Sunday, September 18, 2022

more 'what the fuck, people!'


Burning Man  was a couple of weeks ago. This is an art and environmental celebration/festival out in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada with tremendous art installations and avant guard performance art and music and chaos and people just being their wildest wackiest selves.

Here's a video from this years event, the first one in two years because of covid. It looks fun and magical and other worldly (and hot as fucking hell).


Here's a picture of the aftermath...8,000 abandoned bikes.



Not shown is all the abandoned camping gear and trash. So what the fuck people? If you pack it in, pack it the fuck out. Don't leave the stuff that you just can't be bothered to deal with after you had your fun and trashed the place. So typical of Americans, no sense of responsibility and for all their hype I would think that the people who attend would be a little more environmentally conscious. At least the people who go in and clean up the mess sell or give away the abandoned bikes and gear.
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Re the 'active shooter' call at the grands' old high school...my daughter tells me the police went classroom to classroom with guns drawn in full swat gear scaring the already terrified kids. A much better response than those cowards in Uvalde but, damn, this is just so wrong.
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In the news is Florida's republican governor Ron DeSantis' despicable political stunt of paying to have 48 refugees from Venezuela seeking asylum and a safe place to live flown to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts from the Texas border in chartered planes paid for by taxpayer money that basically dumped them on the tarmac and abandoned them. No calls were made in advance to agencies that these people were on the way so they could be ready to receive them and be helped on arrival but he made sure there was videographer to film it. DeSantis' representative lied to these people telling them they were being sent to Boston or NYC where jobs and housing were waiting for them and the DHS falsified their papers giving them addresses from homeless shelters all across the nation that their hearing notices would be sent to insuring that none of these people would be able to show up setting them up for immediate deportation. DeSantis thought that the upscale island would be horrified at these immigrants dumped on their doorstep and show that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't deal with them but instead the residents came together with food, shelter, medical aid, working with authorities to move them to the mainland where there are support services and housing. The residents were horrified all right, not by the migrants themselves but by the cruelty inherent DeSantis' stunt. And for DeSantis and those who aided him and those republicans who support him, the cruelty was the point. They didn't give a shit about those people.

This is a man who everyone expects to run for president, a man who basically kidnapped these people and trafficked them across the nation with nothing to their names and stranded them on the tarmac of an airport thousands of miles from the border where they would have been processed. I think, I hope that this little stunt has backfired on him since it didn't exactly have the outcome he hoped for. And of course our own asshole governor Abbott is shipping busloads of migrants to DC dropping them off in front of Vice-President Harris' home and to New York's Port Authority not because the border is 'open' no matter how many times republicans lie about it, people and drugs are being apprehended in record amounts, but because playing with helpless people's lives is, to them, an acceptable political stunt to distract from their unpopular policies.

Vote Democrat top to bottom. Make sure everyone you know votes.



30 comments:

  1. The latest atrocity is that the people dumped at the VP house include a one month old baby.
    This stunt also happened decades ago to African Americans from Southern states as an anti integration move. Same lies and promises of a better life in the North.
    They sent groups to politicians' houses then too.

    I'd like a refund of the money states like mine are giving to subsidize states like his. We send far more to the Treasury than we get back. I don't mind if it's well used. But he's whining that it's an imposition on his budget when he fails to deal with refugees.

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    1. I'd say I wonder how America got here but we've always been here.

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  2. The money wasted on these stunts, when it could have been spent to support these poor migrants. Despicable.
    Treating another human in this fashion. There are no words.

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    1. I've tried to come up with a reply but you said it...there are no words.

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  3. It's astonishing that they abandoned all of those bicycles. Would it have killed the people who brought them to take them home, or to a Goodwill, or anywhere. Burning Man has really morphed into an event for the wealthy. there is a lottery for tickets, and it has really departed its original roots of an art festival.

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    1. I agree completely. I read that there are several groups who would go and retrieve all the stuff left behind, repair what could be repaired and then sell the stuff or in the case of the bikes distribute them but two of those groups went under during covid.

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  4. DeSantis is a more despicable person than Abbott, and that takes some doing.

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    1. At least DeSantis isn't siccing CPS on parents who provide gender affirming care for their trans children...yet, anyway.

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  5. Everything is so devastating right now. It is no joy being a Floridian these days. What next will the man do? There are no boundaries are Trump.

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    1. Living under our governor is no picnic either calling CPS on parents who support their trans kids.

