A Medical Perspective On Protest Safety

In a rare ICHH and House of Pod Joint Episode, James is joined by Miriam, Kaveh, and Dr. Richard Ferro to discuss street medicine, police use of irritants and less-than-lethal weapons and how to keep each other safe.

Links:

https://lapdonlinestrgeacc.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/lapdonlinemedia/2021/12/Directive_17.1_40mm_Less_Lethal_Launcher_Oct-.pdf

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1310-live-like-the-world-is-dy-85677729/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Sometimes there is a topic that is too big for
just one podcaster. Sometimes a simple medical podcaster, a simple
wartime journalist can't handle a topic on their own. They
need to combine forces. A special team up has to happen.

(00:26):
And that, my friends, is what's happening today on this
special crossover edition of the House of Pod and it
could happen here in hop Ich Hoppitch special myself, doctor
cave Hote Hope I'm saying the correctly and James Stout
are going to be talking to you along with two

(00:47):
very special guests about what's happening out there in the protests,
what risks the protesters are facing, what health concerns we
have for them, how they can best prepare and more.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
James, Hey, buddy, Hey, it's nice, nice to be podcasting
with you again.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
You really enjoy our team ups here, our special Marvel
team ups that we do.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
It's a fun one. You're my favorite collaborator.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Cove Hey, I'm going to take that as total sincerity,
even though I'm not entirely sure. So I thank you
for that. Yeah, because I think that sounded sincere enough.
I like these I like you me too.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
I do too.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Let's introduce our guests. We have some very special guests.
I will actually ask you guys to introduce yourselves. Let's
start with you, Miriam. Can you tell us a little
bit about who you are and what your background in
this field is.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Sure, Hi, I'm Miriam. I use she or they pronouns.
My background in the field of podcasting is that I'm
with the collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which puts
out the podcast Live Like the World Is Dying, as
well as the podcast Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness and
the spectacle. And my experience in the field of what

(01:56):
I think we're here to talk about today is that
I've been a street medic for over a decade, which
means I've treated a lot of injuries on people who've
been messed up by interactions with police.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I mean, we're going to talk about this more, but
my first question is is it pretty much ninety percent
or more violence from the police that you encounter. Do
you ever encounter anything else, like violence amongst protesters themselves
or something else that happens along the way, or is
it solely what you're experiencing is treating violence from the.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Side of the police.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
So that's a good question. It is mostly violence from police.
Sometimes it is violence from non state affiliated or at
least not on duty fascists so you know, you're proud boys,
you know, other people like that, or just generally sort
of hostile right wing actors. Sometimes it is also, you know,

(02:52):
sort of underlying medical stuff more so, like somebody has
been out at the march all day and they didn't
bring their medication with them and so they're having a
sea sure, and you know, then there's also environmental stuff.
You hate, stroke, your hypothermia, you're I was running to
catch up with the march and I stepped off the curb,
weird ow, you know, stuff like that. But in terms

(03:12):
of violence, yeah, it's it's mostly coming from the cops.
I've I've certainly never seen a friendly fire incident of
violence amongst amongst protesters. I'm sure it could happen, but
but I have not seen it. I have seen people
that I'm in the streets with or wherever with attacked
by by people who wish them harm, who are people

(03:33):
from the state or you know, like I said, not
currently on duty as cops, but you know, basically cops.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
No, I'm digressing too far, and I need to introduce
her other guests. But I have another follow up question
and I need to ask. I'm so curious, please, have
you ever had to take care of, say, someone on
the other side who's been injured.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
So as anybody who works in any kind of emergency,
you know, medical response will tell you. Anybody who's an
EMT or even anybody who's like a lifeguard, the first
thing you do before you approach a patient is established
scene safety. So if a Nazi has been hurt, it
is not safe for me to approach that patient because

(04:15):
there's a Nazi over there.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I see, Okay, I think I'm picking up what you're
putting down on that one.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
So it has not happened.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, anybody who is acting as a street medic is
acting under what it called a good Samaritan laws, you know,
which protects you from any kind of bad outcome. If
you start taking care of somebody, you know, start helping
somebody out in the streets based on whatever training you.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Have, you know.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Same thing like if if somebody collapses at a bus
stop and you start doing CPR based on the Red
Cross class you took, that's good Samaritan stuff. Same way,
it does not obligate you to intervene, especially in approaching
somebody who is actively seeking to do you harm. So
I would not consider that within my within my lane.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Understood.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Well, let's introduce our second guest. We have doctor Richard Pharaoh,
who is a doctor in the Los Angeles area and
is a family practice physician.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
May I call you Richard? Uh? Yeah, you may? Okay,
very good, Richard, welcome to the show. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
Goby, it's a pleasure to be on. You know, you
kind of mentioned it already. I'm Keelly medicine. I've also
experienced in street medicine in the LA area. Also, you know,
this is obviously something that's really important to me right
now given everything that's been going on in the city,
and also important for me just giving the fact that
I'm a Latino, I'm a proud Coasta Rican Cuban, and

(05:40):
just that's part of the huge reason why I'm in medicine.
So I'm really happy to have an opportunity to talk about,
you know, the ice protests and the stuff that's been
going on to protect our community.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
That's great to hear.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Can you tell us a little bit about what you've
been involved with recently down in Los Angeles.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
So I as far as what I've been involved in
Los Angeles, you know, I've been coordinating with some of
my colleagues who I knew from residency and just other
colleagues just who are all involved in social justice, as
well as the CIR, the Physicians Union, you know, who
are engaged in trying to like provide medical support to

(06:16):
the protests in the area. So I've had experience working
on some of the protests that have occurred both in
LA and OC.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, that's really good to hear. I think people will
have been spending a lot of time like watching footage
the protests right in the last I know what we
weekend now, Fuck knows, it seems like a long time.
I haven't been sleeping very much.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Give her take eight to twelve years.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Time has meant nothing. Yeah, March of twenty.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Twenty, Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah, it is flat sixteenth, twenty twenty,
and here we are. I people would have seen a
lot of people get hurt, right And I, like I said, journalist,
like I was in LA last week, you kind of
tend to get towards the more violent end of things
because that is our job. Most people who go to
protest don't get hurt, right, And I don't want people

(07:09):
to hear anything we're saying today and think, oh God,
I'm going to get fucked up, because most people don't
get fucked up. And like my STUNTI is that you
don't fight fascist because you think you're going to win
or you think you might not get hurt. You fight
fascist because they are fascists. And sometimes people do get hurt.
So let's talk about the ways that people get hurt.

