• • • google suggested • • •
Visionary Shamanics is happy to present another epic psychedelically downtempo dubtastic shamanic psybass tribal multicultural psybient ethnic trip in Kaleidoscopic Vibrations.
Ed. I love alphabet soup.
• • • some of the things I read in antisocial isolation • • •
The Underground Kitchen That Funded the Civil Rights Movement
Georgia Gilmore’s cooking fueled the Montgomery bus boycott.
Georgia Gilmore poses for photographers after testifying as a defense witness in the bus boycott trial of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., March 21, 1956, in Montgomery.
ON DECEMBER 5, 1955, FOUR days after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated city bus, a community meeting was held at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Thousands of black citizens gathered to hear about the proposed bus boycott, filling every inch of the church’s sanctuary, balcony, and basement auditorium. Loudspeakers were set up to accommodate the overflow, which extended for three blocks in each direction.
“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called out from the podium. “There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being flung across the abyss of humiliation.” Dr. King’s speech—his first as a civil rights leader—electrified the crowd. The proposition to hold a bus boycott was met with thunderous applause and cheers of support.
Georgia Teresa Gilmore, a cafeteria cook, midwife, and single mother of six, was one of the thousands of people crammed into the church that night. “I never cared too much for preachers,” Gilmore later recalled, “but I listened to him preach that night. And the things he said were things I believed in.”
Gilmore was a large, gutsy woman who had little tolerance for racial bigotry. “Everybody could tell you Georgia Gilmore didn’t take no junk,” said Reverend Al Dixon. “If you pushed her too far, she’d say a few bad words, and if you pushed her any further, she would hit you.” …
The Protesters Deserve the Truth About the Coronavirus
Public-health experts should strive to provide a neutral accounting of risk.
For weeks before the egregious police killing of George Floyd sparked protests, public-health experts and much of the press were singularly focused on COVID-19. News coverage of the pandemic frequently cast protests against stay-at-home orders and the closures of businesses and churches as risky, if not irresponsible. “Public-health officials say the coronavirus can easily be spread by people packed together, like, say, at a protest,” NPR’s David Folkenflik told listeners in April. “Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and others have cheered the protests—usually from the safety of their own home studios—yet have done so without explicitly noting the risks involved.”
Skeptical coverage of anti-shutdown protests and scolding of those who failed to socially distance abounded. Later, when a video of a social gathering at an outdoor pool in the Ozarks went viral, news articles quoted elected leaders and health officials describing the event as reckless.
Then mass protests against police killings began. Many protesters wore masks and kept a distance between themselves and other participants—but others left their faces uncovered, traveled in large groups, crowded together, and shouted for hours. Police arrested many, transporting them in crowded vehicles to enclosed spaces. Some news outlets published articles specifically noting these facts, but most stories about the protests did not mention potential risk at all. Commentators who did raise concerns about disease transmission sometimes sounded apologetic. “It seems almost weird to say this,” the MSNBC host Chris Hayes tweeted, “but the coronavirus hasn’t changed, and hasn’t gone anywhere. Very hopeful outdoor activity + warmer weather + mask wearing can avoid huge clusters, but real worried.”
Why did it seem “almost weird” to highlight the ongoing danger of a virus that has killed more than 100,000 Americans and is likely to kill many thousands more in the coming months? Not because gathering en masse to protest police killings is any less dangerous than gathering to party in the Ozarks or protest church closures, but because it strikes a lot of journalists and health experts (quite reasonably) as more urgent and justified. For some people who are sympathetic to the protesters’ cause, giving any fodder to those intent on criticizing them feels like a failure of solidarity. …
The Trump Regime Is Beginning to Topple
The best way to grasp the magnitude of what we’re seeing is to look for precedents abroad.
Over the course of his presidency, Donald Trump has indulged his authoritarian instincts—and now he’s meeting the common fate of autocrats whose people turn against them. What the United States is witnessing is less like the chaos of 1968, which further divided a nation, and more like the nonviolent movements that earned broad societal support in places such as Serbia, Ukraine, and Tunisia, and swept away the dictatorial likes of Milošević, Yanukovych, and Ben Ali.
