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A STRONG ATMOSPHERIC RIVER STORM has moved out of Northwest California. Showers will linger early this morning and continually diminish into mid/late morning. Small streams and creeks across the region have mostly peaked as most rain has ceased. However, some main stem rivers will continue to swell with runoff into late this morning to potentially early this afternoon.
River Flood Warnings will remain in effect for the Eel River, Navarro River, and the Russian River at Hopland. Also, a Flood Warning will remain in effect for the Garcia River.
The Eel River is expected to peak at 23.34 ft (just over Moderate Flood which is at 22 ft) at 7am this morning and drop below flood stage by late this afternoon. River levels over 22 ft will result in the western half of the Eel Delta being completely flooded, including: areas northwest of Loleta and Cannibal Island Road.
The Navarro River is expected to peak at 26.48 ft (just over Minor Flood which is at 23 ft) very early this morning and drop below flood stage by mid morning. River levels over 23 ft result in the flooding of Highway 128 approximately 5 miles east of Highway 1. As of very early this morning, Highway 128 remains completely closed due to flooding.
The Russian River at Hopland is expected to peak at 18.58 ft (over Minor Flood which is at 15 ft) very early this morning and drop below flood stage by late this morning/early afternoon. River levels over 18 feet will cause flooding of Highway 222 near Ukiah with secondary roads in low-lying areas potentially flooding in Hopland, Ukiah, and Talmage.
At the Garcia River, near Point Arena, flooding impacts may be felt between 10 to 12 ft. The Garcia River peaked at 14.22 ft late yesterday evening. A Flood Warning is in effect for the Garcia River until late this morning when levels are forecast to drop below 10 ft.
SHOWERS continue to significantly diminish early this morning. Dry conditions with diurnal fog conditions will dominate today through Friday. Wet and unsettled weather could occur this upcoming weekend.
(NWS)
ROAD CLOSURES
Route 128 is FULLY CLOSED in Mendocino County from the Route 1 junction to west of Flynn Creek Road near Navarro (PM 0-11.63) due to flooding. [Tuesday 3:50pm]
Route 175 is FULLY CLOSED in Hopland from the U.S. 101 junction to McDowell St. (PM 0-1.01) due to flooding. Currently, there is no estimated time of reopening. [Tuesday 8:51pm]
Route 1 is FULLY CLOSED north of Point Arena from Lighthouse Road to the Garcia River Bridge (PM 17 to 18.5) in Mendocino County due to flooding. Currently, there is no estimated time of reopening. [Tuesday 9:11pm]
Route 222/Talmage Road is FULLY CLOSED from Hastings Road to the Russian River Bridge (PM 0.22-0.98 ) in Ukiah, Mendocino County due to flooding. Currently, there is no estimated time of reopening. [Tuesday 10:02pm]
(Caltrans)
RAINFALL (past 24 hours): Leggett 4.84” - Willits 4.07” - Laytonville 3.61” - Yorkville 2.80” - Covelo 2.79” - Ukiah 2.10” - Boonville 1.99” - Hopland 1.51”
JIM ARMSTRONG (Potter Valley): If you are thinking that this seems pretty rainy for late in February, you are right. This afternoon about three o'clock, the East Fork of the Russian River measured as it flows out of the valley, was the highest it has been for this date, 5710 cubic feet per second, in 84 years (when gauging began). This is also in the top five or so flows for the whole month of February in that period. At 4 PM, it seems to be receding.
NICK WILSON (Little River): In the past 24 hours my gauge has captured 3.18" as of 2:00 p.m. Rain started last night about 7 PM and it continues. Total for last 7 days is 4.79" and for last 31 days it's 9.82". Season total since 7/1 is 37.41 inches. The wettest single day of the season to date was 3.44" on 2/11. These figures were recorded by an Acu-Rite Iris wireless weather station located 3 MI inland on Little River Airport Road at an elevation of 622 ft. The readings were backed up by a Stratus tube gauge that measures from 0 to 10 in. with an accuracy of .01"
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): Yesterday Cordy from the Homestyle Cafe commented "can we get some space between the raindrops please ? ". I have 2.20" for the last 24 hours. 54F under cloudy skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Cloudy but dry into the weekend then another chance of rain ? The NWS is more bullish on rain than the WU as usual. We'll see.
JAYSON RICHARDS JONES
Jayson Richards Jones, born September 12 1977, joined his mother and father Karen Forward and Dennis Dean Jones in the afterlife on February 9th 2026. Also waiting on Jayson, was his Grandma Rae and Grandpa Ben Allenby. Jayson is survived by his two daughters Erica Jones, Karin Jones , and his sister Keagan. His Aunt and Uncle Pam and George Furtado. His Aunt and Uncle Marty and Robin Wilder and his Aunt and Uncle Dana and Maria Wilder. As well as his Aunt Dana Jones. Jason has lots of cousins that miss the hell out of him already, as well as many nieces and nephews. Jason will be missed by his high school crew, pool and dart league crew, and all the rest of us who loved him so dearly.
Jayson had a kind soul, a beautiful smile and a great sense of humor. Jayson lived life on his terms, and was a loyal friend. On Mothers day he would bring a single rose to the mothers in his life. On Veteran's Day he would go to the cemetery and place flags on Veterans Memorial headstones. Jayson loved playing golf, pool, darts , loved to bowl, but most of all, he loved his music loud, and having a good time. He loved the SF Giants and 49ers.
Jayson loved to go to Ten Mile beach, and connecting with nature. He enjoyed all these things with his love Schelagh Mayhan .
A celebration of life will be held March 1st at his favorite watering hole Milanos from 11 in the afternoon until it's over.
If you have any pictures of Jayson or a great story, please bring them.
UKIAH POLICE LAUNCH NEW CRIME MAPPING TOOL
The Ukiah Police Department has launched a new crime mapping tool that it describes as replacing the daily press logs it previously released.
While the daily press logs were a chronological list of all the calls the UPD received each day, with each incident entry including the time and location of the call as well as which officer was assigned and what actions were taken, the UPD describes the new tool, Citizen RIMS, as offering “more timely, transparent, and interactive access to police activity information.”
“Unlike static press logs, Citizen RIMS offers: Interactive mapping of incidents within our community; searchable and filterable data by date, location, and incident type; regularly updated information for improved transparency, and user-friendly access from any computer or mobile device,” the UPD explained in a press release. “Our goal is to enhance transparency, strengthen community awareness, and provide a modern tool that better serves our residents, businesses, and visitors. This transition allows us to provide more comprehensive and accessible information while improving the efficiency of how we share updates with the public.”
A link to the new tool is here, and the UPD “encourages you to explore Citizen RIMS and use it to stay informed about activity in your area.”
JOHN SCHARFFENBERGER, WHITE COURTESY TELEPHONE PLEASE
Hello AVA,
I've lost touch with John Scharffenberger. do you have a contact?
Ansley Coale [email protected]
TUESDAY’S SUPERVISORS DISCUSSION OF THE MID-YEAR BUDGET REVISION DIDN’T OFFER MUCH NEW INFO, although it was interesting to hear Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector Chamise Cubbison summarize where she thought most of the (previously reported) surprise $12 million carryover from last fiscal year came from. (We will have an item on that coming up.)
There were also some clarity gaps such as this exchange between Supervisor John Haschak and Senior Deputy CEO Tony Rakes. Like us, Supervisor Haschak had noticed that the DA was projected to be about $1.2 million over his budget by the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2026.
Haschak wanted to know why.
