Is There a Curfew in Las Vegas, Nevada? (Who, When & Why)
Is There a Curfew in Las Vegas, Nevada? (Who, When & Why)
City of Las Vegas alters temporary curfew hours ...
Curfews and Age Limits in Las Vegas - TripSavvy
City of Las Vegas issues curfew to help stop spread of ...
Las Vegas restaurants react to extended curfew KRQE News 13
Police remind young people in Las Vegas about curfews ...
Las Vegas councilman demanding curfew, holding facility ...
Las Vegas implements curfew KRQE News 13
City of Las Vegas issues curfew effective Oct. 21 KOB 4
Breaking: Las Vegas curfew extended through Nov. 20 ...
does vegas have a curfew
does vegas have a curfew - win
[Mega Thread] Compilation of police brutality videos from the protests this weekend.
Github Repository - tracks incident reports sorted by location with source links and descriptions. Website - better display for the data on the repository with embedded videos. Gallery of other websites using the data Anonymous Report Form - Google form where you can submit data for the github contributors to review. If you would like to contribute The contribution guidelines for the repo have information about the ways in which you can help expand or improve this collection. It only takes about a minute to propose a correction or addition and does not require downloading any software or having any programming experience. Github has a text editor on the website you can use to modify the files, write a description of your changes and submit them for review. Request If you are considering giving me gold/platinum/silver, I ask that you instead donate to the ACLU. After a weekend of rioting and burning cities, I think it is very important that people be made aware of how the police are handling the peaceful protesters, as I have seen many people online saying that the police violence is justified due to rioting. As such, I have put together a collection of videos of police brutality, taken from twitter and other compilation threads I have seen scattered across Reddit. Thank you /Bad_Cop_No_Donut for allowing this post - some other subreddits were banning this material, leading me to create /2020PoliceBrutality for the specific purpose of compiling a repository for evidence of police brutality. Note If you are upset by this imagery, please do not advocate for violence against the police. Instead, encourage people to protect themselves with basic protective equipment like masks/helmets, and spread this information so the media gets a hold of it. Violence is not the answer, but neither is allowing the police to get away with these blatant abuses of power across the nation.
Alabama
Huntsville
Law enforcement shove woman and she is seemingly trampled | June 1stLink 1
Police intimidate person filming them by shooting at apartment building | May 30thLink 1 Police fire rubbepepper bullets at innocent protestors | May 31stLink 1 Police officer puts his knee on a protesters neck, is pulled off | May 31stLink 1 Police strike protestors with batons | June 1stLink 1Link 2
Oakland
Officer runs down protesters with police cruiser | Believed to be May 30thLink 1
Sacramento
Police shoot protester in the head | May 31stLink 1Link 2
San Jose
Police shoot a projectile at a protestor | May 31stLink 1Link 2
Police throw reporter into fire | May 31stLink 1Link 2Link 3 Police tear gas and shoot protestors | May 31stLink 1 Police fire pepper balls at car with pregnant woman | May 31stLink 1 Reporter shot with multiple pepper ballsLink 1 Police officer fires at protestor while driving away | May 31stLink 1 Police pepperspray people trying to record | May 29thLink 1
Florida
Fort Lauderdale
Police Shove a woman down to her knees | May 31stLink 1
Georgia
Atlanta
Officer shoves a woman with his bike | May 30thLink 1 Cops pull people out of their car, taze them | May 31stLink 1Link 2Link 3Link 4
Illinois
Chicago
Police harass and assault John Cusack | May 31stLink 1 Police pull men out of the car and throw them to the ground | May 31stLink 1
Indiana
Fort Wayne
Police tear gas peaceful protesters | May 30thLink 1 Protester hit in the face with a gas cannister | May 31stLink 1 Toddler teargassed by police | May 30thLink 1 Police pepper spray protesters attempting to record them | May 29thLink 1
Indianapolis
Police confiscate medical supplies from medical station | May 29thLink 1 Police beating, shoving, and shooting two women | June 1stLink 1
Kansas
Kansas City
Police arrest man, apparently for speaking | Jun 1stLink 1
Kentucky
Louisville
Police smashing water bottles | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police shoot rubber bullets at reporter | May 30thLink 1Link 2 Police shoot 7 protestors | May 30thLink 1 Louisville police swarm and beat a man screaming on the ground.Link 1 Young woman shot in the head by a rubber bullet | May 30thLink 1Link 2
Michigan
Detroit
Police shove and scream at men walking down the street | May 30thLink 1 Police pepperspray reporter holding up media badge | May 30thLink 1Link 2 Police shoot rubber bullets at reporters | May 30thLink 1 Officer charges through other officers to attack a protestor who is backing away | May 29thLink 1
Police fire tear gas at prone protesters | June 1stLink 1Link 2
Minnesota
Minneapolis
Police storm gas station, attacking reporters who show press badges | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police shoot at a woman on her porch | May 31stLink 1 Police drive by spraying | May 30thLink 1Link 2 CNN Reporter arrested | May 30thLink 1 Tom Aviles arrested | May 30thLink 1 LA-Times employee recounts getting shot | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Reporter shares his experience | May 31stLink 1 Police slashes tires | May 31stLink 1Link 2Link 3 Bruises from rubber bullets | May 31stLink 1 Police throw flashbangs at reporter | May 31stLink 1 Police blind a reporter with rubber bullet | May 31stLink 1 Police shoot Reuters reporters with rubber bullets | May 31stLink 1 Police shoot at, threaten to arrest reporter | May 31stLink 1
Missouri
Kansas City
Police tear gas a park | May 31stLink 1 Kansas City police attempt to arrest a man leading the protest then spray the crowd.Link 1 Police pull protester out of crowd to the ground, and teargas nearby protestors | June 1stLink 1
Nebraska
Omaha
Police Mace, shoot pepper bullets at protesters sitting on the ground | May 31stLink 1 Peaceful protestors arrested for breaking curfew | June 1Link 1
Nevada
Las Vegas
Police shove and drag man through the street | May 31stLink 1Link 2
Police pull off protesters mask to pepper spray him | May 31stLink 1 NYPD beat people with batons | May 30thLink 1 Cop shoves a guy into a metal fence | May 30thLink 1Link 2 Cop shoving a person to the ground towards metal trash bins | May 30thLink 1 NYPD rams protesters | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police assault protesters | May 31stLink 1 Police shove woman to the ground, inducing a seizure | May 29thLink 1Link 2Link 3 Police drive by man and hit him with car door | May 30thLink 1 State senator pepper sprayed | May 31stLink 1 Protesters with hands up assaulted by police | May 31stLink 1 Huffpost reporter is arrested by NYPD | May 30thLink 1Link 2 Member of the New York State Assembly pepper-sprayedLink 1
Ohio
Cincinnati
Police disperse peaceful protest with tear gas, flash bangs and pepper bullets | May 30thLink 1
Columbus
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty reportedly sprayed with "mace or pepper spray" | May 30thLink 1Link 2Link 3Link 4 Police pepper-spray a medic | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police mace an innocent woman | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police intimidating campus protesters by driving car towards them | May 31stLink 1 Police pepper spray two kneeling protesters | May 31stLink 1Link 2 Police push and pepper spray reporters from The Lantern newspaper | June 1stLink 1Link 2Link 3 Police pepper spray African-American photographer | May 31st.Link 1Link 2Link 3
Oregon
Portland
Police violently break up peaceful protestLink 1Link 2
Pennsylvania
Erie
Police officer maces woman and kicks her in the head | May 31stLink 1Link 2
Philadelphia
Police beat down man | May 31stLink 1 Police drag cooperating man from car and beat him with clubsLink 1 Philadelphia cops beat man and forcefully put his fingers on their baton. | May 31stLink 1 Philadelphia Police Trap Protesters on Highway, Then Tear Gas ThemLink 1Link 2 Police officer pepper-sprays three people on their kneesLink 1
South Carolina
Charleston
Police Individually Target Peaceful Protestor and Arrest Him | May 31stLink 1
Tennessee
Memphis
Police swarm a woman without provocation | May 31stLink 1
Texas
Austin
Police assault protesters | (believed to be) May 30thLink 1 Police shoot non-violent protestor in the headLink 1 Police use tear gas & rubber bullets on protesters | May 30th @ ~3pmLink 1Link 2Link 3 Police open fire on crowd with rubber bullets | May 30thLink 1 Police spray a man in the face while he stands still ~3 feet away from them.Link 1
Houston
Police trample protester with horse | May 29thLink 1 Officers shove a woman to the pavement | May 29thLink 1
Dallas
Police shoot unarmed woman in the face with a rubber bullet | May 30thLink 1Link 2 Police use flashbangs and tear gas on protestors | May 31stLink 1
San Antonio
Police shoot man filming them with what were allegedly rubber bullets | (believed to be) May 31stLink 1Link 2
Unknown Location
Compilation of incidents | May 31stLink 1 Police kick and beat a man with his hands up | May 30Link 1
Utah
Salt Lake City
Police shove an old man with a cane to the ground | May 31stLink 1 Police shoot man on the ground in the spine with a beanbag point-blank | May 30thLink 1
Virginia
Richmond
Officer sprays a man watching from his balcony | May 31stLink 1 Tear gas fired at peaceful protest | June 1stLink 1Link 2Link 3
Police beat unarmed man on the ground | May 31stLink 1 Police indiscriminately pepper spray peaceful protesters | May 31stLink 1 Police pepper spray young child | May 31stLink 1 Police initiate violence | June 1Link 1Link 2 Additional Seattle OPA Case NumbersLink 1
Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives. FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE: The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82
Dave’s been following wrestling for 17 years at this point, and sometimes it’s easy to think you’ve seen it all with that kind of experience. But after seeing All Japan Women live, he realized he’d seen nothing. The shows he saw during his trip to Japan had the best wrestling he’s ever seen, so much so that nothing before comes even close. The atmosphere and the action have Dave struggling to find words, and he’s just as dumbfounded by how good Chigusa Nagayo and Dump Matsumoto are at their jobs. 90% of AJW's audience is teenage girls, a demographic you don’t really see as a focal demographic over here, but to these girls the wrestlers are so over an American fan has to see it live to really get it. Dump’s the best heel in the world by a distance and as for Chigusa Nagayo: “the reaction she gets not only can’t be duplicated by any wrestler in this country (Hulk Hogan certainly comes the closest and at best his isn’t half as good) but you’d probably have to use Madonna or Bruce Springsteen at their peak for comparison. The crowd literally lives and dies with every move she makes.” At one show, the crowd were all crying, and then the main event of the 3-hour show was a fast-paced 50 minute match where every move was a high spot and the crowd never let up for the whole match.
Dave’s therefore changing his vote for Wrestler of the Year to Chigusa Nagayo. He’ll still vote for Hogan for best babyface, since Hogan has broader appeal and is a bigger draw, but Chigusa's sheer level of overness with AJW fans and her skill are huge. Strictly in terms of business and drawing power Hogan should win Wrestler of the Year, and should have won 1985-1986 as well (Ric Flair won those years in landslides). Dave personally figures ring-work for 60% of the equation, with impact at the box office to be 40%. Dave will not be putting Flair in his top three for Wrestler of the Year, even though his promos and ring-work merit it. Allowing his drawing power to be cut so hard and the destruction of his perception among the marks when he has the ability to call the shots about his presentation means he doesn’t deserve to be considered for Wrestler of the year at all this year (Riki Choshu winds up winning for 1987, breaking Ric Flair's 5 year streak).
A lot has changed during the week Dave was in Japan. Fritz Von Erich sold WCCW. Ken Mantell and a group with him have bought the company, and there are conflicting stories about the exact breakdown of the ownership (Dave keeps hearing either 30% or 51% of the stake is owned by Mantell), but Texas newspapers are reporting Fritz is out entirely and Mantell now signs the checks. Kevin and Kerry still own a lot of the company, so they’ll still get big pushes. Mantell still owns Wild West Wrestling, and the plan for now seems to be to run both promotions. That’s not going to be good for them in the long run, since they’re competing in the same area of Texas. Expect a merger when they figure that out. A lot of guys are returning to World Class now that Mantell’s in charge, like Missing Link, Bill Irwin, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts. Looks like Fritz finally wanted out of the business, because everything suggests he contacted Mantell. Mantell was the booker for World Class during their heyday in 1983-84, so there’s obviously the hope he can rescue things, but his time in UWF in 86-87 saw him repeat the World Class booking from in UWF and it didn’t work and killed business enough that Bill Watts had to sell to Crockett. If he tries to relive 1983 in 1988, it’s not going to work. If he can build new stars and remove the focus on the Von Erichs, there’s a chance of World Class becoming a major power again.
The February 1988 issue of Penthouse will do a story on the Von Erichs. Dave doesn’t know what’ll be in the story, but Fritz is apparently worried about it and how it will portray him.
Kazuharu Sonoda, who teamed with Great Kabuki in World Class and would sometimes play the Great Kabuki character when the real Great Kabuki was double booked, died in an airplane crash on November 29. He was 31 years old and had been in the business since just after he turned 18. The airplane had a fire in the cargo hold that caused it to break up in mid air and killed all 159 on board. Sonoda’s trip to South Africa was to be a working honeymoon as a gift from the Great Kabuki - Kabuki was sending him in his stead to do a tour under the Great Kabuki name and gimmick and enjoy a vacation at the same time. Raja Lion, the 7’2” supposed martial arts champion working for Baba, was also supposed to be on the same plane, but canceled at the last minute and avoided disaster himself.
No numbers yet for Starrcade and Survivor Series. Starrcade did sell out in Chicago and drew well on closed-circuit on the East coast, but the Crocketts seem disappointed by the final gate. Dave speculates slightly more than $1 million for the final gate. While he was in Japan, Dave heard Survivor Series did $4 million, which sounds reasonable but he can’t vouch for the accuracy of it. What Dave can say is that Survivor Series was definitely a financial success in addition to being good. In terms of impressions of the shows, Dave’s heard from hundreds about Starrcade and the reaction has been mixed. Many thought it was great. There was near universal dissatisfaction with the UWF Title match. And the TV title unification was largely unpopular, which Dave blames on the build up ruining the match. Dave has heard that the UWF Title match was different from what it was supposed to be, which restores a little of Dave’s faith in Dusty as a booker. The majority was disappointed, and about 20-25% of responses said the show was terrible. Dave falls in the disappointment camp. If it hadn’t been Starrcade, it would have been fine. But Crockett needed a great Starrcade, or at the very least to outperform WWF’s show in quality, and that did not happen.
