and be careful, if you’re contemplating gathering in opposition to anything, that those so-called “anarchists” won’t magically appear to screw you up, creating propaganda opportunities for the Other Side, incarceration and/or worse. Gee, who ARE they working for, anyway? The Feckless Bastards of Intimidation?
Same as it ever was…
[For a little refresher in governmental activism and its long shadowy fallout I might at this point recommend Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland” [1990] for those so inclined.*]
Meanwhile, here in the scenic suburbs, life goes on between storms, with exceptions
such as a foray
into Oakland to two friends’ openings fortuitously coincident with the cancellation of the monthly ‘artwalk’, allowing us to miss the hordes, the mimes, the foodtrucks and the impossibility of parking
though we did get a taste of the depressing warrens of tiny aspirant galleries stocked for the most part with depressingly awful aspirant art, fortunately offset by our friends’ more thoughtful and accomplished works as well as a swell dinner.
Saturday brought us visitors from afar – Santa Cruz, Chicago and London – for a walk which
with neither dogs nor bicycles allowed for lots of shiny pictures between squalls
culminating in wines, dinner and observations…all very fine
and having their eyes on the work was at least as fine for me as the rain has been for our moss garden.
Come morning we discovered some of the eyes had remained behind, quietly through Sunday,
continuing damp through Monday as well; the much-vaunted rains, continual.
M
*to be re-read, by me, too, as soon as I can extricate myself from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels.
Agreed about the anarchist lose/lose situation. That is also such a convenient way to suppress any form of peaceful dissent! Dastardly clever. The Orange Revolution first appalls us with His pronouncements and effective methods of suppression and degradation of our liberties, then further bolsters His hateful positions through the black masked horde. argh.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, we’re just G-Men”.
See Fred’s comment, below.
Clearly the rowdies in black were not part of the protest. The source of this disruption is not established but one can easily consider the possibilites.
I was sent this recently by a green card holding colleague. I believe it points to something similar, at the the possibililty that before an investigation is begun an attempt at establishing “fraud” has been undertaken. This is longer I’m sure than I should post here but as it supports your suspicions re Berkeley I’m going to see if it takes. If it does not I’ll send it to you by e-mail.
My colleague wrote, in a facebook post:
Something very strange is going on. A friend (who is a permanent resident/green card holder) received a letter from the the town clerk saying that he was now registered to vote, which is weird because he has never registered to vote! He has always known that he isn’t allowed to vote until he becomes a US citizen.
I looked online and discovered it’s a crime to register to vote as a non-citizen and could result in deportation.
There was a Voter Registration Certificate included with the letter which named the DMV as the agency who registered him. So my friend called the DMV. The person who spoke with him there said they’ve been getting many calls about this from other people with the same issue and that these calls just started this week. Their records show that my friend hasn’t visited the DMV since a few years ago and they don’t know how he became registered to vote.
The date on the registration certificate says he registered to vote on January 23rd, 2017.
The DMV told him he should call the city and get his name removed from the registered voter list ASAP, which he did. Considering the date of his supposed registration, and considering the travel ban and everything else that has already happened with the new administration, including all the claims about massive voter fraud, we are suspicious that this event could be a ploy to deport legal residents who supposedly fraudulently registered to vote.
Which, paranoiacally plausible as it sounds, may fortunately be a rumor originating in a computer screwup at the Vermont DMV…not that there aren’t plenty of other things to worry about.
And the blackmasked phonies [as seen on TV] are definitely real…well, faux-real.
Really enjoyed the Benicia cityscapes! The air looks so clean and the light so sharp!