So far, I’ve got a couple hundred GOTV postcards coming next week, then in a couple of months, I’ll be writing for Rep. Davids of KS-03 (not my rep, but wish she was!) I’ve signed up with the Harris campaign to write for her, too, as well as phone banking for her close to the election.
For the Harris campaign, one can sign up to volunteer at https://kamalaharris.com/ . When you go there, there will be a cover screen asking for dollar contributions. If this is not what you want or can do, simply close that, then on the home screen, input your info. You’ll go to a page where you can look and choose what you want to do, including the phone banking, walking your neighborhood, postcards and letters, and text banking (I hate those damn things, and I don’t do ’em. But they must work.)
To do the postcards, I’m signed up with a couple of organizations, and just now got this one from John Pavlovitz’s Damn Giver’s Dispatch. It’s Postcards to Swing States, at https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/ . Right now, they’re looking for postcard writers for US Reps. Every single seat of the US House is up for election every two years. Currently, the MTG contingent is in semi-control; hence the lack of work performed there. Anyway, here you can choose which district to write for. If you don’t have one close to you, or that you care about, I’ve read that Alaska’s Rep. Peltola can use a boost, but you’ll see a list. The smallest number of postcards offered here is 200. I’ve done 200 before, and they really go faster than it seems as if they would (templates are provided.) But even if you get 10 done, that’s 10 more voters reached on behalf of the candidate. The other active organization sending out postcards for GOTV is MomsRising. You do not have to be a mom to write for them; they don’t ask. But all of us care about moms, and especially the kids, which makes us part of the village. MomsRising offers 20 or 100 postcards, at https://action.momsrising.org/survey/2024_Postcards_May/ . These activities are free to us but for our time! Well, and the ink we use to write.
Here’s hoping we each find the time and energy to do a little something to help Democrats win elections in November. Even simply talking someone up in the grocery line is helpful, and will make a difference. It is vital that we each vote, but it’s also vital that we do a little more. It was never intended that all US citizens had to do about our government was vote. This time it will matter as much as ever!
Rising temperatures mean dehydrated, exhausted kids, and teachers who have to focus on heat safety instead of instruction.
Originally published by The 19th (Republished with their republish link)
Angela Girol has been teaching fourth grade in Pittsburgh for over two decades. Over the years she’s noticed a change at her school: It’s getting hotter.
Some days temperatures reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in her classroom which, like many on the East Coast, isn’t air-conditioned. When it’s hot, she said, kids don’t eat, or drink enough water. “They end up in the nurse’s office because they’re dizzy, they have a headache, their stomach hurts — all because of heat and dehydration,” she said.
To cope with the heat, her students are now allowed to keep water on their desks, but that presents its own challenges. “They’re constantly filling up water bottles, so I have to give them breaks during the day for that. And then everyone has to go to the bathroom all the time,” she said. “I’m losing instruction time.”
The effect extreme heat is having on schools and child care is starting to get the attention of policymakers and researchers. Last week, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on the issue. In April, so did the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit policy organization.
“The average school building in the U.S. was built nearly 50 years ago,” said policy analyst Allie Schneider, co-author of the Center for American Progress report. “Schools and child care centers were built in areas that maybe 30 or 15 years ago didn’t require access to air-conditioning, or at least for a good portion of the year. Now we’re seeing that becoming a more pressing concern.” Students are also on campus during the hottest parts of the day. “It’s something that is really important not just to their physical health, but their learning outcomes,” she said.
Last April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its own report detailing some of the effects heat has on kids. It notes that children have a harder time thermo-regulating and take longer to produce sweat, making them more vulnerable than adults to heat exhaustion and heat illness.
Kids don’t necessarily listen to their body’s cues about heat, and might need an adult to remind them to drink water or not play outside. Kevin Toolan, a sixth-grade teacher in Long Island, New York, said having to constantly monitor heat safety distracts him from being able to teach. “The mindset is shifting to safety rather than instruction,” he said. “Those children don’t know how to handle it.”
To keep the classroom cool, he’ll turn the lights off, but kids fall asleep. “They are lethargic,” he said.
To protect kids, schools have canceled classes because temperatures have gotten too high. Warmer temperatures also lead to more kids being absent from school, especially low-income students. And heat makes it harder to learn. One study from 2020 tracked the scores of students from schools without air-conditioning who took the PSAT exam at least twice. It found that increases in the average outdoor temperature corresponded with students making smaller gains on their retakes.
Both Toolan and Girol said that cooling options like keeping doors and windows open to promote cross ventilation are gone, thanks to the clampdowns in school security after 9/11 — and worsened by the threat of school shootings. Students and teachers are trapped in their overheating classrooms. “Teachers report leaving with migraines or signs of heat exhaustion,” said Toolan. “At 100 degrees, it is very uncomfortable. Your clothes are stuck to you.”
The Center for American Progress report joins a call by other advocacy groups to create federal guidance that schools and child care centers could adopt “to ensure that children are not forced to learn, play and exercise in dangerously hot conditions,” Schneider said. Some states already have standards in place, but they vary. In California, child care facilities are required to keep temperatures between 68 and 85 degrees. In Maryland, the recommendation is between 74 and 82 degrees. A few states, like Florida, require schools to reduce outdoor activity on high-heat days. Schneider says federal guidance would help all school districts use the latest scientific evidence to set protective standards.
In June, 23 health and education advocacy organizations signed a letter making a similar request of the Department of Education, asking for better guidance and coordination to protect kids. Some of their recommendations included publishing a plan that schools could adopt for dealing with high temperatures; encouraging states to direct more resources to providing air-conditioning in schools; and providing school districts with information on heat hazards.
“We know that school infrastructure is being overwhelmed by extreme heat, and that without a better system to advise schools on the types of practices they should be implementing, it’s going to be a little bit of the Wild West of actions being taken,” said Grace Wickerson, health equity policy manager at the Federation of American Scientists.
A longer term solution is upgrading school infrastructure but the need for air conditioning is overwhelming. According to the Center for American Progress report, 36,000 schools nationwide don’t have adequate HVAC systems. By 2025, it estimates that installing or upgrading HVAC or other cooling systems will cost around $4.4 billion.
Some state or local governments are trying to address the heat issue. In June, the New York State Legislature passed a bill now awaiting the governor’s signature that would require school staff to take measures like closing blinds or turning off lights when temperatures reach 82 degrees inside a classroom. At 88 degrees, classes would be canceled. A bill introduced last year and currently before California’s state assembly would require schools to create extreme heat action plans that could include mandating hydration and rest breaks or moving recess to cooler parts of the day.
Some teachers have been galvanized to take action, too. As president of the Patchogue-Medford Congress of Teachers, Toolan was part of an effort to secure $80 million for infrastructure upgrades through a bond vote. Over half will go to HVAC systems for some 500 schools in his district.
And Girol is running for a state representative seat in Pennsylvania, where a main plank in her platform is to fully fund public schools in order to pay for things like air-conditioning. She was recently endorsed by the Climate Cabinet, a federal political action committee. “Part of the reason climate is so important to me is because of this issue,” she said. “I see how it’s negatively affecting my students.”
“He didn’t keep his promise of 6% economic growth. He broke his promise to pass an infrastructure bill. He even broke his promise to that J6 mob when he said, ‘I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol.’
“But he actually did keep two promises: He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country, and he kept his promise on tax cuts to the rich.
“If you want to know what a second Trump term would look like, I would look at those rare promises that he actually managed to keep. He’s disavowed a lot of things. I don’t believe him. He lies all the time.
“Republicans who are in Trump’s personality cult look at Donald Trump and say he’s perfectly fine even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Haley and Pelosi, even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks and Hannibal Lecter. We don’t have that kind of warped reality on our side.
“Crime is down under Joe Biden and crime was up under Donald Trump. Now, I don’t know how often that gets reported on this network, so if you’re watching this at home, do yourself a favor and look up the data.
“Why would America want to go back to the higher crime that we experienced under Donald Trump?” – Pete Buttigieg, this morning on Fox News.
