Daily Archives: August 4, 2021

Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient. Eric Kieu hide caption

Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient.

This summer on Code Switch, we're talking to some of our favorite authors about books that taught us about the different dimensions of freedom. Earlier this week, we talked to Sandra Cisneros about her dream home. Today, we're featuring, a conversation with the romance writer Helen Hoang.

When Helen Hoang was writing her first book, The Kiss Quotient, she had recently been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. So, as she was trying to make sense of the diagnosis for herself, she pulled from her own life experiences and folded them into the romance novel, which chronicles the love life of Stella, a young woman on the autism spectrum.

And Stella isn't the only character in The Kiss Quotient that drew from Hoang's personal experiences. The other main character, Michael, is Asian American like Hoang, and has experienced some similarly challenging family dynamics, with a parent who doesn't always make the best decisions.

The book came out in 2018, but I discovered it during the height of the pandemic. I was excited to read something that took my mind off all the doom and gloom. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. It's pretty steamy I felt a little weird re-reading it for "work." But for the hours it took to read, it freed me from the panic of living in lockdown. So for a recent episode of the Code Switch podcast, I talked to Hoang about The Kiss Quotient, how reading it made me feel free, and how writing it made her feel free.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, what is The Kiss Quotient about, and what makes it stand out from other romance novels?

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Berkley Books hide caption

So this book is about a heroine, an autistic woman named Stella, who thinks she's bad at relationships and sex. In order to get better, she decides to hire a male escort, Matthew, to talk her through how to do things. And in the process, they accidentally fall in love. I think the book has some things going for it: Clearly, the autism angle is something that hasn't been done many times in romance. And I'm not the first, but I had never read a book with an Asian hero in it, or at least one that felt Asian.

This book definitely felt like an escape for me. As a romance writer, was it important for you to write a book that would feel like an escape for your readers?

I do believe that romance is about escape. It's about taking you out of your real life and letting you focus on different things and experience things that you don't in your real life. I think that that's the strength of romance and what makes it such a positive experience. Because it frees you from everything and it just gives you a chance to celebrate emotion and celebrate the human experience.

Many people have preconceived notions about people with autism and how they should be and act, which includes them having sex. Given that, can you tell me about writing sex scenes in your book?

I think that I had heard in the past that, you know, it was offensive to write autistic people having sex and in order to be respectful, you must "infantilize" them. I was horrified by that. But when I wrote the book, I didn't even know about those expectations around autism, because autism was still kind of new to me. I was only diagnosed with autism five years ago. But after I wrote the book, I was so glad that I did that. I wrote autistic people having sex and and I couldn't be prouder.

This summer, we're talking to authors about what it means to be free. How does the concept of freedom show up in your book?

I do think that the heroine, Stella, deals with a lot of insecurity about herself because she's on the spectrum. And that's also something that I personally live with. It was freeing to have her go through that journey where she confronts this issue and quits being ashamed of it. It felt really healthy for me to write that. I hope that other people, even if they're not on the spectrum, can come to that same self-realization and just free themselves from their own perception of what they need to be.

I noticed a theme of letting go of things that hold you back and not just with Stella. The hero, Michael, had deep resentment towards his father that got in the way of his opening up. Can you elaborate on that?

Michael keeps worrying that he's similar to his father or that his family trauma defines who he is. Or even that his father defines who he is. I think learning to let go of that and to say: I'm my own person, I can be more than my past, and I can be more than where I came from was important to me. My father has also made some bad decisions in his life and to accept that I love him, even though not everything he does is good, was also freeing in a way.

Staying on the topic of freedom: Was writing this book and being diagnosed with having Autism Spectrum Disorder personally freeing for you?

I definitely think that in my case, my diagnosis did set me free. Because I think that knowledge is power, and when we know what our issues are, we're better equipped to communicate our needs and to gain self-acceptance. I spent a lot of my life pretending to be something else because I wanted to fit in. I put so much work into trying to fit in. Sometimes it's so much that I get burnout, and I think it's just a really sad way to live your life. So learning that the way that I am underneath all of that is actually OK was extremely liberating.

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Author Helen Hoang Talks Sex, Autism And Freedom - NPR

Statistics suggest that very little seems to have changed since 19 July, when the government ended all restrictions on socialising in England.

