I wish getting too much sun wasn’t so bad for you — I’d do it every available weekend. Getting too much sun is one of those uniquely summer pleasures, especially when you don’t get burned, just mildly/somewhat irradiated. Kinda glow-y. Tired.
It finally stopped raining midday on Saturday, but before that there was another deluge, and another flood. Our basement stayed dry, and for the life of me I don’t know why. Maybe we sacrificed a chicken or something, but we were fortunate again, while people in Grosse Pointe Park had poop water in their basements, some for the second time in three weeks, some for the third. I can’t imagine how terrible that was. Boy did it come down Friday — another inch-plus downpour. We’d planned a staff get-together on the roof of our editor’s apartment building, but it was washed out, so we relocated to his place. We did go up at the end of the night, when it was down to a drizzle and we could enjoy the view:
That’s the DIA at bottom left, the library at bottom right. Between them, Woodward Avenue. On the far horizon at left, the RenCen. Far horizon right, Motor City Casino, Wayne State’s Old Main and the Ambassador Bridge twinkling off in the distance. Rural landscapes are pretty, but I love a sparkling city, even one (especially one) as messy as Detroit. In between, we lit the shabbos candles and told stories about the newspaper business when it was fun. It sure isn’t fun now. On the other hand, I have one foot out and will have the other one out sooner rather than later. I’m not happy to be aging, but the timing, in this case, isn’t terrible.
Alan’s sister came up Saturday, and we had another smallish dinner party, including Kate and some other friends. Today: Sailing, capped off with some pool time under a hazy sun. I could have skipped my Vitamin D this morning. Hence the irradiated feeling.
So another good weekend in the books, a reminder that time is precious and one should spend it well.
Meanwhile, more hair-whitening news on the ol’ teletype machine. Dateline Pittsburgh: A woman who’d been abducted two months ago managed to leave a detailed note in a public bathroom, giving the address of her captive prison and promising it was no joke. But when police arrived…
Scott police officers went to the apartment address listed in the note on the day the first note was discovered, a criminal complaint said, but no one answered. The officers said that they could hear furniture moving inside the apartment toward the front door, but because they did not have a warrant, they could not force their way inside.
They later called a cell phone connected to the man who was holding her. He refused to let them speak to her privately, insisting the call be on speaker. She told police she was fine, no problem, on vacation, even. Then the next day, a second note was found:
The second note said that the writer had heard police at the door of the apartment July 8 and added that the abuse had not stopped.
This time they came back with a warrant, arrested the guy and found the woman. She told them:
During interviews with police, the woman described months of abuse; Mr. Brewer had allegedly punched and stabbed her and cut off clumps of her hair, the complaint said.
Mr. Brewer had also attempted to strangle her on multiple occasions, she said, and he had raped her. According to the complaint, police saw red marks, cuts and bruises on the woman and said that her hair was cut unevenly.
So of course he had to stand before a judge at his arraignment:
On Monday, Mr. Brewer was released after posting 10 percent of the $5,000 bail set by North Side Magisterial District Judge Robert Ravenstahl Jr.
We can all do the math on what 10 percent of $5,000 is. Five hundred bucks to be free on pending charges of sexual assault, strangulation, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint and simple assault. I wonder what it would have been if he’d killed her. Probably at least $600.
I look forward to hearing more about this one.
And I look forward to a good week. With no more rain.
beb said on July 18, 2021 at 10:13 pm
Some day you wish there was an easy way to sue a judge for malpractice. Seriously, a low bail for an alleged kidnapper. I assume that it is up to the (alleged) victim to provide for her own safety.
The weather this year has been so strange. July is supposed to be a hot and dry time, not cool with near-daily showers. And the climate change deniers will never admit that perhaps all this is the result of man-made climate change.
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Sherri said on July 18, 2021 at 10:54 pm
Robert Ravenstahl is the father of Luke Ravenstahl, former mayor of Pittsburgh. Another son is a legislator, and his father was a city councilman and a legislator. So, he has to be a Democrat, because this is Pittsburgh, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less reactionary.
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basset said on July 18, 2021 at 10:56 pm
Similar situation with the Christmas Day bombing here in Nashville. Bomber’s girlfriend or ex or something told the police he was crazy and making explosives, they went to his place and knocked on the door, no answer, that was it.
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Dexter Friend said on July 19, 2021 at 1:10 am
Dateline: D.C. Saturday night at Nationals Stadium, Padres-Nationals. Gunfire, loud as hell, erupts. A woman on the concourse, inside the gates, was shot. Bullets flew at various angles. Some fans ran like hell at every direction, some dived into a dugout, some ran across the playing field, others ran out through the gates. I never witnessed, on TV of course, anything like it. Even the 1989 quake which stopped the 1989 World Series in Oakland was not met with such calamity. Still photos of fans were so sad, the terror in their faces ghastly. The 2021 police crime statistics show a plus 55% in violent crimes from 2020, averaging out the top 30 main population centers, reported MSNBC news anchors. I texted my friend David in D.C. to make sure he had not been traumatized either by being there or knowing his many friends might have been there. He lives right in the District and is a baseball fan…he was OK.
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beb said on July 19, 2021 at 3:01 am
We’re lucky no one was trampled during the shooting outside the baseball stadium.
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Suzanne said on July 19, 2021 at 6:42 am
That there was a shooting at a major league baseball game and it wasn’t 24/7 news coverage for days shows where we are as a society. The saddest thing I saw online was a short video clip of a little girl saying she was scared but this was the second shooting she’d been near, so she knew what to do. She couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 years old.
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Mark P said on July 19, 2021 at 7:27 am
With regard to gun violence, I’ve said many times, whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Well, we’re halfway there. Or closer.
Bail is a problem. Most of the time it’s for minor offenses by poor people who can’t afford the total bail. So they give a bail bondsman 10% that they can’t really afford, and never see it again. Or they stay in jail longer than a sentence would be for their particular crime. But, of course, they’re black or brown, so who cares. And then there are the few cases like this one.
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Dorothy said on July 19, 2021 at 7:47 am
I’ve been out of Pittsburgh for 19 years now but when stories like that break, my stomach churns and I worry I’m going to know someone involved in it. Not this time, thank goodness.
My daughter’s partner was at the Nats game on Saturday night. He left about 20 minutes before the shooting happened.
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Heathr said on July 19, 2021 at 10:18 am
Not gun or sexual violence but another tale of injustice–here in Chicago an off-duty cop in a one of those huge trucks blew through a stop sign and hit a child riding a bike as the kid was crossing the street. Didn’t realize he’d hit someone and so dragged the kid until neighbors flagged him down. The child died. Cop says he stopped at the stop sign but witnesses say he didn’t. He got a measly traffic citation. https://hamodia.com/2021/07/18/off-duty-police-officer-killed-hershel-weinberger-facing-traffic-violation/
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Deborah said on July 19, 2021 at 11:47 am
Torrential rains in Abiquiu, good for the plants, the bad news is the road crossing the arroyo blew out again. This is the third time this summer. It usually happens once a summer. I hope this convinces the holdouts that something more must be done to return the arroyo to its wider natural state.
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Jeff Borden said on July 19, 2021 at 12:43 pm
It was a beautiful weekend in Chicago. . .at least my version of it.
Poker night on Friday with five good buddies. A cookout in our little backyard on Saturday. And one of the best baseball experiences in a long while on Sunday with an old chum from Charlotte, who had purchased some choice seats in the shade for the White Sox vs. Cheatstros. We road the L with other fans, bantered with folks on the sidewalks and in the ballpark, admired the views and sipped an ice cold Goose Island beer.
The other version of Chicago saw the usual spate of shootings and killings. Again, an alarmingly large number of victims were young people including several teen girls shot during a party in the Austin neighborhood. Again, the murderers fired from moving cars but no one got a license plate number or even the make and model. . .just a dark SUV rolling past with gun barrels poking out of the windows.
Is this what the NRA and the ammosexuals really want? To have everyone armed so that a slight, an insult, a dirty look, a bad maneuver in traffic can produce deadly confrontations. . .and then those incidents require revenge and payback so there will be more killings. . .into infinity? Is this the goal?
