Train up a child...

The week before the murderous spree at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Daniel Defense - makers of the assault rifle used for the killings - posted an ad on Twitter showing a toddler holding a rifle. The caption was a verse from the Bible: Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it. 

The caption was accompanied by the praying hands emoji. 🙏(Praying white hands, naturally.)

Religion (Christian variant) and gun ownership are often in close proximity to each other. Praying white hand in glove, as it were. American gun rights supporters frequently spout off about having access to all sorts of weaponry as a "God-given right." As if...

A number of the more extreme gun advocates, including several members of Congress, eagerly post Christmas cards that depict each member of their family cradling a gun. This jolly-holly picture was tweeted out last December by Thomas Massie, R-KY with the greeting: 

Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.

Just spitballing here, but I'm guessing Massie is a big proponent of keeping Christ in Christmas.

Not surprisingly, some of the blame-game players on the right are pointing to lack of prayer in the schools, and the general decline in religious observance, as the reason for the increase in mass killing events where weapons of mass destruction are deployed. 

So there's nothing unusual about Daniel Defense promoting what to me is an ungodly combo of God and guns. 

The company’s social media ads often blend Bible verses with images of their guns. In an Easter-themed post on 17 April of this year, the caption “He is Risen!” ran underneath an image of a cross, atop a rifle, lying on an open Bible.(Source: The Guardian)

Just good marketing? Maybe. I'm sure they know their audience. Bad - as in evil - marketing? Yep.

The Uvalde attack is also not the first time that Daniel Defense weapons have been involved in a mass shooting. Guns manufactured by the company were in the arsenal of the gunman who killed 58 people and injured more than 500 in Las Vegas in 2017. 

Post-Uvalde, Daniel Defense did offer "thoughts and prayers." They apparently didn't get the word from the NRA and/or Republican Messaging HQ that "thoughts and prayers" is so yesterday. The new thing is "horrified and heartbroken."

There are really no words. Nineteen little ones, two teachers, mowed down by a deeply disturbed 18 year old who, on his 18th birthday, was able to legally purchase two assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition. 

Unimaginable horror, but not so unimaginable that we've already forgotten the last unimaginable horror (TOPS grocery store in Buffalo). Not so unimaginable that we're not already anticipating the next unimaginable horror. (No doubt coming soon to a school, grocery store, church, theater, shopping mall near you.)

There are really no words, to convey the horror of all these dead children, the grief of their families.

Still, it's probably worth a few words to say that a few common sense gun laws might help. A ban on selling magazines with more than 10 bullets in them. Red flag laws. More in-depth background checks for gun purchase. Training, licensing, insurance. Upping the age at which someone can purchase an assault rifle. Maybe even banning assault rifles. (A girl can hope, can't she?)

The other day, someone on Twitter commented that, when they went to adopt a rescue mutt, they had to fill out a ten-page application form and have a home visit for an evaluation of their fitness to rescue a pupper. Yet Salvador Ramos could just waltz in and buy assault rifles.

High powered assault rifles. They're designed for war, they're designed to kill humans. Why on earth does a civilian need one? The only answer I've seen offered was from Senator Bill Cassidy, who suggested that they were needed to kill feral hogs. (This is the same solon who recently said that the maternal death rate in his state, Louisiana, would be no higher than the rates experienced anyplace else if they removed the statistics on Black mothers.)

Anyway, a few new laws, while they won't prevent all future massacres - there are more than 400 million guns in civilian hands in this country, including 20 million assault rifles - may stop some of the carnage. (Which, of course, we'll never be able to prove to the satisfaction of those who oppose any limitations on gun ownership.)

I really don't expect much of anything to happen with respect to new gun laws. Those who oppose any gun restrictions, however mild, tend to vote single-issue. For those who favor some restrictions, new laws seem like "nice to haves." Just one of many wants. Not enough to get someone to actually vote for a Democrat. 

We're likely to see plenty of performative "action." Harden the schools. Calls for arming of teachers. (What a swell idea that is.) More armed police officers in schools. And the one I'm waiting for: arm all local LEOs with assault rifles so they're on equal footing with the bad guys. 

The first time I went to Europe in 1973, I went to a couple of places where there'd been civil unrest.

If my memory is accurate, we saw soldiers/police officers in Greece roaming the streets carrying assault rifles. (A right wing junta was ruling Greece at that time.) In Italy, in the train stations, there were soldiers with machine guns. (This was during the "Years of Lead," when there was plentiful right- and left-wing political terrorism.)

It was scary, seeing men thus armed. Even if they were the "good guys" protecting us.

Will we see it here? I wouldn't be surprised.

It's all so terrible.

I heard that one little girl survived by painting herself with her dead friend's blood and playing dead. Amazing intelligence, presence of mind, and bravery on the part of this little one. But do we really want our little ones to have to display such intelligence, presence of mind, and bravery in order to get out of their school day alive.

And what about the children trained up to accept that guns are the norm, that they can and should - make that must - be everywhere?

Is this the best that American Exceptionalism has to offer?

A little walk through Memorial Day posts past

Today is Memorial Day. Start of summer, etc. Maybe/maybe not think about those who've served. I've had plenty to say about Memorial Day over the years, and here's snippet from each of those posts. 

Decoration Day (2007)

Today I will think of those who were not as lucky as Jake Wolf [my grandfather; saw combat on the other side in WWI] and Al Rogers [my father, four years in the Navy during WWII; never saw combat], those who did not make it home to build their lives.

Six Degrees of Separation from the Military (2008)

How much easier it is to "live" with a war that doesn't have any direct impact on you or anyone you know, or even know of, except remotely.

Just something to think about on Memorial Day.

Memorial Day 2009

I've always loved Memorial Day, one of those pleasant but low-craziness holidays that we just don't get enough of.

Memorial Day 2010

After we had finished planting, we strolled around the graveyard, which is small (it’s a parish, not a diocesan, cemetery) and, in our case, quite family oriented. We walked by the graves of lots of friends and relatives – close cousins we knew, distance relations we knew of, the family who lived in my grandmother’s decker – and noted how many of the graves were – this being Decoration Day – decorated with flags, put out by the American Legion or the VFW, in holders that indicate the war that someone served in.

