breakingca/ [They argued on NPR that we need for more California Democrats in Congress...]
BREAKING: California Lawmakers Advance Costly SB 771 in Closed-Door Session; Impose “Israel Tax” on Financially Strapped Constituents
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 29, 2025
media [at adc org]
Washington, D.C. | Earlier today a small group of compromised lawmakers in California secretly advanced Senate Bill 771 which, if passed, will infringe on the First Amendment Rights of all Americans. In an undemocratic process, the lawmakers made the decision in a closed-door session to shield them from public accountability and scrutiny.
California lawmakers advanced Senate Bill 771 (Stern), stripping Californians of their constitutionally protected free-speech rights while bowing to the demands of the powerful pro-Israel lobby— the latest “Israel Tax” lawmakers have imposed on already financially strapped constituents. This corrupt process marks a direct assault on democracy and a betrayal of every Californian who expects transparency, fairness, and constitutional protections from their elected officials.
ADC condemns this blatant abuse of power. Lawmakers are selling out the people of California to satisfy well-funded lobbyists, sacrificing free expression and saddling taxpayers with the staggering costs of inevitable litigation. SB 771 is not about safety or equity. It is about silencing dissent, consolidating power, and protecting special interests at the expense of the public good.
“This is a corrupt, backwards process,” said ADC National Executive Director, Abed Ayoub. “Lawmakers have advanced unconstitutional legislation in secret – without public oversight – to satisfy lobby groups instead of serving their constituents. Californians deserve better than this power-abusing charade. SB 771 is an Israel tax.”
The facts are clear:
- The bill undermines constitutional free speech rights and editorial discretion, directly conflicting with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
- It creates a climate of fear where social media companies will over-censor legitimate political discussion to avoid lawsuits.
- It exposes California taxpayers to litigation costs with penalties ranging from $500,000 to $1,000,000 per case—an absurd burden for a state already facing a $20 billion deficit.
ADC and its coalition of nearly 60 organizations demand that legislators reverse course. Californians must not be forced to pay the price (financially or democratically) for a corrupt system that prioritizes special interests over the Constitution. This closed-door process strips Californians of their rights, drains public resources, and threatens to silence marginalized voices, including Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian communities. It is an affront to democracy, and we will not stand by while our communities are targeted.
Read ADC’s full position paper here.
[Originally posted at: www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2025/08/25/ice-kidnaps-disabled-army-veteran [See also: www.KeepZahidHome.org and the Substack (new post September 4th): melissa4congress.substack.com/p/countering-the-smear-campaign-against ]
ICE Kidnaps Disabled Army Veteran
[Group photo]
Veterans For Peace calls on the Department of Homeland Security to immediately free Zahid so he can rejoin his family and continue his work in the community.
We urge our members and supporters to stand with Zahid by:
- Signing this petition for his release. bit.ly/FreeZahid
- Sending a letter to your representative and senators. Click here to send a letter to your congressional leader.
- Staying in the loop through this website, learn more about Zahid, and how you can hel
- Sharing widely with your networks.
To whom it may concern, and thank you for your interest:
Introduction and summary:
My husband Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, or “Zahid” to those who know him, is an Honorable, Decorated, disabled American veteran in a wheelchair due to injuries sustained in service to our country. He has a natural-born American wife and two American citizen children, ages 2yrs and 8mos. He served in both the US Army and the National Guard, and also served as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic in Yakima, WA prior to his injuries.
Since becoming disabled, he’s devoted himself to benefitting the community every way he can. He’s served on dozens of boards supporting local nonprofits; he’s sought-after by major foundations for his input on how to best award grants to serve diverse communities; he’s given sermons in Christian, Quaker, Muslim, and Unitarian Universalist congregations; and he’s founded multiple nonprofits including Veterans Suicide Prevention, Sustainability Conservancy, and People of Color Community Coalition. He’s a brother Mason, and has served as a father/mentor figure to American youth in the Demolay program for character development and leadership. He has renovated blighted homes, repaired people’s vehicles for free, and arranged to prevent eviction of struggling families. He is a renowned advocate for peace and serves as President of the Veterans for Peace, South Sound Chapter (Rachel Corrie Chapter). He is an honorable and upstanding resident in every way, who by statutory (legal, inarguable) right, should have been naturalized as an American citizen all the way back in 2004. He has always come to the United States legally, and he has never committed a crime here.
Zahid joined the US Army prior to 9/11, out of genuine patriotism and a desire to serve the nation he loved. He was described by his officers as an “exemplary soldier” with “leadership potential.” After 9/11, he was activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom and sustained severe injuries while deployed. By this time, due to his specialization in mental health (a prerequisite to counterintelligence work), he was sought after by intelligence agencies, who offered him great pay and benefits in exchange for his cooperation. He found that cooperation violated his moral principles. He was unwilling to just “give a name” and throw an innocent person to the wolves, as he saw it…and so he was told, very directly, that they’d make his life hell, and his citizenship wouldn’t be forthcoming.
He has now suffered through decades of legal persecution that seems to have been undertaken with the sole goal of bankrupting and silencing him. Government lawyers have spared no expense in going after him with threats of deportation based on spurious grounds. There is a well-documented policy in the Department of Homeland Security, going back over two decades, called CARRP - which is designed to cause indeterminate delays and pretextual denials (resulting in deportation) to aspiring Americans who are Muslim (or perceived to be Muslim) and who are highly capable people. CARRP has entrapped over 50,000 hardworking, law-abiding people who did everything right. According to the government’s own records, made public in the Motion for Summary Judgment filed in June/July 2024 in Wagafe v. Biden, at least 18 people have had their applications for naturalization stuck in limbo - with no pathway to resolution and no opportunity to even know what “concerns” need to be addressed - for over 20 years. According to government documents revealed during the course of Zahid’s case, he is one.
He’s also been subjected in court to the attentions of Raphael Sanchez and Jonathan Love, two ICE Attorneys - Seattle Chief and Deputy Chief, at the time - who were since criminally convicted of crimes committed against immigrants in their official capacity. It was deeply unusual for attorneys of such high position to be personally involved in a case like Zahid’s - and one of those men was convicted of stealing the identities of immigrants he deported and using them to open credit card accounts, claim them as dependents on his tax returns, and more. He targeted immigrants with high credit scores, and Zahid has always been unusually financially responsible.
Through all this - the physical injuries and disability, the legal persecution, the near-bankruptcy due to attorney costs, etc – Zahid has remained faithful to his principles and committed to his oath to protect and serve the Constitution of the United States of America. He has over 100 letters of support published on his website from community members, fellow veterans, members of the clergy of four different faiths, even elected officials up to and including US Senators. He has always and only sought what he was duly entitled to - citizenship, which he has rightfully earned many times over. He is eligible for citizenship by marriage and fatherhood, as well as long-term peaceful residence, but he claims his right by military service. He has already sworn an oath to protect and defend this country, and broken his body in service to that oath. Veterans are eligible for immediate, expedited naturalization, and Zahid deserves no less.
That is what he is claiming. No more, and no less, than his earned right.
If they disappear my husband today, this is why. The briefings have been completed in his case in the 9th District Court of Appeals, and the Court has ordered that a panel of judges be convened to hear the merits of his Motion for Summary Judgment - laying out the facts of his case and showing how he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. This move - remanding to the panel - usually indicates that the court sees merit in the arguments of the SJM. Such a move would be perceived by opposing counsel as a precursor to them losing in court.
They started issuing interview notices for this naturalization interview on August 5th, the same hour that order was filed in the PACER system (online court records). Responding to military N400s (naturalization applications) that they had sat on for years with no movement.
Further background can be found in the following pages. Melissa Chaudhry can be reached at chaudhry4congress [at gmail com] and at 206-271-2240.
