Mendocino County Today: Monday 3/2/2026

Partly Sunny | Jayson Jones | Old Mulberry | BoontWorks Group | FFA Election | Community Survey | March Newsletter | Elvis Documentary | Bianco Event | Local Economy | 253 View | Wild Child | 1931 Fire | Yesterday's Catch | Naked Reality | Streetwalker | Redneck If | Window Doggie | Legacies | Locally Sauced | Lulu Letter | Most Fortunate | Taking Refuge | American Politics | Rigoletto Rising | Winky Face | Lead Stories | Human Sacrifice | GOP Jesus | Day 2 | War Powers | DNC Cavalry | Unprovoked Attacks | Boom Boom

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SHOWERS continue to taper off with dry weather expected by the afternoon. Light rain returns Tuesday night and Wednesday for the northern half of the area. Drier, cooler, and breezier conditions are likely mid to late week. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A cloudy 50F this Monday morning on the coast. A lot of clouds to start the week then sunnier skies later in the week. A quick shot of rain Wednesday morning otherwise it's looking dry for a while.

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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 lot's 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 his life was held March 1st at his favorite watering hole Milanos.

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JAYS AT PLAY

Watching from the window—
The garden below stirring now,
Waking from winter’s sleep.
Green haze of new shoots
Shyly peeking-out, greeting sun.
 

Old weeping Mulberry tree,
Long ago planted by Ms. Eileen.
Branches barren, gnarly,
Standing alone—elegant— 
A twisted, downcast sculpture.

Two jays come then, 
Alighting on branches,
Flitting about, in and out—
Swift blue flashes as they play.
Nature’s grace of this day.

— Chuck Dunbar

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HIGHWAY 128 BOONVILLE CALTRANS PROJECT ON PAUSE: COMMUNITY WORK CONTINUES

Update From the BoontWorks group

We are a volunteer group of Anderson Valley residents focused on gathering community feedback to influence the proposed Caltrans project to revamp Highway 128 as it passes from Highway 253 to Mountain View Road, Boonville.

The original schedule from Caltrans was that they were to begin designing the project this year. However, in December, the Caltrans project manager let us know that our project will be pushed off for about two years due to statewide budget constraints.

We plan to take advantage of this time. When Caltrans comes back to us, we want to be ready with what we want as a community. So, you will hear more from us in the near future. When we have enough to share, we’ll put out notices for the next community gathering to fill you in. In the meantime, you can find more information on the BoontWorks webpage at https://boontworks.org, and we’ll do our best to keep it updated.

If you are interested in helping, please contact any of us listed.

Best,

BoontWorks Group, Boonville

Sash Williams, Johnny Schmidt, Barbara Goodell, Jed Pogran, Philip Thomas, Lauren Keating, Steve Woods, Thom Elkjer, Francois Christen, Patrick Miller, Donna Pierson-Pugh

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JENNIFER SOLANO and Ms. Swehla traveled to Santa Rosa JC's Shone Farm today for the North Coast Regional FFA Officer Candidate interviews.

We are very excited and pleased to announce that Jennifer has been slated to the office of Mendo-Lake FFA Sectional/Regional Vice President. The election will occur in about 2 weeks at the North Coast Regional FFA Spring Meeting.

Way to go Jennifer and Good Luck!

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SUPERVISOR MAUREEN MULHEREN:

The Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care is gathering feedback on revisions to its Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness. As a component of this process, we have launched a Community Survey to gather written feedback from the community. Feedback received will help identify local needs, service gaps, and priorities. Responses are anonymous. We request responses by March 12th, 2026, so feedback received can inform the upcoming Strategic Planning Session. We will continue to collect responses after March 12th, and these additional responses will be utilized in ongoing planning processes. Take the survey here: https://forms.office.com/r/i2YFxwfX9G

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ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE: March 2026 Newsletter

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ELVIS IS ON THE COAST

This documentary about Elvis is so much more than the ordinary.

Even if he’s faded from your memory as a sad old fellow who had a withering end, this movie shows him in a completely new light.

A man in his middle stage of life, enjoying himself and in command as a strong and funny band leader. It’s a side of him you may have never seen.

It opened at the Fort Bragg Cinema on Friday.

Don’t miss it! I’m going again today.

Showtimes: 1:20, 4:20, 7:20

(Claire Amanno, [email protected])

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MENDOCINO COUNTY GOP proudly hosted gubernatorial candidate Sheriff Chad Bianco at a soldout event. We’re grateful for the amazing turnout and sorry we couldn’t welcome everyone who wanted to attend. Thank you to the Ukiah Valley Republican Women, the TP USA Ukiah chapter, and the many volunteers who made this memorable gathering possible. More events are on the way

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LOCAL ECONOMY, CONDENSED VERSION

by Tommy Wayne Kramer

Mendocino County’s financial situation is not real good. You may already know this. Everyone does, even the supervisors.

