Sunday funnies.

Three men seated at a table. Left: a dark-skinned man in a t-shirt, with no plate in front of him. Center: An older white man in a suit and tie, with a plate in front of him stacked with a mountain of cookies. Right: a white man in a hard hat and a safety vest, with a plate in front of him containing one cookie. The man in the center points at the dark-skinned man and tells the white working man, "Careful. That immigrant wants your cookie!"

If you like dark humor (is there any other kind?) there sure is much to snort about in this cartoon. Of course by “cookies,” I think it’s safe to assume the cartoonist is referring to special treats like nourishing food, a secure home, unpolluted water and air, access to education limited only by one’s abilities and aspirations, and no fear of police, of bullets, of medical bankruptcy, or of indentured servitude to predatory financial institutions, among many other “cookies.”

However, …the artist apparently “forgot” to draw women and people of minority identities other than Dark Immigrant Man kneeling and crouched on the floor all around the table, waiting and hoping for cookie crumbs to fall. You know, like dogs.

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I write letters to my Senators.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of the activist group Roots Action: one of their particular charms in my opinion is that their email campaign messaging is very good, and they allow users to tweak it and add to it, or even overwrite it entirely, before forwarding it on to one’s congresscritters. As you might imagine, sometimes that opportunity is too tempting for me to pass up.

Today via email, the good people at Roots Action offered up just such a tasty treat: an entirely editable missive to both my senators demanding they vote against President Biden’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Japan, that ratfucker Rahm Emanuel. It also urges them to announce their intent to do so publicly.

Here is the email with some background; unfortunately it does not come close to cataloging all the things I despise about this nominee. But then, ain’t nobody got that kind of time on their hands.

Roots Action logo

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Juneteenth: Boosting Black Voices.

Today, this Whitey McWhiteperson yields (most of) this space to BIPOC.*

Following are messages I received from two congresspersons I admire deeply. (I helped elect both to Congress by donating as generously as I could during their primary campaigns – where cash really counts – and in the latter case, also by providing intel and oppo research to him and his campaign peeps throughout his successful run to unseat a 16-term incumbent and darling of the Democratic Party.)

First up, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-5) (emphasis in original):

via email:

Iris,

156 years ago today, Black southerners in Galveston, Texas, finally learned the news of their freedom from enslavement — nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed — now known as Juneteenth.

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FtB Mothers Day Anthology: Mothers and Mom.

Mothers Day has utterly confounded me as far back as I can remember. During my childhood years, spent unhappily suffocating in lily-white, middle-class, conservative suburbia, I was continually struck by the jarring disparities between mothers I met in public, at school, at friends’ homes and, especially, those that dominated TV screens and supermarket magazines in the 1970s and ’80s, and the woman I knew as “Mom.” For better and for worse, Mom shared next to nothing with mothers. The contrast was so striking in fact, it occurred to me on more than one occasion that I might be born from another species altogether.

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What’s up, doc? The ills of race-based medicine.

I know you’ll all be mightily impressed to learn that I read The Lancet [although I hardly understand any of it]. I even have a subscription – actually several subscriptions: to The Lancet, The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology and The Lancet Oncology [I have “email subscriptions” to these journals, which are free and contain lots of links to paywalled content I can’t afford to read and probably wouldn’t understand anyway]. Despite being imprisoned by the Evil Elsevier Empire, there is actually plenty of open access Lancet content available to anyone with a web browser [and delusions of scientific literacy in multiple areas of cutting-edge medical research]. Some of that content is accessible in every sense of the word, and so outstanding that you might consider becoming a regular reader of The Lancet yourself. Exhibit A comes from the current issue: a “Viewpoint” titled From race-based to race-conscious medicine: how anti-racist uprisings call us to act.*

While I would encourage you to go read the whole thing [perhaps with another browser tab open to a medical dictionary?], I just want to highlight a few…uh…highlights.

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CARNIVAL of CURIOSITY: Interview with Iris!

Freethought Blogs - Carnival of Curiosity - INTERVIEW WITH IRIS! - September Fundraiser HELP US PAY OFF OUR LEGAL FEES
and
WIN AN INTERVIEW WITH MEEEEE!

That’s right: you can interview me, or I will interview YOU for #deathtosquirrels – winner’s choice.

NO SUBJECT OFF LIMITS!

Promote yourself or your business! Make me embarrass myself – forever! On the goddamn internet! Either way I will post our interview here, and you can post it wherever you desire.

But before we get to that, I want to tell you a quick story about what “free” speech really costs.

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QUEASHA HARDY #SayHerName: Black Trans Lives Matter.

[CONTENT NOTE: murder of Black transwoman Queasha Hardy; murders of transgender people generally and related statistics; misgendering; deadnaming. Post below the fold, because despite what we atheists like to tell you, HELL IS REAL. It is right here, right now, for far too many of the wrong people, and far too often Made In Amerikkka® by members of our own species.]

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Petition to Manhattan DA: drop charges against Derrick Ingram, and hold NYPD accountable!

This is Derrick Ingram.

photo of Derrick IngramDerrick Ingram
Black Lives Matter Protester and Organizer
Co-Founder,Warriors in the Garden
(photo via Amnesty International USA)

On August 7, dozens of NYPD officers in riot gear swarmed his apartment’s hallways, his fire escape and surrounding locations. They had no warrant. They did have a helicopter hovering overhead, though. They also brought police dogs right to his door and threatened to break it down. They lied to him about his rights and tried to interrogate him without legal counsel.

This siege lasted FIVE HOURS. It ended only after Derrick started livestreaming the incident: in response, a large group of protesters showed up, along with some media types who started asking questions. That is when the NYPD Stormtrooper Squadron™ finally took their toys U.S. military surplus equipment and went home.

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Chadwick Boseman, Rest In Power. Also, I need you to lie for me.

Good afternoon, beloved readers. First, I want to tell you some things. Then I am going to ask you to lie for me, and to get every adult under age 50 you care about to lie their asses off for you, too.

My heart is heavy today. I awoke to news of the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, at age 43, from colon cancer.

FORTY THREE.

Chadwick BosemanChadwick Aaron Boseman
November 29, 1976 – August 28, 2020
__________

Whether or not you’re a fan of Black Panther and the Marvel Universe movies, or of Boseman’s portrayals of iconic Black historical figures like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and James Brown, this man – by all accounts a kind person and talented beyond measure – has left our world too soon. And he is gone because of a preventable disease.

And as you might imagine, beyond my sadness at this tragic loss lies a fair amount of…well, RAGE. If you or people you love happen to live in the U.S. today, you are living in a country where this is true:

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‘Twas Ever Thus: U.S. Women 100 Years Post-Suffrage.

Uh-oh! Must be a day that ends in Y! The New York Times is pissing me right off.*

Today’s email briefing starts with a splashy paean to the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. The 19th Amendment, which granted (some) women voting rights, was enacted on this date one hundred years ago.

The email piece naturally links to recent Times articles on women’s suffrage and related topics. As usual, their failure to connect the blazing red dots of our history – history they themselves reported – does a criminal disservice to readers. And as usual, what they don’t deliver is at least as damaging as the disinformation they do.

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