How Gen Z took over incel slang

By Adam Aleksic for the Washington Post

April 11, 2024 

The internet has transformed how Gen Z communicates. Our language is built on memes and a collective sense of wry existentialism, with our humor often turning dark or potentially dangerous, as it has when borrowing from the online community of men called “involuntary celibates.”

Incels (as they’re known) are infamous for sharing misogynistic attitudes and bitter hostility toward the romantically successful. Their ideology has even turned deadly: The 2014 Isla Vista and 2018 Toronto incel terrorist attacks killed a collective 17 people and injured another 29. Yet, somehow, incels’ hateful rhetoric has bizarrely become popularized via Gen Z slang.

In certain circles, for instance, it’s common to hear the suffix “pilled” as a funny way to say “convinced into a lifestyle.” Instead of “I now love eating burritos,” for instance, one might say, “I’m so burritopilled.” “Pilled” as a suffix comes from a scene in 1999’s “The Matrix” where Neo (Keanu Reeves) had to choose between the red pill and the blue pill, but the modern sense is formed through analogy with “blackpilled,” an online slang term meaning “accepting incel ideology.” Similarly, the popular suffix “maxxing” for “maximizing” (e.g., “I’m burritomaxxing” instead of “I’m eating a lot of burritos”) is drawn from the incel idea of “looksmaxxing,” or “maximizing attractiveness” through surgical or cosmetic techniques.

Then there’s the word “cucked” for “weakened” or “emasculated.” If the taqueria is out of burritos, you might be “tacocucked,” drawing on the incel idea of being sexually emasculated by more attractive “chads.” And, finally, we have the word “sigma” for “assertive male,” which comes from an incel’s desired position outside the social hierarchy.

So how did we get here? How did these words travel from a fringe, misanthropic internet subculture to relatively widespread use?

In the late ’90s, before social media or robust online dating, one woman in Toronto created a website for lonely singles to find loving relationships — she called it “Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project.” But what started as a way for people to connect eventually became a community overrun by violent men who blame women for their absence of a sex life. From there, they migrated to 4chan, an anonymous bulletin board website famous for giving us some of our most foundational online concepts, such as rickrolling, dank memes and copypastas. In many ways, this colorful memetic mosaic has had an immensely positive impact on the internet. But there’s a dark side to the site as well — certain boards, like /r9k/, are known breeding grounds for incel discussion, and the source of the incel words being used today.

These slang terms developed on 4chan precisely because of the site’s anonymity. Since users don’t have identifiable aliases, they signal their in-group status through performative fluency in shared slang. Memes and niche vocabulary become a form of cultural currency, fueling their proliferation.

From there, those words filter out to more mainstream websites such as Reddit and eventually become popularized by viral memes and TikTok trends. Social media algorithms do the rest of the work by curating recommended content for viewers.

Here’s how that can work: I like to watch videos on urban planning, and I recently got a TikTok complaining that “it’s so hard being a walkpilled cardiomaxxer in a carcel gascucked state like Arizona.” I found the video funny, I admit, and so I “liked” it — which ended up giving me more incel-themed meme videos. And I’m not alone: Many people encounter these words in similar contexts. The term “sigma,” for example, was introduced to millions of TikTok users through the viral “Rizzler” song, with lyrics containing popular slang such as “I just wanna be your sigma.” Because these terms often spread in ironic contexts, people find them funny, engage with them and are eventually rewarded with more memes featuring incel vocabulary.

Creators are not just aware of this process — they are directly incentivized to abet it. We know that using trending audio helps our videos perform better and that incorporating popular metadata with hashtags or captions will help us reach wider audiences. In the wake of the “Rizzler” song, for example, TikTok was awash with countless remixes, covers and memes referencing the song because creators knew those videos would perform well. As a result, the word “sigma” spread, becoming popular with Gen Alpha and younger Gen Z audiences. The same thing happened to some degree with other incel words.

It’s easy to react to these developments with concern. By incorporating incel words into everyday slang, the reasoning goes, we could be normalizing a dangerous ideology and making it more accessible to people interested in the underlying concepts. But kids aren’t actually saying “cucked” because they’re “blackpilled”; they’re using it for the same reason all kids use slang: It helps them bond as a group. And what are they bonding over? A shared mockery of incel ideas.

These words capture an important piece of the Gen Z zeitgeist. We should therefore be aware of them, keeping in mind that they’re being used ironically. In fact, it’s a delightful twist of fate that the incels’ own words are now being wielded against them. If this upsets the adults, all the better: The younger generations get to build a language of their own, distinguished from the older norms, as they have always done throughout history.

