Quarantine Diary #204 10/4/2020 3 Short Takes

Three things to say today and none are about our goatish, swag-bellied, canket-blossomed president. How to create a Shakespearean insult. 

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1. I just read this WONDERFUL and REMARKABLE book! The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

It was released recently and is fresh, surprising, and hope-bringing to readers who care about weird children, earnest adults, love, and hope.

It is magical fantasy – George Orwell’s 1984 meets Harry Potter and Narnia. A dutiful 40-year old man who is a case worker in a grinding bureaucracy is sent to investigate an orphanage of six magical children who may be out-of-control.

What he finds is what we all want to find. I don’t want to tell you anything else because the adventure of reading this book was so intriguing. Just let me mention that I said “Whoa!” more than once.

Should you read this novel?

• Do you not always identify as or with CIS-gendered and overly-privileged people?
• Do you often care a lot about kids, especially ones “with issues”?
• Do you want to feel hope instead of the tedious onslaught of despair?

Klune’s story is about strength, laughter (the things Lucy says!), and a clear sense of what is real and what is magic.

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I am bored of my clothes. I own at least ten black, charcoal, and navy long and short sleeved t-shirts, plus jeans so it’s a rare day I’m not in a dark t-shirt and jeans. Mostly I like this uniform, but, yes, it has been eight months.

If I were thrift-shopping I’d buy something new. But I am not. My shopping caution safeguards my health and also safeguards medical and hospital care for others;I figure my patriotism flies high when I stay out of places I don’t need to be.

But my clothes, seriously, have become Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

I do own more interesting items that I used to wear to church, meetings, and restaurants. I also have many things that don’t “fit right.” Too short, too long, too tight, too loose-Lautrec. You know, the things we keep because we like how they look in our closet but don’t wear because of so many small reasons

For the next week I am going to wear the stuff I never wear.

Just a week. It’s an experiment.

“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” William James

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This morning I read more about the Grand Jury testimony regarding the murder of Breonna Taylor. You read, too. You don’t need me to re-tell what’s out there.

But this really caught my attention. 

One day before the deadly raid, Detective Joshua Jaynes said he had “verified through a US Postal Inspector that Glover has been receiving packages” at Taylor’s home. But testimony from an internal LMPD report has cast doubt on Jaynes claim.

According to the Public Integrity Unit report, officers requested Shively police Sgt. Timothy Salyer and Det. Mike Kuzma question the postal inspector, who in turn said there were no packages being sent to Taylor’s home.

The Shivley officers were enlisted because LMPD no longer works with the postal service as a result of an unspecified dispute from a few years earlier, according to the report.

In a follow-up interview with the unit on May 18, Salyer said he reached out to Mattingly, who was wounded in the raid, about the warrant affidavit in wake of the shooting.

“Sgt. Mattingly stated he told Detective Jaynes there was no package history at that address,” Salyer told investigators, according to a summary of the interview.

Salyer said he was again contacted by two LMPD officers at the end of January, this time by Detective Mike Nobles and Detective Kelly Hanna, about any packages going to Taylor’s home, WDBR reported. He said he “told them the same information,” according to the summary.

Jefferson Circuit Judge Mary Shaw, who signed the search warrant for Taylor’s home, has since expressed concern that she (was) misled by officers in the investigation.

The cops said she was a drug-receiving person because her BF of more than a year ago was involved in selling drugs. Furthermore, they claimed, packages of drugs were being mailed to her house. But when investigators looked into this – they had been told that NO packages were being delivered to her house.

And then they got a judge to sign off on the search because of “drugs were being delivered to her apartment.”

I don’t know where to go with this. The detectives/cops who obtained the search warrant were somewhere between lazy and lying. They either didn’t read the search warrant, or they read it and didn’t care.

I think it matters that people hear and take in truths like these. So I am saying it.