The fun stuff first? OK. So I was at the market Saturday morning, when my attention was caught by this:
It’s a dancing Cleveland postcard! As I drew near, the tout working with the postcard had it spin around, where there was a QR code, which I scanned, which took me to a web page, which suggested I follow Destination Cleveland on Instagram. And just like that, I am entered for a chance to win a magical weekend in Cleveland. (Second prize? TWO weekends in Cleveland, har har.) The package includes baseball tickets, dinner at a brewery, admission to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, etc. Honestly? I hope I win. I always liked Cleveland, which is in many ways Detroit Junior, a post-industrial city that’s an ethnic mix of blue-collar muscle and great music. But what I want to point out is that the city formerly known as the Mistake on the Lake is rebranding itself as “The Land,” which is hilarious. My sports-watching friends say this campaign is visible in all the Guardians and Cavaliers broadcasts. I was unaware until Saturday. Now I am not.
Odds of winning? Slim. The dancing postcards were also downtown yesterday.
OK, now for the less-fun stuff. Obviously, the National Guard stuff in California is a terrible and terrifying escalation, and if there are any MAGA chuds reading this, isn’t it interesting how quickly the stated aim of deporting criminals has moved to home-improvement stores where day laborers congregate, hoping for work? Do you ever wonder, if these crews are such a threat to national security, why the arrests never seem to include the owners of the landscaping and construction companies who do this hiring?
Anyway, I fear it’s going to get very ugly. Who’s going to a protest on Saturday? I’ll be at the one in Detroit, which is, coincidentally, at Clark Park, in the heart of Mexicantown. We may be under martial law by then, of course.
A little bloggage:
Here’s a curtain-raiser in the WSJ about the new dawn at the Kennedy Center, as it prepares to launch under Dear Leader. There’s now a new position there, director of faith-based programming, and they’re off to a gangbusters start:
[New director Richard] Grenell requested a June 1 public screening of “The King of Kings,” an animated feature film about the story of Jesus, as told by the character of Charles Dickens. Grenell ordered that the free event take place in the center’s biggest venue, a 2,500-seat concert hall, at a projected cost of $29,000 for staffing, gratis popcorn and other expenses.
The event featured a prayer wall where visitors could post their written prayers for the nation, and was sponsored by the Museum of the Bible and Moxie Pest Control, whose founder made an unsuccessful run at a Republican U.S. Senate seat in Utah last year.
When advance sign-ups for tickets indicated a full house, Kennedy Center leaders added a second screening, increasing the total cost of the event.
Employees, who said there is typical attrition for free events, said the actual turnout left the hall 55% full for the first screening and 58% full for the second.
Brought to you by Moxie Pest Control! Comedy gold.
Meanwhile, I can recommend a podcast that Eric Zorn’s Substack alerted me to, although it’s a year old. (Like Cleveland’s rebranding, I totally missed it.) “Chameleon: The Michigan Plot” covers the conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And while everyone here knows my biases in this case, and while I recognize and understand the ways a storyteller can subtly tilt a tale in sympathy of one side or another, I must come away from this with a grudging admission: This was likely entrapment, or at least a very obvious push in that direction by the multiple FBI informants who were trying a little too hard to get a bunch of extremely stoned halfwits off their butts and into a plan. Quarter-wits, I should say — rarely has the tragedy of left-behind, uneducated, unmotivated Michigan manhood been so vividly portrayed as in the hours of covert recordings (most of which were never played in court) unspooled here. I found myself almost physically recoiling from listening to these guys talk about pretty much anything. They had atrocious grammar and little vocabulary beyond f-bombs. No wonder one of them lived in the basement of a vacuum repair shop.
OK, then. It’s Sunday, and I have a feeling the week ahead will be…not good. Maybe the TACO principle will apply; it would save a lot of bloodshed. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
BigHank53 said on June 8, 2025 at 11:44 am
I am reminded of the angry young Muslim pizza delivery guy the FBI managed to stitch up during the Bush administration after providing him with a fake al-Qaeda recruiter, lots of fake encouragement, and a fake bomb. Not that the kid wasn’t a radicalized jerk, but left to his own devices it’s unlikely he would have ever done more than spit on a couple pizzas he was delivering.
