Silencers in the Shadows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may have noticed the deletion of my first February blog posting showing this visual,

and I was as surprised as my readers when the posting disappeared.  However, it did not merely disappear-- it was taken down by that entity known as "The Blogger Team."

In order to appeal a deleted post, Blogger provides a peculiar, if not arduous e-mail address which I am unable to access no matter how I organize it or break into sections.  Because I seem unable to connect with this nebulous entity known as The Blogger Team, I will print below for everyone the response I intended for those who consider appeals.  Maybe they will see this, maybe they won't, but you will and this will explain what happened:

To The Blogger Team:


This is in response to Blogger removing my post, "Bits and Pieces for February 2026" from my blog, robert-barrow.blogspot.com.  This is reportedly a "hate speech" issue, but your generic note offers no specifics.

For nearly 20 years I have posted two blogs on Blogger and never received even one complaint, and all e-mails in response have been positive and inquisitive.  If someone had a problem with the post in question they could easily have contacted me, as my e-mail address is clearly available and my name is real.  From where I stand, anonymous complaints leading to consequences for one's literary style could be looked upon as the ultimate in intolerance.

My deleted posting is not out of character with years of previous entries, and I feel it entirely fair to comment on people, places and events in the news.  I do not write "hate speech," which is a very easy term to define and manipulate by those who themselves wish to condemn another's freedom to comment on newsworthy topics.  If my entry or any of my entries were "hate speech" it seems I would have invoked some agenda to inflict physical harm, murder or incite violence -- when, to be honest, some of my words actually reference those who themselves might have some relationship to those ideas.  If I was deleted purely because of my commentary, my personal thoughts, this is in my opinion a very problematic approach and dangerous to any person's or group's freedom of expression.  If my words are emotionally hurtful to somebody, there is no cure for that, for there are people in this world who will cry and fuss over the mere thought of rain spoiling a sunny day, while others delight in knowing rain will make flowers grow and thrive.

Having reviewed my post and knowing no specifics of the problem, it is impossible for me to address the reason for deletion.  To take down an entire post because of a point of contention does not serve the reading community, except perhaps those with some agenda contrary to  words written.  In another sense, if I "ruffled feathers" among my readers my writing has performed a valuable service, and to either agree or disagree is one's right.  But to censor and remove the ability of others to understand a writer's perspective is just wrong.

I suspect this action could have only a single person or group representative complaining, quite possibly some entity outside the USA (where I reside), but of course I don't know.  However, I have been a writer for decades and my writing has appeared in newspapers, national magazines and now blogs (from which I derive and seek no financial gain, by the way), and I have never experienced a problem.  Yes, my words can be humorous, ironic, irreverent, absurd, fictitious, sarcastic, satirical, annoying, flippant, harsh, critical and inescapably offensive to one's personal beliefs -- and intent upon making readers actually think about a variety of issues, including names and topics very much newsworthy and ripe for commentary.  I am not a Nazi or some supremacist out for blood.  I am not reporting news as a member of the press, but I am offering personal commentary, measured condemnation and impressions, abundantly clear to readers who freely agree or disagree without resorting to censorship.  If I wrote something subject to possible litigation involving Blogger or myself, that would be worthy of alert, but I see no such application in my deleted post.

If this comes down to perhaps a single person or organized group with opposing political views painting me as a perpetrator of so-called hate speech and can't handle views opposite to their own, I would suggest they discontinue reading my blog and go elsewhere so my otherwise faithful readership may continue enjoying freedom of (not hate) speech.  Am I now in the position of needing to "watch my back" every time I post an entry, especially because it is ever so easy for anyone to arbitrarily click on a flagging icon due to my having somehow shattered their personal senses? "Hate speech" finger-pointing seems an exceptionally dangerous and nebulous path to follow in a world begging for a variety of thoughts to counter elitist dogma and extremist national policy or to just provide alternative ideas.

As Blogger appears to serve as a platform for diverse postings and discussion, I request that you reconsider and please either re-post my February blog entry or give me permission to do so.  I look forward to your reply.  Thank you.  

Robert Barrow   robert-barrow.blogspot.com
                             ufothemovie.blogspot.com

Blogger's printed guidelines state the following regarding "hate speech" issues:  

"Hate speech is content that promotes or condones violence against or has the primary purpose of inciting hatred against an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or any other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization."

