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So the Other Day I Was Watching This Documentary…

…called Scanning The Pyramids, and they were describing Caliph al Ma’mun’s breaching of the Great Pyramid in the ninth century. (Supposedly the first time it had been entered since its construction was completed ~2000 years earlier.) At the time of the breaching, the exterior of the pyramid was still covered in polished limestone and there were no visible entrances. The original account described how, once they gained entrance, Ma’mum’s men were overcome by the number of bats and their guano found in the inner passageways.

In my mind, this raises an interesting question: if there were no openings to the pyramid prior to al Ma’mun’s exploration where did the bats come from? How did they get inside? We now know there are at least two “air shafts” that lead from both the King’s and Queen’s chambers to the outer casing of the pyramid, but are we to believe that bats somehow managed to fly the hundreds of feet down the narrow shafts that led into the still-sealed chambers?

I’m sorry, but something just doesn’t add up. Either there was another, unknown entrance through which the bats were coming and going, or the inner chambers weren’t sealed up as described.

Just another question about those ancient, enigmatic structures which we’ll probably never have an answer to.

BTW, the documentary is very interesting and worth your time if you’re even slightly interested in this stuff. I also found it not at all surprising that Zahi Hawass, former Minister of State for Egyptian Antiquities Affairs—known for rejecting pretty much anything that does not conform to his self-proclaimned archeological orthodoxy—was looking at the data and outright rejected the findings of the team which claims they had located additional chambers in the Great Pyramid—stating outright that there was nothing additional to be found within the structure and refusing to allow any followup investigations that might definitively settle the matter one way or another.

Infuriating. And as always it makes me wonder what he’s so afraid of finding.

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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

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Hollywood

Late to the party as usual, we started watching Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood on Netflix a few days ago.

I know it’s gotten very mixed reviews (as does much of Mr. Murphy’s work), with one reviewer dubbing it, “A ludicrous version of LaLa Land.”

Whatever, Karen.

For me, it’s been a wonderful and much needed escape from the awful gripping our country right now; water to a thirsty traveler in the desert, allowing me to slip into an alternate universe where there is a happy ending.

And that ending…oh my god. Tears were streaming down my cheeks during the final episode and I thought, “This is the soul of America. Fuck Trump and his flying monkeys. They are not this country. They are just loud,” and when the credits finally rolled, for the first time I felt genuine hope for what will come of the turmoil we find ourselves in.

Be strong. Love wins.

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This Gives Me Hope

In a show of solidarity, a massive tribute to Black Lives Matter has been painted on the street leading to the White House in Washington, D.C. Completed in permanent street paint, the message features bold, yellow letters that span more than a block of 16th Street and marks a historic moment in the United States after weeks of protests.

Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned the banner-style piece, which city workers and volunteers began at 3 a.m. Friday morning ahead of weekend demonstrations. The new message is just two blocks north of Lafayette Square, where police charged peaceful protestors and released tear gas and flash-bang shells to clear the crowd for a photo-op for Trump earlier this week. It sits at the foot of St. John’s Church.

[Source]

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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.

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Trump’s Presidency is Over

From Robert Reich:

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t noticed. His verbal bombshells are louder than ever, but Donald J. Trump is no longer president of the United States.

By having no constructive response to any of the monumental crises now convulsing America, Trump has abdicated his office.

He is not governing. He’s golfing, watching cable TV, and tweeting.

How has Trump responded to the widespread unrest following the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes as he was handcuffed on the ground?

He has incited more police violence. Trump called the protesters “thugs” and threatened to have them shot. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he tweeted, parroting a former Miami police chief whose words spurred race riots in the late 1960s.

The following day he encouraged more police violence, gloating about “the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons” awaiting protesters outside the White House, should they ever break through Secret Service lines. On Sunday he again resorted to incendiary tweets, instructing “Democrat Mayors and Governors” to “get tough” on the “ANARCHISTS.”

Trump’s response to George Floyd’s murder has debased the presidency and squandered whatever moral authority remained. 

Trump’s response to the last three ghastly months of mounting disease and death has been just as heedless. Since claiming Covid-19 was a “Democratic hoax” and muzzling public health officials, he has punted management of the coronavirus to the states.

Governors have had to find ventilators to keep patients alive and protective equipment for hospital and other essential workers who lack it, often bidding against each other. They have had to decide how, when, and where to reopen their economies.

Trump has claimed “no responsibility at all” for testing and contact-tracing – the keys to containing the virus. His new “plan” places responsibility on states to do their own testing and contact-tracing.

Trump is also AWOL in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

More than 41 million Americans are jobless. In the coming weeks temporary eviction moratoriums are set to end in half of the states. One-fifth of Americans missed rent payments this month. Extra unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of July.

What is Trump’s response? Like Herbert Hoover, who in 1930 said “the worst is behind us” as thousands starved, Trump says the economy will improve and does nothing about the growing hardship. The Democratic-led House passed a $3 trillion relief package on May 15. Mitch McConnell has recessed the Senate without taking action and Trump calls the bill dead on arrival.

What about other pressing issues a real president would be addressing? The House has passed nearly 400 bills this term, including measures to reduce climate change, enhance election security, require background checks on gun sales, reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and reform campaign finance. All are languishing in McConnell’s inbox. Trump doesn’t seem to be aware of any of them.

There is nothing inherently wrong with golfing, watching television and tweeting. But if that’s pretty much all that a president does when the nation is engulfed in crises, he is not a president.

Trump’s tweets are no substitute for governing. They are mostly about getting even.

When he’s not fomenting violence against black protesters, he’s accusing a media personality of committing murder, retweeting slurs about a black female politician’s weight and the House speaker’s looks, conjuring up conspiracies against himself supposedly organized by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and encouraging his followers to “liberate” their states from lockdown restrictions.

He tweets bogus threats that he has no power to carry out – withholding funds from states that expand absentee voting, “overruling” governors who don’t allow places of worship to reopen “right away,” designating anti-fascism activists as terrorists, and punishing Twitter for fact-checking him.

And he lies incessantly.

In reality, Donald Trump does not run the government of the United States. He doesn’t manage anything. He doesn’t organize anyone. He doesn’t administer or oversee or supervise. He doesn’t read memos. He hates meetings. He has no patience for briefings. His White House is in perpetual chaos.

His advisors aren’t truth-tellers. They’re toadies, lackeys, sycophants and relatives.

Since moving into the Oval Office in January 2017, Trump hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in governing. He obsesses only about himself.

But it has taken the present set of crises to reveal the depths of his self-absorbed abdication – his utter contempt for his job, his total repudiation of his office.

Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, he has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency.

He is no longer president. The sooner we stop treating him as if he were, the better.

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