Economic convulsions have rocked every industry and business. On one hand the problems are real and dangerous; on the other hand we have supervisors fighting hard and working overtime to meet the challenges.

The part about problems and dangers are true, but the idea our current band of elected officials has ideas, plans, strategies and experience in financial doings to turn things around is fantasy. Lying, more to the point.

The traditional prongs supporting Mendocino County’s economy have included grapes, sheep, fishing, timber, agriculture and marijuana. None on that short list of economic kingpins is presently thriving. If you didn’t know the wine industry is in free-fall just ask your friends, so long as they aren’t named Parducci, Fetzer, Nelson or Annie Greensprings. They’d rather not be reminded.

Not too long ago, walnuts, pears and cherries were important crops, but in recent years were (mostly) supplanted by grapes and wine production.

Timber was strong for decades, the backbone of employment in every area that had forests, which was about 90% of the county. Mills and workers were everywhere from Philo to Covelo, from Fort Bragg to Ukiah, and from Laytonville to Hopland.

Look around in 2026 and you see the trees are plentiful as ever. But in the 1990s the industry was confronted by eco-lunatics, ultimately driven off by tree sitters, equipment saboteurs and endless protests. The mills closed down, the jobs evaporated, and LP and GP left for other places in other states with other trees. (Not redwoods, however.)

Marijuana kept the boat afloat until morons (such as I) kept yammering about legalizing weed. Legal pot is a grand idea that makes sense to people who have no sense when it comes to supply, demand, markets, and what happens when a flourishing economic engine is turned over to the government.

What we had was a booming marijuana economy that trickled big money into local restaurants, clothing stores, car / truck dealerships and real estate offices.

What we got in return for legalizing pot was money diverted into taxes feeding government, but as inept as government usually is, no one knew anything about pot or money, or their buttocks from their elbows.

The county was able to quickly destroy the underground pot economy, and spent lots and lots of tax dollars doing it. It set up costly, confusing, unworkable marijuana rules and regulations. New employees, some comically inept, were hired and were provided offices, cars and salaries. Everyone sat back and waited for tax dollars to accumulate. And still, we wait.

Next, agriculture. The county, eyes wide shut and giddy at the prospect of closing down Lake Pillsbury and the old dam, will be yanking the final prong out from under the economy.

Today local employment is mostly highly paid county workers followed by school and hospital employees; all essentially work for the government.

This not a healthy economy, but from the narrow perspective of a county supervisor with a pretty pension, it’s working just fine.

Oily Otters Or Dead Birds?

Do local Eco Warrior chapters still exist? Social Justice Warriors appear in remission, but there’s nothing like — offshore oil — to bring environmentalists out of their yurts and trees.

Our Eco tribes have always seemed an odd lot. Forever shrieking about timber this and oil that, they have not once complained about National Forest devastations in or around marijuana grows.

Spraying Roundup on a dandelion is a crime against nature, but sacrificing deer, bears, rabbits and fish to produce weed is justifiable Mammalcide.

Right now on the Mendo and Humboldt coasts there is noise about oil pipelines, drilling, whatever. Our environuts are in full tinfoil hat battle garb, and that’s OK with me. I get mushy just like everyone else when it comes to oil slicks with ducks and seals coated in goop.

But what also bothers me to tears, and what Eco Warriors seem happy to forgive, are all the birds killed by wind generators. It’s a great big huge problem.

Estimates of the number of birds killed annually in America range from 140,000 to well over a million. Where’s the outrage, the marches and the courthouse demonstrations?

If Big Oil is the enemy what is Big Breaking Wind? Exxon is bad, but windmills have a teeny carbon footprint?

Put wind farms in illegal grows and there’d be talk of making them parklands.

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WILD CHILD

by Bruce Anderson

Sean lived next door to us on AV Way with his single-parent dad when there were still children in the neighborhood, long before my oft-red tagged house was turned into a B&B owned by French nationals who live in San Francisco. 

At one time my busy half-acre was home to a dozen people. Now, the unsuspecting pay $600 to spend one night. 

The apartments across the street rang with Mexican kids playing soccer. The Anderson Valley could still refer to itself un-ironically as a community. Odd now to find the old highway a silent mile of widowed and single women. I knew things had changed when the Oakland-based harridan who still owns the apartments threatened to kill me when I reported a rape among her guests at one of her drunken weekends. 

A lot happened on that stretch of Anderson Valley Way.

Wild Child, as we called Sean, was about ten when I first met him, a barely socialized boy, scrawny and wiry like his dad, a small boy with a voice like a foghorn and no brakes on his speech. His untamed tongue presented formidable difficulties for the elementary school down the street where, to their eternal credit, the school people stayed with the boy despite his verbal incontinence, his seeming every utterance sprinkled with f-grenades.

