Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1208 (SoD #1999) - Zero Fucks Were Given - WEEKLY HODGE for 2008.08
Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #1208 (SoD #1999) - Zero Fucks Were Given - WEEKLY HODGE for 2008.08
Hi Mom,
Welcome to the weekly collection of things you do not care about, but that I care about, and I hope readers will care about, though I suspect that no one even skims these weekly collections. Is that true?
If you even looked at this, please leave me a comment.
The "zero fucks given" line is popular in memes and appears in the final video at the end of the post (before the 1999 year content): "Visit Hawaii."
Lots of stuff in this post to get angry about. But the reality is that there is no reality. The reality you think exists, the government, especially Occupier in Chief, will tell you that you're wrong. Like you can't look at the success of the U.S. in terms of deaths as a percentage of population. You just can't look at it that way.
You can't?
Because it makes Trump look really bad because the U.S. has really FUCKED UP the handling of this public health crisis. And then Congress cannot make a deal to help Americans, because, ZERO FUCKS GIVEN.
But hey, over 160,000 people have died of this very contagious, uncontrolled virus that many Americans don't give a fuck about (zero fucks) or think is a hoax. Nearly five million reported cases, but data projections suggest real numbers are ten times that, so FIFTY MILLION people with now or have had the virus.
Oh but don't wear a mask because you have trouble breathing or think it treads on your rights. So just be asymptomatic and just infects however many hundreds of people you are near while you are contagious.
And well at workers who put themselves at risk every day to serve people ice cream or sell them foot fungus treatment or whatever because the law states that they must make you wear a mask to give you service in A PUBLIC FUCKING HEALTH CRISIS. Yeah, well at those people and be mean to them because you are some privileged asshole and have a right to take out your own personal repressed bullshit on some minimum wage worker.
Fuck you, maskless asshat.
Okay, I am getting worked up.
Just look at the content. So much to get nuts about.
Whatever.
So, the way the numbering is working lately is that each number represents a year in my life. I am up to 1999, which means that tomorrow I post SENSE OF DOUBT #2000. I have nothing special planned for that. Just the usual thing. COMIC BOOK SUNDAY. I am inclined to keep it that way.
Here's the 1999 story and collection of great newsy bits.
We can't expect some mass exodus back to reality among Trump supporters, of course. It's very common for people who have been defrauded to refuse to admit it, and to defend the con man who targeted them, rather than admit that they were wrong in the first place. This is visible in cults like Jonestown or Heaven's Gate, where members may be willing to die before conceding they should never have followed their cult leader. Trump's approval rating remains stuck at a stubborn 40%, so now we know: That's the proportion of Americans who would rather risk death from a pandemic than admit that maybe the liberals were right all along. — Amanda Marcotte at Salon
But McConnell was at least deeply offended that Pelosi told CNBC host Jim Cramer earlier that Republicans prefer eliminating government, not doing government stuff when Americans are in need. (Factcheck: true.)
Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn. [...] See, the thing is, they don't believe in governance, and that requires some act of government to do that.
While he wouldn't bother getting involved in the negotiations, McConnell did appear separately on CNBC to repeat his party's line that there's no sense extending $600 per week emergency unemployment benefits because they supposedly prevent people from going back to jobs that have disappeared.
I think we should not continue the process of paying some people more not to work than to work. I do think we need to adjust whatever unemployment compensation bonus there is to reflect that it's not fair for your neighbor to stay home and make more and you go back to work and make less.
After Thursday's talks went nowhere, Pelosi said the problem was quite simple: Republicans "didn't take the virus seriously in the beginning, they're not taking the consequences of the virus seriously at this time. [...] And that's why it's hard to come to terms."
And then there was this thing Donald Trump said about Joe Biden today in Ohio:
TRUMP: NO RELIGION, NO ANYTHING! HURT THE BIBLE, HURT GOD! HE'S AGAINST GOD, HE'S AGAINST GUNS! HE'S AGAINST ENERGY!
That is an actual quote from total Christian Donald Trump, who once referenced "Two Corinthians" and who wouldn't tell Sarah Palin his favorite Bible verse during the 2016 campaign, because of how that's private information, like your Social Security number or your kinkiest sex fantasy. Also the guy who once autographed tornado survivors' Bibles in Alabama, because that's a thing men of the Lord do, when they're not busy grabbing them by the pussy and taking them furniture shopping.
You know, this guy, who is so good at "Bible" he holds it right-side up almost perfectlyduring an immature display of shitshow fascism, because his daughter brought it in her MaxMara bag as a prop:
But that's not the votes Trump needs to win. He needs normal people. Deranged ranting about how Joe Biden is going to hurt the Bible and hurt God and also hurt guns is not going to get him normal people. Normal people know Joe Biden has been extremely outspoken about his Catholic faith his entire public career, and they are not going to buy that he is going to "hurt God" or "hurt the Bible."
Speaking of Catholics, Trump said this to the Catholics on the EWTN network yesterday, when asked what message he wants Catholic viewers to take away:
Q: And if there was one message you wanted to say to our viewers, what would it be right now?
TRUMP: Well, I think anybody having to do with, frankly, religion, but certainly the Catholic Church, you have to be with President Trump. When it comes to pro-life, when it comes to all of the things -- these people are going to take all of your rights away, including Second Amendment, because, you know, Catholics like their Second Amendment. So I saved the Second Amendment. I have — if I wasn't here, you wouldn't have a Second Amendment. And pro-life is your big thing and you won't be on that side of the issue, I guarantee, if the radical Left, because they're going to take over, they're going to push him around like he was nothing.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera ... TV!
For the record, Biden campaign spox Andrew Bates responded to Trump's comments about how Biden is going to get God in a headlock and give him the noogie of all noogies:
Joe Biden's faith is at the core of who he is; he's lived it with dignity his entire life, and it's been a source of strength and comfort in times of extreme hardship. Donald Trump is the only president in our history to have tear-gassed peaceful Americans and thrown a priest out of his church just so he could profane it -- and a Bible -- for his own cynical optics as he sought to tear our nation apart at a moment of crisis and pain. And this comes just one day after Trump's campaign abused a photo of Joe Biden praying in church to demean him, in one of the starkest expressions of weakness throughout this whole campaign.
OK then.
We don't think this whole Bible Wars thing is going to work out very well for Trump.
When we got our first snippet of Axios's big interview with Donald Trump, it confirmed our suspicions that even though Trump has talked to his Russian daddy Vladdy EIGHT TIMES since February, he hasn't bothered to say anything about how Putin has most likely been paying Taliban fighters to murder American troops in Afghanistan. Just didn't come up. Not on his mind. He thinks it's fake news, even though it's been in his briefings multiple times.
The president of the United States is an unhinged bastard who is actively working against America.
And now the full interview is out, and surprise, the president of the United States is an unhinged bastard who is actively working against America. This is 37 minutes of the most deranged shit we have ever seen from Trump, and credit goes to Axios's Jonathan Swan for not putting up with it.
Want to see Trump pore confusedly over elementary-school-level charts about the coronavirus, while bragging about how well he's handled the virus that's killed more than 150,000 Americans? Want to see Trump, when Swan responds with incredulity that 1,000 Americans are dying per day, say "It is what it is," and then continue bragging?
Want to see Trump completely unable to come up with anything to say about John Lewis, besides that Lewis didn't go to his inauguration, and Trump has done more for Black people than anybody except maybe Abraham Lincoln? Because of how that is the only thing Trump knows about John Lewis, and that is the only rehearsed line he has about Black people?
Want to see him tell accused child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell to have a great summer again?
All of that is here, in this Axios interview. And so much more!
United States Better At Coronavirus Than Whole World, According To These Charts My Grandkids Made, Maybe!
Here is the clip you must start with:
"We can look at some of these charts," said Trump about his pretty coronavirus charts. "I'd love to," said Swan, who was like are you fucking kidding me, but with a British AUSTRALIAN! (our bad!) accent. "We're gonna look," Trump confirmed. "Let's look," Swan agreed again.
At which point Trump, with confusion all over his face, showed Swan a chart showing that "Right here, the United States is lowest in numerous categories, we're lower than the world!" Swan replied, "Lower than the world? What does that ... "
And Swan made this face, which he made approximately a thousand times during the 37-minute interview:
SWAN: Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the US is really bad.
TRUMP: Wuh, uh, wuh ...
SWAN: Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.
TRUMP: You can't do that!
He can't? It is not allowed to look at the death rate in proportion to the US population? HENNNGH?
We are all Jonathan Swan's face responding to this whole fucking thing.
Trump kept shuffling his papers and showing off his charts that looked like they were prepared for grandpa by Junior's children, or maybe Eric with some fingerpaints, where they picked out what colors they think grandpa would like (not black). When Swan brought up that only 300 people have died in South Korea, Trump protested, "You don't know that!"
And Swan made the face again, because was Trump really saying South Korea is lying about its numbers? Fuck off.
Here is one of Trump's very pretty charts:
Trump offered more of his stupid theories on how we only have so many cases because we do so many tests, and Swan responded that any way you look at it, 60,000 Americans are hospitalized, and death rates are going up. Trump said NO, NUH UH, FAKE NEWS, and said Jonathan Swan is reporting the fake news incorrectly.
Besides, Trump protested, the "manuals" say you shouldn't do so much testing! What manuals? THE MANUALS, JONATHAN.
TRUMP: You know, there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that.
SWAN: Who says that? TRUMP: Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books.
Just watch it. It's bugfuck. He literally lives in his own self-created fantasy world where he's doing a good job. And all those 1,000 people dying per day? "It is what it is."