Business is still not good coming out of Thanksgiving. Ted DiBiase and Hogan’s matches just aren’t drawing as much as they should. The Bunkhouse Stampedes have so far been disappointments at the gate, enough that Crockett needs to reevaluate their entire model or they’ll cease to be a major promotion entirely. The November 28 Saturday Night’s Main Event is the best life sign in these times: an 11.3 rating and a 30 share are what Dave has heard (not official), which would be the second highest rating the show has ever gotten and third highest rating for that time slot in tv history. TV ratings are the biggest indicator of public interest right now, so even if live crowds are down, this shows that WWF is still very interesting. They’re just not turning that into a rabid desire to be at the show. Crockett’s ratings are dropping, though, and they need to get fans watching tv again before they can worry about getting live attendance back up. In syndicated ratings, WWF gained viewers leading toward Survivor Series, while Crockett remains out of the top 15 and has a below 5.0 combined rating, putting them behind the AWA and Pro Wrestling This Week, which combined have a rating in the low 5s.
Dusty is throwing everything he can at the booking to break out of the fall, and that includes turning Lex Luger. Luger turned on December 2 at a Miami Beach Bunkhouse Stampede. The match came down to Luger, Arn, Tully, and J.J. Dillon. Dillon asked the others to let him win so he could go down in the record books as a stampede winner, and Arn and Tully eliminated themselves. Luger then threw Dillon over the top to win. Turning Lex is a good move, but Dave figures it’s the second best move they could have done and that’s the difference between Crockett and WWF - WWF generally goes with the best thing they can do, not the second best. Another year as a heel might have been good for Luger and helped him shore up his skillset, but Crockett is in desperation mode and needed to make a major move. And Luger has the potential to be a great face, and could make a lot of money for Crockett with Flair if they handle things right. But if nobody’s watching tv, it won’t matter how hot he gets as a face. Other major things happening to try and get things righted: Kevin Sullivan’s group with Rick Steiner, Mike Rotunda, and Steve Williams is one; another major turn is coming soon; lots of new angles that aren’t being spelled out yet. They’re going to change up their tv as well, but if the shows all remain basically duplicates that might keep ratings down and make them worse. And the plan is currently for every hour they tape to go to two different shows, with a different commentary team depending on which show. Nikita might do an interview with Gregory for the Florida show and then immediately do a simiar interview with JR for UWF. Dave thinks basically duplicating tv shows with only interviewer and announce team differences is going to tank ratings when fans figure it out. On the pus side, the shows have improved.
Paul Boesch has come out of retirement and is trying to rebuild the Houston market with Crockett.
New Japan and All Japan have concluded their tag tournaments. New Japan’s was in Osaka on December 7 in front of a crowd of 6,120 and shown live on tv. Fijunami & Kimura were tied for second with Masa Saito & Fujiwara and had to face them in a battle to determine who would face Inoki & Dick Murdoch in the final. The final was a bloody and excellent match, and Kimura bled a lot before he and Fujinami won. With Choshu and Maeda not involved, the tournament lacked interest.
The biggest story of the New Japan tournament happened on November 19 during a match between Choshu/Masa Saito/Hiro Saito vs. Maeda/Takada/Kido. Japanese Wrestling Journal reports that Maeda wouldn’t sell for Choshu at all and Maeda shot on Choshu. Choshu eventually figured out what was happening, and at one point Choshu had Kido in the Scorpion Deathlock when Maeda kicked him in the eye legit. Choshu went after Maeda, and the rest of the teams had to break it up. Eventually the match ended with Choshu pinning Takada with a lariat, and nobody knows why Maeda did it. The crowd was mostly UWF Japan fans, and they cheered Maeda on the whole time because they wanted to see a shoot. This took both out of the tournament, and the Journal reports it destroyed the tournament and left Choshu with two broken bones under the eye.
The match was taped, but it’s understood that it will never air on tv and has caused a major PR shitstorm for New Japan. How do you explain suspending someone for a kick to the face to the public when that happens in every match? You can’t do it without going into the distinction between shooting and working and toward no semblance of kayfabe at all. Maeda has only kept his job because New Japan decided to spin an angle out of it. He’ll be punished and knocked down a few pegs and do a lot of jobs to keep his job, no doubt there. Seiki Sakaguchi believes Maeda’s style is hard for fans to understand and may be why ratings are so low, so they’ll be phasing down on Maeda’s shoot style. Dave believes Choshu and Saito was supoosed to be the winning team.
All Japan’s tournament final took place on December 11 before a crowd of 13,200. Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu beat Brody and Snuka in the final, with Yatsu pinning Snuka after pulling a midair reversal of a dragon suplex.
Dusty Rhodes is “thinking” about retiring. For a long time, it’s been said Dusty was going to retire after Starrcade 1988, so this may be legit. Then again, Dusty saw how over Terry Funk got when he announced his retirement, and Dusty never misses a trick.
The winners of all the Bunkhouse Stampedes will participate in the big one on Januay 24 on ppv. Dave wishes them good luck on their first national ppv attempt, because they need it.
JCP ends too many tv shows with main events in progress. Dave’s not opposed to the idea in theory, since leaving your audience wanting is proven to work. But with where they are, they need to satiate their fans’ want for a little while.
Steve Williams hasn’t made his heel turn yet, but expect it before year’s end. Williams does introduce some problems, like contacting New Japan to add four weeks per year to his schedule, which now is up to 16 weeks. He’s been threatening to quit the NWA on and off for the past year but never goes through with it. So until something concrete happens, Dave’s not going to take it too serious. 16 weeks in Japan at the rate Williams gets paid is about $92,000, which isn’t bad for someone with 36 weeks of leisure time outside that.
JCP is full of injuries now. Rick Steiner has a separated shoulder. Barry Windham’s collarbone is broken, and Ricky Morton’s got a bum back.
The UWF Tag Belts have been forgotten. No idea what the status of the Sheepherders is, but they aren’t the champions anymore and the belts (along with the Florida tag belts) will simply no longer be referenced. Steve Keirn also quit the promotion, apparently to go to either Memphis or Global.
[Stampede] Jason the Terrible turned face and things are heating up and they’re selling out more often than not right now. Jason beat Zodiak in a mask match and unmasked Orton, who then left the territory. The Badnews Allen attacked Jason and sprayed paint through his mask into his eyes, before unmasking him.
Stampede are kayfabing Hiroshi Hase’s return to Japan as forced retirement due to injuries inflicted by Jason.
The Iran-Iraq war isn’t enough to stop pro wrestling in the Middle East. Foreign wrestlers are being kept out right now, though.
Curt Hennig had to be hospitalized after AWA’s show on November 28. He was wrestling Wahoo McDaniel in an Indian Strap Match for the title when Adrian Adonis interfered and used a knife to cut the strap, but wound up cutting Curt’s finger. Somehow this wound up with Curt getting disqualified over the interference (I guess since Adonis was attempting to act on his behalf), and it was thought for a bit that he might lose some of the finger.
AWA was supposed to do the tournament for their women’s title on November 28, but have delayed it. Instead, Madusa pinned Bambi in a shitty match and the tournament final is scheduled for December 27 in Vegas. Madusa vs. Candi Divine.
Verne Gagne and Larry Hennig will not be wrestling on the Christmas show for AWA. It’ll be Greg vs. Curt with Verne handcuffed to Larry at ringside.
WCCW’s Christmas card is shaping up. Al Perez vs. Kerry Von Erich for the world title will headline. No second guesses who wins there. The Six-man tag titles will return as well.
The big question for WCCW is how they handle the return of Lance. He’s under contract with David Manning to work independents and eventually Manning’s promotion if he can get it off the ground, but in the meantime he was working for Wild West. No idea what Manning’s relationship with the new WCCW will be like, so who knows what Lance will wind up at.
WCCW’s Thanksgiving show drew 6,000 at Reunion Arena in Dallas. It’s less than Dave had anticipated (ticket prices were way down - general admission was $5 for adults and $3 for kids). Kerry’s comeback match (he’d been back for several weeks, but don’t expect honesty from Von Erich promotion) was 57 seconds against Thing, then Brian Adias, and finally a non-title match against Perez. He won all three matches. Perez then lost another non-title Texas Death Match against Kevin.
Memphis unified all their singles titles in a tournament on December 7. They had Lawler (Southern Champion), Jeff Jarrett (Mid American Champion), and Manny Fernndez (International Champion) in, and the goal was to get rid of all the titles and declare a Continental Wrestling Association Champion. They’re still recognizing Curt Hennig as World champion, so this isn’t a world title. Lawler beat Jarrett then beat Fernandez by DQ to win the tournament.
The Rockers are the Southern tag champs in Memphis and have turned heel. Their reputation for being great workers is clashing with the reports of them in Memphis as basically doing almost nothing in Memphis. After seeing their work in Alabama, Dave thought they just had an ego and thought they were too good for the area. Folks in Memphis are blaming it on their wild partying. Fans weren’t going for them as faces anymore due to their cocky interviews and because they see the Rockers as ripoffs of the Fabulous Ones (a comparison Dave does not get in the slightest), so they needed to be turned.
World Organization Wrestling in Florida are talking about running shows in direct competition with Memphis wrestling. One of the guys they’ve got is a muscular guy managed by Don Fargo by the name of Bob Holly.
Former Kansas State footballer and wrestler Curtis Hughes (the future Mr. Hughes of WCW/WWF) has been refereeing in Alabama and is training to start wrestling.
Shunji Takano (Ninja in Oregon) was on trial in mid November for allegedly hitting a fan with his nunchucks in Eugene, Oregon back in July. He was found guilty and fined $250. His jail sentence was suspended and he has been instead sentenced to community service.
Dave doesn’t know what’s aired and what hasn’t, so here’s what he knows about the DiBiase/Hogan program. DiBiase offers Hogan “7 figures” for the World Title, and Hogan considers it and says he could help his family with the money, but he turns down the offer because he can’t let down the Hulkamaniacs. Then DiBiase makes an agreement with Heenan and Andre that if Andre wins the title, he’ll sell it to DiBiase and get the deal Hogan turned down. Dave thinks the idea of buying/selling the belt is stupid, but it’s less stupid with WWF since they don’t pretend to be a sport. This would be worse in NWA. Anyway, this should all be building toward Wrestlemania and Hogan’s scheduled to leave for a few months to film a movie after Wrestlemania, so rumors will fly that Andre will beat Hogan and sell out to DiBiase. It’d be the first time in WWF history the belt was around the waist of a great wrestler, at least.
WWF taped the Saturday Night’s Main Event for January 2 in front of 11,000 fans. The attendance has to be a disappointment considering the hype. Hogan beat Bundy again, which led to Andre attacking and stealing the belt before beating up several other faces and even no-selling Duggan’s 2x4. Strike Force beat the Bolsheviks in two straight falls to keep the tag titles, Jake Roberts beat Sika (who’s back because Killer Khan disappeared and they needed a foreign guy, and whatever got Sika fired was apparently not major enough to make them forget about him), and Greg Valentine beat Koko B. Ware.
A source at the last MSG show said the Jumping Bomb Angels got twice the reaction for their match as Savage did for his. Dave isn’t sure WWF will ever get a number 2 face over enough he can draw gates on his own. Aside from Rock/Austin falling in their lap and doing just that through sheer force of will, I think this is something they never did figure out.
That’s the length of a regular issue, but this is a double and Dave is going to tell us about his trip to Japan for the next ten pages. It’s a fascinating place. Nobody knows who Joe Montana is, but everyone knows Abdullah the Butcher. Wrestling is big business in Japan, and they tend to set the trends that come to the U.S. several years later. Toys, action figures, records, even Hulkamania were a big deal in Japan well before anyone in the U.S. envisioned it. Vince McMahon gets a lot of credit as a genius in marketing pro wrestling, but he toured Japan several times before 1984 and recreated what they had there. Hogan as an American hero is just the American version of Inoki, with just as big an ego. The albums, t-shirts, action figures, and the rest are all extensions of what Japan had from the 70s on. Vince’s failed attempts to push women’s wrestling came as a result of seeing that they could do big business in Japan. The only thing Vince hasn’t copied from Japan is the work ethic of the wrestlers.
While wrestlers in Japan are on tv commercials and talk shows all the time, that doesn’t make the industry stable. Dave’s first trip to Japan was in December 1984, and a lot has changed since then. All Japan was on top and clearly outclassed everything else, and while New Japan was suffering from its arrangement with WWF it still had a big audience on tv. The Crush Gals were the rock & wrestling idols of Japan for the teen set, and their posters were all over record stores and merch available everywhere. Dave didn’t go to an All Japan Women show in 1984 and regrets that deeply, but in every record or book store he went to, the Crush Gals’ popularity was inescapable.
Compared to UWF and Crockett in 1987, it’s hard to look at Japan as in a bad way, but this year’s trip was different. In Tokyo there were ten stores that catered specifically to wrestling fans back in 1984, compared to five now. Only three weekly magazines are left standing and one monthly, and the monthly is strictly joshi. The Chigusa Nagayo and Riki Choshu calendars are around, but gone are the Crush Gals, Tiger Mask, Stan Hansen, and Choshu records and the posters of the joshi. The most they found was a new 45 by Fujiwara. The lack of the joshi posters is probably due to idol culture in Japan, where they can take a teen, turn her into a rock star, and spit her out in two years. Nearly every teen idol name Dave remembers from his trip three years ago has disappeared from the stores and replaced with new 17-year-olds. The fact that Chigusa Nagayo has managed to increase in popularity and maintain a hold in the mainstream now that she’s 23 has to do with, in Dave’s mind, her improvement of her wrestling to become the best there is in the entire business.
