Category Archives: Freedom

High vaccination rates, combined with some curbs on our behaviour, provide our best chance to ease the worst aspects of this pandemic. But it is crucial that Australians understand that, despite much-vaunted vaccination take-up freedom thresholds, we will only know the actual number when the day arrives. In the meantime, we must aim for the highest possible vaccination rates including among very young children and start taking this lockdown more seriously.

Vaccination rates must be maximised before we can consider significant relaxation of restrictions.Credit:AP

This American summer provides a real-time cautionary tale that should prompt us not to get ahead of ourselves. Despite having only 50 per cent of the population fully vaccinated against the SARS-COV-2 virus, related restrictions were eased prematurely in the United States. On Cape Cod, hundreds crowded into the popular holiday area and the virus had a field day. Most alarmingly, 74 per cent of the infections occurred in fully vaccinated individuals. Most experienced only minor symptoms and significantly none died. But those infected were carrying very high viral loads and were, of course, infectious.

We have known for many months that vaccination does not stop one from carrying viruses in ones respiratory secretions but this event finally persuaded the American Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to call for the vaccinated to wear masks when indoors and to maintain social distancing.

You may have followed the negative reaction from many that followed. Just when they thought vaccination would provide freedom from the scourge of COVID, they were once again told to wear masks and practise social distancing. Incredibly, some governors decided this was intolerable and actually banned mandatory mask-wearing.

We immunologists expected this situation. While the vaccines we use do reduce the carriage of virus in our respiratory secretions by, on average, 50 per cent, none produce what is called sterilising immunity, a state where the immune system will not allow viruses to reside in those secretions.

Scott Morrison at Wednesdays announcement of the Doherty Institute modelling for vaccination rates. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

We have a purpose-evolved mucosal immune system with special skills to protect our inner skin, the mucous membranes that line noses, throats and intestines. This system is poorly activated by vaccines injected into the body. Hence, injected vaccines only effectively protect our vital internal organs, and thankfully they do that very well. Dozens of laboratories are hard at work trying to produce vaccines that can be administered by nasal sprays or taking a tablet.

At the moment Australians are studying the governments four-stage plan to end our COVID suffering. Enormous emphasis is being given to some definitive figure for vaccination uptake that, on arrival, will set us free. Various models suggest 70-90 per cent vaccination rates will be required. The truth is that we will only know the true figure when the smouldering embers of the pandemic can readily be dowsed by our contact tracers for the few cases we will encounter.

That figure is certainly a very high one. My point in discussing the carrier status of the vaccinated is to make it clear that for much of 2022 even with the majority of us vaccinated mask-wearing and social distancing will still be required by all us to avoid lockdowns and to protect the unvaccinated. Surely Australians would not accept the appalling proposition that we and our government have no duty of care to those who refuse vaccination.

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Vaccination is critical, but it will not alone unlock our freedom - Sydney Morning Herald

An ongoing battle. Thats how Pastor George F. Nicholas describes the health disparities that African Americans are still trying to overcome.

Its an ongoing battle for our own liberation, says Nicholas, pastor of Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church and convener of the African American Health Equity Task Force. As long as we in the African American community still have these very real health disparities, theres a level of bondage were still in.

Thats why Nicholas and his colleagues on the African American Health Equity Task Force and the Buffalo Center for Health Equity are joining with UB and its Community Health Equity Research Institute for Igniting Hope: Healing Historical Trauma from Racist Research, Policies and Practices. The two-day conference is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and by several community sponsors.

The conference kickoff event on Aug. 13 will be a two-mile Freedom Walk from the Michigan Street African American Heritage Archway along Michigan Avenue to the Freedom Wall at the corner of East Ferry Street. The walk is open to the community. Alternative transportation will be provided for those who are unable to do the walk. Conference sessions on Aug. 14 will take place virtually from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Registration and additional conference information is available online.

The purpose of the walk is really to symbolize that people are gathering in the community again, says Nicholas, a member of the board of directors of the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute. Theres a level of celebration in terms of the good work weve been doing.

He notes that if it had not been for the collaborations between the task force, the center and UB and all of their partners, he believes the COVID-19 outcomes in the African American community would have been significantly worse.

But much more needs to be done, and this is the point of the conference, which, the organizers point out, is focused less on health care issues themselves and more on the systems and the infrastructure that create disparities in the first place.

They note that collaborations between UB and the community partners have been solidly based on the idea that it is the root causes of health disparities that exist outside the health care system that so desperately need to be addressed.

This is the fourth year of the Igniting Hope conference series. Each of the first three years attracted approximately 300 attendees. This conference series is becoming an annual summit that brings together community and university stakeholders to understand health disparities and discuss viable solutions to this systemic problem in our community, says Timothy Murphy, director of the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute.

Weve said we will identify clearly whats driving these disparities, and then we will start to chip away at them, says Nicholas. It takes time. Its not sexy, but its the work that needs to be done, to do the research and get the data on whats really driving these things. Its the work that needs to be done so that our children and grandchildren dont have to be dealing with this stuff.