TRUMP: I think it's under control. I'll tell you what.
SWAN: How? A thousand Americans are dying a day!
TRUMP: They are dying! That's true! It is what it is. But that doesn't mean we aren't doing everything we can!
The U.S. is approaching 5 million confirmed cases; more than 150,000 people have died. Last week, the country averaged more than 60,000 new cases each day. By comparison, in Italy, an early hotspot of the virus, on Monday there were 159 new coronavirus cases reported.
Oh well Italy probably just doesn't test anybody, which is why nobody has coronavirus there anymore.
Ayup.
Trump Doesn't Know Who John Lewis Is, Just Knows He Didn't Come To Trump's Inauguration
Trump has zero fucking clue what Jonathan Swan is talking about in this clip, but he's pretty sure just the same that this is a conversation about him, and not John Lewis:
AXIOS on HBO: President Donald Trump on John Lewis (Promo) | HBOwww.youtube.com
TRUMP: I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He chose, uh, I never met John Lewis, actually, I don't believe.
SWAN: Do you find him impressive?
TRUMP: Uhhhhhhhh ... I can't say one way or the other, I find a lot of people impressive, I find a lot many people not impressive, but ...
SWAN: Do you find his story impressive?
TRUMP: He didn't come to my inauguration. He didn't come to my State of the Union speeches. And that's OK, that's his right. And, again, nobody has done more for black Americans than I have. He should've come. I think he made a big mistake.
Swan, exasperated, tried to get Dipshit to answer the question by "taking your relationship of out it," which was so revealing, because there is no scenario where Donald Trump can talk about any subject without putting himself at the center of it. It's never not astounding just how broken and irredeemable Trump is.
Trump finally said Lewis did a lot for civil rights, but added that many others did a lot for civil rights, also, too. He also said he'd be fine with renaming the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma after Lewis, though. Probably because he doesn't own a hotel next to it and therefore has no idea what the hell it is.
Now compare that to Barack Obama speaking at Lewis's funeral. Or don't, because it's too depressing.
HAVE THE BEST SUMMER, GHISLAINE! STAY SWEET!
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump lied some more and cast doubts on the legitimacy of his impending loss, blaming it on mail-in-voting. This interview was taped before Trump got on Twitter and whined about how the election should be delayed, in order to extend his illegitimate reign. He's going to be singing this song until he's wheeled out of the White House screaming and crying, so just get ready.
Oh yeah, and he just really has some more best wishes for accused child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, to add to his warmest regards from a couple weeks ago:
SWAN: Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested on allegations of child sex trafficking. Why would you wish her well?
TRUMP: Well first of all, I don't know that. [...] Her friend, or boyfriend, was either killed or committed suicide in jail. She's now in jail. Yeah, I wish her well. I'd wish you well. I'd wish a lot of people well. Good luck! Let them prove somebody was guilty!
So that was some weird shit.
Here is the full interview if you want to watch it because you hate your life and have nothing better to do:
AXIOS on HBO: President Trump Exclusive Interview (Full Episode) | HBOwww.youtube.com
Deranged. Absolutely deranged.
We are 91 days from the election. What are you doing today to make sure we dropkick that motherfucker out the door, with votes? Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter RIGHT HERE, DO IT RIGHT HERE! Wonkette is fully funded by readers like YOU. If you love Wonkette, WE NEED YOUR LOVE GIFTS TO KEEP US GOING.
Posted by BeauHD from the one-down-many-more-to-go dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC:Facebook has deleted a large group dedicated to sharing and discussing QAnon conspiracy theories. QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that a "deep state" network of powerful government, business and media figures are waging a secret war against Donald Trump. A Facebook spokeswoman said the group was removed for "repeatedly posting content that violated our policies." The deleted Facebook group, called Official Q/Qanon, had nearly 200,000 members. There are, however, many other QAnon groups that are currently still active on the platform. Reuters reports that Official Q/QAnon "crossed the line" on bullying, harassment, hate speech and the sharing of potentially harmful misinformation.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from SyFy:For the first time, scientists have detected neutrinos coming from the Sun's core that got their start via the CNO process, an until-now theorized type of stellar nuclear fusion. [...] The Borexino neutrino observatory is 1400 meters under the rock below the Gran Sasso mountain in Italy. It has an 8.5 meter wide nylon balloon filled with 280 tons of pseudocumene, surrounded by a tank of water, surrounded by over 2200 very sensitive photon detectors. They turned everything on, then waited. Over the course of July 2016 - February 2020 (1072 days), they painstakingly recorded all the events, and had to go through heroic efforts to prevent all manners of other reactions that also create little light flashes from interfering with their experiment. They also had to distinguish proton-proton chain neutrinos from ones made in the CNO cycle, but the neutrinos have different energies, which makes it possible to separate them out. They just announced their results: They detected the CNO neutrinos! About 20 per day interacted with the pseudocumene -- 20 per day, when sextillions of them had passed through! -- about what you'd expect from theory.
This is an important discovery for a lot of reasons. For one thing, while the proton-proton chain dominates in the Sun, in stars with more than about 1.3 times the Sun's mass the CNO cycle dominates (it kicks in strongly at higher temperatures), so knowing how it works in the Sun tells us about other stars. Also, the presence of heavier elements (what astronomers misleadingly call metals, meaning any element heavier than hydrogen and helium) can affect the fusion rate in the Sun's CNO cycle, and the amount of these metals isn't perfectly well known; different methods to measure them yield slightly different amounts, but enough to mess up what we know about the fusion in the core. This experiment agrees with ones that find a lower metal content. That has a ripple effect on a lot of other ideas, including details on how we think the Sun and planets formed, how the Sun ages, and how it will die. All that, from less than two dozen neutrinos a day, while countless more go undetected.
UPI reports:Efforts to save the giant panda from extinction have come at the expense of other large mammals, a new study released Monday by the science journal Nature Ecology and Evolution said...
Since the giant panda reserves were set up in China during the 1960s, leopards have disappeared from 81% of reserves, snow leopards from 38%, wolves from 77% and Asian wild dogs from 95%.
Posted by EditorDavid from the weighty-matters dept.
jd (Slashdot reader #1,658) writes:The large scale maps of the universe show something is seriously wrong with current models of gravity and dark matter. The universe simply isn't clumping right and, no, it's not the new improved formula. As you go from the early universe to the present day, gravity should cause things to clump in specific ways.
It isn't. Which means dark matter can't be cold and general relativity may have a problem.
They need more data to prove it's not just a freaky part of the universe they're looking at, which is being collected.
"The new results come from the Kilo-Degree Survey, or KiDS, which uses the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to map the distribution of matter across our universe," according to the Independent:So far, it has charted roughly 5% of the extragalactic sky, from an analysis of 31 million galaxies that are as much as 10 billion light years away... That allows researchers to build up a picture of all matter in the universe, of which some 90 per cent is invisible, made up of dark matter and tenuous gas.
THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT
I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.
WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT
Anyway, as usual, here's the weekly links to the data about cases (lower than reality) and deaths (lower than reality, also) due to COVID-19.
Worldometer manually analyzes, validates, and aggregates data from thousands of sources in real time and provides global COVID-19 live statisticsfor a wide audience of caring people around the world.
Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.
Facebook-owned Instagram disabled ‘related hashtags’ for key Trump content, blocking potentially negative messages. Biden didn’t get the same treatment.
Instagram has shielded President Donald Trump from potentially negative hashtags while allowing parallel content about Joe Biden to be hijacked by disinformation and smears, according to a Tech Transparency Project (TTP) investigation that reveals the platform’s uneven treatment of the two candidates heading into the 2020 election.
When a person searches Instagram for a hashtag and clicks on it, the platform has automatically generated “related hashtags” pointing users to other relevant content. TTP examined related hashtags for 20 popular terms associated with the Trump and Biden campaigns and found starkly different treatment of the two candidates.
Instagram blocked the display of related hashtags on all 10 of the Trump hashtags reviewed, including #donaldtrump, #trump and #trump2020. That means users were not directed to other content, including anything negative or critical about the president.
But for all 10 similar Biden hashtags, Instagram did display related hashtags, which at times steered users to insults and disinformation about the former vice president, with phrases like #creepyjoebiden, #joebidenpedophile and #joebidenisaracist.
Instagram appeared to turn off all related hashtags after a reporter from BuzzFeed, with whom TTP shared its findings, asked the company on Tuesday for comment on why it blocked related hashtags for key Trump content and not for parallel Biden content.
In one example of the dynamic TTP found, #joebiden produced related hashtags that included #creepyjoebiden, which led to images and memes frequently mocking Biden over allegations that he has engaged in too-familiar or inappropriate touching of women. Some Trump allies have adopted the “creepy Joe” mantra in their 2020 political advertising.
Similarly, the Instagram hashtag #keepamericagreat, a reference to Trump’s 2020 campaign slogan, featured no related hashtags, while #nomalarkey, the name of a Biden campaign bus tour, pointed users to hashtags that included #joebidenpedophile. That’s a reference to a baseless charge against Biden that’s been amplified by the president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.
The pattern was repeated with Trump slogans like #maga (short for “Make America Great Again”) and #draintheswamp, which displayed no related hashtags, and Biden-themed phrases like #ridinwithbiden, which included related hashtags for #joebidenisaracist and other negative or divisive messages.
It’s not clear why Instagram blocked related hashtags for key Trump-themed content and not for parallel Biden content. It appears to be a custom service that the company did not advertise but performed for certain political figures and celebrities in the past.