Pete Buttigieg on Fox News Sunday on Trump: "He even broke his promise to that J6 mob when he said, 'I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol.' But he actually did keep two promises: He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country, and he kept… pic.twitter.com/6Y82nifwa3
Pete Buttigieg on Fox News Sunday on Biden: "Unlike Republicans who in Trump's personality cult will take a look at Donald Trump and say he's perfectly fine even though he seemed unable to tell the difference between Haley and Pelosi, even though he's rambling about electrocuting… pic.twitter.com/lh5W7MB5cq
Pete Buttigieg is very good at this: "Crime is down under Joe Biden and crime was up under Donald Trump. Now, I don't know how often that gets reported on this network, so if you're watching this at home, do yourself a favor and look up the data … why would America want to go… pic.twitter.com/KyciVm4gUG
While I suppose it theoretically might turn off a few voters, a) he’s the best person for the job and b) if you won’t vote for a candidate b/c of a gay VP, you probably actually weren’t going to vote for the candidate in the first place.
(The ONLY good argument I’ve heard so far is that the young age of Pete’s children make would place an unreasonable demand on his time. [ETA: For clarification, I meant the job would place an unreasonable demand on his time with his children. But my brain no work gud this early.] If that’s true and he feels that way – fine, he can decline.)
There is no evidence Kamala Harris isn’t considering him as her vice-presidential nominee, but the Washington Post didn’t even include Pete in their readers’ poll.
Pandering to anti-gay bigotry by saying other voters might not accept a gay candidate is just another form of anti-gay bigotry.
I posted one of them, the day Harris got the nod. I’ve thought about it and changed my mind. Pete’s proved himself. Anyone who wouldn’t vote for the ticket because there’s a gay guy probably wouldn’t have voted for the ticket because there’s a brown woman.
A priest is suing the gay dating and “hookup” app Grindr after the company reportedly failed to protect his data, leading to his resignation from a top position at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
In July 2021, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill resigned from his post as the general secretary of the USCCB ahead of a report by The Pillar alleging that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior and frequent use of Grindr.
The app advertises itself as “the largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans, and queer people.” Its geolocation feature is popularly known to facilitate sex hookups between gay men.
The Pillar said its report on Burrill was based on “commercially available records” correlated to the priest’s mobile device. But a lawsuit filed this week claims that Grindr hadn’t taken steps to protect the data from third-party acquisition.
The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California, claims the group Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal (CLCR) purchased the priest’s data from the app and sent it to The Pillar.
The gay hookup app “assures customers” that it “takes steps” to protect data from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure, the suit says. But Grindr allegedly “knew they were failing to protect sensitive personal data of its customers” yet failed to take steps to protect it, the filing says.
Public reports “reveal a stunning pattern of [Grindr’s] intentional and reckless failure to protect private data of its customers,” the priest argues in the suit.
The company allegedly “fraudulently conceals and fails to disclose that it provides and/or sells its users’ personal data to ad networks, data vendors, and/or or other third parties that sell the data or otherwise make it commercially available to others.”
The suit requests damages, lawyer’s fees, and “injunctive relief.” It also asks the court to forbid Grindr “from committing such unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent business practices.”
In 2022 Burrill returned to active ministry as a priest in his home diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, with then-Bishop William Callahan stating that the priest had “engaged in a sincere and prayerful effort to strengthen his priestly vows” and had “favorably responded to every request” made by the bishop and the diocese.
The priest was appointed to St. Teresa of Kolkata Parish in West Salem, where he serves as pastor.
In his lawsuit, Burrill said his reputation had been “destroyed” by the data leak.
In addition to losing his position at the USCCB, he was “subjected to significant financial damages and emotional and psychological devastation,” the suit says.
Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.
J.D. Vance’s long friendship with a transgender friend who attended his wedding has been revealed—including how he spoke about hating cops and disparaged Donald Trump and conservative icon Antonin Scalia.
Sofia Nelson, a Yale Law School contemporary of Trump’s running mate, revealed how they corresponded by text and email for years until falling out over his support for a ban on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors.
In October 2014, after the police killing that summer of Michael Ferguson, an 18-year-old Black man in Ferguson, Missouri, caused widespread protests and violence, Vance wrote to Nelson: “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”
The emails, in which Mr. Vance criticizes former President Donald J. Trump both for “racism” and as a “morally reprehensible human being,” add to an already-existing body of evidence showing Mr. Vance’s ideological pivot from Never Trumper to Mr. Trump’s running mate.
