• • • google suggested • • •
WORD SALAD: Forest Garden is a concept from permaculture denoting a long-term biologically sustainable system for growing food & other products based on combining plants and trees together in natural woodland-like patterns. This compilation symbolizes the life cycle, the transformation of mankind and the Earth. It is a wake-up call and going back to the root values and a sustainable way of living, trough the mystical ancient sounds and deep dub bass following the heart beats.
• • • some of the things I read in antisocial isolation • • •
These Protest Photos Document Life in ‘Resurrection City’
In 1968, thousands of protesters camped on the National Mall as part of the Poor People’s Campaign.
Resurrection City, with the Washington Monument in the background. Embiggenable. Explore at home.
IN MAY 1968, JUST A month after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, around 3,000 protesters converged in Washington, D.C., to stage a campaign that the civil rights leader had been planning. Known as the Poor People’s Campaign, or PPC, it represented new directions in both King’s thought and strategy. The PPC was conceived in the belief that racial equality is inextricable from economic equality, that civil rights are insufficient without the security to enjoy them. And in practice, as he put it in a 1967 speech, King hoped that the protests would embody a “middle ground between riots on the one hand and timid supplications for justice on the other … ”
On May 13, the day after Coretta Scott King led protesters into the capital, thousands of the demonstrators set up tents and shacks on the National Mall, making it plain that they were not simply marching in and then out of town. They dubbed it “Resurrection City,” and called it home for more than 40 days. They made themselves impossible to ignore—so much so that, after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in early June 1968, his casket and funeral procession passed through Resurrection City.
Jill Freedman, a young, white, amateur photographer from New York, quit her job as a copywriter to live with the protesters in Resurrection City and document their time there. Though Freedman was not sent to the protests on assignment, her photos later circulated widely, appearing first in LIFE magazine and then in the book Old News: Resurrection City. In August 2020, Bonhams auction house will open bidding on a selection of Freedman’s protest photos, with estimates ranging as high as $7,000. The online auction, which will also include photos by Bruce Davidson, who documented the civil rights movement as well, will close in early September.
Protesters, seen from behind a police officer.
The images on sale portray the diversity of the protests’ participants and capture the events on scales both epic and intimate. One particularly striking photo shows the Washington Monument in the distance behind a row of tents, juxtaposing the nation’s stated ideals with its lived realities. Another shows children rafting through floodwaters around the tents, documenting the weather and volatile conditions the protesters endured during their stay. Throughout the photos there are close-ups and group shots, young children and older people, and Americana ranging from flags to passing Greyhound busses. There are also police: One photo captures an officer from behind, tightly clasping his baton, as a priest leads a group of protesters just a few feet across the way. …
The Prophecies of Q
American conspiracy theories are entering a dangerous new phase.
If you were an adherent, no one would be able to tell. You would look like any other American. You could be a mother, picking leftovers off your toddler’s plate. You could be the young man in headphones across the street. You could be a bookkeeper, a dentist, a grandmother icing cupcakes in her kitchen. You may well have an affiliation with an evangelical church. But you are hard to identify just from the way you look—which is good, because someday soon dark forces may try to track you down. You understand this sounds crazy, but you don’t care. You know that a small group of manipulators, operating in the shadows, pull the planet’s strings. You know that they are powerful enough to abuse children without fear of retribution. You know that the mainstream media are their handmaidens, in partnership with Hillary Clinton and the secretive denizens of the deep state. You know that only Donald Trump stands between you and a damned and ravaged world. You see plague and pestilence sweeping the planet, and understand that they are part of the plan. You know that a clash between good and evil cannot be avoided, and you yearn for the Great Awakening that is coming. And so you must be on guard at all times. You must shield your ears from the scorn of the ignorant. You must find those who are like you. And you must be prepared to fight.
You know all this because you believe in Q.
I. GENESIS
THE ORIGINS OF QAnon are recent, but even so, separating myth from reality can be hard. One place to begin is with Edgar Maddison Welch, a deeply religious father of two, who until Sunday, December 4, 2016, had lived an unremarkable life in the small town of Salisbury, North Carolina. That morning, Welch grabbed his cellphone, a box of shotgun shells, and three loaded guns—a 9-mm AR-15 rifle, a six-shot .38‑caliber Colt revolver, and a shotgun—and hopped into his Toyota Prius. He drove 360 miles to a well-to-do neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C.; parked his car; put the revolver in a holster at his hip; held the AR-15 rifle across his chest; and walked through the front door of a pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong.
