23 Years Later

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I posted the following, now updated with minor edits, using strikethroughs and italics:

============================================================

(Reuters photo)

I saw it on TV, like almost everyone else. I shuffled to the kitchen table with my cup of coffee and pushed the remote. The TV was set to Channel 11, NBC. It was 5:45 a.m. The Today Show was on; strange, normally it doesn't start till 7 a.m. on the West Coast.

The camera was fixed on the World Trade Center. Black smoke was pouring out of one of the towers. There were no jump cuts or commercials to distract the unblinking eye. Katie Couric's voice seemed dispassionate as she described how an airplane had crashed into the building. Surely it was a small plane and a horrible accident.

Then the second jet hit, another struck the Pentagon, and the towers fell. Other images are seared into our memories--the Pennsylvania field that became hallowed ground, the throngs who lustily cheered the deaths of thousands, flames and smoke everywhere, the weeping, the exhausted searching and the death of hope.

The fear gripped us for a long time. Not knowing has that effect. Who did it and why, how powerful were they, what's next, what should we do, what can I do?

Everyone--even those who were in charge of our government--can list major mistakes in the past ten twenty years. All the criticisms have at least some plausibility: we waged war against the wrong people, maybe we shouldn't have gone to war at all, we mistreated prisoners, we had intelligence that was grossly wrong, we sacrificed too many of our civil liberties, we didn't pay the cost of the wars, and we are no farther only a little further along in being energy independent or securing the safety of Israel.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we will remember the worst of our fears:

1) we would be hit again and perhaps lose a major city; this event coupled with our response, could forever change the character of America;

2) if the attack were biological, we could lose much more than one city;

3) oil supplies would be disrupted, maybe cut off for a long time, and usher in a new Dark Ages;

4) Israel, surrounded by powerful enemies, could be destroyed.

5) A state of war would exist between the West and the Islamic world, which has over a billion people.

Ten Twenty-threeyears and trillions of dollars later none of these fears has been realized, yet victory, which we can't even define, seems as distant as it was in 2001.

I'll take it. © 2011 Stephen Yuen

Pain Avoidance

For the record I do think that Kamala Harris won tonight's debate with Donald Trump because she looked "more Presidential" than he did. Regarding the content, I keep up with enough political news to know that each debater made claims about the other that were false, but I wasn't the target audience, which presumably was the low-information undecided voter.

Cheryl Obermiller in Missouri, and Jonathan Chiaramonte in New York.
Both started politics-free Facebook groups. (WSJ photo)

However, one should not demean the latter by assuming they're unintelligent. They could be rationally avoiding politics because they can't stand the vitriol. [bold added]

Some Americans are avoiding [politics] at all costs.

They are canceling subscriptions, deleting apps, silencing notifications and unfollowing rabble-rousers. Many want no part of Tuesday night’s presidential debate or its fallout. Political discourse has infiltrated everything from the Sunday church service to afternoon football, and they have had enough.

Even those with firm political views say they feign ignorance rather than join impassioned discussions. It isn’t, they say, that they are uninterested or uncaring about world events, but they are inundated by the sheer volume of news headlines. Deciding it is bad for their mental health, they are retreating or seeking apolitical havens.

Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Group, with 11,600 members, is one. “Not only do I not care who you voted for, in this group you aren’t allowed to tell me,” wrote creator Cheryl Obermiller, 66 years old, welcoming “fellow snowflakes” to post photos of flowers, funny road signs and tasteful jokes.

Obermiller, who founded the group after friends engaged in political flame wars, said, “Things are so contentious right now that people are just starving for a place they can go where someone doesn’t have to know who I am going to vote for.” She helps monitor comments, a time-consuming task for the Kansas City, Mo., construction-services firm owner with eight children and 21 grandchildren.

About 62% of U.S. adults say they are worn out by so much coverage of the campaign and candidates, according to the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 8,709 adults in April...

Politics is a chronic stressor and disengaging is among the most effective coping methods, said Brett Q. Ford, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Ford and a colleague tracked hundreds of Americans in recent years and found political events often triggered negative emotions that left people exhausted...