Well, that certainly covers everybody who exercises thought.

But who knows how this decision came to be?  My generic e-mail from Blogger was essentially a form letter with no reference whatsoever to my wandering indiscretion, though wrapped in a likewise generic warning that if I continued with hate speech my blog may be removed entirely!?!  Was my blog entry removal initiated by a bot?  More likely, I wonder if the force behind reporting my "hate speech" is some emotionally or sexually unfulfilled human with little to no influence elsewhere who delights in going from blog to blog and flagging the opinions of others in order to gain, I don't know, some weird power play or neurotic high to complement their apparently miserable, humorless and worthless lives.  A member of the crazed far left perhaps? Frankly, I am curious whether such people who feel it their duty to insist upon censoring the words expressed by others are even able to write a coherent paragraph themselves.

Blogger is owned by Google and Google owns the world or maybe wants to, I guess, but of course they have their standards with which I vehemently disagree and my disagreement means nothing to those who run this circus.  

I cannot speak to Blogger Team folk who employ their established standards, but I can address my readers as follows: 

I am probably several decades older than many of you, am a wartime veteran who experienced a few things in life, and I say to one and all that if our society continues ratcheting up on this often contrived "hate speech" monstrosity and its increasing number of definitions the future will be bleak, leaving everybody less and less opportunities to express their own opinions.  Others will be silenced far worse than I have been silenced by the removal of one blog entry (with perhaps more on the way until I am shut out entirely).  

The implementation of "hate speech" to suppress and replace free thought with politically favored dogma is also currently a weapon of choice among tyrants wanting to control the West, and favored among the world's Elite who demand no rights for anybody but themselves.  Frequently, "hate speech" appears merely an abbreviated form of the sentence, I (or we) hate your freedom to say or write your thoughts.  

Hate speech, you see, is the fearsome two-word accusatory war weapon which can easily be deployed by those with an agenda to destroy an entire society or culture without the firing of a single gunshot.

On Hold as the Moment Evolves

To my readers:  I want to resume posting soon, but a blogging issue of some importance has surfaced which must be addressed first.  As somebody once suggested, the future isn't what it used to be :):) -- Robert

Fouling the Nest with a Cornucopia of Intentions (plus -- I Want Denmark)

Give Me Denmark at Once!  As a kid in grade school more years ago than I care to remember, I and the other students were assigned a project in which each would mail a nickel or dime to a particular member of the United Nations in NY City.  I was assigned Denmark, and obediently secured my nickel or dime (I don't recall which denomination) and sent it off in an envelope at the post office to "Delegate from Denmark," whoever that nameless person happened to be.  The accompanying letter requested that the delegate mail me back with a coin from his or her own country.

Well, you can just imagine what happened.  That son of a pup kept my coin and responded with nothing, not even a thank you for the funding I obviously provided toward the next drink at the bar, or maybe even for a low-rent hooker!

Now that President Trump is on the move toward acquiring Greenland over Denmark's objections, I say please, Mr. President, I WANT DENMARK!  They owe me, and no matter what happened to my money I'm sure the interest involved by now would make me a millionaire!  Or something.  Anyway, if I can't actually hold those thieving Danish bastards responsible, maybe I could borrow Greenland for a while?  You know, that island where the people wear caps that read MAGA:  Make America Greenland Again?  I promise to take good care of the place, Mr. Trump, and once I dig up about a nickel or dime's worth plus interest of rare earth minerals you can have it back.  By the way, there's no hurry.


There was that long-sustainable era until just years ago when newspapers and their great reporters who knew how to write effectively and tell stories demanding to be told enjoyed the luxury of seemingly endless column space unrestrained by time or sound bites.  Often, newspaper journalists could focus almost overnight and in depth on the benefits, problems or blatant illegalities involved with one subject or another.  When that nebulous thing known as the environment became newspaper fodder, yes, there existed reporters, editors and publishers who happily tackled the crazy, scare-you-out-of-your-pants aspects to sell papers.  