Memorial Day 2011

This year, Memorial Day has special resonance, in that we observe the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which begat Decoration Day, which begat the latter day Memorial Day.

Memorial Day 2012: "It's Not About the Barbecue" (2012)

There are so many things that are bad for a country’s soul, and I’ve got to believe that having an all-volunteer military has got to be one of them – too much opportunity for sunshine patriots and chicken hawks to call the shots knowing they have no skin/no kin in the game.

Memorial Day 2013

It promises to be a brilliant spring day here in Boston, but as I write this it’s cold, dreary, drizzling – not atypical spring weather in these parts, and actually pretty fitting, when you think of it.

Sure, war is sometimes conducted on delightfully balmy days. But as often as not, those in battle are coping with terrible physical conditions.

It’s frostbitten feet at Valley Forge. It’s contending with the heat at the Battle of the Wilderness.  Muck in the trenches of Château-Thierry. Rappelling up the cliff at Pointe du Hoc during a pelting rainstorm. The cold and ice at Choisin Reservoir. Monsoon season in Vietnam. Sandstorms in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Memorial Day 2014

This Memorial Day, I’m mostly thinking about the two dear ones I have lost since last Memorial Day: my husband Jim and my golden (50 years!) friend Marie.

Neither was a veteran.

Jim spent what would have been his soldiering years working as a chemist for a series of government agencies, including the CIA, in order to get draft deferments. (Hard to think of anyone less suited to the soldier’s life than my singular and peculiar husband. I always told him he would have been Section-Eighted out in the time it took his drill sergeant to yell “ten-hut”, or whatever it is that drill sergeants yell.) Like my father, Marie’s served in World War II, Bob as a Marine MP in the South Pacific (a precursor to his job as a Worcester cop).

Up the Republic! (2015) 

This year, while I will keep up the tradition of thinking about veterans in general, and my dead loved ones in particular, my shout out this Memorial Day goes to The Republic of Ireland, which last Friday became the first country to approve gay marriage by popular vote. And that popular vote wasn’t close at all: 62.1% voted a resounding YES!

Memorial Day 2016 

Tough to think of all those lives – mostly young men – lost to war. And I guess it doesn’t much matter whether it was a good war or a not so good war. (“My war’s better than your war!”) And it doesn’t much matter, either, whether you were a gung-ho patriot or a reluctant recruit, grousing all the way. At the end of the day, you didn’t get to live the full life you would have had if not for that good or not so good war. Sigh…

Broken Record and Then Some (2017) 

Back in Boston, the flags are up on the Common,

commemorating all of those from Massachusetts who
died in the service of our country, from the Revolutionary War on. A stirring sight, for sure. But I like this shot because it shows the carousel. Life goes on!

Memorial Day 2018

On this Memorial Day, here’s hoping that no one as crazy and amped up as the Robert Duvall character in Apocalypse Now amps us into yet another war.

Memorial Day 2019

...unlike 45% of Americans, at least I know that today is a holiday to commemorate our war dead. I don’t actually find that figure all that shocking. There are so many things that Americans are ignorant about, awareness of the purpose of Memorial Day is the least of it.

Memorial Day 2020

This year, there's another kind of war on. Maybe next year, we'll have flags for the coronavirus deaths.

Memorial Day 2021 

I don't know that the words of the Roman poet Horace are necessarily always true. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.) There are plenty of bad causes that soldiers have died for. But the Civil War - so bloody, so ghastly - was, for the Union soldiers, a righteous one. The cynical may discount the role it played, but ending slavery was a noble purpose. And if we're still fighting that war today - and regrettably we are - then shame on us.

Lots to think about on this Memorial Day. There always is.

To quote the blogger: Lots to think about on this Memorial Day. There always is.  

 

Location, location, location. Just not my locations, please. Or anyone else's for that matter.

Years ago - a couple of decades, actually - I was on a panel at a tech conference, and one of the questions that us sages on the panel were asked was to name an issue that we saw emerging over the next few years. My answer, pulled either out of the sky or out of something I'd recently read, was PRIVACY.

This was during the early stages of the dot.com era. The Internet wasn't brand new. Not exactly. But it was just taking off as a platform for commerce and interpersonal communications. 

Little did I know...

Fast forward and privacy is a huge issue, in that most of us no longer have as much of it was we used to.

I was only on Facebook for a brief while, mostly to look at pictures of the kids, grandkids, and dogs of friends. So I didn't surrender much there.

But I've been blogging for nearly 15 years, and if someone wants to figure out where I'm coming from, they can look here.

Ditto for Twitter. I've only been at all active since the 2020 election, and 99.99% of my activity is commenting. But if the coming fascist government wants to Gestapo in on folks, Twitter is where they'll find me.

Plus I sign petitions. And donate to ActBlue.

I order plenty of things online. 

I search all the time. And while I say good luck to anyone trying to figure out who I am and what I'm about by all my rando searches, I'm sure there's an algo in the making which will be able to do just that.

I've spit in the vial for Ancestry, so my DNA is hanging out there.

I wear a Fitbit that records my every step.

And I never leave home without my smartphone. As it is for everyone else, my phone has become an almost seamless extension of my body. (Not really, but I've always wanted to use the words "seamless extension" in some context other than as weasel words talking about one tech product integrated - however tangentially - with another.) I don't leave home without my phone, and on the rare occasion I find that I have, I quickly backtrack. And, like most folks, I do leave location tracking on. 

So between Fitbit tracking my walking, and Verizon tracking my location, and Google tracking my online activity, and mouthing off on social media, if I think about it for a moment, I'm living - as most of us are - the creepy prediction that the creepily named group The Police made way back in 1983 when they released their stalker anthem, Every Breath You Take. 

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
I'll be watching you.

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you

Bad enough that all these every-things are being fed into the maw of big data machines that spit it out so that companies can get their marketing message to us. It'll get a lot worse when, say, insurance companies strike a bargain with Ancestry.com and figure out who's got DNA that's worth selling insurance to and who doesn't. And it'll get a lot worse if and when an authoritarian regime takes control of this country, a prospect that once seemed outlandish, but which is now within the realm of possibility.

The best movies I've seen about a total society where the regime keeps watch are The White Rose and The Lives of Others. 

