Mendocino County Today: Monday 9/1/2025

Warming | Donkey Walking | Thunderstorm Weather | Civic Ideas | Same Thing | Mantis | Ubaldos Truck | Owl Misgendered | Don't Poke | Jimmy Jinx | Wine Pioneers | Butter Pulling | Garden Art | Yesterday's Catch | Labor Day | Worker Solidarity | McCollister Stories | Immigrant Farmworkers | Private Detention | Aurora Borealis | Gratitude | Best Edit | Nomadic Action | Egotistical Assholes | Said Again | Hospital Run | Ball Date | Vinyl Afterlives | Fisherman's Wharf | Giants Win | Wild Oats | Di$ney Dollar$ | Alice Wonderland | Higher Consciousness | Western Media | Lead Stories | Fascism Starts | Getting Crazier | Your Protection

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YESTERDAY'S HIGHS: Covelo 96°, Ukiah 95°, Laytonville 94°, Boonville 91°, Yorkville 91°, Fort Bragg 68°, Point Arena 65°

A WARMING TREND will increase the HeatRisk and fire weather threat across the interior on Monday and then peak on Tuesday. The coast is expected to see night and morning clouds with some afternoon clearing most days. There is a slight chance of isolated dry thunderstorms on Tuesday in the interior. A gradual cooling trend is expected Wednesday through the weekend. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A foggy 52F this Labor Day morning on the coast. My 2 sunny days forecast yesterday morning lasted until about 4pm. Such is my life. A foggy start then clearing later they say. The usual stratus quo for the rest of the week.

Precipitation:
2024: Oct 1.26", Nov 14.53”, Dec 12.05”
2025: Jan 1.65”, Feb 10.18”, Mar 6.37”, Apr 1.45”, May 0.34”, Jun 0.00”, Jul 0.15”, Aug 0.00”
YTD 47.98”

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CALIFORNIA WEATHER: THUNDERSTORMS BRING RISK OF DRY LIGHTNING, FIRES

by Anthony Edwards

A complex weather pattern along the West Coast underwent a big shift over the weekend. Minor movements in atmospheric pressure and winds had major implications on Bay Area temperatures, which soared above forecasts into the mid-80s to upper 90s along the bay shoreline.

The shifts will continue this week, as the Northern California heat is no longer expected to last as long. Instead, the Golden State faces an increased risk of thunderstorms and wildfire ignitions from dry lightning Monday through Wednesday.

Here’s what to know about the weather across California this week:

Wavy jet stream across U.S.

An amplified jet stream across the Northern Hemisphere will send the mercury soaring in some parts of the U.S. and lead to a taste of fall-like weather in others.

One of the strongest high-pressure systems in September history is setting up over Western Canada. This area of high pressure is sending temperatures in parts of British Columbia, Oregon and Washington state into the triple digits, nearly 30 degrees above normal for this time of year. It’s also displacing cooler air toward the eastern U.S., where highs will be as much as 25 degrees below normal this week.

California’s temperatures won’t be as anomalous, but the waviness of the jet stream complicates forecasts. Small-scale weather features on the periphery of the jet stream, also known as the storm track, are often the most impactful, and California will be squarely on the edge this week.

Monsoon moisture pushes into California

After an active monsoon last week, thunderstorm activity quieted down across California over the weekend.

That’s expected to change Monday as a surge of moisture spinning clockwise around the Four Corners high moves east to west toward Southern California. This monsoon moisture will raise the chance of thunderstorms from Los Angeles to San Diego late Monday into Tuesday morning.

But the monsoon moisture won’t stop there.

Under the gigantic area of high pressure in Canada, three separate areas of low pressure over the eastern Pacific Ocean will work in tandem to pull moisture northward toward the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.

Tuesday’s moisture and energy will be in the middle levels of the atmosphere and don’t require sunshine or mountains to pop a thunderstorm. This means lightning is possible regardless of time of day or proximity to a mountain range. Thunderstorms could begin before dawn in Fresno and before noon from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe.

Storms are also expected to move quickly, meaning they won’t have much time to drop precipitation. Any rain that falls will probably evaporate in the drier low levels of the atmosphere, so the risk of dry lightning and associated wildfire ignitions is high.

While the highest chance of thunderstorms will be from Sacramento eastward, lightning can’t be ruled out in the Bay Area.

Weather models struggle to accurately simulate the atmosphere during blocking patterns like this week, so a shift in the position of these low-pressure systems could result in more widespread thunderstorms. If the system near the California coast is stronger than predicted and close enough to San Francisco, it could provide enough energy to pop a few thunderstorms in the Bay Area on Tuesday.

In this situation, thunderstorms would be most likely in the North Bay and East Bay, but an isolated storm could pop along the Peninsula or in the South Bay, too.

Despite the low-confidence forecast, the potential for lightning-sparked wildfires atop dry vegetation is concerning. September is also the most common time of year for dry lightning in the coastal and valley regions of California.

Another round of thunderstorms is possible Wednesday, although it’s unclear whether storms will remain in the mountains or drift toward the valleys.

(sfchronicle.com)

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THE MCOG (federally) funded report to study a second entrance to Noyo Harbor has turned out to be a bit of a headscratcher. The consultants recommended no new road.

Also, the idea of an entertainment zone downtown is moving forward in Fort Bragg and in Willits (see Sydney Fishman's story in the Mendocino Voice)

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A UKIAH READER WRITES: I agree with Adam Gaska on the Ukiah Senior Center. The attitude of “this is how we have always done it” just isn’t working. Time to put down personal agendas and egos and look bigger picture. There are so many simple ways to network and combine services and pull in the community to help. Isolating the center with old attitudes and stubbornness is killing the mission. The center is a vital lifeline for so many, it needs to be open to different strategies and ideas in order to survive and thrive. It is possible. But not with the current attitude.

ADAM GASKA: What I learned was that they were running a $100k+ annual deficit and burning through reserves. They had no plan except to keep doing the same thing.

MARK SCARAMELLA: They learned that approach from the Board of Supervisors.

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MANTIS: I had a huge green girl – she was almost 5″ long – in my garden a couple of years ago. She was here, there and everywhere. Same one, though. She carried around her egg case for quite a while, finally laid it somewhere, and I saw her no more. Next spring – babies! She was very tuned in to me. I would hold out my hand and she would climb aboard for a chat. I’d hold her for the longest time, walk around with her…I always think of Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles”, how the Martians’ sand ships (their cars) were like giant bejeweled mantises. There is something very robotic about their movements. Fascinating! I have always loved them – and they are a great boon to gardeners.

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UBALDOS TACO TRUCK on Main Street in Downtown Point Arena is still down due to technical difficulties. We will keep you posted as to when and where he is as things change. In the meantime our restaurant My Mexican Restaurant is open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 8pm. In downtown Point Arena. We are there for all your Taco Truck cravings. Same menu and more… Thank you for your patience and support.

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NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL MISGENDERED

Woman can’t tell male and female owls apart, apparently doesn’t care

A so-called nature-lover callously misgendered a Northern Spotted Owl, one of the most majestic creatures in our ecosystem, during a hike on Sunday. “He sure is beautiful,” said careless bigot Adele Lora, without even checking to see if the owl had a penis, or what.

If Lora had taken the time to understand the issue, she would have discovered that owls — along with eagles, flamingos and penguins — “completely lost their penises” a long time ago, according to National Geographic. That historical tragedy went unexplored by Lora, who consequently never learned the facts as they stand today: that owls' reproductive organs are small, interchangeable nubs called cloacas.

