The local paper has a voter guide whose descriptions include a link to each candidate’s website for more info, and I was going through some of the more obscure ones.

Both of those who want to head the state’s department of education called themselves nonpartisan.

And then I clicked. Wow.

One joyfully described his work for the kids in his school district and the ways and the whys of making a difference, turning things around such that his city became #1 in math and literacy among the top 80 urban districts in the country. Narrowing the gap between the success rates among his constituents was important to him and he was proud to show his work and hoped to do more for the rest of the kids in the state as well.

The other is running on reich-wing fearmongering and bullying using only-I-can-fix-it rhetoric and ohmygoodness haven’t we had enough of all that? She’s got the string of pearls and the little cross necklace both as she appears to be ready to take money from the poor districts and give it to the more deserving rich ones, and her message to gay or trans kids is, Fear me. I will teach your peers to hate you.

I have a gay cousin who, like far too many of them, committed suicide. I know where attitudes like hers lead to and I don’t want any other family ever to go through that if I can do anything about it.

We can. Every single vote matters.

Every single race in the election matters.

So here’s a dilemma, and I’d love to hear others’ take on it. There’s a No Kings rally on Saturday the 17th, aiming to make it the biggest early-voting event ever as a declaration to the world and to each other of what kind of government we want to have: of the people, for the people, to restore the rule of law and the right to due process. To invite others to take heart and vote, too, by showing where public opinion is.

As I think of that one single House Representative left twisting himself in the wind when he realized he was in the history books forever as the single vote in that chamber not to release the Epstein files, because that’s what he thought his party wanted. Won’t his future grandkids be proud.

But. One of the things about living here is there is always, always, the tiny lurking thought that we could have a major earthquake disrupting everything. We did get one already: 47 declaring two of our three biggest cities utterly disposable along with all the lives in them, like, hey, Iran, could you clear out these pesky voters in my way.

Two of our three ballots are here. Should we wait. Should we go.

So last night as we sat down to our second attempt at dinner, I mentioned President Alzheimer’s speech that had just been reported. The one where he thought it would be peachy-fine if Los Angelos and San Diego were to be taken out by the country he’s been bombing.

The crowd that cheered.

How? How could even an addled demented terrible person like that say such a thing?

Richard: Because he doesn’t own any golf courses here.

I sat there kind of stunned a moment: that was exactly it. Well, that plus our status as a blue state, of course, but California turned blue in rejection of then-Governor Pete Wilson’s trying to become the next Republican President on anti-immigrant bigotry: don’t let immigrants get licenses. (Thus no insurance when they hit someone.) Don’t let hospitals pay for their emergency care. (Right, we all want to watch people just die in front of us who could be saved.* No Good Samaritans for you!) Don’t let their kids attend school. (Right, we want angry teenagers surrounded by greater wealth but with no possible chance at upward mobility to feel hated by society and with nothing to do all day but act out their anger or envy while people aren’t home.)

The voters saw the logical endpoint of Wilson’s bigotry and didn’t like what it might say about them. That was the end of his career and of the political chances of a whole lot of Republicans here.

So.

I have the antidote.

We can help make 47 care about this state–we can even offer him a bargain, and you know he loves to think he has negotiated a good deal. Prime southern Californian real estate, beachfront, undeveloped, it could be his for a song. It’s fronted by a highway, but no matter, there are already signs along it telling people not to get out and climb the dune that rises the whole length between the road and the ocean, so they won’t be bothering him or his buddies, they’ll always have the best view. In a historic place. Heck, he can even build his arch there if he wants.

It was built up during WWII as a training area for young soldiers, and the possibility of live ammunition or mines in the dunes is why those signs are there.

But then, we all know he doesn’t read if he doesn’t have to.

—

*During this time, there was a church get-together and I met a young couple with a newborn and a toddler. The wife was enjoying the evening out but the husband, an immigrant, had gone from being tired that morning to just barely holding up and should have stayed home. Turned out they didn’t have insurance and delayed seeking care. Two days later he was dead and his children were fatherless. I’ve never quite gotten over it. Nor should I.

