Plan B Forum

Econoline wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 7:19 am

Fireworks.jpg


Yes, it's 2:15 AM here, and yes they are still exploding every few minutes. At this point I'm sufficiently inebriated that I'm going to try sleeping anyway.

National Geographic has suggested that holiday fireworks are racist because the smoke pollution “disproportionately” hurts minorities — sparking a firestorm of criticism from readers.

The famed conservation institution tweeted out the assertion on the Fourth of July, based on a recent study assessing the impact of Independence Day fireworks on communities.

“Scientists found that vulnerable people and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to air pollution from firework celebrations,” the nonprofit wrote on Twitter above a photo of a lights display over North Hollywood, Calif.

The tweet included a link to an article the mag just published involving research using crowdsourcing data in California.

The state’s minority residents are at greater risk for health concerns related to fireworks smoke partly because the holiday displays usually take place in its urban areas and along the coast, where there are greater concentrations of such populations, experts told the publication.

https://nypost.com/2021/07/05/national- ... re-racist/

US streets were bathed in blood over Independence Day weekend with 142 killed in 379 separate shootings, with Chicago and Philadelphia among the locations worst-hit.

Chicago suffered the greatest bloodshed, with at least 92 shootings over the long weekend. That saw 16 killed and 76 injured.

National Guard soldier Chrys Carvajal, 19, is the only victim so-far named. He was shot while attending a house party after coming home to visit his family for the Independence Day celebrations.

'My brother. He was all of life. He had a bright future in front of him,' Carvajal's sister Jennifer Ramirez told ABC 7.

Ramirez told ABC 7 that her brother was gunned down in a drive-by shooting when he went outside to grab something. A motive is unclear.

Others who survived shootings in the Windy City included children as young as five and six, with others shot in the 12 to 30 age bracket, the Chicago Sun Times, reported.


Two cops were among the city's shooting victims. The unidentified officers were shot in the early hours of Monday while trying to disperse a crowd in the city's Washington Park.

They were rushed to hospital, and are expected to survive their injuries.

Philadelphia saw a total of 17 people shot over the weekend, with 21 injured, and seven killed.

Eleven people were shot, four died and another was stabbed during a six hour orgy of violence in Philadelphia during July 4 celebrations.

Six of those 11 shot were teenagers aged between 15 and 19.

The grim toll included a double murder where more than 100 shots rang out.

Shortly after 10:30pm on Sunday, more than 100 bullets ripped through a West Philadelphia barbeque, hitting 22-year-old Sincarr Johnson Jr. in the head, a 23-year-old man multiple times in the torso and a 16-year-old girl in the butt and leg.

Johnson Jr. and the 23-year-old, who hasn't been identified, died. The teenager is in stable condition, police said.

On Saturday, three people were fatally shot, including a six-year-old boy in the Northeast section of the city.