A tiny bit of respectful research into owl genitalia, far from fruitless, ultimately would have revealed that the difference between male and female Northern Spotted Owls is more easily determined by their size, as they otherwise look very similar. But Lora only made excuses when confronted with this widely available information. “But there was…only one owl,” she stammered, before finally admitting that her odds of getting it right were never better than 50/50.

💡Did you know?

• The Northern Spotted Owl is a protected species. Blurting out inflammatory comments to them is completely illegal.
• Experts say that inspecting an owl's privates is not only invasive, but a poor methodology for verifying their gender status.

(Marin Lately)

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A SIMPLE PLAN, WITH GLITCHES

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

So my old pal Jimmy Eldridge, living alone and already at fair remove from the best of health, went ahead and fell down enough times to frighten his kids. They moved him to an old folks home.

Jimmy loves life at the Daliston Home on Scott Street. The people are great, the food is good, he’s happy as a clam.

He was looking forward to being able to hook up his cable TV so he could start watching ballgames again. The TV at his house over on South Spring Street had sprung a leak or blew a fuse or whatever it was the cable company didn’t think was sufficient reason to drive all the way to Ukiah to fix, which they proved repeatedly as the weeks dragged by.

Daughter Lisa, who doesn’t live in Los Angeles but says she does because no one knows where Redondo Beach is, came to Ukiah to assist in her dad’s transition. She was put in charge of TV hookup duties. (Good luck, Lisa.)

Persuading cable TV to visit Ukiah to help with Jimmy’s woes on Scott Street would be no easier than when he was on Spring Street. But Lisa is that rare bird in the big flock of the rest of us who enjoys sinking her talons into the thin skin of whoever answers the 1-800 number she calls.

She launched a series of calls to unsuspecting receptionists, inquiring politely (for the first eight or ten seconds, anyway) about dad’s service. When receptionists say “Please Hold” it wounds you and me, but Lisa loves a challenge and after being on hold three hours remains undaunted, eager to continue locking horns and trading punches with the most experienced and creative of cable TV’s battalions of thwarters.

She is beyond tenacious. They brought in Relief Representatives to spell their wearied first responders, assured Lisa everything was all better and offered free upgrades. They promised to send a technician up to Ukiah in early 2026. And on and on.

And on. When I went over to greet Jimmy in his new home just around the corner from mine, Lisa was still grappling with her worthy opponents who continued to dodge, dissemble and deny resuming Jimmy’s TV service. They reluctantly agreed to instead send Lisa a snazzy canvas tote bag with ADELPHIA in fancy script.

Ever the problem solver, I suggested to Jimmy we go to my house tomorrow to watch the Giants play the Milwaukee Brewers. He lit up. It was all set. I’d grill something or other and we’d have front row box seats.

Less than 24 hours later Lisa and Jimmy were headed to the house. I had the charcoal going so I put on the sausages, turned on the ballgame, and was suddenly informed my cable TV subscription does not include the sports package, meaning it had dried up overnight and blown away.

They came through the door. I nodded at the screen. No TV. No game. I looked at Lisa and we exchanged puzzled looks before turning our collective gaze toward Jimmy, happily seated in the big recliner.

1) When Jimmy lived on Spring Street his TV went bonkers.

2) When Jimmy moved to Scott Street the TV didn’t work.

3) When Jimmy came to my house the TV committed suicide.

He was 0 for 3.

“I’m a jinx,” he grinned.

“A Mighty One Is He,” we murmured and agreed if Jimmy were to shuffle down the street televisions would blink off, one after another, until he got to the city limits.

Meanwhile, the semi-blank screen encouraged me to restart my cable relationship via a modest payment using the credit card of my choice. At Lisa’s urging I phoned, knowing my call to the 1-800 number would be very important to them.

This led to an hour talking to someone with a fair grasp of the English language. Lisa, who couldn’t help hearing the speaker phone conversation, kept making helpful suggestions like “Tell them your brother is a Hell’s Angel” and “Tell them you’re coming to Bangalore to set fire to Time-Warner headquarters.”

Finally the skies parted, the clouds lifted, they acknowledged the problem was theirs, the TV came on and it was the fourth inning. All was well.

Except for the lunch part. Remember those sausages? They’d been gently warming all afternoon at about 340 degrees. (No threat of trichinosis.) I put ‘em in buns and coated ‘em in ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, gravy, whipped cream and a little more ketchup.

My guests lied politely about the robust charcoal flavor tinged with subtle hints of Italian sausage, then busied themselves with coleslaw and potato chips.

From that point there was no end to the good news: A ninth inning comeback by the Giants and a final score of SF 4, Milwaukee 3.

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ALLAN GREEN: My latest book is now available, hot off the press!

https://www.blurb.com/b/12503758-pioneers-of-anderson-valley-wine

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MY WORST JOB

by Mark Scaramella

In the summer of 1966 my father (who was then General Manager of the Danish Creamery Co-op in Fresno) asked me if I wanted to fill in for a couple of weeks while one of the plant’s butter pullers was on summer vacation. I was 22, in pretty good shape, and had no idea what a “butter puller” was, even though I’d shadowed my father on a number of creamery visits and tours across the western United States while growing up. But I knew that it would probably be awkward being the college-educated boss’s son on a crew of Teamster’s Union laborers.

I had worked at several other San Joaquin Valley creameries during previous college summers and I also knew that most creamery jobs involved man-handling heavy objects like 110-pound bags of non-fat dry milk, giant cans of raw cottage cheese, and various dairy products like crates of a dozen half-gallons of soft-serve ice cream mix for use at soda shops. There were also the large “sholies,” cardboard boxes with 10 gallon bladders of milk used in restaurants and industrial kitchens. They had no built-in handles and had to be hauled in regular milk crates which they didn’t fit into properly. I had done fine with those challenging creamery tasks. So how hard could pulling butter be?

Turns out, very hard.

Butter in those days was made in a giant stainless steel horizontal cylindrical “churn” into which tons of cream and salt were pumped then spun until it turned into butter. After several hours, the spinning churn was then slowed and rotated into position over a large, long stainless steel vat so that the lengthwise churn door could be opened to allow the giant glob of butter to slo-mo fall into the vat with a loud “GLOP.”

The wheeled vat was then pushed over to us six butter pullers where it was raised with hand-operated hydraulic pistons into a slanted waist-high position so that the six butter pullers, standing shoulder to shoulder wearing chlorine-rinsed elbow-length latex gloves, thrust our hands into the thick, cold butter and pulled out handfuls of it and put them into special plastic-lined boxes that sat on scales behind us so that each box was filled to 72 pounds.

The filled boxes were then shoved on to a conveyor belt behind the scales and conveyed to the cold room for storage until it was processed and packaged in various sizes for wholesale or retail sale. Then we got another box and did it again. And again and again until the end of the six-hour shift (the rest of the shift was clean-up and short breaks).

After a day of this my arms felt like spaghetti. The other butter pullers had been doing it for years and were used to the strenuous effort involved — it was hard to even get your hands into the butter which was kinda like thick, dense, gooey jello, then harder still to pull out several pounds at a time in handfuls. Of course I had trouble keeping up with the five other experienced butter pullers who often needled me about my butter pulling deficiencies — especially since everybody in the plant knew I was the boss’s college-educated son.

After work those first few nights my arms were so worn out and sore that I had trouble even lifting a fork. Two weeks later, by the time the guy I was filling in for came back from vacation, I was starting to get the hang of it — getting stronger and learning how to attack the task (how much to grab at a time, proper standing positioning, pacing, etc.).

