#is only seeing Critical (life threatening) cases due to High Demand and has been like that since 2023.

[aspectpriority]

so i've counted at least 3 new blocks of student housing that have gone up in my city over the last couple years right. but people looking at affordable housing are waiting an average of NINE years. i am so normal about this actually.

(even with "silver priority", which is awarded for Literal Homelessness. it takes 3 years. i am so fucking normal about this)

[melisa-may-taylor72]

Accolades such as “greatest single long-playing achieve­ment since Sgt. Pepper” and “the most important record album ever made” fall over Queen’s latest album as easily as butter melt­ing on a hot potato—but few realize what a hot potato the album actually was in its pre-release days. It took a bevy of high-powered attorneys, some low-life finagling, and more than the usual amount of wheeler­dealing just to get the album out without its being hacked to death by defamation-of-character suits.

Guitarist Brian May explains: “I’m in real difficulty here because I’ve been threatened with libel because our old management had a good go at stop­ping the album coming out. They thought “Death on Two Legs’’ was about them. They wanted us to take the track off and we nearly had to, and in fact they got a load of money out of our publishing company be­cause it supposedly was libelous, but it’s never been proven. It’s all very stupid—they wanted to sue Freddie, the band, the publishing company, and the record company.”

All very dramatic stuff, but a band like Queen survives not on operatic finesse alone, but on gut-level melo- dramatics in the business department as well. When you produce your rec­ords, write the songs, play all the in­struments, and do everything your­self, chances are you’re going to have to pay some legal dues, too. But ah! the rewards—such as the single, “Bo­hemian Rhapsody,” hanging into the #1 spot in the British charts for seven weeks in a row!

“We’re a bit more in the public eye now, we’re starting to get recognized a lot more,” says Brian May. “We’re carrying on working just as we did before, but obviously we’re very pleas­ed with how the record’s doing. It’s sold more than a million copies in England— can’t believe it.” But it’s true: Queen’s stature in England has risen from that of The #1 teenage hard rock band to that of the-group- that-made-the-single-that-every-house- wife-knows-by-heart”.

What propelled Queen in that di­rection is their Night at the Opera album, a slight departure from what Queen fans know to be the Queen sound. The hard rock screams have temporarily subsided, replaced by ex­perimentation with different voicings of instruments and production tricks. Those who found Queen’s approach overdecibelled can relax to the quiet “ ‘39” or “Good Company” and tap their feet to “Lazing on a Sunday Af­ternoon” without fear of being gui- tarred to death. “It’s just what came out,” says Brian. “They’re offshoots of our main direction. There’s plenty of time for the rock.”

“The album wasn’t really supposed to go in the direction that it did, it was just the songs we had. While we were making it we were thinking, ‘Yeah, it is getting a bit light,’ but rather than fight against it we de­cided to do it properly and then think again afterwards. So instead of try­ing to heavy up the lighter things, we pressed on. We had a few things we didn’t use, but we’re getting more demanding of ourselves. There are a few heavy things kicking around, but we may use them on the next record.”

The two strongest forces in Queen have always been Brian and Freddie. With A Night at the Opera, where experimentation and branching out in new directions are the most obvious characteristics, the personalities of the band are often obscured by the newly emerging elements. “Some­times I feel that Freddie and I are going in different directions, but then he’ll come up with something and I’ll think, ‘My God—we do think alike.’ When I’m working on one of his things I can tune in very easily to what guitar part he wants, and vice-versa. In terms of what we’re trying to do in songs, we are moving in different directions, but I think that could be a good thing.”

QUEEN II: Critical response to the band is now almost unanimous­ly favorable in both Great Britain and the United States, which is quite phe­nomenal when you stop and think of how anxious many critics were to pan them two years ago.“I’m not going to take it too seriously,” Brian says, “because I remember what the critics said about Queen II. It would seem that everybody is beginning to like us. … very much. I can take it at that level, but there’s no doubt in my mind that sometime in the future there’ll come a time when we get slagged for everything. Queen II is still my favorite of the Queen albums, certainly the most daring. Especially for the time. I think we’re still finding our feet now, and the way I feel about the new album is that we’re searching for new directions and most of them are sort of half-formed. We’ve got the Queen II feel in some places, and in others we’ve got the Sheer Heart Attack polish. I don’t think we’re quite sure where we’re going”.

“This album, at the very least, ne­gates all the comparisons to Led Zep­pelin that we’ve been living with for the past three years. I think Physical Graffiti is amazing, by the way. I saw Zeppelin at Earls Court, and I met Pagey afterward, for the first time. It was great, he was very nice and gentle. I respect him a tremendous amount for “Kashmir” and “The Light,” for being able to put his brain on record—- it wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t play a note.”

Economic criticism has been less favorable, however. A Night at the Opera was wide­ly rumored to be “the most expensive album ever made” when it was released, a point which Queen’s management denies. Nevertheless, Queen has been taken to task by quite a few English journalists for spending so much money estimated at £30-40,000—making one record. Brian has a retort: “We wouldn’t have spent so much money if the studios weren’t so bloody expensive!

The album was recorded in seven of them, sometimes three at once.” We weren’t mucking about for any of it, it was four months of solid work. It came down to having the equipment available for four months, and we didn’t begrudge the amount of time spent in the studios, but it comes to a fair amount of money. There’s a lot of things that seem light, like “Good Company,” which actually took a great deal of time and care. All those trumpets and clarinets being fashioned from guitar sounds—I took it quite seriously because I wanted to do it right, even though it was a light­hearted thing. We worked too hard for our own health, we got a bit down and depressed.”

While Queen was laying about England between record and tour, a few of them got going on some independent projects. Brian and Roger produced an R&B group’s single, but there were some record company hassles and it may be some time before the record gets released. And on the eve of the Amer­ican tour, Freddie Mercury went into the studios with a singer/songwriter managed by the Rocket Organization (which manages Queen as well) to try his hand at production. “Eddie How­ells is the guy’s name, and he’s man­aged by David Mead, and they’re do­ing a single for Warners. I’m play­ing some guitar on it.” Brian re­strained himself from going out on any limbs before the American tour in order to get himself physically fit. His health had been a crucial prob­lem on an earlier American tour, and he’s not particularly anxious to spend time in hospitals when he could be on­stage instead. “I actually get more tired offtour than ontour,”he admits. But I am in good health.”

HAIRY LEGS: Once the English leg of the tour did get started, word started to flow very quickly back to the States about Queen’s dramatic stage show—a stage show to end all stage shows, with Mercury donning short-shorts to add a bit of the hairy leg to Queen’s otherwise pristeen pre­sentation. “The show is the same, but different,” Brian says confusedly. “We’ve merely developed what we did before with some new material from the new album. It’s a bit of re­shuffling. Plus we do “Doing All- right” from the first album, which we’ve never done onstage before. And “Seven Seas of Rhye,” which we’d do in England but never in America be­fore. It’s quite a lot different, ac­tually.”

American audiences got their first chance to sample the new presenta­tion on January 27 in Waterbury, Conn., when the first concert of Queen’s scheduled 32-date, 21-city American tour got underway in the Palace Theatre. After arriving in the States at Kennedy International on January 20 and spending a couple of days in New York for interviews, Queen began five days of rehearsals at the Palace to ready their show for American fans across the country.

After Waterbury they dove headfirst into the intensive six-week tour, which featured extended runs in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles before its scheduled end March 12 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

Despite the novel direction of the new album, onstage Queen proved to be the same rocking outfit they’ve always been, letting loose with the same kind of guitar-bass-drums-piano barrage they’ve delivered in the past. “We don’t do “39” or “Lazing on aSunday Afternoon” in our show,“ Brian explains. He seems a bit defensive of Queen’s rock spirit, which is kept intact in the live set by “BohemianRhapsody,” “Sweet Lady,” “Prophet Song” and the deletion of the “experimental tunes” from A Night At the Opera.

By the by, those who missed Queenon earlier tours but want to see how they’ve changed now have the means. Queen bave joined the prestigious ranks of the Zeppelins, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones whereby sorne illegal entrepreneur has issued a boot­ leg album of one of their American concerts. “I hate those things-they rarely give an accurate picture of the group,” Brian states unequivocally, and in this case he’s right. The Queen bootleg has transistor radio fidelity, and the only truly audible members of the band are Brian and Freddie. Yet the fact that a bootleg exists confirms the fact that Queen is now well on their way to the top.

CIRCUS MAGAZINE, APRIL 1975

@natromanxoff, @mephisto92, @moviestorian, @x5vale, @39-brian, @onegoldenglance, @crosmopolitan, @an-abyss-called-life, @his-majesty-king-mercury, @i-live-for-queen, @brian-39-may, @toomuchlove-willkillyou, @brimaymay, @sail-away-sweet-sister, @drummerqueenrmt, @old-fashioned-roger-boy-deactiv, @briianmaay, @l-over-bo-y, @inui-mycroft, @deacytits, @iminlovewithrogscar, @drowseoftaylor, @brianmayislongaway, @balticlover, @astrophysicist-guitar-god​, @miez-lakatz, @brianmayoucease, @jesus-in-a-life-boat, @roger-taylors-car, @silapril, @sherrifanciesfriskyfreddie, @tenderbri, @brianmydear, @thosequeenboys, @millionairewaltz-carpediem, @painandpleasure86, @bribrifrenchfry, @xlucylennonx, @a-night-at-the-abbey-road, @inthedayswhenlandswerefew, @madformeddowstaylor, @queenrogertaylorfan, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @queen-for-life, @rethought, @darlinginnuendo, @mymakeupmaybeflaking, @old-but-still-a-child, @let-roger-get-a-lunch, @warriorteam1924, @funnydressesweirdhairanddance, @painkiller80, @thefanhuman13, @yourtieddownmother, @hgmercury39, @brimi-stardust, @thefairyfellermercury, @retroromantics, @foxmonkey, @sophiaintheskywithdiamonds, @holybrianmaywritingbear, @lydiannode, @39-yellow-daffodils , @ure-gonna-loveme-when-u-seeme, @kaykaybeachgirl, @rhysjoejoshtomfarisblog @redspecialandclogsandcurls, @briansrainbowsocks, @delilahmay39, @ohmybribri, @bless-the-queen, @infunitehearbeat, @sketchiesscketches, @everythingaboutfreddie, @doitforthevine67, @recordsoftheseventies, @tenementfunsterwithpurpleshoes, @drummah-in-a-rocknroll-band, @beatlegirl1968, @maylorsqueen, @shearrehartatacc, @gralto, @alittlepeoplemagic, @rainbowsockbrian, @sailawaysweetbrimi

[pro-exotics]

By Melissa Smith, original link above

Are you debating whether or not exotic pets should be legal or if it is ethical to own them? If you haven’t decided on whether you are “for” or “against” exotic pet ownership, the truth is that exotic pet owners are unfairly persecuted for no logical reason.

Exotic pet keeping is rapidly becoming a "taboo" in this country, thanks to the persistence of animal rights groups and the unfortunate tendency of many Americans to view animals as precious, innately pure, human-like beings. Wild animals are often celebrated as "free spirits," and it is thought that they cannot and should not be tamed by human greed.

The Truth for Your Debate

The cusp of the argument is that the ethics of exotic pet ownership differ not at all from traditional, so-called domesticated pets that few question the ethics of owning. To argue for exotic pets alone would be a debate for the keeping of pets in general, and it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for someone to be forced to take on that philosophical debate solely because they support exotic pet ownership.

Exotic pet owners want to enjoy the same rights as owners of traditional pets. The majority of anti-exotic pet arguments rely on the logic that exotic pets are significantly different from "normal" pets.

Comparing Traditional and Exotic Pets

Hatred of exotic pet-keeping thrives from the "fear of the other" psychology, or fear of something different. Why do people question some pets and not others? When someone sees a pet they are not familiar with, there must be a reason keeping it is bad. This is why parrots, which are very demanding pets, get less criticism than a less common exotic, including even other birds like a toucan.

What is an exotic pet? Where is the line drawn? Some exotic pets are also traditional pets such as budgies, chinchillas, and pet reptiles. How would one distinguish from the needs of a fox and a hamster? Hamsters can run for miles in the wild, which is something the largest hamster cage cannot replicate. Both species are subjected to unnatural conditions.

Context

The most common deception of anti-exotic pet arguments is that all exotic pets are somehow significantly different from domesticated and traditional pets. Opponents will try to remove exotic animals from the context of traditional pet owning ethics and elevate their status as something close to human. An example of this is the knee-jerk reaction people have when people "exploit" (sell, trade, re-home, etc.) exotic animals. This is seen as appalling for exotics, but unobjectionable in the context of dogs, horses, and other traditional pets.

Even the most socially acceptable domesticated pets have striking similarities. The only issue they don't have in common is environmental concerns from over-harvesting; however, domesticated pets impact the ecosystem in their own unique ways. People who are apt to find problems with the exotic pet trade while failing to see similar or even worse problems with the pets they find acceptable are using confirmation biases.

Debate Point 1: "Exotic Pets Are Dangerous"

Exotic pets, overall, aren’t dangerous, or the level of danger present reflects on the competency of the owner. First and foremost, exotic pets include a massive number of diverse species ranging from those the size of an eraser to the largest animals on Earth. Exotic pets can never be identified as dangerous as a whole; rather, we should define what danger means and which exotic pets are identified in the debate.

If danger means lethality, only extremely large exotic pets and venomous animals have killed people in the U.S. This is mostly limited to big cats, bears, wolves, the largest constrictor snakes, venomous snakes, and large ungulates (deer, camels, bison, elephants). It is only accurate to then state that large or extremely venomous animals are dangerous.

In comparison, medium-sized dogs have caused human fatalities, and these deaths are more likely to involve people who are not the owners of the animal (or living with it) or have not voluntarily interacted with it. Large and inherently dangerous exotic pets are often owned with more discretion, so while there is a valid point for regulating these animals (although bans are still unnecessary), none exists for the majority of exotic pets.

Smaller exotic pets are capable of inflicting harm by biting, but this is true of any pet that has teeth. All domesticated pets also can inflict injury, but this never receives the attention of an exotic pet-related injury, even if it is more severe.

Exotic pets are not more dangerous than comparably sized dogs and cats and are sometimes less dangerous. Exotic pets that pose an unusually high risk of severe injury or death are reasonably safe when owned by responsible people, although mistakes and isolated incidences of tragedy are inevitable—just as they are with any other pet—and that is just a part of life.

Dogs kill 30 people annually in the U.S. Large constrictor snakes kill 0-1 people per year. Big cats within the last 30 years have killed no more than 5 people in one year, although most years it is 0-1 fatalities annually. This figure includes accredited zoos.

There are substantially more dogs in the U.S. than exotic carnivores, but most dogs are too small (about 30 pounds and under) to cause fatalities and are easy to control.

People pay more attention to serious exotic pet attacks, even though they are extremely rare, due to sensationalism.

Most exotic pet-related fatalities involve the owner and willing individuals who interact with the animals, not the public; therefore, exotic pets are not a significant public safety threat.

Debate Point 2: "Keeping Exotic Pets Is Selfish"

Keeping exotic pets is not any more "selfish" than keeping domesticated pets. The argument of selfishness suggests that exotic pets are different from traditional pets, and this is simply not true. All animals are subjected to unnatural conditions, and this even includes dogs and cats. Accusing an exotic pet owner of being selfish is mostly an empty attack holding them to a higher standard when it is convenient for the accuser. It is a common, emotionally manipulative, demonization tactic.

Debate Point 3: "Wild Animals Do Poorly in Captivity"

Exotic pets are not “wild animals” and can adapt to captivity reasonably well. Animals that do not do well in captivity tend to breed poorly and make bad pets, so they do not last long in the pet trade. Exotic pets enjoy more popularity when they are adaptable to living with humans under the proper conditions.

Another variation of this topic is that wild animals have instincts that cannot be satisfied in captivity. All animals have instincts, and no animal, domesticated or otherwise, has truly adapted to living indoors with a human. An example is that indoor cats can suffer health problems and perform stereotypic behaviors which can be corrected using the same methods from the care of so-called wild pets.

Another common argument is that cages are too small and inhibit naturally free-ranging animals from roaming. All pets roam longer distances than enclosures allow. Studies show that most cats will roam a considerable distance from their home when permitted.

