Not sure if Elizabeth Shue is available




This is a fairly worthwhile survival strategy. I've mentioned elsewhere that there was a period in 00s where I didn't look at any news for a couple years. In some ways, life was better though I was surprised later to find some big things I didn't even know happened.blocho wrote: ↑June 15th, 2020, 5:52 pm I'm going to stop going to protests, and I'm going to try to limit my news consumption for a bit (though the second part will be difficult). There's just so much ugliness, and I'm not able to handle it emotionally. Choosing to withdraw like that, of course, is a retreat. Every movement for social change would fail if people went away when things got ugly. But it's what I need right now.
- source (link crossposted on Covid thread as well)The recent data has led epidemiologists to question whether large outdoor gatherings have served as the “superspreader” events they initially feared — and is providing them with further evidence that major coronavirus spreading events are occurring primarily at indoor facilities.
Oh yeah. Forty-seven consecutive days of protest in NYC. It's dropped off a lot since the end of June, when our mayor and city council passed a budget that did almost nothing to rein in the police, but there are still protestors heading out there every day (my last protest was on July 4). In the past week, counter-protestors have emerged under the banner of Blue Lives Matter or "Back the Blue". This sort of backlash was inevitable, though the crowds are pretty small.
The sad truth is that most politicians are terrified of the police. The police in many cities operate with a mob attitude: "Nice city you have there. It would be a shame if something happened to it." Just in the past 10 years, the NYPD has engaged in two illegal work slowdowns in 2014 and 2019 and possibly a third one right now (the numbers aren't confirmed yet) because citizens and politicians had the temerity to suggest that they change. The message is consistent: If you criticize us or try to change how we work, we'll stop doing our job, and then you'll be sorry because crime will rise.
NYPD killed two of its own in 2019. Both were "friendly" fire incidents while trying to apprehend someone else. In the second incident, a cop was fighting with a man on the street, and some other cops fire multiple shots, which hit and killed both people in the fight.
This makes sense - as my mother threatened to call the cops on me recently, after she discovered I had made a suicide attempt (I'm fine, sorta, not really). I'm not sure what she thought the police would do, especially when the county has a mental health crisis team. Hell, I've even met with the crisis team twice before - and they were calm and did their best to ascertain my level of safety and my plan to stay safe moving forward + offered plenty of resources. There's no reason why the crisis team shouldn't be the primary respondents to any and all mental health interactions. If only the resources spent on the cops were allocated to these programs, there'd be a lot more beneficial progress. I can't imagine a worse person to respond to any mental health crisis than some scary authority figure with a gun.xianjiro wrote: ↑July 18th, 2020, 7:57 am
Police are not social workers or psychiatrists. I point to it as a current example of what I consider to be another policing-related crisis: I was told by a county deputy (during a ride along), that about 50% of calls they field now are mental health 'issues'. I know I don't need to say much more than that, but again, society needs to rethink how it deals with these problems and this clearly intersects with BLM. BTW, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... f_Portland "U.S. v. City of Portland is notable because of its finding persons with mental illness are primary recipients of police use-of-force."
maxwelldeux wrote: ↑September 21st, 2020, 10:33 pm "Hey let's use this weapon of war that's never been tested on women to disperse crowds filled with men and women... and even affect people not protesting, but merely living their lives in their own homes."
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/07/29/ ... -portland/
Whoever wrote that piece must not have gone to college....Not to mention the new unusual rituals that could potentially alter someone’s usual menstrual cycle: bedtimes pushed to the early morning, a diet of snacks and energy drinks...
Hehehe... well yeah. I couldn't find the Seattle Times link that covered the topic.peeptoad wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2020, 11:07 ammaxwelldeux wrote: ↑September 21st, 2020, 10:33 pm "Hey let's use this weapon of war that's never been tested on women to disperse crowds filled with men and women... and even affect people not protesting, but merely living their lives in their own homes."
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/07/29/ ... -portland/Whoever wrote that piece must not have gone to college....Not to mention the new unusual rituals that could potentially alter someone’s usual menstrual cycle: bedtimes pushed to the early morning, a diet of snacks and energy drinks...
Completely predictable.
Can you tell us a little bit about the mayoral election in Portland? I don't know anything about politics over there, but I was under the impression that the mayor was very unpopular. Was there no one running on a platform of reining in the cops?
@Sebby might also have feedback, but the Portland city races are really confusing. I was told (note: didn't read) that about a week out Wheeler (incumbent) was polling 1:2 for his challenger and yet Wheeler still won the election handily. My take is, end of day, voters didn't want to risk the unknown of someone who's never held office. The challenger pledged to much more aggressive in police reform and promised to turn over control of the Bureau to Hardesty (who's been fighting this same damn fight for decades). This is something Hardesty has asked Wheeler to do repeatedly and Wheeler has refused. That should tell you volumes right there.