The Sad Constant

I've just begun standing-on-my head lessons. I need lessons because as a child, I was even more hopeless at gymnastics than I was at traditional sports. Thankfully, this period of my life pre-dated popular use of the word “spazz”.

So, yeah. Lessons.

My instructor is a nicely-muscled Oriental woman named Lexi, who prefers to be called Flexi. I know, I know. Her choice, right? Anyway, she's adept at contorting her body into all sorts of unnatural poses. For her, inverting the carbon-based life form's upright posture is as easy as spending money.

Me? I may as well be attempting to nail pudding to a wall.

So. You may well be asking yourself why does he even want to stand on his head? Especially at his age!

I seek this to better understand the rapidly-shifting world around me. You see, in my eyes the world is off its nut, and the best strategy towards understanding this new normal is to invert my own.

Capisce?

Take our new litmus test: police shootings. Like the conflicts they stem from, they happen all over, all the time.

This being 2021 America, 49.5% of the population feels they are entirely justified, all the time. The other 49.5% of the population believes they are wanton acts of race-based brutality and are never, ever justified.

Which leaves me and a few others in the one-percent who feel police shooting don't fit into one-size-fits-all categorization. That they originate from a hugely diverse set of circumstances and are subject to an ocean of factors that by their nature, often demand lightning-like responses.

Before going any further, I want to say I think it is a good thing we are examining them so closely. The taking of a human life, especially by an entity ostensibly there to protect them, isn't anything to take lightly.

In Chicago, we have the shooting of a thirteen year-old gang-banger caught in the act of, well, gang-banging. While I rue the influences and choices that led Adam Toledo to be firing at cars at 2:30 AM on a Monday morning, I can't quite bring myself to feel this is an unspeakable loss of human life.

The media has taken a millisecond of film in between Toledo's covert disposal of his gun and his turning to face the pursuing officer with hands raised and the officer's firing of his gun and turned it into a poster of police brutality and murder. A moment frozen for all of eternity.

For the one-percent of us still in possession of our faculties, we understand that given the conditions of the event, there was no way the officer could have known Toledo had disposed of the gun and was in the act of complying before he was shot.

This because we are talking about a tiny, infinitesimal fragment of time. And let's not forget, Toledo was an active, legitimate threat to public (that's you and me) safety.

But to 49.5% of the population, the officer may as well have blindfolded Toledo, tied him to a post, popped a cigarette in his mouth and shouted “Fire!” before dispatching the entirety of CPD's arsenal into his body.

If you say so.

Then we have the sixteen year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio, Ma'Khia Bryant.

Bryant, for unknown reasons, ended up a foster child. Despite this speed bump, she was liked and made her high school's honor roll. She posted videos about make-up and hair which were widely shared.

None of which explains how she ended up with a knife in her hands attempting to stab two co-residents of her foster home after an argument over house-cleaning. But she was. And did. The confrontation continued even after police showed up.

Again, my apologies for not belonging to either of the majority populations. But um, Bryant was in the act of murder. She was actively stabbing another person. Again, even after the police showed up. She showed no signs of abating.

Naturally, after the event ended bystanders (who, it should be pointed out, had done virtually nothing to sidetrack or end the confrontation) turned on the police. One of those assembled said “She's a (expletive) kid. Damn, are you stupid?”

Hmmm. Let's look at that real hard.

Granted the officer, after showing up, should have paused the confrontation long enough to make proper introductions and confirm the participant's ages. Then refreshments should have been served before the festivities were allowed to continue.

But the stupid cop, acting as stupid cops do, came upon what I'll call an active stabber. Bryant was in the act of stabbing someone, and after pushing them to the ground turned on another bystander and began assaulting them.

Bryant repeatedly ignored the cop's requests to cease and desist. She had a knife and was bent on using it.

Sadly, the thought-impaired bystander didn't offer an opinion as to what kind of response he would have preferred had Bryant been attacking him when the cop showed up. I'm going to take a crazy-ass, out of left field swing at this, but I'm guessing he wouldn't have wanted the cop to have first inquired as to Bryant's age before subduing her.

Am I right, bro?

Apparently, 49.5% of the population needs to hear this: a gun and a knife are dangerous, regardless of the age of the person wielding them. In fact, as Adolph Hitler himself learned through his infamous recruiting of the Hitler Youth, they are even more dangerous in the hands of someone given to black and white thinking.

Someone without a fully-developed sense of reason and consequence.