(07:29):
Either of you is welcome to answer this, but like,
what are some of the common mechanisms of injury that
you see when you are out there street medic king,
when the cops are out there hurting people.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
I would say that like in terms of the things
that we would typically see, I just want to start
off by saying, like, absolutely, we're not out there just
because we know that we're going to be successful in
any type of advocacy. If that was the case, then
we wouldn't have that many people. You know on that front.
You know a lot of people know that it's you

(08:04):
might be losing ground, but you're not there because you're
trying to when you're doing it because you know that
you want to be on the right side of history.
You want to do the thing that you believe to
be morally right. As far as like the type of
injuries that you would typically see, I think in order
to answer this question, I would kind of break it
off into two sections, Like you have mainly protests that
have not evolved into violent confrontations with law enforcement, and

(08:28):
you have protests where things like you know, for instance,
riot control agents have been deployed in like the like
the non you know, dangerous side of things, like you
might have the kind of stuff that you would encounter
in any sort of major events. You know, you're going
to deal with dehydration, You're going to deal with people
who are, like in an overcrowded areas that might you know,

(08:50):
accidentally fall hit and trip over one another. In those
kind of circumstances, you know, when we enter into the
space where you know, riot control agents are being involved,
the quote unquote less lethals non lethals, which I'm going
to kind of go into later, is a bit of
a non a misnomer. In those circumstances we look at

(09:10):
like chemical exposure to things like tear gas, you know,
there's a lot of different ways that that manifests that
type of exposure, and we can kind of get into
that a little bit as well. And then also we
have you know, projectile weapons like rubber bullets, you know, flashbangs,
those type of things that you might encounter, you know,
like sort of blunt trauma to people's bodies.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, and you'd like to add, Miriam.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
I mean, first of all, like you're doing great out there.
Good for you for being out there. It's a hell
of a time. There's regional variation, I think to some
of the stuff that we see. So I am based
in New York City, not you know, not all of
this the work I've done has been in New York City,
but most of it has And in New York City

(09:54):
we don't have tear gas. They just don't do it
here because the police found out after plowing tear gas
extensively during the RNC that the thing about tear gas
is it gets sucked into vents, and when it gets
sucked into vents, it gets on all kinds of people
in the subway and in buildings, and that that causes

(10:14):
lawsuits and the NYPD does not enjoy that, so they
use pepper spray instead, because pepper spray is more directed,
it doesn't linger in the air the same way. You
hit the people that you are trying to hit, you know,
and anybody else who's walking by, and also your buddies
who are standing next to you, because you fired into
the wind, which is always a good time.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Any such cases, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
So many, There's a there's a whole series of what
we are calling locally pepper pigs, which are pepper pigs.
It's what you think it is. So yeah, we see
a lot of a lot of pepper spray. We also
because one of the primary weapons of the NYPD are
just sheer, overwhelming numbers, we see a lot of of

(11:00):
just direct hands on violence, just cops hitting people, punching people,
throwing people to the ground. We see a lot of
very rough takedowns. Now if you're you know, acting as
a street medic and in that situation, you don't get
to treat those people because if they are taking down
by a cop, that they are then swarmed by many

(11:20):
other cops and they get taken away, then that's something
that we might see when we meet that person later
at jail support. But the other weapon that we used
to see quite a bit, but haven't in more recent years.
Is the l RAT, which is a sound cannon. They
do still use it, but they use it to like
make announcements and annoy people. They use it to like

(11:43):
make obnoxiously loud announcements, but not to blast out people's
ear drums, which was sort of its weaponized form. We
haven't seen that recently though police will will you know,
they all carry tasers. You don't tend to see a
lot of that at protests, but it's certainly something that
we're constantly aware that they have the ability to do.

(12:05):
But yeah, it is here. It's mostly pepper spray, nightsticks, fists, knees,
you know that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I would assume that a lot of what they'd do, like,
for example, tear gas was, to my understanding, first developed
in World War One, really to cause confusion amongst the enemy.
And what I assume a lot of these things that
they're using, the sound canons is to create panic and
confusion and hopefully get people to run and move in mass,

(12:39):
unorganized ways. And I wonder if you're seeing crush injuries,
if you're seeing injuries related to just the people moving
and being scattered around and running in different directions. Is
that something that you have seen in this process, either
of you.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yeah, Well, just real quick, like to the first thing
you said, the absolute like the purpose of every place
weapon is to cause fear. One of the reasons that
I think they so often use things like tear gas
and pepper spray when they could simply choose to not
is like one, because they have it because their budgets
are outrageous and they have, you know, all the weapons

(13:14):
they could ever dream of, and why not, you know, well,
we have it. But I think that the other reason
they use it is because it does freak people out.
It scares people, and so you know a lot of
people have had like a big dude shove them before.
You know. That's like not a super unfamiliar situation. It's
not a great situation. People don't like it, but they

(13:36):
kind of they're familiar with it. They're familiar with the
concept getting sprayed by a mysterious chemical that makes you
feel a thing you've never really felt before. That's a
lot scarier, and you don't know what's in it. You
don't know what's on your body, you don't know why
it hurts the way it hurts, like you just know, like, oh, yeah,
I mean, I guess, I guess this is what tear
gas feels like. I guess this is what pepper spray

(13:57):
feels like. It's frightening. And yeah, people absolutely get hurt
running away. It makes it difficult to see. Like squeezing
your eyes shut is like a very immediate reaction. So
people run, They lose whoever they were at the action with,
they get separated from their group, they get disoriented, they

(14:18):
may be having trouble breathing. They may be panicking because
they're having trouble breathing. Then they're having trouble breathing because
they're panicking, you know. So yeah, you do absolutely see
all of that.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
Yeah, I mean, I really want to second what what
Miriam has been saying here. You know, as far as
like the most common agent that you see in tear
gas in the United States at this time, it's believed
to be agent CS. And this is something, like you mentioned,
it was developed right around the time of World War Two.
They started like be coming into effect the the in
like the late fifties. A point of thought for this

(14:47):
is it was actually made legal for use in warfare
in the nineties by the Geneva Convention. So you don't
see the US or other armies like using this on SOULDI,
but we're using it in protests.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Well you don't. You don't necessarily see the US military
following the Geneva Convention.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Okay, well we can. That's a fair point.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, of the walls of low ta gas is one
that it is walls of low Those wool people do
be using ta gas sometimes, but yeah, they shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Yeah, and you're right.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Is first in the Geneva Conventions in nineteen twenty five,
but then nineteen ninety seven specifically it was prohibited. The
thought behind that is they did it because they didn't
want someone to get one gas and not know exactly
what it was and then use the really nasty stuff
like sirm gas, et cetera. And the reason our police

(15:42):
are able to do it on our protesters is because
they're pretty confident that our protesters don't have when they
use siren gas, so they feel they feel free to
use it at our But speaking of sound canyons and
disturbing noises being shot into your ear holes, commercials will
be right back.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
We should talk about noxious gases. There has been this
persistent rumor. I don't just mean in the last like
ten days, there's been a persistent rumor every time that
people have been tear gassed that this time the cops
are using super tear gas, special tear gas, cancer tear gas.
To be clear, like the effects of tear gas on people,

(16:34):
especially to my understanding, like people who menstrate, are fucking
long term and nasty. So let's just address like what
are the reagents in tear gas and what are some
of the outcomes we can expect short term and long term?
And then do we suspect that the cops are using
super tier gas this time?

