Good morning. Hello. How are you? #384
Supreme Court corruption, new podcast episode, gardening, Scott Stringer
Good morning! Hello! How are you? I am okay. I woke up verrrry sleepy and didn’t want to wake up. I stupidly looked at my phone and learned that Amy Covid Bash got a $2 million book deal. Not angry at all, nope. Then I read another article and learned that they all have 7-figure book deals! Awesome! Also, John Roberts failed to recuse himself from cases involving Microsoft and Texas instruments, in whom he owned large chunks of stock. And that Clarence Thomas never recuses himself from cases where his wife has a conflict of interest, oh, and had to amend twenty years of financial disclosures because he just didn’t bother to, you know, follow the law. Awesome.
Plus it’s rather grey outside.
But that’s okay. I feel like today is going to be a good day. I got a feeling. That today’s gonna be a good good day. Let’s live it up live it up.
I did my podcast yesterday: first thing in the morning. Like 7:30 or something. I have never done that before. Tried to sound all chipper and awake n shit. Probably didn’t work.
I did it so early because I had so much to do yesterday. I was worried I wasn’t going to get it all done. And by one measure, I didn’t, because some friends were having a birthday party for their kid in a park and I didn’t go, and that would have been nice. Emma went, though, so, you know, I got the lowdown. And at least one of us saw some human beings.
I did get all my gardening done, though. I got the composting done, I re-planted a few plants who failed to launch. I potted up the rest of the peppers. I watered everything. I took care of the basement indoor herb garden that was on its last legs. I hauled the 3 large boxes of Harvard Business Review down to my office from my car. That counts as gardening, right? I mixed a five gallon batch of squirrel repellant on the outdoor grill so I didn’t smell up the house, got it placed inside its pump sprayer and sprayed all of the at-risk plants. I used up my whole propane tank in doing so, so now I gotta go get that replaced ugh. I discovered that a third grape plant is recovering from dormancy and has sprouted leaves, which is very exciting. The spinach seeds have popped up in their pot. So have three of the four types of beans. The blueberry plant is failing, though. I know there’s some soil PH weirdness with blueberries gotta look into that today.
I called my mom, who arrived safely back at her home in Fairbanks, Alaska. She got in at 2 AM and slept a good, long time, so I didn’t call her till evening. She was just back from brunch and had seen all her friends for the first time in months, so that must have been nice (my mom lives in an elderly living facility with a bunch of her friends so I’m not talking, like, some Covid-unsafe boozy brunch here). Jane was happy to hear from her. Jane wasn’t awesome at the goodbye — she said goodbye to my mom when she was heading home the same way she did every night when going to bed — but I think she understands what’s going on, and I don’t think she’s going to forget Grandma, so that is nice.
I suppose I gotta talk about Scott Stringer. I don’t really want to. But I feel like I have to. The problem is that I know and like Scott. I mean, we’re not the best of friends or anything, we’re political friends, but we’ve been political friends for almost ten years now. I’ve been a consistent donor to him for years. And I really, really, really don’t want to believe the accusation against him. I say accusation, singular, because that’s what it is right now. See? I’m already failing, here. I’ve been in this spot before, though, and fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… won’t get fooled again (insert Dubyan mischievous laugh). You start to muster up some defense of the person — it was only one time, it doesn’t sound that bad, maybe it was just a misunderstanding — and before your brain can even rationalize things away, there are six more accusations piling up. Been around the block enough that I’m not falling for that.
But it is phenomenal how your brain doesn’t want to follow your own rules when something like this happens to someone you know. See? I’m using the word “happens,” like it just “happened” to Scott. I’m only talking about Scott, and not the victim. I know it’s wrong. But our human brains naturally turn first to the people we know, or we know more about, or have developed some sort of relationship with, even if it’s an imaginary or one-way relationship. And I know that’s wrong. I’m trying to overcome it, I am. But I can’t help it. I think about how Scott graciously stepped aside in his previous mayoral run to make sure that the left was unified behind the most popular candidate: Anthony Weiner. That worked out great. And then there was this other guy who didn’t step aside, and then New York got him as mayor instead and oh, hey, turned out he kind of sucked. I feel bad for Scott, I can’t help it.
