Links are at the end, in the links carry-on.
Flying on Japan Air Lines, where everybody will have been polite and masked except the cloistered business class passengers. Yr. editor has not traveled since May of 2019, as plans for February of 2020 were severally derailed. A bonus here is that some items thought to be lost forever have been in the suitcase going on five years.
This is a miles trip, costing $79 plus a bit of spending money and some incidentals. Yr. editor has often relied on the kindness of strangers, and even more often on the kindness of friends.
PoPo on the rampage
Just after Bolaji Tubo bought a two-story corner house in Prince George’s County, a pipe burst.
Months later, hoping to move into the home with his family, he went to meet with contractors to assess the water damage. But soon, Prince George’s County police arrived. Officers placed him in handcuffs and arrested him as neighbors watched, Tubo said.
The former owner of the property, claiming to still be the owner, had called the police on Tubo for trespassing.
Tubo was awarded $300,000 for his trouble, but of course the cops are still employed.1 One of them told him to go back where he came from. Tubo said he feared for his life, but he got off lightly. So far, anyway.
“Something has to change because what is going on here should not go on in a civilized society.”
Experts disagree on whether we’re a civilized society.2
For 90 minutes, deputies exercised what Shabazz called intimidation and unjustified torture of Jenkins and Parker. The men were punched, kicked, slapped and tasered while handcuffed. They had guns pointed at them and were threatened with death, Shabazz said.
The attorney said during that time, the deputies waterboarded Jenkins and Parker. Waterboarding is an illegal torture technique that involves strapping someone down, putting a wet rag in their mouth and pouring water over them to simulate drowning. “It was senseless and uncalled for,” Parker said at the news conference. “It was traumatizing and something I never thought I’d go through.”
It ended when a deputy placed a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and pulled the trigger, Shabazz said. Jenkins could have died, but the bullet exited his mouth.
Waterboarding!
Experts are now unified in their pronouncements.
There’s more, of course, but one can’t endlessly recount this stuff.3
“Prairie Voles Born via C-Section Can’t Bond”
A journal study made available online this month has shown that prairie voles don’t form the pair-bonds they’re famous for if they’re born via cesarean section.
The study comes with a caveat, though, adding to the intrigue: If the researchers intervened with an emergency dose of the hormone oxytocin upon delivery, the prairie voles would retain the ability to pair-bond at maturity.
The findings raise the question: Is how we’re born more important to how we love and relate in life than we ever realized?4
One intriguing aspect aspect of the research is that someone thought to undertake it. Science!
“company employed children to clean razor-sharp saws using hazardous chemicals”
The investigation into this particular atrocity was announced some while back; at that time, maybe two dozen children were thought to be involved. Now more than 100 have been identified as having worked in various meat processing plants.5
The political reaction to the investigation was swift.6
Lawmakers in Iowa and Minnesota have introduced legislation in the last month proposing exceptions to child labor regulations in their respective states, due to the persisting labor shortage hitting them particularly hard. Minnesota lost 90,000 workers alone during the pandemic, according to state demographers, making it one of the tightest labor markets in the country. Iowa's not far behind with roughly 75,000 open jobs in December.
Which means lawmakers in those two states are returning to a practice common during labor shortages, economists told The Wall Street Journal's Jacob Bogage last week: hiring younger workers to fill open roles.
Maybe a level of tone deafness there.7
Flights cancelled as strikes wipe out air travel
Not necessarily what one would want to hear regarding airline vulnerabilities preparatory to boarding; still, one can’t but applaud German labor’s willingness to body the bosses in the face of unreasonable contract offers.8
Aloha, Jimmy C.
The best ex-president we’ll ever have had.
Music, we got music
Architecture In Helsinki, “Fingers Crossed;”9 Faded Paper Figures, “Morningside;”10 Broncho, "Bad Behavior."11 The latter two are new and enjoyable to me; the first, known and enjoyable.
That’s all there is, Comrades
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Be well, take care.