Comet happens to be the place where, on a Sunday afternoon two years earlier, my then-baby daughter tried her first-ever sip of water. Kids gather there with their parents and teammates after soccer games on Saturdays, and local bands perform on the weekends. In the back, children challenge their grandparents to Ping-Pong matches as they wait for their pizzas to come out of the big clay oven in the middle of the restaurant. Comet Ping Pong is a beloved spot in Washington.
That day, people noticed Welch right away. An AR-15 rifle makes for a conspicuous sash in most social settings, but especially at a place like Comet. As parents, children, and employees rushed outside, many still chewing, Welch began to move through the restaurant, at one point attempting to use a butter knife to pry open a locked door, before giving up and firing several rounds from his rifle into the lock. Behind the door was a small computer-storage closet. This was not what he was expecting.
Welch had traveled to Washington because of a conspiracy theory known, now famously, as Pizzagate, which claimed that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of Comet Ping Pong. The idea originated in October 2016, when WikiLeaks made public a trove of emails stolen from the account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and then the chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign; Comet was mentioned repeatedly in exchanges Podesta had with the restaurant’s owner, James Alefantis, and others. The emails were mainly about fundraising events, but high-profile pro–Donald Trump figures such as Mike Cernovich and Alex Jones began advancing the claim—which originated in trollish corners of the internet (such as 4chan) and then spread to more accessible precincts (Twitter, YouTube)—that the emails were proof of ritualistic child abuse. Some conspiracy theorists asserted that it was taking place in the basement at Comet, where there is no basement. References in the emails to “pizza” and “pasta” were interpreted as code words for “girls” and “little boys.” …
Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19
Without understanding the lingering illness that some patients experience, we can’t understand the pandemic.
Lauren Nichols has been sick with COVID-19 since March 10, shortly before Tom Hanks announced his diagnosis and the NBA temporarily canceled its season. She has lived through one month of hand tremors, three of fever, and four of night sweats. When we spoke on day 150, she was on her fifth month of gastrointestinal problems and severe morning nausea. She still has extreme fatigue, bulging veins, excessive bruising, an erratic heartbeat, short-term memory loss, gynecological problems, sensitivity to light and sounds, and brain fog. Even writing an email can be hard, she told me, “because the words I think I’m writing are not the words coming out.” She wakes up gasping for air twice a month. It still hurts to inhale.
Tens of thousands of people, collectively known as “long-haulers,” have similar stories. I first wrote about them in early June. Since then, I’ve received hundreds of messages from people who have been suffering for months—alone, unheard, and pummeled by unrelenting and unpredictable symptoms. “It’s like every day, you reach your hand into a bucket of symptoms, throw some on the table, and say, ‘This is you for today,’” says David Putrino, a neuroscientist and a rehabilitation specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital who has cared for many long-haulers.
Of the long-haulers Putrino has surveyed, most are women. Their average age is 44. Most were formerly fit and healthy. They look very different from the typical portrait of a COVID-19 patient—an elderly person with preexisting health problems. “It’s scary because in the states that are surging, we have all these young people going out thinking they’re invincible, and this could easily knock them out for months,” Putrino told me. And for some, months of illness could turn into years of disability.
Our understanding of COVID-19 has accreted around the idea that it kills a few and is “mild” for the rest. That caricature was sketched before the new coronavirus even had a name; instead of shifting in the light of fresh data, it calcified. It affected the questions scientists sought to ask, the stories journalists sought to tell, and the patients doctors sought to treat. It excluded long-haulers from help and answers. Nichols’s initial symptoms were so unlike the official description of COVID-19 that her first doctor told her she had acid reflux and refused to get her tested. “Even if you did have COVID-19, you’re 32, you’re healthy, and you’re not going to die,” she remembers him saying. (She has since tested positive.) …
5 Bizarre Dumb Things Countries Made Citizens Do During Wars
During war, armies turn to brilliant and inventive strategies to outwit their opponents and win. We are not going to talk about those today.
Today, we’re going to talk about the home front, where a bunch of panicked governments pushed for completely stupid measures …
5. Britain Removed All Their Road Signs, So If Nazis Invaded, They’d Get Lost
When you think of British towns holding the fort against the Germans in World War II, your mind might conjure images of families huddled in darkness at night during the Blitz, eating beans on toast. But there was another major fear: German planes attacking the nation by DAY (also while Britons ate beans on toast). Plus, planes could drop something even scarier than Nazi bombs. They could drop actual Nazis in by parachute, ready to meet up and take the world’s least inspiring road trip. What could the nation do to combat this double threat?
