Wouldn't that be rather heavy, hanging a thing around your neck with that NLS
player hanging from it, especially if you're 85, or probably now Carl is 86?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, April 24, 2021 3:02 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: SYSTEMIC RACISM CONTINUES TO PLAGUE PANDEMIC
RESPONSE
Carl, you need to use a lanyard. Your book player has places to attach it and
it will leave both hands free for canes.
___
Carl Sagan “It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance
between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all
hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great
openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some
tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes,
whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical,
then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new.
You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the
world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now
and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on
the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being
skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and
either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and
progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility
and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot
distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.” ― Carl Sagan
On 4/24/2021 1:12 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Copperhead is on my list, but I'm not getting to my list very fast.
I'm having a few pesky issues, and the doctor tells me rthat I need
more exercise. I mentioned that I do walk our 100 foot long deck at
least 12 times, and she tells me to work toward a mile. Just no
pleasing some people. I can't carry the book player because I now
need a travel cane in one hand and a support cane in the other.
Thursdauy afternoon I had a quick physical and left some blood. The
physical went very well, but later on Friday afternoon, the doctor
called and left a message telling me that she had the results from the
Lab, and she did have some "slight" changes in the instructions she'd
given me in her office. But since they're closed over the weekend I
will not find out anything until Monday morning.
Anyway, like it or not, it's all part of the aging process.
Carl
On 4/22/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
It's really frustrating, but I don't think we can change people's minds by
telling them facts.
Please read that book, Copperhead, from BARD that I sent the email about the
other day. It's relevant and maybe, it's comforting. I read all these
articles and I'm so tempted to send some of them to Debbie to educate her,
to explain that so much of what she sees on TV is misinformation, but I
don't do it, or I almost never do it, because it hopeless. And she's no
right winger. She just believes all the mainstream propaganda from the
establishment. And she avoids even watching or reading what purports to be,
serious news.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2021 11:16 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: SYSTEMIC RACISM CONTINUES TO PLAGUE PANDEMIC
RESPONSE
Lengthy but thought provoking. I sent it to a nephew of mine, a fellow who
spews venom and contempt for "all you yellow belly pussies", asking him how
he can deny that we have a racist culture. I received an answer quicker
than he could have read more than the headline, "Quit sending me your Commie
propaganda and go f**k yourself."
Hmm, could he be suggesting that my information is false, even before he
reads it?
How do we change the self serving, hate filled mouthings, and vacuum brains
when they will not allow any discussion? Years ago my VR Counselor told me,
"you can't legislate morals." But I said, "you can pass legislation that
makes doing the moral thing easier than doing the immoral thing."
I still believe it. We're barking up the wrong tree if we think we're all
reasonable folk.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/22/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
SYSTEMIC RACISM CONTINUES TO PLAGUE PANDEMIC RESPONSE By Derrick Z.
Jackson, Union of Concerned Scientists.
April 21, 2021 | EDUCATE!
On March 29, Eric, the most prominent lay leader at my church in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, perished from COVID-19. He was one of 685
people across the United States and one of 15 in Massachusetts to die
from the disease that day. On April 6, Eric's mother Elmo also died
from the coronavirus, one of
907 in the US and one of 12 in Massachusetts.
Both were likely casualties of a nation and state that betrayed them
more than once during the pandemic: First by failing to quell the
virus last year; secondly by allowing people like them to fall behind
in getting vaccines; and thirdly by relaxing coronavirus restrictions
while the nation remains riddled with racial vaccine disparities.
All put together, Eric and Elmo are among those who have fallen to the
collective selfishness of the prior White House and the nation's
governors, regardless of political stripe-a selfishness significantly
stained by systemic racism.
When Eric's family emigrated from Barbados to Cambridge in the mid
1960s, their first visit to the church ended with rejection because of
segregation.
The barrier came down a couple years later and Eric quickly became a
fixture for the next 50 years. He read scripture, assisted with
communion, lit our candles, and bore the processional cross. In later
years, he led a Mother's Day coffee hour where he and other men served
women in black tie. For decades, up until 2019, he was a working-class
warehouse manager and a concierge. For years, he also cared full time
for Elmo, who was declining from dementia.
In the comings and goings that are part of many multi-generational
homes, including visits from home health aides, COVID-19 got to them
both. Eric was 65. Elmo was 95. They were Black. A modern wall of
segregation so evident in the nation's COVID-19 response may well have
doomed them the same way it blew out the candles of life for so many
of the 84,000 Black people who have been lost in this country to the
pandemic.
Structural Barriers To Vaccination
Eric and Elmo were not yet vaccinated. In theory, both could have been
vaccinated in mid-February had they been able to secure an online
appointment at a mass vaccination site. Based on the liberal politics
Eric wore on his Facebook sleeve, which included re-posting criticism
of anti-maskers and denunciation of anti-Asian hate in the wake of
former President Trump's scapegoating of China for COVID-19, it seems
unlikely that Eric was opposed to vaccination.
