Just Another Day (Mad Mat Mix)

Here is a question: What do Kim Davis and Donald Trump have in common? Before you reach for a punch line, I should note it’s not actually that kind of a setup. In truth, it is hard to follow either story, because it is difficult, to the one, to comprehend the full dimensions of what is actually happening, and to the other that it happens so damn fast. Either absurdist tragedy leaves us breathless trying to keep up.

For instance, adding the Oath Keepers to the mix probably isn’t any specific reason to be alarmed, but still, it can’t be good news.

In a phone call with Jackson County Kentucky Sheriff Denny Peyman, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes said members of his group had reached out to Davis’s legal team and were already forming an on-the-ground presence in Kentucky’s Rowan County, but remained tight-lipped on specifics, Right Wing Watch reports. Rhodes said his group’s action had nothing to do with same-sex marriage, but instead was focused on his belief that Davis had been illegally detained after being found in contempt of court by not issuing marriage licenses.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is not over,” he said in the audio clip above. “This judge needs to be put on notice that his behavior is not going to be accepted, and we’ll be there to stop it and intercede ourselves if we have to.”

(Wong)

Something

It’s … something.

The St. Petersburg Police Department is launching a new transgender sensitivity training program.

The training comes two months after a Tampa transgender woman’s murder, and law enforcement’s handling of it, captured national attention.

After 25-year-old India Clarke’s body was found in a Tampa park July 21, law enforcement identified her by the name and gender she was born with even though she had identified as female for years. Backlash from across the country followed, surfacing a discussion about how law enforcement handle the identities of transgender people.

(Associated Press)

We can’t have our friends and neighbors back. But, at the very least, we can have this little shard of decency, that we might wish the true selves of those we leave behind some manner of dignity in rest.

And we’ll take it, because that’s all we have left.

Her name was India Clarke. Please say it. Please, say her name.

____________________

Image note: India Clarke, murdered 21 July 2015, in Tampa, Florida. Ms. Clarke’s death is recorded as the tenth murder of a transgendered person in 2015. On 29 July 2015 the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff’s Office arrested a suspect, Keith Lamayne Gaillard, and charged him with First Degree Murder with a Firearm.

Associated Press. “St. Pete Officers to be Trained on Transgender Issues”. WTVJ. 7 September 2015.

Holden, Dominic. “Transgender Woman Of Color Killed In Tampa, Florida”. BuzzFeed. 22 July 2015.

The State of Modern Journalism

According to one Mark Higgins, Metro Editor for The Seattle Times, you’re only allowed to link to his newspaper’s stories if you are going to praise the newspaper.

If you find one of our stories that doesn’t agree with your obvious and stated bias, plse., don’t link to it.

That, at least, is according to Dominic Holden, of Seattle’s weekly The Stranger.

To the other, it should be noted that the part of the blog post Higgins is complaining about isn’t the part about one of his coworkers getting arrested for posting child pornography via Flickr.

In this case, it’s a more complicated kind of stupidity. See, Higgins is upset because Holden’s editorial outlook happens to differ from that of The Seattle Times, which in turn tries to pass off as news such thinly-veiled propaganda pieces—intended to bolster its own editorial outlook—as Lynn Thompson kindly provided.

In other words, if your editorial outlook disagrees with The Seattle Times, you need to leave that poor, defenseless, emotionally fragile newspaper alone.

(A note for Mr. Higgins: Look, man, everyone has their own editorial outlook. But one way to make people suspicious is for an alleged journalist—i.e., a newspaper’s Metro Editor—to complain about “obvious and stated bias”. After all, The Times has its own obvious and stated editorial bias, and has embarrassed itself before in pursuit of that bias. So, you know, dude, just chill out. Really. What is anyone supposed to think when you tell people who disagree with you to leave you alone?)