"Respect/Empower/Include."

Murals on the boarded up windows of State Street, photographed today, in Madison, Wisconsin.

Madisonians in shorts trudge past a mural of Barack and Michelle Obama that is painted on the boarded-up window of Which Wich Superior Sandwiches:



On the boarded-up window of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, a drooling troglodyte cop observes what might be a pile of burning doughnuts that give off smoke that reads — like a thought balloon — "Defund the Police":



A longer view of the side of the museum featuring an ironic "Right turn only" sign:



There's the notion that "being a revolutionary" has an element of being fun, loving, and beautiful:



There's the grievance that you can't play your music really loud without people calling the cops:



More Madisonians trudging along, this time past dripping letters that few will read, but I'm seeing "Tell the President/To prepare the bunker/When he flee/Because until we see/Justice you will/Never see peace!"



"Yes, we can!" the old President says, as a waiter sets up an outdoor café table.

"So, don’t ever, ever let anyone tell you that you’re too angry, or that you 'should keep your mouth shut.'"

Says Michelle Obama — in "Graduates, 'Don’t ever, ever let anyone tell you that you’re too angry'" (WaPo).

If you don't let other people say things, then you are the one who is silencing the other. Where does anyone get the power not to let other people say things? I know, it's a figure of speech, and when you don't "let" another person "tell" you something, what you mean is that you don't have to believe what you're told. They can tell it, but you don't have to accept it as true.

But is it never true that you're too angry? Is Obama saying that no one should ever believe that they're too angry. No, she's just saying form your own opinions about whether your anger has gone too far. You can't trust anyone who tries to impose that opinion on you — to tell you you're too angry.

When I read Obama's advice, the first person I thought of was Donald Trump. Maybe somebody told him that at his graduation: Don’t ever ever let anyone tell you that you’re too angry. But doesn't he let Ivanka tell him that he's too angry?