No Rush, I'll Wait for Your Answer
Gurl, You're Not The Only One
But Wait! There's More!
Nothing would surprise me at this point.
Quote of the Day
There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, and the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." ~ Edward James Olmos as Admiral William Adama, Battlestar Galactica
If Only…
The Perfect Metaphor
Pride Was Always a Protest
Here is a list of Black-led LGBTQ community organizations you can donate to, compiled by pfpicardi and RaquelWillis_:
Snapco – Builds power of Black trans and queer people to force systemic divestment from the prison industrial complex and invest in community support.
Black AIDS Institute – Working to end the Black HIV epidemic through policy, advocacy, and high-quality direct HIV services.
Trans Cultural District – The world's first-ever legally recognized trans district, which aims to stabilize and economically empower the trans community.
LGBTQ+ Freedom Fund – Posts bail for LGBTQ+ people held in jail or immigrant detention and raises awareness of the epidemic of LGBTQ overincarceration.
House of GG – Creating safe and transformative spaces for community to heal, and nurturing them into tomorrow's leaders, focusing on trans women of color in the South.
Trans Justice Funding Project – Community-led funding initiative to support grassroots trans justice groups run by and for trans people.
The Okra Project – Collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black trans people by bringing home-cooked meals and resources to the community.
Youth Breakout – Works to end the criminalization of LGBTQ youth in New Orleans to build a safer and more just community.
It's Montueswedsthursfrisatsunday, Of Course!
History Repeating
We can only hope.
I Hate to Say, "I Told You So, But…"
Arizona Reports Highest Single-Day Rise in Coronavirus Cases – State Experts Blame Ending Lockdown
Arizona reported its highest single-day rise in new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus as hospitalizations have also risen, with health experts suggesting the end of lockdown measures has likely led to the increase.
"What we see in the data is pretty predictable," Will Humble, who served as the director of Arizona's Department of Health Services from 2009 to 2015, told KSAZ-TV Fox 10 Phoenix. Humble pointed out that the southwestern state's stay-at-home order ended just over two weeks ago.
"I'd expect to continue to see an increase in cases compared to where we were in the middle of May, because we are not using the same intervention, the-stay-at-home order, the distancing, and people are getting back to work," he said.
On Tuesday, the state reported 1,127 new infections of the novel virus, the highest number reported in a single day since the outbreak began, according to the dashboard updated by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The state also reached a new record of more than 1,000 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 on Monday, suggesting the state is seeing an increase in more serious infections.
Newsweek reached out to the office of Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, and the Arizona Department of Health Services for comment, but they had not responded by the time of publication.
Local officials in Arizona's Maricopa County, which has been the hardest hit by the pandemic, suggested in a Tuesday statement that the increase in cases was beyond what would be expected due to an increase in testing, which also would detect asymptomatic and mild cases of the novel coronavirus.
"The total number of positive COVID-19 cases in Maricopa County grew by 615 from yesterday's report. This refers to how many were reported to Public Health yesterday, not how many cases there were in the last 24 hours. We are seeing some indicators that cases in Maricopa County are starting to rise beyond the increase from additional testing," the statement explained.
Overall, Arizona has reported 21,250 infections. The state has conducted more than 330,000 tests for the novel virus and 941 people have died. On Tuesday, the state reported 24 new deaths.
While all 50 states have eased lockdown measures significantly over the past couple weeks, health experts have urged the public to continue following social distancing guidelines and wear masks in public. They have warned that a second wave, or spike, in new infections could take place if Americans do not take adequate precautions.
"We've learned a lot about this virus, but we now need to translate that learning into real change behavior that stays with us so we can continue to drive down the number of cases," Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said in a May 24 interview with ABC's This Week. "This only works if we all follow the guidelines and protect one another," she cautioned.
Nationwide, the U.S. has seen more than 1.8 million infections and more than 106,000 deaths due to the novel virus, according to a tracker maintained by The New York Times. The number of new daily cases reported has dropped from the peak of more than 36,000 reported on April 24, to 20,74 new cases reported on Tuesday. The number of new daily deaths has also declined, with just over 1,000 reported on Tuesday, a significant decrease from a peak of 2,752 reported on April 15.
#Mood
We Are All Anderson Right Now
CNN reports that Trump used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters for a photo op, after being upset about media coverage about him being rushed to a bunker. pic.twitter.com/LN0tA51gjA
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) June 2, 2020
Burning Down the House
From Blobby, because he quite eloquently verbalized my own feelings far better than I could:
I've been trying to avoid this post.
I have too many words—and on the other hand, I have none.
I am not sure I can coherently put into words how and what I feel. Sure, there is anger, shock, sadness, disbelief, but it usually comes right back to anger.
We had debated going to the Cleveland rally on Saturday. In the first paragraph, it was billed as a peaceful one. In the second, it mentioned writing an emergency contact on your arm; making provisions for work, family, pets, should you be in jail for 2-3 days. At that point, we opted out.