One of my creamery co-workers was an amazing Popeye-like guy named Frank von Flue who stood about five-feet-eight inches. Von Flue had been a competitive professional cross-country marathon runner in the 1920s where he earned money with sponsorships, prize money and race-merch and came in third in the 3,500 mile marathon race from Los Angeles to New York in 1928 running for about 500 hours in day-long legs lasting about 7 hours each day for almost three months, about 15 or so miles per day. Frank was in his mid-60s in those Fresno days and was still in perfect shape. Not only did he jog everywhere he went in the plant, but he jogged to work in Fresno from his home in a small San Joaquin Valley town called Easton every work day, about 7 miles. After he retired Frank continued to jog to the plant several times a week to enjoy a lunch with his former co-workers. Frank’s Popeye-sized forearms looked like he could crack a walnut with his bare hands. Frank was an energetic and enthusiastic guy who never seemed to slow down. He was always eager to jog over and help when he finished his own tasks elsewhere in the plant. He was like a tasmanian devil when he helped us pull butter, speeding up our overall pace, encouraging everybody to enjoy their grueling work, and reducing the time it took to finish. When he retired my father quipped, “I’ll have to hire six guys to replace him.”

After those two weeks as a butter puller I told my father he’d have to find someone else to fill in for vacationing butter pullers in his creamery. I was not pulling any more butter.

PS. Like many labor-intensive creamery jobs from that era, butter pulling as a job no longer exists. It was made obsolete by the invention of the continuous process churn where cream flows through a special spinning machine and comes out extruded in a square tube suitable for cutting and packaging.

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, August 31, 2025

JASON BIENVENU, 55, Covelo. Grand theft, petty theft with two or more priors.

DANIELLE DAUGHERTY, 34, Ukiah. Parole violation.

DOMINIC FABER, 63, Ukiah. Parole violation.

ANDERSON GALICIA LOPEZ, 20, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

JULIO HERNANDEZ-HERNANDEZ, 27, Fairfield/Ukiah. DUI.

RAMIRO LOPEZ-CONCEPCION, 33, Santa Rosa/Ukiah. DUI.

JOSE LOPEZ-ARTEAGA, 28, Covelo. DUI.

ELAINA LOZANO, 21, Kelseyville/Ukiah. Domestic violence court order violation.

RONALD MANKINEN, 62, Westport. DUI-any drug.

MAX MELCHER, 25, Fort Bragg. DUI.

MICHAEL MENDEZ, 33, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

LARRY MORFORD II, 51. Willits. Failure to register as sex offender with prior.

JONATHAN PARKER, 49, Ukiah. Arson with prior.

ALIJANDRA ROJAS, 19, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, tampering with vehicle, false ID, probation violation.

RYAN SCOTT, 31, Ukiah. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment, criminal threats.

AARON STILL, 44, Ukiah. Burglary, attempted car theft, paraphernalia, probation violation.

TONY TEJEDA-OLMOS, 21, Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance.

ALEXANDER UMONT, 37, Alamo/Laytonville. DUI.

TYLER WOOD, 28, Redwood Valley. Petty theft, vandalism, controlled substance, contempt of court.

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LABOR DAY WITHOUT LABOR

To the Editor:

Labor Day was a holiday created by our earliest labor unions in the 1880s. This was the start of a decades-long era when workers started taking to the streets to protest unsafe working conditions and grueling work hours. Employers used detective agencies, armies of paid thugs, and the National Guard to break up strikes. They railroaded labor leaders on trumped-up charges and routinely beat up union members who dared to strike. Shootings were not unheard of.

The struggle for workers’ rights cost many their blood and their lives. But they won their fight for better pay and working conditions. Labor Day as a holiday recognized the resilience of workers and their contributions to the development of the United States.

Today Labor Day is a federal holiday that celebrates the illusion that the United States honors and values workers. It serves as a barbecue-and-beer distraction from the fact that the value of pay and benefits have been dropping since the 1980s and that the government is actively weakening workers’ rights and safety. The irony of Labor Day is that many workers do not even get the day off because keeping retail stores open and production lines running is all their employers care about.

Capital, power, and status are considered vastly more important than workers. Labor is treated as a disposable widget, just another column on a spreadsheet, when without us there would be no food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, or any other goods and services. Put bluntly, without workers there is no society.

Yet we are put down all the time: When we need a living wage, we are told it cuts big businesses’ profits. When we join unions, our employers smash them or simply close down and move elsewhere. When we need medical care, insurance companies say that its not necessary. When we protest peacefully, the federal government arrests us and calls us terrorists.

Labor Day should once more be a holiday that celebrates the solidarity of workers across all trades, services, and professions. Workers are the lifeblood of our nation. They deserve the right to organize and to be treated with dignity regardless of their job.

Martha Klimist-Zingo & Janet Rosen

Ukiah

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JOSHUA LEE MCCOLLISTER, AGE 37

Lost to gun violence on July 8, 2025 in Glendale, California.

Jul 8: https://kymkemp.com/2025/07/08/man-shot-near-fieldbrook-cutoff-suspects-reportedly-flee-the-scene/

Jul 9: https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2025/jul/9/37-year-old-man-murdered-glendale-last-night-humbo/

Jul 9: https://kymkemp.com/2025/07/09/man-killed-in-glendale-shooting-dispute-over-civil-matter-suspected/

Jul 12: https://kymkemp.com/2025/07/12/two-arrested-in-recent-homicide-swat-raid-in-arcata-traffic-stop-on-101-connected/

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STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH IMMIGRANT FARMWORKERS

Editor:

On Labor Day, we honor the contributions of American workers, but we must also reflect on the critical role of immigrant farmworkers in our agricultural system. These men and women — many of whom crossed borders searching for a better life — form the backbone of U.S. farming, while working in grueling conditions to provide the food that feeds our nation.

Immigrant farmworkers often face exploitation with long hours, minimal pay and insufficient protections. Despite challenges, the resilience and dedication they show is not because they have a natural tendency for this work, as our president likes to think, but because they have little choice in the work available to them.

Labor Day is a celebration of the working class and should also remind us of the ongoing fight for fair wages, safe working conditions and dignity for all workers, including those whose immigration status is often a barrier to these basic rights. As we enjoy the fruits of their labor, let us advocate for policies that protect immigrant workers and ensure they have the opportunities they deserve.

This Labor Day, let’s stand in solidarity with immigrant farmworkers, recognizing their invaluable contributions to our nation.

Margot Sersen

Sebastopol

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NORTHERN LIGHTS COULD PUT ON A SHOW for Large Sections of U.S.

A dazzling display in the nighttime sky might be seen much farther south than usual, including parts of Iowa, Oregon and Pennsylvania, by Tuesday, forecasters said.

by Nazaneen Ghaffar

The northern lights could make an appearance starting Monday, as a powerful solar storm surges toward Earth, potentially producing a dazzling display across the northern tier of the United States and the Midwest into Tuesday.

Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a geomagnetic storm watch for Monday through Tuesday, after a medium-to-strong solar flare erupted from the sun on Saturday.

That flare launched what is known as a full-halo coronal mass ejection — a large expulsion of plasma and magnetic field from the sun — aimed directly toward Earth.

The Weather Prediction Center expects the storm to arrive late on Monday, producing a G2-level, or moderate, geomagnetic storm at first.

By Tuesday, as the bulk of the storm passes, conditions could intensify to G3 (strong) storm conditions, capable of driving the aurora much farther south than usual, including parts of Iowa, Oregon and Pennsylvania.…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/weather/northern-lights-aurora-tonight.html

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XI, SABBATHS 2007

by Wendell Berry

The sounds of the engines leave the air.
The Sunday morning silence comes
at last. At last, I know the presence
of the world made without hands,
the creatures that have come to be
out of their absence. Calls
of flicker and jay fill the clear
air. Titmice and chickadees feed
among the green and the dying leaves.
Gratitude for the gifts of all the living
and the unliving, gratitude which is
the greatest gift, quietest of all,
passes to me through the trees.

