Daily Archives: April 18, 2020

Apr 18th 2020

This article appeared in The Economist on December 21st 1918

IT is evident that any financial damage inflicted on the country by the war can best be repaired if every individual works to the fullest extent of his productive power. Productive power, however, depends on physical and moral efficiency, and war statistics have shown that the ordinary Briton falls lamentably short of even a lenient standard of physical fitness. The recruiting figures can be used for industrial purposes, for if a man is not fit for fighting he is not fit for full normal industrial productivity. The country has lately been told that - (1) the standard of physical efficiency is lower in England than in France, Germany, or any other of the great belligerent countries; (2) if adequate attention had been paid to health this country would have been able to put a million more men into the fighting line, and the war could have been won speedily without the combing of essential industries. The present shortage of fuel and food should be recognised by every householder in the country as attributable in some measure to the low standard of health and fitness which we have been content to accept; (3) only one-third of the men of military age (the period when the maximum of physical strength can be expected) examined under the National Service Ministry were found to be Grade I. To give this last fact its full value, it is well to state the official definition of Grade I. A Grade I man is one who attains to a normal standard of health and strength, and is capable of enduring physical exertion suitable to his age. He must not suffer from any organic disease, and must have no grave physical disability or deformity. The Grade I man, therefore, is not a superman: he is merely normal. The remaining two-thirds are sub-normal. These latter, as citizens and workers, not only fall short of their full productivity, but have to spend money on drugs and medical assistance to keep at work. Some idea of the loss to the country in their lack of full productivity can be gauged by the instantaneous effect on supplies of a strike or of two or three days jubilation on the part of the miners. A corresponding estimate of what must be spent on keeping them at work could be reckoned from the Army figures of the sums spent in treatment and maintenance of men fallen sick who entered the Army in cate- gories lower than Grade I.

It will always be difficult, however, to give satisfactory figures in evidence of the economic value of health to the State, because health is dependent on such an extricable tangle of causes. At the present time, moreover, very few people have thought it worthwhile to investigate the matter, but certain factories under the control of the Ministry of Munitions have made a start, and their results, while still very incomplete, serve as an indication of what may be expected and of the difficulties to be encountered.

The experience of these factories is that, roughly speaking, 5% of available time is lost through ill-health, and that of this amount 80% is attributable to general sickness and 20% to accidents. But some of the accidents are occasioned by nervousness and lack of control arising from a low tone of health on the part of the worker, and, on the other hand, some of the sickness recorded may have originated in an accident. Evidence more tangible is offered by the influenza records noted during the summer epidemic (not the recent one), which show that about 36 hours a head of the munition-making population was lost, involving a loss to the community equivalent to that of about four working days.*

It will always be difficult...to give satisfactory figures in evidence of the economic value of health to the State

Another suggestive field for computation is afforded by actuarial figures showing that the average expectation of life is not more than 53 years. Still further interesting investigations could be made into the profits made by druggists and the number of men employed in that trade.

But this is not all. If the country is losing by not getting the full productivity of men and women who are still able to do something and earn a living, what of the others who can earn nothing but who must, nevertheless, be maintained at a dead loss?

In 1914 there were 17.0 per thousand of the population receiving Poor Law relief. The Poor Law expenditure was nearly 15 millions, or 4s. per head of the population. These figures do not include hospitals, nor Old Age Pensions (a large proportion of which formerly appeared under Poor Law expenditure). An instance of such non-productive expenditure was recently recorded by the Newton Abbot Guardians, who stated that a man had died under their care upon whom they had had to spend a sum well over 1,000. Not only was this man non-productive, but he was using up a portion of the national income as well as the attention and time of the highly and expensively-trained people who were looking after him, and whose energies could have been employed to more useful account.

It may be argued that pauperism is not sickness, but the experience of the Guardians is that 50% of the relief they dispense is for actual sickness. A large proportion of the remainder is given to cases who have come to the Guardians in the first instance for help in sickness, and who have thenceforth relied on them for further relief.

It is incontestable that a thorough reform of national health will require a large expenditure; but expenditure upon it, if well and judiciously made, will pay as handsomely as a business proposition. As an offset against the money required must be placed a reduction in the Poor Law, in National Insurance, and in the cost of hospitals. Of the latter there are 2,634 in existence, exclusive of tuberculosis sanatoria, convalescent homes, nursing homes, hospitals for chronic cases, and sanatoria attached to schools and institutions.

What practical steps, then, must be taken to build a nation strong in nerve and sinew? To continue to devote unremitting care to those who have been crippled by the evils of our social system is merely to pay the penalty for past slackness. It must be done, but it is not progressive work.

The health work initiated by the Public Health Act of 1875, at present administered by the Local Government Board through the local authorities, must be developed and co-ordinated. It aims at preventing disease, and includes, amongst other activities, sanitation, factory and nuisance inspection, notification of certain diseases, instruction in health habits, inspection of food, notification of births, registration of midwives and of foster-mothers, provision of maternity homes, dental clinics, venereal disease clinics, compulsory disinfection after infectious diseases, provision of public wash-houses and cleansing stations.

What practical steps...must be taken to build a nation strong in nerve and sinew?

Further developments in preventing disease are foreshadowed by the work of the Medical Research Committee, whose report (1917-18) has recently been published. This committee gave warning of the pandemic of influenzal pneumonia; they investigated T.N.T. poisoning to such good effect that only one girl worker was affected by it this year. They have studied dysentery and malarial infections with an equally good result, and they advised a treatment for cardiac complaints which has saved the State in one hospital alone a sum of 50,000, an amount closely equivalent to that of the whole of the Medical Research Fund which the committee are privileged to administer.

But it is not enough to cure disease, nor to labour at preventing it. Our aim must be to establish a standard of positive good health, and this goes to the very root of those vexed questions - housing, wages, and hours of work. The National Service records, fragmentary as they are, serve as a basis for inquiry. This department state that they found the fittest section of the population to be the young miners. Their work is hard physically, but they earn wages sufficiently good to allow of their working short hours. They eat good food, and their recreation of coursing gives them the open air they need without any further physical effort.

War must be waged on such conditions by State and employer alike. The employer has already learnt that output depends on the physical efficiency of his workers, and he is ready to do his share in his own interest if for no better reason. Decent conditions of work, fair pay, and good housing will do much, but not everything. We come back, as almost always, to education, and the individual's views and ideals. Until we all know how to be healthy and strong, and recognise that unless we are so we cannot pull our weight in the boat, and that pulling our weight in the boat ought to be one of our chief objects in life, a low standard of health and efficiency will continue to be a drag on the nation's productive power.

*British Medical Journal, November 23rd.

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The Economics of Health (1918) - The Economist

Don Winslow is one of America's most widely read and acclaimed crimewriters. His work has been adapted for major Hollywood movies and TV series.

In his bestselling books "The Cartel" (2015), "The Force" (2017), and "The Border" (2019), Winslow has taken the mystery, action, grittiness, moral dilemmas, and authenticity that typifies the best of crime fiction as a genre and combined it with epic storytelling and complex characters against the backdrop of America's failed war on drugs.

Winslow's new book "Broken" is a collection of six short novels focusingon the tragedies and triumphs, and day-to-day lives of people cops, bounty hunters, drug addicts, drug dealers, detectives, their loved ones, friends, and community who are criminals, those trying to stop them, and the human rubble left along America's "criminal highway."

Winslow is also a very outspoken truth-teller about the criminality, cruelty and inhumanity of Donald Trump and his regime.

In theconversation below, Winslow explains how Donald Trump embodies everything wrong with American masculinityand shares his observation thatthe coronavirus pandemic is a perfect metaphor for the pain and harm being caused to the American people and the world by Trump and his movement.

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Winslow also reflects on the obligations of the artist in a time of crisis and why he has chosen to be so vocal about Trump and his regime's many crimes against human decency and democracy.

You can also listen to my conversation with Don Winslowon my podcast "The Truth Report"or through the player embedded below.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Could you have imagined all that has happened with Donald Trump being president? If it was fiction no reasonable person wouldbelieve it.

No, you can't make this up. It's the problem with writing fiction right now. Every day you get up, and the headlines have outpaced anything you could reasonably imagine. It's discouraging. To me the coronavirus feels like the physical manifestation of some sort of metaphysical infection that we have had during the last three years at least with Donald Trump and this situation. Now Trump and all that has come from him feels almost feels like it's finally physically manifestedin the form of the virus. Now we have to see how we are all going to get through this intact.

America issick society. The sickness is so omnipresentthat too many people have become used to it as being "normal."Your description of the coronavirus as being both physical and metaphysical is such a perfect encapsulation of the Age of Trump.

I'm really beginning to come to that conclusion. It feels like in a weird way that we must get through the coronavirus in order to get past it and what it represents. It is all like the fever breaking and you go through the sweats and the shakes and the bones hurting and all that comes with getting through the illness.

And there is of course the surreal aspect of it all, with Trump's religious leaders telling people to lick the floors of churches to prove that the virus does not exist, or still telling the congregation to come to church and then they inevitably get sick from the coronavirus. Trump leads a cult. It is all a manifestation of how sick American society really is.

The first thing I do in the mornings is I usually look at five or six newspapers online. For the last few days, I almost haven't wanted to. I almost have to force myself to follow my routine. Each day's headlines are always worse than yesterday's. And then we read this ridiculous stuff about peoplelicking the floors of churches and other madness, and then one has to ask themselves, "Is this who we are as a people? As Americans? What is going on?"

In terms of a narrative and the traditional Western storytelling form, there is no climax with the Age of Trump. There is no end, just one horrible thing after another without pause. One must wonder what that lack of closure is doing to the emotional and intellectual lives of the American people.

In my trilogy about America's drug wars I intentionally abandoned the three-act structure in exchange for a five-act structure, which is the classic structure of tragedy. That is what this moment feels like to me. It is a tragedy.

A person cannot continue to support Donald Trump and still be an introspective and decent human being. To support Donald Trump is to abandon being a human being who actually thinks deeply about right and wrong. To support Donald Trump is to be a party to and support all the horrible and cruel things he does.

I don't want to just recite the whole "Greatest Generation" trope about World War II but I live in a very rural area, and it's mostly Republicans. I'm the Democrat who gets sent out to talk to my Republican neighbors when a school bond issue or some related matter comes up.

For some reason they like me. I can tell them, "Hey, we need to get these school bonds funded." They respect me, and we can work together. I have never had an issue with the 70- and 80-year-olds. They are rock-ribbed, conservative ranchers who wear cowboy hats and boots. They get it. If I go to them and I say, "Hey, we need this.I need you to vote this way because the kids need this for their educations," then they are on board. It is the 50- and 60-year-olds who are not supportive. Their response is, "Yeah, if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for them." I tell them, "That's funny because your own dad doesn't think so."

Would you even be able to properly write Donald Trump as a character in one of your books?

I don't think so. But he appears in another form in a book of mine called "The Border."But really it is impossible to write a parody of a parody. It just can't be done. Here's this guy Donald Trump in the midst of this coronavirus crisis with people dying, worried, and scared. What does Trump talk about? How it cost him billions of dollars to become president. What? Gilbert and Sullivan couldn't write lyrics for this guy. So no, I'll take a pass on it. Thank you.

We fiction writers are all struggling right now about how to write anything about and in this era. Our stories for the most part are set right now. We have to describe this moment in this era somehow. It is very difficult to do. As a writer it is easy to find yourself wandering into sarcasm, which means there will be more irony than you might otherwise want.

In America we truly are living a caricature of reality with Trump as president. What type of art do you think this moment is going to produce?

I don't think anyone's going to write anything really good about it this moment for another 10 years. We need perspective on it. I don't think that there's much in terms of novels anyway or films that are going to be done because it is so very immediate. Everything that is happening is simply too close. We also don't know the truth and all the facts about what Donald Trump has done. That reflects a broader problem with contemporary culture:with the 24/7 news cycle everything is so fast. The first story is usually wrong. To fully grapple with Donald Trump and that has happened and is happening needs time. We will also need more time before anything approaching art is made in response to Trump and this moment.

What is the obligation of the artist in a time of crisis?

I do not think that there's a responsibility to speak out. Let me just stick with my own genre. I think it's perfectly okay to write what is just a good suspense novel that entertains people and maybe to a certain extent informs the reader. That is perfectly appropriate. I kind of got into speaking about politics simply because of what I was writing about. I never intended to be a political person and I never intended to be terribly outspoken. Frankly, it goes against my personality. My inclinations tend towards being an introvert.

But in the 22 years of doing my drug trilogy, I felt that if I didn't speak out then I was almost being some type of voyeur on the genuine suffering of the people being hurt by the drug wars.

If I knew, which I do, that the war on drugs is both futile and counterproductive and wrong, then at a certain point it was incumbent on me to step outside of the novel and say it. If I knew that Trump's wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was a cruel travesty in terms of solving the heroin epidemic, the opioid crisis, then at some point I needed to step outside of saying it in a novel and say it in public. That was necessary for me to do but I don't think it is necessarily a responsibility that every artist has.

I was thinking about the border wall and how Trump and Stephen Miller and other people who share their values talk about nonwhite migrants, refugees, and immigrants. Driven by bigotry and racism, itis very easy for some people to disparage and hate people that they never met and don't know.

It frustrates me terribly when I hear people from the Northeast claim to be experts on the border, and they've maybe come down for an hour or two and gotten the standard tour. I live very close to the border. I know the people who live here. They're my friends. They're my neighbors. They went to school with my kid. We're on committees together. They're, for the most part, really fine people. It infuriates me when I hear Donald Trump call them "rapists" and "murderers" and blame them for bringing diseases into the country, including the coronavirus.

I believe that very few people, regardless of their political persuasion, could physically, in person, see somebody suffering or dying in person and not do something to help them. That's on the micro level. On the macro level though, we talk about "illegal immigrants" and "wetbacks" and use other such language and then it is very easy for people to become indifferent and cruel.

I wrote "The Border" to get beneath the headlines in these discussions about immigration. Let's live with an immigrant, albeit through fiction, for a few hundred pages. Let's not talk about the opioid crisis. Let's live with a young woman who is a heroin addict. Let's live with a cop on that beat. Let's try to see what is happening from that individual level. That makes a huge difference. To be able to do that is one of the great opportunities provided by fiction as a genre because we can create a story in our heads and hearts and then bring the reader close that world and feelings.

There are many ways to create that type of connection with the reader. The technique that I choose is to see life through the eyes of the people in my stories. And that does require a certain amount of empathy. It requires sitting down and talking to people. It really requires sitting down and listening to people which is something by the way that we as writers need to remind ourselves to do.