Adam Aleksic is a Gen Z linguist and content creator posting educational videos under the username @etymologynerd.

6th APD officer sidelined by corruption probe

BY COLLEEN HEILD AND MATTHEW REISEN / ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STAFF WRITERS

Mat 1, 2024

A former member of the Albuquerque Police Department’s DWI unit who later worked in its Internal Affairs Division informed the APD he was retiring Tuesday amid a continuing administrative investigation into a scheme in which officers allegedly helped get drunken driving cases dismissed in exchange for money and other favors.

Daren DeAguero, who had been with the APD since 2009 and served as one of the department’s spokesmen for several years, is the sixth officer to resign or retire since APD Chief Harold Medina launched an internal inquiry on Jan. 23 into misconduct by then current and former DWI unit officers.

That inquiry began just days after the FBI executed search warrants at several officers’ homes, at the law office of prominent defense attorney Thomas Clear, and that of his paralegal Ricardo “Rick” Mendez.

No one has been charged and the search warrants remain sealed, but U.S. Attorney Alex Uballez in January reported in a letter to Medina that the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI focuses on alleged wrongdoing by “certain” APD officers and others.

DeAguero was assigned to the DWI unit from 2014-2018. Since 2018, he served as a public information officer for the APD and worked in Internal Affairs. He didn’t return a Journal request for comment.

APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said DeAguero was informed Tuesday morning that “he was a target of the investigation and he was put on administrative leave.” Investigators scheduled an interview with DeAguero to occur Tuesday afternoon but learned he had submitted his paperwork to retire.

It appears DeAguero did not follow the proper protocols and procedure for retirement, according to city policy.

“APD’s Human Resources Department will have to determine how to proceed, based on the manner in which he notified the department of his plans,” Gallegos said.

DeAguero’s letter of retirement thanked the agency for the “many opportunities I have received during my tenure.”

“Due to the current situation of receiving a letter of investigation with very limited time to obtain adequate representation to proceed,” he wrote, “I unfortunately will be ending my employment … .”

DeAguero joined officers Honorio Alba Jr., Joshua Montaño, Nelson Ortiz, Harvey Johnson and Lt. Justin Hunt, who had no longer been assigned to the DWI unit at the time, in resigning or retiring just as they were supposed to be interviewed as part of the IA investigation.

In a statement release Tuesday, Mayor Tim Keller said, “The people of Albuquerque deserve to have trust that the criminal justice system is working to stop drunk driving.

“These allegations of corruption between officers and defense attorneys are a betrayal to the people that police officers are sworn to protect and a betrayal to their fellow officers who put their lives on the line every day for our families,” he said. “As we await the FBI’s complete investigation, we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure no stone is left unturned.”

APD created an internal affairs task force to conduct all administrative investigations into alleged misconduct by current or past members of the DWI unit. The findings of the inquiry will be submitted to the Superintendent of Police Reform to determine whether APD policies were followed.

Despite the departure of the six officers, Gallegos said the internal inquiry is expected to continue to try to “determine the extent of the involvement of all officers, current and retired, who may have been involved in wrongdoing.”

“Chief Medina is still looking at changes to DWI policies and practices,” Gallegos told the Journal last week. “Details from the internal investigation and the FBI investigation will be crucial to the direction of future policies.”

Montaño, in his March 20 resignation letter, stated that while he was on administrative leave earlier this year, “I thought there would be an opportunity for me to talk to the department about what I knew regarding the FBI’s investigation. I thought there would be a time where I could disclose what I knew from within APD and how the issues I let myself get caught up in within the DWI Unit were generational. I thought there would be a time where I could talk about all the other people who should be on administrative leave as well, but aren’t.”

A Journal review found 13 DWI cases DeAguero filed between 2009 and 2018 in which Clear was listed as the defense attorney. Court records show only one ended in a conviction.

Two were dismissed because another officer who had been involved in the arrest along with DeAguero didn’t appear for a pretrial interview. DeAguero didn’t show up for witness interviews with Clear or Clear’s paralegal, sometimes referred to as an investigator, in at least eight cases. Court records show the remaining cases were dismissed because an unnamed officer did not come to court or the defense raised issues with the evidence.

Because the officers’ credibility could be potentially be questioned, 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman’s office dismissed nearly 200 DWI cases that they had filed and were pending at the time of the FBI searches.