If wrestling has declined over the past few years in Japan, that doesn't mean it’s not still the ultimate experience for a fan. The sheer volume of wrestling coverage is unfathomable to an American. The daily newspaper had a full page devoted to Starrcade and Survivor Series, while American newspapers ignored the results. The death of Kazuhau Sonoda was the lead story in several newspapers, and even though he was just a mid-card guy his death was covered more than American newspapers would cover the hypothetical of Hogan going down in a plane crash. Dave spends a lot of time going over the Japanese wrestling magazine landscape. He managed to work out a deal on getting a lot of magazines to bring back to America for people to be able to buy cheaper than by import subscription.
Dave talks at length about the presentation of wrestling and the fan demographics in Japan. It’s much more sports-like in presentation, and lack the surreal characters, skits, promos, etc. that attract audiences in the U.S. Ticket prices are higher in Japan with the cheap seats as low as $16 (the bigger shows cost $75 for ringside). So the audience is wealthier and more white collar than in the U.S. In the major cities, the fans are almost entirely boys and men between the ages of 15-30. The audience grows older in smaller towns, accounting for the continuing popularity of guys like Baba and Inoki.
He next explains the basics of men’s wrestling in Japan: what New Japan and All Japan are, who their big stars are, etc.. All Japan is more reliant on foreign stars and New Japan relies more heavily on feuds between Japanese wrestlers. He compares Inoki to Dusty, in that he’s popular and pushes himself high on the card, and hardcore fans don’t like him much but unlike Dusty he’s really considered a legend by everyon in Japan. That is one of four reasons people in Japan gave Dave for why New Japan has been suffering in the ratings. The other big reasons are that Japanese culture is still interested in seeing the Japanese prevail over the big, monstrous Americans and New Japan has almost none of those. There’s also a feeling that New Japan’s style is perhaps too esoteric and too heavy on submissions for the casual fan to catch on to. Lastly, they aren’t fans of people changing jobs and bouncing between promotions. Nobody minded when Choshu jumped to All Japan in 1984 because he said a lot of things about Inoki that fans took as true. Jumping back to Inoki purely because he wanted more money and thus breaching contract and making a whole legal thing of it has not been received well in Japan, though, and the jump is popularly felt to have almost killed wrestling in Japan.
The five New Japan shows Dave went to while in Japan made good money at the gate, but the big issue is tv. TV-Asahi has lost interest due to bad ratings and have turned down the request to host the Crockett Cup in April, and New Japan’s tv is in danger of being moved to midnight Mondays or off the air entirely. Landing an afternoon slot on the weekend would be the best goal.
The tv ratings issue is pushing Inoki to try some wild things, the most controversial of which is currently an angle involving a comedian named Mr. Takeshi. Takeshi was once the most famous comedian in the country and is analogous to a Don Rickles or Johnny Carson now, and he’s doing a Cyndi LaupeAndy Kaufman type of angle with Inoki, saying he’s putting together a group to beat Inoki, with a probable end point of a Tokyo Dome show in April. New Japan’s fanbase hate this angle. But New Japan needs to hope the fans stick around and they can get new eyes on the promotion and convert them to fans. It’s the same gamble Vince made with Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T, and it helped cement Hogan. Masa Saito is involved with Takeshi in the storyline and the first involvement of Takeshi will be at the December 27 show, with Takeshi being given the role of bringing over a massive guy named Leon White in as Saito’s partner against Fujinami and Kimura.
All Japan is more stable than New Japan right now. Choshu leaving certainly hurt them, but they’ve recovered and are doing steady business now that Tenryu is hitting his stride as a heel. Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher returning has been a big boon. Tv ratings arent spectacular, but they’re safe and doing better than New Japan (New Japan’s range from 6-9, All Japan sits in a consistent 11-12 range).
The last promotion Dave covers is All Japan Women, and he finds it hard to explain. The best explanation he can give is this description of an event on December 6 at Korauken Hall:
about 2,400 teenage girls log-jammed in an 1,800 seat building breaking every fire law known to mankind. It was the best live card I’ve seen in at least three years and the main event was by far the greatest match I’ve ever seen live. In fact I’d say without question it was better than any match ever held in the United States in the history of this business. It was a 12-girl tag team match with the most falls before curfew deciding the winner, and he rates it 5 stars. The match went 50 minutes of nothing but high spots and the crowd was screaming at about double the level of a Hulk Hogan posing routine for the entire time. When Chigusa Nagayo was squaring off against Lioness Asuka, the roar was louder than you’d here [sic] in the seventh game of an NBA championship series with 18 seconds left and the home team down by one. I’ve never experienced anything like the energy that comes out of the crowd, and the girls in the ring worked every bit as hard as the crowd. The girls are on TV on the Fuji network and while they consistently draw 7s plus on Saturday afternoons, the week we were there they drew an 11.3 rating. To give you an example of the popularity of this group in Japan--that rating for one show is higher than the rating of all McMahon’s syndicated shows in the United States put together. In fact, it’s roughly the same as the rating that McMahon’s best Saturday Night Main Event NBC special drew, so when I compare the importance of Chigusa with Hulk Hogan it is not an outlandish statement at all.
Despite putting on the best wrestling in the world, AJW’s audience is almost 100% teenage girls. They live and breathe Chigusa Nagayo. The fans who go to men’s cards don’t go to women’s cards in Japan, and the fans and reporters Dave met could not understand why he and his group were so interested in an AJW card. There’s a negative stigma about women’s wrestling in Japan among the fans, probably because the show is designed to appeal to a teen girl’s interests. But it wouldn’t surprise Dave if AJW was as profitable as any other major promotion. They have the ratings (Japanese promotions are paid by their networks, rather than the other way around like in the U.S.) and more importantly, they have major merch - about 15 minutes before the show mentioned above, only 150 people were seated. But then one of the guys Dave was with pointed him to the lobby, and about 1,500 girls were buying all of the merch. Videos, cassettes, posters, keychains, purses, wallets, Dump Matsumoto gym shorts, shopping bags, books, programs, streamers - you name it, they were buying it. Given ticket prices, Dave estimates the gate at about $75,000, and they probably more than doubled that with merch and concessions. There were also other Americans at the AJW show, which you don’t see as much at men’s cards. Based on American reactions to Dump Matsumoto, Dave believes if she were given quality opponents and allowed to work without restriction, she’d make women’s wrestling huge in the U.S. She and Chigusa have drawn several times gates of more than $200,000 (Crockett only did that twice this year - the WarGames matches in Atlanta and Miami, and Hogan did it about a dozen times this year).
The main attraction of the show was that it was Devil Masami’s retirement show. AJW has a mandatory retirement age of 26 (only Dump Matsumoto has been granted an exception by the promotion), and Masami turns 26 on January 7. Dave’s not clear on the reasons, but he figures it probably goes back to the idol culture thing - promote them young, wring out every drop of marketability, spit them out and bring the next fresh crop in. It keeps the stars relatable to the audience, Dave supposes. Some argue that they like their female stars young and cute, but Dave doesn’t see that as a major reason if there’s no men in the audience. Masami’s final match was a five minute exhibition with Chigusa, and the crowd went silent for it out of respect. Chigusa bumped for Masami for the most part, and in the final 45 seconds or so of the match, when Dave thought they’d turn on the intensity, both women broke down in tears together, and the crowd broke down with them. Masami is expected not to stay retired, but to leave Japan to continue her career.
Dave does note some positive things that come out of the age rule AJW has. For one thing, pro wrestling is part of pop culture, but pro wrestling promoters have a really bad understanding of pop culture. Some musical groups have long runs, but most groups that get hot don’t last long and the fizzle quick. The average run for any kind of teen heartthrob to last in pop culture is about two years. Hogan cannot simply sell out a building by showing up. The Rock & Roll Express and Road Warriors can’t draw big numbers by themselves anymore. By having the age rule, AJW forces the constant development and pushing of new talent to the top, which keeps things from getting stale. It keeps you from having a Dusty Rhodes who is still popular and somewhat legendary, but turns other people off. Dave isn’t in favor of the rule at all or any kind of mandatory retirement - he’d still love to watch Bockwinkel or Masa Saito five days a week, but it’s undeniable that the business has been hurt by guys staying long past their prime and using what political power they have to stay on top. It’s hurt by promotions who don’t build stars and only think about the upcoming card, never realizing you need to sometimes tear the whole business down and rebuild and freshen things up to keep alive in the long run.
Anyways, Dave runs down some of the key wrestlers in AJW and talks about them. You’ve got Lioness Asuka and Chigusa Nagayo, Dump Matsumoto, the Jumping Bomb Angels, Yukari Omori (nearing retirement age), Yumi Ogura and Kazue Nagahori (both very young and coming up as a top babyface team), Bull Nakano (19 years old and already a top tier worker), and Condor Saito.
Dave then gives complete results and ratings for every card he saw during his trip. I’ll stick to negative stars and 4+ star matches for matches of note. December 11 All Japan had Tenryu/Hara vs. Hansen/Gordy go to a double count out in the tag tournament. 4.5 stars. December 6 AJW had Dump Matsumoto vs. Yukari Omori go to a double count out. 4.5 stars of an absolutely bloody match that went all around the arena and included a fork (American fans started cheering Dump after she got out the fork, and she blew them kisses in response, though Dave makes a shitty joke about Americans cheering for a fork after having to use chopsticks). The 12-woman tag match mentioned above gets 5 stars and is the best thing Dave’s ever seen live. December 3 New Japan has Shiro Koshinaka & Kazuo Yamazaki & Keiichi Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Norio Honaga & Kensuke Sasaki in a six man match. 4.5 stars. They had another 6 man the next night where Yamazaki & Nobuhiko Takada & Yamada beat Hiro Saito & Honaga & Dynamite Chris. 4.5 stars. Antonio Inoki & Dick Murdoch vs. Masa Saito & Fujiwara went to a 30 minute draw on the same show. 4 stars. Lastly, New Japan saw Fujinami & Kimura beat Masa Saito & Fujiwara in the tournament semi-final on December 7. 4 stars.
Watch: Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Hara THURSDAY (last issue of 1987):1987 in review, Observer expanding to two columns of text per page, WWF riding high, projections for 1988, on the importance of PPV, and more.
A friend got me the base Fallout 4 game during the summer sale. I played every Fallout game years ago and sunk at least 200-300 hours into both Fallout 3 and New Vegas on console back in college. I never purchased 4 when it came out, kind of avoided it for the longest time but there's a big chance that a new quarantine starts again with a stricter curfew where I live so I'll have a lot of free time. Any advice for a returning player for Fallout 4? Should I play the vanilla game or use a mod that you guys would recommend? Any story paths you guys deem "optimal" ? Also does anyone know a guide for a proper quest order? I'm big on exploration but since I'm literally new to the experience I don't want to stumble into an area where I'm extremely under-leveled for lol
My (23F) parents are way too good to me and I don't deserve them.
I just wanted to share why I am so grateful to have my parents in my life. I wish I could show them my thanks and buy them something they've always wanted, for example I'd absolutely love to be able to buy my dad his dream car someday (Citroën Snoek). I'm not sure what my mom would want, but I'd love to send her on a holiday to something like New York or Las Vegas someday. I'd also love to buy my brother something like a massive gaming PC. Hopefully after my studies when I have a well paying job... Background informationI haven't always been the best daughter. My brother (21) and I are both autistic and we've honestly been a pain in the ass for my parents the first 18 years of our lives. When I hit puberty I had a lot of issues with boys. I stayed up late talking to people on my phone, I got depressed, I cut myself and I guilt tripped my mother with it when she tried to take away my phone. I was 14-15 at the time. When I was 16 (2014) I proposed the idea of me moving out to a facility that could help me be independent. This was a huge change in my life. I lived under a roof with other troubled teens / young adults where other people guided us through... Life basically. We had schedules, we had to cook ourselves, we had curfews, if you wanted to come home late that's a privilege you had to earn. Honestly, it did wonders for the relationship between me and my mother. I was bullied a lot in my hometown, so my days mostly consisted of school, gaming and fighting with my mom. Not living together allowed our relationship to heal. Now, 6 years later, I've gone from living in a house with other teens and mental health professionals to my own amazing apartment, with 2 cats, I'm going to university and I'm in my second year of my bachelor of Arts in Translation. I no longer receive help by counselors / mental health professionals. However, I haven't had a job in a while. Because of my autism it's extremely exhausting mentally to work in a store and have to communicate with other people. I also expect I have Schizoid Personality Disorder (which basically makes me a loner and makes me not want to communicate with anyone). Regardless, I've been looking for jobs recently, but unsuccessful because 1) because of COVID-19 everyone's looking for jobs and 2) I'm 23 and therefore way less likely to be hired than a 16-20 year old. When you study, in the Netherlands you can receive a loan to help with your studies which you have to pay back within 35 years. I currently receive the maximum loan, and it's only just enough to cover basic utilities. I receive €1307, and everything (groceries included) together, I pay about €1250. I'm also extremely forgetful, so sometimes I forget to pay bills or I have to spend money on something essential and am left with not enough to cover my bills. Things my parents have done for meThis is where my parents come in. My mother knows I don't have any savings so I rarely buy myself new clothes. Because of this, every 6 months or so she takes me clothes shopping. We go to Primark (one of my favourite stores because the clothes are nice and extremely cheap) and she lets me spend about €100 on whatever I need. A few weeks ago when I was financially troubled, I asked her if she had any leftovers in the freezer she wasn't going to use (this is usually half the freezer) and I used as an excuse that I rarely buy meat since it's expensive (I don't want her to know when I have financial issues). She asked me what kinds of meat I liked, and a few days later she brought me a huge bag with approximately 5kg of meat she had bought me. About 2 weeks ago she asked me if I still had enough of that meat left. I told her I had eaten about half, and when I visited her she gave me another full bag to take home with some other stuff she wasn't going to eat (like yogurts). Today I actually had to ask her for help, which I HAAAATE doing. I was late on my health insurance last month because I had something else that was more urgent. However, because it was the new month, another amount of money had been taken for health insurance, so I essentially paid double. Today, I only had €9 left for food for both myself and my cats until the 24th this month. I had to ask my mom for help and she asked me how much I needed. I said that €50 would be more than enough and that I could just eat cheap things like noodles, soups and large spring rolls. She said she'd send it right away and that she'd send more next week. I told her €50 was more than enough and that she didn't need to send any more. I apologized to her profusely for having to ask for help. She said it was totally fine and that she was glad I asked instead of continuing to struggle. One time she gave me a huge jar with change she had saved up over the last year for me (it came up to about €180). Last Christmas she gave my brother and I €1000 each because she had won €5000 at the casino. She's also paid my books for university this year which was about €160. When I told her I didn't want her to pay for my books, she asked me "well how are you gonna pay for them otherwise" and I told her I couldn't. So she insisted on paying the books for me. She's always been worried about me living on my own, in my own apartment and she makes sure I remember that I can always come live at home if I want to and that I'd always have a place to stay. I may have had many fights with my mom when I was a teenager, but I wouldn't know what I'd do without her.I might have inherited my financial struggles and irresponsibility (I used to be VERY irresponsible) from my dad. He's currently still trying to pay off debts and he has someone managing his money. Basically, he gets an amount of money weekly to pay for groceries and gas for that week. If he needs money for anything else, it has to go through the person who manages his money. He's a musician and films / edits videos so he does make money on the side occasionally. He prefers receiving this in cash because it doesn't go through the money person. He comes over to my place about every other week and we cook dinner together. Just a fun father-daughter thing (sometimes we invite my brother as well). He always pays whenever he can (I only had to pay once), and if I need anything and he can afford it, he will insist on paying for it despite me saying I'll pay for it myself (we're both insanely stubborn). When I moved into my apartment, he secretly saved money for me and bought me a washing machine. I'm so grateful that despite my dads struggles he's still willing to go above and beyond for me and support me whenever he can afford it.My brother and I have always been really close. Our sister is 7 years older than I am so we were never that close with her but still loved her dearly of course. Sadly, last year she passed away from cancer at 28 years old. My brother and I have mainly had each other for emotional support and we spent quite some time together. We've since then grown even closer. He sleeps over at my place every now and then, and when he goes clubbing in my city I let him and his friends sleep here. If they have any snacks leftover they'll leave them with me. My brother still lives at home with my mom (divorced parents) and comes over he'll usually bring something that my mom told him to give me. I'm just so lucky to be blessed with such amazing close relatives, and I just wanted to share my appreciation for them. I'm so blessed to have these amazing lovely people looking out for me and I hope that I will someday be able to repay them for their kindness. They never had to do any of these things but they chose to because they love me. Thank you for reading.
[Thank You] Feliz Super Lunes!! (Chilean stuff #4)
Super Monday. The Monday of Mondays. The most expected Monday of the year! The most powerful, the one that's hits the hardest and knock chileans back into the cruel reality of the rest of the year. It's the name of the Monday of March that marks the end of vacations and the start of EVERYTHING. School, college, Work, rush hours, traffic jams, "Legislative year", Congress, everything. And now we add also the riot and protest calendar! Wooohoo... this year is gonna be busy and super fun! Also March 8th is Sunday, so nope, we gotta add Monday 9th to that! All the world is gonna be dancing Las Tesis... be careful with the squats, accidents are pretty normal. So yay, these 2 months of vacations are over. My last long vacations of my life. Gotta adult now. I arrived to find so many happy mail! It's been really awesome! You can't imagine how thankful I am! A nice way to enjoy this new step of my life. Plus I'm finally temporarily leaving home and running away to the big island for as long as I can. I wonder how that is going to affect my English pronunciation, maaaaaate! I'll also spend a milestone bday there, can't believe it. I'm cursed to not be able to celebrate that day with friends, haha. Well, here is going to be the anniversary of the day "Chile woke" and I wasn't looking forward to having a national curfew again for that day, and I'm not into partying "de toque a toque" at this age (government's curfew translates to "toque de queda", so its a party from the start to the end of it). I also need to create a carding space for once and for all. This hobby found me unprepared for it, haha. The lack of "assigned" places to my stuff has made me lose everything. I've been trying to konmari my room these days and I'm finaly finding stuff I've been looking for months, outgoings hidden in notebooks and stationary items, lost stickers and postcards. Never be like me. Don't card in 5 different places and 2 different houses if you have ADHD and will probably start doing something random in the middle. If I owe you a card... it probably suffered that airheaded fate. I've been mailing them as soon as I find them, it's been embarrassing. I still can't find my carding pouch/bag thing though and that is stressing me out. First round of so much love! Look at those stamps! And those cancellation marks!! And washi! I love it!! And look at this cutie, lol. u/CapnCobbler (x4) Thank you so mucccchhh!! I didn’t even open it yet and just by looking at the return address I was singing Frank Sinatra…. And then I switched to Annie. Was so excited to open it! I really love the glass art, just woaah!! I love the detail! And I love stained glass (thtat’s the name?) and mosaics, I find them so fascinating. I’m pretty sure that if I ever visit the metropolitan museum and see this piece, I’ll remember this exchange and our convos. Ahh, I really wanna visit that city, and I will :D. What I love about living in my city is the amount of stuff you can do here, the many places and hidden corners, so much to explore! I sometimes like to walk absentmindedly and discover real treasures! I hope stuff get’s back to normal here soon, though I doubt it. I also love the postcards! The mural one is so nice, wow, is that really a mural? I love it! Is it still up there? So cool! May I ask you, are these postcards from the 90’s? I remember back in the day how postcards were use ad advertisments. I love it how it prompts on the back about the “e-mail” postcards… never heard of such a thing! Wow, I can’t believe how well kept they are! When you went to the art exibits, you would take postcards as a memento or because they were pretty? I love the old picture in black and white with the liberty statue in the back… so crazy not seeing it surrounded by tons of high buildings and boats everywhere. AHHHH I wanna visit there! Woaaahhh!! Such a pretty envelope! And cool paper! It felt funny imagining you wearing a wig listening to Mozart, haha. I actually imagined you in a long dress, in a nice old building in the city, listening to soothing music coming from an old…ermm…. Vinyl disc player, using a writing desk, and looking out the window in a fancy white building back in the days. I love the inside pattern! Too bad the seal didn’t survive. It’s the second time this happens. I think it was because it was cancelled by the sorting machine. Oh, and I just cooked normal food for the holidays, haha. Surprisingly, we don’t have “holiday food” down here, we just love taking advantage of the summer wonders and enjoy all the fresh fruits, sunny days, ice creams, bbqs and that stuff. Like, it’s more like summer food and whatever you feel like doing. But yeah, I imagine that there in winter you need to come up with stuff not to get bored, haha. Like valentine’s day. Here we don’t mind it very much, it hits just in the middle of the “cambio de quincena” that is, when a group of tourists end their 2 week period of vacations and return home and when others start theirs. How did the duck turned out? Did you prepared it a special way? I’ve only cooked duck twice and oh gosh, I didn’t expect it to be that greasy, haha. So yummy. Not too easy to find here as it is in Europe though. Thank you for the goodies and the floral notepads. Oh, and I found the aroma samples hilarious on the way they say “lift here to experience LOVe/Harmony”. My experience with love was fruity, and harmony feels fresh, haha. I don’t know if the effects wears off fast or I smelt too hard to have “an experience” hahahaha. u/cuddlykrogan Thank you so much for the thank you card! I wasn’t expecting it at all thank you! Those origamis are so cute! I love the faces you drew. I’ve always wanted to try origami but I keep forgetting the steps… like, I wanna do them by heart. But for some reason I can’t remember! I only know how to do a silly fortune game and the boat. Not even paper planes…. My memory is so bad! I really love all the cute little owls stickers! So cute! u/HoneyCide (x2) Oh my gosh such a cute polar bear with antlers card! I love it! So simple and cute! I love how you decorated the interior, and the cute Christmas plants drawings, so pretty! Do you use a white gel pen to do the highlights? I’ve never tried it, and now I wanna. My holidays were cozy and amazing. I spent them with my newborn nephew, so cute! He just turned 3 months! I can’t believe it already! Thank you so much for the Mingan Archipielago card. Wow! So interesting! I laughed with your description of the weather, haha. I also enjoy the snow, but that happens mainly in the mountains, rather than the city in winter. Here if it snows on the city, being it once or twice per year, it won’t last long at all. Usually melts within the same day, unless you live in higher zones. I love it that also after big snowfalls, it’s so sunny and warm and nice, perfect for going outside and climbing the hills! I love it and do it everytime I can with my dog. It has to be done early, the snow turns into a lumpy and annoying slushie, or “soup” as we call it here. Too bad last year barely rained. I hope it does this one, we’re on a mayor draught, and climate change is making the desert grow towards the south. u/Fem_Philosoph Thank you so much for the Noel card! And it’s nice to know you like my name. When I’ve been to Spain or even Disneworld, I got weird looks… except for the Spaniards, they don’t like it at all because the original one is masculine, the Spanish name for Ignatius… and they just nope at the female version. I love your imaginery of the fireball. Pew pew pew from my hands! If I ever threw fireballs from my hands I think I’d be scared at first, like wtf! This is not normal, so I’d be surprised. The I’d frown thinking I’ve become crazy. Once I’ve come in terms with the reality, I’d be composed, occasionally smile knowing about my secret. I’d then escape to the beach and go completely cray cray with my powers, like hell yeah!! I’d make a campfire the most epic way possible and try fire ball fishing. u/ursa__minor yyaaay! Your first card to Chile arrived! Such a cute llama design! I think the last time I saw them was in a trip to the south. We went to a restaurant in the middle of the road heading to Argentina and they had this bunch of llamas, guanacos and alpacas, so cute! And hairy! I got some funny pictures with them, with forced perspective. We wanted to have one lick a sugar cube or something behind and make it look as if we were French kissing or something haha. The results were… interesting. Do you like llamas? u/wabisabi_sf thank you soo much for the Johanna Basford illustration and the so amazingly pretty washi, oh my gosh! How you have so many pretty designs? I love them, and also like carrying it around with my postcards. I love the secret Garden coloring books, but to be honest, I realy suck at painting them! I wish I could get past the anxiety of ruining the pretty designs, haha. Or maybe I should just do whatever and deal with it, haha. Have you ever painted one of those books or similar? Thank you so much! I really love it! u/5-finger-death-punch I wanted to thank you sooo long ago for this, but it was in a thank you post that got erased before posting and I got sooo frustrated I ended up procrastinating. I’m forever thankful for the postcards we sent in our meetup. They are my favorites, and I love how one is before we got to hang out alone and one after it. I had saved that Klimt postcard since my first ever visit to Vienna, and I really, really loved it and now even more. Thank you so much for being such a caring and nice host! My sisters love telling how much we had fun at your tour to their friends, bfs and families, as a mayor highlight of that trip, specially the one that studies History, she’s soooo jealous of your mayor AND where you’re doing it, haha. Thank you, thank you so much! u/chengdawn Thank you so so much for your shaolin temple postcard from China! The first one that ever reached me! I love it so, so much! I absolutely adore the fan shaped stamps, so pretty! I love the special postmarks, so many kinds! I wonder what they mean. Thank you so so much. Did you get mine from Chile already? u/dirtytightsdelano Oh. My. Gosh. No way that cool castle is in your town!! That’s so awesome!! That castle is older than my country, hahaha. You can’t imagine how mindblowing it is for someone like me, it’s just so. Wow. And… wow. Just wow. I LOVE castles. I went to Carcassonne 2 years ago and I think I was ecstatic as a little kid in Disneyland, haha. They’re just soo cool and fascinating! I love them to the point that every time I go to the beach I build sandcastles. Yeah, I’m old for that, but I’m a wierdo. Lots of kids come in and want to help, but they tend to destroy everything… ugh… so I usually have 2 types, the huge ones open to everyone, and the dear ones that are mine and onlu mine, where only my sisters can help. I think the ony exception to my castle rule was when I went to Easter Island, haha. I build SAND MOAIS! It was the HIT of the beach! You wouldn’t believe it. Tourists came to take pictures, a horde of kids came to help, it was crazy. Did that 3 times, haha. I was stupid, I should’ve put a sign asking for moneeeey, it was such a hit. The last time we left the beach with 14 moais behind, all built with the help of many kids… though pretty much I built mine, they built theirs and I would help if they asked. So. Much. Fun. u/dinosauriotriste Muchas gracias por la postal! It is sooo cute! I love it! And also the stamp! Wow, 500 years since Hernán Cortés arrived to Mexico? So cool! I NEED to show this to my sister, she’d love it! Wow, you have a Chilean friend? That’s so cool! I have Spanish friends too, and I really, really love Spain. It is one of my favorite countries. I love when I have the chance to visit! Like on January! Our plane got delayed for a whole day so I could visit Madrid the Saturday of Reyes… So fun! I hope you get the chance to visit some day. Some places here are so pretty, I really, really love the south . Or the north, with the desert and star gazing with such amazing skies. u/Yeah-nerd Oh my gosh!!! I love this Ale Giorgini postcard!! It is just so awesome! And the pretty stamps. Oh my gosh it’s so pretty this rendition to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I just can’t love its design more, plus it’s so colorful! Thank you so much! They’re so mesmerizing. ! I also love the München cancellation stamp. I visited there 4 years ago. The people I met there were really nice, and it was HOT on summer. I remember getting a funny sunburn haha.. Is it grey and windy all the winter? Thank you so so much! u/sherryxo HOW on Earth you managed to send a postcard with a USA forever stamp? Wow, just wow! Is that possible? Teach your secrets to other RAoCers, haha. I love the Bambi postcard! That movie made me cry so much when little, and avoided it because I didn’t like seeing poor cute Bambi lost his mom, though I love all the first part, haha. Plus that scene on the ice was so funny! It made me laugh so much back then. What’s the name of the rabbit in English? Here it’s Tambor. Like a drum. The stickers are so cute! Thank you so much! u/eloriale Oh my gosh! My first Singaporean stamp! And one of the bicentennial, I just can’t LOVE it more! The design is sooo freakin cool, I love it tons. I wonder what it represents. Thank you SO much for the Christmas card. The washi you used and the puppy is sooo adorable! So cool to know is so huge there. How was it for you? Here is pretty stressful because everything ends in December. School, work, the year and many, many social events. The ones from the job, the family, the friends, the school, graduations, exams and tests, lots of marriages, all the gifts… ahhh, so crazy. No time for anything. I went to Europe and skipped all that social hysteria and it was sooo peaceful. No presents, just sharing. We usually have bbqs, eat lots of fruits (specially cherries! With CNY and all the exports to China, we get for really cheap all the cherries that look ugly shaped but are sooo ripe and juicy and omg) And get together with family and friends. I also love swimming in the pool and visiting the countryside for those days. The malls and stores also have American like decorations and I feel sorry for the people dressed as santas. Do you have a similar situation? Haha. Thank you so so much! u/amrache Oh my gosh I LOVE the retail boom maxicard. It was issued on the 90’s?? WOW! Do they get special stamps and maxicards for each city? This one is so cool. It makes me think of the retail boom we had here. Funny thing how all the stores started using “American” terminology and words… yeah, that’s when English words entered like crazy. I love reading old comic strips from different places of latin America, like Quino and Mafalda in Argentina and some Chilean artists on how all these anglicanisms started being used in the stores… and then