Investigative Journalist Nate Halverson | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von

Nate Halverson is an independent investigative reporter and producer behind the documentary “The Grab” which explores the international race to control access to food and water. He also writes for the Center For Investigative Reporting covering topics such as organized crime, social media, food access, economic inequality and more. Nate Halverson joins Theo to talk about what he learned producing his documentary “The Grab”, why every world power is working to control the access of food and water, the financial incentives behind it, what he saw firsthand in countries affected by this, why China is buying large amounts of farmland in America, the implications this power dynamic will have on future generations, and more. Watch “The Grab”: https://www.magpictures.com/thegrab/home

The Internet's Final Frontier: Remote Amazon Tribes (NY Times)

As the speeches dragged on, eyes drifted to screens. Teenagers scrolled Instagram. One man texted his girlfriend. And men crowded around a phone streaming a soccer match while the group’s first female leader spoke.

Just about anywhere, a scene like this would be mundane. But this was happening in a remote Indigenous village in one of the most isolated stretches of the planet.

The Marubo people have long lived in communal huts scattered hundreds of miles along the Ituí River deep in the Amazon rainforest. They speak their own language, take ayahuasca to connect with forest spirits and trap spider monkeys to make soup or keep as pets.

They have preserved this way of life for hundreds of years through isolation — some villages can take a week to reach. But since September, the Marubo have had high-speed internet thanks to Elon Musk.

The 2,000-member tribe is one of hundreds across Brazil that are suddenly logging on with Starlink, the satellite-internet service from Space X, Mr. Musk’s private space company. Since its entry into Brazil in 2022, Starlink has swept across the world’s largest rainforest, bringing the web to one of the last offline places on Earth.

The New York Times traveled deep into the Amazon to visit Marubo villages to understand what happens when a tiny, closed civilization suddenly opens to the world.

“When it arrived, everyone was happy,” said Tsainama Marubo, 73, sitting on the dirt floor of her village’s maloca, a 50-foot-tall hut where the Marubo sleep, cook and eat together. The internet brought clear benefits, like video chats with faraway loved ones and calls for help in emergencies. “But now, things have gotten worse,” she said.

The Precarious Future of Big Sur's Highway 1 (The New Yorker)

On the afternoon of March 30th, Magnus Torén, the director of the Henry Miller Memorial Library, in Big Sur, California, had a plane to catch, the first leg of a long-planned vacation in northern India. Shortly after three o’clock, he and his wife, Mary Lu, left their house in Big Sur and drove north along Highway 1 toward Monterey, where Torén planned to get a bus to San Francisco International Airport. But shortly after crossing Bixby Creek Bridge, the ravine-spanning landmark featured in the opening credits of the HBO series “Big Little Lies,” they saw a truck pulled over with its lights flashing. After a rainy weekend, a piece of the southbound lane of Highway 1 had slid into the sea. “It looked like a big shark had taken a bite out of it,” Torén later recalled.

The couple figured that Caltrans, the California state transportation authority, was likely to close the road. Mary Lu, who was driving, steered carefully past the crumbled edge of the highway, staying in the northbound lane, so that her husband would make his flight. They were on a stretch of coast with no cell service, on the sole road that gives access to their region.

There are no official borders to Big Sur, a seventy-five-mile span of the California coast which, because of both challenging topography and strict land-use regulations, is one of the few remaining shoreline areas between Los Angeles and San Francisco without wide-scale development. Since the winding ribbon of Highway 1 opened, in 1937, driving the route—past vistas of the Santa Lucia mountains flanked by redwood groves and moody views of the Pacific—has become a rite of passage for tourists from around the world. Mythologized by Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan, and the photographer Ansel Adams, the landscape of Big Sur has a storied place in the national imagination. Henry Miller, who lived there for eighteen years, wrote a memoir titled “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch,” in which he described “skies of pure azure and walls of fog moving in and out of the canyons with invisible feet.” But since January, 2023, when, after heavy rains, a major landslide on Highway 1 blocked access to most of Big Sur from the south, it’s been impossible to take the iconic road trip through the landscape in its entirety. Two more landslides on the southern portion of Highway 1 earlier this year, caused by heavy rains, further limited access.

My Dad and Kurt Cobain (The New Yorker)

When my father moved back to Taiwan, my family bought a pair of fax machines. In theory, this was so he could help me with my math homework. I was starting high school, in California, and everything, from what instrument I played to the well-roundedness of my transcript, suddenly seemed consequential. In seventh grade, I had tested just well enough to skip two years of math, and now I was paying for it. I had peaked too early. In fact, I was very bad at math. Like many immigrants who prized education, my parents had faith in the mastery of technical fields—math and science—where answers weren’t left to interpretation. You couldn’t discriminate against the right answer.

Faxing was cheaper than long-distance calling, and involved far less pressure. The time difference between Cupertino and Taiwan was such that I could fax my father a question in the evening and expect an answer by the time I woke up. My homework requests were always marked “Urgent.”

He replied with equations and proofs, explaining the principles of geometry in the margins and apologizing if anything was unclear. After wearying of America’s corporate ladder, he’d moved to Taiwan to work as an executive in the burgeoning semiconductor industry, and he was busy establishing himself at his new job. I skimmed the explanations and copied down the equations and proofs. Every now and then, I rewarded his quick, careful attention by interspersing the next set of math questions with a digest of American news: I told him about Magic Johnson’s announcement that he was H.I.V.-positive, I narrated the events that led up to the Los Angeles riots, I kept him up to date on the fate of the San Francisco Giants. I told him about cross-country practice, made honest commitments to work harder at school. I listed the new songs I liked, and he would seek them out in Taipei’s cassette stalls and tell me which ones he liked, too:

Venerable writer Chris Jones ponders the leap from the Golden Gate Bridge (Esquire)

The middle of the Golden Gate Bridge is 220 feet above San Francisco Bay. It looks higher than that in some ways. It doesn't seem nearly that high in other ways. The water, from 220 feet—the water that's straight down, at least—looks less like water and more like air. It looks more blue than green. It looks warmer than it is.

It looks softer.

People jump off that particular bridge for a lot of reasons. Maybe most important, it's convenient. Death is right there, waiting. The railing is only four feet tall; the fall is only four seconds long.

