It’s the right thing to do. But it’s too late to stop the explosive spread of delta in these states. Republicans have indeed sabotaged the school year, public health, and economies. They know it. They will blame Biden for the coming shutdown, and the chaos they have themselves created.
It has worked for them before (so they think) and is the flip side of voting against bills, then claiming credit for the benefits brought to American People.
And keep their constituents ignorant. Perfect way is to kill, disable, financially ruin, and have large gaps in learning. This is the start of two years of spotty instruction.
I have a Chinese friend who was a student during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. During the years when schoolchildren should be developing the literacy, numeracy, and focus they will need as adults, she and her classmates were marching and singing and attacking the Four Olds (Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs). Although she later became a successful clothing designer and her daughter owns a clothing factory in China, she admits that she never learned to study anything that was not related to art and design. After 8 years in the US, her poor English is a barrier to understanding this country and our laws, she has dropped out of more than one English language program because she doesn't know how to keep her attention on study, and she often feels helpless because of those lost years of mental focus.
I wonder if the continued ability of the authoritarian government in China to hold its place among people of her generation is in some ways due to those lost years of education. Are we facing a similar future for the children who are now being denied access to tools they will need as adults to make informed decisions, get decent jobs, become voters for their own interests? The requiring of masks and/or vaccination is a no-brainer - one that is being rejected for purely political gain.
As a retired teacher, who taught school for 34 years, I can say with confidence that the children will catch up. There is no commandment from God that says children must learn multiplication in the third grade. If they don't learn it until 4th or 5th they will still master it.
If you notice, it is not teachers who are panicking about students being behind. It is politicians and newscasters. The children will catch up and probably during the same year. Teachers know how to remediate children who are behind.Some time will have to be spent on readqjusting and socializing children to school. I fear that will be ignored in trying to catch children up. Just as we are suffering from PTSD, so are the children. We have to address their mental health as well.
Except that mist schools are rigid in curriculum. Intro to multiplication and division in third. More focus on them in 4th, and then teachers complain in 5th because they might not know them.
Thanks for telling about your Chinese friend. I hope she will persevere. Her story reminds me of a book I read recently, "The Girl With Seven Names", by Hyeonseo Lee, which is about Hyeoseo's harrowing upbringing in and escape from North Korea. She was smart and lucky, but I imagine she was one of very few.
Education is so critically important to being an informed citizen. Now more than ever. I do worry about the children, especially the ones with ignorant or absent parents. They are so fragile and so easily lost.
Interesting. Of the Chinese people I've known, who were of an age to have been subjected to the Cultural Revolution, many were clearly traumatized by the experience. But authoritarian politicians seem to have a power of their own--Putin, trump, various other Fascists. I am doubtful that a year of curtailed schooling dooms kids to lifelong intellectual impairment.
Republicans will blame President Biden and it will work. That's what I find most infuriating. These governors didn't come to power by themselves. A majority in southern states voted for them. I feel bad for the liberals who have to pay the price.
Me too. And it’s too late to do anything. A shutdown/ shelter in place mask order is necessary in the south and Las Vegas. JnJ shots needs 2 weeks. MRNA shots 39 days plus two weeks. There is so much risk in the south right now. This will be the biggest crisis ever for the South. Exponential growth of disease Is now inevitable. It is going to be a season of suffering for the southern states first.
Wow. Her ability to avoid answering while making it seem that the problem is Cooper's understanding is equal to what's her name under the former guy in the White House. (I've blocked her name, intentionally (?), but she has blonde hair, is very, very thin, and her husband is a big anti-T**** pundit.)
Loved those Arkansas parents' lawsuit against their state for prohibiting mask mandates in schools. Their key phrase, "an irrational act of legislative madness...", applies to so many new laws passed recently by Republican state legislatures.
Can grandparents from another state sue? I am terrified of letting my precious Kindergartner and 1st grade grandkids (who are visiting me from S.C.) go home.
I am shocked by a mask ban in schools, but maybe the parents could try another approach. Since the nonvaxxers are all about having their Liberty and Choice to not wear masks or get vaxxed, isn't it the height of hypocrisy to take away the liberty/choice of wearing a mask??? Just a thought.
It’s not a ban that prevents people from wearing masks. Many govs don’t want to go against parents that do not want their children to wear masks. So when they say no school board shall apply a mask mandate, it is optional. Some kids will have masks and some won’t. Up to the parents who are all yelling at each other. So it will be a sh*t show at the kids expense.
Ours did in Oregon recently as well. We are back to being cautious again thanks to those who have refused to get vaccinated. We also have some arcane law here in Oregon that hospitals, etc. cannot mandate that their employees be vaccinated which the legislature for some unknown reason this session refused to get rid of. The governor has now said that all health care workers must either be vaccinated or have weekly tests which apparently is a way around it. We have noticed a huge line of cars for tests at the clinic where we go. It had fallen off to practically none a short time ago. Sigh.
We have a county supervisor who has fought against masks and protections for kids since day one. He publicly said kids couldn’t get it, they should be in school and sports and never wear a mask. He’s been silent for 2 weeks. I watched meetings where he brought up no mask, no vaccine parents who claim children can’t learn with a mask and it psychologically destroys them. I fill his email with rebuttal letters. At one point he broadcast an email that he wasn’t going to be so negative about masks. Then used a public meeting to double down.
Ahh…the weekly test. I wonder how many people an infected person comes into contact with in 7 days time? For Lollapolooza, unvaccinated people had to have a negative test 72 hours before. How helpful is that??
She had to find a way around the stupid law, so the weekly test. It sounded to me from the news report that the biggest problem is in assisted living, nursing home, etc.
…But…essentially people are being told not to wear masks. In addition, who wants to be the kid who’s parents tell their kids that they have to wear masks even though no one else is.
Well, actually, there will probably be more kids wearing masks than not. The actual support for them is huge. It’s just the anti-maskers are having most of the yelling and media coverage and governor’s favor.
I wish that were true! I have two teenage daughters - one is absolutely confident that she will never get infected and the other is scared of her own shadow and just wants to fit in. Both are vaccinated but I am leery of variants. At least the masks will protect whatever the vaccine might not recognize.
I’m so sorry. I have an 18 y/o grandson who lost his mother 3 years ago. He will do anything to protect us and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of his mask. We never stopped wearing ours. I think girls can be more sensitive about their looks and how others see them. Explain that they can carry the virus and children that can’t get vaccinated yet need us to protect them. I worry so much about the little ones.
This is what concerns me. Can you imagine how those kids will separate themselves into us and them. How unfair for parents to do this to kids....as well as governor whos.
They already have. And the division created with these kids will grow. This is a real problem, division and hatred never ends well.
It reminded me of this book, The Invention of Russia- Arkady Ostrovsky, 2015
" I can’t remember such a level of general hatred as the one in Moscow today. Not in 1991, during the August coup, not even in 1993. Aggression and cruelty are stoked by the television while the key definitions are supplied by the slightly possessed Kremlin master. ‘National traitors’, ‘fifth column’, ‘fascist junta’ – all these terms are coming from the same Kremlin office… The Kremlin is cultivating and rewarding the lowest instincts in people, provoking hatred and fighting. People are set off against each other. This hell cannot end peacefully."-Boris Nemtsov
"Less than a year later, Nemtsov was shot dead next to the Kremlin."
"After Nemtsov’s murder, Vladimir Yakovlev, the founder of Kommersant, made a public appeal to everyone who worked in the media. He spoke not just for himself, but also on behalf of his father, Yegor Yakovlev...
"Stop teaching people how to hate. Because hatred is already tearing the country to pieces. People live in a crazy illusion that the country is surrounded by enemies. Boys get killed in a war. Politicians are executed by the walls of the Kremlin. It is not Europe and America that stands on a verge of social catastrophe. The information war is first and foremost destroying ourselves.’
Divisional tactics go hand in hand in the teaching of hatred to secure power. We should look abroad sometimes to gain perspective on what is being waged on the American people by Republican's, FOX News, ONE America Network, the WSJ, and plenty of other outlets. Facebook connects the haters, amplifies their voices, and puts it all on steroids. Lets not go down this road like Hungry, led by Putin's Russia.
Yes. Just ask families in eastern Ukraine, Georgia, and South Ossetia. I’ll try to find the quote. this is what an opposition leader described in Russia several years ago. Within a week he caught 4 bullets in the back, an died on a bridge across from the Kremlin.
No. The governor has said that school boards cannot mandate that all children must have mask on while indoors. It is optional. This appeases the parents in their red base that oppose masks vaccines and anything sensible. There are lawsuits popping up from groups of parents that are furious that governor will not mandate ALL wearing masks in a public school during high infection rate.
I just saw a report this morning--I forgot where I saw it--that said schools in Tallahassee were defying the governor and requiring masks for all students, period. Polls are showing DeSantis slipping in the approval ratings and it is believed his stances on mask-wearing and vaccines are why. He is only ahead among the over-70 group. Just to your north, our own Governor Bubba hasn't gone as far as DeSantis, but he's so desperate to score brownie points with T***p's base, he'll do or say ANYTHING.
Well, both. Arkansas gov is trying to reverse his earlier decision that schools could not mandate all wear masks. This has particularly riled up concerns at elementary level where children cannot get a vaccine yet.
I taught in a middle to upper class white school district. You would not believe how many parents are demanding no mask mandate. It’s frightening to read about. The very people who are required to protect their offspring are damning them to COVID and another yesr of online learning.
Yes! I am horrified that they banned masks! What were/are they thinking? Bad enough banning mandates, but actually banning masks?! Who are those people?!
I'm finding it harder and harder to maintain polite language when speaking with anti-vax/anti-mask people. I'm angry at what they're doing to us all, in terms of public health, our ability to regain social lives, and the national economy itself.
When there is imminent danger to some people, the full population must take action to “do no harm”. In this instance, of mask wearing when INDOORS, we should press the point that, “Your individual liberty DOES NOT extend to point where I and others are potentially put at risk”
Individual liberty ends when there is a present danger to others. I think of the gun safety debate here. Liberals lost this battle when we did not frame this issue as “gun safety” - rather than being tarnished with “gun control.” We ought to ALWAYS have been speaking to gun safety. first and foremost.
Liberals also lost the abortion issue when the right framed this as “abortion kills” and we debated about the abortion procedure. NO! This could have simply been a “women’s freedom and liberty” issue. Men’s freedom. Women’s freedom. Period. (end of period? 🤣
Love all of this, Frederick. I have noticed that the Biden Administration seems to be getting some good messaging advice, and following it very consistently. This will help us all. I am really with you on the mistakes that were made in allowing the Rs to label the abortion battle.
Thanks Cathy. I wonder if you would post the Biden Admin ‘framing’ the issue, which I feel is different than message. Framing sets the context for a greater vision: such a “Government can be an ally of citizens”. I think Pres Joe says this. To me, THIS is framing. Messaging may place things into a smaller context, such as “Government can help distribute the vaccinations”
I’d like to see how many of us are willing to adopt the framing of the Biden Admin, to practice our use of language in this manner
At the suggestion of others here, I've started dipping into George Lakoff and doing my best to understand framing. I am about to return to teaching and my adult students will be mostly agricultural workers whose first language is either Spanish or one of the native languages of Central and South America. I don't want to be "helping", I want to be an ally.
Me too. I also find it hard to believe that the media is making such a big deal that the recommendations are fluid and ever changing. Especially since the virus is ever changing and it has been argued on both sides of the isle that the virus is different depending on the area and other circumstances. Why is it so hard for so many people to understand that this is an ever changing situation and that the precautions will change along with it. People seem to think they can text and drive and some believe that they can “do their own research” and prove the professionals wrong and yet they cant seem to piece together that masks and vaccines work and that the pandemic is playing out almost exactly as predicted by nearly all of the worlds best epidemiologists nearly from day one. It was predicted it would be dangerous, come in waves and on and on. There is nothing to be polite about anymore.
I am so with you, Syd. I had hoped to visit my brother in Virginia to celebrate our birthdays this September...his is the day before mine...but now that is out of the question and I am angry.
I can't believe how stupid people are! Historians like our beloved Professor will surely swoon when attempting to explain the mindset of today's society!
I am having a hard time turning off the rage I feel for those who just voted for the FG. Every time I have a screaming conversation in my head over an issue, I stop and repeat the conversation in a calm, adult voice. It helps. Such anger is not good for mental health. It feels like what I have read about The Peoples Revaluation in China. Unrecognizable chaos, Exhausting chaos. A Twilight zone we’re nothing is real.
I have not heard of a school board in Florida that has banned the wearing of masks or not allowed masks in schools. They are under executive order from gov DeSanitize to not enforce a mandate for wearing masks. It is up to the parents. As I said above..typical sh*t show in Florida.
That is true in Arkansas. The mask mandate the job ruled against st was that all students are mandated to wear mask. It is optional. He is now regretting tgst. Especially at elementary level where vaccine not available.
Have tried saying it, Kim three times. It’s amazing how much misinformation can spread when it’s the norm, not the exception anymore. Even amongst well intended readers.
I apparently didn’t make the point I thought I was making. I was responding to Dr. R’s statement, as follows: “Today, two parents of school-aged children in Arkansas sued the state over its law banning the use of masks in schools.”
