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Activism ReportDana Rivers's Trial: Scrappy Citizen Journalists Step Up.
Am just about to send in the letter below to editors/ journalists of the CA (California) Today section of the New York Times about how citizen journalists are covering the important Dana Rivers's trial because mainstream legacy media is unable/ unwilling to do so.
Dear Editors/Journalists of CAtoday@nytimes.com,
Don't know if you're aware that a small-in-number, but scrappy group of citizen journalists are covering the murder trial and subsequent insanity hearing of Dana Rivers, a prominent trans woman and early trans activist who received national press coverage approx. 20 years ago for being fired as a school teacher after transitioning.
Six years ago, Rivers, a M-t-F trans-identifying male, brutally murdered Charlotte Reed and Patricia Wright, a lesbian couple, and Benny Diambu Wright, their adopted son from Africa, in Oakland, CA; and, finally, on November 15, 2022, after a full six years wait, was finally tried and convicted of 3 counts of 1st degree murder and felony arson.
The trial proceedings are not completely over, however, as Rivers's insanity hearing* starts today, and should continue for at least the rest of this week.
So, why the need for a small, but scrappy band of citizen journalists to cover this case? Because, other than initial coverage immediately after the brutal murders and arrest of Rivers six years ago, and two recent articles in legacy media (one in "People" magazine, the other in The San Jose Mercury News), the mainstream media has almost completely ignored this story.
Why? Most likely because the mainstream legacy media, so thoroughly captured by gender identity ideology, is fearful of breaking free of the "trans women ARE women"/ "trans women are the most victimized people in the U.S." narrative...of giving prominence to a story that suggests that the concerns and behaviors of trans women who assert they ARE lesbian (as Dana Rivers did) and lesbians, adult human females...women such as Reed and Wright, two of Rivers's three victims who were same sex attracted, don't always neatly align.
And, so five citizen journalists, including Kara Dansky, a former ACLU lawyer and author of "The Abolition of Sex",** committed to covering the case and subsequent trial when mainstream legacy was unwilling/ unable to do its job.
Four of the journalists local to the Oakland/ SF-Bay Area also committed to ensuring that one of them was present during the trial every day, taking notes, and reporting those notes back to Ms. Dansky. One of them even hired a professional courtroom artist to illustrate the proceedings. Those notes and the artist's drawings can be found either on Kara Dansky's substack account or her website, which are both linked to below.***
Will a major mainstream legacy media outlet FINALLY fully cover the brutal murders of Reed, Wright, and Diambu, the subsequent trial and insanity hearing of Dana Rivers, and the corresponding societal concerns they raise (Is the LGBTQ+ movement trully intersectional? Where will Rivers serve out the prison term, whether or not convicted of insanity? Will Rivers, a male-bodied individual convicted of two femicides, ultimately share a cell with vulnerable female prisoners because of female/trans self-identification?****).
Or, will it continue to be up to committed citizen journalists to cover third rail stories that call into question gender identity ideology and its claims of radical intersectionalism?
*In a strange twist, Rivers's insanity hearing, which will determine the possibility of innocence by reason of insanity, came AFTER convictions for 3-1st degree murder and felony murder charges
**https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-kara-dansky
***https://karadansky.substack.com/p/closing-arguments-and-verdicts-in
***https://www.karadansky.com/state-v-dana-rivers-updates
****A side note: Kara Dansky, Lierre Keith of the Women's Liberation Front, and other people supporting women’s sex-based rights are protesting this morning at 10am (starting right now as I send this) at the courthouse where the Rivers's trial proceedings occur. Their signs will say "Dana Rivers is a man" and "NO men in women’s prisons. Trans activists groups have indicated that this protest will be met with a counter protest. Too bad that, once again, the mainstream legacy media will not be on hand to report on this event.
I have oral allergy syndrome, so I assumed pineapples were no different.
Until I ended up at an amusement park with very limited access to water. I had eaten a cup of pineapple chunks assuming it was a smart choice to spend my very limited funds on.
