Wandering

      Started out to write an opinion piece on the shortsighted foolishness of claiming "we have no enemy in the far direction of our own leanings," said by conservatives of the far Right, liberals of the far Left, religious types of their own religious extremists and so on.  So, they're just like you but too idealistic, misguided, not as bad as they look or you have got to have 'em to stop The Other Side?  History argues otherwise, and those funhouse-mirror reflections all too often go on to cause immense damage.

      Looking that up let me to Jefferson, and his oath of having "...sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."*  The letter in which he writes that phrase led me to the XYZ Affair, which led me to, among other things, the conclusion that John Adams was a much better man and President than the majority of his party's office-holders were as men, Representatives and Senators.

      It also (of course, and if you don't know why, search engines are your friend) led me to the Directorate and the French Revolution, which pretty much always leaves me wondering if the species wasn't better off as small, semi-isolated bands of hunter-gatherers, flirting with extinction.  I'm still wondering.
_______________________________
* For the curious, he's being ironic, since he is writing of his opposition to religious groups hoping to get the Establishment of a government-sanctioned church.

Why Is It....

      Why do so many of the "Hard men* making hard decisions" on the Internet turn out to be soft and bulgy in the middle, like a jelly doughnut?  Doesn't matter which way their politics incline, either. 

      Look around.  The reality is that human beings are soft-skinned, hairless creatures, most of whom would die in days if dropped naked in any kind of wildness.  The reason we are top dogs on this planet and flourish in parts of it where we cannot survive without a lot of serious technology† and know-how is not nearly so much about brute bloody-mindedness as it is the ability to figure things out, work cooperatively, and try new stuff without being forced to by others (even if it kills some of us).  It's not even near some modern definition of being "tough" -- in actual practice, genuine toughness is a whole lot more about endurance and perseverance than being a rude horse's ass.

      But the price of being very clever creatures without much in the way of natural weapons is that fantasy can be more appealing than reality -- and fantasy unchecked will take you down some very stupid corridors of thought.  Tolkiens and Teslas are rare; street-corner political theorists and preachers are a dime a dozen.
__________________________
* And women.  It is a mark of the times that not every last little never-tried-it collectivist and rugged individualist who's never ventured past the last bus stop in suburbia insists on relegating women to church, child-bearing and the kitchen.  It's only most of 'em now.  Heck, one in five can even tell you what a "suffragette" was and sometimes they're even right.

† Technology isn't just your iPhone.  Knowing how to set snares or find and prepare wild vegetables is a technology.  Tanning leather is a technology.  Fire and human-made shelter?  Technology!  Democracy is a technology, too -- just ask Henry Martyn Robert.  The only instinct human beings are born with is sucking.  A good many never get much past that. 

Locally Grown Gardens Is Closing

      It's a sad day.  By the end of this week, Broad Ripple's Locally Grown Gardens will be gone.  They've been my go-to source for genuine Indiana sugar cream pie since they started baking and there was always something interesting there, from imported French tableware to spices and oils no one else sold.

      The business -- a combined vegetable stand, pie bakery, restaurant, and so on (and on -- morels, free-range eggs, wonderful and obscure soft drinks) -- was a labor of love for chef Ron Harris and a shining gem of the neighborhood.  We even had a Blogmeet there in 2009.

      Ron's been coping with Parkinson's Disease (there's still no cure and it just keep progressing), the lease on his wonderful location next to the Monon Trail is up, and he has decided that it's time to turn to smaller ventures.  Locally Grown Gardens will be greatly missed; I hope Ron will stay in touch.

It's An Optimistic Morning

      Or at least a cautiously optimistic morning.  We may have storms tomorrow and the next day, but today should be the first day for temperatures that pass 80 degrees.

      It looks like the CDC's recommendation for wearing masks outdoors will be modified, too.  Just how much and if the guidelines are any different for vaccinated and unvaccinated people is unknown.  Indiana's rule became a recommendation earlier this month -- and applied outside only if you couldn't stay six feet away from strangers.  Outdoors interaction has been recognized as lower risk since early in the pandemic, so this move is no surprise.  It may even seems a little late in coming -- but Americans are a cross-grained lot, and many people have balked at mask rules.  About the only way a free society has to address that is to encourage the people inclined to caution to be even more so, and thus the rules and recommendations have tended to linger.  If J. Random Guy is going to go shop for mangoes unmasked, state and city governments are going to hang onto the rules that ensure the rest of us wear a mask at the supermarket and minimize the odds of swapping bugs with him.

