If you are interested in phone banking or text banking, you can adopt a state here [link]

You can also reach out to me for info on connecting with Red to Blue which I have text banked with before and am about to reconnect to.

I am focusing on PA. My brother is focusing on NC. People are HYPED for AZ and WI. There is also FL and one more I am flaking on. MI - duh

I think carob is probably fine as its own thing, but as "just like chocolate" it is a hippy fail.

It's like frozen yogurt. Perfect tasty as itself, but it's not the same thing as, or a substitute for, ice cream.

F#%KING HELL. [link]

And after the cyclist in Bethesda and the cops shoving the old man in Buffalo, I am through with humans. I gotta quick doomsurfing.

I'm putting on my work badge and going to the building for the first time since March 18 today. To do some solo behind the scenes work.

Possibly as a result of the 2001 riots following the police killing of Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, and the ensuing consent decree and community response, the cops have been mostly okay here. They tear gassed and arrested a bunch of people for pretty much no reason, but I haven't seen reports of anyone getting seriously hurt. And it's sad that that's the line for "mostly okay" - "nobody was maimed."

Ugh, one of my young friends, a 28 year old lovely young woman, strongly suspected Covid due to symptoms, and tested positive. She has a very active life, travels a lot, into this that and the other activity. I always see her FB pictures with groups of her friends going to the beach, or horseback riding, or running races. Just doing doing doing. She immediately contacted the 6 people she had spent time with the previous week and every last one of them tested positive. Now they are all trying to compile lists of every soul they contacted. This pandemic has taken a back seat with all of the attention to the horror of George Floyd's death, but it is still very real. Fortunately these girls live in Broward county where it is pretty easy to get tested.

In other news a dear friend, who is a retired police officer, is in so much pain over this. D served in the military then worked as a police officer for decades in SWAT. He was a sniper of all things. The most gentle and even tempered man you could know. He has a massive bonsai garden, builds handmade wood kayaks, and is way the heck on the left end of the political spectrum. Not a bigoted bone in his body. His pain that he shares with all of us over the injustice at the hands of some police officers is coupled with his pain of all of them being painted with the same brush.

Shorter version, it is hard to see so many suffering, for any of the too many reasons to be suffering.

It's like frozen yogurt. Perfect tasty as itself, but it's not the same thing as, or a substitute for, ice cream.

Beat me to it.

the cops have been mostly okay here. They tear gassed and arrested a bunch of people for pretty much no reason, but

The bar should be higher than this, though.

My company is matching donations to BLM up to $50k, which is good, but they are doing it by collecting the money from us and then making the donation including their match which seems weird. I guess that's how they do thhe matching thing when we collect donations during the outlet sale so this was easy to implement, but it's weird. Whatever, I made a small donation so it would be doubled. When I am hopefully at a point where i can make larger donations (next paycheck, fingers crossed) I will probably be doing more direct giving and bail relief and missing out on the matching. If it even lasts that long.

A kid was killed by police in Vallejo earlier this week. I say kid, he looked like a kid to me in the pictures I saw, probably a young man. It wasn't a matter of police brutality at a protest, but it clearly should not have happened. He was kneeling in the street with his hands up, one of the cops saw something in his waistband, thought it was a gun, and shot him dead. It was a hammer.

This can't keep happening.

Wouldn't it be nice if deadly force were a last resort and not a first?

My company is matching donations to BLM up to $50k, which is good, but they are doing it by collecting the money from us and then making the donation including their match which seems weird.

Yeah, that's crappy because it means they get the tax deduction and you don't.

I couldn't still deduct it? Not that the amount I donate makes itemizing worthwhile these days, so kinda doesn't matter. I'm fairly certain they are doing it this way because it is an easier process for them, not because of the tax implications, or not primarily, it's probably both...sigh

I can barely keep my eyes open. Two more hours of work.

Oh, and someone replied-all to the announcement from HR asking if donations could also be made to food banks and women's shelters. Not a person I know to talk to, but talk about missing the point.