Reform in Head and Members

The Rot Is Pervasive

Independence Mall, September 15.

Donald Trump came to Philadelphia on Tuesday, September 15, for a town hall at the National Constitution Center on Independence Mall. He basically did a face plant. Meanwhile, outside, his head was exploding. At least that's what I first thought when I saw this apparition in my viewfinder. Others may take the explosion of white light on the back of his head as a gift of divine light. Or maybe the makers of this mannequin-puppet were in a hurry and didn't paint the back of his papier mache head.

The red horns are a nice touch, but I think the disheveled clothing - really, man, get a decent knot in that necktie - may be over the top. I think the thing on the white pole in front of the effigy is meant to be a microphone.

Several hundred anti-Trump protesters attended this little manifestation, along with perhaps ten pro-Trumpies and simply scads of cops. (For a story in the Inquirer, click here.)

Cops with masks, Trumpies without.

It would be nice to get rid of Trump, and that may just happen. But that's not going to be enough to turn the country around. The rot is not just at the top. 

I had a window on what this looks like in Philadelphia, when I served on Grand Jury 25 a few years ago. One of our main cases was the York Street fire. Briefly, at the corner of York and Jasper in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, there was a large, vacant factory complex that had once housed the Thomas W. Buck Hosiery Co. On the night of April 9, 2012, the Buck factory burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances. Grand Jury 25 was asked to investigate. 

My oath prevents me from disclosing what went on in the jury room, but the grand jury did create a lengthy report on the fire. The grand jury's supervising judge then ordered the report filed as a public record. Here's the first paragraph of the report:

"Two Philadelphia firefighters died, and two were seriously injured, in a building that two Brooklyn real estate investors slowly turned into a firetrap. But this grand jury report is really about a failure of government—the failure of Philadelphia administrative agencies to accomplish the basic functions for which they exist. Unfortunately, we have reluctantly concluded that there is currently no appropriate criminal penalty for the tale of misdeeds we found. While the building owners violated virtually every regulation that got in their way, they were never held accountable for doing so, and we do not believe that the available evidence can establish that their flagrant code violations and tax delinquencies caused the fire that eventually destroyed their property and the firemen’s lives. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learned. Had city departments done their job, these deaths might never have occurred."

It appears that the report is no longer available on the district attorney's website, but it is available from WHYY. To see it, click here.

My takeaway from the grand jury's work was that the baseline competence of a number of Philadelphia's city departments is marginal at best.

Fast forward to the spring of 2020, and it was the turn of the police department. As the local protests over the death of George Floyd developed, the performance of the police went from bad to worse. 

From their failure to prevent looting at numerous locations around the city, to the fiascos in Fishtown and Marconi Plaza, to the police riot on the Vine Street Expressway, the Philadelphia police showed themselves to be ineffectual, undisciplined, and poorly led. So, on June 1, on the Vine Street Expressway, exactly how close were we to another Kent State? Four Dead in Ohio. (Just Google it.)

I expect we'll never know, but I'm thinking it wouldn't have taken much.

There are serious consequences to ignoring these issues of baseline mediocrity. After all, government is supposed to do stuff. This is actually a controversial statement, I know. But as I watch the coronavirus, and the wildfires out west, and the hurricanes popping up seemingly out of nowhere; and as I look at all the everyday sources of unnecessary death - traffic crashes, guns, drug overdoses, the abysmally low rate of vaccination for seasonal influenza - I'm prepared to stand by my statement: government is supposed to do stuff.

Moving on from government, I would like to make one further observation: in addition to a better president and a better government, we need a better educated citizenry. We are simply much too easily bamboozled. Where are the knowledge base and the critical thinking skills that would inoculate us against at least the most obvious cons? 

Erroneous beliefs are often not harmless. For instance, there is apparently a very widespread belief that the practice of medicine is just like repairing an automobile. You know - take the car into the shop, flush the fuel line, replace the catalytic converter, maybe get the car detailed. 

That's not the way the body works, and it's not the way that medicine works.

In many cases there are no silver bullets, and often the most important thing is for a patient to change a behavior - such as giving up smoking. The resistance to changing behavior can be impressive, as can the fascination with shiny new technology.

These two things combine to give us the curious picture of people refusing to wear a mask while clamoring for a vaccine that may in fact be less effective than the mask.

There's a lot to do. I hope we can get started in January.

Improvement opportunities are not hard to find.

See also A Moment in Time, Quagmire, Void on Center, End of Life Counseling.