Today is going to be brief, because I have decided to take a bit of this day away from this glowing machine. So here’s a flower from a recent walk.
And if the photos look a bit larger around here today, they should. I decided to change the default photo size earlier this week. Mondays, first of the month and all of that. Usually these sorts of changes are made in August, in honor of the anniversary of the place. And, who knows, I have this vague idea that I’ve done this before and that somewhere along the way I forgot that and reverted to the older habit. Habits are like that sometimes.
Said the guy who knows he’s got too many of them.
I talked with sociologist Jessica Calarco today. She students social and socioeconomic inequities and their impacts on families, children and school. It seemed a good set up for the end of the school year, when the state’s school experts are expected to make their first announcements about next fall later this week. She gave us a really great interview.
I have at least three of them lined up for next week. More school issues, more economic issues, and who knows what else may appear. You should just go ahead and subscribe so you can get the latest episodes as they are released.
I don’t know who needs this — goes the well-meaning message on social media, which was instantly copied to the point of becoming a satirical meme all it’s own — but here are a few seconds of quiet video of the creek.
We walked down there on Sunday. Kids play there. Sometimes little, sometimes small. Always it’s fun. It’s a place filled with the screams and the shrieks and the joy of families doing things that young families should be doing. It’s a place where people create soggy memories and stay cool and promote wonder and it’s all free, because it’s a stream. The cost seems to be trampled grass, and occasionally a bit of litter, but someone keeps this area nice and tidy.
And sometimes, like that little moment there, it is nice a quiet.
It was a nice and warm summer day today, 89 degrees and definitely not spring any more.
It was slow, except for the swift parts, which only punctuated the slow parts. Highlighting them, if you will.
It was, in fact, abandoned, but not by choice: Less than an hour before Trump’s arrival, armored police used tear gas to clear hundreds of peaceful demonstrators from Lafayette Square park, which is across the street from the church.
Authorities also expelled at least one Episcopal priest and a seminarian from the church’s patio.
“They turned holy ground into a battleground,” said the Rev. Gini Gerbasi.
Bishop Budde, who oversees that church, got in front of The Washington Post immediately. She called in to CNN and they cut off a three-way panel, in fact interrupted a retired three-star general mid-sentence, to express her outrage. And here she is on PBS:
Much of the talk is about clearing out that path for this gigantic overreach — there’s no two ways around this, the administration overreached and it’s hard to imagine them not realizing it almost immediately — and it should be. And people see the violence in New York, California, Philadelphia. I also watched really spotty coverage of riots that followed peaceful protests in my hometown early this morning in anger and despair. I also watched a reporter I know there get mugged by looters. And this happening in smaller towns, too.
In Little Rock, like a lot of places, reporters are catching it from all sides:
I have no memory of the attack last night in Little Rock, but there was a small group among the rioters who clearly didn’t want me there. Suffered a broken nose, but no other fractures. All journos, seriously, be careful. I got too close and paid for it w/ a 5-hour hospital stay pic.twitter.com/Dju2BfdsZ6
Not for nothing, but that would have been me 18 years ago. It could be my peers and friends and former students today. It could be my students tomorrow.
NBC 15 news cameraman was attacked live on air by a looter still in the 600 block of State St. MPD officers in the area quickly located the suspect and after a brief pursuit took the suspect into custody.#MediaRelease —> https://t.co/8gyBV8gzrFpic.twitter.com/2W5cSW3sEe
SPLC staunchly defends the right of student journalists to cover protests in your communities. Here's our updated guide with reminders of your rights, practical coverage tips and advice. Be safe and do good journalism! https://t.co/idCKt92qpX
This is a paragraph or two after we should remind ourselves what terrible injustice brought that on and why we are here. Let’s remember who brought us here. And those authorities are doing this too:
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for an investigation after two of the country's journalists were attacked by police in Washington, DC, on Monday https://t.co/4KCNNZIyNw
They’re doing it in great numbers. When police across the country know that people are watching them more closely than ever, this has been their reaction. That’s instructive.
In this spreadsheet, I identify 160 threats to press freedom that have transpired amid the George Floyd protests in the United States this week.
Let’s note: Not every item is equal in gravity. Some instances are simple and you may be well reasoned to wonder “How could the police avoided that?” Others are serious violations of press freedom by an over-militarized state.
I include arrests, police beatings, pepper spraying, shootings with rubber bullets or other projectiles, incidents where police forced journalists to the ground, forced them into pepper spray, or wrongly denied them certain access.
[…]
Many of the incidents I document came after or seemingly because journalists identified themselves as press. Many had press badges on, gave verbal indications, wore press vests or helmets—and many were blatantly ignored or targeted for that.
It’s going to get worse. It’s going to get better. There’ll be no rhythm or reason to how it waxes and wanes, this pain and this anguish. But so long as we’re referring to American cities as “battle spaces” and, God, help us from that, and this sort of thing is taking place …
Well hello there and happy Junevembertoberuary. I’m working on wrapping up week 12 at home. And this is where I would say I am doing well and we are blessed and all of that is true. All of that is very true. I’ve been to a grocery store a few times and we visit the drive through at Chick-fil-A on Saturdays and had some nice bike rides, but otherwise it has been right here. And I won’t complain! I can’t complain. Everything within our immediate reach is peachy keen while so many things beyond our grasp seem so far beyond our grasp.
There’s a lot to write and a lot of questions and worry and anger today, and there should be. A badly hurting world became something altogether worse tonight while we were on a one-hour bike ride. So quickly were things moving that I asked a friend what exactly was taking place that I managed to get caught up before he did. And then we sat aghast and in worry the rest of the night, as many people did. These next few weeks will try us. We must not be found wanting, when clearly so many people are.
The other day Poseidon help me work on a ceiling fan. He’s big on team efforts:
Did the fan get fixed? No. I blame the cat.
The fan is fine, but it does make a nice creaking nose. So we will continue to try to balance the thing. It’s only a problem for the few minutes when you’re really trying to go to sleep. And when it isn’t a problem it is really out of your mind. It’s a metaphor for life!
Phoebe does not care about your literary tricks. She is only concerned about getting in your path of travel and getting pets. And trying to stick her head through the spindles on the handrail for some reason.
This was a custom photo. The Yankee wanted one of her hiding and in preparation of attacking the laser. The dot can’t see her, you see, on account of her incredibly low profile. Laser dots, traditionally, scan the horizon as their primary form of enemy detection …
Between Thursday and Saturday morning a tree fell on a nearby path. It is a tree that had been waiting for some time to fall. I noticed a week or two ago that it had a serious lean and was braced against other trees that were still doing their part. This guy was rotted and exhausted. And now he’s just in the way.
But you don’t let that stop you, not when you’re running. You turn obstacles into hurdles. And that’s what we did. And then I used the saturation features on my phone to really jazz up this photo.
You gotta just look up. That’s the lesson here. This is a view on our Sunday walk.
And we played in the stream partway through that walk. It’s a peaceful little thing, watching the world’s tiniest waterfall in the valley between two quiet hills.
We went back to the lake. The Yankee went for a swim, her second swim since the pools closed in March, and so her second one in the lake. I sat on the shore to make sure the shore stayed in good shape. There was a bobber hanging from a tree:
And there was a log that was drifting in:
And she had a good swim!
I mean, look at that form! Such technique!
That’s a tow along buoy. Three quick puffs of air inflate it, and then you strap it around your waist and it swims behind you. They are designed to be visible for other people out on the water. Safety first, because low profiles and silhouettes and what not.
I could see this big pink dot about 150 yards away, or so, it is definitely high-viz. She says there’s no drag. She doesn’t even notice it behind her.
