Spies are everywhere. (So glad I'm out of the fray.)

A few weeks ago, my sister Trish retired. A week before her big day, she turned 67. Since she always had a part-time job in high school, and throughout college, she figures she'd been working pretty much steadily for 50+ years. She'd spent 30 of those years with the company she retired from, and might have been convinced to stay on a while longer if it had not been for the company's mean-spirited decision to totally do away with work from home a few days a week and return to a full five-days in the office mandate.

Interestingly, a number of her colleagues of similar age and tenure with the company are retiring for much the same reason - even though most employees worked fully from home without any productivity issues. 

You won't get any argument here - or from my sister Trish - that being in the office at least some of the time is important for a lot of reasons - including, for many, the desire to have the in-person camaraderie and social-life-at-work aspects. (A positive for both me and my sister during our careers.) But Trish had an onerous commute and once she got to the office (which had even done away with cubicles - let alone offices - for the masses - for a fully open concept approach) none of the members of her team were there. The people she worked most closely with were in NY, London, Atlanta...

The pay, bonus plan, and benefits were pretty good at Trish's company (where, as it happens, I had worked many years ago when it was pretty much the same entity, but as part of a much smaller corporation and with different ownership). And Trish's work over the decades had been reasonably interesting and challenging, and she had some terrific colleagues. But there were reasons beyond the WFH fatwa to want out of this company, of course. The pressure to deploy AI. The Trumpian senior management. (A former executive, who is also the spouse of the company's CEO, holds a senior position in the Trump administration.) And the creepy electronic surveillance. Badge swipe to use the bathroom, anyone?

But as far as I know, Trish's former place of employ was not using emotion AI (alternate term, affective computing) to analyze the personality types of its employees:

Some products analyze video of meetings or job interviews or focus groups; others listen to audio for pitch, tone, and word choice; still others can scan chat transcripts or emails and spit out a report about worker sentiment. Sometimes, the emotion AI is baked in as a feature in multiuse software, or sold as part of an expensive analytics package marketed to businesses. But it’s also available as a stand-alone product, and the barrier to entry is shin-high. (Source: The Atlantic)

There is nothing new about using software to monitor employees. For a long while, there have been apps that measure how many keystrokes someone sitting at a computer is making to assess whether they're working. Or at least pecking at the keys. On the emotion tracking side, call centers have long (notoriously) "listened in" on customer service reps to track tone of voice and word choice. 

What's changing is who's being monitored.

In 2022, the writer Cory Doctorow theorized about what he called the “Shitty Technology Adoption Curve”: Extractive technologies, he wrote, come first to people in precarious circumstances—like, say, low-wage jobs—before they are refined and normalized and brought to people in greater positions of power. “Each disciplinary technology,” he later wrote, “starts with people way down on the ladder, then ascends the ladder, rung by rung.”

And so emotion AI is working it's way to the top, and has stepped onto the white-collar rung.  

Shitty Technlogy galore!

The Slack integration Aware advertises its ability to continuously monitor messages for “sentiment and toxicity”; Azure, Microsoft’s cloud-computing software, also allows employers to, theoretically, use AI to batch-analyze workers’ chat messages. MorphCast’s Zoom extension tracks, in real time, meeting participants’ attention, excitement, and positivity. The emotion-AI company Imentiv advises clients on applying emotional analysis to the job-interview process, promising employers detailed analysis of candidates’ emotional engagement, intensity, and valence, as well as personality type. A number of HR companies are turning toward AI that applies sentiment analysis to employee surveys. Framery, which makes soundproof phone pods and sells them to companies such as Microsoft and L’Oreal, has tested outfitting its chairs with biosensors capable of measuring heart rate, breathing rate, and nervousness.

