Saturday, June 27, 2020

So beautiful! Amazing! Creamy! Caramelized! Umami!

What you hear on the cooking shows. All. The. Time.

(Consequence of spending too much time at home!)

Monday, June 22, 2020

Antsy

We're still pretty much confining ourselves to home. Not that we can't go out if we want, and I go out for supplies or to get the mail fairly regularly, but we still don't do or go places like we used to. I notice, too, that we're spending more than we did before the pandemic-shut down, even though we're not eating out or traveling. It seems to me, though I can't be certain, that basic food and supplies are costing 20%-30% more, and that's the main reason why our expenses are higher.

There is still no hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, isopropyl alcohol, disposable gloves or face masks to be had locally. It's not because people are still hoarding -- though they certainly did at the beginning. The lack of these essential supplies is due almost entirely now to the fact that they are not being delivered or are being delivered in such small quantities the supplies are immediately sold out. Everything is back-ordered, and those orders are not being filled, and may not be for months to come. I suspected this was happening at the beginning when people were panicking. Merchants put out what stock they had, sold it -- in part to hoarders -- and that was it. Weren't no more to be had.

Toilet paper and other paper products have reappeared in limited quantities, and washing products like soaps and bleach are available, though we're still sometimes seeing unfamiliar brands and prices are sometimes high. This is true of flour, sugar and other baking supplies as well. Yeast is still not seen all the time, though it does periodically appear on the shelves. In some cases, prices are double or even triple pre-pandemic prices for some essentials.

I don't know what it's like in more populous places. We don't go shopping out of town. We get some things online, but there are problems with delivery that can sometimes be complicated. When we order, we don't necessarily know how the items will be shipped and we can't find out until after the shipment is processed. Sometimes, merchants will say they use UPS or FedEx, for which we must provide a street address. Then we find out they are actually using SurePost, which means the items go to the post office for final delivery. Trouble is, the post office here doesn't deliver to street addresses, only to PO Boxes. Every time this happens, items risk being returned to sender. Some people we know have not received packages they ordered because of this quirk, and the post office is no help much of the time. On the other hand, even when things are shipped UPS or FedEx, skipping the post office, the street addresses can be tricky for drivers, and boxes wind up on our porch that we didn't order and we wind up being the final delivery service to neighbors who did order the items. So we confine ordering online to things we're certain we need and can't get any other way.

And for the record, free Target's "two day shipping" is a cruel joke. Ordinarily it takes a week, on occasion, it will take two weeks. I think only once was shipping actually "2 days" -- from Albuquerque.

All of these things are minor annoyances magnified by the fact that we're focused on them because we are at home most of the time. I think that factor had something to do with the armed "Haircut Rebellions" that swept the nation a while back and seemed to force the immediate "reopening" of some businesses that had been shuttered during the lockdowns. It was really amazing how suddenly state and local governments complied with the demands of "Haircut Rebels."

Antsy. People were getting antsy at having to stay home so much. They still are. Even though many or most restrictions on movement and activity are lifted in most places. And in many of those places, the virus is having a party.

Of course it needs to be said that the armed rebels who stormed around were not met with force by the authorities. Far from it. There were few rebels, for one thing, and their firearm fetish didn't result in more than empty and/or implied threats. Nevertheless, most of their demands were instantly met.

On the other hand the mass marches in the streets against the lethal brutality of the police have been met with -- more and worse brutality. Dozens of people have had their eyes shot out by so-called "less lethal" projectiles, and uncounted thousands have been injured, some severely. No count has yet been made of the dead but police killings continue apace. Police have been killed, too, but so far, all of them have died at the hands of "Boogaloo" and other rightist bands of brothers. Interesting, then, that police action is almost entirely focused on suppressing what they think of as "leftist" rebellion. And simply put, US police forces in too many places too often outdo their Hong Kong colleagues in brutality and vicious tactics. It's gotten so bad that there are international calls for US police to be condemned for egregious human rights violations.

It's still surprising that "Defund the Police" is a seriously considered thing, that it is being done in some places, and that pissed off police are refusing to go to work unless they are "appreciated."

Oh my.

