Let’s kick it off with this:
Now, in this cancel culture of ours, even I’m not stupid enough to weigh in with an opinion on such things. I will report, however, an item from my own fair city of Palo Alto.
You see, this is a fairly low crime area, but the crimes that do take place tend to happen over and over and over again, by the exact same people, without any consequence. One quick Google search of “Palo Alto lululemon theft” will yield scads of results from many different time periods. About every three or four weeks, a couple of folks walk in with giant shopping bags, FILL them with merchandise, and then leave. It’s pathetic. Whenever my wife or daughter buys products from that company, I wonder to myself how much of the price is to compensate for lululemon getting ripped off so regularly.
What’s of concern to my fellow residents of this super-liberal, hand-wringing, bleeding heart enclave is that the crime is going beyond shoplifting, thanks to, shall we say, misguided good intentions. I realize San Francisco has become a cesspool, but the 30 miles between the city and Palo Alto could just as well be a million miles. In spite of this, crime that has nothing to do with overpriced athletic wear is on the rise.
I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it didn’t take fifty years of unadulterated theft for the City Council members to wake up to the fact that maybe the police are our friends.
Back in the pre-Covid, post-Floyd era where people could not WAIT to loudly virtue signal, the City Council made one of their top priorities to be “Social Justice“. To that end, they commissioned a huge mural to be painted on the street directly in front of city hall, celebrating the lives of various black people including one – – and I am not making this up – – who murdered a police officer. (This was so outrageous to the police that they actually sued over it).
So let that sink in. The police officers are headquartered in the same building as the city council. So let’s say you’re an officer. On the street at your place of work, which you will pass every single work day, is a giant painting of a police murderer, paid for by the city for which you work. Wrap your head around that, officer!
Well, even the Palo Alto City Council isn’t totally idiotic. Kindly note that when they compiled their list of four priorities for this year, a few changes were made.
So “Social Justice” has been shit-canned and CRIME (in red letters) has become the hot issue (for those of you who read the entire list, let’s just set aside the fact that somehow this tiny town has something to do with climate change).
As for lululemon, I actually have a great idea of how they could eradicate their problem completely, but like I said, even I’m not stupid enough to offer strong opinions on anything but the Fed. I will offer an idea, though, that I don’t think will offend anyone: require shoppers to leave their BAGS at the front! You see this in plenty of other venues. Got a couple of giant shopping bags? Great! Please leave ’em here and pick ’em up on the way out. M’kay? Great, thanks! Otherwise, we’ll have this in perpetuity:
