Mac Kennedy Doesn't Understand That the "Problem" is the Solution. And Then, There's All That Song and Dance.

Last night, Mac sent out an e-mail.  I'm sure his circulation is more extensive than mine is, so I have no doubt you've seen it.  He calls his e-mail "BP Election: Mac's Endorsements."

Mac has no trouble explaining why the incumbents should not be re-elected, and I completely agree with him.  He says more than once that he's "pulling no punches."

Mac wants "three fresh voices" to join him and Art Gonzalez.  Mac is diplomatic here, and he doesn't bother to mention that Art has no more meaning on the Commission than do the one Commissioner who isn't running for re-election, or the two incumbents for whom he hopes we don't vote.  And Mac is stuck with Art for two more years, so what's the point in complaining?  He can't do anything about the seat Art keeps somewhat warm.

Mac says he's "tired of pulling [his] own weight and that of three [it's four] other Commissioners  who either can't or won't contribute."

He wants "young, strong backs on the team," because although Mac at 61 is one of the youngest of the current Commissioners, if he gets his way, he'll be the oldest (most senior, if you will).

Mac goes on to say "we now have a highly competent manager who cares but who needs to be held accountable, and we have many projects in the works."

I'm not publishing this post simply to republish what Mac sent, and what you've probably already seen.  I want us to pay attention to what Mac is saying, and what we should take it to mean.  And I won't pull punches, either.  Oh, wait a minute.  I never pull punches.  Well, I still won't.

As far as I know, Mac recruited all of the current candidates, except maybe Jonathan Groth.  Or maybe Mac recruited him, too.  So it could be imagined that Mac isn't looking for "fresh voices" at all.  He's looking for people he can more effectively lead.  I have said before, and I will say again, Mac is doing a wonderful job for the Village, and on the Commission.  Without him, we would continue to flounder.  But Mac doesn't truck other voices.  I like Mac.  I consider him my friend.  I've lived here considerably longer than Mac has, and I, like Mac, was a Commissioner for three years.  Do you want to know if Mac listens to what I tell him?  He's sure there's a right way, and he knows what it is, and he has little patience for people who see things differently.

And if Mac thinks the manager needs to be "held accountable," why doesn't he hold him accountable?

But that's not what I mostly wanted to address about Mac's e-blast.  Mac thinks BP is in line for a "much-needed kick in the ass," and he particularly notes that our "Oasis in the Heart of Miami," as Mac likes to call us, is dominated or overwhelmed by much larger and better-endowed municipalities: "NoMi, the Shores, and elsewhere."  And that's just the point.  We're not NoMi, the Shores, or elsewhere.  We never will be.  We don't have to be.  We all moved here because we're not NoMi, the Shores, or elsewhere.  We're BP.  That's not a problem.  It's an asset.  That's why we all chose it.  Sure, we have to do something about drainage and the streets, and if the current manager really is working on that, then good.  That's what he should be doing.  But in the meantime, we're a quiet little burg, with one main street, and too much speeding and too many accidents, and a history of "Don't Even Think About Speeding" signs, which we thought maybe we didn't need any more, and we have to celebrate and protect what we have.  Nobody has medians the way we do.  And we leave them fallow and awful-looking.  We're our own worst enemy.  We tried for a short time to class ourselves up with public art (three Village-owned sculptures, and a mural), and we could do more of that.

Do you know the broken window theory of municipal management, and crime reduction?  I think this came from Detroit.  Someone realized that while buildings and other functions were deteriorating, it was the eventual appearance of broken windows here and there that opened the floodgates for crime.  Once people saw that level of disregard, and lack of self-respect and maintenance, they came to feel that the city was in open season.  Likewise, we can talk all we want about the Codes we (and our manager) don't enforce, and even 6th Avenue that we don't patrol, but when people see how little we care about ourselves, as evidenced by our medians, they get the message.  Speed limits?  Yeah, so?  Look what kind of a dump these people are content to live in.  Once we get more serious about our greatest asset (and apply for grants to redirect water, and improve drainage, and fix the streets), people with more ambition for their living spaces will want to live here, and the whole tenor of the place will improve.

As for Mac's "Endorsements," he sort of didn't make any.  He hopes you won't vote for the incumbents -- people of rock solid proven disinterest and inability -- but there are four other candidates, and he likes them all.  He placed one at the top (and I agree with him about Jonathan Groth), but he left all three of the others sounding like equal recommendations.  But we're only going to get three Commissioners on November 8 -- three new ones, I hope -- so we can't agree to elect four.  There's no such thing as an alternate.  If it's true, as I think it is, that Mac recruited all of these people, then maybe he thinks he can't have recruited someone, then direct us away from voting for them.  But that has to be Mac's problem, not our problem.  Do you want to know if I told Mac many times to recruit or promote only three people, and not four or more?

