Mendocino County Today: Sunday 12/28/2025

Clear & Cold | Usal Closed | Bobby Garrison | Water Rates | Pacific Sunset | Audit Findings | Pet Easy | AV Events | Third District | Guntleyville | Ed Notes | Fountain & Grocery | Thirty Minutes | Sheep Biz | Yesterday's Catch | Day After | Haircut | New System | Lack Enthusiasm | Art & Stella | Feminist Sex | Flag Flying | Father Advice | Abalone King | Marco Radio | Think! | Zoe Released | Somebody Knocking | Please Hold | Birdbrain Game | Forever Blue | Accordion Fun | Favorite Cars | Butch Cassidy | Winter Day | Frank Sinatra | Calm Lake | Foont Advice | Protesting | Hang Itself | Bomb Nigeria | Lead Stories | Decline & Fall | Theatre Calendar | A Graveyard | Circus Wagon

---

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A nippy 37F under clear skies this Sunday morning on the coast. More of the same until rain returns on Thursday. The new year looks to bring a another long period of rain although amounts are looking moderate currently. As always, we'll see.

DRIER AND COLDER weather is expected to last into Tuesday. Periods of mostly light rain and high mountain snow are forecast to return Thursday and Friday. (NWS)

---

ACCESS TO REMOTE GEM, USAL BEACH, CLOSED!

by Kym Kemp

A beloved but remote area of the northern Mendocino Coast is now completely inaccessible after county authorities closed the only road. This cut off access to the Usal Beach campground and surrounding wilderness.

The Mendocino County Department of Transportation has announced that Usal Road (County Road 431) from milepost 0.00 to milepost 27.95 is closed until further notice, with no estimated reopening date and no access to the beach or campground during the closure.

This affects the only public route to Usal Beach and Usal Beach Campground, a primitive camping area within the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park that draws locals and outdoor enthusiasts from across Northern California for its coastal views and opportunities to interact with everything from unique trees to elk.

Usal Beach sits at the southern edge of the Lost Coast, a stretch of coastline known for its dark sand beaches.

While county authorities did not give a specific cause for the current closure, the recent storms probably caused the problems. In past years, sections of Usal Road have been shut during wet weather to protect the roadbed from damage and to ensure public safety due to mud, ruts, and landslide risks.

The loss of a way into Usal Beach’s primitive campground is a blow to those who use the area as a gateway to the famed Lost Coast Trail.

Visitors should check with Mendocino County DOT and California State Parks for the latest information on road conditions and park access before planning future trips. With no estimated time for reopening, the closure could extend through winter, maybe even early spring.

(kymkemp.com)

---

ERNIE BRANSCOMB CLARIFIES:

Once a thriving community with a sawmill, logging operation, redwood split stuff camp, store, hotels, and housing.

I have pictures of the local Garberville Van Hoy Union 76 distributer delivering fuel to Usal, back when there was still a mill operation there.

Two of my ancestors had a split stuff operation there. My family has blood in that canyon.

When my wife and I were dating we used to go out and catch surf fish and nightfish there. Good times. We even ran into Neil Kemp a few times.

---

BOBBY GENE PARKER GARRISON

Bobby Gene Parker Garrison, age 83, of Hatfield, Arkansas, passed away December 3, 2025 at his home.

He was born October 1, 1942 in Mena Arkansas to the late Troy V. Garrison and Ethal Faye Reynolds Garrison. He was a man of many talents. He proudly served his country in the United States Navy before returning home to commit his life to public service. Over the years, he held several law-enforcement roles, including serving as a marshal in Ola, Arkansas, working with the Mena Police Department, Chief of Police in Taylor, and eventually becoming a Deputy Sheriff in Magnolia.

Outside of his service in uniform, he was no stranger to hard work. He spent time in the log woods as a skilled skidder operator, a job that reflected his strong work ethic and steadfast determination. He filled his free time with the same hands-on spirit that defined his life. He loved tinkering with old cars and watches, and he was an avid collector of guns and knives. Wood carving brought him quiet satisfaction, and the outdoors always called to him. Whether hunting, fishing, or diving for abalone along the Northern California coast with his buddies, he found peace and joy in nature and good company.

Throughout every chapter of his life, he brought integrity, grit, and a deep devotion to his community, his friends, and especially his family.

He is proceeded in death by his parents, 3 sisters; June Garrison, Judy Wilson, and Ann Titus. He is survived by his loving wife of 59 years Dora "Sue"Garrison, his son Troy Garrison and wife Connie, his daughter Summar Anderson and husband David, grandchildren Megan Owens (Jeremy), Jacob Tucker (Megan), Bradley Anderson, Chelsea Joshnson (Cameron), Cheyenne Harris (Kevin), and Gavin Creech. As well as 9 great grandchildren and a host of nieces and nephews.

The family would like to thank Elite Hospice for the love and care they have provided. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Mr. Bobby Gene, please visit our floral store.

---

MENDOCINO VOICE:

The Ukiah Valley Water Authority is proposing water rate increases for multiple districts in the region, with hikes ranging from 6% to 30% starting in 2026. A public hearing on the proposals will be held Feb. 9 at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center. Residents may submit written protests under Proposition 218 before rates are approved.…

https://mendovoice.com/2025/12/ukiah-valley-water-authority-proposes-rate-hike-across-multiple-water-districts/

---

---

WHISTLING PAST THE STATE AUDIT

by Mark Scaramella

In our last report we highlighted the State Auditor’s finding that Mendo had failed to collect taxes due in the amount of at least $30.5 million. We think the number is substantially higher than that when uncollected penalties and interest are added. But whatever it is, Mendo has allowed tens of million in taxes due to go uncollected and the problem has been accelerating over the last five years.

Although combined a few years ago, the Treasurer-Tax Collector is still listed as a separate organization in the County’s budget. According to the latest CEO report, the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s (TTC) office budget is just over $1 million per year with “regular employees” budgeted at $830k, plus $270k for retirement. That’s equivalent to about just five or six full-time people. Unfortunately, like many Mendo offices, the TTC office has a series of negative budget line items (e.g., office revenue from business licenses) making the total office budget misleading.

The companion Auditor-Controller’s office budgets about $1 million for “regular employees” plus $325k for retirement. After discounting about $420k in interest and fee revenue, the Auditor’s office has a net budget of about $1.4 million.

