Monthly Archives: February 2022

You Can Book a Room at the Atlantis Paradise Island for 22% Off – Thrillist

Posted: February 28, 2022 at 7:47 pm

Today's very special Palindrome is being celebrated by just about everyone, including brands. Taco John's has a taco deal, JetBlue has a flight deal, and Red Lobster is giving away thousands of dollars. Not to be left out, hotels are getting in on the Twosday action as well. Atlantis Paradise Island is offering 22% off on bookings on February 22 and 23, in honor of 2/22/22.

The resort, which you may recognize from the iconic film Holiday in the Sun, will have rooms starting at $222 a night for the sale. The deal will be valid for travel between February 22, 2022, and December 22, 2022.

That means if you are feeling particularly adventurous on this Twosday, you could book the room right now and be sleeping in the Bahamas by tonight. The offer is valid at The Coral, The Royal, The Cove, and The Reef, which are four different experiences within the resort.

To get the 22% discount, you have to book a minimum of two nights. Just like with flight deals, you'll still have to pay the associated taxes and fees. The discount wont apply to blackout dates and are subject to availability. To see all of the terms and conditions and to make your booking, head to Atlantis' website.

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You Can Book a Room at the Atlantis Paradise Island for 22% Off - Thrillist

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Baby Food warning heightened, after baby in The Bahamas gets sick – Magnetic Media

Posted: at 7:47 pm

#TheBahamas, February 25, 2022 In The Bahamas, heart disease and hypertension are among the leading causes of doctors visits, illness, and death (source: Ministry of Health in The Bahamas.) Bahamian doctors advise that both tracking and maintaining healthy blood pressurelevels are essential to overall long-term health. A well-balanced diet is important too, to ensure your body receives necessary nutrients and vitamins, including potassium.

While other nutrients are important for your health, potassium is recognized for its ability to help lower high blood pressure. To better understand how that happens and how to incorporate a healthy amount of potassium into your diet, we spoke to cardiovascular specialistRaghavendra Makam, MD, MPHat Cleveland Clinic Floridas Indian River Hospital in Vero Beach, Florida.

Does potassium lower blood pressure?

Dr. Makam confirms that, yes, potassium really does lower blood pressure. The American Heart Association (AHA)recommendshaving a sufficient potassium intake both as a preventative measure and a treatment option for patients withhypertension, he notes.

How does potassium lower blood pressure?

Dr. Makam explains that the most direct way potassium helps lower blood pressure is in how the nutrient interacts with your kidneys and sodium. We know too much sodium is bad for blood pressure, so kidneys have a mechanism for excreting excess sodium to maintain blood pressure, he explains. Potassium helps the kidneys excrete that excess sodium instead of retaining it.

Potassium also helps improve your bodys overall vascular health, he adds. Potassium eases tension in the walls of blood vessels and that, in turn, can have other benefits on your heart health.

Because potassium positively affects your entire vascular system, it helps reduce multiple risks, explains Dr. Makam. Because it helps blood vessels in your brain, kidneys and heart, it reduces the risk of stroke, kidney failure and heart disease.

How much potassium do you need on a daily basis?

Surveys have shown that people generally eat too much sodium and not enough potassium, says Dr. Makam. So, getting that balance right as part of a well-rounded diet is essential. The recommended daily requirement of potassium is around 4,700 to 5,000 milligrams.

Good sources of potassium

Youve probably heard at some point that bananas are the best source of potassium, but Dr. Makam cautions against relying on a single fruit as a staple for your daily potassium requirement.

Since a medium banana contains about 422 milligrams of potassium, you would have to eat more than 10 bananas a day to get the recommended daily amount of potassium, which is obviously not a wise choice given the additional calories it adds to the diet, he says.

So while bananas can be one source, its important to make sure youre usingother fruits and vegetablesto maintain that potassium intake. Other foods Dr. Makam recommends for healthy amounts of potassium include:

Besides making sure your diet is well-balanced, Dr. Makam recommends factoring in other components, like sugar and starch contents, when choosing foods.

Are potassium supplements OK?

While some people may choose to include certain dietary supplements as part of their daily intake, Dr. Makam notes, nature trumps man-made stuff. Its always preferable to get these nutrients and vitamins in adequate amounts from natural sources.

Because of the unregulated nature of supplements, he says, its always best to talk to your healthcare provider about ways to improve your intake of certain nutrients and vitamins before buying any supplements.

Is there such a thing as too much potassium?

Just as with anything, its possible to have too much potassium, says Dr. Makam. Too much potassium can cause severe muscle weakness and heart rhythm problems that can be serious if not diagnosed and corrected early.

People who should avoid high amounts of potassium

Dr. Makam notes thatangiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)inhibitors, Angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) and Aldosterone antagonists, which are some of the common medications designed to lower blood pressure, already help your body retain potassium. If youre taking one of these medications and include extra potassium on top of that, there are risks of complications.

He also points out that people withkidney diseaseshould also avoid excess potassium. Damaged kidneys cant remove excess potassium from your blood, so the amount can build todangerous levels, if not monitored correctly.

The key is balance, says Dr. Makam. Your healthcare provider will know your specific health conditions, your current medications and latest blood levels, which will help come up with the right approach for you.

