Why am I not surprised?

Years ago when I used to hang out at then Caribou coffee shop near Beachwood mall, an acquaintance who had recently returned from Saudi Arabia (but who was not of Arab descent) made a point of wearing a red and white Keffiyeh, or head scarf. People didn’t freak out—and this was post 911—but they were clearly upset.

While running errands yesterday I heard this story on WCPN about a similar incident in Avon, Ohio (about 35 miles northwest of my home) that has drawn international attention to Ohioans.

From The Guardian, in UAE tells citizens to leave robes at home after businessman held as Isis suspect in US, comes the details:

The United Arab Emirates has urged men to avoid wearing the white robes, headscarf and headband of the national dress when travelling abroad, after a businessman visiting the United States was wrestled to the ground and held as an Islamic State suspect.

UAE media reported that the Emirati man was detained in Avon, Ohio, last week after a female clerk at a local hotel called 911 to report what she had described as a man affiliated to Islamic State, according to the Arabic-language al-Bayan newspaper.

The English language newspaper the National said the receptionist at the Fairfield Inn hotel called the police after she heard the man talking on his phone in the hotel lobby. The woman reportedly described him as “a suspicious man with disposable phones—two of them—in a full head dress.”

What happened next is ugly and shameful.

Gulf News, another UAE newspaper, published photos of the Emirati man in white robes being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed before being led away by police.

The man, who sustained injuries in the incident, told the National that the police were “brutal”.

A search by police found no weapons on him. The National reported that when police spoke to the hotel clerk, they found he had not made any statements related to Isis. Officers said there had been a miscommunication.

Miscommunication my ass.

This is what profiling does.

The only good element of this story is that police did not go in with guns blazing and murder an innocent man.

Previously…

I am much immersed of late in reading about and studying the aftermath of our second war of secession, called the Civil War in the North and the War of Northern Aggression in the South, and one of the themes I’ve come across is that because there is no provision in our constitution for leaving the Union—we have no Article 50, as the European Union does—the 10th Amendment states simply that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

For some in the South, that was sufficient right to secede. Others turned to our first founding document, the one we read here on the 240th anniversary of our own declaration of independence from the British monarchy, for their justification.

If we do not understand from where we came, we cannot know to where we go.

The annual reading of the Declaration of Independence on National Public Radio…

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. – And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

John Oliver takes a moment to remind us what we’ve missed thanks to our secession; and Robert Reich lays out what being a patriot really means.

[Update at 1000 on 3 July: After more thought (and an email appeal by Bernie, see comment) I’ve made some additions to my 25 June reading of Matt Taibbi’s excellent Democrats Will Learn All the Wrong Lessons From Brush With Bernie for Rolling Stone.

Taibbi is always worth a second or third reading.]

I can so see my students in the punchline of this morning’s Dilbert. Yes, school starts too early—no, really, the studies have been done—but the primary reason the students I know come in each morning dragging their butts is because they fell asleep sometime past midnight.

The likely culprit is not Netflix in their cases, but most commonly some aspect of Internet use. Fixing the problem is easy, but requires parenting, which isn’t easy.

Step One: bedrooms are for sleeping. Parents should remove all devices and distractions—computers, phones, stereos, &c.—from the room.

Step Two: Bedtime on school nights for high school students is 10 p.m.; middle school students, 9 p.m.; and younger students 8 p.m. This provides two benefits: increased sleep time for students and quality time for parents.

Dressing like your hero makes perfect sense. Externally modeling the person you want to be is one way to model that person internally: become the change you want to see.

That being said, I knew about the IBM dress code a long time ago, I even had an Electronic Tech friend from the Navy who wore that uniform for a while after his discharge, but I can’t find any references that a bow tie was ever required. The white shirt, absolutely, but I’m much less sure on the tie angle.

Anyone have a link that confirms, or disproves, the assertion?

