A procession with candles for the 20,000 dead

Happy Easter! Though it really doesn’t feel like a fresh, spring holiday. It didn’t help that my church’s livestream service didn’t go well. This is our pastor in his basement before a camera. Today he even wore a clerical collar (which he rarely does). In addition to speaking he was doing all the tech himself. The opening hymn, the one every congregation sings on Easter had so many little pauses it was not singable and I had to turn off the sound. Shortly after the pastor started his sermon the livestream cut out and was never reestablished. I don’t know if it was his clumsy handling of the tech or because every single congregation in the eastern quarter of the US was trying to livestream their service at 10:00 and both Facebook and YouTube were overwhelmed.

I did get takeout for my Easter lunch, definitely better than what I’ve been eating lately.



I honor one of the giants of LGBTQ history who died last Thursday. Phyllis Lyon met her love Del Martin in 1950. They moved in together in 1953. In 1955 they and friends started Daughters of Bilitis, the first organization to advocate for the civil rights of lesbians. The next year they began publishing The Ladder, the first nationally distributed publication for lesbian readers. They kept their number in the phone book so any LGBTQ person who needed support could call.

Back in 2004 Gavin Newsom, newly installed mayor of San Francisco, declared he would perform same-sex marriages in spite of the state ban. He gave the honor of the first wedding to Phyllis and Del. The state supreme court voided those marriages in 2004, then in 2008 the court struck down the ban on same-sex weddings. Phyllis and Dell married again. Del died a few months later. Phyllis died last week at the age of 95.

Gavin Newsom, now governor of California, tweeted a remembrance which included a short video of him visiting Phyllis.



A.R. Moxon, author of The Revisionaries, tweeted:

The problem isn't the virus. The virus is exposing the problem, which is this: When the choice is between seeking solutions that are unprofitable to save lives, and insisting on profit despite death, our systems of power will insist on the profit and the death.

We have food, yet people are hungry.
We have housing, yet people have no shelter.
We could forgive the debt, yet people are crushed.
We have money, yet people are desperate.

The virus isn't the problem.
The virus exposes the problem.

If people are hungry in a land that had plenty, then hunger is not the problem.

If people are desperate in a rich land, the desperation is not the problem.

As a cough is not a virus, but only exposes it, so the virus, symptomatic, exposes our true problem: a theft economy.
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The disease is a theft economy that can easily manufacture and provide ventilators but is morally opposed to doing so if it’s insufficiently profitable.

The Washington Post reports that Congress fully intends to provide emergency funding for the US Postal service. But the White House was clear that if a USPS rescue was included, the nasty guy would not sign it. Hunter of Kos adds we’re not sure if the nasty guy said that or if it was some “senior official” who may or may not be speaking for the nasty guy and has his own agenda Hunter could believe either one. He reminds us:

The U.S. Postal Service was established by the Constitution; Benjamin Franklin himself was the first colonial postmaster. Despite the existence now of private firms like FedEx and UPS, the Postal Service remains the only entity that delivers mail to all of the United States, rather than just the profitable parts. That makes it an essential service, still, but it may become even more essential in the months ahead.

In another tweet A.R. Moxon responded to a comment that the Postal System is about to run out of money and that Democrats could make a big deal out of that talking point:

I really don't think I can go on spending my time thinking about all the things Democrats should be doing to fight right now. Democratic leadership waiting for the election to solve Trump is like firefighters parked outside a house fire waiting for rain.

Benjamin Franklin responded to a comment that there is no resistance to the nasty guy in our institutions by tweeting:

Wait a second, are you saying that Pelosi isn't actually trying to stop Trump but is only creating the appearance of it by staging meme moments every other month to be distributed on social media/media by her rabid DM groups? And that ppl eat this shit up instead of real action?

Would a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government (as Sarah Kendzior frequently says), while it’s infiltrating the GOP, forget to also corrupt the Democrats?



Franklin tweeted separately:

Putting all your faith in the election is like putting all your eggs in one basket but there are several holes in the basket because Trump stabbed it with a chainsaw repeatedly and is promising to continue stabbing it until the eggs break and there is no more basket.
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You can't beat a lawless authoritarian with laws. DUH!

Previous generations of Americans tarred and feathered British officials, horribly maiming them. You post popcorn gifs and witty banter. These are not the same.

Tar and feather the nasty guy? Ooh, there’s an idea.



Sarah Kendzior’s second book, Hiding in Plain Sight, is just out. Valerie tweeted an excerpt from the introduction:

People ask me how I find hope. I answer that I don’t believe in hope, and I don’t believe in hopelessness. I believe in compassion and pragmatism, in doing what is right for its own sake. Hope can be lethal when you are fighting autocracy because hope is inextricable from time. An enduring strategy of autocrats is to simply run out the clock.

Comic Mike Birbiglia tweeted a definitely not comic thought:

Before this I couldn’t imagine a scenario where 20,000 Americans die and the president doesn’t grieve or even pretend to show empathy. We should never stop talking about how this isn’t even remotely okay.

Emnemjane, a Pharmacy Tech, tweeted about who works at hospitals:

Who society thinks works at hospitals … Doctors, Nurses.

Who really works at hospitals…

I’ll let you read her lengthy list for yourself.

She pulled the list of Facebook and tweeted it as a way to say thanks to all who work in hospitals. Commenters mentioned several other kinds of hospital workers: security, ECG techs, physician assistants, ultrasound techs, porters, gift shop staff, and probably many others.



Jeff Sharlet tweeted a suggestion for a protest he’d like to be a part of:

If it could be organized--I don't think it can, safely--I would like to walk in a procession for the dead to the White House, 20,000 of the living, walking six feet apart, with candles for the 20,000 dead and counting who did not have to die. Let us haunt their murderer.