everywhere. Funny how these postcards that are already cancelled are cancelled for a second time! Funny this “secure your dog” machine cancellation. Does it have to do with NY and their reaction to fireworks? Interesting! Ahhh, when I visit there (in in exactly 8 months ahh!) I wanna try getting my hands on some of these maxicards, so cool, I love them so much! Thank you! u/helloworld898 Yaay! Thank you so much! I love exchanging with you! Thank you so much for the Cornwall postcard. How do you pronounce Nadolig llawen? For a second I thought I was reading it in Mapudungun instead of Welsh, haha. Wait wait… Cornish have their own language? Or it’s just plain English? Haha, I have NO idea on how you say Merry xmas there. Oh, and oh my gosh I adore the stamps! So pretty and colorful.There is a thing as bog snorkeling? As in… bog is a swamp? Can you see something there? What is llanwrtyd wells? (oh mygosh so many consonants) I just love that one! Thank you so, so much! u/PostboxPigeon Thank you so much for the tiny xmas card! So cute! And little! I actually can imagine a pigeon carrying it! I never understood how real pigeons could deliver messages back then. Did they have a special format? Where there only specific people’s? Where there public pigeons? It is just mindblowing someone came up with such a cool post system. The stamps are so cute, thank you so much! u/emgaspar woaahhh!!! You wrote it in Spanish! It was such a pleasant surprise! Do you actually speak it? I wasn’t expecting that at all! This year looks promising! I’m traveling by the last trimester and I’m SO looking forward to it! Thank you so much! u/vogrich Oh. My. Gosh. I love the card with Isaac Asimov’s quote. You designed it? How you do them? I love the colors and how dreamy “thinking through my fingers” sound like. It is so true for me. It also help put the thoughts in order. Thank you so much for the RAoC sticker. I adore it. I wanna put it in a special place in my carding place I -caught- need to organize -caught-. Thank you so much for this year’s wishes! So far some goals are working out pretty great! I am traveling to Australia! So excited! I still need to do an English Test to get the visa, but already booked a flight, ahhh! Hope your 2020 turns out memorable and peaceful. Thank you so much! u/beluapulcherrimus Yaaay!! I got your postcard with the amazing stamps!! I love them! I wanna see if I can read that one with the score and play it on the piano, haha, I’ll tell you if I manage to. Is the anthem that short or its just a part? I’m pretty excited! Funny that my name doesn’t sound pretty for people in Spain or in the US. Spaniards are pretty straightforward, so they’ve downright told me how much they dislike it, haha. I know that’s because my name is a female derivation of Ignacio, the original name. Pretty normal here, pretty odd there. I’m glad that you liked it haha. My plans for this year are traveling to Australia and then travel around Asia. Your country is totally in my list! I’m nervous though. I’m a lone traveler, and social pressure here is like… you’re a girl you can’t travel alone! How unsafe! So it kinda build in my insecurities. I hope everything turns alright. u/edithcider I got your part for the Exquisite Corpse card! I cant believe how long it took to arrive! And we’re so close! And it also seems that the post officer doesn’t like the president, I’ve never seen so many cancellation stamps in such a small place. Like there is one for receiving it in the frontdesk and other for sending it. Interesting. Thanks for participating! u/anneemo yaaay!!! The Pony Express cancellation stamp! So pretty! Thank you so much for sending me such nice Roasted Chestnuts xmas card! I wonder how long has the Pony Express been alive. It turned into a normal post office later on? So interesting! I wonder which routes were used back then and how long it was it’s extension. Makes me remember all those far west movies my cousins LOVED. One of them was obsessed with horses. He would call them and they would come, it was such a cute scene. Also, thank you so much for the “ponir” greeting, it really brought me a smile. Also, the design of the card probably wouldn’t mean anything for me if I hadn’t traveled to Europe this year. I didn’t know roasted chestnuts were a thin in cold placesg! I saw many being sold in the streets! I regret not trying them, but I also do not regret buying stamps with that money, haha. u/stockman1984 I darn love this grumpy cat postcard SO MUCH. Where do you find such positive postcards, haha? I also LOVE, no I ADORE the stamps you put. Oh my gosh! Look at those kitties and dogs! I’m impressed they didn’t cancelled them, though the machine decided to take a bite of the oldest one, argghhh it’s the second time they’ve selectively picked the most vintage to eat them when I’ve gotten pretty usa stamps. But it’s okay, I just adore everything in this card. I want to answer your questions with other postcards… are there specific themes you like? Thank you so much! u/MysteryMerryMakers Thank you so much for your card. I'm forever greatful. It arrived so fast! It was sooo exciting seing my friend open it, haha. Thank you thank you thank you, I'm so happy! You can't believe how much this meant to me. :) Oh wow, that was long, I can't believe I took so many hours to write this, and I'm far from being done! I could write a novel! Edit: glitter bomb update coming soon. I was smart enough to download all the pictures somewhere else, and I NEED to post it with pics.
Closest Mario Kart 8 Game (and Switch) to Mountain West Schools
It has been said that the Mountain West conference is “At the Peak,” and to me, nothing illustrates that more, than the fact that there are 12 teams competing in the only NCAA Division 1 conference that sponsors e-sports. Of course, since the matches are played head-to-head, Boise State has an advantage because they tint the monitors blue, and play with all blue avatars; an advantage that is confirmed in their winning of League of Legends and Overwatch, but with the Spring season being cut, next year the Mountain West has announced that they will be playing Mario Kart 8, for the Nintendo Switch. Due to the large amounts of people in the Mountain West cities suddenly having $1200 burning a hole in their pocket, every store that sells Nintendo Switch has sold out of their allotment; yes, even, Amazon. So, thus the conundrum becomes: How can these players, prospects, and ordinary people practice in order to “git gud” as the gamers would say? Well, that’s where I come in. For, you see, since I am allowed out on the streets again, finally, due to both my prison sentence being cut short, and my work being determined to be “essential,” I had the time to scope out some places. Alas, while my cough and fever are not improving as much as I had hoped since I last got back from Italy, I did manage to find some time to visit all of the Mountain West cities in order to find the easiest place to get a Switch and Mario Kart 8 location. For simplicity’s sake, I am going by the football stadium since it’s a well-defined point in most locations – San José State fans, the football stadium is that big ovoid building at the corner of E Alma Ave, and S 7th St… It’s the place where the people aren’t on Saturday’s is September. Should you get hungry during your travels, I have also managed to find a some breakfast locations in the same vicinity
Okay, so I lied a little; I tried to get into the university, but, unfortunately the men with guns wouldn’t actually let me get beyond the gate on S Gate Rd, and I was still a little jet-lagged having just gotten in from Frankfurt after having woken up for my 0610 flight for the Linate to Frankfurt leg (stupid weather prevented the flight from Denver to ABQ, but my loss is your gain). So, while this may not be the closest, it certainly will fit the bill. Tyler-Jay Rowland who lives at 3075 Navigation Drive, in Colorado Springs was more than willing to help out, especially since his son, Jeremiah, was grounded for a month for staying out after curfew two weekends in a row. As the falcon flies, this location is 5.2 miles away; in a car, it’s not too much further than that.
Boise State
Now, I don’t, technically, hate the way that Boise is laid out with the river running right through the center of town, but even though Maci Drew lives in the Clearwater Apartments, unit 323, which is in a straight line, only a quarter of a mile from the stadium, you will have to go the Exxtramile, to get to her apartment. Also, she would like me to point out, that times for a waitress like herself are a little rough, so please, if you’re hungry, skip Taco Bell, and eat at the Bar Gernika in downtown Boise, right next to the Central Plaza and Century Link Arena. “We have wifi” she said.
Colorado State
This is, by far, the most remarkable location; I had completely forgotten that they moved to an on-campus stadium, so I initially went to the Hughes Stadium location, and found a big pile of dirt. And not much else – well, if you exclude the trees that formed a nice line, that brought me back to my college days. Having corrected my too old Garmin in-car GPS, I found Tim Thatcher on 604 Balsam Ln; he’s a little deaf, so you might need to knock like you are ram-ing down the door. He bought the Switch after his wife of 35 years died to help him grieve and spend his retirement, “but it’s just making me too sad lately, and I’ve never been very good at vid’ya [sic] games. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to save the princess when she’s trying to beat me… That reminds me of my princess, who I lost last year. She was so kind, we met in high school, I had an onion on my belt as was the style in those days. They didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.” I’ll be honest, at this point I started zoning out because, again, fever. He honestly looked really sad as I was talking to him, so you might want to try to cheer him up, since he’s just a lonely guy bein’ a dude. In a straight line distance, you’re only going .3 miles, and it’s not too much further by car.
New Mexico
This is by far the closest location to the stadium. The UNM Lobo Club is a non-essential business in the state of New Mexico, and UNM and the Athletics Department realized that funding would need to be cut dramatically throughout the state, and with the sweetheart deal they got from the legislature this year, they decided to close all athletic facilities, including the Maloof building, home of both Eddie Nuñez’s office, and the Lobo Club. I suggest using the side door closest to the field level entrance of the stadium. That’ll take you to the weight room; an alarm will go off, the code is “1892” the year the football team first played (interesting tidbit: the marching band was founded in 1889, the same year as the university); from there enter the main hallway, and go to the first door on the left after you pass the restrooms. The last time I was there, they had a vending machine that dispensed free Mountain Dew; I was howl-ing with laughter after I found that. Also, if you see Señor Manta, say “Hola!” he’s been down on his luck since his family were killed in the accident, and now he wanders the street like a lone Lobo.
Utah State
It was like a bomb went off. No one was around; maybe they were busy playing Farmer, or having a bonfire out in the dirt behind the stadium, wit their brown-eyed girls, but Jeff Field’s dorm room, Aggie Village Community building 17, first floor, third window from the right (he leaves it unlocked, so don’t worry about access) has a Switch just sitting there on the bed, as though he borrowed it from someone, but never managed to return it before he left. Go on, take it, just say that it was yours and he left it, no one will check.
Wyoming
Cowboys and Cowgirls are just different, I guess; I could not find a Nintendo Switch in town for the life of me. I found many Switchblades, Light switches, and many wooden rods, so I took my horse down to Cheyenne, and found a recently laid-off Subway Sandwich Artist called Dom, who knew just where to look. He directed me to 803 West 21st St, Suite B. He told me, “yeah, the guy who runs this storefront, has a little son, about 6 years old. He keeps a Switch in his desk’s keyboard tray for when he picks his son up from school.” Because of the ordeal in Laramie, I asked him to clarify, and he did, “yeah… Nintendo switch.” He said as he looked around shiftily. If that doesn’t work you can always try Suite C, I heard they stock Switches… oh wait, not that kind.” I was going to ask him for more information, but he entered what looked like an abandoned brick building just passed the railroad tracks, “You didn’t see me,” he said. And I also didn’t hear the gunshots that went off as I walked back to my car.
Table View
School
Distance Driving (mi)
Straight Line Distance (mi)
Drive/Drone Difference
Variance (from all schools)A
Air Force
8.44
5.22
3.22
0.047
Boise State
1.00
0.282
0.718
1.069
Colorado State
0.420
0.312
0.108
1.792
New Mexico
0.206
0.191
0.015
1.920
Utah State
0.444
0.305
0.139
1.751
Wyoming
47.90
40.69
7.21
4.894
A: Variance is calculated based upon DDD’s distance from the standard deviation of DDD… Why DDD? Because, DDD is King.
Note: SDSU currently does not field an Esports team; I am including them because it seems likely that they will in the near future
Hawai’i
Hawai’i is interesting because the Honolulu airport has a much better open air location than the El Paso airport; there’s a water path, it’s weird man, it reminds me a lot of the Tiki Room at Disn… oh, yeah, Hawai’i, Polynesia, that makes sense. Anyway, the stadium is home to the largest swap meet’s I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, I did not find any Switches, but I did find a guy swapping Macadamia Nut cookies for a few dollars, so naturally, I bought some. It started to rain, so even though many people are Rainbow Warriors or Wahine, as the women prefer to be called, I am not. I stopped in at the ‘Aeia Public Library for a spell, and my phone was dead, so I needed a place to charge for a bit. The nice librarian, Akela (“it means graceful,” I was told. After I asked, “like the wolf-spirit in Hindi myths?”), pointed out, that, “We loan out all sorts of stuff here; pots, pans, sewing machines. Believe it or not, we even rent out video game systems. Our most popular is probably the Nintendo Switch, but we also have a couple of Xbox’s and PS4’s.” I guess I looked very shocked because Akela continued, “with the military surrounding us, we, the library system, get a lot of goods from contractors who don’t want to have a lot of their goods shipped back to the mainland.” Seeing how much it cost to ship out, I completely understood, and bid ¬¬Akela aloha, and failed the Hawai’I test by passing out at the nearest Embassy Suites, in Kapolei, if I remember correctly (I probably don’t, I was tired).