Years ago, I had a colleague who was criticized by his (jerk of a) boss for his terrible body language at a meeting. What he had been doing was leaning in, nodding when he agreed with something, and offering positive input. Trouble was, the meeting was with his boss's enemy, who was presenting the plan for a new product, and she felt he should have been leaning back and glowering with his arms crossed. (Although I've had a few exchanges and, early on, a couple of lunches, with my former colleague over the years - make that decades - since we last worked together, I hadn't thought about this incident, or this idiotic boss, in years. She's still out there, only now she's out West selling insurance.) 

Of course, there's nothing new about personality typing in the workplace, either. Forty years ago, when I was working at Wang Labs - of all awful places - my team had an offsite in which we all took the Myers-Briggs assessment. (INTJ, baby.) It was supposed to help us figure out how to get along with folks with different personality types. Turns out most of us were brainy, analytical introverts, and we all got along just fine, thank you.

This was by no means the only personality-typing test I took part in over the years. It must have been a big corporate off-site dealio in the 1980's and 1990's. 

So people have been reading employee emotions for eons. But the software spying is something new.

But, blessedly, none of it was emotion AI. 

When it comes to emotion AI, there are plenty of skeptics. Unless there are safety or health reasons for it, the EU has banned workplace use of emotion AI. 

Good for the EU!

Needless to say, we won't see any similar pushback in the States anytime soon. That said, I can see some states trying to regulate it.

But it's gut wrenching to see the dignity, privacy, and autonomy of workers so eroded by the masters of the universe buying into whatever the tech bros are selling.

Spies are indeed everywhere. I'm so glad I'm out of the fray, and delighted for my sister Trish that she is, too. Who wants AI capturing every grimace and eye-roll. 

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Image Source: MadIsMadFunny

Firing Offense? Well...

Although I don't typically root, root, root for teams from New York, I was delighted when the Knicks won the NBA championship. The games were exciting - some unbelievably so - and NY is such a basketball town, it was good to see them win after a drought of over 50 years since their last NBA title.

That was back in 1973, and I learned of their win while hitchhiking in Ireland. We were picked up by an American - I think he was a priest: the black slacks the giveaway - who was from NYC and gave us the news. We were Celtics fans, but okay. We were happy for Father Knicksfan.

This year, there were a couple of good story lines for the Knicks. My favorite was that three of their starting five had also been teammates on the 2016 Villanova team that won the NCAA championship. (Second favorite: Trump being booed to the rafters.)

Anyway, I was happy to see the Knicks win. It was fun seeing the watch parties throughout all the boroughs - I guess Brooklynites can be forgiven for forgetting that their borough has their own team (the Nets) - and it was fun watching the exuberant ticker-tape parade. 

It is colossally enjoyable to see fans - longtime and johnny-come-lately bandwagoners - out in the streets screaming their heads off.

Love, hate, or be 100% indifferent to sports, they can be a great unifying force. 

The celebrations can, of course, get out of hand. Occasional drunken revelers puking and pissing in the streets. Occasional violence (well beyond trash talk) directed at fans of the other guys (so much for the unifying force theorem, I guess). Occasional wanton acts of destruction. And occasional acts of sheer stupidity that don't fall under any of the above categories.

Into this bucket, I'd put the behavior of one Angie Baez who got totally carried away by carrying away a special Knicks tribute trash can, property of the City of New York. If she'd just carried it away, it might have been one thing. But she was caught on camera dumping the overflowing can onto the sidewalk, leaving a big ugly mess of trash strewn there for sanitation workers to clean up. 

If only Angie had ducked into a bodega or Korean corner store, bought some big old black Hefties, and emptied the trash can into a trash bag or two, she might have been okay. But, nope.

And it would have been one thing if she were a twenty-year old knucklehead caught up in the moment. But, nope. Angie Baez is a 40 year old professional who, until her celebratory madness went viral, was the director of executive director of the community and industry engagement program at JP Morgan Chase. No longer.  

She had returned the trash can, and paid a $175 fine for littering. But that was apparently not enough for her to keep her job, which is rumored to have been worth well into the six-figures. (I saw a couple of estimates that her package would have been between $250K and $350K. That is going to be difficult to replace...)

If only Angie Baez had waited, she might have learned that she could have bought one legitimately. 

Meaghan Chillianis, the chief operating officer for OnlyNY, which is selling both full-size and miniature versions of the cans (the mini runs $58), said the company had partnered with the city sanitation department to “celebrate the city’s championship season in a way that felt authentic.” (Source: NY Times)

Instead, poor Angie acted in haste and will no doubt be repenting in leisure.

People have swiped stuff lying around untethered since, like, forever. 

How many college dorm rooms are decorated with No Parking signs? Traffic cones? 

I don't think anyone thinks about grabbing this sort of stuff one way or the other.

A popular "found object" of my era was the plastic milk crate which, depending on the dairy, came in all sorts of swell colors. Perfect for storing record albums. (Ask me how I know.) They became such a popular item that companies started producing them for sale. Which kind of took some of the fun out of it. (Ask me how I know.)

Sometimes the thievery is more seriously thieving. One example: every couple of years some jerks manage to dislodge one of the (expensive bronze) Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Boston Public Garden and make their way off with it. 

But garden-variety stupidity-fueled pilfering by a twenty year old is one thing. One would think that a 40 year old could manage to keep her inner 20 year old reveler tamped down.

Do I think that Angie Baez should have been fired because of this? Not really. Assuming that she was taking Paid Time Off, and given that she was fully decked out in Knicks gear, and wasn't sporting a JP Morgan Chase quarter zip or polo shirt, I don't see why this is a firing offense. Sure, it's an embarrassment to the organization, her making a spectacle of herself. But I think they should have let her profusely apologize and grovel to keep her job. With a warning to grow TF up. 

I'm pretty sure that, among the 300,000+ JP Morgan Chase employees there are at least a handful who've done worse without repercussion. 

Management was probably looking for an opportunity to placate those leading the current anti-diversity zeitgeist anyway. And here was Angie Baez, offering herself up if not on a silver platter, then in a blue-and-orange Knicks trash can.

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Image Source: Instragram

O, Canada: Take your geese, please!

At a distance, they are quite beautiful. That is to say, when that distance is hundreds of feet in the air, and they're amassed in chevron flight, heading over and out from town to someplace else. 

Even at rest, when swimming calmly - or just floating - in a pond, along a river - they are quite beautiful. Majestic, serene. 

On a Christmas card, they are quite beautfiul. That lovely grey, white, and black thang they wear so well, perfectly offset by a green wreath with red berries. 

And I'll give you that goslings are cute. 

But Canada geese? In real life? Up close and personal? I hate the bastards. 

They are nasty, hissing, honking menaces. They move their loosey-goosey bowels up to a hundred times a day, leaving their little green piles of poop everywhere. In all, they produce as much as 2 pounds of poop daily. What a lot of crap! Unlike bears who shit in the woods, unlike ducks who shit in the water, geese shit wherever they want. Which tends to be wherever you want to be. 

They're on the paths along the Eplanade that runs along the Charles River. They're on the paths in the beautiful Boston Public Garden. They're on the grass on the Esplanade, in the Garden, where folks like to spread their blankets out for a picnic, where folks like to let their babies crawl around. Good luck to those who get there early enough to secure a place upfront at the Hatch Shell for the annual 4th of July Pops Concert. Maybe they clean it up ahead of time, but I wouldn't sit there without a hazmat suit on.

Canada has given us LaBatt's Beer. And Molson. They've given us the fabulous Maple Leaf cookies sold at Trader Joe's. Sure, those Hudson Bay Blankets are made in England, but they've got Canada written all over them, eh? They've given us Dudley Doright. They've given us Nova Scotia salmon. And speaking of Nova Scotia, each year Nova Scotia gives Boston a giant Christmas tree to thank us for helping their people after the 1917 explosion in Halifax (when two ships - one of them carrying explosives - collided in the harbor, and nearly 2,000 lives were lost). They've given us hockey, and a terrific national anthem to sing along with when the Toronto Blue Jays play the Red Sox, or one of their hockey team plays the Bruins.