At the end of the workday, at the end of the workweek, it was time for a bike ride. And, on Fridays, we ride a bit longer. This involves leaving the usual route through the adjoining neighborhoods and then turning left, instead of going straight.
Going left meant different rollers, and two or three cycles through the same red light, cars parked in the bike lane and a small handful of other indignities to a good ride in the first four miles. After that, though, it moved along nicely.
The next 45 minutes were all on the same road, so you settle in and duck the wind and try your best. We’ve done this route the last three weeks in a row and if you do such a thing often enough you begin to have an understanding of what you can do over such roads. Sometimes you do your best, which is great! And sometimes your legs and your mind and your bicycle have formed an unconscious understanding of what your best can be and you do even better, which is great! And sometimes it just isn’t in you and you underperform. Which is, you know, just great.
Anyway, you do your best until you pass through two little communities and over the county line where you can enjoy a short and steep downhill. After that you turn left and run along a causeway over a lake for three miles or so. And it was somewhere in there that I set a New Personal Best Top Speed of 49.1 miles per hour.
And, boy, are my jokes tired.
Right after that, the road goes up and away from the lake and there’s one stiff hill you have to get over. Eventually, you take a few turns and you’re back on that first long road and headed back toward where you started. It let me breakaway from The Yankee for about 20 miles before she caught me in traffic.
And soon, at around mile 30, we caught up to these nice people:
I’ve read about people on bike tours using pool noodles. And now I have seen a family do it. That one guy is hauling two kids on a pull-along, and they all count as cyclists. After we did a big circle we saw them again from the other direction. They waved and said hello and we waved and said hello and I hope they were having a fine a time on their bikes as we were having.
Got to the house at precisely the right time:
And began to think I should start adding some serious miles back into my routine. Some how. Some when.
So there I was Tuesday night, washing dishes later than I should have been. Everyone had retired for the evening, but one of the cats came back to see what all this noise in the kitchen was about. As I was scrubbing I didn’t really pay attention to his approach, but he’s got two or three options available to him. However he chose to get there, I looked up, and there was the cat directly above the sink.
Sometimes a light will flash on the ceiling, and that will amuse and astound him, being a cat. Last night, however, I decided to hold the sponge up close to him and squeeze out the water into the sink, so he could see it from above. He’s one of those cats that likes water, so this was a captivating experience. We did this a few times, which lead to a series of photographs.
Why that didn’t wind up in yesterday’s post you’ll just have to solve for yourself.
Tonight we had a dinner and a movie date with colleagues. It was via Zoom. (Zoom has really helped our social lives!) One of them works in our school and the other is in Global and International Studies. We were going to watch a comedy, and instead we just wound up talking for hours and hours.
I was talking when it became obvious that the call was over.
Isn’t that always the way?
People who are still staying indoors — people who have both the ability and desire to do so, that is — are eager for contact. Some of them are talking to me after all. But no one has figured out how to wind down a video call yet. But when those nonverbals kick in … that’s when you can tell.
I wonder if anyone has decided the optimal number for such an interaction. We’ve basically been developing a wholesale interpersonal culture from scratch. Sure, the technology for this has been around, and yes, some people have used it professionally and even some personally, but the wholesale adoption is a different thing. Even if we’re diffusion of innovation laggards — and I’d say we are early or late majority at most — we’ve got to figure this out. Is this a meeting where one person talks to others? Will there be slides and someone droning on and on? Should I mute? Are we using the text chat or not? Do you have to stay backlit the entire time? Are we just being friendly? And isn’t that better than a work video meeting? Are we more, or less, courteous in crosstalk? And why do I keep pointing at things on my screen like I think you can see them?
I haven’t seen any Facebook Portal ads in a while, come to think of it, which is perfectly fine. You’d think they’d be everywhere, having come to market at just the right time. Maybe they are fighting it out over how Facebooky they have to be right now, who knows.
If they promised me only the Muppets could call me, and that the Muppets would answer when I called them, I’d buy one.