Speaker 5 (16:51):
Well, I guess in terms of like the agent, like
we kind of mentioned it a little bit ago on AGENCS,
the more complicated long name oh klaura laden melanitril. So
it's actually it's so that's absolutely the kind of thing
you talk about in dinner conversations. But the compound itself,
it's actually not in a gas form. It's actually a solid.

(17:14):
It's a crystalline substance that's released that's aerosolized after any
type of like explosion from you know, a grenade or
canister and it's as far as you know the types
of things that you will experience. It takes effect in
the first twenty sixty seconds of contact with the body.
It's a nucleophilic substance, so that means it will adhere

(17:35):
to tears, it'll adhere to moisture on your skin, like sweat,
any type of like saliva or mucus, and like the
first things you'll typically notice are the tearing, the redness, burning,
blurred vision in your eyes. Specifically on your skin, you
could develop burns or rash. A contact dermatitis has also
been associated with a development of this on your skin,

(17:57):
burning irritation in your mouth. You can also devel running
knows the more kind of more serious long term effects
that can be more systemic. You can actually develop shortness
of breath, wheezing, or chest tightness. You can also develop
nausea or vomiting if you ingest much of it while
you're in the protest and you kind of already brought
it up as well. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot

(18:19):
of systemic research that has been done on the impacts
of agents like cs that are in tear gas on people,
but we have a couple of things that have come
up about pregnancy outcomes. We do see increased rates of
uterine cramping, menstrual bleeding, breast tenderness, and delayed menstrual cramping
as well in pregnancy. We also don't know how well

(18:42):
it crosses into breast milk, so you know, it's this
kind of challenging question, and the CDC is official like
stance on it is this idea that like they don't
believe that it crosses. But again, we don't have that research,
so we can't know for sure.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Great cool, good thing to be fogging Loud City blogs with.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
Yeah, well we don't know everything it does, so probably
some of it is fine, you.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Know, James, when you're mentioning how it keeps coming up
and there's these concerns of there being like a cause
and cancer. We have no proof of that right now,
but I mean we really don't know, so it is
a little concerning long term, especially journalists like yourself who
are exposed to it a lot, so that that is
something I would love to see.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
But I mean, how you're going to study.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
It, you're going to find that, Yeah, I mean I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Rfka Junior might who knows it might be like, we're
not funding real research anymore like vaccine.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
So if we get on the right podcast, we could
probably make that happen.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
So before we move off of the gas, let's just
talk about treatment of it and what you guys, what
you will do out there in the field someone comes
to you, and let's try to address some of the
most common misconceptions about what you should be treating or
how you should be treating.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, ready to go. Since forever, there have been
like rumors that there are these I think because of
sort of the way that it is mysterious, like the
cops have these, like, you know, containers of this awful poisonous,

(20:17):
magical potion that they spray on you and then we
have to find the antidote. So things that I have
heard as being good for tear gas and pepper spray
include raw onion, lemon juice, apple cider, vinegar, coca cola, avocado.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Far it sounds sounds like a nice.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
Great actually, and then the classic milk as well as maylocks.
My personal favorite is when somebody like jumps into correct
somebody on milk and it's like no, no, no, actually
it's milk of magnesia, not regular milk.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
So oh, you got to get it from a which is.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
What you actually do is flush out the eyes with water.
I mean, that's it. That's the only thing. It's water.
The number of things that should go into a human
eye are basically water and any medicine that is designed
for the human eye, and saline solution. I guess you know.
And definitely you could do an eye flush with saline.

(21:28):
It's just that if you have sailine in your bag,
it weighs just as much as water, and you can't
drink it when you get tired. You can and what
you can, but it's not recommended, and you can't refill
it from a tap.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
You can drink anything, James, if you know a cow.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
But if you have a bottle of water, you can
do a bunch of eye flushes, and then when it
starts to run low, you can refill it from a
tap because that has water in it too. It's very
readily availed water in most places. And all of the
other things that are out there that people will tell
you you should use, you should not use. I have

(22:11):
never seen any good evidence that any of them are
better than water at getting pepper spray or cheer gas
out of your eye. All of them are kind of
predicated on this idea that there's like a chemical reaction
you are trying to affect. And then that is sort
of further based on the idea that the reason this
stuff hurts is because it is acidic. Because I think
people think, like, what's a chemical that burns acid? Right?

(22:35):
These are not acidic. That is not how they work.
They are chemical irritants. And you don't want an acid
base reaction in your eye anyway.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
You want to be doing chemistry experiments in your eye.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
You actually usually wear goggles when you do chemistry experiments.
I'm not like a chemist.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
But meerium water sure is great. But what about all
that fluoride you're getting into your eyeballs? Have you thought about.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
That that'll prevent eye cavities?

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Richard? Anything else to add to that?

Speaker 5 (23:07):
I know, I think you hit the nail on the head,
and I think that when when I look at what
physicians typically recommend in terms of response to your gas,
I always think back on the doctor Glockham fleckin thread
that became very popular on on switter.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
I'd be very interested to hear what your thoughts are.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
We're on that on that miriam I think like one
of the things that tended to come from from that
particular thread because he does have experience as as an ophthalmologist.
He mentioned washing your eyes with baby shampoo and rinsing copiously,
I think like the challenge with that is obviously, like
what Miriaman mentioned, one, water saline are the better options

(23:46):
for for irrigating your eyes, especially after exposure. For one,
the fact that it's you know, you never know what else,
like it's it's better to avoid any other type of
irritants that you could, you know, be exposed to your eye.
Also the fact, like we already mentioned, the fact that
the agents into your gas they're nuclear filth, meaning they're
attracted to water. So by using water itself, you are

(24:07):
effectively going to help to irrigate it. And you know,
we typically recommend anywhere upwards in twenty minutes for that
type of exposure. And then as far as I'm not
sure if you mentioned milk already, Mary.

