I don’t dream of labor, but if I did, working for 18F would have been a dream job. Their work raised the bar for what citizens can and should expect from government technology. They saved taxpayers billions of dollars. And, thanks to their open-first philosophy, their contributions to the disciplines of human-centered design and software development are immeasurable.

The concept of “running government like a business” is deeply flawed, because it misunderstands the purpose of both. But, in terms of efficiency, excellence, impact, and value, it would be hard to beat the 18F model.

I hope those impacted quickly find new opportunities, and I invite you to join me in demanding that that our elected officials immediately address the outrageous circumstances that led to 18F’s closure. We all deserve better.

My Favorite Music of 2024

Better late than never, right? Here’s a playlist, available on Apple Music, Spotify and Last.fm

My very favorites

Once again, I’m calling out a few albums and singles I thought were especially good. They’re presented alphabetically because I’ve chosen to ditch the “best of” framing I often go with; I’m not writing music criticism here, and I have no editor telling me what to do.

Album: all under heaven - what lies ahead ✅

Saw these guys blow up a suburban Wilmington skate shop in May (yes, I am serious). If you even dabble in shoegaze a little bit, they have the goods.

Album: Chat Pile - Cool World

Melodic, but heavy as hell.

Song: Clairo - Sexy To Someone

An absolute bop. Could see any number of pop stars having a huge hit with this song.

Album: The Cure - Songs Of A Lost World ✅

This album was released 4 days before the presidential election and 7 days before I got laid off. Suffice it to say that the timing of this release worked out well for me. The fact that it’s a late career classic was just a bonus.

Song: Dr. Dog - Talk is Cheap

Has that lilting, late-summer feeling that permeates all of their best stuff. An unexpected treat.

Album: Kim Deal - Nobody Loves You More ✅

Spent a lot of 2023 and 2024 getting really really into early Breeders records like Last Splash and Pod, so this really hit the spot for me. Kim Deal is massively, massively underrated as a songwriter and pivotal figure of the past 40 years of music.

Album: Ekko Astral - Pink Balloons ✅

Song: Ekko Astral - Pomegranate Tree

Saw them open up for Ted Leo in June and to say they blew my fucking hair back would be a massive understatement. Bought this record at the show and it’s been burrowing into my head ever since. And somehow, “Pomegranate Tree” manages to reach and maybe exceed the highs of Pink Balloons. Ekko Astral might be the most important American band going right now, whatever that means.

Song: Father John Misty - Screamland

I generally have to take FJM in very small doses, but this track is absolutely haunting.

Song: Robert Glasper - Prototype (feat. Norah Jones)

Sounds like it was actually written for Norah Jones to sing. (This unfortunately appears to be an Apple Music exclusive.)

Album: Good Looks - Lived Here For A While ✅

The good Farmer Jones has been carrying on about these guys for a minute, so I took him up on seeing live them at Johnny Brenda’s in August and I sure am glad I did! Nice guys, chops for days, and they have the tunes to back it all up.

Album: Sarah Jarosz - Polaroid Lovers

We’ve always known Sarah Jarosz is a musical prodigy, but now we know what it sounds like when she finally decides to write an actual “pop” record.

Song: Billy Joel - Turn The Lights Back On

Unexpectedly beautiful and poignant.

Album: Katy Kirby - Blue Raspberry ✅

One of my most anticipated releases of the year and it did not disappoint. Saw her and her band play most of this record at Johnny Brenda’s in March and they were transcendent.

Song/Video: Not Like Us - Kendrick Lamar

Ubiquitous (complimentary).

Album: MJ Lenderman - Manning Fireworks ✅

Like many others, my houseboat has remained docked at the Himbo Dome for much of the fall and winter.

Album: Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven ✅

We first heard the ferocious title track last August, so it feels like this one has been around forever (in a good way, of course).

Album: The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis ✅

The Messthetics include Joe Lally and Brendon Canty, formerly of Fugazi’s rhythm section. This record absolutely rips.