When "group think" invaded the newspaper industry in a hopeless attempt to stay relevant and profitable -- as readers started to divert their attention to the electronic brain-shriveling creature called the Internet -- the writing was on the wall. And on the digital chip.  No longer did people capable of merely pushing buttons need to plan their days or their very lives or even decide what to feed the cat because The Screen satisfied their every curiosity. Truth, lies, damned lies and glittering pretend food to feed both starving and stupid brains.  Real local, national and international news?  Well, multiple versions were readily available on The Screen, and the Internet user could know "everything" with a little scrolling in just seconds.  Not to forget -- just as the VCR became popular overnight primarily because one could finally access the greatest "pornography" (I think that means showing us as we really are) on the planet, the Web suddenly took over as the best sex machine aside from rubber inflatables and battery-operated devices ever known to man, woman or beast.

But I digress, don't I?  The point is, newspaper reporters of old, much of their literary offspring now confined to magazines sold haphazardly on invisible newsstands and on grocery store shelves, spared nothing to alert communities to both the good and bad.  RIP, the daily local newspaper as it continues a sad decline.

Newspapers of somewhat older times were superb at providing details about the construction of a new school or mall, or the benefits or consequences of actions provided by land developers.  Mind you, these were occasions where only a few acres were involved, an era when a young couple might buy an acre or two upon which to build their dream home -- or perhaps a new factory or small business came into town, gobbling up a small amount of land.

But yes, change comes a knocking, like it or not.  Small becomes bigger, simple becomes complex, national security becomes ever more paramount and the natural world collapses a little more as people who should care about such things instead bury their heads in sports or other innocuous time and flatulence-passers of no value to our existence as humans.

To Clay, New York has come a supposed miracle of digital chip technology, a 20-year plan by the Micron Technology corporation to build, if we understand this correctly, a four-part semiconductor manufacturing campus, each part the size of 10 football fields, eventually incorporating some 7.2 million square feet of space.  Billions and billions of dollars are involved in the construction, and the kick-off of actual chip production is intended for four years from now.  50,000 jobs in the short-term seem to be required for construction and operations alone.

Indeed, a ground-breaking ceremony took place just days ago, and in attendance to break ground with individual shovels of soil were the usual dignitaries, including U.S. and state senators always up for a good photo op.  

The new reality has come to town.  Instead of a house or two, or a hardware store and a pharmacy putting in roots, the current choice continues to involve enlisting scores of bulldozers and a myriad of other heavy equipment to clear-cut tens or hundreds or thousands of acres of land.  No longer is a farm, a meadow or a babbling brook looked upon as a gem to cherish and leave untouched, but rather a commodity to wipe out and transform as easily as erasing words from a blackboard, altered forever.  The animals?  As always, they can go "somewhere else."  The wild berries, the fragrant wildflowers, fruit trees of all manner must go because of progress.

The ruling class in Central New York and, of course, its frequently accommodating broadcast media love the concept of Micron's arrival.  Thousands of jobs will come at last in an area longing for steady employment.  It's funny, though. Micron is building in an area known as White Pine Commerce Park, and of course white pines will be among the plethora of trees soon to disappear in exchange for pavement, blacktop and modern buildings serving the chip and AI industry.  On the bright side, skyscrapers apparently occupy no space in the sprawl.

I'm not taking this opportunity to complain about this Goliath project, as we humans are what we are and we will always do what we do.  The dilemma is that we always take and seldom give back, in the sense that everything we accomplish is for our benefit and the rest of that which nurtures us, ours and theirs is usually moved away, crushed or killed into powder and generally forgotten about in terms of future importance.

As far as Micron's sprawling presence goes -- what if, say, in three to five or six years people suddenly have the ability to produce chips, tons of them, in the comfort of their own homes?  Further, don't discount the very real possibility that robotics will assume all production duties flawlessly.  As we already worry with the rise of artificial intelligence, who needs humans for jobs in the years ahead and how many?  What would become of the mega-campus?

Of what value will the semiconductor chips of Micron or any chip manufacturer be if (when?) we experience another "Carrington Effect" of the 1800s, when the sun vomited the mother of all EMP (electromagnetic pulsation) energy directly toward our atmospherically protected, yet incredibly vulnerable planet, causing telegraph lines and office telegraph equipment to go up on flames?  Planet-wide, effective shielding from such cosmic incursions upon modern electrical living is pathetically lacking  -- especially, remarkably, in the USA.

