Longread on climate refugees from ProPublica.
Texas braces for climate-change-fueled “megadrought.”
Caution, graphic: This is what happens to your face when the border patrol decides to play riot squad.
Officials denied using tear gas to clear protestors from Lafayette Park for the president’s bible photo op. That was a lie, of course.
Not that things haven’t been terrible for a long time. The Onion, as always, is almost too perfect with the headline “Defensive Chicago Police Officer Perfectly Capable Of Disappearing Protestors Without Help From Homeland Security.” That’s barely a joke, given that Chicago PD got caught operating literal black sites back in ’15. And it’s not just Chicago:
During grad school I was literally picked up off the street in Harlem by plain clothed police officers who didn’t show me a badge, put me in the back of unmarked van, parked in a single spot for like an hour as I sat in van. Thought I had been kid napped. They been doing this.
Matthew D. Morrison (@DrMaDMo) July 29, 2020
This article on how police unions fight reform pairs well with this article about the Springfield, MA police force, where officers receive no discipline despite verified allegations of criminally abusive behavior and substantial city liability payouts.
And there’s this, whatever the hell this pointlessly cruel self-destructive behavior is. And:
This is going to sound like an exaggeration but it is literally true that instead of funding testing and food and rent and schools and preventing layoffs and evictions republicans proposed a full write-off for the three martini lunch and more money for the F-35.
Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) July 28, 2020
And of course there’s that genocide in China right now – The Atlantic has excellent coverage of just how extreme the surveillance and control in Xinjiang are, and illustrates the growing threat that they will be expanded.
Which leads us to the question: what if these are the good old days?
Cultivating Joy
Be sure to look at all the photos in this Instagram post of a floofy dog on a glass table.
Of course you need another photo of Fig the dachsund.
And these ducklings.
And this kitten.
Secretly Ironic 