      Emotions have run high and partisan politics have gotten deeply entangled, but the various state and city public health officials are, in fact, not budding Mussolinis and Stalins; most of them are swamped enough by the more routine aspects of the office and were just about bowled over by the pandemic.  That's been true all along, even in offices with more power: there was no prize in this for Governors and Mayors other than fewer dead and hospitalized citizens (bad for tourism and the economy, y'know) and a significant risk of voter ill-will.  Indiana's Governor Holcomb came in for his own share of opprobrium, no small proportion of it from GOP voters who I would have expected to know better.  But there it is: Americans tend to rankle at being told what to do.  The human race has a tendency to dance on the rim of volcanoes; Americans have a habit of making it work out when we do.

      It's starting to look like we may have muddled through.  The next step may be even harder to sell: we -- and our allies -- need to vaccinate the world.  Yeah, yeah, we don't owe anything to some bunch of foreigners, but here's the deal: the longer a new virus circulates among a great many people, the more mutations show up.  Some of 'em are bound to be worse.  We need to stomp this bug flatter than polio* or smallpox.  We need to kill it dead -- because if we don't, it will come right back, even uglier.  Viruses don't recognize borders.  I don't know about you, but I would just as soon never have to repeat the past twelve months.

      So I'm cautiously optimistic.
______________________________
* Polio is still a major problem in some parts of the world. It'd be pretty cheap to vaccinate for that, too -- except some of the worst hit places are also war zones.

Could'a, Should'a, Would'a

      After mentioning it early on, I didn't belabor the recent mass shooting here in Indianapolis.   These horrible things dominate press coverage for a week or more and everyone with an opinion retreats to long-held positions, most of which don't make a lick of sense to people with different notions.  Meanwhile, the people directly affected are hurting and grieving; whatever else you might believe, it's poor taste to hold a debate at a funeral.

      One thing irks me.  Indiana has a "Red Flag" law and the murderer had tangled with police about a year earlier, when he bought a shotgun and began talking to his family about getting the police to shoot him.  At the time, the police took away his gun and he spent some time under mental health observation -- but the Marion County Prosecutor's office didn't pursue a "Red Flag" case against him.

      Prosecutor Ryan Mears has offered explanations that boil down to "it's too difficult."  They've got to file within 48 hours, then his office would have had two weeks to build a case showing the eventual killer was a danger.  And had they lost, the government would have been obliged to return the shotgun.

      As opposed to what actually happened.

      Mr. Mears complains about "loopholes" in the law.  It would seem that an even bigger loophole was in not making any effort to invoke it, since the worst-case outcome (person with ill intent gets gun) would have been only trivially different from the result of not trying: person with ill intent had to get a different gun.

      Various of The Usual Media Go-To Gun-Control Sources have, surprise, criticized Indiana's "Red Flag" law in familiar ways; but when no one involved even bothered to try using that law, it's a thin claim at best.

      Depriving a citizen of a Constitutionally-protected right is a grave thing.  Sometimes, it may be necessary, and the correct and Constitutional way to do so is by due process of law.  That doesn't happen all by itself; someone has to start the ball rolling.  That's a Prosecutor's job.  Ryan Mears didn't do it.

      Would it have worked?  Would the case have been successful?  We can't know.

      But we know the result of his inaction.

Vaccinated Astronauts

      If you had been wondering, everyone aboard the two most recent personnel flights to ISS -- a Russian Soyuz and an American Dragon -- has been fully vaccinated for COVID-19.  The four astronauts who will be returning next week went up before vaccines were available, and after they leave, the human complement in space will be one hundred percent vaccinated.  NASA takes it seriously, and so do their ISS partners.  The surviving Apollo astronauts were vaccinated early on.

      Unless Boeing's Starliner spacecraft get unexpectedly ahead of schedule, it looks like the next flight up will be another Soyuz, carrying one one cosmonaut, one actor/director and one actress: the Russians are going to be filming a feature movie aboard ISS.

