Law and Order for Whom?

“Law and order,” we’ve heard the authorities say for over 50 years anytime the public protests an injustice in America. Sometimes it comes after a “but”: “What’s happening is terrible,” the authorities say, “but we have to have law and order.”

 

But which laws do we choose to enforce? To whom do we grant order? Why do we offer these concepts in unequal measure to different people in our society? Who gets the benefit of the doubt and who doesn’t in America?

 

Now people are calling for order following the protests in Kenosha after the police shooting. Why now? Where was the order before this? What “order” could it possibly have served when police shot Jacob Blake seven times at point-blank range in the back in front of his kids? No matter what the police were after him for, don’t the principles of law and order call for a higher standard, a better response, than seven paralyzing bullets? Wasn’t there a better way to resolve this conflict?

 

Why does the police chief of Kenosha blame the shooting of three people (two fatally) during a protest on violating the order of a curfew rather than on the 17-year-old boy who crossed state lines to bring an AR-15 to a protest to shoot up the protestors? Why did this kid think it served law and order more to protect property than to protest against the shooting of people like Jacob Blake?

 

Why did the “lawless” protestors chase after this kid after he shot three people, while the police walked right by him? Why do we now have the usual suspects from the dregs of the Internet preaching “law and order” but celebrating this murder suspect and the inherent lawlessness and disorder in what he did?

 

Why does the president of the United States call for law and order when people protest when Black people get shot but doesn’t apply that same call for law and order to the shootings that precipitated the protests? Why does anybody?

 

How did it serve law and order for unmarked vans to grab protestors off the streets? How did it serve law and order for police to tear gas peaceful protestors?

 

Why will there be people who consider it a great affront to order that NBA players refused to play, while paralyzing a guy with seven bullets to the back was just background noise that barely disturbed the order in their universe?

 

Somebody said this about America, and we keep getting evidence that it’s true: “There is an in-group whom the law protects but does not bind, and there is an out-group whom the law binds but does not protect.”

 

Asking why we mete out law and order in different measures in this country is a rhetorical question. You know the answer.

I have a reservation. What do you mean it's not in the computer?!

Our trip last week to Maine was just lovely. We stayed in a house in Wells, near Ogunquit. We went to the beach, hung out at the pool and spent some time together at the house. It was nice to go out to eat (outdoor dining), which we hadn’t done in several months. It was nice to get away, particularly to an area I’d never been to before. It was nice to be able to read and do crossword puzzles, or have a drink and chat, on the screened-in porch. It was very nice to spend family time together.

 

However, the first day started off as a disaster. When we went to check in to the house, they didn’t have any information on us. It was in a gated community and they wouldn’t let us in. We called the company that arranged it, Vacasa, and it turns out they never sent the property manager the packet they usually send, which would have had our Maine certificate of compliance with COVID-19 testing.

 

This is despite the fact that we arranged this trip in January and sent in all our paperwork on time, and Steve heard back that we were good to go. Vacasa just didn’t do what they were supposed to do.

 

So that first afternoon, we were hundreds of miles from home with a 12-year-old and nowhere to stay the night. This was just a tad stressful, as Steve was on and off the phone with the company for two hours and we were driving around and stopping in various parking lots before we got an answer. We kept our composure but we were livid. 

 

We did end up with somewhere to stay that night. Vacasa found us a rental house that was OK but nowhere I would have stayed for a week. It was very small. So we did have a place to stay but it was inconvenient to have to unload the car for one night (we didn’t want to leave a car packed with electronics) and repack the next day to move on. We also lost part of a day.

 

We were able to get into the original house the next morning. The property manager was very apologetic, saying Vacasa had botched things before and the board of directors had voted to stop using them at their properties. I’d never heard of Vacasa before (we found the house on Vrbo, which must have sent it out to a third party) so maybe it’s a local company. We won’t use Vacasa again.

 

The other annoying thing is that we got COVID tested twice for this trip. The paperwork we got said we had to be tested and send Vacasa the certificate of compliance “no later than 72 hours prior to check-in.” Just based on a literal reading of these common English words, “no later than 72 hours” would mean we would send them our paperwork by the Friday before our Monday arrival. So we got tested and sent them the paperwork before that Friday.

 

But no—we actually had to do the exact opposite of what Vacasa told us and send in our test results no earlier than 72 hours before check-in. So we had to get tested again the Friday before leaving (luckily I was already off and could take time to go) and had to hope we got the results back in time. We tested negative and sent them our results, again. I didn’t mind getting tested but I did mind getting it done twice in a week because Vacasa did not grasp the difference between “earlier” and “later.”

 

Oh, yeah—we’ve already been refunded a bunch of money.

As the Crow Flies

It is funny the way the storm—its shifting patterns of tropical winds, its straightforward highways of lightning—unites places one might never put together, places otherwise strangers to each other.

 

Yeadon to Radnor. Strathmere to Wilmington. Bryn Mawr to Kirkwood.

 

The red and purple gouges work their way over the map as the crow flies, efficient and uncaring. We are soaked by the same downpours, buffeted by the same gales.

 

The storm does not know or care that there is no bridge over that part of the Delaware River, or that there’s construction on Route 141, or how bad Schuylkill traffic is at this time of day. It races from town to town, point to point, connecting us in a way we might never have connected ourselves.

Waste of July

Summer reaches middle age, and like an AARP Magazine subscriber who knows life is unspooling, I resent every day that I cannot float in salty blue under the blinding white sun. We needed the rain, yes. But we closed out July—on a half-day Friday, no less—with an afternoon of listless rain.

What a waste. It might as well be April.

In June, we could afford to squander. But in July-going-on-August, these glittering afternoons are finite. I am like the man who gets the prognosis, and knows it ain’t great. And feels every day he loses.

We could luck out and linger for the final seven weeks, until the stars and sun say “Close up shop.” More likely, on August nights, the humidity will collapse and the clouds scatter and pool water will stick at 80º, forcing an end to it while the sun glares, useless.