So, like many sprawling chip plants across the globe, Micron will materialize.  An abundant and essential clean water supply will be sucked into this new neighbor industry by millions of gallons a week, used and then discarded as dirty water.  Local residents are assured that this can be managed with high tech.  Can't everything?  Along with these mega-structures, extensive housing will be required for those who build and for those who work in the facility.  This will require the vast sale of farms, forests, meadows and other areas of natural beauty and pure environmental importance for tens if not hundreds of miles around.  Along with Micron will come a myriad of supporting businesses and structures, thereby requiring even more bulldozing, pavement, blacktop and obliteration of things natural and good.  By the time these thousands of new workers make their homes where they have access to Micron and other businesses, spending their free time having night after night of wild recreational or child-producing sex on mattresses sold by novel mattress and bed companies, the new hell is loaded and ready to go.  Eventually, perhaps doomed kids born in this arena, battling for a paucity of good jobs as they mature, once entitled to growing up with nature and natural processes assisting in showing them who they are, will instead be condemned to pavement, blacktop, few LOCAL grass or forest areas and a life structured by AI, restrictive laws and almost literally no place to go, no place to run.  Unless one's idea of a good time is to become the Singularity.  And don't expect that a so-called neighborhood park or two developed by some nebulous planning board will take the place of what was previously real and vital just yesterday.  Pollution and crime as babysitters?  We shall see.  

The three-alarm fire sale grab and makeover of gigantic tracts of at least moderately unblemished land tempered until now is about to explode with crucial decisions routinely determined by both the elite and the well paid-off who wield the keys, and as is customary there will be shouts of "Jobs Jobs Jobs!" along with the hoary mantra, "People have to live somewhere!"  Whose somewhere?  What somewhere?  What happens to creatures whom we are not?  

Really, I detest whacked-out members of the crazy environmental class as much as anybody, but this time much seems so different, so jeopardized.  Are we fine-tuned enough to administer caution as new ventures of monstrous size emerge from blueprints all over the country?

We were warned years ago about what has already come and what is scheduled to invade our living space in such books as, The Last Child in the Woods, which should be read by anybody intent upon anticipation of a secure future with children in tow -- though by now we suggest that we have seen the future.  For most of us, sadly, there may be no particularly desirable room at that nearby inn as both AI and the ultra-huge take charge.  Just saying. . .

Revenge of the Zoo Animals (plus: From Smellya with Love)

(A note about yesterday in Minneapolis:  A woman allegedly speeding her car toward I.C.E. agents, her continuing presence itself a possible threat to agents, was herself shot dead by an agent seemingly in fear for his or his companions' lives. Naturally, the mayor, governor and the rest of the predictable local and national leftist lunatic fringe will blame I.C.E. for -- the words they won't use -- merely trying to enforce the law in apprehending criminals. Autos and trucks weighing thousands of pounds having become the favored objects of mass destruction these days, with government agents and officials routinely selected as targets, it would almost require a moron to hover about a scene of law enforcement where officers are performing their official duties.  The dead woman was ultimately a leftist tool, nothing more, nothing less, and the fact that she put herself in the line of fire, so to speak, is on her and all the folks who consistently fail to comprehend what the term, law enforcement means.  Further, that she would interfere with officials attempting to rid the city of pure welfare-grabbing and dangerous crime committing scum is hardly a shining example of intelligence.  So who was it this time?  A Marxist? A Communist? A mind too deluded to contemplate radical Islam's threat to the world?  The woman had a choice not to risk her ultimate fate and she chose very unwisely.  She probably could have become somebody of much more benefit to her city, if that was truly her concern.  What a waste.)

 

Maybe someday soon some anonymous Venezuelan will be heard to say, "I love the smell of zoo animals in the morning!"  Maybe, just maybe, the nation's zoos will be replenished with healthy, loved animals no longer subject to becoming dinner almost overnight for starving Venezuelan citizens whose wealth and food were stolen by modern dictators.  Once a thriving nation populated by happy, economically secure people, when the dictator class featuring Chavez and then Maduro moved in some 25 years ago and emptied the vaults for their own purposes, the people lost everything and finally the inability even to find food drove the starving masses to emptying zoos, killing and eating the nation's formerly welcome and admired animal guests.  For this alone, I would cheer to watch Maduro and his associates executed in a most horrible manner by wild creatures fortified with an all-business, flesh-ripping ethic.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are themselves "howling" because Trump failed to consult them before moving on Maduro.  Truth be told, how many of these leftist blabbermouths would have kept their mouths shut, rather than putting our own military personnel in jeopardy?  Yes, Trump shoulda, shoulda, shoulda, but how does one deal with the enemy within when the enemy within roosts over significant parts of Washington, always perched to feed its left-handed media secret things which are often not contained during crucial operations?  Let Democrats explain to the moms and dads of kids dead by way of Venezuelan (and Colombian and Mexican) drug arrivals why Donald Trump is the real enemy here.

