Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines
Still haven’t seen that coffee, but this is a most excellent blog post:
News from Janet!
Yesterday in the news. Thanks to Joe My God for the posts I linked to here. This was my morning reading.
Read the full article. Watch all of the LOL clips.
The book further claims that the Queen believed that Trump and Melania must have “some kind of special arrangement,” considering his flagrant serial adultery.
Sentencing will be determined next week.
As you can see below, Reimer’s first arrest last year resulted in a money beg from a major right wing Canadian outlet.
Reimer’s previous non-drag related convictions resulted in sentences totally nearly three years.
As I said last month, it appears that the office of Secretary of State John Thurston [photo] deliberately withheld the above-cited rule about petition bundling. Thurston was a pastor before entering politics.
Dr. AI Will See You Now
The integration of artificial intelligence into public health could have revolutionary implications for the global south—if only it can get online.
(Whew! It’s a long one. Maybe read it in part, then come back and read some more. Or read it all at once, it’s not insurmountable. I’m interested what people here think about this.)
By: Dr. Ebele Mogo August 21, 2024
The transformative potential of digital connectivity became a global game changer more than two decades ago. Mobile phones reshaped telecommunications, enabling connectivity even in homes without landlines. Digital health quickly leveraged these innovations, making remote patient-doctor communication, digital payments, care coordination, and online peer support networks possible.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has undoubtedly sparked another phase of digital innovation. Although the field’s origins date to the mid-twentieth century, recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have thrust it into the spotlight. Reflecting this growing relevance, the World Health Organization (WHO) dedicated a session at its World Health Assembly (WHA) in early 2024 to AI’s implications for global health, convening regional, national, academic, and international health organizations and actors to examine this matter.
AI Applications in Global Health
The literature generally presents four key use cases for artificial intelligence in health in low- and middle-income countries: disease diagnosis, risk assessment, outbreak preparation and response, and planning and policy-making. As the 2021 WHO report on AI in healthcare indicates, several AI applications are already in use or in development for diagnosis and assessment, such as in India for rapidly creating encephalograms in six minutes; in Rwanda and Pakistan for patient navigation; in Uganda, for malaria diagnosis; and in Nigeria for monitoring vital signs in mothers and children, and detecting infant asphyxia. On a broader scale, the advancement of DeepMind’s AlphaFold system in predicting the three-dimensional shape of proteins holds promise for enhancing our understanding of diseases and accelerating treatments.
Use cases in outbreak surveillance and response are also prominent. Google Flu Trends used search engine queries to predict influenza activity, but its overestimation of flu prevalence demonstrated the need for continuous algorithm updates. Tools like HealthMap have also proven valuable, detecting early signs of vaping-related lung disease and issuing an early bulletin about the novel coronavirus in Wuhan.
AI is also being used in planning and policy making, such as in South Africa where machine-learning (ML) models were used to predict how long recruited health workers’ would commit to their placements in rural communities; and in Brazil where artificial neural networks were used to create a method to geographically optimize resources based on population health needs.
Could AI Represent a Sea-Change in Global Health?
The integration of AI in public health is still evolving and being cautiously assessed in some cases, but it’s poised to transform key health functions. Evidence generation, the foundation of health policies and practices, is undergoing significant change. Traditionally, systematic reviews, a cornerstone of evidence synthesis, may take months or even years to complete. Now tools like Eppi-Reviewer use ML for more efficient screening, while platforms like Open Evidence are able to summarize existing studies rapidly. As AI becomes capable of handling technical aspects such as quality appraisal, meta-analysis, and synthesis with high rigor and fidelity, its role in evidence generation will expand. This advancement will enable more cost-effective and timely production of health guidelines, with leading bodies already creating guidelines for AI use in evidence synthesis.
Data collection and analysis are also experiencing transformative changes. AI-powered tools enable rapid analysis of both structured and unstructured data, marking a significant shift from traditional paper-based methods and conventional fieldwork. This capability has a remarkable impact on public health strategies centered on behavior change. AI can allow for the creation of highly targeted health promotion campaigns with unprecedented speed and precision. Moreover, sentiment analysis tools can assess public perceptions in real-time, enabling agile adjustments to ongoing health campaigns.