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Baby Food warning heightened, after baby in The Bahamas gets sick - Magnetic Media

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PROGRESS REPORT: PM Davis receives 67 percent approval rating for first 100 days in office in new survey – EyeWitness News

Posted: at 7:47 pm

NASSAU, BAHAMAS Prime Minister Philip Davis received a 67 percent approval rating, according to a recent survey on the Progressive Liberal Partys first 100 days in office.

The survey, which was conducted by Bahamian research and polling firm Intel Cay, polled 1,064 participants online and is still ongoing.

It was conducted between December 20th, 2021, and January 24, 2022.

The survey also gave an opt-in option for respondents to indicate which political party they support, of which 33 percent supported the Progressive Liberal Party, 19 percent supported the Free National Movement, and 42 percent said they were independent voters.

An additional six percent of people surveyed said they supported other parties, which included the Democratic National Alliance, the Coalition of Independence, and other fringe parties.

Of the respondents surveyed, sixty-seven percent said they approved of the way that Davis is handling his job as prime minister.

Davis received a 72 percent approval rating among men and a 64 percent rating among women.

Additionally, he received a high approval rating (93 percent) from people who identified as PLP supporters than respondents who identified as FNM (57 percent rating).

Meanwhile, Davis received a lower approval rating with respondents on Grand Bahama (58 percent) than he did with those on New Providence (68 percent) or on the Family Islands (71 percent).

Respondents were also asked to rate the prime ministers Cabinet appointments on a scale of one to five, with five being very good.

Of those surveyed, the appointments received a 3.5 overall rating out of five, which culminated in 51 percent of people who thought the appointments were good or very good.

However, when asked to rate the current governments management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Davis administration was given a 2.9 out of 5 rating with just 38 percent of respondents indicating that the governments COVID-19 mitigation has been good or very good.

The margin of the PLPs general election victory and the split of the votes in several key seats were reminiscent of the Free National Movements (FNM) sweep in 2017.

The PLP dealt crushing blows at the September 16, 2021 polls as the electorate largely traded out FNMs for PLPs.

Nearly 23,000 votes separated the FNM and PLP.

The PLP got 53 percent of the vote, with the FNM getting 35 percent.

The COI captured over six percent and the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) received 1,347 votes, just over one percent.

The remaining independent candidates collectively secured just over 2,553 votes, which accounts for around two percent of the votes.

In May 2017, nearly 32,000 votes separated the FNM and PLP.

The FNM secured 91,137 votes to the PLPs 59,164 a difference of 31,973 votes, winning in 35 of the 39 constituencies.

At the time, 159,910 of the 184,000 registered voters cast their ballot, representing an 87 percent voter turnout, in comparison to the 65 percent voter turnout (over 126,000 voted of the 194,000-plus registered votersin September.

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Conor McGregor returns to Ireland from Bahamas on private jet and immediately heads to Black Forge pub t… – The Irish Sun

Posted: at 7:47 pm

CONOR McGREGOR has returned to Ireland from his holiday in the Bahamas - and immediately returned to the Black Forge pub.

The UFC star enjoyed a break in the Caribbean with his family as he continues to rehab from his broken leg suffered last summer.

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While in the Bahamas, the former two weight world champion got to spend time with pop superstar Justin Bieber.

He revealed to his fans on Instagram that he had returned to Dublin via a private jet yesterday.

And immediately the former two weight world champion was sharing snaps of him enjoying himself in the Black Forge pub.

McGregor was celebrating with a trophy and a group of friends as he captioned the post 'yup the squad, championays.'

He was also presented with a trophy which featured a glass football at the top along with the caption 'the chairman'.

McGregor was spending several nights partying in the Black Forge before his trip to the Caribbean.

Fans of the UFC star revealed their concern for the Dubliner after a series of posts on social media from the Crumlin boozer.

He had promised to fans that he would cut down on his drinking as he nears a return to the Octagon.

But a rambling Instagram post in the early hours of the morning had fans fearing he had a gone 'off the rails'.

He wrote: "Eating and drinking on the gaf. Whiskey is a mad mans drink my mother always says hahahaha whos runs it ma? Thanks for the early house my Grandfather! And the whiskey. And the gargle. 5 more minutes Ma. My Mothers blood line! The Moores.

"I have spirits around this whole premise watching over every single patron that enters. Support. Protection. Guidance. Spiritual connection from above. Chaos. Ya ya yaaaaa hahahahaha I dont just make spirits, I have spirits! Ghosts on a string.

"What a pub i after making hahahahahahaaj ah stop lord have mercy father save my soul give me two and a double and use the thing with the bubble back us all our father God Jesus Christ. Please, thank you! We deserve the best! God, we deserve this, thank you God has our back! 100%."

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Conor McGregor returns to Ireland from Bahamas on private jet and immediately heads to Black Forge pub t... - The Irish Sun

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Mass Incarceration Is A Form of Slavery – Mitchell S. Jackson On the 13th Amendment – Esquire

Posted: at 7:46 pm

Getty / Photo Illustration by Mike Kim

Back in the late nineties I owned a SID number (12218354) and an address in an Oregon state prison. For part of my biddy prison bidthe old heads said my time was short fore I got thereI worked as an orderly in a mental ward of the Oregon State Hospital. The official duties included sweeping and mopping the halls, changing sheets soiled with feces and/or soaked with urine, and making beds tucked with tight hospital corners.