Don’t cue Bobby McFerrin or raise visions of Haley Mills as Pollyanna. I’m serious. Yes, we’re not living in a utopia and there will always be challenges to make life even better, but for all the grumbling we do, for all the hand wringing of those who just can’t be happy, the world, as a whole, is in a pretty good place.

Oliver Burkeman, writing in How to stay happy when the sky is falling in for The Guardian, elaborates:

Seen from a certain perspective, the last few months on planet Earth have been pretty unreservedly amazing. Nobody died from smallpox. Almost nobody contracted polio. Hospital operating theatres weren’t generally filled with the screams of patients undergoing surgery without anaesthetic, and no war claimed anything like the single-day death toll of the first hours of the Battle of the Somme, 100 years ago this week. Britain decided the question of European Union membership via democratic vote, not armed conflict, and women were entitled to participate – an astonishingly recent state of affairs. Though we don’t have all the figures yet, it’s likely that gun violence in America continued its long-term decline and that extreme poverty around the world continued to fall. Oh, and that working people on both sides of the Atlantic enjoyed unprecedented quantities of leisure time. Even if you don’t believe in the inevitability of human progress – maybe things really will get worse again in the future – it’s hard to deny that we’re having a good run.

So why do we always seem to be on the precipice of an apocalypse?

Burkeman points to the usual culprit, the news, but then he goes deeper to explore how our perceptions of the continuous march of horrific events day after day, week after week, month after month blot out all the good events.

You’ve probably heard, in recent years, about the numerous cognitive biases that prevent us accurately assessing risk, so that we fear terrorist atrocities more than car accidents, for example, because it’s easier to call to mind vivid images of terrorism. But there’s another problem so fundamental, it tends to escape our notice: news, by definition, is about things that happen, rather than things that don’t. As the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker points out, you never see a news reporter speaking breathlessly live to camera from a foreign land because war hasn’t broken out there. And there will always be sufficient bad news to fill a half-hour bulletin, or a news website’s home page. Perfectly reasonably, most of us value stability and security in life, and fear sudden change. Yet stability isn’t news, which means that the headlines inevitably focus more on what we fear than on what we value. We’re subjected to an undifferentiated, unrelenting mishmash of Bad Events, in which one isolated incident of violent crime is accorded no less status than an ecological crisis that threatens to destroy the species. News, in the words of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu, becomes

a series of apparently absurd stories that all end up looking the same, endless parades of poverty-stricken countries, sequences of events that, having appeared with no explanation, will disappear with no solution—Zaire today, Bosnia yesterday, the Congo tomorrow.

The drumbeat of we’re all doomed (well, we are, no one gets out alive, but that’s not what Burkeman is talking about) takes hold and spreads:

The dark cloud of negativity generated by unhappy news doesn’t remain confined to our feelings about national and international events, however. It spreads to distort our view of the rest of our lives, according to studies conducted by Professor Graham Davey, of the University of Sussex, and his colleagues. “Our research shows that when you show people negative news stories, as opposed to positive or neutral ones, they grow more anxious, and rate their own personal problems as significantly more problematic,” Davey says. “They catastrophise about them more. They make mountains out of molehills.”

That’s why we worry about threats that aren’t really threats. We all behave like Charlie, leaping to action to destroy monsters in the closet that really are not much of a threat.

So, on this 4th of July weekend, turn off the news, leave the papers for next week and relax. The world is getting better and better every day.

Ralph Nader, in How Unpatriotic Is Donald Trump? writes”

Samuel Johnson famously considered patriotism “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” His biographer James Boswell, who passed along that judgment, clarified that Johnson “did not mean a real and generous love for our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.”

This could be describing Donald Trump. And yet the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan theorized in an April 2016 column that Trump’s major appeal to Republican voters came not from his adherence to any political ideology, but rather from his radiant patriotism which has, in her view, been absent from the political status quo. “What Trump supporters believe, what they perceive as they watch him,” she wrote, “is that he is on America’s side.”