Fresno State
A nice cow brought me to Clovis. Much like what happened in Las Vegas, it was not the cool one, but instead the one in California. She (I saw udders), brought me specifically to 264 Clovis Ave, and said, “what you seek, from my master, is in there.” I’m not sure if it was my fever, jet-lag, a combination of them, or something else entirely, but then the cow vanished as though she was just a thing on the internet. A stray puppy passed by me in downtown, so that was probably the highlight of the trip.
Nevada (Reno)
Look, I’ll be honest, Reno to me always makes me feel like I’m going to be leaving the city without one or both of my kidneys. I don’t know why I expect Renoirs to chew my body like a Pack of Wolves, but there you are. Diedre Thomas of 128 Keystone Ave, fell on hard times. She poured herself a glass of vodka, neat, and said, “you can have anything you want,” she paused briefly to wink at me, “for the right price.” I specifically enquired about the Switch, “Anything,” she replied. She pulled out what appeared to be a small glass bowl that looked like an incense holder, and a baggie of chalk dust, and… Oh my god, she was going to smoke cocaine. Anyway, as she pulled out the pulled out the baggie, I hastily took my leave. I then went to the airport and went to my next stop….
Nevada – Las Vegas
Can you believe parents still bring their children, like elementary school aged children to Las Vegas. And it’s not the cool Las Vegas, in New Mexico, it’s the one in Nevada; well, I guess, technically they bring their kids to Paradise, and not Las Vegas, but c’mon man, there isn’t that much difference. Anyway, head to the Excalibur hotels because Carla, the housekeeper said that on average 3 Switches get left by guests every day. I then felt really depressed while walking around the hotel, so I left to check out the Mirage, where I normally stay on these Mountain West trips. I also learned that if there’s one thing that freaks me out more than the throngs of people walking the Strip, it’s when there’s nobody around. Once the new stadium gets completed it will be vastly easier to get to the casino than at the current location.
San Diego State
I stayed with Dominic, at his house of Friars Road. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach with the lack of green chile, so it was so enjoyable to spend time with a fellow New Mexican (and my roommate junior year). He took me on a little tour: Balboa Park’s stadium (home of the former Harbor Bowl, and the first tie in UNM Football history), the USS Midway, and Ocean Beach. I had forgotten about the assignment until I looked down at my feet and found a working Switch. When it was still there after an hour, I borrowed a small boat, realised, I need a bigger boat and headed out to the Ocean. Having claimed rights, I then put it back, so you might also find it.
San José State
Look, there are a lot of people who depart from the San Jose Airport. The kids who travel on these flights are slightly scatter-brained because of the adrenaline of taking a plane ride (and passing through the checkpoint), and leave some of their electronics, and I found a shoe! A shoe! Who only puts one shoe on and then walks-off? It was an adult shoe, so it’s not like a child/toddleparent left it, no, someone made a conscious decision to leave their shoe… Maybe it was a protest? Anyway, just tell the guy that you left your Switch at the checkpoint, if he asks you what color it was say, it had yellow grips that slide off, but the screen was bounded by black.
Table View
School
Distance Driving (mi)
Straight Line Distance (mi)
Drive/Drone Difference
Standard Deviation (all schools)A
Fresno State
4.46
3.28
1.18
0.644
Hawai’i
1.420
0.696
0.784
1.001
Nevada (Reno)
2.410
1.69
0.720
1.067
Nevada – Las Vegas (SBS)b
18.426
8.93
11.258
Nevada – Las Vegas (NVS)c
2.125
0.590
1.535
0.391
San Diego State
9.861
8.08
1.78
0.252
San José State
6.575
4.60
1.975
0.164
A: Variance is calculated based upon DDD’s distance from the standard deviation of DDD… Why DDD? Because, DDD is King. b: Sam Boyd Stadium c: New Vegas Stadium (Allegiant Field)
Conclusion
Even if the stores are sold out of Switches, there are always places you can go to get them, some are definitely within walking distance of your house, maybe even right next door. If you do choose to do that, there are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Milk 2. Eggs, specifically from Natural Grocers, if they still have member pricing.
Who caused the violence at protests? It wasn’t antifa.
Meg Kelly and Elyse Samuels June 22, 2020 at 3:00 a.m. EDT “The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters and anarchists. The violence and vandalism is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses and burning down buildings.” — President Trump, inremarksat a SpaceX launch, May 30 “I don't see any indication that there were any white supremest groups mixing in. This is an ANTIFA Organization. It seems that the first time we saw it in a major way was Occupy Wall Street. It's the same mindset.”u/kilmeadeu/foxandfriendsTRUE!” — Trump, in atweet, June 1 “Our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists. Violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa and others.” — Trump, inremarksat the White House Rose Garden, June 1 “We have antifa, we have anarchists, we have terrorists, we have looters. We have a lot of bad people in those groups. I mean, you watch and you see.” — Trump, in aninterview, June 3 On May 30 — five days after George Floyd was killed and four after protests erupted across Minneapolis — President Trump first said antifa forces were behind the violence that swept across the country. He has repeated this claim nearly 20 times since. Online activists and prominent right-wing Twitter personalities promoted the theory. And the nation’s top law enforcement officials — including FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Attorney General William P. Barr — appeared to confirm it, echoing Trump’s claim. The Fact Checker video team spoke to witnesses and reviewed arrest records, federal charges, intelligence reports, online conversations and dozens of videos and photos of violent incidents from the early days of protests in Minneapolis to determine whether a coordinated antifa campaign was responsible for the violence. Let’s review. The Facts Antifa is a moniker, not a single group with a clear organizational structure or leader. It is a decentralized network of activists who don’t coordinate. Their common ground is opposing anything that they think is racist or fascist. In recent years, antifa activists appeared whenever there was a large gathering of white nationalists. And white nationalists, as counterintuitive as it might seem, have been known to attend Black Lives Matter rallies. That is what could then draw attention from antifa forces, according to Seth G. Jones, director of the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at ADL, emphasized, “It’s a challenge [to identify antifa] because this is not an organized group. You’re essentially looking to try to identify what does somebody believe in.” Antifa has been identified by patches, flags, graffiti and black clothing, Segal explained. And at times, they can be identifiable by moving in “black bloc” formation. But, Segal hedged, looking to identify antifa by these visual cues is “not foolproof.” Jones reviewed protests in more than 140 cities and spoke with U.S. officials within the joint terrorism task force. Most of the violence, Jones said, was committed by “local hooligans, sometimes gangs, sometimes just individuals that are trying to take advantage of an opportunity.” “There were reports of some antifa at different protests,” he concluded. “But they stood back, did not engage, certainly not in a violent way.” Officials have arrested more than 14,000 people across 49 cities nationwide since May 27, according to a Washington Post tally of data provided by police departments and included in media reports. Thousands were arrested for low-level offenses, including curfew violations and failure to disperse. Roughly 80 federal charges, including murder and throwing molotov cocktails at police vehicles, reveal no evidence of an antifa plot. Fourpeople who identify with the far-right extremist “boogaloo” movement are among those facing the most serious federal charges. Asked whether anyone who identifies as antifa had been charged, Department of Justice spokesman Matt Lloyd said via email, “We do not collect statistics based on potential inspiration but on unlawful acts according to statute.” An intelligence bulletin issued by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center that was obtained by ABC News warned that “anarchist extremists continue to pose the most significant threat of targeted assaults against police.” The bulletin, which was distributed to police departments nationwide, mentions antifa only in a footnote differentiating those who self-identify with the group from anarchists. Rather, the bulletin said that “the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” specifically pointing to boogaloo-related groups as likely to be “instigating violence” at the protests. The DHS said in a June 1 internal intelligence report seen by Reuters that “most of the violence appears to have been driven by opportunists.” The Nation revealed a separate FBI document that said the bureau found “no intel indicating antifa involvement” in the May 31 protests in Washington. Even though tangible evidence of antifa’s involvement is scant, as protests multiplied, rumors regarding the movement’s alleged role spread across social media. “What we have seen at ADL is that there has been misinformation that has suggested that antifa has been in places where there has not been any proof that they’ve been,” Segal said. This effort, he said, was “more coordinated it seems than antifa has been at actually being on the ground.” A Twitter account that claimed to be run by antifa activists and called for violence at the protests was later linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa. A viral May 27 tweet, from a popular QAnon account, alleged that the protests were an effort by the “deep state” to “start a race war before the election,” arguing “antifa & BLM are domestic terrorist organizations that need to be STOPPED.” Conservative media outlets and prominent Twitter influencers, including Donald Trump Jr., amplified the theory that antifa was connected to the violence. By May 29, there were almost 300,000 mentions of antifa on Twitter, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a media insights company. The next day, mentions reached nearly 1.5 million. An analysis of the Twitter accounts followed by the president, via Emerson T. Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, found that about 10 percent of his feed on May 30 suggested in some fashion or other that antifa is a terrorist organization. That day, Trump first blamed antifa for violence at the protests. “There was a concerted effort by alt-right activists not just to conflate the protest with antifa, but to get antifa declared a terrorist organization by the president of the United States,” Brooking said. “We see that there was a coordinated, essentially, series of petitions, an online lobbying effort.” By May 31, mentions on Twitter reached almost 3.9 million, search interest in “antifa” spiked and Trump tweeted that he would declare it a terrorist organization — although he has no authority to do so under the law. “Search interest in antifa was so great, in fact, that it outweighed search interest in Black Lives Matter during these protests,” Brooking said. The more antifa was discussed online, the more misinformation spread. Speculation that antifa activists planned to bus into small towns in Idaho and Wisconsin prompted the appearance of counterprotesters and armed militias. Trump tweeted the false conspiracy theory that Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo who was shoved by police and suffered serious injuries, was connected to antifa. When the White House was asked for evidence of any antifa involvement, a senior administration official pointed the Fact Checker to statements by officials such as Barr and national security adviser Robert O’Brien that the administration had evidence. So far, however, the administration has not disclosed any such evidence. The Pinocchio Test It is virtually impossible to account for the beliefs and motives of every person at every protest. And, consequently, virtually impossible to say that no one with antifa beliefs was involved in any violence. But beliefs and orchestrating organized violence are not the same. There has not yet been a single confirmed case in which someone who self-identifies as antifa led violent acts at any of the protests across the country. The president and his administration have placed an outsize burden of blame on antifa, without waiting for arrest data and completed investigations. This is not the first time Trump has pointed to antifa as a shadowy nemesis. But the misinformation created by his continued insistence of antifa’s involvement has led to more chaos and violence in an already turbulent moment. As always, the burden of proof rests with the speaker — and the administration has provided no evidence, only assertions that it has evidence. Trump earns Four Pinocchios.
With the discovery of Canadian, TX teen Thomas Brown's remains, what's next for the investigation? Open question about discovery of deceased teen, missing since 2016.
Note: As much as I’d love to write up all this information in my own original words, I work insanely long hours, so I’ve chosen to include transcripts of articles on the case with credit to the respective authors and sources. If this violates any rules, do what you must. Sources are provided at the bottom. I understand this has been posted about recently, given the finding of Thomas’s remains. I’d like to get into it some more. This case is so strange to me. Introduction to case From Casefile podcase episode 85, Writing by Milly Raso
Midnight approached on Thanksgiving Eve, November 23rd, 2016. Penny Meek was up waiting for her son Tom Brown, who was due home any moment. Hours earlier, Tom had gone out to meet up with friends. The 18-year-old had a strict midnight curfew and was rarely late. If he was, he always got in touch to let his mother know. So far, she’d heard nothing. But midnight ticked by, and there was no sign of Tom. At 12:03 am, Tucker sent his brother a text asking where he was. Tom didn’t reply. Tucker and Penny sent Tom several more text messages, trying to locate him. But still, they received no response. This was unusual – Tom always responded to texts. At 12:23 am, Penny tried to call Tom. But her call went straight to voicemail – his phone was off. Penny’s concern grew. Though Tom could be a joker and a goofball, he wasn’t the type to pull a prank like this. He was a well-behaved son, far from rebellious or disrespectful. Getting into separate cars to cover more ground, Penny and Tom’s older brother Tucker went searching for Tom’s red coloured 2009 Dodge Durango SUV. Penny and Tucker combed the entire town – checking local haunts and hangouts. Yet, there was no sign of Tom or his car. Though Canadian had more wealth and bustle than other townships in the semi-arid Panhandle region of Texas; it was still incredibly small and close-knit. The layout of the land was deeply ingrained within the residents who lived there. There is no way Tom had gotten lost. So where was he…
A summary and timeline of the case from NBC New, written by Bianca Hiller
The day before Thanksgiving in 2016, Penny Kendall Meek was enjoying having her sons together at their Canadian, Texas home. Penny tells Dateline she remembers her youngest son, high school senior Thomas Brown, spending time with his older brother, Tucker, who was home from college for the holiday. Around 6:00 p.m. that night, Penny says Thomas said he was going to go hang out with friends. He asked for her debit card for gas money before driving away. “Generally, the kids would meet at one of the schools and they’d park their cars there and get into one car and just ride around,” Penny told Dateline. “That night, they met at the middle school and rode around.” Penny says she texted Thomas shortly after he left the house, but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t reply because she figured he was driving. Friends who were with Thomas that night would later tell Penny they all arrived back at the middle school parking lot around 11:20 p.m. “Then, [Thomas] went to Fronc’s Oil and Gas. There are just gas pumps there -- no attendants, no convenience store,” Penny said, adding that surveillance footage would later show him pumping gas into his car. “My card was swiped at about 11:28 p.m.” Thomas’s curfew was midnight, leaving him plenty of time to make it home. As soon as midnight came and went with no sign of Thomas, Penny grew concerned. “Thomas never missed curfew. He would even come home well before curfew, and then he and his friends would play video games,” Penny said. A few minutes after midnight, Penny asked Thomas’s brother Tucker to text Thomas to see where he was. According to Penny, the text was delivered to Thomas’s phone, but it was not read. When 12:10 a.m. came and Thomas still hadn’t replied to Tucker’s text, Penny says she texted Thomas herself. Once again, the message was delivered but not read. Just five minutes later, Penny texted Thomas again. This time, Penny says the message was unable to be delivered, meaning Thomas’s phone was likely off. “Initially, I thought maybe he had an accident,” Penny told Dateline. She and Tucker took off from the house in separate cars to search the roads, while her husband stayed at the house in case Thomas returned. “I headed to some of the places I knew Thomas would have driven around. I checked some of his friends’ houses. But his car was not there,” Penny said. Around 2:00 a.m., Penny says she called the homes of the friends Thomas had hung out with that night. One friend did not answer her call, but the others had each made it home that night and were surprised to hear Thomas had not. “I didn’t call 911 because my husband is a volunteer fireman, so he just gave me a number for the [sheriff’s office] dispatch,” Penny told Dateline. “It took about 45 minutes for the deputy to respond. He went out to look for Thomas.” By 3:30 a.m., Penny tells Dateline, both she and her son Tucker had returned home from their separate searches. Shortly thereafter, Penny says a deputy from the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office arrived at their home. Since Tucker knew where Thomas’s girlfriend lived, he went in the patrol car with the deputy to search for a few hours. They arrived back home around 6:00 a.m. not having found Thomas or his car. Unbeknownst to Penny, a couple of hours later -- after dawn -- one of Thomas’s friends went up in with her father in a helicopter to look for Thomas’s car. They spotted the car in a remote section of the Canadian, Texas suburbs, about four miles from Thomas’s home. But Thomas was nowhere to be seen. The friend called the sheriff’s department who then notified Thomas’s parents of the update. “It was found near where our sewage ponds are, which is not near anywhere he would have gone,” Penny told Dateline of the car’s location. Penny added that Thomas’s phone, laptop, backpack, and keys were all missing from the car, though the chargers were still there. The Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office told Dateline that Thomas’s case was turned over to the Texas Attorney General Criminal Investigation Division in the beginning of 2018. The Texas Attorney General Criminal Investigation Division did not reply to Dateline’s repeated request for comment. Shortly after Thomas’s disappearance, his family began working with private investigator Philip Klein. Penny says that in a search two months after Thomas disappeared, her son’s backpack was located about four miles from where his car had been found. About 10 months later, in a subsequent search, Thomas’s cellphone was also located. It was found five miles from where his backpack was, nine miles from the car. Unfortunately, finding Thomas’s belongings has not yet yielded any evidence of significance. Thomas was in his senior year of high school when he disappeared. “The first year Thomas was missing, we wanted to give a scholarship in his honor because he was not graduating with his class,” Penny told Dateline. “Our hope is to be able to raise enough money to be able to give the scholarship to a Canadian high school student every year, but also to be able to give scholarships throughout the [Texas] Panhandle.” Penny added that while the scholarship is to honor Thomas, it’s also to give back to the people who have helped support her and her family throughout the past two years. “I don’t have words to describe the support we have gotten throughout the panhandle,” she said. “I have received messages from people all over the world.” Penny has also created a Facebook group called Moms 4 Tom, which is “a group of moms, friends, and community members dedicated to finding Thomas and bringing him home.” “I just know there is no way that he would’ve left without telling me or his brother,” Penny said. “I think something happened, but I don’t know what it was. Not only do I deserve answers, but our community deserves answers because we don’t expect anything to happen in our rural community. I think that’s why the panhandle has been so supportive, because it’s bothersome.” Thomas Brown is described as being 6’ tall and weighing 195 lbs., with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a black shirt, a black windbreaker with “OSU Cowboys” in orange letters on the left chest, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. If you have any information on Thomas’s case, please call the Texas Attorney General Criminal Investigation Division at 512-463-2100.