Easy Links for Quick Research
ACLU-SOCAL about CARRP unconstitutional delay and denial of due process:
Overview (quick 5m intro video)
Report (excellent 2-page executive summary)
Case page with filings (Wagafe v. Biden) throughout the past 12 years, for deeper research
Number of people who’ve been “CARRP’d” without recourse for more than 20 years:
Page 26 of 61, in the Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment:
Zahid’s personal biography (timeline structure):
y.Biographical Timeline-KeepZahidHome.pdf
Archival website documenting Zahid’s case:
Main page - “Keep Zahid Home”
Letters of support (Cantwell, Murray, Zahid’s recruiter, community members, clergy, family, friends, etc.)
Current website for situation updates:
https://keepzahidhome.carrd.co/
www.substack.com/Melissa4Congress
Current 9th Circuit Case Briefings:
Motion for Summary Judgment, filed May 2025
Explaining why there’s no doubt Zahid is eligible for citizenship.
Responding to their brief and clearly arguing why they’re operating in bad faith.
Family Photos
Family photos follow. All may be used in press without further permissions needed:
[...]
[UNAC held a webinar – Troops Out of Our Cities! ICE Out of Our Communities! – at 1pm on September 7th and a rally in solidarity with Venezuela and the rest of Latin America September 6th at 1pm at the Simón Bolívar Statue at 59th Street and 6th Avenue in New York City.]
[Lights out for migrating birds at night September 10th-November 30th and March 15th-May 30th: nc.audubon.org/conservation/lights-out-north-carolina ]
[The Blake Society's webinar "Philip Hoare: William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love" was September 10th 19-20:30 in the UK.]
[Grasshopper Farms' corn maze will open September 13th; they even offer "gemstone mining" and many other activities; in Knightdale, NC (at 8004 Poole Road) – www.grasshopperfarmsnc.com
[Professor Grover Furr will speak in an ICSS webinar – "Why Did the USSR Collapse? The Conspiracy of Gorbachev" – September 14th: icssmarx.org/why-did-the-ussr-collapse-grover-furr-september-14-2025-1030-am-pacific-time/
On Zoom: us06web.zoom.us/j/87388824824?pwd=QTWNvr8cGeGo1ZDW7x9Y8W0sDaNxRc.1 ]
[The Plant NC's 18th annual Pepperfest is coming up September 14th, 12-6pm in Pittsboro: www.theplantnc.com/pepperfest ]
[See the mass evening gatherings of chimney swifts as they begin their fall migration to South America at a Swift Night Out in Asheville, Durham, Fuquay-Varina, Greensboro, Raleigh, UNC-Chapel Hill (at the massive, hollow Davie Poplar, though I have seen them spiraling in to roost elsewhere along East Franklin Street as well), Wilkesboro, and Winston-Salem September 14-30th: nc.audubon.org/news/you’re-invited-witness-magic-swift-migration ]
[There will be a Friends of the Durham Library book sale September 26-27th: fodlnc.org/events/ There was a pop-up DVD (?) sale recently. There will be a Friends of the Chatham Community Library book sale September 18-20th in Pittsboro: friendsccl.org/page-1075199 ]
[The Sun Day protest will be September 21st, also the annual International Day of Peace, with the theme "Act Now for a Peaceful World" – www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-peace ]
[I think there will be a week of action for Palestine prior to the march in New York City on September 23rd.]
[The NC Museum of Natural Sciences' Bugfest 2025 will be Saturday, September 20th 10am-7pm in downtown Raleigh; this year's theme is "krill and marine decapods" – naturalsciences.org/calendar/bugfest/ ]
[ArabCon is coming up in late September.]
[From The Blake Society:
"William Blake's Vision of a New Jerusalem in Kings Cross: a guided walk with Aidan Andrew Dun" will be Saturday September 13th 1:45-4:30pm; meet at Granary Square, Kings Cross, N1C 4AA in London, UK.
A webinar "Infinite Liberty: Georges Bataille reading Blake in Postwar France" with Stuart Kendall, will be Wednesday, October 8th, 19:30 - 21:00 in the UK.
[At Saint James's Church in London (197 Piccadilly) October 15th: "Visionary London from Blake to Today: a talk hosted by Aiden Andrew Dunn" – www.alternatives.org.uk/event/pillars-gold-visionary-london-blake-today-0 and aidanandrewdun.com ]
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell will be published by Tate Publishing this November.
The exhibit "William Blake: Burning Bright" is on display at the Yale Center for British Art through Sunday, November 30, 2025 in the third-floor galleries; admission is free.]
["Exploring imagination through marks and forms:
a workshop inspired by William Blake's visionary spirit"
With Debbie Lee and Prasad Beaven, and hosted by the
Artists General Benevolent Institution
Thursday 13 November 2025
13:00 16:00
15 Churton Street London SW1V 2LY
For booking and costs please follow the link below."
www.agbi.org.uk/whats-on/workshop-with-agbi-stewards
Watch the September 10th "William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love" talk by Philip Hoare (with John Riordan): blakesociety.org/product/philip-hoare/ ]
[From Monocle magazine's July 12th email newsletter:
"Takahata Isao Exhibition: The Man who Planted Japanese Animation" at the Azabudai Hills Gallery in Japan through September 15th; Takahata ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Takahata ) is known for movie such as Grave of the Fireflies (1988), The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013), etc.: www.azabudai-hills.com/azabudaihillsgallery/sp/isaotakahata-ex/en/
"Birds, Birds, and Birds: All Sorts of Fujimoto Yoshimichi’s White Porcelain with Overglaze Enamels" at the Kikuchi Kanjitsu Memorial Tomo Museum (in Toranomon, Tokyo?) through September 28th: www.musee-tomo.or.jp/en/current_exhibition.html
"The Architecture of Sou Fujimoto: Primordial Future Forest" at the Mori Art Museum through November 9th: www.mori.art.museum/en/exhibitions/soufujimoto/ A Monocle interview wiith Fujimoto, from Hokkaido: monocle.com/design/architecture/interview-sou-fujimoto/ On Sou Fujimoto: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sou_Fujimoto ]
[From Keep Durham Beautiful:
September 19 - Chatham County Native Plant Sale
September 20 - UDO Housing Forum
September 20 - Southwest Regional Library Plant Swap
September 20 - Haw River Assembly Trash Trap Clean-Out
September 20-21 - Durham CenterFest Arts Festival
September 21 - Walltown Solar Home Tour
September 22 - Fall Equinox Hike with DPR
September 23 - Fall Litter Leader Training
September 24 - Swift Night Out at The Durham Hotel
September 25 - How to Simplify the Holidays: Creative Ideas from Community Partners
September 26-27 - Invasive Plant Removal at Sandy Creek Park
September 27 - March with KDB in the Durham Pride Parade!
September 27 - NC Botanical Gardens Fall Plant Sale
Sept 27-Nov 1 - Durham Big Sweep
September 28 - Queer Ecologies for Community at Duke Gardens
Sept 29 - Oct 3 - NC Climate Week
September 30 - Swift Night Out at the Velvet Hippo
October 4 - The Greatest American Cleanup ]
[Doug Tallamy will speak at the Cary Environmental Symposium September.19th and beekeeper Samantha “Foxx” Winship of Mother’s Finest Urban Family Farms in Winston-Salem on the 25th.
The City of Durham Solid Waste Compost Bin Sale will end Friday, September 26th: DurhamNC.gov/935
[The NC Latin American Film Festival is October 3rd-16th in 2025: nclatinamericanfilmfestival.org/]
[I think the fall Parkwood Flea Market at Revere and Seaton roads in southern Durham will be October 4th am-12pm.]
[New Hope Creek Biodiversity Day at Duke Forest will be Saturday, October 4th, 9am-2:45pm: dukeforest.duke.edu/events/new-hope-creek-biodiversity-day/ ]
The Move-A-Bull City street festival will be Sunday, October 5th, 12-4pm.]
[There will be a primary election for the mayor and city council seats in the Durham Tuesday, October 7th; see the Durham County and NC State board of elections websites for dates, sample ballots, the results, etc. The early voting period has already started (September 18th-October 4th, at some of the Durham County libraries, the Turner Law Building at NCCU, and the Durham Board of Elections, and the deadline to request a mailed ballot was September 23rd?) and endorsements have been made.]