Haschak: “When we look at this chart on page 9, what we are seeing is, like, the sheriff’s budget has gone up, the jail goes up, and the district attorney is going up. Is that – would that be a new way of looking at that Chart? With this new number or projection?”
Rakes: “What – if there are any – this chart represents the revised budget and not the actual, so this chart doesn’t include that, let’s say, the estimated to be over by 1.2 because it is just what was budgeted for. If we were to adjust for what the actuals came in we would see obviously a variance in this year for the District Attorney. If it ends up, their budget being where we project it to come in at, if that answers your question?”
Haschak: “So the line that sloped down a little bit is re-budgeted, but the actual is going to be going up?”
Rakes: “Yes.”
There you go. No wonder the Supervisors ask so few direct questions about the budget reports. It’s nearly impossible to get a straight answer.
(Mark Scaramella)
CHRIS SKYHAWK: Meet Kevin Evans, 5th District Supervisor candidate, his website included.
Hello My friends, I wanted to invite you to a Meet The Candidate event; Kevin Evans for 5th District Supervisor, Kevin will be at the Mendocino Community Center 998 Pine St., Mendocino on Thursday 2-26, at 7pm, I hope you will come and meet Kevin, discuss his platform, and important issues facing our County! And please share this invite with others, thank you. https://vote4evans.com
Ron Hock: I read Kevin's website but found no actual policy proposals. Do you know what measures he would propose to achieve his goals of "affordable place to live, roads that are safe and well cared for, a healthy environment"?
Skyhawk: Just my idea, maybe collecting some of the $30 million in uncollected taxes the state audit found might be a good start, but come and ask Kevin.
Jean: And I really want someone to take a STAND on Eyster and Cubbison, and someone with an idea of what to seek in a new CEO. Antle was a mess, from all I've read. Didn't protect the County's funds, typically had no numbers to report, thought this was a semi-retirement job (Surprise!). I communicated with Chris about Cubbison and got a pol-ish non-answer. Very disappointing. If you don't know how you feel about something as WRONG as that debacle was/IS, then I don't see why you would run. I hope he figures out what he's running on, and it better be a positive, real change from what we have now.
HIPPIE, THE BEAST THAT WON'T DIE!
Full Moon Drum Circle Mar. 3rd, at 4 PM Pudding Creek Beach
The next Full Moon Drum Circle will be Tuesday,
March 3, 4:00 PM at Pudding Creek Beach
Free
Brings drums, tambourines, washboards, bells, pots and pans, flutes, etc.
Everyone Welcome. Bienvenidos
For questions and details, email to [email protected]
or call or text 707 235-9080
Bring a Friend and a jacket. Maybe bring a chair. Rain will cancel
DOES ANYONE REMEMBER ALFONSO who's store used to be in this space?
He sold tobacco, records, licorice and other odds and ends. I heard a story that pre-internet back in the '70s and '80s he'd somehow hacked into the phone lines in town and used to play music which you could hear over the phone. Does anyone know the full story? Anyway, he (and characters like him) are missed here in Mendocino.
ED NOTE: Sure do. Always had a bin of strictly classical records, plus incense and an array of other stuff. Very amusing guy. Owned a house in Fort Bragg where, for all I know except probably Marco, he still lives.
MENDO IN THE MOVIES, 1943 EDITION
by Carol Dominy
In the spring and summer of 1943, the Mendocino Coast was transformed into a lively movie set when Paramount Pictures chose Albion River and nearby locations for the Technicolor film “Frenchman’s Creek.” What began as a tentative scouting trip, reported in the Beacon as a Hollywood representative seeking lodging for a troupe of around 100, quickly grew into a full-scale production. Little River Inn served as headquarters for cast and crew, with additional accommodations arranged throughout Fort Bragg and neighboring communities.
Albion soon filled with activity. Construction crews built docks, roads, cookhouses, and a large dining hall to serve meals to the company. Elaborate sets appeared almost overnight, including a castle facade, an old-world church, a bridge, and other period structures. Although many buildings were constructed only on the sides facing the camera, those visible surfaces were richly detailed with plaster walls, brick stairways, heavy shake roofs, ivy, and authentic period furnishings.
A full-sized pirate ship floated in the Albion River, hauled north by barge from Hollywood and outfitted to resemble a 17th-century galleon. Curious visitors came from across the county to tour the sets, watch the filming, and see for themselves how familiar redwoods, rivers, and coastline had been transformed into the England of a romantic adventure story.
Most memorable of all was the participation of local residents. Men from Mendocino and Fort Bragg were hired as boatmen, swimmers, and pirates for key scenes, and seventeen Mendocino men donned long coats, wigs, jabots, and knee breeches for the harbor battle sequences. The work paid well for the time: $35 (about $656 today) per day for swimmers, $16.50 (about $309 today) for pirate ship crew members, and $10.50 (about $197 today) for Cornishmen with muskets. Transportation and free meals were also provided, along with the less glamorous side effects of sunburned faces and blistered hands. Friends and neighbors gathered to watch the filming, snapping photos and cheering on familiar faces.
When “Frenchman’s Creek” premiered in late 1944, it drew packed movie houses along the coast. Audiences delighted in recognizing Albion and Big River scenes, even if local extras appeared only briefly. At a time when the community was still feeling the strain of mill closures, the Depression, and wartime uncertainty, the production brought much-needed income, excitement, and a lasting sense of pride in being part of Hollywood history.
‘Mendocino and the Movies: Hollywood and TV Motion Pictures Filmed on the Mendocino Coast’ by Bruce Levene. More than 50 films from 1904 to 2001 used local scenery and local actors. Available from Kelley House Museum for $20.
(kelleyhousemuseum.org)
CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, February 24, 2026
TEVIN HOAGLEN, 28, Covelo. Paraphernalia, probation revocation.
ELIZABETH HOLM, 35, Ukiah. Resisting.
SHANE KING, 40, Ukiah. Petty theft with two or more priors.
JOSE SANCHEZ-SORIA, 21, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.
GERALD SIMPSON, 56, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation.
SERAH STETSON, 44, Trinidad/Ukiah. Trespassing.
KEVIN STORDHAL, 37, Hidden Valley/Ukiah. Failure to appear.
MIRA TORRECILLA, 38, Ukiah. Domestic battery, probation revocation.
EVERYONE BAFFLED BY THE STRANGEST OF INNINGS
Ominous fire alarm, triple play highlight chaotic first frame of Giants spring training game
by Justice delos Santos
Scottsdale, Ariz. — Robbie Ray said the first inning of the Giants’ 5-3 win over the Chicago Cubs was “enough chaos for spring training in one game.” “Chaos” is an apt adjective for a frame that saw San Francisco (2-0) play through a fire alarm, then turning a 4-3-6-5 triple play — that started on a base hit.
As the saying goes, you never know what you’ll see at the ballpark.
“It’s spring training for both sides. We’re working through stuff, and I guess it’s not just both sides, it’s the facilities, too,” said Giants rookie manager Tony Vitello.
The chaos began moments after the first pitch. Following Ray’s fourth pitch to leadoff batter Matt Shaw, the fire alarm at Scottsdale Stadium began to blare. Lights started flashing, and an ominous prerecorded message demanded that fans head for the exits.
The Giants and Cubs stayed on the field, unsure of how to proceed. Some fans left as instructed, while others took unsure, half-hearted steps toward the concourse. There turned out to be no emergency as the alarms were triggered by a fan smoking in a restroom.