UNM PROTEST ESCALATES

Pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus leads to 16 arrests

BY GREGORY R.C. HASMAN / ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

May 1, 2024

The student union at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque is closed, and the university is cleaning up after more than a dozen protesters occupied the building late Monday night into the early hours of Tuesday morning.

UNM spokeswoman Cinnamon Blair said Tuesday afternoon that 16 pro-Palestinian protesters — five UNM students and 11 who “don’t appear to be UNM-related” — were arrested after standing toe-to-toe with New Mexico State Police officers at the student union early Tuesday morning.

Court records show all 16 were charged with criminal trespass and wrongful use of public property, and booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center. All but two had been released by Tuesday afternoon.

Blair said force was used by at least one officer on a protester who was not complying and resisting arrest. She said all uses of force by the University of New Mexico Police Department will be documented by the department.

Lt. Philip Vargas, a State Police spokesman, said the agency was asked to “assist with managing the protest” by UNM police. He said State Police is currently reviewing body cameras to “verify any use of force” involving its officers.

Blair said there were no reported injuries.

She said, in a release, “What began as protest ended in criminal acts.”

“A group of persons marched across campus in protest, but then entered the UNM (Student Union Building) and declared their intent to occupy the building until their demands were met,” Blair said. “They remained unlawfully in the building past closing time and proceeded to vandalize the building, damaging furniture, walls, and doors, writing graffiti with markers, paint, and chalk, on the walls, on banisters, in bathrooms, and more.”

She said graffiti was also spray-painted across the campus, and students trying to study in the SUB “were verbally harassed.” Blair called the protesters’ actions “unacceptable.”

About 30 protesters camped inside the SUB from about 6:30 p.m. Monday until 2:55 a.m. Tuesday, when a UNM police officer on a bullhorn announced protesters needed to leave the student union or they would be arrested.

“Force may be used,” he said.

Timeline of events

Some protesters barricaded doors with chairs and tables, while others made obscene gestures and yelled expletives at the officer who gave the order..

At about 3:30 a.m., more than 40 State Police and UNM police officers went upstairs in the SUB, where they were greeted by protesters.

After a few minutes, the officers removed tents while protesters shouted pro-Palestinian chants like “Free, Free Palestine.” Some banged empty water coolers like drums; others screamed in front of some of the officers and used storage bin covers as shields.

A few minutes later, officers started pushing some of the protesters. During the melee, at least a couple of people were reportedly pepper-sprayed and detained.

“Holy (expletive),” a few people shouted as the incident was taking place.

After the protesters left, they congregated and set up camp outside the SUB.

“Be proud of yourselves,” Selinda Guerrero said to the other protesters. “The resistance was strong.”

Early Tuesday, UNM staff members were still trying to assess everything that happened.

Blair told the Journal at 8:45 a.m. that she believes there was “quite a bit of damage to the student union.”

Blair said the school is trying to assess whether to press charges and/or take disciplinary action.

‘We decided to get a little annoying’

On Monday, the UNM Gaza Solidarity Encampment continued, with protesters camping out at the Duck Pond.

Protester and UNM physics undergrad Max Stiriner said about 150 protesters left the Duck Pond — where they have camped since last week — at 6:30 p.m. Monday to occupy the student union, adding that the figure dropped to about 30 as the evening went along.

Inside the building, messages such as “Solidarity” and “Free Palestine” were scrawled in chalk on walls, doors and chairs.

Like many protesters on campuses across the country, those at UNM are asking school administrators to divest themselves from companies that support Israel.

As taxpayers, Stiriner said, “We are responsible, in part, for the war.”

“It’s our responsibility to try to make it so we stop supporting the war,” he added.

Since the school administration has not responded to the demands, Stiriner said, “We decided to get a little annoying.

“So, now they are listening.”

Blair texted the Journal late Monday, saying the school was monitoring the situation.

At about 8:30 p.m. Monday, UNM students and faculty received a LoboAlert text message saying they should avoid the SUB.

About 20 police vehicles arrived, with some blocking parts of Yale. However, they did not immediately go to the SUB.

At about 11:30 p.m., in anticipation of police showing up at the SUB, speakers talked to the protesters about the possibility of being arrested.

Stiriner told the Journal that many students were prepared to face the possibility of being cited or arrested.

“UNM has long served as a place where free speech and the right to engage in peaceful protest have been permitted and protected — but only up to the point where such protest substantially disrupts university operations or crosses the line to criminal acts,” Blair said in a release.

She said those who occupied the SUB “were not peacefully protesting, they were engaged in criminal activity by entering, remaining in, and damaging the SUB after its closing hours.”