I was applauding the parents and expressing hope that other parents would follow suit. As we so often hear, I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.
I've noted with alarm a growing number of Unmask Our Kids signs in Connecticut towns. Yesterday, I sent this letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant.
As Ron DeSantis and other governors rule that masks cannot be mandatory in public schools, and Unmask Our Kids signs sprout along our shoreline, I respectfully ask that we consider this: Schools will open in less than a month. Children under 12 are the only members of our population who do not yet have access to Covid vaccine. The Delta variant is highly contagious, and it almost certainly will be followed by even more infectious variants. Youngsters who wear masks to school at their parents' urging are likely to be teased by the unmasked into discarding them; even if teasing doesn't occur, young children can take off their masks once they have left home. In short, to begin an elementary school year without masks is to invite a potentially deadly virus to live and mutate in our beloved and most innocent.
'As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny.' (Freedom House).
Yes, that's heavy, and I believe it. Writing down the number of the people in the USA who died, so far, as a result of covid, abetted by the negligence of the former presidents, malfeasance by a number of governors and the spread of misinformation by Fox News, social media, particularly on Facebook feels like another form of cruelty , which I do not want to participate in this morning.
We need to remember and defeat the anti-democracy and anti-public health perpetrators: DeSantis, Abbott, Ron Johnson, Bannon, Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson. Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, et al.
We also cannot forget those who objected to the presidential election results,: Senators: Ted Cruz (TX)Josh Hawley (MO)Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)Cynthia Lummis (WY) John Kennedy (LA)Roger Marshall (KS)Rick Scott (FL)Tommy Tuberville (AL).
Members of the House: Robert Aderholt (AL)Rick Allen (GA)Jodey Arrington (TX)Brian Babin (TX)Jim Baird (IN)Jim Banks (IN)Cliff Bentz (OR)Jack Bergman (MI)Stephanie Bice (OK)Andy Biggs (AZ)Dan Bishop (NC)Lauren Boebert (CO)Mike Bost (IL)Mo Brooks (AL)Ted Budd (NC)Tim Burchett (TN)Michael Burgess (TX)Ken Calvert (CA)Kat Cammack (FL)Jerry Carl (AL)Buddy Carter (GA)John Carter (TX)Madison Cawthorn (NC)Steve Chabot (OH)Ben Cline (VA)Michael Cloud (TX)Andrew Clyde (GA)Tom Cole (OK)Rick Crawford (AR)Warren Davidson (OH)Scott DesJarlais (TN)Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)Byron Donalds (FL)Jeff Duncan (SC)Neal Dunn (FL)Ron Estes (KS)Pat Fallon (TX)
Ronny Jackson (TX)Chris Jacobs (NY)Mike Johnson (LA)Bill Johnson (OH)Jim Jordan (OH)John Joyce (PA)Fred Keller (PA)Trent Kelly (MS)Mike Kelly (PA)David Kustoff (TN)Doug LaMalfa (CA)
Frank Lucas (OK)Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO)Nicole Malliotakis (NY)Tracey Mann (KS)Brian Mast (FL)
Kevin McCarthy (CA)Lisa McClain (MI)Daniel Meuser (PA)Mary Miller (IL)Carol Miller (WV)Alex Mooney (WV)Barry Moore (AL)Markwayne Mullin (OK)Gregory Murphy (NC)Troy Nehls (TX)
Ralph Norman (SC)Devin Nunes (CA)Jay Obernolte (CA)Burgess Owens (UT)Steven Palazzo (MS)
Gary Palmer (AL)Greg Pence (IN)Scott Perry (PA)August Pfluger (TX)Bill Posey (FL)Guy Reschenthaler (PA)Tom Rice (SC)Mike Rogers (AL)Hal Rogers (KY)John Rose (TN)Matt Rosendale (MT)David Rouzer (NC)John Rutherford (FL)Steve Scalise (LA)David Schweikert (AZ)Pete Sessions (TX)Jason Smith (MO)Adrian Smith (NE)Lloyd Smucker (PA)Elise Stefanik (NY)Greg Steube (FL)
Chris Stewart (UT)Glenn Thompson (PA)Tom Tiffany (WI)William Timmons (SC)Jefferson Van Drew (NJ)Beth Van Duyne (TX)Tim Walberg (MI)Jackie Walorski (IN)Randy Weber (TX)Daniel Webster (FL)Roger Williams (TX)Joe Wilson (SC)Rob Wittman (VA)Ron Wright (TX)Lee Zeldin (NY).
Blinding isn't it, and there are a lot more where they came from.
To know a bit more about Tucker Carlson the propagandist voice of the White right and a master anti-critical race theory, here is link to a portrayal of him in the Washington Post:
'With Capitol Sit-In, Cori Bush who has Galvanized a Progressive Revolt Over Evictions'
'Refusing to move from the Capitol steps, the first-term congresswoman from St. Louis intensified pressure on the Biden administration and showed her tactics could yield results'. (New York Times)
Meet an entirely different Bush, unrelated to the Bushes we've come to know pretty well. She's been evicted three times in her life. She was an activist in Ferguson, Mo., after a white police officer shot and killed a Black teenager named Michael Brown. 'Ms. Bush — now 45 and a first-term Democratic congresswoman from St. Louis'.
Many of us are understandably weary and worried. Sometimes we don't want to do anything but stay in bed, or have a drink -- better yet, party with family and friends -- really party. Cori Bush is one of those people -- a shining star -- who makes us happy, feel stronger and more determined to make democracy come true -- smiling and taking action. Here is more about congresswoman, Cori Bush:
Thank you for this list. It is absolutely stunning and scary. I follow the social activist Shaun White. He digs deep and stands up to injustice. Yesterday he posted that Fox News announced his home address. He now has people driving by his house and he and his family no longer feel safe. They have decided to sell their house and move, to keep their 5 children and two elderly mothers who live with them, safe. Given circumstances such as these, it doesn’t surprise me that sociopaths comprise the bulk of our politicians. There are really good people in politics but it definitely takes a great amount of courage (or outrage).
Fox News is not only causing great emotional and potential physical harm but substantial costs in real $$$ for this family. I wonder if there's an attorney who would take on a lawsuit against Fox News, either pro bono or on contingency. Fox certainly has deep enough pockets that contingency might be worth while for someone.
You had me thinking there! I had started thinking about dead presidents to find one who might have approached his level of awful when I saw your correction.
I've saved it in my "Politics" folder under the filename "Traitors list.odt". (The .odt is the OpenOffice equivalent of .doc for those of you still using MS Word.)
Fern, thanks for this list. It astounds me yet again at the number who believe the Big Lie. We need to be sure voters in these states are reminded of this flagrant abuse of truth the next time they come up for re-election.
Thank you so much, Fern! Your list is a must-have and a to-be-memorized, or at the very least, saved. You have just passed on a doozy of an inventory -- maybe I should be a tad kinder and call it a trial docket! I applaud your patience ... plus, your endurance! Brava!
I live in Florida, most of the time. I am hearing from friends that the situation is dire there right now. I actually thought of going to the local Italian immigration office to apply for asylum. I’m afraid to come home.
How has it come to this, when I feel safer in a foreign country?
Herb, I understand your feelings completely. I feel much more secure in Mérida than I do in the US - it is infinitely safer here. I ask myself daily, how is it that the United States, with all its wealth and resources, has become a country of unparalleled bigotry and savage disregard for one another. Stay in Umbria as long as you are able. Your health and well-being are of the utmost importance. Be safe.
I would stay in another country if I had a choice. I think daily about fleeing this gun-crazy, science-defying, rightwing minority controlled country. I wish Canada had a right of return like some other countries do, such as Ireland & Germany, for those whose parents/grandparents emigrated from those countries. It isn’t easy to immigrate since it is expensive & many/most countries aren’t eager for non-rich senior citizens. I dread the 2022/2024 elections since Republican state legislatures are “fixing” their election laws to make it easier to nullify elections while also working to suppress the votes of groups who don’t vote for them. While many Congressional Republicans are rightwing extremists, many Republican-dominated state legislatures are even more out-of-control. That’s where the most danger to democracy now lies.
If you're serious, look at South Africa. As long as you have a guaranteed income, they welcome retirees. My brother-in-law moved there and hasn't regretted it. In full disclosure, recently the police was giving out 9mm ammunition to residents in areas where rioting was occurring due to the former President being sent to prison. The ammo was for them to protect themselves as the police were overwhelmed. Other than that, it's a decent place to live on a retirement income.
The government-sanctioned POLICE gun violence is even greater reason, especially with the recent incidents in Florida. Florida is now like the U.S. under Trump. In honesty, it does not have a functional government. DeSantis missed his calling terrifying citizens in some banana republic island nation. He is having to make do with Florida where they apparently are willing to tolerate a mobster posing as a statesman.
I have a friend who splits his time in Florida and Lake Ontario. When I was at our cottage recently, he walked over to chat. First remark as he was crossing the road to our cottage was " I've gotten both vaccines ". He said he doubts very much that he will be going back to Florida this year. He said it's the Wild West there and expects it to get worse. He said , "so it looks like where I am now will be safer. I didn't think I would have lived 82 years to fear where I live."
I feel we are living the precursor to the next Steven King novel.
I feel your pain Herb; I’m dreading going back to Florida. DeSantis is a pugnacious bully, forbidding municipalities from mandating vaccines, masks or capacity limits. Instead, he struts around preening for the Trump crowd.
When DT became President I actually looked into what it takes to renounce your US citizenship. You have to be in a foreign country and swear an oath of renunciation at a U.S. embassy or consulate in that foreign territory.
I agree with you, Fern. My intention is to continue to try and fix what is already broken and do my best not to crack and more china (no pun intended). I have lived 74 years now and have been a social justice advocate for most of my sentient life. Won some and lost some, but I have no intention of hoisting a white flag of surrender or abandoning the battlefield.
I have been searching for a way to make a suggestion to substack that they allow subscribers to make corrections to their posts. I try to be careful about autocorrect not altering what I am writing but so annoyed when I discover errors after a post is submitted. Meant to say "not to crack ANY more china." Oh well, I think the point was made.
So substack, please allow the original commenter the option of editing their own comments. I so hate having to copy, then delete, and repost a corrected comment. That results in all the subsequent replies to the comment disappearing as well. Such an easy suggestion for them to implement.
I had an aha moment yesterday when someone mentioned smoking in the context of vaccine resistance. As a former smoker I remember well my complete resistance to anyone telling me I was slowly killing myself by smoking. Basically liberal and compassionate on most things I was completely stubborn about my smoking and my right to keep doing it no matter the harm to myself and others. Vaccine resistance is like smoking. “No one can tell me what to do” was my mantra while a smoker. But smokers came to accept that they couldn’t smoke on planes or in buildings that prohibited it. That’s why I believe mandatory vaccination would work for all but the most hard core. While personally stubborn, when rules are set and enforced there can be a sense of relief in being forced to follow them - having one’s stubbornness over ridden when secretly you know it’s the right thing.
Years ago after quitting smoking I was walking through an airport in Germany and there was a glassed in smoking area. I remember looking at all the smokers puffing away and being hardly able to believe I was once one of them. While requiring quarantine for the vaccine resistant seems impossible, we need to think of something to protect ourselves. Mandating the vaccine seems like the only answer. Like smokers, they will never get the vaccine voluntarily.
I too smoked in the 1960s up to the '70s, when inside air was polluted by tobacco smoke. Even as a smoker it was unbearable at times & many non-smokers also died of the horrible diseases this caused. I remember working with mainframe computers in 1970, that were put in special really cold rooms where smoking was not allowed. Also, riding on buses & airplanes choking from the smoky air. The last encounter was a Cuban doctor smoking while consulting with me in his office - before the Clean Indoor Air Act of 1991. Thankfully the world is a healthier place due to that.
I started smoking during Army basic training while we were out at the range learning to shoot the m-16 and we got c-rations for lunch which included a 4-pack of cigarettes. It became a habit (of course), but about 15 years later my Italian wife, when we had been married about 3 years, told me one day I could have the cigarettes or I could have her. She said it in slow English, and I could tell she had practiced it because there was no trace of her usual Italian accent, just a steely look. Yikes! That was an easy choice I have never regretted. Quit cold turkey halfway through a pack and noticed about a week later that the little cough that accompanied my first deep breath of the day every morning had disappeared. Thank you, Claudia!
Recently, when it was our turn to get vaccinated and the Italian government was only giving AstraZeneca to the over-60s, Claudia balked and said "I don't want AstraZeneca if it causes blood clots" (a very rare side effect for people under 50) I said to her "You saved my life when you made me quit smoking". She understood immediately what I was referring to and what I meant. Now we are happily vaccinated.
Yes. The Clean Indoor Act shows that public health concerns can outweigh freedumb and liburdy. Unfortunately, the freedom and liberty loonies on the Supreme Court today might see it differently, but we have to try to mandate vaccination ny law, anyway, in the hope that the Court might listen to reason in this emergency.
One difference, Ned, is we smokers (former) were addicted to the nicotine, which was the real problem with quitting. Sure, there was an element of 'You can't make me" involved, but I think without the addiction part, we would have been more receptive.