Jonathan Chiaramonte, a 43-year-old high-school teacher, in 2020 started a politics-free community Facebook group in Sayville, N.Y., where he lives. Chiaramonte, who teaches a peer-education class that promotes community, confidence and eradicating bullying, noticed adults in town behaved worse than his students when it came to political discourse. “It was so upsetting to see my neighbors fighting,” he recalled.

Today, the Sayville Politics-Free Zone has 3,000 members in a town of about 17,000. He said people know they can share or seek information without any spin or political blowback. He once used the forum while redoing his kitchen. “I was looking for a contractor,” he said, “not for a lecture on politics.”

Count me in the feigning-ignorance crowd. Stress harms one's mental and physical health. Our jobs, finances, and family problems are stressors enough, and voluntarily seeking more in political discussions seems crazy to your humble blogger.

I'll do my civic duty, cast my vote in person in November, then move on.

iPhone 16: I've Deferred Gratification Long Enough

It's been six years since I bought my iPhone XS Max. The XS Max has performed well, and I've been patiently watching as successor iPhones have improved the camera, speed, and battery life.

This year I'm going to pull the trigger on a new iPhone 16. The hyped AI (Apple Intelligence) features are just an added bonus, since the XS Max battery health had declined to 81% (80% is Apple's recommended minimum) and I was going to get a new iPhone regardless.

Here's the WSJ's first look at the new iPhone 16 announced today.

Still at the Acorn Stage

Some in Hollywood understand that the woke messaging (the villain is the white guy, the heroine of color is strong and independent and has no weaknesses) that has lost millions (see Disney's Star Wars prequel the Acolyte) requires a change of direction. The success of small-budget religious, specifically Christian-themed, movies has attracted investors' attention:

Faith-based film makers are getting bigger budgets.

[Jon] Erwin, 42, is a Christian filmmaker whose driving purpose is to put out uplifting stories that families can watch together. After nearly two decades of making small-budget movies in the parallel world of faith-based entertainment, he’s part of a loose tribe of filmmakers, producers and independent studios from that realm now storming into the mainstream.

Some key successes turned this corner of the industry into a hotbed. The Chosen, a multiseason TV drama about the life of Jesus and his apostles, became one of the most popular series in the world. Jesus Revolution, a movie by Erwin about a pastor and a hippie evangelist who create a surge of groovy Christians, pulled people into theaters in the shaky movie market of early 2023 and grossed about $54 million. Sound of Freedom, a thriller about child trafficking, had nothing to do with religion on the surface—but it galvanized religious viewers and grossed $250 million worldwide on a $15 million budget, becoming a box-office phenomenon second only to “Barbenheimer” last summer.

While my values are more aligned with Christianity than wokeness, I hope the new family-values film makers don't forget that the story is the key. Their movies will fail like the wokesters' if they forget that audiences want to be entertained, not lectured to.

SF: Another Neighborhood Market Closes

(SF Gate photo)

Despite political leaders' assurances that San Francisco is cracking down on crime, homelessness, and drug use, one local business has given up:

After 35 years in business, a family-owned market in South Beach is closing its doors. Co-owner David Pesusic said high operation costs and mounting neighborhood crime were the driving factors.

Bayside Market, located at 120 Brannan St. near the Embarcadero, will cease operations on Sept. 13. Some of its 12 employees will be transferred to RJ’s Market near Fisherman’s Wharf, the business’s other location, but most will be laid off, Pesusic said.

In addition to inflation-fueled bills and declining foot traffic, the small grocery and deli has suffered from “rampant” crime, including near-daily shoplifting and three break-ins in the last couple years, Pesusic said. He blamed city officials for the increased crime, slamming law enforcement and city leaders for being unresponsive and overly permissive...

Law enforcement has taken hours to respond to petty crimes at Bayside, if they respond at all, Pesusic said. During two of the three break-ins the business faced over the past two years, he said police officers took over eight hours to arrive on the scene. And the market’s employees have stopped reporting shoplifting incidents, which Pesusic said occur at least 5-6 times a week, and sometimes up to five times in one day.