The unofficial duties included learning to at least feign aplomb when residents tossed food trays, tantrumed to the point of restraint, or screeched refusals of their meds.

On the up and up, it wasnt a job I wouldve appreciated on the outs, but on the inside, I was a pair of praying handsand furthermore envied by no few fellow prisoners for being allowed to leave the confines of the farmhouse-turned-prison that held us captive. Never mind the pay was paltry, so little that I misremember my actual wage, though research affirms it was less than pennies on the dollar.

Research also attests that I was a slave at the time. And I aint speaking hyperbolically or philosophically but literally and officially here. As proof, I submit Article I, Section 34 of the Oregon State Constitution:

There shall be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the State, otherwise than as punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

If that excerpt from my home states charter sounds familiar, thats because its almost verbatim the infamous clause of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that banned slavery in all of the U.S., save one gaping-ass loophole: except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.

Following the Civil War, that clause, along with the bigoted laws that became the Black Codes, paved an oil-slicked road to an era of mass incarceration, and the language still figures into Americas first-in-the-world imprisonment rates.

In 2020, several recent Willamette University graduates founded an organization called Oregonians Against Slavery and Involuntary Servitude (OASIS), with the goal of centering the voices of the incarcerated in dismantling racist policies. OASIS partnered with a group of men incarcerated in the Oregon State Penitentiary to introduce a bill that seeks a formal ban of enslavement and involuntary servitude from the Oregon constitution. In addition to striking the language, it also proposes the addition of a new article:

(2) Upon conviction of a crime, an Oregon court or a probation or parole agency may order the convicted person to engage in education, counseling, treatment, community service or other alternatives to incarceration, as part of sentencing for the crime, in accordance with programs that have been in place historically or that may be developed in the future, to provide accountability, reformation, protection of society or rehabilitation.

The OASIS initiative (SJR10) will be voted on in the states November election as an amendment to the state constitution. (Can you believe we are still, in the twenty-first century, having to stage an effort to nix language that sanctions slavery?) Though the numbers point to the bill passing, does it surprise you that people have argued that slavery is dead, that the language has little bearing on peoples actual lived experience, and therefore why go through the formality of removing it?

We constantly get asked, Well, is this just a symbolic thing? says Riley Burton, an OASIS cofounder. And the question is, Is the amendment being used as just a symbolic thing? If the basis of your system is built on slavery, then it will have an effect. And if its not [built on slavery], then it wont.

When OASIS began its push, its most prominent opponent was a prolific Oregon legislator named Kevin Mannix. Mannix explained to me that at first he worried that SJR10 would create a challenge to the forty-hour workweek mandated for all Oregon prisoners by way of Measure 17a law he propelled to approval in 1994.

The enslavement-clause victory will be great, says Anthony Pickens, who helped OASIS work on the bill while incarcerated in the Oregon State Penitentiary. But until Measure 17 gets changed, prisoners are still mandated this forty-hour, almost-non-pay workweek. Were trying to get these walls broke down so that eventually we can get fair wages.

Pickens spent the ages of fifteen to thirty-nine in prison, was granted clemency last year by Governor Kate Brown, and now works as a paralegal. Its tough to square his critical view of prison work with Mannixs optimism. I think we should ask the prisoners themselves, says Mannix. Because they like the programs that we have. They are designed to give them job skills and help them engage in useful activity while they are incarcerated. I always ask folks, Do you want people to just sit in a prison cell with nothing to do?

Listening to Mannix tout the merits of prison labor, one might miss that his Measure 17on paper at leastdemands involuntary servitude from all prisoners. Listening to Mannix talk, youd never know that the amendment proposed by OASIS is part of a national movement, that there are nineteen other states with slavery language remaining in their constitution. Hearing Mannixalso the architect of legislation known as Measure 11, which sanctioned several of my peers with mandatory prison sentencespresent his arguments, one could lose sight of the billions reaped (Core Civic and GEO manage more than half the private correction contracts in the U.S. and in 2015 alone had combined revenues of $3.5 billion) from the racket that is private prisons. Mannixs spiel fails to mention that Arkansas, Texas, and Georgiais it a coincidence that they were all a part of the Confederacy?do not pay prisoners at all. That in Mississippis Parchman Farm and the former Louisiana plantation known as Angola Farm (Black prisoners make up 70 percent and 75 percent of their populations, respectively), the prisoners still work the fields, some picking actual cotton.

Mannix also lauds Oregons history as a free stateomitting the crucial fact that it was founded with a clause in its constitution that excluded Black people from residing in the state, a law endorsed by Peter Burnett, a member of the Oregon Provisional Governments seven-person council in the 1800s. Burnett went on to become the first elected governor of California, which I mention because both Oregon and California are known as bulwarks of liberalism.

But be not duped by their ultra-blue repute.

The Golden State pays its incarcerated workers eight to thirty-seven cents an hour for part-time work and twelve to fifty-six dollars per month for full-time work. And in what I see as emblematic of the states ethic on prison labor, Cal Fire uses incarcerated men and women to work as firefightersoften on the dangerous front linesand for decades, until just a couple years ago, barred them from being hired as firefighters once they were released or paroled, by reason of a rule against hiring felons.

True indeed, I never fought raging forest blazes nor picked cotton while I was down. Matter fact, the only other job I had during my biddy bid was washing dishes in the prison kitchen, a job for which I was also thankful. That gratitude, however, paled in comparison with what working outside the prison did for my spirits, with the feeling that I could be trusted with a measure of freedom, that I was still a contributing member of societythat in a place that made men wastrels, I was otherwise.