The White Rose is an account of a anti-Nazi student movement in Germany in the 1940's, told largely from the perspective of Sophie Scholl. Control was so intense in Germany during the Nazi years that you couldn't even purchase a ream of paper at a stationery store without getting reported, and there were government agents monitoring how many stamps you bought at at time when you went to the post office. The better to figure out who was printing anti-government pamphlets and mailing them out. (Sophie Scholl, along with fellow members of her resistance group, including her brother, were beheaded.)

All that Gestapo-led total society training perfectly set the East Germans up for a life in their repressive post-war regime, and The Lives of Others centered on a member of the Stasi who was eavesdropping on citizens trying to catch them out. The Stasi also relied on family members, colleagues, and neighbors reporting on each other - a tactic which had been perfected by the Nazis.

Anyway, both of these films are chilling. And they were made about a time that was way, way, way before technology enabled the collection of an almost infinite and granular set of information about us - much of which we voluntarily surrender, day in and day out, without thinking twice.

The latest fear factor surrounds threats to privacy with respect to women's health:

A location data firm is selling information related to visits to clinics that provide abortions including Planned Parenthood facilities, showing where groups of people visiting the locations came from, how long they stayed there, and where they then went afterwards, according to sets of the data purchased by Motherboard. (Source: Vice)

While this is macro level data, it's apparently not all that difficult to unmask the data and find the names of (and dox) individuals. And going after those visiting Planned Parenthood is apparently nothing new:

Anti-abortion groups are already fairly adept at using novel technology for their goals. In 2016, an advertising CEO who worked with anti-abortion and Christian groups sent targeted advertisements to women sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics in an attempt to change their decision around getting an abortion.

This location data could do grave harm to those seeking reproductive care, as it could be used to follow women traveling from a state without the right to an abortion to a state where abortion is available. Some legislatures in anti-choice states are already making noises about homicide charges for those who have an abortion, about tracking women who travel out of state, etc. Could get very, very scary.

Even scarier when you consider that many women use period trackers. The thought of this data combining with location information. Shudder, shudder, shudder...

And for those wondering whether "they" will be coming after gay marriage once "they" overturn Roe v. Wade. Of course they will be.

Recently, a Christian-focused outlet The Pillar published a piece that used location data to track the movements of a specific priest and then outed him publicly as potentially gay without his consent.

I'm too old to have periods, to get pregnant. I'm not gay. But I regularly participate in protests.

So I need to start turning off location tracking on my phone. 

Not that this will necessarily work. With facial recognition technology and drones, with spies no doubt being everywhere filming protests (not to mention phone-made videos being posted on social media by the folks on the right side), and Alexa and Siri potentially spying on you in your home, there's probably no place to run, no place to hide.

Technology is such a mixed bag, isn't it?

Bear baiting is alive and well. (And you won't be surprised to hear who's involved in it.)

Back in olden times, when humankind was a lot less advanced, a lot less evolved, a lot less gentle and kind, bear baiting meant pitting a bear (often chained) against fighting dogs or other animals. Battles were often waged in bear gardens, which may or may not have been precursors of beer gardens. Inquiring minds wouldn't mind knowing.  

In Merry Olde England, Henry VIII, when not lopping the heads off of his wives, enjoyed the sport. It was said that Puritan New Englanders frowned on bear baiting, not because it was cruel to the bears, but because the spectators so heartily enjoyed it. In Mexico and old California, it was fought bears vs. bulls, a mashup of two charming blood sports.

Interest in bear baiting dwindled over time, but it was only outlawed in South Carolina (no comment) in 2013. 

But there's a more modern definition of bear baiting, and that's where hunters set out food to attract a bear to a certain spot. The intrepid hunter - out to prove that, like Yogi, he's "smarter than the average bear" - stakes out the spot. And bang-zoom, when the bear shows up to cadge a donut, the intrepid hunter gets to kill him a bar. 

Doesn't seem quite sporting to me, but - in the states where nouveau bear baiting is legal - it accounts for most of the bears killed. 

But putting out goodies to lure the bear is apparently not okey-dokey in Utah, where well-known "hunting guide Wade Lemon faces five years in state prison for the death of a Carbon County bear killed during a guided hunt on May 18, 2018." (Source: Salt Lake City Tribune)

Now, this sort of criming would not generally hit the national news. And it only did this time because of the identity of the trigger man: one Donald Trump, Jr., a well known rugged he-man sort of big game hunter. (Lordy lord, when I went to type "hunter", I completely reflexively began it with the letter "c", unconsciously using the c-word in the Irish sense. In the case of Donald Trump, Jr., the Irish sense of major jerk definitely applies.)

Prosecutors have indicated there was no evidence showing Trump Jr. would have known about the alleged baiting that went on during the hunt.

Without naming Trump Jr., Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings said the hunter in the case “was actually a victim and a now a possible witness in a fraudulent scheme to lead the hunter to believe it was actually a legitimate Wild West hunting situation.”

Trump, Jr. as "victim" certainly fits in nicely with the Trump family narrative. But it also fits in nicely with the gilded, privileged, doors-open-magically existence of all of the Trumps. Why would Trump, Jr., notice that the bear was just sitting there, fat, dumb, and happy with a virtual "shoot me" sign with an arrow pointing down, hanging over its head? After all, pretty much everything Jr. has "achieved" has been handed to him on a platter. So why not a bear?

The bait was a yummy (at least to a bear) combo of grain, oil, and pastries. But other illegal baiting sites attributed to Lemon's outfit have been found over the years, "one with a dead horse carcass covered in branches and a melon rind."

There are other nasty practices that help hunters out. Like treeing a bear. In one instance, "Lemon's employees had treed a bear and built a fire under the tree to keep it from escaping while they waited for their client to be brought to the site."

That sure seems fair to me.

Anyway, Donald Trump, Jr., didn't bait the bear. He just benefitted from it. Let the other guy do the dirty work.

In the grand tradition of Trump family, this sounds about right.

No longer so lucky to be a Yankee

Jake Sanford was probably not going to be another Aaron Judge. Judge is the Yankees' power guy, and his swings are worth $10M this season. With his free agency looming, Judge is probably looking at a multi-year contract (probably not with the Yankees) of roughly $300M.

