Public Art Problems

What do you see when you look at this image? The muralist, Beau Stanton, who painted it on a building owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District meant you to see a representation of screen legend Ava Gardner and some details evoking one of her haunts, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Others see different things.

Among them is  Chan Yong “Jake” Jeong, a local attorney and president of the Wilshire Community Coalition,  who sent a letter to the school district that resulted in Roberto Martinez, the senior school district administrator for the area, ordering the application of whitewash to obscure forever the mural. Jeong's objection to it was its supposed resemblance to the Japanese battle flag of WWII.

WWII Japanese flag.Hard to tell the difference.

 

Arizona state flag.

Silly as this is, it's spawned some retaliation. Artist Shepard Fairey had painted a likeness of Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated at the site before it was acquired by the school district. He insisted that he would remove his own work if Stanton's was painted over.

 

That threat was sufficient to restore sanity. The mural stays.

Actually, Ava Gardner probably had a bigger influence on America than Robert Kennedy did. 

Nazi Salutes In Important Places.

In November there was a national brouhaha over a photograph taken of a group of Wisconsin high schoolers that seemed to show them giving a "Nazi salute". This was discovered by someone with more time on his hands than sense, distributed over social media, and then taken up by a commercial media desperate for attention.

 

We know that Nazis aren't only found in Baraboo, Wisconsin. They can be found all over the US.



Here we see Nazi storm troopers saluting a leader in a secret location somewhere near the nation's capital.

Maria Butina Guilty! Country Saved!

Maria Butina, Russian spy in disguise as a South Dakota cowgirl.

After spending almost half a year in solitary confinement Siberian yuppie networker Maria Butina has given up and pled guilty to something or other in a federal action that could see her spend some more time incarcerated and eventual deportation back to Vladimir Putin's hell on earth. As with all those targeted by the federal judicial apparatus, the modern-day Mata Hari faced an opponent with unlimited funding which she and her possible allies could never hope to match. Federal prosecutions have a conviction rate in the neighborhood of 99%, mostly through plea deals. The defense always runs out of money. Not for food or cable access but for payoffs to lawyers.

The point is that Americans should be very happy that Uncle Sam, who had the lass under surveillance as soon as she entered the country, has managed to corral her and prevent the fall of the Empire of Democracy to the Russian horde. The reality is that she didn't have any more access to important information than that available to any average American or perhaps anybody else with an internet connection anywhere in the world. Her real crime, if it can be called that, was circulating around and schmoozing with people, a definite threat to democracy.

In any civilized society strangers are the recipients of hospitality, not suspicion and fear. Americans denigrate tribalists but few "primitives" would lock up a young woman by herself in a cell for half a year just because she was a stranger. 

At least Maria won't be able to shoot her big gun at any loyal Americans. Sure, it seems to indicate that the US might be more fragile than commonly thought if the activities of this babe are such an existential threat. But why take any chances?

And what about her South Dakota friend? Russians are expected to be bad guys but heart of America product Paul Erickson? That's a little tough to take. He's yet to be indicted, however.

 

Do You Want To Be A Prison Guard?

Minnesota State Rep. Jack Considine, DFL-Mankato,plans to introduce legislation in the upcoming legislative session that would expand the number of state corrections officers by 328 individuals.This is the result of the death of Joseph Gomm, a guard at Oak Park Heights prison, last July 18, allegedly killed by an inmate. Gomm was the first corrections department employee to be killed in the line of duty.

Considine's proposed bill is the result of a study made by corrections officials and union bosses at the various facilities. It would be nice if other organizations and businesses could have their staffing determined by union leadership but perhaps the incarceration industry works differently.

If you're interested in the rewarding profession of prison guard you might want to take a look at the requirements and benefits of such a position. Starting wage at the Pre-service Academy is $16.11/hr but rises as far as $28.23 if you stick around for awhile.

An 18-year old with a GED, driver's license and two years of part-time work in any industry for 20 hours per week describes the minimum eligibility for employment. Applicants with a bachelor's degree in any field are also considered. If they are still in arrears on their student loans they  may qualify to receive student loan forgiveness under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

The rewards and prestige of a position in the Minnesota prison system and the expansion of its work force makes one wonder if there shouldn't actually be high school courses in the field. After all, for years there were classes in industrial arts and secretarial subjects. If indeed, working as a prison guard is where it's at, lets train/educate the next generation of corrections officers.

Bad Guns

This is the FN America FNS-40 pistol, manufactured by FN America in McLean, Virginia. It's a common firearm in use by law enforcement in the US and the US military. A number of incidents have occurred that bring its reliability into question. Thus 2000 of the pistols used in Baltimore County, Maryland will be replaced by new Atlantic Tactical  Glock 17 Gen5 pistols.


The FN-40 had a magazine capacity of 10 or 14 rounds, its replacement 17+1.

