Category Archives: Think About It

National, Russia-Ukraine War, Think About It

Anatomy of a botched false flag attack at Detention Camp 52

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Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story referenced the converted warehouse where POWs from the Azov Battalion were being kept in the northeast corner – that should have been northwest. Thank you for your understanding.

[UKRAINE] – (MTN) – On July 28, the self-declared leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic accused Ukraine of attacking the Olenivka Penal Colony, located 16 kilometers from the line of conflict. Over the span of 12 hours, Russian leaders, Russian state media, and unaffiliated pro-Russian journalists shared horrifying pictures, painting the Ukrainian armed forces as the executions of their people. The evidence they showed the world and their own casualty reports painted a different picture. One that potentially and accidentally documented in vivid detail the worst war crime against POWs in Europe since the Kosovo War in 1998.

The history of the Detention Camp 52

The dark history of Olenivka started in 2014 when the camp, situated in wheat fields and rolling hills just west of the village of Molodizhne, became a filtration camp for Crimean Tartars after the Russian occupation of the Crimea Peninsula. A 2015 United States Department of State annual report on Human Rights in Ukraine documented extrajudicial imprisonment and justice, torture, and executions. Conditions in the colony were squalid where disease ran rampant, and potable water was scarce.

After the Russia-Ukraine War started in February, Detention Camp 52, as it is officially known, took on a new role as a filtration camp for Ukrainian citizens in captured territory. During the siege of Mariupol, people who tried to leave the city went through a filtration process in the towns of Manush and Bezimenne. Many of those who were taken away for additional filtration ended up in Olenivka.

Women who went through filtration and were released reported being held in concentration camp conditions. They were held in areas so cramped they had to sleep sitting or, worse, in shifts. There was little heat, no blankets, and no beds. Disease was rampant, food was scarce, and drinking water was withheld, sometimes for more than a day. Hygiene products were barely provided, and female hygiene products were not to be found.

The world got its first look inside Olenivka in April when Russian state media and Pro-Russian social media accounts circulated pictures of alleged Ukrainian POWs from Mariupol. Our team analyzed and geolocated the videos. The video wasn’t recorded in Mariupol – it was recorded in Olenivka.

Photo credit – Russian State Media – a still image from a video released on April 14 shows alleged Ukrainian POWs from Mariupol. Russian state media claimed the video was recorded in Mariupol but in the Olenivka Penal Colony.

Editor’s Note: We have elected not to blur the faces of these prisoners in the hope that the continued sharing of their faces and identities can help keep them alive.

An analysis of the video showed only a few men in military uniforms moved to the front while the rest wore civilian clothing. Some of the men didn’t wear the uniforms of Ukraine but of Russian separatist militias. Most of the men did not resemble the numerous pictures from Russian state media and dark corners of Telegram showing dead Ukrainian soldiers who were mostly younger and more fit than their Russian conscript counterparts.

Photo Credit – Google Maps – satellite image of Olenivka Penal Colony – 47°49’38.9″N 37°42’41.4″E

The penal colony is easily found on a map. The prison is double-walled and covers over 114,000 square meters. The perimeter is 1.5 kilometers with buildings for administration, guards, and worse surrounding the facility. In the northwest region, the warehouse that was partially converted into housing for prisoners of the Azov Battalion was still unused and had holes in its roof at the time of the Google satellite image.

From filtration camp to POW colony

On May 15, almost three months after the siege of Mariupol began and three weeks after Russia had declared victory within the port city, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that a deal had been reached that would permit the safe surrender of the Ukrainian forces remaining inside the Azovstal Metallurgical Factory.

Confusion spread through the news channels as Pro-Russian social media accounts spread disinformation, and officials remained silent. Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine, Anna Malyar, released a brief statement in the morning saying, “Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine gained critically important time. They fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means.”

Initially, the deal negotiated through United Nations and Red Cross intermediaries appeared to be a win for Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine found a way out for up to 2,200 marines, territorial guards, foreign volunteers, and local police. Russia was able to end its siege without having to storm the fortress that was Azovstal. It would take 7,000 to 10,000 troops to defeat the 2,200 remaining defenders, resulting in heavy losses. Russia’s offensive in Luhansk was bogged down, and they needed a way out.

On May 16, the first 264 Ukrainian troops left Azovstal and into Russian captivity. Among them were 53 seriously wounded soldiers that would face death without care from a hospital. Reporters from Russian state media and western media documented the evacuation and followed the convoy of hospital buses to Bezimenne. The other 211 soldiers faced an uncertain future as a convoy of five buses headed northeast to Olenivka.

On May 16, we wrote in our Situation Report, “The soldiers were likely taken to the infamous detention camp 52, between Olenivka and Molodizhne.” Video released by Russian state media on May 17, showed the convoy of busses arriving in the morning hours at the filtration center turned POW camp.

The deal that was brokered between Russia and Ukraine through the United Nations and Red Cross would facilitate a prisoner of war transfer. The Red Cross would be able to document the information on each prisoner, notify their family members, be a conduit of communication, and would monitor their care and treatment.

As the last of as many as 2,200 remaining soldiers, foreign volunteers, and police left the bunkers of Azovstal, the deal was already falling apart.

A history of war crimes

There were already rumors and whispers about the conditions within Detention Camp 52 as Mariupol POWs streamed in. The Red Cross never received its promised access, and multiple requests to inspect Olenivka and the prisoners were denied. Officials weren’t even permitted to document all of the prisoners that were removed from Azovstal, with a large discrepancy between the numbers claimed by the Russian Ministry of Defense and human rights observers.

Before the group from Mariupol arrived, the stories were consistent for the few who could leave the walls. Men taken to Olenivka fell into three groups.

For those found to be part of the military, the government, or had a prior history with the military or as a government employee, beatings, torture, and disappearances awaited. A release could be found through forced conscription for able-bodied men from 18 to 65 with no prior military or government connections and no pro-Ukrainian tattoos or ideation on digital devices. Those that refused faced deprivation, beatings, and torture until they disappeared or joined the Donetsk People’s Republic militia as forced conscripts. For the rest, slave labor in dangerous conditions awaited while living in squalid conditions without enough food and limited access to clean drinking water. The Red Cross and United Nations brokered a deal that committed POWs to concentration camp conditions.

On June 29, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced that a prisoner swap had been arranged, and 144 POWs held at Olenivka were being exchanged for 144 Russian POWs. Among those released were 95 defenders from Azovstal and 43 members of the Azov Battalion. Pro-Russian social media erupted with outrage. Outside of the bots, troll farms, and the consumers of their social media content, hope emerged for more swaps on both sides. Despite the issues, it seemed possible that civility would prevail and that the stories were exaggerations. The hope was short-lived.

