Why do we give these incompetent asshats guns anyway?

Unbelievable.

A police officer fatally shot a Black man, identified as Daunte Wright, after he was pulled over in a Minneapolis suburb Sunday, leading to clashes between protesters and law enforcement. On Monday, the police chief for the city of Brooklyn Center said the unidentified officer intended to use her Taser but instead grabbed her gun and shot Wright.

During a press conference, police released bodycam video of the shooting. In the video, the officer who shot Wright shouted “Taser” multiple times before firing her gun at Wright at close range while Wright was in the driver’s seat.

“I just shot him,” the officer said as the car drove away.

This officer should not have been armed. She should not have been on the street. She just murdered a man “by accident”, only it’s not an accident if you are so badly trained that you blast away with a firearm when you “intended” to use a taser.

Why do the police need guns to make traffic stops? Why did she even need to use a taser against him?

Regrettable tattoo

I do not have any tattoos. I’ve admired many, and have thought of some it would be nice to have, but I always overthink them. The classic “Mary + PZ” on a heart-shaped background appealed to me, once upon a time, but it was a little trite, and I feared that once I put it in indelible words on my skin, that’s when she would leave me. And now, after 40+ years, it’s both trite and redundant.

I also love the art of the Coast Salish peoples, and have a particular salmon design in mind that I wouldn’t mind making permanent, but…I’m white as they come, belonging to the ethnic group that displaced and killed those people. It would be appropriation in the truest sense, so no, I have held off.

So I don’t think it’s going to happen now.

I can console myself with the thought that at least I’m not one of those people who gets stupid drunk and has something ridiculous inked on. Or worse, someone who puts deep thought into a tattoo that is supremely idiotic, like this one.

(Warning: below the fold in case you’re a sensitive classics teacher who cries at abuse of your discipline.)

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Oh, and that other cesspit, Facebook

Facebook is probably worse than YouTube, since that’s where people gather to overthrow the government and tell each other racist things, but at least it does have the Red Skull Core. That’s a Facebook group where they make memes by putting Jordan Peterson’s actual words into word balloons coming out of the mouth of that Nazi arch-villain, the Red Skull. It’s amazing how well they work when put into that context. Those guys are always complaining about being taken out of context, right?

Day Two starts off well

I got my second Pfizer shot yesterday, and I had had a mild reaction (lethargy, general weakness) to the first shot, so I was a little worried about this one. And so far, it’s a little worse! Just a little, though.

I woke up at 3am feeling mildly achey, but managed to fall back asleep. And then I slept in until 7am! I never sleep that late. I’m still feeling a few more aches, and my arm is definitely feeling much more sore, but it’s not bad. I have no excuse to shirk going through that massive pile of lab reports that came in last night.

I do have that strange urge to reformat the hard drive on my Linux machine and install Windows, and also upgrade my phone to 5G. I hope I get over those soon.

I was wrong. I got cocky and went for a walk, and my joints caught fire on the other side of town. Meanwhile, Mary is lying flat, whimpering.

Get me through this Friday, please

The bad news: I arranged my schedule so that I don’t have any classes or labs on Friday. The dream was that I’d have this one beautiful day to catch up on grading and have some lab time. The dream is dead. Instead, my Fridays have filled up with meetings. My calendar is packed with meetings, meetings, meetings today.

The good news: Mary and I are scheduled for our second vaccine shot this evening!

Cat story

As many of you know, I live with an evil cat who demands my obedience. But she’s also a weird cat (all cats are weird) who has some predictable behaviors.

Every morning is like Christmas when I get up. She knows I’ll use the bathroom first thing, so she rushes in there, finds a good vantage point, and watches patiently while I pee. Then she runs up and down the hallway because her patience has expired, and while I do pointless things like comb my hair and brush my teeth and put on a shirt, she has to gallop back and forth waiting for me to finish, because the real point of my rising is to give her her morning wet food.

I walk to the kitchen with this annoying beast darting about underfoot, I don’t know why — she could make me trip and fall and break my neck and provide a big mess of meat to gnaw on, but she’s very picky: her cat food has to be fish flavored, and she won’t even touch chicken or beef or long pig (I haven’t tried the latter, though, maybe she has an appetite for it). Once I get to the kitchen, she starts yowling and making strange sounds, as if she’s trying to tell me to hurry up in Human. She’s uncontrollably eager, until I arrive at her plate with an open can of food. Then she goes silent and sits and waits.

I plop a big lump of fishy brown stuff on her plate. She looks at me nonchalantly — she seems to be saying, “What? For me? You shouldn’t have.” She walks a little closer, stops, sticks her neck out and sniffs cautiously. “Really? I don’t know if I should.” She looks at me again. “I’ll think about it. You may go now.” Once I turn my back on her, only then will she charge in and snarf it all down.

She puts on this little act twice a day, because I feed her when I get up in the morning and when I fix dinner for us humans. I haven’t told her yet that I’m not fooled, because if she thought her secret was out she might decide to silence me.

Things we’re accustomed to here

Just to inform you: if call in to a location in the upper midwest at a particular hour in, usually, the first week of the month, you may find yourself drowned out, as this bewildered reporter discovered. She seems a little flustered and concerned.

Every month, communities around here test out the tornado alert system. When I first moved here, it sure startled me — piercing sirens suddenly going off once a month, and at first I had no idea what it was about. Air raid? Nuclear war? Nah, it’s just a routine test in case a howling funnel of savage destructive winds descend on you and wreck all the buildings around you. Nothing to worry about.

Don’t call it “childish”

Here’s a too-common story about how some citizens are responding to the pandemic by shirking their responsibilities.

Kelly Sills paid a small fortune for an enchanting trip to “the most magical place on Earth.”

Instead, the Baton Rouge resident — like several other Disney World guests who have defied coronavirus restrictions — visited the Orange County jail.

Amid heightened precautions for the virus at the major Florida tourist attraction, Sills, 47, skipped the temperature screening required of guests, authorities said. He was confronted by security about it at a Disney Springs restaurant, the Boathouse, when he yelled and refused to leave, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest report from Feb. 13. When deputies insisted he would be charged with trespassing, he pointed to how much he spent on his vacation, according to body-camera footage released this week.

My first reaction: people spend $15,000 on a vacation? What? How?

My second reaction: you booked a trip to DisneyWorld during a pandemic? That’s nuts.

My third reaction: and then you’re so petty and obnoxious that you skip past basic health checks? That’s how plagues spread, ya bozo.

My fourth reaction: my two-year old granddaughter is more mature and responsible than Mr Sills.

Smarter, too.