[Banned Books Week 2025 is October 5-11th and it to lasts to November 5th at the Chapel Hill Public Library (yet they ban citizens' speech): bannedbooksweek.org/ ]
[University Press Week 2025?]
[A few of the many upcoming events listed in the the fall issue of american archaeology magazine:]
[The Harbor Springs History Museum in Michigan has a new bilingual exhibit on Anishinaabe porcupine quill art, showing through October 31st.]
[The venerable Las Golondrinas Harvest Festival will be October4-5th in Santa Fe, New Mexico.]
[The 39th Great Basin Archaeological Conference will be October 15-18th in Reno, Nevada.]
[The Midwest Archaeological Conference will be in Iowa City, Iowa October 29th-November 1st.]
[The 81st Annual Southeastern Archaeological Conference will be in Baton Rouge November 5-8th.]
[According to the Days of the Year website, September 8th was Star Trek Day, the 9th was Teddy Bear Day, the 11th was SUP Day, the 12th was Video Games Day, the 13th was International Chocolate Day, the 14th was Cream Filled Donut Day, 15th was Make a Hat Day, the 16th is Play-Doh Day, the 17th is Smithsonian or Museum Day, the 18th is Ceiling Fan Day, the 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, the 20th is Queso Day, and the 21st is Chai Day, etc.] [And Wednesday, October 1st is Green City Day.]
[According to the National Day Calendar website, September 18th is National Pawpaw Day (see below); George Washington inaugurated the construction of the US Capitol; the fateful Fugitive Slave Law was passed September 18, 1850; what is now the NYT began publishing September 18, 1851; CBS began September 18, 1927; the CIA and the DoD began operating September 18, 1947; Joe Kittinger crossed the Atlantic in a balloon alone September 18, 1984; etc.]
[And Monday, September 29th is Urban National Wildlife Refuge Day, Coffee Day, etc., and, if I'm not mistaken, Catholic Michaelmas; Mercator Cooper was born September 29, 1803; Louis J Weichmann was born September 29, 1842; Caroline Yale was born September 29, 1848; Joseph Banks Rhine was born September 29, 1895; Gene Autry was born September 29, 1907, as was Publix's George W Jenkins; capitalism's first billionaire, John D Rockefeller, was 'minted' September 29, 1916; Stan Berenstain was born September 29, 1923; Jerry Lee Lewis was born September 29, 1935; Larry Linville was born September 29, 1939, Mike Post was born September 29, 1944; Cheers appeared on NBC September 29, 1982; the US House of Representatives voted to ban lobbyists from treating "Congresscritters" to food and entertainment September 29, 1994?; the Nintendo 64 was introduced in the US September 29, 1996; September 29, 2021 the FWS ruled that 23 species were extinct, and therefore no longer protected by the Endangered Species Act?; etc.]
[According to Wikipedia's "On this day" section, John Roberts has been the 17th Chief Justice of the United States since September 29, 2005; the Lockheed (?) YF-22 "stealth" fighter jet prototype first flew all the way back on September 29, 1990; the occupying Germans and collaborating Ukrainian forces began killing ten of thousands of Jewish (and I imagine probably other) civilians (well over 30,000 over the first two days) in the Babi Yar/Babyn Yar ravine in the capital, Kiev,/over months, beginning September 29, 1941; and Mexican independence leader and general Guadalupe Victoria was born September 29, 1786.]
[The Schiesser clothing company is marking its 150th anniversary: "On 1 October 1875, Jacques & Malwine Schiesser founded the SCHIESSER company in Radolfzell on Lake Constance." – www.schiesser.com/en/company/company-history/ I thought that Schiesser was a German company, but according to Wikipedia it came under Delta Galil (founded in 1975?) of Israel in 2011: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiesser ]
[October 1, 1945 the US Department of War unveiled Operation Paperclip, under which (often compromised?) German researchers, engineers, and medical doctors, such as Wernher von Braun, Arthur Rudolph, and Hubertus Strughold, were brought to the US to work for the Army and Navy (others were taken to the UK); I think I read recently that the USSR's early lead in the "space race" might not have been due to captured German expertise, which the Soviets also had after WWII: portside.org/2025-09-29/week-peoples-history-oct-1-7-2025 ]
[The Peanuts comic strip began October 2, 1950: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanuts ]
[According to the National Day Calendar website, October 4th is National Vodka Day, etc.; Plymouth Colony wrote its first law October 4, 1636; the first volunteer firefighting organization in the future US was created by Peter Stuyvesant October 4, 1648; Rutherford B Hayes was born October 4, 1822; painter Frederic Remington was born October 4, 1861; botanist Edward Murray East was born October 4, 1879; the University of California was established October 4, 1880; physicist John Vincent Atanasoff was born October 4, 1903; Dinosaur National Monument was created October 4, 1915; Charlton Heston was born October 4, 1923, but with a different name; businessman Charles Lazarus was also born that day; Linda McMahon was born October 4, 1948, etc.]
According to Wikipedia's "On this day" section, Swedish and Finnish Cinnamon Roll Day, created in 1999, is every October 4th; a peace treaty signed by Skanderbeg and Gjergj Arianiti, both Albanian, October 4, 1448 brought the Albanian–Venetian War to an end; the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth broke Russia's siege of Smolensk October 4, 1633 during the Smolensk War; the naval Battle of Galveston Harbor in coastal Texas, was October 4, 1862, with the USA re-gaining control of Galveston; rebels under Fawzi al-Qawuqji captured Hama, held by the French, October 4, 1925 during the Great Syrian Revolt; and the controversial carving of presidential portraits on Mount Rushmore began October 4, 1927.]
[According to the National Day Calendar website, PBS was founded October 5, 1970 (and Federal funding of PBS and NPR ended October 1st?). The 5th was Do Something Nice Day, Rhode Island, etc.; Robert Parker Parrott, inventor of the Parrott gun, a rifled and therefore more accurate cannon used in the Civil War (one reason that masonry or brick forts like North Carolina's Fort Macon were obsolete by then? [also South Carolina's Fort Sumter?]), was born October 5, 1804; President Chester A Arthur was born October 5, 1829; author Helen Churchill Candee was born October 5, 1858; Robert H Goddard was born October 5, 1882; baseball player Ty Cobb stole 96th bases by October 5th in 1915; the first radio broadcast of a World Series was October 5, 1921; cartoonist Bil Keane was born October 5, 1922; Gail Davis was born October 5, 1925; Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton (of western North Carolina?) was born October 5, 1946 and passed away in 2009; the first Oval Office address broadcast on TV was given by Truman on October 5, 1947; Bernie Mac was born October 5, 1957; Maya Lin was born October 5, 1959; and Travis Kelce was born October 5, 1989; etc.
October 6th is National Child Health Day, Consignment Day, Orange Wine Day, Noodle Day, German-American Day, etc.; Germantown, Pennsylvania was founded October 6, 1683; a self-winding clock was patented October 6, 1783; a public bath opened in Brooklyn, New York October 6, 1863; the American Library Association was founded October 6, 1876; the Naval War College of the United States was founded October 6, 1884; Cream of Wheat cereal was invented October 6, 1893; San Francisco, California's Zoological Gardens opened October 6, 1940; Truman signed the NATO-related Mutual Defense Assistance Acts October 6, 1949; October 6, 1961 JFK recommended that people build nuclear fallout shelters (in general?); October 6, 1979 John Paul II was the first pope to go to the White House, as the Cold War was heated up, etc.; Instagram was founded October 6, 2010; etc.
October 7th is National Taco Day, Propane Day, Frappe Day, Inner Beauty Day, [Fruit at Work Day,] etc.
[The 33rd vice president, Henry A Wallace, was born October 7, 1888, and Oliver North, of Iran-Contra under Reagan (the 80's Trump?), was born October 7, 1943.]
[October 8th is National Emergency Nurse's Day, Take Your Parents to Lunch Day, Stop Bullying Day, Curves Day, Bring Your Teddy Bear to Work/School Day, American Touch Tag Day, etc.]