      A movie filmed in space?  Arthur C. Clarke predicted this in 1952, though a bit later in the progress of manned space exploration.  Islands In The Sky holds up pretty well even now -- we didn't get the manned geosynchronous television relay stations he describes and his microgravity space station in low Earth orbit has a larger (and very much more British!) staff than the real-world version, but Clarke's depictions of the challenges of living and working in orbit are spot-on.  Similar to the Heinlein juveniles -- and originally published as one of the Winston SF books that were aimed squarely at the same market -- I think it's among his best early work.  If you have ever watched the Change of Command Ceremony on ISS, you'll find Clarke's "Inner Station" a familiar place.

Disconcerting

      Yesterday, I learned I'm going to need cataract surgery this year, "sooner rather than later."  I'm not comfortable with the idea.

      It explains a lot; I have been missing things that are there and occasionally thinking I see motion that's not there.  (Was that a cat?  Nope.)  The other day, Tam walked up while I was cooking and startled me badly when I caught sight of someone in my peripheral vision that looked like a stranger.

      Reading is important to me.  I'm not comfortable with the idea of surgery, especially not on my eyes.  Supposedly, they can do great things now.  While my nearsightedness is not entirely correctable, I am given to understand most of my astigmatism should be.

      That doesn't make it any less frightening.

It Didn't Seem So Bad At The Time

      Yesterday's test -- a lot of controlled breathing into a measurement device, before and after inhaling various mystical medicinal mists -- didn't seem like much physical effort.  Neither did the walk between the parking garage and the hospital.  And while the effort of being semi-charming to a stranger for a couple of hours take quite a bit out of a confirmed introvert, it's not as if I haven't had to before.

      But I guess it added up; I got home, had coffee, took an online meeting for work, did a little e-mail and planning -- and fell seamlessly asleep, head on the keyboard.  Came groggily to a half-hour later and decide to lay down, "just for a little while."  It became a three and a half hour nap.

      Woke up, made supper, stared at the tube awhile and realized I was barely awake enough to clear things away and get to bed.  It was a struggle to stay awake for that.  After eight hours of sleep, I still don't feel rested or awake.

      I think I'll blame yesterday's chamomile tea, along with being out of shape.  Maybe another cup of coffee will help.

Decaffeinated Morning

      This morning, I have to go do a thing -- "Take the Asthma Challenge," like it was one of those old Reader's Digest quizzes -- and I can't have anything with caffeine in it beforehand.  Actually, there's a long list of things I can't have, but most of them are drugs, I only have one or two of them, and they don't do much for me anyway.

      The no-caffeine things hurts, though.  I have started my mornings with tea or coffee for most of my adult life and I count on it.

      At least there was chamomile tea* on the shelf.  It's warm and flavorful, even if it does absolutely nothing to help keep my eyes open.

      UPDATE: Coffee at last!  No idea how I did on the test; my lung capacity is good.  But I already knew that.  The stuff made me cough several times.  Maybe I'm just suffering occasional fit of pique.  Or I could even be old and out of shape...?  Naaaw!
______________________
* Actually, it's a tisane.  But you might as well be speaking Ancient Minoan and labeling the box for it in Linear A as call it that,  then next they'll want me to take my shirt off and leap over a bull by the horns, and we're not going to be having any of that.

A Winter Wonder-what?

      We got two inches or more of damp, sticky snow yesterday.  The wire for my ham radio antenna,  #12 insulated stuff less than an eighth-inch in diameter, is now fatter than a garden hose with snow; telephone and power wiring is equally burdened.  Trees, fresh with new green shoots, buds, flowers and tiny leaves, sag under the weight of snow.

      Welcome to Spring.  Now hidden under the heavy snow, the violets and little pink and white Spring Beauties in the yard will have start over.

      The power flickered out late last night.  It was back on in seconds, probably a fallen branch getting zapped clear and the power company's circuit-breaker-like recloser opening and (surprise!) reclosing.  (Those things are why they tell you not to touch downed power lines: the recloser opens to protect the line, but then it keeps checking to see if the problem -- tree branch, wet kite string, errant squirrel or the occasional stray crowbar* -- has been burned clear.  Why?  Because people don't like for the lights to go out and stay out, is why, especially if they're reliant on technology to stay alive.  Most problems on a big power line are solved in a quick flash of fire.)

      So here we are, two-thirds of the way through April and sliding on snow in below-freezing temperatures.  March might have "gone out like a lamb," but it left its fluffy white coat behind.