As human beings we share a common humanity. While fortunately I have not suffered in the way that the people in "The Border" or my other books have suffered because of the war on drugs, we do all have common human experiences. We've all suffered loss,we've all suffered fear, we've all felt hope, we've all felt disappointment, and I think that we can relate on those levels.

One of the throughlines in your books are questions of masculinity and violence, and the relationships that men have with one another as fathers, sons, brothers, and comrades. When I see Donald Trump, I don't see a "bad man" ora real tough guy. I see a man pretending to be tough, a wannabe mafia boss.

All the real tough guys I know are either dead or in jail. Very often these Hollywood wannabe tough guys have made a gangster movie andthey think they are the character in real life. They are not. Donald Trump wants to be a badass and clearly is not. Growing up, my intuition is that Donald Trump didn't have any friends or other people to tell him that, "Hey, you're being a jerk." It appears that Donald Trump did not have anyone to help define him as a person and help him learn boundaries and correct behavior.

Trump's wannabe tough guy swagger and machismo bullying and posturing is part of his appeal. Again, it reveals a sickness in American society. Specifically, a crisis in American masculinity.

Much of this is in fact a crisis in masculinity. Donald Trump represents most of what I don't like about men. Donald Trump represents men at our worst with all that macho posturing and other nonsense.

In the research for your books you have encountered some real bad men, legitimately tough and dangerous people. What were they like?

They are each different. They remind me of the famous Tolstoy observation that, "All happy families are the same, and all unhappy families are different."That is true of the real bad guys.

I have sat across a table from multiple murderers who can be as charming as anyone you've ever had dinner with, and yet you look in their eyes and you definitely see it. Others are just cold businesspeople. To them, violence is unfortunate but necessary. Others are very quiet. Those ones are the really serious guys. Some are sociopaths or psychopaths and others are just muted. What you typically don't see though with these types of real bad men is the macho posturing because they have no need to do it.

As the clich goes, is all writing therapeutic?

No. Not for me. That's not the deal that I have with the reader. The reader doesn't care and shouldn't care about Don Winslow's feelings. The purpose of my books is not for me to bare my soul. The purpose of my books is hopefully to tell a really good story in a good way and to maybe give people some information that they didn't have. I also hope that after finishing one of my books that the readers see the world in a different way than they had before.

How did writing become your vocation?

I've always wanted to be a writer. I felt that ways since I was a little kid. I grew up around great storytellers. My dad was a sailor and one of the great raconteurs of all time. He and his buddies had seen the world and could tell such amazing stories.

I used to sit, literally, at their feet hiding under the table. They'd pretend not to know I was there while they're drinking beer and telling great old stories. And the stories got better every year. My mom was a librarian, so I grew up around books. My dad was a tremendous reader, so I always thought thatI wanted to read and write for a living. But at some point, we often experience a crisis of confidence. I remember thinking to myself, that "No.I am not good enough to write for a living. I don't have the talent to do that." I needed to make a living, so I did that by trying to do things that were more interesting as opposed to less interesting and I was lucky enough to get some of those gigs.

I remember this vividly. I was in Africa on a safari photographic safaris to be clear sick with dysentery and a malaria relapse and thinking to myself, "You better do this thing,man.You better just stop thinking about it, stop talking about it and really do it."And I'd heard Joseph Wambaugh say that when he was a Los Angeles homicide cop which he was for many years he really wanted to be a writer. So, he decided to write 10 pages a day. I said to myself, "Well, I can't write 10 but I can do five." I did it every day for the next three years until I had my first book. All the other things I did for money were just ways of evading what I really wanted to do which is to be a professional writer.

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Author Don Winslow: Trump's administration feels like it's "manifested itself" as the coronavirus - Salon

By Omar Jimenez, CNN

(CNN) -- Chicago's Cook County Jail once had a population of roughly 10,000 detainees and was often cited for overcrowding.

Now that number is down to around 4,200, an all-time low, according to the Cook County Sheriff's Office. One significant reason is the ongoing

Years of reform, including changes in bail requirements, cut the jail's initial population swell almost entirely in half.

Then, in the past month alone, another 1,300 inmates have been released as the offices of the Cook County Sheriff, Public Defender and State's Attorney focused on releasing those awaiting trial and low-level nonviolent offenders.

"On cases we agree on, we've gone into court together and asked for a release. On cases where we disagree, we go before a judge and present our evidence for the courts," said Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx. "We've been able to reduce the jail population in the course of four weeks by almost 25 percent."

It's among the many tactics the largest single-site jail in the US has been pushed to explore as population control became increasingly significant amid the ongoing pandemic.

"We want to make sure that we're creating conditions whereby people who don't need to be there aren't there and the people who are there have optimal conditions for their health and safety," Foxx said.

The coronavirus pandemic has been hard on jails around the country but especially so on Cook County's. Their confirmed coronavirus cases grew from just a few in late March to a number in the hundreds by the beginning of April. At one point it was the largest known source for coronavirus infections in the country.

In a statement, Cook County Health wrote to CNN, "Controlling the spread in a jail or other residential facility poses unique challenges."

The statement continued, "Many of our patients arrive at the jail with pre-existing conditions. Many have multiple conditions. And many of them are over the age of 60."

While more than 150 detainees are recovering after previous positive diagnoses, at least three detainees have died after testing positive for Covid-19. The pandemic has meant re-evaluating health practices as part of a process the Sheriff's Office said began back in January.

"Hundreds of gallons of bleach and disinfectant is distributed throughout the jail weekly as well as masks and other protective gear," wrote the Cook County Sheriff's Office to CNN in a statement. "We've proactively single celled the majority of the jail population and maximized social distancing to the extent it is possible in a correctional facility, including preparing and opening previously closed detention areas."

A recent federal court order also required the Sheriff's Office to provide masks to all detainees who were quarantined, starting on April 12.

"Now for the people who are not infected, how do we make sure that we keep maintaining that?" asked Sheriff Tom Dart in a previous interview with CNN. "Boy that's tricky."

Among their solutions, creating a quarantine bootcamp at a separate site where those that are infected, or suspected to be, are taken to stay separately from the jail's general population.

Cook County's jail population is nearly 75% black and more than 60% of all coronavirus deaths in Chicago are black, despite blacks making up just about 30% of the population.

The outbreak at the jail adds to an alarmingly fast-growing reality.

"These are the exact same populations that have been hardest hit by gun violence and hardest hit by the war on drugs and make up the overwhelming population of the people who utilize our criminal justice system," said Foxx.

"The things that we're seeing show up in the healthcare crisis that we're seeing are the exact same conditions."

It's part of why Chicago's Department of Public Health put in place an order to enhance the data sharing between hospitals in the city to include demographics, in an attempt to better understand the true scope of the pandemic's ongoing devastation.

"We can't separate the criminal justice system from the issues that lead people to become involved whether that's healthcare disparities, education disparities, poverty [or] economic disinvestment," said Foxx.

The-CNN-Wire & 2020 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Chicago's biggest jail released a fourth of its population over coronavirus fears - ABC 57 News

Ballyard shenanigans, eccentric visionaries and dark doings in the world of oenophiles and ticklers are among the subjects of these wildly entertaining documentaries.