A political flyer. It was from a guy who’d wanted to set up a daycare but found himself jumping through hoops with the city such that he was paying rent for “nearly three years” waiting to get the permits to open.

So he’s running for city council. If you can’t fight city hall, get inside it and change it. It’s the American way. Good for him, was my first thought.

I looked a little more closely. His cropped photo suggests that the rent he was paying may have been on his house, but never mind.

His proposal (good luck, sir) is that it take 30 days for small projects and 90 for big ones if we elect him, and if it takes longer than that your fees are waived.

Given that the large projects can take several years to get approved after environmental reports, road studies, sewer updates–and especially given the 32-story monstrosity a Russian oligarch wants to plunk in the middle of ranch-house suburbia in the next town with no roads nor schools that can possibly accommodate that, they should–I can see why he’s frustrated. But.

There’s so much to his story he didn’t tell. Was his daycare alongside a major road where you wouldn’t want a toddler dashing into the street when someone opens the front door?

As Richard pointed out, with all the 1950s tract houses in this city turning over and new owners wanting to remodel them to match the idea of the outrageous amounts they’ve paid for them, if you’re going to knock the permit timeline down that far you’re saying you’re going to vet and hire a whole lot of new inspectors. How are you paying for that if you’re ditching lots of fees? And if you don’t, you’re essentially throwing out the idea of inspectors altogether because people can only work so many hours in a day.

And let me tell you, having remodeled years ago, you really really need good inspectors. We had to replumb the entire house for water and gas a second time when ours was done because the pipes used were substandard and oh did you know your water heater was releasing carbon monoxide the way they set this up, lady?

We didn’t know, and the inspector should have refused to sign off.

So yeah, I get where this guy’s coming from.

But I would far rather that inspections be done and be done right and pay the city those fees than fork out $40,000 in 1999 dollars again to remedy what was left behind so our house could be safe and in good working order the way we’d paid for it to be the first time.

“Lower cost home improvements,” he says.

Oh you sweet summer child.

To paraphrase Robert Frost via capital letters: Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ICE… I got a tiny taste today of how it must be like right now.

The motion sensor set off a chime to alert that someone was at the door.

I saw someone’s rear end bent over right in front of its side window and waited for the person to move far enough away that I could move faster than they could to shut and lock it again if I needed to. As women do.

He’d placed a political flier. The candidate had a Chinese name and I’m guessing the, it turned out, tiny elderly man was a relative.

I am greatly shamed by the fact that the majority of white women, it has been reported, voted for the adjudicated racist rapist and I saw the result of their choice in that man’s face as my door opened and he saw mine: he was suddenly terrified.

Then he saw the welcoming smile on my face.

I picked up the flier and he took a step closer. He told me a little about the candidate. He clearly did not begin this life as a speaker of English and I thanked him for participating in the democratic process.

Such a mixture of pride and relief in his countenance as we waved each other warmly on in our day.

My heart broke for him. And I’m so glad he was willing to risk it all to help his fellow Americans learn about the candidate he was so proud of.

If you live in California, you can now demand that Big Data about you be deleted. It won’t be instant, it takes several months, but it will happen.

Here’s the Mercury News article about it but it may be behind a paywall, so here’s the state’s site for doing so. You have to be a resident of California. To quote the first bit from the Merc:

“More than 300,000 Californians have demanded that hundreds of data brokers erase information about their locations, finances, health and personal lives as the state’s first-in-the-nation Delete Act”

You can register every device, your car, entering every name anyone might have info on you by, the works. Some things by law must be retained–those will be retained. The rest–poof! AI may not use it. Selling, say, your location or social security number will be outlawed if you say so.

Gavin Newsom signed that law and has been lobbying Congress to pass it nationwide.

But there is the information to take to your own representatives in Congress. Let them show who they really think they work for. Many of them have a particular incentive right now to pay attention to their voters.