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Jeff Borden said on June 8, 2025 at 12:55 pm
Johanna and I will be in Daley Plaza next Saturday for the No Kings March. We’re meeting several friends there, too. Johanna already has a great message for her sign. I’m still dithering, but damn, we’ll be there. I’m even skipping my Cubs-Pirates game for the march. Meanwhile, crafty Pope Leo XIV will be having a service via giant video board at Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox. It is sold out at $5 per seat. Methinks the pope knew exactly what else is going on that afternoon. . .Lumpy’s giant birthday parade!
I fucking hope this abomination –especially ugly considering it honors a man who used five deferments to avoid Vietnam, refused to attend services in France for doughboys who fought in World War I because his hair-sprayed mop might get wet, had to have the significance of the U.S.S. Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor explained to him, chided Gen. Mark Millet for having a disabled Afghanistan for singing “God Bless America” at a military ceremony because “no one wants to see the wounded,” and reportedly referred to dead veterans as suckers and losers– is poorly attended and generally ignored. I’m sure Fox and assorted propaganda outfits will be all over it, but the rest of us should ignore it.
BTW, if you haven’t heard, Plastered Pete Hegseth wants to send active duty U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton to bash heads in L.A. These assholes cannot wait to hurt more people.
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MarkH said on June 8, 2025 at 1:30 pm
I listened to the entire Chameleon podcast last year. A long slog but highly recommended as it is well-documented. And I agree, if not actual entrapment, the whole episode stepped up as closely as possible to it. Keystone cops trailing the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. The FBI had multiple undercover agents AND confidential informants in there egging these miscreants on, while, get this: few of them knew the others were on the case until it was almost over. The closer they got to the actual event, the more these kidnappers lost their nerve and peeled off, basically leaving just the two who were convicted. If you want to know what types lurk around the hinterlands of Michigan, Nancy’s description nails it.
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Charlie (she/her) said on June 8, 2025 at 2:38 pm
I got a good look at the federal building protest site on the way to Dyke Day yesterday; it’s a lot smaller than the news made it look. Lots of tags, but not much other damage. DHS said it was about a thousand people, but Reuters said they couldn’t confirm the numbers, and the aerial photos I’ve seen look smaller. Unless there’s something I’m missing, it feels like the Trumpers trying to blow up a small rally into a huge thing.
(Dyke Day, on the other hand, had a great turnout!)
So far (a bit before noon) the livestreams on TikTok are showing a few dozen people, about twice that many reporters, and a scattering of Guardsmen around. No idea if anything’s going to happen tonight. Indivisible is organizing a candlelight vigil at City Hall, everyone else I know is at one Pride event or another.
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Dexter Friend said on June 8, 2025 at 3:02 pm
I spent many weekends in Cleveland (named for Moses Cleaveland) from around 1979 until 2001, going to Indians games, first in the wonderful (?) Municipal Stadium then in 1994 at Jacobs Field, now Progressive Field. Along the way, I found some treasures: West Side Market, Peterson’s Nuts, Hornblower’s Restaurant by the old submarine, Mallorca on West 9th, and all the joints in The Flats where of course my experience was dampened because drinking is what people do there and well….
Many coffee houses all over, and I was in the habit of sipping a quick single espresso for $4 and leaving quickly. What does a single cost in 2025, $12? More?
I watched every single televised Cavaliers game this year, and I watch every Guardians game, too, and either tape or watch all the Tigers and Reds games my dvr will hold, so I am witness to not only this “The Land” campaign, but also the CLE designation on their City Lights Friday game uniforms. The fans love the giant CLE print on jerseys; I also love the look. When I refer to Cleveland, I always use CLE in emails. I only have one regular email correspondent anymore. You? It’s all FB Messenger and texts, of course these days.
So if you find yourself in the city founded by old Moses Cleaveland, with an “a”…head for Mallorca first, a great Spanish restaurant.
The old Otto Moser’s on 4th Street was a beauty.
