Purple Finch. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Purple Finch. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Corey Multer (LinkedIn)
Content Warning: contains social media posts that some may find offensive.
Yet another person who just could not manage to reign in their bigotry and hatred. This time it’s one Corey Multer, a managing director for New York Life Insurance Co. Well, make that former managing director. It looks like New York Life Insurance makes a concerted effort to be a diverse company, but any person of colour working with or near Mr. Multer couldn’t have had an easy time of it, given his attitude and views.
Shanelle Matthews, director of communications with the Black Lives Matter organization, was verbally attacked on Facebook by Corey Multer, a managing director of New York Life Insurance Co.
Multer wrote:
You f–king racist pig whore. The world would be a much better place if you jumped in front of a moving train. Die!
Ms. Matthews had quite the response, and it was most excellent. For those of you who aren’t on facebook, her complete response is under the fold.
After a brief back and forth with New York Life Insurance, this was tweeted:
@TheShanelleM as a result of his comment this individual is no longer employed by us
— New York Life (@NewYorkLife) August 10, 2016
Good for Ms. Matthews for fighting the good fight, and refusing to back down. And good on New York Life Insurance Co too, for putting their money where their mouth is, so to speak.
Punta Gorda Police Officer Lee Coel is pictured in this undated handout photo, received August 11, 2016. Punta Gorda Police Department/Handout via Reuters.
A Florida police officer who mistakenly killed a 73-year-old woman during a role-play exercise this week has been the subject of excessive force complaints in the past, according to a police official and media reports.
[…]
Punta Gorda police have released few details about what led to Knowlton being shot by a live round, and Lewis declined to answer questions at the news conference.
He acknowledged reports that Coel, a K-9 police officer, had been accused of allowing his police dog to attack a man while on patrol in October last year.
“This officer was involved in a K-9 apprehension incident,” Lewis said. “Currently that incident is in civil litigation.”
Lawyer Scott Weinberg said Coel intended to cite his client, Richard Shumacher, for riding a bike at night without a headlight or taillight when the attack occurred.
Weinberg, who has filed a notice of intent to sue the city and the police department, released a police dash-cam video of the incident earlier this year. In it, Coel can be seen holding Shumacher down while the dog mauled him.
“The bottom line is that when I released this video two months ago, I had warned everybody that this man was going to kill somebody,” Weinberg said in a phone interview. “I told the chief to his face that this man was dangerous.”
Coel also was accused of excessive force in April 2013 while working as a police officer for Miramar, Florida police, court records show.
That incident and another case led investigators to determined Coel had violated department policies, and he was forced to resign, the Miami Herald reported.
Is anyone surprised by this? Anyone? Why, every single time, does it take multiple incidents, and at least one death to kick an evil asshole out of a cop shop? And lately, even murdering people isn’t enough to get cops fired. This is so wrong. Beyond wrong. Beyond fractally wrong. This has to stop. A cop gets investigated for excessive force? That’s it, you’re out, and you lose everything, job, pension, all of it. Maybe, just maybe, cops might start getting the message that a badge is not a license to do whatever they want.
Via Raw Story.
John Savage at Politico has an in-depth article about the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who not only continue their constant fight to keep confederate statues, symbols, and flags in place and protected, but are now planning a massive confederate monument, at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Orange’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, in the town of Orange, East Texas. Nothing subtle about that.
…Throughout this tempest, the Texas chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an aging army of deeply religious, federal government distrusting, neo-Confederate true believers, has emerged as a steadfast defender of Confederate iconography. The Texas SCV only claims about 5,000 members, but their ideology carries significant weight in the state. SCV members sued the University of Texas in an effort to stop the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue. They distributed more than 1,000 Confederate flags in Fort Worth after the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo banned the Confederate battle flag. Wherever someone wants to rename a school or remove a statue that honors the Confederacy, the SCV’s members soon follow.
But the Texas SCV is not only fighting against the disappearance of Confederate symbolism, they are behind the construction of what is likely the largest Confederate memorial built in a century — a multi-ton shrine nearing completion in an east Texas town near the Louisiana border. For the SCV, this battle is not just about protecting a Confederate heritage, it’s about resurrecting it, restoring that heritage so that they will continue to have something to protect.
