Category: Education

Parade of Champions! USWNT

Occupy Democrats

Live Now

USWNT star Megan Rapinoe sounds more like a President than our “president” — yes… we can be better! http://bit.ly/2G6f3Ei

CNN posted an episode of CNN Replay. 

1 hr

After a ticker tape parade through New York City, USWNT star Megan Rapinoe gives stirring speech to fans with a challenge:

“We have to be better. We have to love more, hate less. We’ve got to listen more and talk less. We’ve got to know that this is everybody’s responsibility… it’s our responsibility to make the world a better place.”http://cnn.it/2LgnReM

US soccer star Megan Rapinoe delivers stirring speech

After a ticker tape parade through New York City, USWNT star Megan Rapinoe gives stirring speech celebrating her teammates. “This group is so resilient, is so tough, has such a sense of humor, is just so badass… We’re chillin’. We’ve got tea sippin’. We’ve got celebrations. We have pink hair and purple hair. We have tattoos and dreadlocks. We’ve got white girls and black girls, and everything in between. Straight girls and gay girls. Hey!” https://cnn.it/2XEYAl9

Posted by CNN on Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Climate Crisis Is Pushing Central Americans Out of Their Homes Toward the U.S.

Democracy Now

How the Climate Crisis Is Pushing Central Americans Out of Their Homes Toward the U.S.

July 10, 2019

Listen

As the U.S. continues to crack down on migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, we look at one of the under-reported driving factors leading people to flee their home countries: the climate crisis. John Carlos Frey, author of “Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border,” spent time with Central American climate refugees traveling in a caravan toward the United States. He says, “If this drought continues, we’re looking at all-out famine from Central America. …That’s one of the major reasons why they’re coming. … The government doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that there is a climate crisis in Central America.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. John Carlos Frey is with us for the hour discussing his new book, Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border. We’re going to turn now to an underreported force driving people to the border: climate change. This is a clip from John Carlos Frey’s project that he did with the Weather Channel on the climate migration crisis, where he asks several Hondurans about what’s happening to them, why they joined a migrant caravan.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: I find a lot of people who worked on farms and say that they fled because of the drought.

PEDRO CASTILLO: [translated] Listen, the drought was really bad. Really bad drought. The corn cobs were really small.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: Among the farmworkers who joined the caravan in Honduras was Pedro Castillo.

PEDRO CASTILLO: [translated] We always plant so we can have food to eat—rice, beans and corn. Many people, that’s how we survive. A lot of us survive on less than $1 a day.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: [translated] With all due respect, I just want to say, that is a life of poverty. Am I right?

PEDRO CASTILLO: [translated] That is the reality of the Honduran people. We have been absorbed by poverty. And not because—and not because we’re lazy. With Mother Nature, there’s nothing you can do. With the drought, there’s nothing you can do.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: Perhaps the one thing you can do is flee. That’s what Fabiola Diaz and Carlos Salinas are doing. They and their kids are traveling together, even though they didn’t know each other before. They’re not a couple, but they seem like a family. Fabiola and her 2-year-old son Yeltsin come from a Honduran town called Santa Bárbara.

[translated] What type of work do they do there?

FABIOLA DIAZ: [translated] There, I do farm labor. Beans, corn—it’s what’s mostly grown there. Right now, in the year we’re in, the harvest didn’t work out for anyone.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s John Carlos Frey interviewing people, part of the migrant caravan, in Mexico City, headed to the United States. He did this project for the Weather Channel on the climate migration crisis. Would you call these refugees “climate refugees”?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: A hundred percent. There is no other way to refer to them. These are people who have farmed their land for millennia. We’re talking about the region where the Mayans are. So, corn and beans have been grown there for hundreds of years. All of a sudden, the rains come, the crops start to grow, and then they dry up. The rains don’t continue. This has been going on for five years. In some places that I visited in Guatemala, they have 100% crop failure. They’ve been able to harvest absolutely nothing. And most of these communities are based on the agricultural economy. If the crops don’t come in, there is no other job. Everything in the town relies on the harvest.

So, I’ve spoken to people who were living on one tortilla a day. They’ve tried everything. They’ve tried to sell their farm equipment, their farm animals, their land, to stay in country. They look for jobs in the major cities close by, and they still haven’t been able to find work.

