So history lesson that will make sense shortly: there’s a jazz song I love called “take 5” that was originally performed by Dave Brubeck and his orchestra but was written by the amazing Paul Desmond who wrote many other incredible pieces including my Favourite “unsquare dance” known for it’s weird time signature. 

Now the reason I mention this is because you’ve all heard take 5 even if you have no clue you have. It’s been the jazz background in every fricken show in the universe at some point. Seriously, look it up. You’ll know it. West wing, stupid amounts of crime shows, lots of space shows, every weird fricken show, it’s just in everything. 

But there’s a really fantastic reason for that. Basically Paul Desmond left all royalties to his entire catalogue to the Red Cross in perpetuity and every person who selects music for movies and tv knows this. And every play on every rerun throws donation money to the Red Cross. 

Every time they’re asked for some background jazz, the first choice is Paul Desmond and usually Dave Brubecks take 5. Partially because it’s a great background song but mostly because the sound engineers of movies and tv like to give back. You rock guys. 

This ends the weird history lesson and why this may be the only jazz you ever know. 

(Side note: I’m noting that yes, Red Cross have issues but they’re mostly ok for donations especially at the time when Paul desmond was making them)

It’s been 75 years since the last world war and we did the unthinkable and destroyed two cities in an instant. When we were last in Japan we got to see and think on the “eternal flame”, flames from the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima still burning today and one of the many monuments throughout Japan and the world. To remember, remember never to do this again.

Dear Americans: let’s talk about voting and democracy sausages. 

Firstly, for those who don’t know, voting is completely screwed in America. It’s a state by state system so a different system everywhere you go. You need to register to vote before you can vote (what!?), you need different ID to vote depending on which state you’re in, mail in voting (which despite what Cheeto Mussolini says is actually really good and safe) is being hampered by a postal service that’s had a trump appointee put in charge specifically to slow things down. Yes, all other countries, it’s a shitshow and I know you’re laughing right now and I’ve not even started on gerrymandering, closing polling stations, and voter deregistration. And yeah, the deeply racist electoral college. It’s hilarious… in a deeply depressing way.

So let’s tell a story. When I was born in Australia, where the voting age was 18 (there’s a bill to reduce it to 16 which is awesome but a side issue). When I turned 18 in the before time I was automatically registered to vote and it was a crime for me not to vote. A minor crime which was a small fine, but enough that pretty much every Australian voted. Because voting was mandatory it happened on weekends and there were polling stations everywhere, and it became an event, people would come out in droves, it was a great time to catch up with people, and the democracy sausages were born.

So because pretty much everyone in every community came out to vote, it was an awesome chance for fundraisers, but they didn’t just ask for money, they did transactional fundraising *dun dun dah*. Basically, at pretty much every polling station when I was younger (and likely now) there was one or more charities selling “sausage sandwiches”. Now any American is now thinking “you mean hot dogs”, no no no! None of your pigs anus weird things on a bun here! We had respectable sausage sandwiches which were mostly cow and sheep and only a small amount of sawdust, served on respectable buttered single slice of bread as god intended (diagonally so it covered the long sausage bit) and charging a dollar a sandwich with onion as the only option (sauce (ketchup for you weirdos) was available on a table nearby). The prices raised slightly for “fancy” sausages but mostly that was it. The price has gone up since but that was my democracy sausages experience. Democracy sausages became a treat for voting… they became one of the reasons to vote. 

Now I’m in America where voting is a right and people rant about it, sing songs and make musicals about it, and weird presidents try to stop it, but you have to a) register to vote, b) check your registration isn’t removed, sometimes frequently, c) vote in limited locations in many cases, and d) check you have a polling station within a few hundred miles ( which is not always the case). Lastly, it’s a chore. A horrible wait and in this time of covid, a potential death sentence. As I said, a shitshow. 

