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Your Local Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina on the measles outbreak and how RFK and other authorities are spreading dangerous misinformation. Also: Hantavirus, Medicaid popularity and opiod and HPV deaths decline. yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

In ‘Dark Winds,’ things are about to get even darker: Zahn McClarnon, who stars as Joe Leaphorn, on the new season. nytimes.com

The Digital Packrat Manifesto. “DRM and big tech’s war on ownership has led me to make my own media libraries, and you should too.” — Janus Rose. 404media.co

The War on Memory: Learning from the Jewish Labor Bund — Molly Crabapple. The Bund was a Jewish anti-Zionist political organization that flourished in Poland between WWI and WWII. thefunambulist.net

“The critics panned [Mickey] Spillane, but he didn’t care. He said, ‘Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar.’ He said he never had a character who drank cognac or had a mustache, because he didn’t know how to spell those words.” — Garrison Keillor [writersalmanac.publicradio.org]

James Davis Nicoll reviews “Galactic Empires,” a two-volume 1976 science fiction anthology of stories about (you guessed it) galactic empires, edited by Brian Aldiss. I loved those books. [jamesdavisnicoll.com]

Patti Davis, on her father, Ronald Reagan: My Father Spoke to Me Only Once About Why He Led This Nation

Davis writes about a conversation with Reagan in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House the night of his 1981 inauguration. According to Davis, Reagan told her:

“I really believe I can make this world a safer, more peaceful place. That’s why I ran for president.” When he left and the stillness of Lincoln’s bedroom folded around me, with all of its history and stories, I was struck by the fact that he spoke about the world, not just America.

I’ve thought about that night a lot lately, as America becomes more isolated, as we back away from allies and tensions grow. I’ve thought also about the lessons my father imparted to me as a child. He taught me at an early age about the Holocaust and that no country is immune to horrors like that. He told me that America’s democracy, while strong, is also fragile and to remain strong, we had to recognize that. He believed our democracy was a “grand experiment” and as such, it should be treated carefully.

A Haunting Coda: The 7 Days Gene Hackman’s Wife Could No Longer Care for Him: The exact details may never be known, but Mr. Hackman, 95 with advanced Alzheimer’s, was alone for about a week after his wife and sole caregiver died. [nytimes.com]

These expert tips on how to care for a loved one with dementia assume a level of financial and social resources that many caregivers just won’t have: Set up a caregiving team of at least five friends and family. Hire a geriatric social worker or nurse. Etc. [nytimes.com]

About 60 trans athletes play organized sports in the US. Sixty. Politicians and influencers trying to stir up outrage about this are distracting you while they steal from you.

The view from my hotel window, in one of the most ancient and beautiful cities in the world.

A view from above shows a curving road beside industrial and commercial buildings, with a cloudy sky and open landscape in the background.

Barcelona really is all that — truly ancient and beautiful. However, my neighborhood does not partake of that legacy. It’s fine, though. Comfortable and reasonably close to Mobile World Congress.

The great thing about AirTags as you get instant reassurance when you get off the plane that your luggage is in the same airport that you are. The frustrating thing is you can see that your luggage is 3/10 of a mile away from you and hasn’t moved in a long time.

JFK airport is a shitshow, particularly if you are unused to flying through it and trying to make a connection from one side of the airport to the other. But the random people who work there that I asked for guidance were extremely helpful – and I’m not kidding about that.

Quest Bars are an exceptionally great travel snack to pack in your go bag. They’re satisfying when you don’t have time to get real food; they’re just tasty enough to enjoy while eating them, but not tasty enough that you’re ever tempted to eat them recreationally.

I got this recommendation years ago from a podcaster named CGP Grey on the Cortex podcast. 100% correct, extremely useful.

RIP Joseph Wambaugh, 88, ex-cop and writer, who wrote brilliant police procedurals and true crime, including "The Onion Field."

I loved his books. His cops were sometimes heroic, sometimes bad and dirty, sometimes both at once. He wrote lovingly about them and about cold-blooded murderers.