That flesh-eating pineapple juice sat in my mouth for most of the day with no other food or water to wash it out. By the end of the day I had extreme "chemical burns" that took forever to heal.
One time my sister and I were tripping on mushrooms (so many years ago lol) and as we came down we devoured a whole pineapple. It was gloriously refreshing. My entire face looked like a chemical burn from my nose to my chin and dimple to dimple.
I'm glad I didn't have that information when I was tripping!
I can confirm from personal experience that applying pineapple to a corn or callus on your toe will work to remove it. 😆
I did know this! But only because an ex of mine ate enough pineapple to give herself mildish chemical burns. I did not know any of the other neat pineapple facts included in this thread, and my longstanding confusion about the predominance of pineapple in decor from the 1700s has now been resolved.
There's a workaround for this: cook the pineapple. It inactivates the bromelain.
Original link? Archives don’t work for a lot of people anymore.
The original link seems to be behind a paywall now... : https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2012/10/07/the-flesh-eating-pineapple/
HISTORY Firstly… some interesting pineapple history that I bet (most) of you didn’t know (unless you have read a pineapple history or listened to series one, episode two of the podcast ‘The museum of curiosity’ *). The pineapple was originally from Brazil (though there are different varieties from elsewhere). The pineapple was spread by natives around South America and eventually to the Caribbean and the Indies – which is where the famous Christopher Columbus discovered it in 1493 and brought it home to Europe.
The pineapple did not make it to England until the 1600s, and it became a HIT in the 1700s. Everything was made in pineapple shapes and painted with pineapples. It was THE status symbol! – If you had a pineapple under your arm in the 1700s… WELL, you were just the richest, coolest kid on the block. I am speaking literally though. People quite seriously took a pineapple to parties to show off, carrying it around for weeks until the pineapple started rot. You could even rent a pineapple for an evening. Pineapples were expensive too. They cost about 5000 pounds each (around $8000AUD) by today’s standards – OR the cost of a new coach. You can just picture an 18th century gentleman weighing it up: “new coach… or pineapple… hmm”.
Initially you had to grow them yourself, but this was a very difficult and expensive endeavour in an English climate. The pineapples would be grown in hot pits and boys would be payed to sit and sleep in them – just in case the pit caught on fire.
BROMELAIN When eating fresh and delicious pineapple… I have often wondered why it leaves my tongue feeling like I just took to it with sandpaper… Allergic? No.
This is a common phenomenon. You can find complaints in forums all over the internet of sore and even bleeding tongues, gums and lips after eating pineapple.
Pineapple is the only known source in nature of the enzyme Bromelain. Bromelain actually digest proteins… so when you eat pineapple. It’s essentially eating you back! But don’t worry, once you swallow the pineapple the acids in your stomach destroy the enzymes.
It is also often suggested that workers in pineapple fields have no fingerprints because the bromelain in the pineapple wears them away. I’m not certain that this is true, but theoretically it could occur over time. What I do know is that it’s used as a meat tenderiser, and that if you leave it on the meat too long it will just turn to mush.
Despite eating your mouth, bromelain has become recognised for its health benefits and is useful in medical treatments for a number of ailments and diseases. For starters it is part of an approved treatment for inflammation and swelling, particularly after surgery and it has been proposed for treating a number of other inflammation based disorders including osteoarthritis, autoimmune diseases and viral infections. It is also useful for removing damaged and infected tissues from burn wounds. More recent research has pointed at its potential use in cancer treatments. A few preclinical studies (that is; early research not yet tested in humans) have indicated that it has antitumor properties and, for instance has been found to stimulate death of breast and ovarian cancer cells. One study tested the effects of bromelain on breast cancer and found evidence that women who were given bromelain (just swallowed) started producing cells that targeted and killed breast cancer cells. However, more study in humans and on how to apply treatments will need to be conducted before bromelain can be applied to cancer treatments.
Moral of the story: Eat pineapple!
