The Moment (1 August 2020)

Here in Portland things are generally dull and quiet, fake news to the contrary. Yes, anonymous Federal agents have stormed in like gangbusters, throwing canisters of outdated tear-gas, beating random protesters, and generally behaving like hooligans and thugs, but if you avoid the two or three affected blocks downtown you’d never know anything is going on. Among the protesters there is a fairly obvious split between those who are objecting to the Federal presence, and those focused on the original point of preventing future incidents like those involving George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Kendra James…. But the nightly ritual of speeches and chants followed by tear-gas and flash grenades seems likely to continue indefinitely.

For reports from the front Crip Dyke at Pervert Justice has things covered.

21 February 2019

♃

 21 February 2019 is International Mother Language Day; in 2019 indigenous languages are featured. It is also the ancient Roman festival of Feralia. This is the anniversary of the first issues of the Cherokee Phoenix (1828) and the New Yorker (1925), and of the death of the last known Carolina Parakeet (1918).

In the news—well, nothing very interesting is going on. I could make something up, I suppose, like Jussie Smollett (allegedly), but even that’s too much effort. It’s a bleak cold day here in Portland, and I can’t sleep, and I can’t wake up, so there’s nothing to do but put one word after another and hope that when I’ve got enough of them piled together they will turn into a blog post. Or an essay. Or a novel. Words are like that.

Well—I see that rasPutin is trying to get another Cuban missile crisis up and running; how will America respond to the Russian Menace? I vote for ignoring it—but in the long run that way lies nuclear annihilation. Are we really ready for that? I’m old, and I no longer give a damn, but some of the younger folk might have second thoughts.

Will the Iranians join the Nuclear Club? I honestly don’t see what’s to stop them now. The hope would be that the Europeans can come up with some workaround that keeps the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action afloat—but really, what’s in it for the Iranians? North Korea has the bomb, and we see the American President tripping over himself to keep them happy and satisfied. Iran doesn’t—and it gets the shaft. The conclusion is obvious. In the words of Tom Lehrer—who’s next?

15 February 2019

♀

 15 February 2019 is Galileo’s Birthday, which may not be an official holiday anywhere, but is an event I personally have observed since at least 1962. It is also Lupercalia and Susan B. Anthony Day (in California, New York, Florida, and Wisconsin). It may also be Liberation Day in Afghanistan, commemorating the withdrawal of Soviet troops from that country in 1989. On this date in 1933 Giuseppe Zangara murdered Franklin D. Roosevelt, US President-elect, thus setting off a chain of events leading to Allied defeat in World War II, according to Philip K. Dick’s alternate history in The Man in the High Castle.

In the news we read that the Mars Rover Opportunity has been officially declared dead, its mission terminated. Its last words are reported as being “It’s getting dark. My batteries are low.” Strictly speaking, of course, it didn’t say anything, any more than it sent pictures to Earth; what it did was transmit data including information about its immediate environment that showed it was getting dark and running out of energy. I saw somewhere somebody quarreling with this rendition of its last transmission, saying that it attributed emotions (fear? sadness?) to an object. I don’t know about that. The flat statements seem pretty emotionless to me. There is fear and sadness no doubt at the end of Opportunity’s mission—but those emotions belong to us, who have enjoyed the information it has sent us over the last fifteen years—not to the inactive mechanism.

In other news the new impotence of the US on the international stage was highlighted cruelly in the debacle that was Trump’s Warsaw summit. It was intended to solidify the forces opposed to Iran’s rôle in the Middle East, but instead only underscored America’s isolation and weakness in the region.

In fake news media outlets are apparently reporting that an attack on Jussie Smollett by racist and/or homophobic assailants is a hoax—this despite an ongoing investigation by the Chicago police. Smollett did note one correction to some media accounts—his assailants were not (he says) wearing maga hats. “I didn’t need to add anything like that,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t need some MAGA hat as the cherry on top of some racist sundae.” Both the Chicago police and Fox Entertainment dispute aspects of the hoax claims. ABC 7 in Chicago stands by its reporting, claiming (without any substantiation) that the actor was about to be written out of Empire (denied by the network) and staged the attack for publicity (possible, but unsubstantiated).

And finally the sporting-goods store owner who refused to carry Nike products to show his solidarity (I assume) with the racist police who kill unarmed black men has gone out of business. Good riddance, I say.

Breitbarting the News, Conservative Treehouse Style

W

ell, I finally took a look at that idiotic Conservative tree house site that Snopes mentioned as the source of that inept hatchet-job on Philando Castile I commented on the other day. It was about as inane as I figured it would be. I mean, it’s always a good idea to take a look at things for yourself if possible, and every once in awhile it pays off, but this wasn’t one of those times.

No, the article there is every bit as idiotic as advertised. The site turns out to be devoted to breitbarting the news, meaning that anything there would have to be checked against authentic sources before being considered, and a lot of disinformation is being passed on. For example it is stated as a fact (now disproved by the family’s release of the document) that Castile had no permit for his gun, and that it is a fact (now disproved by the officer’s own lawyer’s statement) that the car was not stopped for a broken taillight. I didn't bother with going any further; when a source gets things this elementary wrong it’s not worth my time and attention. Or yours either, I imagine.

A New Low in Victim Vilification

V

arious idiots writing about the police shooting of Philando Castile have made mistakes rising to the Peter Hasson level, though lapses of logic rather than misunderstandings of English. It’s all about wishful thinking—obviously if a police officer killed somebody, he must have had it coming. Troglodyte logic. So, it’s claimed, Philando Castile must have been up to no good. His gun, they say, was illegal. Where do they get this notion—I mean, besides pulling it out of thin air in a really unconvincing conjuring trick? Well, a local county sheriff noted that Castile had not applied to his office for a concealed carry permit—therefore, according to troglodyte logic Castile didn’t have one. Never mind that there are eighty-seven counties in Minnesota, and therefore eighty-six other counties that could have issued it. So far such evidence as we have is that he had such a permit; according to the Star Tribune “a source confirmed Castile was issued the permit when he lived in Robbinsdale” and as of this moment at least no official source has claimed otherwise. Time and new evidence (of course) could change this, but there is no reason to suppose that these idiots have anything of the sort.

These same idiots are claiming that Philando Castile was a suspect who was wanted for armed robbery—this on no basis whatsoever except pure speculation, as far as I can tell. It is possible—based on a recording of unknown origin that may document the rationale of the officer that pulled Castile over for a broken taillight—that Castile was targeted because an officer thought his nose resembled that of a man wanted for armed robbery—but even if we consider the information as valid, that’s a far cry from the claim that Castile was wanted for armed robbery. Apparently—and I haven’t seen this for myself in the wild so to speak—people are claiming that Castile’s girlfriend smoked Newport cigarettes—the very brand that was stolen during the armed robbery—and that this somehow constitutes evidence of malfeasance or whatever. This doesn’t even rise to the level of troglodyte logic. By that line of argument anybody who has a twenty-dollar-bill in his possession could be considered as a suspect for any bank or convenience-store robbery in which twenty-dollar-bills were among the loot.

According to Snopes this dumbassary goes back to an article in Conservative Treehouse, whatever that may be. It figures, I suppose. There are a lot of people out there with no brains and too much time on their hands. I’m not in the least surprised that people are trying to vilify the victim of a police shooting—that’s just par for the course these days. I am surprised, however, by the poor quality of this hatchet-job.