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The evolution of Mike Johnson on Ukraine

By Leigh Ann Caldwell and Marianna Sotomayor for the Washington Post

April, 21, 2024

When the House passed a $40 billion emergency funding bill for Ukraine in May 2022, support for Ukraine was largely still a bipartisan issue. But a little-known conservative congressman from Louisiana was one of the 57 Republicans to oppose it.

Now, just six months after his unlikely elevation to speaker of the House, Mike Johnson (R-La.) has pushed through a $60 billion effort to bolster Ukraine’s arsenal, along with funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific.

The move marks a major victory and dramatic turnabout for the speaker, who is trying to gain control of a bitterly divided Republican conference. The far right is fiercely against Ukraine aid — 112 Republicans, just over half of the conference, opposed it on the House floor Saturday, and Johnson had to rely on unanimous Democratic backing — and Johnson’s decision to greenlight a floor vote could come at great political cost. He could very well lose his job as speaker over it.

It is also a major rebuke to former president Donald Trump, who publicly backed Johnson at a recent Mar-a-Lago event but has long criticized Ukraine while repeatedly sympathizing with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Johnson appears fully aware of the consequences of his decision to send money to Ukraine for its grinding war against Russia. He made the difficult decision despite threats from an angry and vocal minority of hard-right Republicans — ironically, the ones who helped catapult him into power — who are using their conservative bully pulpit to challenge Johnson and threaten his job.

He seems to have accepted his fate.

“Look, history judges us for what we do,” said an emotional Johnson, holding back tears and with a quivering lip at a news conference last week in response to a question from The Washington Post. “This is a critical time right now, critical time on the world stage. I could make a selfish decision and do something that’s different, but I’m doing here what I believe to be the right thing.”

Johnson’s son will be headed to the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall. “To put it bluntly, I would rather send bullets to Ukraine than American boys,” he said. “This is a live-fire exercise for me and for so many American families.”

The speaker’s torturous path to embracing Ukraine aid is the result of many factors: high-level intelligence briefings as a House leader, his faith, the counsel of three committee chairs named Mike, and a realization thatthe GOPwould never unite on Ukraine. This story is drawn from interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers and staff, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Johnson’s evolution. The speaker’s office did not respond to an interview request.

Johnson rose topower as a member of the conservative, isolationist camp with little influence in the party. After the 2020 election, he spent his political capital encouraging his colleagues to help overturn the results. He had never had a high-level intelligence briefing, had never met President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He had no meaningful relationship with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.)

In a matter of moments, Johnson became second in line to the presidency. The day after he was elected speaker in October, he met with Biden and the three House national security panel chairs — Reps. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and Mike D. Rogers (R-Ala.) — who brought him to the White House for a worldwide threats briefing heavy on Ukraine. Former CIA director and ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo became an informal adviser.

The new speakerheard from evangelical Christians in the United States and Ukraine about the persecution of Ukrainian Christians by Russia. Over the next months, the other congressional leaders twice brought him to meet with Biden at the White House, where he got an earful about the importance of this moment in history from the president, McConnell and Schumer.

It was eye-opening.

One Republican House member recalls: “I’ll never forget Johnson one time said, ‘I’ve gone from representing my district only to representing the entire [House] and the country.’ For someone to go from where he was to where he is now as quickly as he did … is remarkable.”

But as Johnson was warming to Ukraine aid, some say as early as December or January, the issue continued to create deep fissures within the GOP. The anti-Ukraine hard-liners grew louder and more steadfast as pro-Ukraine Republicans quietlyand privately grewmore frustrated and impatient with Johnson and their colleagues.

At a meeting this month of conservative members of the Republican Study Committee, freshman Rep. Max L. Miller (Ohio) stood before three dozen of his fellow Republicans with tears in his eyes.

He told his colleagues that two-thirds of his family had been exterminated in the Holocaust, insisting that his personal story could have ended differently had the United States intervened earlier in World War II. The same unnecessary story of lives lost could happen in Ukraine, he warned, if the United States ends its financial and militaristic support.

Ultimately, Johnson decided to advance a Senate foreign aid bill broken into three parts, with a minor modification. A portion of the $60 billion House bill for Ukraine wouldbe a loan.A second bill would provide about $17 billion in weapons for Israel, as well as just over $9 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza and elsewhere. The third bill wouldcontain $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region to deter China. To appease his members, he’d add a fourth bill of Republican priorities, including banning TikTok and seizing Russian assets.