Predictably, the reaction to Bryant's death has been hysterical and extreme. Blind. Wildly inaccurate. She is innocent by virtue of her age—and nothing more. Her survivor's predictably rosy portrayals nonwithstanding, who was Ma'Khia Bryant? How did she end up in foster care? Why was a knife an acceptable response to an argument?

I pull back even further when I read the suggestions of Sheila Bedi (a civil right attorney) on how the Toledo foot chase should have unfolded. Her thought? The chase should have been abandoned. Yep. In essence, Toledo should have gone free since he is a victim of quote-unquote “society.”

Uh-huh. (It goes without saying that Bedi's was not one of the cars Toledo and his pal were shooting at that night.)

Jason Van Dyke and Derek Chauvin were clearly guilty of murder. The former should be serving a prison sentence commensurate with his crime. Hopefully, the latter will be.

But the cops who responded to the calls regarding Toledo and Bryant? Nope. By virtue of their profession, they were dropped into situations demanding immediate responses. I am confident neither is going to look back on their participation with the slightest sense of satisfaction.

Indeed, they will more-likely be haunted by them.

Can we simply mourn the tragedy of kids with no emotional center, be it a loving family or a strong parent or a true and good friend? Can we do that without shredding the people forced to respond to the worst in them?

Putting police into a position where they're all-guilty-all-the-time is as dangerous as anything a Republican could concoct. So is cloaking them in law enforcement's version of diplomatic immunity.

Police shootings need to be examined on an individual basis—not stuffed into all-or-nothing decisions that only serve a single—and highly politicized—demographic.

Oops! Gotta go. Lexi—I mean Flexi's—here. 

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

Minneapolis: the Un-Chicago

 Five and-a-half years ago, I watched in disbelief the video of Laquan McDonald's murder at the hands of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Given the obviousness of the event, I assumed a conviction and a long jail sentence were forgone conclusions.

What I failed to remember was that this was Chicago, where the fix is always in. While it's true that Van Dyke was convicted, he received a slap-on-the-wrist sentence of just six and three-quarters years for shooting McDonald sixteen times in the back.

(Which I think you'll agree is what you and I would have received had we done the same.)

Even more stunning was the dismissal of all charges by judge Domenica Stephenson for the four cops central to the police-sanctioned cover-up. Combined, these cases represented an abyssal failure of justice, and if Chicago cops didn't feel immune from prosecution beforehand they certainly did afterwards.

So I am relieved that Minneapolis was able to conduct a trial unblemished by political influence and pandering.

Of course, it helps that the circumstances were very different. McDonald's murder came late on a Monday night on an empty stretch of Pulsaki Road. Floyd's came mid-afternoon in a neighborhood populated with stores—and shoppers

While the Chicago police sat on the McDonald footage until a court order forced its release, that was never an option for the Minneapolis PD. Cell phone video was posted to social media within minutes.

And finally, the defense's argument that Floyd's medical conditions killed him—not Derek Chauvin's knee pressing on his neck for nine minutes—was ludicrous. Seriously? Turned inside-out, that argument implies George Floyd would have died that day even had he not encountered Derek Chauvin.

Wow.

They must've thought they were addressing a CPAC convention, because I can't imagine another forum where such lunacy would be given a second thought. Never mind a first one.

The mind reels.

So congratulations to all concerned. Again, it is deeply satisfying to see reason and evidence triumph over political expediency.

With so much yet to be done, I fear this post is premature. Chauvin has yet to be sentenced (as a first-time offender with only a second-degree murder conviction, he's probably looking at a little over a decade in prison) and the trial of his accomplices won't happen until August.

As a hard-bitten cynic I'd say plenty of track remains for this train to go off the rails. 

But it is my desperate wish that communities of color and the police departments who serve them could meet, speak honestly and discover a mutual sense of respect and understanding. Of when police need to do certain things and why, and perhaps even discover a better way forward.

 

Convergence

A population driven mad by months of relentless anxiety. Isolation. Job loss. Rumor. Fear. Divisiveness.

A cop.

And a black man passing counterfeit bills.

It shouldn't have gone this far. But it did.

I am aware that black people do not trust law enforcement to the degree that white people do. And yet, I find myself still needing to ask this question: why do so many black men and women resist police? Why do so many fight law enforcement every step of the way in each and every encounter?

Has no one ever told you that when you come across an agitated dog the worst thing you can do is run? That this is only excites the dog's chase instinct and increases the likelihood that you will know what it's like to have a portion of your anatomy inside a dog's mouth?

