Oh, Just Like SERMO.

As you know very well, I spend a lot of my time going to cultural events.  I went to one two days ago, four days ago, and five days ago.  The weekend before that, I went to one Saturday, Friday, and Thursday.  The Thursday one was "The Moth."  If you listen to public radio, you know all about "The Moth."  It's story telling.  You can sign up to tell a story about the topic identified in advance, there's a time limit, the story has to be true, and it has to be "your story" (about you).  The topic resonated, and I told a story.  I didn't win, but I made some nice friends.  One -- the woman who did win -- was a writer who had told "Moth" stories several times before, this was her first time winning, and she gave me some tips.

Anyway, the story I told was about my experience with a doctor's website called SERMO, the people who involve themselves in it (by writing posts or commenting on other people's posts), and specifically, a woman (as it turned out) I met on SERMO.  (I've met a few people on SERMO.  Some are local.  One became a patient.  Now, his wife is.)  Most people use aliases, so you can't tell anything about them (gender, where -- in the world -- the live, or anything).  You just read what they write, even if it's a comment to someone else's post, and at least you get an idea if their comments are intelligent.  (If you suppose doctors' comments are all intelligent, you're badly kidding yourself.)

Once it became clear that most SERMO members used aliases, and wrote stupid comments, I wrote a post about why SERMO members -- medical doctors -- would hide behind aliases.  And that post got more comments than any other post I ever wrote.  One doctor made the most important comment of all: s/he said that if s/he had to use her or his real name, s/he wouldn't leave a comment.  This commenter wouldn't go public if anyone could know who s/he really was.  S/he was hiding behind an alias in order to say things s/he wouldn't publicly say if s/he could be identified.  I replied to this comment, and I said that if this doctor would be too embarrassed or ashamed to make a comment if s/he could be identified, then s/he shouldn't make the comment at all.

Well, if you're wondering if I ever, even once, got a proposed blog comment from "Anonymous," now that we're in the new regime where I get to monitor all comments in advance, and won't publish one from someone who is unacceptably anonymous, no, I did not.  If "Anonymous" can't be anonymous, then s/he doesn't want to run her or his mouth.  It's just like SERMO.  It's the same stupid garbage cracks, made only on condition that the child who makes them doesn't have to take responsibility.

I take responsibility.  You know who I am.  You probably know me.  You might well know precisely where I live.  You can agree with me, disagree with me, think I'm an idiot, or whatever you want.  That's the risk I take, the risk I'm willing to take, and the risk I owe you, if I want to express my opinion about something.  If I'm not willing to take that risk, then I have to keep my opinions to myself.  And when "Anonymous" found out the risk-free party was over, s/he realized that she or he had to keep her or his opinions to her- or himself.   Works for me.

Now, to be entirely fair to "Anonymous," one of my BP friends told me yesterday he actually sort of misses the idiotic circus of "Anonymous'" dumb cracks.  He wanted to know if I had, in fact, any idea who "Anonymous" is.  No, I don't.  Nor do I care, now that I, this blog, and you, are relieved of the nonsense, weirdly entertaining as it may have been for the occasional BPer.

It Would Be An Easier Argument If It Was Just About the General Public.

Some/several months ago, I published a post about the "Second Amendment."  The post was simple and straightforward, and I showed that 1) the "Second Amendment" has nothing to do with guns in civilian hands (it's about the security of the states and the federal government, as effected by militias), and 2) that the "Second Amendment" was indirectly and informally repealed a long time ago, when we made illegal for civilian possession almost all the "Arms" that would be necessary for a civilian to be an effective member of a militia.  (I'm setting aside that in the modern United States, we do not tolerate militias -- so the whole concept has become spurious -- and we have defeated every one that has arisen).  As I said, that argument, was simple and straightforward.  If I was "tech savvy" enough, I would offer this paper again as a link, but since I'm not tech savvy, I don't know how to do that.  What I did before was copy and paste a 17 page paper I wrote some years ago, and I'm not going to do that to you again.  The bottom line is that in modern American life, and according to modern American laws, there is no more "Second Amendment," and civilians should really stop inventing the idea that there is one, and that it allows them to "keep and bear Arms."

But there's another class of Americans who carry guns openly in public, and it turns out there are very big problems with this practice, too.  I'm talking here about the police.

You won't watch many videos of police responding to calls before you quickly realize they're VERY hopped up on their own anxiety, presumed or imagined need to control situations, and tendency to address many situations by trying to overpower whoever else is involved in the situation.  I'm afraid the saying "shoot first, and ask questions later" was way too often never truer than it is with the police.

