Hasan Minhaj has a special episode where he lets loose his outrage at what has happened as a result of the George Floyd murder. During this 12-minutes clip, he also takes the Asian community to task for our hypocrisy and racism, taking advantage of all the benefits that we got because of the civil rights struggle led by the black community at great cost, while sitting on the sidelines or condemning the protests when the black community reacts to being under siege.
He does not mince his words. His anger is palpable. He speaks the truth.
Incidentally, Minhaj must have made this earlier yesterday because later in the day Minnesota state attorney general Keith Ellison did exactly what Minhaj urged him to do. He upgraded the murder charge against Derek Chauvin from third-degree murder to second-degree murder and charged the other three police officers on the scene with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. All four are now in custody.
For some reason, Trump and the Republicans are dead set against mail-in voting, constantly repeating some crackpot theory about how it will lead to massive fraud though studies have repeatedly shown that voting fraud in the US is almost non-existent and that committing such fraud with mail-in ballots is not only hard to pull off but the reward is hardly worth the risk of a felony prosecution.
I think that their opposition is based more on the general attitude of Republicans that making voting harder will discourage poor and minority communities from voting, which is their only hope of clinging on to power, hence all their attempts at making voting more onerous in so many ways. But in the case of mail-in voting they may be hurting their own cause more, since the older white people that make up so much of their base are more likely to want to mail in their ballots.
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I do not have an Instagram account and thus have never been to the site or used it in any way. All that I know about it comes from what people tell me and what I read in the media. It seems to be a favored platform for so-called ‘influencers’, people who use their accounts to promote products and in order to more effectively do so portray their lives in an unrelentingly upbeat way.
In the wake of the widespread unrest across the nation following the murder of George Floyd that has resulted in businesses being destroyed and other property damage, the Onion had this piece of advice from private equity specialists.
MINNEAPOLIS—Calling for a more measured way to express opposition to police brutality, critics slammed demonstrators Thursday for recklessly looting businesses without forming a private equity firm first. “Look, we all have the right to protest, but that doesn’t mean you can just rush in and destroy any business without gathering a group of clandestine investors to purchase it at a severely reduced price and slowly bleed it to death,” said Facebook commenter Amy Mulrain, echoing the sentiments of detractors nationwide who blasted the demonstrators for not hiring a consultant group to take stock of a struggling company’s assets before plundering. “I understand that people are angry, but they shouldn’t just endanger businesses without even a thought to enriching themselves through leveraged buyouts and across-the-board terminations. It’s disgusting to put workers at risk by looting. You do it by chipping away at their health benefits and eventually laying them off. There’s a right way and wrong way to do this.” At press time, critics recommended that protestors hold law enforcement accountable by simply purchasing the Minneapolis police department from taxpayers.
Also from the Onion, we have this video of a police officer describing the fear he feels every day that someone might record him brutalizing a civilian.
Actually, unlike Henry, I did see one superhero film that was in the Avengers series because I was curious as to what all the fuss was about. It did not persuade me to see any more. I also watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy because so many people I know loved the books so I watched the films to see if I might want to read them. The answer is no.
Netflix has a lot of specials featuring stand-up comics that usually last an hour or so. Comedies are my favorite form of entertainment but I find that when I watch these specials, I get restless after about 15 minutes or so. It seems like I reach some kind of joke saturation and then need some time to detox. This is true even for comedians that I find really funny, like Eddie Izzard whose riffs can go off in unexpected directions so that you do not quite know what to expect. This is why I usually tend to watch and enjoy short clips of comedians dealing with one particular topic or just a few.
Comedy films and TV shows spread the funny bits out more over time and this works better for me.
I know that these specials are popular and the comedians draw large live audiences as well to their performances, so clearly many people do not get tired they way that I do.
I was just curious if there are many others who are like me in this regard.
Get Fuzzy is a funny cartoon strip that takes place in an apartment occupied by a loner Rob, his lovable but dimwitted and gullible dog Satchel, and a sociopathic cat Bucky who loves to torment and exploit Satchel and who often has his weird cat friends over.
I have not seen either the stage production or the film version of the musical Cats but know enough to decide that it is not to my taste and also appreciate the humor of this recent strip.
Here is an actual performance of the song from the 1998 stage production.