Day 314: It’s all part of the act…
Step right up boys and girls! Hurry, hurry to the greatest performance you’ll ever see… Who doesn’t love a good show, right? I mean you get to escape reality for a moment, forget your troubles, and see a whole different world. Unfortunately, once the show is over, it’s business as usual and that can’t happen, not this time. So why are the people in charge doing the same song and dance?
Day 312: Yes, the protests are still going…
It still appears there is a media blackout on the protests (first mentioned in my other post). That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped though! It also unfortunately doesn’t mean the police have stopped. In fact we’re seeing some really… umm scary tactics being used by the police to * checks notes * beat us until we stop protesting police violence.
Day 307: COVID19 and BLM or why you should wear a mask
Despite the media blackout the Black lives matter protests are still going strong. To say I’m proud would be an understatement. Unfortunately with all the protests going on people are claiming that COVID19 isn’t as bad as people said it was, or that the protesters should stop because of the pandemic. The critiques all miss the point, this one simple trick will slow the transmission and it really works.
Day 305: Trump, Godwin’s law, and history
Straight from the man himself, this is a very real tweet by Mike Godwin (Here).
Godwin’s law states simply “as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” Coined by Mike Godwin, Godwin’s law is often invoked when talking about Trump or the horrid state the so-called US democracy is in. Here’s the catch, the law was suspended by Godwin himself when talking about Trump and company, for very good reasons.
Day 304: It’s still just the first wave
♫ One of these things is not like the other… ♫
COVID-19 is making headlines again and news reports are claiming the second wave is here. Well, that’s not quite right, we never actually stopped the first. We literally cannot have a second wave of outbreaks if the first wave is still going strong, it’s just a continuation.
Day 303: Police food fight
Well here’s something I never thought I would have to write about, the food is all right. Contrary to reports by police, no one is poisoning their food. In fact, every time a new story comes up regarding tapered food and the police it turns out the officers involved were (surprise!) lying outright. There are strangely so many of these incidents that it’s hard to keep up with, what is it about police that makes them think it’s okay to keep lying?
Day 301: We mourn the loss of a beloved… wendy’s
Rayshard Brooks was murdered by police. Murdered isn’t quite a strong enough word for what the police did, but we’ll go with it. He was murdered. I don’t know the man, but I can tell you he had three daughters and a step son. I can also tell you he was murdered for being responsible. He was murdered for celebrating his daughters 8th birthday. He was murdered for doing the right thing. But today we mourn the wendy’s that was burned down.
Day 300: Protest media blackout
The protests are still going strong and that makes my heart happy. You knew the protests were still going on though… right? I don’t blame you if you thought they had died down, turns out when protesters aren’t burning down buildings the media doesn’t seem to care, even when police decide to use excessive force and LITERALLY run people over.
Day 294: We can’t stop now.
Yet another day for protesting and another day for police brutality. Every day I check to see what’s been happening and what is currently happening with the protest and I hold my breath every time I wait for the current update. I’m nervous the protests will slow down, I’m nervous we are going to get tired and stop.
Day 293: TERF is NOT a slur
The I’d march with you… if I weren’t so busy discriminating against you defense.
Sex, gender, depending on who you ask it’s very simple or infinitely complex. I’ll give you a hint the science is settled and it isn’t as simple as people who shout, “but biology!” would want you to think. Sex and gender are most definitely a spectrum, it’s literally what the biology tells us and if you disagree, well then quit trying to use science as a defence for your shitty opinions.
Day 292: Thoughts for the day
Yeah, totally justified…
Well would you look at that, Seattle issued a ban on CS (tear) gas for 30 days. Yeah, you read that right, 30 days. Why 30 days? Well if I had to bet, I would bet that is exactly how long it will take before they get more. In other words they ran out. They’ve been using so much CS gas that they ran out of it. I have a lot of thoughts today apparently, so let’s just dive into a small stream of consciousness.
Day 291: Dear America, The power of indifference
Suddenly your absent-minded thoughts are shattered by a loud noise. Quickly you look around, to the left of you, you see it. A child has been shot. You see them bleeding heavily. People are standing around with their phones, some calling emergency services, some filming, but most looking confused and scared. No one is actively trying to help. What do you do next?
Day 290: A guide for treating tear gas
When exposed to CS gas (tear gas) do NOT use milk.
Well this won’t end and frankly it shouldn’t end until there are sweeping changes to institutions who refuse to make those changes. In the meantime good and innocent people are being subject to CS gas (tear gas) and there are a lot of ways people are suggesting you treat it, some are better than others. Let’s talk about what CS gas does and how to treat it best.
Day 289: Classes started today
Well today we kick off our summer internship courses. It’s just a little hard given everything that is going on in the background, but here we are. It’s tough all around for the black and minority communities, but as an institution we press on to teach. I’m still disheartened that we can’t even pause in a moment of turmoil like this, but institutions like this are part of the system so they can’t meaningfully acknowledge what is going on.
Day 288: The things we do in the dark Part – 2
As with most mornings I wasn’t sure what I was going to write about, but my topic found me. He who controls the flow of information controls the narrative. Wars are won and lost by the control of public information. The government knows this, it is a tactic the government has used for decades and they are at it again.
Day 287: Racism and our pale blue dot
If I were to show you a map of the known universe the size of a large building, the spot marking earth and where this photo was taking would be overlapping. Feel small yet?
We don’t learn from our mistakes, the 1918 flu for example. We learned nothing from it and were doomed to repeat history when COVID-19 came around. Look at the news right now, any of this look vaguely familiar? It should, even in my lifetime we’ve seen this happen several times over, but nothing has changed. We refuse to learn.
Day 286: On the militarization of police
Photo from Slate
The US is under attack, not by some foreign power, but by the people tasked to protect us. The police have increasingly become more militarized and as such their power to incite violence has increased exponentially alongside its budget. Notice I said incite violence, not end violence.
Day 285: Interesting times
Yet another disgusting and violent tirade from Trump.
My Co-PI lived through the fall of the USSR. I told him that must have been an interesting time to be alive. He responded by telling me that they actually have a curse for others that goes something along the lines of, “I hope you are cursed to live through interesting times.” We are living through interesting times now and I can see why that would be used as a curse.
Day 284: The things we do in the dark
It’s the least they could do.
Disinformation is a powerful tool. We are often taught that while previous wars had the overall and almost total support of the American people, the Vietnam war did not. You may think this had to do with the sentiment at the time or a cultural shift. However, this was most likely due to something far more innocuous, the television.
Google searches for ‘n-word’ associated with black mortality
Google searches could unveil patterns in Black mortality rates across the US, according to a new study. Researchers found that those areas with greater levels of racism, as indexed by the proportion of Google searches containing the “n-word,” had higher mortality rates among Blacks. The study is the first to examine an Internet query-based measure of racism in relation to mortality risk.
Lunatic Laboratories 