There is little in Trump’s rambling off-the-cuff speeches and media interviews, or in his reactionary stream-of-conscious tweets, that demonstrate his understanding of patriotism. Trump is a snake oil salesman, and he is arguably in the midst of his greatest pitch to date. Smart consumers should do their research to find out the truth about the “product” they are being sold by Mr. Trump.

Here are some examples of where the real estate plutocrat comes up short on patriotism.

Peeved by The Washington Post’s coverage of his presidential campaign and their investigation of the details surrounding his grand claims, Trump has revoked the paper’s press credentials for attending his rallies and political events. He Continue Reading »

Words are the single most important tools in any writer’s workshop. I own a a couple dozen dictionaries, including two that are unabridged. A single word can inspire a scene, a chapter or a whole book. Here are nine words for feelings:

My favorite is leucocholy, but then I’m writing a blog post about dictionary definitions.

*Only these two words were already in my WordPress dictionary.

Sabelo Narasimhan, for 350.org, emails:

The world’s largest mangrove forest is in danger from a massive coal plant.

The Sundarbans forest runs through India and Bangladesh, forming both a massive carbon sink and a crucial natural defense against cyclones. Six million people depend on the Sundarbans for both protection and their livelihoods.

Now, a huge new coal plant puts the forest at risk. The Bangladesh government has cut a deal with India to build a 1,320 Megawatt coal plant on the border of the Sundarbans, and is refusing to back down—no matter the cost to the people nearby, or to the country’s climate future.

UNESCO can put pressure on India and Bangladesh to protect the forest, but they need to see that people around the world are speaking out.

There’s still hope to stop the plant: The people of the Sundarbans have been bravely fighting back. Local resistance is strong and growing, with marches and “boat chains” engaging thousands of people.

But we also need global pressure. This forest is currently on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, and UNESCO has the power to list it as a “Site in Danger”—which would send an international signal to the Indian and Bangladeshi governments that they cannot continue to put coal and profit over this priceless natural resource.

Both India and Bangladesh are pushing to keep the Sundarbans off the Sites in Danger list. It’s up to us to push back.

Ask UNESCO to include the Sundarbans Forest in the World Heritage Sites in Danger list.

UNESCO is meeting on July 11th to make a decision on the Sundarbans, and our friends with 350 Paris have volunteered to deliver our messages to UNESCO headquarters next week.

Thousands have already signed petitions. Big banks in Europe have been pressured to stop funding the plant. International pressure is working, but there’s too much at stake for us to stop now.

With the onset of climate change, the strength of cyclones in Bangladesh has increased, leaving low-lying villages highly vulnerable. The Rampal coal plant threatens the very existence of both the Sundarbans and the communities that depend on it.

It’s time for a global message of solidarity and support. Sign the petition calling on UNESCO to list the Sundarbans as a Site in Danger now.

Onwards,

Sabelo

Previously in The Guardian emails…

Keep Carbon In The Ground…

If the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority needs an infusion of cash, which no doubt RTA does, it need no more trouble than looking above its central location at Tower City.

I mean the Jack Cleveland Casino.

And really, to Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and Cuyahoga County Commissioners.

The County bosses control a heavy chunk of casino tax revenue in a special fund.

The Casino Revenue Fund, as of June 20, reports $27,771,172 in revenue, according to the County’s Fiscal Office of Budget and Management. The report of out-going money shows $27,669,449 allocated. However, that includes $5,869,449 flowing to another slush fund called the Job Creating Fund, with no accounting there of disbursements.

Not one penny of that goes to RTA.

There’s a reason for that. RTA serves mostly lower income people.

So let’s ignore them and simply charge them more.

Much of the casino money is going, as it seems all Cleveland and county resources flow, to downtown development, particularly housing that already is rewarded with various subsidies, plus BIG TAX ABATEMENTS.

The continuing siphoning off of public funds to downtown by Mayor Frank Jackson and County Executive Budish is a crime against ordinary people who pay unabated full prices. And get burdened a bundle of regressive taxes for wealthy interests.