The U.S. military?  Superb, the real super heroes not confined or restrained in comic book pages.  If you were waiting for the Democrats to cheer military personnel on in the current event, you might just as well be willing to give up your rights and speak Mandarin or bow to Iran.

Donald Trump has a long-range plan, a good thing to know because China, Iran, Russia, North Korea and other nations also have long-term goals.  With luck, intelligence and hard work, I hope Trump's plans will come out on top.  Fear him, hate him or embrace him, we finally have somebody in the White House actually doing something for Americans and -- bonus -- the world.  You want Biden back?  Harris?  If so, why?  It may take time, and we all know that patience is so abhorred among both young and old these days, but many aspects of modern life have a real option to improve.  Has the Monroe Doctrine been stamped in gold to live another day in the Western Hemisphere?

We are also keeping an eye on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose family roots in Cuba almost certainly have him on the watch for just the right moments to effect change in coordination with Trump's future agenda, however that works out.

While the world's sympathies must be with the long-suffering Venezuelan people, pardon me if I step aside to shed a tear for those poor zoo animals, caged and defenseless and probably too trusting against captors and killers who entered their safe spaces only to slaughter them one and all -- creatures which really were just like children in so many ways.  The animals always get the worst of it when humans are involved.

From Smellya with love:  I can't find it on the map, but apparently there exists some little country somewhere called Smellya, inhabited by Smellyuns.  I don't know why they are called Smellyuns.  Is it because they have an odor and smell bad?  Is it because they live with rats which run amuck and make their homes smell offensive?  A lot of Smellyuns have come to the United States over the years, many of them settling in Minnesota.  The Smellyuns seem to be great entrepreneurs, just loving the heck out of America, having set up maybe thousands of businesses, especially widespread when Covid funds became available.  The Smellyuns also appear to have had lots of support from Minnesota Democrats, with plenty of questions arising now over whether even the governor, known in some circles publicly as a "retard," had provided input in support of Smellyun business ventures.

The problem, however, seems to encompass a belief among congressional and law enforcement personnel that a good many of these businesses are phony, as fraudulent as the Smellyun day is long.  Ingenious Smellyuns appear to have initiated hundreds or thousands of child day care centers in which there is no need to incorporate children.  Instead, as big government money rolls into the pockets of the enterprising Smellyun elite, various buildings, houses and miscellaneous addresses are merely referenced as day care centers.  If one has an address where day care center checks can be sent, who needs actual children in attendance?  Besides, actual attendance in day care centers can create so many problems caused by children, so it's much easier just to keep Smellyun children home -- unless they need to be paraded into alleged centers momentarily to convince nonbelievers that day care facilities exist.

Of considerable interest is entrance into the USA by a Smellyun woman who went on to be elected to Congress, and like so many members of Congress somehow became fabulously wealthy in no time at all, as if gifted by Smellyun magical incantations.  Strangely, she is alleged to have married her brother in order to help him also enter the country with no complications, perhaps so that he could enter day care, too -- though that would have been adult day care, surely.

Currently, the Feds are investigating allegedly widespread Smellyun fraud in Minnesota and other states.  But what of the children?  Will their mostly non-existent day care centers be closed forever, leaving them no place to go even though they had not ever gone anyway and there had never existed a place to go?  If one marries her sibling, is he entitled to day care?  Does he call her "Sis" and does she call him "Bro?"  And what of alleged Smellyun health care centers, also mostly non-existent?  Can patients get band-aids there or just pretend band-aids?  The questions never stop.  Wonderful people, those Smellyuns, but they really should return to Smellya and forfeit ill-gained American dollars on the way out.

Maybe Smellyuns could run German banks?  We love the attitude of the bank where thieves broke in and absconded with millions of dollars of safety deposit box contents, leaving one banker to advise totally screwed customers that they should have insured the contents of each box for more than the guaranteed $12,000.  No way was this official about to blame his own bank for holding open season for the creative robber able to overcome something as troublesome as a wall.

