Raise the flag!

Given that the Kleptocrat has taken one gigantic goose-step forward into authoritarianism by sending National Guard troops into DC because DOGiEboy Big Balls got mugged by a 15-year-old girl, I don’t see how today’s earworm could be anything except the “Horst Wessel Lied”. (Sorry—"Lied" means "Song" in German.)

Horst Wessel, in case you don’t know, was the son of a Lutheran minister who felt an affinity for rightwing politics in 1920s Germany. At age 19, he joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) essentially the outright-thug arm of the Nazi Party. He wasn’t particularly notable in this pursuit, but when he died in a fight with a couple of Communists four years later (in 1930)—possibly over procuring women or maybe because of failure to pay rent—he became the biggest Nazi martyr since the 15 who were killed in the Beer Hall Putsch.

One of his activities as a Nazi was to write songs; among these was "Die Fahne hoch!" ("Raise the flag high!"), which became the "Horst Wessel Lied" after his death. (I mean, it's got a great beat; you can march into conquered cities to it. I give it a 3.) As an SA squad leader he was known for particular brutality, even by Nazi standards. Terror was his thing.

In so many ways Wessel is quite the role model for today’s MAGA crowd: unsuccessful by societal standards, resentful, ready to put it all on the line for a Great Man who tells them he’ll fix it all for them. And—in the end—completely expendable. (If not, in fact, more valuable dead than alive.)

I had quite the merry old time finding a video that actually has the vocals, and every posting on YouTube carries the caveat that this music is strictly for educational/historical purposes. Another year or so of Cadet Bonespurs, they may be able to dispense with those disclaimers.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

No danger, Will Robinson!

I’ve become entangled somewhat in HOA board activities over the past year or so. Not because I have any desire to be part of this mishigas, but basically because (IMO) someone needs to keep eyes on them or the cluster is going to end up with no money but a lot of cosmetic “improvements” that are the apples of individual board officers’ eyes.

I know the president’s stomach falls whenever she sees me join the video calls; she knows I will have questions and comments. (They only meet every other month—one of which meetings is solely devoted to an annual review and the election of new officers, so they’re only actually conducting business five times a year. The meetings consequently run for hours, usually ending in motions to continue the discussions du soir, so better to kick various cans down the road.) One of my pet peeves is that the notice of board meetings (part of which are open to any resident) do not contain agendas, nor are minutes released to the community until approved by the board—at the following meeting—so that your average owner or renter has no idea what the board is up to, including what they might be planning on that would really interest/affect us peons.

Because communicating with the community would only invite their input, which just slows down the board when they want to fund another project to get everyone’s mailbox to be identical.

During the most recent meeting (28 July), after the “member time” (the only part where non-board folks can talk), someone from the Landscaping Committee mentioned that there’s poison ivy in the cluster, both in the common area and in trash enclosures at some units. Measures would need to be taken to get rid of it. That was pretty much the extent of it.

That was the first mention of that scourge, but it would certainly explain why I got a terrible rash when helping with the cluster landscaping clean up a few months ago, when we were instructed to cut out the invasive honeysuckle, not to pull it out. (So it will reappear to once again be dealt with ineffectively.) Without knowing I should be on the alert for the equally invasive poison ivy, I wasn’t looking for it but it sure found me.

There was some vague hand flapping about the issue; then they moved on to the all-important mailbox uniformity.

I put in a service request to the property management company, asking them to send a notice to all residents that this stuff is growing right throughout the English ivy patch along the green common area that hosts the tot lot and swings. I got a reply that poison ivy had been observed behind a block of townhouses and that the board needed to approve the expense to have it removed—which was not at all what I asked.

So I contacted the Landscaping Committee with my same concerns: people need to know about the poison ivy as a health and safety issue. Trash enclosures are used nearly everyday. Families play in that common area. Kids and dogs run all around it—why are you not publicizing the risk?

Well, there was considerable back and forth and I was invited to provide a draft notice. So I did; I sent this, along with a bunch of photos I shot of the seriously concerning infestation of the vine to the committee head. That was on 30 August.

