October 31, 2021

Here's what 'Let's Go, Brandon' actually means and how it made its way to Congress

If you've heard people chanting "Let's go, Brandon!" or seen someone with a shirt or hat sporting the seemingly-jovial message lately, you might be wondering who Brandon is and why so many people are rooting for him.

In this case, the phrase isn't actually supporting a guy named Brandon. Instead, it's a euphemism that many people in conservative circles are using in place of saying "F*** Joe Biden."

The origins of the meme go back to Oct. 2, when race car driver Brandon Brown won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race and was being interviewed by NBC reporter Kelli Stavast. In the background, some in the crowd can be heard chanting "F*** Joe Biden," though Stavast says "you can hear the chants from the crowd, 'Let's go, Brandon!' " in her broadcast.

It remains unclear if Stavast misheard what the crowd was saying or if she purposely tried to change the message.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/30/1050782613/why-the-lets-go-brandon-chant-turned-meme-can-be-heard-on-the-floor-of-congress
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I actually did not know this. F*** Brandon and all of them.

October 31, 2021

'It was a classless move': High school football team blows out opponent 106-0

Inglewood (California) Morningside and Inglewood High faced off Friday in a matchup decided well before the opening kickoff.

The final score reflected that: Inglewood 106, Morningside 0.

Inglewood led 59-0 after the first quarter and a running clock didn't start until late in the second quarter, according to the Los Angeles Times. The team attempted a two-point conversion while up 104-0 and quarterback Justyn Martin, who committed to the UCLA Bruins last week, threw 13 touchdown passes.

"It was a classless move," Morningside coach Brian Collins said Saturday.

Seven Inglewood players, all transfers, are committed to play college football, per the Times. Meanwhile, Daily Breeze reported, Morningside players met Collins for the first time a week prior to the season.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/highschool/2021/10/31/inglewood-morningside-football-team-blows-out-inglewood-high-106-0/6224034001/
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This is what happens with loose transfer rules and no mercy rules. Really uncalled for.

October 31, 2021

Philadelphia to become first major US city to ban minor traffic stops to promote equity

Philadelphia to become first major US city to ban minor traffic stops to promote equity, curb 'negative interactions' with police
John Bacon
USA TODAY



Philadelphia will become the first major U.S. city to ban police from making traffic stops for minor violations such as broken tail lights when Mayor Jim Kenney signs City Council-approved legislation as soon as this week.

Such stops have been encouraged in some police departments as a pretext to search vehicles of drivers suspected of carrying illegal drugs or weapons. But critics of the stops say they prompt a disproportionate number of stops involving drivers of color.

"#DrivingEquality reinforces that public safety can be achieved with other methods than traffic stops," Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the bill's author, tweeted Sunday. "Traffic stops are traumatic for drivers and scary for police officers. Limiting them makes everyone safer and communities stronger."

The issue resurfaced in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, in April when Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was fatally shot during a stop initiated for an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror and expired car registration tags. Officers later attempted to arrest Wright for an outstanding warrant and, after a brief struggle, Wright was shot at close range.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/31/philadelphia-ban-minor-police-traffic-stops/6224286001/

October 31, 2021

The little-known hiking trail that built Canada

t was used by First Nations, fur traders and early westward-migrating settlers. Now, local communities are hoping it could become the world's next great long-distance hike.

Predating the Silk Road and the Amber Road, Canada's Nuxalk-Carrier Grease Trail is a narrow, little-known footpath that's been worn deeply into the earth by 6,000 years of walkers. From time immemorial, this 279-mile trail – which starts at a glacier-fed fjord near Bella Coola in the Great Bear Rainforest, climbs east over mountain ranges and then fans out across what's now known as British Columbia – has been an overland trade route. Over the millennia, it's seen the exchange of goods such as jade, copper, basketry, food, hides, obsidian and the highly valued commodity the trail was named for: the nutritious oil or "grease" of the small eulachon fish that continues to be a delicacy among First Nations people.

Taking my first steps on the ancient pathway in the Bella Coola Valley, I half expected to feel something transcendent; echoes of the past perhaps. In 1793, this was the last section of the route that carried the first European, Alexander Mackenzie, from Montreal across what's now known as Canada to the Pacific Ocean – constituting the first known transcontinental crossing of the Americas north of Mexico. This "great road" as Mackenzie called the trail in his journal, "was very good and well traced". It was also well populated. And as I hiked, I imagined encountering one of the Ulkatcho families he wrote of, who were heading "to the great river to fish"; or maybe a group of young Dene men on a trade journey.