The healthcare workforce is also expected to evolve as AI-human partnerships are normalized. For instance, Hippocratic AI’s generative models can perform certain care management functions, while Google’s Med-Gemini provides real-time feedback on medical procedures, including surgeries. As they improve and are adopted by practitioners, these tools will have the potential to enhance the cost-effectiveness and precision of healthcare delivery.
As of May 2024, the FDA had authorized 882 AI- and ML-enabled medical devices. The rising volume of such AI-enabled devices as well as the rise in registered clinical trials related to their use underscores how much the field has embraced such tools.
A Changing Actor Landscape
The integration of AI in healthcare is not only transforming practices but also reshaping the landscape of global health actors. Historically, global health was a multilateral activity, dominated by international non-governmental organizations and national governments alike. The early twenty-first century saw the emergence of influential philanthropic actors like the Gates Foundation. Now, we are entering a phase where private-sector AI companies are poised to become increasingly influential in this arena.
While open-source models and government-developed AI systems exist, the predominance of private-sector AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, raises critical questions about data governance in global health. Unlike existing cross-national commercial influences on health such as the fast food or tobacco industries, AI systems present more nuanced concerns. For instance, if private models become integrated into existing multilateral health initiatives, how can we ensure their compliance with global health objectives? How do we address potential conflicts of interest when companies hold influence over health data and decision-making?
Regional and national guidelines are emerging to govern this evolving landscape. The European Health Data Space, discussed at the World Health Assembly, offers one such example. This initiative aims to create a single data space across the twenty-seven EU member states, empowering patients to control their health data while establishing a framework for safe data reuse and AI deployment. It also includes provisions for rigorous evaluation of high-risk AI systems in healthcare.
Similarly, the African Union recently launched its Continental AI Strategy, with a stated aim “to harness artificial intelligence to meet Africa’s development aspirations and the well-being of its people, while promoting ethical use, minimizing potential risks, and leveraging opportunities.” Monitoring measures like this as they develop will be instructive for the future deployment of AI in global health initiatives.
Building Foundational Infrastructure
Another factor to consider is that advances in AI mean little for health systems at an insufficient level of maturity. Progress in AI depends heavily on a strong foundation of digital health architecture, which encompasses secure data management, interoperability between health information systems, and comprehensive digital strategies. While most countries have digital health strategies, their implementation varies widely, with progress in resource-limited settings often lagging. Several countries have neither sufficient health workers to regularly input data nor dependable electricity and Wi-Fi to support a transition from paper to digital records. The lack of foundational infrastructure presents a significant barrier to AI implementation.
Initiatives like the Precision Public Health Initiative, led by the Rockefeller Foundation in collaboration with the WHO, UNICEF, global health funding agencies, ministries of health, and technology companies aim to strengthen AI use in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). With initial funding of US$100 million, it aims to extend the use of AI and data science in LMICs, providing the latest technology to under-resourced parts of the world. Initiatives like this will need to concentrate resources on foundational health system strengthening functions such as the training and supportive supervision of staff and resource management.
Ethical Implications
As AI advances, ethical considerations must keep pace. These challenges can be broadly categorized into privacy and surveillance concerns, data misuse, algorithmic biases, and issues of transparency and liability. Recent cases highlight the urgency of addressing these matters proactively.
As the research report Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence for Health: WHO Guidance explains, during the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s Alipay introduced a “Health Code” that used collected data to determine exposure risks. This system, which determined individuals’ mobility based on their assigned color codes, raised concerns about privacy, rights, and the potential for mass surveillance. Another case discussed in the WHO guidance report is Dinerstein vs. Google, in which the University of Chicago shared patient records stripped of identifying information with Google to develop machine-learning tools for predicting medical events. A class action complaint was filed, alleging that records could be re-identified, threatening patient privacy.
Several cases other cases in the WHO guidance report highlight the critical issue of bias in AI systems. In Argentina, an AI system designed to predict adolescent pregnancy faced criticism when it was found to have flawed methodology and to violate the privacy of adolescents. Similarly, a study in the US revealed racial biases in an algorithm that resulted in Black patients receiving less medical attention than equally sick white patients.
Additionally, an AI technology designed to detect potentially cancerous skin lesions was trained primarily on data from lighter-toned individuals in Australia, Europe, and the US, highlighting its inadequacy for darker-skinned populations.