Regarding the release of information about the case, from acb 7 News
"Details have been few in the case of a missing Canadian teenager. Thomas Brown went missing 14 months ago on Thanksgiving 2016. Now his family's fight for answers may be leading to another dead end. In October, Thomas Brown’s family filed a public records request with the Hemphill County Sheriff for information about the case. The request was sent to the attorney general for a decision about what could be released. The attorney general ruled the family could have the documents requested, but now the county is appealing that decision in a lawsuit, asking the attorney general to reconsider. Thomas' mom, Penny Meek, said she is not seeking sensitive information. "I can't think there was really anything that would compromise the case,” said Meek. Hemphill County Sheriff Nathan Lewis disagrees. He said the case is open and any information released could interfere with the investigation. He gave ABC 7 this statement: “The Sheriff's Office foremost concern is maintaining the integrity of the case. We do understand the desire for knowledge and insight concerning this case, however; dissemination of certain facts and documents would only serve to impede the ongoing investigation and possible prosecution in the future.” Meek’s requests include a log of volunteers that participated in searches, dates the Department of Public Service, the Texas Rangers and the FBI became involved in the investigation, any press releases about Thomas' case, names of deputies assigned to the case, disciplinary reports of personnel, the number of photographs and recordings made plus, most importantly, the classification of the case. She wants to know whether or not it is a criminal investigation. "I know more about the Las Vegas shooter or the church shooter than I do my own son's case,” said Meek. “That is kind of frustrating because I am the mom." She said the information would reveal what she most wants to know: If the investigation is progressing. "It would be nice to have some assurances that they were getting leads or we're following up on things," said Meek. The Hemphill County Attorney Kyle Miller said releasing any information could jeopardize justice. In a statement to ABC 7 he said: "The entirety of the file contains information that, if made public, could compromise a criminal prosecution should one prove warranted. We have asked the Attorney General's Office for an opinion as to what, if anything, can be released to the public and what should remain confidential to ensure justice is served. This is simply the next step in the required process with the Attorney General's Office." Thomas' mom said the lawsuit is another delay in getting the answers she wants. "It's pretty disheartening and disappointing because at this point I just feel like we are playing political games and my son's life isn't a game,” said Meek. There is no time table on when the attorney general will make a decision about if the documents will be released.
Hemphill County Sheriff Nathan Lewis has sent an appeal to the Texas Attorney General’s Office, requesting that it take over the investigation into the Thanksgiving 2016 disappearance of Thomas Brown, then a senior at Canadian High School. Sheriff Lewis’ request, emailed to the AG’s Criminal Justice Division on Friday afternoon, is an apparent concession to a petition posted at change.org by Tom’s mother, Penny Meek, and promoted by the advocacy group, Moms4Tom. “To leave no stone unturned and to bring to bear every resource the State of Texas has to solve the case of Thomas Brown,” the petition reads, “we respectfully request Hemphill County Attorney Kyle Miller and/or Hemphill County Sheriff Nathan Lewis to turn the investigation and subsequent prosecution if warranted over to the Texas Attorney General offices and let’s use our tax dollars to find Thomas rather than be an adversary of his family.” The petition is directed to Hemphill County Attorney Kyle Miller, and has gathered 6,316 signatures since Thursday afternoon when it first appeared online. In response, Lewis asked that the AG’s office “formally assume the responsibility for the investigation and/or prosecution” into what it terms a “missing person case.” He cites the family’s growing dissatisfaction with the results of his investigation, thus far, writing, “To that end, so that justice may be served for all concerned parties and Hemphill County, we ask [that] your office formally take the reins as the lead investigating agency for this matter.” The petition drive follows several open records requests filed on October 2017 by Elgin attorney Rosanna Abrea—who represents Tom’s mother, Penny Meek—demanding that Sheriff Lewis release ten items of information compiled during its investigation of Tom’s disappearance. County Attorney Miller challenged Abrea’s request, and sought an attorney general opinion on what, if anything, could be released to the public, and what should remain confidential. In requesting the opinion, Miller noted, “The entirety of the file contains information that, if made public, could compromise a criminal prosecution, should one prove warranted.” In another online appeal, Moms4Tom asked the public to call the Attorney General’s office, urging them to grant the Public Information Request, and to reject the county’s appeal to keep the information private. In a Dec. 20 response, Assistant Attorney General Kelly McWethy concluded that the information requested should be released. McWethy cited Miller’s failure to submit a copy of the specific information requested, or representative samples, labeled to indicate which exceptions apply to which parts of the documents. Without that documentation, he wrote, the information requested “is presumed to be public and therefore must be released, unless there is compelling reason to withhold the information from disclosure. Hemphill County officials believe they do have reason. Amarillo attorney Matt Mazner has been retained by the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) to represent Hemphill County in seeking a declaratory judgment against the attorney general. Release of the requested information will have an adverse impact on the investigation, Mazner wrote. He cited Sheriff Lewis’ claim that disclosure of the documents would reveal individuals involved in the investigation, law enforcement methods used to obtain information, the identity of individuals who have provided information, and the various methods utilized by law enforcement agencies in assisting with the investigation. That request by Hemphill County for injunctive relief from the attorney general’s ruling will now go before the Travis County District Court. Meanwhile, amid all of this legal wrangling, Thomas Brown has not been seen or heard from since 11:20 pm on the night of Nov. 23, 2016. Since then, the Texas Rangers and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have both assisted the Sheriff’s Office investigation into Brown’s disappearance. Shortly after Tom’s disappearance, his family retained the services of Klein Investigations & Consulting of Nederland, whose agents continue to investigate the case.
Summary of Documents Released to Family
Wednesday, 26 December, 2018 Hemphill County and the Texas Attorney General’s office have reached an Agreed Final Judgment in the Public Information Act lawsuit regarding the matter of Thomas Brown. The family of Thomas Brown had filed a public information request via attorney Rosanna L. Abreo with Hemphill County, requesting the following information:“1. Copies of all recordings, call sheets, incident reports, memorandums, text messages, and emails regarding Thomas Kelly Brown, a missing person from December 2, 2016 to present.2. Names or logs of all volunteers, employees, other agencies members, and professionals involved in the searches for missing person Thomas Kelly Brown from November 24, 2016 to the present.3. Dates of all contact with Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Ranger Division and Highway Patrol, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specifically, all requests for assistance in the investigation of missing person, Thomas Kelly Brown. Please note identity of persons contacted, dates of contact and method of contact. 4. Use of force reports for Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office from January 1, 2016 to the present. 5. All training received by all Hemphill County Sheriff’s office personnel, currently and previously employed, since January 1, 2016 to present. Please list name of training class, where class was attended, and number of hours of training to TCOLE.6. Reports, memorandums, interoffice emails or other correspondences regarding commendations, and incidents of misconduct or disciplinary action of personnel currently or previously employed by the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office from August 1, 2016 to the present. 7. Copy of all public service reports, press releases, flyers, or announcements from Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office regarding missing person, Thomas Kelly Brown from November 24, 2016 to the present. 8. Names of all officers/deputies, current or former, assigned or who have actively assisted in the Thomas Kelly Brown investigation. Please state what their primary assignments are in the investigation. 9. The number of photographs and/or other electronic recordings taken from the scene where missing person, Thomas Kelly Brown’s vehicle was located. A copy of all photographs and/or other electronic recordings taken from the scene where missing person, Thomas Kelly Brown’s vehicle was located. 10. The official characterization or type of case designation by the Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office regarding the disappearance of Thomas Kelly Brown.” Hemphill County provided the requested materials regarding training and personnel, and asserted that disclosure of what amounted to its entire investigative file on Thomas Brown would adversely affect the ongoing investigation and subsequent prosecution of any criminal acts associated with the case, citing the exceptions from disclosure under Texas Government Code §552.108. After review of the file by the Attorney General’s office during litigation, the investigative material was agreed to be exempt from disclosure. The Agreed Final Judgment is quoted as follows:“1. The County may withhold information at issue, which consists of videos, photographs, phone records, digital voice recordings, radio calls, emails, and documents relating to Texas Attorney General Criminal Justice Division’s Thomas Brown Investigation, under Texas Government Code §555.108(a)(1).2. All court costs and attorney fees are taxes against parties incurring same;3. All relief not expressly granted is denied; and4. This Order disposes of all claims between the parties and is a final judgment.” The Judgment reflects the parties’ agreement as to a compelling reason to withhold the information under Texas Government Code §552.302. The County proved that release of the information would interfere with the Texas Attorney General’s Criminal Justice Division’s investigation of the disappearance of Thomas Brown. The order was signed by Lora Livingston, Judge of the 261st District Court in Travis County, Texas. The entire investigative file was provided to the Attorney General’s office and reviewed by their Administrative Law Division, and the investigation remains ongoing with the Attorney General’s Criminal Investigative Division, who took over the case at the request of Hemphill County.
Discovery of Remains, January 2019 Remains found near Lake Marvin Road (located near Lake Marvin, Hemphilll County) have been identified as missing high school senior Thomas brown who went missing the night of November 23, 2016 under puzzling circumstances. His remains were positively identified via dental records. The name of the individual who located his remains has not been released. From News Channel 10 KFDA
By Cassie Stafford | January 16, 2019 at 7:31 PM CST - Updated January 17 at 2:56 PM CANADIAN, TX (KFDA) - We are learning more on the discovery of Thomas Brown’s remains in Hemphill County. NewsChannel10 spoke with the lead private investigator on the case, Philip Klein, who was hired by Brown’s family. He said on January 9, a man was walking down a path near Lake Marvin Road when he noticed something, and called authorities immediately. The Texas Attorney General’s Office (OAG) and the Texas Rangers responded and later confirmed through forensic testing it was the missing Canadian teen. Original report, November 2016: Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office still searching for missing teen During what Klein calls a phase one search last year, he said they had roughly 18 miles to cover plus an acre on either side of the road. He added that the area where Thomas was found wasn’t missed, but had not yet been searched. NewsChannel10 spoke with the lead private investigator on the case, Philip Klein, who was hired by Brown’s family. He said on January 9, a man was walking down a path near Lake Marvin Road when he noticed something, and called authorities immediately. The Texas Attorney General’s Office (OAG) and the Texas Rangers responded and later confirmed through forensic testing it was the missing Canadian teen. Original report, November 2016: Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office still searching for missing teen During what Klein calls a phase one search last year, he said they had roughly 18 miles to cover plus an acre on either side of the road. He added that the area where Thomas was found wasn’t missed, but had not yet been searched. “That area had been flown by helicopters... the south part of that area had been run by our guys, by trace sergeant and her dog,” said Klein. “They had run to the south side of that area but he had not gotten to the north side yet. So it wasn’t a matter of a missing by law enforcement or us at all, it was just a matter of that area hadn’t been searched.” Klein wouldn’t comment on the condition of the remains found, however he said there’s no doubt this is an active homicide investigation. “What will happen now is that the OAG and the Texas Rangers will continue their investigation and will continue to interview people and build evidence,” he said. He said their team is very well focused right now and that they knew a body was out there all along. “We’re going back over the evidence of the car, the shell casing... the blood that was in the car,” said Klein. “The actual timeline between 11:38 and 12:05 I think is very, very, very, very important.” They’ve received questions as to whether or not there’s a killer among in the community of Canadian. To that he says: “Everybody can sleep well at night, but if I was a dad and I had kids out there in the community, I’d be like anything else.” said Klein. “Maybe I’m just too cynical being a 29-year-old investigator, but I’d sleep with one eye open right now. I would, until this thing is solved.” Klein said he does not believe it was a pre-meditated homicide. The reward that was in place for Thomas' whereabouts is now geared toward information surrounding his death. Klein stresses that locals steer clear of Lake Marvin Road as it could impede their investigation. “It’s still an active working crime scene and we just don’t need people out there tromping around,” he said. “We know everyone loved Tom, we know the town is hurting, hell we know Hemphill County and North Texas is hurting. And we know people want to go put roses and flowers and markers out there honoring Tom but now isn’t the time to do that.” He said the whole area of Lake Marvin Road probably needs to be look over again and that there are some persons of interest floating around. “Do I think there will be an arrest in this? Oh eventually one day there will be, yes absolutely,” he said. “When? I don’t know.”