*  *  *
      I'm not going to comment on the Chauvin verdict.  You have your own opinion.  I stand by what I have written before: nobody should need to fear for their life in the course of a routine arrest.  To the extent that any of the participants -- suspect or officers -- does, we've got a problem.  And we do, and we still haven't solved it, and there aren't any neat, simple answers that are not also wrong.
______________________________
* I'll takes "felony stupid" for $800, Alex Trebeck stand-in.

In Which There Is A Witch...Or A....

      The Abstruse Goose, being abstruse and not having anything at all to say that applies to current events.  Oh, heck no.

The Problem With Overcharging

      Despite -- or perhaps because of -- seventy-plus years of crime drama on television and even longer in other media, most people still don't quite grasp that the severity of charges in a criminal case stemming from someone being killed do not reflect how outraged the crime makes us feel.

     Nope, sorry; the perpetrator of even the most horrific of deaths resulting from negligence or accident is still probably going be charged with manslaughter.  And the person who mercy-kills their pain-wracked, terminally-ill spouse, having laid careful plans to do so long in advance, will likely be in court on first-degree murder.

     An idealist will tell you the charges are chosen that best fit the alleged crime.  A pragmatist will point out that a careful prosecutor picks the charges most likely to result in conviction.

     Politicians and grandstanding attorneys play on our emotions.  When a police officer shoots a suspect by (apparent) mistake, conviction is hard to come by: between qualified immunity and given the deference courts usually show officers, police are sometimes acquitted in circumstances where an average citizen is more likely to be found guilty.

     Overcharging only makes acquittal more likely.  It may be impressive to go on TV and ask, thunderously, why the policewoman who shot a man she intended to tase hasn't been charged with first-degree murder, but in the real world, doing so means she'll go free if only one juror is to be convinced she acted wrongly but without intent.

     The type or degree of murder charges are not an indication of how seriously the justice system takes the crime: someone is dead; the penalties are real.  The charges don't show community feeling or the horror of the crime.  Manslaughter or murder charges, in all their confusing gradations, are picked to be the most accurate, most convictable legal definition of the actual crime alleged to have been committed.  They're chosen as the charges twelve of our fellow citizens are most likely to agree are supported by the evidence and arguments -- nothing more, and nothing less.

The Other Victims

      In the aftermath of a mass killing, there's an understandable and appropriate focus on the victims, on the lives cut short and the people injured.

      But the damage ripples outward from there, to the families who have lost loved ones, to those sitting vigil at local hospitals -- and even to the killer's family.

      The FedEx shooter had given warning signs, including a mental health incident a year earlier in which he had purchased a shotgun and talked about "blue suicide" so seriously that his family called the police and had him temporarily taken into psychiatric care.  His shotgun was taken by police and not returned.  The FBI investigated.  But in a state with a "red flag" law that would have prevented his buying another gun, he was never red-flagged.  There's no report of any ongoing care for whatever problems haunted him.

      Now his family has to live with that; they have to ask themselves what else they might have done, what they could or should have done.  They're dealing with police and reporters, coworkers and friends; and online, in the newspaper and on TV, the faces of the victims.

      The harm spreads and spreads.  It's not limited to the dead and wounded.

A Sunny Saturday

      I pulled dandelions.  Also, I did laundry, washed dishes and made dinner.  That is all.

Still Stop Making Them Famous

      It happened in Indianapolis: there was a mass shooting overnight at a FedEx Ground facility near the airport.  Nine people are dead and five more were injured.  The dead include the alleged shooter, who took his own life, apparently after an encounter with police in or near the building.  At least one occupied car was shot at in the parking lot.  The driver seems to have been uninjured and drove to another nearby lot; local TV news has shown enlarged images of three apparent bullet holes in the sheet metal.

      And that's all anyone other than the police know right now.  That's all there is.  It hasn't kept news organizations from speculating.  When the local station Tam and I watch elected to stay local rather than go to their network feed, we turned to the ABC affiliate, where a Good Morning America reporter assured us the weapon used "...was almost certainly an assault rifle." 

      Well...maybe?  At least one witness has reported seeing a rifle in the hands of the shooter.  The AR-15 is the most commonly-owned rifle in the U.S., and one of the most affordable.  But it's guesswork.  The reporter didn't show the bullet holes; Tam and I agreed that from the images, we were confident the weapon used wasn't any kind of .22LR and was unlikely to be a shotgun, but that's as much as the evidence supports.