Further, over the years commercial building have had the property tax lowered wholesale. There was a time that commercial and industrial property paid more Continue Reading »

Want proof positive that you’re addicted to Magic I? Take the Ansari test.

Cal Newport, writing in Aziz Ansari Ignores His Email tags this bit of wisdom from Aziz:

Like, here’s a test, OK. Take, like, your nightly or morning browse of the Internet, right? Your Facebook feed, Instagram feed, Twitter, whatever. OK if someone every morning was like, I’m gonna print this and give you a bound copy of all this stuff you read so you don’t have to use the Internet. You can just get a bound copy of it. Would you read that book? No! You’d be like, this book sucks.

A long time ago, when there was an entity known as CompuServe News, I actually did this exercise every morning before heading into the office. Ansari is absolutely correct.

Yea verily, that book doth suck.

Last year, while walking back from getting my morning coffee in my home town, I cut though a mini-park and saw a sign telling citizens that Marietta had adopted a more growing, less mowing policy to encourage a healthy environment.

I think that is a great idea.

I’ve written before about how the Cleveland Metroparks mow way too much and I try to work to find a balance between maintaining a peaceful relationship with my neighbors and the City of North Royalton and reducing my carbon footprint and encouraging healthy plant growth. The result is that I mow only about half of my acreage.

The backyard has been landscaped to include a meandering, wood-chipped path that I mow only once each year and the front yard is divided into thirds with the front and back thirds mowed regularly and the middle strip allowed to return to a meadow.

White Middle Class Suburban Man would be horror struck, but I like the results.

I’m at what most people think of as near the end of my career(s). In the model that applied to my father and grandfather, I suppose that is true, but I don’t think so. In my mind, retirement equals slow (or some cases, not so slow) death. I don’t want to go out that way.

For me that means rising each morning and celebrating the myriad of fields of which I am completely ignorant, but which, at some time in the future (maybe today) I’ll learn a bit and go to bed that much less ignorant.

To me that is the very definition of a good life.

One of the people I’ve kept as part of my personal university for nearly 35 years has been Tom Peters. I first read In Search Of Excellence when I was a junior at Ohio University. I’ve never stopped reading Tom’s writings. This morning’s offering is just another example.

In the email featuring the above graphic, I read:

At Tom Peters Company, we took a model from Tom and devised the above. It’s past time for a shift in how we all think about professional learning. What is the future shape of personal development?

In traditional personal development, you developed goals around existing career roles you aspired to. With the relentless pace of change in business, and the robotization of just about everything, who knows what will happen to jobs in the future? In the future shape of personal development, you anticipate trends and position Continue Reading »

I need the dark, in much the same way as Walter Mosley does, but I have no problem seeing the advantage to this particular ritual as well. Moving from the ordinary world into the creative world does require some threshold, some transition.

For the morning writing, [Toni Morrison’s ] ritual is to rise around 5:00, make coffee, and “watch the light come.” This last part is crucial. “Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process,” Morrison said. “For me, light is the signal in the transaction. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.” —Toni Morrison (1931-) page 62.

From Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Curry.

You always arrive early. You don’t want to make a girl think she’s been stood up.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

From where I sit this morning, change Britain to America and Jews to Muslims (or if you’re British, forget the former and only change the latter) and 1946 becomes 2016.

I like The Guardian, a lot. The paper isn’t perfect, what publication is, but the recent dustup between Ewen MacAskill and Donald Trump—covered in Donald Trump arrives in UK and hails Brexit vote as ‘great victory’ and Guardian journalists denied entry into Donald Trump UK event—illustrates what I like about the paper.

MacAskill took the unusual, I think, step of replying to readers via an email. This is what he had to say:

During my seven years working as a journalist in the US, I always disliked the cosy relationship that often exists between White House correspondents and officials, and between reporters and candidates on the campaign trail.