In London, people travelled less after so-called freedom day than during the weeks before, according to Transport for London figures. Elsewhere in the UK, where restrictions vary, there appeared little change in public transport activity. Restaurants and pubs saw a slight increase, but are still a long way off pre-pandemic levels.

CGA, the hospitality research agency, found that some people who had been happy to go out after the third lockdown ended in April had been put off by the fear of busy venues after 19 July.

Over-35s were less confident about going to pubs, bars or restaurants. Only 53% of 35-to-54s felt confident, according to CGAs latest Consumer Pulse survey down by seven percentage points since May and just 39% of over-55s, a fall of nine points.

Jonathan Jones, CGAs managing director for UK and Ireland, said it was clear confidence remained fragile as Covid-19 cases remain high, especially among older age groups. Businesses will need to make it easy for hesitant consumers to plan their visits in advance, check availability and be sure they will have sufficient space, he said.

Gary Murphy had hoped that freedom day would be the salvation of his pub. But on Friday, after 13 years in charge of Ye Olde Mitre Inne in High Barnet, north London, Murphy handed back the keys.

Recovery is going to take years, he said. Trade has gone up a bit, but its still a slog. It became very clear that there are still a number of people who dont want to go out theyre still scared of the virus.

Murphy said he had decided to retire as a licensee because he did not believe the situation would change for at least a couple of years. When we had inside restrictions we were operating at about 60% to 70%, he said. Since we opened fully, weve gone up to 80%, but that 20% is going to be really hard.

I know loads of people who used to be in here every day or every evening but will now only come in on Mondays when its really quiet.

Theres a huge difference to last summer when people hadnt got used to having their own parties or building their own bars. This time its very clear that peoples habits have changed considerably.

Murphy listed rising prices of stock, staff shortages and the return of VAT on food, business rates and full rent demands from pub companies as major headaches for the trade.

Although legal restrictions have ended in much of the UK, 90% of adults wore face coverings when they were not at home, recent ONS figures revealed, and 88% thinking social distancing remains important.

Professor Stephen Reicher, who is part of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) subcommittee on behavioural science, said that the publics behaviour was crucial in stopping the spread of the virus.

The ONS data shows that people are still exercising caution in all areas and that is critically important, he said. But there is only so much people can do individually and people still need support in order to keep themselves safe.

What happens next is very largely a matter of whether behaviour changes and how fast. Two behaviours in particular are key. One is whether people self-isolate when infected and the other is how many contacts we have.

The CoMix social contact survey, a weekly study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine for Sage, shows that most adults of working age had contact with an average of no more than four people a week. Contacts are far down from pre-pandemic and only slightly up on this winter and spring. If they were to go up to those of pre-pandemic levels it would have a huge consequence.

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Covid caution dampens the heady promises of freedom day - The Guardian

Written by Dhananjay Dhonchak

Recently, the petition filed before the Delhi High Court by Ashutosh Kaushik wherein he claims that he is suffering reputational harm due to old news stories on incidents from his past such as a drunk driving case in 2009 and a brawl in 2013 has been in the news. The legal basis on which he is demanding that these videos and stories be de-listed or taken down is the right to be forgotten (RTBF).

This has presented a unique opportunity for the court to engage in a detailed analysis of RTBF and evolve a mechanism for balancing the conflicting rights of privacy and freedom of expression.

Individuals in the European Union (EU) have the right to demand that search engines like Google delist certain types of personal information about them that is false, inaccurate, outdated, excessive, irrelevant, inadequate, or taken out of context after the Court of Justice of the European Unions (CJEU) decision in the landmark case of Google Spain v Costeja.

As to the discussion of RTBF in the Indian context, Justice Kishan Kauls opinion in Puttaswamy v. Union of India noted that the right to be forgotten was a part of the broader right of privacy.

However, this has not been enough. In recent years, without a data protection law to codify RTBF as is the case in the EU, India has seen some inconsistent and peculiar adjudication of the right by various high courts. Courts in India have repeatedly either accepted or rejected the application of RTBF while completely ignoring the wider constitutional questions associated with it.

