Mendocino County Today: Monday 2/9/2026

Cool & Cloudy | Remembering Sara | Senior Free-Day | Sunrise Colors | Second Protest | Recreational Center | Pitch Stream | Van Caravan | Pacific Sunset | Modern Art | Log Chain | Yesterday's Catch | Ax Shoots | No Accountability | Neal Cassady | MEAT malignancy | Lyle Talbot | Doesn’t Square | Keep Focused | Desert Home | A Tip | Secret Ingredient | He Can Stay | Palm Beach | 811 Years Ago | Beating Out | Can't Trust | Cultural Exhaustion | Bad Bunny | Ey, Auntie | Seahawks Win | Columnist Izenberg | Frets | Post Bezos | Noam & Jeff | Don & Jeff | Only Benefit | Evil Problem | Prefer Nixon | Tolstoy Legacy | Epstein Ad | Simple Matter | Lead Stories | Nature | Playing Chess | With Maduro | Abducted

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COOL AND CLOUDY conditions will persist through the week with additional light rain possible around Wednesday and heavier rain next weekend. A stronger, colder system is possible this weekend into early next week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A lovely .38" from afternoon rain yesterday. 44F under clear skies this Monday morning on the coast. Clear today, rain returns tomorrow morning into Wednesday, then a couple dry days until a lot more rain returns on Saturday. No really.

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RENEE LEE: Remembering Classmate Sara Geer

I pray they finally find justice for Sara.

She was my classmate in AV for a number of years before she moved to Cloverdale.

ED: James Unick raped and murdered Sara. Thanks to the miracle of DNA he has been caught. Unick's defense? The sex was consensual, a "defense" that defames the child's memory. Bring back the death penalty at least for this one guy.

MARY FOX: I lived a half a block away when that happened in my first apartment. She was a best friend to a family member of mine. Very scary time back then. Several years later when I lived in the old Yorkville Ranch house I was exploring around, there was an old cemetery near us. I had no idea until I saw her name on an old headstone , that we were that close to her final destination. It gave me goosebumps then and still does. Her poor mama.

RENEE LEE: I knew she was buried in Yorkville but never knew why.

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SENIOR FREE DAY IN CLOVERDALE

Next Friday is Senior Free Day at the Cloverdale Citrus fair from 12 noon to 9pm. 62 and over qualify. Enter at the Main Entrance. (Terry Sites)

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THE SECOND PROTEST ON SATURDAY

We have had some discussion about the regular protest saturday. We wrote about the second one, equally dramatic a few hours later.

Did anybody else see it? Know if its Indivisible? I recognized many of the people, even with masks and they me.

Has anybody thought how insular we have become and how vulnerable that makes us? Our entire power structure is deep red, red or at best purple, including social services now, despite the voter base here being blue.

I think we can trust them honestly, but im appalled at how insular folks are and how they dont know this about law, media, electeds.

— Frank Hartzell, [email protected]

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IMAGINE THE OLDEST HISTORICAL SCHOOL SITE, REDWOOD VALLEY SCHOOL AND TURNING IT INTO A COMMUNITY RECREATIONAL CENTER FOR THE COMMUNITY.

That is what the Redwood Valley School Project Group has been working to achieve for our Community Redwood Valley.

The Woolley Family J.M.& Florence Woolley, generously donated the 12acre property zoned Public Use over 100 years ago as a gift and a place for Education. The School site has been the home to our Community and has been a gathering for generations of families and activities for all.

By keeping the Historical School and Buildings we will be providing a safe place for kids, adults and families to gather and enjoy an indoor gym, a full kitchen and stage, an outdoor field, a community garden, pickleball courts, classrooms for activities and more…the possibilities are endless…

If you believe in honoring the intentions of the original land donors and Woolley family that still live in our community of Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, Red Bluff, Kansas, Idaho and beyond…please show your support and be at the February 12th UUSD Board Meeting at 6:15p.m.at 511 South Orchard and have a voice that lets the Board know that a Community Center is the Best use of the site for children, families and future generations.

— Debra Phenicle (via Monica Huettl)

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THIRTY VW VANS ON THE ROAD TO MINA

by Katy Tahja

You really have to have a reason to be driving north of Covelo towards Humboldt County. In our case we did, as there is an interesting rockhounding site to investigate. The oak woodlands were beautiful and empty of people. Much to our surprise we met 30 split-window pre-1968 VW Vans putt…putt…putting up the road.

Why, a curious soul might ask, would such a caravan be out in the middle of no place? We asked the owner of the first van we found dead by the side of the road. He was waiting for the “fix-it” guy to come back from the procession ahead to help diagnose the problem and get him back on the road.

The driver explained once a year word went out to aged VW van owners about a backroads trip from the Clear Lake area to Mount Shasta to ski (if you were athletic) or for companionship and conversation about how to keep your VW alive. I would assume this group was headed to Alderpoint, then who knows where, headed north. The group has been taking a different route every year for 25 years now.

These were not beautiful cosmetically restored VWs. Most looked like beat to shit backcountry/desert specials with brackets and platforms on top for essential supplies and ever present gas cans. These were well used rigs and they had citizens band radios for communicating.

We passed the stretched out VW caravan, then stopped by the new modern bridge over the North Fork of the Eel River to have a picnic lunch. Soon, coming down four miles of 10% grade road to the river, came the vans. They parked inches apart filling an entire lane from one end of the bridge to the other. The other traffic lane remained open if any other autos needed to pass by. But please note: We were so far out in the boonies in three hours of backroads travel we saw maybe four vehicles other than 30 VW Vans.

Back on the bridge everyone exited their van to take photos of all the other vans so we wandered over to talk to them. I was especially interested, as I am a Burner and at Burning Man there is a VW Van camp that hosts a “High Tea” yearly. It is a special event for parents whose children brought them to Burning Man. My son took me and we drank tea in china cups, ate crustless cucumber sandwiches and pastries, and talked about how we came to be there. It’s a lovely event and there, just outside of Mina, I met some of those same hosts from the Burn. We call this “Playa Magic,” when you meet fellow Burners in truly unusual places.

We waved goodbye to all 30 vans as they chugged off up the road to Mina and we turned around and headed back to Covelo. Researching them on the computer when I got home, I found they have a Facebook page but are very private and you don’t find out a whole lot, and their maps from 25 years of back country touring are not published. They just enjoy 500 miles of back roads in the dead of winter in their vintage tin cans and offer advice on how to prepare for such an expedition.

And the rocks we were looking for? Didn’t find much there on the Eel River at Mina. Being part mountain goat would have helped as the steep climb down canyon walls to get to the river bed were beyond my capabilities. But east of Covelo before you get to Indian Dick ranger station on the north side of the road was a pull out with an easy ramble down to the creek bed and there were many colors of jasper, possible jadeite in green, purplish chert, and all kinds of sparkly quartz veins in all sorts of rocks. It was a good day.

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Bill Guldager

I have had maybe 5 old VW vans, oldest being a 1954 double door. I still have a 56 VW Baja, a swing axle rock climber, and a 1971 single cab with a 2180 engine.

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ED NOTE: The Mina Road outta Covelo to Alderpoint is not only stunningly beautiful but, to me, encapsulates the true history of Mendocino County, a kind of geographic trip back to the days of genocide and vendetta and, lately, a backroad smuggler's route for the dope industry. Always carried a gat in the back country east of 101 myself. It's wild out there every which way.

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ASSIGNMENT: UKIAH: PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME GO BACK

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed visiting a museum, but it probably was when I was young and pretentious. I thought if people heard I’d spent the weekend stalking moldy old antique stuff or modern art monstrosities I’d be considered a big intellectual.

The most boring building I’ve ever been inside is New York’s Museum of Modern Art. I’ve been there twice. You’d think I’d have learned.