It doesn't hurt that it's such a pretty spot and it's romantic-feeling, and that maybe for the first time in their lives, the suicidal don't feel so alone there. On that bridge, they're finally part of something, this massive vanquished army, growing by the dozens every year.

And strangely, perhaps, many of them probably jump off that bridge because it gives them an outside chance of living. The bridge takes the matter out of their hands, as though it's not their decision anymore: If they were meant to live, if this were all some terrible mistake, then maybe they would survive. It's unlikely, but it's possible—it's possible for a man, even a man aiming to kill himself, to jump off that bridge at such an angle, at such a velocity, and not be exploded by the water but embraced by it.

The truth is, if you were totally positive that you wanted to die, if you were 100 percent certain, then there are better ways to guarantee it: shooting a bullet into your brain (not front to back, but side to side) or lying down on train tracks (not standing, but with your head resting on a rail) or jumping off something higher, with a harder landing. If you really wanted to kill yourself, you could do it. But sleeping pills, carbon monoxide, jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge—those methods, more peaceful, more serene, also provide that chance, however slim, that you might open your eyes and be alive. There's that tiny chance for a different kind of escape.

I thought all those things when I stood in the middle of that bridge one sunny, nearly perfect day in June more than three years ago. I thought all those things when I pulled myself tight against the railing and tried not to cry, choking on it so that no one would become suspicious or try to stop me. There were smiling people standing all around me, ice-cream-eating tourists thinking how beautiful everything was, pointing to spots on the horizon. I looked just like them, except that my eyes were pointed straight down. I looked at the water, and I thought about my parents, my wife, my sons back home, maybe having their dinner on their little plastic plates or playing in their inflatable pool, and more inanimate things, too: my suitcase in my hotel room, my glasses on the bathroom counter, my half-finished book on the nightstand with its corner folded over, page 164. Who would pack up my clothes and send them home? Would the police do that, or would it be a hotel employee, a maid or a concierge?

But mostly, I thought about jumping off that bridge because it seemed like exactly the right thing to do.

It’ll Work Itself Out (It Actually Won’t)

It was my nastiest, truest tradition: my Friday morning trip to the Bank of America on Bleecker Street.

I’d end up there every other week. Not the day you probably think. I never went on the Fridays that were paydays — though those were nice days. But on the other Fridays, always. The ones when I knew without looking that my account was low. The ones when I knew how far away the next payday was and that I might not make it with what I had.

So, twice a month, I’d go and overdraft the perfect amount.

It was a skill you had to learn. You couldn’t try to withdraw too much, because you ran the risk of Bank of America being like, “Hell no, broke scam boy. We’re locking down your card and maybe telling the police.” But, equally as troublesome, if you didn’t withdraw enough, and then spent it all, you couldn’t go back and withdraw more, because your account was already in the red. You only had this single chance.

When the Techies Took Over Tahoe (Outside Magazine)

Spun-out Teslas on snowy roads. Cabins bought for cash, sight unseen. A shoveling disaster. Locals bemoan the pandemic-induced migration of Bay Area residents to the mountains. But there are two sides to the Zoom-town story.

—

They just kept coming. The day-trippers, Airbnbers, second-home owners, and unmasked revelers. Unleashed after California’s first statewide COVID-19 lockdown ended in late June of last year, they swarmed Lake Tahoe in numbers never before seen, even for a tourist region accustomed to the masses. “It was a full-blown takeover,” says Josh Lease, a tree specialist and longtime Tahoe local. 

July Fourth fireworks were canceled, but that stopped no one. August was a continuation of what Lease called a “shit show.” 

The standstill traffic was one thing; the locals were used to that. But the trash—strewn across the sand, floating along the shore, piled around dumpsters—was too much. Capri Sun straws, plastic water-bottle caps, busted flip-flops, empty beer cans. One day in early August, Lease picked up a dirty diaper on a south shore beach and dangled it before a crowd. “This anyone’s?” he asked. 

Lease was pissed. He couldn’t believe the lack of respect people had for this beautiful area, his home for two decades. Plus, they’d invaded during a pandemic, bringing their COVID with them. 

That day, after the diaper incident, Lease went back to his long-term rental in Meyers, California, a few miles south of the lake at the juncture of Highways 89 and 50, where he could see the endless stream of cars. An otherwise even-keeled guy, he logged on to Facebook and vented. “Let’s rally,” he posted on his page, adding that he wanted to put together a “non welcoming committee.” He was joking—sort of. But word spread like the wildfires that would soon rage uncontrollably around the state. Before long someone had designed a flyer of a kid wearing a gas mask, with a speech bubble that read “Stay Out of Tahoe.” It went viral.

On Friday, August 14, at four o’clock, over 100 locals from around the lake began to gather. They commandeered the roundabouts leading into the Tahoe Basin’s major towns—Truckee, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, and Meyers in California, and Incline Village in Nevada—to greet the weekend hordes. Young women in bikini tops, elderly couples in floppy hats, and bearded dads bouncing babies in Björns held up hand-painted signs: “Respect Tahoe Life,” “Your Entitlement Sucks!,” and “Go Back to the Bay.” One old-timer plastered his truck with a banner that read “Go Away” and drove around and around a traffic circle.

But summer turned to fall, which turned to winter, which became spring, and the newcomers are still here. It’s not just the tourists anymore, whose numbers have ebbed and flowed with lockdown restrictions and the weather and whose trash has gone from wet towels twisted in the sand to plastic sleds split in the snow. There’s another population of people who came and never left: those freed by COVID from cubicles and work commutes. They migrated, laptops in tow, to mountain towns all over the West, transforming them into modern-day boomtowns: “Zoom-towns.”

In Lake Tahoe, the unwelcoming party was hardly a deterrence. The outsiders have settled in.