Crime in the city plunged in the first quarter of 2024, the Chronicle reported in April. From January through March, San Francisco saw decreases in every major crime category tracked by the FBI for its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, which includes homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, arson, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft.

But Pesusic said market employees have stopped reporting many crimes.

“We don’t even call 911 anymore because they don’t respond,” Pesusic said. “This isn’t fun, playing security-slash-police officer, trying to hold on to my inventory.”

In the absence of law enforcement, people deal drugs right outside Bayside’s doors and serial shoplifters operate with no consequences, Pesusic said.

“These guys think our store is a pantry where they can take whatever they want,” Pesusic said. “We’ve been spit at, we’ve had knives pulled on us, we’ve been called names.”

For a City that is hostile to automobile traffic, San Francisco doesn't seem to be helping residents shop, dine, and receive services without forcing them into their cars or using problematic public transportation.

Also...after the Federal jobs report was "revised" down by 818,000 from April, 2023 to May, 2024, I've stopped blindly accepting improvements -- such as San Francisco crime decreases--in government statistical measures without corroboration.

SF Zoo: Improvement Requires a Candid Assessment

2011 was the last time we commented about the San Francisco Zoo. The post was about the 2007 incident where an escaped tiger mauled a young man to death and injured two of his friends. Police killed the tiger, and the two injured young men received a $900,000 settlement from the Zoo. Although they taunted the animal into an enraged state, they were not held responsible because the Zoo's tiger enclosure wasn't 100% secure.

The grizzly was caught on video entering the zookeeper's area

Recent investigations into the Zoo's policies and procedures have uncovered incidents that could have resulted in more tragedies but luckily didn't. The most dangerous was one involving a grizzly bear.

One Saturday morning last May, a keeper at the San Francisco Zoo heard footsteps behind him in the grizzly bear grotto. Believing it was a co-worker, he turned, only to see the hulking brown form of Kiona. He thought he’d safely locked her in her den, but the door, which is operated from an adjoining room, had an unusual feature: Its lock could be fastened even without the door being securely closed.

The zookeeper began to run, and with Kiona in pursuit, he circled the grotto, according to people familiar with his account. He then sprinted through the door into the keeper area, according to surveillance video. When Kiona stopped briefly, the keeper escaped through a gate and closed it behind him.

At that point, the almost 500-pound grizzly ambled into the keeper area and was separated from the public by a gate, a regular door and a chain-link barrier, said Travis Shields, then the assistant curator of the zoo’s carnivores department, which includes the bears. Shields was away at the time but was briefed by workers who were involved or listening on the radio.

Zoo employees who came to the keeper’s aid found him in a panic and the grizzly roaming the keeper area, Shields said. The zookeepers managed to coax Kiona into her other outdoor habitat and locked the doors.

It's healthy that the San Francisco Zoo is undergoing an audit. It will need substantial improvements in public safety and animal welfare before the pandas come. From April of this year:

“San Francisco is absolutely thrilled that we will be welcoming giant pandas to our San Francisco Zoo,” Breed said in a statement Thursday from Beijing, where she signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese wildlife officials regarding the panda plan.

No timeline was given for the pandas’ arrival. The announcement said it depended on the completion of an enclosure for the animals at the zoo. The number of pandas was also not specified, though pandas often have been sent in pairs...

Owned by the city, the zoo is run by the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society. In addition to the estimated $1 million annual price tag to rent the pandas, it could cost an estimated $25 million to build housing for them at San Francisco Zoo, Peterson told ABC News in February. That would be on top of the cost of maintenance and upgrades needed for the facility’s aging structures, some of which date to the 1930s.

A Financial Hit That Few Budget For

Christine Salhany spends about $240,000 a year
for 24-hour in-home care for her husband, Jimmy,
who has Alzheimer’s.(WSJ)

Everyone in my boomer circle of friends and relatives has been hit by the cost of caring for a loved one; it could be a parent, a spouse, or even themselves. It's a crushing financial burden: [bold added]

Americans want to grow old in their own homes. But pursuing that dream has gotten harder, and is putting huge financial and emotional strains on families.

