My least favorite feature in a gym is the tv’s. Typically, each tv is playing something different but regardless where you go, they’re airing the same type of programming—news, sports, stocks and a common sitcom replay of Seinfeld or Friends or something. They all have subtitles working because the volumes are muted and the music is turned up. I can’t help it, the news one with the ticker that runs across the bottom of the screen, the one that alerts you to “breaking #news,” that one, it gets me every time—dang tv.

Extra! Extra!

:time out: _{I interrupt this article to tell you I didn’t plan on releasing this article today. Sunday’s have never seemed to be good days for me to post new material plus HF21 is right around the corner and, all things considered, today just didn’t seem like a good day to release anything. Then I saw this article posted today by a guy without a name and agreed to tag #creativecoin should I decide to post something.} :time in:

The ticker I kept seeing scroll across the bottom of the screen this morning with a bright red background and bold letters said Millionaire cleared over Grenfell Tower effigy bonfire WhatsApp video. Settled—I’m going to learn how to use effigy in a sentence. “Millionaire” attracts attention, I understand why they used that wOrd but effigy? I need to look that one up before I see what this bonfire video worthy of criminal charges and national media coverage is all about.

Effigy—an image or representation especially of a person or crude figure representing a hated person.

Alright, so... 🤔 a doll. An artificial thing. This guy must have burned a doll or something similar, filmed it with his phone, and then sent it to someone on WhatsApp—a video message. Nobody was injured and now I’m reading about “charges were dismissed” on the news ticker that won’t stop scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Am I reading about a thought crime? Did I read that correctly, someone had criminal charges filed against them for thinking? I haven’t heard of Grenfell Tower yet, the structure represented in the effigy, that one’s next.

Grenfell Tower—24 storey residential tower in London that caught fire in June, 2017, killing 72 people and injuring 70 others. This is how the tower stands today.

Alright, that changes things—a _little bit. That effigy is more like an effing effigy and the effing guy who made it is an effing idiot but the facts are still the same, correct? Nobody got hurt. Now that I’m a little more caught up with the backstory to this breaking news ticker, it’s time to read the article I linked earlier—be right back.

Article—Millionaire cleared over Grenfell Tower effigy bonfire WhatsApp video.

Woah! That’s a _little different. I don’t think effing idiot is effing adequate anymore—he even wrote Grenfell Tower on the thing?! He put a ninja on the fourth floor too, what a moron. I just wrote about the women who wear niqab’s here in England last month. In the effigy pictured above, it looks like there’s a ninja cutout, a white person cutout, a brown person cutout, and an unworn hooded jacket cutout. That’s it? Is it wrong to say that, is it wrong to say “that’s it?”

Paper cutouts. Some drunk people burned some cardboard paper cutouts and made front page news. Sure, it’s a tasteless idea but that’s all it is—a tasteless idea. Even the judges hearing the case were “appalled” by the “unsatisfactory” accusations and disclosure that never should’ve made it to trial. Paul Bussetti, a 47 year old effing idiot from London had charges against him dismissed that included two counts of sending or causing to be sent grossly offensive material and, get this, causing footage of a "menacing character" to be uploaded on YouTube. I didn’t realize either of those were criminal acts.

So, Paul Bussetti was, in fact, charged and recently dismissed of committing a thought crime. Look, I’m not defending the guy, in fact, I’ve been referring to him as an effing idiot since reading the story but when did thinking about something become criminal and what’s next? If there’s laws against doing stupid things then everyone reading this is a felon. What he did he’ll regret and, it’ll alter life as he knows it forever, like the guy who messed around with his buddies girl, those things never go away, they’re forever. He’s ‘that guy’ now but is it worthy of criminal charges and national news coverage? I don’t think so.

I read the article, I read the witness statements and, judging from what I read, it isn’t news and never should’ve made it to my phone. This is that social divide I was just telling you about, the one my voice is immune to. The divide here between the UK’s citizens is so customary and accepted, as is breathing, a childish act such as burning cardboard paper makes the headlines the same way a Kardashian makes headlines in the US—“news.” Fact—my autocorrect just typed “Kardashian” for me and I’m certain I’ve never typed that wOrd before, ever, although both times I typed it just now, autocorrect wanted to use an ‘S at the end.

When I was a little kid, yesterday or whatever day that was, I used to put model airplanes together so I could blow them up with firecrackers, little M-80’s or M-60’s, or just tie about six blackcats together. 🤔 Hm.. I’m having a tough time leaving that sentence alone now. I could either delete it and move on to something else or talk about it and it appears as though we’re going down the talk about it route. Firecrackers, little kid, yeah, blackcats are the little ones, tie about six of those together and they do about the same amount of damage as an M-80. I’d spend all of that time putting together the model with a steady increase of excitement building because I couldn’t wait to blow it up. As soon as I was finished with the model, all of the glue was dry and the final decal was placed—boom! Now that I’m telling you this, I realize I have no idea where I was getting the firecrackers from. 🤔 That would’ve been a convenient part of this #story to remember.

Anywho, the point I’ve been leading you up to is, I know a lot of those model airplanes had decals that were flags. I’m sure some of them were USA flags but I bet some of them weren’t. I didn’t pay any attention, I just put them together and blew them up. Is that the same thing? It can probably be argued they’re the same because fire is involved during both scenarios. If burning a cardboard box and blowing up a model airplane is in the same category because of the decals you hold under water for 15 seconds before applying pressure to the back of them against the desired plastic surface, I began evading criminal charges somewhere around kindergarten.

Burning a cardboard box made it to my phone today but apparently this rainforest fire in Brazil has been going on for years and I’m just now hearing about it. Media has found a way to unite the world in group conversation about the same subject, regardless of language barriers, collectively, and at the same time.

Having never been on Instagram, it’s interesting to see which of my friends are on it by the headlines they relay to me in a text message. I have a few people who share the same Instagram headlines with me about 5-10 minutes apart from each other like clockwork, I’ll get two or three messages from different people about the same thing and they don’t even know each other. That’s how I learned about the rainforest fire actually, by two people who have never met each other relaying what Instagram wants them to read—that’s just weird. Like saying humans are programmable or that they’re controlling what we talk about right after telling you about the new wOrd I learned today—effigy.