Month: June 2020

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The Bail Project

My Twitter bio lists “basic human rights on main” and to be extra clear
Black Lives Matter. Due to COVID-19 risks, I am not able to participate in protests so instead, I have created and supported other fundraisers for bail fund organizations and The Bail Project.

Between being taught A People’s History Of The United States in college and encountering examples of protests working in the entertainment I consume, I know protests lead to change. The WHO also agrees and has said “WHO fully supports equality and the global movement against racism. We reject discrimination of all kinds,”.

I was inspired to start taking more action after coming across this Twitter thread of article links. Below is the Facebook album of screen shots to talk about what I was (un)learning.

  • https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/no-drugs-no-crime-and-just-pennies-school-how-police-use-civil-asset-forfeiture
  • https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-the-data-say-about-police-shootings/
  • https://time.com/5628206/police-shooting-trial-knowlton-garner/
  • https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/police-militarization-fails-to-protect-officers-and-targets-black-communities-study-finds
  • https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817-the-end-of-policing

I have had the privilege of having 100% positive interactions with police. When working with community events like San Diego Night Market, FilAm Fest, Art Around Adams, and other events where we have transformed public spaces into event space I have worked with or have hired cops as security. In times when I have been pulled over or more, again my experience with peace officers has been 100% positive. If your experience has been the same as mine, we are in the minority, we are lucky, we are privileged. The number of friends taking tear gas and rubber bullets in peaceful protests in the past few days outnumbers the favorable encounters I have had with law enforcement. I’ve been living with this blindspot thinking that after each national incident that institutions have been working to make improvements when we needed systemic change. I’m posting this to hopefully remove anyone else’s blindspot on this matter. Here are a few articles that I’ve been sharing on Twitter. I have read and researched each article’s author. If you’re unfamiliar with the Pulitzer Center this article was done with St. Louis Public Radio. Here’s a well curated resource of links on how to support: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

Then came this thread of (at the time) 300+ counts of police brutality. This Tweet embed shows over 500+ in such a short time that protesting has started.

At the same time, police violence against reporters were on the rise.

I chose The Bail Project because because they have been on my radar for a few years and have a self service option on their website for help, making it easy to pass this information to friends onsite.

Categories
Projects

Strawberry Scented Burnout

The staff of SSB drawn in a hot tub with a sushi boat floating in the water
We were going to float a sushi boat in a hot tub and then COVID-19 happened.

Background

Strawberry scented burnout is a webzine and print comic magazine. The comics are situational comedy that sometimes features autobiographical elements. SSB’s articles are about each of the writer’s lives and their experiences/news about the communities they live in.

For example, the lead image on this post is inspired by my knowledge that large sushi boats (usually from catering orders) do in fact float. I am in the middle with a Metal Gear inspired look that is used for comedic effect.

On the next issue release, the theme will be about COVID-19 has affected all of us. One of the pieces is written about #BreadCon, a fictional anime convention that cosplayers dressed up for and posted on the internet.

Cosplayer with bread in her mouth, an anime trope about being late to school
One of our friends SpacePizzaCosplay participating in #BreadCon

The Project

Strawberry Scented Burnout is a WordPress based website that had a broken key feature, the ability to display all SSB related artworks in an organized format.

After receiving an elevated permission role from writer to admin the first order of business was to update the install and plugins. We decided to deactivate the Manga+Press Comic Manager plugin in favor of linking to the already existing comic pages.

Image of the all comics page organized in descending order
Comics are listed in descending order. Click the screen grab to view.

Using the media provided from previous comic posts the “Every Issue!” page displays either a comic cover (if available) or the first page of a comic linking back to the original post.

Image of the oneshots and artwork page
All miscellaneous related artwork can be viewed on this page.

Working with the site owner and founder, Francis Jay Bautista, we created and organized this page pulling from the site media library and social media works. The “One Shots and Artworks” page includes fan art, commission pieces, and mash up person and fictional character ideas that do not necessarily have their own blog post yet.

List of website pages that could not load URL over https
Using Really Simple SSL to scan for https issues

As a bonus to my friends at SSB, I installed the Really Simple SSL PRO plugin and secured the site connection. Updating posts going back to 2013 to fix broken links took several hours however, seeing the lock on the site next to the domain address in a web browser was highly satisfying.