IdeaMine

The schedule for the day is dominated by a community-organization Block Party, from 10:00-5:00. It's a hyperlocal community organization called the Friends of Babbage and Bessemer, a pair of parallel streets about four blocks long behind our house; I've been attending meetings, and a month ago they came up with the idea of a block party to gain visibility and get people talking about how to make the neighborhood (in particular, the space under the elevated train tracks) more pleasant. shalmestere and I were volunteered to provide some musical accompaniment, although it's not clear when, where, or how much; I learned about this on Tuesday and (as I recall) asked shalmestere whether she was willing to do it, she was unenthusiastic but said "OK". Her recollection is different: she was never asked at all, only told that we were doing this, and she's even more unenthusiastic.

One reason for the lack of enthusiasm is that it's supposed to be 93°F today, and the only shade around is under the aforementioned train tracks, which as mentioned before are not particularly attractive or pleasant. I bought a flat of forty half-liter bottles of water at the grocery store last night ($4.99) so we can hand them out. The block party doesn't have a permit for food, but I figure handing out water for free on a hot day should be unobjectionable.

The more recent reason for the lack of enthusiasm is that as of about 9:00 last night, the United States is at war with Iran. As I understand it, Iran hadn't done anything directly to us, but Israel started a bombing campaign two weeks ago aimed at wiping out Iran's nuclear program, Trump told Iran to "surrender unconditionally", Iran didn't but fired a bunch of missiles at Israel, and there was one pesky nuclear facility Iran had buried deep inside a mountain that Israel's weapons couldn't reach, so Trump agreed to bomb it for them, using "bunker-buster" bombs and B-2 bombers. He said he would take his usual "two weeks" to decide what to do, various members of Congress introduced resolutions saying he can't start a war without Congressional approval, and I guess he decided he'd better start one before those resolutions get any farther. His approval rating is pretty bad, he's desperately trying to expand his power and authority, and nothing improves a President's popularity, power, and authority like going to war. On the other hand, it doesn't look good for him that the United States is acting as Israel's attack dog.

shalmestere's immediate reaction to the war news was "I don't want to leave the house or have anything to do with people." And it does seem likely that the community-organization block party will be dominated by divisive talk about international politics.