I had a post all written and ready to go for today. I was just polishing it and fact checking a few assertions I had made. It was a fun one for my “curiosity” category about etiquette and how the concept of what is appropriate or proper has changed over time. For example, you’re on a crowded bus; you have a seat, but there are no seats left. An old woman carrying a shopping bag full of groceries and a disabled man using a cane to walk board the bus. Obviously, you stand up and offer one of them your seat; but which one? Or, when holding a door for someone, it is customary to let that person pass through the door first; this is an ancient convention dating back to rules surrounding deference to nobility and rank (particular in royal courts) about who could depart a room first. But if the door in question swings outwards it can be awkward if you stay in the room and try to extend your arm to prop it open just for the sake of letting the other person pass first; what to do?
When I’m writing, I shut out everyone and everything around me. Except Gordon, who is now insisting on being called “the goodest dog ever” instead of “good boy.” That’s how I managed to write, fact check, and publish an entire post about the many kinds of dumplings before seeing news online that a loud noise I heard was a domestic terrorist setting off a bomb about a mile from me to blow up a fertility clinic. That shook me up – figuratively and literally! I thought – people are gonna see on the news ‘bomb destroys Palm Springs building,’ and they’re hearing from me about ravioli. I decided that moving forward I’d make a quick check of the headlines before posting in the future.
I had made a conscious decision to move away from writing about the protests in Los Angeles over ICE raids. Not because it’s not important or it’s not still relevant. But more because I didn’t want to amplify it. To hear President Trump and his enablers in congress and the Right-wing media tell it, Los Angeles is on fire, the country is being invaded, and local law enforcement and elected officials are sitting around playing Tiddlywinks in response. None of that is true. The unrest is confined to a relatively small area downtown, small when you consider the size of the Los Angeles metropolitan region, some Waymo cars and highway patrol cars downtown were lit on fire, last Sunday, but that was last Sunday, and the mayor and the police chief have been conducting regular press briefings on how they are attempting to manage and diffuse the situation.
So I pop over to The Guardian online (where good liberals like me get their news) and see a plane crashed in India killing all on board except one British national. Tragic. But I’m still going with my etiquette post. Then I see this headline:
Uh oh. As a Californian, Padilla is one of my senators. Since Dianne Feinstein died, he’s the senior senator from California; Adam Schiff, of impeachment of Donald Trump and the January 6th Committee fame, is our junior senator. I am proud to say I voted for them both. But more than that, Alejandro “Alex” Padilla is a fellow native Angeleno, the son of immigrants from Mexico, who grew up in Pacoima, 14 miles from me in Glendale, and went on to become a member of the Los Angeles City Council from the 7th district, President of the Los Angeles City Council from 2001-06, a California state senator, the California Secretary of State, and after being appointed by Governor Newsom to fill US senator from California Kamala Harris’ seat when she became Vice President of the United States, he won a special election to complete Harris’ term as well as election to a full Senate term of his own. He is the first Latino to represent California in the US Senate. He is a historic figure in Los Angeles, and because of his humble roots in Pacoima, the very definition of “local boy makes good.”
And today, he was manhandled and forcibly removed from a press conference with US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, after having attempted to ask the secretary a question. He identified himself as Senator Alex Padilla. He said, “I have questions for the secretary.” He was pulled away by several armed agents who removed him to a hallway, ordered him to kneel, threw him from that position face-down on the ground, and then handcuffed him behind his back. One of the senator’s staffers recorded the whole thing on video, and was told by agents “no recording allowed.”
I am absolutely disgusted, offended, and angered, as an Angeleno, as a Californian, and as an American. It is Donald Trump’s infantile name calling (referring to our governor, Gavin Newsom as “Governor NewSCUM”), his fetishization of power and strength, his pettiness, and his crudeness that have created an atmosphere of not just incivility, but of totalitarianism. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, or you voted for Jill Stein. I don’t care if you’re prolife or prochoice, want lower taxes or more social services, believe in god and guns or in declaring your pronouns. No matter who you are, this is wrong, and fish rots from the head.
I will close with a statement from Senator Padilla:
If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers, throughout the LA community and throughout California and throughout the country. We will hold this administration accountable. We’ll have more to say in the coming days.