According to the Days of the Year website, October 6th is World Architecture Day, October 8th is National Curves Day, the 9th is Curious Events Day; the 10th is National Angel Food Cake Day, the 11th is National Chess Day, and the 12th is National Farmers Day.]
[The 50th anniversary of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument was October 8th. The 75th anniversary of Fort Caroline National Memorial was September 21st and the 10th anniversary of Waco Mammoth National Monument was July 10th. The 10th anniversary of\ Manhattan Project National Historical Park is November 10th and the 100th anniversary of Lava Beds National Monument is November 21st.]
[The 40th anniversary of Microsoft's Excel program is in early October? World Animal Day was before October 5th.]
[According to Wikipedia, a Cherokee force carried out the the Killough Massacre near Larissa, in East Texas, October 5, 1838; Dr. No came out October 5, 1962; the "Bulldozer Revolution" in Yugoslavia against Milosevic (September 24th-October 5th in 2000) is named for an attack on the Radio Television of Serbia building on October 5th; the East Asian Mid-Autumn Festival is on October 6th in 2025; the Battle of Manila ended October 6, 1762, during the Seven Years' War; the Revolutionary War Battle of Forts Clinton and Fort Montgomery was October 6, 1777, near West Point, in New York state; there was a deadly riot at the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, London, UK October 6, 1985; the discovery of exoplanet 51 Pegasi b or Dimidium, about 50 light years away, was announced October 6, 1995; the Revolutionary War Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina was October 7, 1780; many people were killed by a landslide during flooding in Puerto Rico October 7, 1985; "The military wing of the Palestinian nationalist Islamist political organization Hamas massacred people attending an open-air music festival in the Eshkol Regional Council, Israel" October 7, 2023 they say; the very bloody Civil War Battle of Perryville in Kentucky was October 8, 1862 [(see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Perryville )]; there was a triple train crash October 8, 1952 in London, UK; the anti-war Days of Rage began October 6, 1969 in Chicago; China's Xinhai Revolution began October 10, 1911; the Double Tenth incident or massacre in Singapore was October 10, 1943; (Welsh?) singer and poet Marina Diamandis was born October 10, 1985; the WWII Battle of Cape Esperance, off Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands, was October 11-12, 1942; National Coming Out Day is October 11th; Indonesian Chen Yanxiang arrived in Seoul October 12, 1406; Inejirō Asanuma of the JSP was assassinated with a sword on October 12, 1960; October 12, 1979 intense Typhoon Tip produced the lowest barometric pressure at sea level ever recorded, 870 mbar (25.69 inHg); Hurricane Wilma has the record for the Atlantic, 882 mbar (26.05 inHg), measured 2005 October 19, 2005; Indigenous Peoples' Day is October 13th in 2025; suffragette Margaret Travers Symons interrupted the British House of Commons October 13, 1908, becoming the first woman to address the chamber; Norman duke William the Conqueror defeated Anglo-Saxon king Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings October 14, 1066; Napoleonic French forces led by Michel Ney defeated Austrian forces led by Johann Sigismund Reisch in the Battle of Elchingen October 14, 1805; the Politburo of the CPSU removed Nikita Khrushchev as he Party's leader, in favor of Leonid Brezhnev, October 14, 1964; the Civil War Battle of Glasgow, in Missouri, was October 15, 1864; The Motherland Calls WWII monument in Volgograd (previously Stalingrad) was dedicated October 15, 1967; there were police raids in New Zealand October 15, 2007; there were demonstrations over inequality, etc. in over 950 cities, in 82 countries, October 15, 2011; Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, was founded October 16, 1875; C. S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published October 16, 1950; journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in Bidnija, Malta October 16, 2017: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia ; those who had ordered the execution of English king Charles I had all themselves been cruelly executed by October 17, 1660; Yoshihito Hattori, an exchange student from Japan, was killed Baton Rouge, Louisiana, October 17, 1992; Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi was assassinated October 17, 2001 in Jerusalem, retaliating for the assassination of the PFLP's general secretary, Abu Ali Mustafa (مصطفى علي الزبري; born May 14, 1938 in Arraba, Jenin, Mandatory Palestine), August 27, 2001 in Al-Bireh, West Bank): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ali_Mustafa ; Raffaele Bendandi was born October 17, 1893; a major earthquake devastated Basel, Switzerland October 18, 1356; a British force destroyed Falmouth (now Portland), Maine October 18, 1775; Alaska Day is October 18th, commemorating the transfer of Alaska to the US in 1867; British Dr Christine Murrell was born October 18, 1874 and passed away October 18, 1933; France put the first cat in space October 18, 1963, launching a Paris stray, Félicette, on a Véronique rocket; the Civil War Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia was October 19 1864; the Sinfra was sunk by Allied aircraft October 19, 1943, killing Italian POWs held by Germany; the People's Army of Vietnam and the US Army fought at the Siege of Plei Me October 19, 1965; Australia denied entry to Mabel Freer October 20, 1936; Douglas MacArthur landed on Leyte island, in the Philippines, October 20, 1944; the "Saturday Night Massacre" during Watergate was October 20, 1973 (?); there were demonstrations in Chad against President Mahamat Déby beginning October 20, 2022; Indonesia's oldest president, Prabowo Subianto, and youngest vice president, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, were inaugurated October 20, 2024; the Battle of Auberoche was October 21, 1345, during the Hundred Years' War, André-Jacques Garnerin parachuted about 3000' down from a hydrogen balloon October 22, 1797; the Irish Rebellion of 1641 began October 23rd that year; Jeannette Piccard took a hot-air balloon to 57,579 feet (17,550 m), reaching the stratosphere; Hurricane Patricia's sustained wind speed reached 215mph October 23,, 2015; Mole Day is October 23rd ; the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was divided between Austria, Prussia, and Russia October 24, 1795; the New York Stock Exchange's "Black Thursday" was October 24, 1929; a prototype R-16 ICBM exploded in the Nedelin Catatrophe at the USSR's Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the Kazakh SSR, was October 24, 1960; etc.]
[The NC State Parks' Good Trails State Day will be October 18th? – see their website.]
["Friends of Bolin Creek Hosts Dinner and Music
Event for all Bolin Creek Supporters
Where
Jean Earnhardt Historic
Farmstead, 600 Bolin Brook Farm, Chapel Hill,
off Union Grove Church Road.
Click this link to see the Google address.
Read about Jean Earnhardt's conservation efforts here.
Date
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Rain date is October 19th.
Time
4:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Bring your friends and family for a relaxing picnic in the stunning surroundings of Bolin Creek on the Jean Earnhardt Historic Farmstead. Enjoy delicious food from Mediterranean Deli, good company, and live music by Blue Star Travelers and Eliza Meyer. Enjoy a stroll around the pond or enjoy some s'mores around the campfire! It's the perfect way to unwind and connect with nature at the headwaters of Bolin Creek!
How can I Participate?
- Register with payment on Eventbrite so we can get a proper headcount for food.
- An appetite and your camping chairs.
- Open to all creek supporters - bring your family.
Celebrate our shared sense of community as we commit to protect Bolin Creek and its history"]
[From Grand Trees of Chatham:
"Grand Trees of Chatham will lead a guided hike on Sunday, October 12th at 1:30 pm at the White Pines Nature Preserve.
The White Pines Nature Preserve is an outstanding hiking environment with beautiful White Pines, Mountain Laurel, many hardwoods and steep, rocky slopes. The Rocky River and Deep River meet at one end of the preserve. It is managed by the Triangle Land Conservancy and we are grateful to them for preserving such a beautiful part of Chatham County and making it available to all of us for outdoor enjoyment!
Don Pelly and Rouse Wilson will be our group leaders. Both have outstanding knowledge of the natural environment in White Pines and one can expect little pearls of nature knowledge to be frequently dropped!
Registration is required to participate. There is no registration fee. If you wish to join us, please send an e-mail to grandtreesofchatham[at gmail com] and you will receive a response confirming either that you are registered to hike or that you are on our waiting list. We will have two groups of 10 each for this hike, so we are limiting the total number of registrations to 20. After we reach 20 registrations, subsequent requests will be placed on a waiting list and will be contacted if we receive cancellations.