And to be bizarrely "fair" to the police, they don't only shoot people.  They didn't shoot Errol Garner or George Floyd.  Frankly, they didn't have to.  Both were handcuffed, despite having done little wrong, and in both cases, police officers simply choked them to death by kneeling on their necks, while the victims pleaded that they couldn't breathe.  It appears that the police tune out complaints like that.

But they do shoot way more than their share of innocent people.  They shot and killed Philando Castile, who was trying to de-escalate an obviously escalating police officer.  They shot that woman who was sleeping in her bed.  And they shot Roger Fortson, a young African American armed forces veteran who was doing nothing wrong.  Do Not Let Media Ignore the Tragic Police Killing of U.S. Airman Roger Fortson (substack.com)

Sometimes, the police get so hopped up that they go to wrong addresses.  The case of Philando Castile's murder was tragically not unique, in the sense that the cop who killed him claimed as a defense that he had not had enough "training."  Not enough training for what?  Not to murder innocent civilians?  Not to murder African Americans?  Not to murder people with a tail light out, and who are trying to reassure you and cooperate in every possible way?  And these cops, who don't have enough training to know how to manage in a respectful and adaptive way whatever situation they think they're in, and to make sure they have the right address, and not to murder civilians, carry guns?

I remember when I was young, and it was always said that British police -- "bobbies" -- didn't carry guns.  I think they do now, because I read some of the same tragic stories of their killing innocent people.

But it would be a wonderful and very civilized (what a word, huh?) thing if no one carried a gun.  We could leave the phenomenon of being gun-toting in the most specialized hands, with properly trained and supervised people who are called upon in the most unique circumstances.

The fact is that Americans can't handle access to guns.  Watch Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine."  Read about Kristi Noem (she adopted a dog that was said to have had behavior problems or aggression, then killed it because it had behavior problems and aggression; and the voters of South Dakota elected this thing Governor?).  It's just not a good idea, and it doesn't work out well.  You know what's the commonest outcome of gun ownership in this country?  Nothing.   The gun stays stowed away, and no one touches it.  So why have it?  So a kid can find it?  Or it can get stolen, and wind up on the street in some crime?  Gun are, by the way, the commonest cause of death in minors and in suicides.  For which of those kinds of deaths do we want to advocate?

I live here with you in BP.  I'm going to make a request of you.  If you have a gun, please turn it in to the BP police, and ask them to destroy it for you.  It's better for you, better for your family, better for me, and better for everyone.

If This Is What You've Been Trying For, "Anonymous," Congratulations.

I have finally changed the "Comments" setting on this blog.  All proposed comments come to me first.  I can approve publication of them, or not.

Any comment signed "Anonymous" will not be published, unless I get a separate e-mail from the author of it, letting me know who the author is, and giving me a very good reason that that person should be left unnamed.  I doubt anything will persuade me, but I'm leaving that door open.

Proposed comments will be entered on the blog, by the prospective author, as if they were to be published on the blog.  But blogspot has my e-mail address, and will route it to me for approval first.

I would say you really do need help, "Anonymous," but I doubt you're helpable*.  I think the best possibility is that you're no longer the problem of readers of this blog.  You're your own problem, and the problem of anyone burdened with the possibility of being your family.

*Do you know the joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a lightbulb?  Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.  You are very clearly not looking to change.

Good News. And Bad News.

I have heard (not from the child who calls him- or herself "Anonymous," but from an actual source) that Luis Cabrera is on a time-out or something.  It was not clear to me if he is on a suspension or has been fired.  I didn't ask.

I like Luis personally.  He's a friendly guy.  He's also somewhat shifty, and I have a clear sense that he's controlling and manipulative.  And worse than that, for as many years as he's been the police Chief, he has refused to deploy our officers to provide constant patrolling on 6th Avenue.  This failure has cost a number of people quite a bit, including some people their lives.  So, Luis is out, at least for a while?  Good.  Luis had a career with the County or the City of Miami, has a nice pension, and was using us to juice his lifestyle.  I am not concerned about Luis, certainly not any more than he is concerned about the people who live, walk, and drive in BP.  Maybe someone else will do what Luis couldn't be bothered to do.  It's good news for us that someone else is in that position, and better news for us if they actually do the right job.