Jake Sanford is an outfielder, too, but the Yankees didn't have him on track as a Judge replacement. Still, he was their third-round draft pick in 2019, and might have made it to the bigs, where the minimum salary is somewhere around $600K, and the average is $4.4M (a number, inflated, of course by those with the eye-popping free agency contracts). That $600K is also just about the amount of Sanford's signing bonus. Not bad for a guy who, if he couldn't play ball, would probably be working at whatever the 21st century equivalent of pumping gas. Not that there's anything wrong with the 21st century equivalent of pumping gas. It's just that it doesn't pay anywhere near $600K a year, or get you the girl, the comped meals, the butt-kissing and the glory. And it ain't going to get you on the Topps bubblegum card, either. 

Well, old Jakey is no longer with the Yankees organization. He's with an independent (unaffiliated with the majors) league team from Ottawa, Ontario. The Titans.

Remember the Titans? Me neither.

But he's with them now, and I hope he saved some of his bonus money, because he'll be making a lot less than that. The salary cap for the Frontier League a couple of years ago was less than $100K. The average player was paid about $1,600 a month. And all the bus rides they'd ever want.

Anyway, what bounced Sanford out of the Yankees' pipeline and into oblivion was not his lackluster play. 

Nope. He:

...was cut by the team last week over allegations that he repeatedly "hounded" teammates for equipment such as bats and gloves to sell online, and occasionally going as far as grabbing it from their lockers, according to NJ.com's Brendan Kuty. (Source: Yahoo)

And it wasn't enough that he was ripping off his teammates, which would be shabby enough. He was reportedly screwing fans, too.

While allegedly selling the equipment he procured legally or illegally, fans have accused him of taking money in advance and never delivering the equipment.

I have no idea what the market for minor league game-used merch is, but anything Sanford stole was nowhere near as valuable as, say, an Aaron Judge homerun bat would be - if Sanford had made it to the bigs and gotten his mitts on one. (Hey, Aaron, look over there!) 

Still, I'm sure some folks collect minor league gear in the hopes that a prospect will make it to the major leagues. And make it really BIG once he gets there. At which point his cap/shirt/ball/glove/jock will be worth something. 

Why do it? Why jeopardize your career and your reputation, and piss off your teammates, for a little walking around money?

Who knows if Sanford has a gambling problem, or just a bit of larceny that made it out of his heart and into real life. But the major leagues will likely put the kibosh on his becoming a big leaguer. 

Of course, chances are that if Jake Sanford had super-star potential the Yankees would have hung on to him. Gotten help for his gambling condition and/or larcenous heart. 

But I'm guessing this guy is going nowhere. Other than wherever the Ottawa Titans bus takes him. Places like Little Falls, NJ, to play the New Jersey Jackals. To Florence, KY, to play the Y'Alls. Or Joliet, IL, to play the Slammers. (Hard not to love the names of minor league teams...)

Lou Gehrig thought he was the "luckiest man in the world" to have played for the Yankees. And he said that when he was dying of ALS.

Joe DiMaggio's biography was titled Lucky to Be a Yankee.

Jake Sanford's probably just lucky that he's not in the slammer, y'all.

What a jackal!

Don't know whether this makes me happy or sad

I read the other day that American interest in what's going on in Ukraine is waning. Too much else to focus on: the price of gas, the lack of baby formula, Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard.

Sure, Zelensky was captivating - for a while. But we have our own leaders to focus on. Look, over here: What is it that Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying about Bill Gates and monkeypox? Then there's madman Peter Navarro who wants to see Anthony Fauci in prison... 

Ukraine? It's over there. It's too hard. And Rand Paul says...

But the war in Ukraine is still raging and it seems that the news is always two step forward/one step back, or one step forward/two steps back. My money's on Ukraine, but you never know...

At any rate, there was a story in the Washington Post the other day about a little side note on the war. It was a feel good story, but I don't know whether it makes me happy or sad.

By vocation, Ivanka Siolkowsky is a professional organizer/declutterer. A follower of Marie Kondo - she of the neatly folded tee-shirts - Siolkowsky runs a company called The Tidy Moose, where she writes, consults, and coaches folks on making their lives neater by getting organized. Before she was an organizer, she was an elementary school teacher, which I'm guessing is excellent training for becoming an organizer. 

Siolkowsky has Ukrainian roots, and she decided to head over to her ancestral land to do help out, which she did by way of Poland, where she volunteered with refugees before going into Ukraine. 

In Bucha, which has been the scene of wanton butchery at the hands of the Russian invaders, she met a man who's son had been killed, his home destroyed. 

“There is no joy left for me in this town,” the man, known as Sasha, told her, she recalled...

Even though Russian troops are no longer occupying Bucha, where brutal scenes of civilian massacres were uncovered, Sasha told the Canadian-born Siolkowsky that the streets of his cherished neighborhood no longer felt the same. “The bullet holes in my fence remind me of all that I’ve lost,” he said, according to Siolkowsky. (Source: Washington Post)

Siolkowsky, who - in addition to her teaching and organizing credentials - has a degree in visual arts, decided to paint over the bullet holes.

After completing her work on Sasha's fence, she was asked by neighbors to do the same for their bullet-riddled fences, which she did, sometimes assisted by a little 4-year-old helper, Anya. 

Together they painted long-stemmed daffodils and daisies, red poppies and humble forget-me-nots. There were also bright yellow sunflowers — the national flower of Ukraine — that have become a global symbol of resistance and hope since Russian troops invaded in late February.

Initially worried that the people of Ukraine would be offended, or find her work trivializing, Siolkowsky found that it was well-received. It brought, as she had hoped, "some semblance of joy back into this town."

Her hope is that Ukrainians will take up the practice, and that folks in towns that had been occupied will paint over their bullet holes with flowers. She has seen it happen it a few other places already. 

I'm happy that there are people like Ivanka Siolkowsky trying to make life a tiny bit more bearable for those who have experienced such great horror, who have lost so much.

I'm happy that she was able to put a smile on the face of little Anya.

But I really don't know whether this all makes me happy or sad.

What it does is bring to mind a poster that was popular during the Vietnam War. I'm pretty sure I had one up on a dorm wall at one point or another. 

And it also brings to mind a popular song of the era, Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone", most notably covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary. (Did I hear them sing this at the 1969 Washington DC Moratorium? With Pete? I know they sang something. John Lennon was there, too, as I recall. "All we are saying, is give peace a chance.")

