Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

I'm going through the ballot propositions on the ballot here in the 2024 general election. In this 4th blog in the series I'll finish with the last two statewide propositions. But then I'll have to write at least a Part 5 to address the local props on the ballot. Whew!

Here are my previous blogs on this year's ballot propositions:

• Part 1: Props 2 & 3 and a few links on how props work
• Part 2: Props 4, 5, and 6
• Part 3: Props 32, 33, and 34

Now onto Props 35 and 36.

Prop 35: Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal: YES.

Medi-Cal is a program that funds health care for millions of poor people and children in California. One of its sources of funding, a tax on health insurance plans, will lapse if nothing changes. And that lapse would be a double whammy as the funding is matched by federal dollars. A YES vote on 35 makes the temporary funding permanent, at least at the state level. The federal matching... well, that depends on who wins the presidency.

Prop 36: Stiffer Criminal Penalties for Minor Crimes: NO.

Ten years ago California voters approved Prop 47, which reduced penalties on certain minor crimes such as small-time theft and drug use, reducing them from felonies to misdemeanors. Curiously the original motivation behind it was to reduce California's prison population— as federal courts had found the terrible conditions in the prisons unconstitutionally harsh and were threatening to release prisoners ad hoc if the state didn't reduce the prison population itself. That notwithstanding, many of us voted in favor of Prop 47 as a matter of rationalizing criminal law and promoting fairer social justice. Now, 10 years later, the lock-'em-up faction of politics is looking to repeal Prop 47.

The lock-'em-up side of politics warns us breathlessly of a crime wave sweeping our cities. Murders, drug use, homelessness (which isn't really a crime), and theft. Our cities, especially our cities where Democrats lead, are cesspools, they cry. But here are the facts: Crime overall is near a 50 year low. Yes, it ticked up a bit from absolute lows during part of the Covid pandemic, but signs are that it's coming back down.

"But what about rampant retail theft?" social critics ask. It turns out it's been overreported. The head of a drugstore chain admitted that they played up "theft" as a reason for their poor financial results and the need to close stores in some locations. Really the primary causes were a) overexpansion coupled with b) failure to adapt an outdated business model to the changing market. And as for stores locking up more and more products behind plexiglass... well, consider that the stores are doing this because they're cheaping out on staff to run the stores. When I go to my local CVS to fill prescriptions I notice that while the pharmacy often has 3 or even 4 people filling bottles, the whole rest of the store generally has one employee.

But let's not get too lost in the details. The big picture here is that we've been down the lock-'em-up road before. It doesn't work. It fills our prisons with low-level offenders who could be better reformed with treatment than incarceration, stresses available prison space to the point that conditions are inhumane, provokes a spending crisis as we confront the costs of having to build more prisons to house everyone we convict, and ultimately doesn't reduce the crime rate. Vote NO on 36.

I haven't blogged much this week. After averaging over 2 posts/day across October (and higher in September) I've posted only 4 blogs in the past 5 days. Part of that is my ongoing travel dry spell— this is our sixth weekend at home— which takes away one of my usual topics of writing. The other part of it is that what's been in the news the past few weeks is mostly politics.

I... kind of hate... writing about politics. It's not that I hate politics or choose not to pay attention to it. Though many people I know profess not to pay attention simply because they find it so odious. No, I follow the news daily, I pay attention, and I care and think deeply about what's happening. The problem is that since politics is so full of bullshit right now— with the Republican party having become basically a nonstop lying machine— paying attention to what's happening and caring about what's happening is exhausting.

I do push myself, though, to write about politics occasionally. I refuse to allow the constant dishonesty and bad-faith dealing of one party force me to drop out. That's actually one of the literal aims of their constant dishonesty and bad-faith dealing! (Ref. Steve Bannon's infamous "flood the channel with shit" quote.) So, speaking of constant dishonesty, I'll write today about one of the GOP's exemplars of ridiculous fabrications, Rep. George Santos.