When Wild Child reached the 7th grade he arrived on the high school campus where Brian Schriener oversaw him in his special ed class; there was nothing wrong with the lad's intelligence but his tongue — flush with advanced adult obscenities — compelled the school to sequester him with the inexhaustibly patient Schreiner. Last time I saw him, Schreiner and I swapped Wild Child stories. Schreiner  remembers asking Sean some trivial question as school let out one afternoon, "Hey, fuck you, Schreiner. Didn't you hear the bell?" came the reply.

Sean lived with his father just over the fence from our place. Dad, in his way, was a good parent. He took Sean everywhere with him. We'd see them late at night playing pool at the Mexican bar before it became Lauren's. Sean was still just a little guy but pool halls and biker runs were his life. Pop, judged objectively, would certainly come up short on some of the stricter parental model charts, but in the fundamental ways that count with a child Sean had a better parent than lots of children.

I heard them next door one day. Dad, a dedicated biker, was working on his Harley. 

"Get me the wrench, Sean." 

"I can't fuckin' find it, Pop."

Pop, louder, "Sean, get me the fuckin' wrench!" 

"It fuckin' ain't here, Pop.

 "Sean, you're a lyin' sacka shit. Get me that fuckin' wrench!"

Sean would often drop by the office on his way home from school, invariably to hit me up for a "loan." 

My wife derives from a conservative Asian culture where outta control children are unknown. She was specifically annoyed by Sean. After his visits she would say, "Please don't encourage that little monster." 

That plea came one afternoon when Sean had popped in for a "loan."

Sean: Where's Bruce?

Wife: He's not here, Go away.

Sean: I need a dollar.

Wife: You're not getting it from me. Go home.

Sean: I want a dollar.

Wife: I'm going to call Keith if you don't get out of here.

Sean: Like I give a shit.

I believe that confrontation ended when my wife picked up the newspaper's waxer and threatened to hit the boy with it. I'm sure that Sean, like all children raised in turbulent circumstances, respected violence, and the threat of it was enough to get his cooperation.

Another afternoon I was in the office when Sean appeared. He seemed to stagger beneath a bulging backpack.

I asked him what he was carrying.

Rocks.

Rocks?

Yeah, rocks, to throw at your spic buddies across the street.

Many afternoons, the Mexican kids across the street would recreationally waylay Sean on his way home from school. Prudent youngsters would simply run. Not Sean. He fought. Outnumbered and outsized, he'd windmill punch his way through his tormentors. Or engage his enemies long distance with missiles.

Last time I saw him, Sean, maybe 17, was out of school. He was huddled, shivering in front of Pick 'N Pay in the rain and cold. He was with a young girl. They looked bad, like they'd been tweaking.

"Bruce, you got five bucks? I can pay you back next week."

I hadn't thought of Wild Child for years until Brian Schreiner and I swapped memories. Then a friend sent along a notice from the Idaho Department of Corrections that said Sean Kibler, age 33, of Meridian, Idaho, had been arrested for failure to appear. A photo was attached.  I could still recognize him. He looked good, and I've been happy for several days now at the news that Sean got to be 33.

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THE COMPTCHE FIRE OF 1931

by Katy Tahja

If there was one single event every Comptche old timer had a story about it was the September 22, 1931, Comptche fire. If Mother Nature had not cooperated and the hard-working firefighters had not prevailed, a tremendous firestorm could have swept the Comptche Valley.

It started that morning in Nigger Nat Opening in the upper reaches of Big River and was pushed along by strong north winds. Before it was over two weeks later, it had burned a swath 12 miles long covering 40,000 charred acres, stopping at the north fork of the Navarro River. More than 250 firefighters worked around the blaze and saved all but 11 homesteads. The fire consumed the timber along with the remains of the log dams and the logging camps that existed in the area.

As the day progressed the roar of the fire could be heard in the south fork of the Big River, and Hayslett Hill neighbors banded together to help each other. Some turned livestock loose and fled to the Comptche Valley, while others defended their homes standing on their roofs and beating flames out with wet bed quilts.

The fire burnt down through the hills to the valley floor destroying Ciro's and Russel's homes. John Philbrick protected his place by plowing a long fire break around it. The flames burnt into Macdonald Gulch west of the Ottoson Ranch, and there was fear it would burn into Railroad Gulch and endanger Melburne while cutting off the road towards Mendocino. The Keene Summit families started backfires to protect their ranches from approaching flames.

Of necessity hundreds of lumber company loggers turned to fire fighting, and the ranches on the valley floor became feeding stations where local women cooked meals and made coffee for the weary men and cared for burnt-out families.

When it was all over the Red Cross and surrounding coastal communities were especially helpful getting local folks back on their feet again.