I often wonder if there's a cause-and-effect problem at work here. Do black people resist because they fear the worst in any encounter with police? Or do cops get tough with blacks because they resist so frequently?

I have had encounters with police, too. And let me make this clear: I don't harbor unconditional love for law enforcement. They are a necessary evil. But if you're smart, you chill. You put a lid on it. You clench. 

Believe it or not, you're in control. You can either agitate the police or you can de-escalate the situation.

For all police know, you're Crazy Luther. And you've murdered seventeen people and cooked 'em over a spit by the railroad tracks.

Show them your ID. Tell them what you're doing in this part of town. Again, chill. The cops are only doing their job. You want to sleep in your own bed tonight, right?

Of course, if you are Crazy Luther, you won't see this as the best way forward. And your actions will scream “Guilty!” to the police. They will react in kind.

The snippets of video I've seen indicate that prior to being put on the pavement, George Floyd was combative. He provoked law enforcement's chase reflex to find, subdue and arrest the bad guy.

Before you nominate me for an honorary membership in the Klu Klux Klan, let me continue.

Derek Chauvin was a cop. And like the rest of us, he was probably feeling pretty pent-up himself.

We Americans react very poorly when we are told we can't do something. It is (or was) Derek Chauvin's job to keep us on the straight and narrow.

As a cop, he is lied to regularly. Every person he detains is innocent. Every person he restrains can't breathe.

George Floyd was just another belligerent black guy trying to manipulate him and the circumstances of his detention. What reason did Chauvin have to believe that Floyd truly couldn't breathe after hearing “Wolf!” so very many times before?

Chauvin's fatal error was in not realizing that Floyd couldn't breathe. That Floyd's pleas were genuine. The hardened cop kept his knee on Floyd's neck for upwards of eight minutes. Deprived of oxygen, Floyd died.

We have here the intersection of massive stereotyping. Prejudice. Floyd's assumption that as a black man he would only receive the worst from police and not be given the slightest opportunity to prove otherwise.

And Chauvin's assumption that Floyd was lying. And that since he continued to resist, he required severe tactics meant to lock-down his detention.

It is a book of sorrow.

Stir in an agitated population rife with cabin fever and anxiety and looking for something, anything to take the edge off and along comes a made-to-order disaster.

Yes, the death of George Floyd was cause for a civil rights demonstration.

And it worked. All involved have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department. The lead culprit has been arrested and is facing second-degree murder charges. Let's hope the ensuing trial doesn't turn into the farce a similar trial did here in Chicago.

Okay. So the object of your derision is in jail. You got what you wanted. Go home.

But you couldn't. And didn't.

Too often, a demonstration is an excuse to burn stuff and break windows. And if the broken window happens to be at a department store, that entitles you to a free pasta maker. Or sheets. Or a case of giardiniera.

Whatever you can get your hands on.

I used to work in downtown Chicago. And I happened to be returning to work after lunch when the news broke that Harold Washington (Chicago's first black mayor) had died.

Let me add he wasn't hung from a tree by guys in white robes. The cause of death was a heart attack.

Nevertheless, a small-scale riot broke out. Windows were smashed. Cars were stopped. Windows and sheet metal were banged on. A liquor store's windows were shattered. Bottles were snatched.

I watched in disbelief.

This wasn't an expression of grief. It was an excuse to act like a shit and get free stuff.

So I find myself in the awkward position of kinda sorta agreeing with (gulp) Donald Trump's tweet. Demonstrating doesn't mean complimentary consumer goods. Ever. I feel no empathy for those exploiting this event to burn and loot.

But whatever our view of Trump, we are a nation riled-up by him. He thrives on that. Distraction. Sleights of hand. Provocation. Feints. Loud voices. Anger. Chaos.

It is what he does best.

Ensconced in the hot house bubble of a pandemic, we are even more susceptible to him. And while we're screaming at each other, Trump wants to forbid the government from issuing economic reports until after the election. He is issuing executive orders prohibiting social media from fact-checking him.

“We're here today to defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history” he said last week without a trace of irony. Even as he demands his lies go unchecked and his failures as a president stay hidden and unreported.

Toxicity has never been so transparent.

If you're white, you need to acknowledge something: if America weren't a sexist and racist nation, Donald Trump would not be president. He....this....is the price of our hatred. Our prejudice.

We are a nation in desperate need of healing. Two groups of extremists who need to back away from the edges.

But how do we do this? Where do we begin?