Ruffin’s Theory of Cultural Current

By Quincy K. Ruffin

“I don’t see color…” This seemingly harmless phrase tends to rub a lot of black people the wrong way. It triggers a sort of invisibility in the moment and dismisses the pain they and people like them have felt for generations as a result of racism in America. I’ve heard this phrase used by police officers, store clerks, sales representatives and teachers. I’ve heard it from people I knew personally and that I know harbor no ill will toward black people in general.  While I would like to say that I respectfully and convincingly corrected them and moved on with other, less confrontational conversation, the truth is that I am a pretty confrontational guy when it comes to the issue of race in America. Not that I am a troublemaker, I just tend to speak up and speak out when it comes to the subject I am so passionate about. I usually respond with something like, “How do you not see color, it’s literally in your face!” Of course I know what they really mean is that they don’t focus on the race of the person when deciding how to treat them. What I always want to convey to them is the fact that they must see color and they must take it into consideration when dealing with people who must grapple with that feature in every part of their lives. Those who decide they don’t see color or that choose to ignore color are simply supporting the racist narrative whether they are aware of it or not.

I know it sounds extreme but bear with me.  I believe I can make the point without sounding too confrontational.

I recently took my children on an RV trip through northern California, Oregon and Washington. Our itinerary took us through several RV parks, tourist spots and visits with old friends from yesteryear. About halfway through our trip, we made a stop at the Rogue River RV park intending to drop the trailer and drive 45 minutes east to crater lake. When we arrived, the kids could not wait to get out of the truck and run around the park exploring the property and surrounding areas. I was impressed by the beauty of the park with its very well-kept RV spaces, mature trees and most impressive, the Rogue River steps away from our RV spot. Before unhooking the RV from the truck, I took a short walk across the driveway to breath the clean river air. Even though it was rushing by, the water was transparent and offered a clear view of the rocks that lined the riverbed. My son discovered quickly they were all perfect for skipping across the river. As we enjoyed the tranquil surroundings, we heard people laughing in the distance. They were river rafters having a great time floating by on what I later found out was the calmest part of the river. As they passed by, I asked where they got the rafts from. One of them pointed behind me and said there was a rental place just across the street. Two hours later my kids and I were on a raft of our own floating down stream.

With no training, we had to figure out how to navigate the river ourselves. One thing we learned quite quickly was that the river had a strong current which took the raft where it wanted unless we worked together to control the direction. We had to fight the current because it was leading us to the edge of the river where there were dangerous piles of rocks and overhanging trees. We wanted to go toward the middle of the river where the bottom of the boat was clear of any obstructions. As we paddled our way down the center of the river, the raft suddenly started heading toward the edge. We gained momentum and started moving dangerously toward the low hanging trees which occupied the river shore. I looked back and noticed my son had stopped paddling. He was tired and had even taken his oar out of the water. Son, I said, we need help here or we are going to hit the rocks! He looked at where the raft was headed put his oar in the water and started to paddle again. After a few well coordinated swipes of the oar, we started to move back toward the safety of mid-river. As small as my son was, his contribution made a huge difference, so did his absence when he stopped working. That is where Ruffin’s Theory of Cultural Current was born.

Ruffin’s Theory of Cultural Current says that like the river current, every society has a Cultural Current. Every member of a society is either working for or against that society’s cultural current and they are complicit in the outcomes. There is no neutral. The US has, for longer than it has not, been a society whose cultural current moved toward racism against blacks. In her book Caste, Wilkerson states, “2022 marks the first year that the United States will have been an independent nation for as long as slavery lasted on its soil. No current-day adult will be alive in the year in which African-Americans as a group will have been free for as long as they had been enslaved. That will not come until the year 2111.”

It is true that the paradigm has shifted from the racism of old where the norm was explicit hatred towards blacks and overt acts of that racism was perpetrated by some and accepted by others as a matter of social conformity. Now racism hides behind the masks of implicit bias, stereotype threat and exclusion. Some make the mistake of reducing racism to its explicit form of hate focused on a group of people based on their race. With that belief, it is understandable that some in our society believe we are living in a post racist era. But that belief is flawed. Racism is not just the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, it’s calling the police because of loud laughing (NBC Bay Area, 2016). It’s not just refusing to allow blacks to attend school with whites, it’s suspending black boys for the same behavior accepted from white boys (Travis Riddle, 2019). It’s not just refusing to treat blacks in the hospital, it’s giving them less pain medications because of a belief that they can take pain better than whites (Kelly M. Hoffman, 2016). Working against a racist Cultural Current is not just excluding the use of racial slurs, it’s actively acknowledging color and the lived experiences that come with it. It’s learning about implicit bias, stereotype threat and microaggressions. It’s listening, learning and never believing you know it all. It’s actively pushing the entire society to be more inclusive, compassionate and understanding starting with one oar in the water at a time, the only one you really control, yours.

___

References

Adam M. Chekroud, J. A. (2014). A review of neuroimaging studies of race-related prejudice: does amygdala response reflect threat? Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Kelly M. Hoffman, S. T. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites. Proceedings of the Natinoal Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, (16).

NBC Bay Area. (2016, April 19). Retrieved from nbcbayarea.com: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/11-women-kicked-off-napa-valley-wine-train-file-11m-racial-discrimination-suit/1996630/

Travis Riddle, S. S. (2019). Racial Disparities in School-Based disciplinary actions are associated with county-level rates of racial bias. Proceedings of the Natinoal Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116,17.

Here's a great and random podcast with guest Chuck Klosterman discussing culture

"Black Lives Matter": A look at the slogan through a legal lens

By Quincy K. Ruffin

The Black Lives Matter phrase has gained much popularity over the last few years. With the killing of George Floyd, the phrase has only continued to gain popularity with the BIPOC community and supporters alike. But the phrase has been a source of controversy as well with a contradictory phrase, “All Lives Matter” gaining popularity with the more conservative crowd. Law enforcement has even joined the phrase craze with their own Blue Lives Matter. So, who is right? Do Black lives matter? Do all lives matter? And why is it necessary to put that message out now? Using a technique from my old law school days, I will analyze the arguments of both phrase in hopes to provide some clarity in the murky waters of the phrase craze. 

To begin my analysis, I will start with what it means to matter?  According to dictionary.com, to matter means “to be of importance.” Websters adds “…some significance.”  So, for black lives to matter, it would have to be proven that they are of importance or some significance. The contributions made by African Americans as a collective group and by specific individuals have been of paramount importance in the American narrative.  In 1860, there were nearly 4 million American slaves worth about $3.5 billion. They were the US economies largest single financial asset worth more than all manufacturing and railroads combined. The wealth built from slave labor propelled the US into a position as one of the leading economies in the world and we continue to benefit from that foundation today.  Black inventors created innovative technology critical to America’s economic success including Frederick Jones, father of the first automatic refrigeration system for the long-haul, Garrett Morgan inventor of the gas mask and Marie Van Brittan Brown inventor of the first home security system. Black lives have contributed significantly to American society, commerce, and science. 