Some Discussion Points: Unfortunately, I can’t find a new source from this information, but it has become part of the narrative and can be found in podcasts about this case, including Casefile and Unfound. Prior to Thomas’s disappearance, the high school student had an encounter with Sheriff Lewis. In an unpleasant exchange, Lewis, not yet Sheriff at the time, approached Thomas and a friend in a public area and accused them of being up to something nefarious. This confused the young men, and Lewis ultimately demanded that Thomas get into his car where he continued to berate and curse at the teen. Thomas’s parents were called, which added to the confusion. While Lewis knew the family, he was not exceptionally close to them and it was strange that Thomas would be targeted in such as way as he was rarely if ever in trouble of any kind. The incident stands out as being, if nothing else, peculiar, especially in hindsight. During the early investigation into Thomas’s disappearance, Sheriff Lewis openly stated that he believed Thomas was alive. Contrary to Thomas’s record of calling to check in, being on time for curfews, and staying out of trouble, the implication is that Thomas left voluntarily. Unfortunately, this outlook is further refuted by the shell casing and blood evidence found in Thomas’s car. and finally..... an article about investigators' perspectives early in the search From a News Channel 10 KFDA Article:
May 5, 2017 at 2:40 AM CDT - Updated August 12 at 9:31 AM CANADIAN, TX (KFDA) - Hemphill County Sheriff Nathan Lewis believes missing teen Thomas Brown is still alive. But as we enter the sixth month since his disappearance, private investigators aren't so sure. Klein Investigations, a private firm hired by brown's family, said based on their searches, there's a 70% chance that Brown is dead. Lewis said there's no evidence to back that up. Both groups are continuing their investigations, and have some updates in the case they can share. A cadaver dog was brought out by Klein Investigations to search for signs of Brown, and alerted investigators to the Lake Marvin area. That location is where a different body was found nearly 20 years ago, but because they were not able to search the entire Lake Marvin area, investigators are focusing their efforts there. "We did put the dog onto Thomas's automobile," said Philip Klein, lead investigator. "The dog hit on the automobile and the dog hit in the automobile." What the dog found was a small trace of blood that Lewis said was small and looked like the result of a minor cut. Brown's backpack and laptop that were found months ago proved to have no information that would help out this case. His Facebook profile was deleted by Facebook after being hacked, but both parties said that will not hinder the investigation,. Klein investigators covered 19 areas in and around Canadian during their most recent search, and said they're looking into five of those areas, and believe something "nefarious" happened to brown. Lewis thinks otherwise. "Everything that was put out there by Klein Investigations was speculations and theories," said Lewis. "This could have happened, this might have happened, we think this happens. That's not what we do here. We go off of evidence or lack of evidence." Some of those theories are that someone dumped Brown's car and walked into the neighborhood nearby, or that his body is buried somewhere in the county. Lewis said there is not evidence to back these theories up. Private investigators focus on the civil side of the investigation, while law enforcement takes a prosecutory standpoint. But both groups are working together and sharing resources to solve this case. "I really don't care who finds him," said Lewis. "We just need to bring him home, or figure out exactly what happened." Lewis and Klein and his investigators are looking into every tip they receive.
Points of Speculation, Closing Thoughts As of January 2019, it is known that Thomas Brown is no longer alive, and while the date of his death is unknown to the public, it appears extremely likely that the Canadian, Texas teen met his end on the night of his disappearance in November of 2016. I’ll avoid injecting TOO much of my personal opinion here, but my own wariness of Sheriff Lewis is likely already apparent.
Reluctance to release information is understandable and sensible, and it was my original impression that the Sheriff’s office likely had a good idea of what happened and were essentially stuck sitting on their hands until they had enough to act. Currently, it’s difficult to say, especially given the previous interaction between Thomas and Sheriff Lewis (if true). It raises questions, and the questions regarding why Thomas Brown died are many:
Is the conduct of Sheriff Lewis at all related to the young man’s death? Was it a homicide as Klein asserts? Was his death the result a suicide, and if so, were there simply no signs of a distressed mental state? Was his body truly at the location it was found the entire time?
Speculation, though unofficial, has even been posed as to whether the cell phone found in a search was in fact Thomas’s.
The surveillance video evidence in this case raises even more questions about the last night Thomas was known to be alive. Were vehicles captured on surveillance footage at the gas station around the time of Thomas stop for gas at all related to his disappearance? Some speculation includes the assertion that these are unmarked police cars, citing a glowing computer screen that can be seen though the vehicles’ windows.
More unofficial speculation has stated that Thomas may have been on the verge of coming out as gay, or had come out privately to some as gay. This his highly speculative and it is often pointed to that he made a switch from focusing on football to focusing on the performing arts. Whether this has any bearing on is disappearance and subsequent death is unknown.
As of the date of this posting, Thomas’s case is open. Sources: https://casefilepodcast.com/case-85-tom-brown/ http://canadianrecord.com/?p=7575 http://highplainsobserverperryton.com/agreement-reached-in-public-information-act-lawsuit-in-thomas-brown-disappe-p24786-334.htm https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/missing-in-america/high-school-senior-thomas-brown-missing-texas-after-vanishing-over-n940381 https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/a-timeline-of-events-in-the-case-of-thomas-brown http://www.newschannel10.com/story/35349203/investigators-split-on-what-may-have-happened-to-thomas-brown/ EDIT: had a title in the wrong spot EDIT 2: This edit is referencing a comment below made by a user. I don't know how users feel about having their name called out, but you can find the comment below. The reference is a recent suicide of a teacher following the discovery of Thomas body. The following is a short article from the Canadian news paper: "BREAKING NEWS The Hemphill County Sheriff’s Office reported late yesterday afternoon that Canadian Elementary School teacher Jeff Caseltine had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. A witness in the vicinity of the Hemphill County RV Park reported having seen an individual alone at campsite in the park, and then hearing a gunshot. He contacted HCSO. Law enforcement officers responded, secured the scene, found Caseltine's body and recovered a note. The family was notified. The death has been ruled as a suicide, pending an autopsy, which will be performed today in Lubbock." Below is an obituary for the deceased teacher: https://usobit.com/2019/01/jeff-caseltine-september-24-1964-january-21-2019/ Jeff’s Obituary Jeff Caseltine, 54, of Canadian passed away on Monday, January 21, 2019 in Canadian. Memorial services will be 10:00 AM Friday, January 25, 2019 at First Christian Church of Canadian with Matt Cook, pastor, officiating. Cremation and arrangements are under the direction of Carmichael-Whatley Funeral Directors of Canadian. Jeff was born September 24, 1964 and was reared primarily in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, Jeff was a born performer. Be it his high school theater class at Lago Vista High, or karaoke at Buffalo Wild Wings, he was most at home while making people smile or laugh with his talents. Jeff joined the Navy in 1984 where he served until 1986 on the U.S.S. Vincennes. Throughout the eight years he spent post-military, he held many exciting jobs, including being KTSA’s leading radio man as Jeff the Kool Breeze. In 1994, Jeff fell in love with and married his wife Shannon in small town Booker, Texas. Jeff, Shannon, and 13-year-old step-son TJ packed their things in 1995 and hauled off to Stillwater, Oklahoma where Shannon would eventually become pregnant and give birth to their first child in 1996, a daughter named Sarah. A few years would pass before Shannon would become pregnant again in 1998 and give birth to their son, Michael. The Caseltine’s would call Stillwater home for the next nine years, where Jeff worked as a caretaker for Stillwater Group Homes, Inc., caring for adults with mental disabilities. However, Jeff was called to work as an aid for an autistic child at the elementary school his children attended in 2003. During his time there, it became clear to him that he wanted nothing more than to teach. He attended Oklahoma State University from 2004 until his departure from Stillwater in 2007 when he and his family moved to Abilene, Texas. In Abilene, Jeff continued his work as a caretaker for a man with cerebral palsy, attended school at McMurry University, and taught a fourth grade Sunday school class at Beltway Baptist Church. In 2012, Jeff attained a Bachelor of Science degree from McMurry University, with the intention of teaching young children. For three years after attaining his degree, Jeff worked for Sylvan Learning Center as the Regional Director of Education, but always desired teaching in a classroom setting. In 2015, a job for a Pre-kindergarten special education teacher became available in his sister-in-law’s hometown, Canadian, Texas. The Caseltine’s mulled it over, and eventually came to the decision that the ideas of both being closer to family and Jeff getting the opportunity to do what he loved made it an obvious choice. Survivors include his wife, Shannon of the home; 2 sons, Thomas Judd Maness and wife Reba Collins of San Antonio and Michael Caseltine of Canyon; a daughter, Sarah Caseltine of Bryan; 3 sisters-in-law, Terri Long and husband Tim of Edmond, Oklahoma, Denise Janko and husband Chris of Beaver, Oklahoma, LeeAnn Monty and husband Tyler “Max” of Canadian; his father, Dale Gray and wife Martha of Happy, Florida; his mother-in-law, Della Lawson of Canadian; and numerous nieces and nephews. Extended family Brenda Maness of Beaver and Cody Maness of Abilene. Read More Our most sincere sympathies to the family and friends of Jeff Caseltine September 24 1964 January 21 2019. Source: Carmichael-Whatley Funeral Directors of Canadian – Canadian, Texas – Canadian Death notice for the town of: Canadian, state: Texas" Not from Canadian Texas, so I can't comment with any validity on what the local gossip is, or what's a local speculation is. I'll connect a couple of dots that might be obvious. His death closely followed the discovery of Thomas body. He was a theater teacher, maybe Thomas theater teacher, I can't confirm that. He left a note, which has not been released to my knowledge. Also, it would be interesting to know which RV park they're referring to and whether it is near the lake where Thomas's remains were found. Early on, Sheriff Lewis pushed " if you see something say something," and if my memory is correct, he stated he believed that people, or students, at Thomas's High School knew something. Please keep in mind that this is only speculative, and that there is no official information stating that this man is connected. At this point, it's another interesting layer to an unsolved case that very well may be unrelated. And I'm on mobile, so forgive my errors.
Las Vegas city councilman Stavros Anthony is calling for a curfew and more after a Las Vegas police officer was shot on Monday night. By: Joyce Lupiani Posted at 12:40 PM, Jun 02, 2020 We have educated the public since March regarding COVID — now we are moving into a stricter enforcement." Las Vegas had issued a curfew earlier this year after recent break-ins to unoccupied ... LAS VEGAS, N.M. (KRQE) – The small city of Las Vegas, New Mexico is extending its overnight curfew through at least April 1st. That marks nearly a year of residents not being allowed to be out ... The City of Las Vegas has altered its temporary curfew hours and chnaged the penalty for breaking curfew in a revised proclamation of civil emergency issued Friday. Las Vegas' temporary curfew, issued as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, will now last daily from 10:30 p.m. until 5 a.m. This is a change from last week's proclamation, which instituted a curfew from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. LAS VEGAS, N.M. (KRQE) – The Las Vegas mayor has decided to implement a town curfew to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. The 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew went into effect Friday. Essential ... The curfew hours in Las Vegas are not overly restrictive unless you are younger than eighteen and not with a parent. For adults 18 and older there are no curfew restrictions in Las Vegas. Party on! The curfew on the Strip and downtown Las Vegas runs from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily, police said. Exceptions apply to youths who are employed or participating in lawful activities with an legal ... Las Vegas Mayor Louie Trujillo announced Friday afternoon that the citywide curfew will be extended through Nov. 20. The curfew goes from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., as the order had previously stated when it was first issued in October. A statement shared in the city’s announcement read, “Mayor Louie would like to thank the community for their cooperation in this time of crisis and urges everyone ... Curfew for Kids in Las Vegas . The city’s curfew laws allow children under 18 to be accompanied by parents in non-gaming areas around the Strip at any time. However, unaccompanied minors may not idle or wander in public spaces from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, or from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Friday and Saturday. The Las Vegas mayor has announced a daily curfew for the city to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 at numbers tick upwards throughout the state. On Monday Mayor Louie Trujillo held a press ...
Las Vegas implements curfew Curfew for youth under age 18 is 10 p.m. on weekdays ... The Las Vegas Wash flows ... Clark County’s costs to clean up and repair graffiti and vandalism have dropped from $53,000 in 2016 ... But the Parole Board does not have to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the parolee violated their terms. Instead, they just need to find substantial evidence in order to revoke parole. A grandmother showed up in a courtroom to face the teenager who body-slammed her at a pool party. Nancy James, 68, asked a group of teens to lower the music ... It’s likened to a scene from an apocalypse. Wuhan — a city more populous than London or New York — placed in ‘lockdown’ following the outbreak of the new and... Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