Regretfully, we cannot allow our furry friends on the hike as they can be disruptive to others.
The hike will be over moderate terrain with some steep areas and will take about 2 hours. Here is information on White Pines including a map and its exact location: https://www.triangleland.org/explore/nature-preserves/white-pines-nature-preserve
Parking is in the large gravel lot just off to the left as you enter the preserve. This parking lot is where the group will meet. Please do not go back to the end of the entry road as there isn't enough room there for parking. There are no bathrooms at White Pines.
If we must cancel the hike because of adverse weather conditions, we will e-mail those who have signed up. Hopefully we will be able to reschedule. If you need to cancel for any reason, please send an e-mail to grandtreesofchatham[at gmail] so we can bring in others from our wait list.
'Hoping that you will join us for a grand hike through a beautiful forest!
JC Garbutt 🌳
Grand Trees of Chatham"]
[From the Haw River Assembly:
The deadline for comments to the NC DEQ regarding a water permit for SSEP 401 is October 6th; Art Build with Leaguess [of Conservation Voters in North Carolina October 8th; Bundle of Arrows with 7 Directions of Service October 19th; Communities Over Corporate Profit: We Won't Pay for Pipelines and Data Centers! Public Gathering October 26th: www.hawriver.org/news/octoberevents
There will be an NC Conservation Network webinar October 9th at 7:30pm to prepare for an EPA hearing on 1,4-dioxane water pollution from Asheboro in Randolph County; the EPA hearing will be October 22nd 6-9pm (open at 5pm) at Randolph Community College: action.ncconservationnetwork.org/page/88865/subscribe/1
The already mentioned Wetlands Hike with Dr William Booker on Cary's White Oak Creek Greenway will be Saturday, October 18th 10am-12pm
"Saturday, October 25: Autumn Group Paddle - 10:00AM - 12:00PM
Join us for a group paddle courtesy of our Durham Trash Trap Sponsor, Frog Hollow. Participants will be led by an instructor and expected to paddle together for a beautiful day on the water! Admission is free, but boat availability is limited. Secure your spot today here:
Secure your spot using this link."]
[At Saint James's Church in London (197 Piccadilly) October 15th: "Visionary London from Blake to Today: a talk hosted by Aiden Andrew Dunn" – www.alternatives.org.uk/event/pillars-gold-visionary-london-blake-today-0 and aidanandrewdun.com ]
[The CPBML is holding a public meeting, "No to NATO/EU War," October 15th at 19:30 at Conway Hall in central London, UK (Bertrand Russell Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL): www.cpbml.org.uk/events/no-natoeu-war ]
[PETA's founder, Ingrid Newkirk, will speak in a webinar October 14th at 7pm EDT – "Learn the Mindboggling Talents of Tiny Beings" – support.peta.org/page/88996/data/1 ]
[Balance and Accuracy in Journalism (BAJ) will have a program with Matthew Hoh October 14th in Chapel Hill.]
[From BAJ:
at the Community Church of Chapel Hill
106 Purefoy Road
Balance and Accuracy in Journalism
presents
Matthew Hoh
- FestiFall Arts Market Days on October 18 and November 1
- Haunted Hill Trunk or Treat on October 24 ]
[The traditional Chinese Double Ninth Festival is October 29th in 2025: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ninth_Festival The Mid-Autumn Festival was October 6th this year.]
\[University Press Week 2025 is coming up (in early November??).]
[The RCP's "Refuse Fascism" is November 5th and there will be another "No Kings" protest on October 18th? No guillotines?]
[The IDSA's 2025 Under One Sky conference will be November 7-8th: conference.darksky.org/ ]
[Exhibition: Elective Affinities – There will be an exhibit at the Swedenborg House September 19, 2025-February 27, 2026 featuring historic works by William Blake, Helen Keller, Queen Ulrika Eleonora, André Breton, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and contemporary works by The Quay Brothers, Iain Sinclair, Xiaolu Guo, Chloe Aridjis, Shezad Dawood, Kate MccGwire, and others; curated by Stephen McNeilly.
[For more upcoming events, see: durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/07/deep-river-riverkeeper-founded-upcoming.html and I plan to add more here or in future posts.]
[2nd Late on September 16th, 9/16/25 in the usual US notation order, NPR called it Pythagorean Triple Day, the only one in this century; 3x3=9, 4x4=16, and 5x5=25, in numerical order; 9+16=25, and it looks like the Pythagorean Theorem of right triangles. On Pythagorean triples: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_triple ]
[Fall Astronomy Day 2025 is September 27th: astronomyday.astroleague.org
Observe the Moon Night 2025 is October 4th. [For more on International Observe the Moon Night see: moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night ]
[The IDSA's 2025 Under One Sky conference will be November 7-8th: conference.darksky.org/ ]
Upcoming star parties: is.gd/star_parties
The Okie-Texas Star Party will be September 19-27th in Kenton, Oklahoma: Okie-Tex.com
Chiefland AstroFest will be October 17th-23rd at Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida: ChieflandAstro.com/AstroFest
Novac Star Gaze will be October 18th at CM Crockett Park in Virginia: is.gd/NOVACSG25
Peach State Star Gaze will be October 19-26th in Deerlick Astronomy Village in Georgia: atlantaastronomy.org/pssg
The Eldorado Star Party will be October 20-25th in Eldorado, Texas: eldoradostarparty.org
Deep South Star Gaze will be November 18th-23rd in Norwood, Louisiana: stargazing.net/DSRSG ]
]Venus was near the Beehive star cluster (M44) around September 1st, in the morning, and near the star delta Cancri on the 2nd. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter were lined up on the 1st, and Mercury was near the star Regulus on the 2nd. There was a total lunar eclipse on the 7th, but it wasn't visible on this side of the Atlantic. The Moon was somewhat close to Saturn on the 8th, but I didn't see it. On the 12th the Moon will appear near the Pleiades.
Early in the evening on the 13th, or September 12-14th, Mars will appear near the star Spica, sort of southwest. The Moon will appear very close to the star Elnath, between Taurus and Auriga later on the 14th. From Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico, etc. west the Moon will occult Elnath: is.gd/betatau
The Moon will join Jupiter in Gemini on the 16th. Zodiacal light is visible from dark locations in mid-September.
The Moon, Venus, and Regulus will appear very close together the morning of September 19th. From northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and elsewhere in Europe the Moon will occlude Venus.
There will be a partial solar eclipse on the.21st, but only near New Zealand.
Saturn will reach opposition on the 21st, and Neptune, in the same area of the sky, will reach opposition on the 23rd.
The Moon will be near the star Antares on the 27th.
Saturn will move from Pisces into Aquarius on the 29th.
Mercury will be an "evening star" in early October.
– From Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazines.