TTP captured its results on July 16. While the 10 popular Trump topics examined by TTP all had the related hashtag feature turned off, some other Trump-themed content on Instagram, like #donaldtrump2020 and #donaldjtrump, did display related hashtags.
Still, the disparate treatment of the two candidates in ways that could influence the presidential campaign raises serious questions for Instagram, a Facebook-owned social media platform with an estimated 112 million users in the United States.
Blocking related hashtags for Trump could be construed under campaign finance law as an in-kind donation, and it opened the door for weaponized disinformation against the Biden campaign on a platform that was exploited by Russia during the 2016 election.
The revelations may also fuel claims that Facebook put its finger on the scales for Trump, amid reports that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has held a number of private conversations with the president.
Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that he has a secret understanding with Trump, telling Axios, “There’s no deal of any kind,” and calling such talk “pretty ridiculous.”
Hashtag Elections
Instagram is an increasingly vital tool to reach young voters. According to a 2019 report by the Pew Research Center, 67% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 use Instagram. Of those, more than three quarters—76%—visit the site on a daily basis, and 60% report doing so several times per day.
Hashtags are used on Instagram to organize content and connect people to communities with shared interests. Search results for Instagram hashtags are also indexed by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. That has made them a powerful force in digital marketing and political campaigns.
But voters who turned to Instagram to learn more about the candidates may have been directed, via related hashtags, toward negative and inaccurate information about Biden.
The popularity of these hashtags was driven by users, not the official Trump and Biden campaigns. That left them open to being influenced by anyone who knows how to game the system, making them an easy target of misinformation efforts.
During the 2016 presidential race, the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) made heavy use of Instagram to try to suppress voter turnout and disparage Democrat Hillary Clinton. As the Senate Intelligence Committeenoted in a 2019 report, the IRA's Instagram accounts “focused on both the political left and right in America, and exploited the social, political, and cultural issues most likely to incite impassioned response across the ideological spectrum.”
According to the report, the IRA by some measures exploited Instagram more than Facebook—for example, publishing nearly twice as many posts (116,000) on Instagram. Despite that trend, Instagram’s role in the Russian election interference has often been overlooked as attention focused on Facebook and Twitter, the report noted:
The use of Instagram by the IRA, and Instagram's centrality as a channel for disseminating disinformation and societally divisive content, has escaped much of the media and public attention that has focused on other social media platforms.
Facebook’s Promises
Facebook has been well aware that Instagram hashtags are a powerful tool that can be abused during election campaigns.
In an October 2019 blog post, Facebook touted its efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation on Instagram, including removing it from hashtags and search results. But TTP’s review found that Instagram continued to serve related hashtags like #creepyjoebiden and #joebidenpedophile on Biden content.
TTP found no mention in Instagram’s policy website, help center or Facebook’s hashtag guidance offering campaigns or brands the ability to turn off related hashtags. Beyond the Trump campaign, it appears to have been done on an ad hoc basis for some politicians, celebrities and Instagram executives.
Before Instagram appeared to remove all related hashtags this week, TTP identified a number of terms associated with prominent public figures that had the related hashtags feature turned off, including #obama, #jaredkushner, #tedcruz, #joshhawley, #kevinsystrom, and #mileycyrus.
One interesting case is Instagram's treatment of the hashtag for Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager. On June 23, #bradparscale displayed no related hashtags, TTP observed. But after Parscale’s recent demotion, TTP noticed on July 21 that related hashtags had begun appearing on #bradparscale, suggesting the switch had something to do with his changed status. (The related hashtags are now off again following Instagram’s action this week.)
Whatever the reason, Instagram’s practice of turning off related hashtags for Trump but not for Biden could raise questions about the company’s adherence to campaign finance law.
According to the Federal Election Commission, goods or services offered for free or at less than the usual charge represent an in-kind contribution, which are subject to the same limits as gifts of money and require disclosure.
Facebook’s service of embedding staff with presidential campaigns (including the Trump campaign in 2016) raised similar questions about in-kind contributions. Facebook described the embeds as a form of “sales support” that is “consistent with support provided to commercial clients in the normal course of business.” But the company later said it would scale back the embed program.
Because I don't think we covered it over the weekend, Nebraska arrested an entire Black Lives Matter march, just all of 'em, right in the pokey. — Buzzfeed
Brittney Gilliam had taken her daughter, her sister, and two nieces to a nail salon in Aurora, Colorado. It would've been a fun family outing during otherwise trying times, but they didn't have a chance to enjoy any Black girl magic before the cops showed up. Those cops bum-rushed Gilliam and the four children with guns drawn. The cops yelled at them to get out of the car. Once they had, the cops ordered Gilliam and the girls — 17, 14, 12, and six — to lie face down on the hot pavement. Gilliam, her 12-year-old sister, and 17-year-old niece were all handcuffed. John Lewis didn't march for nothing: The police at least need a reason these days to jack up Black folks. It just doesn't have to be a good one. They thought the car was stolen, and its likely priceless Blue Book value somehow justified terrorizing children, who are seen crying in the video that was posted on Facebook. Thank God for social media. As long as Black folks have a camera crew with us at all times, we might at least survive random encounters with the police.
When Gilliam asked why the minors were being handcuffed, the cops didn't immediately put her in a chokehold for "resisting." These were obviously the “good cops" we hear so much about. The officers told Gilliam that they "handcuff kids when they get hostile," which means they have a general "handcuff Black kids" policy because no child is cool like Fonzie when people are pointing guns at them and handcuffing their loved ones.
There's no excuse for treating children this way even if Gilliam was a car thief, but she's not! It was all a mistake, one that just keeps happening as if it's the desired outcome.
Gilliam's car was stolen in February but they were eventually reunited. She offered to show the police her vehicle registration and insurance paperwork. It's as if she's the one who's had training in police work and peaceful conflict resolution. The police had also somehow mistaken Gilliam's SUV for a stolen motorcycle, which even I know are two different types of vehicles.
Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson just got this crap job Monday and has spent most of her time apologizing for her button men's behavior. Last month, when she was still interim chief, Wilson had to smooth things over after some ghouls in her department were revealed to have taken photos mocking the brutal death of Elijah McClain, whom Aurora police cruelly killed last year.
If the police suspected that the car was stolen, they could've just asked Gilliam for proof of ownership, but as Wilson explained, that might pose a level of risk to trained officers who are armed. Can't have that. Better play it safe and only risk the six-year-old pissing her pants.
WILSON: We have been training our officers that when they contact a suspected stolen car, they should do what is called a high-risk stop. This involves drawing their weapons and ordering all occupants to exit the car and lie prone on the ground. But we must allow our officers to have discretion and to deviate from this process when different scenarios present themselves.
OK, I've already spotted a problem. If you allow officers “discretion," they're going to point guns at Black people and handcuff them. That's their go-to response. They have to do it. It's part of their lifestyle. You need to make not hurting Black people a non-negotiable rule, but cops will threaten to quit if that's even a mild suggestion.
WILSON: I have already directed my team to look at new practices and training.
“New practices and training" aren't going to stop the police from seeing and treating Black people like animals. If a human-resembling person can hear these children's screams and feel fine with what they're doing, no training can help them.
The cops released Gilliam and the kids once they realized their mistake, but they shouldn't expect a medal.
WILSON: I have called the family to apologize and to offer any help we can provide, especially for the children who may have been traumatized by yesterday's events. I have reached out to our victim advocates so we can offer age-appropriate therapy that the city will cover.
Hooray!
Most white people have positive stories about cops. I don't know them that way. One of my earliest memories is of my cousin coming to our house in tears. A cop had pulled her over at night and ordered her to remove the tint from her windows, with her fingers, at gunpoint. She was 16.
There was probably a law, a rule, of course. That's what even white liberals might reflexively think when they hear stories about police mistreating Black people. The problem is those rules are not applied to everyone. White people freak out when you ask them to wear a mask inside a Walmart.
Cops talk a lot about facing all the “bad people" out there — murderers, rapists, gangbangers, et al. They make it seem as if regular people never encounter criminals, either, and while conservatives might invoke the specter of "black-on-black crime," they express no appreciation for the Black experience in America. Criminals still prey on us while the police treat us no better than criminals. We have no respite, no safe harbor, and the pain and humiliation we suffer from the police are considered worth it if suburbanites can feel safe in their gated communities.
I used to just silently smirk whenever a white liberal or moderate would boast about how their Fox News-binging, Trump-enabling parents were becoming less racist. Maybe they have a Black friend now or went to a Beyoncé concert and enjoyed themselves. They're making progress! Give them some more time and “hearts and minds" will change.
It's unclear why recognition of Black people's humanity is on their timetable, but exactly how much more time do they need? As James Baldwin said, they've "taken my father's time, my mother's time, my uncle's time, my brothers' and my sisters' time, my nieces' and my nephew's time." Do they need the time of a six-year-old girl? My son is six years old, as well. You're not getting his time.
James Baldwin: How Much Time Do You Want For Your "Progress?"www.youtube.com
On Friday, the 11th Circuit issued an excellent decision in Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida, finding that schools violate students' civil and constitutional rights when they don't allow trans students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.
Because of this decision, trans students in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia will be able to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity, rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. It is a HUGE win for trans kids!
As the court held,
A public school may not punish its students for gender nonconformity. Neither may a public school harm transgender students by establishing arbitrary, separate rules for their restroom use. The evidence at trial confirms that Mr. Adams suffered both these indignities. The record developed in the District Court shows that the School Board failed to honor Mr. Adams's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX.