And although Trump’s time in office will end with an election and not an ouster, it is only possible to grasp the magnitude of what we’re seeing and to map what comes next by looking to these antecedents from abroad.
As in the case of many such revolutions, two battles are being waged in America. One is a long struggle against a brutal and repressive ideology. The other is a narrower fight over the fate of a particular leader. The president rose to power by inflaming racial tensions. He now finds his own fate enmeshed in the struggle against police brutality and racism.
The most important theorist of nonviolent revolutions is the late political scientist Gene Sharp. A conscientious objector during the Korean War who spent nine months in prison, Sharp became a close student of Mahatma Gandhi’s struggles. His work set out to extract the lessons of the Indian revolt against the British. He wanted to understand the weaknesses of authoritarian regimes—and how nonviolent movements could exploit them. Sharp distilled what he learned into a 93-page handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy, a how-to guide for toppling autocracy. …
Ridiculous Frauds Whose Schemes Worked (For A While)
Most scammers try to keep their lies somewhat plausible. (But maybe that guy’s car really did break down on the bridge, with his daughter inside, on the day of his big job interview to become a wallet inspector.) But every so often a con artist comes along telling such obvious, flamboyantly insane lies, that people just can’t help but believe them. After all, wouldn’t you be intrigued if someone told you…
5. Kathy Bates’ Grandfather Tried To Sell A Fake John Wilkes Booth Mummy To Henry Ford
If you believe those boring old history books, Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth was shot dead in a burning barn by a self-castrated religious fanatic. But if you believe Oscar-winner Kathy Bates’ grandfather, the truth was much stranger. Barn-Booth was merely an identical imposter — the real John Wilkes Booth fled to the Old West, where he lived in secrecy under an assumed name. Until 1893, when he suddenly disappeared after confessing everything to Finis Bates, who probably deserved an Oscar of his own for persuading people to take this story seriously. Or maybe not, since he failed in an attempt to extract a reward from the US government for tipping them off to “Booth’s” survival.
But if you thought that was the end of Finis Bates trying to cash in on his secret assassin amigo, then buddy, you just don’t know Finis Bates. In 1903, he barged into a funeral parlor in the Oklahoma Territory and announced that the unclaimed body of a local drunk was none other than his old buddy John Wilkes Booth. Finis demanded that the morgue mummify the body, then somehow managed to get a court to sign the corpse over to him. For the next several years, Bates toured the body in circus sideshows, charging old-timey yokels to gawp at President Lincoln’s mummified assassin. And that’s when he accidentally hoodwinked the nation’s most powerful industrialist.
In 1919, Henry Ford sued the Chicago Tribune for calling him ignorant. Unfortunately, the Tribune’s lawyers were quick to call their star witness: Henry Ford. They then spent fully eight days of the trial asking him “high school questions,” which Ford was completely unable to answer, declaring that history was all bunk anyway. This was mocked in the press and the jury awarded Ford exactly six cents in damages. Ford responded to this mild humiliation with the grace and humor one expects from a megalomaniac tycoon. He swore to prove that history was bunk after all. And guess who was rolling from town-to-town with conveniently mummified proof?