A significant majority of Americans wants something done about firearms. What does it matter? It doesn’t.
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jessica weissman said on July 19, 2021 at 12:58 pm
DC area resident and baseball fan here. Coverage locally was wall to wall for a few hours. It was some kind of car to car dispute with no apparent relationship to the game or the team or the stadium. The woman injured outside the park was a bystander.
I’m glad the ballpark security people didn’t keep fans out of the dugouts and off the field. And that Metro was able to get trains lined up right away to get fans out of there a while earlier than for a full game.
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susan said on July 19, 2021 at 1:39 pm
Here’s a short blog piece by an engineering geologist on flood plain hazards of open pit mines, in this case, open pit mines in Germany.
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Julie Robinson said on July 19, 2021 at 3:54 pm
Has anyone been reading the Pegasus Project stories from the Washington Post? Count me not shocked that governments are hacking people’s phones. Count me shocked that at the time of his murder, Jamal Khashoggi was married to wife #4 for just a few months and was also engaged to another woman. The story delicately dismissed this as a highly compartmentalized life.
Whoa. I want to know more. I remember from a college class that Islam allows men up to four wives at the same time. What was going on? I’m ashamed of myself for such a shallow take on this story, and I’m blaming a summer cold.
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alex said on July 19, 2021 at 7:20 pm
So look who Kevin McCarthy is appointing to the January 6 commission in order to disrupt it:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jim-jordan-four-other-republicans-chosen-by-house-minority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-to-serve-on-panel-investigating-jan-6-riots/2021/07/19/85c6b534-e8df-11eb-8950-d73b3e93ff7f_story.html
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Suzanne said on July 19, 2021 at 9:10 pm
Alex, I am utterly disgusted by your story. These people do not ever stop, do they?
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Deborah said on July 19, 2021 at 9:23 pm
Doesn’t Nancy P get to nix any choice McCarthy makes that aren’t appropriate? Of course we all knew he’d pick Jordan as one of them. One of the biggest A-holes, natch.
LB is selling soap at a little shop off the plaza and after she delivered a batch we tried to have lunch at Pasqual’s which is across the street from the shop. I gave my name they said they’d call and text in about 25 mins when a table was ready, we waited and no call/text. Then when I tried to go in to see where we were on the list the place was extremely crowded with a lot of Texas tourists, elbow to elbow, nobody masked (how do I know they were Texans? You can just tell, believe me) So we ditched that place and went to another quieter, airy place not in the plaza area. That crowded room at Pasqual’s made me feel like I must have agoraphobia, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. And they never called/texted either, so I’m glad I didn’t hang around waiting.
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Suzanne said on July 19, 2021 at 9:32 pm
Oh goodie. Jim Banks has also been appointed to the Jan 6 committee. Now I am even more disgusted.
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alex said on July 20, 2021 at 7:13 am
Banks has already gone on the record this morning referring to the commission as “Pelosi and her authoritarian agenda.” As he depends heavily on the Big Lie as the main theme of his reelection campaign, I doubt he’d serve even if appointed.
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Suzanne said on July 20, 2021 at 11:11 am
Banks will be happy to serve to commission as an obstructionist. Same with Gym Jordan. No Republican wants anyone on that commission who is interested in discovering the truth. Not one of them. They only want to cause chaos.
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Suzanne said on July 20, 2021 at 11:21 am
I saw photos of the Bezos rocket and honestly, it just looks like a giant penis. How fitting.
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Julie Robinson said on July 20, 2021 at 1:40 pm
Are there non-phallic rockets?
Would y’all like another contractor story? The plumbing in the new bathroom sounds like Moaning Myrtle lives there. He is going to replace/add a valve, but if that doesn’t work they will have to TEAR DOWN THE ENTIRE WALL BEHIND IT. Which is part of a closet, natch.
The electrician came out yesterday for the fifth time to correct errors, and we finally passed inspection, but it’s still not right. In order to avoid rewiring a switch for outdoor lighting they put in remote switches, They turn the lights on, but not off. You have to get out a ladder and climb up there in order to get them off.
But wait, there’s more: the electrician had also left huge dents in the brand new washer lid. The contractor installed a new one, but it doesn’t have a lid lock, so I have a washer full of water and clothes. God only knows what’s next.
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LAMary said on July 20, 2021 at 4:01 pm
Julie, these guys all suck. They are reinforcing my opinion of Florida. Champlain Tower happened where?
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Deborah said on July 20, 2021 at 4:28 pm
What a nightmare Julie, wow I feel for you.
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Deborah said on July 20, 2021 at 4:32 pm
Suzanne, have you seen the video? I’d include a link to it but I don’t know how to do that from Twitter. Maybe this will have a link to it https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/20/22585674/jon-stewart-apple-tv-show-skit-roasting-space-billionaires-jason-alexander
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Julie Robinson said on July 20, 2021 at 6:04 pm
Orlando is supposed to be the good Florida, the blue Florida. My husband was nothing short of heroic this afternoon. He diagnosed the situation from examining the old washer lid, ran over to borrow the tool needed from our appliance store, changed the lid lock from the old new to the new new, then ran the tool back. Of course, if the contractor would have ordered it from our local appliance guy, he probably would have brought over the new one and installed it himself. He’s a gem of the neighborhood.
Did anyone catch the latest exchange between Rand Smackable Face Paul and Dr. Fauci? Paul tried his usual crap and Fauci was. not. having. it. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/07/20/anthony-fauci-rand-paul-lying-vpx.cnn
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beb said on July 20, 2021 at 6:26 pm
Julie @22 asked “Are there non-phallic rockets?” The shuttle aside, no. They are all long, tiny cylinders. But the New Shepard with it’s bulb at the top looks more like one than most.
Dr. Fauci will undoubtedly get in trouble for not being “civil” but gawd, Rand Paul deserves to be punched in the face at once a day.
Nazi McCarthy sure hoped to screw the 1-6 investigation. I liked the headline that suggested McCarthy hired O.J. to investigate the O.J murders. I’m content to call him a Nazi because he squawks like one.
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Sherri said on July 20, 2021 at 6:32 pm
And self-driving cars.
https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1417577941182070784
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Deborah said on July 20, 2021 at 7:06 pm
So it begins. Our a-hole neighbor has threatened us with legal action so she can try to install her cheap ass windows that the rest of us voted out. She’s just saber rattling, and we know it. She has put us “on notice” etc etc. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on, especially since she isn’t officially the owner of her property and she has a disgruntled co-trustee of the trust that does own the property who will probably not stick up for her. She’s just wrong on all counts, especially from the condo by-laws. Bring it on, honey, you don’t know what you are dealing with.
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Julie Robinson said on July 20, 2021 at 7:25 pm
What a pain, Deborah. You were expecting this, weren’t you?
Cowboy hat on head, Jeff Bezos had the gall to thank Amazon employees and customers, because they were the ones who paid for the flight. Isn’t there anyone around him telling him not to say crap that like? His face, what could see under that ridiculous hat, is also eminently smackable.
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Deborah said on July 20, 2021 at 8:31 pm
Yes, we were totally expecting it, Julie. Maybe there was some hope that she would realize how outvoted and wrong she is, but of course not. What’s funny is that she thinks the 4 votes against her don’t include the one guy she thought was on her side, the guy who owns the unit next to her’s. He was mostly a laid back single dude who let her get away with murder, but he’s married now and has 2 small children, and lucky for him his wife (much younger) is an heiress. So he doesn’t have to put up with her crap anymore. He doesn’t live in his unit anymore since he’s been married, his folks lived in it for a few years, now they’ve moved to a house near his that’s all on the ground floor, since they had mobility issues and walking up the steps to his unit in our condo building was a big problem.
Anyway, she doesn’t have any idea how much she is hurting herself. The threatening email she sent to us this afternoon is incriminating in and of itself. Plus now we have her on record being an a-hole in meetings. The city historic district and the building permit department can get involved too. It’s too bad it will come to this, a big hassle for all of us, but if these folks keep getting away with stuff, this will keep happening.
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