I tried to quit multiple times and it was only when I found my breathing effected that I was able to use the patch (which had failed to help before), to give me the nicotine hit that allowed me to unlearn all the triggers that caused me to reflexively light a cigarette. Coffee, after a meal, phone call, driving, etc. We tend to not think about how behaviors become part of the process.
So addictive and so difficult to quit. I had a pack of cigs in every room and like Pavlov's dog, everytime the (landline) phone rang, I simultaneously reached for a smoke. I quit before having kids but did sneak a couple in the backyard. One memorable episode . . . our then toddler first born (born talking!) told my husband when he came home from work, "Daddy, Daddy. Mommy was in the backyard with a firestick". Kids and from the mouths of babes!! :) That was the end of my smoking days/daze!!
Yes, I hear you as a former smoker myself (quit after 10 years). Even though the Surgeon General's 1964 report linked smoking to cancer, I justified my taking up the then somewhat socially acceptable disgusting habit when I went to college, that it couldn't really be that bad if they allowed cigarette vending machines in the dorm! Besides I was 17 and only "old" people in their 40's got lung cancer! So, obviously, the message was not directed at me!! Youth is sooooo wasted on the young!
Smoking is addictive and expensive while the vaccine is not . . . but the similarity is how facts are rationalized by people to support irrational behavior. However, this is not how anyone in power over other peoples' health should be acting. Smoking became socially unacceptable and people who continued to smoke are prohibited from doing so in all inside venues (and many outdoor activities). The result is smoking in the U.S. has dropped (it has been exported to foreign countries!! - won't go down that path at this time!).
Non vaccinated people should feel the brunt of societal pressure by their fellow citizens while businesses, schools, entertainment, sporting events, etc. need to require proof of vaccination in order to participate. For crying out loud, our purses and persons are check for weapons going into buildings! Otherwise, no vaccine . . . stay home. It is still brain numbing that people think a pandemic entails "personal choice"! Maybe we put a giant V with a line through it to disclose the non vaccinated!!
Can't drive without a license. In some states can't own a car without insurance. Can't run a red light or speed without consequences (if caught). Can't carry guns on planes. Society has regulations for the public good. We need vaccine mandates.
I smoked socially off and on (one or two at a party) until I was in my mid-40s and lived in China for a year. There I smoked every day - but still only one or two (thinking that couldn't hurt me?). When I returned to the States, I still smoked one or two a day for a couple of years. Then I saw a anti-smoking public service ad that showed the cross-section of an artery that was so clogged with fat it looked like manicotti stuffed with mascarpone or ricotta. That was it for me!
Maybe we need very graphic public service ads on cable, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, Instagram, TikTok (and any other popular SM) showing autopsies photos of lungs and other organs ruined by COVID-19?
Seems to me that smoking is an addiction, harmful to health, and expensive for the user. Vaccination is free (generally) and beneficial to the user. I am not very clear on what the "conservative" manipulators gain by getting people to avoid vaccination.
All I can say is smoking and vax denial are based in stubbornness. It’s not rational, it comes from the reptile brain. “Conservative manipulators” just want followers however they can get them.
They only care about keeping people in the "reptile brain", and many R leaders had themselves and family vaxxed while they continued to push the resistance. Then the addition of computer based bots spreading any kind of dis information and related dis-ease makes it worse.
Not all addictions are chemically induced by tangible pollutants. We humans can also become addicted to self-destructive ways of thinking and behaving that don't involve ingesting or inhaling anything harmful. There is a lot of that going around and it is almost as communicative as - or perhaps even more so than - COVID-19.
I wish the lesson we learned from our stubbornness over smoking could be really be taught to our anti-vaccination at all cost groups. They know little of what they don't know while postulating that we don't know enough about the consequences of taking the shot. Now, because it doesn't have full FDA approval.
Many of us who are still alive know that most of the chronic conditions we are dealing with are probably a result of our stubborn beliefs in our invincibility (smoking won't hurt me, I stronger than some fake Covid). For at least 3 serious conditions I face a history of smoking is the number 1 or 2 predictor and my insurance pays out $100k per year (I am fortunate with insurance and high quality medical services) to tinker and keep me standing, walking, breathing, and semi functional. I never paid enough premiums in over my 50 year worklife to cover that cost. Society, at large is carrying me, as it will them, or we simply die earlier and unnecessarily early with great debt.
Unvaccinated, this I suspect, will become the cost-driver for their health repairs 20 or 30 years hence. Theirs just might (probably?) be greater and concentrated in communities where medical services and rehabilitation are unsustainable. I really wish they could be health-smarter then we were.
Thanks for this perspective. There's this constant push/pull about our responsibility for ourselves, our families, our tribe and humanity as a whole. The deep inner impulses that set someone on the path to smoking (and damage to the self) can't be solved in a straight line way as they are often hidden. Or we are too young and inexperienced to suss out what's driving us in that direction. Some are lucky, like you, to have a strong net that supports you in the wake of your decision to smoke. Many others have no net and are being abandoned - or seduced into dead end behavior patterns. Compassion says we need to offer what we can to all who suffer. But there is compassion burn out and I see more of that than I want to in myself and others.
Am also compassion burned out. Then, friend who avoided vaccination turns up in ER and has all the signs of going downhill all the way and compassion raises it's head right before getting angry that someone I have known for 50 years can be so careless and nearly die when it was soooo unnecessary.
By the way, I stopped smoking nearly 40 years ago. Smoked for 15 to 20 years. Damage done back then. The validity of the science coming out back then didn't get a place to live in my head until years after stopping.
And now we can look forward to the bully motorcyclists proclaiming their maskless, helmetless freedom in Sturgis South Dakota this weekend for ten superspreading days. And the press will be there to make them heroes. If you don’t want to wear a helmet in a state that has no requirement, that is a personal choice that affects only you and the ER staff who have to treat you. Wearing a mask, like not smoking in public, is a public health issue and shows respect for others in your community. It’s way past time to stop the spread.
Don’t trust the vaccine? Talk to the compulsive liar idjt who pushed warp speed on us, had the vaccine secretly in January and told us not to vaccinate our children.
❤️NJ Governor Murphy described them perfectly—ultimate knuckleheads.
One of the iconic Harley motorcycles is lovingly called "The Knucklehead" (due to bolts coming out the sides of the V-twin engine). How fitting that they are, indeed, complete knuckleheads. (I have another term for that which uses a "colorful metaphor" of a profanity).
You wrote: " If you don’t want to wear a helmet in a state that has no requirement, that is a personal choice that affects only you and the ER staff who have to treat you." Actually, many who end up with head injuries requiring life-long care often end up being cared for (minimally) at taxpayer expense.
The covid19 Delta variant isn't spreading among the unvaccinated just in southern states with potential immigrants coming in. Nor is it only caught and passed on by the unvaccinated. It's spreading everywhere that people are unvaccinated.
My sister in Vermont reported that two of her vaccinated friends went to Cape Cod on vacation where they spent time in Province Town, a covid19 hotspot. Crowds can be thick both outdoors and inside restaurants and shops. Her friends returned to Vermont with covid19 and a week of feeling quick sick. They of course exposed many people both home and away.
Yesterday, a friend in Maine learned that a young OR nurse who refused the vaccination came down with covid19. The nurse helped with a community event days before testing positive. She has exposed many people at work, at home and at the events she has attended without the vaccine or making. Our friend will be testing for covid19 and fearful of those in the community that haven't vaccinated, don't wear masks and don't share that they are vaccinated.
In many ways, conditions are worse because we have the assumption that vaccinated people will not catch covid19 and won't pass it on. While we are significantly more protected, we aren't free from this pandemic.
At Walgreens yesterday, all the staff were masked. I spoke with an older staff manager asking about her experience with covid19. She expressed her aggravation with those who aren't vaccinated. She was vaccinated in December 2020 when she and her staff helped with a clinic. The extra shot in each bottle enabled her and her staff to get vaccinated ahead of schedule. Walgreens now tests for covid19. The manager said there has been enough vaccine and time to vaccinate everyone and put this behind us. Instead, we need to go back to masks, cannot trust those around us and risk the health, safety and long term well being of our children who cannot be vaccinated yet.
The politicians who have used covid19 and masking for their extremist FOX politics and campaigning are criminals. This is not free speech. This is manslaughter at best and premeditated murder at worse. Anyone who cast anthrax around in public would be taken into custody, prosecuted and imprisoned for a very long time. This should be done with the anti covid19 health measures.
My husband and I are fully vaccinated. In 10 days we are planning - fingers crossed - to go from NH to VT to visit our son, DIL who are both vaccinated and our toddler grandson who of course is not. Not having broken out much at all, we decided last week to go back to being extra cautious these two weeks prior to visiting because the CDC announced that vaccinated people can - rarely - have an asymptomatic or mild case and pass it along just as easily as unvaccinated people. We want to do all we can to avoid giving this virus to our grandson and/or his parents. I don't know how some people live with themselves.
and now they know it is not rare. It is becoming more common for vaxxed people to have mild or non symptomatic Delta. I am about to leave on a two week camping trip, with some family friends visits. Masks are my everyday dress now and for as far into the future as I can see.
I'm about to sew up another batch of washables to wear when I start teaching in the fall. Spouse and I have been vaccinated since the earliest chance available. We tried going out without masks a couple of times as many places in WA are making them optional for vaccinated folx - but quickly went back to wearing them. We don't want to share it should we become infected.
What WAS previously considered "uncommon" (not "rare") was for vaccinated people to have break throughs and experience either Covid or the Delta Variant. However, it is not "uncommon" any longer, according to medical professionals. Break throughs are happening everywhere. What IS terrifying though, is that vaccinated people, whether symptomatic or not, can "shed" the Delta Variant as easily and readily as anyone unvaccinated. It is highly transmissible. Be safe on your trip. Hope all goes well.
Yup, it sucks. That's why we're taking all precautions we can pre-trip. I just now read in our local news that the city of Hanover, NH as well as Dartmouth College have reinstated an indoor public spaces mask mandate because of an uptick in cases among vaccinated adults at the school.
Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for all of your efforts. You are a bedrock of sanity in this ever increasing chaos of information. I am a subscriber but oftentimes that does not seem enough.
Constantine, I know what you mean. I feel we should bake her a pie or cookies and send them to her. We will never beable to reciprocate what she does for us.
That is precisely how I feel. And it is not only what she does for us individually, it is what she is doing for democracy in general, not to mention all the completely unnecessary BS misinformation. In high school, I loathed history and government. Now, I can't get enough of either. This woman is a "true" hero.
Exactly. I "attend" both online history discussions she does weekly as well. The fact that she invites us in her house twice a week to share her knowledge is an act I can never repay. The daily letters are what keeps me sane.
I always liked history, maybe because my older brother was a History teacher. We were always trading Historical facts, although I think he already knew the answers. Perhaps because of that, I am a Director of a Historical Museum and Research Center in Central NY.
My thirst for Historical knowledge has never left me, but it has certainly increased because of Heather.
I donated to our local Food Bank in her honor. That might me a way to repay her in a way I think she would like. It was the least I could do.
Linda, I always liked history too, even though now I know that much of what I was taught should have been stored under "American Literature/fiction". So grateful for Dr R guiding us though learning the rest of the story, even as it develops.
A farmer was enormously proud of his mule and constantly bragged to his neighbors how obedient it was. "All you have do is ask politely, and it will do whatever you want."
Having heard this before, one of his neighbors was having nothing of it this time. "All mules are stubborn," he said, " and I don't believe yours is any different."
"But my mule is different," said the farmer. "It's well-behaved, and all you have to do is ask nicely and it will do whatever you want."
"I still don't believe you," the neighbor retorted. "Show me."
So the farmer took him out to the barn, and there in a stall at the back was the mule. Just as they walked up to it, the farmer leaned down, picked up a two-by-four, and smacked the mule over the head.
Stunned, his neighbor asked, "What are you doing? I thought you said your mule was obedient and would do whatever you asked?"
"Ah, yes," the farmer answered, "but you've got to get its attention first.
I suppose even the most stubborn, mule-headed, anti-vax, science denier finally gets it when certain death hits him in the head.
I copied this and I'm going to paste it everywhere I can! It's quite unfortunate that so many anti vaxxers are having to pay the ultimate price before admitting their mistake. I needed this chuckle today.
I’m not surprised that FL Governor Ron DeSantis is deferring to the border crisis, when confronted about his deadly negligence. He is using the same failed strategy against the virus as Republicans have been using against immigrants along the Southern border. It like building a twelve foot wall against the virus, but then the virus builds a thirteen foot ladder and crawls over it. Yesterday, with his state idling at a 49.1% vaccination rate, Governor DeSantis said, "I think it's very important that we understand that the best defenses we have are the combination of the natural immunity that's been built up, and our seniors-first vaccination efforts," yet his state needs to vaccinate at least 85-90% of its population in order to achieve herd immunity with this new variant. With every new level of variant reached by the Coronavirus, Republicans reach a new level of negligence and criminality. They think they’re smarter than immigrants and the Coronavirus, but they’re obviously not.
And it's absolutely essential that Floridians know that immigrants are at fault for bringing on the virus; therefore, no need to rush to get vaccinated.