He had a remarkable life, continuing to work as a policeman years after his writing career took off, quitting only when he became too famous for police work.

Robert D. McFadden at the NY Times::

“I’m very interested in the concept of the sociopath, very interested, because my conscience has bothered me all my life,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1989. “Talk about regrets – I have about 20 every day. I was educated in Catholic schools, and they did that to me. So I have to cope with a conscience all the time. And I’m interested in a creature who has none of that.”

I’m at the airport at the gate waiting for a flight out. There’s a guy here sitting in a chair literally playing the trombone. I’m pretty sure he’s a passenger — I don’t think he works for the airline as an onboard trombonist.

At least it’s not a tuba.

How could they have named the company “Anker” when “Wanker” was right there?

I’m getting ready for a six-day business trip and I’m packing light .

Startup Lonestar Data Holdings is catching a ride on a SpaceX rocket to put a mini data center on the moon — a proof-of-concept for the real thing. I get the technical and legal benefits of putting a data center in space, but why the moon? Why not in orbit, where it would be closer to home and more easily serviced?

Burritos, AI art, corporate fascism

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day: “You ordered a private taxi for your burrito.” Also: " … AI art is the aesthetic of 21st-century fascism the same way Italian Futurism was in the last century."

Also: “The Washington Post as a tool of fascism:”

As Juniper wrote on Bluesky, “I think everyone needs to stop framing what’s going on as ‘bending the knee’ and what’s really happening which is ‘they’re finally feel free to do what they’ve always wanted to do.’”

Oh, and by the way, totally unrelated. I’m still working my way through The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I just got to the section where all the German industrialists that supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power because he was anti-union get their companies nationalized and they all get thrown in jail.

Prominent military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, pitched a plan for mass deportations calling for ‘processing camps’ and a private citizen ‘army’.

“The idea of forcibly removing 12 million people from the United States is not just operationally impossible — it is a moral and economic catastrophe in the making,” said Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff in the Biden administration.

RIP Michelle Trachtenberg, 39. She played “Dawn,” the younger sister on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and also appeared as a villain on “Gossip Girl.” Her death is apparently from natural causes. She recently had a liver transplant.

I downloaded about 250 of my purchased Kindle ebooks, roughly a third of my collection. And now it appears Amazon has shut that option down.

I’ve been a loyal Kindle customer for 14 years, and Amazon gave me (and its other customers) a “fuck you” in return.

(Relatively) easy instructions for downloading Kindle ebooks before the deadline, which is today or tomorrow

From the Department of Doing Thing at the Last Minute: I think I was able to successfully use these instructions to batch-download all my Kindle books before Amazon switches off that capability tonight or tomorrow. The instructions require installing the Tampermonkey Chrome extension, cutting-and-pasting a script into the extension’s configuration window and then letting the script run in the background.

As I type this, the script has been running for four hours and is only a third of the way through. That’s OK; I can just let it run in the background until it’s done.

I had previously found these instructions, which require more advanced command-line skills than I possess.

Sucks that Amazon can get away with making this change. I am far less likely to buy more ebooks from them after this rugpull.

Monitors at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development were hacked [Monday] morning and made to display an AI-generated video of President Donald Trump licking Elon Musk’s feet."

— Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day

Broderick theorizes that Trump lets Musk gets away with what Musk does because Musk has convinced Trump that Musk bought the election.

Also from Broderick: Yes, the far right did pretty well in Germany, but it was an equally big showing for the Left party. My $0.02: This underscores the theory that we might not be seeing a global swing to the right in democracies, but rather global ouster of incumbents.

And: “A crypto trader that went by the username @MistaFuccYou killed himself on a X livestream over the weekend, telling viewers, ‘If I die, make me a memecoin.'”

Rep. Mark Alford tells fired Kansas City federal workers “God has a plan." Alford’s constituents, are suffering and angry and Alford is laughing at them.

Alford is a former Fox News host because of course he is.

How an obscure advisory board lets utilities steal $50b/year from ratepayers

Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic: Americans served by privately owned electric companies saw their rates increase 49% over inflation over the last three years. Americans served by publicly electrical utilities saw rates go up at 44% below inflation over the same period.