But Canada geese?

O, Canada, you can keep them. They're all yours. 

So I don't blame the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for wanting to do something about the nasty flocks o' geese that are plaguing their state as well. 

Unfortunately, what might have been good for controling the goose population, wasn't so good for some Michiganders. The DNR's plan to gas the geese to death was killed before it started. 

After pushback from Democratic lawmakers, DNR Director Scott Bowen said Friday, May 9, his department will pause the euthanasia pilot program this year.

“We have been working with the public to resolve human-goose conflicts for over 40 years, and our attempt to implement this pilot program was an additional effort to further that goal,” Bowen wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

“After further consideration and consultation with our wildlife staff, we have decided to pause the program for this year and will not be issuing any permits or conducting this work on any sites.” (Source: MLive)

The gas works notion was suposed to be a "last resort" option for "landowners who have exhausted all other methods of nuisance control." Those methods include nest and egg destruction. In Boston a few years back, they tried covering eggs with oil, which kept the fertilized eggs from turning into goslings, but some folks complained that it was inhumane (?) and they stopped it. Others objected when barking dogs were deployed to chase - not catch and kill! - the geese.

My cousin MB was plagued by Canada geese in her lovely pond-side backyard on the Cape. Her late husband used to go out periodically and snap a bullwhip in the air - not at the geese, mind you - and that would chase them off for a bit.

While my preference would be destruction of the eggs as a relatively benevolent way to keep the flocks down, gassing the geese, aside from the obvious associations with Zyklon-B, sounded okay to me. But there are legit reasons to oppose it:

Animal rights advocates and organizations have argued that gassing geese causes painful and distressing deaths, particularly because geese can hold their breath for extended periods.

Much as I despise Canada geese, I would not want them to suffer "painful and distressing deaths." I just want them gone, as I'm sure most Michiganders do. E-coli, avian flu spread, and just plain stepping in goose poop. So many reasons to want them gone; none that I can think of to keep them around.

Michigan DNR will continue to explore "non-lethal techniques."

Those techniques include habitat modification, elimination of feeding, scare tactics, repellents and nest and egg destruction.

Good luck, Michigan. Here's hoping you succeed. Please let us know what you come up with that works.

(Did I mention how much I hate these nasty, aggressive, noisy, waddle-in-your-way-and-hiss-at-you, continuous poop machine creatures?)

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Image Source: Adirondacks Almanack

I, Crepitus! (Snap, Crackle, and Pop)

I have been averaging 5-7 miles a day walking for years. While I fully understand that this is not a perfect workout, it has mostly worked out for me. If I have an occasional ache and pain (arthritis in both knees, the left ankle, the left hip), it's seldom been a big deal. Sure, I know I should also be strengthening my core, working on my balance, but my walking routine suited me just fine. Cleared my head. Allowed me to have 2 - maybe 3 - cookies with my afternoon cup of tea. 

Make that I had been averaging 5-7 miles a day walking for years.  As of mid-April, I've put my Fitbit aside. I'm walking a bit, but out of necessity, not for pleasure or exercise. And if I were to hazard a guess, my average daily walk is closer to 2 miles in total. (But who's counting? Not me, any longer.) 

I was visiting my sister in Tucson when the first sign of impending doom appeared. 

Although I had hydrated on the flight (plenty I thought: apparently not) and moved around (a couple of bathroom trips), when I got to Kath's I was experiencing leg pain. So I got in the spa and soaked up the warmth, and ordered compression socks for the trip home.

We were out walking on my next to last day when all of a sudden I could barely put any weight on my leg. We were not far from Kath's house, so I was able to drag back home, where Kath supplied me with a knee brace. (She has arthritis in her knee, as well, and is facing a knee replacement. Thanks, Nanny for gifting us with what in the family is known as the Trainor Knees!) I hobbled over to the spa for a good soak. And got me a collapsible cane at Walgreen's. I also called my doctor to schedule an appointment for the day after I got home.