Seriously, you all need a holiday or at least a weekend for voting, automatic registration, and definitely you need democracy sausages. Honestly, democracy sausages made my voting experience awesome. We need them in the USA. Let’s make democracy sausages happen in the USA. Even if they’re weird pigs anus hot dogs with 60 condiments like you weirdos do, something to make voting an experience not a chore. 
DEMOCRACY SAUSAGES!

Edit: I’m making an edit that it’s entirely possible I was registered by someone to vote but I don’t believe that is the case. WE NEED DEMOCRACY SAUSAGES!

So let’s talk about money, specifically money in COVID times. 

Here’s the thing, most Americans, most people in general but specifically Americans, are completely screwed when an emergency comes around. That emergency could be a car breakdown, a loss of job, or in Americans case a health emergency (which could be a broken bone, a tooth needing work, or a coronavirus test that needs to be paid for). 

Now normally, an economy would cope with a single person having a health or other emergency, to be clear the individual would still be screwed and society should help with that but the economy would cope. However now we’re having a LOT of people having health, work and other emergencies (school coverage, etc). Unfortunately this is not normal. Whatever your government tells you, when a large chunk of the population can’t work they can’t afford the same level of groceries, the same level of eating out, entertainment, other luxury items and even basics, and certainly can’t afford rent. They go through their pantries or starve, and often become homeless.

So a government saying we won’t pay for people staying at home for health reasons and need people to go back to work and schools basically means they’re not “punishing the lazy” as they’re want to say. They’re saying work or die and most people are not keen on the dying. They’re effectively destroying the entire retail chain. People don’t have money, they don’t buy as many groceries, they don’t eat out, they don’t buy luxuries, they don’t pay rent, everything falls apart. 

I’m not an economist. This is basic stuff. This is really idiot level stuff (I know, I’m an idiot). If we want to survive the pandemic we need to pay people to stay home till it passes over and we need to fund the unemployed. Paying the rich or tax cuts won’t help. And we need to pay the essential workers (which now includes not only the doctors and nurses, but the least paid grocery workers, delivery drivers, farmers and transporters) some extra pay to cover for the fact that they may die from working. 

Even if you hate the poor (and I hate you if you do but that’s a side issue) go chat with your government about not destroying the entire economy because you think people are lazy. Tell your government to help actual people in need for once in their fucking lives, pardon the freedom.

More fun learning time! For those curious about how federal officers are able to randomly kidnap people in portland without due process (and are now moving on to other cities like Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, etc) it’s all about the 100 mile zone. 

Basically, the 4th amendment of the constitution protects Americans from random and unwarranted searches and seizures. However, the border patrol, and by extension the department of homeland security are allowed to ignore that at “points of entry”. This technically means only at border checkpoints but has been expanded to mean any external facing border… and because they need a little leeway on that, it’s subsequently been expanded to 100 FREAKING MILES OF ANY OUTSIDE ACCESSABLE WATER OR OTHER BORDER! Yes, that’s obvious spots like New York, LA, and Seattle, but even central cities like Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit are technically “near a border”. Also all of Hawaii, Porto Rico, and all the other island territories. 

Yes, that means that roughly 2/3rds of Americans don’t actually have any protection against unwarranted searches or seizures. The 4th amendment can simply be completely ignored which was obviously not what was intended when everyone was happy to expand these powers after 9/11 but nobody looked too closely at potential abuses back then. The only reason no one has noticed this is because we’ve not had a totalitarian dictator willing to actually make use of this loophole. Now Trump is doing exactly that completely against the wishes of the cities and states he’s sending them to. So much for trumps strong “states rights” stance that everyone loves him for. I suspect that he’s a little happy that the most democratic leaning cities are all within this 100 mile zone. Won’t the next election be fun now he’s happy to use these powers. 

Expect to see more secret police, drones, military equipment, unmarked vehicles, etc showing up to a city near you. 

For more details go visit the ACLUs awesome website on this, and donate to help them fight it. https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

(Also, yes, Austin is literally a few miles outside this zone so I’m fine… angry but fine).