One good thing did come from that fire. Huckleberries grew like crazy for three or four years on that burnt land. Harvesting them and shipping them out provided a little extra cash during those depression years.

(From Katy Tahja’s pamphlet, ‘All Roads Lead To Comptche’)

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Sunday, March 1, 2026

RASHEL ACKWORTH, 44, Rohnert Park/Ukiah. Suspended license for DUI.

JOHN FRANCIS, 53, Ukiah. DUI, controlled substance, suspended license, probation violation.

JOSALYNN JONES, 21, Ukiah. Trespassing, probation violation.

REMELEE LAXA, 53, Ukiah. Under influence.

KATIE PASSQUINELLI, 34, Ukiah. Petty theft, controlled substance.

NATALIE RODRIGUEZ, 34, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, parole violation, probation revocation, resisting.

ROSA RODRIGUEZ, 39, Rio Dell/Ukiah. Under influence.

MEGAN SPAIN, 33, Ukiah. Contempt of court.

JOYCELYN TRIGG, 73, Mendocino. Probation revocation.

WILLIAM WHEELER, 49, Redwood Valley. Intimate touching against will of victim.

ASIA WILSON, 31, Berkeley/Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

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I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION that the touring poet act was a mistake, but then again my life's been one big one… so I've been told. Luckily I had a couple of fifties stashed and bought a bus ticket home. Forty-two hours and sixteen hundred miles of concrete later, I hit the streets of Los Angeles… Some call it "Lost Angels." Me. I was just another one of the lost back where I belonged… Back in L.A… I could have kissed the ground… I resisted the impulse. Besides, it was drink I craved, and I had to be back in my kind of town… Hollywood. Everyone thinks it's the playground of the stars, but they pushed on years ago. Now it's my kind of place… dangerous… with pimps, whores without class, rip-off artists, and other hard-core turf shattered types entertaining fantasies too desperate to mention… just naked reality twenty-four hours a day. I've always had a love affair with the streets.

~ Tales Of Ordinary Madness, Charles Bukowski

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YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK IF…

1. You let your 14-year-old daughter smoke at the dinner table in front of her kids.
2. The Blue Book value of your truck goes up and down depending on how much gas is in it.
3. You've been married three times and still have the same in-laws.
4. You think a woman who is out of your league bowls on a different night.
5. You wonder how service stations keep their rest-rooms so clean.
6. Someone in your family died right after saying, “Hey, guys, watch this.”
7. You think Dom Perignon is a Mafia leader.
8. Your wife's hairdo was once ruined by a ceiling fan.
9. Your junior prom offered day care.
10. You think the last words of the Star-Spangled Banner are ”Gentlemen, start your engines.”
11. You lit a match in the bathroom and your house exploded right off its wheels.
12. The Halloween pumpkin on your porch has more teeth than your spouse.
13. You have to go outside to get something from the fridge.
14. At least one of your kids was born on a pool table.
15. You need one more hole punched in your card to get a freebie at the House of Tattoos.
16. You can't get married to your sweetheart because there's a law against it.
17. You think loading the dishwasher means getting your wife drunk.
18. Popping the hood involves removing at least two bungee cords

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BILL KIMBERLIN:

When I was a little boy we lived in a big house in San Francisco and there was a very popular song on the radio called, "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window?" Well, I think I found him in San Anselmo yesterday. As you can see, he was not amused by my attention. No "waggly tail" as in the Patty Page hit.

"I read in the papers there are robbers

With flashlights that shine in the dark

My love needs a doggie to protect him

And scare them away with one bark

I don't want a bunny or a kitty

I don't want a parrot that talks

I don't want a bowl of little fishies

He can't take a goldfish for a walk".

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LEGACIES

her grandmother called her from the playground
“yes, ma’am”
“i want chu to learn how to make rolls” said the old
woman proudly
but the little girl didn’t want
to learn how because she knew
even if she couldn’t say it that
that would mean when the old one died she would be less
dependent on her spirit so
she said
“i don’t want to know how to make no rolls”
with her lips poked out
and the old woman wiped her hands on
her apron saying “lord
these children”
and neither of them ever
said what they meant
and i guess nobody ever does

— Nikki Giovanni (1972)

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CERTAINLY NO INSULT INTENDED

Comment on me

I am informed that you have referred to me, in a reply to Baldy Keating, as obviously mentally ill and needing sympathy.

If you and Baldy insist on describing transgenders as mentally ill you are chiming in with the worst Trumpist elements.

I am a recognized historian of psychoanalysis [Eitingon case] and have been protherapy for most of my life.

I have never asked for your sympathy. I protected you from the FBI. You are a victim of ideological narcissism.

Transfolk don't need your help or your judgements. We will make our own way.

Keating claims to be living in some remote place because he is terrified of me catching him in public.

Lulu Schwartz

Washington DC

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IF AT EIGHTY you’re not a cripple or an invalid, if you have your health, if you still enjoy a good walk, a good meal (with all the trimmings), if you can sleep without first taking a pill, if birds and flowers, mountains and sea still inspire you, you are a most fortunate individual and you should get down on your knees morning and night and thank the good Lord for his savin’ and keepin’ power.

If you are young in years but already weary in spirit, already on the way to becoming an automaton, it may do you good to say to your boss — under your breath, of course — “Fuck you, Jack! You don’t own me!” … If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you’ve got it half licked.

— Henry Miller

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“In the Buddhist tradition, the purpose of taking refuge is to awaken from confusion…"

– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

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"WE'VE COME TO A POINT where every four years this national fever rises up — this hunger for the Saviour, the White Knight, the Man on Horseback — and whoever wins becomes so immensely powerful, like Nixon is now, that when you vote for President today you're talking about giving a man dictatorial power for four years. I think it might be better to have the President sort of like the King of England — or the Queen — and have the real business of the presidency conducted by… a City Manager-type, a Prime Minister, somebody who's directly answerable to Congress, rather than a person who moves all his friends into the White House and does whatever he wants for four years. The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics."

— Hunter S Thompson

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MAERSK IN MANTUA: RIGOLETTO RISING

by David Yearsley

The north wind was relentless, at our backs but cutting through us as we walked along the harborside to a performance of Rigoletto at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Our coats were of wool not down. A night at the opera is not just about music but about appearances. The design-conscious Danes were sure to be dressed up—or so the reasoning went.

Rigoletto is a landlocked piece set in Mantua in northern Italy, but the plot does include a river into which a body in a sack is supposed to be dumped but isn’t. The title character, who has contracted out the killing, proves unable to subdue his need to confirm the identity of the victim, who turns out to be Rigoletto’s beloved daughter, Gilda. She dies in his arms as the final curtain crashes down on the tragedy. Curses must be fulfilled in any opera worth its salt.

What wasn’t salted were Copenhagen’s quays, sidewalks and pathways. There was ice on land and offshore. The going was treacherous.

We were on foot because we couldn’t take a waterbus directly to the dock in front of the opera house. The harbor was frozen except for a lane of open water out in the middle, where wind-whipped waves were visible in the glare from the lights of power plants on the opposite side and from a giant European Union fishery inspection ship tied up beside us.

Like most everything else having to do with Denmark these days, the scene made me think of Greenland, the Arctic ice opening up around it for commercial shipping and military maneuvers.

Earlier in the day, a Danish friend had informed me that Greenland is rising out of the sea at the rate of about an inch a year. The island has shed hundreds of gigatons—that was the unit of measure the Dane used in his flawless English—of ice in recent decades. He didn’t say if this weight-loss program was enough to keep the island’s coastline somewhat constant as sea levels rise.

My Danish friend shared these geologic, anthropogenic facts while we’d been in the city’s art museum, standing in front of a huge painting completed by the Danish artist Jens Rasmussen in 1872 that purports to be the first of Greenlandic Inuit people. It shows a family in a long boat navigating among icebergs and spectacular rocky outcroppings. They paddle towards the setting sun, its rays fanning out in what could be interpreted as broad, colonizing rays that encompass them and the entire canvas. The painting’s explanatory tag informed us that Denmark’s sovereignty over Greenland had been granted to it by the World Court in The Hague in 1933 after Norway had made a claim to some of the island’s territory. No asterisk had been added to the curatorial tag to explain that native Greenlanders were not represented at The Hague.

As we continued down the quay, I imagined the Inuit family paddling down the open channel in Copenhagen harbor to the opera house, wondering what the possible meaning of these nocturnal rites might be possibly be. The Amalienborg was to our right, away from the water. Its four palaces were acquired by Denmark’s royal family after their Copenhagen residence burned down at the end of the 18th century. An equestrian statue of King Frederick V, who reigned in the middle of the century, rises in the middle of the spacious round piazza ringed by this grand architectural ensemble.

This bewigged monarch was a lover of Italian opera, the blockbuster entertainment of his age. From across the water, the new opera house fills in the gap between the two palaces closest to the harbor. Frederick—and therefore also his horse—has his backside turned to the water. Seen from the far end of the royal piazza, the king seems to be riding forth as from the opera house itself.

But the opera house is a couple of kilometers away. Its enormous size confuses all scale and proportion. With its a massive flat roof extending towards the water above the four-story concours with its tiers enclosed in expansive glass windows, the structure devoted to high culture could just as well be an airport or cruise ship terminal.

Completed in 2005, the opera house’s nearly $400 million price tag was paid for by the foundation set up by one of the founders of the Maersk shipping line. The gift entailed a massive tax write-off which effectively meant that the city of Copenhagen had to buy the place after it was built.