All four bills passed overwhelmingly on Saturday and will be taken up in the Senate this week. But until the 11th hour, Johnson, who many Republicans lamented was an indecisive leader, searched for consensus.

Johnson momentarily retreated after the anti-Ukraine faction expressed outrage hours after he released hisproposal Monday. He convened a meeting of about a dozen ideologicallydiverseRepublicans on Tuesday, which lasted four hours, well past 11 p.m.,and was described by participants as heated, intense and angry. “The battle lines were very clear in the end,” one Republican said.

National-security-consciousRepublicans tried to impress upon farther-right members the importance of imminently funding U.S. allies. Turner, Rogers and McCaul shared their latest assessments with the group based on intelligence.

But the hard-liners didn’t care. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.),who was responsible for sparking the ouster of former speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), had defended Johnson. Gaetz now warned Johnson that if he moved forward with his plan, he would be toppled from thespeaker’sjob. He cautioned other Republicans that if they backed Johnson’s plan, hard-liners would attack them on social media and endorse primary challengers.

Johnson had a whiteboard and searched frantically for a path of least resistance. Numerous ideas werefloated but the most serious was to put forward a slimmed-down Ukraine bill includinglethal aid only and tied to a harsh border security bill, which is what the hard-liners wanted.

Multiple participants said the meeting wasn’t constructive except foronediscovery: Several membersforthefirsttimeheard some of the hard-liners declare they would refuse to back Ukraine aid under any circumstances.

The meeting ended without resolution. But Johnson mostly stayed the course.

Throughout the process, other members of leadership had little insight into Johnson’sthinking.But, publicly, they backed him as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a far-right member who wants Johnson out, gained additional support.

The pro-Ukraine Republicans rallied around Johnson, who has called himself a member of the MAGA wing. At a meeting Wednesday evening with Main Street Republicans, a conservative but pragmatic group, they applauded when Johnson entered. “How does it feel to be a RINO?” one asked jokingly, referring to an insult aimed at Republicans who appear to have gone soft.

Johnson gave a simultaneous shrug, awkward chuckle and a gentle pump of his fist.

“He came out of the meeting realizing that the people he used to hang out with … that they do not have his best interests at heart,” one Republican in the room said. “And a group of men and women that he barely knew are going to help him navigate through the disaster that is on Capitol Hill.”

“Mike Johnson was dealt a terrible hand of cards,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), who chairs the Main Street Caucus. “Not all politicians make that same choice. That was not a foregone conclusion on the day he was elected speaker.”

Path to yes

Early this year, Johnson started to suggest in conference meetings that he was open to funding Ukraine, making statements about being a “Reagan Republican” who believed in “peace through strength.” That’s when a far-right whisper campaign started as early as January about ousting Johnson if he dared move on Ukraine without first securing the southern border.

Meanwhile, the Senate was haggling over a bipartisan border security measure as part of its foreign aid package, including help for Ukraine. Those months-long negotiations bought Johnson time. But when Republicans in both the House and the Senate, led by Trump, immediately rejected the bipartisan border security plan, it became clear there was no chance suchameasure could pass Congress.

That meant Johnson would have to choose whether to rely on support from the sizable pro-foreign-aid faction of House Republicans and Democrats to back Ukraine aid or acquiesce to demands by his right flank and do nothing.

The Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill in February with 70 votes, significant bipartisan supportomittingany border security component. But Johnson dithered even as Ukraine struggled on the battlefield, running out of ammunition and morale. He vowed to address must-pass legislation with deadlines first, including funding the government and approvingan extension of foreign surveillance legislation known as FISA.

In fact, tensions amongRepublicans had beensimmering for months. At aFebruary leadership retreat in Florida, a group of over a dozen committee chairs and members of leadership kicked staff out of the room and got into a heated argument over Ukraine. Pro-Ukraine members sparred with those who argued there’s no point in sending aid to the country.

Republican infighting only grew. Many Republicans dismissed what the intelligence showed or refused to attend briefings, causingalarmed Republicans to say that misinformation and Russian propaganda has seeped into the Republican Party. Evangelical Christians tried to bend Johnson’s and his staff’s ear, pointing to the influence of propaganda from the Russian Orthodox Church. Johnson met with Pavlo Unguryan, a Ukrainian evangelical leader, who had been pushing for U.S. support.

Johnson is a devout Southern Baptist andhis faith “guides him in every major decision he makes,” one Republican member said.