In Nebraska, Christine Salhany spends about $240,000 a year for 24-hour in-home care for her husband who has Alzheimer’s. In Illinois, Carolyn Brugioni’s dad exhausted his savings and took out a home-equity line-of-credit to pay for home healthcare.

Traci Lamb closed her business to take care of her mom in Florida. And in California, Cheryl Orr delayed retirement to help pay for care and home modifications for her wife, who has dementia.

Soaring costs of in-home care, medical advances that extend lives but require ongoing help, and the growing ranks of older baby boomers are creating new pressures. Spouses, adult children and siblings are putting their lives on hold to care for relatives, wrestling with sleep deprivation and constant worry. Families are draining savings to hire help, pay for medical care, and modify homes...

The cost of paid in-home care has soared in recent years. The 2023 national median cost of a home health aide, hired through an agency, stood at $33 an hour, up from $20 an hour in 2015, according to Genworth, a long-term-care insurance company. Those needing round-the-clock in-home care can expect a median cost of about $290,000, which is more than double the annual median cost of a private room in a nursing home facility and four times the annual median cost of a private room in assisted living, according to Genworth.

Very few elderly have the nearly $1,000,000 in retirement savings to pay for long-term at-home care for, say, four years. Borrowing against, then selling the family home is an option if the patient is willing to move to assisted living.

I know three families that have tapped the value of their house; they were fortunate to have lived in the Bay Area, where suburban tract homes have appreciated by over a million dollars if held for at least 20 years. They have had to move away but consider themselves lucky to possess such a valuable asset.

If any politician can come up with a credible solution, he or she would win in a landslide.

The Residential Streets of San Francisco

San Francisco, somewhat belatedly, is trying to attack homelessness, crime, and open-air drug use in this election year.

Addressing one subset of crime--prostitution--has been a low priority, especially since sex work has long been regarded as "victimless" (two consenting adults engage in a quid pro quo transaction where supposedly no one gets hurt).

Sex worker Rene, 20: “This is a good street. Quiet. Safe.
Way better than Oakland, where I live. I’ve got two kids to
support, and I can make $1,000 a night here." (Chron photo)

However, street prostitution has spilled over into San Francisco residential areas and has become a severe nuisance: [bold added]

A year after San Francisco officials put up bollards to deter sex work on Capp Street in the Mission District, residents say the activity hasn’t disappeared — it has just migrated a couple of blocks east.

Now, Shotwell Street is the Mission’s epicenter for the illicit sex trade, and all the noise and bumper-to-bumper traffic that comes with it. And frustrated neighbors are suing.

Hiding these problems or pushing them around “is not the solution,” said Ayman Farahat, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed this past week in San Francisco Superior Court. The suit aims to force city officials to eliminate what the plaintiffs describe as a public nuisance.

...at Shotwell’s Saloon on 20th and Shotwell streets, owner David Hall flinched when asked about the nightly activity. “It’s horrible, horrible,” he said — so bad that he now closes the bar at midnight to protect his customers from solicitation or harassment.

Advocates of helping, rather than arresting, sex workers say pushing them off Shotwell might give the locals some relief like Capp Street got, but it won’t solve the larger problem. The area’s reputation as a lucrative sex-trade spot is so widespread it has drawn people from as far away as Seattle — which is where 21-year-old Maryanna was walking the streets until last week.

Customers up north were too edgy, she said, “and then a friend told me ‘There’s this place called Shotwell Street in San Francisco where business is good, you can make good money.’

“She’s right,” Maryanna said the day after she arrived in San Francisco, strolling Shotwell to scope out the night’s work. “I like it here. It’s more intense, but there’s good money. I’ll stick around awhile.”

...Lyon-Martin Community Health Services sends a van to Shotwell two nights a week, offering condoms and other sex-work supplies along with aid references. And though some locals resent that as enabling, Lyon outreach director Celestina Pearl says it is life-saving.

