Thomas Lecaque/Religion Dispatches:
THE ‘FREEDOM CONVOY’ IS INSPIRED BY A BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF DIVINE MASSACRE: WELCOME TO THE JERICHO MARCH
But, of course, this isn’t her first time.
She led an anti-vaxx rally outside of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton in September, received 10 Public Health Act tickets for organizing various anti-public health rallies in northern Alberta last year and revived her Twitter account, dormant since 2016, specifically in order to promote anti-public health events she organized and ran.
But the story of Jericho is nothing to worry about.
It’s only about divine massacre.
EJ Dionne/WaPo:
Thank you, Sandy Hook families, for taking on the gunmakers
Click that first link for an Easter egg.
Christine Brennan/WaPo:
Kamila Valieva was failed by the adults in her life – and it showed in Olympic meltdown
At the end of an excruciating week of controversy, anger and uncertainty surrounding Russia’s Kamila Valieva, one of the most unsettling and stunning moments in Olympic history awaited.
The overwhelming gold medal favorite fell apart so completely that she dropped to fourth place in the final standings. It was difficult to watch, a young woman succumbing totally to the pressure of the moment, the pressure that the adults who coach and surround her forced on her.
It was just awful: a crushing scene that millions watching around the world will not be able to shake, the manipulation and indeed the abuse of a child on display for all to see.
Jay Varma/STATNews:
To make public health officials more accountable, they should be elected, not appointed
CDC’s framework for essential public health services specifically notes the responsibility of health officials to “utilize legal and regulatory actions designed to improve and protect the public’s health.” And, both globally and domestically, there’s been a long-standing consensus that public health decisions should be made by public health officials free from political interference; this is further codified in the report from the first major panel that evaluated World Health Organization’s response to Covid-19 through May 2021.
However, the decisions public health officials make can never be purely about science. If public health officials were to have complete independence from political interference while also being appointed, rather than elected, this would give them regulatory power that contradicts many essential components of democracy: health experts would get to decide the tradeoff between lives saved versus livelihoods saved without being directly accountable to either the person that appointed them or the population that they serve.
One of the most interesting things about this piece is it also brings up something I've harped on to CDC and HHS (for decades) to no avail: public health has no natural political constituency. It leaves them vulnerable.
The American Prospect:
In Bessemer and the South, Black Workers Hold the Key
Does the ongoing campaign to unionize the Amazon warehouse, where 85 percent of the workers are Black, portend a return to large-scale campaigns in the region?
Over 6,000 workers at Amazon’s mammoth Bessemer, Alabama, facility are headed for a revote on whether they want to join the 60,000-member Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an affiliate of the 1.25 million–member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The ballots went out on February 4 and will be counted by March 25. Once again, Amazon is waging an aggressive anti-union campaign, despite the November 2021 ruling from the National Labor Relations Board that ordered a new election due to the company’s violations during the previous election process.
Less discussed, however, is the critical role played by Black workers at the company in even daring to raise the question of unionization in the deep-red, right-to-work U.S. South. Fully 85 percent of Amazon’s workforce at Bessemer are Black, with Black workers leading the union campaign.
This fundamentally matters.
CT Mirror:
As CT seeks to desegregate schools, suburban districts are slow to help
In 2017, when more than 1,000 Puerto Rican children showed up in Waterbury after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, neighboring suburban districts ignored the pleas for help from city officials. They were asking suburban school leaders to use their empty classrooms because there was no room in the city’s schools.
”I was really disappointed with either the lack of response or no response,” said state Rep. Geraldo Reyes, who chairs the General Assembly’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus. “This spoke volumes of how some of the suburbs perceive our children from Waterbury.”
Keisha N. Blain/The Nation:
To Fight Attacks on “Critical Race Theory,” Look to Black History
There is a long tradition of Black educators fighting attempts to keep America’s true history out of the classroom—one we can all learn from
For as long as white politicians have employed these tactics, Black educators in the United States have vigorously resisted. Through a myriad of strategies—including creative lesson plans and the production of anti-racist books and articles—Black educators have worked to counter the spread of misinformation and ensure that students have access to texts and perspectives that represent the diversity of the nation—and the world.