For all lives to matter, it would have to be proven that all lives are of some importance or some significance. There are plethora of scientific breakthroughs, technological marvels and economic models as a result of the diversity of the country reflecting the all lives ideal. If All Lives Matter includes black lives, why is the phrase “Black Lives Matter” spray painted on streets, made into stickers and printed on the uniforms of NBA players? The answer is clearer in what it looks like to not matter. What lives have been treated as though they did not matter?  

To begin with, legislation from a century ago still has an impact on the socioeconomic difficulties many Black Americans experience today.  Redlining, which is a discriminatory practice that puts services and financial products out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity (Kenton, 2020), started in the 1930’s. It legally ended with the 1968 Fair Housing act which made it illegal to discriminate based on someone’s race when they are trying to rent or purchase a home.  During the recent housing boom, 6.2% of whites with a credit score of 660 and higher received high interest mortgages but 21.4% of blacks with that same score and higher received those same loans. Banks were purposely giving blacks subprime loans even when they qualified for better ones.  Wells Fargo was sued for this practice and settled for $175 million in December 2019. By the time the Fair Housing act was signed into law, white families had been building wealth from housing for decades, and blacks had been left behind. In 2016 the median wealth for white families was $171,000, for Hispanic or Latino, $20,7020, for other or multiple race, $64,620 and for blacks $17,150. (Urban Institute, 2019)

Black Americans still feel the negative effects of the result of policies regarding American “war on drugs” today.  Nearly 80% of people in federal prison and almost 60% of people in state prison for drug offenses are black or Latino. (Drugpolicy.org, 2018) This is despite the fact that black and white Americans sell and use drugs at similar rates. (Floyd, Alexandre, Hedden, Lawson, & Latimer, 2010) (Ingraham, 2014) Studies also show that black Americans were 2.7 times as likely to be arrested for drug related offenses.  (The Hamilton Project, 2016) Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at five times the rate of whites, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group. And in twelve states more than half the prison population is African American. (Nellis, 2016)

This was not happenstance. In a 1994 interview for Harper’s Magazine, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s former domestic policy advisor spoke about the War on Drugs which started in the 1970’s. Ehrlichman admitted in the interview that the Nixon administration purposely set out to get the public to associate blacks with heroin and criminalize drugs . (Wikipedia, 2020) The war on drugs continues to this day. 

There are disparities even in medical treatment and outcomes for African Americans. According to the National Academies of Sciences Engineering Medicine, minorities tend to receive lower quality healthcare than non-minorities even controlling for access-related factors like insurance and income. And in 2018, black women died of maternal causes at a rate of 37.1 per 100,000 compared to white women at a rate of 14.7. (Chuck, 2020)  In 2005, the Institute of Medicine, now called the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) reported, “some people in the United States were more likely to die from cancer, heart disease, and diabetes simply because of their race or ethnicity, not just because they lack access to health care.”  While some studies report that poverty among blacks may account for the greater mortality rate, that poverty rate can be traced back to policies such as redlining and the loss of income due the war on drugs. 

Ask most Americans today what the Black Lives Matter movement is about, and they will not likely talk about housing disparities, wealth distribution or medical treatment. They will likely tell you that the movement is about the disproportionate numbers of unarmed blacks killed by the police.  From 2015 to August 2020, whites were shot and killed by the police at a rate of 13 per million of the population. Hispanics were 24 per million and blacks were 32 per million. (Statisita.com, 2020) This is while being roughly 12% of the population. The war on drugs combined with the economic disparities created by redlining has led to the higher rates of policing in predominately black and Latino communities. More police lead to more police encounters. More police encounters lead to a higher chance of force being used, up to and including deadly force. 

I conclude that All Lives Matter and Black Lives matter. I also conclude that it is Black Lives, not All Lives, that have been treated as though they don’t matter. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to give society a reminder that black lives matter. 

I must also add that the slogan, “Black Lives Matter” is not just about George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Jacob Blake or any other contemporary African American killed by the police. It is especially not about those who profess to support black lives but loot, destroy property and support attacks on police officers. It is about remembering those blacks who have fallen victim to a system that was forced upon them. It is about those who are forced to build a life starting with the broken-down tools left by generational deficits. Deficits that were caused by the purposeful disconnection from the lifeblood of America. It is about making America live up to its founding promises that every American has the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

So, when you see the slogan “Black Lives Matter,” understand it is a reminder of Americans who were separated from the American dream. It is an appeal for recognition and reconciliation. And it is a hope that America will one day be a nation that lives up to its professed ideals that all men are created equal. 

—

Quincy K. Ruffin is a subject matter expert in Racial Bias, Diversity and Inclusion and runs the website www.unmaskingthebiasphere.com. He is a POST certified instructor for Fair and Impartial Policing, Principled Policing and Racial Profiling. Mr. Ruffin has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Oregon and a Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell University.

Works Cited

Anderson, C. (2016). White Rage. New York: Bloomsbury.

Baptiste, N. (2014, October 13). The American Prospect. Retrieved from https://prospect.org/justice/staggering-loss-black-wealth-due-subprime-scandal-continues-unabated/

Drugpolicy.org. (2018, January 25). Drugpolicy.org. Retrieved from The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race: https://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race-englishspanish

Hewitt, D. (n.d.). History Collection. Retrieved from 10 Miserable Things a Lave Experinece During Life on a Slave Ship: https://historycollection.com/10-miserable-things-a-slave-experience-during-life-on-a-slave-ship/

Imbornoni, A. M. (2020, Sept 4). Famous African American Inventors. Retrieved from Fact Monster: https://www.factmonster.com/features/holidays/famous-african-american-inventors

Magnusson, M. (2007, March 19). Retrieved from Expertforum, Law and Policy Analysis: acslaw.org/expertforum/no-rights-which-the-white-man-was-bound-to-respect/

Pizzi, W. T., Blair, I. V., & Judd, C. M. (2005). Discrimination in Sentencing on the basis of Afrocentric features. Michigan Journal of Race and Law, 327.