The United Nations has placed 2.1 million people from the region—they’ve labeled them as food-insecure. That is the first step right before famine. We are looking at—if this drought continues, we are looking at all-out famine from Central America. And from what I’ve found when I was interviewing these people in the caravan, that’s one of the major reasons why they’re coming. And we’re not reporting on that at all. The government doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that there is a climate crisis in Central America.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Let’s go to another clip from the series that you produced with the Weather Channel on the climate migration crisis. This begins with an attorney who’s working with migrants in a caravan traveling through Mexico to the U.S. border.

ATENAS BURROLA: This is not an invasion. This is a drop in the bucket of what comes to the border every month, every week.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: Atenas Burrola is an attorney from North Carolina who’s part of a group that’s come to Mexico to advise the migrants on U.S. asylum law.

I’m following the story of a young woman who is fleeing because of poverty and hunger. She’s living on a meal a day. Does she qualify for asylum, if that’s the only reason that she’s fleeing?

ATENAS BURROLA: If that is the only reason that she’s fleeing, unfortunately, in the United States, she is not going to qualify for asylum.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: Is she not fleeing for her life? Is she not possibly in danger of her life if she doesn’t get food?

ATENAS BURROLA: She probably is, but the way that the U.S. asylum law is written is that it is for people who are fleeing persecution, not economic insecurity.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was your interview with attorney Atenas Burrola. Talk about that.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: I was asking her—this woman can’t feed her child. She’s in fear for her life. She herself was emaciated. Her child was thin. She couldn’t put any food on the table. A woman, by herself, 25 years old, with a 2-year-old, is making this journey from Honduras to the United States. And I was asking the attorney, “What rights does she have when she gets to the U.S.-Mexico border?” She has none. She cannot claim asylum. Our asylum laws do not allow for someone who is a victim of poverty or hunger to come into the United States.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So, what do you see as the way forward here? Because, clearly, there is still a significant portion of the American population that is rallying to President Trump’s continued insistence on closing the border, and yet more and more people are continuing to come. The president is talking now about mass raids again, threatening mass raids again. Where do you see the country moving?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: I don’t see it getting any better. I don’t want to be a pessimist, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen it, and I’ve been reporting on these issues for a long time. You have a president of the United States who is vilifying these people to the point where it’s OK that they die, to the point where it’s OK that we incarcerate children and we treat them inhumanely. That is OK by our federal government. I don’t see anyone in his party speaking out against these actions or advocating on behalf of migrant children. Children, we’re not advocating for. So this is a serious problem. As long as we have the leader of our country advocating for more of the same, I think we’re going to see more of the same. And it’s very hard for Congress to break through.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Will it take possible unrest in the immigrant and Latino community, at levels we haven’t seen since the immigration protests of 2006, before something will change?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: We’re starting to see it, and we’re starting to see Democratic candidates start to advocate on behalf of these individuals. So, that has become part of the platform. I’ve never seen a presidential candidate say publicly that he would—that he would advocate on behalf of healthcare—

AMY GOODMAN: Or she.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: —for the undocumented. That was a shock to me, that if we get a new healthcare system in this country, that undocumented immigrants would qualify.

AMY GOODMAN: And every single candidate raised their hand, Democratic presidential primary.

JOHN CARLOS FREY: So, I think he’s pushing the candidates in that corner.

AMY GOODMAN: When we last talked to you, you talked about how hundreds of migrants were feared dead in mass graves at the Barry Goldwater bombing range in Arizona. Are there any updates on this?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: There are no updates. The federal government has closed off this region from humanitarian assistance. There is a stretch of land in Arizona that migrants cross through to get to a road. It’s about 30 miles of a bombing range, that Border Patrol agents don’t touch, that human rights people, advocates, humanitarians don’t touch. And we have had 911 calls from this region. We know that people have died there, and we know that people need water there. And the government has forbidden. Year after year, there are petitions to at least put out some form of humanitarian assistance, and we haven’t. I am convinced there are mass graves. There are hundreds of bodies that have been left unrecovered. We’ve been trying for a long time to get in to document that, but we’re not allowed.

AMY GOODMAN: Which brings us to the title of your book, Sand and Blood. Why?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: This is a region of the United States that I think that most people don’t know, a region of desert and mountain, the most inhospitable terrain in the United States. This is the path that we’ve allowed migrants to cross. We’ve seen these gruesome pictures of a father with his child drowned in the Rio Grande, stories of people dying in the deserts, the mass graves. We have a casualty list now. That is the result of a war. If we have thousands upon thousands of people who have died as a result of a policy that has not changed, that feels like war to me. I don’t think there’s a road in New York City, if there is a mass toll of death caused by the traffic light or the bad curve on the street, that it wouldn’t be repaired immediately for safety. We have not changed policy in almost 30 years. And we have a death toll that doesn’t seem to even permeate the members of Congress and the administration.