For comparison, the Supervisors themselves are budgeted at $970k with five “regular employees” budgeted about $500k, plus retirement at $$160k, and a variety of other expenses, but no revenue.

In other words, the Tax Collector’s office is small, not much bigger than the Supervisors, yet this critical county function is staffed by maybe half a dozen people, one or two of whom are probably administrative.

Despite their small staff, we are not aware of any staffing requests from Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison under the County’s budget-balancing hiring freeze. And despite claiming to have known that millions in taxes due are going uncollected for several years, the Supervisors have not asked about staffing in the Tax Collector’s office.

In their recent report, the State Auditor recommended, “To recoup unpaid property tax payments to the degree possible, the ACTTC [Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector] should continue to take steps to resume holding regular default tax property auctions by October 2026. If the ACTTC’s Office needs external assistance to hold the auction on time, it should obtain such assistance.”

Note the slo-mo phrasing: “…take steps to resume holding regular tax property auctions by October 2026.”

A few months ago, ACTTC Chamise Cubbison told the Board that her office had begun to issue letters to some delinquent taxpayers telling them they were at risk of a tax lien sale if they didn’t pay their delinquent taxes. But isn’t even the slightest sense of urgency from the ACTTC or the CEO/Supervisors.

In response to the State Auditor’s recommendation, the County replied: “The Board of Supervisors over the last several years has expressed concerns about the lapse of an auction and has offered support to move the process along. The Board of Supervisors and Executive Office look forward to collaborating with the department to help ensure the recommendation is addressed.”

“…expressed concerns”? Prove it. If so, it was so casual as to have been ignored. Nobody ever asked ACTTC Cubbison for a tax collection plan, a monthly report of tax collection status, a listing of the highest value delinquencies, or anything else that would have addressed any “expressed concerns.”

Now, in the wimpiest language possible they say they “look forward to collaborating with the department to help ensure the recommendation is addressed.”

For her part, ACTTC Cubbison replied, “The California State Auditor (CSA) makes the statement that Mendocino has not collected property tax revenue in a timely manner. The CSA does not define timely in the version of the report provided to ACTTC. The ACTTC acknowledges that the Mendocino collection rate has declined recently. Two factors that may have contributed to a reduction in the collection rate and the current balance of defaulted tax bills are: 1. the recent increase in the number of correction bills being sent out that had previously been held up by processing issues in Aumentum and, 2. the sharp decline over the last few years in the local cannabis market which may have impacted the collection of tax for properties that were involved in the cannabis trades.”

Translation: The problem is the County’s financial software — acquired ten years ago yet still blamed for tax billing delays — and the collapse of the pot market under the weight of the Supervisors’ uniquely unworkable and unmanageable pot program which has made tax collection harder.

ACTTC Cubbison continues, getting a little closer to the true problem, although tactfully avoiding pointing any fingers:

“The [state auditor] did briefly mention some of the changes the ACTTC Office has experienced over the last five years. However, it is not possible to truly appreciate the challenges encountered and the magnitude of the dedication and effort of staff to persevere during very challenging times within the ACTTC Office. While the ACTTC Office was able to fill two positions in the last year, the Office was understaffed for most of the reviewed period and experienced several changes in leadership, the loss of decades of institutional knowledge and changes in leadership styles and priorities. The Property Tax System upgrade, conversion, and after conversion issues resulted in key staff being assigned significant additional work on top of routine duties, with that increased workload lasting well beyond the initial conversion process. There are four positions that are currently regularly working in excess of regular full-time hours in order to maintain the level of service that has been achieved during these difficult times.”

Ah yes, the office has experienced “changes in leadership…”

The Supervisors rashly consolidated the Tax Collector’s office with the Auditor’s office under pressure from District Attorney David Eyster who was annoyed by the Auditor’s questioning of his asset forfeiture expenses, causing Mendo’s two most experienced Tax Collection officials — Shari Schapmire and Julie Forrester — to retire prematurely. Then they put an auditor with no tax collection experience in charge of the office. After she was elected to the position they suspended that auditor without pay for reasons that were later shown to be entirely without merit and temporarily put an inexperienced Deputy CEO in the position for an open-ended period. Then, 17 long months later, the vindicated Auditor awkwardly returned to her position in charge of several new senior staffers hired by the temporary official, not the elected Auditor/Tax Collector.

Or, in bland Mendo-speak: “changes in leadership.”

ACTTC Cubbison concludes by saying she “agrees with this recommendation and is actively working towards this goal. ACTTC has informed the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors that some contract services will be required to complete the auction process.”

Remember: the Supervisors (falsely) claim to have “expressed concerns” “over the last several years,” despite no evidence. The Board and the CEO estimate that next year’s budget deficit will be as much as $16 million and more cuts are anticipated on top of this year’s large staff cuts.

No RFP for tax collection services has been mentioned much less prepared. The Supervisors have not asked about it, how much it might cost, how long it might take or what it might involve.

Yet the best they can do is to tell the State Auditor that they will “help ensure” that “steps [will be taken] to resume holding regular tax property auctions by October 2026” — a target date so vague and wishy-washy that no one could be held to it if they wanted to.

Meanwhile, when the Supervisors asked the Mendocino Council of Governments (the County’s transportation planning agency) to survey the public’s level of support for a county-wide road tax the unsurprising results were: The Supervisors have a dismal approval rating of 30%.

---

UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK

Easy Day is an 18-year-old retired racehorse with a heart as soft as her name suggests. She left the track at age 5 and has spent her post-racing years enjoying a quieter life. While we don’t have details about her past training, she’s affectionate, loves attention, and especially enjoys being groomed- she’ll happily stand for a good brushing session. Easy D has mild ringbone in her left hind leg, but our vet believes she’s still suitable for light riding. Easy Day would thrive in a calm, patient environment with someone who understands horses and can offer her consistency and care. Note: She can be difficult to load into a trailer, so she’ll do best with an experienced handler who can work with her gently and confidently. If you’re looking for a sweet companion with a lot of love to give, Easy Day might be your perfect match. If you're interested, call Amy at 707-671-4128 to learn more or schedule a visit. You can also go to mendoanimalshelter.com to submit an adoption application.