Climbing upward, I left the valley's monumental cedars behind and entered a forest of stunted trees and bright green moss. By my thousandth (or so) uphill footstep, the forest around me had thinned and the past felt ever present. Stepping out of the woods and into a clearing, Mackenzie's 228-year-old words predicted the view: "Before us appeared a stupendous mountain, whose snow-clad summit was lost in the clouds."

A hiking trail is a little like an unfolding story. And, like many stories, my hike had a prologue. I'd been sitting on a beach in the Broughton Archipelago, 200km south of Bella Coola, after spending the day spotting orcas and visiting long-abandoned Mamalilikulla First Nation villages. Sifting my fingers through the sun-warmed sand, I'd come up with an unexpected prize: a small, glassy shard of obsidian. Digging back in, I was soon inspecting a growing pile of volcanic glass. A kayaking mate declared the obsidian was from the area's many overland "grease trails", a term I was only vaguely familiar with.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211024-the-little-known-hiking-trail-that-built-canada
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The next Appalachian Trail?

October 30, 2021

My brother is in ICU

No, it's not Covid. He has some weird kind of encephalitis and the doctors can't figure out what is going on with him. He was admitted 2 days ago after a "subacute syndrome" of progressive short term memory loss, abnormally increased appetite, and some other weird symptoms including what his S/O referred to as "spells". He was found to have nonconvulsive seizure activity that got worse overnight and didn't respond to anticonvulsants. He was transferred to ICU and intubated to protect his airway because of the medication he required. Spinal tap didn't reveal an acute cause and a whole body CT didn't show any tumors. Doctors are stumped at this point. My other brother, an MD, is on his way. We are not confident of the possible outcome. This brother is the middle of the three of us.

Good thoughts, prayers to whatever gods you may worship, etc. would be appreciated.

October 30, 2021

Brooklyn's first supertall skyscraper officially reaches its full height

Manhattan is no stranger to supertall skyscrapers but Brooklyn's skyline has now radically changed as its first supertall reached its full, vertiginous height on Thursday.
The 93-story, 1,066-foot-tall residential building, standing at 9 DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, was designed by SHoP Architects. (Supertalls, by definition, are residential or office buildings reaching 300 meters -- 984 feet -- or higher.) Newly christened "The Brooklyn Tower," it has been under construction since 2018 and cost $750 million total to develop.
Now, the skyscraper's fluted black stainless steel, bronze and glass exterior emerges from behind the white marble neoclassical facade of the landmarked early 20th-century Dime Savings Bank. JDS Development Group, which spearheaded the project, bought the decommissioned bank for $95 million in 2016; its intricate interior is being restored and converted for retail use, while the rooftop will host residential amenities including a pool that extends around its dome.
"We want(ed) to do something that changes the skyline," said Michael Stern, founder and CEO of JDS Development Group in a video call. But, he added, "it's not an easy feat."
"It's the combination of a landmark building and a contemporary tower, and (we had to) thread the needle on how to do that respectfully and with design integrity," he explained

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/brooklyn-first-supertall-skyscraper-9-dekalb/index.html
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China just banned supertalls and "vanity projects". Maybe it's time we did too.

October 30, 2021

Judge accused of racist, sexist remarks is ordered removed

An Alabama probate judge accused of making racist and sexist remarks and fostering a hostile work environment must be removed from office, a state judicial ethics court said Friday in a rare and unanimous ruling.

In sanctioning Probate Judge Randy Jinks of Talladega County, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary wrote that he had violated several of the state's Canons of Judicial Ethics, guidelines directing judges to uphold the honor of the judiciary, maintain decorum and avoid impropriety.

The decision to discipline Jinks, 65, comes after a multiday hearing this month that included witness testimony, as well as character witnesses called by Jinks' defense lawyer, including former Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. Among the evidence presented to the court was a recording of Jinks repeating a meme in his office about the nationwide racial unrest in 2020 in which he said, "You sons of b------ are going to need something to burn down after Trump gets re-elected for a second term, sons of b------."