Whatever aesthetic criticism one might raise about the opera house, the size, ambition and power of the building accurately reflect prevailing power relations—the hegemony of the Kings of Capitalism as against the coddled impotence of hereditary monarchs.

Within the cavernous, Escheresque foyer of the opera house, with its multiple staircases and mid-air walkways, operagoers raising their champagne glasses during intermission or when dining at the upscale restaurant at the top tier can look back at the royal palaces of the Amalienborg, reduced to a miniature Legoland Versailles.

One might think of Rigoletto as a music of warmer weather, especially if one is being buffeted by a north wind on the Copenhagen quay. Frederick V had inherited his love of opera from his father, Frederick IV, who had made his Grand Tour (incognito as the Duke of Oldenburg, so as to avoid too much pomp and circumstance) in 1708-9. His itinerary included taking in opera season during Carnival in Venice. That year, the Grand Canal and Lagoon froze over. Rigoletto was premiered in 1851 in Venice. The Industrial Revolution was underway. The Earth’s warming ways were literally gathering steam. From ice to fire, the weather can always be counted on to be operatic.

We made it around the harbor, cutting off some of the distance at the far end thanks to the bridge being busy with pedestrians and cyclists heading to the opera.

As we walked towards the glow of the huge chandeliers pushing their light out in Rasmussenian rays through the glass façade of the opera house, I thought not of Greenland but of the Winter Olympics. Rigoletto is set in in Mantua, which lies somewhat south but also between the host cities of the 2026 games, Milan und Cortina. That night we were missing the slo-mo coloratura of women’s curling in favor of the vocal athletics of Rigoletto.

The average temperature of the Winter Games has risen by some four degrees Celsius since 1956, when this sporting spectacle was last held in Cortina. In spite of facile pronouncements about carbon-conscious transport and the brandishing of recyclable knives and forks at the Olympic Village dining facilities, these games were the opposite of sustainable. Environmental impact statements were waved, forests decimated, and untold tons of artificial snow manufactured. More than half of the infrastructure projects, including roads and parking lots, are still to be built—and will be.

Not far from the Copenhagen opera house on the same side of the harbor, a giant incinerator power plant has an artificial ski slope on its undulating roof that descends from the smokestack to the harborside. I wondered if bobsled runs and downhill courses could be built in this flat country for a future Olympics, now that so many other possible sites at lower latitudes will soon be untenable.

We entered the opera house through the glass doors. Not many of the Danes were really that dressed up. Scandinavian sense had trumped Scandinavian style, at least in the outfits for that night at the opera. We checked out coats and made our way to our seats.

Contained far within the great foyer, the theatre itself is paneled in sumptuous wood. The acoustic is alive and human. Yet I still felt the weight of that unmeltable architectural ego and its overbuilt exterior that could, at least for a time, keep the elements at bay.

The terrifying overture of Rigoletto started from below in the pit. Verdi’s tragedy had departed its moorings. Like a ship docked in the harbor, the titanic Maersk opera house might, by a spectacular feat of nautical engineering, one day also be cast off, ready to rise with the seas—or be pulled down by a curse that it had brought on itself.

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

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LEAD STORIES, MONDAY'S NYT

Trump Says War Could Last Weeks and Offers Contradictory Visions of New Regime

Key Updates

• Qatar ceases gas production after Iranian drone strike
• Iran target Benjamin Netanyahu's office in latest strikes
• RAF shoots down two drones heading for British base
• Trump hits out at Starmer after US blocked from British military bases
• US confirms three F-15 jets crash over Kuwait
• Cypriot airport evacuated after suspicious object found in airspace
• RAF base in Cyprus warns soldiers to take cover following 'security threat'
• Bomb-carrying drone boat attacks oil tanker in Gulf of Oman
• Iranian drones forces Qatar to stop producing gas as Saudi Arabia shuts down oil refinery
• Israel claims it has struck senior Hezbollah operative in Beirut
• Expert warns Saudi oil refinery attacks marks 'significant escalation'
• Saudi Arabia shuts down one of world's largest oil refineries following drone attack - report
• Israel to target Hezbollah chief after taking out Khamenei
• Trump warns fighting could go on for 'next four weeks'
• How global shipping could be impacted by US-Israel war with Iran
• 'Several' US warplanes crash in Kuwait but crews survive, officials say
• UK draws up overland rescue plan for 94,000 Britons trapped in Gulf states
• Cyprus president confirms Iranian drone struck British RAF base
• US military insiders warn America's stockpile of missiles and interceptors could run dry
• Fighter jet crashes over Kuwait near US military base - report
• RAF base in Cyprus struck by drone
• US Embassy in Kuwait urges Americans to take shelter
• Israel launches strikes on Lebanon as conflict widens
• Iran rejects Trump ultimatum and vows no surrender as Tehran launches new attacks

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IRAN, EPSTEIN AND HUMAN SACRIFICE

“Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” -- W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

by Dennis Kucinich

Today the Trump Administration, at the behest of the decrepit Netanyahu government, was instrumental in the bombing of a girls’ elementary school, killing 57 children. Let that sink in. Journey to the center of the world of American leaders’ madness and ruin to see desperate Iranian parents picking through rubble, searching for any signs of their little girls.