This museum, that museum, any museum, every museum is mostly just old coins and broken jugs. Bowls made out of clay or mud or ceramic stuff, all very old and therefore, the theory goes, well worth looking at. Why?

Just because they’re old, and even older things haven’t yet been dug up, is not a persuasive reason to go look at them. Would you visit Greece to watch an elderly tree? How about the oldest metal bench on the Pacific Coast?

Or travel to the Senate Building in Washington to stare at Bernie Sanders?

And maybe that’s the answer: If you build a museum, people will come. It can be filled with anything (Jackson Pollack proves it, as does Andy Warhol, Judy Chicago and the artist who recently used duct tape to attach a banana to a gallery wall, and sold it for $165,000).

Do you still want to go to a museum?

I’m not even clear on a museum’s purpose. They seem to mostly serve as employment rest areas for curators and docents, which must be nice. Not having to work outdoors in the rain or have people complain about your job performance would be a real plus.

And museums provide archaeologists with storage space to put the things they dig up. If not in a museum where would we put all the rusty little nails and bits of broken crockery?

But beyond hiring people to watch over dusty remnants produced by semi-civilized ancients is mostly beyond my imagination. Jasper Johns and Mondrian are completely beyond my comprehension, interest or patience. And these are the cats, plus hundreds more also in on the joke, whose works cover the walls of every modern art gallery or museum in the world.

By contrast, any “Still Life with Fruit,” and there must be thousands of them, is worth staring at for at least a few seconds, especially if the alternative is a framed canvas filled with random paint streaks and paint globs, hand prints and footprints.

And from there it’s a tossup if the other choice is pottery shards or photos of pictures of drawings of stick figures on cave walls. Or Egyptian hieroglyphics. Or Greek urns.

Or ceramics by Judy Chicago.

But let us distinguish some museums from other museums. Best of the questionable bunch are those with cool stuff like a guy in a suit of armor over in the corner, great statues by talented sculptors from way back when, and paintings of beauty and inspiration. That’s a museum worth going to.

At the bottom are museums featuring modern art. I’ve been to galleries where there isn’t a single violated canvas I would allow in my home. We are puzzled, all of us except college professors and gallery owners selling jokes by Jackson Pollack and Jasper Johns at the sheer audacity of the entire swindle.

If Grace Hudson herself ever produced something as hideous as Andy Warhol’s dismal batch of silkscreens (Marilyn, Elvis) her family would have assumed she’d come down with dementia and packed her off to the State Hospital in Talmage.

I’d happily pay a hundred dollars not to have to spend a meaningful two hours inside any modern art gallery.

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Protecting The Children

We’ve all been to parks in different cities and states, and a standard, though not universal, sign appears in many of those parks:

“Children Must Be Accompanied By An Adult”

The wife, the dog and the me were in San Francisco last weekend, and looking for some green space to run the pooch and enjoy the sunshine, we visited Duboce Park. It’s a nice big swath of green interspersed with sets of swings, slides, a merry-go-round and enough grass for a lot of dogs.

Entering the park, a large metal sign:

“All Adults Must Be Accompanied By A Child”

In San Francisco.

(Did I already mention that?)

Bob Dylan used to do a song that had the lines “I don’t like San Francisco / I went to a party there once.” Tom Hine and TWK hope dear old Bobby is feeling well and enjoying life

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, February 8, 2026

DANIEL ARANCIBIA, 30, Willits. DUI-any drug, suspended license for DUI, probation revocation.

LESLIE BENITEZ, 30, Eureka/Ukiah. DUI-any drug.

FABIAN GUEVARA, 19, Rancho Cordova/Ukiah. Reckless driving.

MEGAN JARAMILLO, 32, Willits. DUI.

SHAHIN SHAREI, 73, Ukiah. “Dealer fail to deliver, etc., certificate of registration,” (presumably to DMV), unspecified offense.

JOEL SLATES, 24, Ukiah. DUI with blood-alcohol over 0.15%.

CLARENCE WELLS III, 37, Oakland/Ukiah. Attempted murder, assault with deadly weapon not a gun, elder abuse resulting in great bodily harm or death.

NORMAN WILLIAMS, 53, Desote, Texas/Ukiah. DUI with priors.

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AX FOR TWO FROM THE TOP OF THE KEY?

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ONCE UPON A TIME

Editor:

I’m old enough to remember the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. Investigative commissions were established. Back then, television film helped parse the evidence. Forensic specialists examined wounds and ballistics, and details were accounted for. The intent was to assure the public that the investigations’ findings were valid and accurate.

Consider the death of Alex Pretti. Amateur street journalists provided multiple camera angles of the killing. They legally bore witness to how ICE chooses to enforce laws. The sequence of what happened and when is indisputable because multiple camera angles provide the data.

Who removed Pretti’s gun? How many agents fired shots, and were they all in Pretti’s back? Data determines cause and effect, but evidence was removed by ICE agents, contaminating it. The government stepped in and claimed that city and state officials had no investigative jurisdiction. They then claimed ICE had full immunity. There would be no accountability.

Striving for transparency in government, the U.S. once encouraged unbiased investigations. Now we’re mired in a swamp of finger-pointing partisanship. Recognizing his party’s low standing in opinion polls, Donald Trump floated the idea of canceling future U.S. elections. Believe him, because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Roy Camarillo

Santa Rosa

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NEAL CASSADY by Allen Ginsberg

“We are actually fourth dimensional beings in a third dimensional body inhabiting a second dimensional world!”

“Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.”

It's the birthday of Neal Cassady, born in 1926 in Salt Lake City. He was a con man, in and out of jail, and finally moved to New York City, where he met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.

The Beats idolized Cassady. He embodied everything they embraced in theory — he was a self-made man, he had been educated on the streets by bums and crooks, he was smart and free and charming.

Neal Cassady appears in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. In "Howl," Allen Ginsberg refers to him as "N.C., secret hero of these poems." But Neal Cassady is most famous as the inspiration for Dean Moriarty, the hero of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957). ~ The Writer's Almanac

Cassady by Allen Ginsberg, date unknown

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M.E.A.T

Editor:

Donald Trump’s philosophy in office can be summarized by an acronym — MEAT for Make Everything About Trump. He started on day one flourishing his black Sharpie as he signed numerous executive orders and followed with 12 months of MEAT-generated chaos.

Trump coerced foreign countries with import taxes (tariffs) to gain concessions, held a communist-style military parade in Washington, had the East Wing of the White House demolished for a gigantic ballroom, added his name to the Kennedy Center and proposed building a copycat American Arc de Triomphe in greater Washington.

He constantly used Truth Social to attack those who disagreed with him, including the Kennedy family after JFK’s granddaughter died; no condolences here.

Trump set ICE on the American people, had the Venezuelan president abducted, threatened Canada and Greenland and finagled the Nobel Peace Prize from the winner. Trump alone accomplished all this regardless of the law because the GOP-controlled Congress let him.

I hope Democrats take control of Congress this year and the presidency in 2028. That would end Trump’s MEAT malignancy and allow recovery to begin. A good step back to normality might be demolishing Trump’s triumphal arch, if built, leaving behind a pile of rubble titled “The Trump Memorial Dump.”

Sherman Schapiro

Eureka

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STEVE TALBOT:

My dad Lyle Talbot's birthday, February 8, 1902. He lived to the age of 94, spending the last seven years of his life here in San Francisco when I spent a lot of time with him. An actor all his life. Stage, movies, TV. Had an incredibly long, varied and active career. Best thing he ever did was marry my mom. I was lucky to have both of them as parents.

This photo is from 1983. New York. My dad and me with my wife Pippa and our baby daughter Caitlin. We had just won a Peabody for my PBS/KQED documentary, "The Case of Dashiell Hammett." My dad had been the voice of Hammett in the film. The first time we had ever worked together on a TV project. A very satisfying experience.