Cory:

Power is that much-theorized economic marvel: a “natural monopoly.” Once someone has gone to the trouble of bringing a power wire to your house, it’s almost impossible to convince anyone else to invest in bringing a competing wire to your electrical service mast. For this reason, most people in the world get their energy from a publicly owned utility, and the rates reflect social priorities as well as cost-recovery. For example, basic power to run lights and a refrigerator might be steeply discounted, while energy-gobbling McMansions pay a substantial premium for the extra power to heat and cool their ostentatious lawyer-foyers and “great rooms.”

But in America, we believe in the miracle of the market, even where no market could possibly exist because of natural monopolies. That’s why about 70% of Americans get their power from shareholder-owned companies, whose managers' prime directive is extracting profit, not serving their communities.

Your Local Epidemiologist: “The overlap between medical and scientific professionals and pro-vaccine positions is nearly universal–because vaccines work” The Trump administration is undermining our public health infrastructure as flu and measles are rising.

The coup has failed

The Coup Has Failed. Also: The Democratic Brand Has Tanked. Trump Is Doing the Same to the Republican Party. And: James Carville says the Trump administration will collapse within 30 days. Democrats just need to “play possum,” Carville says. All may be true; but Trump has more lives than a cat. He repeatedly teeters on the verge of destruction and bounces back stronger than ever.

I’m not counseling despair — Trump and his movement are beatable. But don’t take anything for granted.

Looks like Dave Winer is doing valuable work on Wordland, a simple, web-based front end for Wordpress. It appears to be an implementation of the WordPress for One idea he talked about last year. No Mastodon or BlueSky integration, just RSS. I love seeing more simple, easy-to-use blogging platforms.

News that got my attention today

Conservatives won the German elections but the far-right AfD doubled support.

What is Long Covid: A beginner’s guide. By Julia Doubleday.

Your kink is health care? Good luck, babe: When Chappell Roan spoke out to ask the music industry to offer health benefits to struggling musicians, the industry struck back to shut her up to protect their oligopoly. In the music industry, a few big companies dominate everything — recording, distribution, publicity and performance. Musicians and fans have no freedom to take their business elsewhere." [For] a capitalist society to function, there has to be competition. And if everything’s connected and all the interests are shared on one side, there’s no way to compete,” Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney said.

The New Antitrust Consensus: The Trump administration is maintaining the merger guidelines that Lina Khan co-authored, and big business is angry.

Hamilton Nolan: Don’t look for a governing philosophy in the White House and Republican Party — Donald Trump is a crime boss. “The goal of all this is not ‘remaking the government in a conservative image’—it is ‘if you want anything, you have to ask me for it.’ The rules that governed how the government works are tossed out and replaced with ‘Trump’s will.’ That’s how mob bosses rule.”

Sources: The Guardian First Thing, Pluralistic

Something I saw while walking the dog: This “Blessing Box” in front of a church, stocked with small food donations A white outdoor cabinet labeled Blessing Box, stocked with items, with a sign reading 'take what you need, give what you can.'

Today's news and links that got my attention

Pope Francis is in critical condition after a respiratory crisis

Measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico sickened nearly 100 people, with the number of cases is expected to rise. Only five of the victims are known to be vaccinated.

A Democratic trustee at Chula Vista Elementary School District in San Diego ran for a different seat on the school board in order to unseat another Democrat, who the first trustee and a board ally opposed. This set off events that led to a Republican being appointed to the board, changing a 4-1 Democratic majority on the board to 3-2. The county Democratic Party is not happy. This whole thing is more complicated than a season of “Slow Horses.”

A self-described American Christian missionary, Daniel Martindale, went undercover in Ukraine to spy for Moscow. He’s part of a growing ultraconservative American embrace of Russia and rejection of the US.

Six things E.R. doctors wish you’d avoid: Don’t wear crocs in ice and snow. “Don’t trust trampolines.” “Don’t ignore sudden symptoms … If you experience something like severe chest pain or paralysis of a body part, come to the E.R. immediately….” “Don’t pet strange dogs.” Fuck that last one; I am absolutely petting every dog I can.

