Friday, August 28, 2020

Minneapolis police identify 'Umbrella Man' who helped incite George Floyd riots, warrant says - CNN

Minneapolis (CNN)Minneapolis police have identified a suspect whom they believe helped initiate the riots and destruction in the city following the killing of George Floyd.

According to a search warrant filed earlier this week, the man is associated with the "Aryan Cowboys," which the Anti-Defamation League lists as a White supremacist prison and street gang. The warrant does not label them as a White supremacist group, but describes them as a "known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky."

Video of the "Umbrella Man" went viral after protesters in Minneapolis confronted and filmed him on May 27 while he was in the act of smashing several windows of an AutoZone store.

An arson investigator wrote in a search warrant affidavit that the man also spray painted the words "free sh*t for everyone zone" on the doors of the AutoZone. Not long after he smashed in the windows, looting began, and a bit later the AutoZone was set on fire, the affidavit said.

"This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city," Sgt. Erika Christensen, a Minneapolis police arson investigator, wrote in the affidavit, which was filed in court on Monday.

"Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling 'Umbrella Man,' the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence."

.... Continue Reading on CNN.COM

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

20 Things In Life That Are Just Not Worth It | by Joshua Press | The Startup | Medium

20 Things In Life That Are Just Not Worth It

Lessons from bad decisions.

What Are 20 Things That Are Not Worth It?

1. Dating people who have been traumatised or abused in the past who have not dealt with it.

We are supposed to be empathetic to victims and give them every chance we can. After all, it is not their fault what happened to them.

This is the appropriate response.

But not all people try to — or even can — get better.

Hurt people hurt people. You need to be careful who you are vulnerable with otherwise you too will be abused.

Some of these battles are worth it, but if you leave yourself open to someone with resulting personality issues, like people who won’t fully commit (for self-preservation); play mind games (for power); make continuously poor decisions; have addictive behaviour; or punish you for the actions of their wrongdoers — it will take a toll on you long-term to say the least.

2. Collaborating or working with friends merely because they are friends.

I have been friendly with people and out of that affinity or mutual interest I have committed to agreements that ended up massive failures.

A few friends never fully paid me for work, people I have worked with had not cultivated a useful level of skill, and others simply would be flaky or entitled in contradiction to the effort they were putting in.

You should work with people based on their evident skills, reputation, and all-round professionalism. If you just so happen to get along well, then that’s great and more often than not, you will.

3. Having sex with someone because you felt pressured.

Often women feel pressured to oblige in order to evade confrontation, or ‘do what is expected of them’, and men feel obligated to pursue, to evade the humiliation of sexual ineptitude. These are tragic motivations for something so intimate.

You must understand that your body is yours and you determine your values and the situations in which you might share that experience, and with whom. Not cave to external pressures.

This is your inalienable right, and if you don’t feel comfortable about something then you absolutely must not give in because you are acting as if your feelings don’t matter. You might think you won’t remember these occasions, but they linger.

If you’re not advocating for yourself, who will?

4. Pursuing ‘spirituality’ for purpose.

Many people who pursue new-age spirituality for purpose seem to end up selling one of its ideologies, products, or become more confused. The enlightenment of this philosophy is often “nothingness”, “being” and the “non-self”. This can be an impediment to self-actualisation.

Self-actualisation is you as something defined, engaging in your talents and developing potentials. New age spirituality however, portrays you as something indefinable.

This can result in eroding your ambition and capacity to work on your skills to unfold your potential. It can take away motivation by taking away a sense of a value hierarchy that allows you to pursue some things over others. It replaces vision of the future with the eternal present. Many people are stuck in liminality and indecision because of this.

The ego is the devil in this brand of spirituality, which is really the individual identity/personality as opposed to a collective identity. A kind of tribalism that elevates animal over man, nature over civilisation, imagination over the concrete... you’ll see that the advocates for this philosophy will dress in a tribal style that reflects this.

5. Challenging people’s politics online.

Many things will threaten your values online, perpetually.

Unless it allows you to understand your own or another’s position with more resolution — it’s a waste of time. Almost always others won’t change their mind, so pick your battles.

Let’s be honest, it doesn’t matter how many ‘libtards’ or ‘nazis’ you destroyed, you were probably baited, trolled, or unironically responding to a satire article anyway.

6. Ranting on social media.

Rants are emotional. The purpose isn’t necessarily to share carefully analysed information, but to purge. What sounds reasonable and effective when you are emotional is definitely unreliable in translating to those who are casually perusing social media. You probably look like an uninformed idiot that can’t control themselves.

It just provides cringe for your future self.

Good rants are usually bottled up contemplations of professionals that have analysed a situation for a period of time, which provides fertile grounds for cultivating eloquence and insight instead of tumbling out like hot diarrhea.

7. Drinking a large amount of alcohol, in any situation.

This is a surprisingly hard conclusion for people to come to. It’s like every time there’s a bad experience, poor decision, or bad hangover, any potential lesson learned suddenly vanishes from memory — but once you see this in plain terms it kinda makes sense, right?

Alcohol can help foster a good time but quite often ruins one. It seems to make people a little more open but also a little more like animals; invoking the usually suppressed primal drives of lust and aggression to combat the wounding but necessary moderation of daily civility.

... Continue Reading the Article HERE --->>> 20 Things In Life That Are Just Not Worth It | by Joshua Press | The Startup | Medium

Monday, August 10, 2020

Eddy Grant - Electric Avenue - Shaggy

Electric Avenue

Eddy Grant

Boy

Boy

Down in the street there is violence

And a lots of work to be done

No place to hang out our washing

And I can't blame all on the sun, oh no