Maturing would be a good start. You know, acting like grown-ups. Adulting. Realizing that the definition of 'tyranny' so many of us are throwing around is the equivalent of a tween calling his parents 'fascists' after their smartphone privileges have been revoked for a weekend.

Oh that we should ever know real, honest-to-God tyranny.

It's easy to hate people you don't know. It's even easier to reduce them to one-dimensional caricatures. Like I do with conservatives and folks who belong to the NRA.

Which is why I advocate for leaving our hyper-demographic social media bubbles. Engaging with whomever we define as the enemy. Get to know them. And find another way forward.

Because this isn't working. In fact, it will likely destroy us.

Not Quite Breakfast at Tiffany's

Dear Tiffany Van Dyke,

Your husband murdered—in cold blood—a confused, aggravated but ultimately harmless young man by shooting him sixteen times as he walked away from your spouse.

Realizing the potential fallout of his actions, your husband's employer buried any and all evidence of the event. His co-workers concocted a lie and submitted it in writing to the Chicago Police Department as fact.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel aided in the cover-up, knowing the dash-cam video was inflammatory and would unite opponents of an overly-aggressive police department. Closer to home, this would also have a negative effect on his bid for re-election.

All was well until the court-ordered release of the video thirteen months after the fact.

It was as inflammatory as your husband, his co-workers and his employer feared. The murder was as brutal as it was senseless.

Even uglier were the lies your husband, his lawyer and his co-workers persisted in. They gave the city and the Chicago Police Department a black eye neither could afford, cementing in the public imagination the idea that our law enforcement feels itself above the very law it was created to enforce.

Your husband's flimsy and preposterous arguments thankfully gave way to justice when he was found guilty of second-degree murder. For a brief, shimmering moment, right appeared to have triumphed over wrong.

At sentencing, your mate dodged yet-another bullet (please excuse the pun) when he inexplicably was handed a sentence more appropriate for car theft. It was a slap in the face to anyone who has ever been a victim of the Chicago Police Department and its over-zealousness.

Yes, the family name has been besmirched. Yes, your husband is temporarily out of a job. But knowing the intransigence of his supporters, I am confident he will have an offer waiting when he walks in just three short years.

Conversely, his victim will be dead forever.

I was hoping we had heard the last of your husband. And of his hideous crime. That we could flush this from our system and move on.

But after being transferred to an out-of-state prison, your spouse was roughed-up by some of his fellow inmates, which unfortunately isn't an uncommon occurrence in jail.

You had the temerity to wail in front of a media assemblage that “...the number-one fear for my husband has always been his safety, that someone was going to get him and hurt him and the worst has happened.”

Interesting words, indeed. 

Has it occurred to you or those mercenaries you have on retainer that Laquan McDonald and his loved ones could have said the same? That you have unwittingly expressed the very thoughts that have been on their minds for the last four and-a-half years?

And if it has, what are your thoughts? What is your reaction?

Tiffany, not to belabor the point, but your husband is a very lucky man. He is serving a soft sentence in a minimum-security prison for a crime that would have netted you or I or practically anyone else a lifetime behind bars.

Please. No more press conferences.

Kindly go away, will you? 


Sincerely,

La Piazza Gancio 

...Two Steps Back

It felt like progress last October when former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder. An indictment of an out-of-control police officer is about as rare as World Series celebrations. They just don't happen much.

But in Domenica Stephenson's sweeping, across-the-board exoneration of his three co-conspirators and Van Dyke's own slap-on-the-wrist sentence, that conviction now seems like an aberration. In just three short months it seems like a relic from a different time.

A second-degree murder charge with a six and three-quarters year sentence? Seriously? Van Dyke discharging his weapon sixteen times into Laquan McDonald wasn't manslaughter—it was murder.

And yet in Judge Vincent Gaughan's twisted logic, what will likely boil down to just three years behind bars is somehow appropriate. 

And if not seething disdain for anyone who dares challenge a cop in court, it is impossible to justify or understand Stephenson's ruling. Its abject dismissal of the prosecution's evidence was more appropriate for a Soviet-era court. Or one in Salvador Allende's Chile.

Combined with Gaughan's, they send an ominous message to the citizens of Chicago. They give carte blanche to an organization that has earned its reputation for being something less than ethical and above board.

Excuse my misanthropic streak, but no individual, organization or political entity should ever possess unlimited power. Or immunity. Truth is, we can't handle it.

