In a week of startling developments, some things still sound like they’re from The Onion. Or at least Harper’s Findings. They aren’t.
In a week of police riots capping decades of ethnic violence in a country torn asunder by authoritarianism, a dismal economy, and plague, police responding to a bee sting were attacked by a swarm of nearly 40,000 Africanized bees. Elsewhere, police “kettled” demonstrators and repeatedly charged at them, shoving them onto sidewalks, and striking them with batons.
Outside Olympic National Park, gun-toting locals cut down trees to surround and trap a family of campers, including the husband’s mom and their 16 year old daughter, on the pretext that they thought they were Antifa. An Alabama newspaper called for the Klan to “night ride again,” and Republicans wondered aloud whether the videotaped killing of George Floyd was staged.
As the country’s faltering president blamed Germany, China, and the World Health Organization for its ills, lightning struck the capital city’s most conspicuous monument. “It’s sad that the Americans don’t have a government that can get them coronavirus tests or even monthly checks to be able to feed their families,” said Charlotte Johnson, a 18-year-old Liberian student activist, who survived the Ebola pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that the results are in for remote learning: It didn’t work.
And in my local news on Sunday 7th June in Bristol, UK, thousands of protesters pulled down the statue of 17th century slave trader, Edward Colston, and through it in the river.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/07/blm-protesters-topple-statue-of-bristol-slave-trader-edward-colston
Yes, we could say more generally: the world, surprisingly, not only paid attention but responded.
And for a more accurate summary of the week, there’s always
Heather Cox Richardson.
The New York Times reported that many police lied.