Opinion: Violence, real and fantastical, continues to captivate America

Today, June 20, is National Ice Cream Soda Day, American Eagle Day, and the first day of summer. But what the heck is a “national” day of anything, and who makes that determination? Marketplace ran a great piece on the Day-of-the-Day phenomenon last year.

Here’s our Monday round-up. 

News

Nine days after the deadly attack in Orlando, Fla., the violence of the tragedy remains lodged in the hearts and minds of many Americans. The FBI released a transcript of the 911 call the shooter placed from Pulse nightclub; a spokesman said he spoke in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner." I went to a drag show in West Hollywood on Friday night and, before the performance began, a woman started weeping in the middle of the room. No one explained, and everybody understood.

Meanwhile, last night’s Game of Thrones featured arguably the most gruesome display of hyper-violence in the show’s long, bloody history. It seems no matter how fatigued we grow of real violence, we have no problem compartmentalizing when it comes to our entertainment.

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On the international front, today is World Refugee Day, and has been since the United Nations General Assembly named it in 2000. The Pew Research Center released a fascinating primer about refugees, making complex research understandable. For instance, nearly half of the unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Europe are coming from Afghanistan. Six in 10 Syrian refugees are now displaced from their homes.

And more people may be coming out of Venezuela, where terrible inflation has turned the country into a constantly devolving, post-apocalyptic hellscape, in which citizens have begun hunting pigeons and cats in order to survive.

On the other side of the planet, approximately 65,000 Japanese gathered to protest the American military presence on the island of Okinawa. The U.S. military has been stationed in Okinawa since the end of WWII; its military systems take up one-fifth of the main island. While the protesters’ complaints were varied, student leader Jinshiro Motoyama put their perspective simply: “We’ve been enduring cruel treatment for more than 70 years.”

And in the outer galaxies of Trumpland, Donald Trump fired his campaign manager at the apparent urging of his children. A new campaign manager has not yet been announced, though the candidate is unlikely to have a hard time finding one. “The beauty of me,” Trump once said, “is that I’m very rich.”

Jamie Shupe was the first person in the United States to be legally designated as “nonbinary,” thanks to the landmark ruling of an Oregon court. The desire to push for this change, Shupe said in an interview, started “really building in the early part of this year as all of the damn Republicans and the religious folks have been attacking the trans community.” 

Women can now get birth control via app, which may cut down on and both the time they need to spend at the gynecologist and the co-pay. One small step against the Woman Tax, one big step for busy ladies.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country is waking up to the troubles at the Oakland Police Department. In short: they’ve cycled through three police chiefs in just over a week and have now been placed under civilian oversight. What’s surfaced? A scandal involving more than 14 officers and a sexually exploited minor, racist texts, a suicide letter with leads, and more. Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a news conference on Friday that she was “here to run a police department, not a frat house.” But Schaaf has been mayor for 1 ½ years and was an Oakland city councilwoman for four years prior to that, which leads one to wonder what exactly she’d been running before this broke. The East Bay Express has terrific coverage of the maelstrom; follow them for continuous updates. Speaking of Oakland, I heard there was a basketball game there Sunday night.

Early Sunday morning, “Star Trek” actor Anton Yelchin, 27, was found pinned to death by his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee; it later emerged that the vehicle had been recalled for safety issues related to its gear shifts. Use this site to check if your vehicle has recalls on it.

Perspective

Why Transcending Race is a Lie: Greg Howard for New York Times Magazine

“I grew up in a different America from the one in which [O.J.] Simpson did, but one thing still unites our two worlds: The highest compliment America will pay black people today is to say they escaped their blackness, which is to say they escaped themselves. As long as Simpson’s shortcomings were kept to cheating in golf against wealthy, white businessmen, and his physical abuse of Brown-Simpson was kept behind closed doors, he could pretend that he wasn’t black — just O.J. But when he stood trial for murder, he did so as a black man. Racial transcendence is, above all, probationary.”

Ayesha Curry: Men love her until she shows she has her own opinions: Feminista Jones

Feminista Jones (@FeministaJones), one of my favorite voices on Twitter,  wrote insightfully about why some men turned on Ayesha Curry, the wife of NBA superstar Stephen Curry, after she tweeted that Thursday’s NBA Finals game had been rigged. 

I Used an Assault Rifle in the Army. I Don’t Think Civilians Should Own Them: Nate Bethea for New York Times Magazine

“If you want to shoot an AR so bad, please feel free to join the fight against ISIS in the military.”

Constance Wu Doesn’t Want to Be Your “It” Girl: E. Alex Jung for New York Magazine

“I'd rather lose all my stuff than lose myself, because I've done that before, and that feels way worse. I don't have the best family life. I'm not going to have a sob story and be like, my parents abandoned me, because they didn't. But they also are not that present. When I’m alone, I’m alone. I don't have anybody to call, and so I have to create meaning from myself. That's why I don't give a [...], because I can't lose anything. What I have I make myself.”

Humor

Adobe Flash updates, we need space. The problem is definitely you.

“Brexit” explained in Harry Potter GIFS.

And a bunch of writers put together a genius magazine-length parody of the New Yorker, the Neu Jorker. If the New Yorker was more like the Neu Jorker, I’d probably read my subscription instead of storing it under my fishbowl. 

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