Fuck yeah!
This case is about a boy named Drew Adams. Drew and his family realized he was trans when he was in the eighth grade. He had already transitioned before he began attending Nease High School in St. Johns County, Florida.
Drew Adams was born in 2000. At birth, doctors examined Mr. Adams and recorded his sex as female. That female designation has vexed Mr. Adams throughout his young life. As Mr. Adams entered puberty, he suffered significant anxiety and depression about his developing body, and he sought the help of a therapist and a psychiatrist. In the eighth grade, after introspection and with the help of therapy, Mr. Adams came to realize he was transgender. He revealed to his parents that he was a boy, not a girl. Together, Mr. Adams and his family met with mental health professionals, who confirmed Adams was transgender. In time, Mr. Adams's psychiatrist diagnosed him with gender dysphoria, a condition of "debilitating distress and anxiety resulting from the incongruence between an individual's gender identity and birth-assigned sex." Mr. Adams's "gender identity"—his consistent, internal sense of gender—is male, but the sex assigned to him at birth was female.
As described by the court,
Drew Adams is a young man and recent graduate of Nease High School in Florida's St. Johns County School District. Mr. Adams is transgender, meaning when he was born, doctors assessed his sex and wrote "female" on his birth certificate, but today Mr. Adams knows "with every fiber of [his] being" that he is a boy.
For trans people, transitioning and living as who they really are is incredibly important.
Mr. Adams said transitioning led to "the happiest moments of my life," "finally figuring out who I was," and being "able to live with myself again."
For his first six weeks of ninth grade, Drew used the boys' bathroom. Then two anonymous girls who saw him enter the boys' room complained, because apparently they just really wanted to use the same bathroom as him. None of the boys Drew shared the bathroom with complained, but nonetheless, the school ordered him to stop using the boys' room.
While Mr. Adams attended Nease High School, school officials considered him a boy in all respects but one: he was forbidden to use the boys' restroom. Instead, Mr. Adams had the option of using the multi-stall girls' restrooms, which he found profoundly "insult[ing]." Or he could use a single-stall gender-neutral bathroom, which he found "isolati[ng]," "depress[ing]," "humiliating," and burdensome.
This made him feel
"alienated and humiliated" every time he "walk[ed] past the boys' restroom on his way to a gender-neutral bathroom, knowing every other boy is permitted to use it but him." Mr. Adams believed the bathroom policy sent "a message to other students who [saw Adams] use a 'special bathroom' that he is different."
It's important to remember just how vulnerable trans kids are. Studies have found that more than half of transgender adolescents have attempted suicide at least once. Trans kids routinely suffer from anxiety and depression, even without being ostracized by their schools. Transitioning and living fully in tune with their gender identity is an incredibly important step for transgender people.
Socially transitioning to using the men's restroom, Mr. Adams explained at trial, is "a statement to everyone around me that I am a boy. It's confirming my identity and confirming who I am, that I'm a boy. And it means a lot to me to be able to express who I am with such a simple action because . . . I'm just like every other boy."
The ultimate question in this case was whether the 14th Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Fourteenth Amendment, of course, requires "equal protection under the law. And Title IX states that no student
shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance
And
the Constitution does not tolerate any form of gender stereotyping on the basis of one's birth sex and sexual organs
The court found that the school and school board "demonstrated no substantial relationship between excluding Mr. Adams from the communal boys' restrooms and protecting student privacy." This, the judges found, led to three "constitutional infirmities" with the policy.
First, the policy is administered arbitrarily. The policy relies upon a student's enrollment documents to determine sex assigned at birth. This targets some transgender students for bathroom restrictions but not others. Second, the School Board's privacy concerns about Mr. Adams's use of the boys' bathroom are merely hypothesized, with no support in the factual record. Third, the School District's bathroom policy subjects Mr. Adams to unfavorable treatment simply because he defies gender stereotypes as a transgender person.
The opinion also noted that
The School Board's bathroom policy singles out transgender students for differential treatment because they are transgener: "Transgender students will be given access to a gender-neutral restroom and will not be required to use the restroom corresponding to their biological sex." The policy emphasized the School Board's position that no law required it to "allow a transgender student access to the restroom corresponding to their consistently asserted gender identity."
Drew has updated his driver's license and birth certificate, which now reflect who he really is. In every respect, he is a boy. Legally, he is a boy. But St. Johns County School District decided that it should treat him differently from other boys simply because he's trans. This, the court ruled, is an illegal reliance on sex stereotypes.
[T]the School District's bathroom policy labels Mr. Adams as a "girl" solely because of the gender assigned to him at birth based on his sexual organs. The policy advances gender stereotypes by deeming Mr. Adams "truly" female, even though he produced legal and medical documentation showing he was male.
The dissent, unfortunately, is a disgusting spew of bigotry. In it, 11th Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor rants for 28 pages about the "importance" of discriminating against trans students, saying repeatedly that "sex" is based on biology and not gender identity. We're going to refrain from quoting it here. Transphobes already have more than enough places to spew their hatred.
But the decision and the dissent dissent act as a reminder of just how important federal judicial appointments are, even when the Republican nominee isn't the absolute horror show that is Donald Trump. The two judges in the majority, Judges Beverly Martin and Jill Pryor, were Obama appointees. Judge William Pryor is a W. appointee. (And no, the two Pryors are not related.)
This case could be a preface to a battle in front of the Supreme Court. So far, the 11th Circuit, Sixth Circuit, and Seventh Circuit are the only federal appellate courts to consider this issue. They, and most of the federal district courts who have ruled in similar cases, have found that unequal treatment of trans kids is a constitutional and civil rights violation.
The court also relies on the recent Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which found that discrimination against people because they are transgender is illegal sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Bostock, Neil Gorsuch joined the court's libs to declare that discrimination against trans people because they are trans is, quite literally, sex discrimination. When a person is treated differently solely because they are transgender, what else can it be but discrimination on the basis of sex?
So if this does end up before SCOTUS, hopefully Neil Gorsuch, textualist, will stay consistent in his thinking!
At the end of the day, this is a great decision that will help better the daily lives of trans kids throughout Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, three states where discrimination against trans students is ubiquitous.
Drew was represented in this case by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. which does amazing work on behalf of LGBTQ people all around the country.
A big congrats to Lambda Legal, Drew Adams, and all trans kids who are fighting this fight!
Here's the opinion!
Things we learned from the Obama stimulus/bailout: This one is TOO SMALL. (Politico)
"U.S. prosecutors do not charge Portland protesters with antifa ties." Well, Reuters, why would they charge them with something that is in no way, shape, or form against the law?
Aurora, Colorado, police continue to cover themselves in glory, we mean continue to handcuff entire Black families facedown on hot asphalt after confusing their license plate for someone else. I've already seen the newly named lady police chief look sick and apologize for her force more than I've ever seen any cop apologize ever. And she was named chief on Monday. (ABC)
We can't expect some mass exodus back to reality among Trump supporters, of course. It's very common for people who have been defrauded to refuse to admit it, and to defend the con man who targeted them, rather than admit that they were wrong in the first place. This is visible in cults like Jonestown or Heaven's Gate, where members may be willing to die before conceding they should never have followed their cult leader. Trump's approval rating remains stuck at a stubborn 40%, so now we know: That's the proportion of Americans who would rather risk death from a pandemic than admit that maybe the liberals were right all along. — Amanda Marcotte at Salon
Oh that's weird, all the Kanye West campaign people are Republican Trumpers! Huh! (New York mag)
Does Trump think he's supposed to get a taste, for "protection"? Trump Demands That His Government Should Take a 'Substantial' Cut of TikTok Purchase Fee. (TechCrunch)
The biggest Trump financial mystery? Where he came up with the cash for his Scottish resorts. — Mother Jones
Yes, sometimes social justice warriors are shitty fabulists who make things up for attention. "The Anonymous Professor Who Wasn't: A professor at Arizona State University does not exist."— New York Times
"Jesus was white. Did he have white privilege?" Michael Harriot hurts some poor evangelical idiot who never did nothing to nobody. Just kidding, GET HIM. — The Root
Team Fucking Ratched, like did the rest of you even read-watch the same Cuckoo's Nest I read-watched?
There are countless ways for a cheese to disappear. Some, like Holbrook's, die with their makers. Others fall out of favor because they're simply not good: one extinct Suffolk cheese, "stony-hard" because it was made only with skimmed milk, was so notoriously bad that, in 1825, the Hampshire Chronicle reported that one ship's cargo of grindstones was eaten by rats while the neighboring haul of Suffolk cheese escaped untouched.
Politico did another one of those reports this week, this time on how the CIA feels about Senate's Dumbest Republican Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and his almost certainly Kremlin-inspired campaign to manufacture bullshit investigations into the Bidens in Ukraine, for the benefit of Trump's campaign, all of which redounds to the benefit of Russia.
SPOILER: The CIA is not impressed.
Andrew Desiderio and Natasha Bertrand, two of the finest, report:
The Central Intelligence Agency has ignored requests to brief senators as part of a Republican-led investigation that targets presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter, according to sources familiar with the matter and an email described to POLITICO.
You know, usually in the Trump era, when agencies are telling Congress to fuck off, it's a bad thing, because they're clearly trying to cover up crimes and corruption and grift and incompetence. But in this case, it sounds like the CIA is telling the GOP-led Senate Homeland Security Committee to fuck off, and we think that is hilarious. Especially because of how it's because they think Ron Johnson is "toxic":
The spy agency's resistance comes amid intelligence officials' deep skepticism of the probe, which is being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and focuses on Hunter Biden's role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Democrats argue the investigation is based on Russian disinformation aimed at tipping the outcome of the election toward President Donald Trump — a charge Johnson rejects. ['Cause he's dumb and a really easy mark for Kremlin disinformation campaigns. - Ed.]