Just a reminder to anyone believing officials saying we’re doing great on testing in the USA, were absolutely not. In Texas for example, most tests are done by labs who then fax their results to the Texas govt medical offices who then need to hand enter that information into a database… frequently having to follow up for demographic information that may not be on the faxed form. Yes, faxing the info and rekeying it at least doubles the chances of errors. Results can often take 10-12 days. Obviously by that time people have infected many many more people. 

This also means the official case number details you are seeing are 2 weeks out of date. 

And no, we still don’t have enough tests, in Texas or anywhere in the USA. Also not all tests are equal and many don’t have full FDA approval and give a high percentage of false positives/negatives. 

We are really really bad at this.

This is the Gulabi Gang in India. They exist because police in India pay no attention to domestic violence, so a group of women between 18-60 dress in all pink and beat domestic abusers with broomsticks. They also act on issues like child marriage and dowry deaths which the police generally ignore. 

Because of course police are important and take care of all situations where there’s trouble. </sarcasm>

So here’s the thing. I’ve been in the USA for quite some time now as a resident and learnt a lot, and in that time Ive realized that many Americans who were born here have no actual idea what the amendments to the US constitution are actually about despite talking about the 1st, 2nd, and pleading the 5th a lot. It’s really weird. Unlike nasty foreigners they don’t need to take a test about them, and school curriculums on them are mostly seriously lacking. There’s 27 ratified amendments (and 6 unratified with little things like equal rights and child labour laws, you know, things most western countries have had for a while). It’s very very odd you guys don’t study them more. 

So let’s do some fun legal history and talk about the first three, because they’re all odd. I may chat about the others later. 

The first amendment is the one about free speech everyone talks about. Most Americans think it gives them the right to say whatever they want whenever they want to without consequence. This is rubbish. What it does do is give people the right to say whatever and not be censored by the government. You can establish a religion, have a rally, and talk whatever garbage you want and the government can’t stop you (yes, there’s legal caveats but go with me here)… nor can they stop the press which is specifically mentioned despite trump wishing it wasn’t. However a) private companies can do whatever they like, shut you down, stare and point at you, or whatever. And b) that doesn’t mean you have no consequences. If you say stupid stuff people will call you out and they also have the right to do that. You can say what you like but people can still show you the door. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others are not the government and can shut you down in a heartbeat. You have free speech. You can’t be a dick about it without people calling you on that. 

The second amendment is the one about guns… except it’s not. It’s about the right to bear arms (rawr) against an unjust government with a well regulated militia. Firstly this may have been super cool when both sides were armed with muskets, but taking on drones, tanks and aircraft carriers with a “well regulated militia” is hilarious. Now sadly the Supreme Court decided (partially because of weird commas in the wording and the NRA lobbyists and white racist guys) that this meant anyone could hold a gun at any time… till black People started holding guns then they tried to change that… and then they changed it back when white people shouted more. There are no well regulated militia anymore. There’s armed nutbags who want to make the bang bang ideally against people. Sadly, as the law currently stands, armed nutbags are in the right. It’s a bad law but it’s where we are. Let’s move on. 

Lastly let’s talk about the 3rd amendment because it’s fun… way more fun than the second. The 3rd amendment says the government can’t quarter troops in your house except in times of war. That’s it. There’s weird details but yeah, that’s the 3rd position in the US holy of holies. Yes, they made an amendment for this. It’s awesome. It has gone to court maybe a half dozen times total… for police commandeering a room for surveillance and odd stuff like that. It was discussed recently when trump tried to bring troops to DC and put them in hotels. Technically if any us service member tries to enter your house you could plead the 3rd. If you put up an on duty service member on your couch you’re possibly (unproven in law) violating the 3rd amendment of the USA. How awesome is that! Go rebel!

There we go. Learn your amendments because they’re fun. This ends today’s lesson. 

Note: I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV. I’m happy to discuss specifics of anything I’ve gotten wrong. I am only a nasty foreigner after all. What would I know.