So Mac's e-blast is a little unhelpful, or at least incomplete.  He said he wasn't going to pull any punches, and then, he pulled punches.  He thinks the manager needs to be held to account, but he won't hold him to account.  He's promoted more candidates than we're allowed to elect, and his "Endorsement" doesn't narrow the field.  You've got your own work cut out for you.  You yourselves can't hold the manager to account, and you have a Commission that won't do it, either.  You're going to have to figure out for which three candidates to vote.  Even if you take Mac's and my advice, and don't vote for the incumbents, you're going to have to set aside one of the other four people.  As of today, October 17, 15 days after I got back to town, I have still not had a visit from even one of these candidates, nor found even so much as a door tag flyer from any of them.  So they're not campaigning.  Even the candidates aren't helping us.

I HATE Tech!!! Among Other Things, It Cost Me the October 8 Meet the Candidates Event in Person.

 To make a very long story short, I was on the phone off and on, and all day October 8, with T-Mobile.  And things are still not settled correctly.  But I did just now finish watching the event on youtube.

youtube listed this as a 2 1/2 hour event.  The first half hour was meaningless milling around, finally ending in introductions at about 29 minutes.  At that point, candidates gave their introductory comments.

Veronica Amsler has been here for some number of years, was working, then decided to become a stay-at-home mother.  Mario Carrozzi does some unclear job which involves corporate work and teams, and he mentioned curiosity, "ideation" (unclear what that meant), and leadership.  Jonathan Groth is a lawyer and currently a Trustee on the BP Foundation.  Judi Hamelburg mentioned her ambitions.  Veronica Olivera has been here three years and considers herself a "community friend."  That seems to mean she has come to know some people.  Dan Samaria said he got elected in 2018 and has met all of his goals.  He did not specify what they were.

Each candidate was asked in turn what made him or her best suited (from the field) to be a Commissioner.  The six answers to this question were a snooze fest, with non-specific and rambling answers, and did not separate the candidate speaking from anyone else.

Each candidate was then asked what were his or her three most prominent issues regarding the Village (what needed attention most).  Veronica Amsler was unfocused.  Mario Carrozzi, Jonathan Groth, and Veronica Olivera mentioned 6th Avenue.  Some offered more unspecified and unfocused ideas.  No one kept to three areas.  They mentioned drainage and other themes.  Judi Hamelburg mentioned water, too, and getting Village reliance on septic tanks converted to public sewage.  Dan Samaria wants to lower taxes.

Candidates were asked what the Village should do to address climate change.  This is a frankly bizarre question, and it has no meaningful possible answers.  Some candidates mentioned one or another form of diversion of flood water.  Interestingly, in Mario Carrozzi's rambling non-answer, he mentioned the "double-edged sword of the homestead exemption."  This was not relevant to the question at hand, and Mario said he looked forward to being glad in coming decades that his tax increases would be limited, but he did seem to recognize the problem.  Dan Samaria said he is "not the greatest person on the environment," and he later, in response to something else, said he was "not a Code person."  As a side issue, it was baffling what someone who lives in a "Tree City USA" which is a "bird sanctuary," and who is "not a Code person," is doing on the Village Commission, or why such a person would want much of anything to do with the Village, let alone trying to get re-elected.

Regarding what the dynamic between the Village Commission and a Village manager should be, Mario Carrozzi had a clear and correct understanding.  Everyone else rambled.  Judi Hamelburg, for reasons only Judi would know, commented that a millage of 9.5 was not going to get things done.  But Judi later said that almost all Commission votes during the past two years have been unanimous, so it's unclear why she voted for a millage she considers inadequate.

There was irregular and glancing mention of the medians, especially regarding the generally meaningless question of whether or not anything should be done about lawn services that block the streets, and make too much noise.

One question that was startling in an otherwise harmless way came from someone in the audience, and it was whether lighting in the Village should be more or less than it is, or the same as it is.  And the questioner specified a request for "no double-talk."  Jonathan Groth sort of said there should be more lighting, but most of his response was the proscribed double-talk.  Veronica Olivera began her response by recalling the proscription against double-talk, then proceeded to deliver all double-talk.  All other candidates offered nothing but double-talk.  Of interest, I think it was Veronica Amsler who said something about not tolerating four-hour Commission meetings (in response to another question), then gave us an example of how they get that way.  People ramble, and just like to hear themselves talk.  Even when they're asked a very specific question, and asked for one or two word answers (more, less, the same), they can't force themselves to do it.