To see all of our canine and feline guests, and the occasional horse, goat, sheep, tortoise, and for information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com.

Join us every first Saturday of the month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.

We're on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/mendoanimalshelter/

For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.

Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!

---

ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE List of Events

---

LEW CHICHESTER (Covelo)

A perspective from one who has lived out in the remote areas of what is the Mendocino County Third District: we occasionally get a supervisor who pays attention to what goes on in Legget, Laytonville and Covelo, but just as often get a representative of this district from Willits who doesn’t have a clue and seems to not even be interested in us out here.

John Haschak is a outlier in that analysis, has genuinely adopted the concerns of Round Valley/Covelo as his own and gets out here a lot, really a lot. John Pinches was fabulous, a really smart person with a ranching background who knew that the budget, where the money comes from and where it goes, is job #1 for the county supervisors. Most of the other supervisors supposedly representing us over the previous decades were worthless. Never seemed to have a clue, hardly ever got out here, didn’t know any of us.

Years ago it was Barney ‘B.J.’ Rowland, from Dos Rios, who penned a regular column with the sign off “pay attention.” Whomever wants the Third District Supervisor endorsement better do the same.

---

---

ED NOTES

THE FOLLOWING BIT of crucial information originated with Bob ‘Oyster Bob’ Sites, a Yorkville man who keeps us abreast of the latest in food and drink. This info, of course, may not be news to most of you, but it surprised us. Ready? Pabst Blue Ribbon beer has never advertised and it's produced by union labor. And we're drinking it, exclusively, from now on. PBR was also family-owned for many years until, probably, the heirs sold out to the big boys and took off for Monaco. But still, no advertising and union-brewed? Name another beer with those bona fides.

MICHAEL SLAUGHTER POUNCED: “PBR not advertised? Nonsense! Recall the jingle (with two chords, a I and a V)… What’ll you have? PBR. What’ll you have? PBR. What’ll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon, Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.”

AND, SLAUGHTER ADDS, “There was Fehr's. It’s always Fehr weather when good fellows get together. And Champagne Velvet on early TV: … Champagne Velvet, the champagne of bottled beer. But, you know, I never heard of Griesedieck making a commercial…” And, “Land of Sky Blue Waters beer–that was Hamm’s. The summer of 1961 I spent as a camp counselor at a boys’ camp outside Ely, Minn. Another counselor and I would buy Hamm’s in town and, back at camp, stash the beer in the lake. Then as the sun got low in the sky and the Purkinje Effect would start to take hold, we would paddle a canoe to our now-chilled stash and enjoy the sunset, hove to in the Boundary Waters.”

ON THE SUBJECT of food and drink, one morning I was at the Whole Foods market at Haight and Stanyan in San Francisco where I helped restrain a street guy who went off on a clerk at the checkout stand. I should probably explain my presence: Whole Foods was not too far from my wholly subsidized Frisco apartment at the time, and it was the only nearby source of bulk granola and unradiated almonds.

NOT TO SOUND too much like a food crank, but a nun who sold organic foods, including almonds, at the Alemaney Farmer's Market, informed me that the bulk almonds you get at places like Costco are nuked before they're packaged. Hers weren't, and I loaded up on them whenever I got out to Alemany. (As a free association aside here, it always annoys me to see adult males dressed as nuns during The City's frantic dress-up days like Halloween and the annual Gay Parade. Nuns do huge good in the world, and always have, as do many other religiously affiliated people. I've never seen the joke in making fun of nuns, and I doubt we'll see gay guys bouncing around as gay priests any time soon.)

SO, IT'S ONLY 9AM and I'm one cashier over from the tall, elegantly clad young black woman who's the next door clerk. Whole Foods, to promote it's trendo-groove-o image, and Frisco being the very cynosure of trendo-groove-o, permits its workers to wear their own clothes, their civvies. No smocks for Whole Foods! Anyway, a scruffy little guy strides up to the elegantly clad clerk's register and plunks down, with an authoritative plunk, his two purchases — a carton of deli food and a fancy bottle of water.

THE YOUNG WOMAN rings him up, he grabs his stuff and takes a couple of steps towards the door. “You've got to pay,” the young woman says. “No, I don't,” Little Scruff says, adding a martyred, “Why are you doing this to me, bitch?” At which I joined a chorus of, “Whoa! Over the line, dude!” By which time the elegant clerk was barraging Little Scruff with her own indignant counter-insults. A little guy in a security cop uniform comes hustling over and takes Scruff by the elbow. Security Man is even smaller than Scruff and Scruff shakes him off and takes another step towards freedom and instantly Little Scruff and Littler Security Guy are in a floor-grapple.

A POSSE of clerks, one of them a hefty woman who gives Scruff a nice chop to the gut, helps Security Guy subdue Little Scruff, who has gone silent except for a final insult aimed at me, Mr. Civic Involvement. I'd joined the scrum by holding one of Scruff's feet. “You think this is funny, Gramps?” Well, it has some of the key elements…. Scruff was group-walked out the door, and I paid for my granola and nuke-free almonds and biked it righteously outtathere.

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK from Sunday's Chron: “Donations might have swayed votes in Legislature.”

---

(Ed note: Across the alley next door to the Farrer Building)

---

30 MINUTES TO UKIAH

Idling in an icy morning

and then the ride through

Hell's Canyon.

Dead Deer in the brown leaves

on the side of the road.

Vying for a place

on a two lane highway,

Cowgirls in monster trucks,

Methsters coming in from the East

Past the dried up lake.

Descending into the valley

past the billboards

"grab some buds"

Big old glass of red wine,

Where Ravens rule the parking lots

and another day begins as we

await the Gunman.

— Debra Snow, Ukiah

---

Sheep was a profitable business in Mendocino County, meat and wool became a common export like apples and hops. Several valleys of Mendocino County, including Anderson Valley, became landscaped with sheep.

The sheep industry even contributed to another quintessential Mendocino County industry, the McNab Shepherd. Alexander McNab listed '2900 head of stock sheep' in his will when he passed in 1901.

Through this work the McNab Shepherd reputation grew. Follow this link https://www.mcnabshepherdhs.com/ to learn more about the McNab Shepherd history.