Song: Peter Cat Recording Co. - People Never Change

A delightful little ditty from “the last band remaining in India.”

Song: Maggie Rogers - Don’t Forget Me

What a song, what a performance. Heart-rending.

Song/Video: Sunny Day Real Estate - Novum Vetus ✅

Seeing the band perform Diary front to back in May was a bucket-list item for me. The band closed the encore with a lumbering, triumphant version of this song, fitting for the victory lap they took 30 years after redefining emotional, melodic guitar rock with Diary.

Album: Mary Timony - Untame The Tiger ✅

Never really got that deep into Timony or her various projects before this record and god damn it, I’ve been missing out. She’s a treasure.

Album: Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood ✅

Song: Waxahatchee - Much Ado About Nothin'

Katie Crutchfield has been on an absolute heater. Tigers Blood beautifully expands the world built on 2020’s Saint Cloud… and then she has the audacity to toss off maybe the best song she’s ever written as a loosie single? The nerve.

(✅ indicates that I've purchased the album on vinyl, for accountability's sake. Support the musicians you love, folks!)

I voted

Me, a bald white male with a salt-and-pepper beard, standing in front of the Police Athletic League HQ in Wilmington, Delaware. The outside of the building has signs indicating that it is an early polling place. I have an I Voted Early sticker on my hoodie.

When Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic nominee for President, Working Families Party asked all its members to weigh in on whether the party should endorse Kamala Harris. I was one of the 5% who said “no.”

Well, I voted this morning. And yes, I pushed the button for Harris.

Kamala Harris is a member of a Presidential administration that has aided and abetted Palestinian genocide with US tax dollars. As someone who believes in Palestine’s right to exist, who has participated in pro-Palestinian actions and donated to relief efforts, and who just thinks that genocide is bad as a general rule, this makes supporting her difficult.

Here’s the thing, though: I simply don’t see a way in which the situation in Gaza gets better under Trump.

Trump has encouraged Israel’s leadership to “finish the job in Gaza,” while Harris has at least taken meetings with Palestinian, Muslim and Arab groups to hear their concerns. Harris has shown little daylight between her position and that of the Biden administration’s unwavering support of Israel, but there is some. Her calls for pauses and partial ceasefires are not enough, but they are a start.

The further dangers of a second Trump regime are clear:

  • A 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court has lead to unimaginable erosion of our rights as citizens and undermining of the administrative state. Trump appointed a full third of the justices currently on the Court. He cannot be allowed to nominate a fourth.
  • More women will die as draconian anti-abortion policies, flowing from the Court’s absurd decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, are expanded nationwide.
  • Trans people will be further demonized, ostracized and othered (in case you haven’t seen the “Kamala is for they/them” ad on TV ten thousand times in the last month or so).
  • Immigrants, no matter their legal status, will not be safe anywhere in America.
  • Foundational rights like free speech and birthright citizenship may erode and disappear.
  • Our climate’s deterioration will continue to accelerate, unmitigated by the EPA (whose power was gutted by the court’s overturn of the doctrine of Chevron deference) or other policy initiatives.

For all these reasons, and many more, it is imperative that Donald Trump does not become president again.

When The Working Families Party announced their endorsement of Harris, the Party adroitly pointed out that “voting is not a love letter, it’s a chess move.” Voting for Kamala Harris was a move that allows us to continue to fight.

Good Looks live at Johnny Brenda's, Philadelphia, PA

Fun band, fun venue, fun times. I think these guys really have something.

And it’s always great to see the homie The Farmer Jones in person.