Van Dyke's actions weren't conducted in a heat-of-the-moment, life-and-death exchange of gunfire in a shadowy gangway. They were the deliberate result of an irresponsible cop squeezing off sixteen shots on a spacious, well-lighted street as McDonald walked away from him.

They were as purposeful and deliberate as David March, Thomas Gaffney and Joseph Walsh's falsification of the events and circumstances surrounding that night.

Chicago can't afford another black eye. Already plagued with a reputation for political corruption and wanton gun violence, these rulings do little to alleviate either.

Van Dyke murdered. March, Gaffney and Walsh lied. Letting them off scot-free only deepens the perception that something ain't quite right in the City of Chicago.

In the chilling words of the ex-cop quoted in Mary Schmich's Chicago Tribune column yesterday, “People get the police that they seek, and God help the city of Chicago.” As it apparently needs to be pointed out, no one sought Jon Burge. No one sought Anthony Abbate. No one sought Patrick Kelly.

No one sought Jason Van Dyke. Or David March. Or Thomas Gaffney. Or Joseph Walsh.

No one in their right minds would. And yet we got them.

Chicago needs a better police force. Not a court-protected one.

One Step Forward...

I was heartened when Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago cop who unloaded sixteen shots into a young African-American man, was found guilty of second-degree murder.

Worse than the shooting itself was the reaction by the Chicago Police Department. Their first response was to cover it up. Bury the video. Concoct a cover story. Lie on the reports.

This. Didn't. Happen.

Never mind that one of the most incriminating pieces of evidence in a criminal trial is whether an offender attempts to cover up their crime, thereby indicating an awareness of right and wrong.

By virtue of a concerted effort to misrepresent what happened on South Pulaski on October 20, 2014, the Chicago Police Department clearly knew they had overstepped their boundaries. That they had, for lack of a better word, fucked up.

And they almost succeeded.

It took a lawsuit to get the dash cam video released. And when it was, it was as damming and as incriminating as the CPD had feared. There was Jason Van Dyke, a.k.a. John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dwayne Johnson all rolled into one, pumping sixteen shots into a confused and at-loose-ends black kid walking away from him.

But Van Dyke and his fellow officers maintained that McDonald had turned on them and wielded the knife in a threatening manner.

There was just one problem. The video somehow missed that.

Circling the wagons, they resolutely persisted in their lie. Despite filing reports that contradicted everything portrayed in the video, Detective David March and officers Thomas Gaffney and Joseph Walsh were exonerated yesterday by Judge Domenica Stephenson.

She argued that the angle of the video was such that it made it impossible to determine what officers at the scene saw. (Which must be the reason Van Dyke is facing a prison sentence and the wearing of body cams by police officers is being mandated across the nation.)

In her ruling, Judge Stephenson unequivocally backed every single action taken by the Chicago Police Department that day, including (one has to assume) the doctored reports filed by its officers. She stated the cops at the scene had every reason to believe an attack was imminent and that deadly force was warranted.

Judge Stephenson, let me ask you: when was the last time you considered a person walking away from you a threat?

This isn't a ruling based on the case at hand. This is judicial editorializing. This is an opinion piece. Domenica Stephenson is outraged by the prospect of Jason Van Dyke in prison and to even things up has cleared his guilty-as-hell co-workers of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Wow.

I'm not anti-cop. They are an unfortunate necessity in a society where people frequently act with something less than kind regard for their fellow human beings.What I am against is the abuse of authority. Be it a CEO, a president or a cop. 

In fact, little else makes me as angry.

Which is why I find Judge Stephenson's decision so infuriating. These cops lied—plain and simple. It's in writing. Gaffney, March and Walsh lied to protect a co-worker who was way out of bounds. I don't care what the FOP's whore says. March, Gaffney and Walsh counted on the time-honored code of silence to save their asses.

Thanks to Judge Stephenson, they needn't have worried.

Tell you what. The next time you're ticketed by a red-light camera, go to traffic court and cite the March/Gaffney/Walsh defense. That the camera isn't an accurate depiction of events as seen by you.

Baliffs and lawyers and judges need a good laugh, too.

And if you're an African-American living on the south or west sides of the city, I don't blame you at all for feeling the fix is in. That the police frequently have a little extra law on their side.

In light of this ruling, it will be very interesting to see what kind of sentence is handed to Van Dyke today.

Stay tuned.

Happy to Be Wrong

Several months ago, I expressed doubt that Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who shot an eighteen year-old African-American male sixteen times in the back, would ever see the inside of a prison cell.