Part of that decision was the volume of folks and the closeness of several thousand people and the potential for covid spread. That said, while looking at the videos of our protests, the majority of folks had on masks—be it to conceal their identify or for infection control.
But like other cities, ours went violent.
And I totally get it.
How else does one get the attention of the white establishment? Break their shit.
Voting hasn't worked. Mediation hasn't worked. Peaceful protests weren't even allowed—not really.
Let's not even talk about justice. Has any white cop actually been convicted of any killing of a black man? Not in Ohio they haven't. How could any specific community continue to take this lying down?
That Minneapolis cop is kind of fucked either way—not that I care. So many of these violations are not caught clearly on camera, if at all. We've all seen what he did. His side will claim he cannot get a fair trial, which may or may not be true. No matter the outcome, there will be protests. Should he be found guilty, the most he can get is 12 years—no one is going to see that as justice. Should he get acquitted, what we saw this last weekend will be a day at the park in comparison.
That said, this week felt like something is about to break. Big time.
Before there have been some upheavals, riots and protests. This feels different. It should. I hope it is.
I do worry. BLOTUS is all but egging on the violence. He needs this discourse to re-re-re-re solidify his base. He needs the country to be in turmoil. Normally, you'd think that would get him voted out, but I don't believe that to be the case. We're already (ALREADY!) getting his 2020 ads playing every single night and multiple times. They are vile—and lies. Total lies.
I don't know what these next few days or weeks will feel like. The riots have taken away from the video being played. That can't happen.
As horrible as that video is, it needs to keep being shown. A distraction of violence will lessen the heinousness of the actual crime.
Odd as it sounds, while my stomach has been in knots for the last week, I am not sure I want that uneasiness to go away. I think it's the hate fire that has to remain to keep change moving forward. It's going to be difficult on every level.
Something Light and Fun, Yet Topical…
Because god knows we need it.
"Be aware to trim your nose hairs, cause they could put up a fight!" Japan's state of emergency has been lifted after their initial bout with COVID-19. To both cautiously celebrate, and to remind people to be diligent, disinfectant company SMV Japan released this silly animated music video.
We Are So Screwed
A Reminder
And We All Know What Happened Next…
#accurate
#Mood
And it's not because it's my birthday. That has very little to do with my current mood. I'm in this headspace because of all the awful going on in this country right now and our seeming inability to remove the cancer that's metastasizing from from the White House.
It seems COVID-19 and the very reasonable recommendations about staying home, closing non-essential businesses, and wearing masks and practicing social distancing when you do have to go out have brought out the absolute worst in a certain (i.e. racist, Trump rimming, MAGA-hat-wearing) portion of the population.
My heart goes out to my non-white brothers and sisters who are bearing the brunt of this behavior. It's as if the United States is finally vomiting up 244 years of suppressed hate, and instead of it blocking out the sun as it did in the I Am The Night—Color Me Black episode of The Twilight Zone from 1961, the country—or at least Minneapolis—is going up in flames. I have feared all along it will take just one more incident to touch off a conflagration that will consume this country like none seen in our lifetimes. And George Floyd's murder seems to be the spark thrown into that dry tinder.
And you know what? I say burn it to the ground. The horseshit treatment of minorities has gone on more than long enough. It needs to be stopped, by any means necessary. Being nice and playing fair only leads to genocide. Racists are bullies just like Trump, and the only way to put them in their place is to smack them back into the 1860s where they belong.
I fear that even if Minneapolis does not spread to the rest of the country, the rage of the minority Reich Wing when Trump is removed from office will reignite a whole new set of fires because you know that after months of Citrus Calignula's sowing seeds that the election will be rigged or the results illegitimate when he loses that his followers will not acquiesce to a peaceful transfer of power. He is, after all, their GOD.
And regarding the Orange Russian Wig Stand's threats to shut down his Twitter account? Be serious. Trump cut off his only conduit to his brain-dead sheep? Oh PLEASE.
And his promise to muzzle social media? BRING IT, BITCH.
Epic
The man is pissed. And well he should be.
Quote of the Day
I am an infectious diseases physician. Let's be clear about masks. I wear a mask to protect you. You wear a mask to protect me. That's how it works, and it's simple. Without your mask, you are telling me and everyone around you that you don't care about others. And that's not how we get through a pandemic." ~ Stan Schwartz, M.D., Tulsa
Preach.
It's About To Get All Stupid Up In Here
From The Palmer Report:
There's a moment in a science fiction TV show called Avenue 5, in which the captain says "We just watched seven people stupid themselves to death." And yes, the title of this article is from The Office. What can I say? Those of us who are dutifully staying home during the pandemic are watching a lot of TV. As these past few days have played out in the real world, these lines keep coming back to me – because we're sadly seeing a whole lot of people stupiding themselves to death right now.