The final question was about how candidates imagined engaging with residents.  Veronica Amsler produced prattle, then mentioned that Nextdoor would be something to monitor.  Mario Carrozzi mentioned "data," "digital," and Nextdoor.  Jonathan Groth used words like "platform," "venue," and the Village website.  But he also mentioned face time with Village residents.  Judi Hamelburg, who was the only candidate who was not at this event in person, said she expected to interact at Village events, and rely on Nextdoor.  Veronica Olivera mentioned the recreation center, Village events, and thought a suggestion box would be a good way for Village residents who are not Commissioners to communicate with Village residents who are Commissioners.  (Of note, I was away all summer, and I returned very early in the morning, October 2 -- eight days ago.  None of these people who want to interact with their imagined constituents have come to my house in the past week, nor left a flyer.)  Dan Samaria thought the Village e-blast would be a good way to communicate.  He then blamed Village residents for not being willing to share their e-mail addresses.

In closing statements, Dan Samaria said he needs to correct his heretofore failure to respond to Village residents.  (So, apparently, it wouldn't matter if Dan did have residents' e-mail addresses.)  He's been a Commissioner for four years, and it's only now that it occurs to him to correct his failings.  Veronica Olivera said she thought the six candidates were all similar and on the same page.  She did not say what page she thinks that is.  Judi Hamelburg rambled for a while, finally ending sort of where she began: at the start, she recalled how the Village mistreated her, and now, she wants to help others who are treated poorly by the Village.  Jonathan Groth's and Veronica Amsler's closing statements were appreciative and not further enlightening.  Mario Carrozzi noted there were 40 chairs in the room, but 1000 houses, which led him to conclude we need better communication.

The most essential goal is not to re-elect the two incumbents: Samaria and Hamelburg.  You can guess about the others, but those two have provided proven inertia, lack of ideas, and tendency to use their Commission time criticizing other Commissioners.  And as much as several candidates noted the things we can't do, for budgetary reasons, Samaria is still talking about wishing he could get the millage lower.  We live in a unique community where we rely only on ourselves, and there are no commercial pockets to pick.  Anyone who wants to live somewhere where the residents don't have to do the heavy fiscal lifting should move.

Of the others, they are in many respects mostly still pigs in pokes.  Jonathan Groth is the safest bet.  Veronica Amsler and Mario Carrozzi showed what could be interpreted as the next best possibilities.  Veronica Olivera seems to be a very nice person, but she's way too green for this.  And none of those four, except Jonathan Groth, has bothered to do the kind of volunteer work (boards) that would give a better insight into how the Village runs, what are its problems, why we haven't solved them, and how to try another approach.  It was noteworthy that one question was where the candidates expected to get the 20 hours per week someone estimated it would take to function as a Commissioner.  They all had answers.  So, if they can find 20 hours a week, why haven't they, except Jonathan, bothered to find three hours a month?

The whole thing was pretty disappointing.  We've had two very bad patches in the 17 years I've been here.  They were the Jacobs years and the Truppman years.  If the next 2-4 years aren't too bad, it will only be if we get lucky.

Reps/Cons are Right. Except When They're Wrong.

I went out this morning apple- and pear-picking with my daughter and grandchildren.  My son-in-law is a sports writer, his beat is the New England Patriots, they had their first home game today, and that's where he was.

My daughter drove us to a town called Stow, about an hour from where she lives.  We drove through some magnificent towns, and we took a lot of back roads.  It was very common in some towns to see solar panels, in small or large arrays.  (My daughter told me her mother, who lives in a different part of Massachusetts, is getting 30 solar panels.  She wants to convert her home heating to electric, and not to have to pay for the heat.)

As I've said before, the deal in Massachusetts is very different from the deal in Florida.  In Massachusetts, you get credit for all the solar power you produce, and my daughter's electric bills are $0 every month.  And she gets a small check from the electric company.  I have more solar panels than do my daughter and son-in-law, I create more electricity than I use every day, FPL calculates that I somehow still owe them about $0.36 a day, and they charge me twice that.  They keep manipulating their minimum bill, so that at a certain level, the less you use. the more you pay.

Reps/cons claim to favor free enterprise and business, because business, according to them, results in progress and innovation.  One of the factors that fuels progress and innovation is competition.  And I certainly get it.  I can see how this makes complete sense.  You reward someone for their innovative efforts, and they'll come up with innovations.

So Dem/lib Massachusetts is a perfect example of supporting free enterprise and business, and rewarding progress and innovation.  But Rep/con Florida somehow is not.  Rep/con Florida, which should, according to its political theory, be leading the way to innovation, and welcoming competition, does exactly the opposite.  (Unless you count all the scams in Florida as examples of innovation.  Somehow, a lot of them come from Palm Beach County.)

Florida and its legislature, with the pressure they exert on the PSC, manage to punish innovation and competition, which is precisely the antithesis of what you would expect a red state to do.  But the method to this seeming madness is that red Rep/con Florida is more devoted to big businesses, like FPL, than it is to the actual, you know, people who live in Florida.  They'll sell us down the river in a heartbeat to keep a company like FPL awash in Floridians' money, so FPL won't have to modernize and innovate, which is just what Reps/cons say is the intended result of the Rep/con agenda.  It's not hard to understand, though, since legislators get more money, in campaign donations, from big companies like FPL than they do from the rest of us, or from their salaries.  So they know who are their real constituents, and we're not it.