(1979-0081-0066 Ken and Mabel Iverson Collection)

---

CATCH OF THE DAY, Saturday, December 27, 2025

DONALD BRENT, 64, Grants Pass, Oregon/Ukiah. DUI.

ACEA HENDERSON, 25, Point Arena. Vandalism, parole violation.

JORDYN JUNKER, 31, Fort Bragg. Controlled substance, failure to appear.

DENA MORRIS, 63, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

MIGUEL REYES-ALFARO, 45, Ukiah. DUI, no license.

NICHOLAS TWORK, 38, Pinecrest/Ukiah. DUI.

MICHAEL YORK, 33, San Diego/Ukiah. DUI, domestic battery.

---

“I FELT OVERSTUFFED and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas.”

— Sylvia Plath

---

---

KAMALA AS METAPHOR

To the Editor:

Kamala Harris may run again for President of the United States. Democratic party leadership has learned nothing from their last loss. Let’s review:

1. Party leadership supported a senile old man as their candidate far too long. The senility was obvious; the White House denials were spurious.
2. President Biden earned the nickname Genocide Joe because of his unwavering support of genocide in Palestine. Many Americans and most of the world did not approve of the genocide. Biden continued his support.
3. President Biden was a firm supporter of the slaughter of Ukrainians and Russians. Many Americans did not want involvement in yet another war – this one provoked by US regime change in Ukraine in 2014. President Biden was determined to fight to the last Ukrainian.
4. Ms. Harris was a poor candidate, unpopular with groups of voters because of her gender, race, failure to curtail illegal border immigration, and embrace of President Biden’s unconscionable killing.

The above aside, the Democrats and the Republicans are funded by the rich for the rich, who sponsor legislation that enables their further enrichment and the permanence of the two parties, not the welfare of the vast majority of Americans. Over the past decades, income inequality has risen steadily, as has the national debt, and the annual budget deficit. Presidential elections are expensive shows to distract us from the true villains, oligarchs and two party funded war machine. Rank and file Democrats have realized this and are leaving the party in sigmificant numbers.

Both parties ensure that no third party emerges. Democratic leaders sabotaged Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders’ run against Hillary Clinton and refused to endorse Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, whose platform was hardly radical. Some cities in the US have free busses, rent control, programs for affordable housing, coop grocery stores, and child friendly policies. Some states are even taxing the rich!!!

Demand a new system! Tax the rich! Stop supporting ongoing foreign slaughters! No new wars!

Joan Vivaldo

Novato

---

ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

One reason I predicted Trump would win in 2016 was the comparative lack of Hillary signs around San Francisco. You were more likely to see old Obama bumper stickers. Not that the city didn’t vote for her, but the lack of enthusiasm was visible.

---

---

“LEAVING SEX TO THE FEMINISTS is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.”

— Camille Paglia

---

FLYING THE FLAG

Editor:

A friend lamented that so many of his neighbors fly the American flag — to him, a sure symbol of fealty to Donald Trump. I disagreed. Hours earlier, coincidentally, I’d retired the flag on my house and raised a beauty of a new one.

My buddy acknowledged an exception proving a rule while making it clear that just now he’d no more display the Stars and Stripes than the Stars and Bars or the reich and national flag. My truth is, I fly the American flag not in favor of any president or party, but in tribute to an ideal: the great and fragile experiment that is democracy.

I’m mindful, too, that this flag has draped the caskets of so many who died in uniform as boys. This flag stirs legions who came here from places of great anguish and meager opportunity. I try to show respect for a flag I’ve seen whipped to tatters on MAGA-emblazoned pickups and tied to poles wielded as lances by hoodlums bent on overturning an election.

I’m unsure how to respond to those who wear and fly and shove the American flag in your face out of allegiance to a minister of malevolence and his glass-eyed sycophants. But I know this: I will not cede it to them.

Chris Smith

Santa Rosa

---

MY FATHER ALWAYS SAID, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

It was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house and we were up at dawn to the smell of coffee, frying bacon and scrambled eggs.

My father followed this general routine for a lifetime and died young, broke, and, I think, not too wise.

Taking note, I rejected his advice and it became, for me, late to bed and late to rise.

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve conquered the world, but I’ve avoided numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some common pitfalls and have met some strange, wonderful people, one of whom was myself—someone my father never knew.

— Charles Bukowski

---

"POP" ERNEST DOELTER the "Abalone King" on the Monterey Wharf with a large pile of Red Abalone shells.

Pop would give these away where many of these shells found their way into many a Monterey garden. Circa, 1930. Photo, Rey Rupple

---

MEMO OF THE AIR: The pain of space.

"She turned her back to him again. Luci could never bear to watch him Under-the-wire. She tossed the wiresphere into the air. It caught in the force field, and hung there. Suddenly it glowed. That was all. All, except for the sudden red stinking roar of coming back to his senses. Coming back, across the wild threshold of pain."

Marco here. Here's the recording of Friday night's (9pm PST, 2025-12-26) almost eight-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on KNYO.org, on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on 89.3fm KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://memo-of-the-air.s3.amazonaws.com/KNYO_0676_MOTA_2025-12-26.mp3

Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I'll take it from there and read it on the air. That's what I'm here for.

Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you'll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:

Video of the time Hunter Thompson made the mistake of putting his old Xmas tree in the fireplace. It doesn't matter how cold you are, don't do it. Burn almost anything else. An Xmas tree in the fireplace is a firebomb. It's a cordless caveman plasma cannon. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2025/12/hunter-s-thompson-sets-his-christmas.html

Barry Petchesky's annual article, /What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year?/ The usual items, of course, including a Nick Fury action figure. A light bulb, a Christmas ornament. A broken-off plastic coat-hanger. Pop and shampoo bottles. Not phones, though, so much, anymore, they've gotten too wide. Here: https://defector.com/what-did-we-get-stuck-in-our-rectums-last-year-6

"What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain's parietal cortex which creates happiness. You're looking at happiness." https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MEemlp8CLzw

And I don't believe in Jesus, but I sure do like his songs. And Alison Krauss' nose. https://nagonthelake.blogspot.com/2025/12/yo-yo-ma-alison-krauss-wexford-carol.html

Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

---

---

ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST RELEASED

by Anna Armstrong

Animal rights activist Zoe Rosenberg was released from the Sonoma County jail Wednesday and will serve the rest of her felony sentence under house arrest, according to Berkeley-based Direct Action Everywhere.