The Guardian is different. First, we have no proprietors who are part of the establishment: we are run by the Scott Trust, which safeguards our editorial independence.

Second, the instinct of each generation of Guardian journalists, mindful of a tradition that can be traced back to its founding two centuries ago, is to challenge authority and convention.

When the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump held a press conference in Scotland last week, he followed the normal practice of mainly picking out journalists known to him. I repeatedly tried to get his attention, and towards the end of the hour-long press conference, he relented.

He had claimed there was a “love-fest” between him and Britain. I disputed this, and after a short exchange he retaliated by calling me a “nasty, nasty guy “.

It was a telling response. Now it appears the Guardian has been banned from attending Trump’s events in the UK.

My colleagues across the world challenge authority in big and small ways every day. Part of our mission is to give a voice to those who do not have one, to ask the questions they would like to.

Thank you for being a Guardian Member and for your ongoing support of Guardian journalism.

Ewen MacAskill
Defence and Security Correspondent
The Guardian

Getting banned by Donald Trump, in my book, carries the same cachet as knowing that your book has arrived by being included in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Last week, while reading George Orwell’s Homage To Catalonia I came across this sentence and footnote:

One of the dreariest effects of the war has been to teach me that the Left-wing press is every bit as spurious and dishonest as the Right.*

*I should like to make an exception of the Manchester Guardian. In connection with this book I have had to go through the files of a good many English papers. Of our larger papers, the Manchester Guardian is the only one that leaves me with an increased respect for its honesty. (Page 69 of my copy, the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt edition.)

Good on you Ewen and double-plus good on you Guardian.

So, I missed this story over the weekend, Friday news and all that, but I’m reading Alice Speri’s FBI and Police Are Knocking on Activists’ Doors Ahead of Republican National Convention this morning and I’m not happy.

Speri, writing for The Intercept ledes:

Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.

As the city gears up to welcome an estimated 50,000 visitors, and an unknown number of protesters, some of the preparations and restrictions put in place by officials have angered civil rights activists. But the latest string of unannounced home visits by local and federal police marks a significant escalation in officials’ efforts to stifle protest, they say.

“The purpose of these door knocks is simple: to intimidate the target and others in efforts to discourage people from engaging in lawful First Amendment activities,” Jocelyn Rosnick, a coordinator with the Ohio chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, wrote in a statement denouncing the home visits.

I know how intimidating a visit from the FBI can be. Years ago, when the FBI conducted a background check on me so that I could receive my clearance to work with nuclear weapons in the Navy, I made sure to let my friends know in advance—thanks to words of wisdom from my dad who also underwent such a background check for the same reason in the ’50s—so that they wouldn’t freak out when the G-men came calling.

Clearly, the local office of the FBI has too much time on its hands since one group targeted is so radical and dangerous (perhaps because of the organization’s choice of words in its name) that it would engage in feeding people. Speri continues:

Maggie Rice, an organizer with Food Not Bombs, said that members of her group were visited by police but felt too “rattled” to speak to a reporter. The group is not planning to stage protests but has applied for permits to be in the RNC event zone in order to feed both protesters and Cleveland residents dealing with disruptions to public transportation and services like Meals on Wheels.

“A lot of Cleveland’s most vulnerable residents will be at risk,” Rice said. “The idea that the FBI would be coming in, knocking on our doors and asking questions of people that they know are not involved in organizing any protests and that are basically a humanitarian organization is completely unacceptable and very disturbing.”

“One FBI agent and one plainclothes Cleveland police officer, both white men, showed up and started asking questions about other Food Not Bombs members and our activities,” Rice said. “I personally believe that this is an attempt to intimidate because they know we play a vital role in helping people stay out longer and have their voices heard.”

The party about to name Donald Trump to run in the November election can’t have that, of course.

Be sure to read the comments on Speri’s piece as well.

Further reading (more than 52,000 hits on Google) on reactions to Speri’s story.