Crap journalism is a plague during the times of a plague.
No, Alabama frat boys aren’t doing snot shots and betting on who can get sick first. Why does the media keep suggesting otherwise?
‘…It is, of course, technically impossible to rule out the existence of Covid parties. Maybe somewhere in this vast and complex nation there are some foolish people getting infected on purpose. It’s also possible that the miasma of media coverage will coalesce into a vector of its own, inspiring Covid parties that otherwise would not have happened. But so far there’s no hard evidence that even a single one has taken place—just a recurring cycle of breathless, unsubstantiated media coverage.’
Fascinating how British imperialism trumps xenophobia, racism and isolationism.
‘…Up to three million Hong Kong residents are to be offered the chance to settle in the UK and ultimately apply for citizenship, Boris Johnson has said. [….] About 350,000 UK passport holders, and 2.6 million others eligible, will be able to come to the UK for five years. And after a further year, they will be able to apply for citizenship…’
France to rename streets after African WW2 heroes
‘…France’s armed forces ministry has provided local authorities with a guide to 100 Africans who fought for France in World War Two, so that streets and squares may be named after them.
France’s reappraisal of its colonial past is fuelled by the global anti-racism protests and Black Lives Matter.
There are many Senegalese and North African soldiers on the list, but none from what was French Indo-China.
Africans played a big role in the liberation of France in 1944.
More than 400,000 Africans in the Free French Forces took part in the Allies’ landings in the south of France in August 1944, codenamed Operation Dragoon. They were involved in heavy fighting to liberate Toulon and Marseille…’
Jeff Bezos’s Wealth
‘…[Jeff Bezos’s] gains — $56.7 billion this year alone — underscore a widening wealth gap in the U.S. during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Initial public offerings and buoyant equity markets have bolstered mega-fortunes, even as tens of millions of people have lost their jobs. This week, after receiving complaints about ending pandemic hazard pay, Amazon said it would spend about $500 million to give one-time $500 bonuses to most front-line workers…’
Nearly half the USA population is jobless
‘…The employment-population ratio — the number of employed people as a percentage of the U.S. adult population — plunged to 52.8% in May, meaning 47.2% of Americans are jobless, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. As the coronavirus-induced shutdowns tore through the labor market, the share of population employed dropped sharply from a recent high of 61.2% in January, farther away from a post-war record of 64.7% in 2000…’
Colt reverses controversial decision, decides to sell to civilian market again
‘…Colt is once again selling civilian AR15 variants of its M4 and M16 series of rifles, a mere nine months after the once-prominent military arms manufacturer stated they would discontinue the semi-automatic civilian line…’
https://warisboring.com/colt-reverses-controversial-decision-decides-to-sell-to-civilian-market-again
Curry Before Columbus
‘…Soon after Columbus’ first expedition, the treaties of Tordesillas and Saragossa divided the oceans of the newly-known world. The Portuguese effectively took the Atlantic and Indian oceans, while the Spanish took the Pacific. With that, the Portuguese established forts and trading posts along India’s Malabar coast. In time, aloo (potato), tamātar (tomato), and mirchī (chilies) were available on the western coast of the Indian subcontinent. Later, the English set up their first trading posts in India in the eastern Gangetic plain, bringing these same staples into North India.2
So what was curry like before Columbus? Well, curry didn’t exist.
In these cases, I find it useful to consult my Hobson-Jobson, the nineteenth-century dictionary of Anglo-Indian loan words. According to that source, curry comes from the Portuguese word karil (caril) via the Tamil word kari (sauce, relish for rice). In the sixteenth century, this was transliterated into English as caril, but by the 1680s entered English as carrees, perhaps from caris, an Anglicized plural form of the Portuguese.3 It’s a circle: I’m back to Tordesillas and Saragossa…’
https://contingentmagazine.org/2020/06/25/curry-before-columbus
Worth watching. There are many examples in this video I hadn't heard of before. And I don't understand why some youtubers have been excluded. Seems like a stricter definition of 'Left' than what I have? But it is true there is an amazing resurgence of Left media. Sadly almost all of the media is online. Whatever happened to the old radical zine or cheaply printed alternative newspaper?
Why have US deaths stayed steady while Covid-19 infections are spiking
‘…Which means that a crucial issue affecting mortality is whether the raging epidemic in Southern states will result in the virus further spreading into nursing homes.
Because there is no mandatory reporting of cases by nursing homes, as well as the suggestion that some states have not been forthcoming about their nursing home cases, the only way to estimate what’s ahead is to examine cases and rates among persons 65 years old and older. Of course, most of the approximately 50 million people in the US in this age group are not in chronic care facilities, which provide care to about 1.3 million Americans, but most who are in chronic care facilities are in this age group.
Overall, looking at the 65+-year-old group is extremely important when examining Covid-19 mortality: Though they make up only 16% of the US population, more than 80% of the US Covid-19 deaths have occurred in this group…’
Los Angeles is racist, by design – and with Federal money
‘…Los Angeles was never a paradise of racial acceptance, but in 1910 some 36% of L.A.’s African Americans were homeowners (compared with 2.4% in New York City) — tops in the nation. L.A.’s comprehensive Red Car transit system, which offered easy, unsegregated access to the region’s growing economic opportunities, was fundamental to this success. Integrated, racially diverse neighborhoods like Watts and Boyle Heights emerged and thrived along these transit corridors.
[….] When the 1944 Federal-Aid Highway Act allocated funds for 1,938 miles of freeways in California, planners used the opportunity, with full federal support, to obliterate as much as possible the casual mingling of the races.
[….] Officials justified these actions as “slum clearance”— intended to upgrade the city’s supposedly crumbling housing stock. But their racially malign intent was obvious, laid bare when officials moved the Santa Monica Freeway so that it ran directly through the stately African American middle class neighborhood of Sugar Hill — anything but a slum — wiping it off the map…’
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/bulldoze-la-freeways-racism-monument
The Netherlands will not apologise, for now.
‘…The government will not apologize for the Netherlands’ history of slavery, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a parliamentary debate on institutional racism on Wednesday. While he understands the calls for a apology, this is not the time, he said. “Apologies form a risk that society will further polarize” he said. [….]
“I understand the requests and I know what apologies can mean,” Rutte said. But the government carefully considered the matter and came to the conclusion that this is not the time. He called the considerations “a struggle”, adding that the decision not to apologize had nothing to do with fears of financial claims or repatriations. But that the question of how far back in time apologies can reach was a consideration. The concern that an apology now would only increase polarization in society was also an important factor, he said. [….]
“It is 2020 and this is the harsh reality for many of our fellow countrymen. The fact that all those Black Lives Matter demonstrations are waking up more and more people is good, but it also deserves follow up in our systems, our institutions and in our policies,” Jetten said. “To experience racism is to experience inequality and the generations of the future have the right to a world without racism. That will not happen after one debate or overnight. D66 therefore wants a coherent and long-term approach.”…’
https://nltimes.nl/2020/07/02/dutch-govt-wont-apologize-slavery-cause-polarization-pm-rutte
2020.07.02 US coronavirus deaths estimated to be 28 percent higher than reported
‘…Coronavirus-related deaths tallied from March through May were 95,232, or 28 percent less than the excess number of deaths. The undercount may be due to early nursing home deaths or deaths attributed to pneumonia rather than COVID-19, Reuters reports …’
