Last month a snorkeler disentangled a sperm whale from a bunch of human garbage in the ocean. Here is a video of the encounter, which seems to originate with the Instagram account globetrottingbaes. (This is a LinkMe FPP via mygothlaundry. )

Lorien, one half of globetrottingbaes, left the following comment on their Instagram post:

It's taken a couple of days to process this After a couple of big storms this past week there was a layer of plant debris and trash at the surface of the usually pristine waters here. Another boat of people had already jumped in the water to observe and photograph this majestic lady, so that when we slid in there were a few people in front of us. To be clear, there is no way the people not directly by this whale's head, like those toward the back, could see that her mouth and throat were full of organic debris and trash, but there were people in front of us who could and just proceeded to take videos. Yes, we also took videos, but we were shook. After only seconds of observing her I thought that's enough. I felt sick. I swam in front of the few people near her head. I was honestly nervous, I'd never been this close to a Sperm whale and had certainly never considered putting my hands in ones mouth. I braced myself against her and started to remove the debris. I did not know Robby had hung back and was filming. The part shown here in the video was the "easy part" as I didn't really have to put my hand super close to her teeth where she could close her jaw on my hand. Though I didn't need to be, I was still nervous, but she was super relaxed seeming and allowed me to remove the first big pieces. After this I surfaced for a breath, then immediately went back down to get the rest of the trash that was further down in her throat. Again I was a bit nervous, but she barely moved and let me reach in to remove the last of the trash. Once all was removed she seemed relaxed and hung around for a bit. As she started swimming, slowly enough for Robby and I to snorkel alongside, she rolled around multiple times, checking us both out and was quite chatty. Once she stopped we just stared at each other for a while before we all went our own ways. These moments were very special, but also heartbreaking. Caption continued in comments Update: we saw this individual yesterday and she is happy doing all the whale things, diving deep to hunt, socializing with her pod mates and just generally being whale-y awesome ☺️

I couldn't find much coverage of this from any website that wasn't just those crappy reposting clickbait websites. The Inertia, which appears to be a blog for surfing enthusiasts featuring occasional contributions from famous surfers, posted this article, and a site called Wide Open Spaces has this article which notes, "Although Lorien describes herself as helping a distressed whale, experts say you should not touch them. Costa Rica Dive & Surf, which organizes swimming adventures, explained on its website that swimming with whales and touching them can be dangerous. Besides putting yourself at risk by interacting with a wild animal, you could also spread germs to the giant mammal and even be the source of its distress." Like all their cetacean brethren, sperm whales are so amazing. Here is an hour-long doc called "Sperm Whales: Titans of the Deep," which I believe originated as a TV miniseries. (caveat, I haven't finished watching it.) Here is footage of a deep-sea sperm whale encounter from the EV Nautilus research vessel. And here's a reminder that these creatures sleep vertically!

"You Didn't See Nothin'" is a seven-part investigation of the 1997 racist assault on a Black child in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. (cw for racism and violence--most of the links in this post mention or describe the assault at the center of this podcast.) The podcast is the work of Yohance Lacour, who reported on the nearly fatal assault of Lenard Clark in 1997 for the South Street News, a South Side neighborhood paper. Returning to the story 25 years later, Lacour looks into the local figures who pushed a racial reconciliation narrative on the story and details the mob ties of the primary identified assailant.

Throughout the podcast, Lacour also reflects on his journey from a young aspiring artist and journalist, through a prison sentence for selling drugs, and into his current work. There is some heavy truth-telling on the expectation of forgiveness and reconciliation when Black people are wronged in US society. I learned quite a bit from this podcast even though I was already well familiar with the story. 'You didn't See Nothin'' podcast revisits a 1997 Chicago hate crime and its aftermath, NPR, May 2024 In 1997, a 13-year-old was beaten by white Bridgeport teens. A podcast challenges the racial narrative that followed, Chicago Tribune, June 2023 'You Didn't See Nothin' Podcast Takes A Closer Look At The Lenard Clark Case And Its Impact On A Fractured City, Block Club Chicago, March 2023 The podcast is over a year old, but has gotten a boost recently after it won a Pulitzer. As an aside, Lacour is also a leather artist whose work is featured in this Smithsonian article and on his website.