Ford decided that the corpse of John Wilkes Booth would be the perfect way to prove the history books wrong. At which point dollar signs shot out of Finis’s eyes so hard he could have killed another president with them. He quickly agreed to sell his mummy. At this point, Henry Ford’s subordinates, recognizing that their boss should maybe not be touring the country with a rotting carnival cadaver, intervened and unearthed several holes in the story. For starters, Finis boasted that the corpse had a healed leg fracture, matching Booth’s injuries from jumping on the stage after killing Lincoln. Unfortunately, it was in the wrong leg. The disappointed Ford agreed to drop the idea and just blame all his problems on the Jews instead, while Finis’s widow sold the mummy, which was last seen in 1963, being traded to a Philly landlady in lieu of unpaid rent. …
RELATED: Real Space Force Might Have Lost Its Trademark To Netflix’s ‘Space Force’
The federal government, under the watchful eye of Donald Trump, might have lost the naming rights of their big, fancy new space war department, the Space Force, to the Netflix show of the same name that has a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. Trump fancies himself a master negotiator and an expert businessman, but really, his empire was built on branding by lessening his name for us on shitty products that could make him a quick buck. It is, frankly, delicious knowing the walking klan hood, who has more power than he ever had as a TV host, got outmaneuvered by the people who brought you Love Is Blind.
Trump randomly announced the creation of the Space Force back in 2018, then followed it up by not bothering to trademark the name. When The Office‘s Greg Daniels got his pitch for a satirical take on the creation of the department greenlit, Netflix snatched up the trademark rights all across the world. The U.S. government used to not care much about trademarking their department names until about 2007 when they suddenly cared way too much and established an office of trademarking and branding within the Department of Defense. Either that department dropped the ball on the global naming rights to Space Force, or they just didn’t care. Either way, it’s beautiful.
Branding issues within the U.S. military have been one of the oddest recurring themes over the past decade. The Hollywood Reporter article that brings us the Space Force trademark news reminds us that only a few days after Osama bin Laden’s death, Disney tried trademarking “Seal Team 6.” …
Curfews and Arrests Will Inflame the Pandemic
Limiting the time and space available to protesters—and the rest of the public—puts everyone in more danger.
Exactly how the ongoing protests over the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black Americans will affect the trajectory of the pandemic is a complex question. For months, the public-health directives in much of the world have been clear: Avoid groups and stay home as much as possible. Leaving the house for any reason carries some risk of viral transmission. But in a historic moment of civil unrest, many deem public demonstration to be as essential as going to the grocery store or picking up a prescription, if not more so. Indeed, no function of life may be more fundamental to the health of a democracy.
Across the globe, governments seem to have decided that protest is more dangerous than confinement. The Australian Supreme Court banned a Black Lives Matter demonstration planned in Sydney on the grounds that it could spread the coronavirus. In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan stopped short of a ban on mass gatherings, but implored protesters to keep six feet apart. Variations on Khan’s approach are playing out in cities across the U.S., where public officials are walking a careful line between suppressing political dissent and contradicting their own prior social-distancing directives to help save lives during a catastrophic pandemic.
The inescapable fact is that the demonstrations protesting the police killing of George Floyd will lead to spikes in coronavirus deaths. There is no denying this. The question is how to minimize them. The science of how to conduct a perfectly safe mass demonstration in a pandemic is still imperfect, but one thing is clear: The answer is not to clamp down on peaceful gatherings, incarcerate more people, and give everyone less time and space to social distance with draconian curfews. Policing triggered these protests, and the policing, not the protesting, may turn out to be the primary driver of viral transmission during them.
“There are obvious measures that individuals can take during demonstrations, like wearing masks and trying to stay physically distant,” says Sten Vermund, dean of the Yale School of Public Health (where I’m a lecturer on health policy). “Of course that’s not always possible in a crowd.” And even when crowds are allowed adequate space to spread out, some images from protests show these measures being ignored. Some amount of transmission will likely result. As of now, Vermund told me, “we can’t be sure how much.” …
Country diary: a coughing cuckoo catches my attention
West Sussex: The sounds of the birds and buzzing insects and the warmth of the evening sun feel exotic, but yet oppressive.
An adult male cuckoo, perched on a lichen covered branch.
“In June, I change my tune.” The cuckoo isn’t so much changing its tune as losing its voice. The song starts clear and strong but trails off with a hoarse, cough sound: “cu-coo, cu-coo, cu-cough, cu-cough…” But it keeps singing, again and again. I can hear that the bird is flying – its voice is moving. I look in the direction of the song and watch the bird flying away, over the river, then landing on a fence post. It balances on its perch, the tips of its wings pointing down and its long tail flicking up. “Cu-coo, cu-cough.”