      By the end of the day, we will know the murderous fool's middle name* and if he left some kind of screed or manifesto; pundits will be speculating on his motivation and reporters will be scrambling to interview family members, schoolteachers and the person in charge of whatever religious assembly the killer attended, if any.

      He will be made famous.

      You may have noticed this kind of multiple murder -- unexpected, not known to be linked to any kind of gang activity or robbery -- tends to run in clusters, in a way that looks similar to the phenomenon of "suicide clusters" seen in some populations (especially teens).

      You may have read that some mass shooters appear to have kept track of previous killers, almost as a sports fan might amass statistics of player performance.

      Whatever else their motives -- mental imbalance, loathing some person or group, wanting to begin war between sexes, races or religions, and so on -- all of these shooters give a credible impression of seeking attention.  Of desiring posthumous fame.  One strikes and is a three-day sensation in the news online and over the air, and others follow, time and again.

     We've got to stop making these horrible losers famous.  Whatever else we do -- and there's a long list of suggestions, from "ban all the guns" to "arm everyone," with stops at "put a policeman on every corner" and various sorts of profiling -- we have got to stop making them famous.
_________________________________
* You won't read it here.  It has long been the policy of my blog that I don't share the names of mass killers in the news.  Yes, it's a tiny gesture, any search engine will reveal the name as soon as it is known, but it's what I can do and so I do it.

Rest And Respite

      Temperatures have dropped and so, I think, has the pollen.  A day of moving slowly (and very little)) seems to have helped, although parkour is right out.

      So, time to get stuck back in.  And it's Trash Day, on which we traditionally have carry-out or delivery for dinner, in order to free up the time usually used for cooking and clean-up to collect all the trash and take it to the curb. It's a nice change.

      The cats spent a lot of time with me, though some of that may have been the sunlight through the window, or that it was open just a little: I can't avoid whatever it is that triggers my allergies and I eventually adjust to it, so I might as well get a little fresh air.

Allergies?

      Who knows?  My balance started getting bad yesterday about noon, peaked that evening, and hasn't been great since.  I'm taking the day off, exhausted, and have spent most of it flat on my back.

Fact-Checkers

      Fact-checking has come under a lot of fire in recent years.  Certainly, it can be weaponized -- if only one side of a dispute gets fact-checked, it can warp perceptions, especially if both sides are indulging in the usual mish-mash of fact, factiod, misrepresentation and wishful thinking.

      Conversely, a good fact-checker can add clarity to a situation and even improve the utility of debate by nudging the participants away from handwaving and hyperbole (or at least pointing it out to onlookers).

      FactCheck.org has been impressing me for awhile now; they don't take any side except the facts.  A good example would be their take-down of President Biden's repetition of tired, old, false statements about guns.  Another is their balanced analysis of Georgia's election law and what politicians are claiming about it, which spares no one.

      "Spares no one" is exactly what I want a fact-checker to do.  Yes, they're occasionally going to gore your ox -- especially if that particular ox can't stick to the facts.  Tough; it's far better to live in reality, and it makes for a lot fewer unpleasant surprises.

Sunday

      Latkes -- and laundry -- notwithstanding, I was still feeling pretty lousy Sunday.  After the oxtail stew supper the night before and a nice brunch with plenty of turnip latkes about mid-day, I skipped making any dinner and snacked on home-made gorp* between laying down and the wash.

      I did re-level the washing machine, which helped.  That reminded me that the previous homeowner had used salvaged concrete half-blocks with bits of mortar still stuck to them to elevate the washer and dryer, which works about as well as you think: they tend to wobble and force out the tapered shims no matter how careful I am about wedging and leveling.

      A half-dozen new half-blocks have been on my wish list for a couple of years, and the old ones can go into the back yard on the sidewalk at the low end.  The basement gets just enough water in a heavy rain to be inconvenient.  It used to be worse, before the city repaired the storm sewers† and I had the valve in the floor drain replaced.  Even now, an inch of water on the floor once or twice a year isn't out of the question.  So elevating the washer and dryer is a must, and not with nice storage drawers.

      A little cooking, a little trying to keep the washer lid from falling on me and a little laundry was as much as I was up to doing yesterday.  I'm feeling better this morning.
_______________________
* 50/50 salted and unsalted roasted sunflower seeds, with roasted pumpkin seeds, raisins, and a little bit of cashew pieces and pistachios to keep it interesting.
 