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

You know the lyrics as well as I do. The young girls went to young men, the young men were gone to soldiers, then to graveyards which went to flowers, which were picked by young girls... 

And, no, nobody ever seems to learn anything. Human condition, I guess. 

There's so many distractions out there, and many of them are important to pay attention to. The overturn of Roe v. Wade. The dismantling of our democracy. Never ending covid. Retirement accounts croaked by the market. Racist murders in Buffalo. 

But we can't lose sight of Ukraine, and I thank Ivanka Siolkowsky, and her little friend Anya, for reminding us of that. 

Looking out the window

One of the great pleasures of being in a vehicle is looking out the window. Planes, boats, trains. Matters not. And cars. Especially cars. 

Even though I usually take an aisle seat, I love looking out the window on a plane. I love when you can spot the sights: Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Manhattan skyline. I love seeing the meandering shapes of rivers. I love flying at night and seeing the lit up towns below.  Once, flying home from a business trip to Minneapolis on July 3rd, I passed over several towns that were shooting off their fireworks. Magic! I love sunrise out the plane window. Sunset. Clouds. Storms. I even like staring out into the nothingness on an overnight flight over the ocean. I love when we spot the coast of Ireland.

I don't spend a lot of times on boats, but when I am on a boat heading to the Cape or to Salem, Mass, I spend my time staring out the window. I suppose I'd do the same if I were ever to go on a cruise.

I love looking out the window on a train, imagining who lives in those farmhouses we're chugging by, who lives in those towns. And wondering what's going on in the station we're stopped at. When I was a kid, we sometimes took the train to visit our Chicago family. That wonderful place outside of Cleveland where wild roses grew on the side of the tracks. It's as vivid to me now as it was when I first saw it out the train window well over 60 years ago. And those beautiful Lombardy poplars in the fog somewhere in Indiana. On one of those train trips - I must have been about four - a soldier sitting in the seat in front of me kept pulling down the shared window shade so he could sleep. I would inch it up just a bit, and he would slam it back down. I don't care if he just got back from the Korean War: meanie!

One of the eeriest things I ever saw from a train window was the view when we were pulling out of Newark heading to Boston on an Amtrak on September 12, 2001. The length of Manhattan was covered with a big black cloud. 

I love looking out the car window. 

Sure, being a passenger can bring on the drowsies, but when you're awake, you get to watch the world passing by without having to worry about keeping your eyes on the road.

Even when you are worrying about keeping your eyes on the road - i.e., you're in the driver's street - you still get to see stuff: trees, cows, farm houses, church steeples.

One thing I loved about the long drive to Syracuse I used to make (solo) several times a year for business was passing through all those worn-down, worn-out industrial towns, and imagining what they once were: Amsterdam! Gloversville! Canajoharie (and its abandoned Beech-Nut Life Saver plant)! Seeing the Erie Canal and thinking of all those Irishmen, putting their corduroy britches on and carving out the route with their picks and shovels. 

But being a passenger's better.

My memory is full of childhood snapshots and tiny videos of things we saw on the frequent rides my family took. Cellar hole houses, where the people living in them could not yet afford to put an actual house on the foundation and were living in their basements. Houses with no front steps, because - or so my father said - you paid less in property taxes if your residence was not yet finished. The grand houses on the west side of Worcester. Doctors, lawyers, rich folks.

The package store in Cherry Valley where, when we passed, someone was sure to say "that's where Maureen fell." (When I was three or four, having accompanied my father and sister to the packy to pick up his monthly ration of beer (one case) or maybe a bottle of Four Roses if they were having company and my father was going to make highballs, I tripped coming out. That stumble is an indelible memory, as is the family chorus of "that's where Maureen fell." The long-gone ice cream shop, further out on Route 9, where, when we passed, someone was sure to say "that's where the monkey stole Kathleen's cookie," which happened when she was a baby. Before any of the rest of us were around. 

I loved seeing the neatly trimmed cemetery hedges that spelled out PRAY FOR US, which, as a child, I thought was a miracle, realizing when I was well passed the age of reason that they were planted and trimmed that way.

I loved the night rides we took around Christmas, when we got to see all the houses decked out. 

The sights from the grim ride we took on the Sunday after JFK was assassinated remain with me. My parents wanted to get us away from the constant barrage of death and sorry - that morning we'd been watching live when Lee Harvey Oswald was gunned down on TV - so we packed into the car for a drive around Worcester. There was no escaping. We drove through downtown and all the stores had portraits of Kennedy, draped in black bunting, in their windows.

I especially love looking our car windows.

So I can't imagine wanting to be in a windowless vehicle of any sort, let alone a car. 

But that's apparently what Apple has in mind for the brave new world of self-driving cars.

Other than for the fact that it will mean the end of a livelihood for the millions of folks who drive trains, boats, planes, trucks, and cars for a living, I welcome the coming of the autonomous vehicle. I will have no problem whatsoever hopping into a self-driving Uber and heading off to my destination. I may not want an autonomous trip for a long-haul journey. But putzing around the city? Cool. And I will want there to be a human pilot or two on board the flight, just in case the AI decides to take a nosedive. Mostly, autonomous vehicles are one aspect of the coming hellscape that I don't think I'll mind. 

As long as I can still look out the window. 

But Apple, I guess, finds looking out the window at the real world isn't all that necessary when you could be enclosed in a car goofing around with Virtual Reality.

On May 3rd, 2022, Apple filed a patent with the United States Patent & Trademark Office for an in-car VR entertainment system that utilizes the motion of the vehicle to further immerse passengers in their in-headset experiences. VR content is synchronized with the movement and acceleration of the autonomous vehicle as it travels to the desired location, offering a unique location-based experience that changes based on your commute.

In addition to entertainment, the patent details how the technology referenced could be used to reduce motion sickness. Instead of conventional windows, passengers would view the outside world by using their VR headset to access cameras mounted on the outside of the vehicle. The technology could also be used to watch videos and read books in a stabilized environment as well as conduct virtual meetings while on the road. (Source: VR Scout)

And, just so that no one gets distracted by their VR fun and games, the car will be windowless.

The good news for families going out for a spin - if anyone enjoys such a passive, non-action activity these days - is that no one will fight for a window seat.