I was out walking this morning, and when I got to Griffing and 115th, one of our unmarked SUV-type cruisers had stopped someone.  I got to the car to make sure the driver was OK, and not injured.  Yes, she was OK, and no, she was not injured.  If you want to know what race she was, "I'll wait," as the late Gilbert Gottfried used to say, or "Take all the time you need with that," as Brian Tyler Cohen now says.  I don't know what she did.  Maybe something, or maybe nothing.  But she didn't seem afraid or angry, and since she said she was OK, I kept walking.  I waved at the officer, too, but the glass being tinted as dark as it was (you know, illegal, as you and I are not allowed to have our car glass tinted), I couldn't tell if he or she saw me or waved back.

And when I crossed 6th Avenue, it was clearly still not being patrolled.

So, the good news is that Luis, who assigns officers, and doesn't assign them to do the main job we need them to do, is not in place.  The bad news is that neither did the manager tell Luis, or his replacement, to do this essential job, nor did Luis' replacement think of it him- or herself.

We can't win for losing.

I Still Don't Understand "Libertarians."

Yesterday, I was walking in the neighborhood, and I encountered one of our neighbors whom I know.  I have a friendly relationship with him, and I like him, and he and his wife have been here for some time and are friendly with other BP residents I know and like.  I don't know him well, but enough that he and I recognize each other, greet each other, and enjoy talking together, for the short intervals that present themselves.

The last time I saw him, he happened to mention that his sociopolitical leanings and identification are "libertarian."  I tried to keep it in mind to stop by his house one day, to ask more about this, but I got busy.  I never got around to it until we encountered each other yesterday.  I told him I wanted to ask him at some point about libertarians (by which I intended to mean he and I should meet up some time -- over coffee, wine, dinner, or whatever --- but we wound up having a substantial piece of our conversation right there.  I ran out of time to finish my walk, because I had appointments, and he continued on with his.  But we talked about a number of things, and he took my e-mail address to send me some things he thought I might be interested to consider.  He's opposed to the government, and especially to agencies whose initials are three letters, as he put it.  He dislikes the FDA more than most or all.  We got to talking about COVID, which he believes is not real, and he asked me what I thought of ivermectin as a treatment (for a condition he doesn't think is real anyway?).  I'm not in favor, but he mentioned studies that have been done.  We talked about other drug studies, and I told him that meta-analyses have special value.  He said he would send me an e-mail about a meta-analysis of ivermectin. 

I really do like this guy.  I appreciate him, and I respect his opinions.  As he and I said, that doesn't mean we have to agree with each other.  So he did, in fact, send me several e-mails that came from youtube.  They were about various things.

So, back to libertarians.  As I said, I don't really understand their theory.  I told that to my friend, and he explained it as he himself understood it.  I know libertarians are generally opposed to the government, and that they caucus with Republicans.  This is a curiosity, because Republicans, who say they, too, are opposed to the government, are really in favor of very big government.  They like a government that can tell you if you have to have children, whom you can marry, who can vote, who can't live in this country (now that they live here), and they invent the idea that Americans are free to own guns.  They want a government big enough to invent that idea.  They want a government that likes to execute Americans, often under extremely questionable circumstances.  My friend and I were standing in the street, pausing our neighborhood walks, which were in different directions, so we didn't get a chance to talk about these areas.

But my friend did say that libertarians do not think the government should make the rules it does.  I asked him if that would mean, for example, that people should not have to honor setbacks when they build on their properties.  This, according to my friend, would be an exception.  Oh, so it's a matter of degree.  I wonder who libertarians think should decide which issues are exceptions.  The same, apparently, is true of speed limits, traffic lights, and STOP signs.  Yes, of course someone -- the government -- has to make those assessments and rules.

But not necessarily many more.  According to my friend, the government should not control health and safety aspects regarding private businesses.  For example, according to my friend, suppose he wants to open a restaurant.  The public can choose if they like the meals he serves.  And if they don't, they don't have to come back.  But I asked what if it's not that they don't like the taste of the food, or if they get a stomach ache -- an example my friend gave of a reason not to choose to come back.  What if his restaurant is unsanitary enough that patrons die?  It will be little comfort to the survivors and family of diners who died just not to eat there any more.  (We were getting into the dreaded FDA territory.)

I also explained that the public -- consumers -- cannot evaluate the "health care" system, because they are not trained to know enough about it.  I agreed that the system we use, which includes the FDA and CDC, is imperfect, but it's better than no system, or pretending to educate yourself by watching TV advertising, or looking things up online, and if we took out the private money that corrupts politics, we'd have a good system.