But perhaps crazy and unexpected enough, this is not true in blue Dem/lib Massachusetts, which I'm sure plenty of red Reps/cons dismiss as "socialist."  But they're a lot more capitalist, in the purest sense of the word, than are the red Reps/cons in Florida.

Go figure.

Are We Going to Realize We're Destroying the Whole System? Or Are We Just Going to Find Out One Day That It's Destroyed?

There were always bits of things that just represented people's individual personal philosophies, like Leonardo da Vinci's vegetarianism.  At a seemingly more substantive and systematic level, there were the practices of Native Americans, which kept in mind what we would now call ecological balance (honoring animals, not killing more than you needed, using every part of the animal, etc)

But the study of ecology got much more scientific and systematic over time.  The book I happen to be reading now is Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg.  The writing is a little torturous (and between the font and my glasses...), but Stolzenburg tracks ecologists certainly back to the 1960s and 1970s, and he even references observers and students of ecology from the 1800s.  The discussions about ecologists from the mid XXth C, and toward the end of that century, make very clear that damage -- lots of damage -- is being done, because people who are not ecologists are unaware, and probably don't care, that they are throwing the balance of fauna and flora way off with activities that are directed at a single and usually narrow goal: grow certain types of food, make as much money as possible, or whatever else.

Several years ago, I read Michael Polan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, and one or two others of his books.  He looks at the same problem, but from a different angle.  Just before Stolzenburg's book, I read Philip Lymbery's Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were (yes, both titles are take-offs on Maurice Sendak's children's book Where the Wild Things Are), and his angle was much like Polan's.  Polan is a writer, and he's now gone off the rails, writing about why ketamine or LSD or something is good treatment for depression.  Stolzenburg is a journalist whose beat, about which he keeps himself extremely knowledgeable, is ecology.  Lymbery is an actual ecologist.  His first book, which I haven't yet read, is Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat.  Lymbery and Polan, when the latter was sane, were telling the same story: agriculture is distorted in the interest of feeding animals, so people can eat the animals.  And the result is backwards: this approach is less, not more, productive, setting aside the cruelty of it.   Stolzenburg's angle, which is a recapitulation of the real scientific work of actual ecologists, is the critical importance of "superpredators" to keep ecological balance.  The absence or loss of superpredators results in an overprofusion of their prey, which not only throws off balance, but it also drastically narrows ecological variety, leading to things like dramatically accelerated extinction of species.

If you look broadly at all the things these books communicate, you find extreme distortion of the land, what plants grow on it, what animals eat those plants or each other, loss of diversity and species through extinction that is essentially man-made, general ecological imbalance, and what we now call global warming and the other problems that result from it.  (Helluva hurricane season this year, right?). Stolzenburg recapitulates the story of sea otters up around Alaska.  There were always loads of them, until people started wiping them out to get their luxurious fur for fashion and warmth.  But then, they were declared endangered, and they rebounded.  Until suddenly, they started to disappear again.  The question was why the sea otter population was suddenly crashing (late XXth C).  It turned out that killer whales (orcas) were suddenly and unnaturally decimating them.  But why had orcas suddenly decided to prey on sea otters, of which they would need many every day to support their metabolism?  (Orcas are the most dominant superpredators on earth.)  There were two prevailing theories.  One was factory fishing, which was pulling way too many fish out of the (Pacific) ocean, causing orcas to have to find something less customary to eat.  The other was that the whaling industry did the same thing, since orcas prey in schools, and can dispatch even a whale much larger than an orca, and get lots of nutrition out of it.  So again, they had to find what was not their normal food.

And it's completely unnecessary.  Lymbery points out that there are about four billion people on earth, and enough plant food right now to feed about seven billion people.  We use most of the plant food to feed animals a diet which is abnormal for them (and we keep them in conditions that are convenient for us, but torturous for the animals -- which is why most antibiotics are used to try to suppress infection on feedlots, instead of treating infections in people), and which requires many more calories to feed the animals than the animal meat produces.  There are lots of ways we waste food, and that's one of them.  Polan and Lymbery come to one of the same conclusions: eat less meat, or eat meat less often.  Ecologists and medical doctors know that a plant-based diet is healthier than a meat-based diet, and that many people eat too much of whatever they eat.  My daughter, who is a fitness trainer with special concentration in the work of Paul Chek, talks about the "white devils:" sugar, salt, flour, and dairy.  Maybe that's just Paul Chek's shtick, but parts of it are clearly unhealthy, especially when consumed other than sparingly.