But me? I'd sure miss looking out the window...

A pox on your monkeypox

I saw that the year's first confirmed case of monkeypox in the U.S. has happened. And it happened in Massachusetts. 

The good news:

The case poses no risk to the public, and the individual is hospitalized and in good condition. (Source: Breaking 911)

And unless you've traveled to Africa recently, or had gay male sex, you're unlikely to acquire it.  

The bad news?

Well, monkeypox. 

And that gay male sex connection doesn't exactly bring much comfort to those of us who have gay male friends and/or who remember AIDS. Not that this monkeypox thing is going to end up that way. And, while there's no cure, it can be treated the same way as they treat smallpox. But didn't Patient Zero on the U.S. AIDS epidemic fly in from Canada? 

As if we don't have enough to worry about. 

Monkeypox.

The name alone. I was going to say 'nuf said,' but there is more to be said. Ain't no one going to want to catch monkeypox. Okay, it doesn't generally kill anyone, but it could become serious, and it lasts 2-4 weeks. Plus the monkeypox poxes themselves are just awful looking: raised, blistering lesions. Yuck.

Monkeypox.

The name is kind of creepy, conjuring up - in my febrile little mind at least - shrieking monkeys, their shrieks capable of

piercing the skull of anyone within shrieking distance. And, come to think of it/them: those shrieking monkeys are flying. And Ride of the Valkyries is on blast in the background.

Monkeypox.

Turns out, monkeys might be getting a bum rap here:

But monkeys might not be the ones to blame for outbreaks, and the natural reservoir of monkeypox remains unknown, though the WHO says rodents are the most likely.

“In Africa, evidence of monkeypox virus infection has been found in many animals including rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian poached rats, dormice, different species of monkeys,” says the UN health agency. (Source: Euronews)

No surprise that rodents are the culprits here. I'd prefer a primate, even a shrieking flying monkey, over pretty much any old rodent, any old day. Especially a rodent I've never even heard of. And that would be the Gambian poached rat. 

Of course, I had to look it up, mostly because I was wondering how and why a poached-anything could be alive. As it googled out, that poached is a typo. It should be Gambian pouched rat. Admittedly, not exactly a nomenclature improvement. Worse, even. Rats in general are pretty awful. The stuff that nightmares are made of. (True confession: I had a rat nightmare over 50 years ago, and it still creeps me out.) So, rats in general are bad enough. But a pouched rat? What do they carry in that pouch? Nothing good, I suspect. Monkeypox virus, no doubt. And the Gambian pouched rat may have plenty of carrying space in that pouch. It's the world's largest (four-legged) rat, and can run as large as nine pounds. Think of how big a five-pound bag of flour is. That's quite a viral load.

Monkeypox.

Haven't we had just about enough?

(Lord, deliver us.)

Once in love with Amy's Kitchen?

If you look at their website, you'd sure think that Amy's Kitchen is all sweetness and light. They're healing the planet. Taking bold action on climate change. They're vegan. Organic. Sustainable. Gluten free. Family friendly. Ethically conscious. And, they tell us, they love to cook for us. In fact, when you eat food from Amy's kitchen, "you'll be able to taste the love."

I don't want to be the one to quibble, but, yummy-yum-yummy as Amy's products are - and I've tried a few over the years - I don't recall actually being able to taste the love. Maybe it's just these creaky old taste buds.

And factory/smactory. As that website tells us:

We don’t manufacture food. We cook it with love.

Then there's their promise: 

We choose what’s best for our customers, our farmers, our employees and our planet. It’s a tall order, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why even the name Amy's Kitchen. Good golly, is there a sweeter and more wholesome name than Amy? Sure beats Moe by a long shot.

But if you open the door to Amy's Kitchen, things look a teensy weensy bit different. Not so much "once in love with Amy, always in love with Amy." Something more along the lines of Sixteen Tons. Or maybe Take This Job and Shove It. 

They're union-busting phonies, and - despite their vaunted B Corp. credential - that's B for Beneficial - the workers who toil in Amy's Kitchen are manufacturing food, not cooking it with love. And they're not being treated with much love, either.

The Prospect has reviewed a formal complaint filed to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health on behalf of a worker named Cecilia Luna Ojeda and her co-workers at a company facility in Santa Rosa, California. The Cal/OSHA complaint includes the testimony of several other anonymous workers, translated from Spanish to English. The workers testified to a number of health and safety hazards, multiple worker injuries from high-speed production, violations of management and system procedures, and more. The Prospect has also conducted an interview with [injured pro-union worker] Maria del Carmen] Gonzalez, who described an employer that has lied countless times and disregarded doctor-ordered health protocols for its majority-Latina workforce, while wrongfully terminating multiple workers. (Source: Prospect.org)

The company is facing boycotts. And a California Teamsters local has 

...filed a complaint on behalf of Ojeda against the company’s B Corp status. Delorio wrote, “Amy’s Kitchen has demonstrated a callous disregard for workers’ health, safety, and human rights in violation of the B Corp Declaration of Interdependence.”

Among other tings, the complaint cites OSHA violations that weren't disclosed when Amy's applied for their B Corp Certification. 

As for the "callous disregard" that Amy's demonstrates, there's ample reporting that they exploit their workers and violate the company's own production line safety and health protocols. All in all, it sounds like your typical unsafe food production environment: extreme temperatures, unreasonable line speed demands, blocked exits, etc. Workers who've been injured on the job claim that they've been fired. Employees are scared. Scared of working there. Scared they'll be fired. Standard operating procedure for so many companies that hire immigrant workers who're easy to intimidate and exploit. It almost goes without saying that Amy's is working with a union-busting consultancy, and are whining that if the workforce is unionized, they'll have to shut down. 

I hope the workers call Amy's bluff. 

There are way too many companies that like to put on the nicey-nice smiley face of decency, except when it comes to how they treat their workers. Amy's Kitchen? Sounds more like Hell's Kitchen.

How about it, Amy's? How about cooking with some love for the folks who manufacture the food you profit from?

You want my feedback? What's in it for me?

Like everyone else who has any encounter whatsoever with an online or in-person business, I'm asked repeatedly to fill out a survey about it.