I left prompts for her to fill in what the board is doing, but I wanted residents to grasp the why-they-should-care about this communication.

Eventually I got a response informing me that my draft had “broken [her] writer’s block” and the committee would discuss the situation (along with other things) at their monthly meeting, on 5 August.

So, I showed up at the meeting where the committee members faffed about for 30 minutes about this and that. I broke protocol by just raising my hand and being recognized to: suggest they put signs around the ivy patch in the common; point out that if they were going to erect temporary fencing around it, the fencing should be Day-Glo butt ugly to get people’s attention; and finally urge them to send an email blast about the situation (while they’re considering the logistics of how to compose and print a flyer to leave in 96 mailboxes—which are currently not uniform in appearance), because I’m a girl who believes in redundant systems.

Well, someone did go to Home Depot and did put orange plastic fencing around the playground side of the patch on 8 August (although no indication of why the barrier was there):

And that same day this appeared in my inbox:

Here was the “newsletter”:

They turned a health and safety alert into a horticultural information piece. Nothing at all about it appearing right next to people’s front doors. And none of my pix showing how it blends in with the English ivy. Adding in the fun fact about Virginia Creeper was just—I dunno.

So, here we are, nearly halfway into August and we’ve got some plastic fencing, a sad little hand wave toward “the world around us”, and nothing done.

Yay.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Moar art

Some new sidewalk artists have entered the ‘hood.

They’re a family from Afghanistan (via California); they’re renting from my friend of Das Auto fame.

I’m looking forward to more of this.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Final notice

Got this last week and found it somewhat amusing:

It’s the snailmail equivalent of those spam phone calls warning you that your vehicle warranty is about to expire (they always use “vehicle” because they have no notion that whatever mode of transport you might have is a car, truck, motorcycle or bus pass), so you should give them a call toot-sweet.

The document is laid out so that FINAL NOTICE appears in the envelope window to make sure you’ll open it. They’re too cheap, apparently, to put that in RED. But they do use bolding in place of “scare quotes” to emphasize that they’re just trying to do you a solid, but you’re not cooperating; what’s wrong with you?

Interestingly, they did not bold the implication that if you don’t call them before the ides of August you could somehow go out of compliance with your mortgage and be in big trouble, buster.

For the record, in no state in the union can any mortgage require a home warranty as part of the loan. They’re hoping to confuse people who conflate the term with home insurance or even mortgage insurance; of course, you don’t find out about that until you call them, and maybe probably not even then. That’s when the big sales push begins.

I confess I’m fascinated by their random capitalization. Perhaps they’re graduates of Trump University?

I wonder how many people actually feel confident in picking up the phone and calling a number that has no company name associated with it, to discuss private financial information? I certainly don’t.

I just really hope this is indeed their FINAL ATTEMPT TO CONTACT me.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: the long game

Last week was a bad one for anyone who believes in democracy, justice and decency. Even for people who are willing to settle for basic humanity.

I’m not even going to list specifics; just know that the entire world was covered in a layer of shit that came out of the firehose anchored to the Oval Office, and it’s going to take so long for us to dig ourselves out from it.

So I’m going back to Nature for my gratitude today. Because she just keeps doing her thing, no matter how much humans stomp around in a dominance display. On the same site where developers are spewing up 82 “luxury” townhouses in five acres of space, where they’ve done their best to turn the three ponds that they’re required to retain (because they’re part of the headwaters of Difficult Run) into sludge, this hibiscus (I think) is reaching for the sun.

(I couldn’t get closer to it because the developers’ neglect of the landscape has resulted in it being overrun by poison ivy, and I did not fancy my skin becoming a battleground for the fight between mosquitoes and urushiol oil rashes.)

Nature reminds me that we’re in a marathon, not a sprint. I need to be thinking long game, just like the lotus and the hibiscus.

(Also, tbh, like the poison ivy.)

  

©2025 Bas Bleu