Flash back to Memorial Day in the historic Olvera Street part of Los Angeles. This was prior to the outbreak of peace that resulted in the deployment of the U.S. military into the streets of the city.
The encampment and trash seen approaching the pedestrian street:
Some tips on hiding rom ICE, resisting Trump, and promoting immigration:
Information about the native-born residents of California who were all killed by immigrants:
One of the unhoused in a city and state where nearly everyone agrees that housing is a human right:
The street itself:
Any day is a good day to be an outdoor masker in California:
Nearby Union Station, ready for California’s High Speed Rail project, which the rich inequality-hating Californians say that they can complete only if working class taxpayers in less-wealthy states give them another $100+ billion in federal money. (Inequality haters in CA, MA, NJ, NY, and other rich states never say that they want federal money instead spent in poorer-than-average states such as Michigan.)
I posted the following on Facebook last night during Game 7 of the NBA Finals:
Watching a WNBA game right now. It’s awesome how these tall ladies hit almost every three-pointer. Huge crowd too. I don’t know why they say WNBA has trouble filling arenas.
I was hoping to conjure the image of a person who almost never watches basketball, flips on the TV, and finds the world’s best players (Indiana v. Oklahoma City) and then, due to all of the hype about the WNBA exhibiting the world’s most skilled players, imagining that it is a WNBA game. About six friends liked it and probably at least half of them are so disconnected from the world of pro sports that they imagined it to be in earnest.
Separately, who has something more interesting to say about the NBA final? Our kids were cruelly denied access to the final quarter due to it extending past their bedtime. I don’t think we missed anything, though, because the spread between the teams at the end of third quarter (the only one that we watched) seemed to be maintained.
I’m 54. I’ve been dating since the mid-80s, been married, been a mother, gotten divorced, had many relationships long and short. I remember when part of heterosexual male culture involved showing up with a woman to signal something — status, success, desirability. Women were once signifiers of value, even to other men. It wasn’t always healthy, but it meant that men had to show up and put in some effort.
As best I can tell, she sued Husband #1 and now has an entire op-ed in the NYT about being surprised at low demand to become Husband/Defendant #2. (The above quote can likely be summarized as “I was a divorce plaintiff and child support profiteer“).
The author is older than the world’s typical grandma. If she had followed Palestinian reproductive practices she’d be a great-grandmother at age 54. So the NYT may actually be running dating advice for great-grandmothers. The editors wisely disabled comments so that 50-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio can’t comment about preference for 19-year-olds.
Speaking of the climate change alarmist, here is DiCaprio recently in Los Angeles (Daily Mail, of course) while his 27-year-old girlfriend (recession indicator?) is out of town:
The head of the UN decries the (attempted?) destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities:
I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today. This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.
There is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of…
Presumably the remedy for what Trump did is for the United Nations to undo. Alternatively, maybe the UN could get the Iranians onto the Palestinian plan in which all of their day-to-day expenses (shelter, food, health care, education) are paid for by EU and US taxpayers, thus freeing Iran to spend up to 100 percent of its GDP on military activities.
Speaking of Iranians, what’s our estimate for the percentage of Iranians who are working against their government? I don’t see how it is possible for Israel and the U.S. to hit the right targets unless there are a lot of traitors inside Iran (presumably they would call themselves “patriots”, of course, but they would be traitors from the perspective of the current recognized and legitimate government of Iran).
Loosely related, here’s a fun assemblage of quotes:
The Los Angeles Music Center has two huge outdoor video signs in its courtyard (get there before the 8 pm curfew imposed by the mayor who says that the city is completely peaceful and certainly doesn’t need a curfew). At five-minute intervals they show signs about “Los Angeles vs. Hate”. This contrasts to the 30-minute interval for a land acknowledgement (below). Can we conclude from this that LA is filled with hate? Here are the hate messages:
There’s so much hate in LA that they need a hate web site and at the same time they tell us that combining humans from wildly disparate cultures is the best way to ensure a tight “community” with a lack of hatred. Asylum-seekers from Syria, Haiti, and Venezuela don’t have a language or religion in common, but apparently they are all “one” (contrary to peer-reviewed research; see below):
Don’t try to get into the art show unless you identify as “Latina”:
The Music Center acknowledges that it sits on stolen land, but it won’t either
give the land back and pay rent to the rightful owners, or
provide free tickets to the Native Americans from whom they stole the land
As a steward of The Music Center of Los Angeles County, we recognize that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh and Chumash Peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants — past, present and emerging — as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide and multigenerational trauma. This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing and reconciliation and to elevating the stories, culture and community of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles County. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these ancestral lands. We are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with Native peoples and local tribal governments, including (in no particular order) the:
Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians, Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California Tribal Council, Gabrieleno/Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians-Kizh Nation, San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, San Fernando Band of Mission Indians.