Stanford University. (2020). Stanford Open Policing Project. Retrieved from openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/

Statisita.com. (2020, August). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/

The Hamilton Project. (2016, October 21). Retrieved from www.hamiltonproject.org: https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice

Washington University. (1998, October 8). Genetically Speaking, Race Doesn't Exist in Humans, Researcher Says. Retrieved from ScienceDaily: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/10/981008051724.htm

Washington University. (2020, September 2). Genetically Speaking, Race Doesn't Exist In Humans. St. Louis.

Washington, H. A. (2008). Medical Apartheid. New York: First Anchor Booka.

Wikipedia. (2020, September 4). Retrieved from wikipedia.org/wiki/john_erlichman

The New Yorker reports on Vallejo PD

Three police officers in an unmarked pickup truck pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens in Vallejo, California, responding to a call of looting in progress. It was just after midnight on June 2nd, and a group of people who had gathered around a smashed drive-through window quickly fled in two cars. Sean Monterrosa, a twenty-two-year-old from San Francisco, was left behind. As the police truck closed in on Monterrosa, Jarrett Tonn, a detective who had been with the Vallejo police force for six years, was in the back seat, aiming a rifle. No one told Monterrosa to freeze or to put his hands up, but he fell to his knees anyway. As the truck came to a stop, Tonn fired five rounds at Monterrosa through the windshield.

A week earlier, a police officer in Minneapolis had killed George Floyd. Now the Bay Area was in the throes of an anti-police uprising. People marched, drove in caravans, and painted tributes to Floyd on walls and boarded-up windows. Police in Oakland, about thirty miles from Vallejo, launched tear gas at protesters, who gathered in intersections, blocked traffic on the freeway, looted stores, and lit fires in two banks. A man linked to the far-right Boogaloo movement was charged with killing a security officer outside a federal building. People ransacked malls in San Francisco, San Leandro, and the wealthy suburb of Walnut Creek, stealing from Best Buys, Home Depots, video-game stores, small businesses, and marijuana dispensaries. More than seventy cars were taken from a dealership; a gun shop was robbed of twenty-nine firearms. A curfew was instituted in Vallejo, but many people defied it. When Monterrosa got to the Walgreens, the store had already been looted.

Forty-seven minutes before Monterrosa was killed, he sent a text message to his two sisters, asking them to sign a petition calling for justice for Floyd. Monterrosa, whose parents emigrated from Argentina, had been critical of the police since, at the age of thirteen, he received citations for selling hot dogs outside night clubs. As teen-agers, Monterrosa and his sisters went to protests for people killed by cops in San Francisco: Jessica Williams, Alex Nieto, Mario Woods. In 2017, Monterrosa was arrested on weapons charges, for allegedly shooting into a building; he returned from jail covered in bruises. (The case was dismissed after his death.) He told his family that the police had smacked his head against the concrete in his cell.

When Monterrosa was young, the neighborhood where he grew up, Bernal Heights, was largely Black and brown, but as tech companies moved in San Francisco became richer and whiter. Now, Monterrosa’s mother says, their family are the only Latinos on the block. Sean encouraged her to know her rights as a documented immigrant. His mother generally thought that the police were a force for good, but Sean disagreed, saying that they were out to get Black and brown people.

Monterrosa loved San Francisco, but he couldn’t afford to live there. Since the age of eighteen, he’d moved back and forth between the suburbs and his parents’ place, working a variety of jobs. He got a carpentry position two months before the Bay Area issued shelter-in-place orders in response to the coronavirus, then he was laid off. He moved in with a new girlfriend. A couple of days later, he came to the Walgreens.

After Tonn shot Monterrosa, he got out of the truck and turned his body camera on.

“What did he point at us?” Tonn asked.

"Noonan's Putt"

By Drew Lyons

I caught the tailend of the classic gem “Caddyshack” on IFC the other night, and while the overall film more than holds up after a 50th viewing, I realized for the first time ever a fundamental flaw in the pivotal final scene. And no, has (almost) nothing to do with Carl Spackler and his arch nemesis The Gopher; has everything to do with the rules of golf and wagering.

Bear with me, please.

The original matchplay bet was 20 grand each for Judge Elihu Smails & Doctor Beeper vs. 20 grand each for Al Czervik & Ty Webb. So the winning twosome, in straight matchplay, wins the whole pot of 40 grand (and then presumably splits that down the middle, but with Smails, you never know if that equitable distribution would be honored in his twosome).

At the turn after 9, over hot dogs at the snack bar, Smails gets under Czervik’s skin after needling him about his own twosome’s sizable lead, and they consequently double the bet from 20 grand per player to 40 grand per player. For a total pot now of 80 grand. Trust me, this is all important, so your patience is appreciated.

Now, we all remember Czervik’s faked elbow injury on the back nine, thus bringing in Danny Noonan as the presumed ringer. He appears, via montage, to do a very admirable job of bringing their twosome’s score down considerably; as to close the existing gap. But who could also forget Ty blowing up in the final stretch? Setting us up for the ultimate barnburner to follow.

Which brings us to the final controversial scene, on the 18th green. It opens with Lou Loomis, the mutually-appointed referee of the match, loudly declaring that “Gentlemen, through 17, we are all square! Best putts win it all!” Again, this is very important.

For those non-golfers out there, this means that all 4 players are exactly tied in total number of strokes for the round. For argument’s sake, let’s just say they are all at 70. Noonan’s birdie spree combined with Czervik’s previous bogey spree basically balance out).

Furthermore, all 4 players have more or less equally distant and makeable putts, though none are gimmes. I’d estimate they are all about 20 footers, give or take.

Dr. Beeper goes first, and chokes on the first putt. Makes his second putt.
Judge Smails is up next, and with the help of Old Billy Barule, drains his first putt. Impressive.
Ty is up, and like Dr. Beeper, chokes on his first putt. Makes his second putt. Danny Noonan is the last player out, and must now make his 20 foot putt in one, in order to, and this is the crux of my beef...
PUSH the match into a playoff. NOT WIN the whole thing outright.

Again, if Noonan makes his putt in one, he will PUSH a playoff, NOT WIN the matchplay! One can only assume that Loomis would have mandated a playoff hole for the foursome back to the 18th tee box to settle it, in the event of Noonan’s one-putt.

Instead, and this is where the rules of both golf and wagering really come into play, right before Noonan strokes his first putt, Czervik yells out across the green (and over the heads of the now rather large gallery), “Hey Smails! Double or nothing says the kid makes it!”

Judge Smails reluctantly agrees, with plenty of harrumphing to punctuate his displeasure. But he does agree in the presence of all, and for purposes of my argument, is all that matters.

As we all now know, thanks to Carl’s varmint bloodlust and ballistic tactics, Noonan’s first putt ultimately does drop. Which causes a straight tie between the twosomes. Again, technically, a PUSH in the 18 hole team matchplay. NOT an outright win.

So, and due largely to Czervik’s hutzpah prior to Noonan’s stroke, the following scenario SHOULD have taken place:

As the double-or-nothing-on-one-putt bet was only between Czervik and Smails, Smails would owe Czervik 80 grand straight up. And then the twosomes would STILL have to play one playoff hole to resolve the team matchplay bet.

However, as the entire course was destroyed at that point by all the explosions, thus rendering a playoff hole of golf untenable, Loomis should have proposed the following gentlemanly way to resolve the team matchplay bet:

The teams adjourn immediately to the clubhouse, Smails pays Czervik the 80 grand outstanding before even a drink is ordered, and then the original twosomes play one team game of billiards or darts to resolve the matchplay bet.

So, just for fun, let’s say Judge Smails & Dr. Beeper win in a single team game of 8 ball, then Czervik would take 40 grand out of his existing 80 grand, and hand that over to Smails immediately. Ty would give 40 grand out of his own (presumably deep) pockets to Doctor Beeper. Then everything wager-wise is, finally, resolved.

Noonan would be altogether exempt from the above clubhouse proceedings and/or debts/winnings (as he was only a substitute in the golf matchplay, and never technically had any “skin in the game” in the form of cash at all). His role in the playoff would be rendered moot; unless Czervik still elects him to stay in the playoff on his behalf AND stakes his portion of the bet. My guess, and would be his absolute right, is that Czervik would want to play the playoff himself with Ty (as Noonan was an unknown/untested player of pool or darts; his “ringer” status was only that for golf).

Therefore, in closing, I would like to propose that this glaring error be corrected in the form of a reunion of the original cast, and filming as I have suggested above, for a DVD extra in the 40th anniversary box set (coming up in 2020). Should be titled “Alternate Ending” in the DVD main menu.

I will await the studio’s word from here. I ask only for a film credit.

(The New Yorker) The New Monuments That America Needs

Before protesters in America and Europe began painting over statues, or toppling them, or hanging them from trees, or rolling them into the nearest river, the historian Paul Farber noticed that people were putting masks on them. In the early days of the pandemic, from Wuhan to New York, Valencia, and Limerick, anonymous people placed covid-19 coverings over the faces of local monuments. There was something tender, even a little funny, about these gestures, the kind of thing done for Instagram: a photo of a masked Patience and Fortitude, the two lions that sit outside the main branch of the New York Public Library, went viral. Whether monuments take the form of a statue, building, or pillar, they present themselves as universal and timeless, expressing something essential about all of us—at least in a way that flatters the powers that be. Putting a mask on these inanimate objects shifted them to a new context: the present, rather than the historical past. The act suggested a kind of solidarity, a symbol that we are all in this pandemic together. Yet Farber, who is the artistic director and senior curator of Monument Lab, a public art initiative that creates new monuments, saw the masked statues as an accusation, a reminder of how official systems had failed us.

Throwing A Halloween Party? You Need These Awesome Tips!

2020 has taken a lot from everyone, but if there is one thing that it hasn't taken, it’s Halloween. Sure, the usual activities such as Trick or Treating have had to be cancelled, but does that mean that you can’t have fun this year? Absolutely not! Halloween is merely a week away, and you can still pull together an amazingly spooky bash if you work hard now you can put the party together that the whole neighborhood remembers and stand out among your guests. 

For a Halloween party to go well, you need more than just a few decorations and pumpkins outside the house. You need to really make this an event. A party with a little food and some decor is great, but it’s the way that you put this party together that will make it stick in the minds of your guests long after the party has finished. So, let’s check out all the ways that you can make sure that you have the most memorable Halloween party this year.

• Choose A Theme

If you want a party to go well, you need a theme. Are you going for a spooky theme or a fancy-dress fairytale theme? Halloween is all about spooky things, but you need a theme so that people can get some inspiration for their costume. Choose a Halloween theme and let everyone know!

• Choose Your Decor

Are you going for the tacky or the all-out-technical decor that will make your house stand out? Choose cool decorations that will get people talking and don’t be afraid to go right to the end of your front yard with it. You want the moment that people step onto your property to be a big one! Add the little details, from outdoor music speakers blaring spooky tunes to the fake cobwebs up the side of the house!

• Pick A Venue

Given that we’re in a pandemic, it’s unlikely you’ll be allowed to legally throw a party in a hall. So, you need to think about how you plan to lay out your house. You can move furniture back and host your party in your bubble, and then you’ll have room for food and for party games, too. If you want to maximize a little amount of space, then extend into the back yard as well as the front and allow the party goers the run of the bottom floor of your house.

• Food & Drink

Apple bobbing, finger foods (literally, make them look like fingers!), Halloween cocktails for the adults and lots of candy make a Halloween party simply amazing. If you have the space and the budget, why not set up a BBQ in the back? You can make hotdog fingers and burgers for guests full of blood (ketchup) to enjoy something deliciously spooky! 

• Music Needs To Happen!

Googling the best Halloween music playlists is a good start, and you can pick songs that have a great party vibe, too. Ask a range of DJs their opinion and if you really want to splash out for this party, contact one and have someone do the party for you. They may be able to teach you how to convert MOV to MP4 and enable you to stream that spooky movie you wanted to play as part of your entertainment! Entertainment is a must for a Halloween party and a movie can get you all in the mood for spooky fun.

