ANTI-VAXXERS VS. COMMON SENSE

The Most Dangerous Side Effect of Trump

I almost fell to the floor when I heard this. Miami’s Centner Academy outlined its controversial coronavirus policy in a letter to parents, encouraging faculty and staff to hold off on being vaccinated “until there is further research available.” Those who do wish to be vaccinated are asked to wait until the end of the school year. REALLY?

So, what happens if a teacher comes down with COVID and dies? Will the academy take money out of their private bank account to help the teacher’s family? Yeah, fat chance. How about this, and I mean it in a tongue and cheek kind of way, what if a toddler comes down with coronavirus and dies? That’s major lawsuit stuff. Should you want to call the academy to ask why they are doing this, here’s their number: 305-576-6070.

I am not a big fan of private schools. Two of our four children attended private school in Atlanta for a few years and the results were horrible. The educators at the school totally missed the reason we had put them there, and our kids suffered because of it. But hey, that was just one awfully expensive school, with the emphasize on “awful.” Our two kids who went to public school excelled and both are now highly paid professionals. That’s not to say that the other two are not successful, but there is no reason to believe that public school was any sort of problem that kept our kids from developing.

The USA Today Network obtained a copy of the letter the Miami school sent to parents, “Leila Centner, co-founder of the Centner Academy in the city’s Design District, said in a letter to parents the decision was not easy to make but that it’s unclear on the impact the ‘experimental drug’ has on unvaccinated people. It is in the best interests of the children to protect them from the unknown implications of being in close proximity for the entire day with a teacher who has very recently taken the COVID-19 injection.” Ms. Centner continued, “It is our policy, to the extent possible, not to employ anyone who has taken the experimental COVID-19 injection until further information is known.”

You might be wondering why a woman who runs an academy with the slogan “The Brain School” hasn’t talked to medical professionals, the health department or some good lawyers about the decision to not only make this ridiculous policy but also send a letter solidly proclaiming her intent. Ms. Centner suggested vaccinated individuals can pass along symptoms to those unvaccinated, a claim that has been debunked by doctors and medical experts. Despite that, she thinks she’s right.

People like Leila Centner will inspire more people to avoid the Covid-19 vaccination and our global pandemic will continue for much longer than need be. And who is to blame when all this shit hits the beach? I name the Number One Denier, Donald John Trump. If only he had taken coronavirus more seriously, vigorously pushed mask wearing and was a bit more patient with the pandemic, we could have lowered the damage to America. The lady who runs the Centner School probably voted for Trump twice and thinks he should be, or maybe even believes he is, the president now. Leila, he shouldn’t be and he’s not.

Look what is taking place in India right now and you might be more careful with who your kids hang out with in these “uncertain” times. Here are some facts: 569,771 Americans have died from Covid-19. As of this writing, we have administered 232,407,669 shots of one of the three coronavirus vaccines. Covid-19 inoculations are safe, effective and millions of people in this country have been vaccinated under the most intense safety monitoring in US history. Anaphylaxis after a COVID-19 injection is rare, but should it happen vaccination providers can effectively and immediately treat the reaction. That’s why you must wait fifteen minutes after you receive the shot.

People who deny the value of the vaccine don’t understand how damaging the virus is, or they are believing untruths from bad sources. We know that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can cause rare blood clots in people with low platelet counts or preexisting conditions, but the track records of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are excellent. People don’t die and they are far less likely to spread the virus two weeks after the second shot. The Miami school should have given their employees shots months ago, they all would have qualified because of the essential nature of their work. Ms. Centner is a fool, maybe even brain dead.

Donald Trump and the First Lady both received virus shots before they left the White House, but there was no publicity about it. Were they secretly ashamed to be confronting their own mortality? Why the big secret? Why didn’t our ex-President give a full-throated endorsement at that time? He could have saved lives.

Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson are hypocrites. The word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypokrites — “an actor” or “a stage player.” It literally translates as “an interpreter from underneath” which reflects the work of ancient Greek actors who wore masks and spoke from underneath them. The TV makeup that Carlson and Trump wear doesn’t cover up the fact that both are afraid of the virus. I am willing to wager that Tucker Carlson, with his decree that mask wearing is demonic, has been fully vaccinated.

I hope all the thinking people in America withdraw their kids from private schools and let them acquire some of that good old-fashioned immunity by contracting endless colds and flus in our schools. The “kid herds” in our tax-funded public schools carry a better garden variety germ than children in elite schools, especially those with intellectually vacuous anti-vax teachers.

We take advice from fake medical doctors on TV all the time. Dr. Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon but has given some strange diet advice over the years. Dr. Phil is not a medical doctor. Dr. Atlas, late of the Coronavirus Task Force, was an X-ray doctor, not a virologist. Now we have people like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan suggesting that young healthy Americans do not need the coronavirus vaccine. Rogan was specific, “I can tell you as someone who has — both my children got the virus. It was nothing. I mean, I hate to say that if someone’s children died from this, I’m very sorry that that happened. I’m not in any way diminishing that. But I’m saying the personal experience that my children had with COVID was nothing.” So, Joe, am I understanding that you hate to say you’re “very sorry?” Joe, you’re a fucking putz.

Here, let me throw some facts on this burning pyre. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, a total of 3,711,075 child COVID-19 cases have been reported, which represents 13.7% of all cases. And think about this Joe, as many as 43,000 US children have lost a parent to COVID-19. Could they have gotten the virus from their kids? Yes, they could have.

The Joe Rogans, Tucker Carlsons and Leila Centners of the world should read this: Hawaii has recorded its first COVID-related death of a child. The boy was less than ten years old and had underlying health conditions. Health experts say this should serve as a wake-up call. While severe cases of COVID-19 are rare in children, they can be deadly.

If you are not qualified to speak about infectious diseases, pandemics, vaccinations and herd immunity, would you kindly SHUT THE FUCK UP? We don’t need you. The experts have our backs.

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How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

Great companies hire great people. This short, easy-to-read book will help you recruit, review and refocus your new workers into the style and culture of your company. Motivating people to do great work will manage turnover and keeping good workers at your company will maintain your success. Employee inspiration makes a positive difference in our competitive world. HOW TO HIRE GREAT PEOPLE covers everything, including testing, training, tricks and tips. Follow this guide and you’ll assemble strong teams with smart workers, and you’ll learn some time-tested techniques about how to keep them.

