Hekate
Hekate's JournalNot exactly off-topic, but I read a memoir of a *real* big-game hunter from over a century ago...
I disapprove of the practice, but that is beside the point; I was mainly interested because it was about the exploits of two women who had to overcome all the usual obstacles to entering a man’s world, including the snickers about how cute they were as they were setting out in Africa, before they left all the men in the dust.
That said, the author and friend went about the business of stalking and slaughtering creatures that fought back. It was fascinating, in a blood-soaked sort of way. Their trophies were many and acquired at real risk of death to themselves. Then I shut the book and was glad that times, in part, had changed, that most safaris these days are made with tripods and cameras.
The LaPierres and the Trump Boys as hunters? — yes, they are disgusting, but they are also laughable. They like to kill things, but do so at no risk to themselves or their expensive outfits. How fitting for the man who enables mass slaughter of schoolchildren and churchgoers. How fitting for the spoiled sons of a rich man who wants the government overthrown, but will in no sense appear on the barricades themselves.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but the scenario is so racist it boggles the mind. Additionally...
California was settled by Spain, as was Florida — and Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.
The Spanish Empire extended into the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well, not just Mexico, Central America, and South America. Thus the Spanish language, you see? Brazil only speaks Portuguese because the Pope at the time was asked to intervene between between Spain and Portugal and divvied up South America.
The United States purchased some territory, took some territory as spoils of war, and seized some. Some have been states so long that white Americans appear to be completely clueless... But our country, our government, we have a responsibility for the territories we hold, and if the people are poor and ill-educated that’s on us. If the people are brown, take it up with God Almighty and don’t set about planning for cultural extinction. We have enough of that in our history.
Wow. I lived in Hawai'i for about 20 years -- I was in grade school when we got Statehood...
One of the arguments in the US Senate against statehood was exactly the racist one you articulate: it was full of brown people, Asians and Polynesians and an lot of white folks who had zero problem with interracial marriage.
Hawai’i was and is geographically isolated, and you know, to this day there are people on the Mainland who think it is some kind of foreign country.
Now to Puerto Rico. The Spanish language is not a surprise to millions upon millions of Americans who either speak it themselves or have neighbors who do. How is this a problem? Puerto Ricans are — as Hawai’ians were before them — United States citizens. Treat them as such.
You note Puerto Rico is (all caps) poor. Pardon me, but that is on us and our federal government. 
"Beware those in whom the urge to excuse away murder is strong" - Hekate
We saw murder done before our very eyes. We saw the face of a cold-blooded killer staring straight at the cell-phone camera, daring anyone to stop him.
JUSTICE needs to be done, and justice needs to be SEEN to be done. We have a long, long way to go in this country, but Justice was done this day.
Just a few times. A bogus injury, a very serious injury, and a serial rapist...
Once the jury was impaneled so fast it made my head spin, & I think it was my question during the morning that caused the complainant to quit during lunch.
A young woman, a college student with no money, rolled into the rear bumper of a middle aged woman’s fancy car in a parking lot. The middle aged woman claimed pain (neck injury) and damages (to the car). I listened carefully, and as always, with a neutral face. There were big photos of the allegedly damaged car. There was something about the extent of the complaint that bothered me — it seemed disproportionate.
I asked: “Can you please hold up that picture so I can see it?” I frowned slightly, because I saw no evidence of damage. Not a smudge. So did everybody else. During the lunch break a fellow juror commented to me that he thought it was a bogus case, but I just rolled my eyes, mindful that we had been warned not to discuss anything.
Got back after lunch and boom! We were notified it was over as soon as we sat down.
Second one, years later, took us some days to hear all the evidence, and only one or two days to reach a verdict. A landlord was being sued by a tenant for severe burns she received from an improperly installed kitchen stove. It was Thanksgiving and she had a turkey in the oven and a tall pot of rapidly boiling water on the back of the stove. As she bent down over the open oven, the pot of water slid down and spilled across her back.
Fortunately the injured woman had a friend there who got her in the shower and sluiced her down with cold water before the ambulance came, but she still had significant hospital time and a couple of months of daily debridement at the Burn Unit, to which she could not drive herself.