I was in marketing. I get it. You want to improve your products and services, and one way to do so is to figure out what you're doing right and keep doing it, and to figure out what you're doing wrong and stop doing it. And I understand that you want and need to solicit feedback whether it's going to be positive or negative. Especially given that human nature being what it is, people are more likely to go on line and review something when their experience was awful and they want to rant about it. So, yes, I get it.

And because I get it, I'm inclined to respond to surveys when asked. At least some of the time. I love my PCP, so I'll take the tedious phone survey after every appointment. When someone at the Post Office hands me my receipt with the online survey info circled, I try to respond - in hopes that the postal worker can amass some brownie points along the way. And when a clerk in a store does the same, I tend to fill those surveys out, too, especially if the clerk has been helpful. Again, brownie points and all that.

Sometimes I'll fill out the restaurant card, especially if the server and/or food was great. 

And while I seldom answer my landline, I will do so sometimes during political polling season and will happily play rate-the-candidates.

But why would I want to answer a survey after I've had an encounter with the UPS chatbot? Even if the chatbot was just a peach and my furious question was answered. 

Bank of America, if something gang agley, you'll know. But just because I've banked with you for decades, way back to when my checking account was with Bay Bank, or was it the First National Bank of Boston, no thanks when it comes to filling out a survey. 

My experience at Fenway Park? It would be one helluva lot better if the Red Sox actually won and if you relieved my anxiety (and that of most members of Red Sox Nation) if you signed Xander Boegarts and/or Raffy Devers to a long term contract. But you know that already and you don't need me to tell you.

It never seems to end.

I buy a spray of fake bittersweet on Etsy for nine bucks. Please rate the product? Yeah, well, it's fine, it just doesn't actually bear that close a resemblance to real bittersweet, but real bittersweet is invasive and illegal to buy, and since my sister is no longer in Wellfleet, I no longer have a place to acquire some for free in the wild.

I order a seven dollar gizmo on Amazon. Even if it falls apart the first time I use it, the magnitude of the purchase is so small that even if it's a piece of trash, it's not worth caveating other potential emptors.

All these folks that want my feedback. Back off!

It makes me want to ask a question I have seldom asked in my life - even though in my weaker moments I may have thought it once or twice, it's just not how I tend to roll - what's in it for me?

Well, I'm pleased to say that my grocery store, Roche Brothers, did make sure that there was something in it for me.

I don't know what triggered the "ask" from the clerk. I'm in and out of Roche Bros. several times a week, and I don't recall anyone asking me to fill out an online survey before. But last week, the woman checking me out pointed out the online survey link (and her name) on the receipt she handed me. And guess what? If I filled in the survey, I'd get 5% off my next purchase.

Not that I ever buy enough at one time to make that offer super valuable. Not that I was going to rush through the aisles, Supermarket Sweeps style, filling the cart with lobster and ribeye. But I did throw a few extras in there, and got nearly eight bucks off my bill. Not life-changing, but I'll take it.

I just don't understand why all outfits soliciting feedback don't offer something in return.

Back in my corporate marketing days - even before metric madness set it - we'd always offer a sweetener. A tee-shirt. A Dunkin gift card. A mousepad. At minimum, the opportunity to win something of value (however modest). 

Why don't more companies do this?

It wouldn't cost that much, especially if it's something like the Roche Brothers prize which, I'm guessing, most people set aside and forget about. (After filling out the survey online, you had to copy an award number onto the receipt and hand it in to the clerk next time you checked out.) 

Look, I'm an old, and I suspect that no one will be asking for my feedback for much longer. Maybe I'll rue the day I wished these invites away. Maybe I'll feel out of it, unwanted, useless. (Sniff, sniff.)

But, really and truly, getting pestered all the time is irksome. If you want my feedback, for the love of all that's good and holy, make it at least a little worth my while.

Commencement is both and ending and a beginning

I can see how it could have happened.

Priya Parkash, Class of 2022, heeded Duke's call and sent in her application to be the student speaker. She just needed to send in a 250 word outline, but that might not have mattered in the least. How were the Duke powers-that-be going to resist the lure of selecting an international student, a woman, a STEM woman, a POC. I'm sure there were a lot of polished, accomplished students applying. Duke has plenty of them. But Priya Parkash had to look pretty darned golden to the selection committee. It's not like they were going to pick a lax bro.  

Student commencement speaker. Ah! What a nice capstone to a successful academic career, four years of being smart at Duke. 

Maybe her boyfriend pushed the idea, maybe her sorority sisters or suitemates prodded her along. "You're a natural. How can they not pick you?"

Just think of how good it will look on the B-school application when you take the GMATs and get the essays started for Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Chicago. Duke's Fuqua School of Management? Safety school!

So Priya Parkash sent in her application. 

And damned if they didn't pick Priya Parkash. 

Next step: figure out what to say. 

So she may have looked around at other class speeches at other elite institutions of higher learning, and liked the one she found that Sarah Abushaar delivered way back in 2014. So she decided to borrow an idea or two. Or, what the hell, the entire speech, and translate the Harvard references into Duke-speak.

Or, as Ms. Parkash said in a "statement provided through crisis public relations firm Red Banyan:"

...she was so thrilled and honored that Duke selected her to speak at the graduation ceremony that she “sought advice from respected friends and family about topics I might address.”

“I was embarrassed and confused to find out too late that some of the suggested passages were taken from a recent commencement speech at another university,” she said.  (Source: Washington Post)

Respected friends and family of Priya Parkash, meet the bus she just pushed you under.

Someone must have dimed her, because the Duke Chronicle (campus news) picked the story up, as did the Harvard Crimson, which did a side-by-side comparison, a full textual exegesis, and found an awful lot of copy-cattery going on - well beyond the hackneyed "Webster defines graduation..." and "Commencement is both and ending and a beginning..." bromides.

Among other ideas she cadged were the notion that Harvard Duke was its very own nation, and the fact that both universities have colossal endowments: Harvard's is "larger than more than half the world's countries' GDP;" the more

modest Duke endowment is only "larger than the GDP of one third of the countries in the world." Abushaar referred to the Harvard Alumni Association as a tax collection agency; Parkash did the same for Duke. 

One of the more noted borrowings was a reference to decking out in school gear - right down to Harvard or Duke underwear - to pass by immigration officers who might otherwise peg them for terrorists. (Abushaar is Kuwaiti; Parkash is from Pakistan.)