Johnson was given polling from the American Action Network, the policy arm of the Republican-affiliated super PAC, that found a large majority of voters in battleground districts favor aid to Ukraine and that favoring Ukraine aid was not a principal deciding factor for Republican primary voters. The polling reassured Johnson there was little political risk to funding Ukraine, an important data point when working to persuade his GOP colleagues.

This month, Johnson started to turn his attention to Ukraine behind the scenes. His most vociferous critic, Greene, introduced a motion to ultimately toss him from the speaker’s chair if Ukraine aid came to the floor. Many Republicans believed that Johnson would ultimately move a Ukraine bill, but the speaker remained coy.

Johnson was still searching for a solution that would appease the hard-liners while also satisfying the national security hawks. He was in search of a path that was as painless as possible and one that would preserve his job.

He opened discussions with the White House to see if it would accept any Republican demands, including turning the aid to Ukraine into a loan and seizing Russian assets. The White House maintained that it preferred the Senate bill.

Johnsonalso received a private, classified and sobering briefing from CIA Director William J. Burns about the status of the war in Ukraine and its implications.

A steady stream of European leaders and ministers have knocked on Johnson’s door in recent months, telling the congressman from Louisiana that his place among global statesmen is assured if he got this done.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron applied some debonair wit. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, one of Ukraine’s sharpest backers, told Johnson what it was like to live in a nation that borders Russia. Just last week, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala met with Johnson and told him that the world’s eyes were on him.

“I really do believe the intel and in the briefings that we’ve gotten,” Johnson said last week. “I believe [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination.”

Ultimately, Johnson put a Ukraine bill on the floor. And he may lose his job because of it.

“I think he figured out the best way possible in a really terrible situation to allow people to vote,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said. “It takes some semblance of fortitude to do that.”

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[Curated from The Onion] Tesla Fans Explain Why Elon Musk Deserves $56 Billion Payout

Tesla recently sought shareholder approval to restore Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, which was rejected by a Delaware judge. The Onion asked Tesla fans to explain why Elon Musk deserves the $56 billion payout.

Paul Suchecki, Paralegal

“If the inventor of the automobile doesn’t deserve $56 billion, who does?”

Miguel Santos, Cybersecurity Analyst

“I’m not sure why he deserves it, but my Neuralink implant is telling me to keep killing until he gets it.”

Nolan Mercer, Student

“Who else are you going to give all that money to? The workers?”

Claudia Reichardt, Tesla Employee

“More child support for me!”

Paying It Back

Mother, son host blood drive that replenishes what he needed after accident

Gino Gutierrez / Albuquerque Journal

April 20, 2024

Sept. 16, 2023, should have have been a day Joey Vigil looks back on fondly. The 24-year-old had ridden out to Rio Rancho from Albuquerque on his fourwheeler with a group of friends to attend an event. One of his friends, who was working that day, drove up later in the day to meet the group.

“When (Vigil’s friend) got there, he was like, ‘I need gas’ and I gave him a couple bucks and ended up going with him to go get gas,” Vigil recalled. The pair rode to the gas station, filled up and drove back to the group.

Vigil admits the pair didn’t exactly drive safely during the return trip. “I shouldn’t have been following him that fast or following him in general, because he had no brakelight, and I couldn’t see exactly where the trail went,” he said.

The trail ahead led off a ravine cliff and into a cement arroyo. Vigil ended up driving off the cliff and nosediving into the arroyo. The handlebars of his four-wheeler went straight into his stomach and punctured his liver and lung. The major artery connected to the bottom of his heart also was severely damaged, causing extensive internal bleeding.

Moments after the crash, Vigil said, it felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. “I sat there for a second and was trying to catch my breath, but as time went on, it just kept getting worse because of all the internal bleeding, and it felt like I was drowning,” he said.

He sat on his four-wheeler for the next five minutes trying to catch his breath, while his friend who he had been riding back with told him he couldn’t stay with him because he was on probation. Vigil ended up calling his friends who were still at the event . The group rushed over to find Vigil still struggling to breathe.

“One of my friends, her name is Carmen Sanchez, she was holding me and said my breaths were getting more shallow as time went on,” he said. The group called 911 and an ambulance a transported Vigil to the University of New Mexico Hospital.

Meanwhile, Vigil’s mother, Brenda Murray, was having dinner with family and decided to call Vigil to check on him. When one of his friend’s answered the phone and told her about the accident, Murray drove to meet Vigil at the hospital, not knowing the full extent of his injuries or the severity of the crash.