So of course the landlord’s attorney brought in lots of technical evidence to show that it could never have happened like that. There were charts and photos. There were exacting measurements of the degree of tilt (such a teeny-tiny degree of tilt). There were testimonials about what a nice man the landlord was.
And indeed, he was not one of our notorious slumlords, of which we have a few. He was a self-made immigrant with calloused hands. At the time of this lawsuit he had purchased 3 houses on his block, some inhabited by family, some by tenants. He was accustomed to doing most if not all of the labor on his properties himself.
And therein lay the problem with the newly-installed stove. I don’t think he ever read the instructions — they were found in a package on the counter top. He figured he knew how to do this, he’d installed appliances before, and he did it.
But as I pointed out to my fellow jurors, there were at least 3 points at which he had failed to follow manufacturer’s instructions, not just the leveling issue. I said, I’m not an engineer or mechanic, but my dad worked for Lockheed Aircraft and every job he did around the home was as meticulous as I assumed his aircraft work was — electrical, plumbing, you name it. As for the leveling and the teeny-tiny degree of tilt — I turned to a man on the jury who was a home builder and again pointed out that while I didn’t have his expertise, isn’t there something important about that? And all of a sudden it was the home builder who got it, and who explained it, and by golly we all found for the injured woman.
The third one was emotionally gruesome. A young man was accused of raping a young woman at the beach. They were both students at the community college, I think. We had to sit all day listening while the attorneys tried to choose a jury, then were all told to come back in a week.
I had been among those who raised my hand yes when asked if I believed I could be impartial, but once I got home I became haunted as I tried to remember the names of all the women and girls who over time had told me about how they’d been raped. I could hardly sleep. I remembered my own childhood molestation. In my life I have been pretty good at compartmentalizing bad things so I could just get on with it, but this just broke down the defenses.
The following week we again assembled and listened to attorney-talk. Among other things, we were asked to review about 20 names on a whiteboard, a number of them from a county about 200 miles away — did we know any of them? Uh no. Because they would be coming to testify about his prior behaviors. Had we heard of a case there in which the defendant and several of his friends had been accused of assaulting a girl or girls in the restroom of the high school they attended? Because they’d been accused, not convicted. Oh shit no. He came to my town dragging this shadow. I’m sure his parents thought he’d be getting a fresh start.
At some point after that the judge asked us again if we had any doubts about our ability to go forward as impartial jurors, and if so, he would be glad to see us one by one in a separate room. It was kind of shocking how many women raised their hands, not just myself. I was dismissed out of that side-room almost before I could get the words out.
Later on I heard that the young man took a plea deal for 6 years, no trial. I’m sure he’s been out several years by now. For his own and everybody else’s sake, I hope he reformed, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it.
Asymptomatic people used to be known as "carriers," & I suggest the media bring that term back...
Let me be clear: Typhoid Mary was asymptomatic
That said, I hope your niece quarantines until she gets the all-clear and hope she is 100% all right.
I was 7, & can't tell if my memory of the sugar cube with the pink dot is mine or an overlay...
However, I vividly remember getting the shot, because a clinic was set up in a classroom at our elementary school. The organizers must have set the time for after adults got off work, because whole families came & it was dark when mine got there.
The line started at the classroom door, went down the sidewalk of the building, across the big playground, out the gates, and way down the sidewalk outside the school. My little sister was needle-phobic and pitched a fit that probably could be heard for a mile. After some soothing talk that didn’t work, Mom just held her tight until it got done. I can just hear the anti-vaxxers of this era clutching their pearls at the child-abuse and trauma. Fck that noise, you idiots. My baby sister had caught every damn thing my brother and I brought home from school before that, and it didn’t “strengthen her immune system,” it wrecked it.
The only people who didn’t bring their kids would have been considered fringe religious nuts back then. Every other adult in the country was righteously terrified of their children getting this deadly and crippling disease. Every single school had its share of children who survived but were crippled for life — and there were more that were not in school because they were not able to manage without a wheelchair or they were dead.
My grandchildren are unvaccinated. It breaks my heart. The most terrible diseases in the world were wrestled to the ground and almost vanquished in my parents’ generation and my generation — and look where we are now.
God bless Salk and Sabin. God bless the scientists.
It is very much the kind of victim-blaming rape victims experience & I have had it up to my teeth
No, really. If you are a white woman — or any woman, but I just mention the ones who live with the privilege of whiteness, AND YET hear the same garbage from the age of puberty on through old age about how THEY are responsible for being assaulted.
By the same token our culture places the majority of the blame for black men being targeted and killed by white cops squarely on the shoulders of — the victims.
If only she hadn’t been walking down the street in a cute dress. If only he hadn’t been driving a brand new car that didn’t have metal plates yet. If only she hadn’t gone to that party and unwittingly ingested Rohypnol. If only he hadn’t been jogging. If only she hadn’t let the cat out at 2 a.m. If only he’d put his hands on the steering wheel and hadn’t asked the cops why they pulled him over. If only she hadn’t been jogging.
Jesus Christ on a Trailer Hitch. These are not merely crimes of opportunity — predators will make their own opportunities, and we seem to have a culture just full of predators.
Don't give me that line about “Not all Men.” Fix it! You fix it! It isn’t up to the victims and targets to endlessly alter their behavior until there is no possible mode of being in this world at all.
Monoclonal antibodies: I pulled together a few links from prior DU posts...
...because there have been a couple of current posts from people who may be showing symptoms of COVID, and my recollection from Rachel Maddow’s excellent segments on the topic is that monoclonal infusions will help tremendously if done in the first 10 days. So there is need to both get tested early, and to locate places to receive an infusion if you are positive for COVID.
This is a partial list, but I wanted to consolidate it and bookmark it for future reference. I would appreciate it if anyone who has a link to Rachel Maddow’s two reports would post it here as well.
Thank you.
https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100215154969#post13
2-17-2021
While in the early stages (10 days) tell your doc you all want Monoclonal Antibodies ...
...especially if you have comorbidities like Diabetes, heart disease, or obesity.
From Rachel Maddow show 2-17-2021. It’s an infusion, not an injection or pill. It works. We all thought it was only for Trump and his cronies, but as it happens, 70% of the supply is going unused.
If your doc is unaware, do some research yourself.
Go to combatcovid.hhs.gov
for sites that have it — I assume they can ship to a hospital or clinic if one is not close.
Her show that evening kind of knocked my socks off, and I made sure to write this info down.
Best of luck to you all. Fingers crossed.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100215302525#post56
I searched for infusion centers covid monoclonal Florida . . .
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I know this treatment is recommended for anyone with mild covid symptoms within the first few days. You may want to ask your doctor for a referral. As you can see below, Adventhealth in FL administers this treatment and I'm sure if you did a search you would find an infusion center that does this that is in your area. I believe the treatment may be free and it is supposed to be the best thing to avoid serious illness.
Here is an HHS website showing where this treatment is offered:
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/01/11/hhs-launches-web-based-locator-for-covid-19-outpatient-treatment-sites-for-monoclonal-antibodies.html
re Adventhealth:
https://www.adventhealth.com/business/adventhealth-west-florida-media-resources/news/adventhealth-opens-lifesaving-monoclonal-antibody-infusion-center-high-risk-covid-19-patients
Yes it is. It's waaaaaay too easy to get Dems to play along in our own political self-destruction...
...especially with the media stirring the pot for fun and profit.
This time last year I was watching Gov Cuomo trying to inform New Yorkers about the pandemic, while incidentally engaging the whole nation with his emotional capacity, genuine ethnic folksiness, intelligence, and heart. He talked about his family in very relatable ways.
This time last year I was tuning in to my own Governor Newsom’s broadcasts as he tried to keep us abreast of California’s efforts to deal with the catastrophe. He’s really bright, and I like that, and he’s a Democrat so we know where he stands on the important issues, but he’s a technocrat, so while not cold, he lacks the folksiness of the guy from New York.
Over time, hubs and I started assessing the two men as presidential candidates, post-pandemic. I bet a lot of other people were doing the same.
What do you think their prospects are now?
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Central Coast, California
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