Category Archives: Freedom

Letter-writer Greg Weidner (Mandates vs. freedoms) makes an incredibly ridiculous statement: Couldnt a student also be sent home if they are vaccinated?

Please, tell me why that makes sense. Your freedom doesnt exist when endangering others. If a student is vaccinated, that means he/she has done his/her part to make others safe. Let me remind you that covid is a public global health crisis. Mandates do not infringe on your personal freedom. The vaccine is meant to keep you and others safe from this potentially deadly virus. Are you really that naive? Your statement makes me think that you lack common sense.

Maybe you are the type of person who would also like to see smoking return to restaurants and public facilities, seatbelts outlawed, DUIs erased, etc. These are other examples that undo personal freedom, right?

The level of stupidity in this country is unbelievable!

Jim Raskovsky

Blawnox

Continued here:

Letter to the editor: Freedoms don't allow us to endanger others - TribLIVE

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In 2003, Neel Bhattacharjee was working on a Ph.D. in geography at Arizona State. He had played goalkeeper for ASUs club soccer team, and a friend asked if he would be willing to coach a high school player.

Bhattacharjee enjoyed the experience and began coaching high school players, club team players and the U21 United States womens national team on nights and weekends while also working a full-time day job. After stints as an assistant for the womens soccer programs at George Washington, Boston College and Syracuse, Bhattacharjee was appointed as Binghamtons womens soccer head coach for the 2016 season.

But when Bhattacharjee arrived on campus in 2016, the Bearcats had been a Division I program for just 15 years. During that time, the team had just three seasons with a winning conference record. The year before, they finished last in the America East Conference.

Now in his sixth season, Bhattacharjee has already overseen three seasons with a winning conference record, won a regular season title and appeared in the conference championship game last season. Since taking the job, he has emphasized getting to know his players off the field and forming team chemistry.

After three-year stints at both George Washington and Boston College where he helped the latter reach the College Cup semifinals Bhattacharjee moved to Syracuse. From 2012 to 2016, he served as SUs recruiting coordinator and also assisted with goalkeeper training. In SUs first year in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Bhattacharjees recruiting class was ranked among the top 20 in the nation by Top Drawer Soccer.

At Syracuse, Bhattacharjee received more freedom than he had received at previous assistant coaching gigs. At times during the year when then-head coach Phil Wheddon was away from Syracuse working for the U.S. youth national team, Bhattacharjee ran five to seven sessions in a row with the team to gain valuable coaching experience.

I certainly felt like I was prepped and ready to take that jump (to Binghamton), and Syracuse played a huge role in that, Bhattacharjee said.

When the head coach vacancy opened at Binghamton following the 2015 season, Bhattacharjee expressed interest and reached out to Binghamtons mens soccer head coach Paul Marco, who he had previously met at a United Soccer Coaches coaching course.

What Bhattacharjee didnt know when he reached out was that Marco had already planned to recommend him for the job. In his interview, Bhattacharjee laid out his plans for every facet of the job, and once he got it, he immediately began installing his plans for what Marco calls the three teams the incoming team, the current team and the outgoing team. Bhattacharjee also brought in Jackie Firenze whom he coached for all four years at Syracuse as an assistant.

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When Bhattacharjee started at Binghamton, he focused on forming relationships with players off the field, a skill he honed while at Syracuse, Firenze said.

When moments are tough, thats how you get players who really want to run through a brick wall for you because you know who they are as people and they know who you are, Firenze said. I think thats something that (Bhattacharjee) does exceptionally well.

The Bearcats struggled in Bhattacharjees first season, but they doubled their win total from 2015 with six wins. Although the team missed out the America East postseason tournament, Bhattacharjee was patient.

In 2017, Binghamton shocked the America East, winning the regular season title for just the second time in school history. Bhattacharjee and his staff were honored with America Easts Co-Coaching Staff of the Year.

But in 2018, the Bearcats hit unprecedented difficulties. Division between upperclassmen and underclassmen and arguments at practice led to poor team chemistry, and the team missed the playoffs after being the No. 1 seed the year before.

It really spiralled out of control, goalkeeper Haylee Poltorak said.