The existence of RTBF in a given situation depends on its balancing with other conflicting rights such as the right to free expression or other publication rights. For example, person A may want to de-link information about his criminal records and make it difficult for people to access certain journalistic reports when they google him. This brings the persons right to be left alone, derived from Article 21, directly in conflict with the rights of the media to report on issues, flowing from Article 19. The court will have to carry out a detailed examination of the position of person A in society, the nature of the information sought to be taken down or de-linked, the publics interest in retaining that information, etc. Accordingly, the remedy may also differ: The court may ask the information to be expunged from the source or may order only de-linking the posts such that they dont appear on the search engine and continue to be available on the original sources page. Whichever way the court decides, at least two fundamental rights the right to privacy and the right to free speech and expression will be impacted.

In the absence of specific legislation, the RTBF emerges from the right to privacy under Article 21 and partly from the right to dignity under Article 14. This makes its application even more interesting and unclear at the same time. This is because the RTBF will normally be claimed against a private party (a media or news website).

This raises the question of whether fundamental rights which have traditionally only been enforceable vertically against the State can be enforced horizontally, that is, against private citizens? Gautam Bhatia notes that only Article 15(2), Article 17 and Article 23 have an element of direct horizontality where a private act of a private party is challenged based on its violation of the Constitution. Courts are currently relegating themselves to merely enforcing constitutional provisions against private parties indirectly by compelling the state to perform certain duties that prevent or prohibit a private act. However, a coherent jurisprudence on the RTBF by Indian Courts would entail the enforcement of Article 21 directly against private parties.

Curiously, our constitutional courts, which are infamous for overzealously writing hundreds of pages while deciding cases, have restricted themselves to one or two-page orders when it comes to the RTBF. This is not to suggest that the RTBF has been rejected by Indian courts. For example, in 2018, the Karnataka High Court accepted a petition for the removal of a womans name from the cause title of a criminal and civil matter. The Court, without engaging in any sort of analysis, accepted the contention that her name in the cause title was damaging to her reputation in society and mentioned that there was a similar trend to accept such claims in Western countries. At the time of writing this article, there is only one instance from the Odisha High Court where the Court conducted an assessment of the RTBF by citing European and Indian cases. However, since the Court was only hearing a bail petition, it did not address any wider constitutional questions or explore any balancing mechanism that could then be utilised as a valid reference for other high courts.

Referring to the claim of former Roadies and Bigg Boss winner Ashutosh Kaushik, it must be noted that the privacy rights of a person in public life are different than that of an average citizen. It is presumed that when someone enters public life, they voluntarily allow intrusion into their private life to some extent. However, there must also be a public interest in retaining the information to prevail over a persons RTBF. The answers to these questions are necessarily complex and demand a detailed assessment by the Court. This is because Kaushik is no longer a celebrity and any attention that his life garnered in the past has dwindled. Does this mean his privacy rights will be on par with that of an average citizen? It will be the methodology that the Court adopts in reaching its decision rather than the decision itself that will generate interest from scholars and practitioners.

The writer is a student research fellow at We, the Humans (NGO) and is a law student at National Law University, Hyderabad (NALSAR)

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Right to be Forgotten: Privacy vs Freedom - The Indian Express

When Alexis Nikole Nelson was a kindergartner, she counted a honeysuckle tree among her most cherished friends.

She named the tree Priscilla, after her great-aunt. I wasnt especially adept at climbing trees, she told me as we walked through the woods near her home in Columbus, Ohio. But this tree grew in this curved way that it was perfectly manageable for me to just scamper up, sit in the branches and snack on some honeysuckle flowers.

One might expect such an endearing origin story from Ms. Nelson, known to her 1.7 million TikTok followers as the Black Forager. An urban adventurer who roams everywhere from Central Park to areas closer to home, the 29-year-old makes short, exuberant videos about edible finds in the woods. She gathers unripe black walnuts for her version of the spiced Italian liqueur nocino and extols the virtues of milkweed, a favorite of monarch butterflies and the base of Ms. Nelsons recipe for air-fried fritters. And it all started in those early years with her inclination to view trees as kinfolk.

Though there are no definitive statistics, foragers have informally reported an increase in the practice during the pandemic. There are clearly new folks getting involved in the practice, and it seems to be for a variety of reasons, said Patrick Hurley, professor and chair of Environmental Studies at Ursinus College, speaking of his local community in Philadelphia.

Ms. Nelson represents one part of an increasingly visible community. While many younger Black people didnt grow up going to the woods to shop, they have learned about lesser-known fruits such as serviceberries and the common cold remedy burdock root through books or the internet.