Photo credit – Ukrainian Ministry of Defense – former Ukrainian POWs await transport back to Ukraine during a June 29, 2022 prisoner exchange

Many of those released were in poor health and were still healing from wounds now six weeks old. Some had to be taken away in ambulances. The Ukrainian government said that those released were getting the medical and psychological care they needed and asked for respect and privacy. Soon after their release, new whispers emerged within the medical community.

Beginning on July 8, our e-mail and social media inboxes became flooded with requests to validate reports that many of the soldiers released on June 29 had been castrated. On July 10, we made a public response that in order to confirm the reports, we would require first-person accounts from Ukraine with the cooperation of doctors and former POWs willing to go on the record. We would need access to medical records and permission from the Ukrainian government. We would need assistance and support from individuals trained to interview victims of torture and former prisoners in an ethical and respectful way.

We started working through our network to make that happen and planning a trip in late September or early October. On July 27, we received our forms from the Ukrainian government to get our press credentials. We wouldn’t need them. Hours later, the world had all the evidence it needed.

Photo credit – left – Russian state media – right – PMC Wagner Group – on the left is the person accused of torturing and executing a Ukrainian POW – on the right is a still image of the torture where the POW was beaten, castrated, mutilated, and executed

On July 28, a disturbing video emerged of a bound Ukrainian POW being castrated with a box cutter and then stomped on by a soldier in the Chechen Ahmat Unit, possibly in Severodoentsk, sometime in June. The POW was bound and restrained by multiple mercenaries and made blood-curdling screams as he was hacked for more than 45 seconds in the horrific video. After severing the genitals, the mercenary holds it up to the camera and tosses it on the ground by the man’s head. The video started circulating on Pro-Russian Telegram channels before spilling over to Twitter, YouTube, and others. The video has been deemed authentic, and the perpetrator in the video has been identified. A few hours later, a second part of the video emerged. The Ukrainian POW, who was likely already fatally wounded from his torture, was shot in the head at point-blank range.

The whispers of castration weren’t just rumors. They were unthinkably true.

A false flag to clean up a big mess

During the week of July 25, the leaders of Detention Camp 52 moved up to 200 members of the Azovstal Batallion to their own quarters. The area was walled off from the larger warehouse. It was a single room with a high ceiling and a corrugated metal roof. The building was brick and cinderblock construction.

PMC Wagner Group had at least one major problem, and possibly two. A squad recorded themselves torturing and executing a Ukrainian POW. The participants in the war crime wore surgical gloves, and the leader of the atrocity had a box cutter. In less than two minutes, they coordinated and moved in a way that indicated this was not the first time this had been done.

Worse, he was almost instantly identified because of his distinct clothing and the perpetrator appearing in earlier Russian state news reports, revealing distinguishing characteristics. Within 24 hours, the video had been validated by multiple sources, including our own team. The United Nations, European Union, and government officials condemned the action labeling it a war crime and a terrorist act.

Within the walls of Olenivka were there other prisoners who had been castrated, but instead of their testicles and penis removed to the prostate gland, only had their testicles cut off? The world will likely never know.

Hours after an undetermined explosion in the new barracks and Russian accusations of it being a HIMARS strike, the Ukrainian Directorate of Intelligence accused PMC Wagner Group of destroying the building. Local officials in Donetsk reported that 47 POWs had been killed and up to 130 wounded on July 28. Ukrainian intelligence claimed that the order to destroy the building came directly from Yevheny Prigozhin, the head of PMC Wagner Group.

There were reports that inspectors from the Russian Ministry of Defense were coming on September 1 to check on the conditions on Olenivka and do an audit of funds given to Wagner Group to expand the strained facilities.

In a statement on Telegram, Ukrainian Intelligence wrote, “The explosions in Olenivka are a deliberate provocation and an undeniable act of terrorism by the occupying forces side. According to the available information, they were carried out by mercenaries from the Wagner Group private military company (PMC) under the personal command of the nominal owner of the specified PMC, Yevheny Prigozhin.”

As the Kremlin and leaders of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic tried to turn the horror into a public relations coup, likely in an attempt to cripple western sanctions and arms support, the story quickly disintegrated. Not a single person with the Russian military, separatist militias, terrorists from the Imperial Legion, PMC Wagner Group, Chechen territorial guard, local territorial guard, or area police were injured or killed in the attack. No camp administrators or support staff were killed or wounded. The building, which held up to 200 POWs, was void of any guards or other authorities.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with Ukrainian heads of staff and the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner of Human Rights regarding the terrorist attack in Olenivka, which was deliberately staged by Russian occupation forces. The Red Cross submitted a formal request to inspect the site and conduct an investigation.

The European Union condemned the incident, with EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell stating Russia’s actions constitute “severe breaches of the Geneva conventions and their Additional protocol and amount to war crimes.”

The Red Cross, which was supposed to have unfettered access as part of the May agreement, submitted a formal request to inspect the site and conduct an investigation. In a later statement, the Red Cross said it would conduct a full investigation if “all parties” would agree.

The evidence doesn’t support there was a rocket attack

Ukrainian officials have known about Olenivka since 2014. The camp, 16 kilometers from the line of conflict, has never been shelled since Russia annexed Crimea and separatists started fighting in February 2014. The settlements around the camp have also never come under artillery or rocket fire, nor have ever been bombed or attacked by aircraft. Our research team was aware of Detention Camp 52 by early March and was working on documenting and validating ongoing abuse claims.

We spoke with a former Gebirgspionier with the German Bundeswehr with explosives experience for their evaluation.

“It’s impossible that a HIMARS fired M30 or M31 warhead was used in the strike on the POW camp. No usual shrapnel pattern on the walls; they are almost virgin. Even the bodies don’t show shrapnel wounds but typical blast injuries. The roof is almost intact, which is near impossible for the corrugated metal roof material. The roof would have been blown almost entirely.

Photo credit – Russian state media – a July 29 still image from a video showing damage and charred bodies still inside the Olenivka Penal Colony

The bunk beds would have been expected to fall over and be torn apart, at least in the center of the blast radius. However, the burn marks on the walls and the spalling in their center remind me of directional charges (like one or two MON-90 hanging from or laying on the metal roof) attached to a gasoline canister. In my assessment, this caused the spalling on the wall: an impact of that metal canister where [an accelerant] splashed and formed those significant brand markings, as you would expect when searching a burned house for the source of a fire.”

Photo credit – Russian state media – a July 29 still image from a video showing damage and charred bodies still inside the Olenivka Penal Colony

Photos from the exterior also do not support the claim of a rocket attack. The building has no shrapnel damage. The corrugated metal roof has been blown outward, not smashed down and blasted away. The blast damage and fire damage are all from the interior. Metal bars and window frames are not blown out but show damage consistent with an interior building fire.