It is far more likely that, because of his caretaking and constant
associated errands, he did not have the luxury to be laser-focused on
a laptop for 10 straight hours as I was to secure my first shot in the
early stages of Massachusetts' maddening vaccination rollout.
All across the nation, online signups for shots have been far easier
for white-collar families with fast computers and high-speed Internet.
They could work from home during the pandemic at desk jobs that could
allow them to peek regularly back to vaccine websites and refresh
their browsers to get in the queue.
By definition, that also meant the first wave of vaccine availability
was skewed toward White families. While nearly one in three White
workers can work from home in the United States, only one in five
Black workers and one in six Latinx have the same privilege. Rev.
Miniard Culpepper, a leader among Boston's Black clergy calling for an
equitable response to COVID-19, said on a February Facebook Live
panel, "I don't know too many folks in my church that can take six hours
out of a day to try to get an appointment."
Nor did Culpepper know of too many folks who, even with an
appointment, could take the time many White families could to travel
to a vaccination site. Massachusetts is one of many states that has
relied heavily on mass vaccination sites such as stadiums and suburban
shopping malls. In mid-February, the Boston Globe featured the dilemma
faced by seniors of all colors to get to these locations.
That dilemma is far worse for families attending to seniors of color,
as people of color statewide are two and a half times more likely not
to have a car than White people. In the city of Boston, forty percent
of residents of color do not own a car, compared to 29 percent of
White residents.
Eric was apparently among the number without wheels, usually seen
arriving at church by taxi or public transportation. The latter mode
highlights another barrier for people of color getting COVID-19
shots-bus service is so poor in Boston's communities of color that
Black bus riders in the city spend 64 more hours per year commuting
than White riders.
Such compounding disadvantages for Black households were plainly on
display on the first day Massachusetts opened its first mass
vaccination site in a community of color-in an athletic center in
predominantly Black Roxbury.
Most of the people in line for shots were White, having driven in from
all over the metropolitan area. Black people I know around Boston
joked that it was probably the first time in Roxbury for many of those
people. The collective refrain was, "They used to say they wouldn't
come to the 'hood even if it would kill them. COVID made them rethink
that."
This kind of debacle was repeated in many cities. The head of one
clinic in a predominately Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, told
the New York Times that when vaccines became available, "Suddenly our
clinic was full of white people." Similarly, the chief executive of
Dallas County noted to the Times how a vaccine site in a mainly Black
and Latinx neighborhood experienced a "huge stampede of people from
the suburbs who had reliable cars."
Vaccine Disparities: The Numbers Tell The Story It will remain an
unanswered question whether Eric and Elmo were unable to get promptly
vaccinated because of some aspect of this structural racism, but the
data suggest high odds. Despite more recent, after-thought scrambling
by states and cities to engage churches, neighborhood clinics, and
community centers to get the vaccine deeper into communities of color,
Eric and Elmo died with the nation remaining far away from closing the
racial vaccine gap.
Fresh confirmation of the gap came April 12 when Rochelle Walensky,
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Black
people, who make up 12 percent of the population, account for just 8.4
percent of those who have received at least one shot. Latinx
residents, 18 percent of the population, account for only 10.7 percent
of those who have received a shot.
Disparities like that led her to declare racism a "serious public
health threat." That officially lent the CDC's voice to those of
nearly 200 cities, counties, and states-beginning with Milwaukee
County in 2019- that have declared racism a public health crisis or
emergency.
Even though the pandemic has long since reached every corner of the
United States and killed more than 560,000 people, Black and Latinx
populations, bedeviled by an array of risk factors, were the leading
edge of death a year ago in the first surge of the pandemic and remain
twice as likely to die from COVID-19, according to the CDC.
And yet, these populations are statistically last to get the vaccine,
as White vaccination rates exceed their population share in the vast
majority of states. As of April 12, according to data compiled by the
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), White people were 70 percent more
likely to have gotten a first shot as Latinx people and 60 percent
more likely to get a shot than Black people.
Of states that are at least 10 percent Black, Pennsylvania's record is
the most egregious. The state is 11 percent Black but only 4 percent
of vaccinations have gone to Black people according to KFF. The
pharmacy chain Rite Aid became symbolic of the state's incompetence,
at one point giving nearly 87 percent of its vaccines in Philadelphia
to White people from across the metro region while giving only 4
percent of them to Black people (a 21-to-1 ratio), despite the fact
that Philadelphia is 44 percent Black and 45 percent White.