Well, I did learn that people in airports are very kind to little old grey-haired ladies with canes. Unfortunately, I had to learn this by being a little old grey-haired lady with a cane. And so it goes. (Note: Most of my airport assistance was thanks to my sister Trish, my traveling companion.)

I got home late (10 or so) and made it up the front steps with my suitcase, relieved to have limped home and ready to seee my doctor the next day.

I have an upside down, two-floor condo. The first floor has my living room, kitchen, and second bathroom. Downstairs is where my den, office, bedroom, and main bathroom are. There are three ways to get downstairs: the steep, narrow, and winding staircase inside my unit; the broader, more gradual starcase in the communal area; and the building's ancient elevator.

Although I pay my full share for it (which is plenty: the elevator is 100+ years old), I rarely have any reason to use the elevator. But I really didn't want to schlepp my bag down the stairs, so I pressed the button for the elevator. When I couldn't hear it gearing up, I group texted the other residents to see if the elevator door was left open on one of their floors. Not here. Not here. Not here. 

So I decided to carry my bag down. (Why I didn't unload it in the living room, carry the clothing down, and leave the damned suitcase on the first floor, I'll never know.) 

They say when you tear a meniscus, you sometimes hear the pop.

Well, yes, yes that is the case.

Anyway, the hellzapoppin meniscus tear - as I learned after an initial x-ray, a later MRI, and a second x-ray - joined a bunch of other small tears, and arthritis galore in my left knee.

The ortho PA I met with told me that, at this point, there was no need for a knee replacement, but that given the extensive arthritis, the knee could give out at any time. He gave me some exercises, and told me to stop walking so much, but to gradually introduce walking back into my life. He also told me to come back if things went to hell, and I could get a cortisone shot which would probably enable me to put off surgery for a while anyway. (You can't get the shots indefinitely, as they destroy whatever there is around your old knee that holds the whole shebang in place.)

I then made an appointment with a physical therapist, and while gimping out to meet with her, I realized that it was no longer a matter of just the funky left knee. The arthritic right knee had decided to get in on the act.

Well, PT has been helpful. I do the exercises twice a day. And I've joined a gym, where I'm working twice a week with a trainer on strenghtening the quads and hammies, and doing a tiny bit on upper body strength, core, and balance. 

The gym, HealthWorks - where my sister Kath is also a member and has been encouraging me to join for years - is great. The facilities are terrific. Extra points for being all-women (or non-binary). The trainer I'm working with, Correen, is a peach.

I have had to update my wardrobe, as I didn't want to embarrass my sister by showing up in twenty-year old stretchy capri workout pants from LL Bean and whatever ratty cotton tee-shirts I had sitting around. (Or which there is an abundance.) So now I have some very comfy joggers and complementary color tees, and while I can't compete with some of the super-fit young women in their shorts and midriff tops, I no longer look like Haystack Calhoun's sister. (May the gods of decency forgive me for ordering my gear from the execrable Amazon.)

The knees are improving.

I'm mostly walking to wherever I have to go - St. Francis House, the grocery store, PT, the gym, errands in the 'hood - and mostly without the cane or knee braces. Which I mostly carry with me, in case I need them on the way back. 

Sometimes - if it's too damned hot, if I'm carrying a lot of groceries - I Uber. 

When I get up from the couch or a chair, I sometimes hear creaking. This is not entirely new, but it's now a lot more frequent than it used to be - back in the days when I wore a Fitbit and averaged 5-7 mile a day. 

Worse, when I do the exercises, I sometimes hear a crinkling noise. Straight out of a bowl of rice crispies. Snap, Crackle, and Pop. 

It's crepitus, something I'd never heard of, but now it's my lived experience. And it's not, in fact, about old age. According to Cedars-Sinai, crepitus is:

The crackling, crunching, grinding or grating noise that accompanies flexing a joint.

And:

Even though "crepitus" comes from the Latin word for "creak" and has the same root as "decrepitude," its snap, crackle and pop sounds do not necessarily signify advanced age. The sound arises from air or other gases in tissue under the skin. For example, crack your knuckles and the microscopic nitrogen bubbles inside pop to attention.

