Reporting Back

Zak (the baker) Stern hosted a very delightful and very well attended event Friday late afternoon, October 18.  Zak has become very well known in Dade County, because of his sourdough-based baked goods, and he's a BP resident!  He lives on 118th St, two houses from where Sylvia Linke used to live, and he bought Sylvia's house as well, as a place for his offspring to live.

Zak served a variety of edibles, and he also provided wine.  When the general mingling ended, Zak recapitulated the story of his life, which started in Kendall, and his adventures in places like Israel and France, and finally, how he decided to make a career in the food business.  Zak settled into a storefront/bakery in Wynwood, which is still his base, and he bakes for that outlet, a number of local restaurants, and several nearby Whole Foods stores.  My sense is that Zak, who is a very nice guy, is modest, and my best guess is that he's very successful.

When Zak finished his presentation, about himself and his evolution as a frankly master baker, he offered to take questions (a Q&A component).  One person asked him what local restaurants he himself likes.  His top choice was Walrus Rodeo on NE 2nd Ave at about 52nd St.  Since I had no other compelling food plans on Saturday, I decided to try them out.

Walrus Rodeo is a medium-sized restaurant, and it seemed almost full when my companion and I arrived.  The maitresse d' said there were no available tables, and we would have to wait about 1 1/4 hours for one.  I said we'd leave, and maybe come back another time -- I had not the slightest willingness to wait that long -- and the maitresse d' suddenly found us an open table.  (Hmm)

Our waiter was a little sketchy about the sizes of items on order, and he suggested we order about four items, even though he said inconsistently that items were somewhat small, but large enough to share.  Since neither of us was terribly hungry, we ordered a "za" (pizza, like Kanye West calls himself "Ye") and a kale salad.  Between those two dishes and the absence of ravenous appetites, what we ordered was in fact enough.

I would not return to Walrus Rodeo.  I'll set aside what felt like the manipulativeness of the seating.  The food was too expensive.  A relatively small six-slice pizza was $22, and it was not nearly as good as a much larger (about twice the size) $26 veggie with no cheese pizza from Tomato and Basil, which is much closer.  The salad ($17, which was much too much money) was fine, but neither the pizza choices nor the salad choices, nor anything else on the menu, allowed me to keep my preferred vegan restriction.  The restaurant was oddly much too noisy.  The ceiling appeared to have been covered with some contoured metal tiles, and the ceiling was high, so maybe it was that.  There was a tiny, but bizarre, 2% add-on to the bill ($.75) , and it was called a "Health Care Service Charge."  I asked about it, and the waiter said he assumed it was the restaurant's attempt to recover the amount they spent for health care for employees.  Also, I'm not particular about water, so I asked for tap water.  There was an extra $1 charge for Vero water.  I'm happy for Zak if he likes eating there, but it was so trendy as to be annoying, way too expensive, way too noisy, and not as good as I can get elsewhere.

As I was leaving Friday evening's event, Ryan Huntington approached me to ask if he could talk to me about his campaign.  We agreed on Sunday morning at 11:00.  What was initially curious about Ryan's having approached me is that he has never approached me before (but clearly knows who I am), has never called me by name, has not (now twice) asked me to host one of his yard signs, even though it's inconceivable that Mac Kennedy has not mentioned this possible opportunity to Ryan (twice), and has not, for example, said that he heard about this blog, and my always ready willingness to have candidates be guest authors, so they can use the blog as part of their campaigns.  But I cheerfully agreed to meet Ryan (why he wanted to meet at the recreation center was curious and unexplained).

Ryan knocked on my door at about 10:00 Sunday morning.  This time, he addressed me by name ("Fred"), and told me he needed to cancel our meeting, because his wife wasn't feeling well.  He said he'd get back to me to reschedule.  It is now 6:30 Monday afternoon, and I never heard back from Ryan.  We had exchanged phone numbers, so all he had to do was call.  In fact, we could have had our conversation by phone, if his wife wasn't feeling well.  That does not appear to be what Ryan had in mind.  As it happens, I have one of Mac Kennedy's campaign signs, and a Harris/Walz sign, clearly visible in my swale.  Ryan didn't even ask if he could add his sign.  Neither did Dan Samaria, who had come by to drop off his campaign literature.

So that's my report.  I won't go back to Walrus Rodeo, and I'm not voting for any BP Commissioners.  Mac Kennedy will get the most votes, as he should, and I don't care who comes in second or third.  The only difference it might make is that Dan Samaria might use his time to argue with Mac, and Ryan might not do the same.  But it remains to be seen.  There might be three functional Commissioners, or there might be two.  I've spoken to Dan, but not to Ryan, and I can't be bothered to guess what either of them will do.  As it happens, Mac sent out an e-mail today, and he talked about what he considers to be the Commission's recent accomplishments, which he seems to say he powered.  If that's true, then he can create a functional majority after the next two years whether Dan gets a four year term or Ryan does.

A Problem With Democrats

Democrats don't have enough faith, or enough devotion.  They're Democrats -- they'll tell you that -- but they often lack tenacious commitment, especially to other Democrats.

In recent years, take, for example, the matter of Al Franken, who was a Senator from Minnesota for a time.  But a photograph surfaced showing Franken, who had been a comedian before he went into politics, pretending to reach for the breasts of a woman sleeping on a military airplane.  Franken had been a surprisingly (considering that his former career was as a comedian) wonderful Senator.  He was uniquely smart, and perhaps thanks to his former career in entertainment, he was very good at expressing himself, sometimes particularly in light-hearted ways that almost masked the seriousness of the matter at hand.