The 23-year-old served 14 days for her Oct. 29 felony conspiracy conviction stemming from incursions in 2023 at Petaluma Poultry. Although sentenced to 90 days, Rosenberg was released early as part of California’s half-credit for good behavior.

She will serve the remaining 60 days of her sentence on strict house arrest beginning Jan. 14.

“The court hoped jail would teach me a lesson,” Rosenberg said in a statement emailed to The Press Democrat. “It has, but perhaps not the one intended. Two weeks spent in solitary confinement have given me a glimpse into how it must feel to be an animal trapped in a cage.”

Rosenberg’s case was the most high-profile prosecution to stem from a series of demonstrations and farm breaches over several years targeting Petaluma-area poultry plants and farms for what DxE alleges is inhumane conditions at the company’s farms and processing facilities.

Members of the group also supported an attempt at the ballot box to outlaw Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs, in Sonoma County, which voters overwhelmingly rejected during the 2024 election.

Farm operators have staunchly rejected activists’ claims and had pressured the District Attorney’s Office to prosecute Rosenberg and other involved Direct Action Everywhere members.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office did not comment on her release but said, “…If you choose to come into our county and commit a crime, we will investigate it and arrest those involved.”

Despite the recent legal setbacks, the group has remained undeterred and said Sonoma County will continue to be a frontier of their protest efforts.

“I am more determined than ever before to see a world where every animal is safe and free,” Rosenberg said in the statement.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)

---

MOANIN' AT MIDNIGHT

Well, somebody knocking on my door

Well, somebody knocking on my door

Well, I'm so worried, don't know where to go

Well, somebody calling me, calling on my telephone

Well, somebody calling me, over my telephone

Well, keep on calling, tell them I'm not at home

Well, do not worry, Daddy has gone to bed

— Howlin' Wolf

---

---

“ENOUGH ALREADY of Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault poured like ketchup over everything. Lacan: the French fog machine; a grey-flannel worry-bone for toothless academic pups; a twerpy, cape-twirling Dracula dragging his flocking stooges to the crypt. Lacan is a Freud T-shirt shrunk down to the teeny-weeny Saussure torso. The entire school of Saussure, inluding Levi-Strauss, write their muffled prose of people with cotton wool wrapped around their heads; they're like walking Q-tips. Derrida: a Gloomy Gus one-trick pony, stuck on a rhetorical trope already available in the varied armory of New Criticism. Derrida's method: masturbating without pleasure. It's a birdbrain game for birdseed stakes. Neo-Foucaldian New Historicism: a high-wax bowling alley where you score points just by knockng down the pins.

— Camille Paglia

---

FOREVER IN BLUE JEANS

Money talks
But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk
And long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans

Honey's sweet
But it ain't nothin' next to baby's treat
And if you'd pardon me, I'd like to say
We'd do okay forever in blue jeans

Maybe tonight
Maybe tonight, by the fire
All alone, you and I
Nothing around but the sound
Of my heart and your sighs

Money talks
But it can't sing and dance and it can't walk
And long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans, babe

And honey's sweet
But it ain't nothin' next to baby's treat
And if you'll pardon me, I'd like to say
We'd do okay, forever in blue jeans

Maybe tonight
Maybe tonight, by the fire
All alone, you and I
Nothing around but the sound
Of my heart and your sighs

Money talks
But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk
And long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans

And if you'd pardon me, I'd like to say
We'd do okay forever in blue jeans, babe

And long as I can have you here with me
I'd much rather be forever in blue jeans, babe

— Neil Diamond (1978)

---

---

I'VE FIXED CARS FOR 30 YEARS. THESE ARE THE 'UNRELIABLE' ONES I'D NEVER WASTE MY MONEY ON… AND MY THREE FAVORITES

by Ben Shimkus

John Ling first picked up a car wrench out of desperation.

The teenager had big dreams for his 1980s Ford Ranger pickup, but couldn't find anyone to help. So he fixed the truck himself, launching a decades-long career as a mechanic.

Today, the 53-year-old runs his own shop, NEK Collision, in Lyndonville, Vermont.

When it comes to cars — from old bangers and sleek convertibles to new hybrids and everything in between — he's seen it all, delving under the hoods and wrestling with the innards.

Those long years of grease-stained hands and busted knuckles have taught Ling which models will go the distance — and which will leave you stranded on the side of the road.

(Hint: He's not a fan of German cars or EVs and says if you want to buy a truck, go Japanese.)

Below, he reveals his top cars to avoid and those that will save thousands of dollars in repair bills — and why.

Avoid: Audi A4

Ling warns the German midsize sedan's high-tech wizardry can turn into an electrical nightmare, leaving owners with a dashboard full of cryptic warning lights.

In fact, he believes this model is symptomatic of a much bigger issue plaguing European luxury brands.

'[For] all the European luxury cars, they push their technology advancements out before they're ready,' he says. 'They start having random computer, module, or sensor failures.'

He predicts these cars will experience such failures in just four to six years.

The A4 starts at $42,000, and Ling acknowledges that it's an excellent driving machine.

However, he warns that its highly specialized wheel bearings and suspension components, which contribute to the smooth ride, are costly to replace.

'They drive tremendously,' he said. 'But if you want something that you're not going to have to have a lot of mechanical work done, I would avoid it.'

Avoid: Volkswagen Jetta

The Jetta is the more affordable German cousin of the A4, but according to Ling, it doesn't fare much better in the long run.

With a starting price of $21,995, it's one of the lowest-priced new sedans on the market.

At first, the Jetta runs smooth, but once it's clocked 80,000 miles, Ling says the honeymoon's over. Expensive repairs pile up, and owners start questioning their financial choices.

'Then, they start to become very unreliable,' he said.

The Jetta also suffers from the same parts supply issues as its more luxurious counterpart.

Because Volkswagen uses parts that are less available in the U.S. market, Ling says, parts swaps in a Jetta will cost '30 to 60 percent' more than other cars.

Avoid: Ford F-150

The F-150 is America's best-selling truck, and Ling says its long-term durability is worth the price.

But the fan-favorite truck has a major flaw, by his estimation: its build materials.