Bhattacharjee felt as though his work in helping team chemistry wasnt working, so he turned to external sources for help. He enlisted the services of Nadine Mastroleo, a psychology professor, and Shelley Dionne, a management professor and the associate director for Binghamtons Center for Leadership Studies. Mastroleo had previously worked with three other sports teams at Binghamton on communication and leadership training.

In the spring semester after the 2018 season, Mastroleo and Dionne met every other week with the team without the coaching staff present. They tried to identify goals and subgoals that players identified with. They also broke down aspects of gameplay, like how players responded to each others feedback on the field.

The team embraced the workshops and took them very seriously, Poltorak said.

It was crazy to watch the transformation in their leadership in such a quick, short period of time, Mastroleo said.

Poltorak and Mastroleo both commended Bhattacharjees awareness to see he wasnt the best person to solve his teams chemistry issues. College coaches, especially at the Division I level, often dont ask for help because they think they know their team better than any outsider could, Mastroleo said.

In doing that, he allowed himself to accept that he wasnt perfect at something, Mastroleo said. That to me is a sign of somebody who is going to be an exceptionally successful head coach.

In 2019, after the workshop concluded, the Bearcats went 10-6-2 and returned to the postseason. Eight different Binghamton players won America East weekly honors, a conference record. In 2020, the Bearcats tied for first in their division and played in Bhattacharjees first America East championship game.

This year, Binghamton sits second in the conference nearly halfway through its conference schedule. Poltorak and Marco credit much of the teams adaptability to Bhattacharjees knowledge of the teams players, both on and off the field.

I have a young daughter who likes to play soccer, Marco said. I would be happy if she got to play for a coach like (Bhattacharjee).

Published on October 4, 2021 at 9:33 pm

Contact Connor: [emailprotected]

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Neel Bhattacharjee's creative freedom at Syracuse led to success at Binghamton - The Daily Orange

COVID-19 continues to take its toll across Alabama. Health care providers report the number of hospitalizations appears to be easing. If true, thats the good news. The bad news along the Alabama Gulf coast is that its too late to save the National Shrimp Festival. Organizers of the Gulf Shores event called it off for the second year in a row. The decision left some area residents feeling it was time for a celebration anyway.

The last time the Shrimp Festival was held in Gulf Shores was 2019. The event drew about 300,000 people for a long weekend of music, art and, of course, seafood. Last year, the festival was called off during the pandemic. Last month, the Gulf Coast Business Chamber announced that the threat was still too high to hold an event that brings that many people into close contact. Some residents, however, felt that wasnt the last word on the matter. Orange Beach announced that they will hold an event dubbed the Freedom Festival this Saturday. That day wasnt picked by chance.

Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Tourism and Visitors Bureau

Were going to have a one-day event on Saturday of the Shrimp Festival, said Tony Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach. The vendors are extremely appreciative that were trying to do something for them and were hoping to have 80 or so, maybe more. Volunteers are showing up. We just have a tremendously strong to our continuing to have it.

Kennon said the idea is popular with a lot of residents and artists. Hes not sure how many to expect, but his rough guess is 12,000 to 20,000 for the one day event. It might help that Brooks and Dunn are performing that night at the same location, The Wharf in Orange Beach.

The majority are the ones that were going to be at the Shrimp Festival, Kennon said. With such late notice, they really had nowhere to go. So, they were happy with the opportunity of at least a one-day event. It seems like a strong community effort.

While COVID-19 has not gone way, Kennon said its time to start moving forward and try to get back to normal.

Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Visitors Bureau

I want normalcy and we cant keep canceling events every time theres variant or a scare or a surge, Kennon said. We just cant do it. This is never going to go away. Its with us for life. We have to live with it.

Its not like this was something that we took lightly at all, said Clayton Wallace, the communications director for the National Shrimp Festival.

It was with a very heavy heart that we had to, that we felt we had to cancel it but when we have so many of our volunteers, Wallace said. People dont realize quite how many of our volunteers. We use somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 volunteers and a good number of these volunteers are 65 and over, they are people that because theyre retirees, theyre more likely to have some co-morbidities. Theyre likely to be at a higher risk and quite frankly, we just felt highly uncomfortable asking people like that to come down and volunteer.

Wallace said cancelling the Shrimp Festival wasnt an easy decision and organizers waited until they were sure it would not be safe.