Whether theyre herbalists, Great Migration grandbabies in search of Southern roots, shoppers slashing their food budgets, the only Black kid who went to 4-H camp back in the day, or home cooks who want to dazzle guests with a backyard-berry crostata, theyre often contending with conflicted histories of disconnection from the land and a present in which they dont always find nature a sanctuary.

The idea that Black people just dont do the outdoors developed over time and centuries of dispossession, said Justin Robinson. An ethnobotanist, farmer and cultural historian in Durham, N.C., he rejects the term foraging and its practice as anything new to Black Americans and humans in general. He believes the word separates the world into a disturbing cultivated-versus-wild binary that doesnt reflect reality.

Its just what we do, he said. Its life!

Mr. Robinson links his love of the land and his work to the warm childhood years he spent following his two farmer grandfathers and the adult years he spent unconsciously replicating one of their gardens. But he knows that Black American history is also a series of profound land-related ruptures, starting with enslavement and forced agricultural labor on territory inhabited by and taken from Native peoples. The slave masters meager rations turned the enslaved into naturalists out of both necessity and opportunity.

Slave narratives abound with references to tapping honey and finding food. In a 1937 Works Progress Administration interview, Charles Grandy of Norfolk, Va., spoke of his escape during the Civil War and how he subsisted on wild berries for days. Sharecropping and land loss by physical and legal violence followed. By the early 20th century, more Southern rural Black people were migrating to cities around the nation. Some swore never to look back or till the land again.

As Mr. Robinson said, Black American history is a combination of hood and country. And Larry Gholston is holding down part of that rural heritage.

Come each May, Mr. Gholston eyes the cattle-yard a short distance from his home in Toccoa, Ga. Hes searching for something very specific and, in its natural form, toxic: Phytolacca americana, the pokeweed plant native to the South and Appalachia. A 68-year-old retiree and community historian, Mr. Gholston is committed to preserving poke sallit, a dish made from pokeweed. For the past 30 years, he has been handpicking small, tender leaves for the Poke Sallit Festival that he holds every Memorial Day.

Hes trying to pass down his knowledge to younger people, including his 35-year-old son, Seth Gholston, who D.J.s the event while his father cooks: Seth can now easily spot the 10-foot tall plant.

The festival is meant to maintain our heritage, said Mr. Gholston. A lot of Black folk will tell you, I dont eat that mess, man. It has connotations of poorness and rural.

Although pokeweeds leaves, berries and roots are poisonous to varying degrees, many rural Americans once soaked, boiled and sauted their leaves into poke sallit (possibly a derivation of salad), akin to collard greens. The toothsome dish can send an eater to the hospital if its toxins arent neutralized. Few people know how to cook it correctly now, and fewer dare; Mr. Gholston, who perfected his technique by drawing from family tradition, is an exception.

My mom would wash it, cook it, he explained. Some relatives would serve it for Sunday meals. Others would take it as kind of a spring tonic. Older people back in the day used to take the berries and make wine. People have taken the stalk and fried it like okra.

His emphasis on Black self-reliance aligns with newer generations of Black explorers. I thought about his ingenuity when I met Ms. Nelson in Jeffrey Park, a Columbus estate turned public resource. Ms. Nelson is a virtuoso of the woods. A walking, talking compendium of botanical factoids and zany zingers, she encourages fans with her cheeky-but-serious prayer for foragers, Dont die! and her trademark gaptoothed smile.

What you dont see in her videos are how closely she looks at trees before she ever touches them, how gently she plucks their leaves and how often she doesnt take anything at all.

Two deer darted in front of us as she picked up black walnuts from a downed tree branch. It never hurts to follow and see what theyre looking at, she said. But I noticed that the animals were cavorting behind a colossal mansion that backs up to the woods. Thinking of the film Get Out and one characters early warning to not be alone in the woods with white people, I asked how comfortable she feels.

I do like dressing up and wearing full makeup. Because who doesnt want to prance through the woods and feel like a woman fairy? But some of it is definitely about looking super-approachable, she said. Hoodies are off the list of her approved foraging apparel, exchanged for staid cardigans, even in the chilly Midwest fall.

Imagining oneself as a wood nymph wearing a bold lip and loud peasant dress doesnt totally ward off unwanted attention. Ms. Nelson noted that she has been stopped semi-frequently by random white people and rangers.