Bright yellow flag irises spill out from the lush green grasses by the river. A male broad-bodied chaser dragonfly, its flat, knife-like abdomen a pale powder-blue, flits from bramble to bramble. A Cetti’s warbler greets my approach from within a dense tree with an explosive, sweary outburst – another Cetti’s warbler answers behind me. Tinkling and whistling parties of linnets dance over the bushes.
This is the first time I’ve come here since the movement restrictions were lifted. The colours, the sounds of the birds and buzzing insects, and the warmth of the evening sun feel exotic and oppressive. My senses seem to struggle to cope with the experience, distantly familiar as a dream but now rich and fresh.
‘I hear another distant bird song – a grasshopper warbler.’
…
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Medical workers across New York City are joining the George Floyd protests, despite being in the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. These doctors and nurses say that racism is a public health crisis, and that police brutality and the disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths among African Americans are symptoms of the same problem. VICE News joins doctors as they take to the streets.
THANKS to SHOWTIME and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.
Cops respond to protests against systemic racism and police brutality with military tactics, macing and more of the same violence that protestors are working to shut down.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
Following the killing of George Floyd, protests against police brutality have broken out in all 50 states. In response, Los Angeles and New York City have announced plans to reallocate police money to the community, while Minneapolis considers disbanding its police force entirely.
Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass goes Inside the Hill to explain whether Trump needs to wage another war on the Middle East to get the coveted George W. Bush vote. Plus, should we invade America? Watch the full segment on CBS All Access.
The Platitudes Generator operators struggle to fill the dead space in Ivanka Trump’s commencement address and crank up the empty platitudes to full power. Watch the full segment on CBS All Access.
Seth takes a closer look at the president and police lashing out at Black Lives Matter protests despite polls showing overwhelming support for the demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
降りられないけど、登りたいまる。はなは、一応ゆっくりと降りることはできるけれど、てっぺんまで登った時は危ないので抱っこで降ろします。 Though Maru cannot get off by himself, he wants to climb. Hana can get off by herself slowly. However, I took her down by a hug when she climbed the top.
FINALLY . . .
The Life and Death of the ‘Floating City’ of Manaus
To some, this Brazilian neighborhood was a tropical Venice. To others, it was a slum on the water.
Houses of the “Floating City,” located in front of the city of Manaus, on the Rio Negro, in the 1960s.
FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS, Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, had a neighborhood that floated on the river. Located near the Meeting of the Waters, the Floating City was a labyrinthine maze of houses, churches, shops, bars, and restaurants, connected through precarious streets made of wood planks. At its peak, it had around 2,000 bobbing houses built on top of trunks, and a population of more than 11,000 people.
If it hadn’t been destroyed, the Floating City could have become one of the modern icons of the Amazon. Tourists and visitors loved it. It was the subject of features in national and international magazines, where it was often compared to Venice. National Geographic ran a story about it in 1962. And some of the scenes of the Oscar-nominated movie That Man From Rio were shot there. “It was the most vital neighborhood of Manaus,” says Milton Hatoum, a writer from the city, in Portuguese.
However, underneath this layer of fascination was a certain romanticizing of poverty. Most of the residents of the Floating City were low-income families. Sex work and heavy alcohol consumption abounded. And as in most poor districts of Brazil today, there was a lack of basic amenities, such as sanitation and running water.
View of Manaus.
The story of the Floating City, like the story of the city of Manaus, is closely related to the Rubber Boom. Rubber is made from latex, which is extracted from an Amazonian tree called Hevea brasiliensis. Unlike cotton or sugarcane, rubber trees could not be grown in large plantations at the time, so native trees were the only source of latex. From the end of the 19th century until the first decade of the 20th, virtually all the rubber in the world came from the Amazon forest. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
