December 17, 2021

My father, the white supremacist

My father collapsed in his own backyard in the early spring of 2019, all 6 feet 5 inches of him, struck down in a thunderbolt of cardiac arrest.

“I think it was ‘lights out,’” one of his relatives explained after the burial.

He lasted a few days on life support, but the understanding was that the initial infarction did him in. The machines did all the work after that. Because he’d always maintained that anyone with a disability, or in a coma, should have been “put through the shredder,” the decision to pull the plug, in the end, was actually his. He didn’t believe in medical intervention.

The nightmares about him springing back upright, straight out of bed, started shortly thereafter. Other signs of my post-traumatic stress disorder had begun a few weeks before, when I received two pieces of mail from him out of the blue. The first was, strangely, a printed-out email exchange he’d had with his sister. She’d let him know I lost my job and needed money to help pay for health insurance. He was outraged by the request. The second was a postcard, saying “hello what’s up never hear from you.” Just hello.

“What if he comes to get me?” I asked my aunt on the phone. “Now he knows where I live.”

It was only once he was dead, and really gone, that the weight of my early childhood — carried for three decades — seeped out through a hole in my psyche, a burial in reverse.

https://www.vox.com/22785686/father-white-supremacist-asatru-folk-assembly-neo-nazi

December 17, 2021

A family's search for answers on links between concussion and suicide

In January 2019, on a sunny day in the coastal mountains surrounding San Francisco, an Olympic medal-winning cyclist was racing down a twisting ribbon of tarmac, descending at the kind of blistering speed reserved for cars and motorbikes.

On a surface that had dried quickly after the first rainfall for weeks, Kelly Catlin suddenly lost control.

Her bike flew out from underneath her and tumbled down the hillside, coming to a stop in a cloud of dust. She was carried forward and skidded across the road, tumbling several times.

Catlin knew the drill of the hardened cyclist: jump up, survey the bike, examine the burning road rash and torn Lycra, get back up and finish the ride.

She seemed OK. She headed home. Later she spoke with her mum on the phone.


https://www.bbc.com/sport/cycling/59639369
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Posted as a followup to a discussion on tbi and suicide

December 16, 2021

Former NFL star found dead in hotel room had CTE, family says

Former NFL wide receiver Vincent Jackson, who was found dead last February in a Florida hotel room, had the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, his family announced Thursday. Dr. Ann McKee, who directs the Boston University-based research center where his brain was examined, said in a statement the 38-year-old was diagnosed with stage 2 of the disease.

"Vincent Jackson was a brilliant, disciplined, gentle giant whose life began to change in his mid-30s," McKee said in the statement. "He became depressed, with progressive memory loss, problem solving difficulties, paranoia, and eventually extreme social isolation. That his brain showed stage 2 CTE should no longer surprise us; these results have become commonplace."

CTE, which can only be diagnosed through an autopsy, has been found in former members of the military, football players, boxers and others who have been subjected to repeated head trauma. One recent study found signs of the debilitating disease in 110 of 111 NFL players whose brains were inspected.

In February, sheriff's officials in Hillsborough County, Florida, said Jackson's family initially reported him missing and deputies tracked him down to a hotel two days later, spoke with him and canceled the missing persons case. Jackson was found dead days later. The New York Times reported Thursday a cause of death wasn't announced by the county medical examiner's office.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vincent-jackson-stage-2-cte/

December 16, 2021

Jason Isbell Is Tired Of Country's Love Affair With White Nostalgia

When you’re standing in front of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, you might feel under siege. It sits a few feet away from Nashville’s rowdy Broadway strip, which means you have to wade through an army of bros and bachelorettes — folks who descend upon the city for a good time, if your idea of a good time is throngs of partyers in matching outfits, open-top buses aggressively blasting music, and more country cover bands per square inch than you can possibly count.

In sharp contrast to the loud nostalgia cosplay that surrounds it, the 2,300-seat auditorium, with its imposing Victorian Gothic architecture and distinctive stained glass windows, projects dignity and history. It’s one of music’s holiest sites, a storied hall that has been dubbed the Mother Church of Country Music. Everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Willie Nelson has a reverence for it. Word is Harry Styles once planned a whole tour just so he could perform here.

In mid-October, I arrived for the second show of Jason Isbell’s eight-night residency at the auditorium. The occasion is a perfect marriage of artist and venue: Isbell is one of America’s most potent songwriters, and the Ryman is a cathedral of song. For Americana fans, the singer-songwriter’s annual residency here has become a coveted pilgrimage. It’s for good reason that Isbell has come to be associated with the Ryman: In 2015, he played four consecutive nights backed by his band, the 400 Unit. He expanded this to six in 2017. In 2018, he did another six and released a live album called Live From the Ryman. In 2019, Isbell and his band performed at the venue for seven shows. This year, they’re doing eight. Every single one of these runs has sold out.

But if the Ryman has become a kind of home for Isbell, this year’s residency carried a different energy. It was historic. For seven of the eight evenings, he had a different Black woman opening for him. In an industry and genre that is consistently failing white women and is downright hostile to Black women, the choice to feature these openers is a small revolution.

The openers vary in age, fame, and career stages. Between them, they cover a variety of genres under the roots music umbrella, ranging from country to soul, blues to folk, Americana to rock ‘n’ roll. For many of them, it was their first time playing the Ryman at all.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/elaminabdelmahmoud/jason-isbell-ryman-country-music-mickey-guyton

December 16, 2021

Internal Investigators Told ICE To Stop Sending Immigrants To A Prison In Louisiana Because Of A Cul

Internal Investigators Told ICE To Stop Sending Immigrants To A Prison In Louisiana Because Of A Culture That Can Lead To Abuse

The Biden administration is detaining immigrants at a prison in rural Louisiana that’s been described by government investigators as having “a culture and conditions that can lead to abuse, mistreatment, and discrimination,” a BuzzFeed News investigation has found.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) delivered the warning to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in November in a report documenting the presence of mold and pests, problems with medical care, and other issues, including insufficient staff training, at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. The prison, which gained notoriety after a Mother Jones reporter worked there as a prison guard and wrote about it in 2016, holds hundreds of people detained for ICE.

While immigrant advocates have long complained about poor conditions within the immigrant detention system, documents issued internally by CRCL to ICE officials and obtained by BuzzFeed News provide a glimpse into a government investigation of a prominent detention center that can hold more than 1,000 immigrants at a time and is operated by a private company.

The report, dated Nov. 17, recommended that ICE stop placing immigrants there until the conditions improved. The office sent another memo in August with similar advice.

“No new detainees should be added to the facility; and the detainee population should be drawn down to zero until immediate health and safety concerns can be corrected,” a CRCL memo dated Aug. 10 stated after experts contracted by the office conducted a review. The advice came from four experts in detention and medical care who reviewed the facility for DHS and said they had major concerns about detainee safety.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-private-prison-louisiana-conditions

December 16, 2021

Is Turning Chicken Poop Into Fuel a Good Idea?

When Wayne Morra bought six acres of land hedged by rolling cornfields in 1999, he was looking for some peace. A single father and a nursing instructor at Delaware Technical Community College, Morra considered his new home, in the tiny town of Greenwood, Delaware, a refuge from the bustle and pollution of Pittsburgh, his hometown.

But in 2015, when the farmland directly behind his property went up for sale, Morra’s idyll came to an end.

A farmer built three long green barns just 500 feet from Morra’s house, which he now packs with approximately 90,000 chickens at a time. When the birds reach market weight, their owner, the poultry giant Amick Farms, collects them for slaughter.

But there are always premature deaths. The farmer tosses those carcasses in outdoor piles, which attract foxes and buzzards. And he pumps his barns’ ammonia-tainted exhaust, through massive ventilation fans, into the surrounding neighborhood. Many days, Morra can’t walk from his house to his car without being swarmed by flies. He runs, gagging from the stench of rotting birds.

Eleven other chicken houses of similar design lay within walking distance of these barns. “We’re surrounded,” Morra noted.

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2021/12/biogas-anaerobic-digesters-chicken-waste/
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I don't think this answers the question, but I'd like to know too. I live in the largest turkey-producing region of VA. Turkey poop is essentially the same thing,

December 15, 2021

'They Told Me I'd Be Fired:' Kentucky Candle Plant Workers Stayed During Tornado

At least eight people at a Kentucky candle manufacturer were killed in the devastating tornadoes which ripped through parts of the Midwest and South over the weekend, raising an important question: why were people still at work?

Answer: Some were told they’d be fired if they left.

“I asked to leave and they told me I’d be fired,” 20-year-old worker Elijah Johnson told NBC News. When he asked if that was the case “even with the weather like this,” a manager said yes, he said.

Employees at the candle factory heard tornado warning sirens hours before the tornado hit, and were ushered in bathrooms and hallways for safety, according to a report Monday by NBC News. But after the first warning had passed, they were told to go back to work—and some were rebuffed when they attempted to leave, according to several workers who spoke with NBC News.