This is a common complaint of Black people exploring in nature. Widely publicized incidents in 2020 a Black birder was falsely accused of threatening a white woman in Central Park, and a Black man was attacked while hiking in Indiana are extreme examples of the sorts of routine encounters foragers say they face.

Mr. Robinson said he once stopped his car to take a look at a stand of colic weed across the highway; minutes later, law enforcement arrived to investigate a theft. I dont know if that was made up or not, but I was literally in an open field, he said. I doubt anyone except biblical thieves are digging holes in a field to hide their goods. A short conversation later, he headed home safely.

Fushcia-Ann Hoover, a hydrologist who published A Black Girls Guide to Foraging, forages in her Annapolis, Md., neighborhood, where shes well-known and makes a point of taking her sisters adorable Shih Tzu dog with her. She cited cases in which Black campers were assaulted by white people in the outdoors. If its so dangerous or risky, then maybe it just becomes easier to say, Oh, thats just not something we do, she said. So then you dont feel the loss.

Similarly, Lady Danni Morinich, a 57-year-old former ad salesperson in Philadelphia (her title comes from a tiny parcel of Scottish land that friends gave her as a humorous gift), runs a business selling teas, tinctures and other products sometimes made with foraged herbs. She doesnt romanticize the fact that shes often the only Black person at a wild-foods meetup, or the possible consequences of carrying a folding knife into the field: I tell other folks, Sometime, you might not want to take that. Because you can get killed being Black while walking.

As I followed Ms. Nelson along a winding trail, her eyes darted around the ground, up to the canopy and down again. She pointed out an early pawpaw fruit, gleaming green 20 feet above us. It is one of very few things for which she would willingly tramp through poison ivy, she said.

The others are chicken of the woods and morel mushrooms; she laments she doesnt have the mycological Spidey sense to spot the latter. Her knowledge, though, does run deep. She is able to identify plants by the shape of their leaves, whether their berries are crowned, the smell of their roots.

At another fork in the path, we stopped at a leaning tree. For mushrooms, an ailing tree is pay dirt. Ms. Nelson plucked a few medium-size brownish-peach wood ear mushrooms. I joked that the hue would make a perfect neutral lipstick for us two Black women scouting the wilds. She scrunched one of them and held it to the side of her face. Folded that way, it did resemble a human ear, gruesomely sliced, Van Gogh-style.

My partner hates it when I do that, she said, giggling. He wasnt keen on sampling the mushrooms candied in simple syrup, either.

Cooking for others is a major motivation for Dr. Hoover, the Maryland scientist. She has used Ms. Nelsons magnolia flower experimentations to enhance a stir-fry (they taste like ginger) and flavored water with lemony wild sorrel. She even figured out how to soak acorns, a necessary part of the flour-making process, in her toilet tank.

Her family and friends sometimes roll their eyes good-naturedly at Fushcias projects, but for her, Black freedom is the larger, continuing project.

There is power in being able to name the things that are around you and knowing what they can be used for or cant be used for, she said. I do take a growing feeling of independence from that, especially as a Black person in this country. Theres a part of me that kind of rebels in knowing and being able to take things because the way we are told were not supposed to.

More:

How Black Foragers Find Freedom in the Natural World - The New York Times

Tuesday, Mayor John Johnny Hammock of Tallassee, AL, announced his campaign for Alabama Public Service Commissioner Place 1. Hammock is the current Mayor and Superintendent of Utilities for the City of Tallassee serving in his second term.

It has been an honor and privilege to serve as Mayor of Tallassee and Superintendent of Utilities over the past 5 years. The work that we have accomplished has helped make Tallassee a better place to live, raise a family, and start a business, and now I want to do the same for the State of Alabama, Hammock commented.

Mayor Hammock is a lifelong conservative Republican who is a graduate of the University of Alabama and a small business owner with his wife Kimberly Hammock. Hammock is a member of the Elmore County Republican Party executive committee and has three children. Mayor Hammock serves on the board of directors for the Alabama League of Municipalities, member of EDAA, member of ACCMA, founder of the Tallassee economic development committee, member of the Tallassee Planning commission, board of directors for AMES, board of directors for Central Alabama Aging Consortium, serves on board of CARPDC, and a member of the Tallassee Chamber of Commerce.

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The failed energy policies we see coming out of Washington D.C from the liberal elites are making utilities more expensive. The Biden-Harris administration is working every day to do everything they can to make working-class families struggle right here in Alabama, Hammock said.