In the meantime, while I was writing this post, I got one of my hundred or so e-mails today, asking me to sign a petition.  This one was to complain to the Spanish government about bull-fighting.  Yeah, I signed it.  Have you ever been to a bull fight?  I went to one in Mexico when I was a kid.  That was enough for me.  But I added a comment, as I commonly do when these petitions request it: "What's wrong with humans?  They just like torment for the sake of torment.  Bull fights, dog fights, cock fights, the availability of guns in civilian hands, leading to various levels of murder.  [Of course, the same thing happens too often even when the guns are carried by supposedly trained law enforcers.]. We seem to be a failed species.  We just don't know it, because we're powerful enough and crafty enough to go on being failures."  But the question is the title of this post.

So, probably back to a mostly vegan diet for me.  I go in and out of it. I don't like encouraging this kind of behavior, and (mis)management of the environment, not to mention torturing non-human animals.

If You're Not Busy Friday, September 30

An event called "Coming Together for Change: A Call to Action on Gun Violence in Our Community" is being sponsored by Fantasy Theatre Factory, and held at the Sandrell Rivers Theater at 6103 NW 7th Ave at 6:00 PM.

The description of this event is as follows:

"In August of 2022, Officer Cesar Echaverry was shot and killed just steps from the Sandrell Rivers Theater.  In the one month since that tragic death, we've seen more shootings and deaths in our community, including 85 year old Elizabeth Level, known in the community as Ms Liz.

"In Coming Together for Change, Sandrell Rivers Theater seeks to bring together the leaders of Not-for-Profits, the Police, Business Leaders, and others to create a system of change in our community--the violence must stop.  We must be the change we seek to see. [A paraphrase from Gandhi]

"We will be offering a space for leaders to share their solutions, and to network and work with other leaders as we all seek to effect change for the good of our community.  THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

"Join us, and be part of the solution as we seek to create large-scale system change in our community."

They then offer that you can contact them at 305-284-8872 for more information.  They would like you to reserve a seat.

I imagine you might be thinking that NW 61st St and 7th Ave is relatively far enough away that "their" community is not "your" community.  Don't kid yourself.  Gun violence is rampant, it's increasing, and it's way out of proportion and out of control in this country.

If you're interested, if you have thoughts and opinions, and if you're a "leader," consider participating in this conversation.  If I said it was a life and death matter, it would sound trite, but it's true.

"They Were Promised Jobs and a Better Life."

This sentence, or variations of it, were used to describe the experiences of "migrants" who were flown, unwittingly, from Florida to Massachusetts.  At the moment, they're suing Ron DeSantis.

I don't know exactly for what they're suing him, but if any other person had been induced, by a lie, to go somewhere he or she didn't want to go, the usual word for such a manipulation would be kidnapping.  "Come into the back of my truck, sonny (or little girl).  Your mom asked me to pick you up, and take you home.  I have some candy for you." Which ends in rape, murder, or being taken into the woods and left there.

But that's not the point.  The point is that the promise -- jobs and a better life -- is what all of us, except the Native Americans and the Africans, are doing here.  What these "migrants" wanted in coming here (which they did legally, and registered themselves properly, according to a report I heard) is what everyone, beginning with the Pilgrims, wanted when they came here.  (If the link works, look at the end of the "The legal action comes..." paragraph.)  https://www.npr.org/2022/09/20/1124160949/migrants-lawsuit-ron-desantis-marthas-vineyard

It's what the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, the Jews, the South and Central Americans, the Russians, the "Arabs" (middle easterners), the Cubans, the Venezuelans, and everyone else who came to this country wanted: a better life, or at least better than the lives they had in whatever was their "old country." And an opportunity to work.

The reflex of some is to portray these "migrants" as having come here to make trouble, or take advantage of benefits of the system.  But it's simply not true.  Ron DeSantis knew it wasn't true.  He offered them what he knew they wanted, which is what his forebears wanted, which is what everyone else (again, except for the Native Americans and the Africans) wanted: jobs and a better life.

And the problem with that is what?  Whatever anyone thinks it is, was it also that problem when the rest of our forebears came here?  To put it another way, who should go back home?  All of us?  Every immigration has been followed by a reaction just like this one.  Do you know that this country limited how many Jews could come here when they were escaping the Nazis?  There was a sizable enough contingent of "real Americans" that didn't want so many of "those" people here.

And all groups of immigrants initially, at least, huddle together, in Chinatowns, Gemantowns, Little Havanas, Little Haitis, and other such groupings.  It's not uncommon for it to take a generation until the products of those immigrations become fluent in English and fully functional in American society.  I once had a job as the Psychiatric Medical Director in a clinic in the North End of downtown Boston, which was, and still is, very Italian.  I took night school classes in Italian, because there were so many immigrants, some of whom had been in eastern Massachusetts for decades, but who had never learned English very well (and sometimes, the people who could translate were busy).  And some of them didn't even live in Boston or the North End any more.  They and their close families had moved to towns not far away, but they still liked frequenting the North End.  Maybe it was because it was where there were other people who could talk to them.  I was actually proud of myself one day, when I was in a grocery store checkout line somewhere else in eastern Massachusetts, and the people in front of me were speaking Italian.  I said something to them in Italian, and they asked me from what part of Italy I came.

Once when I was running for office in BP, I encountered an older woman who was Cuban, and she made some comment about "illegal aliens."  I asked her if she knew why Cubans weren't illegal aliens.  It was because we said so.  They were having trouble with Castro, and we told them that if they could get here, we would welcome them in.  We didn't ask if they could speak English, if they could get jobs, or if they had health problems.  We just opened the doors.  And there is no reason in the world why we can't do that for anyone else who wants a life in this country.  The vast majority of people don't, but some do.  So come on in.

There's no reason to treat immigrants any differently than we treat each other.  We're here, they're here (or want to come here), and it's always for the same reason.  Ask Ron DeSantis.  He knows what immigrants want.  He could have offered them welfare and free medical care, but he knew that's not what they came here to achieve.

PS: There's a movie -- I haven't seen it -- called "A Day Without a Mexican."  As I understand it, it's about what would happen if there were suddenly no Mexicans (in California, I think) to do all the things workers like them do, which no one else wants to do.  One review was as follows: "Such a great idea for a movie, but pretty poorly executed.  I would like to have seen better acting, and more of the extensive impact losing Mexicans (or any immigrants for that matter) would have on our daily life."

Also, several years ago, the state of Alabama suddenly took a hard line on illegal immigrants, as exemplified by migrant agricultural workers (the people Ron DeSantis kidnapped were not illegal immigrants).  There was suddenly no one willing to do the agricultural work, so that industry crashed, and the policy had to be rescinded.

We Can Chew Gum and Walk at the Same Time

This post is about two things that sort of have nothing to do with each other.  But the title unites them.

Last night, I got an e-mail from Art Gonzalez.  He highlighted part of a comment I made, in response to someone else's comment, in the immediately preceding post.  The part of my response he highlighted was about the "four losers" on the current Commission.  Art (correctly) assumed I meant he was one of the four losers.  He then went on, as any elementary school kid would, to tell me I'm the biggest loser in the Village, and that no one reads this blog.  ("I'm rubber, and you're glue, and whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you."  That kind of level.)  He went on to remind me that he had requested months ago that I remove him from the new post circulation, but that I apparently didn't do it, or didn't do it successfully, and he was still getting the notices.  He tells me that now, months after he requested to be removed.  He added that I shouldn't have said he was a loser on the Commission.  He says I should have said that he contributes nothing, and he would have respected this as my opinion (with which he did not, by the way, disagree, even though I told him that if he thinks I'm wrong, he should remind me of his contributions.  He did not respond.)

The thing is that if Art isn't interested in what I say, then why does he read it?  And he had to do more than that.  He had to read the post, the comments, and the replies to the comments.  I pointed all of that out to Art -- whom I personally like -- and I pointed out that in asking me to remove him from the new post announcement circulation (which I have now successfully done), he was asking me to save him from himself, since if he becomes aware of a new post he doesn't want to read, he will be compelled to read it, and the comments, and the replies to comments, essentially against his own will.  The only way I can prevent Art from doing what he says he doesn't want to do is to be sure he doesn't know there's a new post.  I'm not sure that's my job.  But, as I said, it's also not my intention to be in anyone's face, and if he doesn't want to know there's a new post -- if ignorance is bliss for Art -- then I oblige.  Although I also pointed out to Art that his being a loser on the Commission -- having run for a job he didn't want to do -- is his choice.  I said Art was a loser, but I didn't make him one.  The fact is that Art's failings took me completely by surprise, and as I reminded Art, when I ran at the same time he did, I strongly encouraged voters to vote for him, Mac, and me.  And I put myself last on the list.

The point is that Art should be able to delete e-mails that are not of interest to him, or, if they somehow are of interest to him, he shouldn't blame me for the fact that he delves into them.  He ought to be more independently capable of running his own life and functioning.

Today on the radio, I heard stories about Joe Biden's having said the coronavirus/COVID pandemic is over.  That's what the announcers and discussants said Biden said, but that's not what he said.  They invented Biden's position about the pandemic.  What he said -- they played the recording of it -- was that the pandemic is over, but we still have problems with COVID.  (And I heard this on the local NPR station, not some right wing functionary network.)  Now I have to admit that what Biden said, assuming that's all he said, didn't make entire sense. How is the pandemic over if we still have problems with COVID?  What did he mean by putting it this way?  But no one asked him that.  They just reported, and then savaged, half of his comment.  There were then discussants, including some doctor named Robert Wachter, who said the rate of coronavirus infection has come down greatly, and Dr Wachter said -- I'm just quoting here -- the pandemic is over when we think it's over.  It was unclear what, exactly, that meant, either, but people were saying there are now 400-500 COVID deaths a day, instead of many more than that, as was true previously.  So maybe Dr Wachter, who also wasn't asked, meant that it would not be rational to conclude that the pandemic is over when there are zero deaths per day, so someone has to choose at what level of morbidity and mortality it would be fair to say the pandemic is over.  It was in this extended report that someone said, regarding how to gauge progress against the coronavirus, that "we can chew gum and walk at the same time."