The worst argument people use is that exotic animals can survive in the wild and domesticated animals can't. This couldn't be further from the truth. There are several domesticated species thriving and reproducing in the wild including cats, dogs, and horses, while even true wild animals raised by humans require special rehabilitation before they have a chance to survive in the wild.

Debate Point 4: "The Exotic Pet Trade Hurts Wild Animal Populations"

This is only partially true for some species, particularly reptiles, fish and birds, which make up the majority of the illegal trade involving shipments destined for the United States. A good portion of the trade occurs locally, in the country of the animal's origin, which is not related to the trade in the U.S. but often is cited as related.

There have been some problematic trades that have affected wild populations prior to enacting regulations. The trade can be successfully regulated as are other industries such as hunting, although habitat fragmentation is the major cause of most declining populations that make resolving the situation more difficult or impossible.

A significant number of species in the exotic pet trade are now captive-bred, and the importation of threatened species has been reduced or eliminated. There always remains a threat from the illegal black market, which already has laws in place against it. To simplify:

The wildlife trade now has reasonable regulations in place.

The local wildlife trade is damaging but wouldn't be affected by bans in the United States and other countries.

In most cases, habitat fragmentation is the cause of species decline, resulting in any further species removal to be cited as an additional threat.

Debate Point 5: "Most People Cannot Care for Exotic Pets"

There are different animals in captivity, and some are harder to care for than others. Some dog breeds would be miserable in a traditional household, while some cats have traits that are very similar to the so-called wild traits of exotic pets. It is understood that these animals shouldn't be banned just because they are not suitable for most people. Instead, educating the public is the answer. Most exotic pets that are considered to be hard to care for are already less popular than unsuitable dog breeds like border collies, high-drive hunting dogs, and working lines of shepherd breeds.

Debate Point 6: "Can You Justify Exotic Pets?"

This is a typical argumentative trap that requires a response based on the assumption that keeping exotic pets is inherently wrong. Do not fall for this loaded question. If someone were to say "justify owning dogs", it would be seen by most as a silly question, as literally all of our actions could be seen as negative should we be required to establish them as inherently good in order to be unobjectionable.

This treads into some more severe philosophical questions (do we deserve to exist?) that places an unfair standard for exotic pet owners to meet in relation to everything else. Defending exotic pet owners with arguments (it's good for conservation, it saves animals from the wild, etc.) is indirectly supporting anti-exotic pet arguments.

Pros of Allowing Exotic Pet Ownership

While exotic pet ownership is not 'wrong' there are also some societal benefits people may want to take into consideration to further enhance how much of an injustice blanket exotic pet bans are.

Property rights: Pet owners should be able to choose the type of pet they want. The personal feelings of other people shouldn't impact the rights of others.

Mental health: Many studies show that pets could have a benefit for people who wish to own them. While the species studied tend to be dogs and cats, this likely applies to many more species.

Education: Pet owners continue to learn from their pets and may even pursue higher education from experiencing the care of unusual animals. Many owners contribute information to zoos that enhance our understanding of the natural world.

Economy: The exotic pet trade encourages the creation of many jobs including but not limited to exotic pet medicine, pet supplies, animal ambassador programs, and pet boarding.

Conservation: In some cases, exotic pet ownership has contributed to conservation efforts. Private owners have aided in species survival programs and offered knowledge for some species that are difficult to care for or breed. Some animals can be offered for in situ conservation programs.

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND July 4, 2019  - SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, MIDSOMMAR, MARIANNE & LEONARD

It’s the 4thof July weekend, which is often the bane of my existence because I’m never invited to do anything with anyone. Fortunately, I’m going back to Ohio for the first time in nine months so I’ll be spending this 4thof July with family, and hopefully, that will include some movie-watching.

The movie I’m most excited about seeing again is SPIDERMAN: FAR FROM HOME (Sony), the sequel directed by Jon Watts that returns Tom Holland to the Spidey-suit and brings back all of his friends and classmates, as well as throwing Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio into the mix. You can read how much I enjoyed the movie in my review below, and also, check out my interview with the director, also below.

MY REVIEW OF SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME

INTERVIEW WITH JON WATTS ON THE BEAT

The other wide release this weekend is Ari Aster’s sophomore feature MIDSOMMAR (A24), starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor (Sing Street) and Will Poulter as a group of friends who travel to Sweden to observe a Midsommar ritual held by the community of their friend, but things are not what they seem. Before you can say “The Wicker Man,” they’re finding out the real intentions for their hosts.

Mini-Review: Like most, I loved Ari Aster’s Hereditary and saw it as the advent of a fantastic new vision in filmmaking and horror, specifically. Whenever a filmmaker delivers such an amazing debut, his or her follow-up is going to be eyed with equal parts anticipation and scrutiny, and that’s truly been the case with Midsommar.

Like Aster’s previous film, this one begins with the death of family members, in this case those of Florence Pugh’s Dani early on in the movie.  Dani’s boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor from Sing Street) is ready to break up with Dani, because he can’t handle her family drama. At the same time, Christian has been invited by his friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) to go to his small Swedish community to take part in the Midsommar ritual along with friends Josh and Mark (Will Poulter). When Dani finds out about it and Christian invites her (think she’ll say “No’ – she doesn’t) – it soon becomes obvious Dani will be the fifth wheel threatening to bring down the mood. That’s okay because Pelle’s friendly community might have ulterior motives for the visitors.

There’s a lot to like about Midsommar, particularly Aster’s clever way of exploring The Wicker Man territory in a new way that offers terror and horror often in the brightest of daylight, an achievement in itself. Other than the film’s look and the production design that went into making it such a unique-looking visual film, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this is the exact same “stupid young people on vacation getting slaughtered” motif we’ve seen in so many horror films from Eli Roth’s Hostel movies to Touristas to so many more.

For the most part, Aster has another strong cast --  Florence Pugh is quite fantastic in a very different role, although she does a lot of crying in this movie. Jack Reynor could begin stepping into a few of Chris Pratt’s roles without anyone batting an eye, because he has similar rugged looks and charm. I actually liked Will Poulter’s obnoxious American to the point where when he mysteriously vanishes halfway through the movie, it loses quite a bit.

Beyond that, Midsommar explores some of the same themes Aster explored in his first movie, including death and grief and family squabbles with one character crying a lot, and of course, diabolical cult rituals and lots of nudity. Aster also use the same upside-down camera shot he used in Hereditary, which itself was borrowed from Darren Aronofsky. Maybe I’d have liked Midsommar more if it didn’t feel like Aster was retreading familiar territory. I do have to wonder if Aster has ever had therapy, because he certainly seems to have issues, maybe even with a sister, driving him to kill sisters in both his films?

Owing as much to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as the more obvious Wicker Man, MIdsommar is still not your typical horror movie by any means. If your favorite part of Hereditary was its crazy ending and you didn’t think it was crazy enough, then Midsommar is the movie for you!

Rating: 7/10

LIMITED RELEASES

Because it’s the 4thof July this week, we’re getting far fewer limited releases but I do want to call attention to a couple docs opening this week.

But first, I want to draw attention to a movie that opened at the Film Forum last week, Lila Avilés’ The Chambermaid, an amazing portrait of a Mexican maid in a high-end hotel as she goes through the day-to-day while trying to achieve her goals and dreams, all which seem to move further and further away. I was a fan of last year’s Romaand though The Chambermaid is a different type of movie, it features another amazing performance by an indigenous Mexican, Gabriela Cartol, who had appeared in a couple other movies before, but she really keeps the viewer drawn to the movie and the things that she goes through. At times, it feels like there’s no way for her to fulfill those dreams, and it’s something to which we can all relate.

A doc that’s a must see for all Leonard Cohen fans is Nick Broomfield’s MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE (Roadside Attractions), an amazing look at the relationship between Cohen and Marianne Ihlen, the Norwegian woman with whom he lived on the isle of Hydra in Greece, one of his early muses and the inspiration for the song “Goodbye, Marianne.” It’s an amazing film by the award-winning documentarian that has a lot of revelations, including the fact that Broomfield as friends with Marianne going back to the ‘60s, making him the perfect filmmaker to tackle the subject. It opens in select cities including the Angelika Film Center in New York Friday.

Opening at the IFC Center in New York is Rob Fruchtman and Steve Lawrence’s The Cat Rescuers about New York City’s 500,000 street cats and a group of volunteers who go through Brooklyn getting these cats fixed and returning them to their colonies or getting them adopted. It’s a movie that cat lovers will probably enjoy similar to the film Kedi from a few years back, but it’s also kind of sad when you realize that some of this cat population will have to be put down, because cats are adorable and you don’t want them to die. 

Opening at the City Cinemas Village East in New York  almost two years since premiering at TIFF is Tali Shalom-Ezer’s My Days of Mercy, starring Ellen Page and Amy Seimetz (Pet Sematary) as sisters Lucy and Martha who attend state executions to demonstrate against the death penalty. At one such event, Lucy meets Mercy (Kate Mara), the daughter of a police officer whose partner was killed by a man about to be put to death. They quickly bond before Lucy confesses that her own father (Elias Koteas) is on Death Row.

The only other limited release this weekend is Frédéric Petitjean’s directorial debut Cold Blood (Screen Media), starring Jean Reno as Henry, a hitman who is living in a cabin by a lake in the Rocky Mountains when he encounters a young woman who survived a snowmobile accident and has to decide whether to save her life. It opens in select cities and On Demand Friday.

STREAMING AND CABLE

There aren’t any big movie releases on Netflix this weekend but that’s because Season 3 of Stranger Things will premiere on the 4thof July, and I expect many people will be spending the early part of the weekend watching that.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Unfortunately, I missed something last week in terms of repertory series at the Metrograph as I didn’t realize that former Village Voice critic J. Hoberman was doing another series in conjunction with his latest bookMake My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan. The series Reagan at the Movies: Found Illusionsincludes a mixed array of films including 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, a new restoration of Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Clint Eastwood’s Firefox (1983), Hal Ashby’s Being There(1979) starring Peter Sellers and more!

Also on Wednesday, Metrograph will be premiering a special 20thanniversary restoration of Takashi Miike’s horror classic Audition, which I think is so perfect for the remake treatment due to the #MeToo movement and its implications. Can you imagine how well a revenge thriller about a young woman getting revenge on sleazy movie producer types would go over in this day and age? Call me, Jason Blum!  

This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia (1983) while the Playtime: Family Matinees is Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988).

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Weds has a special matinee screening of the Bond film From Russia With Love (1963) and Tarantino’s theater isn’t taking off on the 4th of July. In fact, it’s holding a special event screening of Red Dawn (1984) and Rocky IV (1985) (You might notice a theme there… USA! USA!) Weds and Thursday are also double features of The Happening  (1967) with Anthony Quinn and Land Raiders  (1970), starring Telly Savalas. The Friday/Saturday double features are the 1966 sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage with 100 Rifles. The weekend’s KIDDE MATINEE is the Disney classic The Love Bug (1968), while Friday’s midnight screening is Tarantino’s Django Unchained and Saturday at midnight is a 35mm print of Richard Rush’s Getting Straight (1970), starring Elliot Gould and Candice Bergen. Sunday and Monday is a double feature of Dean Martin’s Murderer’s Row (1966) with Ann-Margret’s Kitten with a Whip  (1964).

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky (1976) gets a new 4k restoration that begins on Friday, plus May’s 1971 film A New Leaf will also screen through the weekend. The restoration of Jennie Livingston’s Paris Burning continues to play through the weekend, while the Film Forum will also continue showing Elaine May’s Ishtar and the Coen’s The Big Lebowski through the 4thof July.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

The Friday after the 4thof July sees a double feature of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987), co-presented by Beyond Fest. Saturday is a screening of the classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in 70mm, while Sunday sees a double feature of The Return of the Living Dead (1985) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2  (1986).

AERO  (LA):

Oh, look… Spielberg’s Jaws is playing here, too… but on Wednesday. Director Peter Hunt will be on hand Friday to screen his movie musical 1776 (1972). On Saturday, you can see a double feature of Jaws 3-D  (1983) and A*P*E (1976), co-presented by Cinematic Void, and on Sunday is a Baseball Double Feature of 1993’s The Sandlot and Penny Marshall’s A League of Their Own  (1992), both in 35mm!

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI is having another screening of Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette  (1985), starring Daniel Day Lewis on Saturday, wrapping up Grit and Glitter: Before and After Stonewall. This weekend’s See It Big! Action movies are Robocop (1987) on Friday and the Wachowskis’ The Matrix on Saturday and Sunday.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Opening on Friday is a 4k restoration of the Director’s Cut of Daniel Vigne’s The Return of Martin Guerre (1982), starring Gerard Depardieu.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

On Saturday, you can see Alfred Hitchcock’s terror masterpiece Psycho (1960) on the big screen again!

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Friday’s midnight screening is Tommy Wiseau’s midnight movie “classic” The Room (2003).

Next week, things slow down with two lower-profile films, the comedy Stuber, starring Kumhail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista, and the alligator horror film Crawl, from Alexandra Aja and Sam Raimi.  

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

When I ask Bernie Sanders about the surge of teachers’ strikes that swept the country earlier this year, he perks up, applauding the teachers’ display of working-class power. “The teachers may be the tip of the spear here,” he declares in his heavy Brooklyn accent.

In many ways, the strikes illustrate Sanders’ theory of political change. He has long insisted that the key to moving the country in a more progressive direction is to make ambitious demands and build movements capable of achieving them. Striking teachers in states from West Virginia to Arizona bucked the traditional tried-and-failed mechanisms for obtaining better pay and working conditions, and joined together by the tens of thousands to act. By withholding their labor, they won key demands.

At a time of staggering income inequality and stagnant wages, with unions facing an all-out assault from the Right, the teachers’ strikes have served as a rare bright spot for labor, proving that workers can still take on conservative politicians and their corporate backers. Now, with the Supreme Court’s Janus decision poised to bruise public-sector unions, Sanders is attempting to help revive the U.S. labor movement.

Over the spring, Sanders trekked across the country to stand with low-wage workers at corporations such as Disney and Amazon, spotlighting their efforts to win better treatment on the job. In May, he introduced the Workplace Democracy Act, a sweeping bill that would prevent employers from using certain anti-union tactics, make it easier for workers to unionize, and undo so-called right-to-work laws that drain unions of resources. The bill has secured support from almost a third of Senate Democrats, including prospective 2020 presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

In a sprawling interview with In These Times, Sanders discusses how unions can respond to Janus, the fight to move the Democratic Party left, the recent victories of democratic socialist candidates and why he believes the 2018 midterms are the most important of his lifetime.

Why do you see labor issues as a critical rallying point in 2018?

In my view, there is really no way the middle class in this country is going to grow unless we build the trade union movement. Virtually all of the power rests with employers and large corporations. Workers without unions are finding it very difficult to get the kind of wages and benefits that they need.

The statistics are very clear that workers in union companies are earning better wages and have far better benefits than nonunion workers. And the working people in this country know it. In overwhelming numbers, workers want to join unions.

But it is increasingly difficult for them to do so. That is because of the power of employers to intimidate workers, to threaten to move their companies away, and to fire workers who are trying to organize. So it is very, very difficult now for workers to have a union. That has got to change.

You named your bill the Workplace Democracy Act. Why do you think it’s important for workers to be able to practice more democracy on the job?

It’s an issue that we don’t talk about as a nation very much. Millions and millions of people are waking up in the morning and saying, “Oh God, I have to go to work and I hate my job. I feel exploited. I feel powerless. I feel like a cog in a machine.” If we believe in democracy, it’s not just voting every four years, or every two years—it’s about empowering your whole life and having more say in what you do all day.

Workers who are in a union have the ability to have their voices heard and to express their discontent in terms of working conditions. So unions empower ordinary people to have a little bit more control over their lives.

Less than 11 percent of Americans currently belong to unions, and since taking office, the Trump administration has been waging an all-out assault on workers' rights. Yet in recent months, teachers have gone on strike across the country. Polling shows that younger people have a more favorable opinion of unions than older Americans. Are you optimistic about the future of the labor movement?