My question is however… why does the pineapple have bromelain? What is it’s purpose to a pineapple plant? Sadly I have not found the answer. If you know what/where it is please comment. Great medical reference: Chobotova, K; Vernallis, AB; Majid, FAA (2010). Bromelain’s activity and potential as an anti-cancer agent: Current evidence and perspectives. Cancer Letters. 290/2 P148-156
There are plenty of plants who have defenses against "predators" (plant-eaters) big and small. These defenses often hurt the offender to varying degrees, from light irritation, to bad digestion (starving the predator), to outright killing it.
Some defenses are physical (thorns, micro-thorns like calcium oxalate crystals, sharp silica edges like in some grasses etc), while some are chemical.
I haven't looked into bromelain specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were a defensive/anti-herbivore thing.
Off topic, but...I remember back in the 80s that kids would give themselves dreadlocks with jello and fresh pineapple juice. I thought they braided their hair, then soaked it in jello. After a while, they neutralized the jello by soaking their braids with pineapple juice. It was like using extreme perm solution. The hair got super damaged and practically melted together. Plus it was hard to wash out (one poor kid was rumoured to have a fruit fly infestation) Now, after reading this, I wonder if I got it backwards.
Backwards? What do you mean?
Just that maybe they used the pineapple juice first, then the jello. But that doesn't make sense, because pineapple seems to neutralize jello. Someone flunked grade 11 chemistry.
I knew there was something off about pineapple. It isn't right for a fruit to be stringy.
Also, putting fresh pineapple in Jell-o prevents it from setting. Source: I grew up in the Midwest.
Gelatin comes from animals (horses I think, sorry), so it makes sense the bromelian could break down the gelatin. Fascinating.
Pork, actually.
Source: have had to spend hours searching the great lakes area for kosher marshmallows
And beef. Kosher gelatin is a thing.
Unfortunately, we found that around here at least kosher marshmallows were made with fish- it was a bit weird. The beef version was marketed as halal, but I won't complain! They actually also make vegan marshmallows now and our best s'mores experiments or made with dandy's.
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Actually found that the smartest things to do was to get halal marshmallows which are made with a type of beef tallow. We tried the so-called kosher for Passover marshmallows and they were made with some kind of weird fish gelatin and frankly tasted a little funny although I'm not sure my nieces noticed lol
The entire quest over several years has been based on nothing more than the desire for us to make s'mores!
I'm sorry to beat a dead horse (no pun intended), but I just spotted Halal marshmallows at the store today, and bought some. They tasted a little weird, less sweet, but I'm used to Puff-Jet or whatever they are.
I've heard some people say they can taste a difference, especially with the the "kosher for Passover" ones made with fish gelatin. So far no complaints on the halal version from the kids in my family, other than they didn't think they were "soft enough" before toasting.
I know when we have made them homemade in the past, we've used a vegan recipe and they were less sweet and had more of a vanilla overtone but were verrry dense.
Jet puft has some kinda secret. You're never going to convince me that pork gelatin is somehow fluffier than beef gelatin!
Personally, I won't eat animal gelatin at all. I haven't eaten a non vegan marshmallow since I was a kid 😂
Now I want to buy Jet Puft to compare. OMG (Oh Marshmallow Goddess) how did we get here on Ovarit 😂
Doesn't matter how we got here. You and I both clearly need to talk about something frivolous and entertaining.. go with it!
Make your own! I haven’t made this, but I have used that specific kosher beef gelatin and did not find it funky.
Also wanted to add, Great lakes are the best lakes :-)
Absolutely! 😊
Gelatin is a protein that all animals make so no, you don't have to get it from horses. In the United States it comes from pork and beef primarily.
(FYI you don't make gelatin from hooves, either. That's keratin protein. Gelatin is from soft tissue, like cartilage.)
So it isn't so! I always thought hooves supplied the liquids or goo that came from horses. Yuck.
I think the lesson from this is that we should all respect pineapple plants and their fruit as equals.
Also, I thought there were vegan gelatins now?
There may very well be vegan versions. I'm not vegan so haven't gone out of my way to find them.
There are vegan substitutes, like pectin and konyaku powder. But non gelatin marshmallows are hard to come buy unfortunately :/