Lexual Says #8 (Patreon)

I'm out of contacts and I can't read my teleprompter (in fact, I'm getting nauseous from all the squinting I'm doing in the creation of this post) so here is the script for episode eight of Lexual Says. I have an eye appointment next Monday so I'll be back filming in December. 

1. Prison News

First of all, nobody should be criminalized or jailed for using drugs. With that in mind, Gothamist obtained leaked documents revealing that at least 2,000 New York prisoners tested for drugs through a chemical issue in a faulty test. I say ATLEAST 2,000 because “Prison officials have refused to discuss the full scale of the scandal and how they discovered alleged problems with the test.” A Spokesman DID say that it “restored privileges to any potentially affected inmates” and stopped using the test. He said “restoring privileges” as prisoners could just reverse the time spent in solitary or missed interactions with family on the outside. An expert mentioned that drug tests like these are used for “workplace drug testing in clinical settings such as emergency rooms” meaning the issue could be more widespread than we know. On November 20th, hundreds of current and former New York prisoners filed a lawsuit because of the punishments they faced after testing fake positive for drugs. I hope they win big, but I also hope this generates more discussion about the unnecessary criminalization of drug users. Meanwhile in West Virginia, a contract between the division of corrections and a private company means that inmates are being charged by the minute to access books on tablets. The e-books are all free through Project Gutenberg, but the prisoners will have to pay 5 cents a minute to read them. Prisoners earn between four and fifty-eight cents an hour. But these tablets are also used for other activities that incentivize good behavior and bring highly necessary comfort. It will cost five cents per minute to read, listen to music, or play games, 25 cents per minute for video visitation, 25 cents per written message, and 50 cents per photo message. This is how the prison system exploits humans and punishes the poor with extremely horrific periods of isolation when locked up. Organizations will still be able to donate books and prisoners can buy them, but for how long? Other state prisons in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and New York have attempted to stop third-party book donations, and numerous states ban book titles by black authors, or about prison and racism, meaning plenty of meaningful donated books get tossed. 

2. Muslim Internment Camps In China

Former detained Muslims at internment camps in China were sent there for reasons including traveling abroad, showing religious devotion, and growing long beards. China insists they are attempting to crack down on Islamic extremism by teaching the Muslim minorities the national tongue and providing job and citizenship training. Leaked documents and former detainees reveal these internment camps are attempts at brainwashing, harking back to the reeducation camps established during the mid-twentieth century. The Uighur people and other Muslim minorities are watched closely to “prevent escapes while they are at class, dining, using the toilet, washing, receiving medical care, or meeting with family.” The detainees are also being recruited to spy on each other. China has refused to say how many people are in these camps, and they insist that they are like “boarding schools.” Satellite images and leaked government documents analyzed by foreign experts say there are an estimated one million detained Muslim minorities. The camps have been operating that we know of since 2014. These camps have gone on as long as they have because of China’s growing economic power and political influence. For the past thirty years, China’s economy has grown and it has the largest gross domestic product-- think of all the cheap fast-fashion,  electronics, and other goods we have in abundance. For example, a new product from China is uploaded to amazon every 1/50th of a second. Numerous countries owe money to China, including America, and our debt is over a trillion. Experts have also noticed how countries with important economic or political ties to China, like with infrastructure contracts in Africa and Southeast Asia, are more likely to abstain from criticizing. Also, as evidence of Chinese human rights becomes an audible whisper,  who really has clean enough hands to call for intervention in China? Back in March when Mike Pompeo called China and other countries out for human rights violations, China returned with “We also advise that the US take a hard look at its own domestic human rights record and first take care of its own  affairs,” pointing out gun deaths and how the Trump administration has violated reporters rights and packed undocumented immigrants into filthy cages and seperated families and lost track of minors. In recent years, China has decided to present a more activist role in its position on the UN Human Rights Council, to stop criticism of its own human rights record. 