Yes, I am. With these teachers’ strikes—especially those taking place in so-called conservative states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma—teachers have basically said, “Enough is enough.” We have to make sure that our kids get the educations that they need, that we attract good people into the teaching profession. Teachers almost spontaneously stood up and fought back and took on very right-wing legislatures. This was, I think, a very significant step forward.

The teachers may be the tip of the spear here, because you’ve got millions of people watching and saying, “Wait a minute, I work two or three jobs to make a living, 60 hours a week, and can’t afford to send my kids to college. Meanwhile, my employer is making 300 times what I make and he gets a huge tax break.”

I see an anger and a resentment among working families. They want an economy that rewards the work of ordinary people and doesn’t just allow the billionaires to get even richer. That’s what the teachers’ strikes are all about.

In terms of younger people, they’re looking at a nation where technology is exploding, where workers’ productivity has risen, and yet the average young person today has a lower standard of living than his or her parents. Younger people are saying, “What is going on? This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world—why am I still living at home? Why am I struggling to pay off my student debt 10 years after I graduated college? Why can’t I afford healthcare?” I think young people are smart enough to look around and say maybe we need unions to get the kinds of wages and benefits that working people are entitled to.

The Supreme Court’s Janus decision will spread right to work to the public sector nationwide. How can workers respond?

The Workplace Democracy Act would make it illegal for states to pass right-to-work legislation. The people of this country have a right to organize, they have a right to form trade unions, and it is not acceptable that states are denying them that right.

The Janus case is a very significant setback for the union movement. The Right is already trying to mobilize public employees to leave their unions. What we have to do is an enormous amount of organizing and educating to explain to workers: “You think you’re going to save a few bucks by not paying union dues, but in the long run you’re going to be a lot worse off when you don’t have a union negotiating a decent contract for you. If you want the benefits of that contract, you’ve got to pay your fair share of dues.”

Why do you think it’s important to highlight the plight of workers at Disney and Amazon?

In terms of Amazon, the CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the wealthiest person in the world right now. His wealth has increased in the first four months of this year by about $275 million a day. You got that? A day. That sort of astronomical number is hard to believe.

Amazon is doing phenomenally well, and yet you have thousands of employees in Amazon warehouses who are paid wages so low that the average taxpayer in this country has got to subsidize Amazon by providing them food stamps, or Medicaid, or publicly subsidized affordable housing. The taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize a guy whose wealth is increasing by $275 million every single day. That is obscene and that is absurd. This speaks to the power of the people at the top who use their power to become even richer at the expense of working families.

With Disney, you have a corporation that made $9 billion in profit last year—a very, very profitable company. CEO Bob Iger recently reached an agreement for a $423 million, four-year compensation package. And yet he’s paying the workers in Disneyland—the people in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes, the people who serve food, the people who collect the tickets and manage the rides—starvation wages. Eighty percent of the workers there make less than $15 an hour.

Living expenses are very high in Anaheim [where Disneyland is]. Many people cannot afford an apartment and are living in their cars. They don’t have enough money for food. So here you have a profitable corporation reaching an extraordinary compensation package for their CEO and paying starvation wages to their workers. These are the kind of issues that need to be highlighted.

Between 1978 and 2017, we've seen the union membership rate in the United States fall by more than half. Over this same period, the Democratic Party has taken a more corporate-oriented turn. In President Obama’s first term, Democrats were criticized for failing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have enshrined card check, a feature of your bill. Do you think the Democratic Party establishment has been asleep at the wheel on protecting labor rights?

If your question is whether, for too many years, the Democratic Party has been paying more attention to corporate interests than the needs of working people, then the answer is yes. Ultimately, the fight is over the future of the party. The Democratic Party has got to decide, to quote Woody Guthrie, “Which side are you on?” You cannot be on the side of Wall Street and large profitable corporations and very wealthy campaign contributors while you’re claiming to be the party of working people. Nobody believes that. You can’t do both. And right now, the Democratic Party has got to decide which side it is on, and I’m doing everything that I can to make it the party of working people.

We need a party that has the guts to stand up to the 1% and to represent working families. I think it’s the right thing to do, and from a public policy point of view, I think it will make this a much better country—to put policies in place that end our high level of poverty, to address the fact that we’re the only major country not to guarantee healthcare, that we’re not being as strong as we should on climate change; that we haven’t made public colleges and universities tuition-free. Those are all ideas that will improve life in the United States of America. They’re also great political ideas.

You have worn the mantle of democratic socialist throughout your political career. Today we’re seeing socialism increase in popularity among younger people, and democratic socialists are winning local primaries and elections in states such as New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Montana. What do you think this shift means?

Our opponents can say, “Oh, democratic socialist, it’s radical, it’s fringe-y, it’s crazy.” But when you go issue by issue and you ask the American people what they think, they say, “Yeah, that makes sense.” For example, should the United States join every other major country and guarantee healthcare for all by moving toward Medicare for All? Is that a radical idea? No. Because healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Young people say, “Yeah, of course. That should be a right, yeah. My grandma is on Medicare, she likes it. Why can’t I get it?” Not a radical idea.

Today, in many respects, a college degree is as valuable as a high school degree was 50 years ago. So, when we talk about public education, it should be about making public colleges and universities tuition-free. Is that a radical idea? I don’t think so.

At a time when you have three people, including Jeff Bezos, who own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the American people, is it a radical idea to say that we should significantly raise taxes on the very wealthy and large profitable corporations? Not a radical idea. Rebuilding our infrastructure, creating millions of jobs. Not a radical idea. Immigration reform. Criminal justice reform. The vast majority of the American people support both those ideas.

We are managing to get these ideas out there. The ideas are catching on. And to young people especially, they make sense.

You recently introduced a Medicare for All bill with a historic number of co-sponsors. Why do you think so many Democrats are now jumping on board with universal, single-payer healthcare?

The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters now support Medicare for All. So if I'm running for office and I see a poll that shows that 70 or 80 percent of people say that we should have Medicare for All, I don't have to be the bravest guy in the room to say I think I'm going to make that part of my program.

And by the way, you've got many Republicans today who benefit from Medicare, and their sons and daughters are saying, “My dad has Medicare; I'd like it as well.” So you have the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of Democrats now supporting it, so for many candidates it simply becomes common sense and good politics.

(Continue Reading)

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: West Coast Farmers Had A Hellish Summer. It Might Not Be An Aberration.

Larry Tristano is looking out over what used to be his lush 13-acre farm in Santa Rosa, California. Less than a month ago, the fields were full, and he and his small team at Triple T Farm were harvesting cherry tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and squash.

Now, there’s nothing but burnt ground. On Sept. 27, two raging Northern California wildfires, the Glass and Shady fires, converged, rapidly burning thousands of acres. The family homes on the property—where he and two more generations of his family lived—were burnt into ash; so were the barns, tools, livestock, an SUV and more. “After the fires in Paradise, I drove through and said, ‘I feel so sorry for these people.’ But you’ll never know how anybody feels until you’ve gone through it,” Tristano says, choking back tears. “It’s just horrible.”

Up and down the West Coast, farmers are reeling from a hellish summer of consecutive and overlapping crises. First, COVID-19 spread across the country, endangering the lives of farmworkers who were deemed as essential and devastating the restaurant market. Record-breaking hot stretches, which made this August the hottest one on record in California, burnt crops and decreased yields. Then a new wave of fires descended across the forests and hills, displacing workers, demolishing homes and blanketing regions with stifling smoke. “We’re trying to put the best food on the table and it’s been very, very rough,” Tristano says.

While some might chalk up these events to a series of freakish aberrations, there are signs that none of these crises will disappear anytime soon. Climate change is facilitating record-breaking heat spells; fires are raging every season in part due to poor forest management; many employers are resigned to COVID-19 lingering through the start of next year’s planting season. Once a land of bounty, the Golden State has turned into an unrelenting minefield of obstacles that have exposed the many flaws of an entire ecosystem.

As West Coast farmers and farmworkers start thinking about long-term solutions, they are often stumped. “We’re focusing on ‘How I get through today,’ but this might be what California looks like every August and September,” says Lorraine Walker, who runs Eatwell Farms in Dixon, California. “I have spoken with a few farmers and asked them, ‘What are you planning? Everyone’s response is, ‘We don’t really know.'”

Jenna Schoenefeld—The New York Times/ReduxA volunteer with GleanSLO organizes strawberries in a bin at a farm in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on June 4, 2020. Before the pandemic, GleanSLO volunteers typically gleaned from backyard fruit trees—now they visit farms.

COVID-19’s “Rollercoaster Ride”

The agricultural output of the West Coast is massive. California’s Central Valley grows a staggering quarter of the nation’s food and 40% of its fruits, nuts and other table foods. Oregon raked in $238 million in 2019 from wine, while Washington produces 65% of the nation’s fresh apples. If you buy a piece of produce from your typical American supermarket, there’s a good chance it came from a West Coast farm.

But the state of farms in the United States was precarious even before COVID-19 struck earlier this year and plunged the nation into a recession. In 2019, the number of farms filing for bankruptcy increased 24% from the previous year, while the U.S. farm debt grew to $425 billion. Foreign competition, trade wars, regulations and unpredictable weather made life hard on farmers. In California, massive wildfires ripped through expanses of fields that grow wine grapes, tomatoes and other goods.

COVID-19 added a new chaotic layer of unpredictability. “It’s been a rollercoaster ride, from panic buying to loss of demand to the food service business disappearing,” says Joe Pezzini, the president and CEO of Ocean Mist Farms, which is based in Castroville, Calif. “Every day’s been a new challenge.” Some farms took a huge hit from the loss of critical buyers like restaurants and school systems; others were buoyed by the increased interest in home cooking with fresh produce. The decreased price of many crops hit some farmers hard; others were able to float through thanks to government loans. As farmers realized they had excess supply, they dumped milk, slaughtered livestock and smashed eggs.

Regardless of COVID’s impact on a farm’s bottom line, the workforce bore the brunt of the risk. There are 400,000 agricultural workers in California, a population that was deemed essential during the pandemic. Researchers and advocates estimate between 60% and 75% of them are undocumented, and a majority are Latinos. Their typical lack of unionization and the constant fear of deportation have long made them vulnerable to workplace coercion. “The inequities that COVID-19 has highlighted, they existed pre-COVID,” Estella Cisneros, the legal director of the Agricultural Worker Program at California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., says. “There’s a lot of pressure on farmworkers to continue working, and a lot of fear of retaliation.”

This year, Cisneros says that her office has fielded many complaints from California farmworkers who say their employers are not taking proactive steps to protect them or are simply ignoring Cal/OSHA regulations about protective equipment. “Some workers said that instead of being given masks, they were given something that much more resembled hairnets,” she says.

Many of the farmworkers that the CRLA assists are part of an aging population, have preexisting conditions like heart disease and diabetes, and have little access to healthcare or job alternatives. Harrowing statistics have confirmed how vulnerable Latino populations are to the virus: In California, they represent 61.1% of COVID-19 cases and 48.6% of deaths, despite making up only 38.9% of the population. “It’s highlighted how at the mercy these workers are at the hands of people who are not the workers themselves,” Cisneros says.

In Oregon, Reyna Lopez, the executive director of the farmworker union PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste), says that a quarter of farmworkers polled in a member phone survey said they hadn’t seen any improvements in safety measures being taken by employers. “We’ve also heard that enforcement of the rules isn’t good—and when there is a complaint, people aren’t seeing it getting investigated,” she says.

Lopez and Cisneros are both fighting for the extensions of OSHA regulations related to COVID-19 in their states. They worry that the virus will continue to spread through vulnerable communities if workers are kept in packed labor housing units and sent out into the fields and processing plants in unsafe conditions, especially once the season picks back up next spring. “We have to be ready for May, when we’ll see lots of people coming for the harvest,” Lopez says. “This year, that’s when we saw a lot of outbreaks.”

Brian L. Frank—The New York Times/ReduxWorkers pick corn in the pre-dawn hours to avoid the heat of the day in California’s San Joaquin Valley on Aug. 21, 2020.

A Record-Breaking Heat Wave

Some farm owners have viciously complained about regulations like a rising minimum wage and water restrictions, saying they are squeezing their already meager margin of profit. “The costs are becoming so exorbitant, you’re seeing a lot of ground be idle or sold to other growers,” says Bruce Blodgett, the executive director of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau Federation. “People seem to forget we compete in a world marketplace that doesn’t have the labor or regulatory costs we do. Farmers are saying, ‘I’ve had enough, I can’t compete.’”

While Blodgett and others fight a battle over regulation, they’re also getting hammered by increasingly chaotic weather systems. Blodgett says that heavy rains during cherry harvest season in May slashed the potential cherry revenue in half. Then a record-breaking scorching summer set in, threatening both the crops and the ability of farmworkers to work in the face of heat exhaustion. In August, nearly 14,000 lightning strikes hit California over a 72-hour period. In early September, L.A. County hit an unprecedented 121 degrees.

Some 300 miles north of Los Angeles on the central coast of California lies Taylor Farms, which produces salads and vegetable kits and racks up billions a year in total sales. For the last two decades, Taylor Farms’ crops have thrived in the moderate climate of Salinas, where the coastal breeze and fog suppress summer temperatures and allow leafy greens to thrive.

But this year, record high temperatures hit Salinas once again, forcing Taylor Farms into a work schedule they’ve never tried before: complete night shifts, with workers reporting at midnight and working through 6 or 7 in the morning. “We kept people as cool as we could. At the same time, it was an awful rough six weeks for everybody who’s in this business,” Mark Borman, the president of Taylor Farms California, says. Despite the change, Borman says the company has lost about 23% of its projected yield over the last four weeks due to the heat wave.

Ocean Mist Farms, which specializes in artichokes and brussels sprouts and operates in the same area, was similarly impacted. “Lettuce gets burn on it, and there may be a supply issue coming up for Thanksgiving,” Pezzini, the CEO and president, says. “You have to salvage what you can.”

Bigger companies like Taylor Farms and Ocean Mist have some flexibility to deal with climate change: they can simply alter or move their operations. Pezzini hopes to move his artichokes and brussels sprouts closer to the coast where it’s cooler, and has been using drip irrigation in order to combat the water drought plaguing the state. Borman is looking at his options outside the state entirely. “Today, we grow more and more lettuce in Central Mexico. We’re growing more in Colorado,” he says. “We want to diversify our growing regions, so as things continue to change, we’ll have the right development from a seed perspective and have some flexibility.”

But smaller farmers aren’t afforded the same adaptability. Walker, at Eatwell Farms, says her tomato crop was “beyond disappointing” this year due to the combination of an extremely hot August followed by weeks of smoke blocking the sun. She says she might plant her tomatoes earlier in the season when it’s cooler—but that would impact the planting of her winter crops before it. “We don’t have much wiggle room,” she says.

Courtesy Kendra KimbrauskasThe view from Shimanek Bridge Farm near Scio, Ore., when wildfires swept through the area in September.

“The Sun Didn’t Rise”

While rising temperatures threaten livelihoods, they mostly don’t threaten actual lives. But the fires that follow the heat waves do. Over five million acres have burned in California, Oregon and Washington combined during what has been the most active fire year ever on the West Coast. Experts say that climate change, lightning strikes and poor forest management have combined to provide the kindling for infernos that have killed over thirty people and destroyed thousands of buildings.

Kendra Kimbrauskas, the co-owner Shimanek Bridge Farm near Scio, Oregon, had previously not thought much about the risk of fires when in September, she woke up to a strange sight. “The sun didn’t rise. It was black like it was midnight,” she recalls. “The ash was falling, and it looked like it was in the middle of winter, with snowflakes in your headlights. At like 11 a.m., the sun finally came through and turned everything a really eerie red—like blood red.”

Kimbrauskas hooked up her horse trailer and headed to the county fairgrounds, where she stayed for almost a week. While her farm was ultimately untouched by the fires, many were not—and she dove into a community rescue effort to save the many animals that had been left behind. She ended up using her truck and a trailer to transport abandoned animals to the Linn County Expo Center, where a noisy scene was developing. “We’re talking hundreds of farms, thousands of animals,” she says. “It was like Noah’s Ark, with any animal you can imagine that people were scrambling to get out of danger: horses, sheep, bunnies, ducks, geese, alpacas.”