The big problem, the country reasoned, was that Britain was covered in landmarks literally signposting the way to towns Nazis could infiltrate or destroy. Road signs stood at countless intersections, and placards labeled the names of every railway station. Pilots could possibly see these from the air if they were flying really low, while parachutists dropping into an otherwise wholly unidentifiable English village could use them as guides. So the British government gave the order to take all these signs down, or black them out.
A 'To London' sign being removed from a signpost in a Surrey village to ensure that no help is given to any possible invader in WW 2. pic.twitter.com/X1JyTj1RUe
— BritainsMilitaryHist (@BritainsMilHist) December 9, 2016
Information is a bit slim on just how many planes (which eventually did shift from daytime raids to night ones, just like the ones in your head) were affected by this, or how many airdropped Nazis with fake mustaches got totally lost and abandoned their mission. What we do know is that the absence of signs confused the hell out of American troops who came to England to help. Replacing the signs after the war finished was a massive project, which is to say that it never happened at all in a lot of places, and they’re still working on getting the signposts back today.
Our advice would have been to follow this random Brit’s suggestion and twist the signs around Bugs Bunny-style, so they were all still there, but they pointed in the wrong direction. That would have really screwed with invaders and sent many a Nazi mindlessly following the directions and walking off the nearest cliff. …
RELATED: 6 People With Amazing Yet Totally Useless Abilities
With great power comes great responsibility, and with useless power comes neat bar tricks. We’ve told you before about a few possible X-Men in training, with amazing skills that range from the irrelevant all the way to the pointless. Time to fill out that roster a bit more:
6. Martin Laurello’s Had Eyes on the Back of His Head
Martin Laurello first became known in the 1920s as “Bobby the Boy With the Revolving Head,” before graduating to “Revolving Head Man” and finally the “Human Owl.” To be fair, those aliases did get progressively better, but to be slightly unfair, they’re all still pretty terrible. Though we guess Human Owl is okay — sort of a store-brand Batman.
As you may have guessed by now, Martin’s power was the ability to turn his head all the way around.
That’s not a trick photo — they didn’t have Photoshop in the ’20s. They had scissors, glue, and markers. They couldn’t pull that off. But just in case you still don’t believe it, here’s some footage of Laurello for you.
In fact, according to Laurello, anyone could do what he did — all it took was pushing his head farther and farther every day for three years, until he could ogle his own butt. Although the fact that he had a dislocated spine to begin with probably helped a bit. But Laurello possessed more than one talent. He had to. He made his living as a performer, and his whole head-rotation schtick lasted, what, about 4 seconds? …
New dog walking rule in Germany leaves owners scratching their heads
A pug is pictured during the annual pug meeting in Berlin, Germany, August 31, 2019.
A new rule forcing Germans to take their dog for a walk twice a day has unleashed a debate on whether the state can decide what is best for the country’s 9.4 million pet canines.
Agriculture Minister Julia Kloeckner announced this week she had taken expert advice and was introducing a law to ensure dogs go for a walk or run in the garden at least twice a day for a total of an hour.
“Pets are not cuddly toys – their needs have to be considered,” said Kloeckner, adding pets must get sufficient exercise and not be left alone for too long.
With almost one in five German homes owning a hound, the new “Animal Welfare Dog Regulation”, which also sets limits on the transportation of farm animals in hot weather, affects a significant proportion of the population.
“Compulsory Walkies for Dog Owners? Rubbish!” wrote the top-selling Bild newspaper in an opinion piece on the new decree. …
A Dunkaroos Beer Exists And It’s Brewed With Cookies And Sprinkles To Taste Just Like The Nostalgic Treat
Let’s get drunk-aroo!!!
The announcement of Dunkaroos returning to stores back in February nearly broke the internet. In May when they were officially spotted on shelves, people went wild. The hype for the nostalgic snack isn’t over yet, because now there’s a brewery making a Dunkaroos-flavored beer that only real ’90s kids will love.