It was a few hours later that I received some e-mailed videos.  I watched about three or four of them, which was almost all of them.  One was an Australian woman who had been a conventional medical doctor for about 20 years, until she traded in her medical career for a youtube channel, and was explaining that polio is not caused by a virus, but by DDT, and the whole polio virus scam was the product of the Rockefellers.  She showed graphed timelines.  She said everything the Rockefellers, and the American health care industry, said was wrong.  It was all lies.  But she seemed to be confusing viruses with bacteria, and dismissed the idea of a virus as the cause of polio because you can't see viruses.  (True.  They're extremely small, and require an electron microscope to be seen.  So, since they're hard to see, and are not bacteria, which are also too small to be seen without a microscope, then they can't cause illness?)  It turns out that this woman, and featured people in the other videos, were all conspiracy theorists.  As is always the case, they counter commonly accepted beliefs with something else.  You either believe them -- about polio really being caused by DDT, or HIV not really being the cause of AIDS (that was another video) -- or you don't.  The guy who won a Nobel Prize for possibly/reportedly discovering polymerase chain reaction, and who believed in astrology and the paranormal, but who didn't believe HIV caused AIDS, and who used his Nobel Prize acceptance speech to complain that his girlfriend broke up with him, was another video.  And then, there was a British guy, who talked like he might have been a medical doctor, and who presented the promised meta-analysis about ivermectin.  Actually, he sort of presented three or four of them.  The one on which he spent the most time had a lot of flaws in it, and he wasn't sure how valid it was.  Another was dismissed as "rubbish."  Two others, from the NIH and WHO (right, two organizations, one from the US government, that have three letter initials) took a very dim view.

So, the question still is what fuels the libertarian movement.  Mistrust of government, for sure.  And frankly, I don't disagree, in large part.  As I told our neighbor, the problem with government is that electeds get bought off with lobbying and campaign contributions, and their constituents are the donors, not the public.  But once you dismiss the government, what do you have left?  People who run for office campaign (not in BP any more, but generally).  You can know about them.  They find themselves in debates with other people, and you can judge who comes across better, and makes more sense.  But for the tiny sample of libertarians I know (one), that gets displaced by people who are either unknown, or they're one or another form of crackpot.  And of course, the endless world of conspiracy theories.

I think I lost an acquaintance/friend yesterday in an unrelated discussion.  He is enraged at Hamas, because of a video he sent me talking about Hamas' shocking sexual and physical abuse, and mutilation and murder, of Israeli women starting on October 7, and it's perfectly fine with him if all Palestinians are annihilated.  The video was very disturbing, although not for the reason you might think.  The video was centered on a woman who was the moderator, and she was interviewing a number of Israelis, some of whom were women who themselves had been abused on or after October 7, and some of whom were a version of first responders.  The degree of composure was beyond creepy.  And at one point, one of the first responder-type men showed the moderator photographs taken on his phone, of Israeli women mutilated and murdered in various ways.  (He took photographs?)  The moderator, still largely disturbingly composed, said "oh, my 'god'" a couple of times.  But the photographs were never shown on camera to people watching this documentary.  The guy who reportedly took the photographs saw them.  The moderator saw them.  Why not show them to the people you want to inform, influence, recruit?  When I told my apparently former acquaintance/friend that the documentary looked staged, he became enraged, and said he never again wanted to talk to me about this.  He dismissed me as "delusional."  (Interestingly, toward the end of the video -- it's possible my erstwhile friend missed this -- they said that 1) over 100 hostages held by Hamas were released at the end of November, during a ceasefire, and 2) that according to the women who told their stories in this documentary, the women who were not released were more mistreated than the ones who were released.  My erstwhile friend asked me what I would do.  I said that if I could get back over 100 hostages by having a ceasefire, and if I should worry even more about the hostages I didn't get back, and if my real goal wasn't simply to annihilate all Palestinians, and if I didn't want to sacrifice any more hostages, I would have extended the ceasefire, or immediately begun another one, or have one now.  He didn't respond.)

It's not a lot different, it seems, about things like libertarianism, or the MAGA cult.  You attach yourself to something fringy and fragile, and disqualify everything else.

The Supreme Court Has Found the Rock and the Hard Place.

All indications are that the Justices will either invent the idea that Trump has sweeping immunity, or they'll send it back to a lower court.  Either decision creates a problem for Trump.  And for the Court.

The analogy that has been floated in this case is whether or not Trump would have immunity if he had political rivals killed.  His lawyer says he would, but this immunity would be retracted if Trump was then impeached and convicted.

