My post title was weird. The 48 is the number of hours I have been awake without sleep, although I'm pretty confident that I will be able to fall asleep tonight,,,or uhh, this morning. It's after Midnight, so technically it's Sunday the 31st of May. 15 is the number of the 30 song challenge.
15. A song that you like that's a cover by another artist: The Rainbow Connection by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.
So, no one could ever out do Kermit the Frog, but I really like the punk rock version of it. In fact, you wanna hear some fun music that it great to exercise to, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes do nothing but covers of other people's music. My favorite album of theirs is called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Are A Drag. All of the songs, except The Rainbow Connection are Broadway Showtunes that are sung by women. But they have albums of oldies and classic rock songs, and even a great one called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Love Their Country, which, you guessed it, are all covers of country songs. Those of you know who know me know that I don't like Country much, but this album actually eased me into some of the better country music that I don't mind anymore. But, be warned, they are a punk rock band, so there are maybe three songs of theirs that have some bad words in. Anyway, that's song 15, woo hoo, half way through.
I really wanted to say something. On Friday evening, our country was shocked by a video of a police officer pinning a black man down, with his knee crushing on his neck, for a little over eight minutes. I've never seen something that has me feeling so sick to my stomach. The man, George Floyd, was pulled over by Officer Derek Chauvin. Through out the first five minutes, Mr. Floyd told the officers that he couldn't breath, which was answered with more physical force. The final two minutes of the video shown was of George Folyd's lifeless body laying there, with the officer's knee still pinning him to the ground.
There is no excuse. Our country witnessed a murder happening in real time, which in my personal opinion didn't need to be shown in it's entirety. The murder took place on the freeways of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which led to riots all over the streets of the city, and even in front of FORMER police officer Derek Chauvin's home. It sparked racist riots, non-racist riots and people feeling like they needed to be heard.
Our country is amazing, and it's even within our constitutional rights to make our voices heard however we PEACEFULLY choose to raise them. Some write letters, some protest outside our government buildings, and even private places of business. As long as no one is hurt or property destroyed. I'm not a very political person. I vote, when reading up on candidates or seeing debates on television, but hey, I'm a film critic/media critic newspaper and blogger and podcaster. I deal with forms of media for entertainment. I'm not an idiot. I do my research, and I care about our country.
Having said that, I want to point out what has me so upset. We are under a nationwide quarantine for the Covid-19 Virus right now. We are smack dab in the middle of it with not big changes coming in the near future. I went and saw a play last week that was very careful with the way they opened their theater and the measures they went to to make sure everyone was safe and having a good time. It was the first thing I've done in almost three months, minus going to the store for necessities once a week for a few minutes.
Today, well 14 hours ago, on Saturday, May 30th, at 2:00 I tuned in and watched something on television that is one of the biggest achievements in human history. NASA launched a rocket called The Dragon with two astronauts being blasted into space, heading for the International Space Station on a mock run to make sure everything was perfect because next year, NASA is going to launch astronauts with non-astronaut passengers for the first time, as a very expensive vacation. That's right, If you have millions and millions of dollars, NASA will let you take a trip to the International Space Station. It's like something out of a science fiction story that doesn't seem possible right now, but it is. It's amazing. So freaking cool!
After viewing the astronauts, my dad and I were watching our local news here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we learned that five new people infected with the Covid-19 Virus had passed away, and that there was a huge spike, over 350 new people here in Utah have been infected with the disease that is running wild. People have been starting to go outside again, without masks, and not taking things as serious as they should. As a result, many more infected with five deaths, all announced in the past 24 hours.
However, what made me so angry was the protests that were taking place in every major city across the United States of America, most of them very violent with destruction of property, people throwing smoke bombs, in Salt Lake there was a guy with a freaking cross-bow. Not even making that up. Cars were rocked and turned over and set on fire. People protesting against the cop that killed George Floyd, I can understand, but the second people are violent, and then city after city starting to riot and protest with violence. It sickened me. Our local news was interviewing protesters and asking why they were out, and they couldn't explain why they were even out there. They said they just want to be heard, but the reporters would ask well, here you are on television, what do you want heard? Nothing. It seemed that there were some legitimate protesters out there peacefully protesting with signs, or they were talking to cops.
What makes me hang my head being a member of the human race is that most of these protesters and riots were out doing it just because they felt they could get away with being destructive and violent. I live over one thousand miles away from where Mr. Floyd was murdered by an officer. I watched as the streets of L.A, and Minneapolis were attacking the police officers and military units sent out, just to protect the city from Anarchy. Well, guess what? Those officers had to protect themselves from the riots and protesters from getting beat to death. The officers in all of the different cities that CNN was showing were using their clubs or shields to protect themselves from being attacked.
The riots were insane. How do the riots and police beatings help George Floyd. Instead of being remembered as an unfortunate man killed by a power hungry officer is not and forever will be remembered with the riots across the country with countless victims and injustice. We as a country have sunk to a new low. If everything was peaceful, and people went out to protest, that's totally fine. But once the gloves come off and people are getting seriously hurt and their properties damaged, that's when it goes from a protest to be heard, and idiots rioting for fun because they feel like they can and that it's all right to do. It's not.
In the matter of two hours I saw the pinnacle of man's spirit and ingenuity, soaring into the stars, traveling so fast that they were over a thousand miles away from the launch pad within three minutes. It was a marvelous thing to see, stepping down to the sick and afflicted people in our state losing their lives and spiking with over three hundred and fifty new infections, showing that we need to stay home, or leaving home only when you have to. Stepping down further to the ugliness of man's actions. I witnessed men in the stars and in the gutters.
The riots are still going on as I write this blog post at 2 A.M. I haven't heard about the astronauts headed for the space station at all. Everything on television is nothing but riot and protesters still hanging around. I believe in the right to have free speech. Shoot, I'm a writer and newspaper guy, Everything I do is all about free speech.
I want to stay positive and write positivity about whatever I post on this blog, but I can't ignore what happed on Saturday, May 30th. The day we touched the stars and still ended up in the gutter. I pray things will better. I believe things can, and will get better, but it's not going to change by itself. It's up to us to help things change in a positive way.
I really hope you all stayed with me to the end of this blog. It was long, but I felt that this is the way I can voice my opinion about the current state of the world, and how it effects all of us. I hope and pray we can move onward and upward.
Now, it's time for me to try to go to sleep. Have a good day, or night, or whichever time of day you happen to be reading this blog post!
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