Kimbrauskas says she has committed to regenerative farming practices that will hopefully lead to more fire-resilient farms. But this experience has shown her how even the best preventative measures may not be enough. “We also have to be prepared to just leave,” she says. “If we don’t have a plan, we may lose our lives.”

Amanda Lucier—The New York Times/Redux Julio Hernandez cuts the hair of his brother, Alvaro Hernandez, at a farm that opened space to people displaced by wildfires in Central Point, Ore., on Sept. 26, 2020. The Almeda Fire leveled some of the only affordable housing for the immigrants who work the fields, kitchens and construction sites of southern Oregon.

Lopez, of PCUN, said that many farmworkers in areas adjacent to evacuation zones were still told to go back to work and endure hazardous air quality. “It’s really important for people to understand there were thousands of outdoor farmworkers still out there working while this was still happening,” she says. “We spoke to a farmworker, Manuel, who said that during the peak of the wildfires, he was feeling nauseated, had a headache, and his body was hurting. He’s still not feeling 100%.”

Many more lost their homes. In Phoenix, Ore., about 200 miles south of Scio, a wildfire ripped through a predominantly Latino community, destroying nearly 1,000 housing units, most of them mobile homes and RV parks. Many members of the community are agricultural workers who toil at the area’s food processing plants and wineries, and have nowhere to turn. “In less than five minutes, everything was gone,” Phoenix resident Jairo Gomez told the Washington Post.

Larry Tristano, in Santa Rosa, suffered the same fate. He himself was in Wyoming when the fire rolled through—but his family was still in their Santa Rosa house and scrambled to get out when they learned of the evacuation order. “My wife grabbed our parents’ wedding pictures, her mother’s scrapbooks, personal things, clothes, our dogs, and that was it,” he says.

Two days later, Tristano returned to nothing. “The only thing that survived was one greenhouse and the tractor. Everything else is gone,” he says. In response, he started doing the only thing he knows how to do: farming the land. “We got a generator. We hooked up the well. Our vegetable crops did survive, and we’re actually back at the market on a limited supply. We’re not going to let this beat us.” Over two weeks, over $29,000 has been raised on GoFundMe for the farm’s workers and its recovery.

Jessica Christian—The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty ImagesGround scorched by the Glass Fire leads to an untouched vineyard along Silverado Trail in Calistoga, Calif., on Sept. 29, 2020.

While Tristano is plowing ahead, there are many signs that the triple crisis for West Coast farmers is far from over. In Washington, the apple crop will be up to 10% smaller than expected due to wildfires and extreme windstorms battering orchards. Economic recovery has been slow, and COVID-19 could very well be lingering when many farm workers return in full force to plant seeds in the spring, threatening their health and slowing down schedules. And federal assistance has been underwhelming: while President Trump has spearheaded record farm subsidies, most of the money has flowed to Southern states and big farms, a nonpartisan watchdog agency found.

Borman, of Taylor Farms, says these compounding issues could affect the consumer through higher prices or a decreased selection. Restaurants may start building their menus around less perishable greens, like cabbage or iceberg lettuce, to protect against volatility. He expects some farmers to move out of the region to greener pastures, “whether that be into central Mexico or even further south into South America.”

As far as how West Coast farmers are adapting to these looming struggles, Borman doesn’t have an answer. “It was a really tricky year. There’s a lot of uncertainty, but I don’t know if there’s a lot of strategy coming out of it yet,” he says. “Honestly, everybody’s a little shell-shocked right now.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[lupine-publishers-sjpbs]

Lupine Publishers | Marital Captivity Under the Era of Globalisation: A Sociological Analysis

https://lupinepublishers.com/psychology-behavioral-science-journal/

Lupine Publishers | Scholarly Journal Of Psychology And Behavioral Sciences

Introduction

India has been ranked 114 in a list of 128 countries closely followed by Nepal (125) and Pakistan (126) on the Global Gender Gap report by the World Economic Forum (WEF). “The data captures the magnitude of the gap between men and women in critical areas including economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, health and survival, female life expectancy and sex ratio at birth [1].” The incidence of crimes committed against women in India has seen a continuous rise over the years. Crimes against women increased [2]. However, the reported number of cases of marital captivity may grossly underestimate the true number of women experiencing marital captivity as many incidents go unreported owing to a lack of effective documentation, the stigma of victimization in Indian society, and fear of social disorganisation, all of which may inhibit distraught women from soliciting help. The condition of violence committed against women may be traced at its roots to the characteristically patriarchal structure of the family and society at large that fosters the imbalanced power ratio between men and women. The colossal transcendence of women in the work economy of the country since independence has had little effect in eliminating violence against them. There is a case of cruelty by husbands and relatives every nine minutes, and one dowry-death case every 77minutes [3]. Crime against women touched a new high in 2007 with 185312 registered cases of crime against women. The dowry deaths alone totaled at 8093 with 75930 other cases registered under the 498A cases of cruelty by husband or relative against the married women. In a recent study conducted by Family Health Survey it has been found that nearly five crore married women in India suffer from Marital captivity. Just 1 out of 1000 cases of marital captivity case gets reported. And out the 100 cases that are investigated under 498A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the accused gets conviction only in 2 cases.

The reported cases of marital captivity in India represent only the tip of the iceberg which means vast majority being socially and institutionally invisible4. As the “iceberg” image suggests, recorded or official cases represent only a minimal portion of the problem of family violence in society. The majority of cases of violence fall “below the water line”, invisible both socially and institutionally. In India, this iceberg theory has been reiterated by several studies, research papers and experience of NGOs working for the victims of marital captivity. For example, according to NFHS-3 Study5, which was conducted in 2005-06, where 124,385 women in the age group of 15-49 years were interviewed. Overall, 39% of currently married women age 15-49 have ever experienced any physical or sexual or emotional violence in their current marriage and 27% have experienced the violence in the past 12 months. Thus, among all currently married women who have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence, more than two-thirds (68%) have experienced the violence in the past 12 months and are likely to be still at risk.

In India safe 2000 multi-site study of nearly 10,000 households, 40 percent of the women reported experiencing at least one form of physical abuse and 26 percent reported severe physical abuse, including being hit, kicked, or beaten. UNFPA also reports that 40% of the women in India suffer marital captivity and abuse from male partner. Those that come forward often do so only after abuse have escalated to a point of severe, life-threatening violence. Records from the Special Cell for Women and Children in Mumbai, established by the Police Commission to provide a range of support services to women and their families, revealed that 43 percent of women endured marital captivity for 3-17 years before complaining to police6 (Dave and Solanki 2000). Census 2001 data shows that a total of 2,367,72,617 women are married. according to NFHS -3 data. 81% of currently married women age 15-49 who have ever experienced physical or sexual violence by their current husbands, the first time was within five years of marriage. It also reports that 37% of currently married women aged 15-49yrs have experienced physical or sexual violence, and one in seven of all currently married women, have suffered an injury due to violence by their husbands.

Changing Institution of Marriage in India

Indian marriage systems are going through a major transition due to the impact of globalization on basic social values and institutions. The institution of marriage can be assessed by comparing and contrasting traditional and contemporary marriage patterns. The traditional pattern was marked by prominence of arranged marriages which were primarily oriented towards creating alliances between two families through “classical matchmakers” such as family priests and relatives. In such a marriage there was only a minor role for the bride and bridegroom in the context of decision-making regarding the marriage. Contemporary marriage, however, is based more on an understanding between the aboutto-be-married man and woman along with attention to the views of family elders. New “mediators” such as the media (matrimonial columns) and marriage bureaus have also emerged, contributing to the rise of a nationwide, and sometimes transnational, system of information and choice-making in the context of marriage.

Similarly there is a noticeable shift from an exclusive focus upon the physical attributes of the bride and economic assets of the bridegroom to the intellectual and economic characteristics of the bride and personality-related attributes and career prospects of the bridegroom. Today, we see a slight shift in the way traditional marriages are arranged. The strong presence of the audio, video, and print media, supported by the Internet has influenced the marriage scene tremendously. Open any newspaper on a Sunday and you will see hundreds of advertisements of prospective brides and grooms. Type the word “matrimonial” in any search engine, and see the list of countless websites for Asian marriages, Indian marriages, Hindu marriages, Muslim marriages, and Christian marriages. These matrimonial advertisements may sound amusing to the west, but they are pervasive not only in India but in the entire South Asian region. In earlier times, people tended to live in joint families and it was easier to find the prospective bride or groom from amongst the relatives of the family members. For example the eldest daughterin-law of the house could suggest her maternal aunt’s daughter as a match for her younger brother-in-law. However, as traditional families started breaking up, and people started moving to cities for work, this form of arrangement started to break down. So there was a need for an alternative system of finding the ideal bride or groom. And the print media such as newspapers and magazines came to the rescue. The audiovisual media soon followed. Today, the print media and the Internet provide the easiest and fastest method for finding a suitable partner. The role of “marriage arranger” who used to be a priest or a relative has been taken over by the new media. Marriage Bureaus are popping up like mushrooms. Depending on how much you are willing to pay, they do anything from giving the “right advertisement” in the media, scrutinizing the resumes, sending the selected resumes for your approval, arranging the meeting of the two families, and also undertaking private investigation to check for the character and the details mentioned in the resume of the prospective candidate. They plan the weddings and take commission as a percentage of the amount spent on the marriage! Needless to say their businesses are booming because they keep themselves updated with the latest trends in the marriage market. A glance at the marriage advertisements confirms that religion, caste and sub-caste continue to dominate as criteria for spousal selection. The advertisements are arranged according to the castes and sub-caste and invite responses from families belonging to the same class or caste. The only change, over time, is in the method by which marriages are arranged, and not in the parameters by which a suitable match is evaluated.

Marriage, Market and Dowry Related Violence

The major influence that has been cast by globalization is an over-exposure to, and increased presence of worldly pleasures and luxury items, which are now essential items of dowry. The markets are flooded with household goods such as refrigerators, televisions, audio systems, DVD players etc. The bride’s family is expected to give the latest model of these branded items as dowry or gifts at the time of marriage. It is an issue of prestige and the status of the family depends upon it. Dowry (and bride price in certain communities) has always had a universal presence in Indian marriage. The list of items in dowry or items given as gifts to the groom’s family has changed over the years according to the market trends. But they are all there in some form. The more educated the boy, the more the demand for dowry and the more lavish the party. The dowry can vary from household items to fancy cars and apartments. The story does not end here. The bride’s family is also expected to throw a lavish and extensive marriage party, which may be preceded by cocktail dinners and Ladies Sangeet (a day when songs of marriage are sung), and the Mehndi Night (where henna is put on the hands and feet of the bride by her friends and relatives). The bride’s family has to spend a huge amount to call the party to sing the marriage songs and the henna could cost anywhere from Rs. 100 (US$2.20) to Rs. 10,000 (US$220) for a hand depending upon the social status and the family’s ability to pay. Beauty parkours would charge anywhere between Rs. 2000 (US$44) and Rs. 20,000 (US$440) for the bridal make-up. There are “month before marriage” beauty packages available that could cost anywhere between Rs. 5,000 (US$110) and Rs. 20,000 (US$440) [4-6].

The bride’s family is also expected to pay for all the rituals that precede the marriage and that happen at the time of marriage. This includes the fee of the priest, the arrangements made for the rituals, and the gifts to be given to the boy’s family and the relatives. Polishing schools are also flourishing, and it is the fashion to attend these schools before marriage. Since most households are large families, where the boy shall be staying with his parents even after marriage, the innovators in the marriage market have started “Training Schools for Prospective Daughters-in-law”, where the girls are being trained on how to get along with their mothersin-law and how to fit exceptionally well into the traditional role of an ideal daughter-in-law. These schools are gaining popularity amongst the middle-class. The India daily soap opera industry is highly influenced by the marriage institution, and barring a few T.V. serials, which have few takers, the entire visual media is dominated by the “Mother-in-law & Daughter-in-law” episodes. These T.V. daily soaps on one hand show the “New Woman”, who is independent, intellectual, and a decision-maker and on the other hand show women as traditional, homemaker, and the ideal daughter-in-law. This new image of women, for which the serial directors are largely responsible, (though they would say that they make films only about what the people want to see), puts them in a double-edged bind. A woman is supposed to work and earn for the family as well as do the household chores with the same vigor and enthusiasm as their non-working mothers-in-law display or used to display. This double jeopardy is a result of the new marriage norms that have been slowly evolving.

The boy looks for a girl who is beautiful, smart, intellectual, and sporty because she has to accompany him at all company dinners and parties and yet she should be traditional because she has to gel with his mother and father and fit into the traditional role. The roles of men are changing, but for women they are causing an excess burden. A look at the marriage advertisements shows that the boys’ families look for a fair, slim, convent-educated, professional girl from a respectable family. Some even hint at the expected dowry. They also want a working girl. In addition to all this, the girl should also be homely and should know cooking and be able to manage the house. Moreover, there is no decrease in the amount of dowry, even if the girl possesses all the desired characteristics. The latest National Crimes Record Bureau data shows that dowry deaths and torture by husband has been increasing. If we include all the marriage related violence, the data shows that there is a consistent increase in cases related to dowry deaths and violence by husband and his family on the bride. Moreover, among all categories of CAW, Cruelty by Husband and Relatives has shown an increase of 20.3 between the years 2006 to 2007. Thus, the globalization and economic power in fact are precipitating marital captivity because there is a greater demand of resources. There is an increasing need of commodities and luxuries.

Institutional Mechanism: Protection of Women from Marital Captivity

This enactment is a big step in the direction of fighting marital captivity against women and goes a long way in protecting the women from violence in a domestic set up. Women could always approach the Courts under the IPC but the provisions were never so expansive. The term ‘marital captivity’ has never been used in IPC nor is it a gender specific law. The criminal law basically dealt similar cases of cruelty against married women, all other acts of marital captivity were not specifically criminalized. Also, no protection or residence orders were given to enable the woman to continue staying in the matrimonial house. This greatly restricted the women from approaching the Courts as most of them are dependents on their assailants and live under the fear of being turned out. The PWDVA is a civil law, where the aim is to provide relief to the aggrieved woman. The magistrate can pass Protection orders, residence orders, compensation orders, grant monetary relief under this law.

For the first time, marital rape has been recognized as an offence under this Act. The Act also provides for appointment of Protection Officers and Registered Service Providers to aid the aggrieved woman in accessing justice. The act, by and large, is a valuable piece of legislation. It provides protection to women, without considering their religion, and hence affords protection from discriminatory personal laws. The responsibility of the implementation lies on the executive, that would go on to prove the actual effectiveness of the Act.

Democratization for Combating Marital Captivity

In order to effectively combat marital captivity, we must closely examine why our society has ignored or denied this issue. The most important reason is that in world men and women are not equal socially, economically or politically, in both private and public life. This inequality reflects the strong patriarchal structure of the family and society as a whole. This unequal status continues despite a constitution which clearly guarantees equality between the sexes. The fallouts of the process of globalization and market forces on growing marital captivity against women can be combated effectively if the family and society give equal power to women and the state mediates and facilitates the democratization of the family by enacting gender just laws and formulating and implementing gender just policies and programs. Women participation and access to resources is actually a manifestation of the democratic processes that exist within the Family, the Society and the State. The more democratic the structure, the more is the power given to women.

There are three Steps to Democratization for Combating Marital Captivity:

a) Democratization of family to allow women to be equal partner in decision making

b) No discrimination between sexes in society

c) Equal representation of women in state

These three conditions must co-exist to eliminate violence against women. If one of these conditions is missing, violence remains in the life of women. For example, In United States, the family is individualized, the society apparently does not discriminate between sexes, but the violence persists because the women are not equally represented in Parliament and decisionmaking bodies. In Sweden, women have reached in appreciable numbers in the Parliament and other decision-making bodies. They are more or less equally represented in state structures. But this alone has not been able to curb violence. In closed family system of highly industrialized nation such as Japan, women form an appreciable part of the work force. However, the family is not democratized and women are also not represented in equal number in state institutions. They continue to suffer violence. Looking at India, the Indian family is highly undemocratic, women representation at state and national structures is negligible and the society is devoid of gender justice. However, in the wake of globalization, which is throwing new challenges, is there also a hope or a possibility of molding the market forces to the advantage of the women? Possibilities such as where the family structures start to democratize, women come forward to participate in the political process and the society starts valuing the contribution of women.