Martin House Brewing Company in Fort Worth, TX, created the peculiar concoction, but they carefully sourced their ingredients to make sure the beer tasted just like Dunkaroos. The eight percent ABV beverage—aptly named DunkAbroos—is brewed with cookies, vanilla cream, lactose, and sprinkles. Martin House Brewing confirms that each sip will taste like the cookie and frosting snack we know and love.
“The flavors have been replicated perfectly. It’s a sweet, cookie-filled brew that even has that frosting finish (like when you save all the cream for the last cookie – y’all know what we’re talking about)!” they wrote in their Instagram caption announcing the new product.
DunkAbroos was released four days ago as a taproom exclusive and with a limit of one four-pack per customer. In just two days, Martin House Brewing officially sold out of the specialty beer, but thankfully they already have plans to bring it back soon. …
Ed. Ironically, this article was headed by a Pepto Bismol ad when I first viewed it.
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Obama’s convention speech was so devastating, it made Trump break his caps-lock key.
THANKS to SHOWTIME and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.
It took only minutes for President Trump to go after Goodyear Tires on Twitter, after the company banned employees from wearing MAGA apparel at their Ohio facility.
THANKS to CBS and A Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.
The President gave another disastrous presser today in which he lamented that colleges are going remote due to Covid-19, and flirted with the idea of playing the hero in an online conspiracy theory. Oh, and he put his path to victory in the electoral college at risk by calling for a boycott of one of Ohio’s biggest employers.
Seth takes a closer look at Trump and Fox News desperately trying to distract attention from the Democratic National Convention.
THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.
With the selection of Kamala Harris as the first Black female VP candidate, it’s hard not to feel even a little bit of hope for 2020. But when it comes to the historically racist tactics of presidential campaigns, we might be better off expecting the worst.
THANKS to TBS and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for making this program available on YouTube.
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Here’s me commentary on havin’ a shop on Facebook Marketplace. It’s been handy for fitting out Ozzy Man Studios at bargain basement prices ay, although some people are definitely dreamin’ on there. Have a mint day ya legends! Ute Guy Always Wins!
小さい頃は嫌がったりもしましたが、今ではすっかり慣れました。まる様の良いお手本のおかげかもしれません。掃除機も、子供の頃はスイッチを入れると一目散に逃げていきましたが、まるが全く動じないので、はなも今ではよっぽど自分に近づかなければ逃げなくなりました。 When Hana was small, she refused to nailclippers. But now she’s used to it. It may be favor of Maru’s good example.
IT SEEMS like more was said there. Let’s give Google Translate a chance to polish this one up…
I used to hate it when I was little, but now I’m used to it. Maybe thanks to Maru’s good example. When I was a kid, when I was a kid, when I turned on the vacuum cleaner, I ran away at a glance, but since I didn’t move at all, now I can’t escape unless I get close to myself.
FINALLY . . .
Washington, D.C.: Ben’s Chili Bowl Mural
A gorgeous mural outside a beloved D.C. restaurant pays homage to famous Black Americans.
Embiggenable. Explore at home.
WHILE MOST VISITORS FLOCK TO Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street for its signature half-smoke sausage, the beloved Washington, D.C., landmark also boasts a spectacular mural that celebrates notable Black Americans.
The mural has been changed multiple times since it appeared in 2012, and previously featured a large, smiling Bill Cosby, Barack Obama, Donnie Simpson, and Chuck Brown. That portion of the mural was removed after allegations against Cosby, who was a famous frequent visitor to Ben’s Chili Bowl, came to light. For a short period of time in 2017, the mural featured a tribute to the Washington Wizards in time for the NBA playoffs. Then, later in 2017, local artist Aniekan Udofia painted the mural that stands there today.
Washington, like many other major U.S. cities, has been pushing for the creation of murals to prevent graffiti and gang tagging. This is especially present around U street, home to lots of D.C.’s most famous murals. What make’s Ben’s Chili Bowl’s mural special among this abundance of art? Its sheer size, vibrant colors, and connection to the historic restaurant.
Now a D.C. fixture with multiple locations, Ben’s Chili Bowl was founded by Ben Ali in 1958. The original store quickly became an essential part of the U Street community. Throughout the years, the store has hosted a wide range of celebrity guests, from Barack Obama to Ella Fitzgerald. What is probably most interesting about the history of Ben’s Chili Bowl is that during the 1968 Riots, unlike other businesses, Ben’s Chili Bowl was able to stay open after curfew, feeding protesters and police alike. …
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Likely, if I find nothing more barely uninteresting at all to do.
