I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Linkee-poo weekend

Chadwick Boseman, and so it goes.

"Firefighters increased containment on at least two of the major complex fires ravaging the Bay Area, as officials work to continue lifting evacuation warnings and allowing residents back into their homes in Felton and Davenport."

"Fishermen battled on Sunday to save dozens of injured dolphins washed ashore in Mauritius where in recent days at least 40 of the animals were found dead in a lagoon near the site of an oil spill from a Japanese bulk carrier which struck a coral reef."

"Water covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface and is crucial to life as we know it, but how it got here has been a longstanding scientific debate… The puzzle was a step closer to being solved Thursday after a French team reported in the journal Science they had identified which space rocks were responsible, and suggested our planet has been wet ever since it formed."

"A consensus is building among public health experts that it’s better to keep university students on campus after a Covid-19 outbreak rather than send them home as many are doing… It’s easier to isolate sick or exposed students and trace their contacts if they stay put, said Ravina Kullar, epidemiologist and spokesperson for Infectious Diseases Society of America. Sending students home risks exposing other people there as well as along the way, and makes contact tracing all but impossible." Jazz hands! But then comes the problems of liability.

"More than half of 50,307 college students who participated in the American College Health Association's Spring 2020 National College Health Assessment reported receiving mental health services from their current campus health or counseling center in the last year. Those numbers are expected to dramatically increase as students return to college this fall, experts predict." Another aspect go how to deliver services we've demanded schools be the provider for when schools are no longer in person.

"Veteran K-12 teachers in states across the U.S. are resigning and retiring at higher rates as schools begin reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic this fall, with educators citing the stress tied to remote learning, technical difficulties and COVID-19 health concerns."

"But a ten-fold surge in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations over the last month has triggered new shutdown orders and a scramble to bolster the public health measures state officials neglected before reopening. When the state was locked down and caseloads were smaller, a key to Hawaii’s success was quick testing and contact tracing to find people exposed to the virus. But failure to build up that capacity for reopening, along with growing public complacency around social distancing measures, allowed the outbreak to spiral out of control, say numerous state officials — including many from Ige’s party." And if you don't think the people in healthcare are also growing complacent, I've got news for you.

"White vigilantes and far-right actors have shown up to oppose Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. at least 497 times this year, according to data collected by Alexander Reid Ross, a doctoral fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. He started gathering data on May 27, two days after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, and continued through this week."

"A person was shot and killed in downtown Portland Saturday night as a pro-Trump car caravan wound its way through city streets, clashing with counterprotesters along the way. It is uncertain whether the shooting is directly connected to the competing protests, but what became clear late Saturday night was that it likely soon will be."

Meanwhile, on Bullshit Mountain… "Trump rails against 'incompetent' Portland mayor, says 'backlash' involving supporters not 'unexpected'."

"'It’s just going to keep going, people have a lot of anger with the police. People are frustrated with the system,' Demaag, 45, said standing outside the charred remains of his former furniture store (in downtown Minneapolis). 'The minute we have this anger, people are going to hijack it and do other stuff again, the same thing. It’s a very scary situation.'"

"Though concerns about instability in the Middle East dominated most public discussions on counterterrorism, about 80 percent of the leaders at the conference ranked far-right extremism among their top concerns." And statistics would show they were correct to be concerned.

"On Saturday, more than 200 cities from Spokane to Scranton saw modest rallies for a cause so pure, so unifying, that who in their right mind wouldn’t want to join in? 'Save the children' was the chant and child trafficking the scourge. But lately it is a movement being hijacked from within, which is just the latest instance of the QAnon conspiracy theory spilling out of its online domain. This we know from reporting by NBC News investigative reporter Brandy Zadrozny, along with reporter Ben Collins. In this podcast extra, Zadrozny explains how these rallies function as 'information laundering,' and how local journalists have inadvertantly taken part in QAnon's recruitment strategy."

"The ruler of the United Arab Emirates has formally ended the country's boycott of Israel, marking one more step toward normalized relations between the two countries following a U.S.-brokered deal earlier this month."

"Authorities in Belarus have deported some foreign journalists reporting in the country and withdrawn the accreditation of many Belarusian reporters covering large anti-government protests that erupted after a disputed presidential election earlier this month."

"Montenegrins are voting in a parliamentary election that is pitting the country's long-ruling pro-Western party against an opposition seeking closer ties with Serbia and Russia." Waves to my Russian friends.

"Statistics show that some crime has been increasing in big cities, with mayors who are Democrats and Republicans. According to figures compiled by data analyst and consultant Jeff Asher, the murder rate this year has increased by 26% through July, compared with a year ago. Other violent crimes are up slightly, while property crimes are down by 7.7%… This is a reversal of longer-term trends, in which violent crimes have been generally declining since the '90s." And this has happened on whose watch? A comparison of the records between Trump/Pence and Biden/Harris.

"The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) will stop providing in-person briefings on election security and foreign interference to Congress, according to congressional and intelligence officials, and instead will provide 'primarily' written updates ahead of the November election."

"House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday it is possible the House could subpoena intelligence officials to testify on election interference, a day after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe informed members of Congress that the nation's top intelligence office will no longer deliver in-person briefings on election security issues." It's the battle of leakers and spin doctors. Here's my takeaway; the charge of "leaking" is spurious, and it's simply the office of the president doesn't want the public to know (until they have to say the election was rigged).

"Trump continues to break the polling." Your vote matters. Go vote.

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