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ICE ACTIVITIES DON’T SQUARE WITH ‘WORST OF THE WORST’

Editor:

I think Tim Holt is mistaken in his praise of the Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino and ICE. We have been told they were going after the worst of the worst — real criminals here illegally. We were told the enforcement was targeted and warrants were issued. That doesn’t square with immigrants being picked up at scheduled immigration hearings. That doesn’t square with people being randomly accosted at gas stations or store parking lots. That doesn’t square with random traffic stops based only on the driver’s skin color. That doesn’t square when off-duty Minneapolis police officers are being stopped by ICE.

I think when they say targeted, they mean anyone who looks brown. Anyone with an accent. Even if they are here legally waiting for an asylum or citizenship hearing. I would suggest that if Holt’s wife was in Minnesota, she might find it necessary to carry proof of citizenship and even then might be at risk of detention.

Lew Larson

Sebastopol

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“BAY AREA, just know, we’re gonna get through this. Everybody keep your wits about you, no matter what they say … keep focused. Take care of each other and just wait this motherfucker out. It won’t be long.”

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“It’s fucked up what they’re doing. ICE were snatching up so many Mexicans, they got carried away,” he said. “They snatched up so many Mexicans, they ran out of Mexicans. So they flew to Venezuela and snatched up the president and brought him back to America, so they could try and send him back to Venezuela.”

— Dave Chappelle

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A TIP FOR THOSE NOT KEEPING UP

by John Arteaga

A tip to those who may not have been keeping up with the news this last year, but clearly we are all now living under the malevolent rule of an absolute stark raving mad dictator.

About a year into his second term as potus, it is hard to avoid noting Trump’s rapidly declining mental health; while he may very well be an idiot savant in terms of divining what whole-cloth pack of lies to tell each person, each audience, he’s an idiot nonetheless!

Like his forebear, Reagan, our president is a pitiful Alzheimer sufferer, a rubber suit to push whatever evil distractions the military-industrial and trillionaire class want the people to obsess over, as well as what will stuff more cash into his bloated, swindling coffers.

So what can possibly explain the shocking poll numbers that this deranged man, surrounded by his coterie of suck-ups and lickspittles, has been able to garner?! Even though his abysmal approval numbers are only bested by Nixon, post-Watergate, I still find it hard to believe that ANYONE would approve of this likely chomo, who was almost inseparable from his BFF Epstein for a decade or so, in addition to being found basically guilty of the rape of a woman above the age of consent, representing us as president.

How has he (or his managers behind the curtain) suckered so many into believing things that are so obviously false and wrong? Well, unlike his first disastrous term, where, compromised and flawed as many of his cabinet members may have been, even lame toadies like Bob Barr had some vestige of a spine and would push back on Trumps more bizarre ideas. This time they’ve learned from that 'mistake' and now employ only the most supine invertebrates, who have, to a man and a woman, completely abandoned any decency, integrity or honor in their lust to advance their careers through so blatantly kissing the foul, incontinent ass of this… man.

How did we get here? Well, one of the first moves that he made upon in this term was to summarily dismiss something like 18 Inspectors General of various expensive departments and agencies. These are the people whose job it is to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in their particular agencies. Thus the door was thrown wide open to whatever crooked patronage scam he and his backers wished to run.

The irony of then appointing Elon Musk, with absolutely zero experience in running any kind of government agency, to root out waste, with his teenage nerd Army, with no oversight or review by, say, an Inspector General, is rich.

So, let’s go over just a few of the highlights (space limitations prohibit more depth) of the more absurd perversions of his public trust; perhaps the greatest cause of death and destruction, has been his continuation of the many decades of US foreign policy being joined at the hip with the racist, genocidal Israeli regime which, over the years, has basically committed our country, against our own interests, to wars on seven countries, all within striking distance of Israel, to try to prevent them from supplying any meaningful support for their besieged brothers and sisters in Palestine. The recent, laughable ‘cease-fire’, by which Israel means, “We can kill any of them, in any numbers, anytime we want, but they don’t get to fire back”. What classical martial author wrote, “They created a wasteland and called it peace”?

While Trump raves about restoring respect to the US, everything he does absolutely trashes our international standing; we will be lucky to make it to the midterm elections before his policies completely crater the US economy. We take for granted the huge benefit we all reap from the dollar being the dominant world trade currency, but every time this idiot blathers insanity about, say, seizing Greenland, taking over Canada as our 51st state, or the completely bizarre concept that, since he’s the king of the world, that he alone should get to say what countries can trade what commodities with what other countries, to the point of seizing, by military force, supertankers with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crude on the them, or giving deranged rants at global conferences proclaiming climate change to be a, “con job” when every nation is suffering under its undeniable, often dire, effects. The impression that he makes on the rest of the world is clear; their relatively rational leaders are looking at each other and saying, “sheesh, we’ve got to make other plans!, work around this deranged USA”. China, by contrast, rather than military attacks, tends to build things of value for countries in exchange for trade with them. The only thing that our often pointlessly militaristic foreign policy has only ever done for our country is to create more enemies!

There are so many terrible things that this bizarre administration is pursuing, but perhaps the most heartbreaking stupidity being perpetrated recently is its absolute hostility toward alternative energy, which any sentient person must see as an absolute necessity if human life is to continue on a recognizable course. They just axed a huge road building project that would have made possible a new major electrical transmission line (we need more of them for a more efficient electrical infrastructure), because some of those electrons that would be using that line would be from carbon free sources!

Totally heartbreaking to have a giant solar array, well on its way to completion, to power an underserved Puerto Rican community, suddenly shut down, because it is green energy! Like the numerous offshore wind farms off of the East Coast, some of them after the investment of billions of dollars and nearing completion! Drill baby drill! We’re cutting our own throats! And 1/3 of the country APPROVES of all this?!

(inarationalworld2.blogspot.com)

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POST BY MIGUELIFORNIA ON X

He can stay: pic.x.com/z366CgbRlG

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"EIGHTY PERCENT of the world’s wealth is here during the season,” said a local decorator one night over dinner at Dunhills in the heart of the off-season. “It’s a very exciting scene to be part of.”

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The business of Palm Beach is business, even on a rainy day in the off-season. Despite the town’s image of terminal leisure and luxury, the people who live here are very aware of their money, and they tend to watch it carefully. Displays of naked greed are frowned on, and business is done discreetly—or, failing that, in private. Some people sell real estate, some spend all day on the telephone, raving at their brokers and making $1,000 a minute on the stock market, and others buy fistfuls of speedy cocaine and spend their afternoons playing frantically with each other and doing their own kind of business.

There are hideous scandals occasionally—savage lawsuits over money, bizarre orgies at the Bath and Tennis Club, or some genuine outrage like a half-mad eighty-eight-year-old heiress trying to marry her teenage Cuban butler—but scandals pass like winter storms in Palm Beach, and it has been a long time since anybody got locked up for degeneracy in this town. The community is very tight, connected to the real world by only four bridges, and is as deeply mistrustful of strangers as any lost tribe in the Amazon.

The rich like their privacy, and they have a powerful sense of turf. God has given them the wisdom, they feel, to handle their own problems in their own way. In Palm Beach there is nothing so warped and horrible that it can’t be fixed, or at least tolerated, just as long as it stays in the family.

The family lives on the island, but not everybody on the island is family. The difference is very important, a main fact of life for the people who live here, and few of them misunderstand it. At least, not for long. The penalty for forgetting your place can be swift and terrible. I have friends in Palm Beach who are normally very gracious, but when word got out that I was in town asking questions about the Pulitzer divorce trial, I was shunned like a leper.

— Hunter S. Thompson: 'A Dog Took My Place’ (Rolling Stone 1983)

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OVERHEARD AT RUNNYMEDE

“Let’s let King John be
Immune from prosecution.
Good idea, right?”  “NO!!!”