The “black box” nature of many AI algorithms also raises critical questions about informed consent and liability. If an AI system recommends a specific drug dosage, but the underlying algorithm is opaque to the physician, who bears responsibility for adverse outcomes?
A Case Study
To illustrate how the various considerations of AI in global health converge, the WHO’s Smart AI Resource Assistant for Health (S.A.R.A.H.) project provides a recent and relevant case study. Launched in April 2024, S.A.R.A.H. is a video-based generative AI assistant designed to address gaps in health information accessibility. Developed in partnership with Soul Machines Biological AI, this initiative represents, in the words of WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “how artificial intelligence could be used in future to improve access to health information in a more interactive way.”
The potential for LLMs in health promotion must be viewed against the backdrop of the burden placed on health systems. For example, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have an estimated 0.2 and 0.8 doctors per 1000 people, respectively, compared to 4.3 in the European Union and 3.4 in North America. A map of travel time to health facilities reveals that it’s not uncommon to spend a day traveling to see a doctor in several regions such as North Africa. Even when they can see a doctor, more than a billion people are driven into poverty each year because of exorbitant health care costs. In such contexts, LLMs can complement the health promotion efforts currently being provided by community health workers. They can also enhance supervision and training.
S.A.R.A.H. stands out for its efforts to tailor recommendations to local contexts. For example, it offers meal recommendations based on regional dietary habits. It also uses visual emotional cues to display empathy. Like its WhatsApp-based chatbot predecessor for sharing COVID-19 information, S.A.R.A.H.’s reach will probably expand through partnerships with telecommunications providers and social networks, supporting its broad dissemination.
However, S.A.R.A.H. faces some challenges that mirror broader issues in AI for global health. Users have noticed errors in the information S.A.R.A.H. has provided; it incorrectly stated, for example, that a drug for Alzheimer’s was still in clinical trials when the drug had been approved in 2023. This highlights the critical need for AI systems to keep pace with rapidly evolving medical knowledge.
While S.A.R.A.H. offers a wider range of languages than many existing tools (including French, Russian, English, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Arabic, and Chinese), this still represents only a fraction of global languages, potentially limiting its reach. Also, the success of video-based tools like S.A.R.A.H. depends on robust digital infrastructure and access to smartphones with video capabilities, which are hardly universally available.
The processing of users’ video data also raises important privacy considerations. While not yet available, the WHO has committed to making the training materials and the evidence base for S.A.R.A.H. publicly accessible, aligning with its principles on LLM use. Transparency in how S.A.R.A.H. processes and uses data will be crucial in maintaining trust and offering insights for this emerging space.
Conclusion
As noted by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros at the WHA, AI represents a transformative advancement in global health akin to past innovations such as the introduction of vaccines, penicillin, MRI machines, and human genome mapping, all of which revolutionized the field. As reported in the above-linked 2021 WHO report on AI in healthcare, the integration of AI into health systems presents immense potential with projections noting that the top ten AI applications in health could result in an estimated US$150 billion in savings by 2026.
While the potential of AI is undeniable, the critical question remains: can it fulfill the promise of improving health outcomes worldwide? This hinges on several factors, including building foundational infrastructure, addressing ethical considerations, and effectively governing the evolving landscape of actors, which are no small feats.
Trump fearmongering about Harris
Trump Warns Harris Will Give “Everybody Health Care”
“She wants to take away your private health care. There are many people in this country who spend a lot of money on private health care.
“It’s the best health care in the world, by the way. But they want to do it. They worked hard to make money and they want to do it under her. You’re not going to have private health care plans anymore.
“And you can be a wealthy person or middle income person and you want to spend on a really good plan, better than a government plan. And you’re not gonna be allowed.
“You’re all going to be thrown into a communist system. It’s a communist system. You’re going to be thrown into a system where everybody gets health care.” – Trump, at yesterday’s disastrous “press conference” in New Jersey.
Kansas will pay $50,000 to settle a suit over a transgender Highway Patrol employee’s firing
Kansas will pay $50,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a former state Highway Patrol employee who claimed to have been fired for coming out as transgender
ByJOHN HANNA Associated Press August 15, 2024, 6:11 PM
TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas will pay $50,000 to settle a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit filed by a former state Highway Patrol employee who claimed to have been fired for coming out as transgender.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and eight leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature unanimously approved the settlement during a brief online video conference Thursday. The state attorney general’s office pursued the settlement in defending the Highway Patrol, but any agreement it reaches also must be approved by the governor and top lawmakers.