The section of the building directly adjacent to where the Azovstal prisoners were held is also undamaged, with no blast damage through the concrete block wall.

Photo credit – Russian state media – a July 29 still image from a video showing damage to the outside of the Olenivka Penal Colony, which is inconsistent with a rocket, missile, or artillery attack

But the most damning evidence came from Russian state media and PMC Wagner Group. On July 27, a video circulated of a school in Izyum that had been converted into a military base after it had been attacked with rockets fired by HIMARS. That building was more soundly constructed than the Olenivka warehouse and had multiple interior rooms that would have contained the blast. The damage to the building doesn’t match the impact on the penal colony. The roof has been smashed from the top and blown out by the detonation. The building has been blown apart, with debris strewn in multiple directions. Whole window frames were blown out and lay meters away.

Photo credit – Russian state media – a July 27 still image from a video showing a school converted to a military base by PMC Wagner Group in Izyum after it was destroyed in a HIMARS strike

In another clumsy attempt to claim Ukraine committed a war crime by destroying a school, Wagner Group’s drone video showed trenches, tank scrapes, and firing positions on the school grounds and, from at least one point, still partially intact after the strike. The video also provided clear evidence of what a HIMARS strike looks like and the damage it causes.

Epilogue

Ultimately we cannot arbitrate if this was an interior or exterior explosion. That will have to be left to the experts and investigators. It is unlikely that third-party investigators will be allowed onto the scene until it was been sanitized and prepared more, if ever.

Was the building destroyed to cover up torture and mutilation? Was the explosion rigged to mass execute Azov Battalion members while painting Ukraine as the perpetrators to fracture western support? Was PMC Wagner Group covering up more war crimes and potential corruption?

One day, we may know. In war, the victor writes the history.

Editorial, National, Think About It

Streamer hospitalized in Austin after protester beatdown

Streaming is not easy.

Responsible, journalistic streaming is not an idiot holding a smartphone.

Responsible streaming is not streaming while protesting at the same time, within the body of protesters.

On Saturday morning, Hiram Gilberto, a highly respected streamer out of Austin, Texas, was savagely beaten on camera by a group of protesters. His equipment was destroyed and he was hospitalized. He is now home recovering from a concussion and his injuries include a black eye, bruises, cuts, and scrapes.

There are some dedicated journalists and independents. Locally peeps like Concrete Reporting and Joey can tell you it is hard, it is dangerous, and it comes with almost no reward.

The cops don’t want you filming.
The protesters increasingly don’t want you filming.
The alt-right wants you dead, literally.
The left complains you show too much.
The right complains you don’t show enough.
Journalistic streamers run into the line of fire, not away from it.
Journalistic streamers are vigilant to report the story, not become the story.

In Seattle, respectful streamers spend most of their time in a no man’s land on the police line’s edge. No one has your back. You’re typically the last person through an intersection. If you’re hanging back as you should, somebody could waffle stomp you, or the police could arrest you, and no one would know. Increasingly when protesters chant, “who got our backs, we got our backs, “streamers cringe on the inside.

Journalistic streamers can spend 3, 4, even 6 hours walking without a break, without a bathroom, without a sip of water. They are holding equipment steady, answering questions, providing real-time narration. They are continually asking questions to themselves. Do I have enough battery charge? Is the lens still clean? Who is behind me, who is beside me, what is that car doing, is that person following me a threat?

The fallacy that someone can shoot four hours of raw video and then edit it for release misses a critical point. If you take four hours of video, you have to watch four hours of video before you even start to edit it. Mass editing of content at that scale requires computing horsepower, technical knowledge that isn’t common, and an enormous amount of time. Most streamers don’t even do highlight clips post stream because it is a tremendous amount of time.

Video stored locally has no concurrent backup (MP4 doesn’t support that). It is far easier for law enforcement to copy off of a device. On a phone or camera with a memory card, that card could just…disappear. Who will believe someone arrested when they say the memory card is gone and the police say it was never there.

Then there are three other 800-pound elephants in the room. First, organizations exist today that create highlight reels of protests and the Black Lives Matter movement; they’re called the mainstream media. They show the essential bits, mostly involving police officers. What they offer is violence, what we like to call protest porn. No one from the MSM has contacted me saying, “Hey, we saw your 3 hours of peaceful protest live stream from Saturday, and we’d like to use it for this news story we’re working on.”

Second, the streamer only has one insurance policy for their personal safety, the stream. If they are arrested, a stream shows a before-during-after and is stored in the cloud. The device can’t be smashed, and the memory card can’t disappear. If they are violently attacked, the stream is the only witness to the assault. An immediate example of this is Brad Fox in CHOP in the late hours of June 28 and his unrelated bullshit arrest about a month later. His stream was the witness to both of these incidents.

No one is going to watch a 2-1/2 hour previously recorded peaceful protest. However, the 2-1/2 hour peaceful protest is needed to fight the “all protesters are violent thugs” narrative. An edited video is quickly dismissed with the declaration, “you edit your videos, so you just took out the bad parts.”

An example of this was a right-wing streamer in Bellevue on October 24, claimed a Starbucks was destroyed. The “proof” was shaky at best, but the story picked up momentum on the eastside. The narrative? “Here is a video of the police rushing to this Starbucks! It got destroyed!” That was good enough for people who want to believe the BLM movement is violent.

When a journalist, and Hiram is absolutely a journalist, is assaulted, we are all assaulted. Not only is Hiram a journalist, but he is also an individual of great ethics.

Should Hiram have taken a walk? Probably. Should he have been hospitalized? Absolutely not; it is disgusting. When you beat reporters in the name of “security,” you become the system you’re fighting.

You cannot watch videos of the violence against the press and condemn it if you support what happened to Hiram. Examples include the Australian news crew beaten by Washington DC police, the US head from the British news organization The Independent falsely arrested in Seattle, or the reporters from The Daily Caller arrested in Louisville. To point to these examples of police brutality, declare “All Cops Are Bastards” and then spin around and beat a reporter senseless is hypocrisy.

Pot meet kettle.
Kettle meet pot.

Worst of all, Austin defunded their police department by over 30% with almost no drama. Texas has shown at least some willingness to address the systemic racism within the police of their state. In comparison, Washington and Oregon appear like racist backwaters.

The actions of these protesters feed the rioters and thugs narrative. It ironically goes against their claims of being endangered by the camera. Beating someone senseless on camera, when your claim being on camera could get you arrested, is ironic. And using the word ironic is charitable. We stand with Hiram and his defense of the First Amendment, which includes a free press.