In 2011, Ray Richmond, his brother and sister discreetly deposited their mother’s ashes (her “cremains”) in Clifton’s, a Los Angeles cafeteria. This short essay has one surprise after another.

The perfect girl next door: How do you live your mediocre life in the shadow of a hipster goddess?

Man, it was so great to be horrible, back when I was young and pretty! In fact, I want to urge every young and youngish woman out there to take advantage of their hotness for as long as possible, because it’s fun and it’s good for you and everyone should literally be punished by how amazing you look. You need to grind their faces into the shag carpet of what an unbearable smoke show you are. Because so many complete dolts are going to make you pay for so many stupid reasons moving forward — for being interesting, for having a brain in your skull, for being bored by them because they are objectively boring, for growing into a mature adult with firm boundaries and clear expectations. So smear your raw hotness all over their dumb-dog faces for as long as you possibly can.

I did not note the byline so I had to read the whole thing to get to the tagline at the end, which told me the writer is the talented Heather Havrilesky.

More from Heather on the perfect girl next door:

Being stubborn about trivial things is sometimes a way of protecting yourself from acknowledging far more important things that you want but can’t admit to wanting. If I had more compassion for myself, I would’ve figured out that what I wanted very badly was to be understood, to be seen clearly, to be recognized as a loving person in spite of my resting bitch face. But I didn’t respect my own core needs – I was raised to ignore and ridicule my core needs, quite honestly; that’s just how my people do it – so I couldn’t stop inflating the importance of absolutely trivial irritations and superficial obstacles.

Additional source: The New York Times Today’s Headlines

News that got my attention today

Trump dismissed four-star Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the joint chiefs of staff, a fighter pilot, and replaced him with a retired white three-star general loyal to Trump, passing over the usual chain of command. The chief of staff traditionally spans administrations. The change included a purge of six Pentagon officials, including a woman, and furthers the Republican white supremacist, anti-women, sexist, authoritarian agenda.

Protesters confronted California Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, of Santee, Calif., who is pandering to white supremacy and xenophobia by restricting California’s so-called “sanctuary city” law.

School shooter Brenda Spencer, 62, was denied parole for the sixth time. She opened fire on a San Diego elementary school in 1979, killing two and injuring nine others, and later explained her reason: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” The shooting became the inspiration for a song, “I Don’t Like Mondays," by the Boomtown Rats, an Irish band, written by Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers. It is a lovely piano ballad. The video is a perfect capsule of cheap, cheesy 1979 music videos. Geldof later said he regretted writing the song because it made Spencer famous.

Also:

An 87-year-old widower went viral for hand-delivering party invitations door to door that read “4 pm unitl the cops arrive.”

A 94-year-old woman reunited with a toddler she saved from drowing 64 years ago. He’s now 66 years old.

Authorities seized 303 cocaine-filled ceramic bananas.

9.3% of US adults identified as LGBTQ+ last year, up from 7.6% in 20230. This is the kind of thing that means TRUMP-DOGEism will have a short shelf-life. Trump came into office with the slimmest of margins; only about a third of eligible voters supported him. Those LGBTQ+ people make up a big part of the population, and they have plenty of friends, families and allies in the cisgender-heterosexual community (like me). Trump-DOGEism will continue to lose popularity as their stupid and dangerous policies harm more and more people.

Additional source: 1440

I’m planning my first international travel in more than five years. I just bought a couple of power banks for the trip, and for emergency preparedness here at home. I may have overdone it.

I can now fly five times around the world nonstop and binge-watch Law & Order the entire time.

News that got my attention today

Mitch McConnell is retiring. We’re losing a moderating force on right-wing extremism — and that’s a statement on the dire condition the US is in.

Trump is dismantling the government fight against foreign influence operations. Makes sense; foreign influence helped get him elected.

Trump cut protections for Haitians, putting them on track for deportation.