And they reflect a young man quite different from the hard-right culture warrior of today who back then brought homemade baked goods to his friend after Nelson underwent transition-related surgery. The visit cemented their bond.
Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, said they visited each other’s homes, talked on Zoom during the pandemic and exchanged long emails discussing a range of subjects, from the minutiae of daily life to weighty discussions of current events and public policy issues.
An enraging, depressing, and beautifully written story on JD Vance’s falling out with a transgender friend.
Views from 2014-17 include: Scalia is a shrill old man, support for some reparations, Trump a morally reprehensible racist, “I hate the police” https://t.co/mKSQj0yiRP
“Vance’s opposition to affirming one’s identity is complicated by his decision to change his name, not once, but twice. He was born James Donald Bowman and took the surname Hamel from his stepfather before finally choosing the name Vance to honor his grandmother, The New York Times reports. Critics argue that Vance’s childhood experience should have fostered empathy and understanding toward the LGBTQ+ community. Instead, he has used his platform to undermine their rights, leading to accusations of hypocrisy.
At breakfast today, hubs and I debated the question: “Is there any chance that Trump will dump Vance now that Vance’s past actions and verbal horrors are coming to light?”
I think “yes.” Vance would have to “excuse himself” from remaining as the orange felon’s VP running mate — claiming, perhaps, some family or personal emergency he needs to devote his time to.
This is my first time commenting after reading for 15+ years. This story really resonates with me. I had a best friend through high school and college. We were practically inseparable. He was there for my coming out and a major part of my life. He was always supportive and caring. I was his best man at his wedding along with 2 other gay men were groomsmen. However, 2 years after he married a daughter of a preacher. He was radicalized to the right. He found god and couldn’t bring himself to even come to my wedding because it would offend his god. His entire family came but him. Some can be surprised or saying that Vance is faking he’s opinions but I believe he was just radicalized. I have seen it first hand. Religion is a dangerous tool that has caused so much pain.
Idaho’s recently enacted bill encourages parents and children to bring legal action against schools and libraries that refuse to move certain material into “adult only” sections.
Books are displayed at the Banned Book Library at American Stage in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Feb. 18, 2023. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)
A recently enacted law requiring Idaho schools and libraries to remove materials that are “harmful” to minors infringes on the First Amendment rights of private entities, a group of private schools, privately-funded libraries, parents and schoolchildren say in a Thursday lawsuit.
House Bill 710 — which took effect July 1 after Governor Brad Little signed it into law in April — allows citizens and the government to file a lawsuit against any school or library that doesn’t move certain material into designated “adult only” sections within 60 days of a complaint.
“H.B. 710 is the product of a social climate in Idaho (and elsewhere) in which schools and libraries have been inaccurately and unfairly castigated and villainized for using and making available constitutionally protected materials with content that the state and some Idahoans disapprove of,” the plaintiffs say in the 57-page complaint.
The suit was brought by private schools Sun Valley Community School and Foothills School of Arts and Sciences, along with the Community Library Association, a privately funded public library, and Collister United Methodist Church, which operates a lending library.
The groups are also joined by a set of parents and two high school-age students, who say that they want access to these reportedly “harmful” books and other materials to further their education.
The plaintiffs say the law violates their First Amendment free speech rights and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. They ask the court to block enforcement of the law and to declare HB 710 unconstitutional.
“The act’s vague and overbroad definition of ‘harmful to minors’ conflicts with decades of settled constitutional law and extends well beyond the state’s limited authority to restrict the materials that private parties, like the private entity plaintiffs, may provide to minors,” they write.
Under the act’s definitions, the plaintiffs say, materials like health and sex education textbooks, literary works like Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and artworks like Michelangelo’s David would all be subject to removal, possibly based on arbitrary and subjective reasons.
“Even the Bible, if a defendant or citizen complainant subjectively believes members of their community would find them offensive,” could be targeted, the plaintiffs note.
The plaintiffs also take specific aim with a clause of the act that restricts materials that depict or represent “sexual conduct” — a definition that includes “any act of … homosexuality.”
