This Gives Me Beatles Vibes, Like The Energy Of The Crowd And How The Music Unites Them!!!! It Is So

When Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges surrounding his murder of George Floyd, the conversation found on Tumblr (and elsewhere online) reflected two major points:

This is not justice being served. There is no justice in the face of murder, and if there were, it certainly would not be found within the American carceral system. The verdict stemming from this trial will not stop the violence and oppression Black people face at the hands of an over-policed country.

“Black people don’t need reminders that Chauvin’s guilty verdict doesn’t mean the fight is over. It’s okay to celebrate small victories.”

These truths are not at odds with each other. They can, and will, co-exist.

Take a moment today to celebrate George Floyd and his beautiful family. Keep his little daughter in your mind and hearts. If you want to feel a bit of relief that at least one person was found guilty for their hateful, heinous crime—please do so. And then remember that it was just one person. Remember that if you are an ally and an accomplice, you must not stop learning. You must not stop fighting for real justice.

Accountability for police killings is rare:

Since 2005, 140 law enforcement officers have been arrested for on-duty manslaughter and murder. Only 8—5%—have been convicted.

And that doesn’t account for the 98% of police killings where there were no arrests for murder or manslaughter.

Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police

And then yesterday, roughly one hour after Nancy Pelosi thanked George Floyd for “sacrificing” his “life for justice,” police in Columbus, Ohio shot and killed 16-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant.

That is not what justice looks like.

Rest in power, George Floyd.

Rest in power, Ma’Khia Bryant.

are you okay?

so...

not a lot of civility out there in the world these days but *adjusts tinfoil hat* let me try and lay this out a civilly as possible...

what is this? can you guess?

looking at the picture to the left, accessible to anyone on google maps right now, you may be able to see that it’s a view from above of construction of a property on a hill towards the bottom. and the charred remains of something towards the top.

what the image to the right shows is the same spot as existed in photos taken recording the woolsey fire, a brushfire that ravaged southern california at the end of last year: November 9th-21st, 2018. you may remember it as the fire that destroyed many a celebrity home in malibu.

sadly... in looking at sentimental and meaningful places to stay while visiting for lover fest west, i came to learn that this property also fell victim to unreported flames:

*i say unreported because, after spending far too much time looking for three maps (one from a review of a guy who stayed there on vacation, one from a statistics-style report of the woolsey fire, one from a news article to confirm the positioning of both images) to superimpose, it would seem that the location of the legendary vogue kaylor photoshoot airstream (as seen below, within the blue encircled area, according to the reviewer) was not included on the map of reported buildings in the area that took damage (represented in yellow and red). but i digress.

i just felt like writing this all out because... i just feel awful for having gone to taylor’s concerts on November 20th and the 21st without having know that but a week prior, this important landmark had bit the dust... although the other day while i went through the stages of processing, i realized i was not entirely sure when exactly taylor found out.

so i tried to see if i could suss out anything and... i found some things.

first... allow me to work backwards here... there was this taymoji gift that was given out on december 4th, from the Picture to Burn Pack:

then i went through my phone and it turns out i happen to have a screen grab of a peculiar instagram story that kristine posted from late november. i captured it because it was unique... though nothing came of it at the time. here’s a gif of me recording it on my camera roll so you can see the date at the top

and wouldn’t ya know, the dynamic duo also posted from california that week (i added the goldfish to the post to the right because that’s one of his kids) and i know count olaf was also posting from there on account from him tagging jaime in his post, who posted something a bit smokier from LA the month before, which she herself points out the connection to.

(please allow for the possibility of rolling each post date back a day due to the big time difference between where i am and they are)

and, the biggest tell of all, that i talked about on my blog oblivious to what it probably was signaling, this post from our dutiful friend atticus, posted November 14th:

i don’t know exactly when the flames hit the trailer... there was no filed report but i can assume it was after November 10th due to news reports from that day showing the barrier of the fire as not including Point Mugu yet... and it should have gone down before the 14th if we were to assume atticus caught wind of it via gossip in the kloffice...

which brings me back to the point about sentimentality.

it seems a tad... erm.. on the nose... don’t you think? awfully dire, awfully grim and dreadful, awful unfortunate, that after all taylor has sung about kaylor (and i include style *because* it was included in the medley during rep tour not because i think it was originally written about karlie) using these themes:

Long drive / Could end in burning flames or paradise

You'll see me in hindsight, tangled up with you all night / Burnin' it down

I'd kiss you as the lights went out / Swaying as the room burned down

that the vogue photoshoot airstream might have gone up in flames on the thirteenth of november? the canonical day that taylor and karlie first met....? like how stomach wrenching is that?

allow me take a step back

i don’t think we will ever know when the malibu dream caught flame, but, i have a good idea of when and how taylor may have found out about it.

