California

On the way home today, my train was delayed because of a fatality on the tracks happening about forty-five minutes before I got on. It was on the other side of the tracks, someone crossing over the tracks where they should not have been, possibly a suicide. I was already on a later train than the one I usually took, because of a late meeting at work, so the delays took me well past twilight into night. This kind of event is not uncommon on this commuter train line, occurring once every few months or so, and happening often around relatively affluent suburbs. Sometimes as on this occasion it’s a pedestrian, sometimes a car that drives around the gates or somehow gets stuck across the tracks with an oncoming train. Almost never does it seem to make sense for me to get off the train when they open the doors and try to take alternative transportation such as a taxi or ride sharing, given the kind of congestion in this area around rush hour, and I’m almost always fortunate enough to have a seat on the trains I take (which was not the case when I used to commute into San Francisco instead of the other direction) so the only thing to do is to sit tight and wait until the tie-up has sorted itself out. This time, the delay was about an hour, about average. We were mostly standing still waiting for trains ahead of us to pass through the area of the incident, where medical first responders and law enforcement and transit officials are busy following the procedures they each have in place in such cases.

Ever since the Magna Carta, people have had the right to petition their government for redress of their grievances. The Bill of Rights also guarantees the right of peaceable assembly to be heard.

The first event I attended was in Redwood City the same day as the main Women’s marches around the country the day after the inauguration. The event was billed as a “non-partisan, multigenerational gathering” to affirm the community values under attack by the new administration. Here’s a picture of the crowd. Between the tenor of the campaign rhetoric and the direction taken during the transition, it was clear from what people were saying and what they had on their signs what things were on people’s minds: women’s issues, the secret involvement by Russia in the election, threats to foreign residents, protection of the environment, the financial entanglements of a sitting President, and above all the growing credibility gap between the public statements coming from Washington and what the public is willing to believe. We listened to speeches from local politicians and community leaders and listened to various musicians including Joan Baez.

Among other songs, she led the crowd in singing a Spanish version of “We Shall Not Moved” which the largely (but not exclusively) Anglo crowd did gamely.