Who knew? Even though I used to love to crack my knuckles, I didn't know there was a word for it.

But it's hard not to associate all the creaking, all the snap, crackle, and popping, all the pain-in-the-knee, with aging, with becoming - yikes! - decrepit.

I, Crepitus! Or, I guess, retrieving my long-ago Latin, I, Crepita!

I find myself increasing quoting the Stones these days: What a drag it is, getting old.  But truly, you just have to laugh...(I do, anyway.)

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Image source: Fandom

No Scotland, No Party. (All Hail, the Tartan Army!)

I hadn't been paying particular attention to the World Cup. I'd been keeping a very small eye on it, mostly to see whether futbol teams and fans from countries the US currently doesn't like (i.e., countries with Black people, brown people, Muslims...) were being hassled on their way in. And I'd been laughing and eye-rolling whenever I heard someone on the local news awkwardly using the FIFA-demanded locution for Gillette Staium, which has been renamed Boston Stadium for the duration. (Can't have the name Gillette anywhere in sight unless they're willing to pay FIFA big bucks for the privilege.)

And then the Tartan Army invaded Boston: thousands of kilt- and kit-wearing fans who've descended on our city because Scotland's national team has made it to the show for the first time in nearly 30 years. 

I've been to Scotland a couple of times, and found the natives pleasant, but overall, I wouldn't have characterized the Scots personality as particularly friendly, good-humored, or buoyant. Buoy was I wrong.

Scottish fans have thronged our streets, which is something I've witnessed on a daily basis. Living in a tourist area, right down the street from Cheers, I've seen plenty of them making the pilgrimage, walking by my front door. Not only have they all seen the show, they've got a special World Cup anthem - one of nearly two dozen such anthems they've come up with - to the tune of the Cheers "Everybody Knows Your Name." The song, written by comedian Rosco McLleland, is very sweet and funny, name checks the players, and includes the lines "Wouldn't you like to win a game? Or even score a goal?" (It was recorded with the Scotland Symphony Orchestra, btw.)

Which they did both of in the first game of the two they're playing at Gillette, beating Haiti 1-nil. 

The Tartan Army has also been thronging the local pubs. Some of the watering holes - and even some packies (Massachusetts for liquor store) - have run out of beer. 

These fans are getting uniform five-star reviews from everyone who runs into them. Funny, polite, full of brio, full of love of country and team - but not bursting with the obnoxious, bombastic "We're Number One!" and "USA! USA!" chants that 'Muricans bring to every international sporting event.  (In contrast, one of the major Tartan Army chants is "No Scotland, No Party.")

The Scottish fans have no expectations about their team's making it all that far. They know they're not Spain, Brazil, Argentina, England, Germany, Portugal, France. (In the rankings I saw on ESPN, Scotland was rated 28 out of 48 participating teams; USA! USA! is 22. So they actual punch above their weight, given their population is a bit over 5 million, and ours is about 70 times that.)

Locally, the Tartan Army has dominated World Cup coverage, and Bostonians can't get enough of them. 

In a city that's been in a sports funk of late - the Pats lost the Super Bowl, the Celts and the Bruins didn't get far in the playoffs, and the Red Sox are unspeakably bad - we are so enjoying the joy of the Scots. We hadn't known we needed it, but we do now, and no one wants to let the Tartan Army go back home. 

Last Sunday, five thousand of them, led by bagpipers, marched en masse to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. The Sox, predictably, lost, but the Fenway Faithful got to enjoy the game because of the presence of the Scottish brigade, who kept bursting into cheers and songs. 

Over the time they've been there, I've had a number of occasions to chat with some Scottish fans, mostly to tell them how much we're enjoying their visit and wishing them luck. But I've had longer conversations with a few.

One couple said "you don't know what it's like to go so long without making it to the World Cup." I explained to them that I was a lifelong Red Sox fan, and we'd waited 84 years between World Series wins. We commiserated.