Some intelligence officials similarly fear the Biden probe will only boost the Russian intervention. And while the motivations of the CIA are not certain, Johnson is considered "toxic" by some members of the intelligence community, according to people with direct knowledge of the dynamic.
Well then.
There's much more at the Politico link, and you should read it, but the main takeaway here is that Ron Johnson is full of shit, his investigation is full of shit, and every second he keeps it up is another second he's helping Russia have its way with yet another American presidential election.
Posted by BeauHD from the scrubbed-from-the-net dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:YouTube has banned a large number of Chinese accounts it said were engaging in "coordinated influence operations" on political issues, the company announced today; 2,596 accounts from China alone were taken down from April to June, compared with 277 in the first three months of 2020. "These channels mostly uploaded spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted political content primarily in Chinese similar to the findings in a recent Graphika report (PDF), including content related to the U.S. response to COVID-19," Google posted in its Threat Analysis Group bulletin for Q2.
The Graphika report, entitled "Return of the (Spamouflage) Dragon: Pro Chinese Spam Network Tries Again," [...] details a large set of accounts on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media that began to be activated early this year that appeared to be part of a global propaganda push: "The network made heavy use of video footage taken from pro-Chinese government channels, together with memes and lengthy texts in both Chinese and English. It interspersed its political content with spam posts, typically of scenery, basketball, models, and TikTok videos. These appeared designed to camouflage the operation's political content, hence the name." It's the "return" of this particular spam dragon because it showed up last fall in a similar form, and whoever is pulling the strings appears undeterred by detection. New, sleeper and stolen accounts were amassed again and deployed for similar purposes, though now -- as Google notes -- with a COVID-19 twist. When June rolled around, content was also being pushed related to the ongoing protests regarding the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and other racial justice matters.
Posted by BeauHD from the not-to-be-confused-with-cold-fusion dept.
Researchers at NASA's Glenn Research Center have now demonstrated a method of inducing nuclear fusion without building a massive stellarator or tokamak. In fact, all they needed was a bit of metal, some hydrogen, and an electron accelerator. IEEE Spectrum reports:The team believes that their method, called lattice confinement fusion, could be a potential new power source for deep space missions. They have published their results in twopapers in Physical Review C. "Lattice confinement" refers to the lattice structure formed by the atoms making up a piece of solid metal. The NASA group used samples of erbium and titanium for their experiments. Under high pressure, a sample was "loaded" with deuterium gas, an isotope of hydrogen with one proton and one neutron. The metal confines the deuterium nuclei, called deuterons, until it's time for fusion.
"During the loading process, the metal lattice starts breaking apart in order to hold the deuterium gas," says Theresa Benyo, an analytical physicist and nuclear diagnostics lead on the project. "The result is more like a powder." At that point, the metal is ready for the next step: overcoming the mutual electrostatic repulsion between the positively-charged deuteron nuclei, the so-called Coulomb barrier. To overcome that barrier requires a sequence of particle collisions. First, an electron accelerator speeds up and slams electrons into a nearby target made of tungsten. The collision between beam and target creates high-energy photons, just like in a conventional X-ray machine. The photons are focused and directed into the deuteron-loaded erbium or titanium sample. When a photon hits a deuteron within the metal, it splits it apart into an energetic proton and neutron. Then the neutron collides with another deuteron, accelerating it. At the end of this process of collisions and interactions, you're left with a deuteron that's moving with enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier and fuse with another deuteron in the lattice.
Key to this process is an effect called electron screening, or the shielding effect. Even with very energetic deuterons hurtling around, the Coulomb barrier can still be enough to prevent fusion. But the lattice helps again. "The electrons in the metal lattice form a screen around the stationary deuteron," says Benyo. The electrons' negative charge shields the energetic deuteron from the repulsive effects of the target deuteron's positive charge until the nuclei are very close, maximizing the amount of energy that can be used to fuse. Aside from deuteron-deuteron fusion, the NASA group found evidence of what are known as Oppenheimer-Phillips stripping reactions. Sometimes, rather than fusing with another deuteron, the energetic deuteron would collide with one of lattice's metal atoms, either creating an isotope or converting the atom to a new element. The team found that both fusion and stripping reactions produced useable energy.
Posted by BeauHD from the malicious-extensions dept.
An anonymous reader writes:More than 80 million Chrome users have installed one of 295 Chrome extensions that have been identified to hijack and insert ads inside Google and Bing search results. The malicious extensions were discovered by AdGuard, a company that provides ad-blocking solutions, while the company's staff was looking into a series of fake ad-blocking extensions that were available on the official Chrome Web Store. AdGuard says that most of the extensions (245 out of the 295 extensions) were simplistic utilities that had no other function than to apply a custom background for Chrome's "new tab" page. In addition to the 295 cluster, AdGuard also found a large number of copycat extensions that cloned popular add-ons to capitalize on their brands, and then load malicious code that performed ad fraud or cookie stuffing.ZDNet has the full list of 295 Chrome extensions embedded in their article.
The NRA is in deep shit, ya'll. And we are so here for it!
This morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James dropped a massive lawsuit seeking to dissolve the gunhumpers lobby for doing allllll the self-dealing and violating laws governing public charities.
From the jump the NYAG comes out with guns blazing:
For nearly three decades, Wayne LaPierre has served as the chief executive officer of the NRA and has exploited the organization for his financial benefit, and the benefit of a close circle of NRA staff, board members, and vendors. Contrary to his statutory duties of care, loyalty and obedience to the mission of the charity, LaPierre has undertaken a series of actions to consolidate his position; to exploit that position for his personal benefit and that of his family; to continue, by use of a secret "poison pill contract," his employment even after removal and ensuring NRA income for life; and to intimidate, punish, and expel anyone at a senior level who raised concerns about his conduct. The effect has been to divert millions of dollars away from the charitable mission, imposing substantial reductions in its expenditures for core program services, including gun safety, education, training, member services and public affairs.
Which is no surprise to readers of this here recipe and mommyblog, since we've been covering the fallout from the NRA's legal trench war with its longtime media partner Ackerman McQueen for over a year now. We already knew about the tackyass fake chateau the NRA tried to buy for LaPierre, the credit card he used to route all his expenses through Ackerman and keep them off the charity's books, and the tens of thousands of dollars the "charity" forked over for Susan LaPierre's hair and makeup expenses.
We know exactly why the case names former NRA chief of staff Josh Powell, former chief financial officer Wilson Phillips, and former general counsel John Frazer — who greenlighted this bonanza of corruption — along with Ol' Wayne as co-defendants in this case. And if the NYAG wins, those fellas are going to have to dig deep into their own pockets, since New York law imposes restitution of "up to double the value of each benefit improperly bestowed by such transactions." You love to see it!
We'll give you the lawsplainer you deserve tomorrow after we dig deep down into the nitty-gritty of this 169-page behemoth. But the short version is that public charities can't do business with their own board members — AKA a "related party transaction" — and their officers are legally obligated to use donor money appropriately and account for it transparently in their annual disclosures.
But just to give you a taste, let's talk about Wayne LaPierre's travel agent. The NRA's own policies require all travel arrangements to be routed through the organization's travel office, unless LaPierre signed off. They also call for expenses over $100,000 to be run by the NRA's board which ... LOL, that's more of a suggestion, yaknow?
According to the complaint, since the 1990s, "LaPierre has booked his travel through a travel consultant based in Woodland Hills, CA. The travel consultant bills the NRA through two companies: Inventive Incentive & Insurance Services Inc. and GS2 Enterprises." And indeed, they were quite inventive with their incentives!
In 2014, the travel consultant billed the NRA $15,000 per month to book LaPierre's travel. Very occasionally the consultant did work for another NRA executive, but almost all of that $15,000 was to book flights for the NRA's president. But how can anyone live on such a paltry sum, you are asking?
Don't worry, in 2015 that monthly fee was raised to $19,000.
Was there a written contract? There was not!
But wait, there's more! Because between February 2013 and July 2018, Ackerman McQueen was also forking over $4,000 to the inventive travel agents, and passing the bills on to the NRA. And for those of you doing the math, that would be $276,000 a year. Which seems like A LOT.
Then when things went sideways with Ackerman last year, that $4,000/month dried up. So to make up the shortfall — and then some — the NRA entered into a contract with the world's most expensive flight booker to increase her annual pay to $318,000. Which they justified by saying that they 100 percent needed a dedicated travel agent to ensure LaPierre's safety in these troubling times.
In an accompanying business case analysis, it provides that "[f]or the security of our principals, in this sensitive environment we sometimes face, we believe there is no other company that can provide the service and discretion that [LaPierre's Travel Consultant] offers." There is no evidence that the NRA considered bids from competing companies.
By 2020, though, when shit started to hit the fan and AG James was hot on their trail, the NRA decided that maybe they ought to put the process out to competitive bidding after all. At which point, the very same travel booker put in a bid to do the very same work for $7,000 per month. Naturally, her bid was accepted.
Let's let the Empire State's attorney do the math for us:
From August 2014 to January 2020, the NRA paid LaPierre's Travel Consultant more than $13.5 million. In 2018, the NRA paid LaPierre's Travel Consultant $2,630,531.71. In the first six months of 2019 alone, the NRA paid LaPierre's Travel Consultant $1,007,597.80.