[September 12th: I saw a large dragonfly on the 6th, a warmer day, and a small, bright yellow and black dragonfly on the 5th. Tickseed started blooming here by about the 7th, but maybe I missed them on the 6th or earlier. One or more pileated woodpeckers have been around, but one was here, in a large sweetgum tree, around the afternoon of the 9th. When one was here earlier it was foraging in the loblolly pines, such as on a bare, dead branch, in early or mid-morning. The small birds got upset over something, or nothing, in a post oak one cool, cloudy evening weeks ago. There has been a little rain, but leaves are falling and it looks like a drought; I think has been warmer but not that sunny, in general. Usually early September is very sunny, dry, and warm or even hot, at least during the day, and feels like part of summer, which I think of as beginning in May (with the 90's, and cicadas, etc.) and ending in mid-September. This year it subjectively felt like the summer ended with August. Yellowjackets are looking for honeydew this week? Persimmons, and probably Bartlett (?) pears are falling nearby, but usually in yards, etc. Muscadines and other wild grapes also, but again, finding a plant not 'under watch' can be hard, though I don't think very many (hardly anyone) people here appreciate the wild fruits they own, and even the wildlife doesn't eat everything that falls, at least near roads. Pawpaws are probably still falling in the public gamelands, guarded by poison ivy and mosquitoes? It hasn't been a very good year for the blue dayflowers here, despite the rain earlier. Their red and black leaf beetles are around, as are the 16-spotted ladybugs. Small sicklepods began flowering, with orange flowers, weeks ago. A large species of knotweed with tiny, but delicate white flowers began blooming before 6th? Asian camellias can seed in Cary (up in Hemlock Bluffs!), and even here. Peppervine fruit have been ripening. I don't know yet if birds eat them. I saw a female flycatcher (?) on the 1st [a green bird with a thick bill, definitely not a flycatcher, though flycatchers were around this summer?]. Mature (?) green and reddish-brown or red small grasshoppers are in the withering Japanese stilt grass. A gama grass had some late flowers. Indian grass and zebra grass will flower soon. Trifoliate oranges are kind of bright yellow, but mottled. Some cicadas called on warmer days and I found a dead female and a male, but only the two. There are aso almost bright red crickets. The very dark brown and yellow leafhoppers are still around. A few red roses, elephant's foot, various Ipomoea, white Convolvulus, red Canna, etc. Pink Spirea flowered again, but then it got very dry?? Asian beautyberries ripen bright purple before the native ones? Hickory nuts are ripening. Many butterflies around now, but not here (not enough flowers or habitat? Katydids are still calling at night, but of course not the gray treefrogs, though some frogs do call, quietly, in fall. Rudbeckia (spelling?) is flowering. Catbirds are still around?]
[September 17th: On the 7th and the 15th I saw a relatively large orange and white moth [reddish-orange, light orange, and white] resting on the tickseed. [Goldenrod stowaway moths (Cirrhophanus triangulifer); named by English entomologist Augustus Radcliffe Grote (February 7, 1841 in Liverpool, England, UK – September 12, 1903 in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony in Germany) in 1872? – the Peterson field guide to moths, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrhophanus_triangulifer and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Radcliffe_Grote ] I found one of those inchworms that eats flower petals and seems to camouflage itself with bits of flower parts and on the 14th a mature willow oak-eating (?) Datana caterpillar. I forgot to mention that I recently saw one or maybe two tiger swallowtails, a medium-sized sulphur, a cloudless sulphur at the red Canna almost every warm day from about September 12th [around the 17th I might have seen a hummingbird by the Canna, but it was from across the street and hard to tell], two red-spotted purples, etc. On the 16th I saw a hairstreak (more than one?), a brown and white spotted skipper, a potter wasp (not the first), and a female (?) carpenter bee at tickseed. A large spotted slug came out one late morning, possibly because I had disturbed it, so I moved it to a moist location. I could see the dark tail of a small skink in the leaf litter around the 16th. I've seen a few anoles recently, on the 13th, the 12th, etc. and a small copperhead was seen again about a week or two ago. An unfamiliar off-white (dusty?) and gray small cat drank from the birdbath late on the 17th and on the 14th several titmouses (around 6?) and a chickadee argued over the birdbath. For a while it was rare to see cats coming through. The persimmons could attract gray foxes, in addition to opossums, raccoons, deer, butterflies, hornets, etc. It looks like a kind of severe drought now (but there are still some mosquitoes in late afternoon). I found a feather one or two months ago, but it was still unusual to hear a bluejay by my window early on the 16th or 17th. A white rose of Sharon flowered on the 14th (a cool, cloudy, but dry day?). I found two leafless small persimmon saplings (due to drought?), the larger one regrowing a little. A wild cucumber is growing in lawn this year. There are dark bluish fruit on a yellow passionflower nearby. I saw an unfamiliar small robber fly-like fly on the 12th. Maybe it was a kind of robber fly. An immature stink bug was on the dayflowers around the 15th or 16th? The morning glories are about finished and I noticed that even some of the elephant's foot looks blackened and dead from drought and some tickseeds might have died while flowering. I heard Canada geese one morning, but some live here all year, so they might not have been migrants. I picked up some fallen muscadine grapes. The stars have been more visible lately.]
[September 23rd-24th: I saw the very close conjunction of a very thin waning crescent Moon, gleaming Venus, and the bright star Regulus (in Leo) shortly before dawn on the 19th. Recent nights have often been clear and relatively warm to cool for stargazing. Scorpius isn't very high in the southwestern sky by the time it gets dark and Pegasus and Cetus are setting in the west before dawn. Jupiter is much higher than Venus in the morning now. The traditional Libra period begins around the 23rd. There has been dew and slugs came out, but during the day it looks like a drought. It was pretty warm on the 23rd and I think it is forecast to be in the 90's on the 24th, which is more like what it should have been in August and earlier in September. At night I can hear a few acorns (?) hitting a metal roof down the street, but the might be 'green.' A few immature acorns have been falling from the Spanish oaks here for a while. I've been hearing the barred owls more often, and they were close by early and late around the 21st and another animal I didn't see was here, maybe for the persimmons. It can be warm in October, but maybe more cloudy and not hot. At least three red-spotted purples and several black and white bald-faced hornets were at fallen persimmons late on the 23rd. I haven't seen any red admirals or question marks there yet this fall, but they can go later in the year than the red-spotted purples. I found an oblong brown and white moth (?) caterpillar on a black cherry sapling around the 21st but I didn't see it on the 23rd; the mature leaves might have been tough for it and are starting to turn yellow. There were several yellowjackets underfoot under a mimosa late on the 23rd. I found a whitish-green Carolina mantis; I noticed it because I think it tried to grab onto my left heel as I went by. Carolina mantises are usually light gray or whitish-gray (I think they can change color) and are smaller and proportioned differently than praying and Chinese mantises. It seemed to reach out to judge distances, as do the gray squirrels, and it opened short yellowish wings jumping at one point. White 'frost' asters began blooming (a handful) by the 21st. Beautyberries and other plants are very wilted and/or losing their leaves. A large stinkbug was on a window screen around the 21st or 22nd; certain non-native stinkbugs and ladybugs come inside during the winter. I still hear the chimney swifts in the evening and saw two on the 23rd. I've wondered if I can hear chirps from birds migrating overhead at night. Summer katydids call after dark, though the fall crickets are louder and it gets too cool for the katydids by morning. I heard two 'evening' cicadas late on the 23rd. I found some dark green trifoliate orange seedlings on the 23rd, but the larger bushes are turning yellow. The river oat plants are still mostly light green, but their hanging seeds are kind of rosy-colored to brown. Chinese fringetree (?) fruit are dark blue and maybe drought dried.]
[A very large gap I meant to delete, but there was a problem updating around September 25th.]
Upcoming star parties: is.gd/star_parties
The Okie-Texas Star Party will be September 19-27th in Kenton, Oklahoma: Okie-Tex.com
Chiefland AstroFest will be October 17th-23rd at Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida: ChieflandAstro.com/AstroFest
Novac Star Gaze will be October 18th at CM Crockett Park in Virginia: is.gd/NOVACSG25
Peach State Star Gaze will be October 19-26th in Deerlick Astronomy Village in Georgia: atlantaastronomy.org/pssg
The Eldorado Star Party will be October 20-25th in Eldorado, Texas: eldoradostarparty.org
Deep South Star Gaze will be November 18th-23rd in Norwood, Louisiana: stargazing.net/DSRSG ]
]Venus was near the Beehive star cluster (M44) around September 1st, in the morning, and near the star delta Cancri on the 2nd. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter were lined up on the 1st, and Mercury was near the star Regulus on the 2nd. There was a total lunar eclipse on the 7th, but it wasn't visible on this side of the Atlantic. The Moon was somewhat close to Saturn on the 8th, but I didn't see it. On the 12th the Moon will appear near the Pleiades.
Early in the evening on the 13th, or September 12-14th, Mars will appear near the star Spica, sort of southwest. The Moon will appear very close to the star Elnath, between Taurus and Auriga later on the 14th. From Oklahoma, Texas, Mexico, etc. west the Moon will occult Elnath: is.gd/betatau
The Moon will join Jupiter in Gemini on the 16th. Zodiacal light is visible from dark locations in mid-September.
The Moon, Venus, and Regulus will appear very close together the morning of September 19th. From northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and elsewhere in Europe the Moon will occlude Venus.