In talking with another fellow, I noted that there were an awful lot of Irish names on the team. Sure, they've got an Angus, a Grant, a Kenny. But they've also got a Liam Kelly, a Kieran Tierney, a Ryan Christie, and a John McGinn (which was the name of the decidedly Irish husband of my mother's best friend). 

God knows, the countries are geographically close. God knows, they both have Gaelic native languages. God knows, neither country is wild about England. God know there's not a lot of difference between Mac and Mc. So commonality is not that surprising. And I knew that Scotland had a lot of folks with Irish ancestry. Still, I was surprised by the number of pretty darned Irish names on the team.

But the guy told me that he was from Glasgow - a football hotbed - and said his city was half Irish Catholic and half Scots Presbyterian, so it was no surprise to him that there were some Irish Scotsmen on the team. 

The Scots were thrilled to beat Haiti. The ones I spoke with were realistic about their chances against Morocco. They could win, but not likely. Morocco is just a better team. And lose Scotland did, but they left the stadium in good humor, having made friends with the fans from Morocco. 

Of course, the Scots are totally realistic about their prospects against Brazil, the team they'll be playing tomorrow in Miami. Brazil is not just a better team, they're one of the best teams. But the Tartan Army will have one more opportunity to march in as a clan and sing their lovely unofficial national anthem, Flower of Scotland, which I had never heard before the Scots blew into town.

But, hey - or is it hoot mon - this is sports. Anything can happen.

But whatever happens, All Hail the Tartan Army! You can come back any old time.

(I already miss seeing them around.)

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 Image Source: NY Times

Was the Peppa Pig themed birthday party worth it, Ms. Mayor?

I'm like a broken record here, but stories about people with their hand in the workplace till NEVER fail to amaze me. Do these folks think they'll pay back what they've embezzled before it gets found out? Do they think that they're going to get away with it, outsmarting the system? (Maybe a lot of them do and that the ones who get caught are in the minority.)

I suppose that many/most embezzlers start small, and once they get away with the initial theft, they just keep upping the ante. 

It just completely shocks me that there are so many people that are willing to grab at easy money only to end up doing time.

Politician thieves are another category altogether, as a lot of times they get caught using government and/or campaign funds to settle illegitimate expenses. After all, politicians being politicians, I'm sure that they can convince themselves that the fancy night out, the spa day, the pricey car, are necessary for them to stay in office. They let themselves stretch the bonds of what faithfully executing their oath of office entails. 

The latest saga to amaze me is that of New Britain, Connecticut's former mayor (in office from 2013 to 2025) Erin Stewart.

Stewart was on the course to get the Republican nomination for governor when details about fraudulent spending came out and she ended her campaign. If she'd gotten her party's nod, it's unlikely that she would have won the gubernatorial race come November. Connecticut is pretty reliably Democratic, and Ned Lamont, the incumbent, is quite popular. (Lamont does have a Democratic challenger, but is likely to be nominated this summer.)

Still, Stewart is young - she's only 39 - and running for statewide office is a credential-builder even if you don't manage to win. Things change over time. Who knows? She might have had a political future. Even reliably blue states have a habit of electing Republicans to state office as long as they temper their fiscal conservatism with social moderation. (C.f., Massachusetts governors Weld and Romney, among others.)

I doubt Stewart has much of a political future now. 

Not after it appears that she spent a lot of dimes on New Britain's account during her mayoral tenure. 

A law firm hired by the city found that Ms. Stewart had racked up $123,018 in expenses from June 2016 to November 2025 that had no supporting documentation to justify them.

The items included clothing, gifts for her husband, diapers, groceries and a membership in a members-only social club in Hartford. The goods were delivered to her home, ordered from Amazon, Instacart, Costco and other retailers, according to investigators, who combed through Ms. Stewart’s social media photos for images of items that she had purchased.