Chewing gum and walking at the same time sounds easy, but maybe Art Gonzalez, and people who deal with what other people say, and have to conceptualize conclusions from it, have to be a little more open-minded, or tolerant, or even just inquisitive.  Short cuts and sound bites are tempting, but they're so often wrong.

It Would Be Funny If It Wasn't So...Infuriating.

I got my water bill today.  It's for the past three months.

I haven't been home for the past three months.  Two people, both plumbers, gave me some friendly advice to turn off the water supply to the house, so I wouldn't come home to a burst or leaking pipe or faucet or toilet.  So I turned it off.  No one is in the house, the water is turned off just before the meter, and there has been zero usage.

My bill was for $64.92.  The residential consumption (which is zero) was charged at $4.18.  There's a County Service Fee of $3.42.  And a BP Utility Tax of $4.56.  The second to largest invented fee is CNM's "Outside Water and/or Sewer Surcharge:" $11.39.   CNM doesn't provide sewer service to my street, and if you think the "Outside Water Surcharge" should mean they'd fix broken or clogged pipes they own outside CNM, you'd be wrong.  The largest add-on is for the "Residential 3/4 inch Water Base Charge," whatever that is.  $41.37, or almost 10 times the alleged, but completely wrong, consumption.

Well, the good news is that this totally made-up bill is less than the previous one of $79.14.  At least I was home for part of that one, so there were some showers and glasses of water.

It seems the utilities -- electricity and water -- just take whatever they want, based on nothing, and no one challenges them.  "Nice work, if you can get it."

Well, At Least We All Agree About One Thing.

In the last post, I was talking about the pleas I get by e-mail (etc).  Your preferred candidate is losing in advance polls, so you should donate money.  Your preferred candidate is winning in advance polls, so you should donate money.  The other side is assaulting what's important to you, so you should donate money.  Your side is prevailing in protecting what's important to you, so you should donate money.

And what's the money for?  Advertising.  Or to "lobby" (bribe, pay off, underwrite) electeds.  And why is this important?  Because people are inclined to vote for whoever is most visible (yard signs, mailings, radio or television ads).  And electeds can be induced to take positions, or duck conflicting positions, if someone pays them off.

So, what we all agree about is that most people are either stupid, or they just can't be bothered to think through, and maybe even study, issues.  A shiny object is good enough for most people.  And people who have access to getting money are more interested in getting the money than they are in anything else.

We see a version of that in BP.  (Not the money part, because there is no money -- to speak of -- for electeds/Commissioners.)  But we see people who are entirely out of the loop, having shown not the slightest interest in BP's workings, deciding they should be Commissioners.  And we see BP residents voting for them.  On the basis of nothing.  And in the upcoming election, two of the candidates are incumbents, who have essentially assaulted the Village with emptiness, disinterest, and incompetence.  But they'll get votes, too, if for no reason than that they're already incumbents.  The last time I ran for Commission, in 2020, Judi Hamelburg was running.  I encountered a number of people who said they intended to vote for her because they personally like her, or because she's their friend.  Yeah, I personally like several of my neighbors, and I consider them friends, too.  But I wouldn't ask them to treat me for a medical problem, or to fix my car, or the plumbing in my house.  Of course, it's easy to bypass even friends and people you like for things like that, because you have to have formal training, confirmed expertise, and a license to do those things.  But you don't need anything -- not anything at all -- to propose to be a Commissioner.  And there are plenty of people who will take that bait.  Sometimes, all you need is not to be so-and-so, or to be thought of as an outsider, so you're thought not to be what some imagine is an unthinking, or corrupted, part of the system.  It's sort of like the less you know, the more confidence someone might have in you.

And what replaces knowledge, experience, and proven commitment is exposure.

So here we go again.  We're in a no-win situation.  We might re-elect two incumbents who have shown us some of the depths of disinterest and incompetence.  And even if we do make that idiotic mistake, we're still going to get one other person with minimal experience and connection to the Village and how it runs. The best we can do, which is not great, is Jonathan Groth, who at least has participated in the Foundation for a year.  And he's not a particularly active participant.  The rest of them?  Excuse my French (I know it's not French), but who the fuck knows?  If they campaign, which they might or might not, you'll at least find out what they look like, and hear what they say.  But there's still nothing behind it.  Did I call them pigs in pokes?  Yup.