That the pay wouldnt turn my books into a bank vault was cool with me. In the moment, it felt like a fair trade-off. But, see, one of the harms of belonging to a marginalized group is having your oppression obscured.

How should I reconcile my previous appreciation for a holding a job outside the prison with what I now know about how my people became the grist for the prison-industrial complex? With what I now understand about the forces that made crackthe drug that landed me in prisonan epidemic in inner cities and not in suburbs, forces tied to those who made suburbs in the first damn place? With what Ive learned about the relationship between those inner cities and suburbs and the tax dollars that fund prime public schools? With whats been revealed about the links between draconian mandatory minimums, three-strikes laws, and the boom of private prisons?

How do I reconcile the prior boost to my morale with the knowledge that allowing enslavement language to endure in writ not only turns incarcerated humans into legal objects but aids ill-intentioned people in their abuses of them? How do I square believing my old job to be a form of benevolence with the truth that, by and large, people whose ancestors never stooped sunup to sundown over cash-crop tobacco and king cotton are profiting, profiting, prospering from all the above?

On July 7, 1998, breathing what mustve been the cleanest air that ever touched lungs and all but gliding beneath the clearest cerulean sky, I paroled from Santiam Correctional Institution. My parole conditions specified that I get a job, which I did, working as a construction laborer. Ive held several jobs since then, but not none working as a dishwasher or orderly. And what, reasonable people, does that say about the purported virtue of my prison work experience?

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McCaughey: Democrats are building a wall to keep out truckers – Boston Herald

Posted: at 7:46 pm

Seven-foot fencing topped with razor wire will be installed surrounding the U.S. Capitol this week, in advance of President Joe Bidens State of the Union on March 1. The wall is to keep out truckers who are heading to Washington, D.C., as part of the Freedom Convoy protesting COVID restrictions.

Instead of shutting the truckers out, Biden should be inviting them in to sit in the gallery during his speech and have a chat afterward. He invited Vladimir Putin to talk why not truckers who love America and say they want to restore our nations Constitution?

How Biden treats the truckers could be pivotal for his presidency and the Democratic Party. The people who truck our goods, serve us in restaurants and work with their hands are speaking out for American freedom.

If Scranton Joe were still at the top of his game, hed welcome the truckers and regale them with stories of his blue-collar past.

Visiting a Mack Truck plant last summer, Biden boasted, I used to drive an 18-wheeler. The boast wasnt true, though he once rode in a rig. The point is, Biden understood, even a year ago, the political payoff from treating working people with respect instead of greeting them with razor wire.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he hopes the truckers do come, adding, Civil disobedience is a time-honored tradition in our country, from slavery to civil rights to you name it. Peaceful protest, clog things up, make people think about the mandates.

When thousands marched on Washington to protest George Floyds death, they werent met with razor wire. This is America.

Up north, Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a whopper of a political miscalculation by crushing the truckers peaceful protest without ever giving them a hearing. But Trudeau is a born-and-bred elite. Biden claims working class credentials.

Meanwhile, in unison, the mainstream media is dismissing the American truckers as right-wing.

Anti-science? Hardly. Science is proving the truckers right about the damaging impact of government lockdowns and mandates.

Johns Hopkins scientists see no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality, with the exception of locking down bars.

Lockdowns cost lives instead of saving them. Many are deaths of despair, likely linked to unemployment, economic desperation and social isolation, suggests University of Chicago professor Casey Mulligan.

At the height of the pandemic, more than 30 million Americans mostly wage workers were laid off or furloughed in a speculative attempt to curb the spread of the virus. Unemployment hit 14.7%.

Of course, government bureaucrats, journalists and professors didnt lose their jobs. Now the media is barely mentioning new findings that lockdowns didnt actually save lives.

Nor are they speaking up to question the continuation of government emergency powers.

When Biden notified Congress on Feb. 18 that he was extending his emergency powers, which were scheduled to expire, the media was mum. Likewise, when New York Gov. Kathy Hochul extended her emergency powers that week.

Its the truckers who are saying, Enough.

New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall dismisses the truckers and their allies as ignoramuses who lack the advanced education and top scores on aptitude tests to get ahead. Edsall argues that when the truck convoy arrives in D.C., Biden has to prove himself by maintaining order. That would be a rerun of Trudeaus mistake.

Truth is, these truckers speak for a large swath of America that is fed up with government closing businesses, mandating shots and forcing masks on their kids.

Biden routinely calls his agenda a blue-collar blueprint to build America. If he wants the country to believe hes a friend of working people, hell listen to the truckers, not smack them down.

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and author of The Next Pandemic.

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The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, February 28, 2022 – FlaglerLive.com

Posted: at 7:46 pm

Today at the Editors glance: Weather: Cooler. Partly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers. Highs in the upper 60s.Monday Night: Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers. Lows in the mid 50s.

In Court: Circuit Judge Terence Perkinss docket is wall to wall today, with arraignments, pleas, sentencings and various motions, starting at 8:30 and not ending before 4 p.m. But high-profile cases do not appear to be on the docket.

Flagler Reads Together: Movie Matinee, Hariet, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW. Its about the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic freedom fighter whose escape from slavery transformed her into one of Americas greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history. Free admission.

