Notes from Bushwick

Our little organization, which will be known as the Civil Liberties Reclamation Project until such time as someone provides me with a more inspiring name, is off to a fine start. Founded in an effort to address the unfortunate prevalence of illegal police searches in our community, the CLRP will concern itself with educating Bushwick residents about their Fourth Amendment rights as well as their potential avenues of recourse on such occasions as those rights are violated. So far we’ve recruited several capable lawyers including my old friend Mirna Hariz, who’s moving to New York in a couple of weeks and who’ll otherwise be engaged in representing those firefighters who have suffered health problems in the aftermath of the WTC cleanup. We’re still looking for a couple of other people with relevant backgrounds in activism, law, and making a pest of one’s self. I’d also like to replace myself as operational head of the organization as soon as possible in order that I might serve instead as director of communications; if you’d like to run your very own civil liberties advocacy group, let me know.

Incidentally, we may have our first case even at this early point, which goes to show how common this problem is; two Puerto Ricans were arrested at the Nightline Deli on Broadway last week in front of several witnesses and in a manner that appears to be have been unconstitutional. Both were charged with possession of a controlled substance, in this case a single hit of ecstasy each. Something tells me that any lab test undertaken will show the pills to be of something lower on the totem poll than MDMA; with all due respect to the natives, I’m from Dallas, which is where the ecstasy scene first developed, and I was unfortunate enough to be heavily exposed to the rave scene in Austin back around the turn of the century, and these little pills that folks up here are always selling each other aren’t ecstasy. A 17-year-old Houston girl would laugh right in your face if you tried to sell her one of these stupid little things. But I digress.

Notes from the Outside World

You probably think that you’re aware of the extent to which the conservative commentariat has degenerated over the past twenty years. You’re not. Consider this fellow. He’s a former editor of The Washington Times and the co-author of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party which he wrote with Lynn Vincent, who herself just ghosted Palin’s Going Rogue. He’s an allegedly respectable conservative blogger with connections to a genuinely respectable number of allegedly respectable politicians and pundits. But he may very well be the worst behaved of any American pundit of whom I’m aware.

A week back, the Charleston Gazette characterized Robert Stacy McCain as a "white supremacist." In response, he threatened on at least three different occasions to actually drive over to the Gazette’s office and do some unspecified awesome thing that may or may not involve a duel or some such nonsense. A few hours later, he learned that I’d also accused him of racism in an article that appeared in The Huffington Post last month, at which point he proclaimed: "Barrett Brown – he’ll get his in turn." Upon discovering that I serve as director of communications for Enlighten the Vote, he posted some sort of wacked-out toy fascist proclamation to the effect that Samson killed a great number of Philistines. And watch him give a speech. I feel like a douchebag just for talking about him.

To My Downstairs Neighbors

I’m sensing some real hostility here, and I want to assure you that we have every intention of cooperating with you to resolve this problem that has been tearing our two small enclaves apart at a time in which solidarity is required. As I’ve explained previously, we don’t know why your bathroom has water leaking into it, and we can all assure you that we are doing nothing other than taking showers and washing dishes in accordance with the way in which such things are usually done. As I showed you earlier this afternoon, our bathroom floor is bone dry. We’re not letting our bathtub overflow or anything like that. Insomuch as that the landlord has already sent someone over to examine our bathroom only to determine that there is no problem there, we are of the opinion that the matter may be most reasonably attributed to an irregularity with the plumbing somewhere between the top two floors and your bathroom. Incidentally, I called the landlord again today and informed him of the problem. We’re not sure why you ran off this afternoon while I was showing you our bathroom. That’s kind of strange.

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