On another, and tangentially related, note, I just finished one book, I've just started another, and I read stuff on my homepage.  It turns out we humans are mindlessly and foolishly destroying this planet, and everything that lives on it (except maybe cockroaches and palmetto bugs, which are amazingly resilient).  We distract ourselves with cheap and processed food, and to get it to be cheap and processed, we wipe out forests, which wipes out various kinds of plants and animals (including, perhaps most importantly, the top level predators, as well as balance), and we flood the environment with pesticides, fertilizers, and monocultures.  But according at least to Philip Lymbery's Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were and other sources, this approach makes the land less, not more, productive, and it causes horrible mistreatment of non-human animals, which are decreasingly healthy themselves, and which are what we want to...eat.  It also causes the soil to be of poor quality (some of this material was discussed several years ago by Michael Polan in places like The Omnivore's Dilemma), and the poor soil plus the run-off of excess pesticides and fertilizers gets into streams, rivers, and oceans, and destroys animals and plants there, too.  (Yeah, I know, discarded stuff, including plastics, and oil spills, do plenty of damage, too.  You're right.  You do take reusable bags into the grocery store, right?)

But the overarching idea is the same: people can't be bothered to investigate and think through matters, which is why visibility, exposure, other shiny objects, and novelty almost just for the sake of novelty, are so effective.  It's why we damage our broader and narrower environments (the earth, and BP) for the benefit of people who don't know what they're doing, and aren't interested beyond their own personal and time-limited (no one lives forever) interests.

So I hope our neighbors who want to be Commissioners (whatever it is they think they want out of that) campaign, and if there's wheat and chaff, I hope you're effective in separating them.  The easiest choice you can make, because you don't even have to guess, is not to re-elect the incumbents.

Right for the Wrong Reasons?

Raise your hand if you don't get petitions to sign, and requests for political donations, all day, every day.  Yeah, that's what I thought.  Most of the petitions make sense, but some don't.  The requests for money are infuriating, because no matter what happens, and no matter what anyone says or does, someone wants you to make a donation.  It's usually urgent, and the amounts aren't in themselves much.  But, as I always say, if I gave the minimum requested donation to every person and every organization I thought was worthy, I'd go broke fast.  So I more or less arbitrarily choose certain ones, I give them a donation once a month or once a year, and I don't add to it every time something happens or someone says something, or every time they come up with an emergency, which they always do.

The stuff some people get is about how terrible Democrats are.  The stuff I get is about how terrible Republicans are.  Today, I got something from some organization called the "Crazy Eight PAC," and it was about something said by a guy named Mark Bishofsky, who's running for Congress from Minnesota.  (I'm going to set aside why I never, ever give money to candidates or PACs, because it's antithetical to the democratic system we supposedly have in this country, but which we've replaced with a plutocracy.)

Anyway, Bishofsky said "I want to make it clear that if we were to implement and legislate all of our conservative values onto people, there will be people that (sic) will suffer.  Like, I think we give too much welfare to people."  This was presented by Crazy Eight PAC as a "confession" and a "truthful moment of clarity" by a Republican.  They distorted Bishofsky's comment into an admission that the goal of Reps/cons is to make people suffer.

(I'm also going to set aside Bishofsky's phraseology of implementing and legislating an agenda "onto" people, as if he somehow recognized he was proposing to heartlessly impose a burden.)

As I said, I never, ever respond to communications like this by making the requested donation, and I usually just ignore them altogether.  But this time, I replied.

I asked Crazy Eight PAC to remember that there are 350M people in this country, that many of them are Reps/cons, and that their positions should not be dismissed as terrible any more than the positions of Dems/libs should be dismissed as terrible.  We don't have to agree, but we have to listen, and have the conversation.

I asked them to consider that the "we give them too much welfare" position could represent something other than just the anger, contempt, and selfishness we usually get from Reps/cons.  I reminded them of Bill Clinton's much more decent way of trying to thread that needle, proposing to offer "a hand up, not a hand out," and I asked them to think beyond anti-welfare Reps/cons, and beyond anyone's impulse to solve the problems of this country, of which there are very many, with welfare upon welfare.  Welfare doesn't address the underlying problems that lead people to need help.  We ought to address those problems.

Mark Bishofsky, as evidenced by his comment, phrased as it was, sounds boorish and simple-minded, and he does not strike me as suitable, adaptive, and workable legislative material.  But I'm not sure he was entirely wrong.  As I wrote to Crazy Eight PAC, it's likely he doesn't have the mental range or the disposition to consider more clearly and broadly what he said, and what he could have meant by it.  If some people are not self-sufficient because they can't earn, and if they can't earn (or make enough money at the jobs they can get) because of something like prejudice, and being placed at a disadvantage from birth, then we ought to use our resources to correct those problems, instead of just shrugging, and sending them a check.  (Or expecting them, against all odds, to find a way to swim, which they commonly don't, or sink, which they often do, since we make success so uniquely arduous for them.)  Bishofsky might have been right, but for the wrong reasons.