BEWARE...SOME DAYS ARE NOT VERY PRETTY. I GET CRABBY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO. AND I DO SPEAK MY MIND.
DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO TRUE, REAL, EVERYDAY FEELINGS LIKE MINE.(But I think you would enjoy it)
DON'T FORGET...FREEDOM OF SPEECH !
'I Can't Do That, Boss': Texas FedEx Driver Refuses to Help Fallen 89-Year-Old
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A
FedEx delivery driver refused to assist an 89-year-old man asking for
help after he had fallen on a porch in Freeport, Texas, on July 18.Maria
Kouches, the daughter of the elderly man, owns the Ring camera that
captured the footage. Kouches’s father can be heard saying, “Hello,
help, please. Give me a hand. I need to get up.”From a distance the
driver can be heard responding, “I can’t do that, boss.”Kouches told
media outlets her father had fallen about 15 minutes before the delivery
was made. She explained he has fallen before and he has dementia and
trouble with his legs. She told ABC 30 that her father moves around with
his walker, and was “maybe trying to go back inside and his leg gave
out.”Kouches wrote in a Facebook post that the driver didn’t even “ring
the doorbell or call 911!”Kouches told Storyful her father is “doing
fine” and wanted to “thank everyone for their concern.”FedEx issued the
following response to Storyful: “We extend our thoughts and concerns for
the well-being of the person depicted in this video. The safety of our
team members and customers in the communities that we serve is our
highest priority. We are reviewing the circumstances behind this
incident and will take the appropriate action.” Credit: Maria Kouches
via Storyful
ViacomCBS drops Nick Cannon, cites 'anti-Semitic' comments
LYNN ELBER
LOS
ANGELES (AP) — Nick Cannon's “hateful speech” and anti-Semitic theories
led ViacomCBS to cut ties with the TV host and producer, the media
giant said. “ViacomCBS condemns bigotry of any kind and we
categorically denounce all forms of anti-Semitism," the company said in a
statement Tuesday. It is terminating its relationship with Cannon,
ViacomCBS said.
The company's move was in response to remarks made
by Cannon on a podcast in which he and Richard “Professor Griff”
Griffith, the former Public Enemy member, discussed racial bias. The
podcast reportedly was filmed last year and aired two weeks ago.
“We
have spoken with Nick Cannon about an episode of his podcast ‘Cannon’s
Class’ on YouTube, which promoted hateful speech and spread anti-Semitic
conspiracy theories,” ViacomCBS said. “While
we support ongoing education and dialogue in the fight against bigotry,
we are deeply troubled that Nick has failed to acknowledge or apologize
for perpetuating anti-Semitism, and we are terminating our relationship
with him,” the company said.
Cannon produced “Wild ’n Out,” a
comedy improv series for VH1, a ViacomCBS-owned cable channel. He's been
a regular part of TV shows unconnected to the company, including as the
former host of NBC's “America's Got Talent” and host of Fox's “The
Masked Singer.” There was no immediate response to requests for
comment made to a representative for Cannon and to him through his
website. Fox also didn't immediately respond to a request for commen
In
Cannon's hour-plus podcast, he and Griffin contend that Black people
are the true Hebrews and that Jews have usurped their identity.
Cannon
then segues into a discussion of skin color — “And I’m going to say
this carefully,” he begins — to allege that people who lack sufficient
melanin are “a little less.” Those without dark skin have a
“deficiency” that historically forced them to act out of fear and commit
acts of violence to survive, he said. “They had to be savages,” Cannon said, adding that he was referring to “Jewish people, white people, Europeans,” among others.
ViacomCBS’
action came as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the basketball great and writer,
condemned several sports and entertainment celebrities for anti-Semitic
tweets and posts and what he called a “shocking lack of indignation” in
response. Abdul-Jabbar made his comments in a column for The Hollywood Reporter that didn’t refer to Cannon. As controversy over his remarks began to bubble up Monday, Cannon replied in a Facebook post. “I
do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric ... The
Black and Jewish communities have both faced enormous hatred, oppression
persecution and prejudice for thousands of years and in many ways have
and will continue to work together to overcome these obstacles," he
wrote. In the lengthy post, Cannon also said he welcomed being
held accountable for his statement and that held himself accountable
“for this moment and take full responsibility."
