Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

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

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Human Stew

Human Stew

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A woman’s body was found in a hotel water tank yesterday after complaints were made about showers running black and low water pressure. Upon hearing this, Elon had a … reaction.

Also on #TWiBRadio, #TeamBlackness touched on Republican governors shifting their stance on healthcare and Bingo beef in New Hampshire.

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And this morning on #amTWiB, the morning crew discussed side-chick rules, L.Joy has her most grandma of grandma moments, and the team were joined by comedian Dean Obeidallah to discuss racial profiling . Check it out:

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(Cross-posted)

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    Jay C

    @ranchandsyrup:

    I saw this on the Evening News tonite, and the reporter couldn’t help but repeat that classic cliche: “police are unsure whether this is a crime, or just a bizarre accident“.

    An “ACCIDENT”?? WTF? The pool was closed, so she decided to go swimming in the roof tank??

  3. 3.

    raven

    Look at that mountain
    Look at those trees
    Look at that bum over there, man
    He’s down on his knees
    Look at these women
    There ain’t nothin’ like ’em nowhere

    Century Boulevard (We love it)
    Victory Boulevard (We love it)
    Santa Monica Boulevard (We love it)
    Sixth Street (We love it, we love it)

    I love L.A.
    I love L.A.

  5. 5.

    raven

    From 84 Charlie Mopic

    The team is stopped by a stream. Everyone is on guard while
    Pretty Boy fills their canteens.

    PRETTY BOY
    Always try for running water. Still
    water’s full of all sorts of ugly
    stuff. Drop in your halizon tablets
    and drive on.

    HAMMER
    Once we filled our canteens, then
    found five dink bodies further
    upstream, rotted all to hell, pieces
    floating around. By then we’d drunk
    half the water.

    DREWRY
    What’d you do?

    HAMMER
    Said, “fuck it”, and drove on. No
    big thing.

    EASY
    Called it soup.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne

    Yay Los Angeles! We can beat almost any other city for bizarre, gruesome deaths.
    /vomit

    I’m also wondering how the hell this happened. Drunken escapade gone wrong? Murderous attack? Was there really no one who noticed that she had vanished from the hotel?

  12. 12.

    Dave Martin

    I live around the corner from that hotel. They have a coffee shop on the first floor that I work from sometimes. I HAD COFFEE THERE LAST FRIDAY, just 5 days before they discovered her body and almost three weeks after she went missing. Needless to say, I’m concerned about what I may have actually drank.

  14. 14.

    General Stuck

    A woman’s body was found in a hotel water tank yesterday after complaints were made about showers running black and low water pressure.

    That’s gotta be bad for bidness.

  20. 20.

    Ecks

    @raven: Yep. If you were going to get sick it’d already have kicked in. Can’t help you with moral contamination issues, but you’re pretty much good on the health front.

  21. 21.

    Bokonon

    Benghazi! It is a conspiracy!!

    [Just a silly question – why is the LA Department of Health testing the water, while the hotel remains open, and hotel guests are being asked to sign waivers of the health risks? Why doesn’t the Department of Health, you know, SHUT THE PLACE DOWN until they are sure it is safe??]

  22. 22.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @raven:

    Drive on!

    With pride!

    (This was the actual salute greeting and response in my first real assignment in the Army…it was a great unit)

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Bokonon:

    That is indeed a silly question.

    I can’t figure out why the place hasn’t been shut down, either, until they know it’s safe.

  25. 25.

    Ted & Hellen

    @Baud:

    I don’t know what I’m going to do in 2017, after Obama leaves. I guess I’ll have to go back to blaming the gays.

    Or you could DIAF.

    Then again, why wait?

    Love you!

  30. 30.

    Dave Martin

    I did not get sick; the roof has four water tanks; and the water from which they make the coffee hopefully comes from a direct water line. But still, there’s that lingering question, was there possibly something else in my coffee?

    And that hotel has been home to two known serial killers. We are only a couple blocks from the border of Skid Row.

  31. 31.

    raven

    @Dave Martin:

    Well, I pawned my Smith Corona
    And I went to meet my man
    He hangs out down on Alvarado Street
    By the Pioneer chicken stand

    Carmelita hold me tighter
    I think I’m sinking down
    And I’m all strung out on heroin
    On the outskirts of town

  39. 39.

    Ecks

    Why would they shut down the hotel? The only suspected health hazard is the water, and people are being directed not to do anything but flush the toilet with it. Unless they find a special ejector in the elevator that fires you at speed into a water tank, there’s no reason to shut it down now any more than there would be if the water was messed up from pipe corrosion.

  40. 40.

    raven

    @Ecks: When the opened the new Psychology Building at the University of Illinois in the early 70’s there was a dead rat somewhere in the pipes and they just had to keep on truckin until the taste went away.

  41. 41.

    Ecks

    @raven: Biodegradable stuff is biodegradable I guess. We’ve spent most of history and even more of prehistory drinking worse I’m sure.

  44. 44.

    Dacia

    The part that grossed me out the most? The LA Times interviewed scientists about the hazardous effects of drinking human bouillon and it’s apparently fine, unless there’s fecal contamination.

    …

    I’ll just leave that right here.

  45. 45.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    When I read this I had to laugh because any time we stay at a hotel we go out and buy a couple of jugs of water to use for drinking, brushing our teeth and making coffee. I will never ingest any hotel water, no how no way, nor will my wife and kids.