Lynell I live in Fl. Last week in some areas it got up to 100*. That is ‘Indoor ‘ weather for most of us . My A/C set at 77* is going constantly. The Tourist Parks have told Ppl that don’t Have to wear masks. Although many do. But their inside attractions have their A/C set to Arctic Winter. And guess what ? Surprise ,surprise Orlando, Daytona are the ‘Hot Spots ‘ . Also South in Miami. Are main attraction is NASA and the Ocean. I stay far away from all of it. But I have the N95 masks if need be.Those light blue ones just don’t compare. Silly Ppl.
Hey, Marcia. You all are going through hell, to be sure. We experience the same weather, though we have been mostly spared so far. I hope you know my comment above was made out of frustration. I'd rather that energy be spent on pursuing solutions, not casting blame.
DeSantis is a loathsome SOB who hopefully will be beaten in the next election, but he's correct about the border.
"Criticism of the Biden administration’s policy of releasing illegal migrants who are apprehended entering illegally in the midst of the Covid pandemic (and the emergence of the Delta variant) has been ramping up of late, and that criticism has been heightened by the revelations that Covid-positive migrants have been released to CCRGV in La Joya and Weslaco.
"Plainly, the Biden administration would want to tamp down such complaints, but to do so it must either close the border and expel all illegal migrants, or alternatively conceal the true extent of the problem.
"It is highly unlikely that it plans on changing its border-release policies (as misguided and unlawful as they are) anytime soon, so telling people in the know like Sister Norma not to comment about the extent of the problem would be its only solution.
"As explained above, however, concealing the number of Covid-positive migrants who have been released to the care of NGOs like CCRGV and not revealing where they have been sent puts local governments at a significant disadvantage in controlling the spread of Covid.
"Again, the Delta Covid variant is highly contagious, and a “hyperlocal outbreak” could overwhelm health resources (including hospital beds) in the small towns that dot the Rio Grande Valley. If the Biden administration is obstructing disclosures about Covid-positive migrants who have been released into those towns for political reasons, it needs to stop and put the facts out there. Viruses call for disinfectants, and as Justice Brandeis once said: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”.
The idea that Governor DeSantis is using the playbook of Orban, DT and other autocrats when he tries to throw the blame on immigrants is quite disturbing. Thank you, HCR, for connecting those dots for me. Having a people to hate is an important key to an autocrat's power and a way to divert the attention away from who is really taking people's rights away from them. Masks is another diversion away from the autocrat's intentions. The ploy that one's freedom is being forcibly taken away works on the ignorant. Freedom without responsibility is the signature of anarchy not democracy. With freedom and its rights comes the responsibility to protect those same rights in others most certainly including the right to life. What Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott are doing is calling for the genocide of their constituents. It is even more frightening that in doing so, they are making sure all of us have to live with COVID variants for decades rather than stomp it out now before it has a chance to become something worse. Maybe unwittingly this is their climate crisis plan to significantly reduce populations of humans in order to cut down on CO2 emissions.
By all means, let us emulate Hungary's response to COVID-19. Somebody should inform DeSantis, et al., that Orban is mandating vaccines at least for health care workers and school kids.
Interesting that it takes an authoritarian to do this. TFG was an authoritarian wannabe and missed his big chance to do something that allowed him not only to stop the spread but also to wear his Big Boy Bossy Pants.
What absolutely horrifies me - why are there so many "ignorant" - (it would be interesting to do an equivalent survey in Oz - but I suspect that the "ignornati" proportion would be lower - but, maybe I'm just being the cockeyed optimist). Even our medical center up here - as we are country folks - we can't just drop everything and come into town on Saturday (when most stores are closed) to get our shots (we got them 3 weeks ago on Wed) ... "oh we don't have an open bottle of AstraZeneca during the week" don't these people know the elements of bacteriology?? Bitch Bitch.. get your scuba masks on - we are entering dark waters.
I am continuously struck by the irony of how the "Party of Life" seems to wallow in death "My body, my choice!".................unless it comes to the subject of abortion.
Whenever I read the dismissive remarks from the QOP Governors regarding C-19, I always think I'm reading old news until I realize these are current statements. They are pushing this narrative with the same gusto as the Big Lie. Are the people in those States that ignorant to accept this bullshit or are they that far into the rabbit hole that they have nowhere to turn around? Maybe both.
If ignorance is bliss, these must be very happy people.
DeSantis spouts dangerous ignorance solely to appeal to Trump’s belligerently ignorant voter base. Obviously, everything DeSantis says is carefully crafted to gain the support of that idiotic “you’re not the boss of me” demographic. No matter, to either DeSantis or the MAGA crowd, that thousands will die because he denies medical science (science that we all know he understands). Floridians need to sue DeSantis for wrongful death. He’s no different from the tobacco companies who continued to push cigarettes despite knowing they caused cancer and heart disease. To protect the people of Florida, DeSantis needs to be prosecuted and put behind bars.
Charlie Crist ahead of DeSanitize in early polls. So he’s ramping up his anti-everything messaging. Fool. My hope is that Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist craft a ticket together for Gov/Lt Gov.
Also…Val Demings excellent candidate for US Senate seat running against Rubio who always is whining about something.
I received her campaign mailer ( I live in Texas) so I googled her. According to wikipedia she has a significant past. I won’t support her until I learn otherwise.
DeSantis is a loathsome SOB, but as they say, a busted clock is right twice a day, and DeSantis is right about immigrants getting into Texas:
"Criticism of the Biden administration’s policy of releasing illegal migrants who are apprehended entering illegally in the midst of the Covid pandemic (and the emergence of the Delta variant) has been ramping up of late, and that criticism has been heightened by the revelations that Covid-positive migrants have been released to CCRGV in La Joya and Weslaco.
"Plainly, the Biden administration would want to tamp down such complaints, but to do so it must either close the border and expel all illegal migrants, or alternatively conceal the true extent of the problem.
It is highly unlikely that it plans on changing its border-release policies (as misguided and unlawful as they are) anytime soon, so telling people in the know like Sister Norma not to comment about the extent of the problem would be its only solution.
"As explained above, however, concealing the number of Covid-positive migrants who have been released to the care of NGOs like CCRGV and not revealing where they have been sent puts local governments at a significant disadvantage in controlling the spread of Covid.
"Again, the Delta Covid variant is highly contagious, and a “hyperlocal outbreak” could overwhelm health resources (including hospital beds) in the small towns that dot the Rio Grande Valley. If the Biden administration is obstructing disclosures about Covid-positive migrants who have been released into those towns for political reasons, it needs to stop and put the facts out there. Viruses call for disinfectants, and as Justice Brandeis once said: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”.
You’re citing a post from cis.org, a suspect organization. According to Souther Poverty Law Center:
”CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Founded in 1985 by John Tanton, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has gone on to become the go-to think tank for the anti-immigrant movement with its reports and staffers often cited by media and anti-immigrant politicians. CIS’s much-touted tagline is “low immigration, pro-immigrant,” but the organization has a decades-long history of circulating racist writers, while also associating with white nationalists.”
SPLC has a habit of smearing organizations with which it has political disagreements, and is, itself, a suspect organization for that behavior. Here is a former NPR public editor on CIS, where you will find a very different view from that of SPLC:
@JR, if CIS was as described by SPLC, would the National Academy of Sciences have used it as a reviewer for their 2016 study, The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration?
CIS exists to stop immigration. If you read the full post that you pulled quotes from, it’s obvious that they are pushing biased, inaccurate information. Why did you post this? Immigrants are NOT the problem when it comes to the Covid surge, it’s idiotic Republicans rejecting common sense. You’re helping DeSantis and Abbott scape goat.
CIS is not about stopping immigration. Are you aware of how much immigration there is? Did you know that in the last 30 years we've taken in numbers of immigrants that are equivalent to more than twice the population of New York State? And that Biden wants to double immigration? (I voted for him, and I think most of what he is doing is great, and I never expect to like everything a politician does, but he's blowing it on immigration.)
AT a time when global warming is causing the carrying capacity of our country to plummet? I lived in Seattle as a small child, and I've been back regularly since then, and I'd never felt the least uncomfortably warm there. 108 degrees in Seattle is crazy stuff. Read this article from the NYT Mag, and you'll see that this is going to be a very different country in two decades or so--in a bad way. It should be obvious that the last thing we want to do, faced with this, is to add another four NY States' worth of people over the next four decades. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Just wanted to give a shout out to Mexico for filing their lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers. We all know pretty much how this will end, but kudos to them for taking a stand against gun violence for their citizens.
Here's a Common Dreams article about it to add to HCR's link from WaPo:
Hooray for the Arkansas parents suing the state over the law against wearing masks! May many other parents in other states follow suit.
It’s the right thing to do. But it’s too late to stop the explosive spread of delta in these states. Republicans have indeed sabotaged the school year, public health, and economies. They know it. They will blame Biden for the coming shutdown, and the chaos they have themselves created.
Isn't that their playbook, gum up the works then blame the other guy?
It has worked for them before (so they think) and is the flip side of voting against bills, then claiming credit for the benefits brought to American People.
And keep their constituents ignorant. Perfect way is to kill, disable, financially ruin, and have large gaps in learning. This is the start of two years of spotty instruction.
I have a Chinese friend who was a student during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. During the years when schoolchildren should be developing the literacy, numeracy, and focus they will need as adults, she and her classmates were marching and singing and attacking the Four Olds (Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs). Although she later became a successful clothing designer and her daughter owns a clothing factory in China, she admits that she never learned to study anything that was not related to art and design. After 8 years in the US, her poor English is a barrier to understanding this country and our laws, she has dropped out of more than one English language program because she doesn't know how to keep her attention on study, and she often feels helpless because of those lost years of mental focus.
I wonder if the continued ability of the authoritarian government in China to hold its place among people of her generation is in some ways due to those lost years of education. Are we facing a similar future for the children who are now being denied access to tools they will need as adults to make informed decisions, get decent jobs, become voters for their own interests? The requiring of masks and/or vaccination is a no-brainer - one that is being rejected for purely political gain.
As a retired teacher, who taught school for 34 years, I can say with confidence that the children will catch up. There is no commandment from God that says children must learn multiplication in the third grade. If they don't learn it until 4th or 5th they will still master it.
If you notice, it is not teachers who are panicking about students being behind. It is politicians and newscasters. The children will catch up and probably during the same year. Teachers know how to remediate children who are behind.Some time will have to be spent on readqjusting and socializing children to school. I fear that will be ignored in trying to catch children up. Just as we are suffering from PTSD, so are the children. We have to address their mental health as well.
Except that mist schools are rigid in curriculum. Intro to multiplication and division in third. More focus on them in 4th, and then teachers complain in 5th because they might not know them.
Thanks for telling about your Chinese friend. I hope she will persevere. Her story reminds me of a book I read recently, "The Girl With Seven Names", by Hyeonseo Lee, which is about Hyeoseo's harrowing upbringing in and escape from North Korea. She was smart and lucky, but I imagine she was one of very few.
Education is so critically important to being an informed citizen. Now more than ever. I do worry about the children, especially the ones with ignorant or absent parents. They are so fragile and so easily lost.
Interesting. Of the Chinese people I've known, who were of an age to have been subjected to the Cultural Revolution, many were clearly traumatized by the experience. But authoritarian politicians seem to have a power of their own--Putin, trump, various other Fascists. I am doubtful that a year of curtailed schooling dooms kids to lifelong intellectual impairment.
More likely that the trauma causes difficulty with focus and attention
Was it 1896? That the conservatives sabotaged the economy to ruin the incoming presidency of?
Republicans will blame President Biden and it will work. That's what I find most infuriating. These governors didn't come to power by themselves. A majority in southern states voted for them. I feel bad for the liberals who have to pay the price.
Yes, and that REALLY p*sses me off! grrrr
Me too. And it’s too late to do anything. A shutdown/ shelter in place mask order is necessary in the south and Las Vegas. JnJ shots needs 2 weeks. MRNA shots 39 days plus two weeks. There is so much risk in the south right now. This will be the biggest crisis ever for the South. Exponential growth of disease Is now inevitable. It is going to be a season of suffering for the southern states first.
couldn't happen to a nicer group of people...do you remember the Mayor of Las Vegas when the whole thing started? https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/22/las-vegas-mayor-carolyn-goodman-reopen-coronavirus-entire-interview-anderson-cooper-sot-nr-vpx.cnn
Wow. Her ability to avoid answering while making it seem that the problem is Cooper's understanding is equal to what's her name under the former guy in the White House. (I've blocked her name, intentionally (?), but she has blonde hair, is very, very thin, and her husband is a big anti-T**** pundit.)
Oh her....
Loved those Arkansas parents' lawsuit against their state for prohibiting mask mandates in schools. Their key phrase, "an irrational act of legislative madness...", applies to so many new laws passed recently by Republican state legislatures.
Can grandparents from another state sue? I am terrified of letting my precious Kindergartner and 1st grade grandkids (who are visiting me from S.C.) go home.
Probably. Why not? Who’s stopping u?
I am shocked by a mask ban in schools, but maybe the parents could try another approach. Since the nonvaxxers are all about having their Liberty and Choice to not wear masks or get vaxxed, isn't it the height of hypocrisy to take away the liberty/choice of wearing a mask??? Just a thought.
It’s not a ban that prevents people from wearing masks. Many govs don’t want to go against parents that do not want their children to wear masks. So when they say no school board shall apply a mask mandate, it is optional. Some kids will have masks and some won’t. Up to the parents who are all yelling at each other. So it will be a sh*t show at the kids expense.
Yes, lots of anxiety! Very thankful for our Governor who issued a mask mandate yesterday for K-12.
Ours did in Oregon recently as well. We are back to being cautious again thanks to those who have refused to get vaccinated. We also have some arcane law here in Oregon that hospitals, etc. cannot mandate that their employees be vaccinated which the legislature for some unknown reason this session refused to get rid of. The governor has now said that all health care workers must either be vaccinated or have weekly tests which apparently is a way around it. We have noticed a huge line of cars for tests at the clinic where we go. It had fallen off to practically none a short time ago. Sigh.
Too little too late. We are paying the price for opening up completely on 30 June (right before the 4th of July).
We have a county supervisor who has fought against masks and protections for kids since day one. He publicly said kids couldn’t get it, they should be in school and sports and never wear a mask. He’s been silent for 2 weeks. I watched meetings where he brought up no mask, no vaccine parents who claim children can’t learn with a mask and it psychologically destroys them. I fill his email with rebuttal letters. At one point he broadcast an email that he wasn’t going to be so negative about masks. Then used a public meeting to double down.
Academy of America Pediatrics disagrees. These deniers are the néw lunatic fringe.
Ahh…the weekly test. I wonder how many people an infected person comes into contact with in 7 days time? For Lollapolooza, unvaccinated people had to have a negative test 72 hours before. How helpful is that??
https://www.businessinsider.com/lollapalooza-viral-photo-shows-dense-mostly-maskless-crowd-2021-8
A concert in Chicago
That was what Hawaii was requiring for all travelers prior to early July.
She had to find a way around the stupid law, so the weekly test. It sounded to me from the news report that the biggest problem is in assisted living, nursing home, etc.
Oh, me, too! Whew!
The Pritzger haters are having a royal fit!
…But…essentially people are being told not to wear masks. In addition, who wants to be the kid who’s parents tell their kids that they have to wear masks even though no one else is.
Well, actually, there will probably be more kids wearing masks than not. The actual support for them is huge. It’s just the anti-maskers are having most of the yelling and media coverage and governor’s favor.
I wish that were true! I have two teenage daughters - one is absolutely confident that she will never get infected and the other is scared of her own shadow and just wants to fit in. Both are vaccinated but I am leery of variants. At least the masks will protect whatever the vaccine might not recognize.
I’m so sorry. I have an 18 y/o grandson who lost his mother 3 years ago. He will do anything to protect us and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of his mask. We never stopped wearing ours. I think girls can be more sensitive about their looks and how others see them. Explain that they can carry the virus and children that can’t get vaccinated yet need us to protect them. I worry so much about the little ones.
There will be a lot of kids at the elementary level wearing masks. No vaccine yet for them.
Division. Dividing even parents from their kids.
This is what concerns me. Can you imagine how those kids will separate themselves into us and them. How unfair for parents to do this to kids....as well as governor whos.
They already have. And the division created with these kids will grow. This is a real problem, division and hatred never ends well.
It reminded me of this book, The Invention of Russia- Arkady Ostrovsky, 2015
" I can’t remember such a level of general hatred as the one in Moscow today. Not in 1991, during the August coup, not even in 1993. Aggression and cruelty are stoked by the television while the key definitions are supplied by the slightly possessed Kremlin master. ‘National traitors’, ‘fifth column’, ‘fascist junta’ – all these terms are coming from the same Kremlin office… The Kremlin is cultivating and rewarding the lowest instincts in people, provoking hatred and fighting. People are set off against each other. This hell cannot end peacefully."-Boris Nemtsov
"Less than a year later, Nemtsov was shot dead next to the Kremlin."
"After Nemtsov’s murder, Vladimir Yakovlev, the founder of Kommersant, made a public appeal to everyone who worked in the media. He spoke not just for himself, but also on behalf of his father, Yegor Yakovlev...
"Stop teaching people how to hate. Because hatred is already tearing the country to pieces. People live in a crazy illusion that the country is surrounded by enemies. Boys get killed in a war. Politicians are executed by the walls of the Kremlin. It is not Europe and America that stands on a verge of social catastrophe. The information war is first and foremost destroying ourselves.’
Divisional tactics go hand in hand in the teaching of hatred to secure power. We should look abroad sometimes to gain perspective on what is being waged on the American people by Republican's, FOX News, ONE America Network, the WSJ, and plenty of other outlets. Facebook connects the haters, amplifies their voices, and puts it all on steroids. Lets not go down this road like Hungry, led by Putin's Russia.
"We have work to do."
Yes. Just ask families in eastern Ukraine, Georgia, and South Ossetia. I’ll try to find the quote. this is what an opposition leader described in Russia several years ago. Within a week he caught 4 bullets in the back, an died on a bridge across from the Kremlin.
Exactly!
Ok, I'm confused.... there's no ban on wearing masks?
No. The governor has said that school boards cannot mandate that all children must have mask on while indoors. It is optional. This appeases the parents in their red base that oppose masks vaccines and anything sensible. There are lawsuits popping up from groups of parents that are furious that governor will not mandate ALL wearing masks in a public school during high infection rate.
I just saw a report this morning--I forgot where I saw it--that said schools in Tallahassee were defying the governor and requiring masks for all students, period. Polls are showing DeSantis slipping in the approval ratings and it is believed his stances on mask-wearing and vaccines are why. He is only ahead among the over-70 group. Just to your north, our own Governor Bubba hasn't gone as far as DeSantis, but he's so desperate to score brownie points with T***p's base, he'll do or say ANYTHING.
I clicked on 'like' but I really want to say LOVED!!!
You're speaking about FL or AK?
Well, both. Arkansas gov is trying to reverse his earlier decision that schools could not mandate all wear masks. This has particularly riled up concerns at elementary level where children cannot get a vaccine yet.
Abbreviation for Arkansas can't be AK.
I taught in a middle to upper class white school district. You would not believe how many parents are demanding no mask mandate. It’s frightening to read about. The very people who are required to protect their offspring are damning them to COVID and another yesr of online learning.
I do not understand this! My maternal instinct screams “PROTECT” not throw them into the abyss!
What is wrong with them? Is it safe to assume that they are devoted to TFG?!
I don’t know about TFG, but they abhor out Democratic governor.
There is no mask ban.
The law prohibits mandating mask wearing in Arkansas public schools.
There is a difference between prohibiting mandating mask wearing and prohibiting mask wearing.
Am I seeing double negatives in this issue?
I'm not sure what you mean. If you think banning a mandate to wear masks is a double negative, so be it.
This
Really! I hadn't thought of that?!?
Maybe we need to fight them in their own game.
Yes! I am horrified that they banned masks! What were/are they thinking? Bad enough banning mandates, but actually banning masks?! Who are those people?!
I'm finding it harder and harder to maintain polite language when speaking with anti-vax/anti-mask people. I'm angry at what they're doing to us all, in terms of public health, our ability to regain social lives, and the national economy itself.
When there is imminent danger to some people, the full population must take action to “do no harm”. In this instance, of mask wearing when INDOORS, we should press the point that, “Your individual liberty DOES NOT extend to point where I and others are potentially put at risk”
Individual liberty ends when there is a present danger to others. I think of the gun safety debate here. Liberals lost this battle when we did not frame this issue as “gun safety” - rather than being tarnished with “gun control.” We ought to ALWAYS have been speaking to gun safety. first and foremost.
Liberals also lost the abortion issue when the right framed this as “abortion kills” and we debated about the abortion procedure. NO! This could have simply been a “women’s freedom and liberty” issue. Men’s freedom. Women’s freedom. Period. (end of period? 🤣
Love all of this, Frederick. I have noticed that the Biden Administration seems to be getting some good messaging advice, and following it very consistently. This will help us all. I am really with you on the mistakes that were made in allowing the Rs to label the abortion battle.
Thanks Cathy. I wonder if you would post the Biden Admin ‘framing’ the issue, which I feel is different than message. Framing sets the context for a greater vision: such a “Government can be an ally of citizens”. I think Pres Joe says this. To me, THIS is framing. Messaging may place things into a smaller context, such as “Government can help distribute the vaccinations”
I’d like to see how many of us are willing to adopt the framing of the Biden Admin, to practice our use of language in this manner
At the suggestion of others here, I've started dipping into George Lakoff and doing my best to understand framing. I am about to return to teaching and my adult students will be mostly agricultural workers whose first language is either Spanish or one of the native languages of Central and South America. I don't want to be "helping", I want to be an ally.
Yes.
Wow, you are so right Frederick. Again our messaging. Gun SAFETY. Women's FREEDOM.
Me too. I also find it hard to believe that the media is making such a big deal that the recommendations are fluid and ever changing. Especially since the virus is ever changing and it has been argued on both sides of the isle that the virus is different depending on the area and other circumstances. Why is it so hard for so many people to understand that this is an ever changing situation and that the precautions will change along with it. People seem to think they can text and drive and some believe that they can “do their own research” and prove the professionals wrong and yet they cant seem to piece together that masks and vaccines work and that the pandemic is playing out almost exactly as predicted by nearly all of the worlds best epidemiologists nearly from day one. It was predicted it would be dangerous, come in waves and on and on. There is nothing to be polite about anymore.
I am so with you, Syd. I had hoped to visit my brother in Virginia to celebrate our birthdays this September...his is the day before mine...but now that is out of the question and I am angry.
I can't believe how stupid people are! Historians like our beloved Professor will surely swoon when attempting to explain the mindset of today's society!
I am having a hard time turning off the rage I feel for those who just voted for the FG. Every time I have a screaming conversation in my head over an issue, I stop and repeat the conversation in a calm, adult voice. It helps. Such anger is not good for mental health. It feels like what I have read about The Peoples Revaluation in China. Unrecognizable chaos, Exhausting chaos. A Twilight zone we’re nothing is real.
I have not heard of a school board in Florida that has banned the wearing of masks or not allowed masks in schools. They are under executive order from gov DeSanitize to not enforce a mandate for wearing masks. It is up to the parents. As I said above..typical sh*t show in Florida.
Our local school board made masks “optional”. To most teenagers (who think they’re invincible), “optional” means it’s ok to go maskless.
I was referring to Arkansas, it was in a comment above....
That is true in Arkansas. The mask mandate the job ruled against st was that all students are mandated to wear mask. It is optional. He is now regretting tgst. Especially at elementary level where vaccine not available.
There is no banning of masks! There is a ban on mask mandates.
exactly
There is no law against wearing masks. There is a ban on mandates forcing people to wear masks. Let's not spread mistruths here.
Have tried saying it, Kim three times. It’s amazing how much misinformation can spread when it’s the norm, not the exception anymore. Even amongst well intended readers.
I apparently didn’t make the point I thought I was making. I was responding to Dr. R’s statement, as follows: “Today, two parents of school-aged children in Arkansas sued the state over its law banning the use of masks in schools.”
I was applauding the parents and expressing hope that other parents would follow suit. As we so often hear, I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.
HCR was incorrect. You didn't cause an inconvenience, it's just my concern about spreading mistruths.
I've noted with alarm a growing number of Unmask Our Kids signs in Connecticut towns. Yesterday, I sent this letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant.
As Ron DeSantis and other governors rule that masks cannot be mandatory in public schools, and Unmask Our Kids signs sprout along our shoreline, I respectfully ask that we consider this: Schools will open in less than a month. Children under 12 are the only members of our population who do not yet have access to Covid vaccine. The Delta variant is highly contagious, and it almost certainly will be followed by even more infectious variants. Youngsters who wear masks to school at their parents' urging are likely to be teased by the unmasked into discarding them; even if teasing doesn't occur, young children can take off their masks once they have left home. In short, to begin an elementary school year without masks is to invite a potentially deadly virus to live and mutate in our beloved and most innocent.
I see what you said.
Pun intended, I assume?
😊
'As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny.' (Freedom House).
Yes, that's heavy, and I believe it. Writing down the number of the people in the USA who died, so far, as a result of covid, abetted by the negligence of the former presidents, malfeasance by a number of governors and the spread of misinformation by Fox News, social media, particularly on Facebook feels like another form of cruelty , which I do not want to participate in this morning.
We need to remember and defeat the anti-democracy and anti-public health perpetrators: DeSantis, Abbott, Ron Johnson, Bannon, Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson. Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, et al.
We also cannot forget those who objected to the presidential election results,: Senators: Ted Cruz (TX)Josh Hawley (MO)Cindy Hyde-Smith (MS)Cynthia Lummis (WY) John Kennedy (LA)Roger Marshall (KS)Rick Scott (FL)Tommy Tuberville (AL).
Members of the House: Robert Aderholt (AL)Rick Allen (GA)Jodey Arrington (TX)Brian Babin (TX)Jim Baird (IN)Jim Banks (IN)Cliff Bentz (OR)Jack Bergman (MI)Stephanie Bice (OK)Andy Biggs (AZ)Dan Bishop (NC)Lauren Boebert (CO)Mike Bost (IL)Mo Brooks (AL)Ted Budd (NC)Tim Burchett (TN)Michael Burgess (TX)Ken Calvert (CA)Kat Cammack (FL)Jerry Carl (AL)Buddy Carter (GA)John Carter (TX)Madison Cawthorn (NC)Steve Chabot (OH)Ben Cline (VA)Michael Cloud (TX)Andrew Clyde (GA)Tom Cole (OK)Rick Crawford (AR)Warren Davidson (OH)Scott DesJarlais (TN)Mario Diaz-Balart (FL)Byron Donalds (FL)Jeff Duncan (SC)Neal Dunn (FL)Ron Estes (KS)Pat Fallon (TX)
Michelle Fischbach (MN)Scott Fitzgerald (WI)Chuck Fleischmann (TN)Virginia Foxx (NC)Scott Franklin (FL)Russ Fulcher (ID)Matt Gaetz (FL)Mike Garcia (CA)Bob Gibbs (OH)Carlos Gimenez (FL)
Louie Gohmert (TX)Bob Good (VA)Lance Gooden (TX)Paul Gosar (AZ)Garret Graves (LA)Sam Graves (MO)Mark Green (TN)Marjorie Greene (GA)Morgan Griffith (VA)Michael Guest (MS)
Jim Hagedorn (MN)Andy Harris (MD)Diana Harshbarger (TN)Vicky Hartzler (MO)Kevin Hern (OK)
Yvette Herrell (NM)Jody Hice (GA)Clay Higgins (LA)Richard Hudson (NC)Darrell Issa (CA)
Ronny Jackson (TX)Chris Jacobs (NY)Mike Johnson (LA)Bill Johnson (OH)Jim Jordan (OH)John Joyce (PA)Fred Keller (PA)Trent Kelly (MS)Mike Kelly (PA)David Kustoff (TN)Doug LaMalfa (CA)
Doug Lamborn (CO)Jacob LaTurner (KS)Debbie Lesko (AZ)Billy Long (MO)Barry Loudermilk (GA)
Frank Lucas (OK)Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO)Nicole Malliotakis (NY)Tracey Mann (KS)Brian Mast (FL)
Kevin McCarthy (CA)Lisa McClain (MI)Daniel Meuser (PA)Mary Miller (IL)Carol Miller (WV)Alex Mooney (WV)Barry Moore (AL)Markwayne Mullin (OK)Gregory Murphy (NC)Troy Nehls (TX)
Ralph Norman (SC)Devin Nunes (CA)Jay Obernolte (CA)Burgess Owens (UT)Steven Palazzo (MS)
Gary Palmer (AL)Greg Pence (IN)Scott Perry (PA)August Pfluger (TX)Bill Posey (FL)Guy Reschenthaler (PA)Tom Rice (SC)Mike Rogers (AL)Hal Rogers (KY)John Rose (TN)Matt Rosendale (MT)David Rouzer (NC)John Rutherford (FL)Steve Scalise (LA)David Schweikert (AZ)Pete Sessions (TX)Jason Smith (MO)Adrian Smith (NE)Lloyd Smucker (PA)Elise Stefanik (NY)Greg Steube (FL)
Chris Stewart (UT)Glenn Thompson (PA)Tom Tiffany (WI)William Timmons (SC)Jefferson Van Drew (NJ)Beth Van Duyne (TX)Tim Walberg (MI)Jackie Walorski (IN)Randy Weber (TX)Daniel Webster (FL)Roger Williams (TX)Joe Wilson (SC)Rob Wittman (VA)Ron Wright (TX)Lee Zeldin (NY).
Blinding isn't it, and there are a lot more where they came from.
To know a bit more about Tucker Carlson the propagandist voice of the White right and a master anti-critical race theory, here is link to a portrayal of him in the Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tucker-carlson/2021/07/13/398fa720-dd9f-11eb-a501-0e69b5d012e5_story.html?
Now to the sunning side of the street.
'With Capitol Sit-In, Cori Bush who has Galvanized a Progressive Revolt Over Evictions'
'Refusing to move from the Capitol steps, the first-term congresswoman from St. Louis intensified pressure on the Biden administration and showed her tactics could yield results'. (New York Times)
Meet an entirely different Bush, unrelated to the Bushes we've come to know pretty well. She's been evicted three times in her life. She was an activist in Ferguson, Mo., after a white police officer shot and killed a Black teenager named Michael Brown. 'Ms. Bush — now 45 and a first-term Democratic congresswoman from St. Louis'.
Many of us are understandably weary and worried. Sometimes we don't want to do anything but stay in bed, or have a drink -- better yet, party with family and friends -- really party. Cori Bush is one of those people -- a shining star -- who makes us happy, feel stronger and more determined to make democracy come true -- smiling and taking action. Here is more about congresswoman, Cori Bush:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/us/politics/cori-bush-eviction-moratorium.html
Thank you for this list. It is absolutely stunning and scary. I follow the social activist Shaun White. He digs deep and stands up to injustice. Yesterday he posted that Fox News announced his home address. He now has people driving by his house and he and his family no longer feel safe. They have decided to sell their house and move, to keep their 5 children and two elderly mothers who live with them, safe. Given circumstances such as these, it doesn’t surprise me that sociopaths comprise the bulk of our politicians. There are really good people in politics but it definitely takes a great amount of courage (or outrage).
Thank you, Gail. You have shared awful news, but we need to know what we are dealing with. Peace and Salud!
Fox News is not only causing great emotional and potential physical harm but substantial costs in real $$$ for this family. I wonder if there's an attorney who would take on a lawsuit against Fox News, either pro bono or on contingency. Fox certainly has deep enough pockets that contingency might be worth while for someone.
I left out of my comment, the impacts on the 5 children including the interruption of education and torn away from a probable circle of friends.
I know he has (Shaun King) has helped so many people. I very much hope there will be someone to help him and his family from the ghouls at Fox News.
Sorry...his name is SHAUN KING not Shaun White.
'...abetted by the negligence of the former presidents,' Typo, there can only be one like him!
Great comments. Keep it up.
You had me thinking there! I had started thinking about dead presidents to find one who might have approached his level of awful when I saw your correction.
Thanks Fern. I'm printing off that list so five years from now I will be able to remember just who the perpetrators were.
ditto
I've saved it in my "Politics" folder under the filename "Traitors list.odt". (The .odt is the OpenOffice equivalent of .doc for those of you still using MS Word.)
Fern, thanks for this list. It astounds me yet again at the number who believe the Big Lie. We need to be sure voters in these states are reminded of this flagrant abuse of truth the next time they come up for re-election.
I’d bet 75% of that list don’t believe in anything about the lie, except that they might keep their jobs using it.
I'd bet it's more like 99% don't believe it.
Ha! I think you’re giving those brainiacs way too much credit. :)
Certainly 100% don't care whether it's true or not.
all about fund raising. outrage brings clicks. clicks bring money
Thank you so much, Fern! Your list is a must-have and a to-be-memorized, or at the very least, saved. You have just passed on a doozy of an inventory -- maybe I should be a tad kinder and call it a trial docket! I applaud your patience ... plus, your endurance! Brava!
Salud, Rowshan. You bring a smile, thank you.
So glad, Fern -- it's the least I can do after all your hard work on such an horrific docket. 😉
Stunning, scary, and inspiring. These are The Days of our Lives. (sorry, could not help myself)
I live in Florida, most of the time. I am hearing from friends that the situation is dire there right now. I actually thought of going to the local Italian immigration office to apply for asylum. I’m afraid to come home.
How has it come to this, when I feel safer in a foreign country?
Herb, I understand your feelings completely. I feel much more secure in Mérida than I do in the US - it is infinitely safer here. I ask myself daily, how is it that the United States, with all its wealth and resources, has become a country of unparalleled bigotry and savage disregard for one another. Stay in Umbria as long as you are able. Your health and well-being are of the utmost importance. Be safe.
I would stay in another country if I had a choice. I think daily about fleeing this gun-crazy, science-defying, rightwing minority controlled country. I wish Canada had a right of return like some other countries do, such as Ireland & Germany, for those whose parents/grandparents emigrated from those countries. It isn’t easy to immigrate since it is expensive & many/most countries aren’t eager for non-rich senior citizens. I dread the 2022/2024 elections since Republican state legislatures are “fixing” their election laws to make it easier to nullify elections while also working to suppress the votes of groups who don’t vote for them. While many Congressional Republicans are rightwing extremists, many Republican-dominated state legislatures are even more out-of-control. That’s where the most danger to democracy now lies.
If you're serious, look at South Africa. As long as you have a guaranteed income, they welcome retirees. My brother-in-law moved there and hasn't regretted it. In full disclosure, recently the police was giving out 9mm ammunition to residents in areas where rioting was occurring due to the former President being sent to prison. The ammo was for them to protect themselves as the police were overwhelmed. Other than that, it's a decent place to live on a retirement income.
Actually, it does not surprise me that you feel safer in a foreign country. The gun violence in the US is a reason to feel safer in Europe.
The government-sanctioned POLICE gun violence is even greater reason, especially with the recent incidents in Florida. Florida is now like the U.S. under Trump. In honesty, it does not have a functional government. DeSantis missed his calling terrifying citizens in some banana republic island nation. He is having to make do with Florida where they apparently are willing to tolerate a mobster posing as a statesman.
I have a friend who splits his time in Florida and Lake Ontario. When I was at our cottage recently, he walked over to chat. First remark as he was crossing the road to our cottage was " I've gotten both vaccines ". He said he doubts very much that he will be going back to Florida this year. He said it's the Wild West there and expects it to get worse. He said , "so it looks like where I am now will be safer. I didn't think I would have lived 82 years to fear where I live."
I feel we are living the precursor to the next Steven King novel.
I’m not sure it’s the precursor.
True. We are already here.
Exactly my thought.
it is possible, even plausible. But we can stop it. Do not stop. Hope and action.
I feel your pain Herb; I’m dreading going back to Florida. DeSantis is a pugnacious bully, forbidding municipalities from mandating vaccines, masks or capacity limits. Instead, he struts around preening for the Trump crowd.
“I’m standing in your way” is indeed his motto.
When DT became President I actually looked into what it takes to renounce your US citizenship. You have to be in a foreign country and swear an oath of renunciation at a U.S. embassy or consulate in that foreign territory.
And you’re stiffed -
The Renunciation fee is US $2,350 when a U.S. citizen makes an appointment at a U.S. consulate and applies for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.
I am not a 'happy' American, nevertheless, renouncing citizenship sounds like a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). Not ready to go that far!
https://fairfight.com/
I agree with you, Fern. My intention is to continue to try and fix what is already broken and do my best not to crack and more china (no pun intended). I have lived 74 years now and have been a social justice advocate for most of my sentient life. Won some and lost some, but I have no intention of hoisting a white flag of surrender or abandoning the battlefield.
Together, Bruce. Your determination (and china) encourages us, along with eliciting a senior smile.
I have been searching for a way to make a suggestion to substack that they allow subscribers to make corrections to their posts. I try to be careful about autocorrect not altering what I am writing but so annoyed when I discover errors after a post is submitted. Meant to say "not to crack ANY more china." Oh well, I think the point was made.
So substack, please allow the original commenter the option of editing their own comments. I so hate having to copy, then delete, and repost a corrected comment. That results in all the subsequent replies to the comment disappearing as well. Such an easy suggestion for them to implement.
onward, Fern. We must keep getting in Good Trouble. Part of me wants to give up and flee too. Will not let the minority noisy tantrum control us.
Hey man - we need the money, OK?
LOL
Wow, thanks for that information.
Wow!
Not just from the virus.
Propaganda has changed our country, drug companies say they have no antidote
Drug companies are a major part of our problems.
If anyone has not seen the two part documentary about the Sacklers, do so as soon as possible!
The New Yorker did an excellent piece on them several years ago. Laid out the whole marketing plan
They knew. They smelled money
Tar coated souls
and they are coming out of it wealthy, not jailed.
I will check that out... what pigs...
I cannot get the image of the smirk on Sacklers face during the deposition. Haunting!
Evil is not even the best word.... disgusting...
Just hoping "what goes around comes around" holds true for him
Two part documentary? Name? Link?
HBO: 'Crime of the Century'
I had an aha moment yesterday when someone mentioned smoking in the context of vaccine resistance. As a former smoker I remember well my complete resistance to anyone telling me I was slowly killing myself by smoking. Basically liberal and compassionate on most things I was completely stubborn about my smoking and my right to keep doing it no matter the harm to myself and others. Vaccine resistance is like smoking. “No one can tell me what to do” was my mantra while a smoker. But smokers came to accept that they couldn’t smoke on planes or in buildings that prohibited it. That’s why I believe mandatory vaccination would work for all but the most hard core. While personally stubborn, when rules are set and enforced there can be a sense of relief in being forced to follow them - having one’s stubbornness over ridden when secretly you know it’s the right thing.
Years ago after quitting smoking I was walking through an airport in Germany and there was a glassed in smoking area. I remember looking at all the smokers puffing away and being hardly able to believe I was once one of them. While requiring quarantine for the vaccine resistant seems impossible, we need to think of something to protect ourselves. Mandating the vaccine seems like the only answer. Like smokers, they will never get the vaccine voluntarily.
I too smoked in the 1960s up to the '70s, when inside air was polluted by tobacco smoke. Even as a smoker it was unbearable at times & many non-smokers also died of the horrible diseases this caused. I remember working with mainframe computers in 1970, that were put in special really cold rooms where smoking was not allowed. Also, riding on buses & airplanes choking from the smoky air. The last encounter was a Cuban doctor smoking while consulting with me in his office - before the Clean Indoor Air Act of 1991. Thankfully the world is a healthier place due to that.
I started smoking during Army basic training while we were out at the range learning to shoot the m-16 and we got c-rations for lunch which included a 4-pack of cigarettes. It became a habit (of course), but about 15 years later my Italian wife, when we had been married about 3 years, told me one day I could have the cigarettes or I could have her. She said it in slow English, and I could tell she had practiced it because there was no trace of her usual Italian accent, just a steely look. Yikes! That was an easy choice I have never regretted. Quit cold turkey halfway through a pack and noticed about a week later that the little cough that accompanied my first deep breath of the day every morning had disappeared. Thank you, Claudia!
Recently, when it was our turn to get vaccinated and the Italian government was only giving AstraZeneca to the over-60s, Claudia balked and said "I don't want AstraZeneca if it causes blood clots" (a very rare side effect for people under 50) I said to her "You saved my life when you made me quit smoking". She understood immediately what I was referring to and what I meant. Now we are happily vaccinated.
Yes. The Clean Indoor Act shows that public health concerns can outweigh freedumb and liburdy. Unfortunately, the freedom and liberty loonies on the Supreme Court today might see it differently, but we have to try to mandate vaccination ny law, anyway, in the hope that the Court might listen to reason in this emergency.
This is an excellent argument, and I thank you for posting it.
One difference, Ned, is we smokers (former) were addicted to the nicotine, which was the real problem with quitting. Sure, there was an element of 'You can't make me" involved, but I think without the addiction part, we would have been more receptive.
I tried to quit multiple times and it was only when I found my breathing effected that I was able to use the patch (which had failed to help before), to give me the nicotine hit that allowed me to unlearn all the triggers that caused me to reflexively light a cigarette. Coffee, after a meal, phone call, driving, etc. We tend to not think about how behaviors become part of the process.
So addictive and so difficult to quit. I had a pack of cigs in every room and like Pavlov's dog, everytime the (landline) phone rang, I simultaneously reached for a smoke. I quit before having kids but did sneak a couple in the backyard. One memorable episode . . . our then toddler first born (born talking!) told my husband when he came home from work, "Daddy, Daddy. Mommy was in the backyard with a firestick". Kids and from the mouths of babes!! :) That was the end of my smoking days/daze!!
Yes, I hear you as a former smoker myself (quit after 10 years). Even though the Surgeon General's 1964 report linked smoking to cancer, I justified my taking up the then somewhat socially acceptable disgusting habit when I went to college, that it couldn't really be that bad if they allowed cigarette vending machines in the dorm! Besides I was 17 and only "old" people in their 40's got lung cancer! So, obviously, the message was not directed at me!! Youth is sooooo wasted on the young!
Smoking is addictive and expensive while the vaccine is not . . . but the similarity is how facts are rationalized by people to support irrational behavior. However, this is not how anyone in power over other peoples' health should be acting. Smoking became socially unacceptable and people who continued to smoke are prohibited from doing so in all inside venues (and many outdoor activities). The result is smoking in the U.S. has dropped (it has been exported to foreign countries!! - won't go down that path at this time!).
Non vaccinated people should feel the brunt of societal pressure by their fellow citizens while businesses, schools, entertainment, sporting events, etc. need to require proof of vaccination in order to participate. For crying out loud, our purses and persons are check for weapons going into buildings! Otherwise, no vaccine . . . stay home. It is still brain numbing that people think a pandemic entails "personal choice"! Maybe we put a giant V with a line through it to disclose the non vaccinated!!
Can't drive without a license. In some states can't own a car without insurance. Can't run a red light or speed without consequences (if caught). Can't carry guns on planes. Society has regulations for the public good. We need vaccine mandates.
As a friend recently reminded me, "No shirt, no shoes, no service" was common for years and nobody had a hissy fit over it.
Totally agree!
I smoked socially off and on (one or two at a party) until I was in my mid-40s and lived in China for a year. There I smoked every day - but still only one or two (thinking that couldn't hurt me?). When I returned to the States, I still smoked one or two a day for a couple of years. Then I saw a anti-smoking public service ad that showed the cross-section of an artery that was so clogged with fat it looked like manicotti stuffed with mascarpone or ricotta. That was it for me!
Maybe we need very graphic public service ads on cable, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, SnapChat, Instagram, TikTok (and any other popular SM) showing autopsies photos of lungs and other organs ruined by COVID-19?
Seems to me that smoking is an addiction, harmful to health, and expensive for the user. Vaccination is free (generally) and beneficial to the user. I am not very clear on what the "conservative" manipulators gain by getting people to avoid vaccination.
All I can say is smoking and vax denial are based in stubbornness. It’s not rational, it comes from the reptile brain. “Conservative manipulators” just want followers however they can get them.
Here's something I'd not given thought to, even though my made has needle fear:https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/unvaccinated-covid-19-afraid-needles-heres-how-to-help?fbclid=IwAR12fjNUG-u9GAHQ1xv-3YbzTKkcADkRf31iDT4vVDUGkp95KnmnS-wDTk0
Terrific story. Thanks! Very helpful.
Complete Domination
They only care about keeping people in the "reptile brain", and many R leaders had themselves and family vaxxed while they continued to push the resistance. Then the addition of computer based bots spreading any kind of dis information and related dis-ease makes it worse.
Not all addictions are chemically induced by tangible pollutants. We humans can also become addicted to self-destructive ways of thinking and behaving that don't involve ingesting or inhaling anything harmful. There is a lot of that going around and it is almost as communicative as - or perhaps even more so than - COVID-19.
I wish the lesson we learned from our stubbornness over smoking could be really be taught to our anti-vaccination at all cost groups. They know little of what they don't know while postulating that we don't know enough about the consequences of taking the shot. Now, because it doesn't have full FDA approval.
Many of us who are still alive know that most of the chronic conditions we are dealing with are probably a result of our stubborn beliefs in our invincibility (smoking won't hurt me, I stronger than some fake Covid). For at least 3 serious conditions I face a history of smoking is the number 1 or 2 predictor and my insurance pays out $100k per year (I am fortunate with insurance and high quality medical services) to tinker and keep me standing, walking, breathing, and semi functional. I never paid enough premiums in over my 50 year worklife to cover that cost. Society, at large is carrying me, as it will them, or we simply die earlier and unnecessarily early with great debt.
Unvaccinated, this I suspect, will become the cost-driver for their health repairs 20 or 30 years hence. Theirs just might (probably?) be greater and concentrated in communities where medical services and rehabilitation are unsustainable. I really wish they could be health-smarter then we were.
Thanks for this perspective. There's this constant push/pull about our responsibility for ourselves, our families, our tribe and humanity as a whole. The deep inner impulses that set someone on the path to smoking (and damage to the self) can't be solved in a straight line way as they are often hidden. Or we are too young and inexperienced to suss out what's driving us in that direction. Some are lucky, like you, to have a strong net that supports you in the wake of your decision to smoke. Many others have no net and are being abandoned - or seduced into dead end behavior patterns. Compassion says we need to offer what we can to all who suffer. But there is compassion burn out and I see more of that than I want to in myself and others.
Am also compassion burned out. Then, friend who avoided vaccination turns up in ER and has all the signs of going downhill all the way and compassion raises it's head right before getting angry that someone I have known for 50 years can be so careless and nearly die when it was soooo unnecessary.
By the way, I stopped smoking nearly 40 years ago. Smoked for 15 to 20 years. Damage done back then. The validity of the science coming out back then didn't get a place to live in my head until years after stopping.
Ned, thank you for this compassionate and revealing story. I believe we will get there.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” - Samuel Johnson
And now we can look forward to the bully motorcyclists proclaiming their maskless, helmetless freedom in Sturgis South Dakota this weekend for ten superspreading days. And the press will be there to make them heroes. If you don’t want to wear a helmet in a state that has no requirement, that is a personal choice that affects only you and the ER staff who have to treat you. Wearing a mask, like not smoking in public, is a public health issue and shows respect for others in your community. It’s way past time to stop the spread.
Don’t trust the vaccine? Talk to the compulsive liar idjt who pushed warp speed on us, had the vaccine secretly in January and told us not to vaccinate our children.
❤️NJ Governor Murphy described them perfectly—ultimate knuckleheads.
One of the iconic Harley motorcycles is lovingly called "The Knucklehead" (due to bolts coming out the sides of the V-twin engine). How fitting that they are, indeed, complete knuckleheads. (I have another term for that which uses a "colorful metaphor" of a profanity).
I had forgotten about the Harley Knucklehead.
"Knuckleheads" is too kind and endearing a term.
You wrote: " If you don’t want to wear a helmet in a state that has no requirement, that is a personal choice that affects only you and the ER staff who have to treat you." Actually, many who end up with head injuries requiring life-long care often end up being cared for (minimally) at taxpayer expense.
The covid19 Delta variant isn't spreading among the unvaccinated just in southern states with potential immigrants coming in. Nor is it only caught and passed on by the unvaccinated. It's spreading everywhere that people are unvaccinated.
My sister in Vermont reported that two of her vaccinated friends went to Cape Cod on vacation where they spent time in Province Town, a covid19 hotspot. Crowds can be thick both outdoors and inside restaurants and shops. Her friends returned to Vermont with covid19 and a week of feeling quick sick. They of course exposed many people both home and away.
Yesterday, a friend in Maine learned that a young OR nurse who refused the vaccination came down with covid19. The nurse helped with a community event days before testing positive. She has exposed many people at work, at home and at the events she has attended without the vaccine or making. Our friend will be testing for covid19 and fearful of those in the community that haven't vaccinated, don't wear masks and don't share that they are vaccinated.
In many ways, conditions are worse because we have the assumption that vaccinated people will not catch covid19 and won't pass it on. While we are significantly more protected, we aren't free from this pandemic.
At Walgreens yesterday, all the staff were masked. I spoke with an older staff manager asking about her experience with covid19. She expressed her aggravation with those who aren't vaccinated. She was vaccinated in December 2020 when she and her staff helped with a clinic. The extra shot in each bottle enabled her and her staff to get vaccinated ahead of schedule. Walgreens now tests for covid19. The manager said there has been enough vaccine and time to vaccinate everyone and put this behind us. Instead, we need to go back to masks, cannot trust those around us and risk the health, safety and long term well being of our children who cannot be vaccinated yet.
The politicians who have used covid19 and masking for their extremist FOX politics and campaigning are criminals. This is not free speech. This is manslaughter at best and premeditated murder at worse. Anyone who cast anthrax around in public would be taken into custody, prosecuted and imprisoned for a very long time. This should be done with the anti covid19 health measures.
My husband and I are fully vaccinated. In 10 days we are planning - fingers crossed - to go from NH to VT to visit our son, DIL who are both vaccinated and our toddler grandson who of course is not. Not having broken out much at all, we decided last week to go back to being extra cautious these two weeks prior to visiting because the CDC announced that vaccinated people can - rarely - have an asymptomatic or mild case and pass it along just as easily as unvaccinated people. We want to do all we can to avoid giving this virus to our grandson and/or his parents. I don't know how some people live with themselves.
and now they know it is not rare. It is becoming more common for vaxxed people to have mild or non symptomatic Delta. I am about to leave on a two week camping trip, with some family friends visits. Masks are my everyday dress now and for as far into the future as I can see.
I'm about to sew up another batch of washables to wear when I start teaching in the fall. Spouse and I have been vaccinated since the earliest chance available. We tried going out without masks a couple of times as many places in WA are making them optional for vaccinated folx - but quickly went back to wearing them. We don't want to share it should we become infected.
What WAS previously considered "uncommon" (not "rare") was for vaccinated people to have break throughs and experience either Covid or the Delta Variant. However, it is not "uncommon" any longer, according to medical professionals. Break throughs are happening everywhere. What IS terrifying though, is that vaccinated people, whether symptomatic or not, can "shed" the Delta Variant as easily and readily as anyone unvaccinated. It is highly transmissible. Be safe on your trip. Hope all goes well.
Yup, it sucks. That's why we're taking all precautions we can pre-trip. I just now read in our local news that the city of Hanover, NH as well as Dartmouth College have reinstated an indoor public spaces mask mandate because of an uptick in cases among vaccinated adults at the school.
I was very surprised to see the pharmacist at Kroger not masked.
Thank you Heather Cox Richardson for all of your efforts. You are a bedrock of sanity in this ever increasing chaos of information. I am a subscriber but oftentimes that does not seem enough.
Constantine, I know what you mean. I feel we should bake her a pie or cookies and send them to her. We will never beable to reciprocate what she does for us.
That is precisely how I feel. And it is not only what she does for us individually, it is what she is doing for democracy in general, not to mention all the completely unnecessary BS misinformation. In high school, I loathed history and government. Now, I can't get enough of either. This woman is a "true" hero.
Exactly. I "attend" both online history discussions she does weekly as well. The fact that she invites us in her house twice a week to share her knowledge is an act I can never repay. The daily letters are what keeps me sane.
I always liked history, maybe because my older brother was a History teacher. We were always trading Historical facts, although I think he already knew the answers. Perhaps because of that, I am a Director of a Historical Museum and Research Center in Central NY.
My thirst for Historical knowledge has never left me, but it has certainly increased because of Heather.
I donated to our local Food Bank in her honor. That might me a way to repay her in a way I think she would like. It was the least I could do.
Linda, I always liked history too, even though now I know that much of what I was taught should have been stored under "American Literature/fiction". So grateful for Dr R guiding us though learning the rest of the story, even as it develops.
Where and when does she give the history discussions?
TODAY'S PARABLE FROM THE BACKWARD SOUTH
A farmer was enormously proud of his mule and constantly bragged to his neighbors how obedient it was. "All you have do is ask politely, and it will do whatever you want."
Having heard this before, one of his neighbors was having nothing of it this time. "All mules are stubborn," he said, " and I don't believe yours is any different."
"But my mule is different," said the farmer. "It's well-behaved, and all you have to do is ask nicely and it will do whatever you want."
"I still don't believe you," the neighbor retorted. "Show me."
So the farmer took him out to the barn, and there in a stall at the back was the mule. Just as they walked up to it, the farmer leaned down, picked up a two-by-four, and smacked the mule over the head.
Stunned, his neighbor asked, "What are you doing? I thought you said your mule was obedient and would do whatever you asked?"
"Ah, yes," the farmer answered, "but you've got to get its attention first.
I suppose even the most stubborn, mule-headed, anti-vax, science denier finally gets it when certain death hits him in the head.
I copied this and I'm going to paste it everywhere I can! It's quite unfortunate that so many anti vaxxers are having to pay the ultimate price before admitting their mistake. I needed this chuckle today.
👍 Quite literal LOL.
👍
I’m not surprised that FL Governor Ron DeSantis is deferring to the border crisis, when confronted about his deadly negligence. He is using the same failed strategy against the virus as Republicans have been using against immigrants along the Southern border. It like building a twelve foot wall against the virus, but then the virus builds a thirteen foot ladder and crawls over it. Yesterday, with his state idling at a 49.1% vaccination rate, Governor DeSantis said, "I think it's very important that we understand that the best defenses we have are the combination of the natural immunity that's been built up, and our seniors-first vaccination efforts," yet his state needs to vaccinate at least 85-90% of its population in order to achieve herd immunity with this new variant. With every new level of variant reached by the Coronavirus, Republicans reach a new level of negligence and criminality. They think they’re smarter than immigrants and the Coronavirus, but they’re obviously not.
And it's absolutely essential that Floridians know that immigrants are at fault for bringing on the virus; therefore, no need to rush to get vaccinated.
Lynell I live in Fl. Last week in some areas it got up to 100*. That is ‘Indoor ‘ weather for most of us . My A/C set at 77* is going constantly. The Tourist Parks have told Ppl that don’t Have to wear masks. Although many do. But their inside attractions have their A/C set to Arctic Winter. And guess what ? Surprise ,surprise Orlando, Daytona are the ‘Hot Spots ‘ . Also South in Miami. Are main attraction is NASA and the Ocean. I stay far away from all of it. But I have the N95 masks if need be.Those light blue ones just don’t compare. Silly Ppl.
Hey, Marcia. You all are going through hell, to be sure. We experience the same weather, though we have been mostly spared so far. I hope you know my comment above was made out of frustration. I'd rather that energy be spent on pursuing solutions, not casting blame.
Right there with you Lynell.
😡
(...and we know more deadly variants will result from this stupidity.)
He is probably going to start shrieking "But, her emails" when this doesn't work.
DeSantis is a loathsome SOB who hopefully will be beaten in the next election, but he's correct about the border.
"Criticism of the Biden administration’s policy of releasing illegal migrants who are apprehended entering illegally in the midst of the Covid pandemic (and the emergence of the Delta variant) has been ramping up of late, and that criticism has been heightened by the revelations that Covid-positive migrants have been released to CCRGV in La Joya and Weslaco.
"Plainly, the Biden administration would want to tamp down such complaints, but to do so it must either close the border and expel all illegal migrants, or alternatively conceal the true extent of the problem.
"It is highly unlikely that it plans on changing its border-release policies (as misguided and unlawful as they are) anytime soon, so telling people in the know like Sister Norma not to comment about the extent of the problem would be its only solution.
"As explained above, however, concealing the number of Covid-positive migrants who have been released to the care of NGOs like CCRGV and not revealing where they have been sent puts local governments at a significant disadvantage in controlling the spread of Covid.
"Again, the Delta Covid variant is highly contagious, and a “hyperlocal outbreak” could overwhelm health resources (including hospital beds) in the small towns that dot the Rio Grande Valley. If the Biden administration is obstructing disclosures about Covid-positive migrants who have been released into those towns for political reasons, it needs to stop and put the facts out there. Viruses call for disinfectants, and as Justice Brandeis once said: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Who-Hiding-Number-CovidPositive-Migrants-Released-Rio-Grande-Valley
The idea that Governor DeSantis is using the playbook of Orban, DT and other autocrats when he tries to throw the blame on immigrants is quite disturbing. Thank you, HCR, for connecting those dots for me. Having a people to hate is an important key to an autocrat's power and a way to divert the attention away from who is really taking people's rights away from them. Masks is another diversion away from the autocrat's intentions. The ploy that one's freedom is being forcibly taken away works on the ignorant. Freedom without responsibility is the signature of anarchy not democracy. With freedom and its rights comes the responsibility to protect those same rights in others most certainly including the right to life. What Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott are doing is calling for the genocide of their constituents. It is even more frightening that in doing so, they are making sure all of us have to live with COVID variants for decades rather than stomp it out now before it has a chance to become something worse. Maybe unwittingly this is their climate crisis plan to significantly reduce populations of humans in order to cut down on CO2 emissions.
By all means, let us emulate Hungary's response to COVID-19. Somebody should inform DeSantis, et al., that Orban is mandating vaccines at least for health care workers and school kids.
https://www.rt.com/news/530022-orban-announces-mandatory-coronavirus-vaccine/
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungary-offer-third-dose-covid-19-vaccine-2021-07-16/
Interesting that it takes an authoritarian to do this. TFG was an authoritarian wannabe and missed his big chance to do something that allowed him not only to stop the spread but also to wear his Big Boy Bossy Pants.
What absolutely horrifies me - why are there so many "ignorant" - (it would be interesting to do an equivalent survey in Oz - but I suspect that the "ignornati" proportion would be lower - but, maybe I'm just being the cockeyed optimist). Even our medical center up here - as we are country folks - we can't just drop everything and come into town on Saturday (when most stores are closed) to get our shots (we got them 3 weeks ago on Wed) ... "oh we don't have an open bottle of AstraZeneca during the week" don't these people know the elements of bacteriology?? Bitch Bitch.. get your scuba masks on - we are entering dark waters.
I am continuously struck by the irony of how the "Party of Life" seems to wallow in death "My body, my choice!".................unless it comes to the subject of abortion.
And the real issue after that is not giving 2 hoots about those children that are born.
I now refer to them as the party of death. And one of my names for TFG is death star donny. They have wrought complete havoc.
I am infuriated, each and every time I see “my body, my choice” co-opted by lazy, ignorant fools. 🤬
Thank you Heather.
Whenever I read the dismissive remarks from the QOP Governors regarding C-19, I always think I'm reading old news until I realize these are current statements. They are pushing this narrative with the same gusto as the Big Lie. Are the people in those States that ignorant to accept this bullshit or are they that far into the rabbit hole that they have nowhere to turn around? Maybe both.
If ignorance is bliss, these must be very happy people.
Be safe, be well.
Linda, it’s the rabbit hole. Trust me on this.
“DeSantis blamed Florida’s devastating virus numbers on immigrants coming over the nation’s border with Mexico into Texas.”
I guess I will need to take a closer look at the map to find out where Texas and Florida share a border … hmmmmm
Now we can add “lack of any geography or map skills” to his pathetic bio or resume.
DeSantis spouts dangerous ignorance solely to appeal to Trump’s belligerently ignorant voter base. Obviously, everything DeSantis says is carefully crafted to gain the support of that idiotic “you’re not the boss of me” demographic. No matter, to either DeSantis or the MAGA crowd, that thousands will die because he denies medical science (science that we all know he understands). Floridians need to sue DeSantis for wrongful death. He’s no different from the tobacco companies who continued to push cigarettes despite knowing they caused cancer and heart disease. To protect the people of Florida, DeSantis needs to be prosecuted and put behind bars.
Charlie Crist ahead of DeSanitize in early polls. So he’s ramping up his anti-everything messaging. Fool. My hope is that Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist craft a ticket together for Gov/Lt Gov.
Also…Val Demings excellent candidate for US Senate seat running against Rubio who always is whining about something.
And let's not forget about heroine whistle-blower Rebecca Jones running. Maybe against crazy pedophile Gaetz?
I received her campaign mailer ( I live in Texas) so I googled her. According to wikipedia she has a significant past. I won’t support her until I learn otherwise.
She got into "good trouble" with her whistleblowing and hacking the data to report. Vs gaetz' bad trouble anyway you cut it.
I was so impressed with Demings during that first impeachment hearing. She's terrific.
I’m with you, Sister!
I’m with you both, standing a bit to the Northwest…ready to write postcards, etc💙
Here in Missouri as well! Must help other states since mine feels beyond hope
DeSantis is a loathsome SOB, but as they say, a busted clock is right twice a day, and DeSantis is right about immigrants getting into Texas:
"Criticism of the Biden administration’s policy of releasing illegal migrants who are apprehended entering illegally in the midst of the Covid pandemic (and the emergence of the Delta variant) has been ramping up of late, and that criticism has been heightened by the revelations that Covid-positive migrants have been released to CCRGV in La Joya and Weslaco.
"Plainly, the Biden administration would want to tamp down such complaints, but to do so it must either close the border and expel all illegal migrants, or alternatively conceal the true extent of the problem.
It is highly unlikely that it plans on changing its border-release policies (as misguided and unlawful as they are) anytime soon, so telling people in the know like Sister Norma not to comment about the extent of the problem would be its only solution.
"As explained above, however, concealing the number of Covid-positive migrants who have been released to the care of NGOs like CCRGV and not revealing where they have been sent puts local governments at a significant disadvantage in controlling the spread of Covid.
"Again, the Delta Covid variant is highly contagious, and a “hyperlocal outbreak” could overwhelm health resources (including hospital beds) in the small towns that dot the Rio Grande Valley. If the Biden administration is obstructing disclosures about Covid-positive migrants who have been released into those towns for political reasons, it needs to stop and put the facts out there. Viruses call for disinfectants, and as Justice Brandeis once said: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Who-Hiding-Number-CovidPositive-Migrants-Released-Rio-Grande-Valley
You’re citing a post from cis.org, a suspect organization. According to Souther Poverty Law Center:
”CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Founded in 1985 by John Tanton, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has gone on to become the go-to think tank for the anti-immigrant movement with its reports and staffers often cited by media and anti-immigrant politicians. CIS’s much-touted tagline is “low immigration, pro-immigrant,” but the organization has a decades-long history of circulating racist writers, while also associating with white nationalists.”
SPLC has a habit of smearing organizations with which it has political disagreements, and is, itself, a suspect organization for that behavior. Here is a former NPR public editor on CIS, where you will find a very different view from that of SPLC:
https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2013/07/29/206713906/getting-the-bedfellows-of-immigration-policy-right
@JR, if CIS was as described by SPLC, would the National Academy of Sciences have used it as a reviewer for their 2016 study, The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration?
CIS exists to stop immigration. If you read the full post that you pulled quotes from, it’s obvious that they are pushing biased, inaccurate information. Why did you post this? Immigrants are NOT the problem when it comes to the Covid surge, it’s idiotic Republicans rejecting common sense. You’re helping DeSantis and Abbott scape goat.
https://www.numbersusa.com/news/border-patrol-official-warns-covid-positive-aliens-being-released-day-day-out
https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/border-strategy-so-doomed-fail-youd-think-goal-had-changed
CIS is not about stopping immigration. Are you aware of how much immigration there is? Did you know that in the last 30 years we've taken in numbers of immigrants that are equivalent to more than twice the population of New York State? And that Biden wants to double immigration? (I voted for him, and I think most of what he is doing is great, and I never expect to like everything a politician does, but he's blowing it on immigration.)
AT a time when global warming is causing the carrying capacity of our country to plummet? I lived in Seattle as a small child, and I've been back regularly since then, and I'd never felt the least uncomfortably warm there. 108 degrees in Seattle is crazy stuff. Read this article from the NYT Mag, and you'll see that this is going to be a very different country in two decades or so--in a bad way. It should be obvious that the last thing we want to do, faced with this, is to add another four NY States' worth of people over the next four decades. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/15/magazine/climate-crisis-migration-america.html
Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! Just wanted to give a shout out to Mexico for filing their lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers. We all know pretty much how this will end, but kudos to them for taking a stand against gun violence for their citizens.
Here's a Common Dreams article about it to add to HCR's link from WaPo:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/04/mexico-files-historic-lawsuit-against-us-gun-companies-fueling-cartel-carnage?utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&utm_medium=Email
Thank you. I was looking for the reason they might have a case for the lawsuit. I hope they are successful.
Morning, Lynell! I thought that was fabulous news as well.