Gun violence kills 160 as holiday weekend exposes tale of 'two Americas'
Joanna Walters in New York and agencies
A
six-year-old in Philadelphia, a seven-year-old in Chicago, an
eight-year-old in Atlanta, a 15-year-old in New York, all shot.
Community cries of “enough is enough”.
Neighborhoods in some of
the largest US cities erupted in gun violence over the Fourth of July
weekend, killing an estimated 160 people and leaving more than 500
wounded from Friday night to Sunday.
Georgia’s governor, Brian
Kemp, declared a state of emergency on Monday after 31 people were shot
and five killed over the weekend in Atlanta. He authorized 1,000
national guard troops to “protect state property and patrol our
streets”. Related: 'There are two pandemics': Chicago's gun violence persists amid lockdown
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But Chicago saw the worst
violence in one of the bloodiest holiday weekends in recent memory,
ending with 17 people fatally shot including a seven-year-old girl and a
14-year-old boy and 63 more wounded, an increase of five shootings on
the high figures that had marred the holiday weekend the previous year.
Despite
an effort that included an additional 1,200 officers on the streets and
pleas from the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, for residents not to
reverse limited progress that had been made against the epidemic of gun violence, Lightfoot lamented the children whose “hopes and dreams were ended by the barrel of a gun”.
The
city’s south and west sides have seen worse weekends this year,
however, and a one-year-old and a three-year-old were killed during
recent shootings. The rising violence prompted Donald Trump to write
to Lightfoot and the Illinois governor, JB Priztker, both Democrats,
accusing them of receiving more than $1bn in special federal funding for
anti-crime measures and coronavirus relief that was “not being turned
into results”.
“Your lack of leadership … continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect,” the letter said.
Lightfoot dismissed Trump’s letter as “all talk, little action”.
The
shooting death of an eight-year-old girl, Secoriea Turner, in Atlanta,
prompted the mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, to call for justice while
noting the shadow such street violence casts over the huge and largely
peaceful Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police
brutality.
“Enough is enough,” Bottoms said. “If you want people
to take us seriously and you don’t want us to lose this movement, we
can’t lose each other.”
The shooting happened near the Wendy’s
restaurant where a Black man, Rayshard Brooks, was killed by a white
police officer in June.
“She was only eight years old,” Charmaine
Turner said of her daughter Secoriea. “Right now, she would have been on
TikTok, dancing on her phone.”
Atlanta police said two other people were killed and more than 20 injured in gunfire during the holiday weekend.
In
New York, a series of shootings on Saturday and Sunday claimed at least
nine lives and wounded 41 others in a rise in incidents in some
neighborhoods. A 15-year-old boy was wounded in the Bronx.
And in Philadelphia, a six-year-old boy died of a gunshot wound amid five fatal shootings in about five hours on Sunday afternoon, police said.
The Trace, a non-profit news website covering gun violence in the US, which tallied the weekend toll of shootings in the US, reported
that preliminary research from the University of California, Davis, has
found a potential link between the rise in violence and a surge in
gun-buying during the coronavirus pandemic, of more than 2.1 million
more guns than usual between March and May.
Chicago is, woefully, a tale of two cities and across the country it’s a tale of two Americas
Rev Gregory Livingston
The Rev Gregory Livingston, a pastor and civil rights leader who moved to New York last summer after many years running an anti-violence community organization in his native Chicago, spoke of Chicago “going through absolute madness”.
But
he warned that nationwide systemic racism that is not being addressed,
and the “violent history” of America that has not been reckoned with
were dividing people and causing some communities to break down.
“Chicago
is, woefully, a tale of two cities, and across the country it’s a tale
of two Americas. Chicago is a very segregated city, and that legacy is
part of what’s fueling this horrific violence,” Livingston told the
Guardian.
He condemned “corruption and racism” and said the
pandemic and economic fallout had exacerbated inequality. The pandemic
has been disproportionately hard on Black Americans already suffering
economic and healthcare deprivations.
Livingston campaigned
strongly to vote out the previous Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel. Lightfoot
has been in the position since May 2019, and has just appointed a new
police chief.
Lightfoot
agreed with Livingston’s point that a long history of segregation in
Chicago and under-investment were “at the root” of the “explosion” of
violence.
“You have to give a sense of hope. You have to reach out
to those young men on the corners who are the shooters, but it can’t
just be on the police and the city government. It’s all hands on deck,”
Lightfoot said.
