How did it get to be July 30, 2021?
30 July 2021
It seems like just yesterday I was posting about July 30 as National Whistleblower Day, and here we are again.
Happy National Whistleblower Day!
I wish I could report better news on the "let's be more humane as a society to the people who tell us about all the illegal and immoral secret shit going on" front, but I don't. Whistleblower Daniel Hale, who revealed information to The Intercept about how America's "precise" drone warfare strikes were not really so precise and killed a lot of innocent people, was sentenced to prison for 45 months this past Tuesday for doing so.
The Biden administration was asking that he be sent to prison for nine years, so I guess 45 months in prison is to be considered "good news." It's still wrong.
It feels like I am reading all the time, and yet I don't have much to report here. For one thing a good chunk of my reading has been about how to implement a plant-based diet, as Mr. CR has developed more heart disease symptoms and I'm interested in keeping Mr. CR as healthy as possible for as long as possible, because I like him a lot. The other day we were chatting a bit about people who love to carry guns, and I said, Why would you need to walk around with 80 pistols? (because I like to exaggerate but also because it seems like some people want to walk around with a lot of guns) and Mr. CR answered, Well, what would you do, Miss Smarty Pants, if the first 79 you were wearing didn't work?
That's Mr. CR's sense of humor, and you can see why it's important to keep him on the planet.
In other reading news I am re-reading Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx, which knocked me over the first time I read it and is knocking me over again. Also, I started George Orwell's 1984, because I never read it. Have you? Has anyone? It's interesting.
I'm also trying to write a lot more. And got this published at The Progressive, in honor of July 30: "Shining a Light on the Tales of Whistleblowers." It's a review of director Sonia Kennebeck's trilogy of fascinating documentaries: National Bird, Enemies of the State, and United States vs. Reality Winner. They are excellent films and nobody shows you how tricky (and important) it can be to ask questions and try to figure out the truth better than Sonia Kennebeck does.
So how is your summer going? Whatcha reading?