Keeping in mind how enraged are most Americans over the Supreme Court's removal of their rights to abortion, and considering how much further enraged they would be if the Supreme Court told them King Donnie can do whatever he wants, it becomes more or less unfathomable that Donnie gets elected this coming November, if it's not unfathomable already.

But let's say, for purpose of discussion, he does.  But Congress becomes more Democratic.  Donnie not only gets impeached immediately, but the Senate, unlike the one headed by Mitch McConnell, who said he didn't care what the House did about impeachment, because the Republican Senate wouldn't convict him anyway, does in fact convict him.  Immunity gone.

Or Donnie somehow, unimaginably, gets elected, and Congress shifts right, too.  At that point, 250 years after we detached ourselves from King George III, we're under the autocracy of King Donnie and his yes-people (if he needs them, and doesn't just discharge them), and the "democratic experiment" is over.  We lost.  We failed.

Or, if the Supreme Court says a president has immunity, and can have rivals assassinated, why can't Biden have Trump assassinated?  Biden wouldn't, because he's not like that, but if the SCOTUS says he could, and if he does it now, the House will impeach him, and the Senate, if it was as amoral as the one McConnell led, wouldn't convict him.

But the fact is that Donnie himself knows he's not immune.  The last time he lost an election, he did the right thing, at first.  He brought the matter to the courts.  Sixty or sixty-one times.  Sure, there was the famous call to Raffensperger in Georgia, and the denied request of Pence, but he didn't take matters in hand, and declare himself the winner, as if he was immune.  (Or have Biden and Harris assassinated.)  He knows he's not immune.

And the SCOTUS doesn't have to send this matter back to a lower court.  It's already been there.  The Supreme Court of Colorado already ruled against Donnie.  It said he was guilty, had violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and couldn't hold any office.  The Colorado Supreme Court simply suspended its decision for a little while, because Donnie wanted to appeal to the SCOTUS.

So, what's the SCOTUS to do?  They shouldn't have agreed to hear this case, and it's going to be more or less impossible for them (the right wing supermajority) to get themselves out of it without making fools of themselves more than they've been doing.

Nobody Saw That Coming.

Well, it's been a helluva week or so.  Last week Saturday, I went to South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, and saw a magnificent dance show ("Ballet X").  Monday, I went to musimelange and heard a gorgeous baroque music concert.  Last night, I saw a very captivating exhibit (and had wine, Barbancourt Haitian rum drinks, a beer, and finger foods) at MOCA.  Tonight, I went to Sandrell Rivers Theater to see a play ("Bourbon at the Border").  Tomorrow and Saturday, I'm going back to South Miami-Dade.  Sunday, I'm going to an Indian music concert.

But I want to talk about the play I saw tonight.  It was put on by the M Ensemble, which is an African American theater company, and essentially all of their plays are about African Americans.  I almost always go on opening night.  It's more expensive --  well, when I say "expensive..." (it was $41) -- but after the opening night performance, there's food, drinks, socializing, and the actors come out after they've gotten cleaned up.  So you can meet them, and tell them if you think they did a great job.  There were four characters in the play tonight.  Rosa had a new boyfriend -- Tyrone -- so their relationship was part of the play.  And May is married to Charlie, who had gotten out of a psychiatric hospital for one of a succession of admissions for depression.  Charlie also had a limp from a fracture he sustained at some point.  Rosa and May were best friends, although Rosa was very fun-loving and was either libidinous or knew how to work men, and May was plain and seemed comparatively exhausted, likely, it seemed, because Charlie was so unstable and prone to depression.

Charlie seemed much better after this most recent hospitalization, and he was eager to get a job.  Tyrone worked for a trucking company that was hiring.  So maybe Charlie could get a job driving trucks.  Tyrone was going to put in a good word with Neil, who was the boss.

As May and Charlie reviewed their relationship, or May talked to Rosa about it, because they had come across some old photographs, it was revealed that May and Charlie had gone down to Mississippi in the 1960s to encourage black people to register to vote.  The setting of the play was during or shortly after the Vietnam war, so the background music from the radio was from that period.  So we're talking about something like a 12 year difference.

The geographic setting of this play is Detroit, which also influenced the choices of music.  The couple sitting behind me were singing along, even though I thought they looked too young to remember that music.  I told them so.  The woman was, shockingly, two years older than I am -- she could easily pass for 50-55 -- and her male companion was two years older than she was, and also looked much younger than he was.

I have to admit I wasn't sure where this play was going.  The write-up about the playwright was such that I expected something very interesting, but I couldn't figure out to what interesting place it was going to go.