He added, [T]hey are killing our small businesses, the middle class, and destroying jobs in our economy. Im tired of it and Im ready to step up and start helping fight back against their socialist policies.

During his time as mayor of Tallassee, John brought in over $4.3 million dollars in grants to help improve the city of Tallassee from replacing sewer lines, gas lines, water tanks, repaving streets, etc. Johns work ethic speaks for itself, with over a decade of small business ownership and tirelessly navigating his city through a pandemic. He believes that the Democrats push for renewable energy will cost businesses, farmers, and the hardworking men and women of Alabama thousands of dollars.

I am running for the office of Public Service Commission because I have served my hometown and now I want to serve the people of the great state of Alabama. My experience as Superintendent of Utilities over water, waste water, and gas have prepared me to serve on the PSC. Ill always be transparent, fair, and an ethical public servant who will work each and every day for you, he stated.

The Republican primary election will be on Tuesday, May 24, 2022.

We need fresh blood in the PSC and someone with boots on the ground experience in Utilities. I wont be outworked and I look forward to traveling the state and getting to meet the great people of our state, Hammock concluded.

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Listen: From addiction to freedom, one woman's story of success - Yellowhammer News

A Moscow court sentenced a Russian opposition leader Tuesday to 18 months of restricted freedom over her role in organizing last winter's mass pro-Alexey Navalny protests, the Associated Press reports.

Why it matters: Lyubov Sobol's sentencing is part of a wider crackdown by the Russian government on Navalny's allies, several of whom are slated to stand trial on the same charges as Sobol, Reuters reports.

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The big picture: The court found Sobol guilty of inciting people to break coronavirus restrictions by calling on people to come out and protest, per AP.

For a year and a half, Sobol will be banned from leaving her apartment between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. and attending mass events. She will also be required to check in with police three times a month, AP reports.

Sobol is one of Navalny's closest allies and has worked with him since 2011. She was previously a lawyer for his Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), which was banned as an "extremist organization" by the government this past April.

Sobol has called the charge "politically-motivated nonsense," per Reuters.

She was placed under house arrest six months ago, leaving the possibility that her sentence could last only a year, according to her lawyer, per AP.

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Opposition ally sentenced to 18 months of restricted freedom over pro-Navalny protests - Yahoo News

By Dewain E. Peek,

OCN Editor

Schools will open without mandated mask wearing, according to Overton County Director of Schools Donnie Holman.

The pronouncement came during a COVID-19 update held at Livingston City Hall on Monday, Aug. 2.

We have been working hard this summer to prepare things for school to begin, Director Holman said. I have a plan, a rough draft plan you might say, of what were going to do to have a safe reopening. We want everything to be as safe as we can possibly make things for our students and our staff.

He said student safety is the top priority.

What were planning on doing for this school year is, all schools will open for in-person learning following the regular daily schedule, Director Holman said. Multiple layers of protection that are already in place will continue.

Sanitizing stations and water bottle filling stations will still be used. Limited visitor protocols will be in place.

Masks will not be required, Director Holman said.

He went on to assure, But those who wish to wear them will be respected and allowed to do so, by all means.

Anyone exhibiting COVID-19 should not report to school, and should seek medical guidance. Isolation and quarantine protocols from health officials should be followed.

In the event of a positive COVID-19 case in one of our schools, we will follow the CDC and the Tennessee Department of Health guidelines, and parents or guardians will be notified of their childs possible exposure.

With Overton Countys positive COVID-19 cases rising from only one in recent weeks to 23 as of Mondays press conference, and with the Delta variant spreading, local leaders urged residents to be vaccinated.

Livingston Mayor Curtis Hayes made effective immediately a requirement for all city employees who have not been vaccinated to wear masks while on the job, and mask requirements and temperature checks were reinstituted for entrance to all city-owned buildings.

For the folks that have been vaccinated, it will be optional for those folks to wear their masks, Mayor Hayes said.

Employees will also have temperature checks at the beginning of each shift.

The next COVID-19 update was set for noon Monday, Sept. 13.

More:

Schools open with freedom of choice on masks - Overton County News

I write columns about politics and government, occasionally indulging as a frustrated sports writer; I dont write about business or leisure activities except:

Hopes that the misery of the pandemic is over are diminishing. There are more than 75,000 new infections daily, six times greater than a month earlier, overwhelmingly from the Delta variant and almost all among the unvaccinated.

