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What I feel bad about, when people are sort of like, “oh yeah everything is terrible. We haven’t made any progress, blah blah blah.” I’m like, “yo, do you have any idea how hard people had to work for people to even notice that black people are being killed by the cops?" Because that was happening for a long time and nobody even knew. Nobody even knew, all right? People had to work hard just to get to that point, and then to get to the point we have at least some duties that should not be in police offices being pulled out and put into other things, some places actually being defunded (have you seen Camden, New Jersey?) Like, that took work, and people who worked very hard and risked their lives to do these things. So I feel like, to sit to just blanketly be like there’s no hope you can’t do anything, you’re kinda, like, crapping a lot of really hard work by a lot of people, buddy.
Thank you to Pam Selle for hosting this conversation, and to David Dylan Thomas for saying this. For various reasons, I really needed to hear it, and I think a lot of other people might, too.
Once again, we are obliged to ask, “Who’s defunding who?”
The settlement follows a familiar pattern: Delaware police kill someone, their supervisory authorities dispute any wrongdoing, the victims' family file a lawsuit seeking accountability and the litigation ends with a settlement paid by a municipal insurance provider and a gag order about the case for municipal authorities and family members party to the settlement.
It’s likely costs will be passed along to municipal taxpayers through higher insurance premiums, though that is unclear as of now.
What a six-figure lawsuit settlement after 2022 killing by Milford Police doesn’t tell us
Full marks to Xerxes Wilson for speaking plainly and placing this story in the broader context of state-sponsored violence.
It didn't have to be like this
What purpose does this police action serve? Does this type of police violence keep us safe? Do these incidents aid in establishing trust and respect between the armed agents of the state and those they serve? It doesn’t have to be like this indeed.
Another Day, Another Case of Extreme Police Violence - Rob Vanella
PLEASE read REV on yet ANOTHER incidence of state-sponsored police violence in New Castle County.
If you are local, please come to the next meeting of the New Castle County Police Accountability Board on Tuesday, July 16 at 6:00 pm. There are even virtual options if you’re not local!
Good thing Delaware just legalized raw milk!
As of February, at least 165 people were sickened with salmonella infections tied to raw milk products from Raw Farm, of Fresno, California. It is the largest reported salmonella outbreak linked to raw milk in the U.S. in the past decade, according to health officials.
Dozens were sickened with salmonella after drinking raw milk from a California farm | AP News
The overall effect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically significant.
Police are not primarily crime fighters, according to the data | Reuters
At this point, the sensible, evidence-backed, research-based policy position is that the most efficient way to “fight crime” is to improve the material conditions of people by housing the homeless and guaranteeing a universal basic income.
Any position that suggests more investment in law enforcement is either unaware of the prevailing facts, or willfully ignoring them.
MLB is “essentially in the business of content creation for the gambling industry now."
Breaking down the Shohei Ohtani-Ippei Mizuhara story by Craig Calcaterra
This captures the dynamic of all major sports in 2024. They’ve all mostly existed to create content for the television industry for decades, but this pivot that subjugates coverage of the actual sport to “how does this affect the spread” has been particularly painful.
Git is the closest thing we have to software from the future. I wrote Minimalist Git because I’ve seen too many developers get lost in its advanced features and I wanted to show there is a simpler way to be productive and keep your codebase safe.
Minimalist git by Ben Garvey
A great reminder that while git is extremely powerful, you can do most of what you need with a handful of commands.
This is what disability advocates have said all along, not that it usually sinks in: The able and the disabled aren’t two different kinds of people but the same people at different times.
Unraveling My Medical Mystery by Tom Scocca
If sea levels increase a little under 2 feet by 2100, Delaware (the nation’s lowest-lying state) will lose roughly 8% of its land area, including nearly all of the state’s protected wetlands.
The very structure of American life has changed to make the basics of stability difficult to attain, down to something as simple as eating with your partner or child…The problem of dinner is far larger than what you’re going to eat.
🔗 Dinner in America: Who Has the Time to Cook? - The Atlantic