And I'm not going to tell you how it ended.  The play runs until April 28 -- not every night, so you have to contact them at 305-705-3218 or tgcooper@aol.com to find out their schedule -- and I strongly suggest you go.  If you care, the regular ticket price for shows other than opening night is somewhere around $35.  Parking is free.  Staff are wonderfully friendly.  Pat and Shirley operate the M Ensemble.  They have very nice staff who take tickets, if you have them, or sell them, if you don't.  Sandrell Rivers Theater is at the corner of NW 62nd St and 7th Ave.  It's reasonably close to here.

You don't know how this play ends, but I do.  When the actors arrived at the post-play reception, I told them they did a great job, and I asked each of them if they saw the end coming as they were reading the play.  Not one of them did.  Nobody did.  I'm reluctant to be hyperbolic about this, but it's kind of brilliant.

Do yourselves a favor.

"Me, Too."

One of our neighbors sent me a frankly painful e-mail.  The e-mail said "Regarding the 'Anonymous' comments on your blog post regarding Ryan Huntington, I'm truly scared about the population and future of BP and our country."  I didn't ask for permission to reprint this, because I can keep the author confidential, and it doesn't matter who it is.  It's one of our neighbors, and someone I know.  I responded "Me, too," and I suggested that our neighbor could have entered this as a comment, instead of a private e-mail to me.  I also said the blog is ours, not mine.  It's true that because of the way blogspot is set up, I have unique proprietary discretion and control no one else has, but I try to minimize that.  I could block comments, or condition them on my approval, and I don't do either of those things.  I invite guest authors -- it's my pleasure to have their input, with which I most certainly don't always agree -- and those guest authors have as much control over the blog as I do.  In the past, I regularly offered guest authorship to people running for Commission, even if I was running against them.  I figured it was a good way for them to make their presentations, or cases, and we could have a nice discussion, or even debate, about their campaigns.  But few candidates took me up on it, and now, no one, frankly, seems to have an agenda.  Nor do they do their neighbors the common courtesy even of campaigning.  So I don't bother to do the legwork to go find the candidates, and offer them space and a circulation.

Which brings us back to our neighbor's lament, certainly about the Village, and also about the country.  Anyone who reads these posts, and the comments (which means the reader has to keep checking back every day or every few days, to see if there are any new comments), has seen the profusion of comments from someone who calls him- or herself "Anonymous."  And I will tell you that "Anonymous'" first comment under the last post came so soon after the post was published that it led me to wonder if "Anonymous" is in fact one of the people on the new post circulation I have compiled.  Either that, or it was a coincidence that "Anonymous" just happened to check the blog right after a new post was published.

"Anonymous'" comments are rambling, often incoherent, filled with misspellings, grammar mistakes, and what are probably the results of someone who has poor verbal ability trying to dictate, commonly enough have nothing to do with the topic of the post, are very often nasty and insulting, and seem to be the products of someone with frankly serious problems.  One of "Anonymous'" common refrains is hope or confidence that Donnie Trump will get re-elected this year, which I guess is part of the reason that our neighbor who e-mailed me expressed concern not only about the Village, but also about the country.  It does appear increasingly glaring that people who are in favor of Trump have in common noteworthy dimness of wit, to put it in a certain way.  Even increasing numbers of people who have been staunch Republicans and "conservatives" (it's still unclear to me what they think they're trying to conserve) are falling away from Trump.  But not "Anonymous."  S/he is still claiming to be a stalwart.  Clearly, that's part of what feels frightening and deflating to our neighbor who e-mailed me.

One of the critically important things about "Anonymous" is that "Anonymous" is anonymous.  So, when "Anonymous" talks, for example, about Village matters, in favor of or opposed to anyone or anything, it's not possible to know who "Anonymous" is, how "Anonymous" thinks s/he knows what s/he says, or if any of these ramblings are worth taking seriously.  So, if I, for example, can't tell, then the sensible choice is to ignore the content.  But if "Anonymous" is a Village resident, then s/he still gets a vote.  Hence, part of our neighbor's concern.  A complete moron with a vote can use that vote any way s/he wants, which imperils the Village.  And because, to take the example "Anonymous" keeps giving us, whether or not it's germane to anything, if the same complete moron is a remaining stalwart devotee of Donnie Trump (it's still impossible for me to believe the polls showing Donnie's considerable support among whoever agrees to respond to these polls), that person (benefit of the doubt here) can imperil the country, just as our neighbor feared.

