Back to the grind // What's Good: May 25, 2023
Labor rights, kids' rights, and trans rights.
Hello, good morning, happy Friday. I am writing this post on Thursday night for the first time in a while, which will likely be an ongoing thing - I started my new job on Monday. Things are going well, I am enjoying it.
Hero of Time
There is more to Tears of the Kingdom than meets the eye:
There’s a bridge to cross the lava pit in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s Marakuguc Shrine, but it’s broken. More than half of the bridge is piled on top of itself on one side of the pit, with one clipped-off segment on the other. The bridge is the obvious choice for crossing the lava, but how to fix it?
A clip showing one potential solution went viral on Twitter shortly after Tears of the Kingdom’s release: The player uses Link’s Ultrahand ability to unfurl the stacked bridge by attaching it to a wheeled platform in the lava. When the wheeled platform — now attached to the edge of the bridge — activates and moves forward, it pulls the bridge taut, splashing lava as it goes, until the suspension bridge is actually suspended and can be crossed. But it wasn’t the solution itself that resonated with players; instead, the clip had game developers’ jaws on the ground, in awe of how Nintendo’s team wrangled the game’s physics system to do that.
To players, it’s simply a bridge, but to game developers, it’s a miracle.
Workers’ rights
Despite what conservatives would tell you, this is cruel and inhumane:
In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that religious institutions, including religious schools, were exempt from anti-discrimination laws in the hiring and firing of employees designated as “ministers,” based on First Amendment grounds. But this “ministerial exception” was relatively undefined, leaving the question of who, exactly, could be counted as a minister.
In May 2020, the Supreme Court heard a case on this very question: Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, which revolved around a former Catholic school teacher claiming age discrimination. Ultimately, that July, the court, with a majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito, ruled 7–2 that the teacher could indeed count as a “minister,” granting strong new protections for religious institutions.
But before that ruling happened, the case had been combined with another: St. James School v. Biel. Kristen Biel, a teacher who worked at the eponymous Catholic school in Torrance, California, during the 2013–2014 school year, sued St. James claiming that she had been fired because of her cancer diagnosis in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission granted Biel the right to sue the school in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. After it was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, it was combined with Our Lady of Guadalupe School and heard before the Supreme Court.
If I got mugged I’d just call a cab
Hundreds of current and former Chicago police officers can never be called to testify by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) because they have histories of misconduct or untruthfulness that would undermine their credibility on the stand, according to documents obtained by The TRiiBE.
The SAO’s so-called Brady and Do Not Call lists, which include names of officers who can’t be relied on in court, are far more extensive than has been previously reported, and include officers who were not included in previous releases by the SAO. One such officer who was not on previously released lists, but is now, is January 6 Capitol rioter Karol Chwiesiuk, who was fired by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in 2021 and has been charged with five misdemeanors for his part in the attack. Another is Nicholas Jovanovich, who was fired last year for knocking out an activist’s teeth during a 2020 protest in Grant Park.
John Catanzara, the current president of the Fraternal Order of Police, is also listed. Catanzara resigned from CPD in 2021 while facing termination for nearly a dozen rule violations, but was reelected president of the city‘s largest police union earlier this year.
Trust the kids
Reading this just made me feel fucking awful inside:
Rep. Lauren Boebert's son called 911 in December to report that his father, Jayson Boebert, had gotten physical with him and was "throwing" him around the house and that he didn't know why.
Minutes after the call ended — while Garfield County Sheriff's Office deputies were on their way to their home — the teen called again to take the accusations back, with Lauren Boebert jumping on the phone to say her son "doesn't need help."
Jayson Boebert denied to the deputies — and to Insider — that he had gotten physical with the teen.
“He overreacted” is something I heard too often growing up. I hope someone helps that kid. He deserves to feel safe.
Due process
You have to imagine that this happens more often than anyone really wants to admit, and not just in Queens:
When 22-year-old Aaron Narraph Fernando was selected as a grand jury foreman at the Queens Criminal Supreme Court in January, he was given a state court–issued handbook that detailed the work of the 23-member civilian voting body.
It instructed jurors that they would sit through witness testimony and review evidence by a prosecutor, and then “discuss with each other the evidence and the legal instructions” before voting on whether or not there is probable cause to indict each felony suspect.
Before it was presented with its first case, however, one court officer allegedly told Fernando’s grand jury behind closed doors that it should avoid “long debates” and should “not discuss the case” during deliberation, except to ask “clarifying questions.”
You might not make it through this one
Last Halloween, the L.A. restaurant Horses threw a party for its staff. After a while, some of the group piled into Ubers and headed to a bar, still in costume, for a nightcap. Will Aghajanian, the restaurant’s chef and co-founder, came along. And he was saying some unsettling things, according to one person who was there. Elizabeth Johnson, his wife and the restaurant’s other co-founder, had been coming into Horses less frequently, and the staff had gotten the impression that something was going on. Now, Aghajanian seemed to be revealing details to one of his employees who had worked with him on and off at a series of restaurants. “Liz thinks I killed the cat,” he said. “And so what if I did?” Gossip about Aghajanian’s comments spread slowly among the tight-knit staff. A few days later, “I was asked like, ‘Hey, do you know about this cat thing?’” says Krizia Villaflor, a chef at Horses who’d worked with the couple for more than six years at a series of restaurants. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, he spilled the beans on himself.’”
War of the fuzz
Furries versus conservatives, specifically:
FLORIDA GOV. AND GOP presidential nominee Ron DeSantis has successfully sucked the pleasure out of many of life’s little joys, from drag brunches to Disney adult TikTok. And thanks to the passage of SB 1438, or the Protection of Children Act, DeSantis may now be bringing the ax down on furries.
On Wednesday, the organizers behind Megaplex, an Orlando-based convention for furries — people who enjoy dressing up as or making art of anthropomorphized creatures — posted a statement on Twitter regarding its policy for admitting minors. The statement was in response to SB 1438, which makes “knowingly admitting a child to an adult live performance” a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by a year of prison and/or a $1,000 fine.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/SydneyBattle/status/1661575672689758209
https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1661698627318734848
https://twitter.com/Bodegacats_/status/1661677213601677312
https://twitter.com/Phillip12798/status/1661925646510231554
https://twitter.com/twperritos/status/1661921951722487809
https://twitter.com/shouldhaveapet/status/1661887959346577409
https://twitter.com/twperritos/status/1661849022951305217
https://twitter.com/CAPYBARA_MAN/status/1661784701416222742
https://twitter.com/OregonZoo/status/1661754290741055490
https://twitter.com/weirdlilguys/status/1661746317985730560
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
How major brands were forced into the conservative plan to target LGBTQ people. Arizona teen who brought AR-15 to school had 'lightning link' device to make the gun fully automatic. Evictions are up in Detroit: What happens in court, to belongings after notice. With or Without You: The Oral History of the ‘Americans’ Finale. Winnie-the-Pooh book teaches Texas kids to ‘run, hide, fight’ in a shooting.