As many as 15 workers asked to be let go so they could get home but their requests were denied, according to five employees of the candle factory who spoke with NBC News.

One of them was McKayla Emery, 21, who was seriously injured in the tornado and hospitalized after being hit in the head by concrete, suffering from chemical burns and damaged kidneys. Emery told NBC News she heard a supervisor tell four workers: “If you leave, you’re more than likely to be fired.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3n4p9/kentucky-candle-plant-workers-
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Managers, of course, are denying this and lying through their teeth.

December 15, 2021

The history of the metal box that's wrecking the supply chain

Behold the simple shipping container. It’s a large, steel box that can carry tens of thousands of pounds of cargo. It’s also stackable and designed to fit on ocean freight ships, trains, and even trucks. These containers have been an unnoticed cog in the world’s highly complex manufacturing network for decades. But not anymore.

Thanks to the pandemic, the shipping container is now at the center of the global supply chain crisis, which has interrupted the delivery of everything from medical supplies to holiday gifts. Because of widespread manufacturing delays and bottlenecks, there aren’t enough of these boxes in the right place and at the right time. There are also too many containers at shipping terminals, which is clogging up ports and blocking more cargo from arriving. Exporters, meanwhile, are struggling to find the empty containers they would normally use to send their products to customers abroad. These shipping container problems are continuing to pile up as the larger manufacturing system they helped enable also struggles to adapt.

The disruption has gotten so bad that some US politicians want the government to take on a bigger role in regulating shipping. Last week, a bipartisan group of House members passed legislation that would allow the Federal Maritime Commission, the US’s international ocean transportation agency, to pressure shipping companies to prioritize empty containers for American manufacturers and farmers.

We weren’t always so dependent on these big metal boxes, though. The first commercial container ship voyage set sail in 1956, and it was only in the 1980s that this form of ocean freight really took off. As global trade proliferated, businesses realized that containers could make shipping cheaper and easier to manage at scale. Because these containers were standardized — they’re typically 20 feet or 40 feet long — thousands could be loaded onto a single cargo ship at once.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22832884/shipping-containers-amazon-supply-chain

December 13, 2021

The Raiders broke an unwritten rule and made the Chiefs angry. Bad idea

It’s hard to imagine what motivated the Las Vegas Raiders to prance to the middle of Arrowhead Stadium and stomp on the Chiefs’ logo during pregame warmups. “You don’t want people coming into your stadium and disrespecting what you’ve built,” Patrick Mahomes would later say.

There is no official rule against what the Raiders did but there are also things called etiquette and common sense. And as the Raiders quickly learned Sunday, there’s another thing called karma. Seventeen seconds into the game it was the Chiefs who were dancing after defensive tackle Jarran Reed caused a Josh Jacobs fumble, which cornerback Mike Hughes took to the house for the first of what felt like a million points for Chiefs. Twenty-one minutes later it was 28-0 Chiefs. The final score was 48-9. It was an embarrassment on all levels for Las Vegas. The Raiders’ little pregame ritual certainly didn’t help matters.

Raiders linebacker KJ Wright admitted so after the game. “I would have been upset, too, if I was them,” Wright said. “Anybody that comes there and do that? And they definitely came out and responded to their anger and we couldn’t hold up.

“It was spur of the moment. One guy said, ‘Let’s go’ and we all got to ride together. We all went out there together. We did it as a team and just gave them a little more motivation than we needed to give them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/dec/13/the-raiders-broke-an-unwritten-rule-and-made-the-chiefs-angry-bad-idea
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Do not do this at your peril

December 12, 2021

Well. y'all, I am, as they say in Tennessee

"down in my back". And boy, am I! I'm not sure how I got this way except that Wednesday I was workin in my jewelry studio, which involves sitting on a tall stool (it has a back) and at some point I had to get down and crawl around on the floor to look for something I had dropped. By the time I went upstairs my back hurt. Nothing severe, just hurt. Thursday it hurt BAD. Bad enough for me to message my doctor and ask for muscle relaxants. It has gotten progressively worse, to the point where I am walking with a cane and have to be helped in and out of bed and can't dress myself in the morning. I don't know whether to go to the ER (where they're pretty sure to see me as a drug seeker) or just to my GP in the morning. I think I made it worse by trying to get myself out of bed to use the bathroom last night, which I had done okay the couple of nights before. The pain is awful, about a 8-9/10. TENS unit helps a little.