Keynote speakers are:

Breakout discussions will focus on topics raised by the keynote speeches, as well as the environment, fines and fees, historical trauma and healing, and nutrition.

In addition to Nicholas, other speakers addressing the conference are:

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Freedom Walk kicks off Igniting Hope conference - UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff - University at Buffalo Reporter

Hezekiah Watkins was looking for a hero. As a 13-year-old middle schooler in 1961 in Jackson who had lost his father three years earlier, he thought that seeing and possibly touching a Freedom Rider would fulfill him.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings in 1949 and 1960 that racial segregation in interstate buses and route facilities was unconstitutional emboldened young Freedom Riders. In the summer of 1961, the mixed-race Riders braved severe beatings, imprisonment, maiming, and death from white mobs, supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, and the government. They rode on interstate buses, trains and planes into southern statesVirginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianastopping at various spots to integrate facilities and face arrest.

More than 400 Freedom Riders made the trip south, beginning on May 4, 1961. Twenty days later, they started a journey to Jackson, Miss. By the end of the summer, 328 ended in Mississippis Parchman Prison after police arrested them for breach of peace for moving into the segregated waiting areas of the bus stations.

On Saturday, July 10, Watkins, now 73 years old and a guide at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, met the Jackson Free Press inside the museum to talk about how he was arrested at such a young age.

How It Started

My journey started on July 7, 1961, which was 60 years ago, I think Wednesday of this week, here in Jackson at the Greyhound Bus Station (at 239 N. Lamar St.), Watkins said.

Before then, he had heard of the Freedom Riders, but he met a brick wall when he asked his teacher, mother and pastor about them. None of them wanted to say anything about it to the 13-year-old.

I was interested in the Freedom Riders based on what I saw (happen) in Alabama on TV, and it became interesting to me seeing Blacks and whites work together, being beaten, all these types of inhumane things happening to them, and it just caught my attention, Watkins said.

He and his friend checked the local news every day to keep up with the Freedom Riders and Alabama. They eventually became our heroes and sheroes, Watkins said. He did not name the friend.

We thought they were just fighting against the police officers; we didnt know their mission, Watkins explained.

The Riders met violence as they reached the Deep South, with white mobs firebombing a bus in Anniston, Ala., beating Riders in Birmingham, attacking in Montgomery as police did nothing. Federal marshals were called in.

Watkins friend later informed him about a Freedom Riders meeting on July 7, 1961 at the Masonic Temple on Lynch Street. When they got there on their bicycles, the event was almost over.

But the announcer was asking if there was anyone here who would like to join forces with the Freedom Riders? If so, meet us at the Greyhound Bus Station, Watkins said as he related the story. So I looked at my friend, my friend looked at me, and we both just nodded.

The boys wanted to see what a Freedom Rider looks like, talked like, dressed like. And if weve got an opportunity to reach out and touch one, man, you know, thats glory, Watkins said.

But they found downtown deserted. State authorities had already arrested the Riders and sent them to Parchman.

Two teenagers started goofing around at the bus station. Being Black and youre downtown, you dont get a chance to enjoy downtown, Watkins explained about the segregated capital city then. You dont get a chance to walk the sidewalk because if you walk on the sidewalk and a white person comes along, you have to step into the street. We didnt have to do that because no one was down there, Watkins said.

So webeing 13-year-old kidswere really enjoying ourselves. There was a water fountain that read White, Colored. We had never drunk from the white fountain. Weve been told that the water from the white fountain was much colder, kind of had a better taste to it, and it was somewhat sweeter, and it reminded you of Kool-Aid. They had their fill of the white-only water fountain and played with the water with no one around.

Then They Were Arrested

The teenagers went back to the bus station, and Watkins friend pushed him inside. They started laughing until a police officer grabbed Watkins on the shoulder.

Why are you in here? the officer asked Watkins.

My friend out there pushed me in here, he replied politely.

What friend? the officer asked.

Hes out there, Watkins replied.

The officer grabbed Watkins by the wrist and led him outside the bus station, and asked, where? Watkins looked left and right, but he could not find the friend, though the two bicycles were still there. His friend had run back home.

At the bus station, the officer asked Watkins his name and place of birth.

It just so happened that my birthplace was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Watkins told the Jackson Free Press. His father left for Wisconsin shortly before his birth; his mother returned with him after he died to be with her relations in Jackson.

Watkins tried to explain that he lived in Jackson. He told me to shut up, Watkins said. At 13 years old, I was arrested and taken to Parchman prison and put on death row. Not only was I on death row, but I was put in a cell with two other inmates; those inmates had been tried for murder. They had been convicted, and they had been sentenced to die.

Ross Barnett, the Mississippi governor in 1961, thought sending the Freedom Riders to Parchman would stop the movement, but it did not work.

