What's Tony Thinking

Grey Goose in the Courtroom, Unicorns in Church

Tribute to Navalny. At The Free Press Bari Weiss offers a tribute to the Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny. Here’s a bit of that fine piece: “The life and death of Navalny insists on the following: there is a free world and an unfree world. There is right and there is wrong. There is better and worse, good and evil. There is truth and there are lies. And heroes, however imperfect, walk among us still.” Putin is a beast. Navalny a hero. Mike Johnson and the MAGA crowd in Congress seem incapable of making the distinction. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is saying how great life is in Moscow. One hopes that he stays there.

I caught some of the televised hearing, from Atlanta, on the relationship between Fulton County DA, Fanni Willis, and a prosecutor on her staff, Nathan Wade. Clearly a pretty awful attempt to smear Willis as some sort of loose woman, for having vacationed with the guy, going to a tattoo parlor (horrors!) and liking Grey Goose vodka.

Not a great idea for Willis to give Trump’s team ammunition, but still this is disgusting . . . especially from a team working for a guy who has been convicted of sexual assault and who has, while married, had affairs with porn stars.  They even called Willis’s father to testify. From him I learned something else about being black in America. “Always carry cash,” he instructed his daughter, because as a black person you may well have your credit questioned and credit cards declined.

Unicorns in Church? Apologies to my granddaughters who would love to see actual unicorns in church . . . but are single people in that category? I think it’s great for churches to support parents and families, but not to implicitly suggest that coupled is the norm. As the attached article notes more than half of American adults are today single. Churches do sometimes, often unintentionally maybe, signal that coupled is the norm, with kids even better. This despite the fact that Jesus did not make family the be all and end all, and St. Paul counseled early Christians to avoid marriage unless they couldn’t help themselves.

Seattle Drivers Worse? I hear a lot of people saying they think Seattle drivers have gotten pretty bad. Why would that be? Post-Covid craziness? Road construction at every turn? Traffic? Maybe the answer is more obvious. Fewer cops and less law enforcement. Police numbers in Seattle are down 500 from force norms. It is rare to actually see police in Seattle these days.

Here’s a chart of traffic infractions/ tickets from San Francisco showing a precipitous enforcement drop-off. My guess is that it would look pretty similar for Seattle. More drivers driving crazy and taking chances? Why? Few cops and fewer tickets would be my guess.

One of my grandsons and I observe that the drivers of two particular makes of cars are the worst: Tesla and BWM. Maybe they think they are entitled to be aggressive because they have expensive cars? I’m riding my bike less. My excuse? It’s crazy out there.

On a brighter note. The snowy Olympic Mountains were absolutely gorgeous yesterday morning. Although this photo isn’t one I took, it does convey what I’m talking about and the view we enjoy from our condo looking west over the Puget Sound toward the Olympics.

The snow is good to see because we are all worrying about what is, so far, a very low snowpack in the mountains. Let’s hope for a snowy March, which can happen. In fact, in recent years, March has been my best month for skiing. But not this year, as we return to Mexico, San Miguel de Allende, and another two months as “minister-in-residence” at the Community Church of San Miguel on February 28. Looking forward to it.