Back in 2015 and 2016, when Donnie was first running, every available piece of evidence strongly suggested that Donnie was intellectually impaired, completely dishonest, and 100% self-centered.  Although Donnie did not get the support of the majority of the voters, he won because of the distortion created by the technicality known as the Electoral College.  Four years later, after he proved beyond any doubt that he was most definitely stupid, a total and inveterate liar, and had no thought for anyone but himself, he got even more votes than he did when we just strongly suspected it.  So the voters aren't very smart.  It's clear, although faulty and unnecessary, I hope, why our neighbor is as "scared" as s/he is, at least about the country.

Regarding the Village, we have crashed.  We've had the occasional dysfunctional and failed oddball on the Commission from time to time over the decades.  We've worked around them.  But starting in 2016 (yeah, I know: hmm), Commission candidates have stopped campaigning, commonly aren't properly "seasoned" for being Commissioners, and have no agendas.  Which certainly explains why Commissions since then haven't accomplished anything.  We've had 2 1/2 good Commissioners since 2016.  Dan Samaria started out surprisingly very well, until he went in some weird direction, Roxy Ross filled in for Betsy Wise or someone, who ran for the hills when the Commission problems got increasingly bad, and there's been Mac Kennedy.  I'm giving Mac full credit, Roxy full credit, even though it was just to fulfill the end of a term that had been vacated, and Dan half credit because he lost his bearings and didn't have to.

So I totally, totally understand our neighbor's concern, and I share it.  It's sort of heartbreaking to see what's happened to the Village, and to the country.  I even had a brief e-mail conversation with whoever is our current manager, and I suggested he fire police chief Luis Cabrera, because Luis isn't interested in safety on 6th Ave.  The manager said it was the Commission's job to manage the police chief.  So our manager presumably hasn't read our Charter, he doesn't know whose job is what, and which bucks stop at his desk.

Yup, I very much get it.  The straits are most definitely dire.  Whoever can be bothered to vote in the Village this coming Tuesday will have zero good choices out of three options.  In November, apart from the Village election -- again -- among others, we'll have the choice of Joe Biden, who is too old for this, and whose best accomplishments have been to undo some of Donnie Trump's damage, and then get out of the way (although he continues to help the Israelis annihilate innocent Palestinians), or Donnie Trump, who is the stupidest and worst past president this country has ever seen.  Great, huh?

I'm Guessing Ryan Huntington Hasn't Seen "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror."

Early in that movie (one of the old ones starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes), Holmes is invited to join the British High Command to figure out who's behind the German recordings of attacks against England.  One member of the Council is very opposed to bringing in Holmes, a civilian.  But Holmes has already been invited, and he arrives as the Council members are debating the fact that he was invited.  Holmes shows off some of his stuff, and he notes that one particular admiral clearly objected to his being invited to help.  The Council members are very surprised that Holmes could have known this, and Holmes points out that the Admiral in question had been leaning against a table, and left heel impressions dug into the rug, clearly signifying resistance.

So yesterday, I went to the Village event before the Commission meeting.  Daniela Levine-Cava was there, I had met her before, and I wanted to talk to her for a while.  But while I was there, Ryan Huntington, clearly at the urging of Mac Kennedy, introduced himself to me.  He said he knew about this blog (hmm, he didn't ask me to include him in new post announcements from now on), and that I had mentioned him.  I confirmed I did, twice.  So he wanted to make an introduction, and he apologized for having missed meeting me while he was campaigning.  He said he had been in a hurry to distribute his materials, knocked on doors, and probably knocked on mine when I wasn't home.  Nope.  He distributed a door tag to my house when I was home, and he didn't knock.

Anyway, Ryan and I had a nice chat, under the circumstances (he's running for office, and I'm not supportive), and I told him Mac thinks highly of him, and notes that he comes to Commission meetings prepared with good questions.  (Ryan revealed he's lived in the Village for 13 years, so apparently, coming to Commission meetings is a new thing for him.)  But I told Ryan that he was at a disadvantage, and he was proposing to put his neighbors at a disadvantage, because he hasn't given himself an adequate opportunity to understand how the Village works, what our problems are, how we've addressed some, why we didn't address others, etc.