Ray thought both teams would wait out the alarm, but the first-base umpire told Ray to continue pitching. So, with flashing lights and confused fans, Ray fired away. Bench coach Jayce Tingler called around looking for an update, and Vitello said “It would’ve been nice if (Ray) knew it’s fully OK” before the left-hander continued pitching.
“That was inexplicable,” Vitello said. “I feel bad for Robbie. Now, we can kind of laugh about it, but (Matt Chapman) said the same thing I was thinking. You’re trying to play, but your family is in the stands and you probably assume — I’ve been a condo guy my whole career, so when the fire alarm goes off, you just assume somebody pulled it or something like that.”
Said Ray: “I’m looking up into the stands and they’re funneling people out of the stands. I’m like, ‘We’re just going to play through this?’ It kind of rattled me a little bit.”
Ray walked Shaw, then walked Alex Bregman to put runners on first and second with no outs. That set the stage for Seiya Suzuki — and even more madness.
On Ray’s 18th and final pitch of the afternoon, Suzuki flipped a bloop single into shallow right-center field. Second baseman Luis Arráez retrieved the ball and fired home. First baseman Rafael Devers, seeing Suzuki bolt for second, cut off Arráez’s throw. Devers then fired to Adames, who tagged out Suzuki for the first out.
As Adames applied the tag, Bregman found himself in no man’s land between second and third. Shaw planted himself at third base, and Bregman had nowhere to go, so he half-heartedly jogged to third base. Shaw and Bregman both stood on the bag, and when Adames tagged both, Bregman was called out since he was the trail runner.
Two outs might’ve been all that the Giants got, but then Shaw wandered off the base and started taking off his gear, appearing to think the play was dead. Instead, Chapman retrieved the ball from Adames and tagged Shaw, completing a bizarre triple play and, by extension, a bizarre inning.
“I just saw him come off the base,” Chapman said. “It was common sense at that point. I knew he was safe, so I just tagged him. There was a lot going on.”
“I didn’t really see the triple play,” said Cubs starter Colin Rea. “I was confused about the fire drill. And then there’s three outs, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what just happened, but here we go’.”
Ray had a childlike smile as he walked off the mound, raising his left fist in celebration, and Vitello imagines that the team will joke about that inning all spring. The 34-year-old Ray ended his afternoon with an appropriately odd final line (one inning, one hit, two walks, no runs, three batters faced), and it’s possible that this was the first triple play in recorded history that started with a hit.
“The good thing for Ray, I know the teams that are on our schedule and the hitters people have and the parks we play in, but I don’t know if Robbie’s going to have more adversity this year than he did in that situation,” Vitello said. “So, maybe it’s all downhill from here.”
“That’s a glitch in the matrix,” Chapman said of Ray’s line.
(Bay Area News Group/Ukiah Daily Journal)
TRUMP LEADS US FROM ONE CONTROVERSY TO THE NEXT
Editor:
Part of America’s problem is that we don’t recognize our delusions. Therefore, we can harm anyone Anywhere. All we need is an excuse. Once armed with a mental mirage of righteousness, morality no longer exists. Any tactic is acceptable if it achieves one’s goal. There are so many examples of this, it is hard to pick a starting point. Donald Trump is a prototype. During his first stint as president, he tried to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Later on, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to find 11,780 votes. Some spokespeople describe Trump’s behavior as sociopathic. I don’t think of him that way. Though I am not qualified to express my opinion authoritatively, I don’t believe he has the imagination to foretell the consequences of his actions. So, we glance from one controversy to the next, from one chaotic situation to the next. Personally, I am tired of this charade.
Tom Fantulin
Fort Bragg
AMERICANS AREN’T HAPPY WITH HOSTILE TAKEOVER
Editor:
Many Americans have seen hostile takeovers by one company over another. I never thought I would see a hostile takeover of our county. But it has happened. Fortunately, stakeholders aren’t happy with the direction things are going, and citizens want to recover what has been lost. The values the new leader embraces don’t inspire the majority. Views such as morality are only for the “sad woke, and anyone who opposes the new leader is the “enemy” just don’t resonate. When citizens stumble onto the truth, the new leader dismisses the findings as a “hoax.”
Most immigrants are good people who enrich our lives and community. It is equally true that the folks in the current leadership aren’t evil people, but they have lost their way due to greed, lust for power and egotism. It’s shallow thinking to believe the resources of the planet are there for the taking and diversity bashing is the greatest tool to keep stakeholders divided and must be done with as much cruelty as possible.
The straw that has broken the back of the new leadership is the concept that under no circumstances should anyone show compassion or ever apologize. Stakeholders exclaim, enough is enough already. We are taking our country back.
Noel J. O’Neill
Willits
NEIGHBORS
Editor:
My late father’s journal tells how during World War II his father, my grandpa, a fruit farmer in the San Joaquin Valley, defended his neighbor, a man of Japanese heritage who was being incarcerated in an internment camp. He wrote: “There was an influx of people from other areas buying up (Japanese-American owned) orchards … at bargain prices. (T)he farmers were at their mercy.”
My grandpa and three neighboring farmers offered to operate the soon-to-be-incarcerated farmer’s orchard as long as he was gone. They opened a bank account where his farm’s bills and income were transacted. “Whenever the Japanese farmer … needed money he would contact my father who had a procedure for getting the requested funds to him. When the war was over and our Japanese friend and his family came home, my father and he went to the bank and my father had his name taken off the account” and all accrued income was returned to the neighbor. “Some time later … at a local Farm Bureau meeting, a man came up to (my grandpa) and castigated him for operating a farm for a ‘Jap.’ My father said, ‘He is our neighbor.’”
This is how I feel about my fellow Americans who are being targeted by federal agents. You are my neighbors.
Brian W. Erwin
Santa Rosa
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
Too many people can't give up self identifying with the "D" or the "R" by their names. "I was born a Democrat and by God I will die a Democrat." Who cares if the Democrats no longer represent anything they actually believe in. My father-in-law is vehemently opposed to abortion and supports gun rights but he is a card carrying Democrat. I tried to point this out once and he gave me the quotation above.
MORE THAN MY OWN MOTHER
At 84 I’m living in a house inhabited
by elderly women who remind me of my own
mother who died at 80. It’s weird; an
irony of ironies that I should end up
here with mother lookalikes after a
life aiming to run from my mother.
Here in The Carlisle there are six Marys,
three Marjories, four Ellens, a Gerrie
and a Karin, most of then widows,
middle class of course, and well
behaved, plus a Judy, a Joan
and several Carols. I sit and eat
with them, make polite talk,
be on my best behavior and
watch them come and go in
their wheelchairs and walkers
befriend Jewish Eve who
escaped the Nazis in ’33,
and now walks the hills
of Japantown everyday
never falls or gets lost
though she can’t see and
who is more than a mother
to me than was my own mother.
— Jonah Raskin
CARTEL LEADER ‘EL MENCHO’ WAS FIRST CAUGHT DEALING DRUGS IN SAN FRANCISCO AT AGE 19
by Anna Bauman
More than two decades before Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes built the violent cartel that made him one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico, he was a young man selling drugs on the streets of San Francisco.
The killing of 59-year-old Oseguera Cervantes by the Mexican army on Sunday brought renewed attention to the powerful drug lord known as “El Mencho,” including his early beginnings as a small-time drug dealer in the Bay Area, where he lived with family.
The Mexican-born Oseguera Cervantes crossed at least three times into the U.S., where he ended up jailed in San Francisco on two occasions in the late ’80s and later served prison time in California for a heroin trafficking case, according to court records and media reports.