Hospital intensive care units face overcrowding, again. If the spread isn't stopped, new variants perhaps more lethal will emerge.

There are a few unvaccinated for religious reasons, and people of color who have historical reasons to distrust public health workers and the CDC.

But chiefly, the vaccination failure is because Coronavirus has been politicized among conservatives, with right-wing politicians, judges, think tanks and activists charging its all about personal liberty. This ignores the fact that exercising those personal liberties risks the liberties and lives of others.

Accordingly, there is a pressing need for a more forceful public and private response to a looming crisis brought about largely throughconservative hypocrisy.

Conservative Republicans used to argue that government should only sparingly dictate practices to private companies; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisRon DeSantisFlorida poll: DeSantis falls behind Crist as COVID-19 cases surge Overnight Health Care: Florida becomes epicenter of COVID-19 surge | NYC to require vaccination for indoor activities | Biden rebukes GOP governors for barring mask mandates Biden rebukes GOP governors for barring mask mandates MORE and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are ignoring that philosophy. Republicans also used to argue that the government closest to the people governs best; their updated version adds the caveat: unless local governments are run by liberals or minorities and the state government by Republicans.

There's the politicized judiciary. in a speech to the Federalist Society late last year after the election Supreme Court Justice Samuel AlitoSamuel Alito'Freedom-loving' conservatives stoked latest round of infection and death Bill would honor Ginsburg, O'Connor with statues at Capitol No reason to pack the court MORE lashed out at the social distancing, mask wearing and other COVID measures: We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020. Of course, we actually have: rationing for food, gas and other resources during World War II; pervasive wage and price controls from 1971 to 1973.

In the main, this is more like falsely crying fire in a crowded theater unacceptable as it endangers others. The unvaccinated and those who ignore social distancing and mask mandates are threatening others. The crowded theater term was used by High Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes a century ago; it was a bad decision, against draft protestors during World War, but a good metaphor.

Mandates are not uncommon in America.

Most every state requires drivers to have insurance. Vaccines have been mandated since the country's inception; George Washington ordered his troops to be vaccinated for smallpox. Today, in every state, polio vaccines are required for elementary school children. If the current anti-vax right-wing social media and political echo chamber had been as robust in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration when the polio vaccine came out, there would be a lot more iron lungs.

On the public front, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told me the Food and Drug Administration needs to rapidly give full approval for the vaccine. That would facilitate vaccine mandates.

The Biden administration is requiring most federal employees to be vaccinated or to get tested regularly. The Pentagon is applying this to the military.

Dozens of the country's top medical organizations including the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association called for health care facilities to require all employees to be vaccinated. A legal challenge to Houston Methodist Hospital's mandate was rejected. Over 600 Universities and colleges are requiring students to be vaccinated.

Emanuel, who organized that call from leading medical groups, thinks it was a tipping point the floodgates are going to open. He predicts resisters like Florida will have to back down: Hospitalizations and deaths are really going up. On Saturday Florida set a new high for COVID cases with 21,683.

There are a growing number of companies that are requiring employees to be vaccinated, except where prohibited by state law.

What are all those right-wing, chest-thumping anti-vax politicians, judges, think tanks and activists to do?

The exit ramp for conservatives may have been offered by Sarah HuckabeeSarah SandersTrump expected to resume rallies in June Andrew Giuliani planning run for New York governor Trump appears at Sarah Huckabee Sanders campaign event MORE Sanders, who's running for governor of Arkansas. The former Trump press secretary blasted Washington's condescending politicians and bureaucrats, praised what she called Donald TrumpDonald TrumpFive takeaways from the Ohio special primaries Missouri Rep. Billy Long enters Senate GOP primary Trump-backed Mike Carey wins GOP primary in Ohio special election MOREs superb response and then called on her constituents to take the Trump vaccine.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for the Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hostsPolitics War Roomwith James Carville. Follow him on Twitter@AlHuntDC.

Originally posted here:

'Freedom-loving' conservatives stoked latest round of infection and death | TheHill - The Hill

Last September, I wrote about a woman I'd seen but did not know who said a lot to me about the world I was living in. It was a world I had never expected to see in the United States of America.

Dressed in a matching, middle-class sort of way knitted mauve skirt and blouse, nicely coifed, nothing flamboyant or gaudy or swashbuckling about her, clearly neither depressed nor destitute but waving her arms and screaming out loud. It was a picture of an America I had not seen before.