†  I'm pretty sure the sewers in my neighborhood are still semi-combined, much as I might hope otherwise.  Certainly many houses around here still have gutters that feed into their sanitary sewer, though the city makes you disconnect them if you make any improvements that require a permit.  This can really overload the sewers in a heavy rain.

Turnip Latkes? They're Delicious!

      Yesterday afternoon, I made oxtail stew for supper.  It takes time; once you've got the oxtail sections well-browned and added a little stew meat, it's best left to simmer for two or three hours in broth or stock before you add vegetables and get the meat off the bones and remove the excess fat.  Then it gets another hour simmering, with the big, ugly bones added back in: there's a lot of good flavor in them.

     Tam had made a soda-pop run and I asked her to pick up a turnip.  I was expecting one of the near-giant ones our corner store stocks -- but they don't carry Tam's preferred soft drinks.  The store that does have it sells medium-sized turnips in bags of five or six.

      After adding a couple of turnips to the stew (along with a potato, onion, carrots, celery and a small can of tomato paste), there were three left.  Frustrating, because they don't keep as well as potatoes.

      This morning, it occurred to me that most of the ways we cook potatoes can be applied to turnips, often with tasty results.  Home-made turnip chips are a real treat, crunchy and with a complex, slightly-sweet flavor.  So what about latkes? 

      My favorite recipe calls for a couple of large potatoes, shredded or coarsely grated and with the liquid pressed out; three peeled turnips is about as much volume.  The binder is a half-cup of flour (I shorted it a bit and added cornmeal to make up the difference), two teaspoons of coarse salt, a teaspoon of baking powder and a half-teaspoon of freshly-ground black pepper.  That gets mixed into the shredded vegetable along with a couple of beaten eggs.  You're supposed to grate an onion, too; I'd used the last one the night before, so a generous amount of onion powder, a little garlic powder and a couple of teaspoons of dried chives filled in for the fresh onion.

      The end result looked pretty good and the oil was sizzling in the skillet; I dropped in the batter by heaping tablespoonfuls, gave them size minutes and flipped them for another six.  They smelled wonderful and came out golden brown, not as textured as potato latkes and a bit soft -- but delicious.  I knew from the first taste they were a winner.

      The second batch got a little more cornmeal in the batter -- the shredded turnip was still adding liquid to it and it needed to be a bit more dry.  (They don't drain quite as well as potatoes.)  It didn't do them any harm.

     Tam had hers with salt and pepper; I started out eating them plain, then tried a little hot sauce, which was a nice touch.  I think these would be good with applesauce or sour cream, just like the potato version.

      So, yes, turnip latkes.

     [TAMARA KEEL PHOTOS]

Two Shot

      On Friday at 1:17, I did it.
      I had my second COVID-19 vaccine.  It's Pfizer's version, so if I turn into an ear of corn, you'll know why.  It has hit me pretty hard -- muscle aches and exhaustion, starting this morning and getting worse all day, much worse by afternoon.  That's not an unusual reaction, and the medicos say it's a sign one's immune system is sorting things out, getting ready for a fight should the virus arrive.

      Me, I'm not so much for fighting, so I'll continue to socially distance, wear a mask indoors with strangers (still a rule in Indianapolis) and so on.  In a couple of weeks I may take short, masked, socially-distant excursions to antique stores and used book stores, something I have not done during the past year.

      For right now, though, I'm going to go lay down.

Mirror, Mirror

      Back on 29 March, in writing about the new election laws in Georgia, I pointed out that partisan, "mean-spirited 'gotcha!' jabs" by elected officials might thrill their base, but only empower their opposition.

      Ladies and gentlemen, Exhibit Two, this time making the Democrats look bad and giving the Republicans a powerful issue, courtesy of President Biden:  David Chipman, his nominee to be Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.*  Most recently a Senior Policy Advisor at the anti-gun rights group Giffords, which is seriously motivating in and of itself, as an ATF Field Agent he was up to his elbows in the Branch Davidian mess in Waco, Texas.

      Yeah, no.  I don't expect any U.S. President, especially not a Democrat, to pick a rootin', tootin' reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt to run ATF; I can even see why this President might think it's cute to tap a gun-grabber.  But David Chipman could be the greatest Federal administrator since Herbert Hoover† and it wouldn't improve his chances of getting though the Senate confirmation process when he shows up reeking of the smoke from Waco.