Hamas turned four hostages over to Israel in a display a senior UN official called “abhorrent and cruel.” Israel later said only three bodies belonged to captives.

The SS United States, a historic 990-foot ocean liner and the largest passenger ship built in America, is steaming from Philadelphia to its final fate as the world’s largest artificial reef. It will finish about 180 feet underwater and 20 miles off the coast of Okalosa County, off the Florida Gulf Coast. The ship carried four US presidents, Marylin Monroe, Marlon Brando and Grace Kely, set transatlatic speed records and completed about 800 crossings until it retired in 1969.

Amazon passed Walmart revenue for the first time. I would have thought Amazon did that years ago.

New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, decided against removing NYC Mayor Eric Adams from office.

Wild fish can tell humans apart when we dress differently.

Cheetohs launched the Flamin' Hot Dill Pickle flavor.

On this day: The Communist Manifesto was published (1848), NASCAR was founded (1948) — a friend told me recently that NASCAR was based on evasion techniques invented by bootletters; he said his family were bootleggers 100 years ago, which is way more interesting than my family history — Malcolm X was assassinated (1965), Billy Graham died (2018).

Sources: 1440, The New York Times: Today’s Headlines

News that got my attention today

Trump wants to abolish the IRS and fund government through tariffs. (How about you try your hair-brained experiments on someone else’s country?)

He called Zelensky a “dictator.”

The French prime minister, François Bayrou, said on Thursday that “the risk of war has never been so high since 1945”. Denmark said it would rapidly increase defense spending.

Trump called himself a king and the White House shared an image of him wearing a crown.

Archeologists found the first pharoah’s tomb in more than a century — that of Thutmose II (I read a lot of Egyptology in the 1990s and I actually remember that name, though I couldn’t tell you what he was kown for).

Germany’s far right AfD party doubled its support since 2021.

Brazilian authorities charged former President Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others yesterday with orchestrating a coup after the 2022 presidential election, among other crimes. (Brazil knows how to handle an autogolpe. Nobody should be surprised that Trump is seeking retribution against the people he perceives as enemies. If you aim to take out powerful people, you had best not miss.)

Former Vice President Kamala Harris signs with talent firm Creative Artists Agency; CAA signed former President Joe Biden to a similar deal two weeks ago. (That’s all good; it’s not like the US is facing a crisis for which we require Democratic Party leadership. You just keep bringing in the money, guys; it’s what you’re good at.)

A judge ordered a Mississippi newsletter to remove an editorial criticizing city officials.

Kennedy issued guidance recognizing only two sexes, citing “biological truth.” (Bullshit.)

Doctors love the Noah Wylie TV series “The Pitt.”” (We do too.)

Sources: The Guardian: First Thing, The New York Times: Today’s Headlines, 1440

We watched an episode of Rockford Files tonight. It was the second part of a two parter, and though it had a lot of padding – plenty of scenes of Jim Rockford driving around Los Angeles – I enjoyed it anyway, just seeing the streets of Los Angeles in the 70s and all those 70s cars.

Joseph Cotten and Sharon Gless were guest stars.

Jim Rockford wears high-waisted slacks, hard shoes and a button-front sport shirt even when he’s hanging around the house trailer. He adds a snappy sport coat when he’s out on business.

Protecting our immigrant neighbors in La Mesa, California

I’m a board member-at-large of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club. I wrote this up for the club newsletter:

The City of La Mesa and the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District are protecting immigrants. At our general meeting on February 5, we heard details from City Council Member Lauren Cazares and school trustee Brianna Coston.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has launched raids in San Diego County since the inauguration, including one in Escondido, Cazares said. ICE had not come to La Mesa at the time of our meeting — not yet — although there have been many rumors of ICE sightings. I checked in with Cazares over the weekend, and she said ICE still hasn’t put in an appearance in La Mesa, to her knowledge.

The City of La Mesa has not adopted a sanctuary city policy but follows California Senate Bill 54 protecting immigrants. The city adopted instructions for the La Mesa Police Department in 2017. Those instructions, amended in 2018, are still current, Cazares said.