“His blood pressure was so low and there was so much internal bleeding, (medical staff) couldn’t stabilize him to give him a CAT scan, so they took him straight to the operating room and that’s when they discovered the liver injury,” Murray said.

Doctors were able to stabilize Vigil after this initial operation and performed a CT scan on him that revealed the full extent of the damage to his artery. In order to save his life, Vigil would undergo bypass surgery.

Prior to the surgery, “they did ask us if we wanted to see a chaplain, and as a family we said ‘Thank you, but no,’” Murray said. “We prayed that God returned Joey to us. I was not ready to let my son go.”

The bypass operation succeeded, however. Vigil spent roughly 46 days in the hospital during two separate stays, required six surgeries, had 30% of his liver removed and received 74 blood transfusions.

Every time Vigil received blood, Murray promised herself that she would donate blood in return. In January, she was speaking with a coworker about New Year’s resolutions and was asked what hers were. She said it was to donate blood.

“And (Murray’s coworker) said, ‘We should (do) a blood drive’ and I said, ‘You know that’s a fantastic idea,’” she said. “So I asked my administrator and he was all for it, so I worked to facilitate a blood drive here at the University of New Mexico Sandoval Regional Medical Center.”

In order to get the resources in place, Murray called Drew Sharpless, the senior account manager at Vitalant. “(Murray) wanted to set up a blood drive, what we call a replenishment blood drive, for her son, who used 74 units of blood while in hospital,” Sharpless said. The goal of a replenishment blood drive is to replace the amount of blood a recipient received.

Each person donating blood on Friday donated roughly a pint of blood, which is enough to treat three people.

Among those giving blood was Don Shainin. A retired firefighter with 21 years of service, Shanin hadn’t donated blood in over 20 years. He said he was inspired to donate blood after watching a video detailing Vigil’s story.

“My conscience pushed me over here, and some people might need this (blood),” he said. “I might even need (blood) one day myself.”

As Murray sat in the back of a room and watched person after person register to give blood, she was taken aback by their generosity.

“It’s special. It makes me feel good that we have this kind of support,” she said. “I never want to forget what we went through as a family, and that’s why I am committed to doing my part and giving back.”

Dickey Betts, hit-crafting mainstay of Allman Brothers Band, dies at 80

by Terence McArdle for the Washington Post

April 18, 2024

Dickey Betts, the singer-guitarist who co-founded the genre-defining Southern rock group the Allman Brothers Band and wrote several of the group’s most enduring compositions, including “Ramblin’ Man,” died April 18 at his home in Osprey, Fla. He was 80.

His family announced the death on his website but did not cite a cause. His manager, David Spero, said Mr. Betts had cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He had been treated in 2018 for a brain injury following a fall in his backyard and canceled a tour following a stroke.

“Ramblin’ Man” (1973), which some bandmates initially deemed too country for their repertoire, became the group’s only top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The lyrics, set against a bouncy, upbeat melody, expressed the resigned and unrepentant wanderlust of a man “born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rollin’ down Highway 41.” “When it’s time for leavin’,” the song went, “I hope you’ll understand that I was born a ramblin’ man.”

Mr. Betts wrote several of the group’s most enduring compositions, such as the jazz-inflected instrumental “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and the pastoral love song “Blue Sky.”

The Allman Brothers Band built its style on guitar interplay between leader Duane Allman and the highly melodic fretwork of Mr. Betts, whose influences included Romani jazz musician Django Reinhardt and bluesman B.B. King.

Allman and Mr. Betts would play a theme in harmony before cutting loose with their own solos or answering each other’s licks in a call-and-response style. By the mid-1970s, a wave of Southern rock acts including Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Charlie Daniels Band and the Outlaws borrowed heavily from their twin-guitar format.

At their popular peak in the 1970s, the Allman Brothers Band played nearly 300 concerts a year, grossed between $50,000 and $100,000 a show, and crisscrossed the country on a private Boeing 720. When not touring, they shared quarters in a Tudor-style mansion in Macon, Ga.

The band survived the 1971 death of Duane Allman following a motorcycle accident, then broke up twice — largely because of increasing acrimony between singer and organist Gregg Allman (Duane’s brother) and Mr. Betts. Both men struggled with substance abuse.

Mr. Betts blossomed as a singer and songwriter on the Allman Brothers’ 1973 release “Brothers and Sisters.” During the recording sessions, founding bassist Berry Oakley died after a motorcycle crash. Pianist Chuck Leavell and a new bassist, Lamar Williams, joined the lineup to finish the recording.