New Fish Torture Record

On October 29 a northern pike caught in May that measured 45 1/4 in length was certified as the largest of its species caught and released in Minnesota.
 
The big fish was caught, tortured and then released on the Rainy River, a part of the US border with Canada, according to this story. The aquatic predator remains alive so a continued diet of minnows, ducklings and muskrats is likely to allow it to grow even longer and some wily future fisherman will be able to catch it. The very same fish could conceivably eclipse itself in the state record books.

While technology has had a major effect on some aspects of outdoor sports, notably fishing, with its electronic depth finders and sonar, oddly the same has yet to occur in large and small game hunting.

Unlike fishermen, hunters can't successfully release their quarry alive after bagging and measuring them. A 65 inch bull moose must be dead to be authenticated by the Boone and Crockett Club. Hopefully, the same science that has brought us Grand Theft Auto and Facebook will soon develop equipment and techniques that will enable sportsmen to terrify deer, rabbits, ducks and turkeys yet not damage them extensively. Released, they will serve as quarry for other outdoorsmen.  

Tamara de Lempicka's "The Musician" Auctioned For $9,087,500

   Tamara de Lempicka's 1929 painting  La Musicienne was auctioned off at Christie's for $9.09 million on the evening of Nov. 11, a new auction world record for the artist.

The work was  stolen from the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art in Spanbroek, North Holland, 1 May 2009, along with a painting by Salvador Dali, in an audacious day-time armed robbery. Shortly after the theft the remaining paintings in the museum were seized by ABN Amro when Scheringa's DSB bank failed.

by ABN Amro when Scheringa’s DSB bank went bankrupt in November

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

by ABN Amro when Scheringa’s DSB bank went bankrupt in November

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

Missing for seven years the pieces were recovered in 2016 by art detective Arthur Brand. Art theft has become a focus for European and perhaps Chinese organized crime. Authorities speculate that valuable art objects might have become a medium of exchange in the criminal underworld, since it's difficult to sell them for cash.

The work of de Lempicka, who died in 1980 in Mexico after spending the last years of her life in Houston, Texas, is a favorite of entertainment glitterati. Jack Nicholson and Madonna are known to be collectors.

 

Mystery White House Intern

In the generally teapot tempest that is the White House press room self-aggrandizing pseudo-journalist Jim Acosta attempted to keep control of a microphone that was being demanded by an unnamed "White House intern" who had apparently been ordered to confiscate it.

There are some questions here that need to be asked. Numero uno, of course, is who is this "White House intern"? What's her life story? Does she have a history of snatching microphones from passive journalists bent on informing the populace of the nefarious activities of the Trump regime? Is she the daughter or wife of a significant figure in US government, politics or business? In the incestuous world of DC, is she the wife or steady of a media operative? What Greek letter sorority at which one of the Seven Sisters claims her as an alumnus? Where did she buy her dress and how much did it cost? Who is she?

Second, what's the chain of command in the White House press room for a microphone confiscation? Who gives the order and what type of situation demands it? What would have been the outcome if the unknown intern had failed in her mission?

Third, why do reporters even need a microphone to ask a question in the press briefing room? Perhaps you might say that possession of the microphone is just a signal that the possessor has the exclusive right to speak. After all, it's not an auditorium. Speakers can be heard from one end to the other without shouting. Or that the questions are being recorded for posterity, as if that microphone was the only one in the room.

Acosta's activities in the press room have been a subject for press coverage since the current president assumed office. During briefings the room is filled with media figures yet an ordinary citizen receives the impression that Acosta has an opportunity to engage more often with administration figures than anyone else. Why might this be? Are the other journalists willing to give up their opportunity to question the powers-that-be in order to observe Acosta's routine? Do administration representatives call on Acosta knowing that there will be an interesting confrontation? Is Acosta a symbiotic partner with the Trump media manipulation machine? How much time, as a percentage of press questioning, did Acosta receive, as opposed to other journalists?

The White House hasn't banned CNN from the press room, only Jim Acosta. It's hard to believe that a national media organization doesn't have a qualified replacement for this prima donna. Isn't there someone waiting in the wings that is at least as capable as he was? If the administration digs in its heels, who is most likely to replace him? Even more interesting, the press has made itself the center of a story. 

The answers to these questions are exactly what the press is supposed to supply to its reader and viewership. They're supposed to come across with the who, what, when, where and why. Eventually, perhaps, some British tabloid  will spill the beans. The US media doesn't seem to have the capability.

The ultimate question is: Why don't we already know all these things?

 

The White House intern class of spring 2018. Which one is her? By the way, the interns are unpaid.

Univ of Minnesota Women's Basketball

At 3 PM on Dec. 2, 2018 the University of Minnesota women's basketball team will play the US Air Force Academy women's team at Williams Arena on the Minneapolis campus. The Gopher ladies are a dozen of the almost 19,000 females in the student body. Only one of the team members is from the land of 10,000 lakes. 