Conclusion

The process of globalization is not new. The globalization of the economic, social, cultural and political structures happened in all ages. Earlier the pace of such a process was so slow that we hardly noticed it. However, today with the advent of the information technology, newer means of communication have made the world a very small place. Not only the pace of the globalization process, but the penetration and integration of the changes induced in our day to day life has made the impact of globalization many fold higher. With this process the world has become one huge marketplace. However, fallout of such a process is that increasing marital captivity has been reported in most of the countries including industrialized nations, as a result of family fragmentation and loss of social support systems in marriage. Accompanying the increased burden for women is an increase in the level of all forms of violence, including marital captivity. It has been seen that when the society imposes sanctions against the perpetrators of violence, the women are empowered to exert for their rights. Only when the family and the society are democratized, the status of the women is strengthened. At this time, it becomes the duty of the state to facilitate and strengthen the process. The solution lies in the fact that women empowerment approach to combat violence against women should be well integrated and interwoven into all policies and programs of the governments. Women should be equal partners not only at the public places but should have adequate control of their own resources.

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[rootindiahealthcare]

Can You Bear The Cost of Cancer Treatment? Find Out First Primary Care?

Overview NEW DELHI (INDIA): There are several things more alarming than battling cancer. One is not holding the money for its treatment. Given the recent spike in the occurrence of cancer and its treatment expenses, this could soon be a fact than mere consideration. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 10 lakh new cases are reported in India each year. More disturbingly, nearly 5 lakh patients die annually of cancer, and WHO assumes the number to go up to 7 lakh by the end of 2019. The trend is projected to rise 5-fold by 2025 and the prevalence is likely to rise to 19% in males and 23% in females by 2020. What are the RISK While the risk of plunging from cancer before the age of 75 years is only 7.10%, through the Globocan 2012, an international cancer research outline, insurers claim that one in 5 cancer cases is by those between 36 and 45 years of age. This means that the disease is set to agitate the family’s finances due to the failure of a source of income. According to a 2004 research on the economic burden of cancer on Indian households—by Ajay Mahal, Anup Karan, Victoria Y. Fan and Michael Engelgau—the spending in a cancer-afflicted home was 36-45% more than in other households with comparable demographics. Their borrowings and debts were also distinguished. In the last 10 years, these costs have grown significantly (see Rise in treatment cost), which means that cancer care expense is likely to shoot out of reach for millions of Indian patients. "The costs have moved up due to more expensive infrastructure, new technology-based research costs, and innovative drugs," says Naresh Parmar, CEO, Karnataka region, Apollo Hospital. How to Prevent the Cancer A skewed doctor-to-patient proportion (one for 2,000 patients) worsens the situation. Specialists are expensive and hard to find also. The high-risk synopsis not only calls for ways to prevent the disease and undertake regular check-ups for early detection. But also satisfactory financial security to tackle the treatment costs, both in early and late stages. While there are numerous players in the insurance market offering a variety of products to combat the expenses. It is not easy zeroing in on a singular product. Further, we shall not discuss only providing the insurance options that can help you cover the disease, but also the ones that will suit your primary healthcare needs the best. WHY OPD CARE IS ESSENTIAL Though there has been a rise in demand for OPD Care products. India continues to have the highest levels of under-penetration in the world, with only 0.16% of the total population covered for health, as per IRDA. Little wonder then that 70.00% of healthcare costs are met from one’s pocket. Since cancer care is extended term in nature, it also translates into a recurring outgo. The Cancer expense can decrease with OPD Care plan. This has a huge financial implication for the family, making it imperative to buy OPD Health plan. Keeping pace with the surge in the incidence of cancer, new products with special features and higher definition. You can pick from the regular OPD Care plans, that covers preventive expenses for a critical illness that ensure a range of diseases, including cancer, and lastly, specialized with cancer care products. However, before we list the benefits and drawbacks of each option, it is important to consider the advantages of preventive check-ups or screening for cancer. IMPORTANCE OF SCREENING If detected in the early stages, cancer diagnose is not only effective, but the costs are cheaper too. You can additionally avail of the tax deduction of up to Rs 5,000 per year under Section 80D for such lab check-ups (see Early screening, low cost). "Common cancers, such as breast, cervix, colon, prostate, ovary, lung, etc. It can be discovered through routine screening. A definite improvement in endurance has been established due to screening plans in case of cancers like cervix, breast, and colon,". Typically, nevertheless, patients approach a doctor or an oncologist only when the disease has a forward stage. Making treatment more costly and survival less likely. In India, 70.00% of cancers are detected in difficult stages. Intentional screening is abysmally low even amid the educated," says Root India Healthcare Ltd, New Delhi India. Genetic screening, the consequence of technological advancement. It has made it reasonable to avail of targeted therapies that are much more powerful. Why Primary Care Require However, these are also more costly. For example, the average cost of treatment for breast cancer through a private doctor would be ₹5-6 lakh, including investigations, operation, and radiotherapy. However, with targeted therapy, 6 cycles of chemotherapy can cost up to ₹20.00 lakh. More the reason that you consider the different insurance options accessible to you. TYPES OF OPD CARE PRODUCTS Innovative OPD-CARE Plan A regular health plan, be it individual or family floater, is an indemnity policy that covers the medical expenses incurred during Doctor visits. So it pays for the costs as long as it is within the sum offered limit. It covers all major critical illnesses, including cancer. Plan feature active upon purchasing wherein no waiting period has to be served by the patient. Drawbacks OPD Care has the following drawbacks: The cover on MBBS Category doctors only. No Hospitalization covered Cashless facility is not applicableAyurvedic or Homeopathic cover not available. Dental & Physiotherapy based treatments excluded Drawbacks of Insurance Health policy Insurance Policy provides good cover in case of hospitalization while there are some drawbacks: Cancer cover has the waiting period which is usually 3-4 years of continuous policy renewal.Congenital disease never covered Maternity coverage generally covered after 5 years of successful regular policy renewal. One month notice period after first purchase for fever, cold, flue, etc, Only accidental case can be covered Premiums are very costly. and it increases after every 4 years The waiting period is very high for the pre-existing disease. Drugs & consumable items hardly covered. Terms and conditions are very complicated to understand. Life long renewal options are not available. After 45 years, Insurer asks for pre-medical checkups. WHAT SHOULD YOU BUY? How should you guard yourself facing cancer treatment costs? While a health insurance scheme will not be adequate, one needs to buy it to cover hospitalization risks for other ailments. So, you can depend on it for paying the beginning generic and surgical treatment costs. But for primary care, you should buy an OPD health plan. The best part is that it comes with a lifelong renewal option. However, you’ll need a Classic or Gold cover at least if there is a need for specialized treatment. If you have a huge burden of doctors visit than you may go for customized OPD. Although it will be a little expensive than Packaged OPD Care plan. Cancer is not the only disease that threatens us. Lifestyle-related risks include diabetes, heart ailments, kidney, and liver-related illnesses. Hence, a wider cover based OPD Care plan would be a wiser pick. You could buy a dedicated OPD Care plan only, even you do not fall in the high-risk category suffering from cancer. It should be mandatory for who those with a family history of the disease or those who are heavy smokers or tobacco users. About thirty-forty percents of cancers are linked to the use of tobacco. In such a case, paying an additional premium a year for primary care / OPD care, may be worth it. Currently, the only notch in the product range is a policy that covers one after the detection of the disease. Stay on top of Health news Subscribe today! Read the full article

[csrgood]

The Critical Ways America’s Charities’ Nonprofit Members are Helping Communities Respond to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic

Nonprofits are the backbone of our communities – some more visible than others in their impact and the needs they meet. While COVID-19, otherwise known as the coronavirus, is affecting everyone, nonprofits are particularly feeling the pinch as they simultaneously adjust their work environments and policies to ensure the safety and well-being of their staff and volunteers, and demand for their programs and services surges beyond the scale their networks are prepared to handle. The cancelation of fundraising galas and partner development conferences further exacerbates the situation and strains their finances, capacity, and resources. The long-term impact to nonprofits’ bottom-line will affect the capacity of many nonprofits to serve their constituents in the months, and possibly years, to come.

To shed light on the important ways nonprofits are supporting our communities during this health and economic crisis, and to underscore how people across the country are being impacted in ways big and small, America’s Charities, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit celebrating its 40th anniversary this year working at the nexus of employers, charities, and employee donor giving and engagement, reached out to its community of 120+ nonprofit members for insights. If you don’t see the nonprofit you love listed here, check our Coronavirus Resource Center, which we will keep updated as new initiatives emerge, or click here to search our full member list

Below are just a handful of challenges America’s Charities’ high-impact, pre-vetted nonprofit members are facing. Our hope is that this article will bring light to the critical role nonprofits fill in this country; help individual donors identify and support nonprofits supporting coronavirus efforts; and encourage cross-sector collaboration to ensure these nonprofits have the necessary resources, capacity, and support to continue providing help throughout this pandemic and beyond.  

Demand for Food and Basic Essentials Rapidly Increases While Support from Donations, Volunteers, and Government Diminishes

School closures, job disruptions, lack of paid sick leave, and the health threat’s disproportionate impact on the elderly and low-income families are only a few aspects of this evolving crisis. As food banks are already seeing a decrease in retail donations, unique product distribution challenges, declining volunteer groups, and an increased product demand for vulnerable populations, Feeding America has launched a COVID-19 Response Fund.

“We have seeded the fund with $2.65 million and plan to meet member’s needs and the creation and distribution of staged food boxes in the most vulnerable areas of our country. With the help of our supporters and partners, we are leading a conversation on how to address immediate and long-term needs as well as mitigate the impact on our nation’s most at risk populations,” shared Teresa Gruber, Director, Employee Engagement, Feeding America.

The most vulnerable among us rely on school meals and feeding programs to survive. Those living paycheck-to-paycheck may not have savings or support systems to help. Feed the Children, which works to alleviate childhood hunger, told us that the coronavirus has already impacted the National School Lunch Program, which typically supplies close to 29 million free or reduced lunches. These meals are a critical lifeline. As school doors close across the country, vital essentials need to reach food-insecure families as soon as possible. As Feed the Children CEO Travis Arnold stated, “Please know that your donation may be the lifeline for a struggling family or child who lives in your community. That's why every donation matters so much.”

Diane Clifford, Managing Director, Constituency Development at No Kid Hungry, which focuses on policies and programs necessary to end childhood hunger, stated, “We are working to ensure that school administrators and program operators have the information they need on how to keep meal programs running. This post from our Center for Best Practices provides guidance on proactive actions schools can take to meet the nutritional needs of students during school closures related to COVID-19. We have sent it to many schools, state agencies and community organizations, but we want as many leaders to have this info as possible.”

Nonprofits like Miriam’s Kitchen, whose mission is to end chronic homelessness in Washington, D.C., rely heavily on volunteers and in-kind donations. In the past 37 years, Miriam’s Kitchen has never closed its doors. The population vulnerable to COVID-19—older individuals with complicating health factors—is the very population Miriam’s Kitchen serves, so continuing their services is more important than ever. While making the difficult decision to temporarily suspend their volunteer program, Miriam’s Kitchen staff from various departments will fill in to ensure meal services and streamlined case management continue. They are asking for donations to their Miriam’s Kitchen’s Emergency Flex Fund to help them ramp up and sustain efforts in response to COVID-19.

Virginia-based Lorton Community Action Center (LCAC) is operating as usual, but taking extra precautions to keep its clients, volunteers, and staff safe. Clients visiting the food pantry have been offered additional, non-perishable food, and two weeks ago each family received Clean Start kits (hygiene and cleaning items). Additionally, LCAC is providing extra kids packs with additional non-perishable goods (Ramen, Easy Mac, etc…) in the weeks ahead to meet the needs of neighborhood children and teens. Just this past week, a father who frequents LCAC told the nonprofit, “thank you for making sure our kids have what they need.”

The team at Operation Warm, which provides kids with coats and so much more, told us, “This is our outreach time via conferences and we are no longer traveling as conferences are being cancelled. So, opportunities to develop new partnerships are hindered. It is too early to have a handle on the impact this will have on corporate giving, but we already know there will be more families in need in the fall and demand for our coats will likely go up, as it did in 2008-2011.”

Health, Safety, and Lifelines are at Stake – for People and Pets

Even larger organizations like the Red Cross are feeling the blow, with the Food and Drug Administration urging healthy individuals to donate blood as American Red Cross blood drives are being canceled nationwide. Ivana Krejci, Development Operations Specialist for the American Red Cross of Central & South Texas Region shared, “To meet the constant demand for lifesaving blood, the Red Cross must collect about 13,000 blood donations and more than 2,500 platelet donations every day.

“Through Monday, March 16, we have seen over 2,700 Red Cross blood drives canceled nationwide due to coronavirus concerns, resulting in about 86,000 fewer blood donations,” shared Emily Schricker, Grant Specialist with American Red Cross Eastern Pennsylvania. “As more schools and businesses close their doors, this number will only continue to grow. This blood shortage could impact patients who need surgery, victims of car accidents and other emergencies, or patients suffering from cancer. One of the most important things you can do to ensure we don’t have another health care crisis on top of the Coronavirus is to give blood.”

Believe In Tomorrow Children’s House at Johns Hopkins, which serves pediatric patients and their families who travel from throughout the U.S. and the world as their child receives treatment for a life threatening illness at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, is simply overwhelmed with the demands of responding to this health crisis. With eight facilities that serve immune suppressed pediatric patients, they have had to make major policy and procedural changes within each of their facilities.

Brian Morrison, President, CEO, and Founder of The Believe In Tomorrow Children’s Foundation, stated, “We have had to stop virtually all volunteer services and activities as we greatly restrict the number of people who can enter the Children’s House at Johns Hopkins, which is located on the grounds of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. We are working to completely overhaul our family food service program at the Children’s House at Johns Hopkins, which provides breakfast and dinners to an average of 60 guests daily. Our food program has relied heavily on volunteers coming into the facility to help prepare and serve meals, and we are now switching to meals that are prepared off-premises in restaurants and delivered daily. We are also now purchasing and asking for donations of high quality frozen meals in bulk. Additional cleaning and housekeeping staff are being hired to disinfect surface areas on a continuous rotation throughout the day. Similar precautions and procedures are being implemented in each of our pediatric respite facilities. We are asking for additional funding to support our families, who are often far from home, and due to their child’s illness cannot leave the hospital area. Gift cards to give to families and contributions to support our programs are greatly appreciated. We are preparing for a two to three month period of major instability.”

Humans aren’t the only ones being impacted by coronavirus. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary made an historic decision this week to close its sanctuary to visitors for the first time in its 36 years of operation. Their Lifesaving Centers throughout the nation are also closing to the public over the next week in an effort to remain conscientious in their attempts to limit and protect their partners, volunteers, and employees from any potential exposure to the illness.

“This will have an incredible impact on national lifesaving efforts as adoptions will slow down but intake will remain steady or potentially even increase,” stated Jane Jetabut, Corporate Engagement Specialist, Best Friends Animal Society. “At this time, we are urgently in need of fosters. As many folks will now be working from home, now is a great time to make an incredible lifesaving contribution by providing a short term foster space for a shelter pet.”

While protective measures like social distancing and self-quarantine of infected/potentially infected individuals are inconvenient for everyone, for victims of domestic violence, they can become life-threatening. Danger inside of the home can increase along with the risks posed by the virus pandemic. When abusers have expanded access to their families, such as during the holidays, reports of domestic violence increase. Additionally, when law enforcement and medical services are forced to focus elsewhere, support services can begin to break down. According to Axios, the number of domestic violence cases reported to police in Hubei province, China nearly tripled in February after quarantine for coronavirus.

For those already experiencing domestic violence, the pandemic will add anxiety and challenges that come with having to ensure childcare, maintain employment and nutrition for their family, and access healthcare. The loss of work and income caused by coronavirus can mean the difference between safety and independence and life with an abuser.

“PCADV is monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic closely and is providing daily guidance to its network of local domestic violence programs across the Commonwealth,” said Susan Higginbotham, CEO, PCADV. Adding, “Our programs will continue providing direct services, and we are collectively making every effort possible to ensure minimal disruption in services.”

