Great moments in policing

Suppose you are a police officer and you and a fellow officer are called to a nursing home that specializes in residents with higher care needs including dementia because staff reported that a resident had taken a steak knife from the kitchen. When you get there you see a diminutive 95-year old woman coming slowly towards you using a walker and carrying a knife. How do you deal with the situation?

My guess is that you do not take out your Taser and zap her. And yet that is what one officer did. As a result, the woman fell and hit her head on the ground and is now in hospital in a critical condition.
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Backlash to ‘thoughts and prayers’

Politicians who have opposed any gun control measures whatsoever are the ones who are quickest to send out ‘thoughts and prayers’ messages after yet another mass shooting and people are increasingly fed up with that meaningless piety that is never backed up by any concrete action.

Texas US senator Ted Cruz’s comment that he was “praying” for families of the eight victims killed in a shooting at a shopping mall in his state has sparked outrage as many critics say the Republican should advocate for meaningful gun control rather than repeatedly invoke prayer after mass, deadly violence.

The backlash came as President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass gun control bills in the wake of Saturday’s attack, in which the gunman was also killed, in Allen, Texas.

Cruz and other fellow Texas Republicans have faced similar backlash for citing general emotional support, thoughts, prayers or a combination thereof after the Texas slayings.
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Shannon Watts, founder of gun safety group Moms Demand Action, said on Twitter: “YOU helped arm him with guns, ammo and tactical gear. He did exactly what you knew he’d do. Spare us your prayers and talk of justice for a gunman who is … dead.

“The only accountability we can hope for is that gun extremists like you are thrown into the ash heap of history.”

Star Trek actor George Takei added: “You’re worse than useless.”

Another Twitter user said thoughts and prayers “are nothing but blasphemy and evil”. Yet another quipped: “Have you tried turning the prayer machine off and back on again.”
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Cruz has received more than $442,000 from organization which support keeping guns as accessible as possible, according to Axios and Open Secrets. He has used language referring to thought and prayers rather than restrictions on guns in reaction to other previous mass shootings in his state.

(Curtis)

The wellness craze

Desi Lydic was last week’s the rotating host for The Daily Show and she had some thoughts about the wellness craze and how some influencers are promoting dangerous practices.

What strikes me is that the people who fall for these practices seem to act as if they are at war with their bodies, that their bodies are trying to kill them and they must be constantly vigilant to fight them, and are willing to do the most bizarre things that random people suggest.

They really, really hate transgender people

Recently there was a ridiculous fuss raised by the usual suspects whenever transgender issues come up. This was when the beer company Anheuser-Busch featured a trans woman influencer in an online promotion. On his show Last Week Tonight John Oliver describes the absurdity that ensued. (For some reason the full clip was not available anywhere but it can be found split into two parts.)

How Harry and Meghan’s child became part of the Disney-DeSantis feud.

The governor of Florida Ron DeSantis is a prime example, if you needed one, that having elite educational credentials (he attended Yale as an undergraduate and then Harvard Law School) does not mean that you are smart. I wrote before that I thought his decision to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 (while he has not yet made a formal announcement, he has done pretty much everything that a prospective candidate does) was not a good idea, that he would suffer because of it, and that he would have been in a far better position in 2028.

Further evidence that his political skills are sub-par comes from the fight he picked with the Disney corporation, escalating it to such ridiculous levels that it risks backfiring on him. DeSantis seems to think that running on an ‘anti-woke’ platform will be his key to success in outflanking Trump on the culture war grievance issues. He has bragged that ‘Florida is where woke goes to die’. The word ‘woke’ is conveniently undefined, meaning that one can claim to be anti-woke by seizing on any aspect of the culture wars and opposing any moves that seek to make society more egalitarian by promoting acceptance of marginalized groups. In particular, ‘anti-woke’ rhetoric has been used to attack equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
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The cruelty of solitary confinement

In a recent episode of the show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver took on the issue of placing prisoners in solitary confinement, how it is extremely cruel, and how sometimes prisoners are subjected to it for punitive reasons for minor infractions.

I learned that the practice was started by Quakers, of all people, who thought that it might encourage thoughtfulness and penitence. I also learned that the average size of a solitary confinement cell is just 6ft by 9ft, which means that there are some that are smaller than that. Imagine being cooped up in such a small space for 22 or 23 hours a day.