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The book that tells it like it is…

Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs: If you only read one chapter of this book, try “Take a Knee for America” and think about our never-ending conflicts between minorities and the police. I’m not asking you to take a stand but having a deep and honest conversation about why some people think the way they do would be productive. This is a book for the moment which seeks to start a conversation about peace. And if you are worried about social media, you really should check out the chapter called “Social Media Menace.”

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BUSY ON THE WRONG ISSUES

Writing Bad Laws & Just Looking Away

Have you ever worked with someone who went out of their way to make it seem they were always busy and working hard when they really weren’t doing much of anything? When asked for an answer, they will likely issue a long memo with self-aggrandizing rewrites of history and finger pointing. Well, after losing a big election, the Republican party is going out of its way to appear they are very, very busy but they’re only being noisy while making America worse.

First, based on the big Trump election lie, they are pushing more than 170 laws under the guise of battling voter fraud but most of that legislation will only make it harder for people to vote. They big goal is clamping down on mail-in voting, even though that method has been used successfully for decades and some states use it exclusively. Many of these new laws just restate things already on the books but with more intimidating and stern language, while making voting more difficult for low-income folks, rural dwellers and those without a government ID.

Next, some Republican governors took a stand against vaccine passports attempting to appeal to libertarian values. They don’t have the power to tell any company what to do and this will be determined by the courts in those states, not the governor.

And then, Florida passed an anti-riot act which codifies punishments for protesters who go too far, but it’s so poorly written that one could get arrested while crossing the street during a protest the authorities have declared is a riot. Nowhere in the law does is define terms, and peaceful activists will have no idea if part of their crowd has put the whole assembly in jeopardy of a felony. Here’s the best part. This proposed law gives anyone the right to drive their car into protesters who are blocking a street. Can you even believe that? It’s a kind of “stand your ground” with a two-ton weapon and it literally grants the driver immunity from prosecution. WTF?

And while the pen is still wet, governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis have tried to limit liabilities for insurance companies after a disaster destroys people’s properties. Homeowners and attorneys have testified before the state House Commerce Committee that the new legislation would make it easier for insurance companies to lowball payments to homeowners with legitimate damage claims. Who are these people?

The Republicans come off like whiny little bitches when screaming about Dr. Seuss and the “Cancel Culture.” On top of that, they want to keep trans kids from playing sports. Not even a doctor’s verification that the student has gone through one year of hormone change therapy and deemed “NON-MALE,” will guarantee these kids a chance to engage in a sport of their choosing. They want to codify trans-gendered people as a separate class. Maybe they should take a page from history and declare every trans person as three fifths of a “regular person” and then just look away.

We have crumbling roads, bridges ready to fall into rivers and millions of Americans barely getting by during this pandemic, yet the Republicans have decided to attack and destroy democracy rather than working to make things better. I just don’t get it. Are they catering only to those who are ignorant about the dire need for action? Are they focusing their work solely on the sycophants who believed all of Trump’s bullshit? They are making no attempt to broaden their party and they’re not smart enough or talented enough to find a better path.

The Republican Party has come to a fork in the road. Many of them are doubling down on Trumpism and following the lead of Fox News. It’s funny to me how an entire political party has been hijacked by an idiot and continues to be manipulated by C-student talk show hosts. Sad.

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BANG! BANG! YOU’RE DEAD!

The Big Lie About Gun Control in America

If you’re wondering why our great country can’t deal with the huge problem of people being shot by guns, you must start with power and money. Next, we’re not going to look back at fifty or one-hundred years, we will rewind to the decisions made 244 years ago. I’ll keep things simple.

Back then, ours was a young nation without an army. We broke away from the British, but we held a fear they would come back with a big army, conquer us and execute all the rebels who wanted freedom from the king. We needed a way to raise an army with guns and ammo at the drop of a hat. They were called militia, which is defined as a military force gathered from the civilian population during an emergency to supplement a regular army. Militias have been a part of the US since the beginning of our country.

The leaders of baby America were smart enough to not spend tons of money on an army that would just sit around and wait for a war to break out. On the other hand, they wanted every patriotic person to have a gun and be ready to protect the nation from Brits, Canadians, aggressive Indian Tribes and crazy anti-American anarchists. Over the years our militias have come in handy.

That is why the second amendment is written this way: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Even though the spell checker wants to put a hyphen in “well-regulated,” this passage has never been changed or altered. If you are a regular reader of these pages you might remember that I suggested we add the word, “registered” after the word “bear and before the word “Arms,” but people tell me that will never happen.

Here is a real-life example of just how unregulated we are. This is from the ABC News website today, “On March 3, 2020, Brandon Hole’s mother went to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department seeking help after her son had purchased a shotgun with no bullets, according to new details in an incident report released Monday. The mother told police that her son became angry, struck her in the arm with a closed fist and told her to ‘shut up’ when she had asked what he was going to do with the gun. The mother said her son told her that he was going to point the unloaded gun at police officers so they would shoot him, saying, ‘This is not the life I want to live, I’ll end it my way…’”

Okay, so this guy named Brandon Hole should probably not be allowed to own a gun, right? After the incident with his mother, cops took the unloaded shotgun from the house and placed it in the police properties room. Close call, but wait, not so fast. Hole, who was 18 at the time, became anxious and told the officers, “Please just turn the power strip off on my computer … I don’t want anyone to see what’s on it.” According to the police report, one of the officers went upstairs to seize the shotgun and observed what through his training and experience indicated was a white supremacy website open on Hole’s computer. So, we have a kid who wants to “commit suicide” at the hands of a cop and is probably dabbling in dark neo-Nazi bullshit. Surely there is no way he can get another gun. Boy, the so-called “red flag” laws really work well.

FedEx building April 15, 2021 Shooting

Police said the shooting lasted less than four minutes and was over by the time they arrived on the scene. Officers found eight people dead, four in the parking lot and four inside the facility But wait, there’s more. Police said two assault rifles which were recovered at the scene of the attack at the FedEx facility were legally purchased by Brandon Hole in July and September of 2020. Hole, 19, was found dead inside the building from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had worked at FedEx for three months last year.