Somehow — somehow — that is considerably more than $276,000 per year. From the PUBLIC. FUCKING. CHARITY. (Pure slackjawed speculation, we can only figure that pays for some private jets. It MUST, right? RIGHT?)
Okay, we're going to go take lots of deep breaths and come back tomorrow to lawsplain it all for you. But anyway ... the nerve of these assholes!
Curl, David H. Kalamazoo, MI David H. Curl, of Kalamazoo, passed away on Saturday, August 1, 2020 at the age of 88. David was born on June 2, 1932 in Columbus, OH. He was the son of John and Florence Curl. David was an alumnus of Ohio University and Indiana University, taught photography and graphic arts at Kalamazoo College, Western Michigan University, and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and had been a photographer, media producer, author, editor, and publisher. He retired as a Colonel in the United States Air Force and served with the U.S Agency for International Development and the National Park Service. He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Ardyce; also his former wife Dorothy Goodwin; daughter: Laura (James) Armstrong; son: Steven (Sara) Curl; two granddaughters: Dorothy and Philippa Armstrong; stepson: Bruce (Paul Winberg) Czuchna; and two stepdaughters: Marcia (Randall) Stoppenhagen; Jodi (Matthew) Milks; and two step grandsons: Mitchell and Mason Milks; step granddaughter: Sarah (Matt) Stoppenhagen Kittleson; two step great grandchildren: Koen, and Audrie Kittleson. David has been cremated and no services are planned at this time. While at David's webpage at www.avinkcremation.com please take time to sign the guestbook by lighting a candle and/or sharing a memory with the family. The Curl family is being assisted by the Avink Funeral Home & Cremation Society, 129 S. Grand, Schoolcraft, MI 49087 269-679-5622.
And just like that, after finding myself in an amazing relationship, then it was over. It did last for most of the year, ending in September for a total of 18 months, my longest relationship thus far in my life, which at my age in 1999, is kind of a sad thing.
The my work load reduced further as I let more freelance writing go to focus on teaching. I had a great year of Creative Writers in Schools, increased my Neahtawanta trip to ten days days, and started running the CENTRALS ultimate tournament, which I would do with help in 1999 and then by myself in 2000 and 2001, around the time time I would also serve as Michigan Sectionals Coordinator, mainly because no one else wanted the job.
The best advice I ever got for running Ultimate events was to "charge more, have free beer."
Here's some of my journal from that time period (edited), from 9908.13
Open Journal to Heather Year Two 9908.13 23:26
I managed to get on the road at 16:25. I left my house before that but I stopped for gas and money so my official leaving Richland time was 16:25.
Problems. Construction outside of Grand Rapids. Rain and falling temperatures caused me to not only roll up my windows, but switch my vents to defrost to keep the cold air from blowing right on me.
With all the delays and slow going, I still arrived here sometime around 20:00-ish. Maybe somewhat before.
There are some changes are TC. There’s an Outback Steakhouse by the Horizon Cinemas and a Mongolian Barbacue back by the mall. I like Mongolian BBQ, so I may go there. It’s pretty inexpensive and you can eat a lot.
All the movies I want to see are here, including BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Phantom Menace is out at the Bay and so I may go to it again.
I didn’t go to a movie, unlike last year. I decided to unpack and to listen to the Tigers game. Then I unpacked files off disks and arranged things on my computer better. I will archive some email everyday.
I have many books. A portable library. I also have pictures of you with me.
My friend Ginger wrote me. She is visiting in August and I will see her when I return. She and Bob are moving into a loft in Tribeca. I think she implied that the loft is pretty good sized and so perhaps you and I could visit. Spring break in NYC??? I am hoping are spring breaks coincide. Because if they do not, this plan is not possible. Though it might be possible to get someone to take my classes.
Anyway, I am off to bed. More tomorrow.
9908.14 12:55
I’m back.
I am at my station on the porch. The neat thing here is that you know what that looks like now. You can see me there, can’t you?
Shorts and tshirt. What else do I wear?
My walkman just crapped out on me. Battery power. I looked for extra batteries before I came and there were none. So I am musicless at the moment until I go buy new batteries. It’s okay. The families and their children have all cleared out for the day.
The children are loud and interfere with my peace and quiet. Plus the house next door has building underway again this year. How much work can they have done on that house? It’s ridiculous.
I haven’t decided what I will do for the day yet. I have no food right now so I may need to go eat in Mapleton or go into TC early. I plan to hit the new and improved Meijer tonight. Right now I am not overly hungry but that could change. I do have chips, crackers, and cookies. And there is dip and such in the refrigerator that I suspect is left over from previous tenants so I may break into it.
This morning I checked my email and went through it while istening to music in my room. I could bring the boom box down here, and I may. Plug in the ‘phones. Could work.
It’s beautiful here today. Low ‘70s, sunny. All the clouds and cold and rain from yesterday vanished. It’s a beautiful day.
I must swim later. The sand on the beach is hot and inviting.
I just called you and your mother said you were in the shower. Sometimes she sounds irritated with me. Is she irritated with me? Her phone voice can be very scary.
There’s a new area code, so I have to remember to tell you the new area code.
My plans for today are to get as much of the writing done as I can on my various freelance obligations and be done with it today or by early tomorrow. I have determined to allow myself only a short time with the email each day.
9908.14 13:27
9908.15 0:32
Whew! What a day.
I have returned from my evening jaunt. Tomorrow I may jaunt earlier so as to go to bed earlier. I think I will also buy wine. There seems to be plenty of left over beer in the refrigerator.
I skipped lunch, snacking on four cookies (girl scout PB cookies), a V8, some crackers, and several chips with bean dip. Sound healthy? I then went to dinner after the Tigers game about 7:30 and had a salad and a beef stew thing.
I went straight to the cinema only to find Blair Witch Project sold out, as I suspected it would be. So I saw The Haunting.
Odd film.
ALERT!!
ALERT!!!
I am about to spoil the film for you, so if you don’t want it spoiled skip this part.
The Haunting does not conform to the book. Jackson leaves the story open ended. She never explains Eleanor’s connection to the house, leaving instead the conclusions to the reader. Perhaps to suggest that the nature of true evil is inscrutable and that in situations in which one truly encounters the supernatural, there are no answers, no revelations, no communication. Just inexplicable phenomena and fear.
She also shows the vile underbellies that lurk below the shallow veneers that people hold up for public consumption. In the end, none of the people in Jackson’s book are very nice, even Eleanor, who is a tragic, Ophelia like character trapped in circumstances not of her making.
Though the film castigates the doctor as the vile, terrible, heartless medical practioner, the others are not well explored. Theo is made vile because of her obvious lesbianism. Luke is equally loathsome because he’s attracted to Theo’s hot little body and seems unaware of Eleanor’s feelings. Though the filmmakers set up these themes, they leave them unfulfilled. There’s no competition between the ladies for Luke’s affections. Only at one juncture does Eleanor feel as if the others are ganging up on her. It’s the doctor who saves her on the stairway and then Luke is needlessly decapitated.
It’s a lot like the difference between ALIEN and ALIENS, fear through what is suggested and fear through what is blatantly displayed, unhidden.
In the end, the film becomes a supped-up Poltergeist without the psychic intervention and without a clearly plausible explanation. It is unclear what Hugh Crain’s evil past has to do with the children. At first it seems as if he worked all sorts of children to death in his textile mills, and so he built a palace to these children as he was so ridden with guilt. Then it seems as if his wife could not give birth to living children—all stillborn— possibly because of a Crain curse; as he sowed, so shall he reap.
Then it is sort of unclearly revealed that he removed the children from the mills, brought them to his palace, and killed them, burned them in a giant fireplace, incidentally where Luke is decapitated for no apparent reason.
Eleanor learns all of this and relates it to the viewer poorly.
Also, her Crain connection is strange. I wondered if she was somehow related when reading the book but the movie reveals that she is related to Crain’s secret second wife, Caroline, who ran away from Hill House, the first wife killed herself. Caroline was Eleanor’s great-great grandmother.
The movie seems to intimate that the spirit of Crain has drawn her to the house to impregnate her with the children that his wives could never bear in life. But this is poorly rendered and unexplored.
In the end, Eleanor faces down the giant spirit of Crain and sends him to Hell through his own doors which not only resemble the Gates of Hell but function like them as well. However, once Eleanor has defeated Crain and the souls of the ghost children can finally to go to Heaven, she also dies and her spirit floats off with them.
The Haunting is not particularly scary and is yet another example of Hollywood cobbling together disparate elements, many gleaned from an actually good book, only to produce a product that fails to be good at any of the things it tries to be.
Why not have Zeta-Jones kiss Taylor? Wouldn’t this bring about the big shock-o-rama box office thrill that would ensnare the teen audience?
If you were skipping the MOVIE THING SPOILER DEAL, you can start reading again.
9908.15 15:30
This is a later start than I usually get to because I was napping earlier. I need to start seeing earlier movies and returning here earlier so I go to bed earlier.
The Tigers see destined to lose yet again.
I have not been swimming yet.
These thoughts are in no apparent order, obviously.
9908.15 21:44
It’s later.
I just returned from The Blair Witch Project. More on that later.
Randomly...
So far breakfast has been scones on Saturday and pancakes on Sunday but made with soy milk.
I had to send back food again at a restaurant even though I said no cheese and the waitress told the chef and her manager no cheese.
You know something?
I haven’t shaved since you left. I have grown a beard. I think it looks good on me. It’s nice not to have to shave anymore. Though there is a lot of grey in the beard.