Good Looks Concert Setlist at Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia on August 11, 2024 | setlist.fm

Tyler Jordan of Good Looks on stage at Johnny Brenda’s. He is playing a red Gibson hollow-body guitar and rocking out a bit

Good Looks on stage at Johnny Brenda’s

The Farmer Jones and I take a pre-show selfie. I am raising a clear plastic cup full of PBC’s Kenzinger pilsner

Barking On Command: R.E.M.'s Monster Tour

Inspired by this tweet from Matthew Perpetua, pointing out that R.E.M.’s 1995 Monster tour featured a veritable who’s who of contemporaneous alt music, the first half of the playlist is a grab bag of artist who opened for R.E.M. during that international trek, including Sonic Youth, Radiohead, The Cranberries, Grant Lee Buffalo, PJ Harvey, Blur, Oasis, Sleeper and Belly. The second half is a super-sized representation of R.E.M.’s setlists at the time.

(Yes, I know the shows with PJ Harvey opening were cancelled, and that the Blur and Oasis shows were probably more like co-headlining. Shut up and enjoy the playlist.)

Listen on Apple Music, Spotify, or Last.fm.

It didn't have to be like this

What purpose does this police action serve? Does this type of police violence keep us safe? Do these incidents aid in establishing trust and respect between the armed agents of the state and those they serve? It doesn’t have to be like this indeed.

Another Day, Another Case of Extreme Police Violence - Rob Vanella

PLEASE read REV on yet ANOTHER incidence of state-sponsored police violence in New Castle County.

If you are local, please come to the next meeting of the New Castle County Police Accountability Board on Tuesday, July 16 at 6:00 pm. There are even virtual options if you’re not local!

An Opinionated History of Modern Rock

Hypothesis: while it is usually impossible to pick a precise genesis of any cultural movement, for the purposes of this exercise, R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe” gave birth to “modern rock,” and Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” killed it. I slid in some obvious precursors to R.E.M. and covered the dénouement and fallout from OK Computer as well.

This one has been kicking around my head for a while, inspired by tapes teenage me made off of Philly’s own WDRE (RIP), late nights staying up for 120 Minutes (their 1993 year end best of episode was a foundational text), countless mixtapes, mix CDs and playlists made and received over the years, and Matthew Perpetua’s exhaustive work cataloging and curating the last 40+ years of music (here’s a thread of his playlists I referred to heavily while creating this playlist.)

Listen on Apple Music, Spotify or Last.fm.

Beaver Hall, Junior Year

Inspired by the announcement of REM’s “Up” reissue, I took a trip back to Fall ‘98, my first semester away at Penn State. Here’s the contemporaneous music that was spinning in my dorm room on the 4th floor of Beaver Hall.

Listen on Apple Music, Spotify or Last.fm.

John Carney has not moved on

When Delaware Governor John Carney announced that he would allow House Bill 1 and House Bill 2 to become law without his signature, he declared that it was “time to move on” from the debate around recreational marijuana. However, by appointing former Delaware State Trooper Robert Coupe to oversee the rollout of the recreational marijuana industry, Carney has proven that he has done anything but “move on.”

House Bill 2, enacted this past April, establishes and regulates the recreational marijuana industry in Delaware. Portions of the bill were specifically crafted to redress the racist war on drugs that has ravaged countless communities in Delaware. The bill gives those who reside in areas disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs preferential access to the legal marijuana market. The bill also earmarks tax revenue for the Justice Reinvestment Fund, “where it will be used for projects to improve quality of life for communities most impacted by the prohibition of marijuana and ‘war on drugs’ era policies.”

So what does that have to do with Robert Coupe?

Coupe spent nearly 28 years in the Delaware State Police, and has filled a number of administrative roles in the criminal justice system since retiring from the force. Governor Carney believed this professional experience makes Coupe an ideal candidate: “There are few people across our state who are more well-respected, and more committed to serving the people of Delaware, than Rob Coupe,” the governor said in a press release. “He’s exactly the right person to take on this new challenge.”

Unfortunately, the same experience that excites Governor Carney should have disqualified Coupe from consideration for the role of the Marijuana Commissioner. This is not an indictment of Coupe as an individual, but an acknowledgement that Coupe comes from the same criminal justice system whose harms he is tasked with remediating.

