This and that
Today I woke up in a funk. There are probably many reasons, and quite a few of them involve the news. I probably don’t need to list the things in the news that disturb me – the triumph of the knaves, the fools, and the knavish fools and foolish knaves. You know the drill.
I also recently was informed of the extremely serious illness of an old friend, and those messages come more and more frequently these days. You probably know the drill on that, too.
That said, I’ll just note that today I learned from comments in the Open Thread that the DOJ has issued a report on Uvalde. I haven’t read it yet, but I will. It reminds me that I’ve never published that long-promised report of my own on the same subject. So many other pressing things intervened that I kept putting it off. I’ll try to take the enormously long and disorganized draft I wrote ages ago and make it into a post or series of posts soon. I can almost guarantee my take on Uvalde will be significantly different than that of the DOJ.
I know exactly how you feel about the effect of the dreadful news these days, and the only pleasure I get is watching old sit coms and Westerns on on my streaming services which show an an America that sadly is long gone. As for Uvalde, the absolute cowardice of the former Police Chief (Pete Arredando) is sickening.
Skip the Uvalde report. You don’t need to put that level of poison in your spirit. Apparently it is worse than even long-time observers of Uvalde found. Horrific. Diving into it fixes nothing. Be kind to yourself. Put up a link and a trigger warning and avoid the spiritual poison.
Assessing the performance of the local police department in Uvalde is not a federal function. Any state government should have an auditor to sponsor these studies. If not a state auditor, then the state police or a state commission of inquiry.
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Note also, it’s Merrick Garland’s ‘Justice’ department. The smart money says they are working some angle.
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Federal investigators should be subject to a federal auditor. The apparatus at present is toothless. Glaringly scandalous conduct in the past (Ruby Ridge, Waco) has gone unpunished.
IMO, a state like Texas should have about 50 (multi-county) sheriff’s patrol divisions to cover exurban, small town, and rural zones and about 25 metropolitan police departments to cover the core cities and tract suburbs. A municipal police department should be an optional feature for small towns which wish to supplement the work of the sheriff’s patrol. Black swan events are going to be outside the wheelhouse of small and unspecialized local police.
Oh, no, Neo, you don’t need another heavy loss so soon.
I tend to agree with Art Deco on this. Whatever the failings were, they rest with the local and state authorities involved in Texas, not the feds.
Yes, a couple weeks ago I discovered that a friend had suddenly dropped dead. We weren’t super close, but it was very unexpected. The number of deaths is beginning to escalate for me, and that one affected me more than I initially appreciated.
I was watching an adaptation of an old kipling tale, the soldiers three with dan o’herlihy (the old man in robo cop) and stewart granger, the third guy escapes me,
hijinks in western india,
About ten minutes before I read this post I was thinking of a Dylan line that comes into my head from time to, usually in the context of our cultural and political slide: “Your corrupt ways have finally made you blind.”
It seems to apply to our rulers. And we don’t seem able and/or willing to replace them. “We” being the voters at large, many of whom of course are no better than the rulers.
I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Neo. Yes, those of us who are past 65 or so are going to be hearing a lot of that. Just this morning on Facebook I saw a post on an online acquaintance’s account: “This is Joe, Sam’s son. Sam passed away last night.” I never actually met the man and didn’t know him well, so I don’t feel personal grief, but that was startling.
The State Troopers and the Rangers have already conducted a study and issued a report, complete with conclusions and recommendations going forward, shortly after the tragedy. The report was reviewed in session by the Legislature in great detail.
Texas is a big state, so what happens with jurisdictions is this (I’m not an expert) : Metropolitan areas and small cities, and for all I know, large towns, have a thing called ‘extra-territorial jurisdiction’. This means that the surrounding communities that lie outside of the strictly-defined city limits, are still covered by police, fire, and ambulance services. I think this is the way of handling the rapid growth that seems pretty endemic to Texas over the past decade or two, because the way cities grow is through their suburbs, and this population density needs frequent tending. And of course on top of this, we have the various county Sheriff departments as well as the the State Troopers. I live in one of these ETJ’s and the local city police move pretty quickly in and out when they need to support the Sheriff’s department.
Ah, Neo, I’m so sorry about your friend.
Your comments really reflect my own recent feelings. I get caught between not wanting to know what’s happening today because it’s likely to be depressing and not wanting to be caught unawares. I am working really hard to stay hopeful for the future which is important to me as I work in the mental health space with young people who struggle with identity and happiness in the world they are growing up in. I’d like to think I’m helping in a micro way but some days/months it’s more difficult to keep positive. The attack on Israel and the subsequent behaviour of the left has been particularly difficult. As a frequent reader (but non commentator) I want to thank you for your voice in these difficult times, you don’t know what it means to have some one articulate these issues as well as you do. I even, as someone who has not been in the dance world, appreciate the dance links which remind me of the beauty this world holds
I will add my sympathy also, Neo, about your friend, also to TommyJay and Mac, and any others who have suffered a loss recently.
I was coincidentally working this evening on a memorial for one of our friends, by helping his wife (now widow) select items from his boxes of papers and memorabilia for the funeral next week.
He actually passed away in October, about 2 weeks shy of his 60th birthday, of a massive heart attack while they were at yoga class, which seemed to us all to add a poignant insult to the injury.
The service was delayed because of the holidays, and for family reasons; the cremation occurred promptly, which seems to be more common these days.
AesopSpouse’s mom passed in the fall of 2022 and we are still waiting for his sister to finish the arrangements for interring the ashes (although none of us see any need to rush at this point).
I also echo Sandra’s sentiments.
Sometimes your posts and the comments are the only thing presenting a reasonably sane perspective on the international craziness of the times.
And the craziness of the Times and the WaPost and the rest of the Democrat-media-complex. 😉
Re: Funk
It happens on the other side too. The leader of my hippie commune built a beautiful country life near the Ozarks in Arkansas. He now feels so confused and discouraged that he won’t watch TV or follow the news anymore.
A couple years ago two close friends passed away. I had been playing in a band with them for 7 or 8 years. One died suddenly from a heart attack, the other after battling cancer for about a year. They were both younger than me.
I just turned 73 and am in pretty good health. I might have another 20 years, or I could drop dead tomorrow. At this point I feel that I have lived my biblical threescore and ten and am playing with house money. There’s not much I can do about it except live a reasonably healthy lifestyle and enjoy the time I have left, however long it is.
Where I get funked these days is AI.
I’m serious.
Was 2023 the year the human experiment ended, but we just don’t know it yet?
Intelligence is about to become a utility like the Water Dept. You’re hooked up and you just have to turn the tap to get a stream of intelligence, better than anything you’ve got, for whatever you want.
When chess programs surpassed human players, there was a period of “centaur players” — human players riding atop computer programs to blend human intuition with raw machine crunching. It worked for a while, but the programs became superhuman and humans had nothing to add.
No matter. We are all going to become centaurs, as dependent on AI as we now are on automobiles and the internet. And in not too many years, we will be depending on far superior AI intellects and we will know it.
It’s one thing to discover a computer can unfailingly beat you at chess, but to realize a computer is better than you at everything?
But you can’t give up your AI buddy because otherwise you can’t compete with all the other human-AI centaurs out there.
Bonne chance!
Imagine a world in which all your social interactions are with people listening to private AI voices advising them of their best social moves at all times.
And you are too.
Rod Serling, where have you gone?