Just as a reminder about the stakes here
- Florida is beginning to ponder which islands to abandon to sea level rise and climate change.
- Monks who meditate on lake ice formations are noting that there isn’t much lake ice anymore.
- The Arctic is passing the critical tipping point at which melting permafrost will belch out aeons of carbon dioxide stored in the accumulated frozen mud, accelerating climate disaster again.
- As usual, The Onion has a great take, with the headline “Critics In 2030s Ask Why Teen Climate Activist Isn’t In Abandoned School Bailing Water And Shooting Enemy Foragers”
Twitter comedy interlude
DOCTOR: I have good news and bad news
ME: Oh no, what’s the bad news
DR: The earth is dying and we will run out of natural resources in 10 years
ME: Uh wow, what’s the good news
DR: You won’t be around to worry about it
— Michael Enjoys the Work of Helen Hunt 🌶 (@Home_Halfway) November 27, 2019
The cruelty is the point
If you haven’t seen it on the back of pickup trucks recently, you ought to be aware of this flag, which is labeled as a ‘blue live matter’ flag. That blue line represents police, standing between society and disorder. Disorder, of course, represented by, you know… *looks around nervously* a bad element.
People who fly this flag claim to support the police, but they know what they’re doing: this is a taunt. When Black people assert that their lives matter, this flag yells back: “No they don’t.”It is, fundamentally, a fascist flag, asserting the primacy of the armed force of the state over civilian lives. That’s one reason why it’s so beloved by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, whose entire appeal to voters is that he stands between (Black) Baltimore and (White) suburban Marylanders.
So, if you don’t know, now you know. You’ll see the flag around. Watch out for people flying it.
- Investigation into torture in Alabama prisons
- A Granta report on police violence
- Police shot and killed a UPS driver whose truck had been hijacked, and UPS issued a bizarre and now-retracted statement that, while mourning his death, also thanked the police for their bravery in shooting an unarmed hostage. No word on whether they were considering rebranding the trucks with that thin blue line flag.
- After a huge group of West Virginia corrections officers shared a Nazi salute, only three of them were fired.
- UNC Board of Governors just gave $2.5M to a neo-confederate group while cutting academic programs.
- When shit goes sideways we’re all going to blame liberals for complaining about torture and racism and Nazis.
- The Pentagon just gave a construction contract to someone Trump likes from Fox News.
- All but one house Republican voted against a bill to restore strength to the Voting Rights Act.
I can’t actually tell if Trump’s “Jews are a Nationality” rule is just a weird Title VI end-run, but it certainly rhymes with ominous historical antecedents. That graphic novel about Weimar-era Berlin is seeming pretty relevant these days.
Cultivating Joy
At least this cat is cute
If you don’t already know them, I also recommend Bowie the Cat (who does bear a resemblance to David Bowie) and Fig, an incredibly tiny little dog in Philadelphia.
Secretly Ironic 