And I am not fully able to resolve the mantras “believe women” and “innocent until proven guilty.” I am absolutely trying, I am. When it’s not someone I know and like, I usually say something like this: these jobs are the pinnacle. The top. We can’t risk even a whiff of impropriety (ahem Amy Covid Bash $2 million book deal). The meritocracy didn’t promise everyone they’d be in the elite. These people messed up, even if it was a small mistake, and so ‘dem’s da breaks. But that nagging thought that we’ve given people a free-reign license to destroy people’s careers comes back into my head. It doesn’t *always* work out that way, but it can. But reporters are pretty good about sorting them out! But sometimes that’s too late! But the trauma of the victim supersedes the petty career aspirations of these people! But these things have real-world consequences! Aaaah!
I’m like that robot in I, Mudd that can’t handle the liar’s paradox. Believe women, have faith in your friends, brain explodes.
Another terrible aspect of this is that I read an article about this by Glenn Greenwald, and found myself nodding along in parts. Which is horrible. Definitely not linking to that.
The fact that Scott was the best-polling of the progressive candidates, and the only one polling well enough for a plausible chance to stop milquetoast Andrew Yang is doubly saddening. Though Emma loves Maya Wiley, and I like her a lot. I suspect a lot of Scott’s supporters are going to float to one of the next two-most-popular progressive candidates, and New York has ranked choice voting, so hopefully that won’t matter too much.
In the end, of course, I don’t have to say anything. I could just shut up, watch the world abandon Scott, hope the city I love but, to be fair, have more or less ditched, still makes another good choice for mayor. Someone with real energy to take on the police unions and push real reforms. My judgement doesn’t really matter. And who knows. I could hit “send” on this email and two minutes later a press conference could happen with three more accusers and the whole thing will be moot. Whether it’s cowardice or decency, I’m not sticking my neck out for Scott right now.
I’ve seen this happen to friends before, being conflicted about a friend accused of bad things, and I thought I’d somehow handle it better. I was wrong. We can mourn our friends even when we learn they may have done something wrong. We can feel empathy and outrage for those they have wronged, even as we hope our friends improve. It’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s shitty all around.
I know I know: dude is all bent out of shape cuz dude friend of his is accused of sexual misconduct oh surprise surprise. I hope that’s not what you take away from this. I am defaulting to believing this woman, her story should be listened to. I’m saying that it’s very hard for us to override the default settings of our brain. Yet we must persevere, and recognize that those defaults aren’t always right. It’s this very process where most politics actually happens. In conflicted brains. It’s hard.
I could have written nothing, I suppose. I think about that sometimes. Yesterday I was washing a pot and thinking about NFTs. Then later in the day I was reading my phone at the table and Emma was like “what are you reading about?” And I said “some nuances around this new NFT contract that is trying to address some of the problems with ownership and copyrights and such” and she just sort of yawned. This newsletter is in an interesting place. I’m just a dude. I have a job. I am not a professional writer. The vast majority of you guys, the readers, aren’t in my industry. I’m under no obligation to write about any hot topic. I am so thankful for that. I can just skip whole things that are boring to me! Like NFTs. They are boring to me! I don’t like them! But I don’t have to write a long essay about that because I don’t have an editor, I’m not on a deadline (well, I am, but a self-imposed one), and no one is dying for my take on the topic. It is great. It is such a privilege.
The flipside of that is, then, that when I do choose to write about something, it’s all me choosing to write about it. And I should be judged accordingly.
Emma redecorated the living room and it looks awesome and goth. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it for you, I will in the next few days. But here’s a picture of Emma sitting in the dark in the living room last night, contemplating what else needs to be done to the room:
Today’s mix is just a mix. It’s a lot of good songs I have been listening to of late, mostly new stuff, some old stuff. Definitely peters out into older stuff toward the end. Well, you know, not old stuff, but old stuff. Medium old. “Gosh, that’s old, I’m old” old. Also, thank you Weather Station for writing “Thirty,” because Mark Kozelek is cancelled and I have been looking for a song to replace “24” as a song about feeling like you’re getting old at a really young age.
Okay, have a lovely day? Let’s power through this Monday. Let’s get some work done. Let’s ignore our arthritic fingers. That one just me? oh, okay. Never mind, then! TTFN!
Also, iirc, you need to have blueberry plants in pairs for some reason. That might be your blueberry issue.
Have you shared a recipe for the squirrel repellent previously? I need to make some of that. I also have a slug problem and feel terrible just, you know, wholesale murdering a bunch of slugs with a bowl of beer or whatever. Wonder if it works for slugs.