Ryan mentioned one thing he considers a problem: speeding.  I agreed with him, and I told him our biggest speeding problem by far is and always has been on 6th Ave, and we're not doing anything about that.  But that's not the speeding Ryan had in mind.  He's fixated on our interior streets, and how we should have speed bumps and rotaries.  I told him we already have speed bumps, and they're faulty.  I don't know if Ryan didn't hear me, or if he was just lost in his own thought process.  So I tried again to explain.  We have speed bumps/tables, and they're so high that no one can negotiate them at the accepted speed limit without damaging their car.  As it happens, one of my friends, who's lived here longer than I have, and was standing there, told Ryan the same thing.  Ryan thinks the answer to this is to drive slower (than the speed limit).  I asked Ryan if what he really thought is that 25 mph is too fast, and we should lower the speed limit, again.  (He can't know that we already lowered from 30 to 25, for no reason, or about the traffic studies we've already had.)  He didn't answer.  The purpose of traffic calming devices is to make sure people drive the speed limit, not to make it impossible to drive the speed limit.

Ryan did what Mac escorted him to do: he met me.  He is interested in his own thought process, not in anyone else's (despite his claim to want to include his neighbors more), and he still thinks it's reasonable and not disrespectful to his neighbors to imagine he can dope this all out while in office.  Heel prints are noted.

Have a nice day next Tuesday.  Give my regards.

The Problem With Opposing DEI.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is the subject of lots of opinion (for and against) these days.  DEI is criticized (by its critics) for deliberately and seemingly unfairly giving an advantage to some groups of people.  The most extreme objection goes by the slogan "The Great Replacement Theory."  As if making room for some groups of people to be here, exist, and thrive was a "zero sum game," which meant that other groups of people were displaced or deprived.

And the critics are partially right about their understanding of DEI.  In earlier days, we called it Affirmative Action, and it most definitely does give an advantage to some groups of people.  To the extent that it smooths the way for some of those people to enter this country, settle and stay here, and become citizens, it does make room that was selfishly hoarded before.  Whether or not it "replaces" anyone is much more a matter for interpretation.

But here's the problem.  If we say, for the sake of convenience, that the groups advantaged by DEI are guaranteed a right to be here, and common advantages, about which the critics complain, those critics didn't complain when they themselves had all the advantage.  They complained about Rosa Parks sitting at the front of the bus, but they didn't complain when she was relegated to the back seat.  They don't mind if some people are winners, as long as they're the winners.

When the Pilgrims came here in the 1600s, there were already people here.  Today, we call them Native Americans.  The Pilgrims didn't feel unentitled to impose themselves, and their religion, and their diseases, on the Native Americans.  And they violently mistreated those Native Americans in ways worse than they claim to think current immigrant hopefuls would mistreat them.  And took most of their land.

What's curious (and infuriating, frankly) is that in the past 60+ years, we've welcomed immigrants from Cuba, and many of those Cuban immigrants now claim to object to our welcoming other immigrants.  They fear, or claim, presumably, that they think the immigrant hopefuls to whom they object would behave in ways, and occupy this country, that the rest of us didn't fear when we opened the doors to them.

We've settled on various bogeymen over time.  The same things are alleged about every immigrant group: Germans, Irish, Italians, Middle Easterners, Chinese, Japanese (shocking mistreatment during WWII), and others.  During WWII, we turned away some ships carrying Jewish immigrant hopefuls, because we didn't want any more of "those" people here.  And over time (at most one generation), they all adopt American styles and values.  Well, all except the Native Americans, whom we appear to be unable to stop abusing, and the African Americans, who never came here looking for a better life, and whom we also appear to be unable to stop abusing.

Yesterday, a large ship rammed and took down a bridge in Maryland.  The bridge is a total loss, and although traffic alerts were broadcast to warn drivers, the people working on the bridge were not alerted.  Six of them died.  As far as I know, all six were from Central America.  Those are the people some of us keep trying to keep out, imagining it would be terrible to have them here.  They were working, on the bridge, had been here for years, had families, paid taxes, and were at least as creditable citizens as the people who don't want them to be here.

When we're not in some sort of hysteria over immigrants, we call (or at least used to call) this country a "melting pot."  And it is.  That's one of our great strengths, as long as we don't pick nonsensical fights with each other.  More or less no one who rails at DEI is a descendant of the Pilgrims, and even if they were, their forebears were unwelcome intruders.  DEI is what this country, when it functions rationally, is about.  African Americans can vote, except where the backward "Americans" are still trying to suppress them.  Women can vote.  Few but the most lost are distracted by miscegenation.

If you've never seen Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," you'll see that Americans tend to be a terrified people.  And for no reason, other, perhaps, than some self-consciousness and guilt.  We're entitled to feel that way, and the best way to keep ourselves self-conscious and guilt-ridden is to follow people like Ronnie DeSantis, and pretend we don't have to know about our mistakes, and the things we did wrong.  DeSantis, huh?  Sounds like maybe a French name.