$20 for Lunch at Five Guys

I went to Five Guys for lunch yesterday. It felt like months since I'd eaten their food (really it had only been about six weeks, I think) and I had a sudden jones for one of their burgers and fries. I placed my usual order: a cheeseburger, little fries, and a small soda. The bill for this basic combo came to just over $20. $20 for fast food lunch?!?!

FIVE
GUY$

Yeah, it's inflation. A few months ago the same order was well under $20. Not several dollars under but under enough that it didn't trip the $20 wire in my thinking that separates, "Hmm, this is getting expensive" from, "WTF?" And it seems like not that many years ago the same order was $12 and change. Inflation's a bitch. But it seems like some businesses are taking advantage of it to raise their prices more than others.

Don't get me wrong; I appreciate that Five Guys is better quality than many fast food alternatives. And it does taste good. But for $20+ the taste pales. Now it probably will be months before I eat there again.

Tyre Nichols Dead Following Police Beating; 5 Cops Charged with Murder

In what has sadly become far too common of a story, police officers pulled over Black motorist Tyre Nichols for an alleged traffic violation, beat him heavily in a confrontation that turned violent, and Nichols subsequently died of his injuries.



Nichols, 29, was pulled over by Memphis, TN police on January 7 allegedly for reckless driving. I take care to say allegedly because in evidence that's come out since then, there's no evidence that Nichols was driving badly. That's also part of the sad pattern— police making questionable claims of wrongdoing as pretext to detain a Black or brown driver.

Nichols was beaten repeatedly by several officers in a confrontation that lasted for several minutes. He was prone and crying for mercy most of the time. He was taken to a hospital and died of his injuries 3 days later.

So far so sadly familiar. Then the story took an uncommon turn.

A week after Nichols's death, the Memphis police chief announced 5 officers who participated in the beating would be fired. Even that level of accountability is uncommon. So often officers are protected by their departments, put on paid administrative leave as internal investigations wind on for months, then returned to duty or hired by other jurisdictions.

But just getting fired wasn't all. Yesterday the Memphis district attorney announced the 5 former officers would be charged with 2nd degree murder.



Finally! Swift action by the authorities against bad cops! I thought. No more 'open season' on Black men!

Then I saw the picture of the 5 men charged with murder. They're all Black men, too.

That gave me pause for a moment. Does this mean this isn't part of the pattern of police violence? After a moment I decided no because the scourge of violence against Black men isn't limited to just some white people in positions of authority. The scourge is, more broadly, violent abuse of authority. The mentality, the training, and the groupthink that create that can infect police officers of all colors.

The photo of the 5 Black officers triggers another concern, though. Why are consequences so slow & unlikely to come when White officers are the alleged perpetrators, but swift & hard when they're 5 Black men?

Note, I am absolutely not saying these officers are innocent or even that they're being prosecuted inappropriately. There's a video being released this afternoon of their actions that's downright horrifying. The problem is how often such evidence is seemingly swept under the rug when the cops are White.

Band of Brothers, Ep. 9: Why We Fight

When I browsed the list of episode titles in the Band of Brothers miniseries I noted Ep. 9, "Why We Fight" and figured it would be an upbeat morality lesson about fighting that is just. It's a morality lesson, all right, though it's anything but upbeat. It's about the evil we must oppose. It's about Allied troops discovering German concentration camps at the tail end of the war in Europe.

The Allies have captured the town of Landsberg, Germany. The German army is in retreat. Easy Company is sent to scout outside of town. Instead of units of the German army they stumble across a concentration camp. They don't know what it is. One soldier goes running back to town to fetch reinforcements— more soldiers, but also food, first aid, and ranking field officers.

This scene late in the episode opens as battalion commander Maj. Winters (he was promoted in the previous episode) arrives with reinforcements and supplies to figure out just what this barbed wire pen full of sickly men is.

Watch on YouTube

Winters calls for Joseph Liebgott, a soldier who speaks German, to help him determine what the place is. Together they find a prisoner who's well enough to explain it. He's in ill health from starvation, though, and likely suffering shock from all the terrible things that have happened around him. In a halting conversation he reveals:

• The people here are prisoners


• The conditions are absolutely squalid (actually he doesn't say this; it's obvious from the visuals as they're talking)


• When the German army called for retreat, guards here lit prisoners' sleeping quarters on fire, many with people to weak to flee still inside them


• The soldiers shot prisoners until they ran out of ammunition, then left and locked the gates behind them


• A women's camp this size (this one's all men) is at the next railroad station down the line.

The fact that it's a concentration camp for murdering Jews (and Poles and Gypsies) only comes out at the end of the conversation, much to the Americans' horror. Of course, the term concentration camp didn't exist in English at that point. Until the end of the convo the Americans thought maybe this was a camp where criminals, deserters, or turncoats were being barbarously.

Easy Company heads back to town to commandeer supplies— more food and medical supplies. Leaders who'd been somewhat deferential to the local civilians are now pretty salty about their apparent involvement... or at least complete indifference.

"I didn't know! I didn't know!" protests a baker as they raid his store to feed the prisoners.

"How could you not know?" an officer asks. "You can smell it from here!"