Now tell those parents, as we are being told, that America has done this so the Iranian people can be free. It’s the Empire’s new equation, Freedom = Death.

This murderous approach that the Trump Administration has wantonly indulged is identical to the policy of the Netanyahu government to bomb schools in Gaza and to murder innocent children as a (psychopathic) determination of heading off retribution in the future. The murder of children has become a state sacrament.

This is, in fact, an extension of the Epstein saga, the destruction of innocence through child rape, murder and cannibalism by powerful people whose thirst for blood will never be slaked in this cartwheeling carnival of human sacrifice called war.

Peter Berger, in Pyramids of Sacrifice drew the equation between the Aztec civilization’s cult of human sacrifice and the collapse of its empire, writing: “Thus the great pyramid of Cholula provides a metaphorical paradigm for the relations among theory, power and the victims of both – the intellectuals who define reality, the power wielders who shape the world to conform to the definitions and the others who are called upon to suffer in consequence of both enterprises.”

Consider the wider context in which these events occur: The rise of predatory Zionism, with its execution of a strategy of annihilation, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide and with ambitions for an Empire from the Euphrates to the Nile; the attempt to stifle dissent on U.S. college campuses, threats to university funding; changes in first amendment law at state levels to punish critics of Israel; the domination of both political parties in U.S. politics by AIPAC and affiliated groups; the domination of the media by those more dedicated to the shameful cause of the Likud Government of Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir than they are to the United States Constitution.

We have a front row seat at the steady decline of Western “civilization,” led by the U.S. government, more recently precipitating the Iraq-Iran War, the war in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, the War against Lebanon, the War against Syria, the War against Gaza and the West Bank, the War against Yemen and now presenting the (second) U.S. war against Iran.

Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War is splendid Truth in Advertising.

Simultaneously, the collapse of the American economy is in the offing, mired in debt, yet preparing to appropriate $1.5 trillion dollars a year for war, most of next year’s discretionary spending which would otherwise be used for the health, education and general welfare of the American people.

Today the US, the “most powerful military in the world” has been reduced to being an arm of the Israeli government, in service of greater Israel.

That we have made Netanyahu’s long-desired war upon Iran our own, is a sign that Lincoln’s Prayer of a “Government of the People, by the People and For the People, Shall not Perish, is no longer part of our national invocation. Nor are George Washington’s admonitions about foreign entanglements regarded, nor President Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex.

No today, America’s leaders cast aide centuries of accumulated wisdom of governance and descend into a circle of Hell, lower than Dante imagined in the Inferno, a place reserved for those who sacrifice their nations for personal wealth and power and for whom nothing is immoral, there is no spiritual code and no divine being other than themselves.

The modern punishments of Impeachment and trial by the Hague are insufficient to deal with such beings.

(kucinichreport.substack.com)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Okay Trump as proven once again. Don't F with me. I will kill you if you do. But what do they think is going to happen in Iran now? Iran will just decide to stand down and sue for peace? Or will they become enraged and strike out with even more desperation and kill thousands with a lucky strike on something. Or maybe they hit one of the Aircraft carriers with a hypersonic missile causing tremendous damage or loss of life. There is one thing we have learned since the Iraq and Afghanistan mistakes is that the Folks in the government do not have a plan for day 2. Especially if we take some real losses.

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NO WAR WITH IRAN

by Bernie Sanders

President Trump, along with his right-wing extremist Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu, has begun an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war. Tragically, Trump is gambling with American lives and treasure to fulfill Netanyahu’s decades-long ambition of dragging the United States into armed conflict with Iran.

The U.S. Constitution is clear. It is the Congress that declares war, not a president acting unilaterally. The Senate must reconvene immediately and vote on a pending War Powers Resolution, which I will strongly support.

Further, this attack against Iran is a clear violation of international law and will create increased instability in an already dangerous world. If the United States and Israel can launch an attack against a sovereign nation, so can any other country. Might does not make right. It creates international anarchy, death, destruction and human misery.

The American people were lied to about Vietnam. The American people were lied to about Iraq. The American people are being lied to again today — and once again, it is ordinary people who will pay the price.

The people of our country, no matter what their political persuasion, do not want endless war. They want decent-paying jobs, and health care and housing that they can afford. They want their kids to have an excellent education.

We must not allow Trump to force us into another senseless war. No war with Iran.