      Once again, a mean-spirited jab might delight a party's base -- but it's pure fuel for their opposition.  Thanks, President Biden; the NRA needed a fund-raising boost to help getting through their bankruptcy and re-organization, and you've been a big help!  Look for this to show up during the mid-term political campaigns, too.
__________________________________
* Imagine if the President could've found someone from the Women's Christian Temperance Union to take the job, and restart the battle that ended in 1933!  It's odd, there's broad agreement on helping people cope with alcoholism and stop smoking without any bans of high-potency distilled spirits or assault cigars, and yet if you agree that people ought not shoot one another unless there's an imminent deadly threat but don't want to ban some or all guns, you're a horrible evil person who hates children and the poor.
 
† Look it up -- he was so gifted that Harry Truman set him to working out improvements in the fed.gov after WW II.

So...

      Yeah, I've got nothing.  Slightly rainy morning, wildflowers (fine, call them weeds, violets and little white flowers) blooming in the yard, ants apparently busy elsewhere bailing or moving house.

No Breakfast, No Water, No Fun

      I've got to go do some medical imaging this morning and it's been "NPO"  -- nothing by mouth, only in Latin -- since 4:30 this morning.

      This does nothing for my mood and less than nothing for my headache, so I will spare you my opinions this morning.

      Since my scooter wreck in 2006, I have taken such orders seriously.  I had been returning to work after picking up a nice sandwich -- corned beef on rye -- and I had, for some reason, taken the bag along in the ambulance when I grabbed my purse as they were loading me onto a fancy gurney.  The ER was more than full.  I'd been parked at the big desk in the middle while they waited for X-rays to come back and figured out what to do next.  The sandwich smelled wonderful and when the physician who'd conducted the initial exam stopped by, I asked him if I could eat my lunch.*

      "Oh, I don't know why not.  You can't have more than a bad sprain, or you'd be hurting a lot more."

     Rye bread, corned beef, Swiss cheese, a touch of mustard -- oh, that sandwich was good!  I was just finishing up when a different doctor showed up, carrying X-ray images.

      "Ma'am, looks like you have a spiral fracture of your right femur.  There's an orthopedic surgeon in this evening and we'll--  Say, is that corned beef?"  I nodded and there was a long pause.  He looked at the wall clock.  "Okay, we'll be admitting you and you'll have surgery first thing tomorrow morning."

      I spent the night on pain meds with my leg strapped into an immobilizer.
________________________
* The sandwich place was right across the street from the hospital.  So I ended up right back where I'd ridden from, having wrecked my motorscooter right outside the main gate to work.  This worked out well; my co-workers snagged the scooter and left it in our warehouse until I could arrange to have it repaired.

It's Ant Season

      The ants are back, tiny collectivist monarchists scurrying on the kitchen counter.  Not quite randomly and I suppose they do some good: they have already prompted me to check the crumb tray in the toaster, which was long overdue for emptying.  I brushed out the inside of the toaster while I was at it, too.  Shop elsewhere, you six-legged pests!

      I dislike them.  Tamara loathes them, with the white-hot revulsion of someone finding out her cornflakes have been colonized.  By and by, we'll be setting out some tempting, tasty (and, oh dear, deadly) treats for them to take home to the Crown.  They seem to be getting more wary with each passing year, but once I have everything else in plastic containers and freezer bags -- alas, no more twisting the waxed paper around a stack of crackers tight and calling it good -- they'll have no other choice.

The Chauvin Trial

      It's predictably a partisan lighting-rod: the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on charges of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

      I'm not going to comment on it directly; the trial is ongoing and we'll all know the decision of the jury in due course. 

      Indirectly--  Residents of the U. S. generally expect the police to deliver the people they arrest alive.  Yes, this is not always possible.  Very few people greet the prospect of their own arrest with happiness and a significant proportion of them resist with force.  To that end, police officers are equipped with a wide variety of tools, from pepper spray and handcuffs to radios (and backup), batons and firearms.  The expectation holds: it's the job of the police to get the immediate situation and suspects under control and deliver those they arrest to the justice system, largely intact.  We don't expect or want police to be judge, jury and executioner.  Dead suspects are a failure.

     Too, residents of the U. S. ought to be able to expect encounters with the justice system to be fair.  Not necessarily nice,* but impartial and reasonably safe.  To the extent an individual does not have that expectation, there has been a failure.