On the other hand, the US Air Force Academy, which has about 1100 female cadets, has a roster of 20 players, two of whom are Minnesota residents.

Fuel For the Marxist Furnace

Per Barrons:


David Hockney’s masterpiece, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972, estimated at $80 million, then headlines Christie’s contemporary evening auction on Thursday, Nov. 15. If the 7-foot-by-10-foot painting by Hockney achieves its estimated value, it will be the highest price paid for a work by a living artist, Christie’s says.

“This is really one of the greatest works of the last 40 years,” says Evan Beard, national art services executive at U.S. Trust, the private bank unit of Bank of America. “It's one of the unique paintings that's become a celebrity in its own right.”

Postscript: The Hockney painting was sold for $90.3 million, a new record for a living artist. Keep in mind that Hockney himself didn't receive this sum. The work was owned and sold by British billionaire Joe Lewis.

Civil Asset Forfeiture

CBS News:

"Civil asset forfeiture is a key tool that helps law enforcement help defund organized crime, prevents new crime from committed and weakens the criminals and cartels," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Wednesday announcing the revived DOJ policy.
Sessions said these seizures help weaken criminal organizations by taking away their funding, returning property back to victims of crime, as well as give funds back to law enforcement officials by allocating the assets toward new vehicles, vests and police training.
"Funds being used to take lives are now being used to save lives," said Sessions.
CBS News' Paula Reid reports that 24 states have passed laws limiting the practice, but local law enforcement can get around those restrictions by giving seized assets to the federal government instead of returning them to their owners. This practice is called "adoption" and it's been used to seize almost $1 billion in assets over the last decade.
In an off-camera briefing on Wednesday with reporters, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended the forfeiture practice as a way to empower law enforcement. This new policy allows local police to seize property even from people not charged with a crime. About 20 states have reformed the practice and said that assets can only be seized with an indictment or conviction.
________________________________________________________

As if the country with more people incarcerated than any other on earth needs its law enforcement to be more empowered. Now former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions will advance the cause of government theft from some other position.

His interim replacement, Mathew G. Whitaker:  While US Attorney, Whitaker served on the Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture Subcommittee of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, a group of 30 United States Attorneys across the country focusing on the Department of Justice's efforts against drug trafficking. Additionally, he was a member of the Violent and Organized Crime Subcommittee and the White Collar Crime Subcommittee of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.

We don't know for sure but it's possible that Whitaker will also have an enthusiasm for confiscating the property of Americans without charging them with any crime.

Field Marshall Lord Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst

 

 

massive.com

  Lord Amherst, Commander of the British troops in North America during the French and Indian War


"You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race. I should be very glad your scheme for hunting them down by dogs could take effect, but England is at too great a distance to think of that at present." Letter from Amherst to
Swiss mercenary Henry Bouquet, 1763.

While Amherst, the heroic individual for whom Amherst College and the town of Amherst, Massachusetts are named, was unable to procure sufficient dogs to hunt native Americans, he was able to successfully organize the distribution of smallpox infected blankets among them in an early example of germ warfare.  

Ashurnasirpal II

Frieze from the Assyrian palace of King Ashurnasirpal II, circa 883-859 BC, sold by Christie's for $31 million

Once again the sale of antiquarian art has generated international controversy. As this account tells us, modern-day Iraqis and others are outraged that Virginia Theological Seminary, the owner of the piece since 1859, had the temerity to put it up for auction. As usual, this sort of art is considered part of a "cultural heritage" that must forever abide in its birthplace.

The sale of the big blocks of carved alabaster was hardly a secret. Like all art auctions, Christie's made sure that interested parties were aware of the impending transaction. The interested Iraqis could have bid on the object themselves.

Aside from that, what else do we know about the provenance of The Winged Genius, as the work is now known? It's likely that the good King Ashurnasirpal II, as was generally the case in those dark times, made his name through the subjugation of the weaker. Probably slaves were employed in extracting the stone and perhaps in even carving it. Eventually it, and the rest of the palace complex, were submerged under the Mesopotamian sands, not to be revealed until the middle of the 19th century. The land where it was hidden was deemed the property of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, Mongols, Ottomans and others in the many intervening years.

Although his palace may have been located in the region that was deemed a nation called Iraq by the British after WWI, its connection with the present-day inhabitants is dubious. Since the demise of Ashurnasirpal II about 2877 years ago many others have wielded power in the Fertile Crescent. No one knows what, if any, cultural ties the people now called Assyrians might have with the current inhabitants.

Ultimately, Ashurnasirpal II no doubt considered his palace to be his own personal property and, if not, at least the property of he and his fellows. It seems unlikely that he would have considered it a birthright to be bestowed on the citizens of a British creation, had he even been able to conceive of such a thing. The idea that a later group of people could, under the concept of the nation-state, successfully demand the return of an art object no one was even aware of for many hundreds of years would bring a smile to Ashurnasirpal II's lips, provided he was in a good mood that day. Yet this line of thinking continues in other avenues as well.

