Title
The Mission That I Made Out of Saltine Crackers
Good morning! It’s Monday, October 19th.
National New Friends Day
….eh.
I gave it some thought and I’m gonna pass. Friend basket full.
Unless you think I should make an exception? Let me know if you have a cool person that I should make an exception for.
And now, the news.
Deadly Soccer Match
-via NBC News
Starting in Kansas, where a 6-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man are dead after a woman drove a truck through a youth soccer game on Saturday.
Ten others were injured, with injuries ranging, but none believed to be life-threatening.
The woman is in custody and cooperating. Police aren’t sure whether it was intentional. It’s Sunday morning as I’m recording, so hopefully more information will come out soon.
Canadian Military Base
-via ABC News
In Canada, officials are searching for answers about what caused an explosion at the Wainwright base in Alberta. An explosion that, pushed by high winds, grew into a wildfire that killed at least seven people, including four service members, and dozens more were injured.
Although the cause of the fire is still under investigation, it is confirmed that it wasn’t a terrorist attack. As of this recording, it sounds like a gas line or well was struck during a training exercise.
CFB Wainwright is one of Canada's largest and busiest military training bases.
Air Force Death
-via CBS News
And here in the States, our own military is mourning a death from a very different type of incident after a member of the US Air Force, unidentified as of this recording, died in the hospital due to injuries that occurred after rappelling, and then falling, from the ceiling of San Antonio’s Alamodome during the UT San Antonio football game’s pre-show ahead of their annual Salute to Armed Forces and Veterans game against Navy on Saturday.
San Antonio won the game.
Let me say that again… an active military member died in front of the audience that, based on the name of the game, included tens of thousands of active military or veterans… and the football game continued on.
The game was delayed 10 minutes.
Pete Hegseth was at a different football game on Saturday where, prior to the game, he administered the oath of enlistment and said: “We’ve had three core principles from the beginning of showing up at the War Department: restore the warrior ethos, rebuild the military, reestablish deterrence.”
And it’s that right there – restore the warrior ethos. That’s the kind of mentality that led to this stunt in Texas.
And a man died.
And the football was delayed ten minutes.
And Pete Hegseth, as of this recording on Sunday morning… has said NOTHING.
California Wildfires
-via ABC News
Moving to Southern California… we’re on fire, yo!
My alt for opening this story was – is it hot in here or is the climate change we’re doing nothing to stop causing fires all around me?
Evacuation orders have been lifted, or partially lifted, but they were in place for Orange County as well as San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.
San Clemente is just north of America’s Finest City, and San Juan Capistrano is, of course, the mission that I made out of saltine crackers in 4th grade.
The fires are under control now but of course we’re just about 18 months out from those awful fires in Los Angeles, fires that were by no means the first we’ve seen, so for many this is quite the flashback and warning as just the beginnings of what’s going to be a historically terrible El Niño begins to show its teeth.
Anyway… have you guys seen any movies lately?
Trump’s International Friends
In “dude, make friends in other places. Have you considered Friendster? Is that something? Maybe do an interesting blog and see if people slide into those DMs?” news…
On Sunday, just about a week before Israel’s election, Trump was like “dude, it is NOT going well for me, electorally… should I do another insurrection? It’s a little gauche. What else can I do?” (My impression is, once again, unmatched… imagine he knew the word gauche. LOL)
And so, after working to put his little grubhands in our election, he moved into Israel’s election. Posting on his ironically-titled Truth Social that Netanyahu is "a Great Warrior Prime Minister" and a "great partner" in the war against Iran.
He gave him his "Complete and Total Endorsement” and said he was "the kind of Partner that the United States of America is demanding of Israel."
Hey so like… he’s doing genocide, so actually he’s not the partner we want. Just… to be clear. Like – just because Trump likes him, doesn’t mean we all like him.
Just… so you know.
Parisian Protests
-via NY Times
Moving to Paris, where a weekend of protests seems to have quieted down, leaving the government and far-right leaders to accuse the far left of getting everyone all riled up and giving them too much sugar, while the left blames the government.
For what?
Well the protests were started last month, by students who has issues with education and school conditions. By this past weekend, those protests grew to be more about the cost of living in France.
Despite what were mostly peaceful protests, a smaller number of people took advantage of the moment, leading to state buildings being invaded and set on fire, bus stops being smashed, roads being blocked, and shops being looted.
Like I said, things have calmed down now but I have to wonder… what does it mean for France if things don’t change?
No Kings
-via NPR
In “hey, that rhymes!” news… here in America, no we didn’t loot or set things on fire or whatever (I’m not saying we’re better than them! I’m just saying, that’s not in this story!) but we protested!
9 million did. 9 million people! That how many people protested in this past weekend’s No Kings protest.
No I’ll be totally honest and tell you that I didn’t. I just… didn’t have it in me. Work was long and I couldn’t.
And I say that because I want to be honest but also because I want you to remember that these protests matter. They matter so much. But they don’t mean anything if you don’t get out there and cast a ballot. That was actually the vibe of this protest, this event, was to go register to vote and, if possible, to go vote early. Because look – I know. I get it. I look at the news all the time. I do the news most of the time.
It’s not… nice!
But I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, because lying makes my tum tum hurt… we can do this. We can win. We can right this shit.
We have so much to fight for.
We voted our way into fascism; we can vote our way out.
We are so close.
We still have a democracy.
All we have to do is vote.
This whole thing turns on turnout.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
16 days until election day.
I’m proud of you.