Given the numbing regularity that cops are exonerated in such cases, I had little reason to think otherwise. But justice prevailed, and Van Dyke was found guilty yesterday of second-degree murder and sixteen counts of aggravated battery—a count for each bullet.

This isn't a celebration. Perhaps 'relieved' would have been a better word choice for the title of this post. I wonder if Van Dyke had it to do over again, would he have reacted differently? He has to know that as a former cop in prison, his life will be very difficult. I pity him.

Yet it has become a cliche to say cops have tough jobs. We all know that. As officers of the peace, their job is to de-escalate situations, not escalate them.

And the behavior exhibited by the responding officers, from Van Dyke's over-reaction to the conspiracy of the cover up to the stream of lies about what transpired on Pulaski Road that night doesn't speak well of the Chicago Police Department.

To be sure, Laquan McDonald was a troubled young man with only a faint sense of direction and purpose. He is another victim of the most hideous incubator of young lives the United States can offer—the ghetto.

But that is not in and of itself a crime.

As is the nature of things, we don't hear about the school bus that safely delivered two dozen schoolchildren to their homes. Or the construction crew that successfully secured dozens of support beams to the framework of a sixty-story high-rise.

Or of the cops who routinely arrest the bad guys while safeguarding the good ones.

But like surgery, when police work goes wrong it is often fatal.

Consider the cost of this event. A young man dead. A cop's life destroyed. Families left with a giant hole at their center. Police who must routinely confront the worst our society has to offer left with a chip on their shoulder.

The best we can hope for is that this proves to be a watershed moment. One that shines a light on the ocean of men in our ghettos who have little to live for, and the effectiveness of the police who encounter them every day.

Hit and Run

So. Daniel Herbert, the defense lawyer for Jason Van Dyke, has filed a motion requesting a change of venue, fearing that public comments by elected officials amount to “the public execution of Jason Van Dyke.”

Funny, but I thought the sixteen shells Van Dyke pumped into Laquan McDonald's back as McDonald was walking away from him was the public execution at issue here.

And with a pro-cop judge (Vincent Gaughan) overseeing the pre-trial preparation who has already set several legal precedents insofar as keeping potentially damaging testimony and evidence from the public record, what's with all the talk about a fair trial?

That's a joke. Right? Do you really believe Jason Van Dyke is going to see the inside of a jail cell? 

Really?

The Republican-dominated Supreme Court just gifted public-sector union members with something for nothing. Thanks to their decision, union members can now enjoy the fruits of union representation free of charge.

Wow. When was the last time Republicans did anything for the working man?

Predictably, there's a big, giant string attached. What looks to be a gift is actually a harakiri sword. Because by opting out of paying dues, what do you think will happen to the union?

That's right. It will bleed to death. Short-sighted union members can now slit their own throats by opting out of union dues. And without union dues, the Democratic party loses a major source of funding. 

Combined with the Citizens United decision, the supposedly impartial Supreme Court will have effectively crippled the Democratic Party, clearing the way for unopposed Republican rule.

Aside from seeing how badly Republicans will cock everything up (remember: they're better at acquiring power than wielding it), what I want to know is this: If public-sector union members can opt-out of paying dues when the organization representing them offends their political sensibilities, can I likewise opt-out of paying federal income taxes when the sitting administration offends my political sensibilities?

I didn't think so.

Ed Schultz was a born-again Democrat. Immersed from birth in Republican hooey, he not only saw the error of his ways but possessed the strength to publicly acknowledge them and moved to serve the greater good by becoming a Democrat in 2000.

As a powerful and passionate speaker, he was able to communicate his new party's ideals, which make Democrats the strongest and best upholders of the convictions that birthed this country. His plain-spoken manner especially resonated with the inhabitants of the Great Plains, traditionally a Republican stronghold.

Sadly, Mr. Schultz died early this morning of natural causes in Washington D.C.

Rest in peace, Sir.

Finally, I have never used this blog to shill for money. I have made no attempt to monetize The Square Peg. Ever.

But there's a temporary change afoot. On June 24^th, I read a powerful article in the Chicago Tribune by Anne Kim about a dentist working in rural West Virginia. A dentist committed to serving instead of inflating her net worth.

In the Age of Trump, that struck me as profound. It left me wanting to help.

In appreciation of her selflessness, I would like to raise a thousand dollars, money that could help sustain her practice and/or herself.

If you're of a mind to, please visit the GoFundMe page I created at http://gofundme.com/helping-a-dentist-with-a-heart. If the mood strikes, please donate what you can.

Thank you.