To cut weight, Ford leans on aluminum molds for the truck's structure, while competitors such as the Chevy Silverado, Ram series, and Toyota Tundra opt for high-strength steel.

That design choice makes the F-150 more fuel-efficient, but Ling warns that unlike steel, aluminum 'crumples' differently. It also makes repairs trickier and pricier.

That hasn't stopped Ford from dominating the truck market.

The company moved a staggering 732,139 F-Series trucks in 2024. The Silverado came in second with 542,517 units sold.

Ling doesn't deny the F-150's reliability, but when it comes to rugged longevity, he thinks buyers might be better off looking elsewhere.

Pricing for the F-150 starts at $38,810, but Performance and Platinum trims can reach upwards of $80,000.

Buy: top-trim Toyota Camry (especially the hybrid)

Avoid: EVs — but only for some drivers

Ling said huge swaths of the American public should avoid driving electric vehicles altogether.

EV batteries are less efficient in extreme temperatures. Running the air conditioning or the heat can zap the battery and reduce the car's available range.

'You're better off with a gas car,' he said about drivers in snowy regions and deserts. 'We're really not ready for electric vehicles, in my opinion.'

He also said that charging availability, particularly in rural parts of the U.S., make the transition to EVs nearly impossible for millions of drivers.

While local charging depots add some peace of mind, EV drivers typically charge their cars at home.

In the U.S., 80 percent of EV charging happens in private residences. Public fast-charging is typically reserved for infrequent, long-distance trips.

Japanese manufacturer Toyota makes the best reliable, long-term, cost-efficient ownership car, Ling says.

And if reliability is the goal, he believes drivers can't go wrong with a Toyota Camry — especially if you're willing to splurge on a higher trim.

'If you buy a low-end Toyota Camry, they're not as insulated, they aren't as quiet,' he advised.

Unlike its German peers, Toyota's manufacturing process ensures its parts are already flowing through vehicle supply markets.

And because Japanese manufacturers don't fully reinvent parts for every car, they are able to share similar parts. Ling says this makes Japanese cars less expensive to repair than other brands.

He also prefers Toyota's fit and finish over other best-selling cars.

'[The difference between Toyota and Honda] usually comes down to the longevity of the interior trims,' he said.

'Mechanically, they're both very reliable. But Toyota has a little better build quality to their interior finishes, and they hold out better.'

Ling adds there is a hidden benefit in the Camry's hybrid powertrain — which combines an internal combustion engine with an electric motor and is present in all 2025 Camrys — for backseat passengers.

The thousand-pound battery mounted underneath the seat inadvertently functions as insulation, reducing external road noise, even when the car hits highway speeds.

'When you're in the backseat, you're sitting over the heavy battery,' he said.

'That itself is a sound-deadening structure inside of the car.'

Entry-level Camrys start at $28,700. Top-tier models will set customers back around $35,000.

Buy: Ram 1500

Ling has driven a Ram pickup for years, and his experience with the standard-duty truck speaks volumes about the brand's engineering prowess.

While Ram (formerly under the Dodge umbrella) has faced formidable sales competition from Ford and Chevrolet, the 1500 is Ling's go-to for longevity.

'Dodge makes a lot of really reliable vehicles,' he said.

However, he points to a significant caveat in the American pickup ecosystem: the increasingly complex parts supply chain.

Unlike their Japanese counterparts, American manufacturers have developed a heavy reliance on third-party suppliers for critical components, a system that often translates to steeper repair costs for owners.

That likely isn't helped by Ram's recent moves to bring back its larger, heavier V8 hemi engine.

'If you want a really cost-efficient car to repair, American trucks are not it,' Ling added.

But he doesn't believe the Ram truck will need much in the way of repairs.

The Ram 1500 starts at $42,270. Premium add-ons can bring the truck's price up to around $89,000.

Budget Buy: Kia K4

For price-conscious consumers navigating today's increasingly expensive car market, Kia has emerged as an unexpected powerhouse in the reliability department, according to Ling.

The Korean automaker's entry-level K4 represents what might be the most compelling value proposition in today's sedan market.

'After 2010, Kia and Hyundai really stepped up in making some of the most reliable cars on the road,' he added.

The mechanic's endorsement isn't just professional observation — it's personal. Ling's own 2016 Kia Optima serves as his daily drive, having crossed the 100,000-mile threshold with only minor maintenance needs.

This reliability narrative is further reinforced by Kia's industry-leading powertrain warranty, which covers critical engine components for 10 years or 100,000 miles — a guarantee that has helped transform the once-budget brand into a legitimate competitor in the automotive space.

'My Optima has been an excellent, reliable car,' Ling said.

The K4's price starts at $21,990 and tops out over $29,000.

(DailyMail.uk)

---

BUTCH CASSIDY’S MUGSHOT from Wyoming Territorial Prison in 1894.

Cassidy was a notorious American train robber and bank robber. His life and death have been extensively dramatized in film, television, and literature, and he remains one of the most well known icons of the "Wild West" in modern times. (Ed note: A hundred years later he'd be an NFL fullback.)

---

“THE SHORT WINTER’S DAY was drawing to a close. It seems to me sometimes that these are the only days I have ever known, and especially that most charming moment of all, just before night wipes them out.”

— Samuel Beckett

---

---

“THERE IS A LAKE of the mind, and I’m wanting mine to be calm and restful now; still; placid. For far too long it was polluted and choppy and all the wrong people swam in it….We all need calm lakes in our minds, and they are calmed by kindness and contemplation and by living within the minds of others. I want the lake calm at all times now. A nice place to sit and think. A nice place to visit.”

— Marlon Brando

---

---

AT PROTESTS, LOTS OF BOOMERS, FEW YOUNG PEOPLE. WHY?

Editor,

Re “Where Are the Young People in the Fight for Democracy?,” by Brendan Nyhan (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 30):

Professor Nyhan was correct to point out the generational factor in the No Kings movement. I attended two “No Kings” rallies where my own boomer generation was dominant.

I would suggest a reason for the age disparity not mentioned by Professor Nyhan. He noted that young people protested more vigorously against the war in Gaza, for Black Lives Matter and, earlier, against the war in Vietnam. Those were protests against specific wrongs, while No Kings was about something more general — the degradation of our democracy and the loss of our moral standing under President Trump.