Bob always wants to hug to say hello when I first see him. Why is that?
Just went down to do the Sally welcome back.
I have had three beers, one at the brewery-restaurant and two here, leftovers from previous inn guests.
I like drinking leftovers.
Anyway, I feel properly sedated. I have Japan Oil On Canvas on the boom box.
You must tell me what tapes you like best. If there are any you don’t like at all and want me to tape over. Also, on the mixed tapes, I’d be curious to learn of your favourites.
SPOILER ALERT. READ NO FURTHER UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW ALL ABOUT IT.
The Blair Witch Project: I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed because it is just what it professes to be, a documentary by amateurs.
I have seen many films like this one with the handheld camera footage. Cinema Verite. The kind of “real” film making in which the film becomes whatever the camera records during a given period of time. I saw a film like this in school called Grey Gardens or something like that about these two women who were distant relatives of the Kennedy family living in this dilapidated old mansion and they were really crazy. I think they ate cat food and were pack rats and were completely out of touch with reality, which the camera revealed, but slowly, because as a cinema verite piece the film comprimised what had been filmed with very little editing.
The Blair Witch Project is like that.
Very much that cinema verite style of found footage. Here the material is arranged sequentially alternating between a hand held video camera and a more stationary though handheld 16mm camera.
The footage from the two is cut together but arranged to mirror when the cameras were turned off and on. The 16 mm supposedly captures footage for the actual film, in black and white, while the video, in color, captures a “making of” documentary.
I expected there to be more history in the film. There’s early explanations by Heather, the documentary’s director, and there are interviews with various residents about what they know of the Blair Witch. But it’s unclear how it all ties together and the film makes no effort to make sense of the disparate accounts. The three embark on their trek into the woods to film coffin rock, the site of a slaughter and mysterious disappearance of bodies, and a cemetary, the burial site of victims of another unrelated(?) incident. I expected more investigation of the Blair Witch legend, which from the ads seems to stretch back into the 1600s, if I recall correctly. But this isn’t really covered in the movie and I found that to be disappointing.
What was featured in the movie was about what I expected. The film ended wit a camera on the ground, which I expected. There were some twists and turns that I did not imagine, but the whole thing was about what I thought it would be and in some ways more.
I think the most awful thing was the breakdown of the civility of the three people in how they related to each other. The movie feels very very real in how it portrays how these people lose it while lost in the woods. The film portrayed how cruel people can be when faced with an intense situation but also how tragedy and extreme adversity can bring them together, too.
It was a very excellent, well made film.
I don’t have much else to report.
I am trying to write some poetry and failing to write as well as I expect myself to write, which should not surprise me.
I have been mulling over what to do with the novel and will begin to work on it after I finish my Gazette work tomorrow. I edited and sent the CDS stuff tonight before going to the movie. I will try to wake early tomorrow, maybe go for a walk and a swim, and then avoid email, burn through the Gazette work and get busy with my novel, what makes me happy.
9908.16 11:53
I am listening to TLC. Oh yeah baby!!
It’s cloudy and VERY windy here today. I haven’t camped out on the porch yet. I thought I would venture down when the TLC album ends and see what the temperature is like.
I will probably go to another early movie.
Some very nice people up here. A couple from Kalamazoo. And a woman and her adult son. She is one of the Neahtawanta board members. I have spoken to her before. She is a very nice lady.
We had a great talk about the anger in people and the MSU and Woodstock riots, the Columbine tragedy. We all agreed that there were many factors contributing to these events but that no viable solutions had yet been conceived by the powers that be.
I guess in Columbine, they have walled off the library, effectively hidden it, as if it no longer exists, which we all agreed was a dumb way to handle the tragedy. Everyone should face it and learn to cope rather than live in denial.
Smart people come here. I like it. It’s stimulating.
I will write more later but for now I am going to work on the Gazette stories and finish those off so I can write and do what I want.
9908.16 23:10
Anyway, went to the shark movie. Here's my comments. Skip them if you don’t want the movie spoiled....
Deep Blue Sea: Typical action-disaster movie with sharks. Borrows some elements of Jaws. For fans of shark movies, the special effects are stunning. But the premise shaky and the execution of the plot even more so. Also, it’s a very bloody film. All but two of the characters get killed. The movie begins with eight people and only two survive at the end, both men, one of whom is LL Cool J to refute his contention that in movies about this it’s the brothers who always get whacked. The story involves Dr. Suzanne who is working on a cure for Alzheimer’s. Because shark’s have special characteristics allowing them to regrow brain cells or something, she and her team grow special proteins in shark’s brains that will hopefully have the same effect on the brains of Alzheimer’s patients: reactive brain cells. The quest is personal for Dr. Suzie willlearn from the get-go as her father suffered from Alzheimer’s.
However, in her mad quest to make her dream a reality she violates international law and the policy of the company whose funding she uses and genetically alters the brains of the test sharks. The unfortunate side effect, she later realtes, is that the sharks became smarter. So smart, in fact, that the three test sharks set about messing with the minds of their human captors. First, one bites off the arm of a scientist leaning too close. When he is being air lifted out by paramedics, in the typical hurricane type storm that these movies always feature, a series of events cause him to be lost in the water and for the helicopter to crash into the facility, blowing the auxilliary fuel tanks and beginning a series of events that allow the sharks to terrorize the humans. The sharks begin their reign of terror by using the scientist’s body, strapped into a guerney, as a battering ram to bust through the large observation window to the fenced in tanks at sub-level 3, the laboratory. The lab floods and things look grim for our heroes when they discover that the sub that they planned to use to reach the surface is wrecked. Oddly, the first death after the initial helicopter destruction and battering ram sequence is the most unexpected. While giving a pep talk, the character played by Samuel Jackson, is suddenly devoured by a shark that springs out of a tank of water behind him. The other deaths are all very anticipated but this one catches the viewer off guard because Jackson is coming off as the leader all of a sudden. He has been in a situation like this before, an avalanche in the Alps. He’s relating the story and explaining why they should all work together when the shark surges forth from the pool and chomps down on him. The rest is pretty standard fare: flooding compartments, fire, people getting chewed up in shark jaws, a scene of trepidatious movement through water and then a dangerous attempt to elude the shark. In a cool takeoff on the Halloween, Mike Myers trying to hack his way into the closet where Jamie Lee is hiding, the shark tries to bust into an oven where the cook, played by LL Cool J, has crawled. The shark is somehow smart enough, or maybe it’s a coincidence, to turn on the oven. The cook faces baking to death in his own oven if the shark does not get him first. But armed with an axe, he hacks his way into the upper of the double oven and manages to escape, light his butane, and toss it at the gas filled oven blowing number one of three sharks to smithereens. (The second is electrocuted by the Alzheimer’s-mad Dr. Suzie.) The final is blown to bits as it tries to escape the facility, what is purported to be the sharks well-conceived plan, by flooding the facility to reach the upper portions of the fence which are steel instead of Titanium, of which the rest of the fence is made. Dr. Suzie serves as bait to help the others get a clear shot at the sahark with a explosive-filled harpoon that is then wired to a detonator. We are supposed to see this act of Suzie’s as redemption for endangering the others, using them, after secretly altering the sharks’ brains. What is taken for granted and unexplained is how the sharks become so educated. Intelligence is one thing and through observation and experimentation, an intelligent creature can learn things, like manipulating tools or complicated pursuit strategy. But these sharks exhibit near human intelligence, supposedly understanding an oven, how it works, and how to operate it, despite having never seen one, and how to hatch a complicated plan to raise water levels to reach wait the sharks have seen is ordinary steel fencing, which they have deduced, with their new intelligence, is not as tough as titanium. The problem is that the sharks would have not been quite so lethal if truly only smarter and not better educated. But the other problem is that people will leave the movie believing that smarts and education are the same thing, and if we could increase a dog’s brain size by five, it would suddenly know how to operate complex machinery and would develop the ability, overnight, to hatch complicated plans to manipulate and torment us. What bothers me is not so much that Hollywood takes these liberties but that people take if for reality.
That’s all for tonight
There's two more big volumes of journals but that's quite enough, I think.
1999 The worlds population exceeds Six Billion. The Wars in the Balkans continue to cause suffering in the region, but both sides do come to the table and a peace is agreed. The world prepares for the new millennium parties and computers around the world run testing for the millennium bug which could cause wide scale disruption to business and infrastructure if not fixed. The take up of the Internet and Mobile Phones around the world open up new opportunities for successful entrepreneurs.
1999 WAS ALL ABOUT PANIC,
POTTERMANIA, AND SOON-TO-BE PRESIDENT BUSH.
Twenty years ago, we were facing the last year of the century. And when it came down to it, 1999 was hardly the year Prince famously dreamed it would be. It was all about the butterfly clips, Britney Spears, and being scared of what the turn of the century would bring. From Pokémon still being a card game to the cost of a movie ticket, things have changed a whole lot in the 20 years since the '90s ended. To remind you of the good times—and also to make you feel a little old—we've rounded up some of the most memorable moments of 1999 that will have you saying, "That happened 20 years ago?"
1
Everyone had a full-blown meltdown about Y2K ruining computers.
Robert Clay/Alamy
Nowadays, our computer clocks change automatically as soon as Daylight Savings Time hits. But back when the turn of the century was looming over everyone's heads, people were certain the end of days was just around the corner. The Y2K scare came from projections that computers and computer networks would face catastrophic breakdowns once the clock struck midnight on Jan. 1, unable to recognize the year "2000" with the current software.
