Tuesday Reads

Obituary:  Famed author Toni Morrison, 88, has reportedly died.  Her best known work is Beloved.  Her work largely dealt with the experience of being a black woman in America.

Snips, since I can't add much to the discussion:

After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Howard with a major in English and a minor in classics in 1953, she earned a master’s in English from Cornell in 1955. She taught English for two years at Texas Southern University, a historically black institution in Houston, before returning to Howard as a faculty member.

There, she joined a fiction workshop and began writing in earnest. Required to bring a sample to a workshop meeting, she began work on a story about a black girl who craves blue eyes — the kernel of her first novel.

In 1958, she married Harold Morrison, an architect from Jamaica; they were divorced in 1964. In interviews, Ms. Morrison rarely spoke of the marriage, though she intimated that her husband had wanted a traditional 1950s wife — and that, she could never be.

We can be thankful for that.

Morrison died from complications of pneumonia.
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Joe Biden retains his lead over the other Democratic hopefuls.
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The poll is two years old, but it astounds me how many people still have sexist attitudes about men's and women's so-called roles.
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Thanks to Yaniv brandishing an illegal (in Canada) taser during Blaire White's livestream yesterday, Yaniv was arrested, but he was later released.

The Post Millennial has confirmed speculation that the Walnut Grove home of Jessica Yaniv was raided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police last night. The raid follows Yaniv’s explosive live appearance on Blaire White’s YouTube channel, brandishing and demonstrating the functionality of a taser at one point in the debate, and claiming to be fully aware of its illegality. Yaniv also claimed to possess pepper spray.

Yaniv’s discussion of the weapons followed a lengthy racist rant disparaging the East Indian and immigrant communities of British Columbia, asserting “we have f*cked up people who migrate here, who think they can do whatever they want.”

Reports about the raid initially circulated on the forum KiwiFarms, with user and neighbour to Yaniv, WGKitty, reporting the arrival of Police at approximately 9:46 pm EST. The user reported Police presence at Yaniv’s Walnut Grove residence overnight August 5th, with a search to be conducted by the Federal RCMP this morning.

More:

Conducted energy weapons, also known as stun guns or by the brand name Taser, as well as pepper spray are considered prohibited weapons in the hands of the public. She said officers took two stun guns, pepper spray and bear spray from her apartment.

Yaniv, however, said the charge is unfair because she has repeatedly told police about her stun guns and repellent sprays, saying they are for her personal protection.

She said that several times when the RCMP, which provides municipal policing in Langley, came to take her reports of harassment or threats, she warned them she had weapons in the home.

“I say: ‘Hey, you know what, for your safety and for my safety, I do have weapons in the house, I do have a Taser, it’s locked up, if you want to see it, I’ll show it to you.’

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