the new three R’s

i’ve always found it amusing that my parent’s generation (or possibly my grandparents), who never missed an opportunity to correct my spelling and/or grammar when i was little, always talked about “the three R’s” for schooling…

…those being “reading, riting, and ‘rithmetic” – which only shows you’ve failed at the middle one (or at least the spelling portion of it) because we all know that would actually be “Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic”, with only one “R” in the group.

well the current climate has a NEW “three R’s” – rants, riots, and ‘rona.

and all three are very much a thing these days.

i have a diverse group of friends. as a result my social media feed is constantly at war with itself, with one entry giving me tips for when (not “if”) i go protesting, and the next one being some right wing meme thanking trump. shit, at least i have some diversity in my life. and here we didn’t think things could get more polarizing.

in the middle of all the bullshit and all the blackout posts on tuesday, i posted this (which i had actually posted several years ago when shit wasn’t NEARLY this fucked up):

and a few days before, just to clear some things up for my more conservative friends, i posted this:

because i thought it perfectly illustrated his point. i stand by both these posts although it should be noted that i didn’t make either meme. the one i did make (so far) for all this shit i’ve already posted:

but i will say this – a lot of cops are fucking this up. not all of them, but more than should be. i don’t know if it’s stress, or the heat of the moment, or maybe just an underlying racial bias i’ve always said wasn’t as rampant as my more alarmist friends try to claim it is, but this is fucked up. and to that end, it’s not all racist. i saw footage yesterday of an old man (turns out he was seventy-five) come up and have words with an officer that shoved him to the ground, where he struck his skull on the concrete and almost immediately started bleeding from the ears. then they went after the news crew filming them.

i saw this on the anonymous twitter feed, and within minutes they put out the officer’s name and links to his linkedin profile. needless to say he has been relieved of his duty without pay and is awaiting charges. or, maybe that wasn’t “needless” to say as so many of the officers doing this kind of shit are getting away with it scott free…AND THAT NEEDS TO STOP. i know “nobody hates a bad cop more than a good cop” and “one bad apple…” and all that but to shove a seventy-five year old (he was white, by the way) man to the street and put him in the hospital because he approached you? you don’t look tough or authoritative in that scenario – you just look like an asshole.

and here’s my question about the “unmarked” officers in the DC area – can you actually be prosecuted for harming “law enforcement” when they have no name or organizational markings? i mean, fuck – my friends and i can stand in a line looking menacing carrying guns (we’ve got plenty) and donning camo (we’ve got even more of that) and we’re not law enforcement – so how are we supposed to REALLY know they have any authority. trying to press a charge with the phrase “anybody really looking would THINK that was a cop” seems as slippery as trying to duck a charge saying, “anybody really looking would THINK she was eighteen”, right?

and let’s not forget we’re all supposed to still be masked up and gloved up and distancing and shit. obviously protesters aren’t doing that, and neither are cops, but they all look a little more criminalish with bandanas and masks on, but there IS still a pandemic afoot, so don’t judge the protesters for that bullshit, okay?

who knew 2020 would be such a hell of a year? and we haven’t even finished the first HALF yet!

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