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Milk counts me.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, we can't mention it enough.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Eyeball cheese.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
We cannot mention eyeball cheese.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
Is the let's let's think about what the context of
where we are in a protest. It's very typically outdoors
for many hours, usually in summertime. Exactly like the idea
of putting this uh you know, this this culture on

(24:51):
people's eyes, like I think.

Speaker 6 (24:54):
Far too many is the yogurt actually yogurt as well,
you may as well go and get some geg Greek
yogurt and pour it on their eyes, so you know,
it really gets back to the idea of like constant irrigation.

Speaker 5 (25:08):
Clean water is perfectly fine. If you have water at
the protest, usually the best thing to do is have
the type of water bottles that have like a flip
off cap, so that way you can easily, you know,
pour it over their face and then recap it for
later use on someone else or yourself. I think the
other thing too that's really important to discuss is, you know,

(25:30):
because it's this solid aerosolized substance, it can sometimes adhere
to your clothing, so you know, there's a couple of
different approaches, you know. Physicians for Human Rights has a
PDF that I strongly encourage anybody who's listening to review.
If you find yourself in the position of either being
a protester at a protest or being a medic at

(25:51):
a protest, they recommend if you've been exposed it to
your gas to hang your clothing afterwards in a heavily
ventilated place for up to forty eight hours. If you're
not able to do that, placing your clothing in a
plastic bag, including your shoes, outside and not mixing it
with any of your other non exposed clothing is the

(26:12):
ideal response afterwards.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, I'll add when doctor Glockinflecken was on our show
talking about this back during George Floyd, we discussed it
and the other thing that he recommended, and he is
actually not just a very very funny internet person, he's
also a very good ophthalmologist. And he also recommended initially
when it happened, soon as you can blink rapidly that

(26:37):
really helps initiate the tear response. You're still gonna need water,
but it's going to help start get that jump started
for you, and it's going to require a lot of water.
About one to two leaders is generally what people will say.
So it's hard to have that much with you on
hand when you're out there protesting, but if you're able to,
I feel like water is one of the more important

(26:58):
things you can bring with you.

Speaker 4 (26:59):
Yeah, So to the thing about the baby shampoo. First
of all, yeah, I think the recommendation with that is
to wash the skin around the eyes with the baby shampoo,
not not directly in the eyes, but that that's like
a less harsh way of removing the chemicals from the
skin there, because you would definitely wash skin with soap
and water, but I could see maybe using like a

(27:21):
gentler soap directly around the eyes. That makes sense as
far as like my technique with doing an eye flush
in the streets, a continual twenty minute irrigation just is
not feasible.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
Now.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
Sometimes at big actions, you know, medics will set up
clinic spaces, tents, stuff like that, and occasionally, very occasionally
you can do the like true gold standard of eye irrigation,
which is twenty minutes of continual saline irrigation, where you
like have a bag of saline like in a hospital,
and you plug it into a nasal canula and you

(27:55):
tape that to the bridge of the nose and just
let the person lie down. That works, but like it's
just not feasible in most street situations. So what I
do is I will basically I'll put on gloves. I
will get consent because you know, anytime you're treating somebody
who's been brutalized by the police, you are like you

(28:17):
are treating an assault victim, and you should prioritize their
consent as much as you can, so I, you know,
do a quick like, hey, what's up. My name's Miriam,
I'm a medic. Can I help you? I guide them
out of the area of immediate danger if they can't see,
and then I flush first one eye twice, and then

(28:37):
I have them blink a whole bunch, and then the
other eye twice, and I have them blink a whole bunch,
and then they're usually able to open their eyes and
navigate safely on their own. Sometimes they need another round
with that, especially if I didn't you know, if I missed,
you know, if it's dark and there things are moving
around and I miss the eye or something. But usually
that gets enough out that they are going to be

(28:59):
able to navigate the situation. And because they are tearing
a lot, that's part of the flush too, right, the
body is doing that on its own and flushing too
much with water. I think in that initial moment, you're
just washing away tears at that point, So doing like
a first round of like forceful of forceful flush. You know,
you're really like using a forceful stream to push the

(29:21):
chemicals out. And then Okay, their eyes are open, they're
still in pain, and like that's just gonna last for
a while. Your eyes are going to continue to hurt,
and like that sucks. You've been harmed. Somebody did a
harmful thing to you, and you are going to continue
to have pain for a little while. But if you
can see that, your immediate danger is reduced and you

(29:44):
can get out of there, and you can, you know,
in a calmer moment, maybe do another couple eye flushes,
maybe you know, use soap and water on the face,
clean up a little bit, and like be a little
bit happier with how you feel. But my priority in
the immediate moments after somebody's been spread is to like
help them so that they can get out of there
if they need to, because they probably do.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, Well, speaking of things that will make you tear up,
I'm sorry, I'm terrible. Commercials, stay tuned, will be right back, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
All right, we are back, and I guess let's talk
about rubber bullets or various impact nations, and then let's
talk about how people actions people can take to keep
themselves a little bit safer. Right, understanding that you are
not the one who gets to choose if violence arrives
at your protest. The cops are. And we're recording this
on Sunday like date in June, and people had their

(30:48):
big No Kings March yesterday. They were largely like, extremely nonviolent,
and they still got attacked by the cops in La.
So let's talk about impact munitions, right. One thing we
didn't mention actually was pepper balls. I've had the a
combo yeah right, I've had the ill fortune and receiving
some pepper balls in the balls. Oh yeah, very uncomfortable.

(31:12):
Cops will try and shoot you in the grin.

Speaker 5 (31:15):
I had a colleague who encountered this just a few
days ago.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I'm sorry. They had fucking so like, there's no Yeah,
it happens with such frequency that you'd have to be
really trying to believe that it was an accident. So
let's talk about things that can hit you. Right, If
we start with pepper balls and then move on up
to like what people call rubber bullets, which I think
baton rounds is like a more technical description of what

(31:42):
they are, or mark a rounds for a big foam
or rubber things that hit you. Sometimes they leave a
little puff of chalk on you, and theory like that
identifies you for the cops to arrest you. I guess
in practice it's just another thing that they can use
to smash into you. But like, let's talk about some
of these things that the cops can shoot from their
little guns. Bean backgrounds is another one, right, that comes

(32:04):
out of a shotgun, and it's what it sounds like, right,
it's a being bad traveling very fast. Somebody here in
San Diego lost their eye to one of those in
twenty twenty. But let's talk about some of these impact
munitions and like what the potential risks are for people there.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Yeah, I think that, I mean, just the one point
I want to bring up in terms of these they're
often called in the media non lethal and or or
quote unquote less lethals. Yeah, and I think that what's
really important to recognize, and you kind of already hinted
to with James, people have been killed with rubber bullets,

(32:41):
plastic bullets. We actually have. Amnesty International did a report
in twenty twenty three that you know, showed that over
the course of about five years, you know, dozens of
people have died as a result of the use of
rubber bullets. We show that between eighteen seventy two to
nineteen eighty nine, just in Ireland, sixteen people were killed.

(33:05):
In Palestine, between eighty seven and ninety three, twenty people
died just from the use of Robert bullets. And you
know that's reports. We don't know how many in truth
actually were impacted by that.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
I would also add the British Medical Journal back in
twenty seventeen looked at about two thousand little bit or
two thousand people who had been affected by these projectiles,
and three percent actually did cause immediate mortality, and then
fifteen percent was long term chronic injury or illness or
some sort of being maimed from the event. So yeah,

(33:41):
you're exactly right. It's pretty significant, especially with the number
of these that are shot. You know, they don't have
to keep record about how many of these they shoot.
So actually, one other question I have for you, Richard,
that you could help answer to one in la did
you see them shooting these things? And you would kind
of allude to that you felt that they were actually

(34:03):
directing them towards you. Did you feel that, being there
as a medical professional, that you were being targeted.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
I myself was fortunate and not hit by a rubber bullet.
From witnessing my colleagues who were actually there present at
this protest, they themselves were hit with HERR bullets below
the navel. He had previous experience from an earlier protest
that week where he had actually been strugging. The thing
he told me that I remember is like, I'm never

(34:31):
going to one.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Of these things.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
I'm prepared again. Yeah, because he did have that situation
where he was kind of hit closer to the groin,
so we ended up wearing I remember he was wearing
a kind of a fanny pack for this particular protest
that we were at, and you could very clearly see
the dust marks, like the chalk marks of the bullets
struck on this on his on his fanny pack. Yeah,
you know, it's it's definitely something that we noticed. Many

(34:55):
of the other medics at this event commented that they
had been previously struck or targeted once the police began
firing rubber bullets. As far as we fortunately we didn't
see anybody who was struck you know, closer to the face.
But there were reports after the No King's protest yesterday
that you know, several people had been struck in the

(35:17):
eye or on the forehead. There was one picture I
think earlier from earlier this week, that one of the
reporters in downtown LA had been struck with a non
lethal foam round directly in his forehead and it was
this you could see this very clear, enormous wealth the
size of like a grapefruit, Yeah, and bleeding and it
was it was, you know, very clearly like aiming above

(35:41):
at the face.

Speaker 4 (35:43):
In these cases, Yeah, there was a huge number during
the Chilean protests in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, eye injuries
were huge. There were hundreds. There's a there's a club
somewhere of journalists who've lost eyes to rubber bullets. I
think they call themselves the Cyclops Club or something. They're writers,

(36:04):
they you know. But yeah, like, these things are incredibly dangerous,
and eye injuries especially are really common. Yeah, they are
less lethal only in that it is less likely to
kill you than being shot with live ammunition. But like
most things, are less likely to kill you than live anue.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Okay, grizzly barry is less likely to kill you.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
My friend Rebecca Watson says, you know, Samurai blade is
less lethal than AK forty seven, but it's still not
something you want them to have.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah against you, the ideal if you weren't being attacked
doing what is a constitutionally protected right in the US. Yeah, hey, everyone,
I just wanted to record a little pick up here
to explain a little bit more. I guess about forty
milimeter and thirty seven millimeter less lethal projectiles. They are
sometimes called baton rounds. I saw baton round written on

(36:58):
the Safari Land thirty seven milimeters one, but they are
not the same as the baton round you will have
seen British military using in Northern Ireland. Most of the
modern ones that I am aware of are not designed
to be skipped off the ground, albeit there desertainly are,
or at least were rubber bullets that were designed to

(37:18):
be skipped off the ground at one point. The use
of a bullet made of rubber that's fired out of
a conventional rifle is very rare. In the United States,
there are things called simmunitions, which are munitions fire out
of a conventional rifle using a different bolt, and they
are generally used for simulated force on force training. You

(37:38):
can think about it like going paintballing, but with regular
guns orbit with a bolt that makes it so you
can't load live ammunition into that gun while it's set
up for simmunitions. Those will use extensively. I believe in
Columbia identified some ammunition casings. I've not seen those used
by police anywhere in the United States. What the LAPD
uses is a forty millimeter egg act impact round. It

(38:01):
has a plastic body and a sponge nosed and that
is designed to be point of ain point of impact, right,
so shot at someone like you would shoot a gun
at somebody. There are other leslethos in use, even in
LA I saw a thirty seven millimeter Safari land round.
I saw FN three H three's, which is like seventeen millimeter.

(38:22):
I saw pepper balls. Various different versions of LES lethal munitions,
but most of the ones that I'm aware of in
twenty twenty five are designed for point of a point
of impact. They're also extremely dangerous and as we've said here,
they can kill you. It's wanting to clarify that, so like, yeah,
these things are dangerous, right, like they have caused serious

(38:44):
injury or death. Let's assume for a minute that like
the folks listening have not attended many actions before, right,
that they are right the younger or like, they just
haven't been in that world in that part of their life,
and they've seen what's happening recently, and they're pissed off
and they want to attend. They're afraid, right, and they
want to know what they can do, what they can bring,
how they can prepare themselves in the understanding that like

(39:07):
it isn't one hundred percent safe because the cops can
decide to attack you whenever they want. What can people bring?
How can people prepare to be as safe as they
can be?

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Bring water? I mean not just the eyeflushes, but like
bring snacks and water. Like you're going to be out
there for a while, you need to keep yourself going.
You need to keep your friends going. Bring friends, like
be there with somebody who is going to watch your back,
somebody who knows a number for like your emergency contact,
you know, if you get grabbed, stuff like that, especially

(39:37):
if you're new to this, Like try not to run alone.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, even if it's like just hooking up
with people when you get there, you know.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
Yeah, I've been at a protest that was starting to
look scary and a woman turned to me and said,
I'm here alone. Are you here alone? And I said yeah,
and she said, now we're here together, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
which is beautiful.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
It's good place to make friends.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
It's a very like honest feeling to have. I mean,
you're seeing for the problem for many people is probably
the first time that you're seeing someone aiming a project
out at you and aiming a firearm at you and firing.
So yeah, you know, there's a good reason to feel worried.
That's like the fact that we have to worry about
that in this country period is you know, it's very chilling.