Cazares read a section of the instructions on prohibited activity and asked that if any police officer is seen violating those policies, they should be reported to the La Mesa Police Department — although she noted there had been no violations to date that she was aware of. “There is a way for you to ensure that it is taken care of and nipped in the bud immediately,” she said.

She added, “Our chief takes the safety of La Mesans, regardless of immigration status, extremely seriously.”

The city has a police oversight board that makes an independent audit of complaints to determine if wrongdoing was done.

Ensuring adherence to the policy protecting immigrants is “on all of us in La Mesa, not just on the City Council, to ensure that it’s taken care of,” Cazares said.

Cazares provided an expansive list of prohibited police activities, including any official inquiry about a person’s immigration status; using immigration enforcement as a basis to initiate contact, detain or arrest any individual; detaining an individual based on a hold request from an immigration agency, including ICE; collecting information about a person’s immigration status, even on arrest; providing information to immigration authorities regarding a person’s release date, and more.

Republicans spreading confusion

La Mesa Republicans are spreading misinformation on Facebook about the city’s immigration policy, Cazares said. “I’m not talking about elected officials. I’m talking about people who like to tweet and go on Facebook and rant, saying the city of La Mesa is going to get sued by the federal government because of our sanctuary city status,” she said. “The city cannot be sued by the federal government because we do not have a sanctuary city policy.” And since the city’s policy went into effect in 2017, not a single judge has ruled against the city on any level. However, she noted that if California’s SB54 is brought before the current Supreme Court, that could change.

She appealed to white La Mesans to speak out on behalf of Black and brown Americans and immigrants. “It’s important that you’re able to stand up for us,” she said.

The La Mesa-Spring Valley School District is taking similar steps to protect immigrants, Coston, the school trustee, said. Contrary to rumors, ICE has not been on Spring Valley school campuses. “Yet, as Lauren said, I’m sure that will change in the future,” she said.

The district is doing a series of “Immigration: Know Your Rights” webinars in English, Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Arabic, Russian and Dari — find information here.

She added, “All children in the United States have a Constitutional right to equal access to free public education, regardless of their immigration status and regardless of the immigration status of the student’s parents or guardians,” she said. “That’s something that our school district takes very seriously. That’s something that I know a lot of the school districts in our area take very seriously.”

ICE is not supposed to go on school campuses, though President Trump has tried to remove those barriers, Coston said.

On enrollment, students or their families need to prove residency, typically with a utility bill. They need to show where the child is born, most commonly done with a birth certificate, but it can also be done with a parental affidavit. “All of our information is confidential. We do not give that information out to anyone,” Coston said. That information can’t even be given out for a subpoena. The board adopted a policy in 2018 to match state policies protecting immigrants.

ICE needs warrants to access schools

For ICE to access campus, they must show proof of a judicial warrant signed by a judge. The district immediately lets the board know and needs to contact legal counsel to validate the warrant before divulging information. “They are a guest on our campus. They have to sign in at the front office. They have to provide all sorts of information – their badge number and contact information. They will be escorted by people directly to wherever they need to be on campus."

She added, “But this is only if they have a valid judicial warrant. We do not let people onto our campus that should not be on our campus.”

Warrants need to specify who they are looking for and why. They can’t just be for general fishing expeditions on black and brown people, Coston said.

Following a bond measure in 2020, the schools installed security measures to protect against gun violence, and now all schools have a single point of entry and fences surrounding campuses. “ICE could not just accidentally wander onto a campus,” she said. “They have to go through the front door. And it isn’t unlocked. You have to get buzzed into our campus now.”

There are a lot of fake warrants floating around. But people can tap legal resources in the county to see copies of real warrants and fake warrants to learn to tell the difference, Cazares said. “Now is the time to get educated on that for all of us, not just folks who might have potential immigration issues, because often those of us who can read and write are the ones that are going to be helping people,” Cazares said.

She continued,, “My Dad has birthright citizenship. He is completely and totally functionally illiterate in English and Spanish because he graduated high school before they had ESL [English as a Second Language]. He’s very smart. He can speak English and Spanish perfectly fine.”