If the bill’s intent is to undo some of the harms caused by decades of racist war on drugs-era overpolicing, why is Governor Carney appointing someone with such a criminal justice-heavy background to oversee the bill’s implementation?

The answer: Governor Carney has not, in fact, “moved on.” Carney’s own draconian views on cannabis are well documented. Despite these views, he opted not to veto the bills, realizing that both chambers of the Legislature had the votes to override his veto and politically embarrass him. But, by choosing a commissioner with a decades-long background in law enforcement, Carney gets to save face while giving a slap in the face to everyone who advocated for the bill’s passage, who has been unfairly impacted by the war on drugs, who believes in restorative justice, and who just wants to get high. Carney could have opted for a commissioner who knows the industry, or someone who has been impacted by the War on Drugs to ensure the commission would work to remediate its harms.

Instead, he chose to appoint a cop. That’s not “moving on.”

Janet F*cking Weiss

A testament to the sheer power and grace of Janet Weiss. Featuring Sleater-Kinney and Quasi, along with her time in the Jicks and select guest appearances.

Listen on Apple Music, Spotify or Last.fm.

My favorite music of 2022

Lots of good stuff this year. Here’s a playlist:

My very favorites

Additionally, here are a few albums and singles I wanted to call special attention to. They’re presented alphabetically becasue I’ve choosen to ditch the “best of” framing I often go with; I’m not writing music criticism here, and I have no editor telling me what to do. I don’t even know how many things I called out, so this isn’t a top-ten list, either! It’s just What I Loved in 2023. Mostly captured for me, but if others get something out if it, all the better.

Album: Animal Collective: Time Skiffs ✅

Their best group of songs since MPP, for my money.

Album: Big Thief: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You ✅

A rare double record that never overstays it’s welcome, but rather creates a world I want to live inside, not unlike the White Album or Wildflowers.

Album: Destroyer: Labyrinths ✅

After nearly two decades of dabbling, I have finally become fully Bejar-pilled.

Song: Gabriels: Remember Me

If you’re not moved when the full strings kick in at about 2:30, I don’t know what to tell you.

Song/Video: Ghost: Spillways

I have no commentary on this band or their schtick, but I do know a well-written sugary pop-metal jam when I hear it.

Song: Goose: Dripfield

The vapors of this song have seeped into my bones.

Song: Hammered Hulls: Abstract City

We all need a bit of classic Dischord sound in our lives, and this tune checks that box with authority.

Albums: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s entire 2022 output, specifically Omnium Gatherum and Changes

I am intimidated by this band. They are very Extra in the best sense of the word.

Song: Steve Lacy: Bad Habit

R&B from another planet. I dig. A lot.

Album: The Mountain Goats: Bleed Out

John Darnielle is a national treasure.

Album: Aofie O’Donovan: Age of Apathy ✅

I’ve really been enjoying Aofie’s work since I fell down a deep Live From Here well several years ago. She truly brings all of her unique talents as a songwriter, vocalist, arranger and guitarist together on this record. (Related: this Tiny Desk concert is delightful.)

Song: Angel Olsen: Go Home

Haunting.

Album: Beth Orton: Weather Alive

Haunting, but in a different way. So great to have new music from Beth Orton.

Album: Plains: I Walked With You A Ways

This record gave me a lot of reminders of my mom’s early-90s pop country radio phase. (I mean this as a compliment, obviously.)

Song: Maggie Rogers: That’s Where I Am

Another single that grabbed me by the lapels and demanded my full attention from its first notes.

Album: Will Sheff: Nothing Special

I couldn’t describe this record better than Sheff himself did in this wonderful interview with Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua:

My experience of art is like the wind in the trees. You blink and you miss it. A little bit of it is like “Did you guys hear what I heard?” It’s a very quiet, subtle thing that gets under your skin.

Album: Sister Ray: Communion ✅

If I had to pick a “favorite” record of 2022, it would probably be this. Those that know me and my tastes will have no problem figuring out why.