The San Francisco Police Department declined to provide information about the arrests.
In 1986, Oseguera Cervantes was first arrested at age 19 in San Francisco, where cops caught him trying to sell a small stash of drugs, according to a Courier Journal investigation. Mugshots published by the Courier Journal show Oseguera Cervantes wearing a blue hoodie and gazing into the camera with a slight frown as police booked him into jail.
After being deported to Mexico, Oseguera Cervantes returned to San Francisco, where he was jailed in 1989, the investigation found. By then, his face had filled out as a 22-year-old and he wore a denim jacket in his booking photo.
In 1992, according to the Courier Journal report, he and his brother sold heroin for $9,500 to two undercover officers at the Imperial Bar in San Francisco.
The case landed both brothers in federal court. They eventually pleaded guilty and accepted a plea deal, court records show. Abraham Oseguera Cervantes, who had a prior felony and was found with a firearm in the drug bust, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1993; Ruben Oseguera Cervantes was sentenced to five years the following year.
Court records indicate he was held at Santa Rita jail while the case was pending, and was ordered moved to the federal prison in Pleasanton, which has since closed.
Even at the time, according to court records, he went by the nickname that would define his reign as a drug lord: Mencho.
Back in Mexico, Oseguera Cervantes formed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in 2009, according to the State Department. It grew into one of the most violent drug cartels in Mexico, with the highest cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine trafficking capacity in the country, U.S. officials said.
In recent years, officials said, the cartel has been responsible for trafficking fentanyl into the U.S., where the deadly drug has devastated cities like San Francisco. More than 600 people have died from accidental drug overdoses in San Francisco in each year since 2020, with the majority of those deaths fentanyl related.
In December 2024, the U.S. State Department offered a $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Oseguera Cervantes, who by then was one of the most wanted fugitives in Mexico.
The cartel has been responsible for “many homicides” against rival trafficking groups and Mexican law enforcement officers, according to the State Department.
The operation in which Oseguera Cervantes was killed was carried out by Mexican special forces “with U.S. authorities providing complementary intelligence,” the U.S. Embassy in Mexico said Sunday.
His death unleashed a wave of violence over the weekend by members of his Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who blocked roads with burning vehicles in a retaliatory display across Mexico.
Many U.S. and Canadian airlines canceled flights to and from Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara, leaving tourists stranded. The U.S. government issued a security alert warning U.S. citizens in those cities and other parts of Mexico to shelter in place.
THE HIPPIES, who had never really believed they were the wave of the future anyway, saw the [1972] election results as brutal confirmation of the futility of fighting the establishment on its own terms. There had to be a whole new scene, they said, and the only way to do it was to make the big move — either figuratively or literally — from Berkeley to the Haight-Ashbury, from pragmatism to mysticism, from politics to dope. The thrust is no longer for "change" or "progress" or "revolution," but merely to escape, to live on the far perimeter of a world that might have been.
— Hunter Thompson
RAIN
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.
— Edward Thomas (1916)
WE WAITED and waited. All of us. Didn't the shrink know that waiting was one of the things that drove people crazy? People waited all their lives. They waited to live, they waited to die. They waited in line to buy toilet paper. They waited in line for money. And if they didn't have any money they waited in longer lines. You waited to go to sleep and then you waited to awaken. You waited to get married and you waited to get divorced. You waited for it to rain, you waited for it to stop. You waited to eat and then you waited to eat again. You waited in a shrink's office with a bunch of psychos and you wondered if you were one.
— Charles Bukowski
WE NEED A FEDERAL MORATORIUM ON DATA CENTER CONSTRUCTION
by Bernie Sanders
A few months ago, when I proposed a moratorium on AI data centers, it was perceived as a radical, fringe and Luddite idea. Well, not anymore. Today, the mayor of Denver, Colorado, following the lead of city councils and state officials across the country, announced a data center moratorium for his city.
The local officials who are supporting a moratorium are right: data centers will have a profound impact on land and water use, and will drive up electricity costs. Concerns about the very real environmental impact of data centers, however, are not the only reasons to support a moratorium.
Let’s be clear. AI will likely have a catastrophic impact on the lives of working-class Americans, eliminating tens of millions of blue- and white-collar jobs in every sector of our economy.
Further, given the extraordinary speed at which AI is progressing, a number of very knowledgeable AI experts fear that this revolutionary technology could soon become smarter than humans and escape human control — with potentially cataclysmic outcomes.
Bottom line: We cannot sit back and allow a handful of billionaire Big Tech oligarchs to make decisions that will reshape our economy, our democracy and the future of humanity. We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue.
The time for action is now. We need a federal moratorium on AI data centers.
LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT
6 Takeaways From Trump's State of the Union
U.K. Police Release Ex-Ambassador to U.S. After Arrest Amid Epstein Accusations
These Ukrainians Don't Want to Be Traded to Russia for Peace
Savannah Guthrie Offers $1 Million for Tip Leading to Mother's Return
A Blow to the Phone-Free Classroom
TRUMP PUTS ON A SHOW, Casting Democrats as the Villains
On the defensive over the economy and with the midterms approaching, President Trump made clear that his political strategy is to paint Democrats as unpatriotic and ‘crazy.’
by Katie Rogers
It was spectacle as survival strategy.
In his State of the Union address, President Trump didn't bother to introduce a raft of new policies — unusual in a midterm election year with control of Congress on the line. He did not seem concerned with making the case that he gets it when it comes to the issue Americans are most worried about. "Affordability," he said, was part of a "dirty, rotten lie" perpetuated by the Democrats.
Instead, with the slashing style of a natural campaigner and the instincts of a onetime reality television producer, he spent the better part of two hours baiting the ranks of incensed Democrats in the chamber and endeavoring to define them to the electorate as "sick," unpatriotic and utterly out of step with the values of most Americans.
"These people are crazy, I'm telling ya, they're crazy," Mr. Trump said at one point, while relaying the story of a young person who had been forced to undergo a gender transition. "Boy oh boy, we're lucky we have a country with people like this — Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped it just in the nick of time."
Going into the speech, Mr. Trump knew that he needed to use it to maneuver out of a politically treacherous moment for himself and his party. A majority of Americans oppose how Mr. Trump is pursuing his anti-immigration agenda, and more than 70 percent of them think his priorities are in the wrong place. His approval rating has plummeted to 41 percent.
His solution was to wrap himself in the imagery of American heroism with staged asides throughout the speech while throwing the blame for every problem, from the security of elections to the state of the economy, back on his opponents.
In a number of cases, Democrats gave Mr. Trump the confrontations he sought.
Representative Al Green of Texas, who was ejected from the chamber last year for waving his cane at Mr. Trump, was once again removed after he held up a sign proclaiming "BLACK PEOPLE AREN'T APES" — a reference to a racist video Mr. Trump recently shared on social media.
Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois got up and walked out rather than "take another minute" of the speech. And Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a frequent target of Mr. Trump's, was one of a handful who yelled at him.
"You've killed Americans!" she shouted as Mr. Trump talked about immigration enforcement.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," the president shot back.
But if Mr. Trump drew the contrasts he wanted to draw inside the chamber, it was not clear how much effect his performance would have outside of it, where the political realities for him and his party are bracing.
The killing of U.S. citizens by immigration agents and scenes of children being detained have undercut public approval for his deportation campaign despite his success in largely closing the border to illegal immigration. His base remains fixated on the Jeffrey Epstein files and whether the administration has been fully transparent in making public all that is known about those who consorted with him, including Mr. Trump. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down Mr. Trump's preferred method for implementing tariffs, a keystone of his economic and foreign policy agenda.
