For, indeed, the watch ought to offend no one, and it is an offence to stay anyone against their will.
A socially distanced rally is a strange thing: but Neysa Bogar read Audre Lorde, and Renee Manes carried a sign that said Public Defenders Telling You That Cops Lie For 50+ Years, and even though we couldn’t hug each other, or rub shoulders, the energy was righteous, and the chants, though slightly muffled, still rang out, and one of those chants was DEFUND THE POLICE, and that’s the strangest thing, to me, at least, about the past mad wild upsetting unsettling enraging couple of weeks? —That this idea, that seemed an uncertain step too far when I first encountered through links to Mariame Kaba‘s Twitter feed, that firmed up underfoot as I read about it and sat with it and thought through it until I came around to the point I could say, yes, we must abolish prisons; yes, we must defund the police, all of them, right down to the ground; yes, we have no choice but to do the work to build a world where life is precious, so that life might be precious: that this wild mad desperately necessarily eutopian idea is suddenly lurching into view through the Overton window, to the point that John Oliver can do a whole dam’ show about it, on HBO.
Defund the police.
But for those who still find themselves clung to the notion of reform (radical, to be sure; meaningful; even bold), or those whose abolitionary imaginary only reaches to medieval Iceland—it occurs to me, that Dogberry’s advice to the watch might well prove an excellent basis for a retraining program for our thin blue lines. —Anyway, it’s a start. Policing delenda est.
The most relevantly framed.
DOGBERRY
This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince’s name.SECOND WATCH
How, if a’ will not stand?DOGBERRY
Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.VERGES
If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the Prince’s subjects.DOGBERRY
True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince’s subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch to babble and to talk is most tolerable and not to be endured.SECOND WATCH
We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch.DOGBERRY
Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend; only have a care that your bills be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses, and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.SECOND WATCH
How if they will not?DOGBERRY
Why then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.
The most renowned.
SECOND WATCH
Well, sir.DOGBERRY
If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty.SECOND WATCH
If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?DOGBERRY
Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.VERGES
You have been always called a merciful man, partner.DOGBERRY
Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.VERGES
If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still it.SECOND WATCH
How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?DOGBERRY
Why then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when he bleats.VERGES
’Tis very true.DOGBERRY
This is the end of the charge. You constable, are to present the Prince’s own person: if you meet the Prince in the night, you may stay him.VERGES
Nay, by’r lady, that I think, a’ cannot.DOGBERRY
Five shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statutes, he may stay him: marry, not without the Prince be willing; for, indeed, the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.VERGES
By’r lady, I think it be so.DOGBERRY
Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour.SECOND WATCH
Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the church bench till two, and then all to bed.
The most generously apportioned.
Notes from the day job.
Lisa Hay, Oregon’s federal public defender, said 34 of her office’s clients—offenders sentenced for federal crimes in Oregon—are scattered in eight private prisons in Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“I’m concerned about our clients being held in private prisons because there seems to be no reporting on the level of coronavirus infections in those facilities,” Hay said.
“I don’t know if they are even testing inmates.”
The coronavirus, Hay said, has exposed how detention in private prisons may “result in unequal and inadequate treatment of inmates.”
That gum you like is going to come back in style.
Lili Loofbourow manages to make me feel if not good about a Biden candidacy, at least, I mean, well, sort of better?
Look, I saw this great opportunity to corner the market in Egyptian cotton.
That’s, ah, that’s normally how things work, right? So I’m not here to disrupt, ah, a supply chain, so, look. These distributors, these six distributors, six, seven, they have six to seven hundred warehouses. They have trucks that go to the hospital door every day. We’re bringing product in, they’re filling orders for hospitals, nursing homes, like normal. I’m putting volume into that system. I would say that, in—we have the data now, last—so we put together, this, ah, data element, over, the last, you know, what, thirteen days? Get the people in, look at the problem, build this—I am now seeing truth, about what’s in the supply chain? And I would say, um, there’s been some abnormal behavior? Okay?
The federal government—our federal government—is giving supplies from the national stockpile to six, or maybe seven distributors to then sell to the states, our states, us, at a healthy hollow laugh profit, and while we need to have everyone responsible drummed out of power, their money seized, their power and possessions nationalized, turned to some small public good, what we at the very least deserve is some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, where all involved admit to their wrong-doing and apologize and swear on whatever they hold holy never to do it again, even if they don’t ever actually have to pay anything meaningful for having done so, the best, the ever actual uttermost best we can ever hope for is maybe in ten years or so one of them decides to leverage some spare change from under their couch into a teevee show about some charmingly sharpish con artists Robin Hooding an entirely notional fortune or two from some thinly fictionalized versions of these fothermucking monsters, ah well, nevertheless.
