Tea & Two Slices is a long-running local news round-up by NEEDS frontman and veteran dishwasher Sean Orr, who lives and works in Gastown, deeply aware of his privilege.

Remember when they said things would be back to normal in July? About that… There’s a new Swine Flu; massive Saharan dust clouds are invading the East Coast; snakes can fly now; armed white multimillionaire lawyers are pointing guns (poorly) at protesters in defence of their mansions; cops are swarming people during an Elijah McClain violin vigil; Trump has been calling supporters who screamed “white power” good people; instead of flattening the curve the USA made a half pipe; and the far-right was hoping for violence at their July 1st rally on Parliament Hill. Oh yeah, and climate change is still a thing.

Oh, and we broke the overdose record. Again: B.C. paramedics responded to 131 overdoses Friday. If COVID 19 is revealing how our governments can mobilize in the name of public health then the opioid epidemic is undoing all of it. We don’t need to wait for a vaccine when we know the cure. We just don’t have the political will because drug users are somehow less than human.

We need to decriminalize all drugs and guarantee a safe supply. If the government doesn’t do it we are just going to do it ourselves: Free cocaine and opiates being handed out in Vancouver. It’s worth it just to see the rest of Canada have a meltdown over this. I can literally hear Bob from Lethrbridge’s head explode picturing Trudeau and Horgan personally handing out cocaine to his children.

COVID-19 increases risk for Canada’s ‘invisible’ homeless women: study. “The hidden nature of women’s homelessness can become invisible at the policy level and so we don’t get the kind of investments and funding that we really need to address the issue.” If visible homelessness is invisible at the policy level then invisible homelessness is like double-plus good invisible. Weird that they chose to use a picture from a tent city. I’d imagine they would actually be less dangerous for women.

Speaking of tent cities, Selina Robinson must think they need more people: B.C. says landlords can start eviction process again, effective immediately. And while there’s the caveat that “landlords can once again issue a Notice to End Tenancy for reasons other than late or missed rent payments” you know that’s not going to stop them. Expect a record number of landlord offspring suddenly moving back into their unit.

Selina Robinson could also stop renovictions with the stroke of a pen. But she won’t because she is a coward: West End seniors face eviction after renoviction fight.

Nah, but it’s cool because who hasn’t dreamed of living in a fuckin’ HoJo! B.C. buys two Vancouver hotels for homeless. I suppose I should say something like “too little too late” but then I read comments on Facebook that prove so many people don’t realize that housing people costs less than having people on the streets and that it’s almost impossible to force people into rehab when they don’t have a home first.

Won’t someone think of the children: Safety concerns downtown: Vancouver group concerned says families don’t have enough of a voice. Believe it or not, being able to run to a major news outlet and have it signal boosted instantly is the exact opposite of “not having enough of a voice.” Some people see a man in an intersection in distress and think, “Great, Yaletown is the new skid row!” while others see a man in an intersection in distress and think, “We’ve defunded mental health and housing to the point of crisis, and this is blowback.”

This: Toronto Deems “Tent Cities” OK As Long As They’re Only For Rich White Ladies To Do Yoga In. It’s too real:

And after over three months of not being able to loudly say “I can’t stay for long, I have a hot yoga class at 2!”, stay-at-home mothers and white girls who won’t miss a single opportunity to wedge white privilege into any conversation despite the fact that their dad pays the rent on their Liberty Village apartments were ecstatic about getting back to a live yoga class.

Multiple visitors to Vancouver strip club test positive for COVID-19. Insert joke about socially distanced lap dance here.

This just in, we asked cops if they think the cops are racist and the cops said no: Mayor and VPD Chief at odds over systemic racism in policing. It’s just mind blowing how many people don’t understand that systemic racism isn’t a question of personal beliefs or attitudes, but rather something that is deeply embedded into the power structures of institutions.

The head of the fucking RCMP thought it had to do with people being different heights. Actually.

“It’s an obstacle course, in there there’s a six foot mat that you have to do a broad jump, and when we put the lens on it and reviewed that physical requirements test, evidence told us that the average person can broad jump their height,” Lucki explained.

“So, of course, how many six foot people do we hire? And there are people in all different cultures that may not be six feet, including, there’s not a lot of women that are six feet tall, that would not be able to get through that exam, that type of test.”

You can’t write satire that’s better than that. But you can try: Man in crisis peacefully removed from home in Brampton. Oh shit! Sorry, that wasn’t satire.

Ok, this one is for sure…I think: Defunded police officer forced to buy own cocaine to plant on people.

Systemic racism is withholding data that proves systemic racism: Serious concerns raised about information missing from Vancouver police street check report.

If you’re uncomfortable talking about police violence then you might want to stop reading because the next like 8 links are going to be about that…

A Police Wellness Check Left Me Terrified and Determined to End the Practice. The police can show up at your house any time to do a wellness check and you have no recourse but to let them in. No warrant needed. So what’s stopping us from phoning the cops on the cops to do wellness checks on the cops?

‘I couldn’t breathe’: Nanaimo woman left bruised, bloody after RCMP wellness check. Imagine if your house was on fire and when you call the fire department they just beat the shit out of you instead of putting out the fire.

I’ll just put this right here:

Witness shocked at force used by Calgary police dealing with sleeping man. Defund criminologists: “Criminologist says multiple punches appropriate due to lack of co-operation.” The guy was asleep for fuck’s sake. You know how hard it is to get me to do anything when I’m asleep?

They charged these guys with assault:

WATCH: GLOBAL NEWS EXCLUSIVE – It was their word against the Vancouver police. In the end, this crucial video, lead to the accused being found not guilty of assaulting police. FULL STORY ?@GlobalBC? ?@globalnews? pic.twitter.com/7gm6UmyuYa

— Rumina Daya (@rdayaglobal) June 27, 2020

RCMP detain Black health care employee outside workplace in Burnaby, B.C.. “Home and work are the places where I should feel safe and where I would never expect this kind of thing to happen.”

Surrey RCMP investigate after Delta police chief’s wife allegedly sprayed woman from her yard. If there ever was a poster for defunding the police it’s this $3.5m mansion.

Security Camera Captures Heavily Armed RCMP at Wet’suwet’en Cultural Site. “I don’t know what they expected to find, other than a smokehouse, with such heavy-duty weapons.” Look, if you want some smoked salmon that fucking bad we’ll just give you some.

Black bus driver in Vancouver says passenger told him to hang himself. First Bubba Wallace and now this? White people are fucked.

Karen of the day: US-born woman tells two BC residents to “go back where you came from”. When you feel like you’re entitled to someone else’s land, this kind of behaviour doesn’t fall too far from the, um, huckleberry bush.

Tweet of the day:

Who says Vancouver can’t do Paris style pedestrian streets bustling with cafe culture @seanorr pic.twitter.com/G67WVE9m4B

— QI Vancouver (@QIVancouver) June 28, 2020

Remember last week when I said not to get excited about the motion to allow alcohol consumption in select public places saying the select places will be “a weird fenced off wharf middle of Trout Lake, the north corner of the concrete park in Yaletown, and underneath BC Place”. Well, guess what?

Refund communities: City of Vancouver to explore reviving corner stores in neighbourhoods. Let’s aabolish triple net leases while we’re at it.

Speaking of which: WE have a 912 million dollar problem – redeploy funding to where it’s needed most.

COVID safety > Hockey: Vancouver will not be an NHL hub city: Canucks.