Consider Occam's razor

No joke: Nazi salutes and burning crosses

I drove home late one night and saw 20-odd bright wooden crosses on my front lawn, “burning” with fluorescent paint. I’d been to the climate march in New York and was feeling exhilarated, until I saw them. I parked, stared, pondered, took photos. I texted my son in Beijing because he would be awake, asking if I should call the police. “Mom,” he said, “there are burning crosses in front of your house. Yes, call the police!”

We never found out who put them there, or why. After much prodding, the police did trace the wooden posts, bought in a nearby town and assembled and painted. Some neighbors tried to make out that it had “just been kids” or “something to do with the climate march in town.” But burning crosses mean something, and maybe some day I’ll find out why they were placed on my lawn.

It was pointed out that the corner they were on has a neighborhood bulletin board so maybe the message was intended for all of us. But most of the neighbors refused to believe that it was anything but high spirits. I wonder if they would have felt the same way if I were Jewish?

Here’s what they looked like at night, when I first saw them. They glowed in the dark, the plain pine sticks having been nailed together and painted with fluorescent yellow paint.

Occam’s razor is a saying that means the obvious answer is almost always the correct answer. And a Nazi salute is a Nazi salute.

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And a note about the climate march earlier that day: