Welcome to January 20th. You can now wear your Christmas gifts, without people knowing they were Christmas gifts. Enjoy.
No one has asked me, but I’d leave all that fence and stuff up for Kamala’s inauguration. How long will she allow Joe to be President? Month or so?
I’m writing this on Sunday, but I don’t see any chance there is further violence on Inauguration Day. It’s amazing what a strong law enforcement and prosecution response does to deter future incidents. I’m just shooting from the hip here, but that might have been a decent tactic to get people to not take over a block of Portland or burn police stations down in Minneapolis this summer. But I’m no security expert.
My favorite thing about 2020 is public appearances by Kansas City Health Department Director Rex Archer. He seems like a seasoned professional, heart in the right place and all that. But he wears this “police type badge” of late and it makes me laugh and cry every time. It is indicative of the new reality we all face. Health department officials have come to view themselves as law enforcement and that is an interesting shift to most of us that view them as more compliance and education type public officials. While I did not do an exhaustive search of Rex’s daily attire, a simple Google search sees that he sported the badge a lot in 2020 and perhaps less in the years before.
This all comes at the same time we are trying to limit the tools and soften the enforcement side of law for the actual police who have traditionally worn badges.
In March, Archer appeared at one of the first local COVID news conferences (mask less) and he had no badge. In fact, in 2018 he sported a nice polo shirt with health department credentials and looked like the guy that would inspect the grill at your local bar but as the COVID panic raged on, the badge became a more prevalent fixture hung around Rex’s neck with a suit ensemble; kind of Ice-T in Law-and-Order style.
Maybe it’s nothing, but image is everything and a more “law enforcement” projection for health departments and less “law enforcement” image for police seems an odd divergence in these times.
I’m going to see if Foley can get me a press badge. I’d look good with that hanging around a pullover. I could be the “law and order” journalist around here. In the summer, I’d probably just go with a simple tank and badge. Gotta get to the gym though. I’ll let you know what he thinks.
I’ll be spending this week praying for Patrick to be well. You should do the same because the power of my prayer is rather limited; God and I have a complicated past.
Prepare yourselves. Four years of mean and bizarre tweets from the leader of the free world are over. We will now enter a time of bizarre speaking gaffes that will make the last couple years of Reagan look coherent. In the odd times that President Biden is untethered from his teleprompter, you’re going to find yourselves yearning for some deranged tweets; life is but a circle, my friends.
(Guy Speckman can be reached gspeckman@me.com or trying to get a Platte County Landmark badge)