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DWELLING IN NIRVANA, STUCK IN DC

Warmest spiritual greetings,

Just sitting here on a computer downstairs at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Washington, D.C., listening to the Tibetan monks on YouTube chant OM at 432 Hz.

Everybody on the planet earth is now watching the collapse of global civilization, in addition to climate destabilization; what are we to do? I have $135.04 in the Chase checking account, $51.55 in the wallet, and general health is okay at age 75.

I am seeking others for a spiritually rooted nomadic action group. We may go where we need to go and do what we need to do. This will be the highest service to the Divine Absolute. Willing instruments going to the places where spiritual activity is performed to destroy the demonic and return this world to righteousness.

Craig Louis Stehr, [email protected]

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“ALL I CAN SAY IS, it's a good thing we didn't win the revolution [laughter]. We would've ended up with people like Abbie Hoffman and Eldridge Cleaver at the helm; we would've been in big trouble. Big trouble. It would've been such a Stalinist purge. All those people who were the top names in those movements back then were all egotistical assholes, it turned out, every single one of them.”

— R. Crumb

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HOSPITAL RUN

by Paul Modic

Yesterday my visiting family went one way and I headed north to the hospital where I had volunteered months ago to drive a patient's car back to SoHum. He was going to ride back with my neighbor who had finally convinced him to get a knee replacement after seeing him limping around town for years, if not decades.

When we got him out to the parking lot he sprung his new plan on us: he wanted to ride back with me in his old car, an '86 Chevy, because there were a few things a little out of whack with his vehicle that he wanted to guide me through. I objected, told my neighbor that he was the caregiver, that I would drive his car back, and he could drive the recovering patient. He immediately objected, said he had trouble driving sticks so I backed down, preparing to have unexpected company for the hour ride south.

He handed me $300, I tried to give it back but he refused to take it. My friend looked at us as if to say, “No, we shouldn't take his money, he's just getting by,” and then his friend handed him $300 also.

He adjusted some things in the trunk and we were off. I left the window open as he wasn't vaccinated and wore my mask for awhile, but it was hard to converse with the wind whipping through the car on the beautiful summer day. I rolled it up most of the way, took the mask off, and said, “Well, you know, it's like remember when we'd wear a condom the first time with a new woman, then the next night think oh what the hell?”

I wondered why he had such an old car. “It was my father's so I'm keeping it because of him,” he said. “I just put $2,000 into the rear end last year.”

We had a nice conversation heading down the highway. He was glad to have his new knee as his dream was to be all recovered by March so he could fly down to Panama where he likes the prostitutes. He said that last time he had some kind of relationship going with a very fat woman who crawled into his bed each night to sleep, then he gave her $20 in the morning.

“Just sleep?” I asked.

“There was more,” he said. (A guy's gotta do, etc…)

His place was beautiful, a few acres on a creek, and the fruit trees and garden were exploding wildly in the summer sun. He moved slowly with his crutches into his house, a depressing old dump, and started his recovery alone with no regular help, though our mutual friend kept in contact and went up once a week to check on him.

(My friend earned his $300, now what am I going to do with mine?)

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VINYL AFTERLIVES: LOTS O’LISZT

by David Yearsley

Claudio Abbado was conducting Mussorgsky right next to the Dave Brubeck Quintet. The collision made crazy, coincidental sense, a compelling mash-up: Taking Five on Bald Mountain.

Nearby, Elly Ameling sang Bach while leaning on a box set from another Claudio—Arrau, the late Chilean pianist—doing lots of Liszt.

We’d been removing our old professor’s LPs from their shelves and putting them into cardboard boxes and bringing them upstairs to the entryway porch for the collectors to pick over. Along the way, the discs had been de-alphabetized, the genres jumbled: B next to L; Viennese symphonists consorting with Parisian cabaretists; operas in with organ music; Randy Newman and the Beatles mingling with Massenet and Mozart.

I put down another 40-pound box of LPs and regarded the Abbado album cover. Here was a conductor’s cult I’d be willing to join in a baton beat. The photograph showed the Leftie Maestro at work at the Mussorgsky recording session. His baton was raised nearly to the perpendicular just above the top of his head, his elbow cocked. His left hand was fully extended, his index finger pointing towards the back row of the unseen orchestra that he looked intensely out at. Abbado must have been captured cueing the percussion section, likely the cymbals that are so crucial to the frightful fun of that Night on Bald Mountain. As always, Abbado was working without a score. His was a beautiful musical mind.

Under his raised left arm, a big dark stain of sweat darkened his light blue shirt. Many a vain conductor wouldn’t have allowed such an image to be published, but Abbado sweated profusely and proudly. Conducting was work, though he would have been the first to admit that the podium wasn’t the kind of sweatshop he fought against in co-founding the Music Against Child Labor Initiative with the International Labor Organization. If Abbado had been here to help us schlepp vinyl he would have kept those blue shirtsleeves rolled up, dropped his baton, and grabbed some boxes.

As I flicked through the LPs, other conductors, some long since cancelled, flashed past. A big-haired James Levine smiled a welcome to his interpretation of all four Schumann symphonies, recorded a half-century before his fall from power for propositioning teenage boys at the Metropolitan Opera. His shirt was open at the top to reveal a hairy chest and his dreamy blue eyes sent a very different message in retrospect of his depredations.

The Schumann record had sat at the end of the shelf and its decades in that position had allowed the unrelenting California sunlight to bleach a perfectly straight stripe along the left edge of the cover—not a scarlet letter but a louche band of blue, as if Nature were intent on revealing Levine’s crimes.

Now Levine and his Schumann symphonies were in the dappled shadow on the porch along with a thousand other LPs. By my calculation, that was about half of the massive collection that had been amassed by our professor friend. The house had to be emptied so the real estate agent could come in and stage the place. LPs and the thousands of books—a large proportion of them about music—had to go, and soon. The thousands of CDS had already been sold for next to nothing to a dealer. The LPs were harder to find a home for. The Friends of the Library sale wasn’t taking any more vinyl. Salvation Army didn’t want them either.

Halfway through the morning, we went to get coffee and saw a sticker on the side of a newspaper vending machine: “Will Buy LPs.” We called the number and the guy came round that afternoon while we were at the recycling center with bags full of musicology journals. The prof let the LP-”buyer” pick out a couple of Poulenc records for his private collection and leave the rest. The next morning, another vinyl ragpicker called and said that he might come by to have a look at the boxes in a few days. We rented a 10-foot U-Haul truck to transport much of the furniture to an auction house, but it didn’t want the records either.

Our friend had a storage unit that was already filling up. He didn’t seem too concerned about the fate— not to mention the weight—of the LPs.

From where I was standing and sweating—not with the style of Abbado, but a growing sense of dread at the disposal of the sheer tonnage of so many once-valued and valuable things—it all looked bleak. A vinyl record revival was underway in the USA and across the world, yet it wasn’t booming on our friend’s doorstep. More than 50 million vinyl LPs were sold in 2024, yet our friend’s collection had one foot on a banana peel and the other in the county dump.

Kyle Devine’s fascinating and unsettling 2019 book, Decomposed: the Political Ecology of Music, lays bare the environmental costs that accrue not only from production and distribution, but also from the disposal of these plastic marvels.