If you want to support Hiram Gilberto

You can support Hiram Gilberto in his recovery and to secure new equipment on CashApp and Venmo:

CashApp: $Hirambae
Venmo: @hiram-Garcia-2

National, Shower Thoughts, Think About It

I always feel like, somebody’s watching me

A lot of keystrokes have been dedicated to the subject of “is Facebook listening to my conversations?” The general conclusion is a resounding, no to at the worst, highly unlikely. I feel like I need to adjust my tinfoil hat because I’ve had a couple of incidents lately that have me take pause and wonder, is AI listening to my conversations and using it for marketing?

Before I take this leap, let me provide a bit of background. I was, up until two weeks ago, the head of Product Marketing at a company that specializes in providing TV ad attribution to upper and lower funnel KPIs, as well as conversion events, to brands and networks. The ability to go this TV displayed this ad in this household, and then this phone or PC visited this website, or bought this item, or walked into this store, or, well you get the idea, is both very simple and very complex. The capability to do it to the level of an individual is possible. To be 100% clear, my company does not in any way engage in that level of tracking, nor do we use or even accept or process Personally Identifiable Information (PII). We also have a crystal-clear opt-in process. Those that know me, I mean know me, know I would quit tomorrow if I thought for one minute, we were doing something crooked. I’ve been under the hood.

The point of this is, I “understand,” this technology. I understand that between tracking pixels, cookies, UID, MAID, device IDs, and connecting all this data using LiveRamp or Adobe, as two examples, exists. It is completely true that when all your browsing, search, location, and social information is aggregated, even in an “anonymous” way, a very detailed picture of you emerges. A few years ago it was common that if you searched refrigerators online that you would see ads for refrigerators for the next six months – everywhere – even if you already bought a refrigerator. Now it seems that if you even thought about a fridge or said, “Hey honey, I think we need a new refrigerator,” ads appear. It could be as simple as you walked into a Best Buy store, followed by Frys, followed by Sears, and the location data was used to conclude you were looking at appliances. Yes, that simple.

Back to my tinfoil hat. Case study number one.

About a month ago at work, we were talking about printers and high-quality printers for photo production or other work. I had mentioned that years ago, I had owned a Minolta color laser printer that created amazing quality prints for years. That I had it until the drum had worn out, and the cost was prohibitive for replacement, so I got rid of it.

That same day, on Facebook, I was served an ad for Minolta color laser printer cartridges. I haven’t looked at replacement printers in a year. I certainly didn’t search for anything. I have gone into some office supply stores but not outside of my usual patterns. I hadn’t made any Amazon purchases related to Minolta anything, or anywhere else for that matter. I hadn’t even thought or dreamed about my Minolta printer, that I got rid of 7 years ago after five years of service. There it was, an ad for Minolta laser printer cartridges in my Facebook feed. I honestly went, “meh,” because I understand the technology for ad optimization.

Case study number two.

Today I was driving my daughter around to pick up a prescription. I told her about the massaging seats in my somewhat, new to us, car as we were traveling. I told her where the button was to turn it on and how it feels good on the back. She found the button and described it as like a cat kneading you and that it felt good. Her prescriptions were not back pain related; I have done no searches about back pain, or sciatica, or any other type of back-related pain. I did have an MRI on my shoulder about six weeks ago, but no ads were shown to me for pain management, back issues, or any other issue related to the back. I have done no searches about back or back-related problems. I haven’t been to a chiropractor or any other place where location data could go, hey, maybe we should show him this. So I get home and well, look for yourself.

Things that make you go, “Hmmmmm.” I have a conversation with my daughter about the massaging seats in my car and this is one of the first ads I see on Facebook after.

So now color me very skeptical, because leveraging what I know, it is getting harder for me to believe that Samsung, or Apple, or Facebook, or Google, or Amazon, or someone is not listening to my conversations and showing me ads related to those conversations. Case study one I can write off to bizarre coincidence. This second one makes it harder for me to accept that there is something deeper going on. Neural nets, artificial intelligence, and remarketing algorithms are good (well, in reality, they are pretty flawed, but they are getting better), but they are nowhere near that good.

Excuse me; I need to tighten my tinfoil hat.

Editorial, LGBTQIA, Think About It

National pride or white nationalism?

Update: June 19, 2019:

Thanks to some Malcontents who did a bit of research, we have an answer to the question, is this national pride or white nationalism.

The answer is – national pride. The story behind the story is actually pretty fascinating, and you can watch this video to learn more.

I’m back from a break and our annual photography trip to the Palouse region of Washington state. We spent four days covering almost 1200 miles taking pictures from sunup to sundown. Last night I discovered I snapped 1059 images on my primary camera, and maybe 50 to 100 more on my cellphone. I also shot a handful of video clips.

When I saw this picture right after I snapped it, I had a lot of thoughts going on in my head. Here is a piece of rusting farm equipment with a tattered American flag flying off of it. The field of wheat it sits in appears lush and healthy, but the soil is parched, and the plants are shorter than our last trip, which was a full month earlier in the growing season. The state has been in a drought, and there isn’t much relief to come.

Depressed prices have rocked United States grain farmers along with extreme weather, changing growing seasons, tariffs, and the changing American diet. Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies are accelerating in 2019, but are nowhere near peak levels during the 1980s.

Last night I poured through a thousand images and selected about 80 for post-processing, including this photo, which I posted on Instagram and Facebook while on my trip. I had planned on Thoughtful Tuesday to write about the struggles of the American farmer, the strategic role they play for the nation, and the dying of rural America. That was my plan. Then I did post-production on this photo.

If you’re not familiar with the photography process, the first step is to zoom in on an image as part of the selection process. You’re looking to see how crisp the picture is. A perfect photo with proper focus will have crisp details in the areas you want to pull the viewer to and the required depth. The fastest way to figure that out is to zoom in on key features. Text, numbers, and words are an excellent choice for this process.

My two choices for this picture was the American flag and the word, “Harris,” on the equipment. The stars on the American flag were surprisingly crisp as the tatters were in motion with a stiff wind blowing. When I zoomed into the “Harris,” I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. There below the Harris, in smaller font but equally crisp the number 88.

The number 88 is associated with white nationalism and Neo-Nazis, with the letter H being the eighth letter in the alphabet. In these circles, the number 88 is a hidden in plain sight reference to, “Heil Hitler.” The problem, of course, is the number 88 could also be completely innocuous. The farm could have been established in 1888; the person who put this here could have some connection to 1988, or 1888. There may be no connection with white nationalism at all, or there may be.

Three years ago I wouldn’t have given this a second thought. I still knew of the 88 connection to white nationalism, but I wouldn’t even consider someone would be this brazen, but that was then, and this is now.  Located on the Idaho panhandle border, a known hotbed of white nationalism, the Pandora’s box open and supporters of the doctrine almost as visible as the civil rights unrest of the 1950s and 1960s, or when the German American Bund was active in the 1930s.