— Jim Luther

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UNCLE BOB:

"The Revolt of the Elites" by Christopher Lasch contains a section in which the author, a professor at (iirc) the University of Rochester, describes how the plutocracy uses its connections to build stadia and arenas using public funds, promising huge windfalls to the idiot politicians, but don't explain all the negatives associated with these things, like the Henry Ruggs III incident in Vegas a few years ago, or the destruction of much of the remaining commercial space in lovely Elmira, NY in order to build an arena that has been an anchor around the necks of every taxpayer in Chemung County for 30 years. Helping matters in my old town is that the population base is half what it was when I was a kid, and the tax/business base has evaporated as Albany's mismanagement of the state over several decades has destroyed most of Upstate -- but by God, Micron is going to build a chip factory outside Syracuse, so everything will be fine! (Just like Global Foundry was going to save Albany -- right, Schumer and Hochul?) Guess I've derailed myself, but it's so fucking frustrating watching these nebbishes intentionally and repeatedly fuck over everybody, and the idiot voters keep re-electing them because "Democrats are for the little guy, and anyway, Republicans will DOGE you out of a job." No, you fools. You can't trust ANY politicians, especially the ones who promise to give you everything for nothing.

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

"The circuses — last week’s Grammy Awards, the Winter Olympics tonight, Sunday’s looming Superbowl — give off an odor of utter cultural exhaustion."

The freaks that perform in these circuses give off the stench of rot and death. Gone are the days when celebrities were the pretty people and they tried to make themselves unnaturally pretty. Today celebrities do all they can to make themselves as freakishly horrific as possible. Google Bad Bunny and you'll be laughing at the freak show that presents itself. Fat disgusting facial tatted and pierced slobs like Jelly Roll are it baby! Post Malone has a face that even a mother can't love. Fat slobs like Lizzo spend their time on stage twerking and maneuvering her billowing bands of cellulose. Utterly offensive. None of them have any talent whatsoever. Their music stinks, their voices grating.

Yet these freaks, these evidences of a society in free-fall are worth millions upon millions of dollars. They are adorned by millions and millions of followers. Jelly Roll is a favorite of the WWE and Bad Bunny had a stint there as well. Bad Bunny and his twerking freak show that will make the aliens above demure in embarrassment will be watched by billions who tune into a Super Bowl game that nobody is interested in.

None of it makes any sense anymore. The degenerate are mainstream now. The perversion and filth is rampant, saturating all corners of western society. It is endorsed, sought after and desired.

We are so boned as a society.

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TITÍ ME PREGUNTÓ

Ey, auntie, asked me if I have a lot of girlfriends, a lot of girlfriends
Today I have one; tomorrow I’ll have another,
hey, but there’s no wedding, there’s no wedding, auntie
Auntie asked me if I have a lot of girlfriends; he, a lot of girlfriends
Today I have one; tomorrow I’ll have another

I’m going to take them all to the VIP, the VIP, hey
Say hi to auntie
Let’s take a selfie, say “cheese,” hey
Let the ones I already slept with smile
In a VIP, a VIP, hey
Say hi to auntie
Let’s take a selfie, say “cheese”
Let those who have already forgotten about me smile

I really like the Gabrielas
The Patricias, the Nicoles, the Sofías
My first girlfriend in kindergarten, María
And my first love’s name was Thalia
I have a Colombian who writes me every day
And a Mexican I didn’t even know about
Another one in San Antonio that still loves me
And the ones from PR are all mine
A Dominican who is a hottie, a hottie
One from Barcelona that came by plane
And says that my penis is fire
I let them play with my heart
I’d like to move in with all of them in a mansion
The day I get married I’ll send you an invitation
Boy, stop that, hey

Hey, boy, devil boy
Let go of that lousy life that you have on the street
Find a serious woman for yourself
devil boy, damn

I’d like to fall in love
But I can’t, but I can’t, uh, uh
I’d like to fall in love
But I can’t, but I can’t

Sorry, I don’t trust, I don’t trust
Nah, I don’t even trust myself
If you want to, stay today since it’s cold
And leave tomorrow, Nah

Many want my baby
They want to have my firstborn, hey
And take the credit
I’m bored already. I want a brand new vagina, heh
A new one, a new one, a new one, a new one, a new one (ey)

Listen to your best friend; she’s right
I’m going to break your heart, break your heart
Ey, don’t fall in love with me (No, no)
Don’t fall in love with me (No, no), ey
Sorry, it’s how I am (How I am, how I am), ey
I don’t know why I’m like this (ey)

Listen to your best friend; she’s right
I’m going to break your heart, break your heart
Ey, don’t fall in love with me (No, no)
Don’t fall in love with me (No, no), ey
Sorry, it’s how I am (How I am, how I am), ey
I don’t want to be like that anymore, no

— Bad Bunny (2022)

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SEAHAWKS’ SUPER BOWL PARTY AT ‘LUMEN SOUTH’ LEAVES 49ERS ALL THE SMOKE

by Ann Killion

Clouds of celebratory cigar smoke filled the San Francisco 49ers’ locker room. Empty Champagne bottles littered the floor. Seahawks players shotgunned beers and danced in front of the sound system. And smack in the middle of everything, shiny and silver and the center of everyone’s attention, was the Lombardi Trophy.

There had never before been a scene like this or a celebration like this in the 49ers’ locker room. On the 49ers’ home field, in the 49ers’ own private space, the Seattle Seahawks partied and strutted and reveled in their prowess, after their dominating 29-13 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots.

“Lumen South,” safety Julian Love called Levi’s. “We love this field. We’ve had a good year here.”

On the one hand, the 49ers should want the team that eliminated them to win the whole thing: It proves that they were beaten by the very best. On the other hand, this is Seattle — the 49ers' most bitter rival — who just got to the promised land, ahead of the 49ers and way, way ahead of schedule.

“Oh yeah, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t,” said John Schneider, general manager and architect of the Seahawks.

“It’s surreal. These guys want to play for each other, they care about each other. They were super confident. They’re just a together team.”

The Seahawks, one of the youngest teams in the NFL, led by a second-year head coach in Mike Macdonald, did something the 49ers have not been able to do for a very long time. Five of the past eight NFC representatives in the Super Bowl have come out of the NFC West. The Rams lost one Super Bowl but won on their second try. Now Seattle has won. Only the 49ers have not been able to bring back the Lombardi Trophy despite two shots at it.

That’s going to be a bitter pill when the 49ers return to the room where Seattle had so much fun late on Sunday night. After the Golden State Warriors won their first championship on the road in Cleveland, Stephen Curry irritated the Cavaliers the following season when he said he hoped the visiting locker room “still smells like Champagne.” When the 49ers gather in their locker room for the offseason program sometime in mid-April, it’s very likely — given the vast amount of partying that Seattle was doing — that their room will still smell like Seahawk cigar smoke.

And, as with the Rams in 2022, the 49ers will find themselves chasing a division rival for the trophy they’ve found so elusive for 31 years.

“We’re going to take it day by day, but we’re on the clock now,” said tight end A.J. Barner. “Everyone wants what we got.”

“We’re going to see what we can do,” said Eric Saubert, the tight end who played for the 49ers in 2024. “We hope we can run it back.”

On Sunday evening, in front of a pro-Seattle crowd and an audience expected to be upwards of 125 million, the Seahawks flexed their defensive muscle. They had been getting better and stronger all season. In two January games against the 49ers, the regular-season finale at Levi’s and a divisional playoff game in Seattle, the Seahawks smothered the 49ers’ offense, leaving it helpless.

Kyle Shanahan, appearing on NBC’s pregame show, was even able to poke some fun at those grim outings. Asked about the Seahawks defense, the 49ers head coach said, “I know you guys want my expert opinion, but I haven’t scored a touchdown on these guys the last two times we played them. So I don’t know how good that is.”