If Mr. Trump felt defensive about any of this, it came out as defiant. On Tuesday evening, he looked at a row of stone-faced Supreme Court justices and told them his tariff plans would continue under the "legal power that I as president have to make a new deal."
Democrats, sensing divides among Republicans about how Mr. Trump is pursuing his agenda and seeing polling moving their way, remain confident about the midterm elections. In a rebuttal address for the Democrats, Gov. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia said that Mr. Trump had largely avoided the concerns of everyday Americans.
"He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted," Ms. Spanberger said. She closed her speech with a call for Democrats running in this fall's midterms to focus on the economy.
HEATHER DELANEY:
At 9 pm, Donald J. Trump began what would become the longest State of the Union address in American history. For one hour and forty-eight minutes, he stood in front of the country and delivered a speech that was not about the state of our union at all, but about the state of his own power, and how desperate he is to hold onto it as it slips further and further out of his control. It was full of deliberate lies from start to finish, packed with racist talking points, made-up statistics, twisted grievances, and the kind of unhinged rhetoric that made clear just how afraid he is, not only that the truth about his ties to Epstein will finally come out, but that the full impact of what he's done to our economy, to our international alliances, to the rule of law, and to the basic systems that hold this country together will finally catch up to him.
And if there was still any doubt about what this night was really about, he erased it himself with this: "These people are crazy. I'm telling you, they're crazy. Amazing. We're lucky we have a country. With people like this, Democrats are destroying our country, but we've stopped it just in the nick of time, didn't we?" That's what the President of the United States said tonight, into the microphone, on national television, in between demands for applause and pauses to catch his breath.
"This is the golden age of America," he said, through mouth breathing, while leaning on the podium for support. And that's when the lies began. He said the economy was bad before he took office, and now it had a "stunning economic turnaround", the "biggest in history." And then he launched into one of the most bizarre moments of the night: "People are asking me: Please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we're winning too much." No one is saying this. No one has ever said this. This is a man constructing a fantasy in real time and then responding to it as if it were a conversation he actually had. And the room clapped for it.
Then came the line he always circles back to, the one that slipped out again tonight without hesitation: "So in my first year of the second term, it should be my third term, but strange things happen." He said it like a joke. But this isn't a joke. This is the President of the United States once again suggesting that the two-term limit doesn't apply to him. That what happened in 2020 was somehow stolen. That the rules are optional when he doesn't like the outcome. Is he saying he had no plans to leave? That he still doesn't? We can't pretend these moments don't matter. Because he keeps saying it out loud. And the danger is pretending he doesn't mean every word of it.
The economic lies were relentless. He claimed tariffs were bringing in "hundreds of billions of dollars" and that the countries we trade with were "happy." He boasted about an economic turnaround he called "the biggest in history," saying the Dow broke 50,000 "four years ahead of schedule." He keeps saying this, over and over again. The Dow hitting 50,000 has become his favorite talking point, the thing he clings to whenever he needs cover, whenever he wants to justify what his administration is doing to the rest of the country. It's what they've been using to explain away every dangerous thing they've done. Yes, we might be tearing apart families, gutting federal agencies, attacking the courts, and dismantling international alliances, but look at the Dow. That's the trade-off they want us to accept. Our rights, safety, and democracy, in exchange for a number on a screen that most Americans will never benefit from. And then he said, with a straight face, "I put America first. I love America." A blatant lie from a man who has never put anything first but himself.
He told the country that tariffs could eventually "substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love." This is untrue. The tariffs will not replace income tax. The Supreme Court just struck down his IEEPA tariffs, and his response was to say he would continue them under "alternative legal statutes" and that "Congressional action will not be necessary." He said it plainly. He doesn't need Congress. He doesn't need the courts. He'll do whatever he wants regardless. That's not a president. That's a dictator telling you to your face that the rules don't apply to him.
And he also said, without any evidence, "22 Nobel Prize winners in economics" got it "totally wrong" about his economy and that only he called it correctly. This is the language of a man who believes he is smarter than every expert, every institution, and every system of accountability that exists. That belief is not just delusional. It is dangerous.
He talked about the military and bragged about how our "fighting force" was better than ever and mentioned Space Force, calling it "my baby, because we did that, my baby is becoming so important." What president talks like that? Calling a department of the United States government "my baby"? This is the language of ownership, not service. Everything is his. The military is his. The government is his. The country is his. That's not how a democracy works. That's how a monarchy works.
There were medals and tributes to military service members, and they deserved every one of them. Nothing should change that. But he cheapens it. He makes a mockery of their sacrifice. He parades them. You can tell they're still suffering, still battling things we can't begin to understand, and he treats their service like a set piece in his show. And to make it worse, right after awarding actual heroes who earned their recognition through blood and sacrifice, he said this:
"I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I'm not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn't know why I'd be takin' it. If they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday."
The President of the United States, a man who has never served a single day in uniform, just told the country he wants that sacred medal for himself. He's not even hiding it anymore. He wants the awards without the sacrifice, or the service, and without earning any of it. And the worst part is, it's not just embarrassing. It's dangerous. Because it leaves this country vulnerable to strongmen around the world who know exactly how to manipulate a man like Trump, just offer him something shiny in exchange for something terrifying. And he'll give it.
As if that wasn't bad enough, he demanded Congress pass the SAVE Act, his voter suppression bill dressed up as election security. He demanded voter ID, proof of citizenship to vote, and the elimination of mail-in ballots. And then he said this: "Why would anybody not want voter ID? One reason: because they want to cheat. There's only one reason. They make up all excuses, they say it's racist, they come up with things you almost say, 'What imagination they have.' They want to cheat, they have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat. We're going to stop it." None of this is supported by evidence. The goal is to make it harder for people to vote, because fewer voters means more power for him. That's the real election rigging, and it begs the question, if there is so much corruption in our elections and they have been rigged, why was he elected president? If they are rigged, does that mean Kamala Harris actually won?
Then he pivoted to religion. "I am very proud to say that during my time in office, both the first four years and, in particular, this last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity, and belief in God. Tremendous renewal. This is especially true among young people." This is not Trump thinking for himself. This is the Heritage Foundation talking. This is Project 2025 talking. This is Christian nationalism being delivered from the presidential podium as if it were policy, because for this administration, it is. Trump doesn't believe in God. He believes in the people who got him re-elected, and they believe in a theocratic vision of America that the founders explicitly rejected. He's got to pay the piper. And the piper wants a country where church and state aren't just blurred, they're fused.
And then came the attack on transgender Americans that was a new low for him. He told a story about a school in Virginia that he claimed tried to "socially transition [a student] to a new gender" and hide it from her parents. He used this woman's story to push a narrative that children's genders are being changed at school, which is absolutely not true.
But here's what worries me the most about all of these lies. When Trump stands in front of the entire country and says the world is perfect, that rent is lower, that everything is fine, people go home and look at their own bills and think it's just them. They think they're the only ones struggling. That's the trick and the con. Because when people believe it's just them, they stop fighting and asking questions. They start voting against their own interests because they think they're next in line for this great wealth that's supposedly coming. Or worse, they become ashamed of what's happening to them, so they internalize it and go quiet. And that's when authoritarianism wins.
The reality is that numbers tell a completely different story than the one Trump told tonight. His approval rating is 36 percent, according to CNN's latest poll.