But when that photograph surfaced, Democrats urged him to resign, which he did.  He hadn't touched the sleeping woman, or done anything to her, but he was comedically non-serious in a way that his colleagues felt was unbecoming his office.  They didn't argue in favor of his value to the Senate, or to point out that he hadn't done anything to the woman in the photograph.  And they certainly didn't pretend he didn't do what the photograph showed him pretending to do.  They jettisoned, or abandoned, him.  Because he betrayed their idea of proper enough decorum.

Or take the matter of Bob Menendez, a Senator from NJ.  He was found with unexplained money and specie, which he shouldn't have had, and which it appeared he had gotten from Egyptian oligarchs.  His colleagues have leaned, and continue to lean, heavily on him to resign.  The "optics" are very bad, and there's every indication he accepted bribes.  His Democratic colleagues would have nothing to do with apparent behavior like that, and he, too, has been fighting off being pushed out by his own party.

Or think of Tulsi Gabbard, or Kyrsten Sinema, or Joe Manchin.  They were all reliable Democratic votes, but they were felt not to have upheld the Democratic agenda.  Gabbard and Sinema are out -- Sinema having changed parties (again) -- and Manchin is not running for re-election.

Much more recently, consider Joe Biden.  One bad debate, and Democrats quickly got all over him to abandon his re-election bid.

You don't generally find problems like that with Republicans.  They are mostly unwaveringly committed to their party, and if any one flinches, he or she gets extruded.  Republicans don't seem to care what their agenda or platform is, or who represents it, or how.  They are stalwart in standing alongside even the most absurd, ridiculous, or self-contradictory members of their party.  They will support even convicted felons in their party.  If anyone declares him- or herself Republican, a large number of other Republicans will have his or her back, no matter what.

It must be a great comfort for Republicans to know they can do whatever they want, and they'll get support.  Democrats don't have that advantage.  They have to behave themselves, honor the Constitution, and put country before party.  Their colleagues are rigorous in demanding all that, and they brook no lapses.

Yes They Do.

The comment made by Tim Walz was that JD Vance's theory about abortion is "two wrongs don't make a right."  Vance had reportedly never before met Walz, but apparently felt free to call him "Tim" -- Walz is a Governor, of which there are 50, and Vance is a Senator, of which there are 100, so if you think the office of Governor is a higher office, I agree with you, making it either simply disrespectful or cocky to call a Governor you don't know by his first name when you're meeting him in person, and you haven't been offered permission.   Regarding the "two wrongs don't make a right" crack, I was a child once, too, but not lately.  But Vance not only didn't confirm that this is his philosophy, but more importantly, he didn't explain it.  And it's worth considering whether Vance, even if his philosophizing is at the immature level of a child, is right.

Walz offered some examples of recent situations in which abortion was withheld.  One of them was of a pregnant adult woman who experienced pregnancy-related problems that could have been life-threatening, but instead turned out to damage her reproductive capacity so that it appears she is unlikely to be able to have children.  Since Vance has made repeatedly publicly clear that in his opinion, there should be more children in this country, and they should be born of American citizen parents, and not welcomed as immigrants, Vance himself would presumably count as a "wrong" that a woman of child-bearing age, who wants children, either dies or can no longer have them, because she didn't get an abortion.  (In very recent examples Walz did not raise, two women actually did die of pregnancy complications because the pregnancies were not terminated when the pregnant women were in medical danger.)

What happens to this arithmetic if we consider, for purpose of imagining, that abortion is "wrong?"  It then becomes the second "wrong."  But it restores women of child-bearing age to an ability to live, and care for their other children, and to have more children, which Vance favors.  So if becoming medically damaged or infertile, or dying, is "wrong," then the second "wrong" -- abortion, makes the situation "right."  It salvages "right" from "wrong."

Another situation Walz mentioned was about a 12 year old girl who was not only raped, but impregnated, by her step-father.  It is most likely that everyone would agree that no one, and certainly not 12 year olds, should be raped.  That, I assume, is what Vance might agree was "wrong."  It's possible that the 12 year old would not have gotten pregnant, but she did.  Vance likes the idea of American children, but we'd have to ask him if he likes the idea -- considers it "right" -- that 12 year old American girls become impregnated, especially if they didn't want the sexual encounter.  I'm very tempted to think that even Vance would find something at least partially "wrong" with a situation like that.

But again, suppose we imagine abortion to be "wrong."  If that raped-by-her-stepfather 12 year old now pregnant girl gets an abortion, so she's no longer 12 years old and pregnant, and can live a vastly more normal life, and perhaps her rapist step-father gets convicted and incarcerated, don't those two "wrongs" combine to make a "right?"  Doesn't the first "wrong" get corrected or eliminated by the second "wrong?"

It was Walz who said Vance thinks "two wrongs don't make a right" (is Vance really an adult?), but Vance didn't disagree.  It was a debate stage.  Both of them were there together, listening to each other.  Vance had every opportunity to correct Walz if he thought Walz misquoted or misunderstood him.  I think we have no choice but to assume Vance said and meant what Walz quoted him as having said.

If that's the case, and again, we don't have a basis to find a way out for Vance, then Vance appears to have been wrong: two "wrongs" really do make a right."  They make things right.  Unfortunately, listening to these examples did not lead Vance to interject that those were unusual cases in which abortion would, in fact, have been the "right" thing.  He's a very stubborn boy.  And perhaps to make matters worse, Vance and his ilk have so terrorized the medical community that they are now afraid to make these clinical decisions, for fear of being punished.  So even if Vance now said these were terrible and exceptional situations, and abortion should have happened, his opinion today isn't going to help dead pregnant women (with dead fetuses), women who can consequently no longer have children, and 12 year old mothers.