Across the centuries and into our time, many great collections—of art, musical instruments, books—have been dispersed on the death of the collector. One shouldn’t get too sentimental about these centrifugal forces. Still, the image of us tipping all of our friends LPs into a dumpster filled me with melancholy.

I looked into one of the boxes and was surprised to spot a Pharaoh Sanders album. Not just the ancient Egyptians, but many other cultures, have buried their dead with their belongings: as well as food, oil and wine, clothes, art and idols to uplift and protect them on their posthumous journey and sustain them in the afterlife.

What about building cryogenic storage in which the deceased can be surrounded by their books and records, the unit equipped with a turntable, lamp and armchair. In these upscale mini-mausoleums, robotic arms of the Eternal Attendant could pluck the LPs from their sleeves and set them in place, then drop the needle. Speakers could play the music aloud, or headphones could be put on the dearly departed’s head. It takes about 60 days to listen to 2,000 records. Those coming to pay their respects could, if bundled up, enter the cold chamber, or stay outside and listen along with the loved one with headphones placed next to the viewing window. The electricity for all this could come from eternally sustainable sources, the cost paid for by provisions in the will.

The younger generation will mostly prefer to have their consciousnesses uploaded into the cloud to co-mingle with their Spotify playlists and be visited by both the living and the dead.

But surely there are millions of vinyl aficionados, both new and old, eager to set up cryo-crypts where their collections play on in perpetuity—or at least until the trumpet sounds on the Last Day.

More than a few Prophets believe that the Apocalyptic blast will also be heard in stereo and on vinyl.

(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)

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GIANTS ROLL OUT A BAKER’S DOZEN, JUSTIN VERLANDER GETS 3RD WIN IN ROUT OF ORIOLES

by Shayna Rubin

Oracle Park did not provide its usual perks for a pitcher on Sunday afternoon. No cool, thick air or brisk winds off the water to kill fly balls. The sun was out, and San Francisco was hot enough to make a long inning feel a bit more arduous.

Conditions weren’t optimal for 42-year-old Justin Verlander, but the veteran delivered a triumphant five shutout innings with a season-high 10 strikeouts in the San Francisco Giants’ 13-2 win against the Baltimore Orioles, sealing the series win and Verlander’s third victory of the year.

Orioles star Jackson Holliday drew a walk to lead off the first inning, an early sign of what would be a challenging afternoon for Verlander. Baltimore battled, fouled off pitches to keep at-bats long and draw pesky walks. He needed 26 pitches to get through the first inning and had thrown 94 pitches by the end of the fourth inning.

Perhaps Verlander takes a seat after four if he wasn’t chasing career win 300 – Sunday’s is his 265th. But the offense broke it open in the fourth inning, giving Verlander a cushion to return for the fifth inning and dig deeper than he has in a Giants uniform.

The Giants had taken an early three-run lead behind Rafael Devers, who hit a solo home run off Tomoyuki Sugano and an RBI single the next inning. He was a triple shy of the cycle. His RBI double in the fourth inning was part of a four-run frame that began with Matt Chapman’s seeing-eye single up the middle. He was caught stealing, but Luis Matos singled the other way and he scored when Baltimore committed a throwing error on Christian Koss’s infield single. Then left fielder Daniel Johnson tripped while chasing Drew Gilbert’s eventual two-run triple and Heliot Ramos chipped in an RBI single.

Baltimore kept at-bats alive and drew four walks, but they weren’t putting many balls in play. They had three hits and swung through plenty of Verlander’s offerings. Of Verlander’s 10 strikeouts, he finished off seven with an off-speed pitch and induced a season-high 23 swing-and-misses.

The fifth inning wasn’t a breeze. He got the leadoff hitter out, but Holliday drew another walk and Jeremiah Jackson lobbed a single into right field, thrusting Verlander into overdrive.

Gunnar Henderson struck out looking at a 93mph fastball for strikeout No. 9 and, as he approached 120 pitches with Joey Lucchesi warming, needed just four to get Ryan Mountcastle chasing a changeup for his 10th and final strikeout. His first double-digit strikeout game since 2022 puts him four shy of Gaylord Perry (3,534) for eighth all-time in strikeouts.

Verlander let out a sigh of relief and shook his head as he walked off the mound to a standing ovation – a sweating crowd knew and understood what he’d done. He threw 121 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a game since Aug. 10, 2016.

The win completes an encouraging homestand for San Francisco, which went 5-1 in sweeping the postseason-hopeful Chicago Cubs and topping the struggling Orioles. They outscored their opponents 50-29 in the process.

Briefly: Left-hander Carson Whisenhunt will not make his scheduled start on Monday in Colorado due to a back strain. He was placed on the 15-day injured list Sunday and Kai-Wei Teng was recalled. Teng is the most likely to start Monday in Whisenhunt’s place, manager Bob Melvin said.

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FAMILIES CAN NO LONGER AFFORD DISNEY WORLD… BUT THEY'RE SAVING THOUSANDS VISITING CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES WHICH ARE 'BETTER'

by Martha Williams

For decades, a trip to a Disney park has been the quintessential American family vacation.

But now soaring prices are forcing some to turn their backs on the happiest place on earth.

At minimum, entry to Disney World costs $119 per person, making it increasingly unaffordable for families.

Mom-of-two Jordan Pinson says that despite being a lifelong Disney devotee, spiraling costs mean she and her husband have decided to stop going.

'It's heartbreaking,' she told Daily Mail. 'It is a place where I grew up, I got engaged there, I had my honeymoon there, it's a big part of my life.'

She explained that while typically the family would travel to Disney parks like Magic Kingdom up to four times a year, they have given up their annual passes and are suspending visits completely.

'When we started out with annual passes in 2016 they were $100, now they're $1700 per person, even for my three-year-old,' Pinson explained.

'I also feel that the perks have gone down. The price of tickets to the park have also increased as well as things like character dining.'

Character dining offers park-goers the chance to share a meal with beloved figures such as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.

This has gone up from $50 per person to $75, which can add up quickly for families, Pinson said.

She estimates that park tickets alone have almost doubled in cost, meaning she has to shell out around $600 before even stepping foot inside.

As Pinson and others know all too well, it hasn't always been this expensive to get a Disney fix.

When Disney World first opened in Orlando in 1971, tickets cost $3.50, equivalent to around $27.78 today.

As the years have passed the park has grown in size from 43 to 47 square miles and drastically increasing its offerings.

Back on opening day, Disney World's Magic Kingdom had 23 rides and attractions.

Today, the park has 66 rides across all four theme parks and two water parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.

But many say that the price is no longer justifiable at a time when many families are already feeling the pinch.

Disney message boards are awash with park-goers admitting defeat.

'While we can afford Disney, I find it hard to justify the cost on a regular basis,' one mom wrote.

'We are planning to go in 2025 because our kids would like to go, but it will likely be the last trip.

'We pay a ton of money to stay in a cramped room when we could pay less and get a larger suite or villa on the beach with a full kitchen, which is far more enjoyable to me.'

'The last time we did a "full", as in, on-site, week long trip to WDW [Walt Disney World] as a family of 5 was 2019, and I got CBR [Caribbean Beach Resort] for $180/night which was about the max I was willing to pay for that room,' another mom wrote.

'It took us a bit to save up for that but not too astronomically long. I thought that was a pretty great trip.

'Fast forward 5 years later -- I'm working full time now, and so make almost double what I was making and looking at prices now… it doesn't seem worth it to save up for.'

According to Fortune, 50 years ago, a family of four could visit for $262 in today's dollars.

In 1998, when Animal Kingdom came to life, a family of four could still enjoy a peak-season day at the parks for less than $300 in today's money.