Screwball (2018)

Its a sign of how little respect the director Billy Corben has for the men involved in a Major League Baseball doping scandal that the re-enactments in Screwball are performed entirely by children. Wearing wigs, crudely pasted facial hair, spray tans and bulging fake muscles when necessary, the kids lip-sync testimony from various South Floridians involved in the Biogenesis scandal, which ensnared several MLB stars in 2013, including Alex Rodriguez. The gambit isnt entirely necessary, if only because a story this stupefying doesnt need artificial enhancement. But when one witness talks about Rodriguez pulling silly faces to throw him off at a deposition, Corben finds some justification for his schoolyard conceit.

Stream it on Netflix.

Shirkers (2018)

There was no independent film scene in Singapore when Sandi Tan was a culture-crazy teenager there in the early 90s, so she and her best friend, along with a mysterious mentor twice their ages, decided to created one themselves. Tan set out to make her own answer to Jean-Luc Godards Breathless, a personal and playfully experimental road movie set on an island nation it takes only 40 minutes to drive across. But then that older mentor, a blue-eyed American film director named Georges Cordona, absconded with 70 16-millimeter film canisters, dashing Tans moviemaking dreams. Finally having recovered the footage after Cordonas death, Tan assembled it into Shirkers, an inspired and delirious memoir about her youth and the film that might have sparked a career.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014)

After a ball to the head ended Bing Russells minor league career, he set aside his baseball dreams for a career in Hollywood, where he had a long-running role on Bonanza and took bullets dozens of times in various film and TV westerns. His son Kurt would become a much more famous actor, but the elder Russell returned to the game in 1973 by founding the Class-A Portland Mavericks, the only minor league team not affiliated with a professional franchise. With an outlaw spirit and a keen eye for talent, Russell, as the owner of the team, assembled a rogues gallery of players including Ball Four author Jim Bouton and his success galvanized a city that had previously given up on the game. In celebrating the teams independent spirit, The Battered Bastards of Baseball suggests whats missing from the corporate game.

Stream it on Netflix.

Sour Grapes (2016)

Like Patricia Highsmiths Tom Ripley character come to life, the Indonesian wine collector Rudy Kurniawan took the auction scene by storm with a never-ending cellar of rare and expensive bottles, particularly the coveted Burgundies of eastern France. When Kurniawan was revealed to be a fraudster, his arrest shocked many connoisseurs whod embraced him as a charming raconteur with an unmatched palate for identifying wines. Sour Grapes digs into the mysteries of Kurniawans operation and his profound and lasting impact on elite oenophiles, but it also reserves some appreciation for his artistry. All it takes to be a wine collector is money; to be an impostor on this scale takes a rare talent.

Stream it on Netflix.

Cutie and the Boxer (2013)

The Japanese avant-garde artist Ushio Shinohara arrived in New York in the late 60s with a reputation for Neo-Dadaist paintings and sculptures that reflected an interest in American culture. Though Shinoharas junk art includes a lot of found-object creations, hes perhaps best known for action paintings, in which he covers a pair of boxing gloves in paint and punches away at a large canvas for about two-and-a-half minutes. Cutie and the Boxer puzzles over the visceral, emotional qualities of his work, but its just as invested in the 80-year-olds relationship to his wife Noriko, whose own considerable artistic gifts havent gotten the same attention. Even at a late stage, their marriage shows the complexity of a partnership between people who work in the same field.

Stream it on Netflix.

Framing John DeLorean (2019)

At one point in Framing John DeLorean, the filmmakers pause to note the long list of feature and documentary projects in the works about the auto-industry visionary whose forward-thinking car was immortalized in the 1985 hit Back to the Future. And for good reason. This story has it all: a David-vs.-Goliath battle between car-making giants and a rebel upstart, Ronald Reagan and the War on Drugs, the Troubles in Belfast, and financing bids that included a multimillion dollar cocaine deal and an embezzlement scheme. Actors like Alec Baldwin, Josh Charles and Morena Baccarin appear in re-enactments while offering their own takes on DeLoreans life, but no extra spin on the ball is necessary here.

Cold Case Hammarskjold (2019)

Calling the death of United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and 15 others in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia (now known as Zambia) on Sept. 18, 1961, a cold case doesnt seem sufficient. Its more like a subarctic case, frozen over by the decades since Hammarskjolds death was officially albeit dubiously chalked up to pilot error. What makes Mads Bruggers documentary so entertaining is that its only half-serious, honoring the nobility of Hammarskjolds anti-colonial mission while ruthlessly deconstructing the entire doc-investigation genre. Nothing new can be learned by strapping on pith helmets and poking through the old crash site, but Brugger is intent to follow every conspiratorial tributary as far as it leads him.

Stream it on Hulu.

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary (2019)

A fixture on the late-night talk show circuit and in Las Vegas, where he performed year-round from 2001 to 2014, John Edward Szeles, better known by his stage name The Amazing Johnathan, made a fortune on gross-out illusions that were a combination of stand-up, magic and performance art. Then in 2014, he announced that hed been diagnosed with a heart condition and that he only had a year to live. Ben Bermans documentary is ostensibly an intimate profile about Szeles last hurrah, but when Berman becomes aware that competing documentaries are being made about the same guy, his film becomes a weird, hilarious, multi-tiered magic trick of its own.

Stream it on Hulu.

Three Identical Strangers (2018)

In the early 80s, the tabloids and the daytime talk show circuit went wild over the incredible story of identical triplets Robert Shafran, David Kellman and Eddy Galland, who grew up in different adoptive families and didnt know of each other until two of them met by happenstance at age 19. The trio turned their joyful reunion into a syncopated comedy routine, but the cameras werent around when the truth about why they were separated and its devastating psychological impact on them, then and now eventually upended their relationship. With the thoughtful participation of two of the surviving brothers, Three Identical Strangers re-boards this emotional roller coaster, holding out hope that the frayed bond between siblings is not entirely broken.

Stream it on Hulu.

Tickled (2016)

When David Farrier, a television reporter in New Zealand, stumbled across a series of online videos on competitive endurance tickling, he thought it would be great material for his lighter-side-of-the-news beat. But the more he looked into Jane OBrien Media, the production company behind the tickling events and videos, the more hostile, homophobic and eventually litigious its representatives became toward him. Farrier and Dylan Reeve, co-director of this documentary, kept poking around the scene regardless, leading them to a heavily bankrolled mystery man who has a history of intimidating journalists and others who got too curious. Tickled is exactly the weird and hilarious yarn Farrier set out to make until it suddenly gets unpleasant for him, which seems true to sensation of tickling in general.

Hail Satan? (2019)

Penny Lanes vastly entertaining documentary about the Satanic Temple, who are less interested in devil worship than in achieve social justice by using Satan as a metaphor for free thinking, opens with a demonstration at the Florida State Capitol in 2013. Rick Scott, then the states governor, had recently signed a law permitting students to read inspirational messages at public events. Temple members at the capitol were mockingly praising him for it: Scotts intent was to allow Christian sentiment to break down the constitutional wall between church and state, but in so doing, he also opened the door for Satanists to express their own ideas in the same space. Such is the modus operandi of The Satanic Temple and its fiendishly clever leader, Lucien Greaves. Hail Satan? follows adherents as they troll such religious freedom initiatives across the United States, one Ten Commandments monument or abortion restriction at a time.

Stream it on Hulu.

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11 Stranger-Than-Fiction Documentaries on Netflix and Hulu - The New York Times

How to Fix a Drug Scandal documents the riveting details about how a criminal justice travesty unfolded in Massachusetts, and how important a dogged defense attorney was in righting the wrongs that were done.

Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence inseparate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways.Farak was getting high off the confiscated drugs police sent her way before replacing the evidence with fake drugs. Meanwhile, Dookhan wasnt even testing her drugs at all; she just claimed everything sent her way tested positive so that she could apparently be thought of as a prolific worker.

The two ultimately both went to prison for their tampering.

However, as the docuseries shows, their crimes were not self-contained. The drug testing the techniciansmishandled was used to convict tens of thousands of defendants on drug charges. While state prosecutors attempted to minimize what the two drug technicians did, several lawyers put up a fight for their convicted clients.

Luke Ryan is the main lawyer featured in the docuseries.He representedRolando Penate and Rafael Rodriguez, both who were sent to prison because of drug lab certificates that Farak signed. Ryan didnt think their drug convictions were fair nor the thousands of other convictionsbased on drug certificates from the two technicians and fought against the state of Massachusetts.

I really wanted this piece to show how important attorneys are, Erin Lee Carr, the filmmaker behind the docuseries, told Oxygen.com. Lawyers are incredibly crucial in maintaining any sort of levity inside the criminal justice system.

Justice runs in Ryans blood. He grew up in Massachusetts as thegrandson of a judge and also the son of a judge.

I think the air I breathed growing up, particularly due to my father, was kind of filled with this kind of sense of certain rights and wrongs, he told Oxgyen.com, adding that his father impressed upon him that the state can yield a lot of power against an individual.

Whenever I see a complaint and it says United States or Massachusetts versus, it feels like a miscommunication, like youre no longer a part of us, he said. I feel like my job is to bring them back into the community somehow and anytime anyone is accused of a crime theres a dark cloud gathers above them and itjust is there until the case is over.

Ryan didnt start off as a lawyer. Instead, he spent much of his younger years living the same lifestyle as many of his clients.

I took very few sober breaths in college, he told Rolling Stone in 2018. My best friend killed himself when I was 16. From that point on, I didnt have a drugs-and-alcohol problem as much as a drugs-and-alcohol solution.

By age 26, he cleaned up his act and got involved with a church-ministry group that was woke to racial justice. Through the group, he realized that white privilege kept him from becoming a convict a sentiment he still feels, he toldRolling Stone,

I'd like to say there but for the grace of God, go I' but Ithink it's morethere but for the grace of privileges I received due to my race and socioeconomic status, go I, he said. I was permitted to have this kind of sowing of wild oats stage in life that so many of my clients are not given so I think, in addition to having empathy, theres a debt that I feel.

I have an opportunity to live a certain kind of life and if I dont use it to advocate on behalf of people who are doing things similar to what Idid, that would be a misuse of a life experience, he said.

He enrolled in Western New England Law at age 30, and after graduating magna cum laude began working for a small firm where he could work for the underprivileged. His work led to him being named Lawyer of the Year by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in 2017.

As the docuseries showed, Ryanwas not satisfied with the attorney general offices claimthat Farak only began using drugs six months before her 2013 arrest. He began digging around and made requests to the Massachusetts Attorney Generals office for more documents, which were initially blocked. He learned later that some in the officethought of him as a pest. When he finally got his hands on the documents, they described him as a nuisance who they should avoid giving evidence to.

Eventually, his relentless digging paid off. He discovered that Faraks drug use went as far back as 2005 and that the attorney generals office allegedly tried to bury that by withholding evidence.

He claimed that the offices former attorneys Kris Foster and Anne Kaczmarek engaged in prosecutorial misconduct and he took them to court. A Supreme Judicial Court decided in 2017 that both Foster and Kaczmarek committed "fraud upon the court, the Boston Herald reported at the time.

As a result of that finding, in 2017 more than20,000 of the convictions that were worked on by Dookhan were dismissed. In 2018, all of Fayaks cases were also dismissed including the convictions of Ryan's clients. In all, about 35,000 criminal convictions were thrown out. It became the largest dismissal in American history.

While Ryan was not the only person that helped the dismissal happen, Carr told Oxygen.com that she doesnt think it would have happened as fast as it did without his fighting.

I think it would have maybe eventually gotten there with the ACLU, she said. I just dont know if the Farak dismissals would have happened as well.

Ryan said he understands that a docuseries cannot include everything but told Oxygen.com he found it important to note that defense attorney Rebecca Jacobstein, who was included briefly in the docuseries, played a pivotal role in the dismissals.

Ryan called her an unsung hero who really framed what happened as a fraud on the court.

As the docuseries noted at its conclusion, he has filed a civil suit seeking damages for the wrongful conviction of Penate. He told Oxygen.com that while he filed the suit in 2017, it is still in the discovery phase.

Its been a slog, he said.

He said he continues to defend other clients as well.

As for the docuseries he said, I think it started a lot of important conversations about things that I care very deeply about so thats extremely gratifying and Ithink it was an extremely well made film. I hope it leads to some systemic change.

Ryan has no pending criminal cases with the attorney generals office and hasn't had to work with them since, he said.Rather than other prosecutors regarding him as a pest going forward, he said he hopes his work has served as a cautionary tale for prosecutors.

My hope is that people begin to see that there is real danger for withholding evidence, he told Oxygen.com.

Furthermore, Ryan said he hopes that the docuseries and other conversations will lead to the end of Americas war on drugs.

When we come out on the other side of this [coronavirus]pandemic, we are going to have to make some choices about how we dig ourselves out of this hole," he said. "This war on drugs is a luxury we are no longer going to be able to afford due to the incredible economic resources devoted to it and the human cost as well."

Read the original here:

Who Is Luke Ryan, The Persistent Defense Attorney In 'How To Fix A Drug Scandal'? - Oxygen

Police Chief of Sistan and Balouchestan province Brigadier General Mohammad Ghanbari said on Saturday that 2,390 kilograms of different drugs were seized when the police force busted a gang attempting to smuggle the drugs into the country through Saravan borders.

The smuggled cargo was carried by two cars commuting in Saravan-Khash road, he added.

1,927 kg of opium, 436 kg of hashish, and 53 kg of other types of drugs have been seized during the operation, in addition to confiscation of some amount of ammunition, he said.

According to the police chief, the smugglers fled to the highlands of the area using the darkness of the night.

Based on the United Nations reports, Afghanistan ranks first as the producer of opium and heroin in the world. Iran, being Afghanistan's neighbor, has always been the main route for smuggling narcotics to the Western world.

The Islamic Republic has been actively fighting drug-trafficking over the past three decades, despite its high economic and human costs. The war on drug trade originating from Afghanistan has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 Iranian police officers over the past four decades. The country has spent more than hundreds of millions of dollars on sealing its borders and preventing the transit of narcotics destined for European, Arab and Central Asian countries.