There will be a partial solar eclipse on the.21st, but only near New Zealand.
Saturn will reach opposition on the 21st, and Neptune, in the same area of the sky, will reach opposition on the 23rd.
[The Northern Hemisphere's fall equinox was September 22nd (at 2:19pm EDT) and the traditional Libra period began around September 23rd.]
[The waxing Moon was near and south of the star Spica on the 23rd and will be near and south of Mars on the 24th. The Moon will be at apogee at 5:46am EDT on the 26th (perigee was at 8;10am EDT on the 10th).]
The Moon will be near the star Antares on the 27th.
Saturn will move from Pisces into Aquarius on the 29th.
[The first quarter Moon is also on the 29th, technically at 7:54pm EDT.]
[The asteroid Ceres will reach opposition October 2nd, with magnitude 7.6.]
[The Moon will appear near Saturn the evening of October 5th.]
[The Moon will be full and "super" October 6th.]
Mercury will be an "evening star" in early October.
[The Moon will cross the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus the night of October 9th, around 11:30pm EDT on the 9th to 2am on the 10th, but the Moon's glare will make it hard to see (my digital camera can image stars that I can't see in such situations, though good quality binoculars would help).
[Partially repeating the morning of September 19th, a thin, waning crescent Moon and Venus (magnitude -3.9) will appear very close together at the west end of Virgo the morning of October 19th.]
[October 27th the waxing crescent Moon will occult the star tau Sagittarii, seen from the eastern US and Canada, etc. Tau Sagittarii will vanish behind the invisible, unilluminated part of the Moon. If Sagittarius is visualized as a teapot, tau Sagittarii forms the eastern crook of the handle. Tau Sagittarii has magnitude 3.3, similar to that of Alcyone, the brightest member of the about the Pleiades, according to Sky and Telescope magazine (the relevant Audubon guide gives Alcyone's magnitude as 2.9, 240 light year away.] / [The Wow! radio signal and tau –agittarii – see Wikipedia.]
[October 28th ending the crescent Moon will occult the star delta Capricorni, Deneb Algedi, Al Dhanab al Jady, Scheddi, Al Muhibbain, or Al Muhanaim (magnitude 2.8, according to S and T; in the Babylonian constellation Arkat sha hi-na Shahuu; this constellation and the alternate names come from RH Allen's book Star Names) in the dim constellation Capricornus (I find it by going down Aquila's wing), seen from the eastern US and Canada, a large part of Mexico and neighboring countries, etc. There is some variability in Deneb Algedi's brightness, according to the Audubon guide, and the star is a 'mere' 50 light years away. German astronomer Johann Galle discovered the planet Neptune nearby (5 degrees east) September 23, 1846.] /[See Wikipedia.]
– From Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazines.
[September 12th: I saw a large dragonfly on the 6th, a warmer day, and a small, bright yellow and black dragonfly on the 5th. Tickseed started blooming here by about the 7th, but maybe I missed them on the 6th or earlier. One or more pileated woodpeckers have been around, but one was here, in a large sweetgum tree, around the afternoon of the 9th. When one was here earlier it was foraging in the loblolly pines, such as on a bare, dead branch, in early or mid-morning. The small birds got upset over something, or nothing, in a post oak one cool, cloudy evening weeks ago. There has been a little rain, but leaves are falling and it looks like a drought; I think has been warmer but not that sunny, in general. Usually early September is very sunny, dry, and warm or even hot, at least during the day, and feels like part of summer, which I think of as beginning in May (with the 90's, and cicadas, etc.) and ending in mid-September. This year it subjectively felt like the summer ended with August. Yellowjackets are looking for honeydew this week? Persimmons, and probably Bartlett (?) pears are falling nearby, but usually in yards, etc. Muscadines and other wild grapes also, but again, finding a plant not 'under watch' can be hard, though I don't think very many (hardly anyone) people here appreciate the wild fruits they own, and even the wildlife doesn't eat everything that falls, at least near roads. Pawpaws are probably still falling in the public gamelands, guarded by poison ivy and mosquitoes? It hasn't been a very good year for the blue dayflowers here, despite the rain earlier. Their red and black leaf beetles are around, as are the 16-spotted ladybugs. Small sicklepods began flowering, with orange flowers, weeks ago. A large species of knotweed with tiny, but delicate white flowers began blooming before 6th? Asian camellias can seed in Cary (up in Hemlock Bluffs!), and even here. Peppervine fruit have been ripening. I don't know yet if birds eat them. I saw a female flycatcher (?) on the 1st [a green bird with a thick bill, definitely not a flycatcher, though flycatchers were around this summer?]. Mature (?) green and reddish-brown or red small grasshoppers are in the withering Japanese stilt grass. A gama grass had some late flowers. Indian grass and zebra grass will flower soon. Trifoliate oranges are kind of bright yellow, but mottled. Some cicadas called on warmer days and I found a dead female and a male, but only the two. There are aso almost bright red crickets. The very dark brown and yellow leafhoppers are still around. A few red roses, elephant's foot, various Ipomoea, white Convolvulus, red Canna, etc. Pink Spirea flowered again, but then it got very dry?? Asian beautyberries ripen bright purple before the native ones? Hickory nuts are ripening. Many butterflies around now, but not here (not enough flowers or habitat? Katydids are still calling at night, but of course not the gray treefrogs, though some frogs do call, quietly, in fall. Rudbeckia (spelling?) is flowering. Catbirds are still around?]
[September 17th: On the 7th and the 15th I saw a relatively large orange and white moth [reddish-orange, light orange, and white] resting on the tickseed. [Goldenrod stowaway moths (Cirrhophanus triangulifer); named by English entomologist Augustus Radcliffe Grote (February 7, 1841 in Liverpool, England, UK – September 12, 1903 in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony in Germany) in 1872? – the Peterson field guide to moths, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrhophanus_triangulifer and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Radcliffe_Grote ] I found one of those inchworms that eats flower petals and seems to camouflage itself with bits of flower parts and on the 14th a mature willow oak-eating (?) Datana caterpillar. I forgot to mention that I recently saw one or maybe two tiger swallowtails, a medium-sized sulphur, a cloudless sulphur at the red Canna almost every warm day from about September 12th [around the 17th I might have seen a hummingbird by the Canna, but it was from across the street and hard to tell], two red-spotted purples, etc. On the 16th I saw a hairstreak (more than one?), a brown and white spotted skipper, a potter wasp (not the first), and a female (?) carpenter bee at tickseed. A large spotted slug came out one late morning, possibly because I had disturbed it, so I moved it to a moist location. I could see the dark tail of a small skink in the leaf litter around the 16th. I've seen a few anoles recently, on the 13th, the 12th, etc. and a small copperhead was seen again about a week or two ago. An unfamiliar off-white (dusty?) and gray small cat drank from the birdbath late on the 17th and on the 14th several titmouses (around 6?) and a chickadee argued over the birdbath. For a while it was rare to see cats coming through. The persimmons could attract gray foxes, in addition to opossums, raccoons, deer, butterflies, hornets, etc. It looks like a kind of severe drought now (but there are still some mosquitoes in late afternoon). I found a feather one or two months ago, but it was still unusual to hear a bluejay by my window early on the 16th or 17th. A white rose of Sharon flowered on the 14th (a cool, cloudy, but dry day?). I found two leafless small persimmon saplings (due to drought?), the larger one regrowing a little. A wild cucumber is growing in lawn this year. There are dark bluish fruit on a yellow passionflower nearby. I saw an unfamiliar small robber fly-like fly on the 12th. Maybe it was a kind of robber fly. An immature stink bug was on the dayflowers around the 15th or 16th? The morning glories are about finished and I noticed that even some of the elephant's foot looks blackened and dead from drought and some tickseeds might have died while flowering. I heard Canada geese one morning, but some live here all year, so they might not have been migrants. I picked up some fallen muscadine grapes. The stars have been more visible lately.]
