#Arkansas State

[vintagepipemen]

Dan Stracner, a student at Arkansas State University, 1968.

[sportscarolinamonthly]

Triad All Stars - Where Are They Now - Arkansas State QB Jaylen Raynor - Tues July 23rd 2024

Former East Forsyth and current sophomore QB at Arkansas State Jaylen Raynor joins the show. Jaylen discusses his freshman year at Arkansas State, talks about why he is a different QB from high school, and reveals the road environment he is looking forward to this upcoming season.

[inatungulates]

Kansas white-tailed deer Odocoileus virginianus macrourus

Observed by hmcook, CC BY-NC

[reasonsforhope]

do you have any good queer news? I'm a queer person and hearing all the shit thats happening across the world is making me bummed out

I do! All of this is from LGBTQ Nation's excellent good news tag

^Article date: July 6, 2023

"Only two months after its formation, the “No SB 180” initiative had succeeded at making the city of Lawrence, Kansas a sanctuary city for LGBTQ+ people. Last week, in a unanimous vote, Lawrence became the first city in the state to declare itself as such.

Ordinance 9999 bans the city and all of its employees from collecting or releasing information on a person’s “biological sex, either male or female, at birth” and from helping with any investigation, detention, arrest, or surveillance “conducted by a jurisdiction with the authority to enforce Senate Bill 180, as enacted.”"

^Article date: July 28, 2023

"A federal judge has told a group of anti-trans parents to mind their own business after the group filed a lawsuit challenging an Ohio school district’s bathroom policy.

The attempts to meddle do not “pass legal muster,” he wrote in his ruling, saying that the group has no reason to sue.

“Not every contentious debate concerning matters of public importance presents a cognizable federal lawsuit,” Judge Michael Newman wrote, denying their petition to stop the Bethel Local School District’s policy that allows a single transgender middle school student to use the restroom that aligns with her gender identity."

^Article date: August 8, 2023

"The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the independent federal agency responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance, has released its first-ever “LGBTQI+-inclusive” policy since its founding in 1961.

The four-point policy is meant to serve as a blueprint for USAID staff and partners around the world to champion LGBTQ+ and intersex development and the human rights of all queer people through the agency’s work, said Jay Gilliam, USAID’s senior LGBTQI+ coordinator, in a video explaining the policy...

In simpler terms, the U.S. will try to improve diplomatic relationships with other countries by investing in locally-led LGBTQ+-inclusive programs that are shown to positively impact communities in need."

^Article date: August 3, 2023

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled in favor of three transgender students who were forbidden by their schools from using bathrooms matching their gender identities. The circuit court upheld a lower court’s preliminary injunction that said the schools have to let trans students use facilities associated with their genders...

The case involves three trans boys in Martinsville, Indiana and Terre Haute, Indiana, who need access to the boys’ room at their middle and high schools...

The court took into account the fact that Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal money, which is most of them. Citing the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton Co. that found that job discrimination against LGBTQ+ people necessarily takes sex into account and is therefore prohibited under Title VII, the appeals court ruled that the trans boys are likely to succeed in their case and that preventing them from using the correct bathroom while the case works its way through the court system could cause irreparable harm.

^Article date: August 2, 2023

^Article date: June 21, 2023

"A federal judge has ruled on the side of trans rights after a conservative group tried to overturn an Ohio school district’s anti-bullying policy.

The national conservative group Parents Defending Education (PDE) tried to get a preliminary injunction passed on the Olentangy Local School District’s prohibition on misgendering trans students. The policy includes students, teachers, and parents and it applies to out-of-school hours and social media as well."

^Article date: August 2, 2023

There's literally a bunch more I wanted to include, by the way! Tumblr just stopped being able to load them. Going back to add a few more in the reblogs now.

I know it feels like everything is against us right now. But I promise you: that is not true. The bigots and bastards may usually be the ones moving faster (in large part because they suck and don't care about democracy or due process at all),

But in the end, we are going to win. I promise.

[tsavivas]

Who care about been nauthy together with me kindly send a Dm 🏳️‍⚧️❤️💋👅

[ivys-garden]

American state flags sh!ttily redesigned by a European

Maryland:

Montana:

Washington:

Hawaii:

Arkansas:

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Greedflation, but for prisoners

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Apr 21) in TORINO, then Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Today in "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" news: The Appeal has published the first-ever survey of national prison commissary prices, revealing just how badly the prison profiteer system gouges American's all-time, world-record-beating prison population:

https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/

Like every aspect of the prison contracting system, prison commissaries – the stores where prisoners are able to buy food, sundries, toiletries and other items – are dominated by private equity funds that have bought out all the smaller players. Private equity deals always involve gigantic amounts of debt (typically, the first thing PE companies do after acquiring a company is to borrow heavily against it and then pay themselves a hefty dividend).

The need to service this debt drives PE companies to cut quality, squeeze suppliers, and raise prices. That's why PE loves to buy up the kinds of businesses you must spend your money at: dialysis clinics, long-term care facilities, funeral homes, and prison services.

Prisoners, after all, are a literal captive market. Unlike capitalist ventures, which involve the risk that a customer will take their business elsewhere, prison commissary providers have the most airtight of monopolies over prisoners' shopping.

Not that prisoners have a lot of money to spend. The 13th Amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of convicted criminals, and so even though many prisoners are subject to forced labor, they aren't necessarily paid for it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

Six states ban paying prisoners anything. North Carolina caps prisoners' pay at one dollar per day. Nationally, prisoners earn $0.52/hour, while producing $11b/year in goods and services:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

So there's a double cruelty to prison commissary price-gouging. Prisoners earn far less than any other kind of worker, and they pay vastly inflated prices for the necessities of life. There's also a triple cruelty: prisoners' families – deprived of an incarcerated breadwinner's earnings – are called upon to make up the difference for jacked up commissary prices out of their own strained finances.