MNA/IRN 83754969

The rest is here:

Over 2 tons of drugs confiscated in SE Iran - Mehr News Agency - English Version

The Philippine governments response was remarkable when reports circulated online that the Health Department had instructed a Manila hospital to stop counting Covid-19 deaths. As quick as lightning, it immediately announced that all hospitals and health centers are mandated to report on consultations and/or admissions of all Covid-related cases. Health reports are made on national television every day and include the number of Covid patients, recoveries and deaths caused by the virus. These reports have become important to the public. Everyone has become interested in the story behind the numbers. Who died? Where did the patient contract the virus? Who recovered? With 335 deaths so far, Filipinos have treated the coronavirus as the angel or bringer of death. In one day, I heard the expression death is just around the corner more than10 times. While it is understandable to arm oneself with facts during this pandemic, one must not forget the number of deaths in President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs. According to a Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency report, 4,948 suspected drug users and dealers died in police operations from July 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2018. The number does not include killings caused by unidentified gunmen. Before Covid-19 menaced the Philippines, figures were up by 10 percent in January 2020, according to the same report. Moreover, the Philippine National Police reported in 2019 that there had been 22,983 drug-related deaths since the war on drugs began. More than 90 percent of these deaths remain unresolved. There are complainants but no suspects have been arrested. The figures are jaw-dropping. Offhand, the 335 deaths caused by Covid-19 are no matchfor the drug wars casualty figures. Facts show that nature is not the primary killer of mankind. Man still poses a greater threat to his own kind than a virus. But what is interesting is that society seems to care more about Covid-19 deaths than extrajudicial killings. Is this because only the poor are being shot in cold blood while the rich are spared? Both the government and the public are now very keen on data gathering and reporting. But the same level of diligence with regard to reporting the exact number of deaths in the administrations drug war is lacking. There are certainly no televised reports and daily counting of whohas been killed in the drug war. There are also no public announcements nor a national clamor to investigate the killings. Perhaps nobody cares anymore. Or perhaps society has chosen not to care. Philippine society has become callous to reports about extrajudicial killings. The killings have become ordinary news, so ordinary newspapers do not print them on the front page anymore. What is worse is the bias the majority have developed. Many had jumped to conclude that the victims were killed because they were addicts and drug pushers. Death has become the very proof and indication of guiltin an alleged crime rather than evidence. The present pandemic brings out the best and the worst in humanity. While it may teach society to fight for survival, it can also cause societal amnesia. Yes, Philippine society is suffering from a societal amnesia the inability or intentional refusal to confront a dark past that needs resolution in the present. We, as a nation, have simply brushed the killings aside by pretending they have never existed. We have created what Philippine sociologist Randy David described as necessary fiction. David believed that it is possible for a people or individuals to remember something even if they have not experienced it. Or, alternatively, individuals can develop amnesia or experience psychological disorientation due to severe injury, David wrote in one of his columns. Has the war on drugs become a massacre too much for Philippine society to endure that it chooses to forget rather than to confront it? The coronavirus is indeed the great equalizer. But sadly, the governments war on drugs is not an equalizer at all. It chooses. It discriminates the rich from the poor. It knows borders. Thousands living below the poverty line have been killed. And the killings happen in dilapidated shanties, not in exclusive and rich villages or subdivisions. Thus, either in a pandemic like Covid-19 or in Dutertes drug war, the poor are always on the losing side. Joseph Peter Calleja is a lawyer and editor of Bayard Philippines. He is also a member of the Lay-Religious Alliance of the Assumptionists. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCANews.

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The poor always on the losing side - UCAN

Theres no right way to quarantine. Some of you are spending your time looking at online museum tours while others are making it their life mission to make Carole Baskin killed her husband the new Epstein didnt kill himself.

We feel morally compelled to remind you, however, that our music scene is particularly hurting, so now would be a good time to pursue your dreams of learning to shred on guitar or to play bongos naked however you want to impress your friends.

There's never been a better time for you to take up the lessons you've been meaning to sign up for the last two decades;you dont have to clean your house or go anywhere,you have plenty of time to practice, and you have an opportunity to emerge from this dark period as an artist.

Some of Dallas greatest musicians are available. Most instruments can be ordered online, and once the world resumes, you can continue doing these classes on Skype or FaceTime, or at home, as some of the teachers travel to you. Here are our recommended classes.

Chelsey Danielle of Pearl Earl and Helium Queens teaches piano, percussion, drums, vocals and percussion. Contact: Chelseydaniellemusic@gmail.com.

Jeff Ryan, whos played with St. Vincent, Sarah Jaffe and The War on Drugs, teaches drums. Contact: Jeffryanmusic.com

Katie Parr, whos given vocal lessons to Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato in her 20 years as a teacher, is offering free online classes. Contact: Katieparrmusicacademy@gmail.com.

Sarah Ruth Alexander, whos been teaching voice and beginning and intermediate piano for 16 years, is known for her improvisational performances with acts like Yells at Eels. Contact: Sarahruthalexander.com.

Terence Bradford from the Free Loaders and the Congo Square, teaches trumpet. Contact: Tbradfordjazz@gmail.com

Savannah Low, who was nominated for a Dallas Observer Music Award for Best Pop Act in 2019, teaches voice, songwriting and artist branding. Contact: Savannahlowmusic@gmail.com.

Kenneth Everett Pritchard, whos been nominated for half a dozen DOMAs between his two bands, Dead Mockingbirds and Frances Heidy, owns the Pritchard School of Music, which offers classes in drums, bass, guitar, voice and others. Contact: Pritchardschoolofmusic.com.

Another DOMA nominee, Emsy Robinson, is teaching beginner guitar, bass and piano. Contact: Emsyrobinsonjr@gmail.com.

2019 DOMA nominee for best female singer, Kierra Gray, is teaching vocal performance, beginner piano, beginner guitar and lyrical composition. Contact: Kierratheking@gmail.com.

Patrick Smith whos in Nick Snyder and the Real Deal and Holy Roller Baby, teaches guitar, bass, banjo, ukulele, drums and piano. Contact: psmithmusic1@gmail.com.

Stephen Goodson, who plays guitar for BJ Stricker and the Kings and Ruff Wizard, teaches intermediate and advanced guitar and music theory. Contact: sgood83@yahoo.com. stephen-goodson.com.

Brianne Sargent from Skinny Cooks teaches cello and music theory. Contact: Briannesargent.com.

Ava Boehme from Starfruit teaches drums, piano, guitar and general composition. Contact: Avaw418@gmail.com.

Brigitte Mena Southern Methodist University graduate, teaches voice, piano, guitar and ukulele. Contact: Brigittemenamusic@gmail.com.

Robert Trusko, 2019 DOMA winner for Best Bassist, teaches bass and Ableton Live. Contact: Truskomusic.com.

Benjamin Holt from Song Dynasty is offering music appreciation and guitar classes through the Tarrant County College. Contact: Benholtjazz@gmail.com.

Aaron "AC" Capers, who plays in Loyal Sally and The Effinays, DOMA nominee for Best Drummer in 2019, gives drum lessons. Contact: aaroncapers@dynamicrhythm.net.

Jason Elmore, a multiple DOMA nominee as Best Blues Act, is teaching all levels and all styles of guitar. Contact: Jasonelmore.net.

Matt Tedder, from 2019 Best Blues act DOMA winner Polydogs and The Voice, teaches guitar. Contact: Mattteddergigs@gmail.com.

DOMA winner for Best Pianist/Keyboardist Poppy Xander from Helium Queens has been teaching for almost 20 years. Xander specializes in all ages and levels inpiano, song writing, composition, and voice lessons. Contact: poppyxander@gmail.com.

Jess Garland, who's played with Francine Thirteenand is currently in the Sunshine Village Band has been teaching for 13 years.Garland is available for guitar and harp lessons. Contact: Jessstrings.com.

Indie rocker Mark Cuthbertson has been teaching guitar for a decade. Contact: Mark@fantasticboom.com.

Eva Raggio is the Dallas Observer's music and arts editor, a job she took after several years of writing about local culture and music for the paper. Eva supports the arts by rarely asking to be put on "the list" and always replies to emails, unless the word "pimp" makes up part of the artist's name.