taylor looking at her phone, throwing it on the bed, and from that phone blew sparks... i think someone(s) sent photos to her on that important day. how they got the photos? hard to say... but, that’s not the point. i’d rather think about who. who, you may ask, would want to tell her about this with cruel intentions?

someone who can’t help themselves from

at every turn

marking sentimental territory

ripping up sidewalks

appropriating special days

and special locations

and turning lyrics into twisted party favors

and buying up her life’s work

and celebrating it as if she was land to conquer

🤔 who was in the area that week?

now, how dare you suggest i’m pointing a finger. i’m not saying it might have been partially him, why, how could i be? because hey, if we want to judge his righteousness, he said it in a tweet, so he’s a good guy, right?

🤒

This woman is pure love, and classy af 💕🌈✌🏾

Watch:  Chicago woman had some great responses to a white man’s disturbing racist attacks.

You go girls 🌈😊 Proud

She Came Prepared The Daily Politics presenter was chatting to Charlotte and Henrietta about banning unhealthy food in schools.

btw this isn’t the extent of the horrors white supremacists will enact. the real horrors will start as they return to their communities with the high of having broken into the fucking capitol with guns and bombs and having been protected by the police and the president. the real horrors will be enacted on poc and Black ppl specifically now that white supremacists know they can do whatever the fuck they want with guaranteed protection, they will not be enacted on congressmen. it’s not your politicians you have to worry about. pelosi will be just fine.

olivia rodrigo you have the opportunity to be the funniest human on the planet right now

I scream for whatever it’s worth

Llloooollll everybody in my life: did you see Taylor swift and Travis?!?!

Me: yes, very performative and pointed!

Everybody else: she finally getting married woop

Me: LISTEN to an entire cd all the way through. Just one, one time. ☝🏼 one cd, all the way through, one time. Then we can discuss.

Hostages tortured to death. Parents executed in front of their children. Doctors beaten. Babies murdered. Sexual assault weaponised. No, not Hamas crimes. This is part of an ever-growing list of documented atrocities committed by Israel in the five months since 7 October – quite separate from the carpet bombing of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza and a famine induced by Israel’s obstruction of aid. And yet while the western establishment media has been chock full of the most lurid allegations of savagery directed against Hamas, sometimes with little or no supporting evidence, Israeli atrocities are excused or quickly forgotten. Accusations against Hamas are endlessly reheated to paint a picture of a supremely dangerous and bestial militant group, in turn rationalising the slaughter and starvation of Gaza’s population to “eradicate” it as a terrorist organisation. But equally barbarous atrocities committed by Israel – not in the heat of battle, but in cold blood – are treated as unfortunate, isolated incidents that cannot be connected, that paint no picture, that reveal nothing of import about the military that carried them out. If Hamas’ crimes were so savage and sadistic they still need to be reported months after they took place, why does the establishment media never feel the need to express equal horror and indignation at equivalent or worse acts of cruelty and sadism being inflicted by Israel on Gaza – not five months ago, but right now? Israel's torture of doctors, its sexual assaults of Palestinian women, it's leaving premature babies to die after its forces stormed a hospital. Where is the outrage? This is part of a pattern of behaviour by the western media that leads to only one possible deduction: Israel’s five-month-long attack on Gaza is not being reported. Rather, it is being selectively narrated – and for the most obscene of purposes. Through consistent and glaring failures in their coverage, establishment media – including supposedly liberal outlets, from the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and New York Times – have smoothed the way for Israel to carry out mass slaughter in Gaza, what the World Court has assessed as plausibly a genocide. The role of the media has not been to keep us, their audiences, informed about one of the greatest crimes in living memory. It has been to buy time for US President Joe Biden to keep arming his most useful of client states in the oil-rich Middle East, and to do so without damaging his prospects for re-election in November’s US presidential vote. If Russian President Vladimir Putin was a madman and a barbarous war criminal for invading Ukraine, as every western media outlet agrees, what does that make Israeli officials, when every one of them supports far worse atrocities in Gaza, directed overwhelmingly at civilians? And more to the point, what does that make Biden and the US political class for materially backing Israel to the hilt: sending bombs, vetoing demands for a ceasefire at the United Nations, and freezing desperately needed aid? Worrying about the optics, the president expresses his discomfort, but he carries on helping Israel regardless. While western politicians and commentators worry about some imaginary existential threat those brief events of five months ago pose to the nuclear-armed state of Israel, Israel is quite literally wiping Gaza off the map day by day, quite undisturbed.

Middle East Eye

Torture, executions, babies left to die, sexual abuse… These are Israel’s crimes

Why is the same western media obsessively reheating five-month-old allegations against Hamas so reluctant to focus on Israel’s current, horr