Last March 2020, Brandon Hole may have been taken away from his house in handcuffs and a weapon confiscated, but he was not classified as mentally unfit to own a gun. How did this happen? Less than six months after he was evaluated, he was able to buy two assault weapons. Why?

What I am about to tell you is the big American lie about gun control. There is none. In the last 45 days there have been more than 45 mass shootings or attacks in this country, and the death count is crazy. Wikipedia has a fucking page titled “List of mass shootings in the United States in 2021.” According to them, “As of March 31, 2021, 126 mass shootings fit the Mass Shooting Tracker project criterion, leaving 148 people dead and 481 injured, for a total of 629 total victims, some including the shooter. Can anyone honestly say we have any sort of a “well-regulated” militia? We have no national gun owner database and no information connecting incidents. If a “red flag person” is not hauled into court before a judge, the details of whatever incident sparked police involvement becomes lost.

With gun show loopholes and shoddy enforcement of waiting periods, we have no reasonable regulations in place. One concern is a mentally unstable person who owns one or more guns. There’s no way to find such people or their guns and ammo. The FBI and CIA have robust databases, but they’re mostly for foreign terrorists and organized crime groups. Our current laws DO NOT PROTECT us from lunatics with guns and maybe they never will, but how about trying something. Between the NRA controlling massive numbers of votes in Congress and the lack of thoughtful procedures and policies of real gun and ammo control, we cannot get away from the flaw from the beginning.

We know who owns cars and who is registered to drive them. We make people wear seat belts and drive on the proper side of the road, but we do not know how many of those folks own guns. There is no way to trace guns, especially home-made “Ghost Guns” with no serial numbers. The liberals cry for gun legislation but they have no idea what to do or even where to begin. Until every gun is registered to an owner, senseless shootings will go on. Again, there is no gun control. It’s all just a big fat LIE. Bang! Bang! WAKE UP AMERICA!

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How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

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THE REAL GUILTY PARTIES

George Floyd and the Blame Game

You could hear the collective sigh of relief yesterday as millions of Americans, white, Black, Native and all those “others” exhaled after the Derek Chauvin verdicts were read in court. George Floyd’s murder in front of Cup Foods in Minneapolis, the firing of cops, the arrests, the trial and the conviction of the kingpin have all marked a significant moment in history.

Let’s step back in time. The 1820 US Census showed there were 233,524 free Blacks in America along with 1,538,038 slaves. The total population of the United States that year was 9,638,453 people. If you use the wretched “one Black person is three fifths of a white person” equation, those 1.5 million slaves counted as 922,823 humans. What an immoral reckoning! Leaving out that ridiculous statistical fraud, our country was 18.3% Black in 1820.

The next US Census (2020) will show how much we’ve changed if they ever get in finished properly. But according to the 2010 Census, the African American population was about 13.5%, but that number is deceiving as to the impact of the black vote in certain states. Even in 2010, the Black population in Louisiana was 33 percent, Georgia – 32 percent, Maryland – 31 percent, South Carolina – 29 percent and Alabama – 27 percent. The largest percentage was found in Washington, D.C., affectionally called “Chocolate City” back in the 1970s, with African Americans making up 52 percent of the population.

The belief that freed southern slaves took off to live in northern states of the US is a myth. On top of that, if the Republican party doesn’t figure out how to serve the Black community in the south, the right-wing stronghold will dissolve. That being said, what are we doing about another vital statistic?

According to Statista.com, 212 people have been shot and killed by police so far in 2021. Included in that grim count are 50 white people, 30 Black, 20 Hispanic and, weirdly, 112 with no reference to their race. Yes, this is not evidence of police targeting African Americans, but that is not the point, it’s the 212 deadly force incidents that matter most. Why are cops killing our citizens so often? We have no counts of how many cops tased people or hit them over the head with a stick, but the glaring fact that came out of the Derek Chauvin trial is an abysmal lack of policing standards in America. The lawyers for the accused cop said that he was following his training, while members of his own police force said he wasn’t using the proper techniques. Maybe it’s time we codify these practices and present a standard for EVERY police department in America. Is that too much to ask? We should start by making the suffocation of a suspect by a cop a felony crime.

Too many people argue for the cops, the guys with the guns and the power to end another human being’s life in a split second. Yes, they surely deserve our support and we do pay them with our tax dollars, but they shouldn’t have licenses to kill. We need them and they shouldn’t be defunded, but that money ought to go to better training along with a set of guidelines for the entire country. A white man with a Confederate flag appears to many cops to be much less confrontational than a Black man holding a cell phone. Bias is everywhere, and we must also address how a Black cop faces a white guy wearing a Nazi T-shirt. Prejudice must be trained out of every law enforcement officer.

Sure, accidents will happen, like using a gun that you thought was a taser, but what led to that kind of force being used in the first place? The answer is FEAR. I may be on the wrong side of history with this question, but here goes — why are white cops so afraid of Black men? They will shoot them faster than they would an insane white guy. Walk through some facts with me here.

On August 25, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a man named Kyle Rittenhouse, then a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, traveled across state lines to shot and kill. He allegedly killed two people and wounded another during multiple confrontations at two locations. He was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and, according to witnesses, one of those he shot had a handgun. Police saw him walking up a street, armed and marching straight toward them. They offered him water and they talked. This man had just killed two people and the cops allowed him to keep his gun and simply walk away. If he was someone they saw as a threat, or was Black, they would have detained him, or worse, killed him. Although he was armed and in tactical gear he was white, and they didn’t see him as a threat even though he could have shot them.

That is a great example of either systemic racism or cops being so biased that they saw a vigilantly as a friend and not a foe. Their job is to protect all citizens from harm. People, we are at a turning point. We do not have a grand victory over evil with one conviction of one bad cop. We have a lousy system of enforcement training and we need to fix that.

Rosa Brooks, author of the book Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City, said on TV the other day that typical police training for firearms is about two weeks in a classroom followed by a couple of days on the shooting range. I believe the machismo of most male law enforcement leaders can be summed up this way, “Of course they know how to shoot, they want to be cops.” That is nonsensical and wrong. The use of a gun by a cop should always be the last resort to resolve conflict, but as we saw in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, guns are pulled out and raised at a suspect’s head immediately, especially when that suspect is Black.