Confined Creature at Age 19

Jackson resident Frederick Douglas Moore Clark Sr. was 19 at the time of his arrest in 1961 at Tri-State Trailways Station on West Capitol Street soon after Watkins arrest. He would eventually spend more than 40 days in Parchman. Clark told the Jackson Free Press of his experience on June 19, 2021, at a Black Voters Matter event at Tougaloo College.

Clark went to Georgia, where the Southern Christian Leadership Conference trained him in their non-violence principles in 1958: I was indoctrinated in understanding the philosophy of direct action and peaceful, peaceful demonstration as Martin Luther King Jr. practiced.

Civil rights icons James Bevel and Diane Nash later sought him to desegregate the bus stations waiting rooms. He took 10 people with him to the Trailways station. He said those younger than 18 in his group did not go to prison.

I had just turned 19. I went to prison, and we were placed on death row, he said. We stayed on death row for approximately 40 days where they tried to kill usthey cut our food in half, and they put out cold air on us at night.

The only things we had were Salvation Army shorts and shirts and nothing else, he added. They took all of our sheets and pillowcase, mattress and everything we had in our cell.

Clark related how correctional officers beat them with sticks and locked 38 of them in a 6-feet-by-8-feet steel vault, where they could hardly breathe with the only ventilation coming from under the vaults door. So I called on the guards for four or five hours and got us out, he said.

The others did not like that he cried for help because they were not supposed to give in. I was breathing on the crack under the door, and I was able to call those people to get us out of there, he said.

We had to say, yes sir to get out of there, Clark added.

After getting out of jail, he could barely walk and suffered health problems. When I got out, it took me two months to be able to walk the streets because we hadnt been walking; we were just confined creatures, he stated. All of us got pneumonia. I had double pneumonia, both lungs.

I was glad to get out, very glad to get out, Clark added.

How Watkins Got Out

Watkins said he was at the prison for five days, which he felt was as long as five months. And here I am in the midst of these two (he paused)am just going to say two brotherswho gave me the blues at 13 things that I had to go through being in jail with them, he said, sighing heavily.

Watkins remembers Gov. Barnett, who died in 1987: Ross Barnett was the most racist person, in my opinion.

He hated all Blacks. And he hated poor whites. I can recall him being on television or radio uttering these words: If you are white and youre poor, aint got nothing for you because thats your fault. And if youre Black, I surely dont have nothing for you, Watkins said.

And during the sixties, Parchman prison was the worst prison in these United States, he added. It was still being run as a slave camp; you were working, people were being beaten. All of these things are still happening. Im told that the governor wanted to send a message to the Freedom Riders, and that message was, if you come to Mississippi, this is the type of treatment youre going to get.

Watkins believed Barnett asked for him to be released after President John F. Kennedy called him. Im told that the governor made a call to the prison for my release, and I was released and brought back to Jackson, he said. They called my mother to come pick me up.

Before then, his mother thought her young son was dead, having not seen him for days after spending much effort to search for him. Im told that when she received a call from the Jackson Police Department she thought she was going to identify my remains.

When his mother came into the jail, Watkins, with bruises, was in handcuffs standing against the wall at the back of the room. She jumped over desks and chairs in Fa flash and hugged him tightly.

And since I couldnt do anything because Im handcuffed behind my back, we fell to the floor, and we both were crying and just enjoying each other.

One day, after school later that year in September, Bevel sought out Watkins. Under his tutelage, Watkins participated in various protests for the next six years, starting with picketing the A&P Grocery Store in west Jackson and forcing the manager to employ Black people. He went to various counties for such civil rights work and was beaten, jailed and shot.

I was the youngest person arrested at 13, and I had the most arrests at 109, so they say. To be honest with you, it could have been 110, maybe 99, I dont know.

It was a good run. Im 73 as we speak. Ask me, could I do it again? The answer is yes. I can do everything except Parchman prison. Never, ever want to go there again. I wouldnt wish that on my greatest enemy.

Email story tips to city/county reporter Kayode Crown at [emailprotected]. You can also follow him on Twitter at @kayodecrown.

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60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides: The 'Accidental Freedom Rider' Locked up in Parchman at 13 - Jackson Free Press

An uplifting gospel show is headed to Woonsocket next Friday, August 13th when Rev. Sekou and the Seal Breakers hit the Levitt AMP for a free show.

A noted activist, author, documentary filmmaker and theologian, Sekou offers a new vision for what Southern blues, gospel, and rock can mean today. Raised in the deep Arkansas blues and gospel traditions, Rev. Sekou was selected by Ebony Magazines Power 100, NAACP History Makers (2015). Disregarding his activism, his music is incredible on its own merit and has earned praise from NPR, Vice NOISEY, Oxford American, the Bluegrass Situation, Afropunk, WNYC, Paste, Colorlines, BBC, and No Depression. I saw him a couple of years back in Memphis and show was seriously incredible.