Album: Soccer Mommy: Sometimes Forever ✅

A nearly perfect distillation of my late-90s record collection. I mean this as a high, high compliment. Truly another one of my absolute faves on the year.

Album: Spoon: Lucifer On The Sofa

Their best since probably 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. All killer, no filler.

Song: SRSQ: Winter, Slowly

The first time I heard that little whammy-bar vocal effect on the chorus (starts around 0:50), something in my brain slipped loose and my thoughts still aren’t thinking right.

Album: Bartees Strange: Farm to Table ✅

This is truly an Important Record, a call-to-arms, a statement of purpose.

Song: Tenci: Two Cups

Tenci came onto my radar after seeing them open for Hop Along in 2021, and I’m really glad they did.

Album: Sharon Van Etten: We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong ✅

Much like the Destroyer record, this was the one that converted me from “hey, SVE is pretty cool” to a full-fledged fan.

Album: Immanuel Wilkins: The 7th Hand ✅

A gifted arranger who can still layer sheets of sound with the best of them.

(✅ indicates that I’ve purchased the album on vinyl, for accountability’s sake. Support the musicians you love, folks!)

Playlist available on Apple Music, Spotify and Last.fm.

This Bird Has Flown

I opened my Twitter account on December 27, 2006. I am Twitter user 307,983.

Over the past nearly 16 years, I’ve spent far too much time, energy and attention on Twitter. It has exacerbated my mental health struggles in countless big and small ways. It has absolutely changed the way I write and think by rewiring the way my brain works a bit, mostly without my consent. (To say nothing for the possible destabilizing effects it has had on our society and world.)

It has also been a lot of fun and led to countless personal and professional opportunities. It’s opened my eyes to a lot of things I never would have seen without it. Yes, I would even say it has helped radicalize me.

That’s why, despite all the negatives, I kept coming back. The good always outweighed the bad, on a personal level. But the events of the past six weeks or so have tipped the scales and made it nearly impossible to keep engaging as much as I do in good conscience.

I’m not entirely sure what this means for now.

I’m far from the only one having these thoughts. No, I’m not going to delete my account, although others have, for reasons I understand, and I’ve thought about it. Some folks are deactivating, some are allowing their accounts to go dormant, and some are trying to stay and fight the good fight.

Many have already fled to other “competitors” hoping to vacuum up the users (and their attention) that Twitter is hemorrhaging.

  • There’s Mastodon, a decentralized network made up of thousands of interoperable servers/communities. I’ve joined jawns.club, the Philadelphia-centric community run by Alex Hillman (of Indy Hall acclaim). It admittedly has a lot of “Twitter circa 2008-2010” vibes so far. (I mean this as a compliment, to be clear.)
  • There’s Hive, which seems to be trying to create a more “aesthetic” version of Twitter. After reading this profile, I doubt I’ll exploring Hive much.
  • And there’s Post, a VC-backed platform focused on “civility” which thinks treating net worth as a protected class is more important than basic accessibility. Their values are clearly not aligned with mine.

I want to suggest another alternative.

What if, instead of worrying about what crazy hijinks Elon Musk will get into next, or whether Post or Hive will take off, or fretting over choosing the right Mastodon server… what if we all went back to blogging? Write on our own websites, syndicate those thoughts to various networks, take advantage of those communities and relationships we’ve cultivated, and own our own posts on a domain we control?

That’s my strategy for now. My site, on which this post was first published, is running on Micro.Blog. It lets me post short notes (like tweets), longer pieces (like this one), photos, static pages, you name it. It also lets me syndicate those posts to a bunch of other popular networks (like Twitter, Mastodon and Tumblr, to name a few). This is known as POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere), and is far from a new idea. But it makes sense to me.

So, for now, I’m going to refocus my efforts to write on my own site first. No time that one spends creating content for one’s own site is ever wasted. I’ll still dork around on Twitter on college football Saturdays, but I want to be much more intentional about how I prioritize my publishing energy.

