Shout Out to Our Fire Ant Overlords
I’m speaking at next Tuesday’s Odd Salon: Epidemic at Public Works in SF. Get your tickets now!
Darlings, I’ve never been to a Waffle House. But today I learned that the diner chain does everything it can to stay open during disasters, and that FEMA even has an unofficial “Waffle House Index,” because if a Waffle House is closed, KYAGB. Well, two Waffle Houses are closed in Houston, but the rest have limited their menu but still “giving people a place to congregate and charge their cellphones.”
Reader Colin pointed out that Mexico’s PR game is on point: in response to yet another tweet from Trump claiming that Mexico will pay for the wall, the Mexican government expressed its solidarity and offered to provide “help and cooperation… as good neighbors should always do in trying times.” Sick humanitarian burn, Mexico, you got us there. Sigh. But seriously, well done.
Guess what? Texas is now dealing with floating mounds of fire ants, because those freaking things have evolved to work together and create FLOATING FIRE ANT ISLANDS to save their colonies. ahhhhh, so many nightmares in one.
And a reminder: if you feel inclined to help a distant place after a disaster, send money, not stuff. This 2016 story on the “second disaster” of useless donated crap that follows natural disasters, which often ends up destroyed or discarded, due to lack of ability to sort and distribute. Physical items cost money to ship and human capital to deal with, while cash donations to local not-for-profits can be used where they are needed most. So as we discussed yesterday, generously channel your giving towards local relief organizations.
In other news, man who never, ever, EVER should have been near the White House Sebastian Gorka is salting the swamp in a series of interviews. He claims that “anti-MAGA” forces are behind recent decisions in the White House, and he claimed that he and Steve Bannon would “right that ship from the outside.” Cool, great, awesome, nothing worrisome about someone associated with Nazi-linked organizations pledging vendettas.
And finally, as many of us look to POTUS and see a president who does not match our values, Vox asks ”Are corporations becoming the new arbiters of public morality?”
That’s it, that’s all my loves.