We looked at COVID numbers and while we were fairly certain that there was going to be a reduction in numbers by the time Shrimp Fest rolled around, we were still concerned that the numbers were so high, that Baldwin County has remained a red county as transmission numbers go and after consulting with our EMS crews, after consulting with our local hospitals, we just came. They were concerned. They were concerned about the effects of having, the effects on their ability to handle things if we had the Shrimp Festival. And it was only after consulting with them that we finally had to make the decision to cancel it, Wallace said.

The Shrimp Festival usually brings in tens of thousands of visitors to a small area along the Gulf Shores public beach boardwalk. Wallace said they cant social distance in those circumstances.

We looked at possibly trying to implement COVID protocols, but were not a ticketed event, so its not like we can put a number limit because anybody walking down the street can walk into the festival and that created its own set of headaches. We wanted to have it. We really, really wanted to have it, Wallace said.

Having an event might not be safe in an area with high risks of infection. Dr. Karen Landers is an area health officer with the state health department. She said that covers all of Alabama, including Baldwin County.

Youre really looking at probably about 13 percent overall percent positivity in the community and thats still a high rate and the way we define a high rate of community transmission is youve really got well over 100 cases or so per 100,000, so I think youre really looking at, again, some pretty significant numbers right now in Baldwin County, Landers said. All that being said, it does concern me.

She said outdoor events can still be a threat when people are crowded together.

Some of these things that Ive seen people go to lately just in pictures, people dont even have 12 inches between them and, if thats the case, then masks certainly need to be added because you dont have the distance there, Landers said. Youve got even though with humidity and heat and wind currents, youve still got the risk of transmission. Now, its still less outside, but again, Im still concerned about people being closely associated with one another in a community of high transmission, which is pretty much the whole state of Alabama.

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said people should take precautions, but at some point, they have to get on with their lives.

The virus is real, Kennon said. The virus is deadly for a certain segment of the population and that segment of the population needs to protect themselves and we need to try to help them, but otherwise, the rest of us have got to make a living. The rest of us have got to have normal lives. Weve got to raise our children in a normal environment and, for me, I have no intention of rolling over and canceling anything if I can help it.

For Wallace, its still too soon to get out.

Wed love to have it, but we just felt like there was no way that we could do it and do it in a manner that was safe for both patrons and volunteers, he said.

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Freedom Festival to take the place of the Gulf coast National Shrimp Fest - Alabama Public Radio

The historians decision has prompted professors to call on the University for a strong recommitment to protecting academia from donor influences.

Philip Mousavizadeh & Isaac Yu 2:34 am, Oct 06, 2021

Staff Reporters

Courtesy of Beverly Gage

After announcing her resignation from the Grand Strategy program, history professor Beverly Gage expressed concerns about the influence donors have over academic expression at Yale. While her fellow faculty have sounded alarms about academic freedom, University President Peter Salovey has pledged to more rigorously evaluate the Universitys approach to donations.

Gage, who resigned last week, attributed her decision to leave the program to ultimately successful attempts by Nicholas Brady 52 and Charles Johnson 54 who endowed the Grand Strategy program in 2006 to pressure administrative officials to name a conservative majority to a newly-implemented advisory board to oversee program appointments. She told the News that other special programs like Grand Strategy, whose endowments lie outside of Yales academic departments and general streams of funding, are particularly vulnerable to pressure from donors. Greater transparency and accountability should be added to the donation process in order to protect academic freedom in the future, she said.

Salovey told the News that the administration plans to make limited systemic or procedural changes to the donor process. The University needs to ensure, he said that everybody has a shared understanding of where the lines are, what is appropriate involvement by donors and what would be inappropriate involvement by donors.

He further explained that the University has to balance its obligations both to its faculty and to its donors.

Theres probably two principles that are really important to honor, Salovey said. The first is [that] academic freedom to teach and do scholarship in an unfettered way is sacrosanct at the University.

The second principle, he added, is that the University [has] an obligation to our donors to meet the agreements to honor the agreements we make with them.

In the days since the announcement of her resignation, Gage has seen a surge of encouragement from dozens of faculty members and historians, she told the News. Individual professors have expressed disappointment with the University on Twitter and the History Department released a statement of support for Gage on Friday.