Shelter space is a concern. In Pennsylvania alone, PCADV’s domestic violence programs average more than 6,500 unmet requests for housing each year—and that’s when residents are not facing a pandemic. In response to COVID-19, if needed, and when possible, programs will use hoteling and other alternative housing models.

Making Urgent Information and News about the Coronavirus Accessible to the Deaf Community

A far overlooked issue is the dissemination of information about the coronavirus itself. Much of the information shared by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have been in complex college-level English text form. Such information is not accessible to many people in the U.S., particularly those whose primary or only language is another language, as well as those who comprehend plain English rather than complex English.

Many within the deaf community use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary or only language. Yet, the CDC and HHS do not include any videos in ASL that explain the same urgent and critical information shared with everyone else in complex English.

Howard A. Rosenblum, Esq., Chief Executive Officer & Director of Legal Services at the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) stated, “Despite our strenuous efforts in urging both the CDC and HHS to disseminate information in ASL, they have repeatedly told us "it is coming," yet the crisis is at critical levels and many places are closing. It’s not okay to share ASL information a month after everyone else has information. This is not acceptable and it is also illegal under federal disability rights laws.”

Moreover, Rosenblum shares, “We [NAD] have been expending time and effort to ensure that state and local governments hold accessible press conferences that advise their local populations on what to do during the epidemic. Too often, such press conferences are not accessible. Some are captioned, which is good but is not accessible for those who only understand ASL. We urge all such press conferences across the country to have both captioning and ASL interpretation. Nothing less.”

Keeping Educational and Arts Programs for People with Disabilities and Underserved Populations Operational

While some nonprofits have made the tough choice to cancel or suspend their own programs, having that choice has not been the case for all. Susan Slattery, Director of Outreach at Art Spark Texas, which provides programs supporting people with disabilities – including veterans and wounded warriors – shared, “There is a general feeling of uncertainty because, in many cases, we are not the ones who made the decisions to close. Property owners and program partners are also facing the same dilemmas, and we have to work together for the common good. Not only does this affect the people we serve, who already experience social isolation, it affects our funding streams and impacts staff and family members. We will have to look at ways to streamline programs and services into the unforeseeable future, but are pleased at the outpouring of support we have received from our current funders.”

Generation Hope, which describes its work as a “two-generation solution to poverty,” works with teen parents in college and their little ones. Between college campus and school closures, admission to physical and mental healthcare facilities, and access to food, Generation Hope’s team and case managers are working to ensure the support and services they provide continue without interruption – moving some of their programming to virtual delivery where possible. Generation Hope asks people to sign up to tutor remotely, mail laptops and Wi-Fi hotspot equipment to their office (located at 415 Michigan Ave, NE, Suite 430, Washington, DC 20017), donate to their Scholar Emergency Fund, and help with general operating support.

The National Capital Area Council Boy Scouts of America’s (NCAC) first priority is the health and safety of its staff, volunteers, and Scouts, and their moral responsibility to follow guidelines for social distancing to help stop the spread of this disease. While much is still unknown about how dramatically they will be affected by the coronavirus, they have currently cancelled all programs, events, and camps until at least April 30. In addition to technology and resource deficits, this disruption will result in lost revenue. A donation of $240 can help NCAC cover the cost of programs for one Scout whose family has been economically challenged by COVID-19.

As is the case with many other nonprofits we’ve heard from, Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), whose programs and scholarships are life changing for students—many who are low-income and first-generation college students—is having to postpone and cancel critical fundraising events that support TMCF’s overall mission. Not only does TMCF provide unparalleled access to a funnel of opportunities for students to journey to college, through college and into a career, but TMCF also serves as an essential pipeline, providing corporations with critical exposure to diverse talent. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have long been overlooked as major corporations build their university relations plans largely with predominately white institutions. The programming TMCF offers allows senior leaders, hiring managers, and other corporate stakeholders to engage with talent they would not normally engage with cost efficiently, proving to corporate leaders that HBCUs provide a rich and viable pipeline of diverse talent. This process of exposing the value of HBCUs is central to the mission of TMCF and critical to their ability to deepen current funding resources and attracting new ones.

The Need for Sustainable Nonprofit Funding

The event of America’s Charities’ 40th anniversary has given us an opportunity to pause and reflect on philanthropy. In all our time supporting nonprofits and businesses and advancing the greater good, we have never seen the social impact community face a crisis quite like this one. While the full scale of the coronavirus toll has yet to be seen, one thing is crystal clear: nonprofits all across the U.S. are playing an absolutely vital role in addressing and mitigating the impact the coronavirus will have on communities across our nation, and filling the void made by the lack of government resources.

We know, too, that when a group of social changemakers comes together, wondrous things happen. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have been looking inward as they evaluate their workplace policies and figure out how best to ensure the safety of their employees while keeping their operations running. Many are beginning to look outward to identify the ways their business and employees can help nonprofits and people in the community. The benefits of workplace giving are more poignant than ever. While we may not be able to interact as we once did, workplace giving becomes an avenue for donors to help, with just a few clicks of a button. Just as we have seen in the case of natural disasters, we expect to see a surge in employers using their workplace giving programs as an outlet for their employees to safely donate to nonprofits with coronavirus initiatives. We are proud to support businesses and their employees in that endeavor, just as we are honored to serve the more than 120 nonprofits that comprise our membership.

As an extra step to support coronavirus response efforts, we are launching the America’s Charities Coronavirus Response Fund as a way for donors and businesses to provide short and long-term support with a single donation. Visit www.charities.org/coronavirus for details.

The coronavirus has already reached its long tentacles into our community. From how we work, to how our children are educated, to how we interact and support each other, to how we advocate for the health and safety of ourselves and our loved ones, we know it’s a stressful time right now. America’s Charities will be with you every step of the way, providing you resources during this fluid time. On our website, we have compiled all of the coronavirus resources and information we can, from this article and elsewhere. We encourage the public to continue visiting this page as we will keep it updated while the pandemic progresses and new needs emerge.

Thank you for all that you do. Stay safe.

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/44086-The-Critical-Ways-America-s-Charities-Nonprofit-Members-are-Helping-Communities-Respond-to-the-COVID-19-Coronavirus-Pandemic?tracking_source=rss

[kacydeneen]

Gov't Shutdown Wreaks More Havoc the Longer It Continues

Southwest Airlines' yearlong effort to launch affordable flights to Hawaii is stalled. Craft brewers haven't been able to ship their seasonal beers. Hundreds of federal rental assistance contracts with private landlords have expired, putting low-income families and seniors at risk of eviction. Across the country, thousands of unpaid government employees and contractors struggling to make ends meet are turning to food banks for assistance.

As the partial government shutdown moves through its fourth week with no end in sight, the economic blow is hitting not only federal workers but also business people, households and travelers across the country. And experts warn that if the shutdown drags into February or beyond, as the president has suggested it could, the devastating impact would be widespread. 

High Drama, Few Results as Trump Warns of 'Long' Shutdown

"We'll be in no man's land," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told NBC News. 

Here is how the worsening damage could unfold: 

IRS Recalling 46,000 Workers to Handle Taxes Amid Shutdown

Food Insecurity The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it can fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, through February. The agency announced last week that it would bankroll the $4.8 million in benefits for 39 million people enrolled in SNAP, but with a catch: States must issue those payments on or before Jan. 20 and families must make those funds — about $250 per household — last through February, whether the government reopens or not. 

If the shutdown lasts until March, the USDA could be forced to dip into its reserves to help fund the program, and its $3 billion SNAP contingency fund won't cover a full month of benefits.

Super Bowl Planners: Shutdown Brings 'Uncharted Territory'

"If the shutdown continues and USDA determines it does not have the authority to extend SNAP in March without congressional action, many low-income households would be at risk of serious hunger and hardship," said Dottie Rosenbaum, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "Emergency food assistance providers such as food banks and food pantries, as well as other local community service providers, would likely see dramatic increases in demand as families and individuals scrambled to fill the hole in their monthly food budgets."

It's not just families enrolled in the program that would take a blow. Should SNAP benefits cease, Rosenbaum said the more than 250,000 supermarkets, grocery stores, and other retailers that participate in the program would see a substantial drop in SNAP redemptions, which in many cases constitute a significant share of their sales.

Eventually, non-food retailers will also feel the pinch. That's because SNAP frees up cash for low-income households to buy other basic essentials like diapers and clothing, boosting economic stimulus.  A 2010 USDA study found that every $1 in SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity.

Threats of Eviction Since the shutdown began on Dec. 22, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been unable to renew almost 700 rental assistance contracts, placing low-income seniors and families at risk of eviction, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).  

Another 450 Project-Based Rental Assistance contracts are slated to expire over the next two weeks, and an additional 550 won't be renewed should the shutdown continue through February, NLIHC President Diane Yentel said.

Under the Section 8 housing voucher program, tenants pay 30 percent of their household income for rent and utilities while the federal government makes up the rest of the rent. The average annual income for these households is $13,000.  

The Washington Post reported HUD sent a letter to landlords earlier this month, instructing property owners to dip into their reserve accounts "to cover funding shortfalls" and keep tenants in their homes. 

But not all property owners have sufficient savings to dip into and need the rental revenue to pay their mortgages, insurance, property taxes and other operating expenses.

A landlord in Arkansas came under fire this week over a letter sent to more than 1,200 tenants across her 50 apartment complexes throughout the state. The letter said that because of the government shutdown, tenants had until Jan. 20 to either pay their rents in full or leave.

"If the people can't pay their rent, I can't pay bills. If I don't get paid, I can't pay my people," Annette Cowen, a property manager in Arkansas, told KFSM-TV.

Arkansas Online reported that after media attention and calls to lawmakers to intervene, the USDA told Cowen the agency would finance the rental contracts through at least February and maybe longer.

"People are really scared about what will happen to them," Yentel told NBC in a phone interview.      

Landlords of America's poorest tenants won't be the only property owners concerned about whether they'll get the next rent payment. The General Services Administration, which leases more than 187 million square feet of space around the country on behalf of federal government agencies, could miss its January rent payments at thousands of properties if the shutdown continues into February. 

Joe Brennan, managing director of Government Investor Services at JLL, said in a phone interview it is unclear how widespread the ripple effect of a delinquent federal tenant would be. Investors in commercial real estate properties are not just developers, but include pension funds, collateralized debt obligation bonds and capital stocks. 

"This is uncharted territory," Brennan said. "The government has never missed rent payments before."

The faith and credit of the U.S. government has historically made the investment low risk with competitive leases. If the once-reliable tenant misses several rent payments over the course of the shutdown, Brennan warned investors may label them "high risk," leading to higher rent prices paid for by American taxpayers.   

Private landlords leasing space to the government can’t evict their federal tenants over nonpayment. They also can’t fine the government over late payments without approval from their tenant. Their only recourse is fight it out in court, a long and expensive process, Brennan said.

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied? The government shutdown, meanwhile, is threatening to grind federal court cases to a halt after it runs out of money on Jan. 25. 

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which initially projected that funding would be exhausted by Jan. 18, revised its estimated outlook on Tuesday. The office said in a statement that the additional week of funding was mainly "attributed to aggressive efforts to reduce expenditures."  

Since the shutdown began, federal courts have continued to operate by using court fee balances and other "no-year" funds. Courts and federal public defender offices have delayed or deferred non-mission critical expenses, such as new hires, non-case related travel, and certain contracts as part of their cost-cutting efforts. Judiciary employees are reporting to work and currently are in full-pay status. 

But once existing funding runs out the courts will operate on an "essential work" basis. Individual courts are allowed to determine which staffers are deemed necessary. Some courts have already issued orders suspending or postponing civil cases in which the government is a party.

And while President Donald Trump claims the fight over funding for a wall is necessary to address border security, the shutdown is having an unintended consequence on his efforts to curb illegal immigration.

Between Dec. 24 and Jan. 11, 42,726 immigration court hearings were canceled due to the shutdown, congesting an already backlogged system, according to a report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Another 20,000 scheduled cases will be canceled by the end of this week and as many as 100,000 hearings will be pushed back indefinitely by the end of the month if the shutdown continues.

Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, said in an interview with NPR that she now has around 2,000 immigration cases before her court in Los Angeles. And some judges, according to Tabaddor, have upwards of 4,000. The cases are booked years in advance and rescheduling them will be a logistical nightmare.   

"We don’t have time to adequately consider the cases that we do have, much less have to spend extra time to think about what we’re going to do with all the cases that have to be rescheduled," she told NPR.

Safety Risks The Food and Drug Administration announced Monday it would resume inspections of some of the riskiest foods such as cheeses, produce and infant formula as early as Tuesday. The routine inspections had been briefly halted as a result of the partial government shutdown.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told NBC News his staff put calls out to furloughed workers to gauge whether they would come back to work despite not getting paychecks. 

"We got an overwhelming response from our very dedicated and mission-driven field force who are coming back to work unpaid," he said.

Riskier foods account for about a third of the agency's roughly 8,400 routine inspections each year.

Meanwhile, applications for new drugs have been halted. The FDA review of a life-saving peanut allergy treatment for children ages 4 to 17 is on hold due to the government shutdown. The California-based biotech company Aimmune Therapeutics said in an SEC regulatory filing that the FDA is unable to begin review of AR101, its experimental treatment for peanut allergies, due to the shutdown. A spokeswoman for the company told NBC that the FDA will initiate review of AR10 once "the lapse in appropriations has ended." 

 However, Aimmune could see further delays even after the government has re-opened. Gottlieb warned in a tweet on Jan. 5 that the FDA is running out of user fees, which are paid by the companies and used to fund the regulatory review of drugs. The money was diverted to fund safety inspections during the shutdown.  He wrote on Twitter that review program will run out of money in early February. 

The shutdown has halted inspection of chemical factories, power plants, oil refineries, water treatment plants, and thousands of other industrial sites for pollution violations, The New York Times reported.

It has also suspended federal cleanups at Superfund sites around the nation and forced the cancellation of public hearings, deepening the mistrust and resentment of surrounding residents who feel people in power long ago abandoned them to live among the toxic residue of the country's factories and mines.

Houston, We Have a Problem The effects of the shutdown are already rippling through aviation, with unpaid security screeners staying home, air-traffic controllers suing the government and safety inspectors off the job.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners who staff security checkpoints and air-traffic controllers are among the "essential" federal employees required to work through the shutdown without pay.

"I still have a mortgage to pay, I still have financial obligations — students loans — and those don't stop," Gerald Quaye, an air-traffic controller at New York's JFK airport, told NBC New York. "So, to come to work and not get paid and not know when I'm going to get my next paycheck, it's unsettling."   

It also has security repercussions. Mike Perrone, president of the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists union, said it's hard for TSA and FAA employees to "keep their head in the game" when they're worried about bills not getting paid. 

Many employees tell local media they can't afford to miss another paycheck. Industry officials worry that if the shutdown lingers and TSA employees quit en masse, with training for new highers on hold, the lack of staffing will lead to longer security lines, closed checkpoints, extended flight delays and even the grounding of flights.

"TSA only has what it has," said Christopher Bidwell, the vice president for security at the trade group Airports Council International-North America

Economic Damage Ripples On Tuesday, Kevin Hassett, a top economist in the White House, acknowledged that the shutdown was weighing on the economy more than he had previously estimated. Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, said the White House now calculates that annual growth is slowing by about 0.1 percentage point a week.

Some companies are pointing to specific problems: Delta said Tuesday that the shutdown is costing it $25 million a month in government travel. Its CEO, Edward Bastian, said that with the FAA partially closed, Delta will also likely delay the start date of eight new aircraft.

Southwest Airlines told eager customers on social media that their long-awaited flights to Hawaii are on hold because they have not been able to complete the FAA’s certification process for extended over-water flights. The Dallas-based carrier had hoped to start selling tickets for service to service to Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport on the Big Island, Lihue Airport on Kauai, Kahului Airport on Maui and Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Oahu by late 2018, with flights debuting in early 2019, according the AP.