But he wasn't done. Because next, he went after a sitting member of Congress, and after immigrants. And this is where it became truly vile. Trump claimed the Somali community in Minnesota "pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer." He called them "Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota" and said that "importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the U.S.A." This is the same president who called Ilhan Omar and her community "garbage" during a Cabinet meeting in December. Tonight, standing in front of a joint session of Congress, he doubled down on that dehumanization, reducing an entire immigrant community to criminals and pirates.
When Trump says something racist, it's not a slip. It's a strategy. He does this to divide us and to inflame his base. It's exactly what Hitler did. It's what every strongman in history has done: you invent an enemy, you name them, you blame them, and then you use that shared enemy to unite your movement. It's the oldest trick in the book. And he's escalating his use of it now because his approval is collapsing, the economy is on the verge of a free fall, and everything around him is starting to fall apart.
And then he pulled one of the most chilling moves of the night. He demanded that every legislator stand to affirm what he called "a fundamental principle": "The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens." When Republicans jumped to their feet and Democrats remained seated, Trump pointed at them and said, "You should be ashamed of yourself. Not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself." And the room erupted into chants of "USA, USA." That was a loyalty test on national television. He wasn't asking for agreement. He was demanding submission. And anyone who didn't comply was publicly shamed from the presidential podium.
And through it all, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar shouted back what needed to be said: "You have killed Americans." She was right. And he never addressed it. He never mentioned Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen who worked at the Minneapolis VA, shot and killed by Trump's Customs and Border Protection agents during the immigration raids in Minneapolis. He never mentioned Renee Good, another U.S. citizen killed during those same raids. And he never mentioned Ruben Ray Martinez who was fatally shot by a federal immigration agent last year. He didn't mention any of them. Because acknowledging them would mean admitting that his policies are killing Americans. And that's the one truth he will never tell.
This whole speech, all one hundred and eight minutes of it, was tired. It was the same thing rehashed. It was exactly what we would expect from a man who has nothing new to offer and no interest in actually governing. He likes to hear himself talk. But mostly, it went on this long because he really loves the applause. He wants people to tell him he's doing great even though he's not. Even though the country is in crisis, the world is watching in horror. He wants a room full of people standing up and cheering for him. And tonight, that's exactly what Republicans gave him.
And here's the thing that I keep coming back to. He's not well. I don't say that to be cruel. I say it because it matters. Because a high-functioning person in that position, even one who was being lied to by the people around him, would still do their own research. They would look at the numbers and see that the ship is sinking. They would feel the water rising around their ankles and they would try to fix it. That's what a real leader does. But Trump isn't trying to fix anything. He's doubling down on insanity. He's surrounded by people who tell him what he wants to hear, and he either can't or won't question any of it. He repeats lies that are easily disproven and he takes credit for things he didn't do. And instead of anyone around him stepping in, they clear the room, cue the applause, and keep the show going. Because the show is all they have left.
And in a bittersweet moment, we saw the contrast of what actual leadership looks like when Governor Abigail Spanberger delivered the Democratic response from Williamsburg, Virginia. She focused on the economy and on safety. She called out Republicans for not exercising their congressional right and responsibility to stop Trump and his tariffs. She tried to get people to acknowledge their actual reality when it comes to affordability, instead of denying what is really happening and pretending that what Trump says is true. She called out Trump's lies and his attempts to further divide us. Senator Alex Padilla delivered the response in Spanish, which, given everything Trump said about immigrants tonight, was its own quiet act of defiance.
Spanberger's response was what a politician should look like. It was acknowledging our shortcomings while inspiring something better. It was based on fact, and it was rooted in the true American spirit. Not the manufactured golden age that Trump keeps trying to sell us, but the real one, the one that's built on accountability, honesty, and the belief that government should serve the people, not the other way around.
And maybe what worries me the most is not what Trump said, because this is exactly what we expected him to say. It's what his supporters will blindly believe, because they're not hearing anything different. They're stuck in news echo chambers. And even the mainstream corporate media that once prided itself on fact-based reporting has been intimidated and reshaped by pressure from Trump and his allies.
This moment, right here, right now, is the catalyst that proves the absolute importance of independent media. Because the truth about what happened in that chamber tonight is not going to come from the networks that are afraid of being targeted. It's going to come from independent voices who refuse to sanitize what's happening for anyone's comfort or fear of retaliation.
And this is what worries me most. Not the lies themselves, because we can see through them. What worries me is that too many people won't hear the truth. They'll watch the sanitized coverage, or they'll hear the talking points from Trump and believe them. That is our biggest battle. Not Trump. Disinformation and lies in politics, government, science, and health. In every part of our lives. Disinformation is the weapon, and truth is the only thing that can stop it.
So please, take a moment. Right now. Tonight. Identify who your favorite voices are. The ones who are sharing the truth and calling it what it is. Follow them. Subscribe to them. Share their work. And make a plan to keep supporting them through November and beyond. This is how we keep the truth in front of people, and it is the infrastructure of resistance. We need to get through this together, and we can only do that if the truth keeps reaching people who need to hear it.
Those of you who already support independent voices, who share these posts, who make it possible for people like me to do this work every single night, you are the reason the truth is still getting through. You are the reason I can reach people on the sidelines who haven't heard it yet, or who need to hear it one more time from one more voice before it finally breaks through. I can't tell you how much that matters. Especially on nights like this.
And so I end where I always do, with equal parts heartbreak and hope. Heartbreak, because I watched a desperate man stand in front of our country tonight and lie to every single one of us for nearly two hours. Because I watched a room full of elected officials applaud him for it. Because I know that millions of people are going to wake up tomorrow and believe what he said, because no one in their lives is telling them the truth.
And with hope. Because his approval rating is 36 percent and falling. Because six in ten Americans see through him. Because the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs. Because Abigail Spanberger stood in Williamsburg tonight and told the truth. Because Ilhan Omar stood in that chamber and said, "You have killed Americans." Because Al Green walked in with a sign that read "Black People Aren't Apes" and refused to be silent, even as Republicans tried to rip it from his hands and he was escorted out. Trump is a rapidly deteriorating and desperate man. And desperate men don't last forever. We will outlast his reign of terror. And we will rebuild this country into what it was always supposed to be. This is why I still have hope for America. And you should too.
TIPPING IN AMERICA
by Alexander Cockburn (April 2002)
Tip-skimming has surfaced in Boston, and there can’t be a tipper in America who, on hearing the news, doesn’t exclaim, ‘The greedy bastards!’ In a lawsuit filed March 7 in Suffolk Superior Court, five former servers from the venerable eatery called Locke-Ober say the restaurant made them kick back the bulk of their tips to management. Then, when they made a fuss, they were fired. Suits are being filed against three other restaurants by employees. The waiters allege that the restaurants are breaking state labor laws by grabbing their tips.
Sue Anne Foti, who has been a waitress for 25 years, worked at Morton’s, the Chicago steakhouse on Boylston Street, for two years before she was fired in November. ‘They forced us to pay the management’s salary,’ she told the Boston Globe. ‘I’m a single mother and I’ve got two kids. They were taking food out of my kids’ mouths.’
Skimming tips allows restaurant owners to pay managers less out of their own pockets, because the tips make up the difference. And since waiters and kindred staff are paid subminimum wage, they thus get screwed twice.
Appearances to the contrary, greed isn’t unique to Boston. This must be happening across the country. Soon we’ll be asked to make it standard practice to tip a minimum of 30 per cent: 15 per cent for the workers, and 15 per cent for the management.