(40:22):
I think that, you know, Miriam mentioned it, bringing friends
is really important. Something else that like we've talked about
in circles in LA I think is like really understanding
going in what is the amount of risk that you
are willing to take entering into these spaces I think
is extraordinarily important. I think some of my colleagues who
were at the UCLA protests earlier during the Palestine movement. Yeah,

(40:44):
they kind of asked the question, like they kind of
framed it in like green light, yellow light, red light,
Like in terms of green meaning like I'm okay with
you know, whatever risks might be involved, like as far
as like what my understanding of what this protest could
entail yellow being like I'm I'm not prepared to go
so far as to be arrested, but I'm willing to

(41:05):
be present on record if necessary, serve as a witness
for my other colleagues who are going to be in
this space read meaning you know, I'm not necessarily prepared
at this point to go that far.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (41:19):
I want to support, but I also don't want to
get arrested. And I think it's important to like, you know,
recognize that not necessarily shame other people in terms of
like where they're at in this Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
Understand Yeah, absolutely, because because everybody comes at this from
different places, I think it's really important, like when you're
in these spaces to like, you know, kind of understand
the risk of the other people and who are alongside you.

Speaker 5 (41:39):
Because if you're a medic and you're trying to treat
other people and then you have all of a sudden,
you're by yourself because the other people are like, well,
I you know, this is what I signed up for.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
I'm out.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
That is also scary, even if you're you know, you're
very willing to be there.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:52):
So I think just having those conversations and planning more
than anything, planning, planning, planning, is extraordinarily important.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I think that's very well said, great points, and everyone
has a different level of risk. And just to be
totally clear for our listeners, there was over two thousand
different protests yesterday and there was the minimal amount of
violence and they were all peaceful. For the protesters were
the vast, vast, vast majority peaceful and things went fine,

(42:21):
and some like the one I attended, was actually kid friendly,
so it was a safe place. But particularly in certain places,
there's always a small chance, if not large, and depending
on the police presence there, that things could go the
wrong way, and it is something to keep in mind.
So I particularly liked your point regarding everyone has a

(42:43):
different level of risk, and that's okay, you're still contributing.
I mean, I'm not a place myself where I'm planning
on getting arrested. That's just not something I want to do,
but I would like to protest that I would like
to support in along those lines, What are ways that
other people who have medical backgrounds could potentially contribute or support.

Speaker 5 (43:05):
You in terms of the ways that like medics can
you know, respond in these situations. I think for me,
I have you know, a box of medical equipment that
I want to go to bring on site, like I'm
obviously like and said, I'm bringing water because that's going
to be foremost like my most useful tool to help
anybody who's going to be affected by things like that,

(43:25):
like to your deaths.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
You know.

Speaker 5 (43:26):
As far as other things like having extra masks, I
think is really really important, you know, because it's a
huge way of reducing respiratory exposure to the aerosols that
are going to be in the air.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
And then eye.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
Protection, eye protection, eye protection. Now the thing about like
you know, we we've seen different types of protection for
your eyes that are effective. We've seen goggles being used,
like the ones that you would you would see in
a lab. They're not actually effective unless you close the
sides the vents with tape because otherwise the aerosols actually
can still get inside the mask and irritate your eyes.

(44:01):
So if you are going to be like bringing that
type of eye protection, it's important to think about that.
There's like some higher end, you know, more effective tools
that provide both eye protection and helping to filter particles.
Just using a basic goggle mask with the vents covered
in an N ninety five for just about anybody, I
think is a useful tool. So having those types of

(44:23):
supplies for people who need them is helpful for sure.

Speaker 4 (44:27):
And as far as like a really low risk thing
that people with medical training can do is show up
to jail support, because that's like that is a huge
way you can help not just people who are arrested,
but anybody coming out of jail is by doing jail support.
And what that entails is hanging out where people get released.

(44:49):
People will usually bring food, drinks, clothes, shoelaces. People often
get out without shoelaces, belts, and like a couple of
you know, extra layers of clothes if people get let
out and it's cold, and check out people's injuries. Often
people will be taken to the hospital during processing if

(45:10):
they have something that the police can't ignore, but people
often get released with injuries and it can be really
good to have somebody there who can evaluate them. Honestly,
it's often just giving them like a judgment call on,
do you think this needs somebody else to take a
look at it, you know, in a professional environment, or
can I put some ice on it and go home

(45:31):
type thing. And almost everybody getting out of jail has
handcuff injuries if they were arrested in a mass arrest,
because in mass arrest situations, cops tend to use the
plastic zip ties, which can get incredibly tight, even more
so than metal handcuffs, which have a little bit a
little length of chain. They strain the shoulders, especially larger people.

(45:53):
Especially if somebody has a bag on their back, cops
will often cuff them in such a way that the
bag pushes on their hands and makes the cuffs increasingly tight.
And having a medical professional or a street medic or
even somebody who's like just there to like take a
look and be like, yeah, man, I see that that's
really fucked up that they did that to you. I'm
so sorry can be useful. Having somebody there to witness

(46:15):
an acknowledge and to document if somebody is planning on
doing something with that, you know, then that's that's important too.
So if you cannot be arrested, find out what's happening
with jail, support and go support them because that's chill,
that's calm.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
No.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
I mean, there are no guarantees in this world but now,
but it is far more likely to be chill and calm. Yeah,
and you can hang out and eat snacks. Oh and
this is the one situation where, medically speaking, bring cigarettes.
People want cigarettes when they get out of jail and
they need, they deserve a fucking cigarette. Is it good

(46:50):
for them?