 


Above is American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled from 1982, sold by Christie's in 2016 for $57,285,000. The work went to Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. We haven't heard any outrage that a significant piece of America's cultural legacy has been shipped off to the Land of the Rising Sun, have we?

Sarah Fader, Sports Heroine

The 2018 version of the world track cycling master's championships was held in October at the Velo Sports Center in Carson, California. In ordinary times this event would have been generally ignored in the US and of mild interest anywhere else. This year was a little different.

The master's events are classified by both age and sex. A 55 year-old female doesn't compete against a 38 year-old male. However, a controversy erupted when Dr. Rachel McKinnon won the masters world championship in the match sprint in the women's 35-44-year-old age category. McKinnon was born a man.

Some background on competitive cycling. For  years many riders at all levels of the sport complained that some of their rivals used performance-enhancing drugs to an unfair and illegal advantage. Governing bodies in cycling developed testing programs, including out of competition random tests, to insure that riders were following the rules. Offenders were suspended from competition and banished entirely, including American superstar and multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Track cycling Olympian Tammy Thomas was banned from the sport for life.

The case against Armstrong rested almost entirely on the testimony of people that claimed to have a first-hand knowledge of drug abuse in cycling. Yet, these same people had continued to compete against Armstrong and others. Considering that, even by their own standards, it was unlikely that they could defeat a competitor with a pharmaceutical advantage, these riders were only serving as validation of a corrupt enterprise. It would have shown real courage and integrity to have refused to compete against others that they claimed to have known were cheating. They could, in fact, have formed their own sanctioning organizations to assure drug-free competition. But they didn't.

Moving on to Rachel McKinnon's world championship some interesting factors in that victory can be contemplated. The most obvious, of course, is the matter of McKinnon's sex in terms of athletic competition, not as a component of the individual's self-image or psychology. While McKinnon might get up every morning thinking as a female, physically, in the competitive cycling arena, McKinnon is a male. The idea that a certain level of blood testosterone determines sex, as advanced by the IOC and McKinnon in this Velo News article, is absurd scientism. Another interesting article on the subject is here.


Tall, burly female impersonator Rachel McKinnon

The argument is made that not allowing McKinnon to compete with women would be a denial of the right to fair competition at all is similarly absurd. Over 50% of the world's population is female. The idea that they should be required to accept an astonishingly small group of non-females as competitive equals is preposterous. As is the Olympic committee's UN-like statement that everyone has a right to compete, which has no bearing on the issue.

Ultimately, the most serious problem is the abrogation of that Olympian right in the case of women themselves. No conscious feminist could possibly accept that an altered, or even unaltered, male be allowed to contest in an athletic event for females. Males with sexual identity problems could easily push genuine females out of their own sports after years of efforts to promote them. In horse racing, for instance, gelded males compete against other males, not in races carded for fillies and mares. Nobody seems to know how the geldings feel about the whole thing.




Sarah Fader, actual female cyclist

So we finally get to Sarah Fader. She was the defending world champion in the class that McKinnon eventually won. In her clear-eyed response given in the Velo News article above she explains why she refused to compete. Her ideas have more validity than those of McKinnon. It seems odd that there has been so little agreement with them, which is a dramatic step backward for all women. Sarah Fader for Sportswoman of the Year.    

Appointing Sheriffs?

An election is approaching and brings along an increasing advocation of forgoing voting for the sheriff and instead making him an appointee of the county commissioners. The logic involved, as much as there might be, can be seen here.

Although the elected sheriff is a position with a long history in the US, the movement to make it an employee rather than an choice of the voters is growing.

Two reasons for this operated in sunny Arizona. Maricopa County, location of Phoenix, was served by "America's toughest sheriff", the famous Joe Arpaio, who held the office for 24 years. He was noted for requiring county jail inmates to wear pink underwear and refusing to provide them with air conditioning during the sweltering Phoenix summer. Arpaio was regularly criticized by the local media for his inhumanity but despite spending a minimal amount on election campaigns he wasn't seriously threatened with defeat until 2017.

Just 108 miles down the road in Tucson, county seat of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik was appointed sheriff in 1980 to fill the seat of his resigning predecessor and was re-elected regularly until his retirement in 2015 at age 79. Dupnik was also a magnet for controversy during his tenure in the Old Pueblo. A Pima County Sheriff's SWAT Team gunned down US Marine vet and copper miner Jose Guarena in his own bedroom with 71 shots on May 5, 2011. The police agencies involved settled with Guarena's survivors for $3.4 million. Deputies employed at the county jail were disciplined for beating up customers outside a bar.

Despite these, and other issues, both Arpaio and Dupnik were returned to office by the voters, even though they endured serious criticism from the local media. This is what storied "democracy" is all about. But elections don't always turn out the way some of the population desire. There was a recent US federal election that featured a similar outcome.

