14 IX 2022: Low-risk thievery

The City of St. Louis’ Prosecuting Attorney, Kimberly Gardner, and her staff seem somehow unable or unwilling to prosecute thieves, and the same seems to be true in St. Louis County. In the County, in July-August, there were 46 charges brought for auto theft although 704 stolen vehicles were reported. In the City, between August 1-13,  around 462 cases of theft or attempted theft of vehicles were reported and only one person was charged. I do not know if these figures include unlawful entry of unlocked vehicles and break-ins of locked cars. 

I do know that in the “safe” suburb in which I live, the number of thefts of automobiles and thefts from automobiles has increased dramatically, as have the thefts of catalytic converters. These thefts are often executed by teams of thieves, cruising in probably stolen cars, seeking opportunities to enter or break into parked vehicles with a view to stealing their contents or the vehicles themselves.

What accounts for the surge in thefts we have lately seen? 

This is partly due to the mobilization of thieves. No longer confined to areas close to home, they range far and wide in automobiles hunting for easy pickings, the autos providing also a quick getaway if needed. Perhaps there has been an increased disrespect for private property among people otherwise unable to obtain private property. But I think this surge is mainly due to the fact that thieves believe it is unlikely that they will be caught and, if caught, unlikely that they will face any consequences.

13 IX 2022: Misc.: Kelly Ripa, King Charles, Trump, Lindsay Graham, anti-abortion bill

Headline under “News and Buzz” on CNN today: “Kelly Ripa recounts passing out during sex because of ovarian cysts.” I’m sorry for Kelly, but do we have to know this.

We should get this straight: Charles Windsor is King of the United Kingdom, etc. Joe Biden is not King of the United States, nor was Donald Trump. So I wish people would stop treating Trump with such caution and delicacy. Ex-presidential thieves deserve no more consideration than the guy who steals your catalytic converter.

I read that Old Lindsay Graham has, again, introduced an anti-abortion bill in Congress. The proposed enactment would forbid all abortions after 15 months, with exceptions in cases of rape or to protect the life of the pregnant woman. It is said that Lindsay hopes to unite Republicans behind his bill that has something for all factions: forbid abortion, but only after 15 weeks, with exceptions and so on. Well, we will have to wait and see. I don’t think the “religious right,” the audience that this bill is meant especially to please, will be at all pleased with it. The hard-core who oppose abortion don’t make exceptions case of rape, and I wonder, if they were to think about it, if they would allow physicians to prefer the life of the mother to the life of the fetus.

11 IX 2022: Make America Ours Again, again

MAOA is a large conglomerate of chronically angry people who find support and excitement in their shared anger. These are not just angry old men, like Alito and Thomas, but angry young regressionists, male and female, all of whom feel dissed and menaced because many, or even most of their fellow citizens no longer agree with them. They are trying to move America into conformity with an idealized past, a past that, of course, never was. We are familiar with the revivalism of religious extremists, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian, and their passionate devotion to their own literal, but distinctly self-serving understanding of their sacred books. American regressionism is similarly a revivalism, but of political extremists, who are also passionately devoted to their own literal and self-serving understanding of their sacred book, the Constitution. 

10 VIII 2022:

Good summary account of Steve Bannon’s arraignment on Politico. Skid-row Steve entered the courtroom in handcuffs and tried to boost the melodrama with his bon mot “They will never shut me up, they’ll have to kill me first.” But his six-count indictment for money laundering and conspiracy to defraud suggests that the better epigraph for the occasion was shouted by a bystander as Bannon was entering the court: “Stop hurting America, you greasy grifter.”

Steve is right, of course, They will never shut him up, for only death will silence him. Bannon has tried very hard over the years to fashion for himself the persona of a revolutionary pundit. This has not come out very well. He has been more an insurrectionist Walter Mitty who strives, by blather about rebellion, revolution, seizing power, and so on, to grab attention. It’s the attention that matters, not the politics. What inspires Mr. Bannon is Trump’s Disease, an insatiable craving for notoriety, and sufferers from that affliction never shut up.

8 IX 2022: MAGA is really MAOA

The Trumpists’ logo, MAGA, is a coded form of their real slogan, MAOA, “Make America Ours Again.” Trump and the Trump base are the froth on the top of a nationwide regressionist movement. This regression is a delusional effort to return to a male-dominated, Christian-supremacist, white-supremacist America. At all levels of society, people are agitated by fear, resentment, and anger, as they see, or are led to see, the America they thought “belonged” to them slipping away. But what they really fear, what they resent, and what makes them furious is change, inevitable change they cannot control, change that they believe will not be to their advantage. Contributing to this fear is their consciousness of advantages unfairly seized, long enjoyed, and violently maintained. However much MAOAists, great and small, try to deny this consciousness, it remains the source of an implied fear of retribution that enhances the crippling fear of change.

5 IX 2022: Cartoons of truth

MAGA Republicans or, rather, Trump cultists, are calling on all the resources of their imaginations to denounce Biden’s criticism of their bogus movement. They, like Trump, project their own vices on to others, and so they declare that Biden is the real fascist. Rep. Ronny Jackson, from Texas, don’t you know, rants that “He had his secret police kick in Trump’s door,” turning reality into a cartoon. 

Another cartoon is Federal Judge Aileen Cannon who has granted the Trump Team’s request for a special master. Was Judge Cannon guided by her deep devotion to the man who made her, Donald Trump, or by a generosity unchecked by utter lack of experience. She has proven the American Bar Association correct in its evaluation of her and given herself a shame she won’t be able to outlive.

3 IX 2022: Justice delayed in brier-patch of the law

Of course, Trump is entitled to postpone prosecution by having his “legal team” file endless documents and appeals. And it is quite legal for Lindsey Graham to keep on using the same legal dodge to avoid the grand jury. If you have enough money and are willing to lie, you can legally delay being brought to justice almost indefinitely.

However, justice delayed is justice denied. I read of the legal shenanigans of Trump, Graham, and countless other criminal fat cats. I read in the paper of two- or three-year delays between apprehension of perpetrator and trial. I read of prosecutions indefinitely suspended by screw-up district attorneys. If the law is not enforced, and promptly, the law is brought into disrepute, and criminals have no fear of getting caught because the consequences will be trivial or nil.

1 IX 2022: Decline in elementary education, already far advanced, now plummeting

The National Center for Education Statistics has reported a dramatic drop in the reading and math scores of 9-year-old students. This is not surprising.

We can surely blame this decline on school closings due to COVID19, but I am inclined to think that COVID is only a part of the problem. This Fall very many states report a virtually desperate shortage of teachers. Some states are even reducing required credentials for teaching just to get some warm bodies into their classrooms. So we have to ask why the pool of well-prepared teachers has dried up.

Who would want to be a teacher? Interference by mindless education bureaucracies and by special interest groups; the lack of cooperation and even antagonism of parents; indifferent students, undisciplined students, violent students; growing national anti-intellectualism and hostility towards learning and expertise; popular view of teachers as, to use Trump’s word, suckers and losers.

Why take on a job that society does not really want to have done, or, at least, to have done properly? Idealism, also an object of contempt in our society, can carry one only so far before constant frustration and obstruction drain away all enthusiasm.

Our society depends on two groups to fulfill two of its paramount needs, on teachers for education and on police for law enforcement. Both groups are targets of contempt, both groups are badly underpaid. Both groups contain some incompetents who cannot be removed because there is no one to take their places.

It’s time for us to provide greatly increased support, financial and moral, for teachers and policemen, or America will slide more quickly into decrepitude.