There are so many seeds of distrust sown in our nation due to social media and political agendas, ironically some of it backfiring on the architects of this erosion. US allies have been told for almost three years that US intelligence arms can’t be trusted, and now the same administration is saying, “trust us, our intelligence agencies say Iran attacked two oil tankers!” All but our most ardent ally, the UK, is looking at us going, “we’d like to see other intelligence, as you’ve been saying you can’t trust your own.”

So is this a monument of white nationalism? A homage to MAGA and a proclamation that greatness is achieved when we are white? Is this a symbol of hate? Or is this simply a number on a rusting piece of equipment? A monument to a time when rural America had a path to prosperity supported by the local businesses? In 2019, it is really hard to tell.

Think about it.

Malcontent, out!

Editorial, Think About It

Theology in the 21st century – the robots are coming

May and June is a time of commencement at primary and secondary education institutions across the United States. From high school diplomas to newly minted doctors, this is a time of transition. At a recent graduation ceremony, one of the schools was honoring their theology graduates. Who would study theology in 2019? Beyond the obvious answer of priests and poets, there is a significant demand for theologians in the modern workplace. You see, the robots are coming.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is moving at a fast pace, and Moore’s Law provides some insight into how fast it will improve – double the performance every 18 months. The idea of AI achieving singularity and becoming self-aware is moving from the pages of science fiction and into the realm of science fact. Not this year, not next, likely not even the next decade, but in our lifetime it seems an almost certainty.

Today, AI touches us in many ways and goes far beyond sales and marketing algorithms that display ads of items on webpages you visit 30 seconds after you browsed for a said item on Amazon (or eBay, or clicked a Facebook ad, or…). Some AI is simply the computerization of long created formulas such as credit evaluation, your CLUE report for insurance quotes, or actuary tables. But as computing power doubles every 18 months, and our ability to process the mountains of data collected over the last three decades get better, AI is moving to replace a lot of human decisions.

AI is already being used by IBM to determine who will likely quit their job with 95% accuracy. Yes, a whole 95%! That means one out of twenty people are misidentified by the AI, and they are either pushed out the door without real due cause or given an incentive to stay when there was no reason to provide one. So if you end up on the AI, “this person is on a quit job trajectory,” list, you have a 5% chance of your career being ruined or enhanced depending on the decision of an AI. Just let that sink in for a little bit.

There are billions of dollars, if not tens-of-billions, being invested in developing Level V autonomy for cars and trucks – a fully autonomous four-season any road any condition self-driving vehicle. Contrary to what some cheerleaders are declaring, we are still years away from this goal. Tesla has already missed preannounced goals for self-driving cars, self-driving test vehicles have killed people, and Tesla vehicles still struggle to identify potential risks like 18-wheelers in the road. There isn’t’ a single autonomous system that exists today that can drive on a snow-covered highway, as we had in February in the Puget Sound region. Without the ability to see the lane markers, a self-driving car can’t pick a course on a multilane road. However, that is only the beginning of the challenges.

As an example, let’s say I’m sitting in my fully autonomous car, and it is taking my future elderly self to a doctor’s appointment. So far, this is pure goodness as I still have my independence. Now let us introduce little Jane. Jane is playing with a ball. Jane rolls the ball to Dick. Dick misses the ball. Run Dick, run! Little Dick runs right in front of my autonomous car, which is traveling at 40 MPH, the posted speed limit on this road that goes by a park. In the oncoming lane is an 18 wheeler, also autonomous and driving at the 40 MPH posted speed limit. Now the AI has to make a choice. It calculates the distance faster than a human ever could from the front bumper to little Dick using cameras and sensors better than the human eye. It runs a formula that is only as good as the lowest paid programmer that worked on that particular code, that considers road conditions, angle, lighting, vehicle condition, and concludes there is no way it can stop in time without running over Dick at a speed of 21 MPH.

A Waymo self-driving test car – Wikimedia Creative Commons – these little pods use to ply the streets of Kirkland and had issues with stop signs

Now the AI runs another subroutine to determine which is the best outcome. Does the car swerve right into the park, brake and hold and hit little Dick anyway, or dive left and crash head-on into the 18-wheeler. As part of that subroutine, it looks at my old age versus Dick being seven years old, calculates the risk of injury to Dick versus me, and then calculates the severity of the potential injury and quality of remaining life. The AI concludes Dick is about a seven-year-old male child based on what it sees in its sensors and running it through a comparative database. Based on those calculations, the autonomous car makes a choice and commits suicide into the 18-wheeler traveling at 40 MPH.

It calculated I had an 82% chance of surviving the accident, while Dick had only a 3% chance of being hit by flying debris if it swerves into the truck. It calculated it could slow down to 21 MPH before hitting the 18-wheeler, for an equivalent impact of 61 MPH. It calculated there was a 13% chance my injuries would be fatal, short or long term, but that Dick would be more severely injured and with a greater disability if it elected to run him, and the ball over. It also took this as the safe bet because Dick, being a pedestrian and a flawed human, had a 38% chance of doing something not considered by the subroutine.

The auto industry that builds these cars got protection from Congress years earlier, making it impossible for me to sue them for the AI decision. The self-driving car was owned by a car-sharing service; private vehicle ownership became an anachronism years ago. File this under shit happens. Unfortunately, due to prior abdominal surgeries when I was younger, I suffered uncalculated internal injuries and died from complications eight months later. The AI decided that little Dick’s life was worth more than mine.

If you think this is the stuff of fantasy and fear, spend some time talking to people working on autonomous cars. We can reach a place where all cars are autonomous (that will take decades), but you still can’t account for pedestrians, cyclists, and animals. The AI for a self-driving car has to consider all these options because drivers around the world are faced with the snap decision to run over little Dick, crash head-on into oncoming traffic to save little Dick, or swerve off the road and hope not to kill anyone else. To develop a truly autonomous car, it has to make these decisions. Do you want an AI to decide whether you live or die? Can you say you would never run over little Dick in front of Jane? You can’t because you’ll never know how you’ll react until you’re in the crisis – but you have free will to respond. Some will argue that the AI can make a cold, emotionless calculation faster, which makes it better than human.

There is why we need theologians and why there is a demand for them in the development of AI. As our technology defeats, “God,” we are programming computers to play God. AIs are determining the potential of human beings today, not just financially – educationally, work achievement potential, but those cold, perfect instant decisions calculated using thousands of known and proven data points, are only as accurate as the worst computer programmer who worked on the project and the quality of the data used.

We see a world turn its back on religion, and a significant minority screaming louder out of fear as we become more, godless. I am not arguing whether this is good, bad, or indifferent. The profoundly religious are wringing their hands on abortion, gay marriage, gender fluidity, and other wedge issues that have no real intrinsic value beyond dividing us more deeply along political lines. There is a growing belief in corporate America and among technologists that computers can replace humans when it comes to making decisions, and the religious are almost silent on this matter. We can use AI because computers and artificial intelligence can do it faster, without emotion, and consider more data points than a human could ever accomplish. All at the performance level of the worst programmer to work on the code.