Beyond the “vague and overbroad” definition of what constitutes “harmful for minors,” the plaintiffs also take issue with what they called the “incoherent” enforcement provisions outlined in HB 710. The act “fails to provide constitutionally meaningful guardrails on enforcement,” plaintiffs say.
“If a private entity plaintiff disagrees with the content-based assessment of the parent or minor and declines to segregate the challenged material, the parent or minor is authorized to file a civil suit against the private entity plaintiff and incentivized to do so by a cash reward and the availability of ‘actual damages,’” the plaintiffs write, referring to a provision in HB 710 that allows for a possible recovery of $250 and statutory and actual damages, if the complainant prevails in the case.
The government itself is also permitted under HB 710 to seek an injunction against any of the plaintiffs, who say this could lead to financial and reputational harm.
The plaintiffs name Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador as a defendant, alongside Jan Bennetts, prosecuting attorney for Ada County, and Matt Fredrick, prosecuting attorney for Blaine County.
HB 710 is not the first attempt Idaho legislators have made to restrict library access in the state. A version of the measure made it through the 2023 session but was rejected by Little.
In a letter after he signed HB 710, the governor commended the 2024 bill for having tighter definitions for restricted material and for lowering the recovery from $2,500.
“I share the co-sponsors’ desire to keep truly inappropriate materials out of the hands of minors,” Little wrote in April.
Libraries initially pushed back on the bill, citing free speech concerns and the financial burden it could levy, particularly on smaller libraries, but legislators stood by the measure.
“I can assure you that there is no book banning and there’s no book burning and there’s no book removal anywhere in this legislation. What we have to look at when you look at these libraries is that you have differing viewpoints and different opinions from taxpayers,” Representative Jaron Crane, a Nampa Republican and bill co-sponsor, said in committee, the Idaho Capital Sun reported in March.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment by a 5-4 vote. The Court called the wide discretion in application of capital punishment, including the appearance of racial bias against black defendants, “arbitrary and capricious” and thus in violation of due process guarantees in the 14th Amendment [see July 28, 1868].
New feature spotted in brightest gamma-ray burst of all time
July 28, 2024 Evrim Yazgin
NASA’s Fermi Telescope has revealed new details about the brightest of all time gamma-ray burst which may help explain these extreme and mysterious cosmic events.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) usually last less than a second. They originate from the dense remains of a dead giant star’s core, called a neutron star. But what causes neutron stars to release huge amounts of energy in the form of gamma radiation is still a mystery.
A jet of particles moving at nearly light speed emerges from a massive star in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.
In October 2022, astronomers detected the largest gamma-ray burst ever seen – GRB 221009A. It came from a supernova about 2.4 billion light years away. The event had an intensity at least 10 times greater than any other GRB detected. It was dubbed the BOAT, for brightest of all time.
Now, analysis of the data from that event has revealed the first emission line which can be confidently identified in 50 years of studying GRBs.
Emission lines are created when matter interacts with light. Energy from the light is absorbed and reemitted in ways characteristic to the chemical make up of the matter which is interacting with it.
When the light reaches Earth and is spread out like a rainbow in a spectrum, the absorption and emission lines appear. Emission lines appear as dimmer or even black lines in the spectrum, whereas emission lines are brighter features.
At higher energies, these features in the spectrum can reveal processes between subatomic particles such as matter and anti-matter annihilation which can produces gamma rays.
“While some previous studies have reported possible evidence for absorption and emission features in other GRBs, subsequent scrutiny revealed that all of these could just be statistical fluctuations,” says coauthor Om Sharan Salafia at the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics Brera Observatory in Milan. “What we see in the BOAT is different.”
The emission line appeared almost 5 minutes after the burst was detected. It lasted about 40 seconds.
It peaked at 12 million electron volts of energy – millions of times more energetic than light in the visible spectrum.
The astronomers believe the emission line was caused by the annihilation of electrons and their anti-matter counterparts, positrons. If their interpretation is correct, it means the particles would have to have been moving toward Earth at 99.9% the speed of light.
“After decades of studying these incredible cosmic explosions, we still don’t understand the details of how these jets work,” says Elizabeth Hays, Fermi project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in the US. “Finding clues like this remarkable emission line will help scientists investigate this extreme environment more deeply.”
Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill | U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Scottie's Playtime 