Despite laying the blame off to those who helped her craft her speech - alas, she found out "to late" that some of her letters were purloined - Parkash kinda/sorta takes reponsibility.

“I take full responsibility for this oversight and I regret if this incident has in any way distracted from the accomplishments of the Duke Class of 2022.”

Kinda/sorta as in "this oversight." That's some oversight. 

As for distracting "from the accomplishments" of her classmates: hardly. 

What this has done is distracting from Parkash's accomplishments, of which there are no doubt many.

Duke has made some vague noises about investigating the matter. Maybe they'll take a peek at some of her papers to make sure they weren't ripped off, even though this isn't likely. I'm pretty sure that most professors use online services to look for plagiarism. Maybe Duke'll just change the way they vet student speech givers and speeches.

Regrettably, this incident - even if there was no malintent on Parkash's part, just a breezy "I'm too busy to write this thang" that had her give the writing over to someone else - will follow her for a good long time.

It won't likely - and shouldn't - destroy her future. Plenty of people get caught lifting lines or concepts/sentiments in their speeches. (Looking at you, Joe Biden, way back in time. He recovered quite nicely.)

But people will look at her differently. They'll talk behind her back. She may miss out on a job, a reference letter, a grad school acceptance.

And talk about the world's worst crisis PR firm. 

A little more honesty would have gone a long way.

If Parkash actually did the borrowing directly, why not just acknowledge it gracefully. As in "I saw the video of Sarah's speech, loved it, and thought it would be fun and interesting to adapt it to Duke. I should have given her credit for the ideas I keyed off of." Apology accepted!

Of course, giving Harvard (a higher ranked school) credit would have likely been a non-starter.

And if she let someone else write the speech for her, why not just say "I take full responsibility for this matter," without going on to blame others. Because there ain't no way in which admitting that you gave over the creation of this speech to someone else(s) is going to look good. Just take the damned responsibility and shut your trap would have been, methinks, better advice.

Whatever, I'm guessing that Priya Parkash is kicking herself tonight, and will be for a while longer.

Or maybe she can rationalize the entire matter. Maybe it's Duke's fault. Blue Devil made me do it.

In any case, she would have been better off droning on about commencement being both a beginning and an ending and been done with it.

Unfortunately, there's probably no way to stop it

Division 80 is a gun parts maker in Texas. Or not. The "company" registered as an LLC last fall, but other other than that, there are no vestiges that it's actually a business at all. No website (the horror!). No address. Nothing that suggests that it's a business doing any sort of business.

But Division 80, whatever it is, is suing AG Merrick Garland and the head of the ATF, claiming that "an unlawful Biden administration policy [has] stripped the company of its livelihood in violation of the Second Amendment."

Manufacturers make gun parts known as “80 percenters,” “lower receivers,” or “receiver blanks” that customers can purchase to assemble their own

firearms. They come in kits that shipped to gun stores across the country are sometimes called as “ghost guns” because it’s difficult for law enforcement to trace their origins. The businesses that make these parts are not regulated by the ATF and do not require a federal firearms license to sell them as do gun stores. (Source: Houston Chronicle)

Whatever Division 80 is or isn't, the last thing we need are more crappy companies helping put more illicit guns into circulation. It's not as if we don't already have more guns than we have capitas. A gun-crazed country getting even crazier. Swell.

Curiously, one of the attorneys mounting the lawsuit on Division 80's behalf lives outside of Boston, a not especially gun-crazed area. Michael Sullivan is a former U.S. Attorney (under GW) and acting head of ATF (ditto). He's got super-typical local lawyer credentials: Boston College, Suffolk Law. It's just that most of our super-typical local lawyers aren't the gun-whackery types. 

Anyway, Sully and his pals are looking:

...“to prevent the Biden Administration from politically weaponizing the ATF and adopting an unlawful (regulation, known as the) Final Rule without Congress’s approval.” The company thinks the new regulation “unlawfully seeks to put law-abiding American companies like Division 80 out of business.”

"Politically weaponizing the ATF." That's rich."

Really, all Biden is doing is trying to "close the loophole that allows the sale of the [gun-making] kits." A reasonable executive-order type approach, given that it's so hard to pass any reasonable gun regulation law, given the extent to which the NRA has politically weaponized weapons.

The new reg - scheduled to go into effect this summer - doesn't, despite their whining, necessarily put the gun guys out of business.

The change in regulations does not prevent a person from making a privately manufactured firearm or require the maker to mark the firearm with a serial number.

However, for parts manufacturers — such as Division 80 — the new regulations could mean they are required to obtain a federal firearms license, maintain records, and perform background checks.

Boo f-ing hoo. 

A growing number of weapons used in crimes are DIY, homemade, ghost guns. Anybody with a 3D printer can become an overnight gunsmith. And someone who orders a gun parts kit can assemble a lethal weapon in about 20 minutes.

Just what we need is more insta-gunsels roaming around.

The sad news, of course, is that there's really no way to stop any of this. Even if the new ruling is upheld, someone who wants to make a gun is going to make one. Someone who wants to acquire a gun is going to acquire one. Someone who wants to use a gun is going to shoot one.

When it comes to gun ownership, We're Number One! with 120.5 guns in civilian hands per 100 people. That's nearly twice the number for first runner up, the Falkland Islands, with 62.1 guns per hundred. In absolute terms, that ain't much. There are fewer than 3,000 people in the Falklands. There are gun owners in the U.S. who have more guns in their gun (un)safes than there are in all of the Falklands.

Yemen ranks third, with 52.8 guns per 100. Yemen. Beleaguered, war-torn Yemen. That's the company we're in.

American exceptionalism in action!

Luckily - dumb luckily, I suspect - we don't have the highest rate of gun violence. That would be Brazil. We don't even make the Top Five. Yay us, I guess.

Still, there's something that's pretty disturbing - to put it mildly - about being such a gun culture. 

Joe Biden's executive action is unlikely to do much of anything about that. It's still worth a try to at least make some attempt to put a tiny little lid on gun proliferation by regulating gun parts that can be so easily assembled into lethal weapons. Might as well go for it. Sadly, however, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to stop our love affair with guns. 

Just one of the areas in which the good old US of A could use a do-over.

Sigh.