Your Friday Five: 03.08.25
It's been a rough week, so I have been trying to do all kinds of things to distract myself from all the tears. Alas, there is also a sweetness in remembering those lovable furry family members, so I'm also basking in all the goofy memories.
On to this week's Friday Five, another addition of Randomocities.
ONE//Philz: While this one is a bit local-ish, many of you know that this one hurts. Following the news that, Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145 million: Stock-owning employees will be left out in the cold the sale as been finalized as reported by Mission Local, Philz Coffee completes $145M sale to private equity firm, leaves tips for baristas: No word yet on what âthank youâ bonuses will look likethe
This one is a stab in the heart, as I have been a loyal customer for over a decade and have recruited so many people with the gateway drink, the Iced Mint Mojito, "Philz Way." Reading through the articles, it is a reaffirmation of what Philz has felt like over the past few years, losing its local vibe. There are so many other local options to choose from, so I'll be fine. That said, I just had my last cup for a while today, and I will write more about this later.
TWO/Incarceration: In some great news about incarceration, Fourth California Prison Set to Close as Incarceration Rates Drop.
The CRC, originally built as a luxury hotel in the 1920s and later converted into a prison in the 1980s, has long drawn criticism for its unsafe and inhumane conditions. Incarcerated people and their families have documented ongoing infestations of rodents and cockroaches, unreliable access to safe drinking water, chronic overcrowding, extreme heat, and staff-instigated violence.
Our culture's addiction to incarcerating poor, Black, and brown bodies into invisibility must not be normalized any more than it already is. These developments prove the power of communal actions.
THREE/Baseball: Even though Major League Baseball is dead to me, this is pretty exciting for baseball fans, MLB is calling up its first female umpire, promoting Jen Pawol for Saturdayâs Marlins-Braves game.
Pawol was an all-state softball and soccer player in New Jersey for three seasons in each sport at West Milford High School. She went to Hofstra on a softball scholarship and became a three-time all-conference pick and was on the USA Baseball womenâs national baseball team in 2001.
Pawol got a masterâs degree and was living in the Binghamton area of New York and taking teacher certification classes at Elmira College while still playing on the side.
âI wasnât really satisfied,â she said last year. âComing off of a huge competitive career, just playing locally, I wasnât getting my fix. And I remember looking at the umpire and being like, I think thatâs it. I got to go for that.â
MLBâs move comes 28 years after the gender barrier for game officials was broken in the NBA, 10 years after the NFL hired its first full-time female official and three years after the menâs soccer World Cup employed a female referee. The NHL still has not had any women as on-ice officials.
I love seeing people getting called up to The Show for the first time, and this one is historic. Though seriously, what took so long?
FOUR/Gaza: from Splinter, We Are Nearing the Day Where Everyone Will Have Always Been Against Israelâs Genocide.
Everyone will have always been against this. It is a genocide. A modern-day Holocaust perpetrated by Israel, the United States and its European enablers. Proof that no people in this world are immune to manâs worst impulses, no matter what those impulses have done to them. Israel is a cautionary tale about the inherent barbarity of our species, and how Western imperialism warps the entire planet around its murderous whims. Gaza is starving, and even Bari Weiss and Donald Trump can see how bad things have become. If you are still supporting Israelâs genocidal mania, consider the company youâre keeping at this point and what that says about you.
Yes, I am glad to see people finally speaking out, but it is deeply disturbing how long it has taken.
FIVE/Reproductive Justice: This piece from ProPublica came out that shows a dangerous trend in Texas, A âStrikingâ Trend: After Texas Banned Abortion, More Women Nearly Bled to Death During Miscarriage.
Now, a new ProPublica data analysis adds empirical weight to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of miscarriage â which occurs in up to 30% of pregnancies â far more dangerous. It is based on hospital discharge data from Texas, the largest state to ban abortion, and captures emergency department visits from 2017 to 2023, the most recent year available.
After Texas made performing abortions a felony in August 2022, ProPublica found, the number of blood transfusions during emergency room visits for first-trimester miscarriage shot up by 54%.
ProPublica is one of the news sources that we support financially because of its thoughtful and in-depth reporting about a breadth of issues and events that impact our culture. You can support their journalism here.
There you go, thanks for reading, and may you experience many moments of joy this weekend and beyond.
Peace,
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From the Camera Roll: For the Drum Corps nerds in the house, on Saturday night, the top corps in the world will take the field for the 2025 DCI Championships in Indianapolis. I marched back in the '80s and was part of the first-ever world championship (Class A60) with the Mandarins Drum & Bugle Corps from Sacramento, CA. In honor of one of the youth activities that formed me, here are two pics from those days. I played soprano and mellophone, back when there were only two valves. Yes, I'm that old.
First photo somewhere in Wyoming, 1984 | Second photo Madison, WI, 1986
To be clear, while I consider myself to be part of the Mandarins' legacy, I probably could not even make the corps at its current level. They are so good.
Not that you asked, but here is a snippet from our championship show from 1987. Sadly, no camera time for me in this clip, the life of a mellophone player đ
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