Hovering somewhere between charity and a bribe, the tip is one of our most polymorphous social transactions. At its most crude it can be a loutish expression of authority and disdain. At its purest it can approach a statement of love. At one end of the scale we had the foul decorum of those old lunch places where the men thought it their right to pat the waitresses on the backside. If a waitress objected to these caresses the tip would be thrown into the dirty plate.
At the other end we have the elevated snobbism of Marcel Proust, for whom the tip was a profound and complex form of social expression. ‘When he left,’ writes Proust’s biographer George Painter of one meal in the Paris Ritz, ‘his pockets were empty, and all but one of the staff had been fantastically tipped. ‘Would you be so kind as to lend me fifty francs,’ he asked the doorman, who produced a wallet of banknotes with alacrity. ‘No, please keep it — it was for you’; and Proust repaid the debt with interest the next evening.’ Of course he also used tipping for the coarser purpose of inducing certain waiters to partake in those sessions of mutual masturbation which was apparently as far as Proust proceeded in his erotic encounters.
Hanns Sachs who grew up in Vienna at the same time as his ‘master and friend’ Sigmund Freud wrote a memoir of life in that city in the late nineteenth century in which he devoted some testy pages to the growing complexities of trinkgeld, complexities which he took to be evidence of the decadence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Everybody had their hand out for prescribed portions of trinkgeld — the coachman, the doorman, the hatcheck girl, the waiter, the wine waiter, the headwaiter, the maitre d’hotel:
‘Every door which you had to pass was opened for you by someone who demanded a tip; you could not get into the house you lived in after 10 p.m. nor seat yourself in the car in which you wanted to ride without giving a tip. Karl Kraus, Vienna’s witty satirist, said the first thing a Viennese would see on the day of Resurrection would be the outstretched hand of the man who opened the door of his coffin.’
Doctor Sachs’ indignant portrait is clearly reminiscent of today’s taxi driver, doorman, hatcheck lady, waiter, and so forth, all of whom, from Manhattan to San Francisco and from Chicago to Corpus Christi expect and usually receive similar trinkgeld. Is America therefore in decline? Visitors to the young republic found to their surprise that coachmen and waiters refused their tips. An organization called the Anti-tipping Society of America, founded in 1905, attracted some hundred thousand members, most of them traveling salesmen. But anti-tipping laws were declared unconstitutional in the same year that Congress passed the Volstead Act, and Americans entered the twenties buying bootleg liquor and tipping big.
Tipping is even bigger money now, with well over five billion dollars per annum being left on plates, scrawled on credit cards, squirmed through taxi partitions, and slapped into outstretched palms. This is not so much an art as an item in the federal budget serious enough to provoke certain government provisions designed to insure that the U.S. Treasury gets its tip too.
That’s the trouble. Tipping is a paradox: formal yet informal, public yet private, commercial yet intimate, voluntary yet in reality so close to compulsory that most people, across the years, have little difficulty in remembering the times they felt compelled to leave no tip at all. If tipping becomes an entirely mechanical act, beneath government supervision, it loses its vitality.
A tip must, however fleetingly, be the acknowledgement of a personal relationship, which is why the process can instill such panic in people plunged into a ceremony where much is uncertain and where only a special familiarity will teach one the proper mode.
Due contemplation of the appropriate tip, in size and allocation, discloses not only what sort of place you are in but what sort of person you are: the sort who self-righteously calculates fifteen percent of the pre-tax total and gives fifty cents to the hatcheck girl, or the sort who bangs down a big tip with the vulgar flourish that says, ‘There! I’ve bought you!,’ or again someone like Proust, who saw the tip as a perverse gift. At the conclusion of an excellently cooked but badly served meal at Boeuf sur Ie Toit, Proust (in Painter’s words) ignored the person who served him so badly and ‘Summoned a distant waiter and rewarded him regally. ‘But he didn’t do anything for us,’ protested [Paul] Brach and Proust replied, ‘Oh, but I saw such a sad look in his eyes when he thought he wasn’t going to get anything’.’
The tip can become a bond between tipper and tippee, leagued in a transaction against absentee ownership. We tip waiters, doormen, hat ladies, taxi drivers, and hairdressers. We don’t tip flight attendants. Last week there were reports of a tip sign at one airport asking for travellers to tip the security people checking your bags. Bank clerks, no; croupiers, yes. The modalities are complicated, ever-expanding. The service economy, exploding decade by decade, will affect the tipping process. Seen more darkly, this could mean two increasingly divergent classes, one rich and one poor, with the latter increasingly dependent on tips, gratuities, presents, and other pretty expressions of the master-servant relationship to get by. Tipping in America may therefore become an ever more complex and fraught affair, approaching the status of necessary alms-giving as for the well-heeled traveler in India.
It would be better, some argue, to give up tipping altogether, as they tried in the old days in Eastern Europe and China. Tipping is, after all, about the relationship between served and servant and should play no part in a free society of equals. It depends on what one thinks the origin of tipping is. It can be traced to the primitive gift exchange, the amiable and generous distribution of surplus goods and cash which, in its most abandoned expression takes the form of the potlatch, where the surplus was either disposed of by common consumption or heaved over the side of a cliff.
Me? I’m a 20 per cent guy, as a rule, unless the service has been lousy. Women tend to be tighter in the tips. Smokers and drinkers tip better than the live-clean crowd. Working people tip better than the rich folk, taxi drivers tell me.
In a perfectly equal society everyone would exchange equivalent gifts — portions of the surplus. Everyone would tip and everyone be tipped in universal rhythms of generosity and gratitude. But, of course, modern society is not equal and the surplus wealth is unequally controlled and allocated, so the distribution of surplus wealth must always be an expression of power and of domination.
All this was understood perfectly by P.G. Wodehouse who approached the intricacies of the served-servant relationship more boisterously than Proust, but who expressed it with equal realism as in the scenes at the end of so many of the Wooster-Jeeves sagas, in this case The Inimitable Jeeves.
‘Jeeves!’ I said.
‘Sir?’
‘How much money is there on the dressing table?’
‘In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten shillings, two half crowns, a florin, four shillings, a six pence and a half penny, sir.’
‘Collar it all,’ I said. ‘You’ve earned it.’
DOUBLE TROUBLE for Willie Gillis (1943)
by Norman Rockwell
This was the cover of the Saturday Evening Post of September 5.
It's part of a series he made during WWII about a fictional character named Willie Gillis (who represented the American young man who had to serve in war). This was the sixth cover of that series, but the problem was that the model for Willie Gillis had left for active duty and could no longer pose for him. So, Rockwell had to be creative, and he only painted photographs of him (this was still the time before Rockwell decided to paint his covers from photographs instead of live models). Here, two pretty girls discover that they both received a letter from overseas from Gillis, signed at the bottom with 'Love Willie.'
Hopefully UPD’s crime map tool goes countywide.
“A link to the tool is here.”
https://ukiahpd.citizenrims.com/map
We have a county wide crime map as well. It’s called citizen connect and it’s on my website. That covers the entire county.
Here is a link to the site:
https://mendocinocountyca-sheriff-transparency.connect.socrata.com/
Thanks for the tip. Kudos.
TRUMP PUTS ON A SHOW
Didn’t watch it. Just another clown show. I’ve seen enough of the evil, simpleton clown since the 70s to last several lifetimes.
Nor did I. Apparently a very LONG clown show (I checked about 90 minutes in and he was still talking).