Sekou is an activist teaching non-violent resistance tactics around the country. His song Resist, begins with a rousing speech given by Rev. Sekou at a rally in Ferguson, Missouri, protesting the murder of Michael Brown. Upon hearing about Browns death, Sekou immediately returned to his hometown of St. Louis, MO, taking to the streets in a series of protests and interfaith demonstrations that led to his being arrested multiple times.

Reverend Sekou served as Pastor for Formation and Justice at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Boston for two years. He has protested the second Iraq war; served as a delegate to the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia; co-led an interfaith delegation to Haiti one month after the tragic earthquake; and spent 6 weeks on the ground in Charlottesville, VA training clergy in response to the Unite the Right rally.

Click for an inspiring Tiny Desk performance: Rev. Sekou And The Seal Breakers: Tiny Desk Concert : NPR

Click here for More informationhttp://www.revsekou.com/

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Rev. Osagyefo Sekou and the Freedom Fighters playing Levitt AMP in Woonsocket August 13 - What'sUpNewp

A person holds up a flag during rally to protest the Trump administrations reported proposal to narrow the definition of gender to male or female at birth at City Hall in New York City, October 24, 2018. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Critics of the transgender moral panic have been arguing that the movement is akin to religion. Now, that criticism finds support in the Journal of Medical Ethics only rather than a criticism, the author contends that there is a right to GAH gender-affirming health care that is equivalent to freedom of religion.

The author, R. Rowland of the University of Leeds, identifies the so-called religion in question as the right to live with integrity: From Integrity and Rights to Gender-Affirming Healthcare:

Many states permit exemptions to laws for those with particular religious beliefs. For instance (unlike non-Sikhs), Sikhs in the UK are permitted to ride motorcycles without wearing a helmet and to carry ceremonial daggers in public. InSherbert v Verner the US Supreme Court ruled that individuals who refuse Saturday work due to their religious convictions cannot be denied unemployment compensation even though others who refuse such work without such conviction can be. Other religious exemptions involve exemptions from uniform policies (to wear headscarfs or jewellery). The most popular account of rights to religious exemptions grounds these rights in our right to live with integrity.

This is sophistry. The right to free expression prevents the state from forcing people to do that with which they disagree because of their faith, and to worship as they choose. It does not require the rest of society to pay the costs of our religious practices or ensure we have the elements we believe necessary for the practice of faith. For example, there is no right for Catholics to have a church building. Or, to use the Sikh example, to force society to pay for the believers turban.

Moreover, religion involves a belief in a higher power as the source of truth and the establishment of standards to which the believer must adhere. Enforcing the right to free expression, for example, requires objective evidence of the objectors faith precepts, for example, that abortion is a sin under Catholic dogma.

But true to the spirit (if you will) of our era, the right to live with integrity as a transgendered person and to receive GAH is totally subjective and centered in the solipsistic self:

To have or live with integrity, in the relevant sense, is for there to be a congruence or fit between the commitments, projects or principles that are constitutive of ones identity or identities and ones actions. One acts with integrity on this picture whenever one acts in line with ones ideal of the kind of person one should be and the kind of life that onebut not necessarily everyone elseshould live. One marker of a commitment, project or principle that one cannot sacrifice without sacrificing ones integrity is that one cannot sacrifice it without feeling guilt, shame or remorse.

Well, that would create a right to live ones life as a white supremacist wouldnt it?

Rowland argues that if freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that permits the believer to deviate from the general norms of behavior, so does the right to live with integrity for transgendered people meaning they have a positive human right to transition and access other forms of gender-affirming health care, even if not depressed or suffering mental illness:

If our rights to live and act with integrity ground a pro tanto claim right to religious accommodation, then our rights to live and act with integrity ground a right to GAH for many trans and non-binary people . . .

Integrity grounds a prima faceright for many trans and non-binary people to access and be provided with GAH. And thisprima facieright to GAH may well (at least sometimes) yield an all-things-considered right to GAH (section VI). This means that trans people do not need to have an illness or be suffering from a particular form of harm or distress in order to have rights to GAH and that we have rights to GAH even if we are not suffering from gender dysphoria. No one is not trans enough to have a right to GAH on this view. And there is a good case that all trans people whose desired transition involves GAH have at least an importantprima facieright to GAH.

So, there you have it. The right to have medical interventions to support ones transgenderism is now akin to freedom of religion.

Our intellegentsia have lost their marbles. It is going to take resistance by and the common sense of real people to keep our society on an even keel.

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Bioethicist: Right to Transgender Healthcare Akin to Freedom of Religion - National Review

In a short conversation with a man Ive known for decades I mentioned how hard it can sometimes be to conjure up a topic for this column; he agreed by saying if such a task were left to him, hed probably get run out of town. While appreciating the humor of the remark, I also took it as a warning; there are subjects which when put forth to the body politic can cause intense emotions and responses. And at the present time in America emotional responses seem to rule the day.