Fast forward to 2025, and that same average family faces a staggering $766 pre-tax bill for four one-day peak-season tickets.

This doesn't even include adding extras such as $40 'Lightning Lane' passes which are designed skip long lines but can't even be used on every ride.

Financial analysts say that, with expensive add-ons like line-skip passes, Disney has created a pay-to-play model where you need to spend extra for a better, more worthwhile experience.

Airlines have adopted a similar model by offering premium seats, better food and more luggage allowances for a higher price.

Fortune also found that, over the last 10 years, Disney World ticket prices have grown at almost nine times the rate of inflation.

Unfortunately for park visitors, as ticket prices have swelled so have the price tags on merchandise and refreshments.

The infamous Beauty and the Beast-themed Be Our Guest restaurant - set in a grand castle-like dining room - charges $72 for a pre-fixed lunch menu and $43 for children.

At Casey's Corner, a 'quick service' American eatery, a hot dog will set you back up to $15.99.

Even at the simple refreshment carts scattered around the park, a bottle of Coke sells for $4.50.

For those above the age of 21 who want to enjoy an alcoholic beverage at one of the park's bars, like The Beak and Barrel, you can expect to pay an average of $20 for a cocktail or up to $46 if you want the Plunderer's Punch in a Souvenir Pirate Skull Mug.

'It feels like I have to spend $5,000 for it to be not only enjoyable but really just to ensure we actually get access to the rides we want to ride,' Sarah Marmolejo told Fortune.

However, Disney World strategist Allie Mae told the Daily Mail that there are ways to do Disney on a budget.

Her top tip is to stay at a 'value resort' - a budget-friendly, themed accommodation at Disney World. There are five to choose from: All-Star Movies, All-Star Music, All-Star Sports, Pop Century, and Art of Animation. They typically range from $130 to $350+ per night.

By comparison, fancier resorts with better amenities typically start at $500 per night.

Mae also suggests budgeters should opt for 'quick service' meals, a dining plan that she says is 'much cheaper' than a sit down meal. It costs approximately $60 per day for each adult and $25 for children.

Meanwhile, other US theme parks have managed to keep morale high while keeping costs low.

Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, charges up to $58 for a 'Ride All Day' ticket, but entry to the park itself is free.

Knoebels was ranked third in the top 10 best US amusement and water parks - above Universal Studios and most Disney parks, though the Magic Kingdom Park did place second.

Knoebels Guest Experience Director Stacy Yutko told the Daily Mail the success is 'a testament to the passion of our team and the loyalty of our guests, many of whom return year after year to create new memories with their families'.

'Knoebels is America's largest free-admission amusement park and offers free parking, entertainment, and picnic facilities. This means guests can choose what they want to spend their hard-earned money on during their visit,' she continued.

'For example, thanks to our pay-per-ride option, some guests choose to visit for dinner, catch a free show, and stop by our Giant Wheel to take in the views before heading out.'

Yutko said that, while the Knoebels family - who have run the park since 1925 - continue to enhance what they offer guests, their vision has been consistent.

For Pinson, the decision to bid farewell to Disney is not one she has taken lightly and she hasn't ruled out returning in a few years after saving up.

'My eldest daughter has been going since she was really little, she keeps asking all the time when we're going back,' she said. 'It breaks my heart for her.'

For now, the family has their sights set on nearby Dollywood, which is currently offering one-day entry tickets for just $29.95.

'I think the perks are better and my youngest can in for free,' Pinson explained.

'We're seeking other adventures, taking smaller trips for now.'

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ALICE thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, 'So you think you're changed, do you?'

'I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; 'I can't remember things as I used - and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'

'Can't remember what things?' said the Caterpillar.

'Well, I've tried to say "How doth the little busy bee," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.

'Repeat, "You are old, Father William,"' said the Caterpillar.

Alice folded her hands, and began:

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head -
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father; 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'

'That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.

'Not quite right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; 'some of the words have got altered.'

'It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.…

— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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THE GREATEST and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble… They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This 'outgrowing', as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.

— Carl Jung

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PHOTOJOURNALIST VALERIE ZINK on why she can no longer work for Reuters…

Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions in which this can happen. As Jeremy Scahill from Drop Site News put it, “every major outlet – from the New York Times to the Washington Post, from AP to Reuters – has served as a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda, sanitizing war crimes and dehumanizing victims, abandoning their colleagues and their alleged commitment to true and ethical reporting.”

By repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility – willfully abandoning the most basic responsibility of journalism – Western media outlets have made possible the killing of more journalists in two years on one tiny strip of land than in WWI, WWII, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined, to say nothing of starving an entire population, shredding its children, and burning people alive.

The fact that Anas Al-Sharif’s work won a Pulitzer Prize for Reuters did not compel them to come to his defense when Israeli occupation forces placed him on a “hit list” of journalists accused of being Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

It did not compel them to come to his defense when he appealed to international media for protection after an Israeli military spokesperson posted a video making clear their intention to assassinate him following a report he did on the growing famine. It did not compel them to report on his death honestly when he was hunted and killed weeks later. I have valued the work that I brought to Reuters over the past eight years, but at this point, I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief. I don’t know what it means to begin to honor the courage and sacrifice of journalists in Gaza – the bravest and best to ever live. But going forward, I will direct whatever contributions I have to offer with that frame of mind.

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Xi, Modi and Putin Clasp Hands in a Rare Show of Unity

India Was the Economic Alternative to China. Trump Ended That.

Earthquake in Afghanistan Leaves More Than 800 Dead

Guatemalan Children Are Removed From Plane After Judge Halts Deportations

Robert Mueller Has Parkinson’s Disease, His Family Says

A Jamaican Man Served Time in the U.S., Then Was Deported to an African Prison

He Burned a Flag and Won an American Right. He Worries It’s at Risk.

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TAIBBI & KIRN

Matt Taibbi: Walter, how crazy is this country?

Walter Kirn: Getting crazier. Going from a very high baseline to something that I can barely tolerate day to day. I mean for the sake of my own sanity,

Matt Taibbi: It’s becoming more and more difficult. So we used to have mass shooters, and the rest of the country would sort of circle around and gape and wonder about the hidden problem in American society that was causing these issues, but now the insanity is no longer hidden. It’s now part of the reaction to these stories. It’s out in the open. You don’t know who’s crazier, the shooter or some of the people who are talking about the shooter. So we had the situation in Minnesota. Do we have just a basic TV account of what happened, or maybe the 911 video or something like that?

Andy Mac: Welcome back in here to LiveNOW from FOX. I am Andy Mac. Thank you so much for joining us. It’s a dark day in Minneapolis after this senseless shooting at a Catholic school that had children sitting in pews going to mass during their first week of school. And we’re learning more information right now about this tragedy that unfolded earlier on this morning as Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said the shooter, armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, approached the side of the church and shot through the windows toward the children sitting in the pews there at Annunciation Catholic School. And for the first time, our FOX 9 team, Nathan O’Neal, gathering some of these 911 calls to the dispatch there as this all went down around 8:30 local time.

Speaker 1: Minneapolis has a possible active shooter, 509 West 54th Street, Minneapolis.

Speaker 2: The first calls came in around 8:30 in the morning.

Speaker 1: All units, you’re heading to Minneapolis Mutual Aid on a shooting.

Speaker 2: An active shooter in South Minneapolis at the Annunciation Church and School.

Dr. Tom Wyatt: We first received a page that we were going to have a mass casualty incident at 8:46 AM.

Speaker 2: First responders from all over the region, rushing to the scene.

Speaker 3: Any troopers arriving, we just need medical. Bring all the guys that you have.

Speaker 2: Dispatch audio reveals the scope of the emergency response and the casualties after police say the shooter opened fire through a church window.

Speaker 3: We’ve got at least four criticals in the inside, the rest outside of the church. Couple DOAs, but at least 20 other patients.

Brian O’Hara: Two young children, ages eight and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews.

Speaker 1: We have two gunshot wounds, two patients with gunshot wounds to their head in front.

Matt Taibbi: I can’t even watch this stuff. So it’s horrible. So it’s another mass shooting. We have them just constantly in this country, and they’re always heavily politicized, but this one turns out to be sort of a new variety of horrible.

Walter Kirn: Well, first of all, it’s not a school shooting in the sense that we are now sadly used to, meaning that it’s not a student. It was an assassination of children from outside a building by an adult. And that’s a different kind of murder than some allegedly bullied student coming in, fed up, and killing his peers. This was an adult hunting schoolchildren.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And very quickly, it emerges that the killer, whose name is Robin Westman, left behind quite a lot of material. There was a YouTube video. There’s an awful lot of stuff in the YouTube video. There’s a manifesto. He’s writing in English and Cyrillic in the manifesto. He’s writing things like, “I’m a nightmare,” and, “Kill Trump,” on his weapons, among other things. And we’re going to get to a key detail in a moment, but my initial impression watching the video… And he’s talking about how disturbed he is, “I’m not well.” He’s loading the magazines and singing, “Tomorrow, tomorrow.” The vibe with him-

Walter Kirn: Do we see him in that video, or do we just hear him?

Matt Taibbi: We see his thumb, yeah. So I got kind of a Dylan Klebold sociopath vibe from him. This is someone who talks repeatedly about bad thoughts that he has, or she has now. And we have to get to that. Robin Westman used to be Robert Westman. And there were early warnings all over social media in the first blush. There are right wing efforts to try to paint this person as transgender. Don’t fall for it, blah, blah, blah. And I was one of those people. I was very cautious about that news initially. And then gradually, it comes out that there’s a legal name change. The New York Times even puts it in that there’s a document on file that his mother signed changing his name from Robert to Robin, because the person identifies as female. So apparently, if I’m getting this correctly, Walter, it’s a man who identifies as female, not actually a transsexual, not a post-op person.

Walter Kirn: I don’t know all the flavors of trans identity, and I don’t know if he received hormone therapy. I’ve known trans people who don’t get surgery, but only use drugs or hormones. Maybe he didn’t use those. I’m unsure, but it does seem legitimate to note these facts. He does seem to have changed his appearance over the years and, as you say, changed his name legally, and made quite an effort to identify as the other gender. How that worked out medically is, I guess, not something that we’re going to get information on right away.

The interesting thing to me was in this abundance of evidence in this manifesto, this video, these pictures of guns with your mottos on them, there was a sense of a kind of potpourri of past crimes. We’re building up a kind of folklore with these shooters. They learn from each other. They build on one another’s past behavior. And this one had everything, as I say: all the social media, the manifesto, the drawings, the drawing of him looking in the mirror and seeing a devil or a demon staring back at him, the writing on the guns. Remember, with the Luigi shooting, we had writing on the bullets and-

Matt Taibbi: What did it say on Luigi’s bullets?

Walter Kirn: I don’t remember, but I think it had to do with the healthcare job of the victim, the UnitedHealthcare position. UHC kills maybe, or something like that. My memory is fuzzy on that. But in the totality of all these documents and videos and so on, you get a pretty clear sense of motive. They always, after these things, come out and say, “The motive is unclear. We’re studying it,” and so on. Well, I don’t know that you can have any more information from the first-hand source than you’re getting in this case. And the motive seems to be he wanted to commit murder, and he wanted the power and the feelings that come with committing murder, and he wanted particularly to hurt children.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. He talks about being… “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad, but you’re the only people I’m sorry to. Fuck those kids.” It’s very cold-blooded, the video. It’ll send chills up your spine watching it. And if we could put up the manifesto again for a second… Because this was posted before the shooting, so everybody had this. And it talks about… It’s a little hard to decipher, because he’s writing it in English. Could we blow it up just a little bit? All right. I can’t see that, but anyway.

Walter Kirn: But let’s concentrate on the sticker on the left here, which is a collage of disturbing and somewhat contradictory, I guess, images, one a devil, then an AR over a pride flag. Defend equality. I don’t know if that’s a slogan that’s widely used. But altogether, it portrays some form of militarized grievance over gender and sexuality.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah, there’s another page where he writes, “I’m sick of my life. I’m tired of the charade of being trans. I’m tired of being trans.”

Walter Kirn: What does that mean? I’m tired of being trans. Hmm.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. So you can see, again, it’s in Cyrillic, but…

Walter Kirn: So how well does Cyrillic map onto the English alphabet?

Matt Taibbi: It’s really hard to read. I guess it’s a way to keep your parents from reading it-

Walter Kirn: I see.

Matt Taibbi: … but it’s frustrating. There are indications that this person does know Russian a little bit, because he uses the letters correctly, and uses some of the little signs. But right here, at the underlined person, says, “Charade of being trans,” basically. And then in the next line is, “I’m tired of being trans.” So there’s a bunch of stuff in there about this, but mainly, it’s a series of grievances. And see at the top, it says, “Kill myself,” or, “Kill me,” at the top. “Death. I will kill.” And some of those things are in Russian, some of those are in English. And so the fact that this person is trans and identifies as female, it’s relevant for a bunch of reasons, but one of them is just maybe it’s a contributing factor to the unhappiness of this person, right?

Walter Kirn: Well, he seems to think it is.

Matt Taibbi: Right. But immediately, there was this onslaught of reaction to even looking at the issue. And the worst example of this was from Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis, who gave an interview that’s just mind-blowing. In this video, the CNN anchor has already heard Frey say a certain thing and is trying to give him room, Frey room-

Walter Kirn: To improve his statement in terms of political acceptability for the CNN audience.

Matt Taibbi: And even signals to the interviewee that, “You fucked up a little bit. Maybe redo it. Maybe try again,” and he doesn’t. So let’s listen.

Speaker 4: When you talk about compassion, I don’t want to tiptoe around the edge of this, but the shooter’s name was in question, the gender of the shooter. No one’s really sure what’s going on there. Five years ago, was Robert, then a name change to Robin. Okay. This is being seized in all corners, as you can imagine, in all sorts of ways. And you know that, Mayor, and perhaps that’s why when you spoke about this so profoundly and powerfully, as you are even here now… But when you spoke about this today publicly, you voiced concern for the transgender community, for the community overall. And obviously, you chose to do that in that moment because you thought it was important, and I wanted to give you a chance to say why, to say why you felt it was important to do that in that moment.

Jacob Frey: Obviously, I’ve heard about the rhetoric and the narrative that is being pushed out, but here’s the thing. Anybody that is going to use this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any community, has lost touch with a common humanity. We got to be operating not out of hate for any group, but out of a love for our children. That’s where the focus needs to be right now, a love for our kids, seeing these kids not just as somebody else’s kids. This horrific thing happened. But what if it was our own? How would we feel then? So look, we need to be standing up for every community out there. A Catholic community too, by the way. Any community that suffers this kind of blow, a Minneapolis community, you got to stand up for them. But I feel oftentimes in these instances, there’s this desire to villainize a group.

Matt Taibbi: Okay.

Walter Kirn: He’s all over the place.

Matt Taibbi: He’s all over the place. I was keeping it together until he said, “Yeah, even the Catholic community.” What? So his priority is to make sure that nobody goes over the line and thinks negatively about the trans community. Now, I understand that, but in the moment, to go there and then parenthetically afterwards say, “Yeah, we even have to care about the Catholic community,” there’s an issue that you have to get over some kind of psychological barrier to sympathize with the Catholic community?

Walter Kirn: But Matt, this is the same guy, and I’m on solid ground here, who afterwards at another press event said, “I don’t want to hear about prayer. I don’t want to hear about thoughts and prayers. Those little kids were praying when they were killed.” Now, what was the point of that-

Matt Taibbi: Prayer doesn’t work.

Walter Kirn: … that duality of prayer? How could you rely on this guy saying that? That’s what’s weird about this. None of these reactions are emotional. They all are political. He struggles to say, “Think about if they were your kids.” Well, okay. If they were my kids, right now, I’d be on a fucking rampage, guy. And you would be included in that rampage with your namby-pamby, strange set theory about the community of Minneapolis, which contains the community of trans, which contains the community of Catholics. Dude, when you’re done with all the communities and, how can I put it, redeeming them and declaring their innocence, what do you got left?

Matt Taibbi: He’s making an intersectional list at a moment when we should be thinking, “Okay, what are we doing wrong?”

Walter Kirn: Their brains are rewired. I mean, my God. I’ll tell you about… They have been rewired by rhetoric. They have been rewired by fear of offense. They’ve been rewired by the intersexual… intersectional intersexual classification of humanity. The only result that I would feel emotionally after this was desperate, upset, depression, anger, and despair. Instead, it’s this game of 4D intersectional positioning about where the sympathy should go, where the blame should go, where it shouldn’t go, da, da, da, da. And I’m going to say something in general about these crimes, because on our last show, I said I was tired of bills, laws, being named after crime victims. The power that mass shootings have to alter the national discourse on all kinds of issues is profound. And because it’s profound, people are now prepared to move straight to the power reflex. They move past the human reflex very quickly into this debate society about who and who shouldn’t be blamed.

And I am loathe to comment at all on these things in some ways, because I’m starting to feel that I’m being manipulated. I’m being manipulated, first of all, by these shooters. They have discerned their power. This guy obviously knows that his guns will be examined, that his manifestos and social media will be inspected and scrutinized, that his pronouncements will be amplified. And in a strange way, Frey or Frye, or whatever his name is, play into this by deconstructing and reconstructing the crimes in this political fashion. If we could have just a couple of days of condemnation or of despair, or what used to be called mourning, mourning, then it would not be that these would-be shooters or murderers… I hate calling them shooters. It sounds like I’m part of a video game chat or something. These murderers would not feel that they are somehow participating in a national discussion, that they’ve made themselves into figures for debate and leverage. They realize they have leverage, and we give it to them.

Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And maybe we’re participating in that now. I hope not, but-

Walter Kirn: I don’t think we are, in the sense that we’re not taking off in an agenda-driven, partisan way to get something to happen as the result of this. We’re looking into it and, I think, finding the language of it in a way that might help us get out of this trap we’ve found ourselves in.

Matt Taibbi: And this has been a cliche in American media for quite a long time, but I think it really started with Columbine. And obviously, there was a famous movie, Bowling for Columbine. You talk about the power to impact the culture. This was one of the last documentaries that did big box office, and this was Michael Moore’s movie about the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. And we remember the sort of liberal America seized on the fact that local authorities blamed Marilyn Manson for the Columbine shooting, and you remember he interviews Marilyn Manson in the movie.

And then there’s this very striking scene where he interviews a local Lockheed Martin executive against the backdrop of a giant missile, and says, “Can you think of any other things that might contribute to violent thoughts,” or whatever it was, “in the local culture,” and the guy from Lockheed is totally stumped. He can’t think of anything. And that was interesting, but when you actually got down to Columbine, it was a very nuanced and disturbing story about somebody who was more like a serial killer, was likely to kill for any reason, no matter what happened, and it just happened to come out this way. It wasn’t about bullying. Sorry, go ahead.

Walter Kirn: Let me tell you a quick story. I didn’t watch the movie, mostly because Michael Moore came to a community near mine here in Livingston, Montana, completely misrepresented what he was doing and what sort of documentary he was making, and went into this small town and exploited its trust in order to get them to talk about things that they didn’t realize were the subject of the documentary.

Matt Taibbi: Oh, it was probably the same movie, wasn’t it?

Walter Kirn: Yeah, it was. It was. So Michael Moore’s techniques don’t sit well with me as a reporter who announces what kind of story he’s on when he goes into interview people. Anyway, I covered the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, which involved a perpetrator named James Holmes, who did not kill himself, who’s in jail now. At a midnight screening of a Batman movie, people remember, he came into a movie theater, went into the front row between the screen and the audience, and killed many people, I think almost 20. I was there by the morning, by 9:00 the next morning. It happened at a midnight screening.

And the movie theater was outside a mall, and there was a kind of berm around the movie theater, around the parking lot. And there were dozens, scores of teenagers who were related to the victims sitting there while the police went about the business of cleaning up the parking lot, or taking pictures, and so on. In this parking lot, there was blood, visible blood. There was trails of spilled popcorn and cups from the fleeing audience. And as I was sitting next to some kids, I noticed that a bunch of them were wearing t-shirts that said, “My Bloody Valentine.” It’s the name of a band. It’s the name of a band that had just come through Aurora, Colorado, or nearby. And Aurora is very near Columbine.

Matt Taibbi: Right. I think I just got that mixed up, but yeah, go ahead.

Walter Kirn: Yeah. And anyway, I forget what the image on the t-shirt was, but it was a gory image. And I said, “Hey, man, do you feel weird wearing that t-shirt here this morning where your friends from school were just killed and wounded?” The kid looked down and he said, “What do you mean?” And I thought… I wrote this piece for The New Republic, and you can look it up. I wrote it with my wife. And over the course of my reporting that day and the next day and the next day, I realized that these kids were so saturated in the culture and the world of violent imagery in music, in games, in terms of news. Because Aurora is actually in the kind of heartland of school shootings. There’ve been a couple of shootings there. There’s been a couple in Columbine, which is a nearby community, and I thought to untangle this at this point is almost impossible.

There’s also a big air force base right there, by the way. And I thought they live in an aquarium and swim in blood, to some extent, as the American moment would have it. And so parceling out blame is a thing we can do forever, untangling the threads of culture and motivation, I suppose, but that we don’t allow mourning anymore and move quickly to plugging this into some matrix of political issues is astonishing to me. And I think part of the reason that these grandiose individuals… Luigi, this guy, whatever, they always believe that they’re, despite their own unhappiness, part of some kind of crusade.

Matt Taibbi: Well, yes, and in a long-winded way, that’s sort of what I was trying to say about the Michael Moore thing, there was an initial rush of public opinion that went out to blame shoot ‘em up video games. Then it was Marilyn Manson, and then Bowling for Columbine came out, and the point of that movie was to blame it on the military industrial complex. And then when you really get down to it, it turns out not really to be about any of those things. It wasn’t about bullying. It wasn’t about Blink 182. It wasn’t about any of the things that they described. It was about this screwed-up relationship between a deeply… one guy who was extremely disturbed and one person who was sort of a hanger on.

But my issue with this is that the politicians, and then we’ve also seen this with England last year with the knife attack, people who are in the anti-disinformation space or whatever it is in media, they are now so keyed in to the possibility of a media reaction to this that they want to suppress facts, or they want to nudge the public in one direction or the other from the first minutes of the story. Because that’s what’s important to them.

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