According to the Army Times website, “Body camera footage shows 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario, who is Black and Latino, dressed in uniform with his hands held in the air outside the driver’s side window as he told the armed officers, “I’m honestly afraid to get out.” The officer said, “Yeah, you should be!” We’ve all seen the video of Nazario being drenched with pepper spray as he sat in his car. By the way, he’s suing the police for $1 million claiming his rights were violated. Too bad there isn’t a video. Oh wait, there is.

The blame game will continue. It’s how police, their unions, their management and governments avoid large payouts to victims of police malfeasance. If putting your knee on a man’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds is standard procedure, then we have given police judgement by fiat of the badge and the power of extrajudicial executions. That’s not a place where I want to live.

Here, perhaps, is some good news. After the guilty verdict in George Floyd’s death, the Associated Press reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland is expected to announce the Justice Department is opening a sweeping investigation into policing practices in Minneapolis. Hopefully, this will be is a first step in making stronger laws for the police to follow and for us to rely on. If we don’t act on this, we are the guilty party. Shame on us if we think one trial fixed everything.

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How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

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The book that tells it like it is…

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ANGLO-SAXON VALUES & UNITY

From Mild Racism to Tea Party to Insanity

If you had told me this story a few years ago I would have thought you were quoting the Onion comedy site. Sadly, this is not a dated comedy routine or a satirical gem from Andy Borowitz. It’s the latest black hole some radical Republicans are trying to push their comrades into for certain political death.

Here’s the story. Far-right Republicans in the House of Representatives, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona’s Paul Gosar, were seeking to set up an “America First Caucus” that would push a nativist agenda to respect “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.” This was first reported by Punchbowl News, and the Republican group warned that “mass immigration” threatened “the long-term existential future of America as a unique country with a unique culture and a unique identity.” Okay, but was this ever a real thing? They did admit they were going to charge dues!

Was the caucus a real plan? Does anyone whose family came from Europe, Asia or even Russia believe this? Those questions were soon asked, and the media did a great job taking down a conspiracy before it even hatched. This is what we learned before the weekend was over.

According to a Washington Post article, “On Saturday, Greene (R-Ga.) described the document as ‘a staff level draft proposal from an outside group’ and claimed she had not read it. She blasted the media for ‘taking something out of context,’ but did not specify to which policies in the document she objected. However, Greene did not deny plans to start an ‘America First Caucus’ and ended a lengthy Twitter thread by saying she supported former president Donald Trump’s America First agenda.” Wait, if they are so sure of their own beliefs and prejudges why did they need an outside firm to tell them what they believe? Better yet, why would Marjorie Taylor Greene not take the time to read a proposal she supported?

I’ve never believed that Ms. Greene has the gravitas or depth to process complex information. She seems unable to grasp facts or debunk a conspiracy theory, but she does have a platform. 229,827 people voted for her and put her in office, but that number might be quite different today. The voters of District 14 in Georgia will have to ask themselves at the next election what has she done for them? I don’t think being on TV helps her constituents. I contend that the more she’s on TV the worse it is for her.

So, what are Anglo-Saxon values? Anglo-Saxons, a “cultural group,” inhabited England in the fifth century. They were immigrants from northern Germany and southern Scandinavia long before those places were countries. According to Bede, a monk from Northumbria back then, they were from some of the most powerful and warlike tribes in Germany. Bede names three of these tribes: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. If you believe in all that DNA stuff you might wonder if these were the same people who gave us World Wars I and II. Not really. It’s not the Arian race crap that Adolf was slinging, but pretty much the same hook American white supremacists have hung their dogma on for years.

Someone got the document and leaked it, fearful there was a chance that other members would support Greene and Gosar and adopt the platform. SLATE reported, “There won’t be an America First Caucus after all. At least for now. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the media of making a big deal about something that wasn’t even a reality yet and aides said she wasn’t starting any new group…. She also accused the media of focusing on race and using it to divide the American people with hate through identity politics.” Nick Dyer, Greene’s spokesperson said earlier in the weekend that the caucus would be launched soon. Okay, real, or not?

There are no lasting values we can attribute to the Anglo-Saxon peoples, after all they assimilated into a vast group of humans who came to the British Isles early on. The Anglo-Saxon people, culture and language developed over time, but the authors of this crazy revisionist view ignore what happened in Britain after the Norman invasion.

The conquest by the Norman elite captured much of the Anglo-Saxons’ land and revised their values. The Normans restructured the Church (made it Catholic), brought new architecture (castles and Romanesque cathedrals) and feudalism became much more widespread. The most long-lasting change was the English language absorbing thousands of words from French, Latin and even German. The melting pot of Britain was a precursor to what happened in America, and the assimilation made the people stronger, not weaker.

I doubt that white supremacists, neo-Nazis and those high verbal folks in the America First Movement have any idea what the term “Anglo-Saxon values” truly means. They throw out the idea that being a European is far superior to being a person of color, but have they been to Europe lately? It’s not so white and not so Anglo these days. Dorothy! Kansas City might be whiter than Miami, but that doesn’t make it more American. The far right equates Anglo with Caucasian but were they to travel back in time they wouldn’t even be able to communicate with an Anglo or a Saxon. They would be the alien.

The phrase “Anglo-Saxon values” is a trumped-up tag line that fell out of the bag of tricks that the losers and conspiracy nuts carry around. It’s also a quick sucker punch to the Dems. If Greene and other assholes of her ilk took the time to do the research (google it, jerkoffs), they would find the Anglo-Saxon earthly virtues were bravery, loyalty, generosity, and friendship. Being made to look stupid isn’t brave, it’s just fucking futile. Yes, they are loyal to their cause, but then so were the young members of the brown shirt brigade in 1939 Germany. Generosity is not an attribute of the far right. I don’t see them out raising money to help get the homeless vaccinated. As for “friendship,” the other day I got yelled at for having a Biden sticker on my car. Funny, she never mentioned “friendship” as she flipped me the bird.

Using the term “Christian values” would have been riskier, but more people might have swallowed it. Ask an Italian about Anglo-Saxon values, or perhaps any of the millions of Hispanics or Latinas who are legacy Americans what they think of that expression. Better yet, ask a Native American about Anglo-Saxon values. All they wanted to do was live in peace, but the Anglo-Saxons brought them bullets and diseases. Those religious Anglo zealots poured salt into the wounds by taking away the native peoples’ gods and spirits. You see, these aren’t values at all but rather legalized genocide and self-serving brainwashing. Have a nice day, Marjorie. Anglo-Saxon my ass! I demand your 23&Me DNA spit test.