The Bunnell City Commission meets in workshop at 6:30 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, to discuss salaries. From the memo to commissioners: Inflation, labor shortages, the increased minimum wage rate and local competition is causing challenges for the city. As was presented in the Commission Advance on January 28, 2022, this situation is not unique to Bunnell and all employers are having to adjust policies, procedures and compensation in order to recruit and retain qualified staff in a highly competitive market. The city is currently experiencing extremely high employee turnover rates (30%+ in the last 12 months) and the inability to fill some vacancies. The administration is proposing an across the board increase, immediately, of $1 an hour.

The Bunnell City Commission meets at 7 p.m. at Bunnell City Hall, at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Commissioners are expected to confirm their new police chief, Dave Brannon, a former captain and commander with the Volusia County Sheriffs Office, and bid farewell to their interim, Brannon Snead. See: New Bunnell Police Chief Dave Brannon Steps In as Interim Snead Offers Valentine of Firsts to City.

Six Appeal Vocal Band at the Flagler Auditorium, 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast, 7 p.m. Six Appeal has been described as a vocal ensemble, a comedy group and a rock band, all in one complete show. Forgoing instruments, this dynamic acapella group based across the country uses only their voices to perform decades of music from classic oldies to current chart toppers. With voca dexterity and adventurous songs selection, the groups explores all genres with a wide-reaching repertoire that will surprise and captivate audiences regardless of the setting. Book tickets here.

Notably: Who on earth is Milton Caniff? He was the creator of the comic strips Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, and was born on this day in 1907. There are no hints that he shared Montaignes philosophy. Montaigne, the sceptic and epicurean, the tolerant deist, the writer of boundless curiosity and learning, as Julian Barnes described him (in Nothing To Be Frightened Of, Barness meditation on death) was born on this day in 1533. Today in 1983 was the broadcast of the final M*A*S*H, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. No need to work today. Watch it in full below.

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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.

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The whole [colonial] enterprise that began in the fifteenth century is now coming to an end; an entire continent will soon be rid of its first inhabitants, and this part of the globe will truly be able to proclaim itself a New World. So many cities razed, so many nations exterminated, so many peoples cut down by the sword, and the richest and most beautiful part of the world overthrown for the sake of pearls and pepper! Mechanical victories.

Montaigne hailing the conquest of America by Western Civilization, cited from Pierre Clastres, in Chronicle of the Guyaki Indians.

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The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Monday, February 28, 2022 - FlaglerLive.com

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Guest editorial | Dictatorship and democracy have nothing in common – TribDem.com

Posted: at 7:46 pm

Editors Note: This guest editorial was published early Thursday in the independent, online publication Ukrainian Pravda (Ukrainian Truth) in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I am Ukrainian!

On Feb. 24, at 5 a.m. Kyiv time, we woke up to a new Ukraine and a new world.

A world that was imposed on us. A world that lives not by laws, but by the concepts of thugs with nuclear weapons.

The territory of Ukraine is clearly visible on the map of this world.

It is a map of the missile strikes that Russia has carried out from Lugansk to Ivano-Frankivsk, from Sumy to Kharkiv, from Kherson to Kolomyia, from Kryvyi Rih to Lutsk.

Today we are united by love and hatred love of freedom and hatred of Putins Russia together with its dictator, obedient majority and spiritual crosses.

Our only fault is that we want to be masters of our own house to find a way, to make mistakes, to correct mistakes, to build a future without regard to the phobias and complexes of our northern neighbor.

For eight years now, Ukraine has been in the club of countries that have felt the fraternal embrace of Russia.

By 5 a.m. on Feb. 24, this embrace was awkwardly disguised as hybridism and ikhtamnet (they are not there).

By now, the masks have been thrown off.

Evil has shown its unconcealed grin of peace. Only those who have completely lost the ability to see and analyze can talk about not everything is so clear-cut today.

What to do when missiles fall on our cities?

Recall British Prime Minister Winston Churchills speech on May 3, 1940, after Britain entered World War II.

You will ask me, what is our political course? I answer: to wage war at sea, on land and in the air, with all the power and strength that God gives us; to wage war against a terrible tyranny that surpasses any human crime. This is our course.

What, you may ask, is our goal? I can answer in one word: victory, victory at any cost, victory in spite of all horror, victory no matter how long and difficult the road may be; because without victory there will be no life.

At 5 a.m. on Feb. 24, along with the first Russian missiles falling on Ukrainian territory, the era of post-truth ended for the world.

Along with its hybrid worries, understatements and non-binding phrases.

Today everything is clear. It is a time of utmost simplicity and honesty.

Freedom will never become slavery.

The war unleashed by Russia is a crime against humanity and humanity, even if it is called a thousand times special operation, denazification and peace enforcement.

Dictatorship and democracy have nothing in common.

And if the world does not realize this even now well, so much the worse for the world.

On June 26, 1963, in front of the Schneberg Town Hall in West Berlin, then U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave a speech that went down in history as I am Berliner.

Kennedy flew in to be with the people of that city, who have been cut off from the world since Putins spiritual advisors erected the Berlin Wall.

May the speechwriters of the American president forgive us. We will replace just a few words in this text.

Here is a snippet of this speech, written seemingly today and specifically for us.