50c draughts served in ancient thick short-stemmed glasses, $1.25 shots of rot-gut, ( before my moment of clarity) tongue sandwiches, served in a barroom adorned with maybe a thousand signed photos of people from the theater, sports, and politics…of course, most famously, a large one of Bob Hope. They kept the name and moved upscale to the theater district maybe 28 years ago. I never went there.
And Cleveland’s dirty-water dogs were the best I ever had, edging out Philadelphia. Also, the best falafel I ever had anywhere was from a food cart up by the baseball area.
My association with CLE ended bitterly, with many trips to the Cleveland Clinic transporting my late wife after her botched knee surgery. I have not returned since 2020.
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Jeff Gill said on June 8, 2025 at 10:39 pm
Can’t recommend Carl Hiaasen’s “Fever Beach” strongly enough.
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 2:09 am
Abolish ICE. Defund the police.
That makes the centrists clutch their pearls, but nobody can tell me the problem either organization is good at solving. Nobody can even articulate what the problem at the border is, such that raiding immigration court and Home Depot parking lots and schools is an appropriate solution.
Trump apparently wants to have a war with California. Is it a civil war when the government shoots first?
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Julie Robinson said on June 9, 2025 at 9:04 am
JeffG, I’m still at #33 in the library queue, but have found a lot of good reading while I wait.
Sherri, I’m not a centrist and I’d do away with ICE immediately, but if someone breaks into our house and is beating up my fragile mom, I’d like to call the police. I have no weapons. Reform, absolutely. But not abolish.
Our daughter accompanied a woman to court last week, who has accepted that she has no path but deportment. She was simply begging mercy to stay an extra week for medical care, because she’s in the middle of a cancer diagnosis. It was granted, but she’ll still be leaving, sick, with her two children and without her husband.
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tajalli said on June 9, 2025 at 10:29 am
Insofar as orange hitler is hell-bent on destroying the US economy and bringing chaos to federal and state governments, declaring war on the 5th largest economy in the world should come as no surprise, focusing the initial attacks on LA, first refusing relief for wild fires and now requiring our own National Guard to threaten our peaceful citizenry.
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 10:36 am
Given that there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between the number of police officers and any decrease in crime, what is the appropriate size of an armed uniformed police force to serve the need of having the police to call if someone breaks into your house and is beating you up? That’s the question.
Reform hasn’t worked.
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 11:28 am
BTW, California has recently become the 4th largest economy in the world, passing Japan, trailing the US, China, and Germany.
My other favorite factoid about LA is that there are only 10 states with populations larger than LA County.
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alex said on June 9, 2025 at 11:38 am
Now that police departments have all of these military toys to play with, what we used to consider minor disturbances are now met with SWAT teams and armored vehicles. “Standoffs” with police are now reported almost daily in the local news, usually in response to domestic quarrels. I’m not sure what “reform” has even been tried. The experts say that the resources wasted on all of this excessive force would be better directed at mental health interventions, but where has this actually been tried?
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Dexter Friend said on June 9, 2025 at 12:38 pm
nytimes {…missed him by THAT much…}
“On July 13, 2024, Thomas Crooks told his parents he was heading to the range and left home with a rifle. Hours later, he mounted a roof at a presidential campaign rally in western Pennsylvania and tried to assassinate Donald Trump.
The 20-year-old killed a bystander and wounded two others before being shot dead by the Secret Service. His motive was a mystery.
A New York Times examination of the last years of Crooks’s life found that he went through a gradual and largely hidden transformation, from a meek engineering student critical of political polarization to a focused killer who tried to build bombs. For months he operated in secret, using aliases and encrypted networks, all while showing hints of a mental illness that may have caused his mind to unravel to an extent not previously reported.” New York Times
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 12:42 pm
There have been attempts at reform, from changes in training to body cams to consent decrees from the DOJ. None have changed things much, for a few reasons. One is that cop unions have generally resisted any reforms, and city councils (and the equivalents) have generally not been willing to hold fast on requiring them in collective bargaining. Another is that holding police officers accountable legally is close to impossible. Qualified immunity is a huge hurdle, plus the standard of proof in many states is insurmountable. If you get past all that, then you have to get past a jury conditioned by years of TV shows to believe that cops are the good guys.