“Nobody is pro-trafficking, and yes we do want better lives for these women,” Pearl said. “But the better solution is not to vilify, stigmatize and criminalize. If people really want to solve the problem I would love to see them advocate for decriminalization of sex work, so these women can move indoors where it’s more dignified and safer and more peaceful for the residents.”

There is a substantial lobby that is (still) in favor of decriminalization, and with so many other problems San Francisco is unlikely to devote substantial resources to ridding the streets of prostitution. Besides, anyone arrested will be released because San Francisco is philosophically opposed to incarceration. The residents of Shotwell Street (a Zillow search values homes at more than $3 million) will have to live with the situation indefinitely or get the politicians to move it to another neighborhood.

Flamping

Flamping in Wisconsin (WSJ photo)

By now most people are familiar with the term glamping (glamorous, i.e., luxurious camping), and now there's flamping:

Meet plane campers. They incorporate an obsession for aviation into their rustic getaways, and pitch tents beneath the wings of their small aircraft.

“There’s something about camping with your airplane that’s different from camping with your car,” explains Roger Roberts, a cardiologist.

Fans flock to the Sun ’n Fun Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Fla., or to smaller airports that offer that unique blend of flying in and camping out—call it flamping.

The epicenter of this pastime is at Wittman Regional Airport here in Wisconsin each summer. Plane campers park in neat rows that stretch as far as the eye can see. Wet clothes and towels hanging from propellers flap in the breeze.

This isn’t your typical commune with nature. The Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture Oshkosh, sometimes compared with Woodstock, routinely draws more than 10,000 planes to Oshkosh and surrounding small airports.

Flamping is squarely a middle class activity. Used Cessnas are in the $200,000 range, well within the reach of retirees with a decent nest egg and a paid-up house.

Flamping, or even glamping, is not something that this traveler is inclined to do, however. Preferring to maximize the enjoyment at each destination, I don't want to be burdened by hauling around too much stuff, much less setting it up and taking it down. Nevertheless....is this a great country or what?

Taking a Break from Work

Happy Labor Day!

ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith almost can't believe what he's hearing about someone's work ethic.

https://t.co/V3brHELkWd pic.twitter.com/qWjs8PG9Gm

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) August 31, 2024

Worth A Deeper Look

During the homily the lady minister quoted Madeleine D'Engle:

“We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

I read Wrinkle in Time in sixth grade, focusing on the science fiction aspects of the novel; the good-vs-evil religious allusions escaped me, like much of what was going on in the Sixties.

Madeleine D'Engle sounds like "my kind" of Christian, i.e., the kind that minimizes preachiness and leads by example. She's worth a deeper look.

But I'm Not Going to Correct Them

I think this is me.

Man Unsure If He’s Becoming More Virtuous With Age Or Just Too Tired To Sin https://t.co/shJFS7afwZ pic.twitter.com/uVwxHUDMEK

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 31, 2024

Freeze Your Credit Now

(Image from Dealing with Dementia)

In early 2015 I read about how freezing one's credit can provide protection against one consequence of identification theft: a crook being able to open a new loan, credit card, or line of credit in my name.

I paid $10 to each of the three major credit-reporting agencies, Experian, Transunion, and Equifax, not to furnish credit reports to new lenders who come asking. It has been a minor hassle to unfreeze the accounts to obtain car leases and a new Apple Card, but it's been worth the $10 charge to sleep a little easier every night.

Credit freezes have cost nothing since 2018, so everyone should do it.

The good news is that freezing your credit is less of a pain than it used to be. It became free and simpler under a 2018 federal law following the massive Equifax breach the year before. But it does take a little more effort than locking your door...

Aside from making it a little less convenient to apply for a loan or credit card, freezing your credit costs nothing and has virtually no downside. It doesn’t hurt your credit score. Landlords and employers can still run a credit check. Existing creditors can increase your credit limit.