On Sunday, Seattle shut out the Patriots for three quarters, holding their offense to just 78 yards. Things loosened up in the fourth: New England finally got on the board and tallied 253 yards in offense in the quarter.

“Guys were getting tired,” said Love, who intercepted Drake Maye in the fourth. “Our defense started this and we wanted to finish it.”

The game — with its 15 punts and a Super Bowl-record five field goals — won’t go down in the Super Bowl annals as a particularly entertaining game. Bad Bunny’s joyous, upbeat halftime show — transforming the Levi’s field into a tropical island full of special guests and a strong message of love and unity — was by far the highlight of the event. No shade to Seattle’s excellent running back Kenneth Walker III, who won the Super Bowl MVP Award, Bad Bunny was the real MVP.

But Seattle’s defensive prowess was awe-inspiring.

“This game may not be exciting to some,” former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman wrote on social media, “but this film will be studied by every team trying to mimic what this Seahawks Defense is doing. Great defensive football is art!”

“It’s what I expected from us,” said linebacker Ernest Jones IV. “We’ve been doing this all year. We’ve been battle-tested. This was nothing.”

Well, it was something. Something that will be remembered for a long time.

Over a decade ago, Seattle put its imprint on Levi’s. In the stadium’s first season, the Seahawks, then the defending Super Bowl champions, humiliated the 49ers on Thanksgiving night and ate turkey on the 50-yard line, while Jed York sent out rash tweets apologizing to the fans for the poor performance. That bitter memory has lingered for years.

That Seattle team grew old. Its stars moved on. The franchise faltered. And then Schneider reloaded through the draft, rebuilt the team, and now — way ahead of schedule — the Seahawks are champions again. And again leaving their mark on Levi’s. That cloud of cigar smoke — and all the implications that come with it — will hover over the 49ers’ stadium, and the 49ers’ franchise, for a very long time.

(sfchronicle.com)

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JERRY IZENBERG: ‘NFL Gestapo,’ greedy owners and halftime shows: ‘I don't want to watch that crap.’

by Alex Raskin

Jerry Izenberg covered the first 53 Super Bowls in person, not to mention more Muhammad Ali fights than any other sports writer, so when the iconic columnist says the NFL's biggest game has lost its edge, he does so as a foremost expert.

'The first five or six Super Bowls were fabulous because there was real drama,' the best-selling author told the Daily Mail from his Nevada home. 'Now, everybody's a business partner. There's no incentive at all among the owners, and it's altogether different.'

Now 95, Izenberg's new book, 'Damn You, Josh Gibson,' takes baseball fans through the shrouded history of one of the game's greatest talents. He also remains an active columnist the out-of-print Newark Star-Ledger's surviving website, NJ.com. And it's in that role where Izenberg continues to write about the Super Bowl, albeit, begrudgingly.

His nostalgia is easily explained.

The Super Bowl Izenberg began covering in 1967 was far from the commercialized spectacle it's become and vastly more consequential for everyone involved. The AFL was still the NFL's off-brand little brother three years ahead of the leagues' merger, so teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders and New York Jets were fighting for legitimacy.

Rival owners wanted to win because they largely despised one another, according to Izenberg, while players couldn't afford defeat on their salaries because they needed the winners' bonus checks. And Izenberg knew all of this because reporters were granted endless access by coaches, owners and players desperately seeking the spotlight. He even befriended not one, but two commissioners: the legendary Pete Rozelle and his successor, Paul Tagliabue.

'Super Bowl I was played before the NFL Gestapo took over,' Izenberg said of the league's media-relations tactics. 'You can't go anywhere with them [now], you meet them at the hotel at an appointed time. When I covered the first six, seven Super Bowls, I interviewed guys in their rooms.'

It was in those hotel rooms in Los Angeles, Miami and New Orleans where Izenberg discovered the real drama of the Super Bowl.

'Two days before [Super Bowl I in Los Angeles], I'm having lunch with an EJ Holub, nicknamed "The Beast," the middle linebacker of the Kansas City Chiefs,' Izenberg said of the Super Bowl winner and three-time AFL champion.

'We're sitting there, and I said, "are you nervous?" And he put his hands out. He said, "feel my palms."'

Izenberg felt the massive linebacker's sweaty palms and, realizing Holub's emotional state, asked if a Super Bowl win could prove 'he belonged' with the best in football.

But Holub's damp palms weren't caused by any such introspection.

'He said, "no, we win this game, we make $15,000,"' Izenberg continued. 'That's tip money today, but [Holub said]: "I'm scared to death because my wife has already spent it."

'That's the way the Super Bowl was.'

Holub's Chiefs would lose Super Bowl I to the Green Bay Packers, but he still got a $7,500 bonus — a sum that might cover two tickets to Sunday's game in Santa Clara. Of course, Super Bowl LX is among the most sought-after tickets in sports, whereas the inaugural event failed to sell out.

The Packers were victorious again in Super Bowl II, this time beating the Raiders, but it wasn't until its third installment that the game, and the upstart AFL, were finally legitimized.

Most football fans know the story by now: New York quarterback Joe Namath famously predicted Jets' win over a Baltimore Colts team believed by many to be the greatest ever assembled.

The moment came at a banquet dinner honoring Namath as MVP. When hecklers in the room predicted doom for the 19.5-point underdog Jets, Namath snapped back: 'We're going to win the game. I guarantee it.'

To the public, Namath's remark seemed like a knee-jerk reaction, but as Izenberg told the Daily Mail, it wasn't the first time Broadway Joe predicted glory that week.

Days before that famed dinner, Namath and his roommate were grabbing a bite at a Miami restaurant, where they spotted two Colts players.

'[The Colts] come over to see [Namath], and one guy says: "You know, you just talk too much. Real athletes don't have to talk to prove himself. They don't have to convince themselves."'

Namath kept eating, Izenberg explained. Ultimately the former Alabama quarterback turned to his Super Bowl rivals and asked: 'You guys still here?'

'They said: "That's what I'm talking about,"' Izenberg continued. '[Namath] said: "I'll keep on talking because we got something to talk about."'

When their dinners ended at their respective tables, Namath added another dig with the help of his enviable six-figure salary.

'The dinner ended, the checks came,' Izenberg said. 'There were different tables. [Namath] picked up both checks. Then he drove [the Colts players] back to their hotel.

'The last thing he told them was: "I'll see you Sunday, and we're going to kick the crap out of you."'

Days later Namath would make his famed guarantee at the awards dinner, which Izenberg attributes to the quarterback's 'favorite traveling companion' at the time, 'Johnny Walker Red.'

Namath, who has since announced his sobriety, would ultimately win Super Bowl III MVP after the 16-7 upset, although Izenberg still sees running back Matt Snell as the Jets' true hero for his 121-yard, one-touchdown effort.

Izenberg's grievances with the Super Bowl are less about the game itself, which he still finds compelling on some level.

He happily cites David Tyree's 'helmet catch' in the New York Giants' improbable upset of the undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII as one of the game's greatest moments. Izenberg also includes St. Louis Rams linebacker's Mike Jones' game-saving tackle on the Tennessee Titans' Kevin Dyson in Super Bowl XXXIV as another high point.

The change, he said, is off the field, where money has softened competition and distracted from the product.

'Well, it changed when everybody was making money and [the teams] were all merged,' he said. 'So now they're 32 business partners. Yeah, same team. It's called the "Green Team."

Things were different under Rozelle, who Izenberg chronicled in what the author humbly described as 'the only good [biography] ever done' on the late commissioner.

Speaking with Rozelle years before the book's publication, Izenberg asked the commissioner if the NFL would ever consider charging for the Super Bowl in a pay-per-view scenario.

Rozelle wouldn't hear of it.

'He said, "you're out of your mind,"' Izenberg recalled. '"That's the greatest ad the NFL ever had. Seeing a Super Bowl for nothing, I'm not going to charge for that."'