Even Time magazine was bracing itself for life after this alleged meltdown. "As police throughout the world secured emergency bunkers for themselves, the Time magazine and Time Inc. information-technology staff set up a generator-powered 'war room' in the basement of the Time & Life Building, filled with computers and equipment ready to produce the magazine in case of a catastrophic breakdown of electricity and communications," then-assistant managing editor Howard Chua-Eoan wrote in the magazine's commemorative 1/1/00 issue.
PayPal was called one of the worst business ideas of the year.
iStock
It's rightfully considered one of the internet's biggest successes today, but when PayPal first came out, it was actually voted one of the 10 worst business ideas of 1999. Luckily, things have come around for the online payment system since—and it's now a billion-dollar brand used by nearly 300 million consumers.
3
People hacked Hotmail accounts using the password "eh."
Shutterstock
If you set your password as "password" in 2019 and someone hacks into your accounts, that's on you. But back in 1999, that wasn't exactly the case. The infamous "Hotmail hacking," executed by a group known as "Hackers Unite," brought to light a major security flaw with Microsoft. Widely regarded as one of the largest widespread security incidents in history, the hackers exposed an estimated 50 million Hotmail accounts, revealing that anybody could log in to any Hotmail account using the password "eh."
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? premiered on American televisions for the first time.
Shutterstock
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? first debuted in 1999, adapted from a popular British game show of the same name. First hosted by Regis Philbin, the series became a stepping stone for reality competition shows like Greed, Weakest Link, and Deal or No Deal. Of course, classic TV game shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune came before it—but those weren't nationwide appointment viewing like Millionaire. "The show's glossy aesthetic and superhigh stakes attracted unprecedented audiences," wrote Slate'sJustin Peters. "At its peak Millionaire was more popular than Monday Night Football."
Two decades later, the show was finally canceled, but its legacy lives on. After all, you could argue that we'd never have met Meghan Markle if it wasn't for Millionaire.
5
iBooks were advertised as "to go" computers.
iStock
Before MacBooks were all the rage, Apple was gaining fame with its iBook line. The colorful, clamshell-style laptops, released in 1999, were available in tangerine and blueberry, and nicknamed the "iMac to go." Even at $1,600, these iMac offsprings were flying off the shelves.
6
DVD players were just starting to phase out VHS tapes.
Shutterstock
These days, DVDs have lost traction as most people now watch their movies via online streaming services like Netflix. But back in 1999, DVDs were just starting to overtake VHS tapes as the technology du jour. The first DVD players arrived in 1997, but they came with hefty price tags, costing more than $700. By 1999, however, the prices had dropped to around $200, and customers couldn't wait to stop "being kind and rewinding" in favor of the DVD.
7
We were downloading songs on Napster without understanding the ramifications.
Northfoto / Shutterstock
These days, you can choose from services like Apple Music, Spotify, or Pandora to get music on all your devices 24/7 (and legally). However, back in 1999, Napster had just launched as the brainchild of Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker and was the only way to download music and file-share songs digitally. While it didn't take long for labels and musicians to sue and shut down Napster in 2001, everyone who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s remembers waiting patiently for that download to complete so you could make the ultimate Summer Jamz '99 mix CD.
Britney Spears' Rolling Stone cover was the year's major pop culture scandal.
Jann Wenner
Before April 1999, Britney Spears was just another idolized teen pop star. But that year, she made her first move into provocateur territory with her 1999 Rolling Stone magazine cover and spread. The 17-year-old entertainer posed scantily clad in her underwear, holding the purple Teletubby (which had its own controversy, if you recall). "I think it's sinful," one man told Inside Edition of the photo. But for Spears, that was just the beginning of decades of shock and scandal to come.
9
The first Teen Choice Awards took place.
Shutterstock
For tween and teens today, it's hard to remember a time before the Teen Choice Awards (if not impossible). However, the surfboard-centric event only got its start in 1999. And just who was attending the inaugural TCAs? Performers included Spears and *NSYNC, while most of the acting prizes ended up being handed to the stars of The WB.
10
Carson Daly introduced Korn and Christina Aguilera videos on TRL.
Alamy
Carson Daly is all over television screens these days, hosting shows like Today and The Voice. However, before he was the suit-wearing ringleader we know him as now, he was the less-refined host of MTV's Total Request Live in 1999. Back then, Daly was most often seen sporting faded baggy jeans, black T-shirts, and his iconic black nail polish (on just two fingernails), as he introduced music videos featuring Backstreet Boys and Eminem.
"When I took the job, everybody said, 'Stay in radio. What are you doing? It'll be one year, and then you'll be on a Noxzema commercial,'" he told the Los Angeles Times in 1999. "I never looked at it that way." Clearly, he didn't have to!
11
The Euro was first introduced.
Shutterstock
Whether you're traveling to Spain, France, Ireland, or Italy today, you're using the same exact currency—the euro. But before 1999, a standardized monetary system across Europe was just a utopian idea. After decades of preparations, the euro was finally introduced in 11 European countries on January 1, 1999. It's hard to imagine that the second most widely used currency in the world (following the dollar) wasn't even around 21 years ago.
12
*NSYNC was the opening act for Janet Jackson.
Alamy
Today, Justin Timberlake is one of the biggest names in pop music. However, back in 1999, he was just one of the five members of *NSYNC, a boy band that was still trying to get its footing. Timberlake and co. released their first album in 1997 and didn't catch on quite as quickly at the Backstreet Boys.
Instead, they rode on the coat tails of Janet Jackson, joining her Velvet Rope Tour from 1998 to 1999 as one of the rotating opening acts. "We don't care if we get booed off the stage," member Chris Kirkpatrick told MTV at the time. "We're just gonna be like, 'What's up Janet. You're welcome. They're ready for you.'" Booed? *NSYNC? Twenty-one years sounds like a lifetime ago!
13
A New York City councilperson protested $9.50 movie tickets.
Shutterstock
If you want to head to the movies these days, be prepared to shell out a pretty penny. A trip to the multiplex costs well over $9, with all those up-charges for 3-D movies, midnight premieres, and extreme-surround sound. Back in 1999, however, you could usually score a ticket for a Lincoln and some change.
When Loews Cineplex (now AMC) raised ticket prices in Manhattan to $9.50 that year, a New York City council speaker issued a statement urging the Justice Department to intervene, deeming the increase "mugging of the middle class." For comparison, an average Manhattan AMC ticket nowadays costs around $15.
In 1999, the Pokémon franchise was exploding all across the United States. With the release of the Pokémon Red and Blue video game in 1998, "Pokémania" had taken over.
And while the game is still popular today, especially with the release of Pokémon GO, the craze in 1999 was unmatched—kids were even robbing each other to get their hands on certain Pokémon cards. "Hopefully, he had learned his lesson and won't carry around as many cards anymore," Tony Ward, a parent of a boy who was robbed of $60 worth of cards in Philadelphia, told the Associated Press in 1999. "I tell him when he goes out, he has to be more street-smart now."
15
The first ever SpongeBob SquarePants episode aired.
IMDB/Nickelodeon Animation Studios
What else was taking over kids' lives in 1999? SpongeBob SquarePants. Nowadays, SpongeBob has been so tightly woven into American society that it has evolved into two movies, a Broadway musical, and become a hotbed for internet memes. So it's hard to believe the television show only first premiered in July of 1999 on Nickelodeon. Yes, 21 years ago, no one could've imagined a sponge who lived in a pineapple under the sea and worked at an underwater burger joint would become so incredibly famous.
Susan Lucci had been serving up all the daytime drama since 1970 with her iconic portrayal of Erica Kane on ABC's All My Children. In fact, TV Guide called her character "unequivocally the most famous soap-opera character in the history of daytime TV." And while Lucci had received a Daytime Emmy nomination almost every year since her first nomination in 1978, she still hadn't won. However, finally in 1999, upon her 19th nomination, she took home the award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. And we can never forget how the entire crowd erupted into a standing ovation.
People weren't exactly pressed for good movies in 1999—The Matrix, Fight Club, and The Blair Witch Project were released that year. But when viewers found out that Bruce Willis had actually been dead the entire time in The Sixth Sense, it was the reveal to end all movie reveals.
18
Bill Gates predicted the future of smart phones.
Shutterstock
In 1999, business wiz Bill Gates released one of the most pivotal books to date, Business @ the Speed of Thought. In it, the Microsoft founder made many bold predictions about the future of technology. Among them? Social media, smart phones, online payment systems, and online job recruiting (hello, LinkedIn?). Hey, he's not one of the richest men in the world for nothin'.
19
George W. Bush announced his campaign for presidency.
Shutterstock
Rumors had been swirling about whether or not George W. Bush would follow in his father's footsteps by running for president. But then, in the summer of 1999, he officially announced his campaign. The two-term Republican governor of Texas vowed to campaign as a "compassionate conservative," which ended up winning him the election in 2000.
20
The third book in the Harry Potter series was released.
Alamy
After the success of J.K. Rowling's first two books in the Harry Potter series, the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was released to high expectations and high praise in 1999. Before any movie was even in sight, the book became highly regarded for pushing "Pottermania" into mainstream America. We had no idea what kind of magic was in store or who Daniel Radcliffe even was!
KALI COLEMAN
Kali is an assistant editor at Best Life. Read more
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2008.08 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27 and 1907.04) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom. Dropped "Talk to you tomorrow, Mom" in the sign off on 1907.04. Should have done it sooner as this feature is no longer daily.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63302020/99_movies_23.0.jpg)
United States
No comments:
Post a Comment