"Although the complaint alleges 'racially insensitive demeanor,' this Court is of the opinion that Judge Jinks' conduct rose above racial insensitivity," the court said in its final judgment, which also ordered Jinks to pay for the costs of the proceeding.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/court-rules-alabama-judge-accused-racist-sexist-remarks-must-be-n1282750

October 30, 2021

Renters get left behind after disasters as displaced homeowners duel for places to live

Three years ago, Pamela Lack thought she had found the house she would retire in.

The three-bedroom home in Paradise, California, was surrounded by old cedars and a large heritage oak, and had a backyard for her grandchildren and a guesthouse for her aging parents. Lack, a 64-year-old resident of nearby Chico, had savings from a previous home sale and had met with an accountant, and was ready to apply for a mortgage.

But in November 2018, before she could buy, the Camp Fire tore through Paradise, burning down the house, among thousands of others in the surrounding area.

“At first I thought it was a storm and went outside to look,” recalled Lack, whose family was living 12 miles away, in a rented house in Chico, at the time. When she got outside she realized what was happening and said she remembered thinking, “Oh no, this isn’t going to be good.”

Their rental didn’t burn, but what Lack didn’t lose to the flames she lost to the effects. One week after the fire, their landlord received multiple offers from people looking to buy the house. With an overstretched market inflating the price by $100,000, the landlord decided to sell.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/disasters-second-wave-renters-face-housing-aftershocks-floods-fires-rcna3924

October 30, 2021

The Republicans' racial culture war is reaching new heights in Virginia

Running for governor of Virginia as the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin appears to have a split personality – sometimes the generic former corporate executive in a fleece vest, the suburban dad surrounded by his sun-lit children and tail-wagging dogs, and sometimes the fierce kulturkampf warrior and racial dog-whistler. His seemingly dual personality has been filtered through a cascade of Republican consultants’ campaign images. His latest TV commercial attempts to resolve the tension by showing him as a concerned father who shares the worries of the ordinary Trumpster. In the closing hours of the campaign, he has exposed that his political identity can’t be separated from Republican identity politics in the decadent stage of Trumpism.

The Republican party has long specialized in fabricating esoteric threats, from the basements of Pizzagate to the stratosphere of “Jewish space lasers”. Youngkin’s campaign, though, has contrived a brand-new enemy within, a specter of doom to stir voters’ anxieties that only he can dispel: the Black Nobel prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and her novel Beloved.

His turn to a literary reference might seem an obscure if not a bizarre non sequitur, at odds with his pacifying image, but the ploy to suppress the greatest work by the most acclaimed Black writer has an organic past in rightwing local politics and an even deeper resonance in Virginia history.

In his first TV ad, introducing himself as a newcomer who had never before run for political office, Youngkin warned voters not to misperceive him as yet another nasty Republican and to dismiss not-yet-stated “lies about me”. They should ignore whatever negative material they might hear about how he “left dirty dishes in the sink”. “What’s next, that I hate dogs?” Big smile. Cue: cute kids and puppies. Soundtrack: bark, bark.

For a while the nice guy Youngkin tried to walk his thin line, lest he lose the party’s angry base voters. He attempted to use the soft image to cover the hard line. He is vaccinated, but against vaccine mandates. He is inspired by Donald Trump, has proclaimed his belief in the need for audits and “election integrity”; opposed to abortion, but was careful not to appear with Trump at his “Take Back Virginia” rally. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News in a ritual cleansing to profess that his motive is pure.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/30/glenn-youngkin-republican-racial-culture-war-virginia

October 30, 2021

Brace yourselves: Politicians begin remap of a changing Georgia

Georgia has changed: It added 1 million residents over the past decade, saw shrinking white and rural populations, and witnessed Democrats winning statewide elections for the first time in over 20 years.

Those realities will drive decisions by the Republican-controlled General Assembly when it starts redrawing the state’s political maps next week in an intense and partisan process that will help determine Georgia’s representation in Congress and the state Capitol for the next decade.

At stake is power over every policy decision affecting Georgia, including taxes, voting rights, education, abortion and gun control.

The special redistricting session that begins Wednesday at the Gold Dome will be filled with contentious debates as Republicans try to preserve their majorities in a state whose voters are nearly evenly divided between Democrats and the GOP.

While Georgia has diversified over the past 40 years, its representation doesn’t reflect those shifts.

https://www.ajc.com/politics/brace-yourselves-politicians-begin-remap-of-a-changing-georgia/RQK6KHATZ5HDVGNYB2UPIWGUY4/
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Texass redux