Zohran Mamdani takes New York City:  And with Trump's help from afar, along with all the empty promises an avowed Democrat socialist can make, one wonders how long it will be before New York City takes Mamdani?

From Australopithecus to Australia-Patheticus

Our human predecessors, even those harboring the barest resemblance to anybody walking about today, were provided from birth with one basic instinct:  The will to survive and the necessity to battle enemies and elements to assure survival.

Casting the obvious and inherent aside, Australia's spineless prime minister has decided, following the latest extermination of native-born Australians by ISIS and the radical Islamic poison currently swallowing up free and decent people all over the globe, to un-solve the outrage by banning more firearms from his citizens and cracking down on whatever he apparently thinks sounds good in a speech.  Like most of Western Europe's political elite, he has eyes that will not see the Islamic and Sharia Law dangers making headway in his country.  Perhaps he should take a lesson from France and Ireland, now consumed hazardously with mosques springing up like deadly toadstools and people brought in who have no intention of assimilating.

In fact, the masses allowed to enter under misguided compassion and political expedience, as we now know, are intent upon replacing their host societies with another form of government.  Islam IS a government unto itself, with no appetite for co-existence with any other way of life.  If you're a fan of beheadings, fingers and hands chopped off, rapes as a matter of course, women covered up almost completely and gay people or "nonbelievers" being thrown from the tops of high-rise buildings, then life regimented under Sharia is for you.  (I suppose an argument could be made for allowing hand-chopping for thieves caught stealing mail from USPS mailboxes, quite a problem in the USA currently.) 

Can't we all just get along?  Yes, if half submit to tyrants and the other half are murdered because of noncompliance and refusal to convert to Islam.  That's the choice we all face, whether residing in the USA, Australia, Canada or pretty much anywhere in a currently threatened, if not deteriorating Western civilization.

Speaking of troublesome entities, why won't Democrats publicly release their detailed report on reasons why they lost the election?  We suspect that once key operatives actually got around to holding up a mirror to their stupid policies and less than appealing candidates, the reflection in their own faces filled them with fear, sort of like a Medusa event without actual snakes in their hair.

Meanwhile, our days are filled with Jeffrey Epstein, Epstein and more Epstein, complemented by a cascade of never-ending televised drug commercials.  While we're happy to know all may disappear from TV screens soon, removal of drug advertising would be a great first step.  Let doctors decide what patients should take instead of exposing the public to these medication cattle calls!

Progressing from cattle calls to cattle cars, does anybody actually enjoy flying commercially anymore?  I've experienced my share of air travel both in the Air Force and outside, but ever since the world's terrorists conquered our fantasies of safety my desire to feel like a poked, prodded and searched criminal even before boarding a flight keeps me grounded. Travel by air used to be such fun, but the quality of engagements with both security and incredibly rude (if not psychotic) fellow passengers is such a nightmare in waiting now -- not to mention the risk of deadly drone encounters in flight. . .and, of course, those damned UFOs (what was that report last week about a pilot flying over Rhode Island who reported being freaked out while paced by a silver cylindrical something just yards off his wingtip?).  If I ever had to fly again I would insist upon accompaniment by an emotional support anaconda which would remain free to roam and eat in the passenger compartment while I secure myself in the cargo area.

Today's puzzlement:  If human populations are on the decline in the United States and illegal aliens are leaving or being tossed out in quantity (THANK YOU I.C.E.), why the constant drum beat about a lack of housing?  Seems there should be plenty of places to occupy or revise without a need to rip up more forests and protected land.  Bat crap-crazy environmentalism drives me bonkers, but there is such a thing as reasoned environmental care, and I sometimes fear that the Trump people may forget this.  The time long, long ago when we forgot in a quest to have it all that we share the planet with other lives was a very sad occasion.

One of my favorite environmental outrages is when "developers" clear-cut multiple acres of exquisite fruit trees, berries, wildflowers and other natural settings and then have the gall to name new streets after everything they just cut away and destroyed (Pear Tree Lane, Marigold Way, etc.).

We shall cautiously wish for an at least tolerable and maybe reasonable 2026 -- but don't bet your ass on it!