She said of Trump: “We are leading. He needs to take our lead and follow it.”
Livingston called on Lightfoot to tackle racism and policing problems “head on”.
“There
is an individual responsibility [among those shooting], but there are
also conditions that create a climate of violence,” he said.
He
accused the New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, of being “scared” of
confronting racism in the New York police department. “There is no
courage in city hall,” he said.
And he warned mayors across the US
that Chicago was the “control” for what would happen elsewhere this
summer if inequality and the demands of protesters coast to coast since
George Floyd, an African American, was killed in Minneapolis by a white
police officer did not spur change.
The White House press
secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, declared herself dismayed that she was not
asked about the weekend shootings at her briefing on Monday, despite
citing “a doubling of shootings in New York City for the third straight
week”.
Multiple shootings in multiple Democrat-run cities such as New York and Chicago. Tragic loss of life.
Journalists at the briefing responded that she had ended the 22-minute briefing and departed while many were still waiting, hands raised, to ask questions.
Scared whites will pick up a gun, but are too scared to pick up a book | Opinion
Leonard Pitts Jr.
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Scared whites will pick up a gun, but are too scared to pick up a book | Opinion
So now, Karen’s got a gun.
To
be clear, her name wasn’t actually Karen — it was Jillian Wuestenberg.
But Wuestenberg’s behavior — she and her husband, Eric Wuestenberg, drew
guns on a black woman and her daughter in a parking lot near Detroit
last week after she and the girl inadvertently collided — is certainly
Karen-like. As in the social-media meme of white women weaponizing their
entitlement and privilege against people of color.
Karens call
police on black people for barbecuing in a public park, swimming in a
public pool, selling bottled water on a public street. Amy Cooper, a New
York City Karen, notoriously called 911 claiming she was being attacked
in a public park by an African-American man after he asked her to put
her dog on a leash. Karens have become ubiquitous.
But they aren’t usually armed.
One
is wary of falling into the journalistic trope of labeling any three
similar incidents a “trend.” Yet, this sort of thing does seem to be
happening a lot lately. Days before the Michigan confrontation, one
Patricia McCloskey came out of her home in St. Louis awkwardly holding a
handgun as a group of Black Lives Matter protesters marched down the
street toward the mayor’s house. Her husband had a long gun.
Two
weeks before that, Joseph Max Fucheck, a male Karen — a Kevin? — in
Miami-Dade County pulled a gun on a black man, Dwayne Wynn. Wynn had
been standing across the street from his house talking to a neighbor
when Fucheck drove by and left a business card in his mailbox. When Wynn
retrieved it, Fucheck circled back, produced a handgun and, in a tirade
punctuated by racial slurs and other profanity, accused Wynn of
stealing “my property.” This, he said, is “why you have people like you
getting shot.”
Taken together, these incidents, all caught on
video, paint a grim picture of how many white Americans are responding
in this summer of racial justice uprising. Namely, with the desperate
panic of people who think the race war has come to their doorsteps.
They’re breaking out guns and circling the wagons in defense of
privilege and prerogative.
It’s a dangerous, combustible mindset,
egged on by the arsonist in the White House. Which makes one all the
more thankful for those white people who have not lost their damn minds.
If
the police murder of George Floyd was, for many African Americans,
superfluous confirmation of things we already knew, it was, for many
white Americans, a jolting revelation of things they never guessed. It
cannot be easy to learn that much of what you’ve been taught is a lie,
that you are the product of a system designed to inculcate and maintain
racism in you, to ensure there are voices you never hear, people you
never see, stories you never know.
Such a discovery can upend
one’s understanding of one’s country and oneself. So Karen got a gun.
But we’ll be a better country when Karen gets a book, when she emulates
morally courageous white people seeking to know things that have been
withheld. They’re the ones now reading Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo,
Michelle Alexander and Douglas A. Blackmon, the ones now watching
“13th,” “I Am Not Your Negro,” “Do The Right Thing” and “Eyes On The
Prize,” the ones chanting “Black lives matter!” — even in lily-white
places where no black lives are lived.
In so doing, they bring
hope to a difficult crossroads of our national existence. Hard truths
are being told at last and so many white people are running away from
them.
We are redeemed by the ones rushing toward them instead.