“The findings of this investigation point not to isolated lapses in judgment, but to a pattern of behavior that violated public trust and the standards expected of an elected official entrusted with taxpayer funds for nearly a decade,” said the report, prepared by the Crumbie Law Group in Hartford. (Source: NY Times)

Among the myriad personal expenses Stewart made were party supplies for her daughter's second birthday party, which was "tropical Peppa Pig-themed." State investigators matched these are other dubious expenses to party posts to Stewart's Facebook accounts. Some of her wanton spending had no supporting justification/receipts; some was noted as "office supplies."

An awful lot can fall under the category "office supplies" that would never be found out. But Peppa Pig decorations? Come on, ex-Mayor Stewart. Peppa Pig's cute and all, but please get a little real. 

Stewart also used her government card to buy clothing and jewelry for herself and her family, and baby supplies for her second child. 

All told, the law firm investigation Stewart's spending found over $100K worth of spending with no supporting documentation (and which was pretty much unsupportable, with or without documentation). 

That may not sound like much when, say, compared to the enormity of the multi-billion grift underway by the Trump family, but it's still pretty significant, especially in a blue-collar town like New Britain. And Stewart, although she has said she "will take I will take accountability for any mistakes," and that she "intend(s) to make full and complete restitution to the City of New Britain — my home — for anything that" she ends up owing, she could be in for some non-trivial hurt.

The Connecticut State Police confirmed on Thursday that they had opened an investigation into the matter after the state’s Division of Criminal Justice received a complaint.

I can't imagine that she'll do any time, but she's no doubt out of politics for good. She'll have to come up with the $100K plus payback. And she has to live with the colossal embarrassment.

Sheesh, do people just not think that misdeeds like this may one day catch up with them? Was that Peppa Pig themed birthday party worth it, Ms. Mayor?

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Additional information source: CT Insider

Image Source: Craiyon

Talk about a man-bites-dog story

Every once in a while. Correction. This is loaded-gun-loaded, blood-soaked America we're talking here. With fair regularity, we see a report of a horrific shooting incident in which someone is unintentionally shot and, as often as not, killed.

The two-year-old finds a Glock in their mother's purse and kills her while they're in the cereal aisle at the grocery shopping. The four-year-old takes a loaded Luger out of the bedside table in their parents bedroom and blows their six-year-old sibling's head off. 

Then there are, of course, all the accidental discharges. The gun just "goes off" while someone's cleaning it, and there's one dead spouse on the floor. A gun enthusiast is demonstrating how safe guns are to a gun-shy friend when, BOOM. Too bad they didn't know it was loaded.

Stories like these are so common that they barely make the news. 

Accidental - let alone deliberate - shootings are pretty much yawners these days. If a mass murder only includes four deaths (the FBI definition), it's not that interesting. It's got to be at least a dozen or so to capture our attention.

What we really need are some man-bites-dog stories.

Like this one:

A bizarre incident out of Nebraska is drawing attention after police say a dog accidentally discharged a shotgun inside a truck parked at a convenience store, injuring a woman stopped nearby in traffic.

...At the time of the blast, a woman was reportedly sitting at a nearby traffic light with her arm resting out the window when one pellet struck her in the upper right arm. Authorities said the injury was not believed to be life-threatening, and she was transported to Regional West Medical Center by a family member. (Source: Guessing Headlights)

Talk about an innocent bystander. (Talk about a lawsuit. Does Morgan and Morgan handle dog-shooting suits?)

Fortunately, nobody was killed. And while that almost goes without saying in a situation involving an accidental shotgun blast in public, this really could have ended far worse for everyone involved. 

That's for sure.

But given the weird nature of it, this story got surprisingly little play. Maybe if the woman had died. Maybe if the shot had killed a bus driver who'd driven off the road and all their passengers were killed. Especialy if it were a school bus with kiddos on board. Maybe then the dog-shoots-woman story would have been more widely reported.

But this was just another ho-hummer out of Gunville.

Hope the woman's okay. And hope the dog's okay, too. 

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Image Source: Justin McBrayer