In a retrospective review, Rolling Stone magazine praised Mr. Betts for “increasing the country light and buoyancy in the Allmans’ electric-blues stampede” with his songs such as “Ramblin’ Man,” “Pony Boy” and “Jessica.” “Pony Boy,” an acoustic showcase for Mr. Betts’s slide guitar, recounted family lore about a hard-drinking uncle who rode a horse home from a tavern to avoid a DUI.

Fatherhood inspired “Jessica,” an instrumental showcase for his nimble fretwork.

“With ‘Jessica,’ I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t quite find it,” Mr. Betts told Guitar World magazine. “Then my little daughter, Jessica, crawled into the room, and I just started playing to her, trying to capture the feeling of her crawling and smiling. That’s why I named it after her.”

The next year, he recorded an acclaimed solo album, “Highway Call,”credited to Richard Betts, with guest appearances by fiddler Vassar Clements and steel guitarist John Hughey. Several songs acknowledged a yearning for a simpler rural life that perhaps was a reflection of the strain of relentless touring.

Critics dismissed the band’s next album, “Win, Lose or Draw” (1975), on which many of its members recorded their parts separately, as below the band’s standards. That same year, Gregg Allman married pop singer Cher and moved to Beverly Hills. Then in 1976, Allman, caught up in a federal drug case against a supplier, testified against the band’s roadie in a plea bargain for immunity. The band broke up.

Mr. Betts stayed busy, doing recording sessions for outlaw country performers Hank Williams Jr., Billy Joe Shaver and Gary Stewart, collaborating on songs with future “Miami Vice” TV star Don Johnson, and touring with his own band, Great Southern.

“There is no way we can work with Gregg again. Ever,” Mr. Betts told Rolling Stone.

But he did, first reforming the band with Allman in 1978. In later decades, he performed in the Allman Brothers Band alongside younger guitarists Warren Haynes (the two had worked together previously in Great Southern) and Derek Trucks, the nephew of drummer Butch Trucks — though he was often in and out of the band.

Forrest Richard Betts was born in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 12, 1943, and grew up in Bradenton, Fla. At 5, he played ukulele in his father’s bluegrass group. He later switched to mandolin then banjo and finally — as he was trying to impress girls — an electric guitar.

At 16, he left home to join a teen band that worked with a traveling circus.

“Our band would do like splits and we had basketball knee pads and we’d go sliding on our knees playing and then I’d pick the other guitar player up on my shoulders,” Mr. Betts told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “So we did like 10, 12 shows a day. It was like Vaudeville or something except it was rock-and-roll. That was my first road trip.”

As his musical reputation increased, so did his wild streak.

The young guitarist sped around town on motorcycles wearing a jacket embroidered with an explicit phrase. When an Ohio-based band, the Jokers, came through town to hire him, Mr. Betts needed permission from a judge to leave the state. He had been placed on probation after he climbed a neighbor’s fence and shot a cow.

With bassist Oakley and keyboardist Reese Wynans, he joined a Jacksonville, Fla., band, the Second Coming. In 1969, Duane Allman, then a studio session musician for Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, approached Oakley and Mr. Betts about starting a group with Gregg Allman. The Allman Brothers Band emerged from their jam sessions.

When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, Gregg Allman was too inebriated to make the acceptance speech. The event proved to be a catalyst for Allman’s sobriety — but not for Mr. Betts.

The following year, there were rumors of a final band break after Mr. Betts allegedly put a gun to his wife’s head during an argument about his drug abuse. A stint in rehab followed.

In 2000, founding band members Allman, Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson fired Mr. Betts with a faxed letter that alluded to a decline in his playing.

Mr. Betts, who threatened a lawsuit and then settled out of court, maintained that the firing occurred after he asked for an accounting of band finances. Mr. Betts returned to leading his own band, often with his guitarist son Duane, who was named after Allman. Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks died in 2017.

Mr. Betts was married five times and had several children. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.

In later years, Mr. Betts resided on the water in Osprey, Fla. He and his wife, the former Donna Stearns, frequently butted heads with their neighbors, the Bay Preserve, a nonprofit center that hosted weddings and sporting events on the water.

When a local rowing team would practice, Mr. Betts would fire up his power boat to send waves in their direction. At one point, Donna Betts was arrested after pointing a rifle at a crew team as it paddled by their house.

“They have 300 teenage kids come over there, and they’re arrogant as hell,” Mr. Betts told Rolling Stone in 2017. “They’re driving down the road and won’t get out of your way. You work your whole life to get a place like this, and they’re renting!”

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