Perhaps the only thing in this vale of tears that exceeds the perfidy of the political class here in Minneapolis, is the credulity displayed by the average local resident. Our wise and sagacious solons down at City Hall just created ANOTHER bullshit police oversight commission*, with no actual power over discipline or policy, and with bloodhounds picked for the mayor by the police union sitting on every committee. Just the other day, I was at my dealer's house on the day the bloodhounds raided the homeless encampment near my house. I was complaining about that, and she starts spouting off this bullshit about how Black people she allegedly knows on the northside wish the police would crack down more. Lotta people with a lotta false consciousness about the bloodhounds these days. But there's a whole generation of kids coming up now whose major formative political experience was the George Floyd militant response. Somehow, I have to suspect that the next long hot summer is going to get pretty hairy. Not that this will change anything in the long run.
Oh, also, that fucker Frey is vetoing rent control, because he is of course in the pocket of the big developers, just like all the rest of them.
Guillotines, baby, guillotines.
*This is what, the fifth or sixth time this has happened in my memory? And not a single goddamn one of them has made the slightest change to policing in this shithole town. Fucking bloodhounds.
One convenient side effect of the strong city manager system in my city: the city cannot legally pass an ordinance to give a police commission any actual power over individual oversight decisions, just input, publicity, and recommendations. Hooray for the Progressives-as-were! But if our first advisory version fails, the coalition is ready to start work on a charter amendment.
One of our local assholes took a swipe at me in a letter to the local paper for making Facebook comments critical of Biden's railroad labor contract shenanigans. Apparently that makes me disloyal to the Democratic Party. This guy is more from the "lets say shitty things about Ilhan Omar" wing of the party.
The dude has been making hits on all the lefty Dems in town, so I guess it was my turn. I'm inclined to ignore him, based on the time-honored wisdom of "don't feed the trolls" - although there is a devil on my shoulder saying I should tear him a new one.
Trouble is, the guy is dying of cancer, which gives me pause for both reasons of empathy and because publicly feuding with terminal cancer patients is a bad look.
3: You'd think he'd have better things to do with his time when he's dying.
They say that on your deathbed, people regret that they spent too much time at the office and not enough insulting strangers on the internet.
Oh, I'm used to him insulting me on the internet. I guess I should be honored that he made the effort to insult me in the paper.
Maybe the best gift you can give someone with terminal cancer is a distraction.
Or a cure for cancer, if you happen to have one on you
I set up an account on Mastodon! I'm @peepontherun@home.social. There's no reason to follow me (I never tweet or make mastodon sounds) but if you follow me I will follow you back. (maybe that is a reason to follow me)
Unfortunately, the doctor with the cure for cancer was killed by a trolley directed by an ethicist trying to save five people who were on another track.
For some reason, I can't log on to Mastodon.
On the other hand on Twitter, I just got to vote for Elon Musk to step down as head.
I just voted for Snoop Dogg to run Twitter.
I always mix up Snoop Dogg and Scooby Doo.
15: where do you get to vote for a replacement? I only got to vote yay or nay on the toddler billionaire.
https://twitter.com/SnoopDogg/status/1604656918844256257
I would like for reality to be more clearly distinguishable from parody. Who did I see about that?
If Snoop Dogg ran Twitter, I might go back to Twitter.
If Musk does put someone else in charge, they're obviously going to be worse than Musk so Musk can say he did a better job than them.
Musk needs to fuck off to Mars already.
Alta's boyfriend came over tonight and FaceTimed her, so we all got to say hi while carefully avoiding any questions that might give us too much information about her situation and whereabouts. It was reassuring both to get to talk directly and to know that her friends are in contact with her. Christina also recently posted a Facebook update indicating that she has been in contact with Alta, although she doesn't believe Alta's claim that she's safe so she's still considered a runaway and Christina is encouraging people to send leads to the police. So yeah, we don't know exactly what's going on still but I at least am more assured that she is in fact safe.
26: Really glad, Teo. Hoping that the situation can improve in a more permanent way.
26 does sound promising. You may be able to sleep tonight.
24: I'm glad to hear that she's safe and that you got to talk with her. I hope that she's found a good path.
On my end, my wife had a great trip home, and her flights back weren't delayed or snarled, so it was a great end after a frustrating start. I attended a local building code community installation dinner the last day she was out of town, and it was different without a conversational safety net. It was genuinely good to catch up with people, since I've missed most of the meetings where you get to informally hear what's going on in all the jurisdictions. A few people retired ahead of the new cycle, as is frequently threatened - but it sounds like they've got some continuity with their replacement, so it's not the worst.
The only real mar to our installation dinner - which shouldn't have been a surprise, given that we were having an in person installation dinner after missing the last few years -- was a few people pushing physical attendance at meetings; we've been hybrid since reopening. I agree with a lot of the reasons (there's a lot of socializing and discussion of specific issues with people you're sitting next to, which you miss out on online), but it's amusing that we're backpedaling from the limited virtual then hybrid interface that we'd worked out over the last few years.