I had not heard about the Reverse Freedom Rides before. Unbelievably despicable. (You all are better informed than me.)

(That NPR story is from 2020, so it doesn't tie in to Abbott's and DeSanti's equally gross shenanigans, but obviously that connection is why it came across my radar now.)

This word gets tossed around a lot, but then people don't usually expand on it. Like, "Don't forget about intersectionality!" without actually saying what the major bullet points are when you remember intersectionality. I'm sure there are actual books with content on it, and I haven't read them.

I think about the intersection of class and race in Heebieville, which is obviously due to historical systemic factors that we're all well-aware of, and I don't feel the need to re-hash here. But here are my thoughts on what it means in Heebieville, in 2022:

1. Members of the minority* group are over-assigned traits associated with being lower class, in the absence of evidence (or even evidence to the contrary.) More than can be "justified" by playing the probability.

2. When minority members are present in some position of power or opportunity (city council, AP courses, responses to an community outreach survey, whatever), they're generally middle or upper class, but it's taken as an indication that the opportunity is reaching the entire group.

Now, you might think that the second point applies equally well to white people: it's pretty well understood that poor white kids are less likely to take AP classes, and poor white adults are generally not on city council. But the presence of wealthier white people isn't taken as proof of opportunity for the poorer white people in those situations. (To be fair, I don't think people are thinking of the poverty of poor white people much, either, except when trying to explain MAGA-ness.)

It's a really slippery thing for public figures to discuss, and it seems to always get hijacked by whattaboutism towards either of the single groups: "But all Hispanic people experience X" and "But what about all poor people?"

Maybe all that's needed is two simultaneous wars: anti-poverty, anti-racism, and there's nothing to do specifically for the group in the intersection except get them help on both fronts.

*Minority nationwide, not necessarily locally

Flying now.

Some background.

The business case and some technical details.

I'm excited to announce that REGENT has taken flight! 🛫

We combined the benefits from ground effect flight, distributed electric propulsion, and hydrofoiling into a single platform: the seaglider

Which will massively improve convenience & affordability of regional travel

🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/SSiIRpZwCx

— billythalheimer (@billythalheimer) September 21, 2022

Sounds like this Adnan Syed fellow is finally free. My memory from the Serial discussion was that the consensus was that he never should have been convicted, but people weren't 100% sure he was clearly innocent, either.

I think he's innocent because I don't think high schoolers are generally capable of murdering someone else via strangulation unless they're precocious serial killers. Guns, yes. Strangulation, no. I have no idea what I said at the time, though. (Went back and checked. Apparently I said nothing.)

Jammies told me this funny bit about one of the math teachers at the high school: when a kid is clearly stoned out of their gourd, the teacher likes to ask the kid to repeat what they just said, over and over again, and watch the kid get so confused. As was reported to me, "I got one kid today to repeat themself 8 or 9 times! It was great!" Messing with stoned kids is surely the best way to handle the situation, while still keeping the kid out of the criminal justice system.

It reminds me of those billboards (around here at least) that literally say, "This is a sign that you should not drive stoned." Those crack me up, as I vicariously enjoy the mystic mindfuck that would ensnare a stoned driver.

This is intended to be our system for checking in on imaginary friends, so that we know whether or not to be concerned if you go offline for a while. There is no way it could function as that sentence implies, but it's still nice to have a thread.

Episode Kobe thirty six