[…]
Jim Toungate is the adjutant of the Williamson County chapter of the Texas SCV, and Savage had a long interview with him at his residence.
A lawsuit has been filed by a Trump campaign staffer, because it seems NC campaign director Earl Phillip was fond of motivating staffers with a gun. Phillip was relieved of his job just last week.
According to WBTV in Charlotte, when Vincent Bordini approached higher-ups in the campaign, they did nothing. Another campaign official confided to Bordini that he, too, had been threatened at gunpoint by Phillip.
WBTV’s Nick Ochsner posted the first page of Bordini’s complaint on Twitter. The incident took place in Phillip’s Jeep in February of this year, reportedly, when Phillip “produced a pistol, put his right index finger on the trigger, and drove the barrel into Vincent’s knee cap.”
Bordini went straight to campaign officials, the suit says, speaking first to the Trump campaign’s regional director of western North Carolina. “The Director told Vincent that he, too, had been brandished upon by Phillip,” the lawsuit says. “He was terrified.”
According to Ochsner, “campaign leadership, including then-camp mngr Lewandowski, refused to act.”
[…]
Phillip’s Facebook timeline is littered with pro-gun memes. “Until I am out of ammo or out of blood, I WILL FIGHT,” says one post.
“Life is about kicking ass,” says one image depicting an Army special forces operative brandishing an assault weapon, “not kissing it.”
Via Raw Story. I don’t have words for this, I really don’t. At this point, I’m not the least bit surprised, and like most everyone else, the constant stream of awful has left me numb. I know that’s bad, but I’m having trouble maintaining an effective sense of outrage. At this point, I’m just grateful this doucheweasel didn’t manage to kill or maim anyone.
2. You're never "just joking." Nobody is ever "just joking." Humor is a social act that performs a social function (always).
— Jason P. Steed (@5thCircAppeals) August 9, 2016
Jason Steed’s tweet storm has gone viral, and with good reason. He tackled the idea that Trump was “just joking” about that whole 2nd amendment people taking care of Clinton.
But in a certain sense, it doesn’t really matter what Trump intended. This tweetstorm, from Dallas lawyer Jason P. Steed, explains why.
Before becoming a lawyer, Steed was an English professor. He wrote his PhD dissertation on “the social function of humor” and found something important: Jokes about socially unacceptable things aren’t just “jokes.” They serve a function of normalizing that unacceptable thing, of telling the people who agree with you that, yes, this is an okay thing to talk about.
This, Steed explains, is why “it’s a joke” isn’t a good defense of racist jokes. By telling the joke, the person is signaling that they think racism is an appropriate thing to express. “Just joking” is just what someone says to the people who don’t appreciate hearing racist stuff — it shouldn’t matter any more than saying “no offense” after saying something offensive.
Likewise, Trump is signaling that assassinating Hillary Clinton and/or her Supreme Court nominees is an okay thing to talk about. He’s normalizing the unacceptable.
This is very much the same as the standard you walk past is the standard you accept, but people are always trying to exempt humor from that, and it is not exempt, in spite of all those who wish it to be.
Vox has the whole tweet storm, and Think Progress has an in depth article and interview with Steed.
Joe Caslin tackles Ireland’s steadfast refusal to legalize same sex marriage. Caslin’s art is printed out using biodegradable inks, then papered onto a suitably large surface. You can read about Yes Equality here. Caslin has also done a series, Our Nation’s Sons, dealing with mental health, depression, and suicide in Ireland’s men. Joe Caslin’s website is here, and there’s lot a lot to explore!
“Packed out church tonight as I got to reveal our brand new mission project,” the pastor’s caption on Instagram said.
“@livetsord will start using military drones, three meters wide, to drop thousands of electronic Bibles over closed areas in the Middle East. Let’s pray the message of God’s love in Christ will conquer that of darkness and hate!”