AMY GOODMAN: What should the presidential candidates be asked?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: They should be asked if they believe that a migrant life is equal to a U.S. citizen’s life. And if so, then you’re going to have to treat them as such.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much for joining us, John Carlos Frey, five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, PBS NewsHour special correspondent. His book is just out. It’s called Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on the Mexico Border. To hear our discussion in Spanish, you can go also to our website at democracynow.org, to Democracy Now! en Español.

This is Democracy Now! Democracy Now! is currently accepting applications for year-long, paid video production fellowships here in our New York studio. Learn more at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Thanks so much for joining us.

Higher education being destroyed by Republicans

Raw Story

University of Alaska is the ‘worst-case scenario’ of higher education being destroyed by Republicans: reporter

By Matthew Chapman      July 5, 2019

Alaska has been thrown into chaos as newly elected Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy used a line-item veto to slash funding for the public university system by 41 percent — a devastating blow that has the already cash-strapped University of Alaska scrambling to furlough professors and cancel classes.

 

It’s a nightmare situation for the state — and, wrote Adam Harris for The Atlantic, a “worst-case scenario” of what happens when higher education becomes a partisan issue.

“It has not been uncommon to see significant cuts by states to higher-education funding—particularly during economic slowdowns—but ‘it is uncommon to do it in one fell swoop,’ Nick Hillman, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, told me,” wrote Harris. “Alaska had a deficit, and the governor had promised not to raise taxes to deal with it, so he chose a favored punching bag to take the hit instead: higher education.”

The problem, Harris said, is that over the past several years, public views of colleges and universities have become sharply split, with Republican confidence declining by double digits — a trend bolstered by right-wing media outrage about supposed liberal bias and censorship of conservatives on campuses. And that means that university budgets are increasingly at risk of being on the chopping block in some red states — especially states where, as in Alaska, a single politician has the power to axe $130 million with the stroke of a pen.

“In rural states, where many residents lack easy access to colleges and universities, those cuts can hit especially hard,” wrote Harris. “The elimination of state funding, the Alaska system’s president lamented, could result in the closure of one of its campuses. The students who rely on that university would be left in the lurch, needing to travel farther to get to one of the school’s remaining campuses. The task of getting an education, for those in rural communities where a college degree is already hard to come by, would become a little harder.”

“Alaska may be an extreme case, but it shows one possible fate for public colleges in an age of mistrust: wounded by a thousand small cuts, and then a machete,” Harris concluded.

The first African woman to receive the Nobel prize.

Brut Nature

May 22, 2019

She was theC. Here is the extraordinary story of Wangari Maathai, one of the world’s most important ecologist.

Portrait of Wangari Maathai

She was the first African woman to receive the Nobel prize. Here is the extraordinary story of Wangari Maathai, one of the world's most important ecologist.

Posted by Brut nature on Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Mr. Rogers understands what trump will never know.

NowThis Politics

July 5, 2019

Mr. Rogers’ commencement speech at Dartmouth is exactly what we need right now

Mr. Rogers' Dartmouth Commencement Speech Is What We All Need Right Now

Mr. Rogers’ commencement speech at Dartmouth is exactly what we need right now

Posted by NowThis Politics on Friday, July 5, 2019

Maryland boy infected with flesh-eating bacteria. Be careful this holiday!

USA Today

Matthew Prensky, USA TODAY       July 2, 2019

 

SALISBURY, Md. – After a young boy was infected with Vibrio, a type of flesh-eating bacteria recently near Ocean City, health officials say this case is rare and local waterways are still safe to swim in.

The boy’s mother, Brittany Carey, described what happened to her son in a June 29 Facebook post. According to Carey, her son was swimming in the Sinepuxent Bay just north of the Harry Kelley Memorial Bridge between West Ocean City and downtown.

“He went swimming and was having a great time until about Monday evening when I started noticing little spots developing all over his body,” Carey wrote. “Tuesday morning there were open wounds developing but I had thought he was scratching them, making them worse.”

Boats travel from the bay to the ocean underneath the Route 50 bridge in Ocean City.

Carey said in the post Thursday that doctors at Peninsula Regional Medical Center diagnosed it as a Vibrio infection.

As of Tuesday, Carey’s post has been shared 17,000 times across Facebook.