For 2,000 years a winged phrase has been I am a citizen of Rome. Today, in the free world, it should sound like this: I am Ukrainian.

There are many people in the world who really dont understand, or say they dont understand, what is the biggest problem between the free world and Russia.

Let them come to Kyiv.

There are those who say Putins Russia is the idea of the future.

Let them come to Kyiv.

And there are those who say that both in Europe and anywhere else we can cooperate with Russia.

Let them come to Kyiv.

And there are even those who say that yes, Putins Russia is an evil system, but this doesnt prevent us from cooperating with it in economy.

Let them come to Kyiv.

All free people, no matter where they live, are citizens of Ukraine.

Therefore, as a free man I proudly declare: I am Ukrainian!

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The Power of Black History People’s World – People’s World

Posted: at 7:46 pm

Dancer Prescylia Mae, of Houston, performs during a dedication ceremony for the massive mural Absolute Equality' in downtown Galveston, Texas, June 19, 2021. The dedication of the mural, which chronicles the history and legacy of Black people in the United States, was part of Juneteenth celebrations. | Stuart Villanueva / The Galveston County Daily News via AP

Black History has the power to uncover the truth and expose the lies about the key contributions Black people have made to winning democratic rights for all. This is especially true of the Civil War and Reconstruction. That was a crucial time in American history that has been falsified, as W.E.B. DuBois said. In his 1935 groundbreaking book, Black Reconstruction, DuBois sets the record straight. The North had to call in the black men to save the Union, abolish slavery, and establish democracy.

Juneteenth: The First General Strike

On Juneteenth 1863, when Lincoln announced his decision to issue the EmancipationProclamation, he was only recognizing the facts on the ground. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved people had already freed themselves and run away, depriving the slaveowners of their workforce. Of those who remained on the plantations, the owners complained that many were refusing to work. DuBois called it the first General Strike.

Over 180,000 of the self-freed men joined the Union Army. Their families often joined the men and worked for the Union Army. That turned the tide of the Civil War that the North had been losing.

The question could be asked, Why was the North losing the Civil War although they had superior resources and over three times the population? That was partly due to the ongoing, almost permanent military nature of the Southern states, already mobilized to keep 3.5 million people enslaved. Also, the morale of the poor white farmers and workers who were drafted into the Union Army was not always high.

It was true that working people were strongly anti-slavery. Whole union locals had dissolved to volunteer for the Union Army at the start of the war. But the rich never enlisted. For $300, they could buy their way out of serving. That was not an option for workers, many of whom made less than $500 a year. Meanwhile, the war was enriching the bankers, the new monopoly capitalists, and the expanding railroad companies. Growing inequality was undermining Union morale.

Black soldiers turn the tide

The massive influx of dedicated Black freedom fighters, who joined the Union Army in regiment-size contingents, led to a resounding victory. The Civil War could not have been won without them. Still, in the early days of the Civil War, the Union Army had the shameful policy of returning escaped, enslaved people to their masters! But General Frmont, in the border state of Missouri, recruited officers who rejected this outrageous practice.

Generals Joseph Weydemeyer, Franz Sigel, and August Willichimmigrant German Communists and friends of Karl Marxemancipated the enslaved wherever they marched. Lincoln disapproved and reassigned Frmont elsewhere. But the die had already been cast. The decision had been made by the hundreds of thousands of Black people escaping the plantations to fight for freedom.

The Union victory unleashed the creative energies of 3.5 million freed men, women, and children, who rushed into the newly opened political arena. Freedmen joined already-free Black people to organize state conventions. Attendance at Black political events was so massive that employers complained nobody worked on meeting days. What was at stake included ownership of the plantations that had been confiscated from the rebel owners, and political rightsespecially the right to vote. What kind of new South would Reconstruction create?

The tragic assassination of Lincoln was a huge setback. Pro-slavery Andrew Johnson became president. He pardoned 7,000 Confederate leaders and allowed Southern state legislatures that enacted Black Codes to force Freedmen and women back to plantations. But Johnson was stopped in his tracks. The veto-proof Radical Republican majority of Congress rose up and impeached him. Johnson was saved from removal by just one Senate vote.

With Congress in charge, real Reconstruction began, and new state legislatures were elected with substantial Black composition. Black men won the right to vote in state elections and run for office well before the 15th Amendment established that right nationally.

Reconstruction and new democratic rights

A lasting achievement of Reconstruction was the creation of a public school system in the South. As Eric Foner said in a recent interview with Chicagos PBS network WTTW: At the end of the Civil War, even while the wars still going on in some areas, and then immediately after, theres this explosion of energy in Black communities to create schools. Northern aid societies come down to help create schools. The Freedmens Bureau puts money into creating schools. But most of the schools that spring up are actually created by Blacks themselves.

Other lasting achievements were the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. They laid the basis for the democratic rights that we are working to defend and extend today. The 13th Amendment, for abolition of slavery throughout the U.S., passed in 1865. The 14th Amendment, for birthright citizenship and equal rights under the law, passed in 1866. By 1869, the 15th Amendment passed Congress, extending the freedmens right to vote nationally. That amendment did not include womens suffrage, although Black leaders had fought for voting rights for all, women as well as men.