    @Woodrowfan:

    I’m surprised that the LAPD didn’t beat it, shoot it and then plant a gun on it.

  46. 46.

    Anne Laurie

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    When I read this I had to laugh because any time we stay at a hotel we go out and buy a couple of jugs of water to use for drinking, brushing our teeth and making coffee.

    Heck, we do that for our dogs. They’re little, any change of water is liable to upset their digestive tracts, and there’s only so many elevator excursions I want to make.

  47. 47.

    cthulhu

    @Dave Martin: At least you acknowledge this is not Skid Row per se, unlike so many other people who’ve developed bizarre and largely unfounded opinions about this sad event.

    I had no interest in following this tragedy but it was kind of thrust upon me by my wife who semi-randomly got caught up in it. She made me watch the elevator video, etc., and showed me many of the idiotic comments on the LA Times website regarding the case. Obviously a lot of people interpret events through a lens of TV/movie exposure given the hypotheses people were proposing.

    Admittedly I do have some experience in such things, but the elevator video didn’t indicate fear to me but rather mental illness, perhaps drug-induced psychosis, but more likely a break of sorts. And with the location of the body, her behavior prior to arriving in LA, it seemed far more logical that it was “death by misadventure” as the British say, than foul play. But we have talk about serial killers, random stalkers, even ghosts (a serious explanation that some observer gave regarding why the elevator doors wouldn’t close!)

    Yes, sure, the Cecil itself remains ungentrified but it is only a matter of time (I estimate Skid Row itself is going to end up pushed to a different location within the next 10 years). Around the corner is the top cocktail bar in the US, for FSM-sakes! In 2012, there were a grand total of 5 murders in the downtown area bordered by the four freeways (which includes Skid Row), which is likely below average per capita compared to other areas of the city. I get that some people freak out when they see tents on the sidewalk, but these are not the people you generally have to worry about. I don’t live there like you do but I have no concerns hanging out in that area (or even closer to the river).

    I guess what really ticks me off is that the downtown renewal has been an amazing success story and having people pointing to a very random death as an indictment of the current area and its people is just patently unfair.

  49. 49.

    g

    @cthulhu: I’m familiar with the area, too, and because of that familiarity have been following the story. Why do you mention her behavior prior to her arrival in LA – I haven’t read anything about that. Where did you find info about that?

    I think it’s a sad, sad story and I wish the young woman and her family would not have to listen to gross-out comments and watch the CNN anchor act like a fourteen year old. I was expecting her any minute to put her fingers down her throat and pretend to barf.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @g:

    Unfortunately, that’s the common reaction when someone dies in a strange and/or unusually gross way. It may be some kind of psychic defense — sure, I’m going to die someday, but god forbid I die that way!

  51. 51.

    cthulhu

    @g: I am referring to her travels alone, female, using mass transit, from Canada to San Diego, LA, with a final destination of Santa Cruz. Certainly, in LA, she didn’t know anyone well enough to have a friend or family member to stay with. Maybe she knew someone in SD or Santa Cruz but there were no reports of that. That’s a behavior that indicates either high confidence or an unusual indifference or confusion about risk compared to “normal.” In itself, not confirmatory of mental illness, but when paired with other information could indicate an increasing detachment with reality. It is not uncommon for people having psychological issues to decide to travel to far away places.

    I read today that they’ve delayed the coroner’s report until they get the tox results back. That makes me think they want to know what meds she might have been taking or might have gone off of recently beyond the standard concern of recreational drug use.

    The stigma of mental illness tends to be higher in Chinese populations so she might have resisted treatment, or kept it secret from her parents, or her parents might have known but don’t want to make such facts public.

    (There are some also logical reasons why a murder scenario seems unlikely)

  52. 52.

    Elon James White

    @Dacia:

    The part that grossed me out the most? The LA Times interviewed scientists about the hazardous effects of drinking human bouillon and it’s apparently fine, unless there’s fecal contamination.
    …
    I’ll just leave that right here.

    WE CAN DRINK HUMAN STEW AND ITS OKAY?!?!?!!? I’m…I’m…I’m gonna go sit over here…

  54. 54.

    Paul in KY

    I wonder if they had a call like this:

    ‘I don’t know what you put in your tap water, but my dog just can’t get enough of it. I think it is sorta gross, but he loves it.’

  60. 60.

    Larkspur

    @g: @Mark: I’m with you guys: none of this is funny or cool.

    That said, I’m also with Mnemosyne:

    Unfortunately, that’s the common reaction when someone dies in a strange and/or unusually gross way. It may be some kind of psychic defense — sure, I’m going to die someday, but god forbid I die that way!

    That’s why nobody’s comments here on this BJ thread are offensive to me. It’s a blog that bubbles over with weird, sardonic, and often gross humor. It’s one of the reasons I can’t stay away; y’all are smart and funny.

    But network or cable news TV people? There’s no excuse for treating this like a fake Halloween story or an instant urban legend, or for grinning throughout most of the segment. Shit like this is happening more and more after freak accidents or unusually morbid events. I think it’s partly an effect of the 24 hour news cycle: gotta keep talking, gotta troll for new material, gotta make ’em stay tuned.

    It reminds me of this SF novel I read years ago (“The Unsleeping Eye” by D.G. Compton) about a thoroughly televised society in which “everything is of interest, but nothing matters”.

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