But Izenberg believes the NFL's 32 ownership groups will ultimately move towards pay-per-view because they're more concerned with profiting off the Super Bowl than actually winning it.

'You wait now, within the next few years, they'll be charged,' Izenberg said. 'Nothing gets in the way of their unsatiated quest for money, money, money.'

It's the same reason Bad Bunny's controversial selection as halftime performer has drawn more headlines than any single aspect of Sunday's Seahawks-Patriots game: The business of the Super Bowl now overshadows the competition.

And Izenberg has never had any patience for the mid-game concerts, now dubbed the 'biggest stage in music.'

'I never saw a halftime show,' Izenberg said. 'I was always working at halftime, and then I used it as an excuse to go take a piss, so I don't want to see that crap. It's got nothing to do with football.'

As for Sunday, Izenberg still plans on watching and even writing about the game, which he predicts will be won by Seattle.

He even suggested a prop bet, telling readers to take Seahawks receiver Cooper Kupp to catch more than 2.5 passes.

'[The Rams] double teamed those other guys,' Izenberg said of LA's defense against Seattle wideouts Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Rashid Shaheed in the NFC championship. 'Who ended up on Cooper Kupp? A linebacker.

'He got open by default,' Izenberg continued. 'And I think there's going to be a lot of that this Sunday too. [The Patriots] can't afford to give up on those other two receivers.'

But don't take Izenberg's earnest predictions as a reluctant sign of approval for what the Super Bowl has become. All 32 owners will win regardless of the final score, while the well-paid players will receive either $178,000 or $103,000 in bonus money, depending on the result.

The game is so wildly popular it no longer needs columnists like Izenberg to promote its existence, so he's happy to take an adversarial role by reminding the NFL what it left behind.

'The game has lost its way as it fell into more gold than Fort Knox,' Izenberg said. 'It's about greed. And I'm tired of the stuff I'm hearing that old so and so's girlfriend was resplendent in a skin-tight gown. Who cares about that s***? I'm not saying the game is such a great thing, but it was better when it didn't have the crowds.'

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THE DISMANTLING OF THE WASHINGTON POST IS A CHOICE, NOT A NECESSITY, AND THE BLAME LIES WITH JEFF BEZOS

by David Remnick

It’s truly impossible to keep up, isn’t it?

Last week—after the Wall Street Journal broke more news about the Trump family’s dodgy crypto-business dealings and before the President shared a racist video of the Obamas depicted as dancing apes—the Amazon entrepreneur Jeff Bezos decided that one of his smaller properties, the Washington Post, has proved such a drag on his two-hundred-and-thirty-billion-dollar fortune that prudence required that he obliterate much of its newsroom.

Early in his proprietorship, Bezos endorsed a new motto for the paper: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” It turns out that one of democracy’s most celebrated media institutions can be strangled in broad daylight. On Wednesday, Bezos and the paper’s leadership fired a third of the staff. They shuttered or vastly reduced an array of sections. Lizzie Johnson, one of the Post’s leading foreign correspondents, received her digital pink slip while working in the war zone of Ukraine. Bezos did not offer his staff the decency of a public explanation, much less a gesture of generosity or regret. The publisher and C.E.O. Will Lewis did not appear on the “webinar” at which the cuts were explained to the staff. He did, however, manage to head off to the Super Bowl festivities. By Saturday evening, Lewis had resigned. His work was done. He will be succeeded by the paper’s chief financial officer, Jeff D’Onofrio, who has held posts at Tumblr, Google, and Yahoo.

As someone who worked happily at the Post for a decade a long time ago, and as an ardent reader of the paper, I am sick about all this. I feel like someone forced to watch an arsonist torch the house he grew up in. I cannot imagine how it must feel for the current staff and the hundreds forced to leave. If that is sentimentality or worse, well, then guilty as charged. The loss is terrible, the behavior is beyond heedless. The reporters and editors who remain at the Post will undoubtedly go on doing honorable work, but they must now do so for a proprietor who shows them no respect. And that is no way to live. (Ruth Marcus, a writer and editor at the paper for more than forty years, brings home superbly the anger and the sadness of the situation.)

Over the years, in these pages, I’ve written about both the former owner Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee, the paper’s Watergate-era editor; for all their complexities, these were figures who built a great newspaper out of a mediocre one, who developed an institution that worked not only in the interest of financial gain but of democratic vitality. That standard of quality endured, but, by 2013, Don Graham, a decent man and a devoted publisher who inherited the leadership of the company from his mother, came to realize that the revolutions in technology and the declines in advertising were so severe that he no longer had the capacity to invest effectively in the paper. After a long search, he sold the Post to Bezos, a vastly wealthier owner who promised to be an effective custodian.

For a while that worked; under Marty Baron, the paper was fiercely competitive, and thrived during Trump’s first term in office. Bezos was a decidedly detached owner, but he gave the newsroom what it needed and invested in both journalism and the technological support it requires. But during the Biden years, readership declined and, by 2024, as Trump headed toward a second election victory, Bezos clearly reassessed his interests and his sense of risk. His timidity prevailed. He quashed the paper’s impending endorsement of Kamala Harris. He sat in Oligarch Row at the Inauguration. He instructed the Opinion section to set a new, more conservative course. These were his prerogatives, many argued, but they were hardly wise. With every move, more subscribers fled—surely one of the worst own goals in the history of the news business.

Undoubtedly, Bezos believes that all the criticism that has come his way is naïve, self-righteous, and terribly unfair. How could his critics possibly understand the business the way he does? In some sense, every aggressive story on the Administration that the paper publishes allows Bezos to tell himself that he has not retreated at all.

For the sake of financial and moral context, perhaps this is as good a time as any to remind ourselves of the maritime interests of the Post’s proprietor. Some commentators have mentioned that Bezos, in order to better support the Post, might have held on to the tens of millions of dollars he spent to bankroll “Melania,” a documentary portrait of the First Lady worthy of a long run at the Pyongyang Cinematheque. Cooler financial heads will contend that this is a cheap point. The Post’s losses are more significant. And they are right. Better then to turn to one of the Amazon founder’s more expensive recreations, his 125.8-metre, three-masted sailing yacht, Koru. (No need to get into the details of Abeona, the seventy-five-million-dollar “shadow boat” that trails Koru and provides a helipad and adequate space for extra staff.)

Koru cost an estimated five hundred million dollars. This is double what Bezos paid for the Washington Post. Annual maintenance runs tens of millions of dollars. It is, to be sure, a very special boat. According to Architectural Digest, “Bezos’s superyacht has a classical style, with a navy-blue steel hull and a two-level white aluminum superstructure. The ship’s teak decks include spots for outdoor lounging as well as three Jacuzzis and a swimming pool. Robb Report notes that the hull features traditional portholes, while the upper deck windows are smaller than typical, which might help to foil paparazzi trying to capture guests inside.” If that information about the boat is not galling enough, there is more: the Journal published a story on Friday by Richard Rubin headlined “Trump’s New Tax Law Saved Amazon Billions.” But the Ukraine correspondent had to go.

In the world of tech, so many of the leading tycoons and V.C. geniuses have a way of convincing themselves that because they have made a fortune, because they know one big thing, they know everything. Everyone else is a Luddite or a dewy-eyed fool. Maybe Bezos will find a way to stay in good odor with a vindictive President and, at the same time, transform the Post so that it can “do more with less,” and all those other whiteboard phrases popular from Wall Street to Palo Alto. No one doubts that change, even painful change, is necessary. But the scale of the cuts last week, coupled with the lack of any sense of a strategy other than retreat, is beyond demoralizing. Bezos has made it plain that his commitment to the Post, to say nothing of his performative talk about democracy, has diminished to the vanishing point.