Original post:

There's No Better Time to Start Taking Music Lessons from Dallas' Best Musicians - Dallas Observer

I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on whether early proactive measures could have reduced COVID-19 fatalities

The idea you could go 12 tweets on why Black folks & other POC suffer higher rates of #COVID19 & never use the word racism is malpractice.

W. Kamau Bell on tweets by Surgeon General Jerome Adams

Once again America is at war. In COVID-19, it has found a new enemy against which to marshal its not so vast resources. America needs its enemies, manufacturing them at will, just as it manufactures consent to combat them. But like most of Americas perpetual wars, the war on COVID-19 is actually a war of attrition on America itself, or more precisely on its communities of color.

War is a protracted affair that produces collateral damage. We are witnessing some of that damaging legacy today. Americas war on COVID-19 is fought on multiple fronts, for it is also a war on truth launched by a bone spurs wartime president who, flanked by an army of loyal Republican enablers and Fox News propagandists, has launched preemptive strikes against Asians, Asian Americans, and immigrants, targeting them for racist, xenophobic rage, while downplaying his own racist rhetoric and the deadly virulence of the viral enemy in our midst.

Of course, racism and xenophobia pre-date the coronavirus. Like Trump himself, the coronavirus has simply made explicit the implicit biases and blatant racism that have infected life in America since its inception. Today, in the pestilent shadow of COVID-19, Asian Americans, whom America has historically regarded as, to borrow sociologist Mia Tuans term, forever foreigners, are verbally vilified, spat on, and physically assaulted. The damned-if-you-do-damned if you dont implacability of racist (il)logic render escape from its cycle of hate impossible no matter what they do.

For Asian Americans, this means, says San Francisco State Universitys Russell Jeung, If youre wearing a mask, youre seen as a disease carrier. If youre not wearing a mask, youre seen as a disease carrier but negligent.

For African Americans, it means that donning a surgical mask carries its own unique risks.

Damon Young, the author of What Doesnt Kill You Makes You Blacker, writes,

Pre-rona, if Id decided to wear a bandanna and a ski mask on a trip to Giant Eagle,the police, the National Guard, at least three of the Avengers and a Wyatt Earp hologram might have been summoned to contain and neutralize me. But now, Im a menace to society if Imnotmasked up? As absurd as America can be, its just too much, man. Be consistent.

In fact, Americas racial extremism is consistent, and absurdly so. It is, quite literally, an extremism that recognizes people of color only when it places them at both extremes of dehumanizing stereotypes: Blacks are harmless buffoons and menacing brutes. If they fail it is because they are lazy; if they succeed it is because they are affirmative action hires. In the Disunited States of COVID America, if they dont don masks, they are irresponsible super spreaders; if they do, they are criminal thugs, virulent Trayvon Martins who have traded in their hoodies for surgical gauze and whose presence in white spaces is perceived as an existential threat to white property and white lives.

On March 18th, two black men wearing surgical masks were escorted out of an Illinois Walmart by a police officer who followed them a few steps behind (was he practicing social distancing?), hand on taser. To the ever-expanding list of black criminal offenses Driving While Black, Walking While Black, Eating While Black, Napping While Black, and Breathing While Black we can add another: Trying to Survive COVID-19 While Black, perhaps the greatest offense of them all, living proof that the title of Youngs book is remarkably on point and that the last thing white American can abide is a blacker America. But really, did anyone actually expect black lives to matter in pandemic-ravaged America when they never have?

For some, COVID-19 is a Social Darwinists wet dream. What better way to get rid of unwanted marginal populations. Death panels by triage. This is what our laissez-faire health care system has been doing all along, though less dramatically and with less potential spillover into elite communities. After all, this is a nation where prior to the pandemic 27.5 million Americans were without health insurance, a number that will grow as more Americans lose their jobs during lockdown. Meanwhile, Trump fecklessly equivocates over the danger of the outbreak, while his 2021 budget proposes massive cuts to social programs, suggesting that our warrior president prefers to wage war on Medicaid, welfare, food stamps, and other safety net programs.

Social Darwinists are not the only ones getting their rocks off, however. According to the Anti-Defamation League, white supremist groups are blaming the coronavirus on Jews, Asians, and immigrants and urging their members to attack minority and immigrant communities. The Department of Homeland Security reports that some groups have even encouraged their infected soldiers, armed with saliva-filled spray bottles and other IEDs (Improvised Expectoration Devices), the new weapons of choice among white nationalist terrorists, to intentionally spread the coronavirus.

It seems, however, that white supremacists have sorely underestimated the extent to which our nations systemic racism makes their own genocidal plotting appear amateurish in comparison. It is now widely reported that blacks are disproportionately affected by the virus. As of April 3rd, in Chicago, where blacks constitute 30% of the population, they represent 70% of COVID-19 deaths; in Michigan, with a black population of 15%, they account for 35% of cases and 40% of deaths; in Milwaukee County, where blacks are 26% of the population and make up half of COVID-19 cases, they account for 81% of deaths.

Still, prior to these reports, it didnt take a rocket scientist or a stable genius to figure out that Americas most vulnerable and marginal communities would be disproportionally affected by the coronavirus and that resources should be proactively directed toward averting a health crisis. After all, this is a disease whose risks increase among those with preexisting chronic health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and obesity, conditions that disproportionately affect black people and that are further exacerbated by a lack of adequate access to health insurance and a health care system whose providers suffer from the same implicit racial bias as the society at large. Nor does it help that black people are more likely to use public transportation and live in multigenerational households, socio-economic factors which make avoidance of the virus difficult.

Yet even now only a few states track coronavirus cases and deaths by race. Instead, frontline warriors like Surgeon General Jerome Adams blame the victim. While being crystal clear in assuring people of color that they are not biologically or genetically predisposed to get COVID-19 and that there is nothing inherent wrong with you, Adams singles out blacks and Latinos, cautioning them to avoid alcohol tobacco and drugs. In contrast, when he alludes without specificity to the burden of social ills that put them at risk, he is tellingly opaque and apparently indifferent to admonishing whites to avoid the same trio of risky substances, the last including opioids, the source of another racially disparate epidemic, but one that disproportionately affects whites.

Some white Americans, like recent Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh, have dismissed these reports, dismissing them as racial Uno. For them, COVID-19 is an equal opportunity scourge, a shared enemy like Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, ISIS, and Fake News, something all Americans can rally against, presumably as they rally round the president. But, to paraphrase Animal Farm, We are all in this together, but some of us are more in it than others. And that is a social fact, quite frankly, that will continue to set us apart.

Read more:

Collateral Damage and the War on COVID-19 - CounterPunch

Politics. Marijuana. Science. COVID-19.

Lets start with the first. Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race. Though he plans to remain on the ballots of the remaining primary states, hes effectively suspended his campaign.

Joe Biden, in response, promptly extended an impassioned 800-word olive branch to Senator Sanders and his supporters, recognizing both for shaping important political dialogue. Issues which had been given little attention or little hope of ever passing are now at the center of the political debate, Biden wrote. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to.

Biden took it one step further and committing to include Bernie and his ideals as part of his administration stating, Ill be reaching out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

At the same time, legions of devout Bernie supporters dubbed Bernie Bros remain doubtful any radical platform adoption will take form. All this has set the stage for what could be a powerfully unifying shift were Biden to reconsider his current stance on federal marijuana legalization, which remains an illicit drug at the federal level despite being medically legalized by 33 states, of which 11 also allowing for adult-use consumption.