For the first time ever, in both North and South, significant numbers of Black men were elected or appointed to public office. Over 4,000 Black men became public officials, counting federal, state, and local public offices. That was a most important achievement, but it could not outlast the return of political power to ex-Confederate plantation owners. The crucial issue of survival of democratic rights was tied to land reform. Who should own the plantations that were either abandoned or confiscated from Confederate traitors?

Reconstruction, an Unfinished Revolution

There was a successful land reform model that could have established a huge economic base for democracy in the South. Gen. Shermans Special Field Order 15 gave 14,000 Black families in South Carolina 40 acres each along the Charleston rice coast and the Sea Islands. Sherman also offered to lend mules.

Instead, most of the confiscated plantations were returned to the former slaveowners who had fought to destroy the Union. That left most freedmen and freed women with no way to make a living except to go back to the plantation under semi-serf conditions. In that basic economic and political sense, the Reconstruction Revolution remained unfinished.

Withdrawal of the Union Army from the South in 1877 ended Reconstruction and returned full power to the former slaveowners and their Ku Klux Klan. Then salt was added to these mortal wounds to the body of Democracy. The very same Union Army regiments that had protected Reconstruction were withdrawn to smash the National Railroad Strike of 1877 and to fight genocidal wars against Native Americans.

Meanwhile, vast economic and political changes had been taking place in the North and West. Banks and corporate monopolies began to dominate the economy. By May 10, 1869, railroads crossed the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They were subsidized with huge land grants of Native American land. Having already forced Native Americans off their lands east of the Mississippi, the U.S. was waging genocidal wars to seize Native American lands in the West. In the cities and towns, wage workers were rising up and joining unions to cut the 12-hour work days and to fight for an 8-hour day.

The growing dominance of monopoly capital and imperialist changes in the North, and the failure to complete Reconstruction in the South, set our country on its present dangerous path. Its a path of racism and oppression at home and eternal war and imperialism abroad. Many have called the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s, the Second Reconstruction. It is time for a Third Reconstruction to finish the Reconstruction Revolution left unfinished in 1877.

Thousands of heroes

Black Reconstruction brought forward thousands of heroes. To begin with, the thousands of Black public officials were all heroes. They served despite frequent terrorist attacks that also targeted their families. There were many more thousands of heroes whose names we dont know.

Fortunately, a whole corps of historians, Black and white, are now doing research in the spirit of W.E.B. DuBois. They are bringing more heroes names to light, such as Sergeant Fred Brown and State Legislator Abraham Calloway. Joseph T. Glatthar has written about Brown in Forged in Battle, the Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. The Regiment Commander had been alerted to a plot to destroy the 33rd U.S. Colored Infantry when they relocated by train. The commander ordered Brown to take four privates, ride on the engine, and shoot the engineer if anything went wrong.

On a trestle bridge, 100 feet above the water, someone pulled a pin, uncoupling the engine. The engine sped on, leaving the regiment trapped aboard the cars, up in the air. Just then, volleys of musket fire poured into the cars. It was night time, so the soldiers could not see to return effective fire. Nor could they abandon the cars. It seemed hopeless.

Just then they heard the engine backing up, returning. When the two sections were reconnected, the commander noticed that Sgt. Brown had his pistol cocked, snug against the back of the engineers head. Evidently, Brown had threatened to blow the mans brains out unless he backed up his engine immediately. Browns quick thinking had saved the whole regiment.

Abraham Calloway

Born enslaved in 1837, Abraham Galloway escaped to freedom when only 20-years-old. But he returned to North Carolina to rescue his mother, and again to help the North win the Civil War. Only 26, Galloway and his men held a gun to the head of the Union Army recruiter until they won the promise they needed. The recruiter promised equal pay for the new Black recruits, schools for their children, jobs for women, and provisions for their families.

Above all, was the demand that the Union Army would force the Confederacy to treat captured soldiers as prisoners of war and not re-enslave or execute them. Within six days, Galloway returned with 6,000 recruits, enough for a brigade.

The very next year, Galloway led a delegation of self-freed men to present President Lincoln with a petition calling on him to finish the noble work you have begun, and grant to your petitioners that greatest of privileges, when the State is reconstructed, to exercise the right of suffrage.

One of only 13 Black delegates among the 120 men elected to the State Constitutional Convention, Galloway declared, I came here to help the poor white man, as well as the colored man, and to do justice to all men.

Elected twice to the State Senate, Galloway voted to ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U. S. Constitution. He introduced a bill to limit the workday to ten hours. Galloway also sponsored bills for womens suffrage and against domestic violence. But these bills did not pass. Galloway was especially eloquent on the subject of public education: They hunger for the forbidden fruit of knowledge with a zest of appetite which imparts marvelous powers of acquisition.

Abraham Galloway died, cause unknown, at 33. He had just escaped two assassination attempts. Although he died broke, 7,000 people came to his funeral in Wilmington, N.C. His unrelenting fight for freedom, just as the even less known bravery of Sgt. Brown, continues to inspire us today.

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ASUU and its strike: Once bitten, twice shy! – TheCable

Posted: at 7:45 pm

BY TOPE TEMOKUN

In my article titled ASUU: What is the interest of the nation, published in the Guardian Newspaper of Sunday, August 19, 2013, written in response to one Doctor Olusanya, in his piece, entitled: ASUU: Beyond Aluta Continua, published Tuesday, September 22, 2009, in the opinion page of the Guardian newspaper, I have reviewed this topic of ASUU-federal government faceoff and even today my position still remains the same, because the crisis has not changed both in form and in content. It is just a simple crisis of acute shortage of honour or total lack of honour in the system.