The Post is hardly the first major American publication to face a financial crisis. It wasn’t so long ago that the Times was caught in an existential fix. Who would buy it, people asked knowingly, the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim or Michael Bloomberg? And yet the Sulzberger family, with a tiny fraction of the Bezos fortune but infinitely greater determination and integrity, found a way to thrive. Bezos, by contrast, is immersed in his primary business, a space race, an active vacation life, and much else. After a promising beginning at the paper, he just does not seem to have the focus or the courage to do what is necessary to guide the Post through an unstable and threatening era. With Trump in office, he refuses to see that, although the Post is valued less in financial terms than his yacht, he is responsible for a priceless commodity. Will he rock the boat? Will he ultimately do the right thing? So far, the evidence offers only misery.

(The New Yorker)

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NOAM CHOMSKY, JEFFREY EPSTEIN AND THE POLITICS OF BETRAYAL

by Chris Hedges

I don’t expect much from politicians, corporate tycoons, the presidents of prestigious universities, billionaire philanthropists, celebrities, royalty or oligarchs. They live in narcissistic and hedonistic bubbles that cater to their self-worship and moral depravity. But I do expect a lot from intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky. The explanation by his wife Valéria — Noam suffered a severe stroke in June 2023 and is incapacitated — of their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is filled with the fatuous excuses used by all those who have been outed in the Epstein emails and documents. According to Valéria, she and Noam were “overly trusting.” This led to “poor judgment.” She writes that she and Noam were ensnared by dinners with luminaries at Epstein’s mansion, flights on his private jet nicknamed the Lolita Express, a literary reference to the sexual exploitation of girls Noam would have recognized, financial assistance, trips to Epstein’s ranch and the use of one of Epstein’s apartments in New York. Like everyone else outed in the Epstein files she and Noam “never witnessed any inappropriate behavior from Epstein or others.”

Noam’s advice to Epstein on how to handle press inquiries into his crimes, like Noam’s letter of recommendation for Epstein, was, she insists, the result of Epstein’s taking “advantage of Noam’s public criticism towards what came to be known as ‘cancel culture’ to present himself as a victim of it.” After Epstein’s second arrest in 2019, she and Noam “were careless in not thoroughly researching his background.” She ends by expressing “unrestricted solidarity with the victims.” Her letter regurgitates the formula of everyone outed in the Epstein files. I know and have long admired Noam. He is, arguably, our greatest and most principled intellectual. I can assure you he is not as passive or gullible as his wife claims. He knew about Epstein’s abuse of children. They all knew. And like others in the Epstein orbit, he did not care. From the email correspondence between Epstein and Valéria it appears she particularly enjoyed the privileges that came with being in Epstein’s circle, but this does not absolve Noam’s acquiescence. Noam, of all people, knows the predatory nature of the ruling class and the cruelty of capitalists, where the vulnerable, especially girls and women, are commodified as objects to be used and exploited. He was not fooled by Epstein. He was seduced. His association with Epstein is a terrible and, to many, unforgivable stain. It irreparably tarnishes his legacy. If there is a lesson here, it is this. The ruling class offers nothing without expecting something in return. The closer you get to these vampires the more you become enslaved. Our role is not to socialize with them. It is to destroy them.

(chrishedges.substack.com)

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PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT NOTHING WILL BE DONE ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES

by Caitlin Johnstone

I need you to understand that nothing is going to be done about anything in the Epstein files.

Nothing.

The people in the documents will suffer no consequences. The institutions responsible for the abuses you’ve learned about will not change anything about how they operate. Your government will change absolutely nothing about its policies and behavior.

Nothing will be done if you vote in the other political party. Nothing will be done if you vote in new politicians. Nothing will be done if you write letters to your senators and representatives. Nothing will be done if you hold protests outside government buildings.

No meaningful laws will be passed. No prosecutions of any meaningful consequence will occur.

Don’t believe me? Just watch and pay attention.

The power structure which birthed the Epstein abuses is not going to do anything about the Epstein abuses. The only thing that might possibly change is that some people may become radicalized against that power structure.

That’s the only real benefit that might come out of these Epstein releases the public has been demanding for years. That a few more eyes might get opened to how creepy and evil the people in charge of their society actually are.

How creepy and evil capitalism and the western empire are. How creepy and evil Israel and Zionism are. That the collective might become a bit more aware that we live in a dystopia which elevates the very worst among us to positions of leadership and control.

That’s it. That’s the only positive change that might come out of all this. Our rulers won’t do anything to help right the wrongs, but the people might become a bit more ready and willing to overthrow our rulers.

That’s the only way health and humanity is going to win this one. By waking up to reality one pair of eyelids at a time and realizing that the reason everything is fucked is because we live under a fucked up system which elevates fucked up people, and we’re not going to have a healthy world until we abolish the fucked up system that put the fucked up people in power.

The Epstein releases won’t change the abusiveness of the system. But they might nudge people toward dismantling that system.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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WHY does an all-loving God allow evil and suffering? In the philosophy of religion, this paradox is known as the Problem of Evil. It frequently serves as the primary justification for skepticism regarding the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity.

Russell explains:

“The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both omnibenevolent (all-loving) and omnipotent (all-powerful). Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it. It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin. In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference.

If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man. The usual Christian argument is that the suffering in the world is a purification for sin and is therefore a good thing.

This argument is, of course, only a rationalization of sadism; but in any case it is a very poor argument. I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children's ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself to say this, a man must destroy in himself all feelings of mercy and compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes. No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.”

— Bertrand Russell, ‘Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?’ (1930)

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"I PREFER NIXON to Trump. I think anybody would because Nixon was at least a politician. A proper or improper one, doesn’t matter. Trump just isn’t, Trump is a lout. He’s a godawful disgrace to humanity, really.”

— Ralph Steadman

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TOLSTOY

The photograph shows him in rough peasant clothes—coarse fabric, calloused hands, nothing suggesting the aristocrat he was born to be. This wasn't a costume. It was the life that tore his family apart and ultimately led to his death.

Leo Tolstoy, born into Russian nobility in 1828, wrote two of literature's greatest novels—War and Peace and Anna Karenina—masterpieces still read 150 years later. Fame. Wealth. A large estate. By any measure, he'd achieved everything.

But by his 50s, success felt hollow. What was the meaning of any of it? His books had made him rich, but what was it all for?

He found his answer in a radical interpretation of Christianity—one focused on nonviolence, simplicity, and complete rejection of wealth while others suffered. This wasn't abstract philosophy. Tolstoy began living it.

He wore peasant clothing. Made his own boots. Worked in the fields alongside laborers on his estate. Became vegetarian. Gave up hunting. And he desperately wanted to give away everything—his copyrights, his estate, his entire fortune—to live as a wandering ascetic.

There was one problem: his wife, Sophia.

Sophia had borne thirteen children (eight survived). She'd copied his manuscripts by hand, managed his career, run the estate for decades. And she refused to let him give it all away. Not from greed—but to protect their children's inheritance. What would happen to their family after his death?

Their marriage became a battlefield. Tolstoy felt trapped between his convictions and family duty. Sophia felt abandoned by a husband choosing abstract ideals over his wife and children. His followers urged him to leave. She begged him to stay.

The pressure became unbearable.

On October 28, 1910, at 82 years old, he finally broke. In the middle of the night, he fled Yasnaya Polyana—his estate, his family, his entire former life. He took almost nothing. His plan: become a wandering pilgrim, perhaps enter a monastery, finally live the renunciation he'd dreamed of.

He was elderly, frail, and it was late autumn in Russia.

Within days, he fell ill. By November 7, he had to stop at a tiny railway station in Astapovo. Pneumonia. His family was summoned. The world's press descended, reporting on the famous author's condition from this remote station.

Sophia arrived but was initially kept away. Their daughters came. His doctor tried everything.

On November 20, 1910, Leo Tolstoy died at Astapovo railway station—having escaped his wealth and privilege for exactly 23 days before death found him.