The last few days have been really heartening to me to see how seriously people take the question of academic freedom, to see the level of attention that its gotten and the response that was solicited from the University, Gage said.

The Faculty of Arts & Sciences Senate, which released a statement of its own on Friday, will begin an investigation this week. The executive council plans to meet with both Gage and Salovey this week and determine appropriate measures to prevent future incidents, Senate chair Valerie Horsley told the News.

When asked about specific policies that would shore up protections for academic freedom, Gage suggested that a University official could be designated as an ombudsman, or neutral third party, in disputes. Increased transparency requirements surrounding donor agreements and administrative actions could also help, she said.

Meanwhile, Gages colleagues continue to express concerns that academic freedom is under threat.

It seems like a textbook violation of academic freedom, professor of philosophy Jason Stanley told the News. The University is an extremely wealthy institution, and we have an enormous endowment. There is no reason we should be even hinting to donors that they can have control over our curriculum.

University President Peter Salovey accepted responsibility last Friday, saying in a statement that he should have tried harder to improve the situation. Still, as the News reported last week, Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Pericles Lewis denied that the donors exerted undue influence on the program and reiterated that the new board only has influence over practitioner appointments, rather than curriculum decisions.

Gage said that she was briefly shown a portion of the 2006 gift agreement outlining the five-member advisory board, and appointment powers to the Grand Strategy advisory board were explicitly granted to the University president. The News has not reviewed the 2006 gift agreement.

According to emerita professor of history Glenda Gilmore, the University catastrophically failed to properly balance these two principles.

Academic freedom is sacrosanct, yet Saloveys and Lewiss comments suggest that they tried to please the donors while trying to persuade Gage to acquiesce to their interference, Gilmore wrote in an email. At the donors first complaint, whether about Bryan [Garstens] op-ed or Gages lesson plans, they should have unequivocally made it clear that such conversations were inappropriate and would be off limits in the future.

If there is one thing that the administration owes the faculty, it is the protection of academic freedom. If they got this so wrong, what else might happen? Gilmore added.

Stanley further noted that public universities in various states are currently facing outside influence when it comes to teaching topics like critical race theory. A wealthy, private institution like Yale, he said, has no excuse to allow outside pressure on academia.

Salovey wrote in his original statement that he has been hearing the concerns from faculty and alumni regarding academic freedom, and pledged to make changes accordingly.

The Grand Strategy program was established in 2000.

Philip Mousavizadeh covers the Jackson Institute. He is a first year student in Trumbull College studying Ethics, Politics, and Economics

Isaac Yu writes about Yale's faculty and academics. He is also a production and design editor for the News, and previously covered transportation and urban planning in New Haven. Hailing from Garland, Texas, he is a Berkeley College sophomore majoring in Urban Studies.

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After resignation, Beverly Gage and fellow Yale faculty sound alarm on academic freedom - Yale Daily News

Finally, there will be about 1.3 million who are still waiting to get fully vaccinated. They include many people with disabilities, people in regional NSW and people with poor access to services. Vaccine distribution has been prioritised till now to those in COVID hotspots. And that is fair enough. But we must now address vaccine equity so everyone who wants to be vaccinated gets the chance to do so.

COVID management outside Greater Sydney must be urgently improved. While COVID numbers in Sydney are coming down, they are increasing in the rest of NSW. In the past two weeks, case numbers have decreased by 48 per cent in the 12 COVID hot spot LGAs and 45 per cent in the rest of Sydney. But they have increased by 74 per cent in the rest of NSW.

The COVID picture in NSW. Credit:Juliette OBrien covid19data.com.au

NSW is starting to move out of lockdown even though regional NSW is yet to peak. The regions with the highest-percentage increases in COVID cases also have the lowest vaccination rates, a potential recipe for disaster for regional NSW.

The government has a big challenge and getting the timing right wont be easy. Once we start to open up, a momentum will develop to just keep going. But the new NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet, will need to be nimble and adjust the plan to make sure the pace doesnt get so fast that it does not overwhelm the health system.

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Every NSW health district is already on code red and there are still more than 900 COVID cases in hospital, down from a peak of 1001 on September 14. We still have more than 10,000 people receiving COVID health care at home.

