A quick screech and a concussive chord that lacked treble and bass, just the midrange sound of two heavy and hollow blocks of plastic intersecting at high velocity. I looked around the corner, and saw an SUV careening down a parking ramp, shuddering, stopping.

Every day I see someone run a red light. Today I saw the inevitable result. I walked towards the accident dialing 911, saw a smaller older car in the intersection absolutely shredded - and then noticed, confused, that there was an ambulance in the street, lights on. What?

911 did not pick up.

I hung up. A minute later 911 called back to ask if I needed to make a report, or nah. I declined, figuring the ambulance had it covered. As it turns out, the ambulance was just waiting at the light. Fortuitous. I walked over to the debris field, kicked a chunk of glass. Lots of plastic detritus, unrecognizable. The front of the SUV had taken a heavy hit, but it was a Caddy, and seemed salvageable. The smaller car, which had blown the light, was completely mashed in. It was spun around. I couldn’t construct the accident from the position of the vehicles.

Both drivers had exited their vehicles, as they always say on the cop shows, and were standing, dazed. The man in the small car walked over to the lady in the Caddy and asked if she was okay. He seemed to be acting as if he had no idea how this happened and was as mystified as she was.

No one seemed injured, but it was one of those half-second-later-and-someone-is-dead situations.

RIP Yellow Pole, though.

In happier times:

It was about six years old. It held a button that let the system know you would like to walk across the street, and thereby alter the carefully timed dance of the lights downtown. Of course we suspect it does no such thing, and pushing the button merely triggered a switch that dropped a pellet of food in the tray of a mouse in a research facility across town.

It is the fattest mouse you've ever seen.

There are 358 issues blowing up per day now, and it's hard to think which should make you run in circles yanking hanks of hair (which is on fire) and screaming. Problem is, some people are screaming about issue #279, and some are demanding you react in the precisely proper fashion to #55. You spend half your time sorting and evaluating. Or you just give up altogether and carry on. It's good to step away. Twitter will be there tomorrow and it will perform its accumstomed function, sticking an electric mixer in your brain pan and setting it on FROTH.

One of the things bothering others is the deportation of a Hamas supporter. I think you should be free to say “yay, Hamas” and I think the school should be free to kick you out if you do. Or not kick you out, and be equally indifferent to someone wearing a swastika. I think the proper response to someone wearing a swastika is to laugh and call them names. Your mother smells of sauerkraut, and your uniballed hero topped himself in the basement on his wedding night so he wouldn’t have to perform. I think if you are a visitor to the country, a student, and you advocate on behalf of terrorist groups, you should leave. I think that the moment your "speech" comes action - property damage, closure of institutions, denial of access - you should be expelled. You can still do it, if you like, but there will be consequences. I also think that you should have your tuition doubled if you chant rhyming slogans, and trebled if you use the “hey ho” construction. I could go on.

I was looking at the posters put up by the students who barged into Barnard the other day, and was intrigued:

It flows so easily: from Hamas to Hezbollah to Destroy America. But take a look at that picture.

That's my town.

It was a building burned in the 2020 Minneapolis George Floyd riots. According to this comprehesive list of building destruction (or justice-informed uncoordinated mass carbon release, depending on your view)

The under-construction affordable housing development that burned in the widespread violence in south Minneapolis late Wednesday and early Thursday was to be a six-story rental building with 198 apartments for low-income renters, including more than three dozen for very low-income tenants.

The picture was an instant symbol for the right-minded. If you recall the famous sowing-reaping tweet by a then-NBA reporter named Chris Palmer, who tweeted the picture and said, in eloquent terms that echo through the ages, that all the shit should be burned down. A few hours later, as they say in Bikini Bottom:

Chris Palmer, an NBA reporter, on Saturday blasted the “animals” who destroyed a Starbucks, tried to trespass into a nearby “sister community” and gathered outside his building.

“Tear up your own shit,” Palmer said in a series of emotional tweets.

He later explained that he had indeed been "emotional" that day, which led to the endorsement of burning down low-income housing.

The purpose of the incinerated building might be known by now to the protestors, but it’s still their go-to pic.

Gives them a certain thrill, like posting pictures of Jew-killers, be they Smiley or Serious. It's really quite remarkable. Brings out a certain vengeful reaction in the Midwestern sensibility: I hope the door does hit you on the way out.

It’s 1970. Oh those carefree days before the nation seemed to be falling apart They bombed IBM, GTE, and “Mobile Oil.” Earlier that month three Weather Underground terrorists had taken themselves out, so this was probably fellow travelers, sympathizers, loose nuts, and other assorted miscreants. The aggregate effect was demoralization. And the rest of the world was just shaping up great:       That did not happen. But for a while people had to worry about the Philippines. You realize that it’s been a long time since anyone thought about Laos. People were used to thinking about Laos. Silly domino theory! What nonsense.     (Wikipedia: “The Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) is the founding and sole ruling party of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The party's monopoly on state power is guaranteed by Article 3 of the Constitution of Laos, and it maintains a unitary state with centralised control over the economy and military.”) Ellipses and bad spacing. Did it work? It did not. His Wikipedia entry begins by calling him “an American politician and optometrist.” He was mayor of DeKalb for a while, and did 12 years in the Illinois state House. So . . . all the pupils are middle-aged men I’m still getting my head around “Split sessions and drugs.” Said one letter to the paper years later, during COVID: Back in the dark ages, when the “boomers bubble” worked its way through schools, many schools went to split sessions to accommodate the temporary peak in the number of students. Classes were held five days a week, in school, but there were two sessions of classes — morning and afternoon. Apparently that was a problem as big as drugs.   When you’re hungry, don’t you think “Gosh, wish I could find a country school, and see what they’re serving” It was a chain. There are still a few open, but it doesn’t seem to be a chain anymore. I cannot understand the appeal of that name. The good old days of civilized air travel, when you could just walk to the gate and board: Mr. Safer survived. He died in 2017, and his obit says he was a nuclear physicist for GE.         “Look, I know it’s crude, but that’s the name of the group."     That will do. All that remains is our underwhelming 40s update. But no one else is bringing you 1944 Kitchen Design, so I must do what I can.