The starting point to address this issue is to ask what are the specific demands of ASUU before commencing this strike. ASUU has demanded and has done for decades now that the universities be given autonomy. By autonomy, ASUU asks the government to let the universities generate regulatory policies, internally, to deal with particular peculiar and specific problems confronting each university. The government retorts, saying, if we give you autonomy, then we will also give you financial autonomy meaning that each university will be left alone, that is, abandoned to generate funds internally for its sustenance.

The government has not specified how the universities will generate multi-millions needed to keep the university going. ASUU has demanded, among other things, for wage uplift befitting of their efforts and patriotic services but there still exists in this land some Nigerians who believe that even if a professor, considered to have climbed to the pinnacle of a career in academia, earns less than half a million as a monthly wage which is less than half a local government councilors monthly take-home and a graduate assistant earns less than N100,000 equivalent, or far less in some cases, when compared to the take-home of an illiterate political errand boy in the name of PA to a state parliamentarian yet those in this school of thought have posited that ASUUs demands are unrealistic. Other demands such as the renegotiation of conditions of service, injection of revitalisation funds, payment of earned academic allowances, implementation of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) have all just become unrealistic. What is then realistic?

The question I want to ask anybody who belongs to this school of thought is which of ASUUs demands is unrealistic? Is it their demand for better funding of the universities, which means voting sufficient funds into the universities to tackle its internal challenges, like fallen facilities and inadequacies of infrastructures for modern meaningful learning and abate incessant interruption caused by students and workers protest, so that Nigerian children can go to school and come back home with robust knowledge and refined outlook and not just with a paper certificate which merely certifies the emptiness of their return? Or is it be ASUUs demand for autonomy that can afford each university, based on its own peculiar problems and challenges, to structure out internal policies to tame domestic problems?

Perhaps what is unrealistic is ASUUs demand to have wages upgraded such that a professor can at least be placed on equivalent earning with a local government councilor or at least close? Or could it be that facilities such as new well-equipped expansive classrooms be built to replace the old crestfallen classrooms built in the 60s and 70s for 30 students which now take in 450 students where 70% of the learners have to either sit on each others laps or on the bare floor or sit out and jot through the windows? Or is it the simple demand of ASUU that the federal government should honour its agreement reached now and then with ASUU which the government had hissed and spat on after signing and has started flouting and abandoning before it is even signed because the governments agenda year in year out is to keep ASUU silent and down; the reason for always signing agreements upon agreements which the governments knew they wont honour which then has to make the lectures return to the trenches after a long endless waiting?

It is intellectually embarrassing, under a government, where the entire political class, in both the legislative and the executive arms of government, swim in greed, graft, and avarice, with scandalous salaries and allowances for this kind of noxious reasoning of calling simple public interest, demands that critical attention be given to our public education unrealistic and asking ASUU to explore other option than strike, to be coming from anybody who lays claim to passing through any form of school wall, be it kindergarten, nursery school, primary school, secondary school or any higher institution.

Some have prescribed, in learned circles, new consciousness and new styles for ASUU, without recommending new consciousness and new styles for the government. This is intellectually dubious and one-sidedly cowardly. Year after year, we are back there and this time what is it about: Nigerian lecturers have demanded full implementation of this or that agreement signed with the government and a memorandum of understanding they had with neither of the parties under duress with the successive governments of this country on various issues ranging from university autonomy to funding, and lecturers remuneration. The government has now said it wants a renegotiation as some parts of the agreements reached with the union were not implementable. What manner of a new consciousness, if I may ask, must ASUU then nurture to stand up squarely to an unserious and unfaithful government that wont honour the agreement? I ask this question because it is necessary for us as citizens to be mentally faithful to ourselves, even in the face of personal moral crisis, because not being faithful to oneself will amount to intellectual infidelity, which consists not in believing, or in disbelieving, but in professing to believe that which one cannot, by all logical inference, reasonably believe in.

The minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, has said too that the strike is illegal because ASUU did not give the federal government the minimum 14 days strike notice prescribed by the law, prior to the strike. This is a reckless and careless statement from an unfair-minded public office holder that is not only shameless but it is as insensitive as it is provocative. The question that begs for an answer is whether the government gave ASUU any notice before unilaterally reneging on its agreement signed with ASUU? Why would notice suddenly take the place of good faith?Why are we unblessed with a government that puts its hand on paper to deceitfully end lectures strike and dubiously come round later to say that the agreement it signed is not implementable and yet some people in this country will see nothing morally and publicly wrong about this but will wish ASUU be hanged for calling for more restoration of sanity and minimal moral standard to the system.

This battle to save the educational sector is not a battle between the ASUU and the government but a battle between the people and the government because a people whose knowledge industry is drained of life and existence is a people on the departure lounge to extinction. For those of us who think a strike is not the option and that it is old-fashioned and must be jettisoned when the government has not considered signing an agreement it would not honour as old-fashioned and has refused to jettison its deliberate deceit and insensitivity, it is slavery of the mind. To these citizens, Harriet Tubman said of them that: I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.

For ASUU, compatriots, it is once bitten, twice shy! Hopefully, the storm shall be over someday, if we dont give up.

Temokun, a lawyer & human rights activist, writes from Lagos

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