In the News April 2026

You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.    -- Edgar Alan Poe

I had a nightmare. I'm posting an angry diatribe about the President and his administration on the Internet. I'm in a Psychologist's office. The doctor tells me hypnosis will help me sleep. I'm walking down a stairwell in an infinite spiral downward. I write a manifesto. Woken up by a camera flash, on my back, naked on the floor in a hotel corridor, and covered by a mylar blanket, I look up at the photographer. I'm in a prison common room, waiting for my trial, watching the TV. The TV news lady says the President's poll numbers are up and Congress has approved for the President a gold leaf ballroom.

My nightmare attempts to illustrate, besides my paranoia, how little control one has over how a plan directed against powerful people will play out in real time. As for what happened over a week ago at the Correspondents dinner in Washington DC, a comedian commentator pointed out, as a joke, that for someone who graduated from CalTech, a prestigious engineering school, you'd think the gunman would have a smarter plan.* I wasn't asked to come up with a better plan, but I started to think about one. I didn't get far. The thought of picking up a gun was followed by, "wait, someone could get hurt." For some, I understand, holding a gun imparts a feeling of power that must overwhelm gentle thoughts.**

I read his manifesto. I won't bother to poke holes in his logic or what he was certain to be true, except for one thing he must not have understood. When he left the cocoon that spawned his thinking and entered the harsh spotlight of a hallway outside a dinner attended by administration officials and journalists, no one would agree with his narrative. If he saw himself as righteous, what the public saw was evil or mental illness.

The president may be awful, or great, in the ancient Egyption monument builder sense of the word. Historians will someday look back, analyze his decisons and their consequences, and reach a consensus. It's wrong-headed for us at the bottom to be obsessed with one man and his obsequious minions*** at the top of the political hierarchy. If we could agree that they are truly awful, I believe we can vote them out of office, even if it takes sixteen years. In the meantime, we should focus on making the small world outside our front doors better.

Manifestos are definitely a thing, written by people with diverse backgrounds. The CEO of Palantir recently published a manifesto on X. I recommend the Front Porch Republic's manifesto published in 2018. If I was to write my own, I'd acknowledge first that in the United States, the Constitution, for all its flaws, is the law of the land. Our political, corporate, and financial hierarchies may topple a hundred or a thousand years from now, but that shouldn't be the focus.

The two themes of my manifesto would be localization and democracy. Localization is the creation of local manufacturing, food production, and energy. Because workable local solutions generally don't scale, the financial system would allow a company to build a local project without expecting a return on the initial investment. The financial system should be creating wealth for both the company and community.

Local democracy would replace "Front Porch Republic" with "Front Porch Democracy." Local democracy is simply counting the raised hands in a school auditorim.

Thank God I'm not writng a manifesto.

Notes

• Deed - Attribution 4.0 International
  
• Edgar Alan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream
  
• * I could be addicted to youtube videos.
• ** Gentle thoughts I was thinking are like waves lapping on the shore of a small lake, They aren't words you say to yourself, that you might say out loud. But other words beside gentle might make more sense, like temperate, altruistic, quiet, forgiving, thoughtful, careful,... More than anything else, this blog is about learning how to write.
• *** English has some interesting words to describe a certain type of underling: minion, lackey, sycophant, toady, toadeater, fawner, servile flatterer, lickspittle, truckling self-seeker, bootlicker, ...
• Sara Radin, Why “neighborism” is having a moment
  Vox, The Highlight, April 30, 2026
  "After decades of social isolation, people are realizing proximity is a resource."

An excursion into the past

German officers

This is a joke an Engineering Economics instructor told the class.

There are four types of German officers. The first type of officer is brilliant and hard-working. He turns his ideas into wins on the battlefield. The second is brilliant but lazy. He doesn't work on his ideas or pass them on. The third is stupid but lazy. He ideas are bad but because they stay in his brain he doesn't do great harm. The fourth type is stupid and hard-working.

A Maharishi in Manhattan

A ninth-grade highschool teacher told this story to the class. I remember the teacher as a thin, elderly man who was going bald, but I was young and memory is fallible.

A guru, or Maharishi, a seer from India, stood on a sidewalk in downtown Manhatten facing the street. He wore a white robe and had a gray beard. Behind him was a large department store window. Hundreds of items for sale were displayed behind the glass. The guru turned his head back for a moment to stare at the window, then turned his head to again face the street. He then named every single item behind the window.