Bloomberg reports Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Mike Manley told attendees at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit that the new Dodge Ram 3500, which was unveiled Monday, could be delayed reaching the market because of the shutdown. Manley said the company is waiting on an emissions certificate from the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air quality, and cannot sell the truck until that is approved.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees public stock offerings, is mostly closed because of the shutdown. As a result, some companies that had been planning initial public offerings in coming months, including Uber and Lyft, are likely facing delays. Marianne Lake, chief financial officer for JPMorgan Chase, said the bank could lose out on fees from IPOs and merger and acquisition deals that would be delayed if other shuttered agencies can't approve them.

The nation's craft beer taps are also being squeezed. The federal shutdown halted operations at the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which regulates alcohol production and distribution, preventing new breweries from opening and stopping shipments of some suds across state lines.

Brewers are increasingly nervous that they will lose money if brewery openings and seasonal beers are delayed much longer.

The end of the shutdown won't bring an immediate end to the delays. The longer the shutdown continues, the bigger the backlog the bureau will have to sort through when work resumes. That means it could still be months before labels and permits are approved.

"A big part of it will be all the plans that brewers have for 2019 will get thrown out the window," said Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Photo Credit: AP This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. Gov't Shutdown Wreaks More Havoc the Longer It Continues published first on Miami News

[therealmexicanguys-blog]

Do you try to preserve animal species?

The extinction of animals is a natural process of the evolution and over the history has been produced massive extinctions in determining eras where the change weather are usually. Nowadays à lot of species are extincting faster than years ago the man is the only responsable of this extinctions. How can we prevent the extinction of animals? there are many endangered animals that are at risk of extinction. What that means is that we are at risk of losing these animals completely. We put considerable time, effort and money into saving endangered animals, but why? Extinction is a natural process that would happen with or without humans. But, while that is the case, research shows that extinctions are happening quicker now than ever before. And, loss of habitat is by far the biggest cause. This is a problem that we need to address, and here are a few reasons why. One thing we humans fail at is seeing the big picture. We are often blind to the interconnectedness of everything that supports life, a web so complex and interdependent, we are only beginning to understand it. The food chain, from the tiniest little microorganisms to the largest creatures on earth, keep us humans alive. So, when we talk about the grey whale, the timber wolf, the black rhino, it’s not just that we should save these endangered creatures for their own good, but it’s also for ours.The current legislation and government bodies that protect wild species from extinction are both being defunded and reorganized. It will be up to ordinary citizens and environmental groups to save these important links on the food chain. Here are someways to accomplish this. There are many things we can do to help endangered animals, here are a few suggestions. Protect wildlife habitats. Habitat loss is one of the biggest causes of extinction. Do your bit to preserve wildlife habitats. Volunteer to maintain a local nature reserve, campaign against deforestation or create a space for nature in your garden. Educate others. People are more likely to want to save animals if they know about them. Spend time doing some research and spread the word. Stay away from pesticides and herbicides. Animals are venerable to pollutants that can build up in the environment and can die if they consume high levels. Shop ethically. Avoid buying products made from endangered animals. Be an ethical tourist. We all love spending time with animals, but the rise of animal experiences abroad is endangering the lives of many animals. Often they are treated cruelly and kept t in unsatisfactory conditions. “Educate your family about endangered species in your area” There are many endangered species that we can find in all the world we can change the future of this species like protecting them and another thinks like stop the haunting of all of this species, all the species around the world would be protected by the human because animals are the balance in the world. Giant Panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca Native to the mountain forests of southwest China, the giant panda is one of the most beloved animals in the world. Giant pandas are identified by their distinctive black and white coloring. Their ears, muzzle, eyes, shoulders and legs are black while the rest of their body is white. Their thick hair keeps them warm in the cool, wet mountain zones. When on all fours, giant pandas average between 60-100 cm (2-3 ft.) tall at the shoulder and between 1-2 m (4-6 ft.) long. They can weigh between 100-115 kg (220-250 lb.), with males being larger than females. One of the interesting evolutionary traits of the panda is their protruding wrist bone that acts like a thumb. This helps the pandas hold bamboo while they munch on it with their strong molar teeth. Bamboo makes up nearly the entire diet of the panda. Due to the low nutritional value of bamboo, pandas need to eat 10-20 kg (20-40 lb.) a day. Occasionally pandas will eat other available food, including small rodents, eggs, fish and other flora. Bamboo provides a good amount of water, but pandas need to supplement this with fresh water daily. With only around 2060 pandas living in the wild, the giant panda is considered vulnerable of extinction by the IUCN. Due to the fact that pandas reproduce so infrequently, it is very difficult for their population to recover from such a low point. One the main reasons that panda populations have declined is habitat destruction. As the human population in China continues to grow, pandas’ habitat gets taken over by development, pushing them into smaller and less livable areas. Habitat destruction also leads to food shortages. Pandas feed on several varieties of bamboo that bloom at different times of the year. If one type of bamboo is destroyed by development, it can leave the pandas with nothing to eat during the time it normally blooms, increasing the risk of starvation. Macaw Overexploitation and Habitat Loss Of the 145 species of parrot in Central and South America, 45 are in danger of extinction. All 18 species of macaws are threatened. The primary causes are habitat loss and heavy exploitation for the pet trade. The hyacinth macaw is especially vulnerable to capture and habitat destruction because it is noisy, intrinsically fearless, predictable, and dependent on palm trees. Hyacinth macaws brought $5,000 to $10,000 each in the pet trade as of 1988. This high price fosters a dangerous level of poaching and smuggling. Data and anecdotal evidence suggests that as many as 10,000 Hyacinth macaws were taken from the wild during the 1980s. Trees are cut down to remove the young from nest holes, which not only removes that generation of birds, but permanently destroys the nest site. Hyacinth macaws do not breed every year even under the best circumstances, so this predation on chicks is particularly bad for the species’ survival. Since captured young survive so poorly (up to 99 percent die between capture and final sale), adults are sometimes trapped through liming of perches or use of baited clap-nets. Still, for every macaw that arrives safely abroad, it is likely that five died on the way. The United States is the largest market for the exotic pet trade. In the last decade, 8.5 million birds, at least 85 percent of birds captured in the wild, were imported or smuggled into the United States. Even when the export of birds is controlled, the domestic bird trade often is not regulated. Millions of tropical birds, including parrots and macaws, are captured for local sale. About 50 percent of hyacinth macaws trapped in Brazil were bought by Brazilians rather than being sold overseas. It is common in many rural areas for households to have a pet bird. Half the households recently surveyed in northern Argentina had some kind of parrot. Leopards Leopards could vanish before the tiger if this animal is not given due attention. This year alone, 30 leopards have died in Maharashtra while the Wildlife Protection Society of India has reported 207 deaths across the country compared to 290 deaths in 200 Leopards are the epitome of grace in motion. But leopard skins and canine teeth are widely traded in Africa, and leopard poaching is common in Asia. The IUCN lists leopards as “near threatened” and warns their population is rapidly disappearing. Leopards live in sub-Saharan Africa, NE Africa, Central Asia, India and China but despite this wide geographic spread – the largest distribution of any wild cat – many of their populations are endangered. For instance, the rare, solitary Amur Leopard is listed as “critically endangered” with a population in the wild of only around 60 remaining individual cats. And the highly adaptable, nimble snow leopard is listed as “endangered” with a population of only around 4,000 – 6,500 in the wild. It should not be a surprise that the biggest predators of these wonderful animals are humans. Sadly, these cats’ beauty is contributing to its decline towards extinction – demand for leopard fur and other body parts is driving a robust poaching market. In addition, hunting, habitat loss and retaliatory killings are additional pressures resulting in many of the Leopard subspecies teetering on the brink of disaster. These beautiful, solitary creatures deserve a chance to thrive in the wild. Let’s pass strong laws to end the illegal trade in leopard skins and other parts The highest number of leopards killed was in 2000 when it shot up to 1,278. From 1994 onwards, between 70-200 leopards have been killed every year across India Leopards tend to survive even outside the forests, as in the sugar cane plantations of Ahmednagar and Pune and therefore come close to the villages. That is how the man-animal conflict begins. Panthera onca is its scientific name, it is related to other species of big cats, such as the tiger or the lion. In fact, of the big cats, the jaguar is the third largest of all after just mentioned. It is one of the most important symbols of Mexican culture before the arrival of Hispanics, that is, the pre-Hispanic culture, where the role of spiritual protector was granted. The jaguar lives in jungle and swampy areas, which are being destroyed faster and faster. When we talk about threatened or endangered species we are referring to those species that become part of the Red List of Endangered Species or Red Book. This list was created in 1963 by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). This organization aims to ensure the conservation of biodiversity and the natural wealth of our planet. In this way, when we say that the jaguar is in danger of extinction, we are referring to a species that has been included in the IUCN Red List. Specifically, currently, the jaguar would have the category of "almost threatened species". The natural habitat is established in the center and a good part of the south of the American continent, which includes the Amazon jungle. In fact, currently, the main threat that is decimating jaguar populations is the deforestation of the Amazon, which is advancing by leaps and bounds to obtain new crop lands. However, it is true that although the destruction of its habitat is the main threat facing the species, it is not the only one. The deforestation of the Amazon should include poaching, illegal trafficking of exotic animals and traps of the peasants, who pursue this animal because it is a specie that attacks livestock. In conclusion we search for differents endangered species the most threatened in the world, animals are the most important think in the world because without they we didn't have a lot of things that we have now but only natural thinks like the honey the polen and the most important think is that animals can carry the balance in the world and we have to protect them all the species around the world like bee, elephants, leopards etc. This Text is to create conscience about how important are the animals and the hurt that we do to they, is that the only think that we have to see the hurt that we are causing in the nature, the place where they live we have to carry them and protect all the species around the world.

[shutdownline5]

Nexus wants to use eminent domain to ram a pipeline through Michigan and Ohio — and you to help pay for it

3/1/2017 - Detroit Metro Times

But as critics see it, this pipeline-building spree is an under-regulated, speculative bonanza in which residents end up having to pay a high price for a system of questionable value when it's all built.

That's partly due to a lack of robust regulation, which is the responsibility of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC (rhymes with "lurk"). FERC has been under increasing fire for being a "rubber stamp" commission. As Schoen puts it, "The word is that FERC has never met a pipeline it didn't approve of."

...

As Shiffler sees it, Nexus and another pipeline following the same path — the ET Rover — are not only not needed, but harmful. "We believe in both cases there are adverse impacts that are not outweighed by any public value," she says.

What makes lax regulation of the pipeline companies chasing new profits especially troubling is that when FERC grants approval, as a federal agency, it allows private companies to invoke the power of eminent domain. Which means a company has a potent weapon to use in court proceedings against people, even governments, reluctant to allow a pipeline on their land.

The fact that such broad powers could be conferred on Nexus has critics especially fired up because it's widely believed the gas will simply be reshipped to Canada, to the Dawn Hub across from Port Huron, for sale in Ontario and beyond.

...

Zaski isn't the only person to point out that Nexus part-owner DTE Energy's own forecast doesn't see the pipeline as profitable until the 2030s, and even then it supposes no additional pipeline capacity being built, and doesn't account for falling use of natural gas in Michigan.

...

"You can't use eminent domain if it's not for the public good," Shiffler says. "And if that's true that [most of the gas will go] to Canada, then it's not for the good of the people of the United States."

More troubling still are several cases before the Michigan Public Service Commission in which DTE Energy is seeking guarantees that, should the line not be profitable, it can pass the costs of building Nexus on to DTE ratepayers.

"I think there's a whole question of is this really going to be financially viable or not," Shiffler says, "and in the case of Nexus and DTE, DTE customers could end up having to basically pay for something that isn't going to be viable."

Or as Douglas Winters, counsel for Washtenaw Township, puts it, "It's kind of like, 'Not only are we going to threaten you with eminent domain proceedings if you don't give us an easement, by the way — you're going to pay for it.' So the whole thing is just not a process that I think at times really is for the purpose of what eminent domain is for. We all understand you have to have eminent domain to construct a highway or a hospital, things that really have a public purpose. I'm not really sure how I feel it fits into a public purpose when you're basically going to do the fracking, transport the gas, and, by the way, send it over to Canada. I don't think we should be paying for that."

...

Calhoun is one of the more engaged township residents in the path of Nexus. Every time the subject appears on a township agenda, he'll make the meeting, as he puts it, "Another day of my life wasted." That said, he offers some keen insights.

"The whole project is completely unnecessary. The same companies will tell you if you read their documents, the pipeline is not actually needed at the moment and they don't expect it to be needed until at least the year 2030," he says. "They're only building it now because they have the political power to build it now, and they know that they're not going to be allowed to build such terrible projects in 15 or 20 years because people are going to stop them at that time, when people stand up and have more political say."

...

The use of eminent domain to route the pipeline through the recreational areas is something the township board of trustees is especially concerned about. The board's Monica Ross-Williams says, "We have a lot of concerns, ourselves and our residents. No. 1 is that the proposed pipeline would be going under a section of the Huron River that connects into the Ford Lake basin, which is a premier lake basin inside Ypsilanti Township. It's also location to a number of parks in the area. Also, there's a concern because of the protected status of wildlife inside of the area."

Another concern was that pipelines demand large amounts of water — tens of millions of gallons of it — for pressure testing. It's likely the route's proximity to Ford Lake was in mind when Nexus officials asked the township if they could draw water from Ford Lake in the summer of 2016. The township refused.

[cto10121]

don’t know where else to put my sniping over this cringeworthy essay at harper’s, so it’s going here. be warned: there will be high-level snark

‘‘If nostalgic cartoonists had never borrowed from Fritz the Cat, there would be no Ren & Stimpy Show; without the Rankin/Bass and Charlie Brown Christmas specials, there would be no South Park; and without The Flintstones — more or less The Honeymooners in cartoon loincloths — The Simpsons would cease to exist. If those don’t strike you as essential losses, then consider the remarkable series of “plagiarisms” that links Ovid’s “Pyramus and Thisbe” with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, or Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra, copied nearly verbatim from Plutarch’s life of Mark Antony and also later nicked by T. S. Eliot for The Waste Land. If these are examples of plagiarism, then we want more plagiarism.”

ay ay ay ay ay what the fuck is this shit show 

so this idiot cultural conservative has obviously no idea what plagiarism means and if he thinks shakespeare ‘‘plagiarized’’ romeo and juliet from ovid’s pyramus and thisbe and even that leonard bernstein and stephen sondheim (?!!) did it for west side story. plagiarism is taking another’s words, phrases, and - with some obvious, very vast exceptions - ideas VERBATIM or with minimal deviation from the original and taking them as your own. reusing characters and tropes, especially common ones in the public domain, are NOT plagiarism.

shakespeare, like virtually every writer of his time, borrowed liberally from his sources, as it was almost required for every writer to write and adapt stories already well-known and in existence. granted, shakespeare did flirt with actual legit plagiarism on the (extremely lazy) occasion, and those lines from anthony and cleopatra are the closest and most damning. but even then the wording is not exact, the purpose different, and elsewhere shakespeare did not borrow without radically transforming the material to suit his purposes. prospero’s incantation starts off like medea’s spell from ovid’s metamorphoses before it veers off into something else altogether. shakespeare also made sure to quote and honor his contemporary christopher marlowe’s famous line in his play as you like it: “dear shepherd, now i find thy line of might / ‘whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?’’’ the difference is that marlowe was a contemporary and possible friend of shakespeare, and it was his line; ovid’s metamorphoses, the greek writers and the roman writers of histories were all felt to be in the public domain, and so shakespeare didn’t feel the need to give attribution.

even if such a case for plagiarizer!shakespeare can be proved, we would have to keep in mind that he lived in a time without copyright and with the very common practice of borrowing from existing stories, to the point where it was actually discouraged to write original characters. stories from greek and roman mythology and history were fair game, and even other playwrights’ plays could be revived and re-adapted again, as hollywood does now. apart from his sources, shakespeare actually quoted and appropriated little; his words are his own, and they’re damn fine ones indeed.

this author trivializes and misunderstands plagiarism to an impossibly ignorant extent, to the point of denying shakespeare and bernstein/sondheim their creative due as artists simply because the plot and story they used are not original to them. west side story is not the same as romeo and juliet, even if it did no more than change the settings and the character names (hell, it even did more than that), and never will be. hell, presgurvic’s roméo et juliette, another musical adaptation which keeps not only the story, but the same characters, and comes even closer to being a straight adaptation of the play than west side story, is still not the same as shakespeare’s play. moreover, shakespeare’s play is completely different from pyramus and thisbe; his source was actually arthur brooke’s poem ‘‘tragedie of romeus and juliet’’ with mostly the same characters and names. even then there are vast, deep differences; you would never, in a million years, confuse the two. 