COVID patients in NSW hospitals today are occupying the equivalent of 30 wards, each with 30 beds. These are not additional intensive care units and wards for the pandemic. They are existing units and wards which are therefore unavailable for other patients.

And the people delivering the care are not new staff who have magically appeared. These units are staffed by thousands of existing staff and by staff redeployed from elsewhere in the health system. Community health services, palliative care units, rehabilitation units, surgical units and many other services have been closed or reduced to free up capacity to care for COVID patients.

Easing some restrictions at 70 per cent and more at 80 per cent vaccination inevitably means that COVID cases and deaths will rise again. There will simply be too many partially vaccinated and unvaccinated people for it to be otherwise. If NSW moves too fast, many thousands of surgical, medical and rehabilitation patients will be waiting even longer for the services they need.

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We do, however, have reason for optimism. As a community, we have shown our ability to adapt to social distancing, QR codes, masks and regular COVID testing as the new normal. They all need to continue. From a very slow start, we have no sign yet that vaccinations are close to peaking. And early intervention and treatment for COVID patients is rapidly improving, and that is starting to flow through to declining rates of hospital and ICU admissions and to falling death rates.

But coming out of lockdown needs to be guided by the principle that what is good for our health is also good for our families, our community and our economy. While we can all look forward to better times ahead, we are not there yet. Moving too fast runs the risk of starting the whole COVID cycle cases, deaths, lockdowns all over again.

Professor Kathy Eagar is the director of the Australian Health Services Research Institute in the Faculty of Business and Law at Wollongong University.

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Take freedom slowly or the cycle of lockdowns will start all over again - Sydney Morning Herald

Gayl Jones is a literary legend. In novels and poetry, she has reimagined the lives of Black women across North, South and Central America, living in different centuries, in a way no other writer has done. Jones made her name with her first novel, Corregidora, published in 1975; through an intimate, fragmentary narrative, it follows the life of Ursa, a blues singer in 1940s Kentucky. The title is the surname of the man who raped and enslaved Ursas grandmother a century earlier in Brazil, a surname Ursa still bears. Toni Morrison, who published it, said: No book about any Black woman will ever be the same after this. James Baldwin called it the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women.

Although Corregidora was followed in 1976 by a second novel, Evas Man, her third and fourth, The Healing and Mosquito, were not released until the late 1990s. Publishers Weekly reports that at that time, Jones showed her editor a draft of another novel one set in 17th-century Brazil, which she had spent the last 20 years writing. That was Palmares, and now, after 40 years in the works, it is here. It is the first of five books including a rerelease of her 1981 book-length poem Song for Anninho, also set in 17th-century Brazil that will be published in the next two years.

Palmares begins in the 1670s when its narrator, Almeyda, is a child. Almeyda lives on a Brazilian plantation with her enslaved mother, as well as a grandmother who still speaks Arabic and is called crazy and a witch. Young Almeyda observes the world around her keenly, asking her mother if the local priest makes love with Mexia, his indigenous housekeeper. Almeydas mother denies it; her grandmother laughs. Three hundred pages later, long after Mexias escape, Almeyda at this point an adult with no illusions about the church acknowledges what her mother refused to: that Mexia was the priests slave.

One day a Black woman arrives at the plantation in a carriage. Her bare feet peep out from a long silk gown full of pleats and folds and ruffles. Almeyda asks if she is a slave or a free woman, and the woman replies with disdain either for the distinction or the categories themselves: I am neither kind. The woman is from Palmares.

Palmares is the largest and best known of Brazils quilombos, communities established by Africans who had escaped slavery. First documented around the 1580s, it was home to between 6,000 and 20,000 people and was a more or less autonomous state located in the north-east of Brazil. The scale of the transatlantic slave trade to Brazil is often underestimated: of the nearly 11 million Africans taken by force to the Americas, 5 million disembarked in Brazil, over 10 times more than in North America.

Almeydas journeys to and from Palmares are winding and wild, and so is Joness writing. Six long sections are broken into short episodes resembling Brazilian contos (tales), with titles such as The Russian and A Man of Wealth and Light Skin and a Woman Convicted of Casting Love Spells. Almeyda meets Black Muslims, Black witches, women with wives, Christians, Jews, Tupis, Guarans, miners, female English journalists, voyeuristic Dutch painters, mercenaries and free Black men and women. She learns the healing properties of plants and animals, including lizard testicles.