The teacher acted out the story as he told it. He turned his head to the side and then back, as if he had his back to us and was looking backwards. When he turned his head to the back of the classroom, his eyes widened as if focused for a few seconds on the items behind the window.

My step-father sinks a sailboat

After my Mom married her second husband in a small stone church in Upper Nyack, New York, my mom, sister, brother, and I moved into my step-father's house. His house was about a mile north on the main road. From the front, it appeared to be a one-story ranch house, but because the house was built on a slope, the basement had a large window and a door to the outside.

The house looked out onto the Hudson river on a spot where the land was mostly level. On one side of the house was a gravelled circle for cars to park or turn around. A path at the far end of the circle went down to a stone cottage by the shore.

On the other side of the house was a yard, surrounded on three sides by a wall. The wall was about five feet high and surrounded the yard with embrasures like an actual castle wall. At the far end of the yard a footbridge spanned the one-lane road that led to the house and went on to wind its way down the hill, turning left under the bridge. Where the road turned left, on the right a path led to a pond surrounded by the castle walls. I'd go there to collect frog eggs and watch them become tadpoles. Past the bridge, near the shore on the right, the castle wall rose in height and against it stood a fireplace, the remains of a second stone house.

The footbridge in 2017, the road replaced by grass. Inset: 1901

The road reached the river's edge and turned left again, parallel to the shore leading to a wooden dock extending onto the water and the stone cottage beyond. Children about my age would bring their fishing poles to the dock to fish for perch. Along the water's edge were stones of various sizes. The smaller, flatter ones we'd pick up and throw to see how many times we could get them to skip off the water. The bigger stones were covered with a green algae and slippery. Horseshoe crabs slambered over them and slid into the water.

When you opened the front door of my step-father's house, the kitchen was on the right, the door to the garage converted into a bedroom on the left, and before you was the living room. From the large window that went nearly to the floor you could see the Hudson river, the dock below you, and Westchester on the other side. The window was composed of large glass slats called jalousies. Beside each slat was a crank for opening and closing. On weekends, my step-father would sit in his recliner near the window in his bathrobe.

H. Russell Drowne the third was a business man, rodeo cowboy, and polo player. He had one or two horses he kept in rented stable stalls. He was the fleet manager of a Chevrolet dealership in New York City. His father was an Army Brigadier General. He had rifles for shooting skeets and a handgun he kept on a shelf in the hall closet.

Russell Drowne, businessman, cowboy, and Polo player

H. Russell Drowne's step-father was Richard Jewett. Mr Jewett was the mayor of Upper Nyack from 1959 to 1977. We knew Mr. Jewett as "Mort." Mort's father, Major Richard Jewett, built the castle walls and stone houses in the early 1900s. H. Russell Drowne's house belonged to Mort.

Joe Targett lived alone in the stone cottage on the shore of the Hudson. He had a kayak and a sailboat moored to the dock. He taught English at Columbia University. I don't remember this, my memories are fragmented, but my sister told me we'd go down the path to his cottage and knock on his door so we could listen to his stories.

One day, I can't say exactly when, my step-father took one of his guns, cranked open a jalousie window, pointed it at the sailboat and fired and fired until the boat sank. I don't know what was said later about it, or who took care of the sunken boat. Its remains were taken away and not seen again.

In early April, either the same or following year after his sailboat sank, Joe Targett set out onto the Hudson river with his kayak. A storm appeared, capsizing his kayak, and he drowned. His body was found two weeks later. This is what I remember, but was there a storm?

Joe Targett Feared Drowned
New York Times April 15, 1962

Joe Targett d. April 5, 1962
Hartford Courant April 26, 1962, page 50

Not long after Joe Targett's personal belongings were taken away, H. Russell Drowne's eldest son, Henry Russell Drowne the fourth, we knew him as "Rusty," moved into the cottage. When he got married his wife, I believe she was a nurse, moved in and they lived together in the cottage for a long time. Rusty was a good man. He flew down from New York to attend our half-brother Alex's funeral service. Rusty died in 2003 at the age of 58.

A Professor demonstrates infinity

My Dad studied Chemistry as an undergrad at an Ivy-league university. One day everyone was sitting at their desks waiting for the Professor to arrive. The Professor entered the classroom, walked to the front of the class, and said, "today I am going to demonstrate for you Infinity." The Professor picked up a piece of chalk, went to one end of the chalkboard, drew a horizontal line to the other end, walked to the window nearest to the board and jumped out.

The story is missing a few important details. Was this a course in Mathematics, Physics, or Economics? How tall was the building the classroom was in and what floor were they on?

Notes

Creative Commons

• Deed - Attribution 4.0 International
  

My step-father sinks a sailboat

• Until recently, I thought Joe Targett's name was Joe Target and I couldn't believe it was a real name. At an Upper Nyack elementary school reunion in June 2017, I asked a former classmate, do you remember Joe Target? Was that his real name? He replied, yes, that was his name.

The Community Matters

Walt Kelly 1913-1973, “We Have Met the Enemy…”

Roshomon

Akira Kurasawa's film "Roshomon" tells four stories of a crime that left a husband dead and his wife possibly raped. The wife, a bandit, a woodcutter who was a witness, and the husband from beyond the grave, each tell a different tale. Each tale puts the teller in his or her best possible light. Like the trial jury, the audience watches and listens. The truth is elusive but the audience is free to choose one story they believe is the truth. The woodcutter's story is my favorite.

Comparing the film to what happened to Renee Good on January 7, 2026 isn't entirely accurate but I'll continue. Witness videos of the scene were inconclusive but the video from the officer's own camera apparently showed the officer was run over before shooting Ms. Good four times. The administration promptly concluded Ms. Good was a domestic terrorist who weaponized her car to intentionally harm the officer. Other observers saw a deliberate murder.

The observers tell the stories of Renee Good and Alex Pretti deaths. The victims and, most probably, the shooters will be mute forever. The most powerful observer needs everyone to see the shooters as heroes acting in self-defense and understand the severe consequences of impeding ICE. The administration is committed to the policy ICE is carrying out.

The enemy within

A New York Times' frame-by-frame analysis focused on the officer's video does not show the officer was hit by Good's car. Ms. Good must have thought she had a clear path to drive away or she panicked. The officer did not have to shoot Ms. Good. Looking at it from the outside, my guess is adrenaline fueled rage and fear played a major role. An officer approaching her car said, "get out of the f*cking car." After the officer shot Ms. Good, his reaction was, "f*cking bitch."

Possibly the officer suffered from PTSD. Last June he was dragged fifty yards by a car while attempting to apprehend someone. It's understandable that the dangerous work of arresting undocumented criminals would lead to PTSD, like the harrowing experiences of soldiers in battle. ICE and border control officers belong to a paramilitary organization that wears masks, helmets, and camo, wields high-powered weapons, and that is charged with rooting out "the enemy within." Their "Operation Metro Surge" intentionally evokes the military surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rate of PSTD must be nearly as high as it is in the Army and Marines.

More important than useless speculation about psychological states is the law. The legal standard for an officer I believe is reasonable fear of being in mortal danger. This is a difficult standard to apply, when the video footage is ambiguous and an officer's actions are based on evaluating in the moment what is real and what is imagined.

Tyranny of the Majority

"After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?"
   -- Henry David Thoreau

Ms Good and her wife should not have heckled the ICE agents and then attempted to drive away. They didn't understand how dangerous their situation was. If they had understood, they would have prepared to be arrested. They must not have known how often police have shot drivers attempting to leave the scene. Neither was a "domestic terrorists," a stupid, counter-productive thing to be. If they saw themselves as non-violent, they didn't have a clear idea of they were trying to achieve and how to go about it. It would have helped if they had read Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay, Civil Disobediance.

Conservatives don't like anyone impeding officers from carrying out the law. Civil disobedience is about exactly that. It's about standing together to get in the way, breathing tear gas, getting hit by pepper balls and getting arrested. It's about politely explaining why you're there. It's about standing up to a policy that promises to arrest the entire community if that it takes to enforce the law.

In Minneapolis, the community decided to embrace innocent and hard-working undocumented immigrants as neighbors. It should not be a victim of a bad policy that is unjust in the way it attempts to enforce a broken immigration law. They are right to protest when ICE writes its own warrants giving itself permission to batter down front doors and make arrests because it's cheaper and quicker than judicial warrants. Because mitigating factors are ignored it's also cruel.

That a community has a lright to self-determination is an ideal that's difficult to defend. I don't recommend civil disobedience generally. In the United States, you make a mistake, you are dead and labeled a terrorist. In other countries, if you go outside to protest you are likely to die.