This acknowledgement, however, is empty without our efforts to counter the effects of structures that have long enabled injustice against Native Americans. The Music Center is committed to working with First Peoples to build and sustain partnerships and grow collaborations that engage and respect the knowledge, expertise and agency of First Peoples, past, present and future. The Music Center strives to be a champion of the arts in Los Angeles for all people. We are listening, learning, unlearning, and will evolve in the work ahead.
They admit that their acknowledgement is potentially “empty” and yet won’t give free tickets to any of the tribes they cite. What could be emptier?
In case the curfew is memory-holed, here’s a screen shot from the web page:
Since no human is illegal, the government can’t ask a migrant for documents in exchange for four generations of public housing, health care, SNAP/EBT food, and smartphone. On the other hand, the LA police can demand to see the ticket of anyone who is out after 8 pm because of attending a concert:
A person attending a ticketed event in an indoor establishment that ends after 8 PM should leave the curfew zone at the conclusion of the event. They should carry their ticket, if possible.
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
“The extent of the effect is shocking,” says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.
How is this still on the Web? Where is the Ministry of Truth when we need it?
He followed the teachings of the Religion of Peace:
As a 14-year-old juvenile, he was convicted of aggravated assault and manslaughter after a gang member, whom he had kicked in the head, died. After serving his last jail sentence, Padilla converted to Islam after his marriage to a Muslim woman and moved to the Middle East. One of his early religious instructors was an Islamic teacher who professed a nonviolent philosophy and Padilla appeared at the time to be faithful to his mentor’s teachings. While living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Padilla attended the Masjid Al-Iman mosque, as did Adham Amin Hassoun, “for most of the 1990s and [they] were reportedly friends.”
In case you need to duck into a #SafeSpace to escape the completely unnecessary military occupation of entirely peaceful Los Angeles, some recent photos from the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Broad (both free, even to those who aren’t smart enough to have SNAP/EBT cards). The Broad:
It’s apparently rare for a Black person to enter the Broad, but in case one does his/her/zir/their flag is ready:
Did you know that “artists are marginalized on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation” (LA MOCA)?
It’s important to look at the world through a “queer lens”:
If children want to adopt the queer lens they can start in the gift shop:
Equality is so important that artists who don’t identify as “women” are excluded from books in the same gift shop (the late great Louise Nevelson, who explicitly said that she didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a “woman artist” is pigeonholed as a “woman sculptor”):
The gift shop was a Black-free environment rich in books regarding the Black Queer lifestyle (also a book about abortion care):
Did a Deplorable get into the museum woodpile or does the painting make fun of the Deplorables? (Christine Tien Wang):
A painting about the Black body in a museum where I didn’t see any Black employees or visitors:
A painting about “LGBTQ+ rights activism” and “the AIDS epidemic” (which is not in any way a “gay disease”?):
Speaking of a virus that is not in any way “gay”, if you’re concerned about SARS-CoV-2 infection, Science says that the best job you can choose is one in which you’re guaranteed to be exposed to hundreds of potentially infected humans every day (extra points for the below-the-nose mask):
Related to a bunch of “photos taken in downtown Los Angeles” posts that are coming up…
Even as they themselves partied unmasked at the French Laundry, the rulers of California had great success in ordering their subjects to wear masks for at least two years (school kids were the last to be freed from this requirement):
(Of course, the success was in making kids and peasants wear saliva-soaked face rags, not in preventing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2; young-due-to-immigration California ended up with one of the world’s highest age-adjusted COVID-tagged death rates and certainly fared no better than places such as Florida and Sweden that lacked these orders.)
California lawmakers are looking to stop local police officers and federal agents from wearing face masks or coverings while carrying out operations in the state.
The “No Secret Police Act” was introduced by Democrats in the state’s Senate on Monday, following criticism that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were trying to hide their identities while carrying out raids in Los Angeles.
“The recent federal operations in California have created an environment of profound terror. If we want the public to trust law enforcement, we cannot allow them to behave like secret police in an authoritarian state,” state Senator Scott Wiener said in a press release.
I personally agree with the idea behind this law. It’s unnerving for law enforcement to get out of unmarked vans while wearing face masks and, maybe, plain clothes. How do we know that they aren’t part of one of the migrant gangs that Democrats assure us do not exist (and of which Kilmar Armando Ábrego García was definitely not a member)? Also, the U.S. isn’t supposed to be so dangerous that an armed ICE agent and/or family can be hunted down at his/her/zir/their home. (Of course, even a state governor isn’t safe from the #FreePalestine progressives so maybe the U.S. actually is so dangerous for anyone who is engaged in an activity that a Queers for Palestine rally attendee would disagree with.)
So, much as I would like to see law enforcement work openly I wonder how a state can order the Feds to do something (or, in this case, not do something). There isn’t exactly a federal law that says ICE officers are allowed to wear face masks, but it seems seems as though the Supremacy Clause could be invoked.
If I’m wrong (as usual) and California actually can restrict what ICE agents can wear what stops California from creating a law that says ICE agents aren’t allowed to drive cars or vans in California? That ICE agents have to wear bikinis and have a BMI no higher than 22? Maybe there is a federal law that says ICE agents can detain migrants and therefore California can’t simply pass a law forbidding ICE from detaining any enrichers.
(Non-Arab) Iran has been in the news lately due to the country’s so-far-unsuccessful attempt to win the 1948 Arab League war against Israel (armies from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt invaded while Saudi Arabia sent troops). Although the majority of the Arab belligerents of 1948 are still technically at war with Israel (Jordan and Egypt being the exceptions), they have mostly delegated the hard work of attacking Israel to Iran and its proxies. Could this be seen as a chapter in what Wikipedia calls “The Muslim conquest of Persia”?
As part of the early Muslim conquests, which were initiated by Muhammad in 622, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Sasanian Empire between 632 and 654. This event led to the decline of Zoroastrianism, which had been the official religion of Persia (or Iran) since the time of the Achaemenid Empire. The persecution of Zoroastrians by the early Muslims during and after this conflict prompted many of them to flee eastward to India, where they were granted refuge by various kings.
While Arabia was experiencing the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Persia was struggling with unprecedented levels of political, social, economic, and military weakness; the Sasanian army had greatly exhausted itself in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. Following the execution of Sasanian shah Khosrow II in 628, Persia’s internal political stability began deteriorating at a rapid pace. Subsequently, ten new royal claimants were enthroned within the next four years. Shortly afterwards, Persia was further devastated by the Sasanian Interregnum, a large-scale civil war that began in 628 and resulted in the government’s decentralization by 632.
Amidst Persia’s turmoil, the first Rashidun invasion of Sasanian territory took place in 633, when the Rashidun army conquered parts of Asoristan, which was the Sasanians’ political and economic centre in Mesopotamia. Later, the regional Rashidun army commander Khalid ibn al-Walid was transferred to oversee the Muslim conquest of the Levant, and as the Rashidun army became increasingly focused on the Byzantine Empire, the newly conquered Mesopotamian territories were retaken by the Sasanian army. The second Rashidun invasion began in 636, under Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, when a key victory at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah permanently ended all Sasanian control to the west of modern-day Iran. For the next six years, the Zagros Mountains, a natural barrier, marked the political boundary between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sasanian Empire. In 642, Umar ibn al-Khattab, eight years into his reign as Islam’s second caliph, ordered a full-scale invasion of the rest of the Sasanian Empire. Directing the war from the city of Medina in Arabia, Umar’s quick conquest of Persia in a series of coordinated and multi-pronged attacks became his greatest triumph, contributing to his reputation as a great military and political strategist. In 644, however, he was assassinated by the Persian craftsman Abu Lu’lu’a Firuz, who had been captured by Rashidun troops and brought to Arabia as a slave.
The Persians had more than 4,000 years of history before the Muslim Conquest. They were peers to the Romans and Chinese. The Persians had their own language and religion (Zoroastrianism). Today they adhere to a religion developed by Arabs, are governed by a system developed by Arabs, need to learn Arabic to read their religious texts, and endure economic isolation as well as, recently, military attacks in order to participate in a fight started by Arabs.
Would it be fair, then, to say that Iran taking over the fight against Israel from Arabs is another chapter in the Muslim Conquest of Persia? Arab nations get all of the benefits of peace while still technically being at war with Israel. Iran suffers many of the hardships of war while still technically being at peace with Israel.
Separately, let’s check in with how Iran is doing. Elon Musk says that humans are going extinct. Let’s see how the modern-day Persians are trending in terms of population:
According to the World Bank, Iranians were rapidly getting wealthier when they decided to overthrow their Shah. They are slightly richer today, in nominal GDP, than they were when the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, a remarkable achievement considering that population has more than doubled over that time period and a lot of Iran’s wealth is derived from natural resources.
What about the Arab countries that have handed off their fight against the Jews to the Persians?
Loosely related, a sophisticated analysis of the Iran-Israel fight and its interaction with U.S. policy…
How long will Israel survive after the U.S. is majority 3d worlders, who either don't care about Israel, or actively despise it?
If Trump wants to help Israel, he should get back to saving America with mass deportations.
On my way to Bar Harbor, I stopped in Boston. The federal tax dollars keeping the economy going (higher education, pharma, health care) have resulted in truly horrific traffic jams (4th worst in the U.S. as of 2023). This makes it easy to get photos of all the marijuana-related billboards, e.g.,
The healing cannabis landscape is best seen from the windows of a Saab 9000 (parked just outside my friend’s house):
His Brookline neighbor in a house that Zillow says is worth $3,217,600 (Prius is being charged under the sacred protection of the intersex-and-trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag):
(As the sign notes, refugees are welcome in this neighborhood so long as they are refugees from a diamond mine and have $3+ million to spend.)
The Brookline Police are celebrating Pride, as is the local veterinarian (albeit with a non-trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag):
Outdoor and indoor maskers are saving lives (Brookline and Fogg Art Museum in Harvard Square):
Why get groceries delivered by the Latinx essential workers when one can go to the supermarket and run the risk of SARS-CoV-2 exposure? (Star Market on Commonwealth Ave, next to an abortion care clinic and across the street from an essential marijuana store.)
In case shoppers have forgotten, the supermarket reminds us that “June is Pride Month”:
Next to Harvard Yard, stickers remind us to support “Palestine” and fight Transphobia:
The Harvard Bookstore tells us to “Read with Pride” and reminds us that “America” has been destroyed by the “antitax movement” (taxes having fallen from 2% of income around the time of our traitorous rebellion against legitimate British authority to only 27-37% of GDP today depending on which source you believe (37% source)). Maybe we could be great again if we restored taxation to the level that prevailed when the Founding Fathers were alive?
There were no Black customers in the store when we visited, but if one did come in by accident this book was ready for him/her/zir/them:
Americans no longer need to comply with Supreme Court rulings because the court itself is illegitimate and “lawless” (“no one is above the law” but the law itself is lawless):
The Pride collection did not disappoint:
We exited Boston via Massport’s Hanscom Field, under the sacred Rainbow Flag that was missing its intersex and trans enhancements:
The new Signature FBO is complete (let’s thank part-owner Bill Gates for his role in fighting climate change!), but all of the KBED FBOs are now fully locked down. One must ring a doorbell to gain admittance. It seems that there has been an outbreak of protests on the themes of (1) climate change, and (2) anti-ICE (see “Clarifying the facts about detainee flights” from the US Air Force base that shares the airport).