So what does prison profiteering look like, in dollars and sense? Here's the first-of-its-kind database tracking the costs of food, hygiene items and religious items in 46 states:

https://theappeal.org/commissary-database/

Prisoners rely heavily on commissaries for food. Prisons serve spoiled, inedible food, and often there isn't enough to go around – prisoners who rely on the food provided by their institutions literally starve. This is worst in prisons where private equity funds have taken over the cafeteria, which is inevitable accompanied by swingeing cuts to food quality and portions:

https://theappeal.org/prison-food-virginia-fluvanna-correctional-center/

So you have one private equity fund starving prisoners, and another that's gouging them on food. Or sometimes it's the same company. Keefe Group, owned by HIG Capital, provides commissaries to prisons whose cafeterias are managed by other HIG Capital portfolio companies like Trinity Services Group. HIG also owns the prison health-care company Wellpath – so if they give you food poisoning, they get paid twice.

Wellpath delivers "grossly inadequate healthcare":

https://theappeal.org/massachusetts-prisons-wellpath-dentures-teeth/

And Trinity serves "meager portions of inedible food":

https://theappeal.org/clayton-county-jail-sheriff-election/

When prison commissaries gouge on food, no part of the inventory is spared, even the cheapest items. In Florida, a packet of ramen costs $1.06, 300% more inside the prison than it does at the Target down the street:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24444312-fl_doc_combined_commissary_lists#document/p6/a2444049

America's prisoners aren't just hungry, they're also hot. The climate emergency is sending temperatures in America's largely un-air-conditioned prisons soaring to dangerous levels. Commissaries capitalize on this, too: an 8" fan costs $40 in Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution. In Georgia, that fan goes for $32 (but prisoners are not paid for their labor in Georgia pens). And in scorching Texas, the commissary raised the price of water by 50% last summer:

https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-07-20/texas-charges-prisoners-50-more-for-water-for-as-heat-wave-continues

Toiletries are also sold at prices that would make an airport gift-shop blush. Need denture adhesive? That's $12.28 in an Idaho pen, triple the retail price. 15% of America's prisoners are over 55. The Keefe Group – sister company to the "grossly inadequate" healthcare company Wellpath – operates that commissary. In Oregon, the commissary charges a 200% markup on hearing-aid batteries. Vermont charges a 500% markup on reading glasses. Imagine spending decades in prison: toothless, blind, and deaf.

Then there's the religious items. Bibles and Christmas cards are surprisingly reasonable, but a Qaran will run you $26 in Vermont, where a Bible is a mere $4.55. Kufi caps – which cost $3 or less in the free world – go for $12 in Indiana prisons. A Virginia prisoner needs to work for 8 hours to earn enough to buy a commissary Ramadan card (you can buy a Christmas card after three hours' labor).

Prison price-gougers are finally facing a comeuppance. California's new BASIC Act caps prison commissary markups at 35% (California commissaries used to charge 63-200% markups):

https://theappeal.org/price-gouging-in-california-prisons-newsom-signature/

Last year, Nevada banned any markup on hygiene items:

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/10425/Overview

And prison tech monopolist Securus has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy, thanks to the activism of Worth Rises and its coalition partners:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/

When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Prisons show us how businesses would treat us if they could get away with it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in

[cupiidzbow]

i don’t really even have it in me to be miserable i want to live and im gonna live my life regardless and im just gonna fight and help people who are affected inside and outside this fuck ass country as much as possible . At this point it’s the least I can do .

[upstairsdownstairsandinbetween]

‘Hairy Staircase’ by Jessica Wohl, Hot Springs, Arkansas,

Photo: Courtesy of Jessica Wohl

[doueverwonder]

back to thinking about Gov making the regions intermingle, the Midwest and South was somehow the worst and best of all of them. What started off as Country Folk Shenanigans(TM) and a worrying amount of jello and/or cool whip based salads ended with a stand-off to see who was going to be impolite and leave first. They ended up having to send other states in to break it up.

[decaffeinatedcupcakebread]

Who likes papaya 🌸

[motelpearl]

[lonestarbattleship]

"WHICH WAR DOG WILL SURVIVE?

Both USS WYOMING (BB-32) (left) and USS ARKANSAS (BB-33) (right) must be scrapped under the terms of the London naval treaty. But one will escape the scrap heap as a training ship. They wait in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, while officers decide."

Date: May 14, 1930

source, source

[athleticperfection1]

Arkansas State Volleyball

[shutterandsentence]

"Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known."

--Jeremiah 3:33

Photo: Eureka Springs, Arkansas

[thosemotivationalquotes]

🚨Important! If you live in one of the following states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, & Texas. Tomorrow (10/7/2024) is the last day you can register to vote online/in general! 🚨

Arizona - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person.

Arkansas - this state doesn’t have an online option, BUT you can still register by mail or in person today

Florida - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person.

Georgia - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person.

Indiana - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person.

Kentucky - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person.

Mississippi - this state doesn’t have an online option, BUT you can still register by mail or in person today

Montana - this state doesn’t have an online option, BUT you can still register by mail or in person up until 11/5

Ohio - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person

Tennessee - today is your last chance to register! You can register online, or by mail or in person

Texas - this state doesn’t have an online option, BUT you can still register by mail or in person today

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER TO VOTE

I have a huge list of voting resources here.

Even if you don’t plan on voting, I would highly recommend registering anyways. You might change your mind, so please register anyways!