So if we abdicate human decisions to AI, do we extinguish the essence of what makes us human – free will. Do we risk labeling humans the second they are born based on thousands of data points on their potential? In this future world, where no one takes a risk, does a different AI decide that because Dick suffered trauma at 7-years old seeing a fatal motor vehicle accident, there is a 23% chance he has PTSD that could impact his work product so that the Schmectel Corporation won’t hire him? Because Schmectel won’t hire him, he can’t get into Super Amazing University, but Amazing University will take him? If you think that is so far fetched one only has to look to China, and their social scores they are rolling out. Because yet another AI could decide that if Dick complains about not getting into Super Amazing University, he shouldn’t even get into Amazing University because the AI predicts there is an 8% chance he will be disruptive at the University.

Wikimedia Creative Commons – Boston Dynamics “robot dogs” are the stuff of your science fiction fantasies pulling Santa’s slay, or your science fiction nightmares if they are out to slay

We need theologians more than ever. Some amazing minds that exist today consider AI to be the biggest threat to humanity as we know it. Where does the human race go when the singularity is achieved? If those subroutines and algorithms are flawed, an AI could start doing a personal assessment on the threats humanity represents and begin making…decisions to protect itself. Never forget another critical part of being self-aware is a need for self-preservation. Oh pish-posh, the Three Laws of Robotics written by Issac Asimov, would prevent that from happening. One can look to the books I, Robot or 2001 as an example of what happens when an AI receives conflicting instructions. At least the Matrix will almost certainly not happen; in reality, we would make terrible batteries to power the machines.

Think about it.

Malcontent, out.

BIPOC, Editorial, National, Think About It

Doubling down on a failed policy

How the United States continues to fail to force a change in Cuba

Consider this interesting fact. Fidel Castro was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008 and died in 2016. He outlived Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. The CIA attempted to assassinate Castro no less than seven times during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, with Castro claiming there were 25 failed attempts on his life. That doesn’t even count the numerous times during Castro’s youth he needed to flee Cuba because someone wanted him dead.

Fidel Castro

During this long road, the United States first backed the Fulgencio Batista government, growing further dissatisfied with his heavy-handed, dictatorial style. Batista was a monster that employed military action, extrajudicial execution, torture, and wholesale slaughter of villages to maintain power. As his grip on Cuba loosened, the CIA felt they could win favor with Castro, who they viewed as a socialist they could easily control, versus other potential Marxist leaders.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Castro was a Marxist to the core and hid his intentions well to the Cuban people, his CIA handlers, and his contemporaries. In 1959, sensing that Batista could no longer hold power and fearful it would fall into pro-Soviet hands, the United States government informed Batista they were cutting off military support to his government. Castro marched from Santiago to Havana, and later that year formed a provisional government. Castro then ruled as a bloody dictator exporting Marxist rebellion and guerilla warfare across Latin America, South American, and Africa.

With the rise of Castro to power, he aligned the island nation with the Soviet Union, which built ICBM missile installations just 90 miles from the US mainland. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the utter brink, with only Russian Commander Vasily Arkhipov refusing to agree with his political officer and the commander of Russian sub B-59  to fire a nuclear warhead armed torpedo at the US naval forces on the surface. The sub, under depth charge attack, was not aware that only training depth charges were used as an attempt to force the ship to surface. As luck would have it for future generations, B-59 was the only Russian submarine in the theater that required three officers to agree to release nuclear weapons – all other subs just needed two.

The Cuban people have suffered under Castro in many ways. With the 1991 Soviet Union collapse, the belief was that the Castro problem would solve itself. Instead, Cuba continued largely alone in the world, isolated just a little less than North Korea. The two key metrics where Castro’s legacy can have any bright lights shone, beyond his amazing ability to survive a world who wanted him dead, is literacy and healthcare. Cuba enjoys one of the most literate populations on the planet, and despite being cut off from most equipment and pharmaceuticals from the United States, has one of the better healthcare systems on the earth. However, the legacy of the healthcare system belongs more to Che Guevera, who didn’t survive the CIA’s desire to see him dead.

Havana, Cuba – land of cigars

It’s easy to lay all this blame at the feet of Castro, Marxism-Leninism, and his bloody regime. Castro was a dictator that committed atrocities against his people and other peoples around the world. You should also never forget that the CIA also trained him, armed him, backed him, and characters such as Frank Sturgis were heavily involved with his movement before his rise to power in 1959. The United States modern meddling in Latin American and South American affairs goes back to the 19th century. From the false flag Spanish-American war of 1898, the formation of Banana Republics in Guatemala and Honduras at the start of the 20th century, the Cold War machinations from Dominica to Peru to Nicaragua, the war on drugs in Columbia, the backing of Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti, and more.

If there is anything, we could learn from the Cold War, which the United States won without turning the planet into a radioactive cinder, the easiest way to collapse a Marxist-Leninist government is to export United States decadence to those nations. During the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Romania was the last hold out under the monstrous hand of Nicolae Ceausescu. The Romanian people were permitted the guilty pleasure of watching, “Hotel Dallas,” on TV. Ceausescu believed that the people would scoff at the decadent lives within the United States and galvanize his power. His plan backfired, horribly. Instead, the Romanian people went, “holy mother fucking ass crackers, that is how people live in the west? I want that for me too!” The people revolted, Ceausescu was eventually arrested and executed.

The cracks within Soviet power were sped along by western music, Levi jeans, McDonald’s burgers, and many other consumer-oriented products that made the Soviet population go, “I want that too!” From Bush legs to foreign aid, the United States worked carefully to move Russia to a more open form of government – until Bush (43) and Pooty-poot, but that’s another story.

When it comes to Cuba, the United States continues to follow a policy that has failed to make a meaningful regime change in 60 years. Isolation does not cause regime change; instead, it hardens the resolve of both leadership and the people. We’ve seen this over and over again. It came as no surprise after the Trump Administration came into power that the start of normalizing relations with Cuba took a U-turn. Today the Trump Administration announced that effective immediately, no more cruise ships or group tours will be allowed to Cuba. The policy is stunningly short-sighted and only serves to appease a single county in South Florida, which is becoming decidedly bluer with each passing year anyway.

The Carnival Paradise will have to find new ports of call now that Cuba is off the list

The US border is seeing an overwhelming number of asylum seekers moving through Mexico to get to the United States. This spike has happened hand-in-hand with the United States cutting off aid to Latin America and Nicaragua falling into a state of near Civil War. Hammer meet nail, nail meet hammer. The black and gray markets in Cuba have operated for decades, many in plain sight, enabling the Cuban people to scrape together a slightly better life. Hotels and sit-down restaurants are scant for travelers, with Cuba instead enjoying their version of Airbnb. A bustling economy, off the books but in plain sight. Naturally reducing the ability of the Cuban people to enjoy the rewards of capitalism will surely help them see the benefits of capitalism.

Donald Trump turns 73 years old this month. It seems likely he will live into his 90s unless his penchant for fast food finally catches up with him. I suspect that without another u-turn in US foreign policy, Cuba will still be an isolated semi-Communist island 90 miles from the United States. Or, it will enjoy the benefits of normalized trade, tourism, and resources with a powerful Chinese-Russian alliance, where once again we’ll be looking at hostile military installations just a short hop from the lower-48. The best way to end the stain of Castro’s grip on Cuba, is to normalize relations and trade.

Think about it.

Malcontent, out.

Editorial, Think About It

There is more than Achy Breaky Heart

Meandering thoughts as we approach Memorial Day weekend

Say the name Billy Ray Cyrus and two things probably pop into most people’s minds: Achy Breaky Heart and Miley Cyrus’s dad. For most people, the first one is a bad thing (I remind you, dear reader, the now maligned song was carpet-bombed on the airways when it was released in 1992 and was a top ten hit in eight countries) and the second one is questionable.

What you may not know, especially if you weren’t a country music listener in the early 90s, is that Billy Ray Cyrus is a prolific songwriter who has created, or co-created, many hits. Lost in over 20 years of musical history and stuck in the shadow of Achy Breaky Heart, the 1992 album Some Gave All produced four top ten hits; the aforementioned Achy Breaky Heart, Could’ve Been Me, and She’s Not Cryin’ Anymore. The title track, which was never released, made it to 52 on the Country Top 100, before fading into obscurity. Although Some Gave All now lives on numerous worst album lists, the songwriting ability of Cyrus is lost in his early 90s mullet on the cover picture and the painful earworm that was Achy Breaky Heart.

Love your country and live with pride
And don’t forget those who died
America can’t you see?

All gave some, some gave all
Some stood through for the red, white and blue
And some had to fall
And if you ever think of me
Think of all your liberties and recall
Some gave all

Billy Ray Cyrus

In our polarized post 9/11 world, these lyrics probably make some cringe. The implications of these words, for some, is my country, right or wrong no matter what, and I disagree if that is your view. You can love something but not like the actions of the entity.  Parents can deeply love their children but not like their actions, choices, or lifestyle. The same can certainly apply to the country. The United States may be a screwed up mess, but it still is one of the best functioning messes on the planet. Ya, ya, ya, Iceland is so amazing – and they went bankrupt. America, we are a great functioning mess (that has gotten awful dysfunctional – but I still love you).

On this Memorial Day weekend, a holiday born out of the bloody Civil War, the last war fought with any significant combat on in the lower 48; it is a weekend to remember the some who gave all. With an all-volunteer military and for at least Generation Z, a period raised under constant low-level combat in multiple locations around the world, it is very easy to get fatigued, forget, and shrug. When we become numb to endless conflict, and when multiple administrations have abused or ignored the Wars Power Act, while Congress continues to abdicate their responsibility, it is easy to forget what is going on over there. As of this writing, there have been over 65,000 causalities for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, over 5,000 gave all.

So to Corporal Robert Hendricks, who died on April 8, 2019 in Afghanistan – I say thank you to you and your survivors. All gave some, but you gave all.

Think about it this weekend.

Malcontent, out.

Editorial, National, Think About It

Industrial bleach in the misinformation age

In our era of misinformation, where we seem to be going backward, it is easy to laugh. It is easy to be amused by flat earthers, and their disastrous international conference where they proved the earth was round (whoops), or to gain pleasure in the irony of antivax leaders ending up in the hospital to get treatment for the disease they said was of no consequence. We can shake our heads at those who believe the lizard people run the planet (this is a real thing) and exhibit outrage at Alex Jones for insisting that the Sandy Hook shooting was a false flag to take away our guns (under a lawsuit, he now claims he was insane when he said it). The problem is, this era of misinformation has real consequences.

When the Internet became mainstream in the mid-90s, and the browser wars of Netscape versus Microsoft was detailed in the news and on people’s minds, there was a belief the world would become a better place. By giving everyone on the planet access to their own Guttenberg printing press, the ability to share knowledge and grow would bring an era of better understanding, faster research, and the democratization of knowledge. We would understand each other better, discover we aren’t so different, lift the undereducated, and there would be greater equality.

Something awful and sinister has happened on the way to global enlightenment. The part that so many missed is that anyone has access to a Guttenberg printing press, meaning any idiot with a conspiracy theory, or any entity that wants to push misinformation can do so with near impunity. Combine that with two-and-a-half generations that don’t give a crap about online personal privacy, the vast amount of third-party data available on us, and the willingness and desire to sell that data to anyone with cash – it is a recipe for disaster.

Russia state news to the living rooms of America

Today we have the Putin News Network (RT) pushing that 5G will kill you. Why? Because Russia and China are behind in deploying 5G and they want to slow down the roll out in the west to catch up. You have the Austrian government in collapse. You have an ongoing and near-forgotten civil war (of sorts) in Ukraine. You have the UK in complete chaos over Brexit, and then we have our shit show in the United States with interference in the 2016 election – but at least there wasn’t any collusion so let’s not figure out how deep the interference was. We have measle epidemics when we shouldn’t have any, and growing cases of whooping cough. Oh, and we have 12 million Americans who believe that lizard people run the planet. I refuse to link to these things and add to the legitimacy storm, look it up yourself.

How bad is it? There are multiple Guttenberg printing presses, some on social media platforms which should have a moral obligation to stop misinformation, advocating the use of industrial bleach to cure autism. Parents are forcing their children to drink it, bathe in it, and have enemas with it. Is the image of a two-year-old being forced to drink industrial bleach as a cure for autism amusing? It’s horrifying. I want to punch Jenny McCarthy in her face, but in the age of everyone gets a Guttenberg printing press, she knows more than doctors and researchers. No, she doesn’t advocate bleach as a cure, but she advocated that vaccinations cause autism and some of these parents forcing industrial bleach on their children. Desperate parents following the false belief that industrial bleach will flush the heavy metals out of their children, and cure the disease.

I certainly am not advocating, as much as it may seem, to twist the First Amendment and allow free speech for only things scientifically proven. I see this as a crisis of our time and the rapid rise of misinformation. Ironically, the Internet has made us more tribal. It is easier for me to find a group of people that believe what I believe, alternative views are damned. So I can sit in my echo chamber and go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole until I believe Sandy Hook was a false flag. I can be in my world until I believe that Obama is the anti-Christ who wants to create a gay Muslim state in Texas, or until I believe that pouring industrial bleach down a helpless child’s throat, will “cure” them of disease. If anything, the horror I find is parents would rather do something that could kill their child then accept that they will be different.

Yes, people believed Jade Helm as a front to turn Texas into a gay Muslim state run by Obama

I firmly believe that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and a list of others have a moral obligation to fight the spread of misinformation. I believe the intelligence communities of nations must protect their citizens from outside false information and propaganda. I think all of us would do better if we left our echo chambers and listened to other voices, and I think we would be more willing to listen if the voices weren’t so shrill. How do we do it without crushing free speech? That is a question we need to answer quickly. To quote from the movie Men In Black, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.”

We need to stop the people who are manipulating the dumb, panicky animals because the alternative is nationalism, disease, and anti-science. I continue to wonder if 500 years from now people will look back, and consider early 21st-century society as living deep in a Dark Age.

Please think about it.

Malcontent, out.

Editorial, National, Think About It

The east coast vs west coast politics of the street

TL;DR

1) NYC doesn’t live up to its reputation as heartless, dangerous, and dirty
2) Homelessness is in the darker corners of the city
3) Seattle’s live and let live policies and lack of law enforcement has created a different environment
4) NYC doesn’t have human feces, used needles, stolen bike parts, and middens lining the streets and sidewalks
5) What Seattle is doing is not working
6) We need a leadership change in King County/Seattle
7) Think about it

I am trying not to turn this into a shower thoughts blog with so much awfulness that continues to happen – so I will try to behave.

I’m in NYC for part of the week, and the Malcontentment Happy Hour will be on the road, relatively low production, and shot from California. So stay tuned for that. I’ve observed some things and have had these thoughts rolling around my head since my last business trip.

On my last trip, I asked the question – where should I jog after dark? The response was, “on Manhattan? Anywhere you want.” I was quite surprised by this response. I’ve jogged or walked from my hotel in NoMad to 78th heading north, past Soho to the south, through Greenwich Village, Times Square, large parts of Central Park, Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea, Korea Town, Garment District, Alphabet City, and tomorrow I’ll add Tribeca to the route. I can’t say I’ve been to every inch of Manhattan, but I’ve covered a lot of asphalt and concrete. I’ve run after dark and in the early morning hours on empty streets, and I’ve run through congestion and crowds during the evening commute. I’ve run through commercial districts, empty urban canyons of finance and commerce, and past old apartment buildings and brownstones.

Several things stand out to me. First, I have never felt unsafe. I have never had the hair stand on the back of my neck, keep an eye on that person, unsafe. Next, I’ve never seen a used needle on the sidewalk, or in a restroom, or anywhere — not one. I’ve never had to dodge human waste or animal waste for that matter. Police presence is high; there is the perception that the police are everywhere or just a moment away.

On Sunday as I was running in the Madison Park area in the early morning hours, I was surprised at the lack of homelessness. That isn’t to say there isn’t any homeless in Manhattan. That would be a Huckabee-Sanders grade falsehood. I see the homeless and their cardboard encampments under the scaffolding and corners of buildings. As I ran up one street I could see in the distance the top of tents; white tops lined up in an empty lot. Ah-ha! Here is a homeless encampment. But it wasn’t one. It was an outdoor antique market that sets up in the lot every Sunday. It was then it struck me like a hammer. Seattle is one screwed up the city.

New York City has plenty of homeless in it, and they have more places to hide in the darkest corners. In the subway tunnels among the fumes, the damp, and the rats, the homeless call the edges of the tunnels and abandoned lines home. They are there. I have seen an Asian man who looks far beyond his years sitting on 6th on the same piece of cardboard for the last two days. His head slumped down, barely awake and aware. He looks and acts like an opioid addict. It is there, and you don’t have to squint to find it.

But I had this realization in my brain where I have been conditioned to watch for large tent encampments and/or derlict RVs and that I now have to be more aware. More aware for human waste on the sidewalk, needles lurking on the edges, or disturbed individuals lurking in the corners. I see the top of tents in a city, I immedidately assume homeless encampment. Again, I am not saying that New York and the boroughs don’t have them, I have yet to stumble on one. But one doesn’t have to move that far from Pike Place Market, or Pioneer Square, or Capitol Hill, or other tourist meccas in Seattle to find tent encampments and the piles of trash, stolen Lime bike parts, human waste and needles. So many needles – and it makes me sad for my adopted home.

On that same Sunday, there was another man just outside of a pharmacy talking loudly. Homeless and mentally ill, an old man, a Brooklyn Jew was talking to him. Trust me, one, I’m Jewish so I can stereotype, two this old man was a walking stereotype with the accent alone. He knew the homeless man’s name; he knew he took medication; he asked him if he was still taking his meds. He wished him well. The homeless man continued to talk loudly about Jesus and how he’ll care for him. Here was compassion, and patience, and grace, in a city that most believe lacks all of the above. Maybe the moment was well timed, but in Seattle I find that because the city and county leadership is doing what seems like all the wrong things, the good will is erroding all around us.

The policies of Rudy Guilliani tested Constitutional boundaries – I won’t drift into shower thoughts with my view on Guillani, it isn’t as blunt as you may think. The harsh reality is the crackdown he implemented and the policies of near-zero tolerance on any crime no matter how petty has had a positive impact. New York’s crime rate is at and has been at historical lows. The city doesn’t tolerate BS is the most simple way to put it. Remember, this is a city largely filled with liberals with a liberal mayor and a liberal governor, but has a very centrist policy on law enforcement. It sure isn’t perfect, Riker’s Island and the Tombs are finally going to be closed, an ill-managed, under-funded, horror of constitutional violations.

The stark contrast to Seattle and the city’s problems is impossible not to notice. Seattle seems to believe that compassion is live and let live. That and resistance to any program perceived to be big government or might infringe on perceived rights. I can’t let this thought go. Would I jog through Pioneer Square at 11 PM? Or at 6:30 AM on a Sunday? How about Belltown on a random drizzly Monday at 9 PM? I’m not saying that New York is crimeless, and maybe I’m being blissfully ignorant and pushing my luck on being mugged or worse. Hell, I’ve been harassed by teenagers on Lake Washington Blvd. jogging at night (keep it classy Kirkland) – and more than once. Caught with 3 grams of fentanyl? In Seattle you walk. Literally. Let that sink in. 18% of cases referenced by police to the prosecutors office go to prosecution. Let that sink in.

What I do know is the city where I live is a hot steaming mess of used needles, human waste, and tent encampments. The problems are getting worse, not better. In some ways, Seattle is still cleaner than New York. It’s hard to explain but New York has many rough edges to it. I just believe more and more that our elected officials in Seattle and King County have let us down and it is time for a change. What we’re doing for homeless and poverty? It isn’t working. New York, on the surface at least, seems to have built a better mousetrap.