Platner did the right thing and he’s out in time for Maine voters to choose someone else–Monday was the deadline for a special election to be called. May the best future Senator win.

Mitch McConnell, per the reporter who had been listening to the police scanner, had paramedics arriving seven minutes after they were called for an unconscious man in cardiac arrest, with McConnell taken to the hospital from that address.

The Republicans in Kentucky changed the law two years ago to where the governor could no longer appoint a successor to a Senator from his own party as previously required but rather that there would be a special election called. Let the voters decide. Honor democracy. Sounds good.

Except that that special election could not be held closer than 56 days to the general election, and short of that, Kentucky would just have to go with only one Senator till the next general election.

Their party spent big bucks defeating Rep. Thomas Massie in his run for Senate because he’d thwarted Trump and championed the cause of opening the Epstein files, pushing the bill to do so till he won. He lost his primary–but they want to make sure he stays out and is not the incumbent, however briefly. Voters do tend to love their incumbents. Just ask Mitch.

Oh wait you can’t.

So they’re pretending they’re talking to McConnell from his hospital bed and that he’s recovering nicely and that deadline against calling the special election is coming right up. You know that he’s suddenly going to take a turn for the worse, no, worst, but only when it’s convenient for what they want.

The video of a CNN reporter demanding one of them call McConnell right now, live on the air, and let the audience hear his voice to prove he’s alive–and the immediate backtracking and squirming and blustering and flustering and refusing to do so–said it all.

If Mitch McConnell is indeed brain dead–and seven minutes of cardiac arrest in a sick, old man before medical help arrived means he is–then every one of those men lying about it is committing outright election fraud.

We have this 14th Amendment for them (among other things.) We just have to use it.

Governor Beshear sent a letter to McConnell at his hospital room asking for an official response from him on his condition, as fellow representatives of the good people of Kentucky. Well played.

And another repeat.

I got a note from both the Australian post office and the sender to let me know my new Rios was in the US now so that I can finish the Big Sur afghan.

Meantime, 15″ on this one in one week is fast but our post office would really have to mess up for me to finish it before that gets here.

I know, don’t tempt them.

I woke up this morning with visions of how I was going to knit my rocks. I’m almost to the right place to start them.

I have no idea which one I’ll finish first. I’ll just have to wait to see that new yarn, put it together with this to have a good look at everything, and then let them be the boss of me.

The San Jose City Council is discussing whether to put ranked choice voting up to their voters in November. Their stated reason is that it would save the costs of special elections.

We need ranked choice across the state and if you ask me, across the country. If saving money motivates them to let us tell them that yes we do want it and what have you all been waiting for, hey, whatever works.

–

Peregrine video: a fledge, a rescue at about 8:18, a close-up to the camera.

Drying…

And some sorting and considering happened. Dragons only get to hoard gold–I’ve got all these other colors, too.

I do need to add some of the right greens before I start. Today was a five-errand day between us and I simply ran out of time to get to a LYS, and Friday is May Day, consumers’ one-day strike across the country. I believe in supporting local yarn stores, but any interaction with any big corporation including any credit card transaction is right out.

I think I can find something around here to do to hold me till Saturday.

One of the great things President Biden did was to roll out a pilot program for greatly simplifying doing taxes, with the intention of its being applicable to everyone in short order. There was no reason to extract the extra millions of hours out of us that we could be putting to our own uses.

I guess we’ll have to wait till the next Democrat wins the office.

I am not happy with Turbo Tax right now, but, looking at all the utter indecipherables on the forms it printed out, it could be worse.

I realized about five minutes in that I’d forgotten my phone, but then they had asked that no pictures be taken of faces and it’s kind of hard to take one of a crowd without doing that so it’s just as well.

Notable signs: the Statue of Liberty saying, I said, Your huddled masses, not your hooded asses!

No Epsteinization! Open the files!

Near a dentist’s office: No Truth Decay!

The organizers had said to line up on the west side of what the Spanish conquistadors had named The Royal Road, a fitting spot for a No Kings rally. Seven miles long from town to town to town. Don’t take up business parking lots; they need their customers to survive. Here are the public places for it. Share a ride, take a ride share, we can make this work.