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US CALLS IRANIAN RETALIATORY STRIKES “UNPROVOKED”, And Other Notes

by Caitlin Johnstone

The US-Israeli war on Iran rages on. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed. Iran has been hammering US military bases in the region with missiles and drones, and oil prices are already beginning to rise as the IRGC cuts off the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the attacks.

US soldiers have already begun to die. US Central Command reports that three American service members were killed in combat, with five seriously wounded — and it should here be noted that “seriously wounded” can mean permanently brain damaged, comatose, or otherwise rendered severely handicapped for the rest of their lives.

Trump said during an interview with The Daily Mail that he now expects this war to last “four weeks or so”, and that he expects US casualties to continue.

I have said it before and I will say it again: every single American soldier who dies in this war was killed by Trump and Netanyahu. The US and Israeli governments bear sole responsibility for their deaths.

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At least 153 people were reportedly killed in a strike on an Iranian girls’ school in the opening wave of attacks. Most of the fatalities were girls between the ages of seven and twelve.

Turns out “freeing Iranian women from the hijab” just meant killing girls before they’re old enough to start wearing one.

There’ve been viral claims on social media that it was a misfired Iranian missile which struck the school and that the Iranian government has admitted to this — both of which were swiftly debunked.

We’ve seen this play before. In October 2023 hasbarists were saturating the information ecosystem with claims that Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist hospital was hit by a misfired Palestinian rocket rather than by Israel. Israel has now bombed that very same hospital eight separate times, which tells you all you need to know.

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US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz used the word “unprovoked” to describe Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US military bases in the region, which is just plain hilarious.

“Indiscriminate and unprovoked attacks by the Iranian regime today against our regional partners — Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, and others — reinforce exactly why such actions are necessary,” Waltz told the UN.

Only the United States could bomb a country, kill its leader, massacre its children, declare the intention to destroy its military and topple its government, and then call that country’s retaliation against US military bases “unprovoked”.

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Iran has reportedly rejected Trump administration offers to make a deal after the initial rounds of attacks. Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi assesses that Iran believes it needs to impose severe costs on the United States before returning to the negotiating table, because they know if they make a deal now they’ll just be attacked again in a few months unless they establish clear deterrence.

“Iran understands that many in the American security establishment had been convinced that Iran’s past restraint reflected weakness and an inability or unwillingness to face the US in a direct war,” Parsi writes. “Tehran is now doing everything it can to demonstrate the opposite — despite the massive cost it itself will pay.”

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Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi went on NBC News to discuss the war and was actually asked by co-anchor Laura Jarrett how Iran can justify striking US military bases in the region.

“Why is attacking US military bases abroad justified?” Jarrett asked after Araghchi said that Iran will not seek long-range missiles capable of striking the United States.

“Because they are attacking us!” Araghchi replied with a chuckle. “They are US military installations, facilities, bases who are attacking us. We are under attack. Why don’t you, you know, recognize this fact?”

“This is obvious,” Araghchi said. “This is a very simple fact, and I’m sure that people would understand that.”

It must be such a surreal experience to be a serious diplomat appearing on a foreign news show to speak to professional newscasters, and suddenly finding yourself having to explain to fully grown adults that your nation is fighting the US military because the US military attacked your nation.

The western press are a fucking joke.

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Israel has taken this opportunity to close Gaza’s border again, and the World Central Kitchen reports that its food supplies will run out in a week if aid remains cut off.

Israel is pure cancer.

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Imagine still being a Trump supporter in March 2026. Think about what a desolate wasteland of spirit you’d have to have inside you to keep supporting that ghoul after all this.

You’d have to stand for absolutely nothing. You’d have to have no values besides “triggering the libs” and lower taxes for billionaires.

You can’t lie to yourself and pretend he’s anti-war anymore. You can’t lie to yourself and pretend he’s fighting the Deep State and sticking up for the little guy. You can’t lie to yourself and pretend he’s making the world a better, more peaceful place.

His actions and his words have made that impossible; he’s been openly advancing longstanding neocon warmonger agendas after publicly admitting to being bought and owned by the world’s richest Israeli, Miriam Adelson.

You can’t lie to yourself about who he is anymore, so now all you can do is side with his depravity. You have to directly side with war, authoritarianism, corruption and abuse. You have to stand right out in the cold light of day saying loud and proud that you support Epstein’s BFF and love George W Bush’s foreign policy, and that you think it’s great to stomp out freedom of speech in America to defend the information interests of Israel.

What a pathetic, undignified way to live. It’s honestly about the most self-debasing thing I can possibly think of. It wouldn’t be any more degrading if you were actually licking his boots while he urinates on you and ridicules your meager net worth. It would just be a little bit more straightforward about the reality of the situation.

(caitlinjohnstone.com.au)

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