One could make the case that US county sheriffs are the most powerful law enforcement officers in the country simply because they are, indeed, elected. They owe their positions to the voters, not to any other individual or committee. This bothers the un-democratic, even the un-democratic that are themselves elected to office.  One of their most frequently advanced objections to elected sheriffs is that they aren't necessarily required to have any training or certification in the aspects of law enforcement needed today. An appointee selected by the county board would have to meet standards. Even then, if he failed he could be fired immediately, like police chiefs sometimes are, rather than waiting for another election to roll around. This ignores the fact that sheriffs have many deputies and employees, just like police chiefs. They are executives. Just as the president of General Motors isn't expected to operate the robots that put a Buick LaCrosse together, nobody thinks the sheriff will stroll into a bar and check the identification of college kids or design and implement the information systems his department will use.

In a country where the very word "democracy" is holy and the secret ballot is a religious experience, making the county sheriff an appointee is a heresy. Furthermore, committees are no more able to select suitable people than the voters. Appointed officials are fired on a regular basis, like this one, this one, or this one.

Even More K-9 Berserkery

It must be going around. Another dog cop has run amok and earned himself an early grave by putting the crunch on his handler, according to this story in the Waco, TX Tribune Herald.
 

This seems to have been a rather serious attack on the part of the as-yet-unidentified Belgian Malinois but even so shooting it to death is a drastic measure that points out how dangerous these animals can be in their normal duties. It's curious that the handlers that train these creatures, and are trained themselves to carry out this training and use in the field, apparently have no other method available than killing the dog when it does what it is trained to do to crime suspects.

Texas law states this:

(5) a felony of the second degree if the person commits an offense under Subsection (b)(6) or (7) by:

(A) killing a police service animal or engaging in conduct likely to kill the animal;

(B) injuring a police service animal in a manner that materially and permanently affects the ability of the animal to perform as a police service animal;  or

(C) engaging in conduct likely to injure a police service animal in a manner that would materially and permanently affect the ability of the animal to perform as a police service animal.

Maybe if a cop shoots a cop dog, even though the dog is a cop himself, it's OK, although it's a crime for a non-cop to even resist a K-9. Parenthetically, what happened to the deceased dog? Was he given a state funeral with thousands of other handlers and cop dogs from all over the country in attendance, as is so often the case when a human cop falls in action? Is a marble headstone being planned for his grave site? Surely there will be a marked grave. The idea that it will be disposed of in some dishonorable manner is too disgusting to contemplate.

 Will a parking ramp or other city facility in Waco carry the name of the dog? Perhaps portraits of the dog can be hung in the primary school classrooms of McLennan County.

For sure the Lone Star flag must flown at half-mast for a period of time to honor the K-9.

 

No Responsibility For Dog Cop Attack

This story in the Indy Star website gives the 411 on the latest in another horrific police canine incident. A seven months-pregnant lady standing on her own front porch is attacked by an Indianapolis K-9 resulting in permanent physical damage and a premature delivery of her child. A suit is later filed on the basis of a violation of her 4th amendment rights but the judge decides that since the cops weren't attempting to arrest her no violation of those rights occurred. The logic of the decision has some merit.

That's not the real issue, however. According to Indiana state law, police dogs are given immunity in such cases. While they're still considered police officers, they're not held responsible for their errors. If one of them chews on an innocent bystander it's just their tough luck.

Florida K-9 Killed In Action

Per this story on the Jacksonville.com website, a dog used by the sheriff's department has been killed on duty while attempting to chase down a car jacker. According to Florida law the killer could be sentenced to up to five years in prison for the third degree felony of killing a police dog.

 

Fang, the deceased dog in question, never responded positively or negatively when he was assigned to the K-9 squad. (Jacksonville Sheriff's Office)


It's remarkable that law enforcement agencies have expressed mourn at Fang's death. After all, that's his purpose, to absorb gunfire rather than that of his human counterparts.

2018 National Sports Center Velodrome All-Star Team

The 2018 racing season at the wooden track in Blaine, Minnesota has come to an end and it's time to mention the riders that have been the most impressive during this summer's Thursday Night Lights series.  

 
Woman's track rider of the year is Risa Hustad. In the last few seasons she's not only shown a development in form and bike handling skills, she's also become a savvy tactician who knows when to make the winning move. It's been a very good season for Risa.




Junior rider Peter Moore dominated the category 1-2 men's field on his way to male track rider of the year and earned a trip to the Junior World Championships in Aigle, Switzerland.

Category 3 competitor Mark Stewart gets first dibs on number 29 because he's been racing at the NSC Velodrome for every year of its 29 in existence.

Carolyn Stanley seldom misses a Thursday night race and won her first category 1 event this season after moving up in class.

Youthful rider Bogdan Rylski used his high rpm cadence to become a force in the Category 1-2 men's field.

Father-son duo Dan and Dave Schueller made competition a family affair.