Since the last time I wrote about liar-liar-pants-on-fire George Santos several months ago he's added way more lies to his increasingly outlandish autobiography and prosecutors have added more charges to his indictment. A few weeks ago Santos was charged with a 23-count indictment (US Justice Dept. press release, 10 Oct 2023) superseding the previous 13 count indictment. Among the 10 new felony charges are wire fraud and election fraud. Santos allegedly stole money from his political donors by making unauthorized charges against their credit cards. And that's just one of the new allegations.

Santos, for his part, remains not only completely unrepentant, but has added absurd new claims to his mountain of lies. (A blog I wrote in January lists several of his original lies.) For example, in an interview two weeks ago with a New York Times reporter he claimed that his niece had been kidnapped and pointed suspicion toward China over the tough political stance he'd taken on some unspecified issue involving China. The reporter checked with police source, who confirmed that officers had investigate but found no evidence of either (a) any involvement by anyone from China, nor (b) even any kind of kidnapping at all. Source: NY Times article 22 Oct 2023.

Santos continues to insist he'll run for reelection in 2024. He also insists voters don't care that he lied about his record. That could be the one false story that actually gets him removed from office.

On Monday this week (Aug 14) a grand jury in Georgia handed up an indictment against Donald Trump and 18 co-conspirators on state charges stemming from their attempt to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election. The crimes charged in the document include false statements to statewide officials, false statements to the state legislature, harassment of election workers, and tampering with election equipment. These are just a few of the 41 counts in the indictment. Example coverage: CNN article updated Aug 15.

Yes, tampering with election equipment. Some of the people charged broke into vote counting machines and/or attempted to do so. So yes, there was vote fraud in the 2020 elections— but not the kind of fraud 40% of US voters think marred the election. The fraud was committed by Trump cronies trying to steal the election for Donald Trump.

And now we see some of those people being charged. Unlike Special Counsel Jack Smith's Aug 2 federal indictment against Donald Trump which described, but did not name, 6 co-conspirators the Georgia indictment names 18 co-defendants. In addition to Trump's election-subverting lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell, who are almost certainly among the unnamed co-conspirators in the federal indictment (though analysts quickly concluded who at least 5 of the 6 are based on the actions described), the Georgia indictment also names charges against former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Example coverage: CNN article Aug 16; full text of indictment, annotated by CNN (Aug 15).

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I went back to the courthouse today for jury duty. Technically it was Day 3 of jury duty but also my second day at the courthouse. Recall that Day 1 was waiting at home 2.5 weeks ago, Day 2 was being summoned to the courthouse to be attached to a trial and asked to fill out a lengthy questionnaire asking about potential biases.

Today the court was conducting voir dire, the process in which lawyers for both sides ask more in-depth questions of prospective jurors and can "challenge" them for dismissal. I didn't even get as far as questioning. At 3pm, after I'd been sitting in the juror assembly room pretty much all day, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that a full jury had been selected and the rest of us were dismissed.

Previously I'd estimated the jury pool at 50 people and hence my mathematical odds of being selected as a juror or alternate at about 1/3. Today I found the pool was actually more than twice that size. There were other days when they brought in whole other sets of people to be informed of the trial, given written questionnaires, and interviewed.

Now that my involvement with the case is concluded I can discuss public information about it. It is a murder trial. 😨

Am I happy to avoid being on a murder-trial jury? Yes and no. Yes, because I consider it an enormous responsibility to have to judge the facts in such as significant case— with significant punishment awaiting the defendants if convicted. (It at least wasn't a death penalty case.) Not to mention it would have cost me 3 weeks of work. (I'd get paid but my team would struggle to pick up what I'd drop.) On the other hand, someone has to judge the facts in those cases, and I'd rather it be someone intelligent enough to weigh the evidence and its credibility appropriately, be conscious of bias, and reason within the law. I.e., why not me. It's a responsibility I was ready to take on.

Hawk and I have been gradually replacing gear over the past few weeks that was stolen during our trip to Hawaii in April. I've dragged my feet on replacing a lot of my stuff because there's no enjoyment to go shopping for stuff that was stolen. It just feels like a chore. On the other hand, our trek to several waterfalls on Lewis Creek last Saturday made it clear that I really do need to replace my camera bag. Although I usually pack selected lenses and other gear into my hiking bag when I hike, a sturdy and capacious camera bag is critical for making sure I've got everything when I go from home to car, to plane, etc.

Several years ago I bought a sling pack from Tamrac. It was a very different style from the classic shaped camera bags I'd bought before then; those were the kind shaped like rectangular boxes with tufted pouches on the side. The sling was narrow, rounded, hugged against the body, and had a single shoulder strap. For $100 (in years-ago money) it seemed a bit frivolous... but a salesman at the brick-and-mortar photography store I was shopping demonstrated how it worked, and I decided to take the plunge.

That swoopy shape, single shoulder strap, and $100 price tag? Best damn camera bag I ever had.

Then some jerkface stole it. 🤬

Finding a replacement turned out to be hard. It seems Tamrac doesn't make that model any more. There's a smaller one, which is too small; and a bigger one, which is bulkier than I want. But some of the model that's just right are still left in the sales channel.

The one I owned for several years had a blue and gray exterior. I couldn't find that color combo anywhere except used. Ditto the black-and-gray combo. But I did find the red-and-gray version (pictured) for sale new... and at less than half the price I paid years ago. Score!

So, why do I like this bag so much that I hunted around for an exact replacement?

Well, I didn't insist on an exact replacement. I happily considered other bag styles. Candidates had to meet a few requirements: the right size overall, neither to big nor too small, to hold my camera with three lenses, plus accessories like filters, a spare battery, cleaning kit, data cable, etc.; plenty of securely zippered pockets or pouches to hold all those things and provide convenient access; good padding, because this bag literally goes around the world with me; and not heinously expensive. Some bags were 3-4x what I paid for this one. And you can see in the second picture (left/above) this bag is nicely padded with plenty of slots and pouches for the camera gear I carry.

The test will come a little over a week from now when I take the bag on the road (and in the air, and on the trail) on our trip to Sedona.

Today it's been back to work for us. No, we didn't just zip home from the middle of our 9 day trip to Hawaii— especially not after posting just this morning about how I kept work at arm's length while on vacation. As usual for when we travel, my blogs about the trip are backlogged. In blog time it's 5 days ago.

Rather than let everything get backlogged behind the trip I've decided to take a two-track approach and keep working down the Hawaii backlog while also posting about other things as they happen. For today the major thing that happened was getting back to work— and the rest of normal life.

Coming back to work after a week off is always challenge. The work doesn't stand still just because I'm not there. Projects I'm involved with move forward and new projects/tasks/challenges await my return. That's why I spent a few minutes a day triaging my mail and Slack messages— I didn't want to start Monday morning with tfires already burning out of control. Thankfully nothing was burning badly. As I mentioned before, this is due in part to my team respecting the meaning of vacation time. I appreciate that.

While work doesn't stand still while I'm gone, unfortunately things at home do. In particular, my poorly behaving home internet connections (both of them) are still behaving poorly. I still need to spend time chasing the providers yet again. The insurance claim for our stuff that was stolen in Hawaii didn't file itself. I spent an hour on that today and still have more legwork to do.

And the rest of my blogs about Hawaii? Well, those stand still without me, too. 😅 My goal is to catch up on them by Friday; hopefully in time to do something fun this weekend— and blog about it— without those getting backlogged, too! 🤣

Hawaii April Travelog #5
Waianae, HI - Sat, 9 Apr, 2022, 1:30pm

When we got back from our hike to Ka'ena Point today we noticed something odd with our rental car. The trunk lid was slightly ajar with the strap to our beach bag hanging out of it. Inside the trunk were fewer things than we'd locked in there when we began the hike. We were robbed!

Signs around the parking area warned of it being a high theft area. Those signs are becoming dime-a-dozen at remote trailheads and beach access points, but we generally do as they advise and store our valuables locked out of site when we leave the car. As we did this time.

The thief made off with an oversized haul from our trunk. On this hike I'd chosen to leave behind an expensive camera lens. At the start of the hike I weighed whether to take it. ...By which I mean literally weighed, as this is "the brick" lens. It alone cost $1,000. With the other bits of gear in the camera bag stolen from the trunk I lost over $1,500 in camera equipment. Plus the thief stole Hawk's hiking daypack. The pack plus the hiking gear in it were about $300.

Altogether the loss of those two bags sets us back about $2,000. Plus now we don't have those bags to hold our not-stolen stuff this trip!

Three White men who chased and murdered 25-year-old Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in south Georgia were sentenced to life in prison today. Two have no chance of parole. The third, a 52-year-old, will be eligible for parole under Georgia law only after serving a minimum of 30 years. Example news coverage: CNN.com article 7 Jan 2022, Yahoo! News article 7 Jan 2022, New York Times article 7 Jan 2022.

Ahmaud Arbery was killed on the afternoon of February 20, 2020. The convicted men spotted Arbery jogging in a residential neighborhood near his home, determined— with zero evidence— that he was a suspect in recent area robberies, and chased him for 5 minutes with their pickup trucks. Once they proceeded to block him in, the three men closed on him, at least one leveling a shotgun at him while another recorded cellphone video. A fight ensued, and the man with the shotgun shot Arbery 3 times at close range.

Swept Under the Rug

This murder was originally swept under the rug. Police arrived at the scene and quickly made a determination that the men who chased Arbery and pointed a gun at him were acting in self defense. Nobody was arrested. Two district attorneys chose not to prosecute. Justice might never have been served... until 73 days later one of the perpetrators posted his cellphone video of the murder on social media, boasting about it. This caused an outrage among members of the community— and across the state and nationwide. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia's Attorney General, and the FBI were called upon to investigate.

As an aside, this is one of the critical ways that racial injustice is perpetrated. Not only are Black people convicted more often when brought to trial than Whites, and not only are they given harsher sentences when convicted, but they are also charged more often in circumstances where police and prosecutors use their discretion not to arrest or prosecute White suspects.

Aside #2: In case it's not obvious, this was a modern day lynching. White men decided a Black man in their neighborhood was a crime suspect. Even though they called 911 to report him, and even though he had committed no actual crime they witnessed, they decided to chase him down and threaten him with guns. When he acted to defend his life, they killed him. Then, of course, the chummy local authorities let them go.

Justice Delayed but not Denied (So Far...)

This is a case where justice may have been delayed but has ultimately not been denied.... so far. The judge who sentenced the men today made the courtroom sit in silence for one minute before reading their sentencing to put "into context" how long they chased Arbery.

Judge Timothy Walmsley told the courtroom on Friday that he was going to "sit quietly for one minute and that one minute represents a fraction of the [5 minutes] that Ahmaud Arbery was running" away. Example news coverage: Yahoo! News article, 7 Jan 2022.

Note how I do add the caution "so far" to justice having been delivered here. That's because the convicted men have avenues of appeal. Though there's no visible mistake in their trial, they are of course able to challenge it from multiple directions, and quite possibly the same racism embedded in the system that shrugged off their actions as "Seems legit" the first time will support them again on appeal. But it's also possible that they'll be convicted of more charges, as federal civil rights cases are pending against them.

A few other positive changes have come out of this case. The first district attorney who passed on charging the men, and who allegedly told the police not even to arrest them, has been charged with one felony count of violating the oath of a public officer. Days after the shooting the police chief was indicted on charges of coverup for unrelated incidents. Voters subsequently voted out the district attorney and elected new county commissioners who replaced the police chief. Finally, the Georgia legislature passed a bill, which was signed by the governor, repealing the law allowing Citizen's Arrest— a holdover law from the Civil War era used as a common pretext for lynchings, which these murderers asserted, falsely, in their defense.