Speaker 3 (46:51):
No? I know, I just am sorry. I hate cigarettes
so much. I listen.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
I'm not going to say you can't, but I will
never give someone a cigarette. It goes against I'll bring things.
I just can't listen. There's certain lines I will draw
as a doctor. One I have to help everybody if
I don't like them. Two, I can't give them cigarettes
even if I like them, So I just can't. Those
are two things I can't bring myself to do. The

(47:15):
cigarette one really a duds me crazy, but I get.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
In that case. Maybe bring some cards for whatever your
local public transit is, or failing that, you know, have
some cash on hand to send people home in a
taxi or have somebody who standing by with a car
to help people get home. Stuff like that that's really
important for jail support, perhaps even more important than a cigarette.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yeah, I would add that another thing you can do
if you're a medic plea like a medical professional especially,
it's helped other people learn really bagic skills. You didn't
even have to be at a protest, right it could
be a week laser. There are medical professionals who do
street medic training. You can teach people stop the bleed
in a day and potentially save someone. It's like and

(48:00):
so if it's not something that you you know, are
skilled enough to teach, and you need to be honest
about whether you're skilled enough to teach that or not.
You know, if you've watched a forew YouTube videos and
you're not, that's something you could use to really help
other people who are who are going to be there
at a time when you're not comfortable or safe being there.
I guess for the end of the show to wrap up,

(48:22):
if people are just attending to be fucking mad, and
there are a lot of people who are fucking mad
right now, what should they bring And if people want
to access training, right, Like, what are some some resources
that you would suggest, What are some types of training
in terms of like first aid that people can access,
so that people should access if they're the thinking of

(48:44):
attending these things and they're worried.

Speaker 5 (48:46):
I mean, I think in terms of the type of
first aid that you need to be really conscious of,
especially in any any type of like event where you're
going to be with a lot of people and you're
going in as a medic. And this isn't just for protest.
I think it's for any type of event. We do
live in a world where, unfortunately, there is a lot
of mass shootings. Even if they're firing rubber bullets, we

(49:07):
don't know who else may also attend, who may also
be going with the intention of being violent. So I mean,
you mentioned it yourself, stopped the bleed. Having basic understanding
of how to what types of on the field first
aid should be done for individuals who have got received
a gunshot wound, I think is really important if they've

(49:29):
been struck by a car. We've already seen earlier this
this weekend that there were shootings in I believe in
a couple of different cities. It's I'm missing, which one
unfortunately happened, But I do know of at least one
report of a tesla being driven into a crowd of
protesters this weekend, So it was, Yeah, if I.

Speaker 4 (49:52):
Get killed by a tesla, I'm gonna be so fucking mad.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Indignity.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
That is the thing that concerns me the most most
protests is some actor coming in from outside to do
something like that. That part really does concern me, especially
because so many of these are are, like I mentioned,
kind of family friendly, and they should be. I think
families for the most part, should be able to come
to these things. So that is something that I'm always

(50:20):
constantly on the lookout for.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, cars fucking scammy, like experienced car bombs in my career,
but also just like cars driving into crowds of course
undouled damage, and Americans do be loving large cars. Yeah,
and the cops won't stop them, Like at least in La.
My experience with the cars were kind of in and

(50:43):
out the whole time, and that did not make me
feel secure.

Speaker 5 (50:47):
We had one individual who was stood in front of
a van that was carrying ice agents and that person
essentially got run over. In that situation, they were not
at all stopping for.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
That big car, it's a big risk. Like I guess
with that in mind, one thing I think about sometimes
when these things is like you don't want to be
going into this, like like traumatizing yourself by doing this.
But a degree of situational when is to include what
are my points of cover and what are my ways out?

(51:19):
It's good to have.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, it helps.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
It helps me feel safer anyway.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Yeah, And that's another huge reason to always run with
a buddy, right because if you're running with a buddy especially,
I mean I think I personally think that if you
are doing medical stuff, you should always have a buddy
just because if you're going to be stopped and like
somebody's got to watch your back and like it's and
you know you might need a second opinion, you can
call in that buddy for a consult. You know. The

(51:47):
Medic Collective that I run with on really big action days,
we'll put together like little bingo cards that will distribute
to all the medic buddy pairs as a situational awareness game.
So like if we're alllling out to this, you know,
to a big, big action, we'll put like there'll be
squares for like a cop who clearly is not awake,

(52:08):
or your ex, or you know, a person who forgot sunscreen,
or you know, just just things to look out for. Yeah,
and I think honestly like making a little bit of
a game like that if you're going to be out
all day, can be kind of fun. And it also
makes you keep looking. It makes you not just look
down at your feet as you as you march another mile,

(52:32):
you know.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
Yeah, please, there's another great reminder. Please prepare for the weather,
prepare for the elements. Bring water, bring sunscreen, bring hats,
all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Sunscreen can trap the chemical irritant next to your skin.
I like to wear a sun hoodie like you can
get hoodies with a SPF. I am pay a lass person, right,
some of you can see me.

Speaker 3 (52:57):
For listeners, It is indeed true.

Speaker 4 (52:58):
Who's gonna say, is that sun hoodie y? You in
no way have a watch tan?

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Okay yeah, friends, friends can see my absolutely brutal tan
right now. When I was a bike racer, I used
to have the logos of my sponsors burned into my back.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
And that was cool and normal.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
That's unsettling, literal.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, that was a political moment for me. Actually, yeah,
I like to wear sun hoody because sunscreen it can
trap immergance against your skin. But if it's a creamy kind, right,
I think after point it absorbs and it doesn't. But
I've definitely experienced that kind of paste on your skin
kind of situation. Interesting, some of the gnalhliest like injuries

(53:42):
I've seen have been heat related at protests. If you're
organizing a protest, don't send it straight up a fucking hill,
Like just don't let go easy on people. You know,
the people will be bringing a lot of stuff and
they have signs and stuff like a mant of weather
comfy shoes. Go easy on them with the with the
hill climbing. And then because you're doing it in the

(54:03):
middle of the day often as well, like you know,
don't help people, Richard. I know you were going to
mention somebody else.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
The thing I was trying to to mention this is
this is less so for i'd say ems non physician individuals. Actually,
before the podcast, I had a chance to talk with
one of the regional vice presidents for CIR, the Physicians
Union that I was formerly a part of when I
was in my residency.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Kayla.

Speaker 5 (54:27):
She has a lot of experience being involved in protests
and street medicine, and the thing that she likes to
mention is like, physicians have a tendency to want to
do a lot in a moment, and so Miry mentioned
situational awareness. I think situational awareness is extremely important.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Being able to.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
Know when you have the time to to do a
certain intervention versus when it's time to like get this
person out of here and to a safer place, I
think is like very very important.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Ya, So less does.

