All Saints Day came and went, but I took no joy in it this year. The weather didn’t feel right. Outside my window at noon the temperature stood at 48 degrees, but the sun blared down just as it might have on any high summer day. On the TV set downstairs the pre-election news made me nervous as I watched armed Texas thugs in pickup trucks flying confederate flags try to force a Biden campaign bus off I-35 between Austin and Pflugerville while the president gloated. We we’re told that police and national guard units were alerted all over the country to the possibility of election day violence. In Alamance County, North Carolina, police pepper sprayed a crowd of peaceful protesters that included children, and dragged a disabled woman from her motorized wheel chair in the process, offering the lamest of excuses for their outrageous behavior.

My beloved again served as a drive-by poll watcher on election day, and I again took one of her shifts with her. In addition to our city’s ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, which have never really stopped in spite of the pandemic, we have several local issues that are stirring the pot of potential violence. Our city’s only organized fascist group is our local white police union. (We also have a black police union.) But our local politics remain mired in the machinations of political machines, both white and black. This election featured a local proposition for the use of approval voting in mayoral and aldermanic elections, establishing a general election runoff between the two top vote getters in the primary. The measure will dilute the importance of political parties and disrupt machine politics in ways that its opponents were late to understand. Perhaps because of that, perhaps because of the measure’s merits, it passed overwhelmingly. My beloved worked on a steering committee that guided that passage as a representative of the League of Women Voters. I’m very proud of her these days.

Opponents of approval voting received, however late, a couple of infusions of PAC money as they awoke to the possibility that approval voting might just pass. That cash enabled a spate of virulently negative campaigning against the proposition from all sides of the political spectrum as groups and individuals whose power and influence has rested upon minority constituencies that have had the ability to game our present hyper-partisan system within the Democratic party for decades, joined forces. Most of the negative campaigning featured blatant falsehoods, one of the more interesting of which adorned the headquarters of our local white police union and featured the slogan: “No on Prop D, D=Defund Police.” The St. Louis American, our local African American newspaper, endorsed approval voting, along with newly elected congresswoman, Cori Bush; however, many local black politicians and groups opposed the idea. For a more balanced presentation of their views, see “Antonio French: St. Louis’ election recent history underscores the folly of Prop D.” I think French’s argument is badly flawed, but it at least contains no outright falsehoods. On the other hand, the sign at our white police union headquarters is especially worrisome.

I skipped virtual church on All Saints, though the occasion is one of the days in the church year when my church considers I am obligated to participate. Last year at this time I rejoiced that I had completed a round of rehab and recalled a past epiphany that seemed, then, to sum up how I like to feel in the late autumn. This year, with chaos swirling all around and the threat of more chaos in weeks to come, I shared my country’s somber mood. Then, upon returning home after my election day jaunt, I fell in my living room and sprained my right knee badly enough that I had to stay off it for a couple of weeks. I’m still recovering from that adventure. My doctor has recommended PT at home with a traveling therapist and offered to send a tech to my house to draw some blood she needs from me at the moment. I’m mulling those recommendations over still, trying to overcome my aversion to risking COVID exposure.

And we have a new member of our household. Not long after election day we lost our beloved small gray Poodle, Maxie. I still miss him, as I miss his sibling, Murphy, whom we lost six years past. Quite fortuitously we now welcome a new dog, whom we are calling Maisie. A rescue dog, she comes to us from APA, whose service we can’t recommend highly enough. She immediately captured all our hearts, but especially the hearts of Kathleen and Ed. We think she has some Whippet in her and may for a lark have her DNA tested. Right now she is still a puppy, but we are all enjoying one another’s company as we become socialized together. Here she is posed on Kathleen’s recliner a week or so ago. Click on the image to enlarge it.

In my next post I talk about the election, getting off my chest a number of matters I find I want to discuss now, at this very uncertain time.