Election stuff

Returned Sunday night from a week-and-a-half's vacation, and some time yesterday it occurred to us to check the landline voicemail. As expected, there was nothing from any actual humans, but there were five (5) calls from robots representing "Rabbi Soandso" or "the Queens Jewish Community" about the upcoming local primary election. (My address suggests that I might be Jewish, and my surname makes it almost certain.) They carefully didn't mention the names of any particular candidates, or even offices, but warned that "some of the candidates support the dangerous BDS movement", "these are Democratic SOCIALISTS!" (as though many of the most prominent Socialists in history hadn't been Jewish), and "the survival of our community is at stake!"

Seriously, a New York City Council member, or even the New York City mayor, has no impact on US-Israel policy, and electing to local office a liberal Democrat who disagrees with Bibi Netanyahu on something doesn't mean Kristallnacht is around the corner.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to casting my ranked ballot. But I need to do some research on the twelve Mayoral candidates, the three Public Advocate candidates, the ten Comptroller candidates, the three Borough President candidates, and the six Council candidates. Yigg.

ETA: Another call this evening, referring to "the Democratic Nationalist Socialist Club" and ending with "Our lives and our safety depend on it." IIUC, the argument is that boycotting, divesting, or sanctioning the nation of Israel encourages anti-Semitic violence in the US, so yes, by this logic electing a BDS supporter to even a local office like City Council really does mean Kristallnacht is around the corner. It's certainly true that anti-Semitic violence has increased in recent years (as have anti-Moslem violence, anti-LGBTQ violence, anti-Black violence, anti-Hispanic violence, and anti-Asian violence), but I would blame that not on the BDS movement but on the would-be white-supremacist-fascist who occupied the White House at the time.

Edit October 2021: in the past two weeks we've been getting at least one robocall a day, sometimes from the Queens Jewish Community and sometimes from the Committee for Responsible Government, both amounting to "Queens is a good place to raise a family and build a business. But that could all change if the dangerous Democratic SOCIALIST Felicia Singh gets into office. Prostitutes on every street corner, rampant crime, no police protection, and crushing taxes on small businesses." Wow, I wouldn't have thought one City Council member had the power to wreak so much destruction! Now I have to vote for her, just to see how it comes out!

How does your garden grow?

A year and a half ago, we planted in the front sublawn a stick that claimed to be a cherry tree. Last year it put out leaves and a few small branches. This spring it put out a bunch of blossoms and called out "Hey sailor!" to every bee in the neighborhood. As of yesterday, it has 29 cherries, most of which look almost ready to harvest. Our little twig is growing up....

The quince trees bloomed beautifully for a few days in April/May, and are now on to their less-interesting summer phase in which I and they try to fight off the Oriental fruit moths before they can chew up the entire interior of every fruit. I'm using a combination of pheromone-baited sticky traps and parasitic wasp eggs; we'll see whether they succeed any better than last year.

Meanwhile, the pole beans in planters in the back yard are doing pretty well: one or two have climbed to the top of the five-foot trellis, and others are well on their way, although the sugar snap peas are in a life-or-death struggle with the raspberry bushes. The bush beans in the front yard are doing less well: of the forty or so seeds I planted, there's one healthy-looking plant so far. I wonder if the leftover seeds from last year are still viable: they did pretty well. A few basil plants are doing OK, and the Thai chilis still in pots on the porch are looking healthy. The wild-rose cuttings we took from a neighbor's overgrown yard two weeks ago are still in glasses of water, and look promising.