eightpix

Not that I’m aware of. However, there was that one giraffe, Gracie, who escaped in Texas. Fortunately she was found, weeks later. Then, someone took it upon themself to dig into the story.

"Sometime during the day on June 12, she “put on her rock climbing shoes,” said Johnson, and scampered across the cliff face to freedom.

"Gracie’s natural camouflage perfectly suited the area’s dense mix of cedars and brush.

"Then, fifteen days after her disappearance, Gracie was spotted, “fat and happy,” a few miles from her home—first on a neighboring ranch’s game camera and then by helicopter. So began the hard work of capturing and relocating her. As Johnson put it, “You don’t just push a giraffe into your pickup.”

"She was **lightly sedated from the air via tranquilizer dart. ** The team then attached a halter line, eye mask, muzzle, and earplugs (befitting her “rounded ears,” which became a fascination to those following online) and loaded her into the trailer, which was carefully towed by a Jeep through goat trails, rivers, and ravine crossings and under low-hanging branches cut by the team as they drove. Once loaded onto the main giraffe trailer, she made it back to Cedar Hollow, her odyssey complete.

“Jones called me the morning before with the news that Gracie’s owner had stepped in. This owner “has never told me how to run this ranch,” explained Jones, but when they heard a writer was coming out, they instructed Jones to proceed with “extreme caution,” seemingly due to the overwhelming attention recently heaped on Cedar Hollow.”

I admit I’m cherry-picking. But, still.

All I’m saying is that if I was Gracie, in that situation, I’d want the option. Being bagged and tagged in Texas, imprisoned in a place that heaps tragedies, held captive in a country not my own, one that deports its refugees with glee… yeah. No thanks. As a theee-year old giraffe I’d want out.

Even permanently.

No, I was talking about the timing.

Sounds like you know something about this giraffe’s troubles.

Its never a good time for this joke. That said, some jokes are told so people start to pay attention.

Pay attention now.

When Ms. Rachel jumps in and speaks on it, you know what time it is.

Black people are being lynched in America. Again.

This is indicative of America’s rot; capitalizing on its moral superiority while, simultaneously, engaging the base, grotesque trappings of power and wealth. Racial, sexual, and national categorization guiding policy. It ends in lynching. Then, as now.

America was forced, from within, three times, to end this conduct: the disregard for BIPOC people as people.

Lynching of free Black Americans began with the end slavery. From day damn 1. With varying frequency, throughout US history, Black people are murdered in public. “And justice for all” rings hollow. The promise of American freedom perverted.

Free Americans murder subsets of Americans. It perverts freedom and denies justice.

In 1864, a slaver (hard R), could destroy any of his own property. Including enslaved humans; property under law. The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 meant to remedy this. Texas finally received General Order No. 3 on Juneteeth, 1865.

On 21 June 1964, a mob (made mostly of male good ol’ boys) police-Klansmen could hunt and kill a Black person and his two Jewish friends. It was then up to law-men; police, Sherrifs’ departments, district attorneys, and governors to determine whether investigations would proceed against lynchers. Mississippi burned.

The US Civil Rights Act of 1964, changed this, 3 231 days after the "the last classical lynching (as recorded by the Tuskegee Institute)."¹ 12 days after the last lynching for which convictions were obtained. Is it a crime if none are ever convicted?

Sidebar: there is a Federal statute, the Emmitt Till Antilynching Act, on the books in the US. Guess when it was passed. 29 March 2022.

In 2014, Officer Daniel Pantaleo choked Eric Garner to death in Staten Island, NY. The Grand jury declined to indict. This police killing is often cited alongside the police killing of George Floyd on 25 May 2020.

Is it a crime when there is no conviction?

George Zimmerman. Not convicted. Kyle Rittenhouse. Not convicted. How many killings makes a pattern? 100? 1 000? 1 000 000?

I bet there’s a website with 100. Found it.

Picture this: An America that sends badges to hunt immigrants. En masse. An ever expanding, ever voracious prison system seeking inmates, convicts, and victims. Police with qualified immunity. Many bad apples. Many broken people. Many violent acts. An America always vigilant against attack.

When ‘Stand Your Ground’ and vigilance meet, there are problems.

Now, what qualifies as a lynching? Exercising State power is excused; from Presidents all the way down the chains to police officers. There is a classical form. A spate of black people hanging from trees since 2025 isn’t lynching. Right?

Right?

Pay attention.

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States. Accessed 20 August 2026.

Yeah, true.

But, when slop confirms my bias, surely that makes it valid.

/s

Thanks for calling it out. Welcome to the next stage of the 21st century. I call it, “Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.”

Hudson Hawk, widely panned, is fun; just refuses to take itself seriously.

• iMDB: 5.7/10

• RT: 30/100

• Metacritic:17/100

I don’t care. That’s what I think of any film rating system. It’s a report, but not the experience itself.

See also: the Southland Tales, The One (2001), Lost Souls (2000). All are, objectively, bad films. And yet… I remember them to be re-watchable.

This write-up is on a site for and app and ends up shilling for that app, but it makes some useful points, confirmed by my years of poking around:

Trust Metacritic most for prestige drama, arthouse cinema, and Oscar contenders.

Trust IMDb most for genre films.

Use the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer as a quick pass/fail for critical reception.

Use the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score cautiously.

Full disclosure: I don’t have the app, don’t want the app, and don’t care about the app. Also, I skimmed the article in 2 minutes while watching my kids bounce on a trampoline.

In addition to the other thread descendants, staring with u/jjjalljs@ttrpg.network:

For all the bitching about capitalism, which basically every country on Earth uses for an economic system

This is only the case because it was instituted at gunpoint. The exploration, colonization, settlement, expropriation, amassment, warfare, thievery, and conquest of the world’s economy is soaked in blood, laden in exploitation of people, places, and things and destruction of the commons. You’d know that if you were subject to it. Or, if you’d paused to read, ask, or think about it for 5 seconds.

And, I can’t believe I’m saying this in public, “just because everyone is doing it, that doesn’t make it right.”

• We can vilify, undermine, and lead smear campaigns against unions under capitalism.

• We can break, or prevent, unions under capitalism.

• Our governments can attack us using local, state, provincial, and federal police forces whenever there is a perceived threat to capitalism.

Everything works fucking horribly with those 2781 billionaire capitalists robbing the world blind while blaming the victims.

Imagine that.

DS9 does so much right. It is certainly on point in its treatment of moral gray.

Sci-fi all the way.

Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) shows the fall of an empire (loosely, America) at the hands of their AI creations. I guess Rome or Britain could also sit in for America. This show aired while Bush the lesser was taking Afghanistan and Iraq apart piece by piece.

The Expanse (2015-2022) is the worthy heir to the throne of casting harsh light on the oligarchs and hegemons. Belters could be any people put upon by this corrupt system: migrant workers, Indigenous people, refugees, the unhoused, the descendants of the enslaved — anyone who was expected to bootstrap success.

Both are good shows. The Expanse is proving to be somewhat more resilient to the passage of time.

Joseph Gedeon at the Guardian reports that Matthew Dowd was fired from MSNBC for stating:

“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions, … You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”

Richard Luscombe at the Guardian reports:

Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.