• Grab A Projector

The outside of your house really needs to bring in the trick or treating kids from the block, and if there isn't any this year due to the pandemic, you can still have a projector of spooky images flashing on the side of the house to entertain those doing Halloween drive-bys for decorated houses. It’s a thing! People love to see the way that others decorate the house and you can be a part of that! There are some excellent visuals out there, too, and you can get into the spirit with them.

• Games!

Any party needs games, and your Halloween bash is no different. Whether you put on icebreaker games or you go for the traditional apple bobbing games, you can really make your party hop with the right games in place. You can make them spooky like these Halloween party games lists say, or you can get some props and have fun with silly strings and other “pin the cape on the witch” type games!

• Entertain The Masses

If you have a lot of people coming to your party, you can entertain them all by adding a DJ, a balloon animal expert or even a movie! Streaming a movie on the side of the house and watching it outside is a great way to have fun during a party. 

You want this party to be the best ever, and so incorporating all of these awesome tips into your Halloween party is going to have the whole neighborhood talking about it for months! Halloween may not be a big deal in your area usually, but that doesn't mean that you can’t throw a party to have spooky fun with those in your immediate bubble. If you are in an area where lockdowns are happening, then the best thing that you can do is to check the rules where you are before you start making any concrete plans. 

Halloween parties should cater to the right age, so if you’re throwing one for small children, then checking out child-friendly halloween movies is your best bet. For the grown-ups, go for the all-out fear factor and make this the spooky event of the year. Stay away from the Ouija boards and instead, throw a hide and seek party in the dark! You won’t believe how much fun a bunch of adults can have playing hide and seek until you play it yourself. Once you’ve planned your party, get everyone invited and start the celebrations as early as you can. It gets spookier in the night - in the dark!

Art floods the streets of Oakland following the protests of 2020 (Photo Gallery)

Photos by @Section925

Comedians Tim Dillon and Andrew Santino will make you laugh during quarantine

At this moment it is really hard to come up with the right words or correct phrases to express the pain and frustration I feel along with so many others...

By Taelor Lewis | @taelorrrrrrrrrrr

At this moment it is really hard to come up with the right words or correct phrases to express the pain and frustration I feel along with so many others. We all watched the horrific video over and over. But that wasn’t the first video, that wasn’t the first time we saw a black body being brutalized, maimed, and mangled. As a Black person you see it everyday in many different ways and in many different forms. From so called micro-aggressions (which don’t feel micro) to full on racists and brutal acts like we saw most recently with the murder of George Floyd and continue to see on a daily basis. 

As a community we are tired and fed up with generational trauma of being treated less than as american citizens. We’ve seen our parents experience it, their parents experience it, and so on from the time the first beautiful Black Kings and Queens arrived on the shores of this nation. What’s happening in this moment and in this time is a manifestation of so much hurt and so much pain that even while trying to write this one feels overwhelmed. As James Baldwin once said, “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” We are seeing a visible representation of that rage burning “from sea to shining sea”. 

As the soul of america hangs in the balance do you focus in on damage that can be repaired or do you decide to focus on how to make a change. This country owes a debt to Black people that can never truly be repaid. 

Moving forward the burden is not on Black people to fix this, the burden is on those who have stood by silently and allowed privilege to blind in such a way they see nothing wrong. There has been an awakening...I’ve seen it at the protests, in speaking with family and friends. We are tired and we won’t let up! 

NO JUSTICE NO PEACE! 

How On Earth Are You Supposed To Find 'Your Style?'

Finding your own sense of style can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. And that’s good in a way, because it affords us the opportunity to move forward and keep rejuvenating. Style is not a fixed thing; it’s tied to the times in which we live, the person we are today, and, quite simply, what we find fun.

But it can be that we find ourselves feeling and looking better in certain styles of clothing. It’s easy to think of how the woman who may not have worn dresses or skirts in her life due to insecurity (or because that’s just her taste), try one later on in life, and see herself in her resplendent beauty, emphasized this way for the first time. That’s not to say that skirts or dresses are the only way to beauty, this story could easily work in the opposite direction, and pure ‘resplendent beauty’ may not even be what you’re going for.

As you see, style is incredibly personal.

But how on Earth are you supposed to ‘find your style?’ in the first place? Isn’t that a big ask? In this post, we hope to address this important and worthwhile question, from top to bottom:

Keep Trying New Clothing

Style is always dynamic and changing. What you might have loved to wear ten years ago may not be the same items you love today. That’s fine. Provided you keep trying new clothing, and keep experimenting with new styles, you’ll find what you like. That’s the secret behind good style, it’s never about finding perfection, only about finding what is right for this moment, for your personality now, and how your body may be shaped in this particular moment.

We all change throughout life. Some of us lose our hair, some age gracefully, others don’t. Some might find that they only really feel confident in their fashion when they reach middle age, others have trouble finding the right means to ‘dress their age’ without having to condemn themselves to ‘looking old.’ What matters is what works for you, and ultimately, what makes you happy is likely correct.

This is because when you wear something that makes you happy, you feel more like yourself. You feel authentic. This allows you to come across as more comfortable, radiant, and interesting. You can make even the most bizarre fashion choices work for you provided you are comfortable and unapologetic about it. And that’s where the true secret lies.

Challenge Yourself From Time To Time

Challenging yourself can be a good idea, because it helps you grow and learn. This also works for style. Maybe you wish to shop for a few outfits for when the worldwide pandemic starts to slow down, and life resumes as normal. It might be that you opt for a wonderful evening gown that helps you feel confident about attending the best restaurants. Maybe you wish to wear something that helps express your cultural roots when heading abroad and connecting with some of your family members.

A style challenge doesn’t mean going outside of your comfort zone, but this can also be a good place to occupy. As you develop and feel more comfortable with taking risks, trying new styles, enjoying new textures and colors, and maybe even retrofitting your clothing to match how you feel and who you are, you can express yourself with a thorough focus.

This is how you find your style, bit by bit, as a process rather than a singular decision. It can also mean preparing for a certain event, or asking the question ‘who am I now?’ These are the questions that you’ll often ask yourself before developing a piece of art, or being creative, which is how style can be defined, too.