Book for the Recovery – Build Back Better!

How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

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The book that tells it like it is…

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AMERICA’S DISPOSABLE PEOPLE

Why So Much Killing and Disregard for Life?

How many times do we need to read this, “It is unclear what motivated the shooting, but investigations are ongoing and will continue into most of the day…” One of the by-products of being in a Covid lockdown is not only did we avoid colds and the flu but the mass shootings were put on hold. Now that we are beginning to reopen, guns and shootings seem to be in the news every other day. WHY?

Jim Jordan, Representative of Ohio, once again embarrassed himself and his state by verbally abusing Dr. Anthony Fauci in a hearing on the Hill yesterday. It seems that Jordan’s agenda is to use his taxpayer-funded job to harass, vent and inflame citizens with no productive result.

The fact that Jordan disrespected Congress by not wearing a coat in a formal setting speaks to the character of the man, but isn’t it a moral affront to pit the number of people who have died from Covid-19 against the debate about when we will get all our rights back? Jordan was only trying to get on the news, which he did, but how do you think the families of those who have succumbed to the virus feel about his diatribe? Fauci is trying to save lives and Jim Jordan was yelling at him for no good reason. WHY?

All the numbers start to run together when seeing the daily stats, but we must always remember those numbers represent people. According to a Washington Post analysis of data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, during the past week thirty-eight states have reported an increase in the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19. But the national statistics don’t capture the intensity of the coronavirus emergency in the hotspots. Michigan reported more than 10,000 new infections on Tuesday alone. On Wednesday, the state reported an average of 46 deaths a day, up from 16 a month earlier. If 46 people were killed in a mass shooting, we would be alarmed and saddened.

Remember how you felt the morning after October 1, 2017 when Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip? He killed 61 people and injured 867 of the attendees. Put the coronavirus statistics in those terms and it begets a raw emotion and perhaps depression. Every day in MICHIGAN, more than 10,000 are hospitalized with Covid and 46 to 60 of them die.

According in CNN, 45 shootings have taken place in the last thirty days in the USA. Here are a few of the more infamous ones. On March 16^th, eight people were killed by a gunman at three massage businesses in Atlanta, Georgia. Six of the victims were of Asian descent. On March 22^nd in Boulder, Colorado, a shooter at a supermarket killed ten people, including a police officer who was the first to respond to the scene. In Orange, California on March 31^st, a gunman killed four people and critically wounded a fifth at a Southern California office building. On April 7^th, former NFL player Phillip Adams shot six people, including Robert Lesslie, a prominent doctor, his wife and two of their grandchildren along with two air conditioning technicians. His brain is now being examined for possible degenerative disease that has been shown to cause violent mood swings and other cognitive disorders in some athletes and members of the military. At least in this case, we might get an answer, albeit, too late.

Just last night, a gunman opened fire outside and inside a FedEx Ground facility near the Indianapolis main airport, killing eight people, wounding several others and sending witnesses running before taking his own life. We’ll probably never learn the true motivation of this former FedEx employee, but it’s pretty damn clear we have a huge problem in the United States of America.

While we are watching bad guys with guns shooting good people without guns, we are also seeing police officers around the country shooting people for minor issues and traffic stops. We watch the court cases with witnesses and experts giving their testimony but the victims have no voice there.

I am angered by Jim Jordan’s obvious disregard for life, his disrespect of a medical expert and his disdain for a united effort to beat the virus. He’s so worried about the Frist Amendment he’s forgotten about all of our rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” My idea of happiness is not laying in a hospital room on a ventilator. Should Jordan’s shredding of policies and extra care taken to lower the spread of a virus make things worse then he’s complicit, just like Wayne LaPierre of the NRA is complicit in every mass shooting in America. Yes, I get all the Second Amendment stuff but what suggestion or steps has LaPierre made to solve the problem of American mass shootings? Bupkis.

The idea that a good guy with a gun will keep us safe is more than fallacious, it just doesn’t work at all. If we had a competent president when the global pandemic broke out, we would not have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of American lives to keep the economy rolling. It’s not helpful to debate our freedoms when we have kids being shot by cops, a virus taking a thousand lives each day and mass shootings wasting people all over the country. Where does Representative Jim Jordan get off screaming at Dr. Fauci when he has not put forth a single idea to cure Covid-19? He’s much beyond a squeaky wheel, he’s a horrendously loud human fart.

We should not have disposable people. Human life is not sacred when we talk one way about Roe vs. Wade and then other ways about gun control, national health policies and police reform. If you care only about your dogma, then you are most likely disregarding the people you supposedly serve. Elected officials have a supreme responsibility to make sure all Americans are safe — safe to live, safe to work and safe to travel without fear of becoming infected with a virus or being executed by a cop. We must get back to our values with the understanding that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness mean something. If not, then we are just another third-world county but with lots of money.

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EASIER OR JUST BLOWING SMOKE?

New Voter Law Is A Trojan Horse, What’s Inside?

Back in my high school days, education officials made a rule that disallowed wearing jeans to class. There was no reason given for this draconian rule. Had we not been in the suburbs but in a rural area this law wouldn’t have worked. The administrators believed that wearing tight jeans would somehow make us act up and disturb the educational process. Really?

Sometimes we make a law in search of a crime and it takes the outcries of people to reverse it. I remember when the Atlanta Braves opened a new stadium and a woman was stopped because she was carrying a small cooler containing formula for her newborn baby. Less than 48 hours after this story broke the team ownership pulled the rule. Later, they loosened the restriction even more by allowing patrons to bring in food.

Voting has always been a challenge in America. The first mistake was not making the federal election day a holiday so that no one would have to miss work to vote or miss voting to work. Not one of the newly minted voting laws fixes that problem, which is #1 on my list.

Then there’s this. Early voting, whether it’s motivated by a pandemic or not, is a good idea. Any rule stating that tabulation of early votes cannot take place before election day, or worse, can’t begin until after the polls have closed, is foolish. How does that help the voting process?

Because we have many states that allow mail-in voting, which is a good thing, we must make sure the United States Postal System works properly in all fifty states and territories. The idea of no-excuse absentee voting is not a rare bird, nor should it be. You can see a list of all the states that support the concept here. And in case you didn’t know, Washington, Utah, Oregon, Hawaii and Colorado use mail-in voting exclusively, so what’s the fuss all about?

Lurking inside these new laws are grievance politics, partisan wounds and leftover racism that isn’t comprehended by many, including those people forging the new laws. The concept of disallowing a person to bring food or water to a voter waiting in line is a masked attempt at voter intimidation. Here’s the language, “No person shall … give any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector…within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established,” but there’s a trick in that stick. First, “the outer edge of any building” is inappropriate, given a polling location may have voters form a line around the perimeter or the building and “150 feet” might include everyone in the voting line. Also, are states actually prepared to arrest anyone who brings food or water to those of color waiting in line? That would be very intimidating, especially since cops have guns.

What’s really upsetting is the lawmakers know there will be long lines and they are attacking their citizens in the voting lines rather than working to make the lines shorter, the wait times less and the voting process faster. Anyone who views food and water you are giving your granny as temptation for voting a certain way is irrational, cynical and stupid. If anything, one waiting in a ridiculously long line to vote might be tempted to cast their ballot against the foolish people in power.

Here’s something from today’s New York Times, “Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies and executives signed on to a new statement released on Wednesday opposing ’any discriminatory legislation‘ that would make it harder for people to vote. It was the biggest show of solidarity so far by the business community as companies around the country try to navigate the partisan uproar over Republican efforts to enact new election rules in almost every state. Senior Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, have called for companies to stay out of politics.” The sad reality is these politicians take money from large companies for campaign expenses, but when those same companies point out a problem the grifters bark at them to back off. If they feel so strongly, why not pass a law that prohibits corporate funding of any candidate, party or Super Pac? Fat chance.

We live in a fast, souped-up world where we demand speed, efficiency and accuracy, not partisan bickering and built-in voter suppression. I am sure Brian Kemp, the Governor of Georgia, believes the new voting law he signed makes things better for his state. Why then are so many people telling him the law is bad?

Here is a major flaw that has nothing to do with food and water, it’s about power and control. One of Georgia’s new provisions is the state’s right to take over county elections offices the legislature believes have “persistent problems.” It wouldn’t be a surprise should they snatch control in Fulton County, which has 800,000 mostly African American voters. The Democrats won big there, and the Republicans believe there was corruption in that county, yet after three vote recounts no fraud was found. These idiots prefer Donald Trump’s lies over their own Secretary of State, Election Board members and, oh yeah, their voters. The law effectively changes the sixty plus year tradition of the Secretary of State being the sole keeper of Election integrity and places that responsibility in the hands of a party loyalist, perhaps appointed to overturn the will of voters. WHY IS THIS NOT A BAD IDEA?

We can debate the requirement of having a picture ID to vote, We do it in Florida and it’s not a problem. Florida lets you register to vote when you get your driver’s license. A voting ID card is not a bad idea. These are frightening times.

Were you to ask representatives in the Georgia State assembly if they were racist, they would honestly say no. But should you ask any of them what would give their party a better chance of winning in the next election, he or she would tell you that fewer votes from Black people would do the trick. So, you see, it’s not racism at all, it’s merely normal southern politics. By the way, they aren’t wrong. The more African American voters the more votes will be cast for Democrats. I guess people of color don’t like the policies of those Republicans who are pushing the trojan horse into the town center. Wouldn’t it smarter to figure out what the voters really want and just give it to them? Why try to take a bottle of water out of their hands? Remember, Coca-Cola makes DASANI and they certainly would be happy to provide the state with enough water for every voter, at a reasonable price or course. After all, they are capitalists.

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THE POPULARITY OF AMERICA

Immigration Challenges and the Far Right

I would love to think that all the concern about immigration by the right-wing media and hardcore Trump fans isn’t based on deep-seated prejudges, but for some reason I have trouble believing that. Oh yeah, the last four years of intense hate and nationalist rhetoric is probably responsible for the lack of credibility in their messaging.

Most conservative politicians go on and on about how broken the US immigration system is and how we need to stop letting people in. One might say that America is not responsible for the terrible conditions in the countries immigrants and refugees are fleeing from, but that’s not exactly right. Many of our failed foreign policies and drug enforcement initiatives have contributed to instable governments in some Central and South American countries. That subject is much too deep and complex for exploration on this page today, but should you read the Stephen Kinzer book titled The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, you will probably be shocked and embarrassed at the things our country did abroad in the name of democracy.

People all over the world love the United States of America and millions want to live here. Those folks lucky enough to have a landmass they can walk to get here, do so to escape the highly dangerous and unproductive places where they live. Yes, that’s not our fault but we need to understand oppressed people will always desire to come here and stay, and that has nothing to do with Biden’s policy of sheltering unaccompanied minors or the walls Donald Trump failed to build.

America has more than 800,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, more widely known as DACA. These kids and adults have a kind of landed status, but they are not citizens. They can work and they carry cards declaring their right to be here, but since June 15, 2012 they exist in an uncertain limbo.

According to the Brookings Institute, “As of January 1, 2015, there were 11.96 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The most recent Pew Research estimate puts the total number of unauthorized immigrants at 10.5 million in 2017. Overall, this represents a minority of the foreign-born population, which in 2017 numbered 44.5 million and of them, 45% are naturalized citizens and 27% of whom are lawful permanent residents.” Once again, I cannot adequately detail how the immigration system works, which includes working visa, green cards and long-term applications for citizenship. Instead, I’ll focus on the strict rules facing those applying for entry and seeking asylum here.

There are two basic requirements for entry into the United States. First, asylum applicants must establish that they fear persecution in their home country. Second, applicants must prove that they would be persecuted in their home country on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

When those known as “coyotes” working for fees bring young kids to our southern border and dump them over the wall, the kids are in a deep state of panic and many can’t say why they had to leave their home countries. They may have been separated from or told by their parents they must go live in America. Not only is there a language barrier for many of them, but a lack of knowledge about possible legal entanglements.

Our right-wing media features endless discussions about officials in the Biden administration not traveling to the border to see the problem up close. Why is that necessary? They are quite aware of the almost 20,000 minors who are in the custody of the US Government. The reality is the administration has bills to pass, Covid to conquer and other pressing responsibilities. One could say it’s bad optics that they aren’t down there on their knees and hugging the kids, but that will not solve the problem, and it is a problem.

There are times when following legal guidelines that a charge of not being moral or caring enough is raised. On the other hand, changing a policy to make it more, well, moral, can lead to a slamming for not following the letter of the law no matter what happens to the kids. When the bodies of babies and kids who were trying to get to a safer place started to wash up on the shores of the Mediterranean, the whole world criticized those countries that failed to help hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria. We got all sad for a while, but then we just forgot about them. It’s the normal flow of a human flaw.

We can bring those 20,000 kids to safety and unite them with family members who are already here, but wait, are those part of the ten to thirteen million undocumented people who arrived earlier? Are we going to balloon that group even more? 20,000 is not such a big number when compared to the 333 million people who live here now, but we need to realize that this is never going to stop. People will always make their way here to be part of the American Dream. Contrary to all the bullshit blasted out by Trump in the last four years, people in other lands consume our culture in the form of movies, books and TV shows and become convinced this is the happening place. We have an image of being the freest and coolest place on Earth.

There are three groups of immigrants. The first are highly trained or educated people who come to our county to learn or work. The H-1B visa is part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 101(a)(15)(H), that allows US businesses to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. The duration of stay is three years, extendable to six years, after which the visa holder may need to reapply. When these highly skilled workers stay, it makes America better.

Then there are rich kids who come from other countries via airplanes, land here for vacations and never leave. According to Jorge Ramos, 40% of undocumented immigrants come by air and overstay their travel visas. We will need more people to help curb this misuse of the travel privilege.

Members of the third group walk right in, sit right down and ask to stay. This is visual and therefore it gets the most attention, but should you view this as a problem then you must also deal with the reality that it will never go away. We are not going to stop saying our country is the beacon of freedom and the World’s greatest example of capitalistic achievement, so perhaps we need to stop complaining about people wanting to come here.

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IF THE GLOVE DOESN’T FIT…

Our Latest Reality TV Trial

We all remember that poignant phrase from the O.J. Simpson murder trial when his lawyer Johnny Cochran said, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” It could very well be that single line produced enough reasonable doubt to get O.J. off the hook.

The opening of the Britannica Encyclopedia article on the O.J. Simpson trial says, “…criminal trial of former college and professional gridiron football star O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. It was one of the most notorious criminal trials in American history.” It was the TV coverage that made it so intense.

The televised Simpson trial propelled one cable channel to the top of the ratings pile. It drew a massive audience to Court TV, which Time Warner renamed truTV in 2008. For years, the channel has been struggling with rebranding, trying to dissolve their courtroom image by adding more comedy and sports programming. That aside, the appeal of live courtroom coverage has never faded, especially when a compelling case is before the cameras.

According to History.com, “In 2008, the world was captivated by the bizarre behavior displayed by Casey Anthony. The then-22-year-old single mother from Orlando, Florida, was revealed to have spun a web of lies to cover up for the disappearance of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, that summer; the Facebook photos of her partying around town and a dearth of emotion in interviews fueling the charges of first-degree murder before Caylee’s body was discovered later that year.” Anthony’s attorney Jose Baez masterfully planted enough doubt in the jurors’ minds during the trial to get an acquittal. It was said there were too many unknowns, and the Facebook pictures of Ms. Anthony’s partying after her daughter was missing proved only that she was a bad mother and not a murderer. Really?

We are now in the middle of another court case being broadcast on cable TV and some Americans are mesmerized while others are repulsed. I try to avoid this TV coverage for two reasons. First, the regurgitation of the facts in the case makes me sad, angry and depressed. To repeatedly see the video of a police officer murdering a man by kneeling on his neck makes me sick. George Floyd was held down by three men face first on a Minneapolis street, and there is no US law stating that attempting to pass a counterfeit 20-dollar bill should net the perpetrator immediate execution with no trial or due process.

My second reason for avoiding the trial coverage is anger at the defense attorneys accusatory tactics and disparagements of the dead man. I know they have a job to do but that doesn’t mean I have to watch them at work. The defense has presented a theory that George Floyd died of an overdose or a heart attack induced by drugs and that contact by Officer Derek Chauvin was incidental and had little to do with the man’s demise. C’mon, we have ample proof of what happened.

Videos from bystanders, security cameras and cops alike show what happened leading up to the event, what happened outside the Cup Foods store and George Floyd’s death which took place in the street. In many ways all of us who have seen the videos are witnesses to the crime.

The release of video footage shot by a young man on the scene triggered nothing less than a worldwide response to oppression, police and government abuses and general condemnation of such incredibly brutal law enforcement. This trial has moved beyond Mr. Floyd’s murder. It’s now asking if cops have the right to kill another for any offense.

There are strong feelings in support of policework, particularly among those who have one or more family members working in law enforcement. In 2019, there were 697,195 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States. Various security forces and hired protection agencies are part of the more than one million people employed in United States police business, and that number does not include jail and prison corrections officers.

We should always respect the police and hope that when we need them, they arrive in time to serve and protect us. Their jobs carry a huge risk to limb and life. As we have been hearing, a cop is sometimes judged not by his body of work but rather by a single mistake they may have made along the way. That’s a tough burden to carry in any career. Many police officers and detectives retire each year without any blemish or controversial case, some even get medals for their outstanding body of work but, as the common statement goes, there are a few bad apples.

If convicted, Derek Chauvin will look back on the videos of him kneeing on George Floyd’s neck, cutting off the blood and oxygen supplies to the man’s brain until he died. I wonder how many jurors will remember the look of indifference on Chauvin’s face as the testimony unfolded. What a blasé appearance, hand in the pocket and the sunglasses perched on his head as if he was hanging out with the guys at a game. It appeared to be just another day at the office for Mr. Chauvin.

I am most disturbed by the testimony of the woman who approached Officer Chauvin and identified herself as an EMT worker from Minneapolis. She asked the police to check Mr. Floyd’s pulse. A simple request really, but she was told to get back on the sidewalk. In a sense, Derek Chauvin said, “Mind your own fucking business.” She did what she was told and returned to the sidewalk, but she didn’t leave the scene. Her public duty to witness what happened was important to her. Speaking up in a court of law was paramount to her. She had no indifference, only concern.

I don’t know if a buzz word or memorable phrase will come out of this trial, but we already have those three piercing words, “I can’t breathe.” George Floyd wasn’t the first to gasp those words, but hopefully he will be the last. We give the police guns and they use them. We give the police tasers and they use them. When did we give police the right to smother, choke and strangle another human being?

Even if you don’t kill the person, if you strangle or attempt to suffocate another human, you can be charged and if convicted, punished with up 5 years imprisonment. So, any cop who uses a stranglehold on another, cuts off air to their windpipe or blood to their brain is guilty of a crime. If they kill the person, they are guilty of murder. If only we had video proof — oh wait, we do.

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DEFENSIVE LEADERSHIP SUCKS

“Baby Trump” Ron DeSantis Implodes

Well, it was quite a weekend for our trusty Florida governor, Ron DeSantis. It began with a scathing report on 60 Minutes for all the nation to see. That’s what happens when you refuse to sit down for an interview with 60 Minutes. They just ask you a question at your press conference and demonstrate your all-encompassing defensiveness. According to CBS, DeSantis was handing out Covid shots and arranging shot locations as a payback to his campaign donors. He insists these things aren’t true, but the facts speak for themselves. Developers and a grocery store chain who gave more than $100,000 to his reelection super PAC were rewarded with Covid shots before the poor and people of color. Sadly, while he was denying and lying about one crisis another one was unfolding.

Florida produces tons of agriculture products. According to the Economic Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, in 2017 Florida agricultural products generated $7.64 billion in revenue. The crops accounted for 77.0 percent of total cash receipts and the state’s agricultural output is second only to California. Major crops include citrus, sugarcane, tomatoes, peppers, cotton, watermelons, peanuts, snap beans, and potatoes. Timber is also an important agricultural commodity for Florida and because the land has been farmed for more than 200 years it needs to be treated with lots of fertilizer to realize significant returns on investments. Tons of nitrogen, phosphate and potash have been dumped on Florida’s land and lawns. The chemical runoffs eventually find their way to lakes, rivers, the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean.

Fertilizer companies came to Florida, built their plants and, because of EPA regulations, constructed large pools to hold their industrial waste. These were constructed far from neighborhoods, but now that Florida’s population has exploded into these areas people are living much too close to these toxic timebombs of waste. In 1966, Borden Chemical, a spin-off of Elsie the Cow’s milk company, built an industrial plant to process phosphate, a key ingredient in fertilizer. Even though the phosphate processing plant became inactive in 2001, the large INDUSTRIAL WASTE holding ponds remained and collected millions of gallons of rainfall, adding to the problem.

I’m not going to get too far into the weeds, but the weeds around the pool are going to get very wet because there is a hole in the radioactive gypsum molded pond and wastewater is leaking into the surrounding soil. The pool cannot be drained into a river because the lakes and bay get extremely sick from the chemical residue, which make algae grow amazingly fast. Too much of that low level plant life sucks all the oxygen out of the water and kills the fish. Oh, did I mention humans eat fish? This chemical imbalance causes a condition known as Red Tide, which produces algal blooms or large concentrations of aquatic microorganisms, such as protozoans and unicellular algae. It hit the west coast of Florida two years ago and killed hundreds of thousands of fish and hurt many businesses in the tourist and boating trades. If the sludge from the pool makes its way to the rivers and bay, no one will want to visit Florida to lay on a beach with dead fish.

I should say here that “hole” and “leaking” are simplified terms. It’s much worse than those words may lead you to believe. The gypsum wall of the pond is breached. Engineers have attempted to plug the hole with rocks, but that hasn’t been working. The concern now is the containment wall will collapse, unleashing a 20-foot wall of wastewater.

Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency and MADE THE PEOPLE LEAVE THEIR HOMES! He could never bring himself to declaring a mask mandate, which would have saved thousands of lives, but with frightened people imagining polluted water pouring out of this man-made pond he acted swiftly. Many people have followed orders and left their homes, but others have refused to evacuate.

Florida now has an environmental crisis and a medical crisis at the same time. The people in charge were warned about the potential of a leak, and they did nothing. Should you want to say that Ronnie wasn’t the Governor back then, well, he was a state representative taking money from BIG FERTILIZER and he always voted in favor of them. The last major Florida Red Tide attack was in Lake Okeechobee, the state’s largest lake. DeSantis’ and former Governor Rick Scott’s solution was draining the polluted water into the Everglades. Beware, teenage mutant Ninja alligators are coming!

So, the solution to the current crisis is draining that large retaining pond, but where to put that sludgy water? When the leak was first detected, workers moved more than 22,000 gallons a minute out of the main retention pond and into a “drainage ditch” at nearby Port Manatee. But the sad truth about this kind of wastewater in Florida, sooner or later, it usually either ends up in the ocean or the gulf.

The engineers say it will take ten to twelve days to drain 380 million gallons into Tampa Bay, which prompted worries about the impact on marine life and another bout of Red Tide. Here we go again. What a mess. Just before we posted this article, the Florida Emergency team announced that they think there is more than one place where the wall of gypsum is leaking. This might get worse.

I cringe when a politician tries to convince us they know what they are doing by citing a “science person” who offers incorrect advice. With science, the more you know the more stupid your old ideas appear. We didn’t figure out that the Earth traveled around the sun until 1956. Okay, that was a joke. It was 1543 and the discovery was made by Nicky Copernicus. Why didn’t we know that fact sooner? Our egos led us to believe we were the center of the universe. We are not. Science and nature easily prove just how dense we are. Evidence of that? How about a global pandemic that has already killed 2.8 million human beings?

My greatest hope is this insane pandemic will teach us a major lesson. Our national healthcare system sucks and we need more doctors, more nurses and more hospitals. We also must make greater investments in research and science. I am NOT for the government taking over corporations, capitalism is the best motivation for most, but we must be ready next time. Not for me and those in my demographic but for our kids and grandkids. When people with no cars are forced to travel 25, 50 or 100 miles to get a Covid shot we are failing our own people. As for the state of Florida, maybe its citizens will learn that a defensive, argumentative and politically motivated governor is bad juju during health and environmental crises. DeSantis wastes most of his time defending himself. Maybe he should stop making bad decisions.

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How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

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