[September 23rd-24th: I saw the very close conjunction of a very thin waning crescent Moon, gleaming Venus, and the bright star Regulus (in Leo) shortly before dawn on the 19th. Recent nights have often been clear and relatively warm to cool for stargazing. Scorpius isn't very high in the southwestern sky by the time it gets dark and Pegasus and Cetus are setting in the west before dawn. Jupiter is much higher than Venus in the morning now. The traditional Libra period begins around the 23rd. There has been dew and slugs came out, but during the day it looks like a drought. It was pretty warm on the 23rd and I think it is forecast to be in the 90's on the 24th, which is more like what it should have been in August and earlier in September. At night I can hear a few acorns (?) hitting a metal roof down the street, but the might be 'green.' A few immature acorns have been falling from the Spanish oaks here for a while. I've been hearing the barred owls more often, and they were close by early and late around the 21st and another animal I didn't see was here, maybe for the persimmons. It can be warm in October, but maybe more cloudy and not hot. At least three red-spotted purples and several black and white bald-faced hornets were at fallen persimmons late on the 23rd. I haven't seen any red admirals or question marks there yet this fall, but they can go later in the year than the red-spotted purples. I found an oblong brown and white moth (?) caterpillar on a black cherry sapling around the 21st but I didn't see it on the 23rd; the mature leaves might have been tough for it and are starting to turn yellow. There were several yellowjackets underfoot under a mimosa late on the 23rd. I found a whitish-green Carolina mantis; I noticed it because I think it tried to grab onto my left heel as I went by. Carolina mantises are usually light gray or whitish-gray (I think they can change color) and are smaller and proportioned differently than praying and Chinese mantises. It seemed to reach out to judge distances, as do the gray squirrels, and it opened short yellowish wings jumping at one point. White 'frost' asters began blooming (a handful) by the 21st. Beautyberries and other plants are very wilted and/or losing their leaves. A large stinkbug was on a window screen around the 21st or 22nd; certain non-native stinkbugs and ladybugs come inside during the winter. I still hear the chimney swifts in the evening and saw two on the 23rd. I've wondered if I can hear chirps from birds migrating overhead at night. Summer katydids call after dark, though the fall crickets are louder and it gets too cool for the katydids by morning. I heard two 'evening' cicadas late on the 23rd. I found some dark green trifoliate orange seedlings on the 23rd, but the larger bushes are turning yellow. The river oat plants are still mostly light green, but their hanging seeds are kind of rosy-colored to brown. Chinese fringetree (?) fruit are dark blue and maybe drought dried.]
[Copperheads, and other wildlife, might be out on roads around Wednesday, September 24th, and it is warm; see two previous posts. This is also the season for "Lights Out for Birds" and soon "Leave the Leaves."] / [Re-posted with most of the astronomy edits.] / [And again.] / [There was a problem updating around the 25th, leading to the duplication above and some edits were left out. I had hoped to post more before September 29th.]
[Another gap. September 29th: It was warm to hot for a few days (due to a tropical system?), but now it is cool and wet again. Around the afternoon of September 25th there were two or more heavy rains, and more rain and sprinkles after that, alleviating the drought, at least for now. There have been more Asiatic dayflowers, especially on the 28th and maybe today. I wonder about the higanbana/red spider lilies (Lycoris) at UNC's Coker Arboretum. I think they also have pink Lycoris, though maybe earlier in the year. I would say it is pleasant, warm (not hot), sunny, and maybe humid before a tropical storm goes by (air from the Gulf, or Florida?), and I think often cool and dreary afterward, even if no damage was done. It felt like a cold front was coming through the afternoon of the 28th. It cleared up some on the 28th, there was some sun and I saw Sagittarius, Jupiter, etc. over the weekend, but it is overcast again today. More ripe looking acorns have been falling here and I hear bangs on a metal roof down the street. The gray squirrels have been taking green pine cones apart like corn cobs, but now they are picking green hickory nuts. Sometimes they cover the ground with sharp pieces of pine cones under favored perches. A female (?) yellow garden spider re-appeared [September 26th, after rain] and there are large brown nocturnal orbweavers, now often out during the day. Earlier in the summer I saw a few spiny orbweavers here. A few days ago [September 26th] I saw a large, golden-brown [or more yellow, with some black] bumblebee at the tickseed. Another red-spotted purple under the persimmon and a blue (but gray) around the 26th or 27th. Many wasps and ants [and a few flies] have been under a silktree, vigorously regrowing in 2025 but afflicted by tiny green aphids. Flower buds are swelling on pinkish-white chrysanthemums and a groundsel. White asters are beginning to bloom and there are still flowers on two species of yellow Rudbeckia. The chimney swifts are still overhead during the day.
I think it was the morning of the 25th when I was surprised to see that a relatively small red maple was suddenly light red or a fiery pink. Almost all of the leaves had fallen by the 28th and turned grayish, leaving a few that are still green. etc. A few leaves changed color early on black cherries, a winged elm, maybe a flowering dogwood, etc. during the drought; a very large sweetgum left many leaves on the ground, without appearing very bare. The fruiting persimmon and grapes have lost most of their leaves. It is cool for cicadas and katydids again, though I heard them a little over the weekend. I saw a female meadow-katydid of some kind yesterday, seeming to turn to keep an eye on me. I heard that a relatively small toad was seen next to a drainspout before it rained. I was surprised that a few slugs were out at night during the drought. A snail smaller than a penny came out after the 25th. Two or more dark gray moth-flies came out or came in in September. There was a 'last' pale yellow Hypericum or Saint John's wort flower one day this month, and late white and red rose of Sharon flowers and I think a pokeweed. There was a sudden downpour near 1pm and sprinkles in the morning. I haven't heard thunder in about a month or more, though it was a possibility over the weekend.]
[October 4th: I was surprised to find that the light purplish-blue ornamental asters, resembling New England asters, were blooming around September 30th, but they probably opened earlier. A brown and spotted skipper butterfly, maybe a clouded skipper, and a small bumblebee were at the flowers late on the 2nd. The remaining tickseeds are past peak. I realized on the 3rd that the white groundsel must be blooming, attracting potter wasps and flower flies; there are also spittle-bugs on the stems. Crows briefly mobbed a hawk sitting at the very top of a loblolly pine late on the 2nd. On the 3rd I saw that a truck must have driven down a nearby easement, knocking over a few trees. On the 3rd I found a cut off green Northern red oak twig, as if girdled by a hickory twig girdler. Squirrels probably chewed off some Spanish oak twigs elsewhere. I thought they were gone for the year, but one or two spiny orbweavers reappeared October 1st-2nd, but the garden spider's web was empty by about the 1st. It has been much cooler and mostly clear, but I think it is getting warmer again.]
[A huge number of enraged honeybees [about "14 million disgruntled bees"] escaped after a truck crashed ["on Weidkamp Road between Loomis Trail Road and West Badger in Whatcom County, Washington" in] the Pacific Northwest weeks ago [, causing the road to be closed for over 24 hours], while honeybees attacked [at least 24] people in [Aurillac,] France without apparent cause?] [ – the October 2025 issue of Fortean Times magazine, FT462.]
[Around the end of September I heard on the BBC that blueberries are in high demand globally now and a cash crop in Zimbabwe, and I wondered if blueberries grow in the Old World naturally (apparently they do); I'm amazed that this has been proposed, though it is outside of the box thinking: "importing foreign potential enemies [of pest species] into North America may yield good results" (from Wikipedia). It has been proposed that some well-known or even beloved native moths have declined or even gone locally extinct in the Northeast in part because the USDA allowed non-native species to be introduced to combat non-native gypsy (or "spongy") moths. Apparently these introductions might also threaten native butterflies. Or is the proposal to introduce non-native species to attack another non-native species here, though they would not meet naturally where they are native? But that could also be dangerous. The winter moth (Operophtera brumata) is apparently non-native and its caterpillars feed on many tree species. I might have been seeing them here in cold weather and called them 'winter moths' without knowing the 'official' name. – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry#Integrated_pest_management , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_moth , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclocephala_longula (a North American rhinoceros beetle) and Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L Wagner, 2005, published by Princeton University Press.]
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