Afternoon Tea 6.28.21 - Theft Perception

Corporations continue to donate to Congresspeople who are allergic to Democracy, the unvaccinated are comprehensively responsible for COVID deaths, “Theft Perception” & “Weaponizing Masculinity” duel for the title of best phrase I’ve heard in months, dunking on people is the way to virality on the internet, and the stupidest, most obnoxious disaster in professional cycling occurred. It’s Monday, June 28th 2021, and this is your Tea.

Tour Organizers Taking Action Against Spectator Who Caused Stage 1 Crash (Bicycling) & Spectator who caused massive crash at Tour de France missing after fleeing the country (CBS News) Think you’ve fucked up recently, whether it comes to how you’re handling your job, health, relationships, or children? I can personally guarantee that you are doing better than you think. You didn’t cause the worst preventable accident in the history of an internationally televised sporting events. (Editor’s Note: Did you? If you did, and you’re reading this, reach out?) 

Classified Ministry of Defence documents found at bus stop (BBC News) Round of applause for the UK Ministry of Defence everyone. This is perfect frosting on the failcake that’s being served up in the UK right now.

Toyota leads companies in election-objector donations (Axios) So, when does foreign corporations investing in members of government that don’t recognize Democracy, becomes a threat to national security? Asking for a friend.

Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated (Associated Press) If we have to go back into hiding because dolts aren’t willing to get vaccinated, so help me God I will never let any of those yahoos get any peace.

Political Manhood: Weaponizing Masculinity During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Harvard Political Review) Easily the best thing I’ve read in years about how Toxic Masculinity “makes us all soft brained” to quote David Roth. The use of faux machismo to push head-ass policies led to so much death. We can do better, or we can keep imagining invincible castles of testosterone in the sky.

Theft Perception (Democracy Fund) The Democracy Fund’s Voter Study Group evaluated what those who believe Trump’s win was “stolen,” believe. When almost half of polled Republicans think their state should be able to override the popular vote totals of the state, we’re forgetting the value of Constitutional Democracy in a harrowing way.

The Last—And Only—Foreign Scientist in the Wuhan Lab Speaks Out (Bloomberg) Why didn’t she speak out beforehand? Did you guess death threats? Because it’s death threats. We truly are the most vile of God’s creatures.

NYC Buildings department shuts down more than 300 construction sites in massive safety sweep (NY Daily News) After seeing the Miami collapse, I assume we’ll have a perfunctory smattering of these checks. I’m just surprised this many sites can’t pay lip service to a lot of these rules & regs, but we are in the Age of “Rules Are For Suckers,” so I’m not sure what I expected.

How to go viral on social media? Attack a political opponent, study says (NBC News) Dunking, like direct action, gets the goods. This might not exactly be creating the best environment online, as anyone who has spent more than 70 seconds on Twitter learns.

Why some biologists and ecologists think social media is a risk to humanity (Recode) Responding to the way social media is distorting human development absolutely needs to be a “crisis discipline.” One of the authors of the study, has a book named Calling Bullshit, which is exceptional.

Song of the Tea: If we could get a full album of Kanye & Daft Punk mash-ups, I gotta say, I’d be at the front of the line for it. Daft Punk coming out of retirement to tour with Kanye? Get out of my way, I will obliterate anything between me & those tickets. Is there going to be more of this over the week? You betcha.

So I keep in mind, when I'm on my ownSomewhere far from home, in the danger zoneHow many times did it take ‘til I finally got through 

Yours,