Lazlo Alberti, already a force on the local road racing scene, took his riding skills to the velodrome and won a bunch of cat 1-2 races.

Veteran sprinter Linsey Hamilton has spent much of the season preparing for a big effort in the Master's Worlds competition being held this year Oct. 6-12 at the VELO Sports Center in Los Angeles, CA.

Satchell Mische-Richter used his explosive acceleration to become one of the leaders in the Cat 1-2 Division.

 Colette Meller was so successful at the Cat 4 level that she moved up during the season.

Peter Olejniczak, another road warrior, has had no trouble winning his share of Cat 1-2 men's races.

Regular rider Sara Bonneville wins the velodrome fashion award for 2018.

Kristy Crouse is the Cat 4 women's state scratch race champion.

If Cat 3 rider Nathan Li challenges you to a bike race on the street, turn him down.

Kadence Hampton steadily improved as the season went by and became a threat in every Cat 4 race.

Alex Terzich is usually near the front end when a Cat 3 race is decided.

The substructure of the NSC Velodrome, itself a star of track cycling. Sadly, the 2019 season will be its last. After 30 years of exposure to the elements of Minnesota it will no longer have the structural integrity for safe racing. If you've never witnessed the action on this gorgeous facility be sure and spend a Thursday evening here watching the world's fastest human-powered sport next summer.

Dallas Cop Amber Guyger Kills Botham Jean In His Own Home

The day after the shooting death of Botham Jean in his own home by a resident of the same complex, Dallas cop Amber Guyger, Texas Ranger investigators obtained a search warrant for Jean's apartment. While there are discrepancies in Guyger's account of the incident, we're not aware of any effort to obtain a search warrant for her residence. Even as she is at liberty due to meeting a bail requirement of $300,000 and Jean's relatives find that Guyger's story doesn't add up. There's more here.

 

The same conditions existed in the case of the shooting death of Justine Damond in Minneapolis, MN on July 15, 2017. When she was killed by a Minneapolis policeman in an alley  on the same block as her home, cops immediately acquired a search warrant for the premises. Perhaps that's normal procedure in a homicide investigation or any crime, regardless of the crime's proximity to the victim's home. In any event, we've never been informed of any commensurate search of the residence of either of the cops involved in the killing of Ms. Damond. And, well over a year later, both cops, including the man who pulled the trigger that released the bullet that killed Justine Damond, have yet to be involved in a court action that would declare their innocence or guilt in the matter of her death. 

More Bizarre Commercial Signage

This posted in the cosmetics section of a large, kind of important, national retailer:

 How would this be best described in one word? Pick from this list: tacky, classless, sleazy, repulsive, loathsome, abhorrent, offensive, revolting, disgusting, unclever.

A Goat On The Loose

Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul further down the Mississippi, has a big problem. Well, maybe not that big. It's the size of a goat. The goat has been wandering around town, peering in patio windows and evidently making a nuisance of itself, as this article explains. There is an APB out to the forty member police force to capture this animal before . . . .something or other. The police chief fears that the goat will wander onto one of the highways in the neighborhood and get struck by a car.

Sure, that could certainly happen, In fact, it happens fairly frequently. Not with goats but instead with white-tail deer, famous for dashing in front of speeding automobiles and often being plastered across the grille to fatal effect. The car is usually messed up as well.

Hunting deer, one of the more popular fall pastimes in Minnesota, results in the neutralization of thousands of deer that could damage new Teslas or the popular diesel 4x4 crew-cab pickups that lumber down the streets. It is, however, verboten to kill these deer in the populated areas where they're most likely to encounter a speeding car. In the rare cases where deer death is deemed the solution to a problem, they're exterminated by "professional" hunters. In this case, the pros are to be law enforcement officers, unless they can figure out some way to capture the goat and remove it to some enclosed environment.

No one worries much about other animal traffic fatalities, squirrels, rabbits, geese, ducks, possum, turkeys, raccoons, turtles and snakes, etc. Domestic dogs and cats, now treated more like children than pets, get smashed flat from time to time also. They're just the price we pay to get to work in the morning or buzz down to the C-store for a pack of smokes. And they normally don't do much damage to the Prius.


Update: The goat has been apprehended. Inver Grove Heights police have announced that with the assistance of a local resident the goat has been captured and transported to the University of Minnesota campus in St. Paul.

How Public Employees Become Rich

Through a convoluted system fire and police department administrators in California can reap pension payments that would dazzle an emperor while simultaneously bankrupting the communities that once employed them. This case seems particularly outrageous.

New Los Angeles police chief Michael Moore had retired from the department with a $1.27 million  going away present, was rehired weeks later to the same position and then given the chief's job in June. 

 
US police chiefs, like Michael Moore above, could easily be mistaken for North Korean generals or Soviet-era admirals. They certainly don't look like "public servants".