Cases of vibriosis and other bacterial infections that infect people in bodies of water  have been reported up and down the eastern seaboard. There was also a woman infected in Florida in June.

Lynn Fleming, 77, was walking on the beach at Anna Maria Island in Florida when she fell and cut herself. She told Fox 13 in Tampa she had a “Little three-quarters-inch cut” on her leg.

Fleming’s condition worsened in a couple of days leading to her incident where she fell unconscious at her home. She was rushed to the hospital where she was later diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis.

Flesh-eating bacteria: She died of flesh-eating bacteria after a beach trip. Now her family wants to warn others

Who is most at-risk for Vibrio?

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there are approximately 80,000 cases of vibriosis each year, 52,000 of those coming from ingesting contaminated food, such as oysters.

Vibrio bacteria is a naturally occurring organism that can be found in coastal waterways, according to the CDC.

Eighty percent of those cases come between May and October each year because of warm waters. Most people who are contract vibriosis recover in approximately three days. But those who get sick with Vibrio vulnificus, can become seriously ill.

In some cases, Vibrio Vulnificus can require intensive medical treatment and amputation, and for about one in five cases can be deadly.

The CDC recommends people don’t eat undercooked or raw shellfish, like oysters. Those with cuts or wounds should also stay away from salt or brackish water or cover their wounds with waterproof bandages before swimming.

The Maryland Department of Health says Vibrio can be found in the Chesapeake Bay and waterways around it. People with weakened immune systems or who have liver disease are more at risk for contracting serious cases of Vibrio.

The state office recommends individuals carry hand sanitizer to clean wounds in case they happen while in the water. People are also recommended to shower after any contact with “natural waters.”

Infections on the rise: A rise in cases of flesh-eating bacteria may be linked to climate change, doctors say

Vibrio can infect people in multiple ways, said Debra Stevens, director of community health and emergency preparedness for the Worcester County Health Department.

Humans can either ingest Vibrio-infected shellfish or become sick through breaks in their skin.

Stevens said if humans ingest Vibrio, it can take 12-72 hours for symptoms to present themselves. After that, people may feel nauseous, and experience diarrhea or vomiting.

“If you already have an open wound, if Vibrio gets into that wound then it can cause an additional infection,” Stevens said. “It can make that wound get larger, get red, you typically may have fever, stomach ache. It’s going to get red and infected-looking.”

Steven said Vibrio bacteria is a natural part of the ecosystem and, in the same way people protect themselves from ticks, the same is needed to be safe from Vibrio.

“The most recent data we have listed is from 2017, and in Worcester County, there was one case of Vibrio that was reported and about 66 across the entire state so it’s not very common,” Stevens said.

Vibrio doesn’t always cause infection

There is some research going on into Vibrio, according to Robert Mitchell, director of the environment programs department for Worcester County. He said studying the bacteria may help people understand what causes it to infect people, what increases people’s risks and how it moves throughout the environment.

He added, “I would caution that presence does not equate to infection,” Mitchell said.

Roman Jesien, science coordinator for the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, says all of the different strains of Vibrio can be found in Maryland coastal waters.

Signs of infection: Minor cut leads to flesh-eating infection on Florida man’s hand. Black blisters were sign something was very wrong

“We do have Vibrio and we have a number of strains that are considered flesh-eating,” Jesien said. “We find them typically in low numbers, but they are present just like sharks are present in our coastal waters — so it’s just part of the system.”

Jesien said people should be cognizant of the bacteria in the water but it shouldn’t stop them. He said beachgoers should use common sense with bandaging up cuts or sores, but it’s something that shouldn’t stop people from going in the water.

Editor’s note: The next section of the article contains images that some readers may find graphic.

Brittany Carey, June 29, 2019: I thought long and hard about sharing this, but a friend of mine said it would be a great PSA for everyone to see. Last Sunday my parents took my son to the bay right by 50 bridge. He went swimming and was having a great time until about Monday evening when I started noticing little spots developing all over his body. Tuesday morning there were open wounds developing but I had thought he was scratching them, making them worse. Only to find when I picked him up Tuesday they were a lot bigger and a lot more. Off to the hospital we went to be told it was really nothing and an antibiotic that only made it worse. So doctors on Thursday and then PRMC to find out my little one now had VIBRIO a bacteria found in the bay and also in raw seafood. I know we’ve all seen these cases in the Delaware bay but now my little guy got this from being in the bay right by hoopers. Please be careful out there guys and if you start seeing wounds such as these please get somewhere fast!

UPDATE: Went to pediatrician this morning and she is really happy with the healing!

Image may contain: one or more people and closeup
Image may contain: one or more people and closeup

“It is unusual that we do have a real big issues with sores. We had a couple years ago a gentleman die up in Assawoman Bay, and just recently, we had a little boy that I understand had Vibrio,” Jesien said.

Jesien is referring to the case of Michael Funk, who contracted Vibrio when he was cleaning a crab pot on Sept. 11, 2016, in the Ocean City area.

With-in 36 hours of his symptoms first appearing, Funk died. He had been treated at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin, Maryland, where doctors removed the flesh from his knee to his ankle. He was then flown to the University of Maryland’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where his leg amputated. But the infection had already reached his bloodstream and organs.

He died Sept. 15, 2016.

‘Pathogen soup’: Mom files $1 million lawsuit after brain-eating amoeba at Texas water park kills son

There have also been multiple cases of Vibrio further north in New Jersey in years past.In 2017 and 2018, there were five different cases in which individuals became seriously ill.

Of the five south Jersey cases, one person was killed by the bacteria. Four of the cases came from crab fishing in the Delaware Bay, but a fifth got sick because of contaminated seafood.

In the more recent case, Carey says in her post her son is doing better after getting treated for the infection.

“I know we’ve all seen these cases in the Delaware bay but now my little guy got this from being in the bay right by Hoopers,” Carey wrote. “Please be careful out there guys and if you start seeing wounds such as these, please get somewhere fast!”

This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: 

Welcome to the Swedish shopping mall where every single item is second hand

BBC

June 26, 2019

Welcome to the Swedish shopping mall where every single item is second hand 🙌

via People Fixing The World

The shopping mall where everything is recycled

Welcome to the Swedish shopping mall where every single item is second hand 🙌via People Fixing The World

Posted by BBC on Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Welcome to donald trump’s America!

From Clay Jones

June 26, 2019

cjones06302019

I’ve been a cartoonist since 1990 and this might be the hardest cartoon I’ve ever had to draw.

Shame on Donald Trump. Shame on Republicans. Shame on each and every single one of you who supports this.

This cartoon was hard to draw but right now, it’s even harder to be a proud American.

Claytoonz.com

Lizzo’s Performance at the 2019 BET Awards Was So Good Even Rihanna Gave It a Standing Ovation

Glamour – Entertainment

Abby Gardner,  Glamour         June 24, 2019
There was a wedding cake <em>and</em> twerking while playing the flute.

 

Lizzo continued her domination of summer 2019 with an incredible performance of her song “Truth Hurts” at the BET Awards Sunday night, where she appeared atop a wedding cake in a veil, bridal lingerie, and a killer pair of sunglasses, and twerked while playing the flute. This comes on the heels of her MTV Movie & TV Awards performance of “Juice,” which featured a tribute to the movie Sister Act.

Basically, Lizzo is giving us all the viral performance clips we need and even Rihanna—and her new red hair—could not deny her excellence last night, giving her a standing ovation. Could anything feel better than a RiRi standing O? We’re guessing not.

But praise from Rihanna aside, Lizzo’s motivation for the performance was much deeper. “There’s nothing I’d rather see than black girls falling in love with themselves on T.V.,” she tweeted. “Big girls—you are IT! YOU ARE ALWAYS the bride in a marriage of SELF-LOVE!”

The social media reactions from fans watching on television was incredibly positive. “Ok @lizzo you did that shit!! When you pull that flute bitch I jump out my chair!!!” Saturday Night Live‘s Leslie Jones tweeted. “MY GIRL @LIZZO WILL GIVE YOU A PRODUCTION! THE ENERGY! THE NARRATIVE! THE COSTUMES! THE THIGHS! THE BUNDLES! THE DAGGONE FLUTE PLAYING WHILE TWERKING!” another Twitter user wrote. “@RIHANNA knows what it is everyone should be standing. The category issssss 100% THAT BISH!”

Do you think it’s too much to ask for a Lizzo and Rihanna collaboration—perhaps for RiRi’s new album?

Watch the performance for yourself below:

Climate Change Protests are Growing Throughout the World!

Video – World Economic Forum

May 8, 2019

Grassroots activism.

📕 Read more: https://wef.ch/2DUKnEU

Climate change protests are growing and spreading around the world

Grassroots activism. 📕 Read more: https://wef.ch/2DUKnEU

Posted by Video – World Economic Forum on Wednesday, May 8, 2019