She continued, “Do you think someone like my Dad would be able to discern the difference between a real [warrant] and a fake one? I guarantee he would not.”

Schools have been training their whole staff, not just teachers, in immigration policies, Coston said.

Cazares also talked about several immigration bills pending in the state legislature. One is Assembly Bill 18, the California Secure Borders Act of 2025. It’s a “crazy bill,” but fortunately, it’s authored by Carl DeMaio, Cazares said. Even Republicans don’t like DeMaio, so the bill is “dead on arrival,” she said. With other Republican support, the bill might have been more viable.

On the other hand, a second bill, Senate Bill 48, would enact protections statewide similar to those in the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Cazares said. And Assembly Bill 15 would limit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from cooperating with immigration authorities.

Mitch Wagner is a member at large of the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club Board. He lives in La Mesa, a short walk from Lake Murray, with his wife, dog and cats. Contact Mitch at mitch@mitchwagner.com.

It’s not just at restaurants that the dress code has become more relaxed; it’s pretty much everywhere. People don’t dress up for the theater, the opera, work or travel. Sometimes airports look more like giant sleepover parties than transportation hubs.

— Why Don’t People Dress Up to Go Out Anymore?

Kevin Kelly shares a meaty and fascinating list of travel tips learned from wandering the world for 50 years:

Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs, or jazz joints will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.

If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.

…

Crash a wedding. You are not a nuisance; you are the celebrity guest! The easiest way to do this is to find the local wedding hall where weddings happen on schedule and approach a wedding party with a request to attend. They will usually feel honored. You can offer the newlyweds a small token gift of cash if you want. You will be obliged to dance. Take photos of them; they will take photos of you. It will make your day and theirs. (I’ve crashed a wedding in most of the countries I have visited.)

At Taco Bell, a Romance Is Born. Bettina Makalinta and her husband went to Taco Bell on their first date. “Taco Bell isn’t ‘real’ Mexican food, but it has always, at least in my lifetime, been knowing about this: A Cheez-It tostada lands at Taco Bell, because its audience is stoners and silly people.”

Business school professors trained an AI to judge workers' personalities based on their faces. “The purpose of this automated eugenics is the same as every ‘rational’ account of hierarchy in human history: to retroactively justify winners, and to condemn losers before the game even starts.” — Cory Doctorow

Cory suggests a possible explanation, almost in passing: Assuming the test has any accuracy — a big “if” — it is simply detecting people with money and social status to make themselves look conventionally attractive.

I have decided to read Schlock Mercenary and Girl Genius. Not today. But soon.

I love this article by Joel Stein, about his fashion makeover. I laughed out loud at the headline and description alone — “A sartorial remaking, inspired by Ted Danson’s character on ‘A Man on the Inside’” — because I had the same impulse after watching the show.

My resolve to become natty only lasted a couple of days. I bought a cardigan sweater for about $110. I got away with spending much, much less money than Stein did.

I do at least want to wear nicer T-shirts. My T-shirts get stretched at the collar after I repeatedly push my massive Charlie Brown head through the neck hole.

Last night, we watched the movie “The Man From Earth.” I liked how the main character dressed: Cargo pants, a crew neck sweater and a corduroy sports jacket.

I love RSS but find all RSS clients annoying. I’m trying bazqux now and I like it.

Until a week or two ago, was sure I wanted an RSS reader that also supported email newsletters, but now I think you know what’s great for reading email? Email is great for that.

I’m looking at a 15-hour flight in about two weeks and then another one a week later. I need to try this to get an upgrade.

A big reason I enjoy reading /r/AITA is so I can say, “Yes, often I’m TA but at least I’m not that guy." I suspect this is a common motivation.

NTA. The commenters are saying she needs to leave him and they’re right. Is “Cat’s in the Cradle phase” a common name for the evolution of abusive Dads, or is it just something they’re saying here?

NTA. A person has a right to politely decline offered food for any reason or no reason at all. Good grief, people, stop being jerks.