It's one thing to go to a grocery store right now, masked up, taking as many precautions as you can. It's a far less safe thing to eat in a restaurant right now, where you can't stay masked up while eating (if you must do this, please be as careful as possible). Then there is this whole other ballgame where a certain segment of people are tempting fate by doing the most risky and stupid things they can possibly do in a pandemic – and they're being egged on by the President of the United States.
We keep seeing the images of partiers crowding into confined spaces, smashed up against each other, in large numbers – and almost none of them are wearing masks. No matter where in the country this kind of incident happens, it's nearly a statistical given that at least one of the people in that crowd has brought coronavirus with them, which means that a large chunk of the others will leave with the virus. They'll take it back to their families, their communities, their workplaces. This is how the second coronavirus wave begins, while the first wave is still going on.
The amount of stupidity on display here is mind boggling. In every one of these images we're seeing of tightly packed mass crowds right now, a percentage of the people in each image will be in the hospital or dead within a couple weeks. That's frankly their problem. But first they're going to spread the virus around to a bunch of unsuspecting people in their community. That's unconscionable. And yet Donald Trump keeps egging them on to carry out this murder-suicide routine. When this is over, Trump must be criminally charged for these deaths.
As Ben and I were saying yesterday, the stupidity we see rearing its head on Memorial Day will start bearing its deadly fruit in about 2-3 weeks.
For me personally, grocery shopping is fine. Picking up take-out food or medications (conveniently located in my grocery store) is fine. But anything beyond that is just plain crazy until there is a proven vaccine in place and I've been innoculated.
I may end up spending the rest of the year at home.
None Of Us Are
Submitted Without Comment
I Want To Play Too
I want to be fashionable as much as the next gay, and since it appears wearing masks in public (at least among people who actually care about others) is the new norm, these caught my attention.
You can get yours here. (He's currently sold out of these designs, but I'm sure he'll be getting more in soon. He's been overwhelmed with orders since he put these online.)
Seat Belts, Face Masks, Shirts, Shoes, and Service
From John Gruber:
I'm old enough to recall when wearing seat belts became mandatory. Roughly speaking, these laws spread quickly from state to state, starting with New York in 1984 and becoming the rule rather than the exception within a decade. ("Live free or die" New Hampshire is the only remaining state that doesn't require adults to wear a seat belt.)
I recall a similar sort of opposition to these laws as we see now with mandatory face masks. Opposition to compulsory seat belt laws always seemed crazy to me, because the evidence was so overwhelming that seat belts save lives and greatly reduce injuries that it was clearly worth making an exception to the principle, widely held in America, that the government generally shouldn't tell people what to do. But crazy or not, opposition there was. "Fuck you, I don't want to wear one, it's a free country." Word for word, the same sentiment then about seat belts as now about face masks.
One of the arguments against compulsory seat-belt-wearing was that sometimes wearing a seat belt makes things worse. "What if I'm in an accident and my seat belt gets jammed, trapping me in a burning car?" "I read about a guy who wasn't wearing a seatbelt and he walked away from a terrible accident because he was thrown out of the car before it was totaled."
I don't agree with it, but to some degree I get it: What right does a government that sells you lottery tickets have to tell you that your odds are better if you're wearing a seat belt?
But there's a fundamental difference between wearing a seat belt in a car and wearing a face mask in a store. A seat belt really only protects the wearer. There are tangential arguments that society as a whole benefits from fewer car crash deaths and injuries, but the primary reason we have laws requiring you to wear a seat belt is to protect you from harm. Face mask requirements aren't like that. They're more like laws banning smoking in restaurants and making drunk driving a serious crime — they protect us all from harm.
From earlier in my childhood, I recall ubiquitous signs at the entrances of stores and restaurants: "No shirt, no shoes, no service." There were variants, but that exact phrasing was common. I always considered those signs so strange, as I couldn't imagine why anyone would even want to go into a store or restaurant without a shirt or shoes, let alone need a sign telling them that doing so was not permitted, but I figured it must have been a problem with hippies or something. (There were a lot of old people complaining about hippies long after there were any hippies left to complain about.)
Basically, other than poolside or at a beach, anyone who wants to go into a public establishment barefoot or shirtless is an asshole. It seems pretty clear that the people today angrily objecting to mandatory face masks aren't really concerned with the epidemiological efficacy of masks. They're concerned with asserting their perceived entitlement to be an asshole. You don't need to hang a "No assholes allowed" sign to enforce it as a rule.
No Apology from Pastor of Butte County Church Where 180 Were Exposed to COVID-19
No apology from pastor of Butte County church where 180 were exposed to COVID-19
This is the reason you are not supposed to be gathering in groups. But don't listen to science you fucking idiots, listen to the raging orange moron in the White House. Because when the fuck has he ever been right about one fucking thing?
So many outbreaks have started in churches and a lot of our elders go to those churches.
And while we're witnessing Charles Darwin in action, be vigilant. Listen to your own self-preservation instinct. Regardless of what may be open, STAY THE FUCK HOME and WEAR A GODDAMNED MASK WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO OUT.