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Sheryl Prentice said on June 9, 2025 at 6:14 pm
I agree with Alex at #12. I’ve covered city and town councils off and on since the mid-1980s at KPC’s newspapers. Up through the 1990s, the cops were mostly local yokels who had grown up there and knew people. They weren’t the most physically fit officers, but they did do civilian policing. Sometimes they were former high school hoods who thought being a cop would make them a big shot and let them carry.
That changed after 9/11 when small-town police chiefs started hiring Iraq and Gulf War veterans, who looked fiercely physically fit and military from their buzz-cut heads to their boot-covered toes.
Once Bush the Younger started giving away money to fight terrorism, all the small towns I covered got military-grade weapons, body armor and even an armor-plated Hummer-style vehicle in Auburn, because terrorists were just lurking everywhere.
That military mindset hasn’t changed in 20+ years now.
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 7:10 pm
A useful book for understanding how difficult it is to hold police accountable for misconduct is Shielded by Joanna Schwartz.
One of the non-profits I support is the National Police Accountability Project, which helps educate and support civil rights lawyers.
A huge reason that bodycams have been ineffective at reforming police behavior is that police departments control the footage. They control what is released, when it is released, if it is released, and in some cases, if it is even recorded at all. So many people think that because bystander video recording has had such an impact, that obviously bodycams would too, but the key is that bystander video isn’t controlled by people with a vested interest in protecting cops.
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Sherri said on June 9, 2025 at 8:55 pm
So, this newsletter came out from The Atlantic today, and it goes on for many paragraphs about all the illegal and unconstitutional things Trump is doing to California. Then, at the end, it mentions talk about California withholding taxes, or how support for secession is high, but dismisses those as “plainly illegal” and “unconstitutional.”
Well, yes, we know. But this administration has spent almost six months re-writing the law and the constitution to be whatever it wants, and Congress has done nothing to stop them, and while lower courts have ruled against the administration, the Calvinball SCOTUS seems happy to make up new constitutional powers for the executive branch as needed to support the administration.
So, if the political system has collapsed, what exactly are we supposed to do? Yes, protests are necessary, but not sufficient; protests have to motivate change among those with power. My fear is that in our fractured information environment, indeed, our fractured reality, a big chunk of people will never be convinced that protesters are peaceful simply because of what they are protesting.
When ICE agents wear masks and raid elementary school graduations, and people protesting are called insurrectionists, but Jan 6 protesters are called heroes and pardoned, I don’t know how to bridge that gulf.
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Jeff Borden said on June 10, 2025 at 1:01 pm
I wonder if we didn’t lose a great deal when police stopped “walking a beat” and began patrolling in cars. Being on the street, interacting with merchants, shoppers, residents and kids brought understanding to the cops and the civilians. Officers were seen as part of the community, as “their cops,” as natural defenders of order, but also as sources of help and advice. Now, too often, officers see those they serve as potential enemies. That’s understandable in a nation with more guns than people. Yet when you treat those you protect as if you were an occupation army –this is a widely held view in black and Hispanic neighborhoods– trust disappears and paranoia rises.
I, too, agree with Alex. The militarization of law enforcement has been a serious issue for years. Even the most rural counties with the fewest people likely have armored personnel carriers and other former weapons of war. And, let’s face it. They want to use them!
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Dexter Friend said on June 10, 2025 at 1:54 pm
I learned today that NGs and Marines/soldiers/sailors are not allowed to wear masks simply to hide personal identity recognition.
I also learned from a pop-up reel that “oats are only for feeding horses and have no place in the human diet.”
Fuck! I have been eating oatmeal for a long time. These quack Tik-Tok doctors with stethoscopes around their necks do not ever sway me. I had Quaker Oats today.
Big celebrations in 2 different arenas.
Happy birthday to the USA Army, 250 today.
And for all saved drunks, a great remembrance, as AA was formerly started on June 10, 1935 in Akron. 90 strong, still there for millions if they want it.