Police are being fired right and left, police chiefs are resigning, some police are being charged with assault, manslaughter, even murder, far faster and in far greater numbers than ever before. We've never seen anything like this shake up of police forces, and the suddenness of it is shocking. What is going on?

Obviously, people who matter are calling the shots, and they are simultaneously demanding that "leftist" rebellion be suppressed and that misbehaving police be held to account immediately, not years down the road which had long been the protocol. Police are in shock, but so is the public. What is going on?

The more the situation devolves, the more antsy the public becomes. Limited police "reforms" are being far more widely instituted than ever before, but the brutal suppression efforts and police killings continue almost as if "reform" was not happening. Like it hasn't happened so many times before. Cosmetic changes aren't enough, but maybe that's all we'll get this time, just as in the past.

I've referred to this period as a paradigm shift, but it's looking more and more like a generational shift. We're entering a different era and doing so with considerable difficulty. People my age are mostly not going to be around to see the outcome, "bye-bye Boomer!", but some of us had something to do with setting the stage for what's to come. Let's hope it's better for everyone.




Friday, June 5, 2020

"The Police Just Went Nuts"

I've been reviewing some of the stories of police abuse coming out of literally everywhere since the start of the George Floyd protests. I thought I had been shocked to the core by police misconduct years and years ago and that nothing would come close to events I'd witnessed in person or virtually in years gone by. Little did I know.

The George Floyd murder-by-cop in Minneapolis triggered mass demonstrations in the streets all over the country and all over the world. It was an egregious -- and very deliberate -- act of police power over the black body of a man pleading for his life while that life was being crushed out of him by one officer whose knee on his neck wouldn't be removed until George Floyd was good and dead. Three other officers either participated in the murder or idled nearby doing nothing to intervene. All captured on video taken by bystanders, some of whom attempted to intervene but were blocked by officers.

I've seen similar scenes before, many times, but nothing quite as appalling in its tortuousness and murderous intent. Second and third degree murder charges have been laid against the officer whose knee eventually killed George Floyd and the other officers have been charged as accessories aiding and abetting, but the calls for first degree intentional murder charges have only increased as the anger against police brutality has led to massive demonstrations that continue to this day.

The police response in many cities has been grotesquely out of control. That lack of discipline and control is the essence of what is being protested, the reason why so many people are marching against police brutality, and over and over and over again, day in and day out, police are showing themselves to be unworthy of public trust or support.

One of numerous incidents in Philadelphia involved police firing chemical weapons and rubber bullets at thousands of protesters, many trapped on an embankment with nowhere to retreat, injuring hundreds, and arresting "dozens." The fourteen minute overhead video captures much of the scene, but doesn't really show the affect on so many.



This was perhaps the worst of what I've seen so far, but it's by no means unique. The police in many cities have adopted a hostile and deliberately cruel attitude toward protesters leading to constant abuse of the public, much of it documented on video, far too much of it defended by police chiefs and elected officials because somebody did something somewhere at some point, and order must be maintained.

We see this justification from the White House practically daily as the blowback from the "clearance" of protesters from DC's Lafayette Square on Monday using tear gas, munitions, mounted officers and brutality intensifies. All so Trump could pose in front of St. John's Church, holding aloft a book he claimed was a bible and then assemble his sycophants for more pictures before shambling back to the White House bunkers.

Damn,

There have been a few contrasting scenes of police trying to show solidarity with the protesters by marching with them, kneeling with them, expressing outrage at the murder of George Floyd, etc. But those are rare compared to the violence and yes, murder by police committed too often in too many places as unrest continues.

Our rulers like to try to shame China for the treatment of demonstrators in Hong Kong, but truly, Chinese police and troops in Hong Kong have been utterly restrained compared to the US. The world looks on in bemused horror.

I don't know how this episode of police outrage will be resolved, if it will. But many see it as the death rattle of a failed regime -- not simply the Trump regime, but the general apparatus of neoliberal rule. Maybe. We'll see.

In the meantime, given everything that's going on -- pandemic disease, economic collapse, wilding by police, looting by the overclass -- the next few months will be somewhat more than "interesting."

Stay well and safe.