      A decent system of policing and justice should not require the police, prosecutors and judges to be saints, geniuses or heroes.  It ought to work sufficiently well and fairly enough even when public employees are tired, bored, hung-over, angry or a little stupid.  If it does not, that's a failure.

      Ideally, real-world policing and the courts should be about like the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, only with guns (etc.) and attorneys: dull, frustrating, annoying, slow...and not unsafe. 

     So when people tell me, heatedly, that Derek Chauvin and/or George Floyd should have done something other than the actions that led to the death or Mr. Floyd and the disgrace of Officer Chauvin, I think yes; yes, you're right -- but they didn't.  The system failed.  Their expectations failed them. 

      And now it's in the hands of a jury.  Will we learn anything from it, or repeat last summer's pattern of protests (from well-meaning to scarily pissed off) and opportunistic riots?  Either way, one man is dead and another is ruined.

      Edited To Add: I'm getting comments mentioning other interactions between police and citizens with bad outcomes, plus suggestions that George Floyd was somehow more deserving of a bad outcome by dint of being on drugs at the time.  This is all beside the point: in our culture, it is generally expected that if the police arrest you, they will deliver you alive for the next part of your involvement with the criminal justice system.  When that doesn't happen, some or all of the participants in the process have screwed up -- and we do (and should) expect the police to be the "adults in the room" in these situations. 
_____________________________
* Night Court and Barney Miller notwithstanding, there's no way spending the night in a county lockup can be nice.

Roast Pork Tenderloin

      I made slow-cooked pork tenderloin in the roasting pan on the grill Saturday, and oh, my, was it ever good!

     Used my standard pork recipe, marinating the two and a half-pound tenderloin in soy and balsamic vinegar, with some ginger, garlic and, on a whim, a couple of teaspoons of za'atar.  It's a Middle-East spice blend, and despite that, it goes very well with pork.

     I set the tenderloin on a strip of bacon for luck (it was pretty lean) and set timers for two and a half hours and an hour and a half.

     The second timer was to tell me to add the vegetables, to turn this:

     Into this!
     Veggies included a potato, an apple, a turnip, carrots, a red bell pepper, a few shishito peppers, fennel root and golden oyster mushrooms.  Plus some capers.  I was out of onions, and made up for it with a few shakes of onion powder.

     It was delicious! 
     Needed a bit of liquid added before serving, and I should have done so while it was cooking (or just started with more), but I'll do so next time.

Hey, Remember When...?

      Once upon a time, government intrusion into the interaction between a private business and its customers was routinely described by American conservatives as unwarranted interference.

      Not any more!  At least not if you're a business -- say, a private university -- in Florida.

      Let strangers sneeze on you in close quarters all (or more than) you like, Floridians.  Think of it as evolution in action.*

      And don't come crying to me when it breeds up a variant worse than the ones already brewing and spreading.

      There are legitimate reasons to look with suspicion at any government-mandated requirement of fitness before you can do a thing and there ought to be a compelling justification for them. Driver's licenses, licenses to operate radio transmitters, pilot's certifications and others have been deemed to have societal ultility. So have the vaccines required of children attending public schools.   These are legitimate subjects of debate and legislation.  But barring a private business from requiring vaccination of customers or employees?  How is that anything but meddling?
__________________________
* Unless you've got a problem with that, too.  In which case it's fate or the ineffable workings of the Divine that killed your friends or family, and what a comfort that will be.

Friday, At Least It's Sunny

     Think I'll skip saying much this morning.  Regular doctor's appointment this afternoon and I am not looking forward to it.  Skipped my mammogram this year and I can either try for a walk-in this morning, or let her chew me out.

The Question Answered

      At least now, when TV network executives cancel a series I enjoyed and I ask myself, "What were they thinking?  Were they high?" I will have the comfort of knowing the answer to the second question is very probably, "Yes."

      It's not much comfort -- they were already likely to be enjoying the warm glow of brain cells dissolving in alcohol and the confident, malformed judgement that comes with it -- but it's something.

      Somewhere in the hereafter, Harry Anslinger is seething.

      (Although I am very nearly teetotal myself and not even slightly tempted by herbacious inhalations, the tragic damfoolery around pot has done for it precisely what Prohibition did for alcohol use and abuse, not to mention organized crime.  Comes a time to face up to what doesn't work and try something else.  True in 1933, true today.)