What about the undocumented murderers, thiefs, fraudsters, child molesters, rapists, and gang members? Doesn't ICE have a right to arrest them? State and city governments must negotiate with ICE and offer assistance with rounding up undocumented immigrants with felony convictions. In exchange, ICE will not not sweep streets, schools, hospitals, and houses looking for anyone who is undocumented. If ICE doesn't agree, they should let everyone know they tried.

Updated February 7, 2026

References

• Deed - Attribution 4.0 International
  
• We have met the enemy and he is us
  Toni Mendez Collection, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University
• Joel Villasenor-ruiz `Rashomon' Is Truly Classic, Even If Truth Is Unknowable
  The Harvard Crimson, December 2, 1993
  "At the end of the film, we are no closer to knowing the truth, and that is in great measure the movie's theme, the very unknowability of truth."
• Rorschach.Org
  "Established in 1996, as "The Original Rorschach Website," Rorschach.org was founded by Mark W. Matthews, PhD and aims to continue providing an online resource for information about the ethical and professional use of Rorschach Inkblot Test. To this end, we have collected a variety of resources and products to help the student and professional administer, score, and interpret the Rorschach Inkblot Test in an ethical, reliable, and valid manner."
• Past Poll Results
  SMERCONISH January 10, 2026:
  Do you have an open or closed mind as to the guilt or innocence of the Minnesota ICE agent? (Percentage of 62,084 votes)
  53.43% -   Open
  46.57% -   Closed
  
• The New York Times Video Analysis of ICE Shooting Sheds Light on Contested Moments
  The New York Times, January 15, 2026
  "Newly available videos and existing footage synchronized and assessed by The Times provide a frame-by-frame look at how an ICE officer ended up shooting and killing a motorist in Minneapolis.
  ...
  In a video analysis, The Times focuses on some of the key contested moments of the agent’s cellphone video alongside other footage. More videos are likely to emerge, but the visual evidence shows no indication that the agent who fired the shots, Jonathan Ross, had been run over. The footage provides visibility into the positioning between the agent and Ms. Good’s S.U.V., and the key moments of escalation. It also establishes how Mr. Ross put himself in a dangerous position near her vehicle in the first place."
• Rachel Wolf ICE officer who shot Minnesota woman was dragged by car of illegal alien sex offender months earlier
  Fox News, January 10, 2026
  "ICE officer who shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis was dragged 50 yards by criminal illegal alien's vehicle months earlier"
• TRAC Immigration
  Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
• Deportation Data Project
  "The Deportation Data Project collects and posts public, anonymized U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets. We expect these datasets to be used by journalists, researchers, lawyers, and policymakers."
• ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Statistics
  "The following dashboards present for the first time information and trends in arrests, detentions, removals and alternatives to detention as of December 31, 2024.
  The dashboards will be updated quarterly."
• Under President Trump’s leadership, ICE has arrested members of some of the world’s most dangerous criminal gangs in Sanctuary Minnesota
  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, January 14, 2026
  "WASHINGTON — ICE has arrested several gang members — many convicted of violent crimes — in Minnesota. These are the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens that ICE is targeting and who rioters, agitators, and sanctuary politicians like Tim Walz and Jacob Frey are trying to protect. Several of these dangerous criminal illegal alien gang members have been arrested during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis."
  "We’ve arrested over 2,500 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota since starting this operation with DHS,” said ICE Director Todd M. Lyons. “We’re picking up the worst of the worst offenders, and as these cases come in, we’re finding that a significant number of the aliens we arrest — in addition to having serious criminal histories in the U.S. and abroad — are part of dangerous gangs that terrorize communities all over the nation.""
• Mariana Alfaro Native Americans are being swept up by ICE in Minneapolis, tribes say
  The Washington Post, updated January 16, 2026
  "Tribal leaders say Indigenous people have been stopped, questioned, harassed and, in some cases, detained solely on the basis of their skin color or names."
  