Find The Best Retailers

Of course, it’s important to wear clothes that are quality and have good craftsmanship. This also extends to your accessories, such as where you source your jewelry and the classic style eyeglasses you have fit your face properly. When clothing is high-quality, well made and ethically manufactured, you can be sure to feel more confident in your wardrobe.

You may even decide to avoid the big retailers because you prefer to find an ‘authentic’ means of coming across your style. This is where apps like Depop can be so popular, as they provide us with a means of connecting to people who have style inspirations just like us, or who are selling older, vintage or rarer finds for cheaper than we may anticipate. This can surely help us feel as though we have snagged a bargain, and for all intents and purposes, that will be true.

Finding the best retailers also means doing your research on them. What about their clothing do you like, and why? Which retailers do you find have little ethical transparency, to the point where you hope not to support them going forward? Sometimes, finding a great retailer can mean finding a website you can use easily and compare deals with, especially as the global pandemic prevents us from heading to clothes stores with frequency.

Follow Trends

If you’re really stuck for ideas, following trends can be a good idea. It can help you look out of your current boundaries and consider the best means of moving forward. You don’t have to adopt every trend viewpoint to follow a trend. Little bits of inspiration can come to you, such as how to accessorize, or how to develop your own style, or what colors to wear, or what may look good for a person with your kind of hairstyle and facial structure.

You don’t have to think so deeply about things, inspiration is more than enough. Trends help that, and they can also help you feel a sense of community and seasonality in how trends move, develop and ultimately die (only to be reborn years later). 

Don’t Follow Trends

Maybe you don’t wish to follow trends. Perhaps they feel overly corporate, restricting, and you don’t wish to look like everyone else. That’s great too! It can be a good idea to find your own unique sense of who you are without having to conform to what the fashion labels tell you to wear.

Perhaps you’re more interested in just dressing like you. You don’t want to match an ‘aesthetic,’ or use a ‘lookbook’ to feel yourself. You’re simply happy dressing in comfortable, relaxing, nice clothing. Maybe a high-quality pair of jeans helps you feel smart. That’s fine too. Fashion can often be seen as a continual chase to enjoy and use what is in ‘now,’ but the truth is, what’s in ‘now’ is artificially designated. If you can decide that for yourself, you’ll no doubt be in a better state of mind, and this can help you feel confident in all of your choices, not only some.

Overcome Your Biases

We all have biases. You might feel as though people who wear more jewellery than you are narcissistic, and don’t quite know where to stop or draw the line of good taste. Then, you’re invited to a party, and think to overcome your bias, you’ll wear some that you had gifted to you not long ago. It helps you feel confident and ties your outfit together completely. This is a microcosm example of how biases can limit us, and open-minded thinking can free us. If that’s a truth elsewhere in life, it’s certainly true for style.

With this advice, we hope you can more easily find your style with ease. Remember - this is an art, not a science project.

The Mission District's Michael Sharf commits to elegant local craftsmanship at Tribe Design

By Connor Buestad | Connor@Section925.com

In a day in age where businesses absolutely love to remind potential customers that they are extremely local, small, artisan, sustainable, high quality, etcetera, Michael Sharf’s custom furniture thought project, Tribe Design, might actually be able to live up to that lofty vision so many companies yearn for. Working out of a studio in the Mission District, it’s hard to deny how local and artisan Tribe Built really is, when you consider virtually all of the materials that go into the products are found in Northern California forests or metal shops.

To gain a clear picture of what Tribe Design looks to provide the Bay Area, think Ikea, but the exact opposite. Using reclaimed hardwood primarily from local elm, cypress, walnut and oak trees, Sharf uses meticulous care to handcraft each of his unique wood products before they find a useful home. “My goal for Tibe Design is to recreate a piece of nature for someone to enjoy in their home or office. Authenticity and functionality are a huge part of everything I try to produce,” explains Sharf.

Local metals also go into many of Sharf’s projects, creating a finished product that is extremely strong and durable, but also smooth and simple. If you browse the Tribe Design website, you will find many examples where Sharf has taken a simple concept like a wine chiller or picnic table and taken it to a whole new level of design and quality that is exceedingly difficult to find.

Other items available from Tribe Design include butcher blocks, storage benches, coffee tables, desks, kitchen islands, and dining room tables. Even projects like full size shuffle board tables and Japanese soaking tubs are not above Sharf’s pay grade, assuming he can find the local materials to meet the high standards of the job.

No, none of these items can be ordered online with a “one-click purchase” or thrown into an oversized shopping cart and assembled at home. Instead, each of these pieces need to be thought-out, sourced locally, designed meticulously and brought to life with the steady hand of Michael himself. No part of the job is especially economical or scalable, but in no way is that a priority. At Tribe Design, it starts and ends with a vision of quality and not much else.  The product speaks for itself and the Tribe Design story will continue to unfold, one commission at a time.

Explore more of Michael’s work at MichaelSharf.com

Culture Critic Robbie Repass ranks the 52 films he saw in 2019

Adam Driver of “Marriage Story” (photo via The New Yorker)

52           Alita: Battle Angel

51           Glass

50           Aladdin

49           Gemini Man

48           The Lion King

47           Godzilla: King of the Monsters

46           Frozen II

45           Zombieland: Double Tap

44           Dumbo

43           Good Boys

42           Midsommar

41           Dragged Across Concrete

40           Terminator: Dark Fate

39           Captain Marvel

38           Long Shot

37           Ad Astra

36           Fighting with my Family

35           The Beach Bum

34           The Goldfinch

33           Us

32           Standoff at Sparrow Creek

31           Hustlers

30           John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

29           Toy Story 4

28           Doctor Sleep

27           Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

26           Judy

25           Ready or Not

24           Brittany Runs a Marathon

23           Spider-Man: Far From Home

22           Booksmart

21           Ford v Ferrari

20           Richard Jewell

19           Bombshell

18           Avengers: Endgame

17           The Farewell

16           The Lighthouse

15           A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

14           Honey Boy

13           The Two Popes

12           Little Women

11           The Irishman

10           The Peanut Butter Falcon

9              1917

8              Joker

7              Marriage Story

6              Pain and Glory

5              Knives Out

4              Jojo Rabbit

3              Uncut Gems

2              Parasite

1              Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood