Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Here are a few news items to chew over. Please feel free to share anything that you think would interest readers. Make sure to include links.
First news item
It was inevitable, and I expect it will continue to happen in other cities and states where the schools remain closed:
A group of parents frustrated by efforts made to date to reopen classrooms in the nation’s second-largest K-12 system is suing the Los Angeles Unified School District and local teachers union.
The lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that LAUSD breached its responsibility to act in the best interest of students by allowing the teachers union to dictate when schools should reopen.
LAUSD, United Teachers Los Angeles and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz are named as defendants in the complaint.
Second news item
Get your messaging straight, people:
A day after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky suggested people vaccinated against COVID-19 would not become infected with or transmit the disease, the CDC backtracked the comments.
“Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick,” Walensky told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday. “And that it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data.”
The comments were particularly notable because just two days earlier, Walensky spoke of “impending doom” she was feeling due to cases starting to tick back up. It was something she reiterated to Maddow.
Related:
All from the CDC within the last week 🤨 pic.twitter.com/ZLgsr21JKp
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 2, 2021
Third news item
Of course Russia is trying to crush Alexey Navalny. That’s who they are:
The Russian state is making a slow spectacle of crushing Alexey Navalny and his organization. The opposition politician is in prison, serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for “violating his parole” while he recovered from a near-fatal poisoning attack by his own government. Last week, Navalny’s lawyers and his wife, Yulia, said that he has developed health problems for which prison authorities are denying adequate treatment. He is also facing torture by sleep deprivation. (The prison service has denied mistreating Navalny.) On Wednesday, Navalny declared a hunger strike. Meanwhile, Navalny’s allies are planning new demonstrations to demand his release. Dozens of people around Russia are still in jail after being arrested in connection with pro-Navalny demonstrations that took place in January and February. Over the weekend, authorities arrested Yuri Zhdanov, the father of Ivan Zhdanov, who heads Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Related observation and advice:
I see the comparisons to Soviet dissidents going on hunger strikes, and one difference is that even the brutal Soviet leadership cared about its image in the world. Putin doesn't, as he's sure he will get what he personally wants from the free world, "killer" or not.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) March 31, 2021
Fourth news item
Here is the minute I finally lost it: Sunday, March 21, at 9:34 p.m.
That’s when my wife and I got an email saying our kids’ New York City public elementary school would be closed yet again. Testing had found two positive COVID-19 cases among nearly 700 students and staff.
It was the fifth time the school had closed since New York reopened schools in the fall. Each time has been the same: First, we get an email that testing has turned up one case. A few days later, we get a second email saying testing has found a second case and the whole school will be closed for a day while health officials investigate.
And then, every time, comes the coup de grâce form letter: “Subject: 10 Day Bldg Closure.” Per New York City policy, two unlinked cases result in the building being shuttered for 10 consecutive days.
Fifth news item
HOW IS THIS NOT A CRISIS OF HEARTBREAKING PROPORTION?:
U.S. Border Patrol officials said agents rescued two young children Tuesday night after smugglers dropped the children from the top of the border wall in a remote area west of El Paso.
A Border Patrol agent operating a camera pointed at a section of the barrier just west of El Paso spotted the two young girls, ages 3 and 5, as they were dropped from the top of the 14 foot wall. Border Patrol released a video showing the smuggler on the wall dangling the children before dropping them one by one. The older girl quickly stands up after she lands on the ground. The younger girl sits for a while before getting on her feet. The individual on the fence also tosses a small bag to U.S. side of the border with the children. The video then shows two men quickly leaving the area on the Mexican side of the barrier.
Smugglers, under cover of night, scaled a 14 ft. border barrier and cruelly dropped 2 young children in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The girls, ages 3 & 5, were left miles from the nearest residence. Thank you STN Agents for rescuing these children! @CBP @CBPWestTexas pic.twitter.com/U91y2g8Lk1
— Gloria I. Chavez (@USBPChiefEPT) March 31, 2021
Sixth news item
A U.S. Capitol Police officer was killed and another injured after a man drove a car into a security barricade at the Capitol complex on Friday, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said.
The driver was shot after jumping out of the car with a knife and failing to respond to verbal commands and “lunging” at the officers, Pittman said. The suspect was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead a short time later.
About the suspect:
Law enforcement sources said Green recently lived in Virginia. In postings on social media, he let his friends and family know that the past few years have been “tough” and the past few months “tougher.”
“I am currently now unemployed after I left my job partly due to afflictions, but ultimately, in search of a spiritual journey,” he wrote on his now-deleted Facebook page.
Green’s page featured several recent postings that reference the teachings of the Nation of Islam, a Black separatist movement that does not follow the traditional teachings of Islam, and its leader Louis Farrakhan. Nation of Islam has been classified as a “designated hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of what the SPLC calls “deeply racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric of its leaders.”
Beautiful spring:
"Spring" such a beautiful time of year http://t.co/iKEuRSi6hu
— Antonio Vivaldi (@ayyyvivaldi) May 30, 2013
The heart of the Christian faith: crucifixion and resurrection:
“And they stripped Him and put on Him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head, and a reed in His right hand: and they bowed the knee before Him, and mocked Him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon Him, and took the reed, and smote Him on the head. And after that they had mocked Him, they took the robe off from Him, and put His own raiment on Him and led Him away to crucify Him.” “And they crucified Him and parted His garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture did they cast lots.” Matthew 27:28 to 31 and 35.
“Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.” John 10:17 and 18.
“And they shall scourge Him and put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again.” Luke 18:33.
“And He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31.
Have a blessed weekend.
–Dana