3. Gun Supporters Striking Back

Earlier this month in Virginia, Democrats won a majority in the Virginia House of Delegates, with many of the elected officials being outspoken supporters of gun control. Their victories were in part made possible by the mass shooting at Virginia Beach that took twelve lives. The governor, Democrat Ralph Northam, has pledged to quickly get new gun control legislation underway in January. According to the Washington Post, the gun control restrictions aren’t exactly outrageous, including “universal background checks, limits on the types and numbers of firearms that can be purchased, and a red flag law allowing authorities to seize weapons from someone deemed a threat. Democrats haven’t had a majority in Virginia in 20 years, and Virginians who vote red are resisting the change in power, thanks to social media campaigns and organizing by the National Rifle Association and the Virginia Citizens Defense League. A number of counties have since declared that they are considering to become second amendment sanctuary locations. This has happened in other states like Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, and New Mexico. In Amelia County Virginia, the sheriff said : ”My oath of office is to uphold the constitution of the united states.” Roughly 31 of Virginia’s 95 counties are considering adopting second amendment sanctuary resolutions. Local law enforcement who refuse to carry out orders to seize weapons would be a form of political protest that breaks the law. It will be interesting to see whether or not Virginia sheriffs and police who refuse to seize weapons when ordered will be hauled off to jail,  especially if they’re the pro-police, pro-prison rednecks I’m thinking of. 

4. Hygiene Scares

I’ve gotten pretty phobic about bathrooms in recent years, my biggest pet peeve being people who don’t flush the toilet with the lid closed because all the particles shoot up and cover everything. [Gag] But recent research has discovered that phones have ten times as much bacteria as toilet bowls. I'm one of the 90% of people who take their phones into the bathroom and I'm sickened. But I feel like its one of those “you knew it but you didn’t want to say it out loud” moments because we’ve BEEN known that bacteria lurks on bathroom surfaces, especially public ones. Phones are warm, keeping bacteria nice and toasty. If you hold your dirty phone to your face, you’re more prone to breakouts. [Gag] I’m quitting carrying my phone into the bathroom cold turkey. And I’m urging everyone watching this to 1) Clean your bathroom regularly 2) not take your phone into the bathroom with you. Keep some reading material in there and thoroughly wash your hands after. That last part might be hard for a lot of folks because up to 44% of Americans skip handwashing. And of the 66% of Americans who do wash our hands regularly, 97% don’t wash them correctly. The most common mistake is not washing them long enough, for the recommended 20 seconds, and a lot of people also skip soap.  The link between handwashing and health was first made back in the 1840s when a Hungarian doctor noticed that women giving birth in a ward tended by doctors died from fever more often than women in a ward tended to by midwives. The reason? The doctors often performed autopsies, immediately before placing their filthy cadaver crusted hands on the female patients, while the midwives did not. The doctors were ordered to wash their hands with chlorine and the cases in fever deaths dropped tremendously. Even still, handwashing promotion didn’t occur until the 1980s, and evidently many of you have not caught onto the trend. This is to our detriment. Research from around the world showed that handwashing promotion led to a 30% drop in diarrhea episodes and respiratory illnesses like colds. So do your part and wash your fucking hands thoroughly and regularly.

5. Fighting Domestic Violence  

On November 23rd, roughly 150K french citizens poured onto the streets and demanded the government address the high domestic violence rate. 137 women were murdered by a partner this year alone, and France has one of the highest domestic violence rates in Europe. Activists have been going around spraying victim names on buildings and infrastructure and hanging up posters. A 2014 survey revealed that 26% of French women had been sexually or physically abused at least once since the age of 15. Of course, this treatment is not unique to France. Over 10,000 people marched in Rome on November 23rd, because Italy also saw a rise in femicide in 2018. Italian courts have often allowed shorter jail sentences for men who killed girlfriends or wives and blamed jealousy as the culprit. Activists have also been outspoken about how such killings are portrayed as crimes of passion by the media, in forgiving tones for the culprit. Domestic abuse, rapes, and stalking are also on the rise in Italy. But according to the World Health Organization, one in three women across the world will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, usually by a partner. November 25th was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and protests happened in Brussels, Mexico, and other locations, and more are scheduled. Activists are calling on their governments to provide more shelters, and education about consent and domestic violence. France announced on November 25th that it would be spending millions to create new shelter space, education programs, and ankle monitor bracelets for abusers. Women in other countries are facing more stubborn misogynistic hostility or negligence in the path of their goals. For example, also on November 25th, Spain’s far-right, anti-muslim anti-feminist Vox party just refused to sign a declaration condemning violence against women. They are the third biggest party in Spanish parliament thanks to this months elections, and they’re growing in influence.