Capitalism!
“This failure accounts for at least some of the tens of thousands of pending tests reflected in the state’s reported numbers. According to experts, it isn’t Quest’s fault that the company has so far been unable to meet the technical challenge of testing thousands of people every day. Setting up such “high throughput” operations is difficult. But Quest failed to come to terms with its ongoing problems, and it continued to accept specimens—and generate revenue—when other laboratories could have done some of the tests faster.”
Capitalism!
“I am not saying these universities shouldn’t do something charitable for their workers. They should, if only to maintain amicable relations within the university community itself. I am saying that their moral obligation to extend charity to those workers is not very strong. Had such charity been prioritized in the past, the US never would have developed and maintained top universities. Part of America’s greatness as a nation, and as an innovator, is its unwillingness to ask anew every day whether its elite accumulations of wealth should be torn down and rededicated to everyday purposes of a supposedly greater benevolence.”
Capitalism!
“@VP: The CDC tomorrow is going to issue new guidance which will make it possible for people who have exposed to the coronavirus to return to work more quickly by wearing a mask for a certain period of time.” Bonus track: The Invisible Hand Wants You Dead.
Look on his works, ye mighty.
I mean, if we’re looking for a scapegoat.
Capitalism!
“Steven Valiquette, a managing director at Barclays Investment Bank, last week peppered executives from Cardinal Health, a health care distributor of N95 masks, ventilators and pharmaceuticals, on whether the company would raise prices on a range of supplies. —Valiquette asked repeatedly about potential price increases on a variety of products. Could the company, he asked, ‘offset some of the risk of volume shortages’ on the ‘pricing side’?”
And on the pedestal these words appear:
Caring responsibly.
The obsession of the Democrats—the ostensible left-wing! who are on our side! aren’t they?—with nickling and diming and means-testing the shit out of what should be a simple and immediate act of handing every person in the country a wad of money in this time when we’ve been asked to stop working for our own collective good—it’s explained, somewhat, by David Graeber’s notion of a war between administrators and care-givers, which did get stark real fast, didn’t it. (We can take some solace in the administrative bullshit that’s been so quickly swept away, that some small care might be given; we might well quail before the new heights of administrative bullshit to be scaled, even as those who supposedly can’t be helped set out to help themselves. —As for the Republicans, well, they in their cunning at least know enough to look like they’re in favor of what everyone wants, even as they bitterly oppose it.)
Everybody is paying attention.
“Who died on 9/11? It was front-line people and our passengers. Who suffered in the bankruptcies that followed? It was me and my friends. They took our pensions, they slashed our pay by more than 40 percent, diminished our health care, cut our jobs. They put it on our backs. For a lot of people, that meant real personal loss of our homes and cars and stressed marriages and divorces and the pain of telling our kids that they had to do without. We’ve seen this before, and we know exactly what didn’t work. We won’t stand for it again. We won’t let that happen to the rest of the country.” —Sara Nelson For President Now.
Capitalism!
“Business Insider Italia explains that even though the original manufacturer was unable to supply the part, it refused to share the relevant 3D file with Fracassi to help him print the valve. It even went so far as to threaten him for patent infringement if he tried to do so on his own. Since lives were at stake, he went ahead anyway, creating the 3D file from scratch. According to the Metro article, he produced an initial batch of ten, and then 100 more, all for free. Fracassi admits that his 3D-printed versions might not be very durable or re-usable. But when it’s possible to make replacements so cheaply—each 3D-printed part costs just one euro, or roughly a dollar—that isn’t a problem. At least it wouldn’t be, except for that threat of legal action, which is also why Fracassi doesn’t dare share his 3D file with other hospitals, despite their desperate need for these valves.”
Capitalism!
“So, this SoftBank-owned patent troll, Fortress, bought up Theranos patents, and then set up this shell company, ‘Labrador Diagnostics,’ which decided that right in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic it was going to sue one of the companies making COVID-19 tests, saying that its test violates those Theranos patents, and literally demanding that the court bar the firm from making those COVID-19 tests.”
A paradise paved in a parking lot.
Further anent the preceding: here’s a start at listing mutual aid initiatives around the country; here’s a form for Portland-area folks to request support, including food deliveries and prescription pickups; here’s another Portland-area form for folks to offer that support. In conclusion, America is a sham: long live US
Bitter truths are bitter.
“The modern state was one that could no longer be run by a gang of friends.” —Tom Cutterham
Sufficient unto the day.
Closing the libraries is wildly grim. “The library branches’ WiFi signals will remain turned on for anyone who wants to sit outside a building or in the parking lots,” but, and yet, I mean, well. And still. —One might well note that ebooks are still available; one might well note that the 2019 Library Writers Project selections have just been announced; one might well—but still.