Speaker 5 (54:57):
More in these situations, is what I would say is
pretty important.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
One thing I do like as a journalist, primarily not
a visual one. I often work with photographers right as
a two person team. I have been a photographer protest
in the past, and your world is very small in
that viewfinder, and it's kind of the same if you're
helping someone right who's injured, that becomes your whole shit.
I will have my physically have my hand on my
photographer a lot of the time on their back right,

(55:24):
and if they need to start moving backwards, I am
going to start moving them backwards. Obviously, you don't want
to leave someone who's hurt but like if you're the buddy,
it's good to be that close to the person who's
providing care so that you can have a way out
if you need to have a way out.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
This was so incredibly useful, helpful and insightful. We appreciate
both of you coming on. Let's close up here. What
I would like to do is not only plug something
for yourselves, but what I'd like to hear and our
listeners actually enjoy, is to hear something that's bringing you

(56:00):
some joy in these times. Some piece of media, art, film, book, podcast, anything,
you name it, a good restaurant that you really love.
You want to give a shout out to whatever it is,
something that's bringing you a little bit of joy.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
So let's do those two things. Miriam.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Let's start with you. What can we plug and what's
something that's bringing you some joy?

Speaker 4 (56:23):
So thank you for having me on. This was delightful.
So I will plug Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which
is the collective that I'm a part of. You can
find us at Tangled Wilderness on Blue Sky and Instagram
and nowhere else. And we have a website which is
Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness. We have a Patreon all

(56:44):
that stuff. But the main thing I want to tell
you about those guys over there is that James and
I did a podcast recently for the show lives Like
the World is Dying on protest health and safety, and
we go really in detail on specifics of gear, specifics
of first aid techniques, and I think people should maybe
check it out if they're if they're going to be

(57:05):
out there.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
We'll put it in the show note.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Yeah, because we're professional podcasters like that.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
You can craze on to take it happen here if
you'd like to find the show notes.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Right. Wait, Miriam, So what's the thing that's bringing you joy?

Speaker 8 (57:20):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (57:21):
I have remember that, Joey.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
I'm earlier with the concept. I have been rewatching the
Shira and the Princesses of Power cartoon.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Wow, nice love it? What about Jim? She is outrageous.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
You know they didn't remake that as an overtly queer
Netflix series, so I have had less exposure to it.
But you know, cartoons sword lesbians can't argue with it.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
Yeah that sounds pretty awesome, all right, Richard? What about you?

Speaker 5 (57:54):
As far as something to plug I am a huge
pleasure of being able to work on onlue Sky, helping
to put together the med Sky feeds. So if you're
on blue Sky, be sure to subscribe to our labeler
so that way you can get your medical specialty on
your accounts and you can get your posts on one

(58:15):
of our forty different feeds. And then also as a Latino,
I can't leave the podcast without mentioning also we are
working on Latin Sky and it's a it's it's a
it's the amount of latinidad and joy that I've been
seeing on that feed over the last few days, despite

(58:36):
the pain, it's been very inspiring. So I think that's
like the plug that I want to put out there,
and as far as a thing that brings me joy
right now, I like I was torn. I heard it
like a bunch of people have already plugged and or,
so I'm not gonna plug and or.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
But can you yeah, you know, I'm gonna.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
I'm gonna give some love to Ryan Coogler's Cinners, which.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Is easily one of the number of cast movies.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
I have seen in at least the last five years.
It is an extraordinary movie. Every everything about that movie
is like art. I just hope that Ryan cooler can
just make original movies for the rest of his life
and that he doesn't have to like be stuck doing
franchise stuff because when he's just given a canvas, he

(59:22):
he makes beautiful, beautiful art.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Yeah, right on, right on.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
That's for the So James, what about what about you?

Speaker 3 (59:33):
What we plug? What can you plug for you?

Speaker 1 (59:36):
What can I plug? There was a hot dog guy
who went on the freeway in Los Angeles when everyone
else went on the freeway, So that person's a fucking hero.
I would let you know if you're if you're in
the I'm vegan, so you know, maybe the bun, but
for the rest of you, get after it. You know
you can. You can listen to my podcast. You may

(59:56):
be already are it could happen here if you have.
I haven't listened. It would mean a look to me
if you had listened to the podcast I made in
the Dadian Gap last year when I traveled with migrants
who were on their way to the United States. Those
people and their stories are really important to me. So
if you would listen to one thing I ever made,

(01:00:16):
it would be that you can find it by searching
Dadien where Dreams Die, and then it could happen here podcast,
and it will come up unless you're using a really
shit search engine a Google has been even more fucked
by AI. And then, in terms of stuff that gives
me joy, recently, I have been listening to like the
music of the anti apartheid movement. Again, I kind of

(01:00:39):
when I was a very young person, my sort of
first exposure to activism was through people who had resisted
apartheid in South Africa, and they were very inspiring to me,
and they still are very inspiring to me. I listened
to that music with them, right, Like apartheid, to be clear,
ended when I was eight years old, but like it
was cool because it seemed like at that point the

(01:01:00):
good guys were winning, right and so hey, we fucking anyway.
I listened to that because it reminds me that they
always lose in the end. So yeah, I enjoy like
the Specials and Eddie Grant and even the incredibly eclectic
Sun City album.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Great Choices, Great Choices.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
And for if you happen to be listening on the
House of Pod, you've heard James come and talk about
the Darien Gap. That was a really amazing story and
it resonated with a lot of listeners, and you should
listen to the full multi part series that he put
out on that if it's so much better, So please

(01:01:40):
do that for me. If you happen to be listening
on it could happen here. Listen to the House of Pod.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
You like it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
You'll hear James and lots of people you already known
love and meet some new people. And you'll hear us
make fun of medical grifters in the wellness community and
that sort.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Of thing as well members of the cabinet.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
And I believe it. Yeah, boy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
As for the thing that's bringing me joy, I recently
had a chance to expose my kids on a long
drive to the work of Jeff Buckley, who is for
you younger listeners out there. You may not know who
he was because he unfortunately passed away when he was
only thirty, but he was really a once in a
generation talent.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
His was a voice.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
His songwriting transcended different genres. There was rock, there's jazz,
there was folk. He could span a vocal range that
just really is amazing. And he only had one studio album, Grace,
but it is amazing and I highly recommend that or
really any of his Live Album's Mystery White Boy, They're

(01:02:48):
all fantastic. His cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is the
best version of it in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
I will fight you. I will fight you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
If you say rufus waynewright better, I will physically fight you.
So it's just raw and beautiful and I hope you
guys check it out if you haven't already. Last thing
I'll plug June twenty eighth, if you happen to be
in the Bay Area, my band will be playing at
the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It is one of
my favorite places to watch or play music, and it's

(01:03:17):
just super fun. Come up and say hi, and we'll
chat and we'll maybe share a drink if we have time. Okay,
thank you all so much. Thanks James.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
This was fun. Huh yeah, that was fun.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
It's beautiful. I had a nice time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Let's do it again.

Speaker 8 (01:03:30):
Okay, bye, it could happen. Here is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could
happen here. Listened directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.