One of the biggest objections to the bygone Soviet system that the US spent billions of dollars to keep away was that government apparatchiks had access to things that ordinary citizens did not, including money. Even as the Russian experiment in socialism failed, their counterparts in the US are following the same path, siphoning immense sums from the private sector in exchange for non-productive activity. The US is rapidly approaching USSR 2.0.

The Growth of Federal Regulations

K-9 Cop Attacked By His Dog

According to this story from Columbus, Ohio, a K-9 police man was forced to shoot his dog partner when the animal went berserk and attacked him.
We've commented before on the unsuitability of dogs being used in law enforcement. This is because dogs' ability to speak and understand English is limited, they don't necessarily share the same value system as  humans and their behavior can't be predicted. Nobody knows for sure what a dog, even a well-trained one, will do in any given set of circumstances.

Regularly, all over the country, K-9s bite innocent bystanders and cities then settle with these punctured citizens for large amounts of money. Resisting a police dog attack is no different than resisting an arrest by a police officer. It's illegal. Harming a police dog is the same as harming a human cop. It's a felony.

Yet, in this case, the human, being a cop, won't be arrested for the attempted murder of another cop. The dog was, in fact, taken away and killed by someone else at another location.  He was given the death penalty for attacking a fellow cop. If the victim had not been a member of the coercion community the dog would have been petted and given a food treat. The human cop was hospitalized with serious damage to his arms, for which he will be generously  compensated, no doubt.

Law enforcement likes to extol the effectiveness of K-9s in searching for burglars in dark buildings or sniffing luggage for drugs. They conveniently forget to mention how dangerous these animals are. The Columbus Police Department, and all other police departments, should give serious consideration to eliminating their dog cops.

 

After several high-profile incidents that are likely going to result in large payments to innocent victims, St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter has modified department policy for K-9 use and halted dog demonstrations at the Minnesota State Fair.

Law enforcement figures in favor of the use of dogs in police work don't seem to recognize that "suspects", as they term them, can't be legally bitten by dangerous dogs when they haven't been charged with a crime.

Of course, when it comes to K-9 foul-ups, there's always more. The Orange County, CA Sheriff's Dept.'s K-9 force was using a county building in Santa Ana for an exercise on August 29. Dogs were released in the building for a practice search and one dog found a county employee who had not been informed of the search in his office. The dog mangled the man, who was hospitalized and expected to need plastic surgery, as described in this article.

Ex-cop and county supervisor Todd Spitzer said:  “I’m simply appalled, as a former police officer who has worked alongside canines for over a decade, that the handlers didn’t clear the building to check for innocent civilians before they released the dogs,” Spitzer said. “The dog is trained to bite. That’s what it does.”

All civilians, the term that law enforcement uses to differentiate themselves from gewhonliche Menschen, are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Dogs don't know or care about this mundane fact. No cooperation by the victim will discourage a dog bite.

The reason that dogs are used for searches is because the heroic police have no desire to expose themselves to danger. They prefer that ignorant, unknowing animals that don't have the intellectual capacity to volunteer for it be used instead. Additionally, law enforcement finds the ability of K-9s to inspire fear to be an advantage in their work. Terrified, and the use of vicious dogs in law enforcement is terror by any definition, suspects are easily subdued. At the same time, dogs don't ordinarily berate these suspects with racial epithets that offend the public, like cops so often do. Instead of being investigated for working over somebody with a night stick or kicking a handcuffed arrestee in the head, the cop passes along the responsibility to an animal whose purpose and training is to hurt people. The dog can't testify to internal affairs about his role in the event.

National Sports Center 2018 Fixed Gear Classic

The annual track cycling celebration at the wooden velodrome in Blaine, Minnesota was scheduled to take place over the two days, August 24 and 25,  but a deluge made racing on the track impossible on Friday and all the contests took place on a long Saturday.

As usual, riders from all over the country showed up to match their fixed gear talents against those from other locales that they don't often have the opportunity to race against. Audience attendance was sparse but those that were there got to see some outstanding performances.

  Seattle, WA based veteran track star Tela Crane pedaled away with almost all of the ladies' allotment of prize money, winning both the sprint and endurance omniums handily.

 John Croom normally turns his pedals at the US Olympic Training Center Velodrome in Colorado Springs, CO. His successful trip back east included setting a new track record in the Kilo, beating a time set in 1992.

Local rider Sarah Bonneville leads the cat 1-2 ladies in the elimination race.

Elspeth Huyett of Emmaus, PA, stood on the endurance omnium podium in 2017 and again this year. Here she winds up for a flying 200 heat to establish seeding in the cat 1-2 women's sprint.

Californian Kate Wilson also made another appearance at the Classic. Aggressive as always, she finished near the front end in almost every race she contested.

The final event, the track stand, was easily won by Nissy Cobb of Portland, OR.

Changing The Name Of A Flower

Let's face it, while words a big deal and sights are a big deal as well. That's why public statuary of Confederate soldiers must be removed, Looking upon a life-size bronze casting of Stonewall Jackson could cause irreparable harm to the psyche of an innocent born 145 years after the Virginian's death.

There are other things that also trigger harmful thoughts. Just ask Susan Mitchell, a real estate agent in Sumner, IA. She's the leader of a rapidly growing movement to replace the name of a common flower because of the feelings it produces in those that hear it mentioned.

She says:

Sure, it's a very pretty flower, common, too. But every time I see one I think of the the pain I've gone through. I once had a boyfriend who would get so exasperated with me, like I couldn't parallel park quite close enough to the curb or maybe the ramen would be a little overdone. He'd start to shout at me and I was so afraid that he'd hit me. I guess it's PTSD. Anyway, whenever I see a Black-eyed Susan I just tremble. Calling that flower a Black-eyed Susan basically validates domestic violence. We need to call it something else.

 Ms. Mitchell isn't sure what the new name for the flower should be. Right now she's leaning toward Golden Halo. But she insists that next name should be one that's friendly, non-sexist and non-violent.

The State Fair

In the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries the Minnesota State Fair, like other fairs, had a serious purpose with entertainment adjuncts. The primary reason for its existence was to provide, in a time of difficult transportation, black and white media limited to print, and slow communication, a meeting place for vendors and customers of agricultural equipment and livestock. This was in a country where the majority of economic activity and employment was closely related to agriculture. Machinery manufacturers displayed the latest farming equipment which farmers isolated in the hinterlands were happy to travel to the city and evaluate. They brought with them their cattle, horse, pigs and chickens, hoping to win ribbons for their quality and perhaps sell some as breeding stock to other farmers.

Additionally, this gave others an opportunity to sell unusual sights and experiences to the farmers and their families. Midways with terrifying rides and girly shows, rigged games and freaks, were the subjects of conversations for the next 364 days back in Ottertail County. Foods that were unlikely to be available at home were sold to those who spent the entire fair on the grounds or were just visiting for the day. Horse races and car races were a staple of entertainment.

The state fair has changed. Travel is no longer the uncomfortable experience of the past. Agriculturalists jump into air-conditioned diesel 4x4 crew cab pickups and after a couple of hours at most are at the fairgrounds. Since most dairy herds are fathered through the artificial insemination process, there's no need to even own a bull or display your own. The 4-H, an organization for rural youth, encourages animal husbandry and members send and exhibit their cattle but the practice is a remnant of the past. Pigs and chickens are a sight for city and suburban children that have never looked on one before.

Farmers can chat over the phone with machinery dealers and look at equipment in operation via computer. Some even go to the manufacturer's plants to watch their very own monster tractor being assembled. Tractor and combine companies no park fewer and fewer of their wares wheel-to-wheel on Machinery Hill for granger's inspection.

The fact is that much of what made the state fair an attraction in the past is now provided by other, more spectacular sources. Horse races are contested, with pari-mutuel betting, at a track on the other side of the city. Car races are held regularly in other locations as well. The scary Midway rides aren't nearly as exciting as those at the permanent amusement park down the road. Television and movies provide a steady diet of freaks.

So,what's left? As always, food. And music. For a time there was a rival exhibition called "Taste of Minnesota". Attendees were able to buy and eat a variety of over-priced and unhealthy food while listening to generally bad music. Sadly this institution failed. The State Fair was quick to fill the void and as time has passed transformed itself into its own "Taste of Minnesota". It actually admits as much. Local papers tout the inventive culinary choices available.

 While Earth, Wind & Fire is one of the great musical groups of all time, the band hasn't had a top ten album since 1981.

 Instead of cud-chewing bovines and roaring race cars, fair goers will get to see local musical acts that they've probably never heard of.  Katy Perry, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Pitbull aren't on the fair schedule.

In his book Old Glory, Jonathon Raban describes his impressions of the Minnesota State Fair:

     The state fair sprawled across a hillside and a valley, and at first glance it did indeed look like a city under occupation by an army of rampaging Goths. I'd never seen so many enormous people assembled in one place. These farming families from Minnesota and Wisconsin were the descendants of hungry immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia. Their ancestors must have been lean and anxious men with the famines of Europe bitten into their faces. Generation by generation, their families had eaten themselves into Americans. Now they all had the same figure: same broad bottom, same Buddha belly, same neckless join between turkey-wattle chin and sperm whale torso. The women had poured themselves into pink stretch-knit pant suits, the men swelled against every seam and button of their plaid shirts and Dacron slacks. Under the brims of their caps, their food projected from their mouths. Foot-long hot dogs. Bratwurst sausages, dripping with hot grease. Hamburgers. Pizzas. Scoops of psychedelic ice cream. Wieners-dun-in-buns.
     Stumbling, half-suffocated, through this abundance of food and flesh, I felt like a brittle matchstick man. Every time I tried to turn my head I found someone else's hot dog, bloody with ketchup, sticking into my own mouth.