• Immigration Raids Statistics in US 2026 | Recent ICE Raids
  The World Data - The Insight Hub, January 13, 2026
  "The statistics paint a stark picture of the current state of immigration enforcement in 2026. With 68,990 individuals held in 212 detention facilities as of early January 2026, the United States is operating the world’s largest immigration detention system at unprecedented capacity levels. What stands out most dramatically is that 73.6% of detainees—nearly three-quarters of the detained population—have no criminal convictions whatsoever, contradicting administration claims that enforcement focuses primarily on dangerous criminals.
  ...
  The nationwide death toll from ICE agents and their raids since Trump took office in January 2025 has reached 32 people, according to United We Dream, including individuals killed while fleeing raids such as California farmworker Jaime Alanís Garcia, who fell from a greenhouse roof, and Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, struck by a car while running across a freeway as agents raided a Home Depot."
• Jacob Sullum A Texas Cop Endangered Himself by Jumping Onto a Moving Car. Then He Shot the Driver.
  Yahoo News, April 6, 2012
  "The officer, Roberto Felix Jr., stopped Barnes because the license plate of the rental car had been linked to toll violations by another driver. About three minutes into the stop, Barnes began to drive away. Felix reacted by jumping onto the door sill of the car with his gun drawn. Within two seconds, perceiving a threat to himself as the car accelerated, Felix fatally shot Barnes."
• Joe Lancaster Renee Good Was a Casualty of Trump's Order Against Political Violence'
  Reason - Free Minds and Free Markets, January 15, 2026
  "The administration's written policies make it likely that more people like Renee Good will be targets, and victims, of ICE."
  "Assaulting law enforcement deserves little leeway, but "impeding" could be completely nonviolent, and it certainly doesn't rise to the level of terrorism. And yet within hours of Good's death at the hands of a government agent, federal officials—including Vice President J.D. Vance and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—jumped to the conclusion that Good was a terrorist, seemingly based on nothing more concrete than that she was impeding an ICE operation."
• Jacob Sullum A Texas Cop Endangered Himself by Jumping Onto a Moving Car. Then He Shot the Driver
  Reason - Free Minds and Free Markets, October 7, 2024
  
• Eric Tucker, Associated Press When can police use lethal force against a fleeing suspect?
  PBS News, April 8, 2015
  
• Carlos Miller ‘Get Up!’: Michigan Police Shot Black Man In the Back Nine Times and ‘Kicked His Lifeless’ Body While Yelling Commands In Ill-Fated Traffic Stop. Now Sheriff Won’t Release Video, Lawsuit Claims
  Atlanta Black Star, January 22, 2025 Updated on January 31, 2025
  "A Michigan sheriff’s office is refusing to release details about shooting an unarmed Black man nine times in the back as he ran away from a questionable traffic stop, including evidence like body and dash camera footage which captured the shooting.
  But the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office assures the public has nothing to worry about because not only did they investigate themselves and found no wrongdoing, another Michigan sheriff’s office from a nearby county also investigated the shooting and found no wrongdoing."
• Tiarra Braddock ‘Sheriff corrects record: No gun found in deadly deputy shooting in Ypsilanti
  WXYZ Detroit, January 14, 2026
  "Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer reveals deputies initially reported suspect had shotgun, but Michigan State Police investigation found no firearm in vehicle
  On Jan. 6, Washtenaw County deputies shot and killed a 34-year-old man from St. Clair County after a traffic stop turned into a chase that ended with a crash near Towner and Prospect streets in Ypsilanti.
  Initially, the sheriff's office reported that the suspect was armed with a shotgun. However, Sheriff Dyer now confirms no gun was ever found inside the van."
• Casey McNerthney Family: Man shot by police was deaf in left ear
  Seattle PI, August 31, 2010
  "The man fatally shot in confrontation with a police officer Monday afternoon after he refused to follow police orders was deaf in his left ear, the man's brothers said Wednesday.
  John T. Williams, 50, was shot about 4:15 p.m. at Howell Street and Boren Avenue after police say Officer Ian D. Birk' yelled three times for him to drop a knife and Williams did not."
  
• The Associated Press North Carolina Deputy Shot And Killed Black Man While Serving A Warrant
  Oxygen - True Crime, April 22, 2021
  "An eyewitness reported that Andrew Brown Jr. was shot while trying to drive away from the scene as activists seek the release of body cam footage of the incident."
• Carlos Miller ‘Out of Control’: Indiana Cop Unloads Gun On Black Woman Fleeing Domestic Abuser and Gets Off; Family Sues
  Atlanta Black Star, August 13, 2025
  "Dachena Warren-Hill, a 20-year-old Black woman, was attempting to drive away from the man who was abusing her when she was shot and killed by an Indiana police officer in 2023.
  Officer Mark Guzman of the Fort Wayne police claimed he was in fear for his life when he opened fire, claiming she was driving her car directly toward him.
  However, body camera footage released three months later shows Guzman was not directly in the car’s path because she was driving away from him when he opened fire."
• Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience