Why Oregonians Can Now Pump Their Own Gas Like Suckers! Tabs, Mon., Aug. 21, 2023
Come and get your Tabs!
Devastating reporting about the Maui wildfire aftermath. (The New Yorker)
A day later, the streets of Lahaina were lined with the burnt husks of cars, the glass melted and metal trickling out of them. With all but concrete foundations razed, the view of destruction ran clear to the ocean. The ruins held vestiges of the lives overturned: toy trucks, a Peloton bike, a stinking cooler of meat. Blackened papayas, coconuts, and oranges clung on and littered the ground. Tall, wrinkled cactuses drooped like deflated balloons. It was quiet besides the sirens and the wind. At one lot, a man in his sixties shovelled through the rubble of his house, still hot and smoking, looking for his passport. He wore flip-flops, and his feet were covered in toxic dust, because all his shoes had burned.
A Cobb County, Georgia, teacher was fired for reading a children’s book about gender identity to fifth graders. And everyone involved will complain when they are the obvious villains in the eventual movie. (WSBTV)
The surviving members of the Little Rock Nine aren’t pleased with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ Black history ban. (NBC News)
Tropical storm Hilary has made landfall in Mexico and is heading toward southern California and the southwestern US. That’s not good news. (CNN)
We confess to regularly checking Ron Filipkowski’s social media feed for fun videos. (Politico)
Arizona investigators are looking hard at far-right Republican Chair Kelli Ward and possibly sizing her for some striped pajamas. (Rolling Stone)
But I don’t wanna pump my own gas! (The Oregonian)
I grew up in South Carolina, so I obviously know how to pump my own gas without killing myself. However, native Oregonians might need some help. (KOIN)
The Blind Side author Michael Lewis once said some crummy stuff about Michael Oher. (The Root)
Surprisingly good feature about Calvin and Hobbes’ Bill Watterson from The American Conservative.
Project Veritas is going belly up. Tee hee. (The Daily Beast)
Trans women can’t play chess with other women for all the gross bigoted reasons you might expect. (NPR)
Seattle nights are hotter than ever, but not like Studio 54 at disco’s peak. It’s climate change. (Seattle Times)
One of many moving tributes to my former classmate and Red & Black colleague Jon Gallo, who recently passed away at just 47. (Baltimore Post Examiner)
New York City as we know it wouldn’t exist without bridges. Architect Michael Wyetzner wows us with his knowledge.
Follow Stephen Robinson on Bluesky and Threads.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel for more fun content.
Catch SER on his podcast, The Play Typer Guy.
You hed gif is from a 1976 television advert for Kool-Aid. And it features another child actor. Get the deets and some fun history here: https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/oh-yeah
Oops, updated link. Should work now.
*smirk* from the Kelly Ward article:
“They actually have themselves on video doing it,” says one of the people familiar with the stage of the investigation. “It is as if Ward and everyone else were thinking: How do we make this a walk in the park for [the prosecutors]?”