the municpality as HOA

the citing official was reasonable and as polite as was possible given the situation...he also, willfully or not, telegraphed that one of my neighbors was involved when he told me to make what i planned to do "neat and tidy so no one complains"...so much for neighborliness...i will also say that he was passing out citations for alley violations all down the block so it was not a case of singling out...and the third point was there was a considerable amount of detritus from the great elm collapse of 2019...and with that we have exhausted any points that might favor the municpality...they gave me five days ( until christmas...thoughty of them ) to conform or "tickets will be issued as soon as the sixth day"...this one can accept since it would involve revenue...i was off today so i cleaned up...

i established a pile by the street per the instructions i was given...well with in the five days...if the municpality has not retrieved it by the 26th i will be firm in my belief they owe me money...they will not see it as such...and i am inclined to belive they will not be picking this lot up any time soon either since the weather is due to take a turn for the arctic ( even if it is warming )...where the municpality has veered completely off course ( due i believe to one of my whiny neighbors ) is insisting we deconstruct the bush pile my wife has constructed as winter bird habitat...

note the number of filled bird feeders and the birdbaths ( including one "heated" [even though it is only "heated" enough to keep the water liquid ] birdbath ) which are meant to sustain any number and variety of birds...the brush is shelter...i believe the mayor is in for an earful over this and rightly so...there are limits to what the polity should coutenance from politicans...what next? cut down the hawthorn in the front yard? change the siding color? move the house three feet to the left? the municpality is not a homeowners association even if my neighbors feel it should be...we will se how this unwaranted intrusion pans out and i will be posting a photo of the pile from the alley...which,ironically, the birds will use as shelter as long as it is there...on social media every day the municipality negelcts to come collect it...one supposes to be fair i should only start on the 26th...i am not feeling all that disposed to give the municpality any benefit at this moment...we will see where my attitude is at tomorrow...as it stands right now they can all go pound sand

papal pretentions

earlier this morning michelle goldberg's column in the new york times ( on line, it isn't in the print edition ) carried this lede...

however when i logged back on this was the new lede...which is just as well since i was having difficulty with the idea that the times editorialists were just now familiarizing themselves with the narcissistic element in politics...i have to think there is at least a touch of narcissism at any level of leadership, coprporate or otherwise, and this would of necessity be a bit more pronounced in the more public and popularity ( even chartisma? ) based world of politics...and , one supposes, the farther up the political hierarchy one examines the more fully embraced narcissim is ( as we have seen in the recent white house denizen )...no lack of hubris in the political world..."i am the decider" was a fully dubya way of expressing it...however it does extend a bit farther back into the history of the office...nixon was paranoid and obsessed with his historical reputation to the point of criminality...and, among other blatant howlers, he said , " i would have made a good pope"...despite his quaker aposticism...even deeper, martin van buren penned a 776 page autobuography...always an element of narcissim in that and i wonder who, exactly, has read it ( to be clear i have not...i am simply admiring the fact that he could find 776 pages of personal detail to write about...must have been a wonderful life )...that krysten sinema should be labeled an narcissit is probably not much of a deviation from fact...so is shumer and that jerk mcconnell...and the rest of the zoo in the nation's capital ( and let us not overlook the jibbering bozos downstate here )...i am simply surpried the times was alert enough to identify its error and send the offending lede down the memory hole.