Every day this has to happen
This has to happen for some reason
I don't know how old she was because I had to immediately avert my eyes but I scrolled by an image of I think a six year old little baby Gazan girl whose head looked like a smashed jar of tomato sauce and I thought this has to happen for some reason. Every day this has to happen.
Even though I only half saw it I can still see it now like a bright red migraine aura when I close my eyes.
Then I watched a TikTok of some Israeli kids protesting their own Palestinian (but Israeli citizen) teacher because she had attended a Nakba Day march and in the video they're laughing and chanting and jumping around like you would expect excited kids to do after winning a soccer game but instead they're chanting "may your village burn."
After that I read about a Honduran migrant who was beaten severely and left to die on Friday by the Texas National Guard at the Juárez and El Paso border. Other migrants that were with him said they called for an ambulance but were hung up on.
Elsewhere Boeing shareholders voted to reelect all eleven directors of the beleaguered company this week including outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun. They also approved his $33 million compensation package.
I wrote a story about something like that in A Creature Wanting Form and maybe some of you already read it but probably you did not and it went like this:
The most recent Hell World was for paid subscribers only. I wrote about "pay to stay" rules, which are in place in 40+ states, whereby inmates are charged $50-100s a day for room and board. Sometimes, like in Florida, they're on the hook for the entirety of their original sentence not just the time they actually serve. In some cases this can add up to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, as it did for a woman named Shelby Hoffman. Originally sentenced to seven years, she served only ten months before being released. A couple years later while applying for a job and jumping through the typical hoops that a formerly incarcerated person has to do as a matter of course, she found out she still owed $127,750.
I also wrote on the recent Supreme Court ruling that civil asset forfeiture is basically fine!
Subscribe if you can to read that one and get every issue in your inbox.
Everyone was making jokes about Red Lobster filling for bankruptcy because of their endless shrimp promotion because that's a funny thing to think about but it turns out it's a much more mundane and common story which is that private equity ghouls killed the company by buying it then selling all of the real estate and forcing the franchises to pay rent.
I read an article in Vox that argued that the left should take up free speech as one of its causes again. It's a pretty fascinating and new point that I am hearing just now for the first time which is that the left, which has no power, needs to make space for fascists and nazis to speak freely or else the right might, for the first time ever, because of the left mind you, curtail left speech. Wow.
It's come to light that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew an upside down American flag outside of his home days after January 6, 2021. It's fine though he will certainly remain impartial when he rules soon on whether or not Donald Trump should be immune from his attempt to overturn the election.
It was his wife who did it Alito said and she was just mad about a neighbor's anti-Trump sign he said so naturally she turned her flag upside down for normal reasons.
Alito is of course a right wing Catholic psycho and so I would like to take this opportunity to remind you it's never offensive to be racist against Catholics. I grant you the pass.
In fairness to the Alitos however I do personally know how fraught that year was in terms of neighborly relations.
Luke O’Neil
Scottie Scheffler, the number one golfer in the world, was arrested by Louisville Metro Police for "striking" a police officer with his car while attempting to get to a golf tournament which briefly put many of us in the awkward position of deciding if we have to side with a golfer or the cops. (Always follow your gut for the obvious answer there). Looks like the guy loves the cops himself though so that settles that.
Thank you, sir, for arresting me. Bravely by the way.
Oh wow ok never mind then.
It only took a couple of weeks but glad to see CNN finally covering the right wing fascist violence at UCLA.
You might remember this kid from the header photo (by Joey Scott) of Hell World's dispatch from that night.
Turns out he's a kid named Idan On from Beverly Hills and his mother was very proud of him because she posted this to Facebook.
He's going to enlist in the IDF soon his mother proudly told CNN before texting the reporter after the interview saying uhhh jk that's not him.
Oh hey check this out they found the outside agitators at the Columbia protests according to the Washington Post:
A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.
Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.
Still wondering how those kids got access to some tents though.
Holy shit this is the best new (to me) band I've heard so far this year. They're called Heave Blood and Die and they're a northern Norwegian anti-capitalist post-punk/post-metal act that absolutely rips. Thanks to Nick for the tip.
Up next for paid subscribers is my most recent short story for Flaming Hydra. Consider subscribing here or over there (it's so good) to read it. Thanks for being here either way.
The Song You Wanted It to Be
See the ducks down there she said pointing like a child points. The black and white ones she said and he said where and she corrected herself and pointed again like an adult points and he said I guess so I can’t really see without my glasses. Do you want me to go get them for you she said and he said no he said he could go get his glasses himself if it came to it. They’re bobbing under the water she said like penguins she said and he said do penguins do that? Dawning on him now that penguins of course must have to dive down to eat fish or what else were they supposed to live off of otherwise. Certainly no insects swarming about in the Arctic or Antarctic or whichever one penguins lived in. Like warmer birds get to go running around after. Not yet anyway.
Where do penguins live A___ asked her and she thought about it for a second and said the Antarctic and he thought that honestly doesn’t narrow things down for me.
Which one is that supposed to be again top of the map or bottom?
Look at the city her brother T___ said from the other end of the porch. Just look at it he said and so they did.
You could see the sun reflecting off the city skyline over the water about fifty miles south and they all looked and thought that it ranged from merely nice to evidence of the existence of God.