The following explains why:
Lake Highlands High School valedictorian Paxton Smith is going viral for a commencement speech she gave to her graduating class. She ditched her initial, pre-approved speech for one that discusses her feelings about abortion rights in Texas.
Although we are fast-approaching the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I am almost ashamed to admit that I knew absolutely nothing about it until I watched HBO's Watchmen series last year. That it took a fictional show to apprise me of it is perhaps not totally surprising, given that it was a tragedy many assiduously tried to scrub clean from history. As Charles Blow writes,
in 1921, white citizens of that city — aided by the National Guard, it should be noted — destroyed the Greenwood section of that city, a prosperous, self-sufficient community known as Black Wall Street, killing as many at 300 people and leaving 8,000 others homeless.
One of the most remarkable things about that massacre was the concerted effort by the city to erase it from history, and just how effective that campaign was.
They were fully aware of what they were doing:
“After the massacre, officials set about erasing it from the city’s historical record. Victims were buried in unmarked graves. Police records vanished. The inflammatory Tulsa Tribune articles were cut out before the newspapers were transferred to microfilm.”
The Times continued, “City officials cleansed the history books so thoroughly that when Nancy Feldman, a lawyer from Illinois, started teaching her students at the University of Tulsa about the massacre in the late 1940s, they didn’t believe her.”
If you are a NYT subscriber, the paper did a masterful job, including the use of 3D modelling, to show the full breadth of the tragedy. Failing that, the following report offers some insight into this atrocious event:
Man's inhumanity to man has become something of a cliché. Unfortunately, it is still very much a reality as well.
Continuing with a theme, I found these videos of more stupid people, this group enjoying yesterday's fine weather in Toronto. While thousands of parents were lined up with their kids (12 years and older) to get their first Pfizer shot at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, handfuls of anti-vaxxers took it upon themselves to educate them about the perils of listening to their parents and the science that guides them.
As is obvious here, some people have too much time on their hands. A pity they can't find something constructive to do with it, but with such apparent cognitive shortcomings, not really surprising, eh?
As odious as it is to stereotype people based on their geography or any other criteria, (actually, I do it all the time when talking about Americans) the following certainly serves to reinforce notions about Albertans.
As you will see, the sense of entitlement of this doofus is breathtaking. His comeuppance is gratifying to watch.
WARNING: because of the driver's imbecilic nature, the language in both videos is crude and offensive.
As you will see in the next video, even after his arrest, he is unrepentant and wholly convinced of the righteousness of his cause. You will likely have to go directly to YouTube to watch it, as the language and defamatory comments make it age-restricted.
If you have the chance, read the comments arising from both videos. They reveal this clown's abject failure in garnering any sympathy whatsoever.
There is little doubt today that the vast majority of us are feeling very kindly-disposed toward the big pharmaceuticals. After all, they brought us quite efficacious vaccines against Covidc-19 in record time, vaccines that will in the near-future allow Western nations to return to relative normalcy.
We wait with bated breath for that time to arrive in Canada.
While we wait, it might be good to remember a couple of things: the speed with which these miracles of medicine were developed was facilitated tremendously by the infusion of billions of tax dollars by an array of governments; the resulting profits have gone almost solely to the companies who hold the patents to these vaccines. In other words, governments assumed much of the risk while reaping none of the rewards.
But, we are told that the huge profits of big pharma wrought by its pricing regimes are necessary to fund research. After all, many promising therapies are pursued that ultimately don't pan out. To restrict drug prices would inhibit research, the story goes.
No doubt there is some truth to such assertions, but the following puts into sharp relief some other aspects of pharma's expenditures that are wholly unrelated to research costs. Katie Porter, a California Democrat who sits in the House of Representatives, had a run at AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez over the rising drug prices at his company. What she uncovered isn't pretty.
On the latest battle between Israel and the Palestinians, John Oliver has this to say.
I really have nothing to add to this.