“LPT: if a loved one is taken in an ambulance, do not follow us to the hospital. Go there on your own time and own route."

An ambulance tech on Reddit advises:

People in an emotional state following another vehicle will develop tunnel vision and forget all traffic laws. You will blow stop signs. You will follow me right through an intersection even if the light has already turned red for you. And you will slam into the back of the ambulance if we need to make a sudden stop. Remember, the patient faces backwards and can see out the back window as you blow a red light and get t-boned by an overloaded ice cream truck.

After we leave, wait ten minutes, take a deep breath and slowly make your way to the hospital.

Reasons to be hopeful: Jay Kuo writes about acts of resistance at the personal, political, legal and popular levels. People are doing something. In particular, Congressional Democrats aren’t just twiddling their thumbs; as the minority party in both houses and the White House, they have limited power but are using what power they have.

Chris Andrade:

One of my most enduring memories from my ten years traveling the US was being in a dive bar somewhere in Ohio when a woman got all upset that her man had went into the bathroom, locked it, and that was half hour ago and he wasn’t answering and he had history of falling asleep on the toilet and passing out and she needed help and for the next twenty minutes every man in the bar gave it their best shot – some running and throwing their shoulder against the door, some with pool cues and other improvised pry-bars, some trying to pick the lock, some with absurd Rube Goldberg like schemes – finally, one of the guys got it open by taking the door off the frame using tools from his truck and after the guy inside was woken from his concoction-of-substances induced sleep, for the next two hours the man who opened the door strutted around like the cat’s meow. He was the hero of the night and everyone bought him free drinks and that dude was one proud dude, beaming, and recounting the story of how he opened the door to everyone, including me who heard it about four times, and each time he told it, it got more impressive.

The image sticks with me because it was both so comical and telling. This was one of the divey-est dive bars in the US, with a collection of intoxicated, high, and strung out customers that didn’t discriminate by race, gender, age, or faith. Every demographic of the US was represented, with the exception of the successful and the whole scene played out with a chaotic bluster – with each actor, when it was their time in the spotlight, entering with a swaggering bravado that soon collapsed in cartoon-ish ways – a humiliating slip and fall, a crushed finger, a yelp of pain, and so on and so on until the hero finally dismantled the door only to reveal a rail thin spiky haired man sprawled on the toilet who, when woken, walked directly to the bar with an oblivious grin, ordered another drink, confused over all the buzz around his release, but loving the attention, which he used to try and hit on a woman right in front of his woman, the one that had bothered to rescue his useless ass in the first place, who quickly jerked him out of the bar like a momma cat carrying their mischievous kitten.

Behind that humor though, is an example of behavior that I’ve seen across the US, from Wall Street to trap houses, and across the world from Amman to Uganda, which is that all men need to feel like the hero, if not over the course of their lifetime, then at least every now and then. They get an immense sense of worth if they are being valued, and appreciated, for rescuing, protecting, building, and solving.

While the need to feel important isn’t exclusive to men, the roles that give them the most satisfaction (generally sacrificing their body for the greater good), and how they respond if they don’t have those roles (anger, despair, vengeance), is very different from females.

A San Diego migrant shelter run by Jewish Family Services, hailed as a national model, is shutting down and laying off 115 employees due to “changes in federal funding and policy” by the Trump administration.

I rewatched the first two episodes of the first season of “Severance” this evening. I am pleasantly surprised how much I’m enjoying it the second time around. I remember it was an extremely weird show, but I am surprised by how weird it is already.

I’m looking forward to the Kennedy Center ceremony honoring Hulk Hogan.

Here is something I saw walking the dog this morning: Dozens of parrots hanging out on overhead wires on the street. A neighbor said they had been making a racket a few minutes earlier.

What we’re witnessing in the US now resembles the fall of the USSR. But instead of Boris Yeltsin giving a rousing speech on top of a tank, a tiny car drives onto the Washington Mall. Then, a bunch of clowns spring out of the car, spraying confetti everywhere and hitting each other over the head with giant mallets.

Eleven years ago today, according to my journal, we were having a great deal of difficulty potty training the dog.