I was going to write about David Bowie, whose 79th birthday it is today — word was he had put a song in his secret vault to be released 10 years after his death. So far I have seen no sign of that, though the actual anniversary of his passing is still two days hence. Which would be sort of an odd thing to celebrate, but then he was an odd guy.

But at the moment I am preoccupied with the continued degradation of my home country, as most recently evidenced by an ICE agent shooting an innocent woman three times in the face in the streets of Minneapolis. That itself is bad enough — like, really really bad — but the president and the puppy shooter made things worse by immediately demonizing the victim and trying to gaslight us about what had happened.

Weirdly, this occurred less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed five years ago. And as with Floyd, the preponderance of video evidence makes it hit differently from any number of similar atrocities that did not happen to have so many witnesses.

Will there be consequences? As of this writing, almost 24 hours later, we still do not know the name of the shooter, where he is now, what he is doing, and what charges if any he will face. Obviously this one man is not the whole problem, but he is a symbol of it, and he should be held accountable. As should those who backed him without pausing to consider the actual evidence.

That Fucking Guy’s account of the incident did not match what you can clearly see with your own eyes in the video. Possibly he had not seen it, or was fed some AI-generated version by his handlers? Anything seems possible.

And yes, this is only the tip of the iceberg of the evil that’s being perpetrated upon the land every day now. But it seems like a useful point of focus. Sorry, David, we’ll check in with you in a couple days.