it’s been a year

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One year ago today I made the following comment on Facebook:

So…what do you think? When will Comrade Trump be indicted? I’m inclined to think middle of next week. Say a week from tomorrow.

That claim was met with some understandable skepticism. A lot of people believed he’d escape any indictment, that he’d never be held accountable for any of the horrendous shit he’s done. But I was confident he’d at least be indicted. Not absolutely confident; just sort of pretty almost sure. I argued:

I think he’ll be indicted in Manhattan and also probably by the Georgia grand jury. I think there’s a fair chance he’ll also be indicted at the federal level.

And hey, I was right. Well, off by a week, but on March 30, Trump was indicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. His trial is scheduled to begin in 11 days. Three months later, Trump was indicted in the Southern District of Florida on 37 federal criminal charges related to his handling of classified government documents (three more criminal charges were added a month later). Two months after that, Trump was indicted in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on four federal criminal charges related to election interference. And two weeks later, the Fulton County, Georgia Superior Court finally indicted Trump on 13 criminal counts related to interference in the 2020 election in Georgia (six of those charges have been dismissed for being vague BUT the judge has stated they can be refiled if they’re worded differently; the underlying RICO case is still solid).

That was a year ago. Today I’m going to predict Trump will almost certainly be convicted in Manhattan and Georgia. I’ll also predict that unless SCOTUS interferes, Trump will go down in both federal jurisdictions—DC and Florida. In each case, the publicly available evidence against Trump is overwhelming. In each case, the arguments presented (so far) by the defense are awfully weak.

Let me just remind folks that I’m basically a criminal defense guy; my first instincts are almost always to support the defense. I firmly believe in forcing the State to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, even in cases in which the accused is blatantly guilty. And although I fucking hate Trump, I reluctantly appreciate the ridiculous arguments his lawyers have used to delay his various criminal trials. It pisses me off and frustrates me, but that’s their job. That said, it’s bullshit that courts cooperate with Trump’s lawyers to delay his trials.

Anyway, that’s where I stand. I firmly believe Trump will be convicted in both State courts and probably in both Federal courts. I could be wrong, of course. Weird shit happens in criminal trials.

For me, the big question now is this: will he serve any time behind bars? I’d love to say “Yes, he absolutely will.” But I’m pretty skeptical about it. He deserves to be in prison, but people rarely get what they deserve. And to be honest, that’s worked out pretty well for me.

Putting Trump in prison would be socially cataclysmic. But I believe, in the long run, it would be healthy for US politics.

the US is the parent in the Gaza school shooting

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Remember Jennifer and James Crumbley? Sure you do. They’re Ethan’s parents. You know, Ethan Crumbly? Oh, c’mon…the 15-year-old kid who shot and killed four of his classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan. Ring a bell? The murders happened back in 2021, but a month ago Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter because she 1) failed to get Ethan the mental health care he needed, and 2) made it possible for him to have access to both a handgun and ammunition.

Here’s the thing: the US are Jennifer and James Crumbley. The Israeli government is Ethan. And the thirty thousand dead men, women, and children in Gaza? They’re the victims of an international school shooting.

Just like Ethan’s parents, the US (and the world) has known for a long time that the government of Israel has been a threat to the daily existence of Palestinians. We’ve known about the government’s support of illegal settlements in the West Bank, we’ve known about their harsh policies toward Gaza. And yeah, like Ethan, some groups of Palestinians have made matters worse because of their behavior. But the fact remains, the US has been aware of the dangerous and destructive behavior of Israel. And like Ethan’s parents, we’ve not only ignored the abuse and the risk, we’ve deliberately enabled it by supplying the Israeli government with all manner of weaponry.

And hey, we’re still doing that. Thirty thousand plus dead Gazan — a large proportion of which are children — and we continue to hand them weapons. Yes, we’re saying, “Please use these weapons responsibly” but that’s like buying your 15-year-old mentally ill child a handgun, helping him load it, and asking him not to kill his classmates.

Jennifer Crumbly has been found guilty for making it possible for her son to kill other kids. Her husband’s trial will be held in the near future; he’ll likely be found guilty as well. In any rational, responsible World Criminal Court, the US will…well, you can figure it out.

I’m sure Ethan’s parents feel horrible about what happened. I’m sure they wish they’d acted before it was too late. I’m sure they just didn’t realize how their parental failure would harm others. I’m sure they had no idea how much it would harm Ethan and themselves. I’m sure that if they’d been present during the shooting, they’d have at least tried to take Ethan’s 9mm handgun and stopped the killing.

The US could do that. We could just stop providing the Israeli government with the weapons its using to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. It’s far too late, of course, but too late is better than never. We could stop giving Israel weaponry; it would be the moral equivalent of taking away Ethan’s handgun after he’s shot a few classmates. There are already too many bodies on the international schoolroom floor; nothing is going to change that. But we could try to prevent more bodies from stacking up.

We could do that. But we won’t.

can we please just impeach this asshole?

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A couple weeks ago — the day before Valentine’s Day, in fact — the House GOP impeached the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Why? Did he commit any ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’? Nope. Is he even suspected of committing any HC&M? Nope. Did the Republicans actually think there was any way in hell the Senate would act on this? Nope. So why did they impeach him?

Because: 1) Donald Fucking Trump wanted somebody — preferably Biden, but anybody in the Biden administration — impeached. 2) They want to use scary brown immigrants as an election issue. 3) Pure malignant spite and the desire to hurt people. 4) They hope it’ll give their base the appearance that they’re doing something. 5) They wanted to say ‘Fuck you’ to Joe Biden and his entire administration.

These are all bad reasons to impeach anybody. That pisses me off. But what pisses me off just as much — and maybe more — is that there are people who absolutely fucking deserve to be impeached. People who are totally impeach-worthy. People whose past behavior has earned an impeachment and whose future behavior actually threatens the future of representative democracy in the United States. People like this fucking guy:

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Clarence ‘Deep Pockets’ Thomas

Right now, we have the most openly corrupt and partisan SCOTUS in US history — and ain’t nobody more openly corrupt and partisan than Clarence Thomas. He’s had his hand out since Day One. This avaricious sumbitch would steal the sugar out of a cake. Hell, he’d do it while you watched and dare you to call him on it. He barely tries to hide it. For decades, he’s received ‘gifts’ from billionaire ‘friends’ whose business interests depended on favorable SCOTUS opinions. These are ‘friends’ he made after he was tapped for SCOTUS; it’s not like they’re his old high school buddies. He’s accepted these gifts, he’s failed to report them as he’s required to do, and he’s ruled on their cases. That’s some serious grifting, right there.

Then, of course, there’s all the awful shit his wife has pulled. I’m talking about her encouraging and promoting the January 6th Insurrection, which is truly bad its ownself. And when her shit came up before SCOTUS, did Clarence recuse himself like any ethical jurist would? Nope. He not only sat on the case, he was the ONLY justice on the bench that voted in a way that protected his wife.

There is absolutely no sustainable argument for Clarence Thomas to remain an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. I mean, there are other assholes on SCOTUS we could do without, but Clarence is the bull goose grifter and the most obvious and deserving candidate for impeachment.

I can say, with absolute confidence and mathematical certitude, that if Clarence had been appointed by a Democrat and had been writing liberal decisions, the Republicans would have held a decade worth of hearings by now. If Congressional Republicans are willing to impeach Mayorkas over bullshit, why aren’t Democrats willing to impeach this grasping, covetous bastard? What in the stonewashed fuck is wrong with Democrats? Why won’t Democrats at least TRY to do what’s right?

You don’t have to answer that. The answer is pretty obvious (SPOILER: they’re comfortable political cowards who’ll mewl and grizzle about how unfair it all is, but won’t fucking act).

Look, I’m not asking Democrats to act like Republicans. I mean, they’re assholes. They’re willing to lie, fabricate, mislead, obfuscate, and deceive in order to score petty political points. Democrats don’t need to do that. They can just present verifiable facts to support a legit impeachment inquiry.

Seriously, the US would be better off if Democrats would just TRY to impeach this asshole. It would be a worthy effort even if the Senate failed to convict him. So c’mon, give it a shot, Democrats. What have you got to lose?

i should know better

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It’s been a while since I’ve held my breath and visited the mephitic swamp that’s FreeRepublic. But I was curious to see how Freepers would react to Comrade Trump’s massive fine for committing fraud in New York State.

I mean, I knew, of course, that they’d be outraged. They’re always outraged about something. What I was curious about was the direction their outrage would take. Generally, Freeper outrage falls into one (or more) of five categories. 1) They’re picking on Trump unfairly, 2) Trump is too big/powerful/strong/manly to be bothered by being nibbled on by ducks, 3) Trump will have his revenge, 4) It’s a Deep State conspiracy, or 5) Blame it on women, black folks, pedophiles/perverts, communists, Satanists, etc.

To my disappointment, not one Freeper mentioned Satan. However, they almost universally agreed Trump was being victimized unfairly. Here are a few folks who figured Trump will just shrug off a half a billion in fines:

Trump could easily take out a loan against Mara-Lago since it is valued at over a billion dollars.
by Newbomb Turk

He just made $4 billion in his truth social tech stock today, I’m sure this verdict had nothing to do with it. I’m sure his poll numbers ascended as well.
by FrdmLvr

Of course it will be dismissed. Trump isn’t going to pay a dime.
by Georgia Girl 2

But even if Trump could easily pay off those unfair fines, Freepers agree that Trump himself is absolutely blameless. He’s being targeted by people who hate him because of reasons (they’re not MAGA, they’re black, they’re overweight, they’re stupid, they’re perverts, they’re sadists, they’re less than human).

once this is appealed to a NON-DEMOCRAT court, it will be tossed out like the garbage it is.
by ThePatriotsFlag

Since a lot of horrible people are in positions of authority based on Kolor, kink, and Kin…and not on merit–we need a law stating government officials can not read statements written by others–or by themselves.
A half page of notes can be allowed.
It was sickening listen to that idiot Letitia James read a statement written by someone else that made her sound intelligent. Well, kind of intelligent considering what she was saying wasn’t rational.
by GOPJ

[They think the verdict] will make they women wet and the men wishing they could get hard. They love the idea of an “enemy” suffering greatly. There are tens of millions of them. Their sadists who would be thrilled to watch any one of us tortured to death. Does anyone here really want to share the nation with these animals?
by Wpin

But obviously, there’s a shady cabal behind all of Trump’s misfortunes. It’s simply not possible that Trump himself could be to blame.

New York is just the means to an end. Obama is behind all of this.
by Daveinyork

Good chance they’ll put Trump in jail and kill him.
by sopo

Regardless, Trump will eventually triumph. He’ll have his revenge. True American Patriots will stand up in numbers too big to ignore and fight for him. They’ll make those bastards pay.

Heard PISSED OFF Truckers for Trump are starting a boycott of deliveries to NYC. They started with 10 a few hours ago and now they’re up to 20 committed. It’s spreading! GO TRUCKERS!!! SPREAD THE WORD!
by RoseofTexas

Trump will have the judge arrested. Problem solved.
by nonliberal

We are about at the point where these lawless monsters be openly defied. We are entering second amendment territory. These are no longer legitimate courts. Once the legitimacy of the courts goes down and anybody that the powers that be want to throw into jail can be done so…it’s over….and it’s on….
by TalBlack

There you go. Truckers will starve Manhattan. Judge Engoron will be jailed. There will be Second Amendment solutions for Trump’s enemies.

There are reasons I rarely visit FreeRepublic these days. It’s not the consistent vitriol and ugliness that keeps me away, though that plays a part. And it’s not because of the level of ignorance and stupidity in their comments. I avoid FreeRepublic because visiting the site tends to make me react to its followers in much the same way they react to everybody else.

I become judgmental. I mock them. I feel a certain amount of disgust for them. I see them as uninformed backward rubes. Because there’s no way an intelligent, thoughtful person can believe Barack Obama orchestrated Trump’s fraud trial, or that a group of truck drivers will punish NYC, or that Trump is in any way a patriot. I read their comments and I think, “You hateful, pathetic, fuckwitted suckers.”

I dislike feeling that way about other people. I want to feel compassion for people who are so oblivious and gullible. I used to be able to do that. Now, not so much. I don’t visit FreeRepublic very often because I find their hate and bitterness and disregard for others is infectious. And I’m gradually losing my resistance to it.

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a good time to remind everybody that we need to burn the patriarchy to the ground. We need to douse that poisonous plant with kerosene and set fire to it. We need to gather its ashes, piss on them, drop napalm on them and burn them again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then read a good book.

one lens, monochrome

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I was maybe 16 years old when I first borrowed my momma’s rangefinder camera and began shooting photographs. It was a completely manual film camera, which meant I had to learn the actual mechanics of photography–the relationships between shutter speed, aperture, and film speed; how the elements interact to determine the depth of field; how to use a light meter.

An obligatory puddle reflection photo

Basically, I spent a decade or so just goofing around with cameras. Then, for reasons I can’t recall, I decided to take it all a bit more seriously. I bought my first serious camera (a Canon A1) and I began to teach myself, in a semi-methodical way, the practice of photography.

Light getting frisky in an entryway

I say ‘semi-methodical’ because I set a sort of loose curriculum for myself. I’d periodically focus on some specific aspect of photography. Portraiture, for example, or capturing motion. When I decided to become more deliberate in terms of composition, I put a 50mm lens on the camera, put the camera on a tripod, and kept it there for a couple of months.

Sometimes you just have to shoot in portrait format.

It was a massive pain in the ass. But it radically changed my approach to shooting. I learned to pay more attention to detail, to be aware of the corners of the compositional frame, to notice distractions within the frame, to be patient, to pre-visualize the composition. Having a prime lens on a tripod slows you down. Instead of simply changing the composition by taking a step forward, or to the left, or squatting down, I’d have to pick up the tripod and move it. Then possibly adjust the height of the camera, or make sure it’s level, or tilting it up or down. It meant thinking about the composition before shooting, and trying to put myself in the right place to avoid any hassle.

Light, reflections, shadows can get weird

Now I’m thinking about doing something similar. I bought an inexpensive 35mm prime lens with the notion of putting it on another old Fujifilm camera (an X-T10) and leaving it there. Again, the idea is to force me to be more deliberate when it comes to composition. I’m also considering using that camera to shoot exclusively in black-and-white, to force myself to pay more attention to line, form, shape, and shadow.

Parked car prevented me from getting the entire ghost sign.

So far, I’ve only taken the X-T10 out once with those restrictions, and I have to say the results were mixed. I’d forgotten some very obvious problems with that approach. For example, physical obstructions can’t be negotiated. If, for example, a parked car makes it impossible to step as far back as you need to get everything you want in the frame, you’re just fucked. And working in monochrome denies you the joy of shooting a photo simply because the colors make something interesting. There was a coffee shop window with yellow, blue, and red vinyl seats, and I was terribly tempted to switch to a color profile. I told myself I can always go back with another camera. Which might be a lie.

Monochrome prevents you from seeing how impossibly green the plants in the snow were.

Shooting with a single prime lens turned out to be annoying as fuck. But it was also weirdly fun. I don’t know how long I’ll continue to abide by my self-imposed ‘prime lens in monochrome’ restrictions (and, of course, I’ll continue to shoot with my older and tinier Fujifilm X10), but my first foray was fun. And fun is what it’s about, right?

At least it is for me.

an extremely grudging vote for uncle joe biden

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It’s still 260+ days until the presidential election, which means a whole hell of a lot could happen to change things. But as things stand right now, I’m going to be voting—with some reluctance—for Uncle Joe Biden.

Why the reluctance? Because of his unwillingness to lean on the government of Israel to stop the genocide of Palestinians. Uncle Joe has been a much better president than I’d expected. Better than I’d hoped for, in fact. Yeah, he’s old and yeah, he makes gaffes and says stupid shit periodically. But overall, I’ve got to say he’s had an incredible number of accomplishments—especially considering the massive ongoing clusterfuck created and sustained by House Republicans.

But still, it’s impossible to be happy about casting a vote for a man who has enabled Bibi Netanyahu to physically destroy Gaza and kill tens of thousands of civilians. And for anybody who wants to argue that opposing the Israeli Defense Force is the same as supporting Hamas, go fuck yourself. What Hamas did on October 7th was monstrous. No matter how frustrated they were with the Israeli government, there’s no fucking way to justify the slaughter of civilians.

But that same notion applies to the government of Israel. The willful slaughter of more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza (10,000 of whom were children) isn’t justice for the 1100 people killed during the Hamas attack. Biden’s willingness to go along with the genocide and the destruction of two-thirds of Gaza’s infrastructure makes it almost impossible to vote for him.

Almost impossible.

Despite the many good things Uncle Joe has done domestically and internationally (and personally—the guy has effectively reduced my student loan payments to almost zero), I’m extremely unhappy with the thought of voting for him. But I will, grudgingly.

Why? Because of this one simple fact: if Biden wins re-election, we’ll have a chance to elect a better leader in 2028. But if Trump wins re-election, there’s a very good chance the US will die as a democracy and we may not have anything remotely like a fair election in 2028.

That’s incentive enough.

nobody can understand?

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Here are the pertinent facts: 1) In 2021, a youth baseball nonprofit in Wichita, Kansas erected a life-sized bronze statue of Jackie Robinson—the player who broke the color barrier in major league baseball—in McAdam’s Park. 2) This year, on January 25th, after midnight, a couple of assholes cut that statue off at the ankles, loaded it onto a pickup, and drove off. There is surveillance footage of the vandalism and theft. 3) Five days later, the day before Jackie Robinson’s birthday, the Wichita Fire Department responded to a fire in Garvey Park and found the remains of the statue.

I’m appalled by this, but not terribly surprised. Open racism and hatred has become more common in the Trump era. And just to be clear, I’m not saying Trump himself is responsible for the hatred. I’m saying Trump essentially gave permission for existing racists to be more openly racist. Trump’s hate and rage made other racists feel comfortable in expressing their hate and rage.

What DOES surprise me, though, is the reluctance of so many people and so many news outlets to say what’s so plainly fucking obvious. Which is that this was clearly a hate crime. Local law enforcement officials haven’t offered an opinion about the vandals’ motive, but that’s essentially to protect any future prosecution. But how to you explain Bob Lutz, the director of League 42 (the nonprofit that installed the sculpture) saying, “Nobody can understand why this would happen.” Really, Bob? I think everybody can easily understand why it happened. Just ask around, Bob.

And then there’s Mike Freeman in USA Today. He wrote:

What happened? Was it a prank that went too far? Was it an act of racism? We don’t know yet.

We KNOW what happened. And Jesus suffering fuck, it was obviously NOT a goddamn prank. Since the two assholes involved haven’t been identified or arrested yet, we don’t have any direct admission that it was an act of racism. But given the fact that it was a statue of Jackie Robinson and that it was stolen and destroyed around his birthday, I think we’re pretty safe in saying there’s a really really really high probability that racism was the motive.

The statue will be replaced, of course. The money to replace it has already been raised. Although the original sculptor, John Parsons, is dead, the mold still exists and is viable. So the statue of Jackie Robinson will return. He’ll be back in McAdam’s Park, hand on hip, confident, smiling.

But the racism that destroyed the statue in Wichita still exists.

Here’s another ‘but.’ A more important ‘but.’ BUT there are at least seven other statues of Jackie Robinson scattered around the US.

Here’s the thing about statues of real people: they’re not really a celebration of that person. They’re actually an endorsement of the values that person stood for. That’s why we’ve been tearing down statues of Civil War generals. That’s why we’ve put up statues of Jackie Robinson.

girl on a swing, with red boots

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I don’t have anything like a schedule, but I have a daily routine. Get up, make coffee, read various news sites, do the Wordle (yes, I still do that every morning, sue me), post my result in a Facebook group (there’s maybe 30 of us; each morning somebody offers up a line from a poem, or a song lyric, or a personal observation, or some fucking thing, after which we post our results and chat), then I look at FB Memories to see what entertained me or pissed me off on that date in the past.

Today I saw this:

There’s a young girl I see every afternoon, swinging on her backyard swing set. She’s not a child–maybe 13 or 14? Older than most kids you see on a swing. But she’s out there every day, in every sort of weather, swinging. She goes really high–as high as possible, given the limitations of Earth physics.

I’ve never seen her face; she’s too far away. I don’t know who she is. But as I’m tapping away on my laptop at the kitchen table, I can look through the window and see her swinging. In the summer she’s out there two or three times every afternoon and evening, swinging until it gets dark. All by herself, swinging.

She’s out there right now. It’s bitter cold–23 degrees, according to the thermometer, with a 20 mph wind; the air is full of blowing snow. And she’s swinging with a passion. I want so badly to take her photograph, but it seems such a private thing, her swinging.

She’s wearing red boots.

I wrote that on 30 January, 2013. Eleven years ago. I never made any effort to find out who she was; it never really mattered. At some point she disappeared. I assume she and her family moved away, but I don’t know. All I know is that I eventually realized it had been a while since I’d seen her swinging.

The swing set stayed there for a few years. Then one day I noticed it too was gone.

It’s probably been six or seven years since the girl in red boots disappeared. But I still remember her and the way she’d swing so hard. She’d lean way back on the upswing, pumping, and it was clear she liked the power behind it. On the backswing, she’d look back over her left shoulder, then stretch out and pump. The rhythm was hypnotic.

I never watched her for very long, and I never felt like I was invading her privacy. At least not in terms of the physical act of swinging; that was done right out in the open in her backyard. But there was also a sense that her swinging was, for her, a sort of portal into a very personal realm of motion and rhythm and wild speed. An emotional space she could, for a short time, occupy entirely by herself. I think the reason I never felt like I was invading her privacy was because when she was swinging, she was in a place that nobody else could ever actually see or share.

It’s like watching somebody on an ice skating rink, or shooting baskets on a public court, or dancing at a club, or digging a ditch. There’s something completely lovely about the physicality of some actions, about the way a person becomes so deeply immersed in the act that nothing and nobody outside the act matters.

One friend, after reading my post, wondered if perhaps the girl was in her backyard swinging because she felt unsafe inside her home. Which was possible, of course. But it never felt (to me) like it was escape swinging. It felt like joyful, celebratory, liberation swinging. Like she was enjoying the purity of it.

Another friend encouraged me to shoot the photo I’d said I was reluctant to shoot. And I actually considered doing that. Several times over the years, in fact. But I just couldn’t do it.

I could justify (to myself, at least) watching her swing for a short time because the act of swinging was so beautiful in itself. But to watch her for more than a minute or two—or to take her photograph—would, I think, have been too intrusive. She was in her own world; I could take a brief glance at it in passing, but in the end it belonged to her and I had no business being there.

I’m aware some people might read this and assume the worst about me; they could choose to interpret this as a pervy justification for voyeurism. The sad thing is, there are enough pervy people out there to validate that sort of suspicion. However, it’s also sad that such suspicion discourages people from appreciating simple, innocent beauty when they see it out in the world. There’s a part of me that believes the girl (and probably her parents) might have enjoyed seeing a photograph of her in her red boots, swinging while snow fell all around her. There’s also a part of me that knows for certain the girl and her parents would not appreciate that photograph being taken without their permission and knowledge.

This is the world we live in. There is no photograph memorializing that day. But the image of her on her swing in the falling snow, wearing her red boots has stayed with me and it’s more vivid than any eleven-year-old photograph could be. I wish you could see it too.

Whoever she is, wherever she’s gone, she has my gratitude.