The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

I was working on a quick post about that snake oil-peddling ghoul “Dr. Oz,” but then had better things to do. Still, I thought that this image shouldn’t go to waste. Enjoy!

This is just a reminder that all these stories took place just this week:

• In case you were wondering, this is how white people who don’t have their own army call in a drone strike: When called out by a black man for letting her dog off-leash in an on-leash area of Central Park, white woman Amy Cooper called the police and claimed that she was being threatened by “an African-American man.”
• When have we heard “I can’t breathe” before? In an attempted arrest, a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck as he lay motionless and moaning. Floyd died in the ordeal.
• The Root: Florida Woman Arrested for Drowning Her Autistic Son After Telling Police Two Black Men Abducted Him. There’s local coverage here, here, here, and here, but the bit about the racism gets buried.
• The Gaily Grind: Youth Pastor Claims He Was Kidnapped By Black Men To Avoid Admitting He Hired Male Prostitute. More coverage here and here.

And only last week, did we begin to hear about the corruption behind the case of the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery. And the number of times I’ve been told by well-meaning wypipo that anti-Asian racism from the coronavirus supposedly doesn’t exist — despite having had that moment myself — is ridiculous.

Want more evidence? I’ll borrow this straight from Tony Pierce:

What have we learned this month about protesting in the Midwest?

If these guys weren’t white, they’d have been called by their rightful label: terrorists. They were armed, and went home without a single tear gas canister fired at them by police, despite their attempt to intimidate the assembly.

It seems to me the lesson is, if you go to a protest with guns and a confederate flag the police will allow you to march right up into the state house and treat you with respect.

These people protesting the murderous treatment of George Floyd were unarmed, but suppressed by police using riot tactics.

But if you arrive unarmed you’ll be teargassed.

Am I missing something?

It’s been a pretty racist week.

If you took early undergrad-level physics, you probably remember that many of these problems included necessary simplifications, including massless, frictionless pulleys and massless ropes that didn’t stretch. I now present to you a real-world version of one of those simplifications: The spherical cat!

For more, see the Wikipedia entry for Spherical Cow, which includes this animation demonstrating that topologically speaking, a cow is a sphere:

…and I’m different now.

(Seriously, hot dog peeler — who hurt you?!)