I don’t think younger people feel this degradation as keenly as boomers. We grew up proud of our country and what it stood for. Many of our fathers had served in World War II. We thought of the U.S. as the country that freed Europe from Nazi despotism and cruelty. When I say “we,” I mean largely white middle-class kids like me, and, of course, as children we were naïve about many things, including the country’s shortcomings.

Vietnam and Watergate disabused us of some of that naïve faith, but most of us never lost the idea that there was something special about the U.S. in a moral sense. I don’t think succeeding generations were brought up that way, and perhaps they have a more realistic view that the U.S. is no better or worse than other countries.

What Mr. Trump has done and what he represents seem to many boomers like a repudiation of everything we grew up believing in.

Peter Samson

Orange, Virginia

---

Editor:

I was one of the young people who attended the No Kings protest in October. I was dragged there by one of my more politically motivated friends. It’s not that I don’t despise President Trump and what he’s doing to our country. It just feels hopeless.

I am too young to remember a time when protests spurred action and have grown up watching and participating in protests that have done nothing. I was 18 years old when March for Our Lives happened in 2018. My own high school had a gun scare only a couple of months earlier. Children have been dying every day since then and there has been no change.

So a part of me asks, Why protest if we’re going to be ignored anyway?

Katie Xue

New York City

---

Editor:

Brendan Nyhan highlights the generational differences I also experienced as a boomer attending demonstrations expressing concerns with the policies of President Trump.

I appreciate Mr. Nyhan’s proposed explanations for the phenomenon, but I have a different perspective on how social media might account for the varied generational reactions to our current political climate: The visual perception of an issue can result in an emotional response and subsequent action.

Most Gen Z-ers have grown up with a steady diet of social media that focus on short visual clips. The visions of carnage in Gaza during the war — children and families torn to pieces, their cities pummeled into rubble — or the brutality displayed in the killing of George Floyd are more likely to trigger an emotional response and subsequent action from the generation who grew up on TikTok and Instagram.

Events like the abandonment of world alliances, the use of the Justice Department for personal vendettas or attacks on diversity programs, the sciences and institutions of higher learning do not have the same visual impact. Many boomers, like me, see the threat to democracy and react by protesting not just for our generation but, more important, for the Gen Z-ers and generations to follow.

Paul Dolinsky

Eastham, Massachusetts

---

Editor:

Brendan Nyhan’s description of the limited participation of students at anti-Trump No Kings protests is both undeniable and concerning. But the experience in on-campus chapters of Democracy Matters tells a different story.

An upsurge of students, especially this fall’s freshman class, has embraced pro-democracy activism. While not yet joining off-campus protests in large numbers, they are quickly developing their own brand of activism in meetings, discussions and outreach to their peers.

Joan D. Mandle

New Paltz, New York

---

Editor:

Brendan Nyhan omitted one of the most important factors responsible for the absence of Gen Z in current anti-Trump protests: As the beneficiaries of a dramatically underfunded and overpoliticized educational system, they are the least knowledgeable of any existing generation in American civics, history and politics.

Starved of a critical knowledge base, they lack a critical context that many of them appear to require for actionable outrage at today’s events.

For Gen Z, Donald Trump’s outrageous conduct and that of his Republican enablers are the only political behavior they’ve ever known.

T.G. Krontiris

Pasadena

---

Editor:

I was incredibly gratified that Brendan Nyhan’s guest essay did not devolve into the usual condemnation of young people. I found myself largely in agreement with his conclusions. However, I did feel one key aspect of young people’s experience was missed: In addition to the fear of arrest or harassment that he cites, young people also bear disproportionate risk to their livelihoods by being at these protests.

The modern workplace expects an enormous degree of political camouflage for any young person who wants to stay employed. I have experienced this repeatedly. I have been asked to explain my presence in a picture of a protest that I attended in 2017. For many of us, being present at one of these protests would mean sacrificing our only income in a hostile economy.

Older generations are largely insulated from this reality, as years of experience and clout in the workplace make them more difficult to replace. Is it any wonder that young people are finding forms of resistance that allow them to operate in anonymity?

Robert Marshall

St. Louis

---

---

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, Donald Trump became the first American president ever to bomb Nigeria. While Trump claimed the Tomahawk missile strike was directed at ISIS targets with the goal of protecting Christians in the northwestern farming community of Jabo, locals told CNN that Islamic State has had no presence in the area and that Christians and Muslims coexist peacefully there. Residents also told Al Jazeera that the airstrikes resulted in no casualties, civilian or otherwise, meaning the bombing accomplished nothing besides terrifying some farmers and setting a precedent to normalize US airstrikes in yet another African nation.

— Caitlin Johnstone

---

LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT

Zero Hour for the Middle East

Zelensky to Meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago About Plan to End War With Russia

What America Might Look Like With Zero Immigration

From A.I. to Chips, Big Tech Is Getting What It Wants From Trump

How Oil, Drugs and Immigration Fueled Trump’s Venezuela Campaign

---

DECLINE AND FALL

The British Empire, in steep decline on the eve of World War I, is a cautionary tale for a decayed U.S. Empire a century later.

by Chris Hedges

At the start of the 20th century, the British Empire was, like our own, in terminal decline. Sixty percent of Englishmen were physically unfit for military service, as are 77 percent of American youth. The Liberal Party, like the Democratic Party, while it acknowledged the need for reform, did little to address the economic and social inequalities that saw the working class condemned to live in substandard housing, breathe polluted air, be denied basic sanitation and health care and forced to work in punishing and poorly paid jobs.

The Tory government, in response, formed an Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration to examine the “deterioration of certain classes of the population,” meaning, of course, the urban poor. It became known as the report on “the degeneracy of our race.” Analogies were swiftly drawn, with much accuracy, with the decadence and degeneracy of the late Roman Empire.

Rudyard Kipling, who romanticized and mythologized the British Empire and its military, in his 1902 poem “The Islanders,” warned the British that they had grown complacent and flaccid from hubris, indolence and privilege. They were unprepared to sustain the Empire. He despaired of the loss of martial spirit by the “sons of the sheltered city — unmade, unhandled, unmeet,” and called for mandatory conscription. He excoriated the British military for its increasing reliance on mercenaries and colonial troops, “the men who could shoot and ride,” just as mercenaries and militias increasingly augment American forces overseas.

Kipling damned the British public for its preoccupation with “trinkets” and spectator sports, including “the flannel fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals,” athletes whom he believed should have been fighting in the war in South Africa. He foresaw in the succession of British military disasters during the South African Boer War, which had recently ended, the impending loss of British global dominance, much as the two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East have eroded U.S. hegemony.

The preoccupation with physical decline, also interpreted as moral decline, is what led Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to decry “fat generals,” and order women in the military to meet the “highest male standards” for physical fitness. It is what is behind his “Warrior Ethos Tasking,” plans to enhance physical fitness, grooming standards and military readiness.

We live in an eerily similar historical moment. Britain, within 12 years of Kipling’s lament, was plunged into the collective suicide of World War I, a conflict that took the lives of over a million British and Commonwealth troops and doomed the British Empire.

H.G. Wells, who anticipated trench warfare, tanks and machine guns, was one of the very few to see where Britain was headed. In 1908, he wrote “The War in the Air.” He warned that future wars would not be limited to antagonistic nation-states but would become global. These wars, as was true in the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War and World War II, would carry out the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians. He also foresaw in “The World Set Free,” the dropping of atomic bombs.

Nearly one third of the population in Edwardian England endured abject poverty. The cause, as Seebohm Rowntree noted in his study of the slums, was not, as conservatives claimed, alcoholism, laziness, a lack of initiative or responsibility by the poor, but because “the wages paid for unskilled labour in York are insufficient to provide food, shelter, and clothing adequate to maintain a family of moderate size in a state of bare physical efficiency.”

The U.S. has one of the highest rates of poverty among Western industrialized nations, estimated by many economists at far above the official figure of 10.6 percent. In real terms, some 41 percent of Americans are poor or low-income, with 67 percent living paycheck to paycheck.

British eugenicists from the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics — which was funded by Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics” — advocated “positive eugenics,” the “improvement” of the race by encouraging those deemed superior — always white members of the middle and upper classes — to have large families. “Negative eugenics” was advocated to limit the number of children born to those deemed “unfit.” This would be achieved through sterilization and the separation of genders.

Winston Churchill, who was home secretary in the liberal government of H.H. Asquith in 1910-11, backed the forced sterilization of the “feeble minded,” calling them a “national and race danger” and “the source from which the stream of madness is fed.”

The Trump White House, led by Stephen Miller, is intent on carrying out a similar culling of American society. Those endowed with “negative” hereditary traits — based usually on race — are condemned as human contaminants that an army of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are terrorizing, incarcerating and purging from society.

Miller, in emails leaked in 2019, lauds the 1973 novel “The Camp of the Saints,” written by Jean Raspail. It chronicles a flotilla of South Asian people who invade France and destroy Western civilization. The immigrants, who the Trump administration are now hunting down, are described as “kinky-haired, swarthy-skinned, long-despised phantoms” and “teeming ants toiling for the white man’s comfort.” The South Asian mobs are “grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta,” led by a feces-eating “gigantic Hindu” known as “the turd eater.”

This, in its most scurrilous form, is the thesis of the “Great Replacement” theory, the belief that the white races in Europe and North America are being “replaced” by “lesser breeds of the earth.”

Donald Trump boasts that he will be the “fertilization president.” American couples — meaning white couples — will be given incentives by his administration to have more children to counter declining birth rates. In the vernacular of the right wing, those who promote this updated version of “positive eugenics” are known as “pronatalists.” The Trump administration will also reduce refugees admitted to the United States next year to the token level of 7,500, with most of these spots filled by white South Africans.

Trump’s allies in Big Tech are busy creating the fertility infrastructure to conceive children with “positive” hereditary traits. Sam Altman, who has been awarded a one-year military contract worth $200 million from the Trump administration, has invested in technology to allow parents to gene edit their children before conception to produce “designer babies.”

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, which is facilitating the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, has backed an embryo screening company called Orchid Health. Orchid promises to help parents design “healthy” children through embryo testing and selection technology. Elon Musk, a fervent pronatalist and believer in the Great Replacement theory, is reportedly a client of the startup. The goal is to empower parents to screen embryos for IQ and select “their children’s intelligence before birth,” as the Wall Street Journal notes.

We are making the same self-defeating mistakes made by the British political class that oversaw the decline of the British Empire and orchestrated the suicidal folly of World War I. We blame the poor for their own impoverishment. We believe in the superiority of the white race over other races, crushing the plethora of voices, cultures and experiences that create a dynamic society. We seek to counter injustices, along with economic and social inequality, with hypermasculinity, militarism and force, which accelerates the internal decay and propels us toward a disastrous global war, perhaps, in our case, with China.

Wells scoffed at the idiocy of an entitled ruling class that was unable to analyze or address the social problems it had created. He excoriated the British political elite for its ignorance and ineptitude. They had vulgarized democracy, he wrote, with their racism, hypernationalism and simplistic cliché-ridden public discourse, stoked by a sensationalist tabloid press.

When a crisis came, Wells warned, these mandarins, like our own, would set the funeral pyre of empire alight.

(chrishedges.substack.com)

---

---

A GRAVEYARD

Man, looking into the sea—
taking the view from those who have as much right to it as you have it to yourself—
it is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing
but you cannot stand in the middle of this:
the sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.
The firs stand in a procession—each with an emerald turkey-foot at the top—
reserved as their contours, saying nothing;
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea;
the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
There are others besides you who have worn that look—
whose expression is no longer a protest; the fish no longer investigate them
for their bones have not lasted;
men lower nets, unconscious of the fact that they are desecrating a grave,
and row quickly away—the blades of the oars
moving together like the feet of water-spiders as if there were no such thing as death.
The wrinkles progress upon themselves in a phalanx—beautiful under networks of foam,
and fade breathlessly while the sea rustles in and out of the seaweed;
the birds swim through the air at top speed, emitting cat-calls as heretofore—
the tortoise-shell scourges about the feet of the cliffs, in motion beneath them
and the ocean, under the pulsation of light-houses and noise of bell-buoys,
advances as usual, looking as if it were not that ocean in which dropped things are bound to sink—
in which if they turn and twist, it is neither with volition nor consciousness.

— Marianne Moore (1921)

---