The apparent logic of the Swedish church Livets Ord, or “Word of Life,” is that by using a tactic that simulates the airstrikes that have traumatized a region, they will bring light and love and maybe convert some Muslims to Christianity.
“We start our project in a few weeks and hope to drop thousands of Bibles,” the church’s website says. The Bibles are “pillbox”-size and will supposedly be dropped from high altitude by a contractor hired by the church.
Faced with scorn from the media, Christian Akerhielm, the church’s missions director, has emphasized that the drone campaign adds to their good work in the region, which involves distributing aid at refugee camps.
[…]
The evangelical church was founded in 1983, and its founders have since left it and converted to Catholicism. It is a massive entity in the city of Uppsala, an hour’s drive north of the Swedish capital, Stockholm. It is run by the charismatic preacher Joakim Lundqvist, who introduced the drone mission to church attendees.
[…]
The Bibles are electronic but don’t need to be plugged in to work. One assumes they have been translated into Arabic, but that isn’t indicated in any of the publicity around the mission.
Leave it to Christians to be such utterly oblivious, insensitive assholes. Once again, they demonstrate that shining on light on their supposed good works is the most important consideration, much like Stuart with his constant refrain of Look what I can do!
Via Washington Post.
Mechanical Horn Centaur Beetle, 2015. 100 x 100 x 150 cm. Jati Wood, Pine Wood, Electric Dynamo.
Indonesian artist Dedy Shofianto creates unusual kinetic sculptures of insect-like creatures by carving almost every component from wood. Though powered by hidden electronics it’s the exquisitely detailed mandibles, wings, antennae, and gears of these hybrid creatures crafted from locally sourced jati (teak) wood that take center stage. It would seem that a lifetime of wood craftsmanship would have been brought to bear on each piece, all the more impressive considering Shofianto created these pieces when he was only 24 years old while still in school—he graduated from the Art Institute of Indonesia just last year.
The Power of Kumbang Tanduk. 120 x 120 x 120 cm. Mindi and Acacia Wood, 2014.
Photo © Tirana House.
You can see much more of Dedy Shofianto’s work here. Via Colossal Art.
One of the wild rabbits on property. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Heliopsis helianthoides, with a bonus beetle! Beautiful flowers from Kengi. Click for full size.
© Kengi. All rights reserved.
A Blue Jay shelling a peanut. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Darnell Wicker (Photo: Family of Darnell Wicker).
Darnell Wicker was pronounced dead around 2 a.m. from multiple shots to his torso, upper right extremity and lower extremities after police officers opened fire on him. The Jefferson County Coroner’s office in Louisville, KY admitted that they don’t know exactly how many times the 57-year-old man was shot.
Police officers Taylor Banks and Beau Gadegaard were responding to a domestic violence call when Wicker came outside holding a knife and a tree saw, according to WDRB.
“He came outside — he came out the door and was holding a knife in his hand, he started kind of swinging it around a little bit and he kind of came at us and so we shot,” an officer explains on the video.
Two women who witnessed the event tell a different story, however. Anita Jones, Wicker’s girlfriend and Denita Jones blame the police.
“They just ran up past him — around him — and just said, ‘Drop your weapon!’ Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!” Anita Jones described police not waiting for Wicker to drop the items. “He had no chance to drop the weapon.”
“The officers jumped out, came around, pushed her out of the way,” said Denita Jones. “I was far enough over here that he ran beside me, pushed her out of the way, said, ‘Ma’am move!’ ran up, the other one went that way. ‘Put it down!’ Pop! Pop! Pop!”
The officers also didn’t perform any kind of first aid on Wicker and the EMTs arrived nine minutes after he was shot.
“I was the person who actually had called them, and I didn’t want that to actually happen,” Denita Jones said. “That was my thing. I just wanted the situation to be okay.”
Once again, you have cops shooting someone, and once again, you have cops who refuse to render aid, even the simple act of calling for an ambulance. This has happened time and time again. Michael Brown. Paul O’Neal. And so many more. Pretty much all the people shot by cops. This is a demonstration of ingrained callousness, the dehumanization of bigotry. Body cam footage is below the fold, and it is graphic, so all the warnings.