Theories abound as to how much media influences our lives and guides the way we ultimately live our lives; and media has been around a long while in the United States. If one looks at the roots of American media, it must be said that the public newspaper is the granddaddy of all the venues to come, with radio, television and the internet to follow over the next 200 years. To say that early American newspapers maintained strict adherence to objectivity, truth and accuracy would be falling in line with the acceptance they did; they did not, not all of them, anyway.

As in other areas, the new Republic adopted ideas spawned by the French Revolution, notably the guarantees of liberty, freedom of speech and press, and self-governance. And while Americans reveled in this freedom of publication without censure, it was a Frenchman who warned about that freedom.

Alexis de Toqueville was a 26-year-old and well-educated, erudite French historian when in 1831 he traveled extensively throughout America. Four years later he published his observations in a two-volume tome entitled Democracy in America; still the most quoted book in the United States and a staple in studies of American history.

Of our media of that time he wrote: In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates, supporting the idea that a society is held together by a free press providing accurate description of current events and issues, but such freedom also had its perils. And when de Tocqueville cited that The power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people, he understood that the human element would greatly influence the American landscape. He was correct.

In university communications studies, the human element with the most influence is known as gatekeepers; these are the people who, at different levels, make the final decisions as to what their respective media genres put out to the public. Gatekeepers are extremely influential, it is their choices of what, and how, current events will appear to that portion of the public that ascribes to their media outlets.

These choices, what the public takes in, leads us to another man known in the world of media, Marshall McLuhan. A Canadian philosopher and media pundit, McLuhan coined the adage the media is the message in the 1960s, while his overall work requires deep sociological and philosophical study, the base message is that we react to what our senses take in; and those reactions reverberate through societies and cultures.

This has been true in all phases of Americas past when media compelled the masses to some sort of action: revolt against an oppressive monarchy, enlist to aid allies at war, mobilize when attacked by a foreign power, march, rally or demonstrate both sides of issues, such as racial equality or participation in unpopular wars.

We are bombarded with rhetoric and images by myriad network and social media outlets on a continuous basis with current emphasis on political and public divisiveness regarding our democratic laws, processes and traditions. The political landscape of the past half decade saw media influence the body politic to acts of extreme measure; while I have no statistics to support this claim, I would venture to say that in the past 36 months there have been, per capita, more armed Americans in the streets than any time since the Civil War years. It was, and continues to be, a dangerous and decisive time in our history.

Five decades ago McLuhan wrote: The past went that-a-way. When faced with a totally new situation we tend to always attach ourselves to objects, to the flavor of the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backward into the future. Suburbia lives imaginarily in Bonanza-land. His words support what we saw recently when the word again was used in a slogan supporting a political movement and planted the desire in many to somehow return American society to a past they viewed as the true nature of the country.

But globalization precludes any nation from going backward; the world is just too technically connected to allow any regress to those who wish to stay economically viable and socially and culturally secure.

How the present political dramas will play out is of course not ours to know, but I offer this scenario for consideration: take a group of 300 12-year-olds of all segments of American society (in a country of some 331 million people this would be quite doable), use an important current issue, well use the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and give them one hour of video and still images, with audio, of what took place in the U.S. Capitol Building on that day.

Then give them one hour of definition of the word insurrection with examples from history, both ours and foreign countries, and then give them one hour each of how both political parties view the events of that day.

Finally, at the end of the project ask them this question: Did the actions of Americans that day qualify as insurrection against their country? My bet is their answers would tell us a lot about how America will perform on the world stage in the next couple of decades.

Take care. Peace.

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Funny Papers Again Column | Let Freedom of the Press Reign, but Dont Let It Rule - King City Rustler

The U.S. Navy is rebuilding the Littoral Combat Ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul (LCS-21) after a retrofit of a critical component in the ships propulsion system. The same issue that was repaired on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul affects the propulsion systems on all twelve of the other Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) that have been launched to date. The problem-prone ships are now facing a lengthy and costly design fix process in addition to some being decommissioned far earlier than projected. To make matters worse, the Navy announced this week that it will likely take years to make the planned fixes on the rest of the Freedom-class LCSs.

This week, LCS deputy program manager Howard Berkof told USNI News that the retrofit as currently planned could take years to implement throughout the fleet. The issue aboard the USS Minneapolis Saint-Paul and other LCS concerns the bearings of a critical combining gear between the ships gas turbines and their diesel engines. The turbines can be used to provide extra power for the ships water jet propulsion systems, allowing them to reach speeds of over 40 knots, a core requirement of the ships during development. The ships can only reach between 10 and 12 knots with their diesel engines alone.

The bearings aren't easy to replace due to the placement of the combining gear deep within the design's architecture. Its a very complex fix to replace the bearings on the combining gear. Its a very tight space, theres a lot of interferences that have to be removed, said Berkof this week, according to USNI News. The Navy, primary contractor Lockheed Martin, and the combining gears German manufacturer RENK AG have proposed three different methods of repairing the gear, one of which involves cutting through the hull in the middle of the ship.

The method used to repair the Minneapolis-Saint Paul involved dropping the gear into the ship's mission bay and removing it through a door in the aft of the hull. The ship will now undergo sea trials to determine the effectiveness of the design fix. The commissioning of the Minneapolis-Saint Paulhas been delayed due to the defect, and a date has still yet to be set for the occasion.

The Navy issued a statement earlier this year stating it would halt deliveries of Freedom-class ships until it solved the combining gear issue, and that it had already taken preventative measures to prevent damage to relevant LCSs already launched that are still awaiting the retrofit. Those measures seem to largely consist of restricting the ships to using only one of their two power systems, either the gas turbines or the diesel engines, but not both.

It also remains unclear who will ultimately bear the brunt of the costs associated with replacing the bearings in the combining gears aboard the LCSs. Discussions between Lockheed Martin and the Navy are ongoing to determine the exact amount the service will contribute. However, the Navys Howard Berkof told Defense News that there is a latent defect clause in the contracts with Lockheed Martin that states that the costs would be shared on such fixes. We are in discussions with Lockheed Martin about, heres what the contract says, heres what we believe is the situation, and were talking with them about how we come through that, Berkof said.

In the meantime, the issue has already become so severe that Navy has already laid out a timeline for decommissioning two relatively young Freedom-class ships, USS Detroit (LCS-7) and USS Little Rock (LCS-9), that have had particularly bad issues with their combining gears. The service plans to decommission the USS Freedom on September 30, 2021, while Fort Worth, Detroit, and Little Rock are slated for March 31, 2022.

Congress previously approved the decommissioning of USS Freedom (LCS-1) and USS Independence (LCS-2), but blocked the Navy's attempt to rid itself of USS Fort Worth (LCS-3) and USS Coronado (LCS-4). USS Independence was decommissioned on July 29, 2021, and the Navy is once again attempting to rid itself of LCS-3 and LCS-4 once again in addition to the troublesome Detroit and Little Rock. The first four LCSs do not share a common configuration with later ships, and the service is of the position that it is not worth the cost to bring them up to the latest standards. As a result, LCSs 1-4 have been relegated to training roles.

The comments made by the Navy's deputy LCS program manager this week are only the latest grief the service's troublesome Littoral Combat Ships have faced. The LCS program, as a whole, has so far failed to live up to the promises the Navy made when it began, and has only led to ships that are exorbitantly expensive to operate despite their relatively limited capability sets.

The upcoming sea trials for the USSMinneapolis-Saint Paul will likely help determine the fate of the beleaguered littoral combat ship as well as the rest of the Navy's ill-fated Freedom-class ships, which have yet to prove themselves worthy of their price tags or fulfill even a portion of their hoped-for potential.

Contact the author: Brett@TheDrive.com

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Critical Fix Will Take Years To Reach All Navy Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ships - The Drive

Amazon has quite a bunch of deals and offers for the Great Freedom Festival. It will offer smartphones and accessories with up to 40% off. You can also get electronics and accessories with up to 60% off during this sale. TVs and appliances will be available with up to 55% off, and home and kitchen appliances will also be discounted up to 70%. Theres a lot to look forward to so weve rounded up some of the best deals for the Amazon Great Freedom Festival sale.

Apple iPad Air 2020

The Apple iPad Air 2020 is also part of this sale with a discounted price of 47,900. This is for the base Wi-Fi-only model. The iPad Air 2020 comes in a Wi-Fi + cellular model as well. The iPad Air 2020 stands out for its refreshed design with sharp edges, and the Touch ID button. It features a 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, A14 Bionic chip, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi 6.

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Fujifilm Instax Mini 11 Instant Camera (Lilac Purple) Gift BoxThe Fujifilm Instax Mini 11 gift box is available for 5,699 during the Great Freedom Festival. In this gift box you get the Instax Mini 11 in Lilac Purple, 10 Instax Mini films, Instax photo bunting which is a set of clips to hang the photos. It also comes with a photo album, batteries for the instant camera, and a camera strap.

Fire TV Stick

Amazon devices including Echo smart speakers, Fire TV and Kindle are available with up to 45% off. The latest Fire TV Stick is available at 2,799 after a discount from its original price of 4,999. The Fire TV Stick 4K has also been discounted to 4,799 from 5,999 for this sale.

Echo Show 5

The Echo Show 5 smart display that retails for 8,999 is available for 4,499 during the Great Freedom Festival sale. It has a 5.5-inch display with support for music streaming apps like Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. The Echo Show 5 can also be used to watch movies and TV shows from Prime Video and Netflix.

Oppo Band Style

Oppos fitness band is available at 1,999 after a discount from its original price of 2,799. The Oppo Band Style comes with a SpO2 monitor to measure oxygen saturation. It is also claimed to last for up to 12 days on a single charge. The fitness tracker has a 1.1-inch AMOLED display and is water and dust resistant. It comes in two colour options of black and a vanilla style strap.

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Amazon says that Prime Day 2021 was the best sale for small businesess, 1.26 lakh sellers participatedAmazon brought in $2 billion less than analysts expected, even with a second-quarter Prime Day

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Amazon Great Freedom Festival: Top offers and deals to look forward to - Business Insider India

By Nandita Bose (Reuters) Vice President Kamala Harris will focus on defending international rules in the South China Sea, strengthening U.S. regional leadership,and expanding security cooperation during her trip to Vietnam and Singapore this month, a senior White House official told Reuters.

Harris will be the first U.S. vice president to visit Vietnam as Washington seeks to bolster international support to counter Chinas growing global influence.

The U.S. official said Washington saw both countries as critical partners given their locations, the size of their economies, trade ties, and security partnerships on issues such as the South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety.

Former U.S. foe Vietnam has been a vocal opponent of Chinas South China Sea claims. Countries in the region largely welcome the U.S. military presence there in the face of Chinas militarization of the waterway and its vast coastguard and fishing fleet.

We do not want to see any country dominate that region or take advantage of the power situation to compromise the sovereignty of others, the White House official said.

The Vice President is going to underscore that there should be a free passage for trade, throughout the South China Sea, and no single country should disrespect the right of others.

The U.S. Navy has maintained a steady pattern of freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and near Taiwan but these appear to have done little to discourage Beijing.

Harris trip will follow one by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week to Hanoi, where he sought to nudge forward steadily deepening security ties.

It will also follow high-level talks between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and senior Chinese diplomats last month that did little to ease deeply strained ties.

This week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will seek to reinforce the U.S. message that it is serious about engaging with Southeast Asia to push back against China by joining a series of regional meetings held virtually.

Addressing a virtual session of the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said high-level U.S. visits were greatly valued as they showed Washington knew it had substantial interests to protect and advance in the region.

However, he expressed concern about deteriorating U.S.-China relations and said many countries hoped to see this checked because many U.S. friends and allies wish to preserve their extensive ties with both powers.

Its vital for the U.S. and China to strive to engage each other to head off a clash, which would be disastrous for both sides, and the world, he said.

The White House official said the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccinations, and quality of vaccines would also be a top priority for Harris.

Last month, Washingtonshipped 3 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam, bringing total donations to Hanoi to 5 million.

Harris is due in Singapore on Aug. 22. She arrives in Vietnam on Aug. 24 and departs on Aug. 26.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore, Editing by David Brunnstrom and Nick Zieminski, Reuters)

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Kamala Harris To Focus On Freedom Of Navigation At Sea - gcaptain.com

So far this year, freshman Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has outraised all of her GOP colleagues in the House, raking in $4.53 million in the first six months of 2021. (Among congressional Republicans, only Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have raised more.) Yes, Greene is paying quite a bit to raise those funds, but it remains a staggering amount for an incumbent in a safe red district, especially when most of it has come from small donors. What on earth do people think theyre buying with that money?

One thing her donors are definitely not buying is a coherent political message. Last week, after being suspended by Twitter for 12 hours for falsely claiming that there had been 6,000 vax-related deaths, she held a press conference in which she repeatedly contradicted herself, arguing at one point that the number was actually higher, while also appearing to agree with her colleague Steve Scalise that the vaccine is safe and effective.

Asked by reporters for her actual beliefs, Greene deflected, embracing instead the mantra of conspiracy theorists everywhere: Do your own research. I encourage people to make up their own mind, she said at one point, before echoing a few minutes later the old conspiracy theorists standard that someone should be looking into all of this: You see, theres a lot of things happening and I think we should analyze all of it before governments and schools and businesses say, Absolutely, you have to take this vaccine.

What Greene is offeringand what her supporters are buyingis not an alternative theory but rather freedom: the freedom to disregard acknowledged authorities like Anthony Fauci, and the freedom to come to your own conclusions. Although we tend to think of conspiracy theories as dark, paranoid, and unsettling, for the conspiracist they can be quite liberating, because they free you from having to accept things you dont want to believe.

Writing about rumor and urban legend in America, the sociologists Gary Alan Fine and Patricia A. Turner borrow a phrase from the French anthropologist Claude Lvi-Strauss, who has said that some ideas are simply good to think. That is, we subscribe to some ideas not necessarily because theyre true (or defensible) but because the simple act of believing them brings a kind of reassurance and pleasure. As Fine and Turner note, urban legends and conspiracy theories are good to think because they connect to a powerful cultural logic that makes sense to narrators and audiences. Plausibility is key. Rumor permits us to project our emotional fantasies on events that we can claim really did happen, protecting ourselves from the implications of our beliefs. By rejecting the dominant narrative without providing a substantive replacement, Greene offers her audience the freedom to cherry-pick sources and devise a narrative that best fits their biases, disregarding anything that collides with their worldview.

Read: America is getting unvaccinated people all wrong

The historian Philip Deloria once described Americanness as a particular working out of a desire to preserve stability and truth while enjoying absolute, anarchic freedom. It is this impulse for irresponsible freedomembedded within the framework of a stable social-service netthat Greene and her cohorts crave. They want the freedom to not wear a mask with the assurance that theyll be well taken care of at a hospital if they do get sick. And they want not only their access to the social safety net protected, but also their access to social media and the connection to American culture that comes with it. Greenes outrage over her Twitter suspension, beyond being an obvious publicity stunt, reflects a genuinely acute anxiety of a movement at a turning point.

One of the most consistent arguments Greene put forward in her press conference is the idea that people who choose not to wear masks or be vaccinated should not be socially ostracized for their beliefs. This gets to the core of the anxiety driving the anti-vax movement: They want all the rights, privileges, and benefits of human community without any sense of obligation to be responsible participants in that community. Im going to always be in the camp that it should be peoples choice, Greene said during her press conference. I just think were going down a really bad road when were telling people, You have to do this and if you dont do it youre excluded, youre treated like a second-class citizen, youre not allowed on campus, youre going to be fired from your job, were not going to let you in church, because you refuse to take this FDA-approved vaccine. I just think that its the wrong place for us to go as Americans.

If we can recognize that the real gift Greene is offering is not misinformation so much as it is freedom, we might be able to approach the problem of misinformation differently, particularly surrounding COVID-19 and vaccines. Researchers have known for years that shaming people to get vaccinated often ends up backfiring, and that much of this is because vaccine resistance is heavily correlated with notions of personal liberty. The people were trying to reach are not motivated to act on behalf of others, and they wont respond to exhortations of civic responsibility.

If Greenes supporters want freedom without repercussions, focusing on consequences for this freedom might give us more leverage than we might think, particularly if we can shift the focus from freedom versus obligationthe way conspiracists like Greene prefer to frame the issueto differing kinds of freedom. Vaccines offer us the freedom to participate, the freedom to circulate back in the world, the freedom to be human again. The Washington Post, for example, reported on one vaccine holdout who got her shot so she could attend New York Yankees games in person. When The Dallas Morning News asked prominent citizens of North Dallas why they got vaccinated, some spoke in terms of obligation and protecting others. But others spoke of the possibilities associated with the vaccines. Robert Jeffress, the pastor at First Baptist Church, echoed Greenes line at first, stating that we are not trying to force anyone to be vaccinatedthat is a personal choice, but he went on to say that vaccination is the quickest way for Christians to come back to church safely so that we can enjoy the encouragement we all need that comes from worshipping together. Its a tricky but promising rhetorical move: You can choose to do whatever you want, but the rest of the world is waiting for you if you choose to get vaccinated.

David Frum: Vaccinated America has had enough

Now, as the Delta variant threatens a fourth wave, more and more public figures have begun to focus on the other half of this equation: increasing the social pressure and repercussions that come with remaining unvaccinated. Disbelief and frustration that anyone would decline to be vaccinated are giving way to pure anger, and businesses, schools, and individuals have run out of patience accommodating those resisting inoculation. New York City has announced that all of its employees (including the vaccine-resistant ranks of the NYPD, only 43 percent of which have been fully vaccinated) must get vaccinated or face weekly tests. Californias statewide university systems have instituted similar mandates, and even the Biden administration is considering a vaccine mandate for all federal workers. Individuals can still opt out, but to do so may mean constant testing and screening, social-distancing and mask requirements, and travel restrictionsthe goal being, it seems, to put an increasing social burden on holdouts so long as they continue to endanger others.

Greene will continue to push the rhetorical move that Americans deserve not just freedom but freedom without consequence. On Sunday, she shifted from Holocaust analogies to Jim Crow analogies, tweeting out a photo of a sign reading NO VAX NO SERVICE with the comment This is called segregation. But its less clear how long this tactic will succeed. Even Alabama Governor Kay Ivey made a distinction not between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated but between vaccine holdouts and regular folks. Talking to reporters last Thursday, she lamented that folks are supposed to have common sense. But its time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. Its the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.

When Mobiles Fox 10 reporter Stephen Moody went in search of reactions to the governors comments, he mostly found agreement. I never thought I would agree with Kay Ivey, a woman named Sabrina Lewis told him, but I agree. I know its a personal choice, but so we can continue to enjoy things like this, people should give the vaccine a try. For Lewis, as with so many millions of other Americans, vaccines mean freedomnot just freedom to participate in the human community, but also freedom from social stigma. Meanwhile, the only person Moody could find who disagreed with Iveys comments would speak out against them only if she could remain anonymous.

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Freedom Is the Only Argument That Might Work With Vaccine Holdouts - The Atlantic