If you try to read the book over a weekend, you may find yourself overwhelmed. Palmares is a grand epic, in the west African and Afro-Brazilian oral traditions, to be savoured in parts, night after night.

Jones doesnt romanticise Palmares, which had a governance structure based on that of contemporary west African states. Once there, Almeyda meets a still-enslaved Black woman, Nobrega, who explains to Almeyda: You are a free woman. I am a slave. Almeyda collapses the distinction: I said that [Nobrega] could oil and wash [my hair] only if I oiled and brushed hers in return.

Palmares takes us to a key moment in the invention of race and gender. Almeyda repeatedly asks what a woman is, revealing, through her encounters, the influence of unstable constructs such as race. Joness narration is similarly fluid, moving with beauty and abundance between meticulous documentation and surrealism, singing with Portuguese and Indigenous words and phrases.

Palmares reinvents 17th-century Black Brazil in all its multiplicity, beauty, humanity and chaos. It is a once-in-a-lifetime work of literature, the kind that changes your understanding of the world.

Yara Rodgrigues Fowlers Stubborn Archivist is published by Fleet. Palmares by Gayl Jones is published by Virago (18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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Palmares by Gayl Jones review a long-awaited vision of freedom - The Guardian

The Freedom to Vote act is essential

No matter where we live or our background, Americans want fair elections, where we all have the freedom to vote and make our voices heard on important issues such as providing affordable health care, creating good jobs and ensuring quality education. For months, the American people have been calling for national standards to protect our freedom to vote, ensure fair representation and get big money out of politics, and the announcement of the Freedom to Vote Act is proof that our voices have power in the halls of the U.S. Senate.

The Freedom to Vote Act is essential for fair redistricting: It bans partisan gerrymandering and helps ensure that all communities get the representation they deserve for the next 10 years and beyond. Importantly, it would also require every state's map-drawers to hold public hearings, take input from voters, and explain how the maps they create are fair to both political parties and communities of color.

Just as we rose up to vote in record numbers in the midst of the pandemic last year to demand new leadership, we now need to rise up to demand that our senators pass this bill that sets national standards for us to safely and freely cast our ballots, ensure every vote is counted and elect people who will deliver for us.

Join me in supporting the Freedom to Vote Act and in urging our state's senators to do the same.

Madeline Clark, Baldwin Park

Another thing we can all agree on

If there's one thing that brings all Orlandoans together, regardless of race, creed or political affiliation, it's pissing and moaning about traffic. We wrote about it ("These are the worst intersections in Orlando, according to Reddit," Sept. 23) and sure enough, y'all had stuff to say.

@Jeff Smith: Orange and 17-92 in Winter Park. Fairbanks and Orange in Winter Park. Lakemont and Aloma. Aloma and 436. Princeton/Smith and Edgewater, 408 and John Young Parkway. John Young and I-4/33rd St./LB McLeod! Silver Star and Hiawassee, Horatio and 17-92 in Maitland, Red Bug Lake and 436 ... should I continue?

@Edwin Rivera: Sand Lake and Turkey Road. The most disgusting thing to ever exist. Whatever urban planner, architect, engineer or firm that designed that current area deserves their title to be stripped.

@Paul C. Santos: "Hold my beer" Lake Nona Blvd./Narcoosee Road/417 off- and on-ramp.

@Dennis Sedor: EVERY entrance/exit on I-4!

@Chris Kelley: I will say the 436/I-4 exit has been moving a lot smoother since the redesign, even during the busier times.

Got thoughts? Send brickbats and bouquets to feedback@orlandoweekly.com.

Read more:

Readers react: Freedom to vote and Orlando's worst intersections - Orlando Weekly

The sign in front of the local variety store said No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service!

So I strolled in, sporting my Sunday-best shoes and shirt, plus an overlong red necktie. But no pants, just for variety. The sign didnt say anything about pants. I left before the police got there.

Where does the United States Constitution say I cant dress any dab burn way I please anywhere I take a notion to mosey?

If you stare, thats your problem, pal.

My fellow oppressed Americans, this is yet another example of our vanishing freedoms. And it started way before the current totalitarian mask-wearing/needle-jabbing campaign.

But this latest is the greatest infringement of all. Youre telling me I cant go to a sold-out Hot Chili Peppers concert unvaccinated, mask-less and symptomatic and expectorate over everyone within a 30-foot radius? Man, we have sunk mighty low in this country.

But wait, theres more. How about casual Fridays? I cant be casual on Monday? Or Wednesday? Or on Benito Mussolinis birthday?

Now take cars (and they will!). In case you missed the summons, you got to register your vehicles with the government, each and every gas-guzzler, every couple of years, too. Did your great-great-grandpa register his horse and buggy? Methinks not! Is motor vehicle registration mentioned once in the Constitution? I believe it says only something like this: The right of the people to own, rent or lease high emission conveyances shall not be infringed

Dont get me started on emission controls.

It wont be long before they come for our pickups and pry our cold dead hands from the steering wheels. Well all be walking to the variety store in our skivvies.

While we still have our vehicles, Johnny Law says we cant drive 100 mph in a school zone. Why not? I figure its a good way to teach kids to look both ways! You should see those little dickens jump and hop.

And whats with this blood alcohol content nonsense? They keep lowering the limit every few years. I dont know about you, but I drive way better after pounding a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Want proof? Well, here I am, still churning out cogent commentary, aint I?

I trace what ails us all the way back to the Ten Commandments and Charlton Heston. Dont covet thy neighbors wife! Im telling you, Charlie, shes like a total babe. Saint Peter will understand.

Now theyre even telling us we cant bust into the peoples house the United States Capitol and smash up a few lecterns and whatnot that we paid for with our own tax money. OK, we chased a few congressmen and senators about the joint but they looked like they could use the exercise.

Well, that about does it, Id say. Let freedom ring!

David Holahan is a freelance writer from East Haddam.

CTViewpoints welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines andsubmit your commentary here.

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Opinion: Stop the steal ... of our freedom! - The CT Mirror

Nearly five dozen people gathered along U.S. Highway 65 across from Chillicothe Municipal Utilities office last week for a Freedom Rally, which drew the attention of passing motorists, many honked or waved at the crowd who had gathered with flags and signs. The event was organized by Livingston County Health Freedom also calledWe the People of Livingston County,was formed according to member Reid Stephens, "because many of the participants had expressed growing concerns about the loss of personal health freedoms they had experienced over the last 18 months. The loss of health freedoms has escalated quickly, culminating in vaccine mandates sweeping the nation. These mandates are now impacting a growing number of people in Livingston County."

Guests speakers at the rally included Dowell Kincaid, Nathan Rorebeck, Sonja Dailey, Steffi Harvey and Dr. Heather Gessling. They spoke about freedoms, mandates, vaccines and about the loss and importance of freedoms.

Members specifically called out St. Luke's Hiopistal System for the mandate that all employees get vaccinated by Oct. 30. Following the rally several in attendance at the rally went to the Chillicothe City Council meeting and spoke to the council, where they were told the city owns the building Hedrick operates out of, but that the city has no control over operations at Hedrick.

According to a statement from Hedrick Medical Center "employees, licensed independent medical staff members, allied health professionals, contracted personnel, student affiliates, and volunteers" have until Oct. 30 to be vaccinated or have an "Employees did have the opportunity to request a medical or religious exemption. These requests will be individually reviewed on a case-by-case basis by either Saint Lukes clinicians or Saint Lukes Spiritual Wellness chaplains. Any employee granted an exemption will be required to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing and monitoring," a statement fromHedrick Medical Center stated.

Stephens said members of the groups have been attending various local governmental meetings and plan to continue to do so.

"One of the main goals of We the People of Livingston County, MO is to better educate ourselves about the rights and obligations of citizens in society. The civil exchange of ideas and information is critical to our constitutional republic," he said. "Our purpose in attending these meetings is to better understand how our local governmental entities operate. In doing so, we hope to partner with these entities to build a better and stronger community."

Original post:

Freedom Rally draws attention in Chillicothe - Chillicothe Constitution Tribune

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Be warned of those who warn you of the charters of freedom - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal