Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

No Justins, No Peace

Good lord, these people are nuts.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Readership Capture / Sunday in the park with pepper spray

Reader Interactions

73Comments

  2. 2.

    Deb T

    I saw this yesterday too and thought about posting it on my FB. The original image of the policeman spraying the kids is so disturbing in the calmness of it all. The policeman really looks like he’s doing no more than spraying bug killer on some aphids. It’s a great collage because it does make you smile at its cleverness, but it also makes a point about the nature of the attack.

  6. 6.

    JGabriel

    Damn, I’ve seen a lot of those pepper-spraying photoshops in the past couple days, but “Sunday In The Park With Pepper-Spray” is genius. Kudos to its creator.

    .

  7. 7.

    Schlemizel

    The original is often my desktop – I love Seurat – this one is going into rotation now too, just as a reminder.

    My fav of this meme though is the one with DeCaprio doing the spraying. Something about the empty-headed face makes it seem perfect.

  13. 13.

    JGabriel

    @Walker:

    Not completely unrelated, but have people seen yesterday’s amazing XKCD Money Chart?

    Chart is not navigable in Chrome. Can’t make heads nor tails of it, except that it characterizes money in steps of 3-order-of-magnitude increments.

    Is it easier to see in IE, Opera, Firefox, or Safari?

    .

  14. 14.

    slippy

    What a way to be immortalized. As one of the biggest dicks on the planet.

    I once again re-iterate that these cops’ mace cans and rubber bullets and tasers should simply be taken away. Letting them have a “non-lethal” way of brutalizing people seems to have made our police forces into thoughtless sadists. At least with a gun they have to file a report if they fire it, and face real consequences in a court of law. Maybe the bar just flat-out needs to be higher.

    Of course, if brutal sadists like John Pike were immediately fired and barred from ever working in such a capacity again, in other words, if these actions had ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES that were ACTUALLY DAMAGING to the people who cause them, this also might not be such a big problem.

    But it’s becoming painfully clear that our thug cops can’t police themselves, so we the people will have to do it for them.

  18. 18.

    Walker

    @JGabriel:

    I view in in Safari. You have to use the navigation elements to the left.

    The really (related and) awe inspiring section is in trillions. Look at how much the derivatives and financial markets are in comparison to all human productivity, ever.

  20. 20.

    jl

    @JGabriel: I don’t think it makes any difference what you view it in. The resolution isn’t high enough to read when you zoom in. Is there an original version in maybe a pdf (which would be huge I guess) where the text is scalable?

  21. 21.

    RossInDetroit

    The Buzzfeed page is so full of win.

    One thing authoritarians hate is to be laughed at. The assault on the protesters is a tragedy but it’s provided so much ammo for opposing their ridiculous tactics. John Pike and his red can abruptly became an important symbol.

  23. 23.

    scav

    Crome worked for me in @Walker‘s chart. If you can’t be bothered/don’t have time to explore it, do not miss the lower right hand corner of the green part (dollars). Easy to understand and digest. Anybody else notice it’s got Scrooge McDuck in it?

  26. 26.

    jl

    @JGabriel: Thanks. That’s the link to use to get a detailed view of the money chart.

    Edit: zoom and navigation works in firefox.

    Walker: thanks, I used another link at first that had a bitmap or something. Your link works fine.

  27. 27.

    JGabriel

    @jl:

    The resolution isn’t high enough to read when you zoom in.

    Not on the png file, but Walker’s link scaled (at least it did on my PC using Chrome).

    It just didn’t have tools or any way to move around it. You get a big fat close up on a section of the chart, and no way to move to a different section to see what’s it part of — you can zoom in (to a smaller piece in bigger text/graphics that still makes no sense), or zoom out, such that everything is too small to decipher.

    Kind of annoying.

    .

  28. 28.

    Martin

    Courtesy call to the blog hosts.

    You threw up a post about the University of California at 4am University of California time. Basically everyone who lives in California, let alone anyone who works for University of California, pretty much missed that boat entirely as we’re now 3 posts on and there’s no conversation to be had over there.

    Please consider putting your NYC focused posts early in the day and your west coast focused posts later in the day.

    Respectfully,
    The evening shift.

  29. 29.

    Walker

    @JGabriel:

    Drag with the mouse. It moves. Also, there is a minimap in the right corner when you zoom in.

    Yeah, so the UI is not the greatest, but it is navigable.

  30. 30.

    scav

    @JGabriel: Does you cursor change shape when you hove over the chart? Mine in crome changed to a hand shape and you just click and grab with it to move. I didn’t notice the zoom controls for a bit, small circles in the upper left and right corners of the screen. Have you got them?

  31. 31.

    Chris

    @slippy:

    Or maybe Internal Affairs just needs to start doing its job. From where I’m standing, it seems like the obvious thing, it’s what they were set up for in the first place. But every time something like this happens, IA seems to be nowhere to be heard from.

  32. 32.

    jl

    Getting back to the heavy manners, Fox/NYT/WaPo and VSP nexus on our current, and very very and amazingly mild, troubles, I have to laugh. Growing up in the 70s, in the backwash of the hippies, I heard the same crud from my grade school and Jr. High teachers.

    Anyone so retro they take it seriously?

    How old is the Fox viewership have to be to buy this nonsense? My estimate would be between 80 and 100.

    History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

    Well, its farce right now, who knows where it is headed if we cannot control our own oligarchs.

  36. 36.

    Martin

    The xkcd chart is impressive, but I have to challenge one part. The McDonalds cost:

    A) It’s almost impossible to find a spot in the United States where a McDs is more than 15 minutes away for any sizeable population group. Yes, there are geographic regions where that is true, but almost nobody lives there. By and large, we’re talking 5 minutes.

    B) Given that almost nobody goes to McDs for the high quality meal, it begs the question why everyone doesn’t order off the value meal. From a calorie/$ ratio, it’s pretty hard to beat. A double cheeseburger plus a chicken sandwich will set you back $2, and deliver 750 calories. That’s not bad from a purely trying-to-stay-alive standpoint, it’ll keep you near starvation threshold, though you’ll likely suffer from rectal leakage after a few weeks of that diet.

    But if you’re feeding a family of 4 on any kind of a budget, that $27 can either buy a hell of a lot better food at the grocery store, or a hell of a lot more food by swapping some food-for-food’s-sake items for some others.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    @scav:

    Does you cursor change shape when you hove over the chart? Mine in crome changed to a hand …

    My cursor did not change into a hand, that’s why I didn’t figure it out. Not sure why it didn’t. May be time to reinstall the OS and rebuild, haven’t done it in about two years.

    ETA: This, of course, is not going to happen until I finish Skyrim sometime in 2013.

    .

  43. 43.

    Mike Goetz

    I’m all for reveling in martyrdom, but is it possible we are taking too much pleasure in the pepper spray stuff? Is it really a “tragedy”?

  47. 47.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @jl: There are two versions of the picture, the one at the xkcd site, which is low resolution. If you click on that one, you get the larger image, which IE7 cannot handle. I’ll have to look at it when I get home.

  53. 53.

    RossInDetroit

    I want to see a pic of him spraying the face of a graffiti artist spray painting a protest slogan on a wall.
    Get on it, Banksy!

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    This idiot (note the military grade kevlar helmet he’s wearing…another sign of the militarization of the American police) is now marked for life by about 30 seconds of his life.

    Some may celebrate this, the way some Germans had no problem whatsoever in dealing with the “Jewish Question”.

    Others are appalled.

  57. 57.

    JGabriel

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This idiot (note the military grade kevlar helmet he’s wearing…another sign of the militarization of the American police) is now marked for life by about 30 seconds of his life.

    The guy unwittingly made himself a symbol of thoughtless sadism and state subservience in the interests of corporate oppression.

    A tiny part of me feels some pity for him, but then I remember all those college kids with pepper-spray in their eyes and face for the crime of sitting on a sidewalk, and his nonchalant strut while spraying them, as if he were spraying pesticide on weeds, and the pity subsides.

    .

  58. 58.

    scav

    @Villago Delenda Est: I’m also sure that there are pockets of the tuubz applauding him to the skies. Not everybody’s 15 minutes are equally pleasant in all venues. This may not destroy his entire career and life, people often do have very short memories. Iit may be that the cohort doing the hiring for his line of work support him and/or feel sorry for him (provided they remember) and give him a leg up (possibly not in a highly visible part of the force, depending). It’s just an unfair fact of life that you can blow everything in 15 seconds. Decide to use a firearm in a burglary. Forget to check the mirror before backing up in a crowded street. Brain freeze during a test or national debate. I will go so far as to assume he’s not a personally evil mustache-twirling man that eats small children for fun but his apparently indifferent use of force in a trivial situation doesn’t reflect well on him, his training or the outfit he works for.

  59. 59.

    Wordsmith

    @Villago Delenda Est: Although I understand why some might find the image(s) hilarious, I’m one who just doesn’t.

    What came across to me was the obvious disdain Lt. Pike had for these individuals, folks, kids…and his obvious delight while doing it. His very casualness while performing ‘sweeping’ the protestors with pepper spray illustrates his disdain. And you can believe he bragged about it back ‘at the station.’ There’s this mentality that has been brought up in throwing out phrases like ‘entitled rich kids/college kids’ or ‘brats w/o jobs’ – all the while not having a clue who they really are. It’s the same shit I got from my parents when I worked every fucking summer from the age of 13 until 17 to save money for college. It’s one that’s been relentless. I worked full-time (40 hrs/week) while attending college full-time (12 to 15 credits). I have to give props to those at UC Davis that afternoon, as well as the brilliantly expressed ‘walk of shame’ for Dr. Katehi. Me? I would’ve gone to jail for assault on a sadist pig dressed up in his police officer costume who looks like my dad.

  63. 63.

    cat

    @Martin:

    But if you’re feeding a family of 4 on any kind of a budget, that $27 can either buy a hell of a lot better food at the grocery store, or a hell of a lot more food by swapping some food-for-food’s-sake items for some others.

    Having been a member of the working poor in the past and been ‘food insecure’, I’d have rummaged through my couch for a $1 double cheese burger and fries and been a bit hungry then have beans and rice for the 4th day in a row.

    Its stupid, but nobody wants to feel so poor that they feel like they are the outside looking in.

  65. 65.

    mamyaga

    Amazon now has “reviews” of the same brand of pepper spray used at UC Davis, many of them takeoffs on Megyn Kelly’s idiocy.

  69. 69.

    burnspbesq

    @slippy:

    Of course, if brutal sadists like John Pike were immediately fired and barred from ever working in such a capacity again

    Ever heard of due process? You’d like it.

  72. 72.

    Thoughtcrime

    @burnspbesq:

    Ever heard of due process? You’d like it.

    Oh you mean like this?:

    Yeah, we’ve got justice in America. You walk into a courtroom and what do you see? Just us.
    Richard Pryor

  73. 73.

    Mike G

    @JGabriel:

    This idiot (note the military grade kevlar helmet he’s wearing…another sign of the militarization of the American police) is now marked for life by about 30 seconds of his life.

    Prisons are filled with people who did something stupid for 30 seconds of their life. Not to mention people killed by cops for a few seconds of their actions, so I don’t feel sorry for him at all. Cops are trained and authorized to use potentially deadly violence in proscribed ways so they need to watch their actions every second, they don’t get to just go Rambo when they’re pissed off.

    This dickhead has suffered some public shame, but given the mentality in his line of work I bet he won’t have trouble finding another cop/security job (with a lower public profile). Hell, he’ll probably get his own show on Fox News, there’s big corporatist money in hippie-punching. There will be a whitewash investigation, and I doubt he’ll ever see the inside of a jail cell that he deserves.

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