Making it harder to open new lines of credit might also be a form of financial discipline, since you won’t be able to sign up for buy now, pay later offers or store credit cards without first unfreezing your credit...

To freeze your credit, you must go online and request a freeze at all three of the major credit bureaus: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Reversing the process requires going through each bureau again.

To prove who you are, you will need to have a government ID, like a driver’s license, pay stubs and utility bills. Once set, it should take less than a half-hour to complete the process, says Miklos Ringbauer, a financial adviser in California. He encourages clients to keep their credit frozen and only lift the freeze for short periods, such as when they plan to apply for loans. After the initial setup, the freeze can be turned on or off with a few clicks, he said.

Freezing credit doesn't relieve one of the need to review one's existing bank, credit-card, stock-brokerage, retirement, etc. accounts for unfamiliar transactions, but it's a necessary part of a scam-protection program.

Out of Rhythm

Lester Beach, South Lake Tahoe (Chron)

Moderate weather is forecast for this Labor Day:

Tranquil weather is expected in the Bay Area for the holiday weekend as west-southwest winds keep marine air flowing from the ocean to the land, preventing temperatures from climbing too high. Sunday will be the windiest day of the extended weekend, with gusts up to 30 mph.

Along the coast, the ebb and flow to the marine layer will keep temperatures in San Francisco in the 60s to low 70s with morning and evening clouds from Friday through Monday. Oakland should reach the mid-70s each day, while San Jose will steadily be in the low to mid-80s.

It looks like a good weekend to get away.

During my working years I looked forward to holiday weekends. Dates were circled months in advance, and travel was scheduled to minimize the use of paid vacation. Holiday weekends took a lot of work, but the payoff was often great.

Now that I'm retired I don't much care for long weekends. Shopping centers, restaurants, and supermarkets are crowded on what would normally be a weekday, and the local bank and post office are closed. I rarely go on long car trips, especially not when most other people are on the road like the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

I do regret being out of rhythm with the rest of America.

Stanford's Creative Writing Contretemps

Part of the School of Humanities and Sciences (CEO World)

IMHO, it didn't look like "-isms" (for once) had anything to do with this decision, but after award-winning writer Joyce Carol Oates hinted that sexism was a factor, a "national backlash" resulted.

Stanford creative writing layoff ‘scandal’ ignites backlash among authors and students

Stanford University’s announcement that 23 creative writing instructors will be pushed out of their jobs and replaced has set off a national backlash in the literary community and among students in the program.

“Why would senior faculty vote to fire their colleagues who are doing so much of the work of teaching?” celebrated author Joyce Carol Oates posted on social media, raising questions about whether Stanford’s decision was meant to save money or was inspired by rank sexism.

“I am puzzled most by the lack of simple collegiality & generosity at one of the most wealthy universities in the world,” Oates wrote. “Stanford’s endowment could support an entire nation. Yet, much-admired (writing instructors) were fired after having requested modest raises which would have brought their salaries to levels far below senior faculty.”

Also, she noted, “only male senior professors voted to fire.”

Background from the Chronicle article: Pulitzer-prize winning author Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) founded Stanford's creative writing program in 1946. At the same time Texas oilman E.H. Jones, brother of Stanford English professor Richard Foster Jones, established both the Stegner Fellowships and Jones Lectureships.

The Fellowships were monetary grants for the students and the Lectureships funded short-term teaching appointments that the Stegner fellows could apply for. Over time the short-term appointments morphed into long-term positions.

A Stanford working group

decided to restore the intent of the Jones lectureship and give new Stegner Fellows “the opportunity to apply to be Jones Lecturers once they have completed their fellowships,” [Dean of School of Humanities and Sciences Debra] Satz said in her letter...

The new appointments will be one year “with the possibility of renewal for up to four more years.”

Undoubtedly there are some excellent instructors who have been let go, but I applaud Stanford for forcing new blood into the lectureships, but more importantly "restor[ing] the intent of the Jones lectureship." Too often we have seen donors' wishes being disregarded, and it's a sign to future donors that Stanford will abide by their instructions as best it can.