The confusion has already begun. DC citizens sitting on their front porch were arrested or questioned for smoking marijuana. My understanding is that a porch is private property and marijuana legal. They were told to go inside.

Another was arrested for throwing a Subway sandwich at a DEA patroller . Now, throwing a sandwich is a bad idea, to be sure. But is it a felony?

National Guardsmen have been patrolling both the Monuments and Georgetown. Those areas are almost crime free as the inside of my house. As I said yesterday, all for show. And who cares that the Guard members have to leave their jobs, etc., to fulfill these unneccessary duties?

And last night, in the very busy and safe 14th Street district, filled with restaurants, theaters and more, there was a massive operation, including random car stops and at least one person handcuffed and carted away.

The motto on the sides of DC police cars is something like “We are here to help.” If ever true, no longer.

Okay, let’s change the subject, although the federal takeover is front and center in everyone’s mind here.

I am spending the morning waiting for Edie’s cataract surgery to be over. Maybe another 90 minutes or so. She has had one eye done before; I have had both eyes done. I especially enjoyed my first surgery, because I think the anesthesiologist gave me LSD by mistake, and I spent the entire time being entertained by colorful hallucinations of intricate designs. He must have realized his mistake the second time, because there were no hallucinations. I thought about asking for a discount, but then realized I wasn’t paying anything, so I let it go.

During my wait, I am going to continue reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which I started reading yesterday when I spent another morning in “waiting mode”, that time at a car dealership while my car got a post-trip checkup. My copy is the Penguin edition, which used the smallest font I have seen in a Penguin.

If you can read this, you do not need cataract surgery. Edie could not read it. I can, but it’s a struggle.

I am only about 25% through the book, a novel set in the Chicago stockyards in 1905. Sinclair wrote it when still in his 20s. I find the writing extraordinary. Unbelievably descriptive, and written with enormous detail. Detail that draws you in, not that pushes you away.

Yesterday, I was reading while I was sitting at the Corner Bakery, across the street from the car dealership. I was sitting at an outside table, nursing my daily green tea. A man walked by. I would guess he was in his 50s, unshaven, moderately dissheveled, looked half asleep. He surprised me by asking me what I thought of thr book. He told me he had just read it last month. We pretty much agreed on the book’s pluses. Who knows? Maybe everyone is reading The Jungle. It would be a good use of your time.

I would suggest reading The Jungle is better than living in one. In DC today, perhaps we are.