An Andisheh Almanac

  • Decatur City Commission, District 2

    Congratulations Cheryl Kortemeier, the new Decatur City Commissioner for District 2 (my district!). There are a handful of people who show up and work hard at every neighborhood or school event that needs volunteers. Cheryl is one of them. We’re lucky to have her as our rep.

    Turnout for this election was enormous. In the last competitive election for this seat in 2019, 1,880 people voted. Cheryl and her opponent, Deanna Jue Sutandi, both received more than 2,000 votes. The population here didn’t double. Enthusiasm for voting did.

    Voter enthusiasm in this election is primarily the result of our democracy-enjoying area being fired up about [waves hands in the direction autocrat], but credit to Cheryl and Deanna for being two great candidates who the neighborhood was excited to support.

    Like Cheryl, Deanna is someone who volunteers her time and skill for all of us. When I was on PTA, she took the hardest volunteer job (the auction) and was great at it. When she asked me to put a sign in my yard, I was proud to. I hope she runs for something else.

  • I have issues

    My city will elect a new commissioner for my neighborhood this fall. To help the two candidates pander to me, I’ve drafted a list of local political issues that matter to me.

    I invite these candidates to propose solutions to these pressing issues.

    1. Protected bike lanes from a main street in every neighborhood to every school.
    2. An organized municipal effort to provide help for homeless people in our neighborhood instead of our fend for yourself system.
    3. Playgrounds that are 20% less awful; built for 2025 leisure activities, not 1950 leisure activities (soccer goals, anyone?); with drinking water and bathrooms; and shade structures because climate change.
    4. Lower speed limits and put speed cameras everywhere, because you drive too fast and are texting.
    5. A bigger sign for La Chiquiada. How are people supposed to find it?
    6. Umbrellas at the public pools, and keep pools open until October because it’s warm.
    7. Better curation of our Little Free Libraries. People really need to stop putting their garbage books in those.
    8. Revamp homestead exemptions so higher income people pay higher millage than lower income residents. It doesn’t promote economic diversity in our community to give our wealthiest residents tax breaks they don’t need.
    9. The My (Browned-Eyed) Girl Is My Wonderwall Act to require street karaoke buskers and Universal Joint patio musicians to expand their repertoires a bit.
    10. Decatur has a Bell Street but doesn’t have a Bell Street Burritos. Forget Trader Joe’s, that’s the real missed opportunity.
    11. Trash bags with more durable drawstrings. Alternately, let me buy stamps or something that lets me pay the trash fee while using working trash bags.

    I’ll add to this as I think of more.

  • ICE kidnapped my friend, update

    On Wednesday, August 27, my friend Reza Zavvar will have a court hearing in Greenbelt, Md. to learn why he has been held captive by the Trump Administration for two months.

    Trump says – and Fox reports – that he’s focusing ICE on criminals. This is a lie.

    Reza is not a criminal and is not charged with any crimes. He is a legal resident of the U.S. and has been since he was 12.

    He was kidnapped by ICE in June while walking his dog outside his mother’s house – where he’d been staying to help take care of his grandmother.

    ICE keeps moving Reza around the country – he’s been in at least 3 federal detention facilities, in appalling conditions, with no explanation. The White House is doing this to make it harder for detainees to engage with their lawyers.

    Reza is one of many people enduring violent, vindictive treatment from this White House. What they are doing to him – and many others like him – is obscene. Free societies do not imprison people on the whims of elected officials. I hope Reza is released tomorrow. If he’s not, his friends will keep speaking up for him. And if he’s released we need to keep speaking up for everyone else on the receiving end of this criminal cruelty.

    Reza Zavvar

  • ICE kidnapped my friend

    Reza Zavvar and his grandmother

    Reza Zavvar was kidnapped by ICE while walking his dog in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Why do I call it kidnapping? Because he is not charged with any crimes; he hasn’t committed one. He’s a legal, permanent resident of the U.S. and has been for 40 years. His detention is cruel and unjust.