According to KFF, other states with major Black populations and
disgraceful rates of Black vaccination as of April 12 include:
Delaware (22 percent Black population, only 13 percent of the
vaccinated) Florida (16 percent Black population, only 8 percent of
the vaccinated) Illinois (14 percent Black population, only 9 percent
of the vaccinated) Michigan (13 percent Black population, only 8
percent of the vaccinated) New Jersey (12 percent Black population,
only 6 percent of the vaccinated) New York (16 percent Black
population, only 10 percent of the vaccinated) Ohio (12 percent Black
population, only 7 percent of the vaccinated) Texas (12 percent Black
population, only 8 percent of the vaccinated) The story is worse for
Latinx, who in several states have vaccination rates less than half their
share of the population, including:
Arizona (32 percent Latinx, 13 percent of the vaccinated) California
(40 percent Latinx, but only 24 percent of vaccine recipients)
Colorado (22 percent of population, 9 percent of vaccinated) Nevada
(29 percent of population, 18 percent of vaccinated) New Jersey (21
percent of population, 10 percent of vaccinated) New Mexico (49
percent of population, 40 percent of vaccinated) Texas (40 percent of
population, 30 percent of vaccinated) Reopening Policies Reinforce
Structural Racism Gaps as sizable as the ones listed above, compounded
with the fact that people of color are disproportionately represented
in so many categories of "essential workers" who make it possible for
disproportionately-vaccinated White people to enjoy the "reopening" of
economies, make it an act of White supremacy for states to relax
coronavirus restrictions. An exclamation point on this is the fact
that the number of states without mask mandates has mushroomed back to
24, even though less than half of the general population has received
a first shot and only a quarter is fully vaccinated, according to
April 16 New York Times tracking.
It is racially irresponsible given that, as of KFF's April 12
tracking, one in three White people have received a first shot,
compared to only one in five of Black and Brown people.
Thus we are witnessing a vile parallel to last year's disastrous
reopenings, which were also clearly done on the backs of essential
workers. No matter how much individual governors cherry-pick data to
relax restrictions, cases nationally have climbed from a 7-day average
of 54,000 daily cases on March
22 to 70,000 on April 15. The latter number is seven times the 10,000
cases per day targeted by the nation's top infectious disease expert,
Anthony Fauci, as being the level to consider for trying to return to
some kind of normal.
Saying recently that cases were stuck at a "disturbingly high level,"
Fauci reminded the White House press corps of last year's tragic
attempt to negotiate with the virus. The 7-day rolling average in
mid-September before the fearsome fall and winter surge was
35,000-half of what we're seeing today.
"You might remember, a year ago or a little bit more than a year ago,
when we were looking for the summer to rescue us from surges, it was
in fact the opposite," Fauci said. "We saw some substantial surges in
the summer. I don't think we should even think about relying on the
weather to bail us out of anything we're in right now."
How Much Death Do We Tolerate?
CDC Director Walensky has pled in vain for weeks for states to
restrain themselves until enough people are vaccinated. Scientists
estimate that herd immunity, the point at which the coronavirus runs
out of people to infect, would be achieved at a vaccination level of
between 70 and 90 percent. "I understand that people are tired and
that they are ready for this pandemic to be over, as am I," Walensky
said. "Please continue to hang in there."
But governors are having nothing of "hanging in there," as fans return
to the stands at outdoor baseball and indoor basketball games, as
indoor capacities increase at restaurants, bars, churches, museums,
concert halls, gyms, personal care establishments, and bowling alleys.
Air travel is soaring from winter's levels. In announcing his state's
wide-open reopening plans, California governor Gavin Newsom said, "the
light at the end of this tunnel has never been brighter."
If last summer is any indication, that light at the end of a tunnel is
the headlamp of a viral freight train coming to mow through the
unprotected among us once again. Many experts are trying to find
solace in the fact that, with many older people getting vaccinated and
new infections happening more among younger people, that the death
toll is not as severe as last year. But that seems more like wishful
rationale as we continue to lose two jumbo jets worth of people a day
in the 7-day rolling average of daily deaths. States are getting back
to "normal," even though, as of April 16 tracking by the New York
Times, cases are either staying high or going up in
31 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
One of those states where cases are high and staying high is
Massachusetts.
Governor Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, last month announced a
major relaxing of coronavirus restrictions, despite the fact that
White people in his state have been disproportionately vaccinated.
Nearly 30 Boston and state public health, civil rights, and health
equity groups wrote Baker to say, "Reopening should not be prioritized
while the Commonwealth has yet to address the inequities with the
vaccination distribution plans and implementation."
Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University's School of Public Health,
who has repeatedly criticized the speed with which Massachusetts and
the nation are rushing back to normal, asked the question no governor
dares answer. He recently wrote, "How many folks do we tolerate
getting COVID, dying in the final weeks before vaccinations get us to a
better place?"
Tragically, two answers to that question are named Eric and Elmo.