Kelly and the legislators didn’t publicly discuss the settlement, and the amount wasn’t disclosed until the state released their formal resolution approving the settlement nearly four hours after their meeting. Kelly’s office and the offices of Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins did not respond to emails seeking comment after the meeting.
The former employee’s attorney declined to discuss the settlement before state officials met Thursday and did not return a telephone message seeking comment afterward. The lawsuit did not specify the amount sought, but said it was seeking damages for lost wages, suffering, emotional pain and “loss of enjoyment of life.”
The ex-employee was a buildings and grounds manager in the patrol’s Topeka headquarters and sued after being fired in June 2022. The patrol said the ex-employee had been accused of sexual harassment and wasn’t cooperative enough with an internal investigation. The lawsuit alleged that reason was a pretext for terminating a transgender worker.
The settlement came four months after U.S. District Judge John Broomes rejected the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit before a trial. Broomes ruled there are “genuine issues of material fact” for a jury to settle.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that a landmark 1964 federal civil rights law barring sex discrimination in employment also bars anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
Court documents said the former Highway Patrol employee, a Topeka resident sought to socially transition at work from male to female. The ex-employee’s last name was listed as Dawes, but court records used a male first name and male pronouns. It wasn’t clear Thursday what first name or pronouns Dawes uses now.
In a December 2023 court filing, Dawes’ attorney said top patrol leaders met “a couple of months” before Dawes’ firing to discuss Dawes being transgender and firing Dawes for that reason.
The patrol acknowledged the meeting occurred but said the leaders decided to get legal advice about the patrol’s “responsibilities in accommodating Dawes” in socially transitioning at work, according to a court filing by a state attorney in November 2023.
Court filings said the meeting wasn’t documented, something Dawes’ attorney called “a serious procedural irregularity.”
The patrol said in its court filings that Dawes’ firing was not related to Dawes being transgender.
It said another female employee had complained that in May 2022, Dawes had complimented her looks and told her “how nice it was to see a female really taking care of herself.” Dawes also sent her an email in June 2022 that began, “Just a note to tell you that I think you look absolutely amazing today!” The other employee took both as sexual advances, it said.
Dawes acknowledged the interactions, but Dawes’ attorney said Dawes hadn’t been disciplined for those comments before being fired — and if Dawes had been, the likely punishment would have only been a reprimand.
The patrol said it fired Dawes for refusing the first time an investigator sought to interview him about the other employee’s allegations. The patrol said Dawes claimed not to be prepared, while Dawes claimed to want to have an attorney present.
Dawes was interviewed three days later, but the patrol said refusing the first interview warranted Dawes’ firing because patrol policy requires “full cooperation” with an internal investigation.
“Dawes can point to no person who is not transgender who was treated more favorably than transgender persons,” the state said in its November 2023 filing.
Uterus transplant trial ends with bundles of joy
August 18, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/medicine/uterus-transplant-trial-dallas/
(This piqued my interest for a number of reasons. It also made me think of Sen. Vance, very briefly. But it is news-y.)
A US study of 20 people who received uterus transplants has found the process feasible, with 14 recipients going on to have live births.
Researchers said there were no abnormalities in the children born via transplanted uterus, but they highlight risks from surgery that affected both recipients and donors.
The study, which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reports on a clinical trial run at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, USA.
Since the first successful uterus transplant in 2011, there have been about 100 transplants worldwide, from both living and deceased donors.
Recipients are generally women with “absolute uterine infertility” – that is, problems with their uterus that make them unable to have a successful pregnancy.
In the USA, there have been 48 uterus transplants since they began in 2016, with 33 of the recipients going on to have live births.
In this trial, researchers enrolled 20 people, aged between 20-36 years old, all of whom had absolute uterine infertility but at least 1 working ovary.
Participants received uterus transplants from 18 living and 2 deceased donors between 2016 and 2019.
Of the 20 participants, 6 had graft failures within a fortnight and lost the transplanted organ.
“During the study period, the technical success of graft survival improved with time and experience,” write the researchers in their paper.
All 14 of the successful transplant recipients went on to become pregnant via IVF, and give birth via caesarean.
Two of the recipients gave birth twice, resulting in 16 total live births. Some of the recipients had miscarriages, mostly early in their pregnancy, as well as having full-term pregnancies.