‘‘The Walt Disney Company has drawn an astonishing catalogue from the work of others: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Song of the South, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Mulan, Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and, alas, Treasure Planet, a legacy of cultural sampling that Shakespeare, or De La Soul, could get behind. Yet Disney’s protectorate of lobbyists has policed the resulting cache of cultural materials as vigilantly as if it were Fort Knox — threatening legal action, for instance, against the artist Dennis Oppenheim for the use of Disney characters in a sculpture, and prohibiting the scholar Holly Crawford from using any Disney-related images — including artwork by Lichtenstein, Warhol, Oldenburg, and others — in her monograph Attached to the Mouse: Disney and Contemporary Art.’’

i’m not a big fan of disney’s lawsuit-happy antics either, buddy, nor of the disney company in general, but they are well within their rights to sue if they see probable cause of plagiarism. their snow white is a particular kind of snow white, their cinderella their own particular cinderella. if another work were to come along with a snow white with short dark hair, a yellow dress, thirteen or fourteen years old, who sings to the tunes of harold arlen or whatever, then disney does have the right to have a finger on their lawyer call lines. you may have a point about copyright being a little too strict, with only instances of satire, parody, or educational purposes protected. but then again, we do have fanfiction that is published with no problem and legal impediment, thousands of them. what more do you want? (an explicit clause protecting transformative works? maybe.)

‘‘Kenneth Koch once said, “I’m a writer who likes to be influenced.” It was a charming confession, and a rare one. For so many artists, the act of creativity is intended as a Napoleonic imposition of one’s uniqueness upon the universe — après moi le déluge of copycats! And for every James Joyce or Woody Guthrie or Martin Luther King Jr., or Walt Disney, who gathered a constellation of voices in his work, there may seem to be some corporation or literary estate eager to stopper the bottle: cultural debts flow in, but they don’t flow out. We might call this tendency “source hypocrisy.” Or we could name it after the most pernicious source hypocrites of all time: Disnial.’’

every writer, without exception, is influenced by the books and authors they read and love. what do you mean, a writer that likes to be influenced??? yeah, of course you have your heroes, your inspiration, your heartloves. of course, writers are proud and happy to talk about other writers and artists that they like and have inspired them. that doesn’t mean an artist should give up the right for their work to be dealt with in their own terms, to be judged on its own merits or demerits, as it were. what is with this conservative obsession with influence???? first harold bloom, and now this. it’s a religious thing, i know, but...just calm down! you may believe angels and demons exist and they are messing with your little head all you want, but don’t expect me to swallow that shit, buddy. 

‘‘The power of a gift economy remains difficult for the empiricists of our market culture to understand. In our times, the rhetoric of the market presumes that everything should be and can be appropriately bought, sold, and owned — a tide of alienation lapping daily at the dwindling redoubt of the unalienable. In free-market theory, an intervention to halt propertization is considered “paternalistic,” because it inhibits the free action of the citizen, now reposited as a “potential entrepreneur.” Of course, in the real world, we know that child-rearing, family life, education, socialization, sexuality, political life, and many other basic human activities require insulation from market forces. In fact, paying for many of these things can ruin them. We may be willing to peek at Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire or an eBay auction of the ova of fashion models, but only to reassure ourselves that some things are still beneath our standards of dignity.’’

nice try, buddy, but art =/ economics. it’s one thing to detest, as i do, the erosion of social safety nets, the toxicity of laissez-faire economics that demands corporations be not held accountable at all even if they kill people by polluting rivers or making inferior products, and an ideology that insists federal government should butt out of doing what it should very well be doing - protecting the majority of people from the interests of few. we are living in a capitalist hellscape, no doubt about that

but it’s another thing to deny that because all art is derivative (which is itself a fallacy) the artist therefore relinquishes his or her right to profit from that art and not have some unscrupulous individuals claim credit for that. that won’t fly, buddy. you are making what i would call the transference or epistemological fallacy - using the ideas of one episteme or area of knowledge and applying them to another. i’m as socialist as you can be, but cultural marxism is silly and bankrupt and has always been. this is sloppy thinking at best, ideological sabotage at worst. 

‘‘Nearly any commons, though, can be encroached upon, partitioned, enclosed. The American commons include tangible assets such as public forests and minerals, intangible wealth such as copyrights and patents, critical infrastructures such as the Internet and government research, and cultural resources such as the broadcast airwaves and public spaces. They include resources we’ve paid for as taxpayers and inherited from previous generations. They’re not just an inventory of marketable assets; they’re social institutions and cultural traditions that define us as Americans and enliven us as human beings. Some invasions of the commons are sanctioned because we can no longer muster a spirited commitment to the public sector. The abuse goes unnoticed because the theft of the commons is seen in glimpses, not in panorama. We may occasionally see a former wetland paved; we may hear about the breakthrough cancer drug that tax dollars helped develop, the rights to which pharmaceutical companies acquired for a song. The larger movement goes too much unremarked. The notion of a commons of cultural materials goes more or less unnamed.”

again, this is material that would be a++ on an economics essay, but it has zero relevancy when it comes to art, which this essay insists on considering as mere cultural product, like shakespeare and tea as examples of britishness™ (never mind that if you ask shakespeare for a cup of tea, he’d ask you what is that). an art work is not quite the same as a cancer drug or public parks and schools. i agree with federal government subsidies and grants towards the arts, because it is a public good, but the key point is that the federal government doesn’t turn art itself into a public, common good; it merely gives money to institutions that in turn helps artists and gives them a financial cushion and support for their art. that doesn’t deny art from the artist and assumes that it belongs to the public without some kind of recompense or credit. all that copyright means is ensuring the artist will be properly repaid for the work and effort he or she has done. 

‘‘A few years ago, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced a retrospective of the works of Dariush Mehrjui, then a fresh enthusiasm of mine. Mehrjui is one of Iran’s finest filmmakers, and the only one whose subject was personal relationships among the upper-middle-class intelligentsia. Needless to say, opportunities to view his films were — and remain — rare indeed. I headed uptown for one, an adaptation of J. D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, titled Pari, only to discover at the door of the Walter Reade Theater that the screening had been canceled: its announcement had brought threat of a lawsuit down on the Film Society. True, these were Salinger’s rights under the law. Yet why would he care that some obscure Iranian filmmaker had paid him homage with a meditation on his heroine? Would it have damaged his book or robbed him of some crucial remuneration had the screening been permitted?” 

true, douchebaggy moves happen when it comes to copyright. however, i don’t really know the circumstances of salinger’s move. did mehrjui at all stole salinger’s words and phrases or stuck too closely to the original work? was this a straightforward adaptation or was something more original, transformative? i think if it was the former, permission would have to be sought and granted. still, salinger has always been weird when it came to adaptations of his works, and he is more an outlier in this than a true example. most artists are okay with adaptations so long as it honors, in some way, their original work. some give even more freedom to the filmmakers and such, knowing that adaptation into another medium is tricky enough as it is without imposing too-strict rules.

‘‘Contemporary copyright, trademark, and patent law is presently corrupted. The case for perpetual copyright is a denial of the essential gift-aspect of the creative act. Arguments in its favor are as un-American as those for the repeal of the estate tax.”

you know what i dislike most of all? when anyone claims such-and-such is un-american because x, y, and x. why isn’t this shit dead yet? we are country who literally has installed dictators and orchestrated coup d’états in other countries simply to protect corporate interests. we are a country who goes to war for every goddamn thing. we are a country literally founded on genocide. news flash, darling: evil is neither american nor un-american. it is something that exists.

‘‘Artists and writers — and our advocates, our guilds and agents — too often subscribe to implicit claims of originality that do injury to these truths. And we too often, as hucksters and bean counters in the tiny enterprises of our selves, act to spite the gift portion of our privileged roles. People live differently who treat a portion of their wealth as a gift. If we devalue and obscure the gift-economy function of our art practices, we turn our works into nothing more than advertisements for themselves. We may console ourselves that our lust for subsidiary rights in virtual perpetuity is some heroic counter to rapacious corporate interests. But the truth is that with artists pulling on one side and corporations pulling on the other, the loser is the collective public imagination from which we were nourished in the first place, and whose existence as the ultimate repository of our offerings makes the work worth doing in the first place.”

*inhales, puffs cheeks, exhales* 

again, for the dozenth time, originality, creativity =/ a work without the slightest shred of outer references, quotes, or is based on something else AND THEREFORE. it is entirely possible to be original even if your work is explicitly based on something else. a young or older person who has never read romeo and juliet can watch west side story or roméo et juliette with no loss in comprehension or enjoyment. they are different works and can be enjoyed separately. generations upon generations have enjoyed the wizard of oz without ever cracking open a page from l. frank baum’s book. yeah! try wrapping that around your pseudo-intellectual head, buddy.

i find it insulting and intellectually bankrupt to equate artists with corporations as if their ends and desires are one and the same. they are not. artists want to be compensated for their work and protect it from being stolen, the whole purpose of copyright; corporations want to make products and sell them by spending as little as possible in order to maximize profits. because corporations get huge enough to actually cause damage to the environment and to people, government is needed to curb these excesses and to regulate them. all j.k. rowling’s done is given the okay for the dubious spin-offs cursed child and fantastic beasts, and though some people (*glares*) would actually equates this to polluting a river, most sane people would understand the difference. rowling trolling with her millions isn’t the problem; businessmen with millions is. 

in sum: idiot conservative masquerading as intellectual thinks no art work is original and therefore creativity doesn’t exist and copyright shouldn’t exist and it all belongs to the all-powerful ~culture~ and the artist should just suck it up and deal with people stealing your words and if you think about it for ten seconds it makes ZERO sense and it’s unquestionably bs

[rootindiahealthcare]

Can You Bear The Cost of Cancer Treatment? Find Out First Primary Care?

Overview NEW DELHI (INDIA): There are several things more alarming than battling cancer. One is not holding the money for its treatment. Given the recent spike in the occurrence of cancer and its treatment expenses, this could soon be a fact than mere consideration. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 10 lakh new cases are reported in India each year. More disturbingly, nearly 5 lakh patients die annually of cancer, and WHO assumes the number to go up to 7 lakh by the end of 2019. The trend is projected to rise 5-fold by 2025 and the prevalence is likely to rise to 19% in males and 23% in females by 2020. What are the RISK While the risk of plunging from cancer before the age of 75 years is only 7.10%, through the Globocan 2012, an international cancer research outline, insurers claim that one in 5 cancer cases is by those between 36 and 45 years of age. This means that the disease is set to agitate the family’s finances due to the failure of a source of income. According to a 2004 research on the economic burden of cancer on Indian households—by Ajay Mahal, Anup Karan, Victoria Y. Fan and Michael Engelgau—the spending in a cancer-afflicted home was 36-45% more than in other households with comparable demographics. Their borrowings and debts were also distinguished. In the last 10 years, these costs have grown significantly (see Rise in treatment cost), which means that cancer care expense is likely to shoot out of reach for millions of Indian patients. "The costs have moved up due to more expensive infrastructure, new technology-based research costs, and innovative drugs," says Naresh Parmar, CEO, Karnataka region, Apollo Hospital. How to Prevent the Cancer A skewed doctor-to-patient proportion (one for 2,000 patients) worsens the situation. Specialists are expensive and hard to find also. The high-risk synopsis not only calls for ways to prevent the disease and undertake regular check-ups for early detection. But also satisfactory financial security to tackle the treatment costs, both in early and late stages. While there are numerous players in the insurance market offering a variety of products to combat the expenses. It is not easy zeroing in on a singular product. Further, we shall not discuss only providing the insurance options that can help you cover the disease, but also the ones that will suit your primary healthcare needs the best. WHY OPD CARE IS ESSENTIAL Though there has been a rise in demand for OPD Care products. India continues to have the highest levels of under-penetration in the world, with only 0.16% of the total population covered for health, as per IRDA. Little wonder then that 70.00% of healthcare costs are met from one’s pocket. Since cancer care is extended term in nature, it also translates into a recurring outgo. The Cancer expense can decrease with OPD Care plan. This has a huge financial implication for the family, making it imperative to buy OPD Health plan. Keeping pace with the surge in the incidence of cancer, new products with special features and higher definition. You can pick from the regular OPD Care plans, that covers preventive expenses for a critical illness that ensure a range of diseases, including cancer, and lastly, specialized with cancer care products. However, before we list the benefits and drawbacks of each option, it is important to consider the advantages of preventive check-ups or screening for cancer. IMPORTANCE OF SCREENING If detected in the early stages, cancer diagnose is not only effective, but the costs are cheaper too. You can additionally avail of the tax deduction of up to Rs 5,000 per year under Section 80D for such lab check-ups (see Early screening, low cost). "Common cancers, such as breast, cervix, colon, prostate, ovary, lung, etc. It can be discovered through routine screening. A definite improvement in endurance has been established due to screening plans in case of cancers like cervix, breast, and colon,". Typically, nevertheless, patients approach a doctor or an oncologist only when the disease has a forward stage. Making treatment more costly and survival less likely. In India, 70.00% of cancers are detected in difficult stages. Intentional screening is abysmally low even amid the educated," says Root India Healthcare Ltd, New Delhi India. Genetic screening, the consequence of technological advancement. It has made it reasonable to avail of targeted therapies that are much more powerful. Why Primary Care Require However, these are also more costly. For example, the average cost of treatment for breast cancer through a private doctor would be ₹5-6 lakh, including investigations, operation, and radiotherapy. However, with targeted therapy, 6 cycles of chemotherapy can cost up to ₹20.00 lakh. More the reason that you consider the different insurance options accessible to you. TYPES OF OPD CARE PRODUCTS Innovative OPD-CARE Plan A regular health plan, be it individual or family floater, is an indemnity policy that covers the medical expenses incurred during Doctor visits. So it pays for the costs as long as it is within the sum offered limit. It covers all major critical illnesses, including cancer. Plan feature active upon purchasing wherein no waiting period has to be served by the patient. Drawbacks OPD Care has the following drawbacks: The cover on MBBS Category doctors only. No Hospitalization covered Cashless facility is not applicableAyurvedic or Homeopathic cover not available. Dental & Physiotherapy based treatments excluded Drawbacks of Insurance Health policy Insurance Policy provides good cover in case of hospitalization while there are some drawbacks: Cancer cover has the waiting period which is usually 3-4 years of continuous policy renewal.Congenital disease never covered Maternity coverage generally covered after 5 years of successful regular policy renewal. One month notice period after first purchase for fever, cold, flue, etc, Only accidental case can be covered Premiums are very costly. and it increases after every 4 years The waiting period is very high for the pre-existing disease. Drugs & consumable items hardly covered. Terms and conditions are very complicated to understand. Life long renewal options are not available. After 45 years, Insurer asks for pre-medical checkups. WHAT SHOULD YOU BUY? How should you guard yourself facing cancer treatment costs? While a health insurance scheme will not be adequate, one needs to buy it to cover hospitalization risks for other ailments. So, you can depend on it for paying the beginning generic and surgical treatment costs. But for primary care, you should buy an OPD health plan. The best part is that it comes with a lifelong renewal option. However, you’ll need a Classic or Gold cover at least if there is a need for specialized treatment. If you have a huge burden of doctors visit than you may go for customized OPD. Although it will be a little expensive than Packaged OPD Care plan. Cancer is not the only disease that threatens us. Lifestyle-related risks include diabetes, heart ailments, kidney, and liver-related illnesses. Hence, a wider cover based OPD Care plan would be a wiser pick. You could buy a dedicated OPD Care plan only, even you do not fall in the high-risk category suffering from cancer. It should be mandatory for who those with a family history of the disease or those who are heavy smokers or tobacco users. About thirty-forty percents of cancers are linked to the use of tobacco. In such a case, paying an additional premium a year for primary care / OPD care, may be worth it. Currently, the only notch in the product range is a policy that covers one after the detection of the disease. Stay on top of Health news Subscribe today! Read the full article