I’ll syndicate to Mastodon, Tumblr, and maybe even LinkedIn or Medium when it makes sense. Micro.blog makes this trivially easy. And yes, I’ll syndicate to Twitter, too. This way, I’ll still have that reach and opportunity for reaction, but the original post will be mine in a way that my tweets never were.

And I’ll hope beyond hope that the Twitter we knew and loved survives this chapter. But I’ll be ready if it doesn’t.

My first guitar

While cleaning a bunch of stuff out of the attic in preparation for our move, I found my first guitar. It was a Harmony classical guitar, almost unfrettable from the day I got it.

As you can see, I treated it with great reverence. In addition to the sticker “enhancements,” my dad recreated the bridge after the original cracked and pulled off of the guitar (probably too many weird Sonic Youth tunings?) He also added a knob to the heel for a guitar strap.

I wish I remembered why I put some of the tuning pegs on upside down?

There she is, in all her beauty. Thank you for everything, and safe travels.

My favorite albums of 2021

Once again, I pushed myself to listen to lots of new music this year. A full six of my top ten records were by artists who are either new or new to me… seven if you count Aeon Station, who are technically a “new” band. That’s pretty good, I think!

10. Dan Campbell: Other People’s Lives

I had foolishly dismissed The Wonder Years as kiddie emo that Wasn’t For Me (I was wrong!) until I read this piece on Campbell’s reasons for writing and releasing this record. Campbell has that rare gift for making the extremely specific feel universal.

9. Ani DiFranco: Revolutionary Love

I always have and probably will always have a soft spot for Ani DiFranco, and this record’s “Ani as funk bandleader” vibes really agree with me.

8. Julien Baker: Little Oblivions

She still manages to bring the same level of emotional devastation, even with full band arrangements on many tracks and a more produced sound.

7. Lunar Vacation: Inside Every Fig is a Dead Wasp

Right in my sweet spot: vaguely shoegazy indie with female lead vocals. (See also: Snarls from last year’s list.)

6. Grace Vonderkuhn: Pleasure Pain

An absolute ripper of a rock-and-roll record from my favorite Wilmington, DE-based power trio, and a huge leap forward from their last record.

5. Geese: Projector

There’s no way a bunch of teenagers made this record, right? Either way, Geese have spent a bunch of time with their dad’s Talking Heads records and their older sister’s Strokes records and turned out this impossibly tight, ambitious and mature record.

4. Aeon Station: Observatory

I could write a book about this record, which I’ve been waiting for, in a roundabout way, for about 15 years. I hate that it came out under these circumstances but I’m glad this record is finally available to the public, because it is a triumph. (I am still very eager to hear the Charles Bissell portion of what was to be the follow-up to The Meadowlands, of course.)

3. William The Conqueror: Maverick Thinker

An incredible Scottish swamp-blues record that sounds like a lot of things I love but also not quite like anything I’ve ever heard before.

2. Katy Kirby: Cool Dry Place

Hard to overstate how much this record came out of nowhere and smacked me right between the eyes. It has an emotional resonance for me unlike any record since maybe Bark Your Head Off, Dog.

1. Japanese Breakfast: Jubilee

Reading Crying in H Mart this summer was… a lot, but it helped me understand this record for the celebratory masterpiece it truly is. If joy truly is an act of resistance, this record is as punk as it gets.

Honorable Mentions:

Playlist available on Apple Music and Spotify.

Podcasts I Listen To

Because I’m lazy and get tired of writing bespoke answers to “What podcasts do you listen to?” I’ve captured my answers here.

Favorites

I won’t miss a new episode of these shows.

Also Great

Sometimes I get behind on these and let them pile up, but I’ll always catch up.

Pick and choose

I subscribe to these, but only listen to episodes where the guest or topic is interesting.

Long Tails

These are all series of podcasts that are not necessarily timely and hold up well to repeated listening and binging. You probably want to start at the beginning for most of these.

  • Cocaine & Rhinestones: Country music fans are lucky to have someone like Tyler Mahan Coe, who cares so deeply about their history and their stories.
  • Philosophize This!: A podcast that recounts the history of philosophy, trying to use modern examples as much as possible. Can be a bit white male-centric, but that’s says more about the recorded history of philosophy than the show.
  • Web History: More like an audio book than a podcast, this is Jeremy Keith reading Jay Hoffman’s Web History series, as published on CSS-Tricks.
  • Dolly Parton’s America: Dolly’s story is a fascinating one. Especially recommended if you enjoy Radiolab’s production style (Jad Abumrad is the host, so this makes sense).
  • I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats: John Darnielle is a gifted songwriter and storyteller. The first season is John providing additional context for the writing and recording of his 2002 lo-fi masterpiece, “All Hail West Texas,” complete with guests covering the songs.
  • Remaking Murdertown: My friend Zach created this podcast series in partnership with the Delaware Center for Justice. It’s one kid’s story of interactions with the “tough on crime” criminal justice system. Zach tells the story with compassion and grace, expertly knowing when to zoom in to the individual details and zoom out to the systemicatic failures that have led us here.

(NB: I listen to all my podcasts with Overcast, which is significantly better than any other podcast listening experience, in my opinion. I have been a paid subscriber since day one, largely because of one killer feature: Smart Speed. Smart Speed intelligently ducks silences in speech without altering pitch, which has saved me 217 hours of listening time as of this writing.)

Last updated: October 2, 2022

Public comment on SB 149

I’ve been taking part in community listening sessions for Delaware’s Senate Bill 149, which would amend the state’s Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEOBOR).

There’s another one today at 3 PM, but I can’t make it. You can (sign up here).

This is my public comment from the last session, published here for posterity:

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening.

My name is Len Damico. I live in Claymont, I am a father, and I am also a reliable voter.

I’m here tonight because I believe it is imperative for Delaware to pass SB 149 as-is, without amendment. This is unambiguously what Delawareans want and deserve and the only way we will truly achieve justice in Delaware.

I’ve been part of a number of these stakeholder sessions, and a theme I’ve heard from the law enforcement officer side of things is a desire to rebuild a positive relationship, founded on trust, with the communities they serve. In my opinion, everything we are asking for in SB 149 is in the service of improving that relationship.

To build trust, we ask for visibility and access to police disciplinary records. Including substantiated and unsubstantiated claims. Transparency. That’s how you build trust!

To build trust, we need civilian review boards that have true power. Power to investigate claims and truly discipline any “bad apples” they may find. Power to investigate unsubstantiated claims, to determine potential patterns of misconduct. And power to conduct their business without current or former member of law enforcement as part of the board, in order to truly serve the purpose of maintaining justice in our community.

We believe that civilian review boards are worthless unless those three conditions are met.

In conclusion, it is imperative for Delaware to pass SB 149 as-is, without amendment. To repeat, for clarity’s sake: As-is. Without amendment. This is the only way we will truly achieve justice in Delaware.

Hop Along at Anchor Rock Club, Atlantic City, NJ

Setlist

The “values and vision” of dead men

I am desperately trying to avoid weighing in on on the weirdo whose unhinged LiveJournal about Disney wokeness was published in the Orlando Sentinel this morning. For reasons that should be fairly obvious to anyone who follows me. However, it feels very important to me to address one specific point he makes in the piece, because it’s a point made over and over by conservatives and it’s really problematic so I want you to be on the lookout for it. It’s a hallmark of a bad-faith argument.

Read this sentence and tell me what it means: “The more Disney moves away from the values and vision of Walt Disney, the less Disney World means to me.” Because I have takes.

Here’s where my mind immediately goes:

The founders never intended for Washington DC to become a state.

— Rep. Mike Loychik (@MikeLoychik) April 22, 2021

As probably millions have quickly and correctly pointed out to Rep. Loychik, “the founders” did not intend for Black folks and women to vote either, yet those things are widely accepted as obviously good and appropriate.

“The founders” also did not necessarily expect the nation to grow beyond the initial 13 colonies, and yet here we are, standing with 50 states, on the precipice of adding another. Maybe.

So, back to our Disney friend. He holds up Disney’s attempts to modernize and update their theme parks as an example of “moving away from the values and vision of Walt Disney.” Hmmmm.

PUTTING ASIDE the, uhm, deeply problematic nature of many of Walt’s “values and vision,” why do we care about them? Why do we expect a company in 2021 to live by the values of a man who died over 50 years ago?

And PUTTING ASIDE the, uhm, deeply problematic nature of many of our Founding Fathers, including the fact that most of them enthusiastically owned slaves, why do we care about their notional intents for the nation they founded?

They’ve been dead for hundreds of years. The world we live in now is *unfathomably complex* compared to the one they inhabited. It’s implausible to think they could have had an answer to every issue we face today. Implausible.

Ultimately, it feels like an abdication, an excuse not to think for yourself. Or, more cynically, an excuse to continue to hold shitty, retrograde, anti-progress viewpoints just because Walt Disney or the Founding Fathers held them, too.

It’s garbage thinking, garbage rhetoric, and I hope this post made the case so we can all be more quick to call it out and publicly shame it.

Best of 2020 (The Albums)

I’ve done some sort of year end, “best of” list as long as I can remember. This probably hasn’t been the “best” year of music over that span, but it certainly has been the most important, to me. We’ve all had a trying year, to put it mildly. These are the albums that helped get me through it.

The Albums

10. No Thank You: Embroidered Foliage

A delightfully tight, punk-adjacent indie rock record. Would have fit perfectly on Kill Rock Stars' mid-90s roster.

9. Fiona Apple: Fetch The Bolt Cutters

It takes a lot of work to make something so meticulously crafted sound so loose and “messy.”

8. Laura Marling: Song For Our Daughter

A near-perfect singer/songwriter record.

7. Ellen Siberian Tiger: Cinderblock Cindy

As I noted on Twitter, this record stopped me in my tracks and lit my hair on fire.

6. Lianne La Havas (S/T)

The cover of “Weird Fishes” is perfect, and somehow better than the original, but this record deserves way more than to be remembered as “the one with Weird Fishes on it.”

5. Snarls: Burst

This seems like it was grown in a lab specifically to check my boxes: dreamy, almost-shoegazy mid-90s indie vibes with wonderful female lead vocals.

4. Waxahatchee: Saint Cloud

This was a slow burn for me, but really worth the time… just a perfect record for Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, or almost any other time.

3. Empty Country (S/T)

Was never a huge Cymbals Eat Guitars fan, but this gem from former CEG frontman Joseph D’Agostino’s new project is a pastoral masterpiece. It’s made waiting for that new Wrens record a liiiiiitle bit easier.

2. HAIM: Women In Music Pt. III

The Fleetwood Mac comparisons work for me, not not necessarily because of the sound (although there are plenty of late-70s Laurel Canyon vibes here); it’s more the sheer relentlessness of the quality of the hooks in every. single. song.

1. Hum: Inlet

Dropped out of nowhere in the middle of summer and swallowed me whole. I can’t do justice to describe this perfect soundscape of a record, but Sebastian Sterling can.

Also great

The Playlists

Ten Years in 17 Bullet Points

  • got laid off
  • did the self-employment thing
  • bought a house
  • learned to code
  • had another kid
  • took a job
  • ran a 5-miler
  • took another job
  • did a featured speaking thing
  • got promoted to management
  • made a blog
  • Saquon Barkley cooked TJ Watt on a wheel route in the Big Ten Championship Game
  • did another featured speaking thing
  • became a Swim Dad
  • filled my rings for 250 consecutive days
  • started therapy
  • turned 40