    Many of us know him as a friend and Walter Johnson High School Alumni classmate. I know him and his family as extraordinarily kind, thoughtful friends who held me and my mother up when my dad was dying of cancer.

    This NBC4 story refers to him as a gentle giant. That’s exactly right. We played high school football together, and one of my clearest memories is Reza’s worried face looking down at me after he accidentally knocked me out during a tackling drill. That our team had a starting defensive tackle whose primary personality trait is empathy might help explain our team’s poor record that season.

    His kindness, his loving family, and the affection so many have for him should not matter. He’s a human being with human rights—a legal resident of a nation of laws. Reza should be at home right now. Instead, he’s being held in an ICE jail in Texas while his family grieves and tries to figure out how to get him back the freedom that is the right of every person in this country.

    Keep Reza in mind and spread the word about what is being done to him and others like him, others like us.

  • Hell is

    Other whites

  • Penne, Vidi, Vici

    Carbe Diem-brand pasta.

  • American Carnage

    Smashed robin’s egg. Nest. Goddamn squirrels
    American Carnage (2025)

    A crushed robin’s egg. Cooked yolk. A family home destroyed.

  • Tell your representative and senators to fight Trump harder and louder

    If Trump’s coup against Constitutional rule horrifies you, you write a letter to Congress and call.

    I know from professional experience that members of Congress pay attention to their constituents. It doesn’t mean they always act accordingly, but if enough people push, they will bend.

    I live in Georgia’s 5th Congressional district. I’m represented in the House by Rep. Nikema Williams and in the Senate by Sen. Jon Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock. I have left phone messages with all three of them, and several emails.

    Find your representatives and your senators here.

    Here’s my latest letter to them. You’re welcome to use it and adapt it if you find it helpful:

    Hi, my name is [NAME]. I am one of your constituents. I live in [City, State, Zip Code]

    I voted for you. I donated to your campaign, and regularly volunteer in support Democratic candidates.

    I am calling to implore you and your Democratic colleagues begin treating Donald Trump’s historic crime spree like the mortal threat to the republic that it is. 

    Trump is conducting a coup against Congress’s Constitutionally mandated control of the nation’s budget. And every day since January 20, it seems Trump has committed an impeachable crime bigger than the day before.

    Trump will not stop. He must be stopped. We elected you to try to stop him.

    I implore you and every Democrat to tell your constituents every day that Trump is committing historic crimes that must be stopped and punished. No one is stopping Democrats from using their voices to rally the country.

    I implore you tell media and constituents that restoring the rule of law and protecting Constitutional rule is your top priority. Every day. Make it the only issue.

    I demand you take every opportunity to stop Republican initiatives you can stop, and slow the ones you can slow. Withhold Democratic support for any budget resolution or debt ceiling increase until the rule of law is restored. No unanimous consent until the crimes stop.

    Trump is carrying out a coup and so far Democrats are taking a wait and see attitude. Our house is burning and Democrats are worried yelling “fire” might upset a mythical swing voter somewhere.

    I’m taking note of who is forcefully and convincingly speaking up for democracy – Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. Sen. Brian Schatz. Rep. Sean Casten. Sen. Adam Schiff. and handful more. I want to put your name on that list.

    History, and voters, will remember as heroes the people who fought for our country and the rule of law. They will remember everyone else as collaborators and enablers who fiddled while American democracy burned.

    I’m begging you to scream and yell about Trump’s real and unprecedented crimes with the same intensity and relentlessness as Republicans scream about made-up crimes.

    We need your leadership now.

    Sincerely,

    NAME

  • Decatur road salt

    Dear Decatur: Are you ready for tomorrow’s winter storm?

  • Lapdog

    Dog on my laptop, photographed in black and white, looking very gentle and sweet.

    My sweet Timmy spent the yesterday on my lap. Saturdays are for the boys, they say.