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Julie Robinson said on June 10, 2025 at 3:02 pm
Dexter, talk to your own doctor about oats. They’re a great source of fiber, and tasty, but not good for diabetics. Something about the glycemic index and making blood sugar spike. My late sister was diabetic and missed being able to eat oatmeal.
I wonder if white rice is similar. I’m counting down to a colonoscopy and not allowed whole grains, fiber, fruits, vegies, nuts, etc. Probably most of us here know the drill. I decided that white rice would add a little variety, but halfway through the morning my brain went into slug mode, and it’s still there.
If there are no findings, I think I’m done. Most tests can end at 70. My doc said I can discontinue pelvic and pap exams, unless I really wanted to go on with them. Easy answer there!
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Mark P said on June 10, 2025 at 3:21 pm
I’m lying in a hospital bed right now recovering from a total knee replacement. My legs are still only about a quarter of the way over the block they administered. My bladder and my brain are not communicating, and are operating independently. My knee started hurting a little, so they gave me a Percocet. I’ll go home tomorrow if I’m lucky. And then in the not too distant future, the other knee will be replaced. Yay! I think.
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David C said on June 10, 2025 at 4:59 pm
Doctor Johnson proposed to define the word ‘oats’ thus: ‘A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.’ And I replied: ‘Aye, and that’s why England has such fine horses, and Scotland such fine people.’
—James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., ch. 14 (1791)
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Sherri said on June 10, 2025 at 5:08 pm
Good luck, Mark, I hope your recovery goes smoothly.
I eat a big bowl of oatmeal most mornings, often mixed with liquid egg whites to get more protein in. I don’t pay any attention to videos on the internet about food and diet. It’s hard enough to find solid nutritional research as it is, because it’s so hard to do well, that it’s unlikely that some random doctor making videos has done that good research.
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Sherri said on June 10, 2025 at 5:34 pm
The Imperial Boomerang
https://zeteo.com/p/the-imperial-boomerang-lands-in-los?r=2h24&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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Julie Robinson said on June 10, 2025 at 6:33 pm
Hope they spring you tomorrow, Mark! Do your physical therapy!
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susan said on June 10, 2025 at 8:30 pm
Mark, what Julie said. Do your PT! As the nurses kept telling me after I had both my knees replaced (same surgery), “Do your PT, because what you have [range-of-motion] after a year-and-a-half, is all you’re going to have.” Take it very seriously!
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Deborah said on June 10, 2025 at 10:23 pm
I’ve had the busiest days of my life starting Saturday, which was my last day in NM for a while, I had a ton of stuff I wanted to finish up before I left, so that was an exhausting day. Then Sunday was a travel day going back to Chicago and arriving home about 8:30pm. Then Monday and today I’ve been running around town participating in Neocon which is a big design deal in Chicago, at the Merchandise Mart on Monday and Fulton Market today. On Monday night we had our book club meet up, and that day I walked 22,000 steps that was 10 miles. I was very tired when we got home around 10pm. Today I walked about 4 miles, so I’m getting my steps in. Tomorrow we have an all day meeting about our design project at the building site, so it’s another long day but not a lot of walking involved, just sitting. I’m tired to the point of being depressed and frazzled, I feel like I’m in over my head.
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Jeff Gill said on June 11, 2025 at 8:05 am
Mark P., that’s good typing (& spelling) for Percocet! As others already said: push through that PT, because it’s closer to six months that defines the max range you’ll get back. I’ve seen too many parishioners slow down or give up due to pain & discomfort, ending up with less range of motion than they expected . . . or could have had. Best to you, sir.
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Suzanne said on June 11, 2025 at 9:31 am
And MarkP, keep doing the PT after they say you must. My mom broke her hip about 5 years ago, had it repaired, did the PT while her insurance paid for it, then quit doing it. She never recovered her strength mainly because she didn’t keep doing the exercises. She is now in assisted living but there is really nothing wrong with her except she is incredibly weak from inactivity. She’s 90, but I know several people older than her who are living independently because they work at it every single day. My husband’s aunt worked her tail off after a stroke several years to regain what she could and in 2024, went in person to watch Purdue play in the NCAA basketball championship game.
So keep up that PT!
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