The top photo today is of Yvonne Niesen and Lindon Duke, taken in the American Legion Hall in downtown Covelo. Yvonne and I were in the Legion Hall for the monthly pancake breakfast just the weekend before Yvonne and Gary Niesen went off the side of the Covelo Road into the Eel River. Neither of them survived. The Niesens were my nearby neighbors, with a tidy ranch in the valley and a fair amount of grazing land in the hills. Yvonne had lived in that same ranch house all her life. Both Gary and Yvonne were straight up good people and we will miss them.
Correction to my previous post: the photo is from Round Valley History Day last year at the Methodist Church.
Good Morning, 🙃🍾
I enjoyed the article on tipping. Around 1992, 1993. I worked for tips at Konocti Harbor Inn in Lake County. At that time minimum wage was $4.25 per hour. It was a union job the plumbers union. I remember they paid us an extra $.25 every day we worked for a clean uniform. It was fun, but I was quite young. I met a lot of people but working for tips sucks it’s hard work and basically you have to kiss ass if you wanna earn that tip and some people are utter jerks.
In those days they had a lot of once famous musical guests perform there. Eddie Money came there every year, he was a smoker. When he performed there, he always had a big group of people with him, his wife, his kids, the nanny, and the band and some friends. Because he was a “rockstar” he was allowed to sit in the non-smoking section and smoke cigarettes to his heart’s content. While all the other guests had to choke down their food with his nasty ass, cigarette smoke wafting through the air.
One time the band Loverboy played there. This was the early 90s so these bands were already no longer relevant. The restaurant stopped serving breakfast at noon and my friend Wanda got the pleasure of waiting on the band. However, the lead singer, Mike Reno. moseyed on down to the restaurant after noon. He sat down with his other band mates my friend poured him a cup of coffee and then he decided he wanted to order breakfast. She had to explain to him they are not no longer serving breakfast because it’s after noon. That mofo got mad & threw his hot coffee on her. What a guy.
They were very busy when they had musical acts on the weekends so they did a lot of buffets for dinner and breakfast. I do not like buffets to this day because of it one time a guy found a fly in his scrambled eggs that he got from the breakfast buffet. It was gross and he was extremely upset, but also people go up to buffets and scoop up food. You know after they scratch their face or wipe their kids nose without washing their hands and then they pick up the spoons and touch everything. No thanks.
The most I ever made in tips was $130 in an eight hour day that was because the band New Kids On The Block was playing. We must’ve had every teenager and their family from Sonoma Lake and Mendo county come to see the famous boy band.
The good thing about working there was not the tips it was getting to see quite a few free concerts, the worst one was listening to David Crosby and believe it or not the best concert I saw there was Air Supply. Ha ha they even had Willie Nelson, REO Speed wagon, Jefferson Airplane. Fun times except for working your ass off to get a good tip to make ends meet.
The best tip I have ever received was 15,000 definitely not from waitressing. lol. My paying job is Caregiving and I took care of a gentleman for 10+ years and when he passed his family gifted me for my care & dedication.
There is a love-hate relationship with tipping, however I tip good unless the service is bad.
mm💕
Fine tales, Ms. Mazie. That last tip says it all about your work!
Thanks Chuck, yes there is more to me than meets the 👁️. lol…
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I’ll second what Chuck said. A fine tale well told. As for tipping, whenever possible I tip in cash. I don’t trust those point of sale devices to deliver much, if any, of the take to the workers.
Thanks Bob, everyone appreciates cash. I don’t know about these days if it’s still the same, but servers used to be taxed on 30% of their tips. So of course everything on the machine can be tracked and the servers pay. With cash of course you can hide how much tips you actually earned..
I am sure in this economy tipping has decreased quite a bit.
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“ these bands were already no longer relevant” Mazie you corker they will always be relevant you should see me rocking out to the big 80s and 90s on 9 while headed to work in the morning!
Drove the kids nuts on the way to school and when I was scolded for being “uncool” I reminded them every child of the 80s is a ROCKER! Don’t let the Cowboy hat and Copenhagen in the back pocket fool you I’m a rocker through and through!
Great seeing you last week and thanks for the conversation!
Awwww Sheriff ya made me laugh, 🚓🤠
That definitely would have been something to see, a Cowboy banging his head to some Heavy Rock music in his pick em up truck. lol. As long as you were listening to some Queensrÿche or Ronnie James Dio or Tesla…. Are you sure it wasn’t one of those I have a tear in my beer country songs? Your kids were probably mortified ha ha ha..
It was great to see you too!
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Nope no tears in my beers I arrived at the rodeos with my old horse Mad Max and the cassette player blasting Joan Jet, Motley Cru and Vanhalen just to name a few.
Best fist fight I ever had was with one of my brothers over a cassette tape. That’s the year my father told us he would work us for free until we paid him back for our medical bills which we racked up in our brotherly Donnybrooks.
I miss the world we grew up in!
90% of the population of earth doesn’t tip because they pay people to do a job, hence wages. What a scam. Seems almost demeaning.
The Comment of the Day makes me think of my younger days, when it was not expected that the members of either party would have to adhere to a strict party philosophy on all issues. The Venn diagram for the two, on most issues, would have had a significant number in the common area. One was free to have their own opinion on each issue, regardless of what the party line was. Democrats sometimes voted for Republicans, and vice versa. It was not uncommon for legislators to vote against party lines, when it was in the best interests of the country or state. Some people belonged to both Planned Parenthood and the NRA. Some people just register with the political party they find to be the least evil choices. We were a stronger nation back then.
Putting in term limits in California took the power away from individuals, and put the power in the hands of the political parties. Of course the Democratic Party is the only party in California so it is easy to beat on them. But what we have now is the Party dictates, and all other elected Democrats must follow or they might get their funding pulled, or their political future is put in jeopardy. It is not possible to present any alternative to the dictate that might be better for specific constituents. There is also a huge block of voters who always vote the party, and then rave against the consequences, as if who they voted for wasn’t the cause of the what they are complaining about. The Two Basin Solution is one of those consequences of voting for Democrats. Term limits did this, and I supported term limits. I also supported the Coastal Act. Both were naive mistakes.
Norm those were the days when these folks served the people and not the parties. Many friends in both sides working in the legislature have told me about the punishment they received for stepping outside of party lines. These are sad times, and when people serve their party instead of their constituents, we have gone in the wrong direction. We should all remember the times when champions had respect for one another. We should demand it from our elected but it seems the platforms have forgotten this and lost their way.
For sure, Norm, it is good to remember those times, when our system, though never perfect, worked better for our country and the people. We’ve left those times far behind, young folks don’t know of them, did not see how it worked.
Sheriff, 🍾
Haha yes can’t cry in your beer if you don’t drink beer. lol 🙃 I love Motley Crue. So you are saying you are a Rock N Roll Cowboy. Haha 🤘
So did you pay your father back? Did he make you work harder for being bad?
Well I wouldn’t mind if we reverted back to simpler times. However, were they actually better or are we just more knowledgeable and aware?
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Well he was a damn good father, however I do remember a time he put me on a roofing job, made sure the roof was stocked with shingles, paper, nails. Then took the ladder once I had reached my work station.
He always said he wanted to see “a$$es and elbows and if your hammer gets hot, there’s a spare in the shade”. Simple instructions for a simpler time.
Sheriff, 🤠🚓
Glad to hear he was a good father, however sounds like he was a prankster? I mean taking the ladder away was he messing with you or wanted to see if you would be resourceful and find another way down? The question you forgot I am curious about is did you pay him back? …. lol… 😂 💵💰
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