Reverend James Lawson, an architect of the US Civil Rights Movement, whom Dr. King called "the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world," has died. Lawson went to prison for refusing the draft during the Korean War, and upon release he went to study with Gandhi, only to be called home to the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement by Dr. King. He led lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville that led to his expulsion from Vanderbilt University, helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, mentored the Freedom Riders in nonviolence and strategy, and was a leader in the 1968 sanitation workers' strike in Memphis (he is credited with the famous "I AM A MAN" slogan) where Dr. King was assassinated. He befriended and ministered to Dr. King's assassin, James Earl Ray. In his later years Rev. Lawson was the pastor at Holman United Methodist in Los Angeles, and led weekly nonviolence clinics there long after his retirement. His project was the civil rights of all people, and he advocated until the end for the rights of all people regardless of race, for the rights of workers, for LGBTQ people, and for reproductive rights.

One story that comes up over and over again in interviews with Lawson is this one, in a version taken from the Washington Post article about his death: Rev. Lawson related to Halberstam an experience at age 10 that he said set him on the path to Gandhian pacifism. On an errand for his mother, he was crossing a street when a White child, roughly 5 years old and seated alone in a parked car, yelled a racial epithet at him. Rev. Lawson reached through the car window and slapped the child hard across the face. He then went home and proudly recounted the story to his mother. "What good did that do, Jimmy?" she asked, her back to him as she cooked. "We all love you, Jimmy, and God loves you, and we all believe in you and how good and intelligent you are. ... With all that love, what harm does that stupid insult do? It's nothing, Jimmy, it's empty. Just ignorant words from an ignorant child who is gone from your life the moment it was said." Some more links: His Wiki page. James Lawson, towering Civil Rights activist and pioneer in nonviolent protest, dies at 95, The Tenneseean, June 10, 2024 "When all kinds of people in the United States become human, the people who have been mistreating them as less than human then are fearful," Lawson said. "That's the issue of racism in the United States, sexism in the United States, violence in the United States." Nonviolence Is Power: A Conversation with Rev. James Lawson, The Beatitudes Center, 2022 In my own thinking, Christianity as the most powerful religion in the world must break with the use of that power which has created so much havoc, including the conquest of nations, and telling other people around the world that their culture, their religion, is wrong and they must be baptized. We have a lot of baptized people in the United States who are deeply enmeshed in the culture of sexism, racism, violence and what I call "plantation capitalism." As I read and reread the Gospels about Jesus, I know full well that Christianity has to undergo a basic revolutionary change. James Lawson: Reflections on Life, Nonviolence, Civil Rights, MLK, United Methodist Church website, 2017 "Our relationship and friendship is what brought [King] to Memphis in 1968 to the sanitation strike. I saw him twice on April the 4th, the day he was assassinated. What was left unsaid on that day, perhaps, might have been how much I appreciated his life and his leadership and to the extent to which I understood that to be indeed a carrying of the Cross that very few people recognized or understood." Organizing Principles: An Interview with Rev. James Lawson, Capital and Main, 2016 Asked whether our nation's growing ethnic and racial diversity brings him hope for a better world, Rev. Lawson said, "The U.S. could be a bridge nation for the people of the earth, a terribly important model, if we could eliminate poverty, illiteracy, childhood neglect, etc. The U.S. could be an illustration that human history has never had — [a truly diverse people thriving together]. If we can do it, others can too." An Interview with Rev. James Lawson, The Believer, 2013. I began working in Los Angeles with Local 11 – the Restaurant and Hotel Workers Union – with nonviolence workshops twenty-five years ago. First I wanted to help people develop the character and the courage to organize. The workers were heavily intimidated and harassed on the work scene so that they were not willing to talk about their work pain, their wages. We found a major barrier in their fears, frustrations, and complicated acquiescence. Some of that produced anger in them, some of it also produced abuse in the family. But what we decided to do was to work on one-on-one activities—and I called it evangelism. One-on-one. We taught going to the worker in his community, in his home, and not doing this once, but doing it systematically, maybe once a week, for as long as it took. The organizer was to be generous and kindly throughout, use no harsh language and approach the person with compassion and love. Do not concentrate on getting the person to join a union. Concentrate on helping the worker talk about his situation on the job, in the family, in the community. Get to the point where the worker is talking about his fear, his frustrations, his pain. What I had found in my ministry–and I did not really fully understand it at the time and I don't fully understand it now– but what that did was ignite a spark in the worker. Then, with the organizer, it meant beginning to connect with other workers and beginning to realize that organizing with them is the key to changing his scenery. That represents nonviolence: helping this harassed person re-find his basic humanity and talk about it. This approach came directly from my understanding of nonviolence and my experiences in the 50's and 60's.