That they did.

At this rally, for the first time, they said one could drive alongside cheering the protesters on and that that counted, too. That was all I needed; I signed up.

I really fervently wanted to be on that sidewalk holding a sign of my own but UV-reactive lupus and reality said that I’d like to stick around to vote for my grandchildren’s futures. So I grabbed my red Norwegian/Minnesotan Resist hat and set off.

I figured out real quick that people couldn’t all tell from there just what kind of red hat that was–details like a braid going to a tassel get lost at windshield distance. I snatched it off. It was too important to risk messing the experience up for even a single person.

Two, and often all three southbound lanes were packed with cars honking and waving. The northbound lanes seemed actually less than the usual traffic: people had other things to do today. As one could see.

It took me an hour, waving and saying thank you.

But what is important is that time after time, eyes meeting eyes, protester to protester however we came to the moment, it felt surprisingly sacred.

The way voting day does.

I was not expecting to be in tears.

We were bearing witness–together!–to our reclaiming our right to the rule of law. To due process. To honoring the Constitution. To the separation of powers. Honoring the immigrant who is abiding by the law. Amen and amen and amen.

So glad the organizers thought to include even people like me in a way I could feel an active part of it.

I blocked the preferred escape route of the desert rabbit–I put a planting pot saucer in its path–and haven’t seen it since. Instead, a California ground squirrel showed up the next day to graze the low-lying broadleafs.

Never google them. They nest in large colonies, and if they don’t have one, two of them will make one, fast. They destroy your trees, they dig under your house in intricate tunnels, they eat everything and they will brave going up your fruit trees and its tree squirrels if that’s what it takes.

But I just see the one, and it’s chunky and cuddly-looking and pretty. But I think I’ll invite the rabbit back.

Turns out that in the Bay Area, ground squirrels have recently been documented hunting and eating voles. When the vole population explodes so do their attacks on them. Did you have ground squirrels on your apex predator list? They are if you’re a vole.

Meantime, in my brother’s very gerrymandered district (he lived an hour away from it when he moved there), two white Republican men and a Black man who’s a Democrat were running. And we’re talking Georgia.

That Democrat got the most votes in today’s special election. Honey, we are getting there.

And now I can’t wait for Spring for my tree to show what it can be now.

Meantime, in Minnesota, in response to ICE beating US citizens on their own properties without provocation nor warrant nor legal right to trespass (“But you have an accent.” “You have an accent too!”) the people have figured out a new way to inform their neighbors when ICE is on their street: set off their car alarms via their key fobs.

This is after one of their agents threatened a young child that he’d put a bullet in her head for protesting with her mom. Putting a woman in her place: start’em young. And after one threw a flash-bang at a car with children, injuring a six month old. A baby.

Republicans have a chance to redeem a little of their names for history if they at long last impeach and convict the pedophile-in-chief and end this siege. Do it now.

Because anyone who doesn’t, you don’t have to worry we’ll find out your name is in the Epstein files: you’re already making it clear.

The town paper says about 500 people showed up at that plaza last night. On less than 24 hours’ notice. Yay!

The phone rang tonight. It was our new House Rep offering a conference call to his constituents. Ask his staff to put you in the queue (so it isn’t bedlam), then when you’re on you ask him your question and we all get to hear how the guy responds on his feet. He started off by honoring the Hatch Act and made a point of not politicking, not advocating, just truthfully answering questions to the best of his ability.

People dropped in and out of the call as it went on and there were some repetitions.

Several asked, how do we get 47 out of there? The frank answer was, we can’t right now. He didn’t say Ro Khanna and I… that would be politicking… Just, We don’t have the votes. And then he told what measures he’s voted for, what bills he’s helped with, bills that would put limits and stops (to things that are illegal and unConstitutional and we all knew it.)

So, Congress. Who else wants to be able to be proud to tell their future grandkids what they did during this time in this country when it so needed their help?