Looking back now, I guess you could say that the demonstration was meant to be a dash of patriotism at its best.

The problem is that though this particular protest was meant to "protect the Constitution" that has for a long period now been hanging by a thread, the protest was actually contradicting a large part of the Constitution's preamble and its commitment to "the general welfare" of the country.

This particular woman in this particular protest was screaming her disregard for "the general welfare" by undermining that general welfare with her interpretation of what it means to be a citizen. "I refuse to wear a mask," she yelled. "I am free! I have 'rights'!"

She was shouting her "freedom" to ignore the rights of anyone of everyone else in the country by refusing to wear a mask in the midst of one of the most transmissible pandemics in 100 years. It's not, in other words, the historical practice of this country to mask the population as a show of political whim and fancy.

And politicians, even governors, agreed with her, apparently. So, many lost their rights to life while others crowed their freedom to do whatever they pleased in the name of "Americanism."

In all fairness, however, "freedom" is not an isolated concept. The great philosophers of the late 19th to early 20th century, John Stuart Mill and Rudolf Steiner, for instance, linked the concepts of freedom and liberty.

Neither could stand alone, they argued. Freedom is the capacity to do what I will, but liberty is the right to do what I can only as long as I do not infringe on the rights of others. There are, they pointed out, ethical and moral codes that limit my right to do as I please.

Or, not to put too fine a point on it, I do not have the right to limit the freedom of others to enjoy "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But even politicians ignored the obvious to get the votes of those who have no interest in either "the general welfare" or "the rights of others" in this free country "to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

So much for political leadership and its responsibility for the common good.

In fact, look closely at the "limitations on our freedom" that have been operative for years. Does the lady in the mauve skirt have the "right" to pick and choose between the ones she'll keep and the ones she won't? How shall we break the news to her about their binding contribution to the common good? For instance:

But in 2020, with no central leadership from Washington, each state stumbled along without a national program of disease control and with a president who made fun of the only defense we had masks.

The common good, the general welfare, collapsed in the United States of America. More than 600,000 people have died. Six hundred thousand. So far.

From where I stand, with an undercurrent of resistance still firmly defined, it's time, I think, for the federal government to mandate a vaccine passport. No passport? No theater ticket. No passport? No mall shopping. No passport? No baseball games. No passport? No air travel. And more.

But that leads to what may be the fundamental question: On what grounds beyond the Constitution of the United States of America shall we accept masks and get vaccinated? Answer: On the law above the law the moral codes the philosophers talk about that guide our care for one another, and that all the great religions teach. They leave no doubt.

Jesus preached relationship and rights so decisively. He left us the Beatitudes and its prescript "Blessed are the merciful." He told us the parable of the good Samaritan who abandoned his convenience for the sake of his neighbor as a real model of spiritual maturity.

Then he left us the most astounding comments of them all: "For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?" and "Do to others whatever you would have them do to you." There, "my rights" melt into yours.

The governor of Alabama, amid the sounds of "I've had it" from so many across the country who have been so patient so long, says it all: "It's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."

Saddest of all, the governor knows, is the story of the patients who lay in Alabama dying and begging for the vaccine. "I'm sorry," the attending doctor told them, "but it's too late." It's too late. Too late to think about others as so many think only about themselves.

Unfortunately, it seems that there are still more than enough people in that category to affect all our lives.

I can't help but wonder if the woman in mauve is still out there somewhere wildly claiming the "rights" that the Constitution with its commitment to freedom and liberty do not give her.

Excerpt from:

Masks, vaccines and rights in the land of freedom and liberty - National Catholic Reporter

Grab the best deals on Kitchen appliances

Amazon Freedom Day sale will be live from August 5th to 9th ; and we can't keep calm because it's getting bigger and better! With lucrative discounts and exceptional deals, this is just the right time for you to get shopping. The 5-day sale brings a plethora of options for buyers - one of them being the kitchen appliances. And if you are looking to revamp your kitchen on a budget, well there couldn't possibly be a better time to do this than this weekend! From chimneys to microwave ovens, here is a list of essential appliances and the amazing deals you can avail. Read on.

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Originally posted here:

Amazon Freedom Day Sale 2021: Fridge, Microwave Oven And More - Kitchen Appliances With Discounts And Offer - NDTV