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  6. I’ve always said to my friend in Austin that DeSantis and Abbot are evil twins separated at birth. Im so embarrassed to be a Floridian. I sure hope this backfires spectacularly as many of the Venezuelans in south Florida lean Republican and he pissed off a lot of them with this stunt. Everything the man does is a publicity stunt, in the meantime out property insurance has more than doubled for shittier coverage.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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    1. I think Texas has the highest property taxes in the country.there's a whole faction that wants to get rid of property taxes and they're all republicans that vote for the republican policies that make our taxes and energy costs high. Go figure.

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  7. Here is what it looked like when Burning Man was finished: https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1568342728416837633
    We are in a sorry state, really.

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    1. I looked that up. Big debate on the whole carbon footprint of all those cars vs buses, people who defend all the cars because of all the gear they have to bring in, everything they'll need for as long as they are there.I'd hate to be stuck in that parking lot on the return. Apparently they only let a few cars out at a time and that's the staging area.

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  8. The world is as effed up as it can be and it seems to be heading into even more weirdness. I really have no hope anymore. Each day there's a new story confirming my fears. What will the right-wing White Republican Party do next? I worry, I really do.

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    1. Definitely gonna be an intense and scary election. I counseled my granddaughter Autumn to travel and find another country she would like to move to. I would seriously consider leaving if I was younger and could take my family with me.

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  9. Man - I can't believe all those bicycles! I hope they do go to people who need and want them. And I called DeSantis and Abbott a word I don't usually use and won't repeat here, but ugh. Evil people.

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    1. They yap and yap about 'freedom' the whole time they are trying to control what other people do.

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  10. Erik went four years in a row- the main principle of Burners was MOOP, which meant "matter Out Of Place", they banned glitter, they banned anything that would be lost in the sand, no trace left behind. the playa was sifted and left pristine. Then the un-burners showed up with their celebrity and money and wrecked the vibe. Burning Man has changed to be everything is was never intended to be. Glad Erik got in on the good years- life changing for him!- Comcast has given the GOP election deniers zillions of dollars and Comcast is throttling us today so tomorrow Dennis will go to Verizon and change our internet experience! Ch ch ch changes!!

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    1. Isn't that always the way? Get something good going and then it gets popular and hip and the crowds show up. I would have liked to go when I was young, when it was young but my life didn't allow for that, a business and kids and all. I read that they do have crews that go in and clean the playa. My bitch is that the people had the room to bring all that stuff with them, they have the room to take it all back with them. Each person should have scoured their plot before they left.

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  11. The organization that put up the load of immigrants on Cape Cod were barely better off than their refugees. And the refugees showed pictures of dead companions like they were pictures of pet animals. This is so past the comprehension of most of us.

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    1. I'm not surprised. I think studies have been done that show that those who have the least are most likely to share what they have.

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  12. The bikes and the trash left behind after that shindig in the desert defies belief. That's apart from the effect it will have had on a fragile ecosystem. And we wonder why humankind is in trouble? As for DeSantis, he really is among the lowest of the low. How anyone could ever vote for him again is beyond my level of understanding - but we'll see.

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    1. Well, I read they do have a crew that goes in and cleans the playa afterwards leaving it pristine but my gripe is that the individuals who bring all that stuff in certainly have the room to take it all with them when they leave. Each person should have scoured their plot before leaving then the crew come in as a last sweep through.

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  13. Amen to that! Democrat all the way! DeSantis is a nightmare. I love that Hillary Clinton called him out for human trafficking.

    By the way, I notice you mentioned on another blog that Mary and I have disappeared from your blog list. We're still there, but we've dropped down to the bottom along with some others. It's some technical issue related to the feeds via Blogger. I've complained about it -- we'll see if anything happens.

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    1. Thanks for the heads up. So they are but without the title of the most recent post. Now I really need to delete it and re-do it.

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  14. Thanks for the video of Burning Man--it's really nothing like it was initially (and supposed to be). Sad. I can't begin to understand people who treat others the way DeSantis did those immigrants. Just sick.

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  15. A couple of friends have been to Burning Man several times. Curt was good enough to put all of this photos/posts into a single category, and they really do show the good side of the event -- at least in the past. You can see his photos here. They're not part of the obnoxious crowd that goes now; in fact, I think it's been four or five years since they last attended.

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    1. I didn't mean to imply that the event itself or the people who go were all irresponsible. I know the event itself goes to great length to clean up the playa. But when I did the river guide thing we went to great pains to make sure we left nothing behind so it pisses me off when the selfish just walk away without a backward glance.

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    2. You summed up the DeSantis human trafficking stunt perfectly. The cruelty is the point.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.