His influence echoes still. Gandhi called him his greatest inspiration for nonviolent resistance. Martin Luther King Jr. studied his writings. His philosophy shaped social movements worldwide. His emphasis on authentic moral living still resonates.

But his personal life remained conflicted until the end.

That photograph—Tolstoy in peasant clothing—shows the tension perfectly. Dressed like a poor farmer, yet still on his estate, still aristocrat Leo Tolstoy, never able to fully escape the life he was born into.

Some see hypocrisy—preaching simplicity while living on an estate. Others see profound authenticity—a man genuinely tormented by the gap between ideals and reality, trying harder than most ever would to close it.

Tolstoy didn't just write about moral struggles. He lived them—messily, publicly, painfully—until the day he died trying to run away from everything he owned.

His message wasn't 'I figured it out.' It was 'This is impossibly hard, and I'm trying anyway.'

That honesty—the refusal to pretend moral living is easy—might be his greatest legacy.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910): A man who died trying to escape his own privilege. He never fully succeeded. But maybe the trying is what matters most.

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“WHY, OF COURSE, the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? … But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

— Hermann Goering

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

For $1 Million, Donors to U.S.A. Birthday Group Offered Access to Trump

Officials Pressed Schumer to Help Name Penn Station and Dulles Airport for Trump

Reaction to Trump’s Racist Post Shows He Is Not Always Immune to Politics

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NATURE

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,

Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go

Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1878)

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WITH NICOLAS MADURO ON THE EVE OF HIS KIDNAPPING

by Ignacio Ramonet

It was a month ago. On the night of January 2-3, 2026. It was a few minutes before two in the morning on that sinister Saturday. We were shocked by the brutality of the attack in the full light of the full moon. The violence of the successive explosions. The columns of dark smoke. The intensity of the flames lighting up here and there a Caracas that was shocked, sleepless, and silent. And then, like a punch in the gut, the news of the kidnapping.

It all seemed unbelievable to me. Less than two days earlier, I had been with President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. For the tenth consecutive time, the president had agreed to grant me the “New Year’s interview.” We had recorded it in the late afternoon of December 31, as night began to fall over the beautiful capital of Venezuela and the year 2025 was coming to an end. This time, the president had suggested that we do something like a “traveling interview.” In other words, we would have our conversation in his private vehicle, which he himself was driving, as we drove through the lively streets of a city ready to celebrate the arrival of the new year. We were accompanied by Cilia Flores and Freddy Nanez, the Minister of Communication. There were no visible bodyguards or armed personnel.

I had landed in Caracas a few days earlier. In a context of intense pressure and dangerous threats. Because the president of the United States had not stopped issuing intimidation against Venezuela’s sovereignty. And it was feared that the country could be attacked at any moment. For months, Washington had been amassing a colossal military force on the edge of Venezuelan territorial waters in the largest military deployment since the first Persian Gulf War in 1990. And on September 2, 2025, it had launched a series of deadly attacks against boats that it had labeled, without evidence, as “drug boats.” These illegal actions had been described by international organizations such as the United Nations as “extrajudicial executions” and “violations of international law.” From the point of view of U.S. domestic law, Congress had not authorized any armed conflict against Venezuela and had not even confirmed that a gang of drug traffickers could be classified as “terrorists.”

Despite these dangers, I found Caracas to be a calm city. To my surprise, from Altamira Square to the popular markets, everything was quiet, serene, normal. The capital was clean, beautiful as ever, landscaped, illuminated, decorated for the holidays. I visited some shopping malls and appreciated a festive atmosphere of consumption, with cafe terraces overflowing. I did not see any “precautionary shopping” frenzy. Nor did I observe any anxiety or fear among the crowds. I drove through the tangle of urban highways and did not perceive an atmosphere of a city under siege awaiting a bombardment. There were no fortifications, barriers, checkpoints, or visible soldiers on the roads. I saw no tanks, armored vehicles, or combat vehicles. Traffic flowed normally throughout the capital.

I spoke with several friends, including businesspeople and foreign diplomats. They all agreed that it was a time of tension and concern, but that citizens were continuing to go about their normal lives. They also emphasized that the authorities were making an effort to instill calm and not alarm the population.

That afternoon on December 31, I was told that President Nicolas Maduro was going to receive me and that we were going to record the interview. I left immediately for the Miraflores Palace. It was a sunny and hot afternoon. It was about thirty degrees in the shade. When I arrived, I was surprised by the calm atmosphere. Security around the government building was minimal, at least in appearance. I entered the palace and was led to the presidential office. A short time later, the president and his wife arrived. They did not seem at all worried or anxious. Nicolas Maduro was in spectacular physical shape. He appeared agile, dynamic, and active.

During the long weeks of this overwhelming crisis, the president had courageously strived to continue fulfilling his presidential agenda. It was like a challenge thrown down to his powerful enemies. This was despite the new and strict security precautions he had to take because a bounty of fifty million dollars had been placed on his head for anyone who could facilitate his capture or assassination. That is why I contemplated with even greater admiration the fortitude of Nicolas Maduro, who now conversed with me undaunted, exchanging views with the utmost naturalness on various aspects of the interview, which he told me should not last more than an hour. He wanted to insist on the need for dialogue with the United States, for negotiation, for agreement, for settlement. “Except for military confrontation,” he insisted, “everything is possible. We must begin to talk seriously, with data in hand. The US government knows this, because we have told many of its spokespersons: if they want to talk seriously about an agreement to fight drug trafficking, we are ready. If they want oil, Venezuela is ready for US investments, as with Chevron. Whenever they want, wherever they want, and however they want. And if they want comprehensive economic development agreements, here in Venezuela too, we are ready.”

We left the palace courtyard and began filming what he called a “podcar,” that is, a podcast but recorded in a car. The president invited me to get into his vehicle, which was parked a few meters away. I sat next to him. As I said, there were no bodyguards with us. The president started the car, and for an hour and four minutes we were able to talk calmly about the crucial moment Venezuela was experiencing: “The American public must understand that our peoples in the South have the right to exist, to live. That you cannot try to impose, with the Monroe Doctrine or any other doctrine, a new colonial model, a new hegemonic model, a new interventionist model, a model according to which the countries of the South would have to resign ourselves to being colonies of a power and slaves to new masters. That is unfeasible.”

I had known Nicolas Maduro for about twenty years, since he was the brilliant foreign minister of President Hugo Chavez. I have always appreciated his modesty, his astonishing intelligence, his great political culture, his commitment to dialogue and negotiation, his firm loyalty to progressive values and principles, his fine sense of humor, his austere conception of life rooted in his popular origins, and his unwavering fidelity to the legacy of Commander Chavez.

We were driving around Caracas, a chaotic but endearing capital city. Weaving through traffic jams. Any other driver would have lost his temper. But not the president, who seemed to be in his natural element. Hadn’t he been a bus driver for so many years, stuck in the usual apocalyptic traffic jams of this city? Driving relaxed him. He drove calmly, phlegmatically, while clearly explaining his analysis of the relationship with the United States: “If one day there were rationality and diplomacy, all the issues they want could perfectly well be discussed. We have the maturity and the stature. We are also people of our word, serious people. And one day everything could be discussed with the current US government or whoever comes after it.”

At the end of our conversation, we turned onto Paseo de los Preceres, in the heart of Fuerte Tiuna. We approached the main monument. We got out of the car. We walked a few steps while he showed me and commented on the different statues of the heroes and heroines of the liberation of Venezuela and Latin America. We said goodbye, but not before asking him to take some photos of us. He agreed, as always, with kindness and smiles. I walked away with a twinge in my heart. Seeing, on the beautiful and peaceful Caracas night, my friend Nicolas Maduro, serious and focused, standing there with Cilia, alone, loving and confident. Little did they know that, just two nights later, fate would strike them with the ferocity of a rabid beast. But happily, they are alive, and they will return!

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