Senator Bernie Sanders has pledged to use his power as president to legalize cannabis via executive order within his first 100 days on the job, should he be elected. His plan was unveiled at 4:20 PM EST last October, and includes plans to vacate and expunge all past marijuana-related convictions in his platform proposal by creating an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in the White House.

A big part of his marijuana plan includes reinvestment it into the marginalized, largely minority, communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, provisioning that "federal funding will be provided to states and cities to partner with organizations that can help develop and operate the expungement determination process."

Sanders plan would allot $50 billion in tax revenue generated from the sale of legal marijuana and for these equalizing and reparation measures, $20 billion of which would be used to "provide grants to entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital." Three additional $10 billion sums would be apportioned to funds or grants that aid businesses or communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.

Keeping Big Pharma and Big Tobacco from dominating a newly opened marijuana market is another essential part of Bernies federal legal marijuana approach. Companies who have formerly created cancer-causing products or have been found guilty of deceptive marketing would be banned from the industry, as would tobacco and cigarette.

To prevent marijuana market oligopolies taking form as they have in some already legal states (most notably Florida and California), market share and franchise caps will be put in place to prevent profiteering and consolidation under the Senators plan. [A]s we move toward the legalization of marijuana, I dont want large corporations profiting, he said in an interview on Showtimes Desus & Mero.

Last November, the former vice president replied to a town hall question that although he supports allowing states to determine their own marijuana policies, he is unconvinced on the science recognizing the plants relationship to other drugs. "The truth of the matter is, there has not been nearly enough evidence acquired as to whether or not it's a gateway drug," he declared.

Though Biden opposes legalization on the federal level, he has declared that anyone incarcerated for marijuana should be released and have their criminal records expunged of any marijuana charges. Biden also supports removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I drugs where it sits out-of-place alongside a motley of drugs deemed to have zero medicinal value. He proposes moving it to the Schedule II category, making the plant more easily accessible to research.

See Also: Will COVID-19 Cause The US Government To Finally Treat Cannabis As A Medicine?

While thats not nearly full federal legalization, it would be significantly more progressive than the decades-old laws marijuana finds itself trapped by today. It also illustrates some semblance of reason; no one truly believes marijuana belongs in the same drug classification as heroin, and Biden would be the first president to acknowledge and enable the medicinal value of marijuana.

But he can go a step further, and more modern, well-studied marijuana advocates can lead him there. Research already exists that correlations between marijuana and other drug use have been weakened by studies that show quite the opposite. Cannabis access has been found to be associated with reduced rates of opioid use and abuse, opioid-related hospitalizations, opioid-related traffic fatalities, opioid-related drug treatment admissions, and opioid-related overdose deaths.

A 2020 study by the Journal of Palliative Medicine found that the addition of medical marijuana to cancer patients' palliative (pain reductive) care regimen withstood the development of tolerance and reduced the rate of opioid use, over a significantly longer follow-up period than patients solely utilizing opioids. Another 2020 study found a significant reduction in opioid consumption for pain following traumatic injury when supplemented with oral synthetic THC, while opioid consumption was unchanged for controls.

Gateway Drug, it can be reliably argued, is more dated political rallying cry than modern thoughtful analysis. The marijuana research is there, Joe Biden just needs credible exposure to it.

We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said of marijuana in a globally-broadcast confession nearly seven years ago. It was a 180-degree about-face from the op-ed he wrote for Time Magazine in 2009 entitled Why I Would Vote No On Pot.

For the first time, Dr. Gupta had been exposed to the medicinal properties of cannabis, and in what would become a timeless story with rippling effects, it was a little girl who got him there.

Charlotte Figi became the nations arguably greatest exposure to the benefits of CBD oil after using it to control the constant seizures experienced from her severe Dravet syndrome at age 5. The Colorado girl experienced up to 300 grand mal seizures per week and used a wheelchair, before using CBD drastically reduced her rate of seizures.

Dr. Guptas interviews with Charlottes family, cannabis researchers, and caretakers led him on an unchartered journey to more closely examine the possibilities of cannabis as a medicine. His findings were brought to a national and global audience in a way no other medical marijuana cases had been before, igniting a momentous push toward medical marijuana reform.

On March 26, 2020, her mother, Paige Figi, wrote on Facebook that all five family members were sick with "fevers, pains, coughs" and were "struggling to breathe," before taking Charlotte to the hospital. A COVID-19 test came back negative and Charlotte was discharged from the hospital after a few days.

Two days later, she suffered another seizure, resulting in respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. On April 7, 2020, Charlotte passed at age 13.

Her death was first announced by the group co-founded by her mother through the Realm of Caring Foundation, an organization she chartered to empowering individuals, medical professionals, and the community through research-based education on hemp, CBD, medical marijuana, and THC.

"Charlotte is no longer suffering. She is seizure-free forever, Paige Figi wrote on her Facebook page. Thank you so much for all of your love."

Charlottes story brings it all together: the imperative for scientific thought and consideration in political policy for both marijuana and COVID-19. The countrys partisan split regarding the relevance and dependence on science to make informed, data-driven health and wellness political decisions will play a key factor in Novembers presidential election.

Charlotte Figi exemplifies the importance of foundationally sound policymaking. By immersing himself more deeply into marijuana research, Biden can firmly demonstrate his commitment to leading a science-first presidency one very different than what exists today.

This is Dr. Sanjay Guptas tribute to the life of Charlotte Figi:

Weve already seen Joe Biden shift to the left before. Earlier this year he pivoted to include the Sanders-championed proposal of free college and university education in his platform, announcing a policy to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000.

See Also: Nothing Silly About Psilly From Mushrooms And Its Medicinal Properties

On April 9, 2020, the former vice president proposed lowering the age eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 60 and eliminating student debt for some lower-income families. Both are issues that make up the foundation of the Sanders platform.

A shift in his marijuana thinking would be much sharper, but perhaps even politically safer.

According to apoll from the Pew Research Center 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say marijuana should be legal.At the same time, 66% of Americans favor legalization, and more than 90% support enabling physicians to prescribe medical cannabis to patients, according to an April 2018 poll from Quinnipiac University.

At the same time, a new survey conducted by IBD/TIPP, found just 34% of independent voters believe Trump is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well, surging support for Biden among those voters, 47 percent to 41 percent, respectively.

This kind of pivot could set the tone for enabling so many other things, as well, including:

Each of these will be desperately needed in the eventual wake of this COVID-19 crisis. If there were ever an ideal time for marijuana to help invigorate the U.S. economy its soon to come.

Most of all, federal marijuana legalization would be a unifying, bold move.

The desire for bold moves is what Bernie supporters are driven by, and this is one that cannabis scientists, cancer researchers, struggling farmers, poor municipalities, and tax-burdened cannabis businesses are all eager for as well.

Illustration: Andre Bourque / Image: Dreamstime.com

Andre Bourque is a cannabis industry connector, executive advisor to several cannabis companies, brand strategy advisor, and a cannabis industry analyst. In addition to Benzinga, Andres articles have been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post,Entrepreneur.com, Yahoo Finance, CIO Magazine & ComputerWorld.

You can connect with him at @socialmktgfella onLinkedIn,Twitter, andInstagram.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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From Charlotte To Science: Why Now Is Prime Time For Biden To Embrace Bernie's Marijuana Legalization Plan - Benzinga