None of the 16 babies had congenital abnormalities, and none show any notable developmental delays to date (the oldest child the researchers have followed up with is 6). One child was diagnosed with autism at age 2 after missing communication milestones, and the researchers note his younger sister shows no signs of developmental delays.
Transplanted uteruses are typically removed again after 1 or 2 successful pregnancies, and this is the case with these 14 recipients. At the moment, 13 have had hysterectomies, while 1 still has the transplanted uterus in place for a second pregnancy.
Some of the surgeries in the trial – transplant donation, transplant reception, caesarean section, and graft hysterectomy – had complications.
Four of the living uterus donors had grade 3 complications – that is, they required surgery to fix – but none of them had experienced any long-term illness when they were followed up roughly 4 years later.
None of the successful graft recipients had severe complications from their transplant surgery, and while graft loss is a grade 3 complication, none of the 6 unsuccessful recipients had experienced long-term effects when they were followed up.
The researchers also point out that all recipients needed immunosuppression treatment to accept the donated organs, and the “long-term impact of immunosuppression in these otherwise healthy women remains unknown”.
In their paper, the researchers conclude that uterus transplants are technically feasible, but the surgeries involved carry risks for donors and recipients.
“The live birth success rate in this study suggests that a successfully transplanted uterus is capable of functioning at least on par with a native, in situ uterus,” they write.
But they also point out that the “currently prohibitive cost of uterus transplant” makes it difficult to tell how generalisable their results are.
Jess Piper went to a Harris-Walz rally in Omaha-here’s the scoop on the ground:
Chili, Cinnamon Rolls, and a Tim Walz Rally
Ope! A Midwestern Meetup.
Jess Piper Aug 18, 2024
You will be bombarded with folks reporting from the DNC in Chicago in the next few days, so I wanted to tell you about a rally in the heartland first. A rally that included so many rural and small town people. The Walz rally in Omaha. A midwestern meetup that made my day and gave me the hope that will sustain me until the election.
I was raised in the South…in Arkansas. It’s funny because the folks in the deep South always called into question the southerness of Razorback country. Now that I’ve been in Missouri for almost two decades, I notice that people struggle to define Missouri as a midwestern state or a southern state. That is likely owing to our past history with enslavement.
Missouri has an identity crisis. The southern half of the state seems to belong to the south…the northern part, where I live, is most definitely Midwestern. My neighbors use Jell-o and sugar and mayonnaise in so many recipes. That’s a dead giveaway.
Like Northwest Missouri, Nebraska is quintessential Midwestern. And so is Governor Tim Walz.
I had no trouble understanding the idioms and language of Tim Walz at the rally I attended in Omaha on Saturday. Friends, the rally felt like a big potluck. It was familiar and friendly and folksy and all the small-town adjectives.
It was just the feeling I need to get through the next 70-some-odd days…
The Astro Amphitheater in Omaha at capacity for the Walz rally.
I had a friend send over an email with the Walz rally information a few days ago, so I applied for a ticket and I made the list. I was told they ran out of tickets within 18 hours. And, you can see why…Tim Walz is from Nebraska and his home state was more than happy to invite him back.
The amphitheater had a chyron that said, ‘Welcome Back, Coach!”
I know Omaha fairly well as it is less than a two-hour drive and my family really enjoys visiting Old Market and downtown. I left my house around 7:30, but I didn’t get to Omaha until almost 10 because I stopped for gas, coffee, and some breakfast pizza at Casey’s. I had on my “Dirt Road Democrat” t-shirt which can garner some looks in small towns, but the lady at the Casey’s counter read my shirt and smiled. No comment necessary.
I drove to the amphitheater and found parking and then started the walk to the event space. I ran into a few folks who said, “Wait? Are you Piper for Missouri?” I kept thinking that I wish my kids were with me so they would know that I do more than Tik Toks for a living. This isn’t much of a flex…there aren’t many outspoken rural progressives so I kind of stick out.
As I stood in line, I talked to so many who had stories of the fear that red legislatures can instill and that the fear has simmered for years. The anxiety that comes from living like that is remarkable, but so is a new-found feeling of hope.
Hope in the man they were waiting to see. Governor Tim Walz.
The doors were to open at 11am, so I would be waiting for a while in the long line that was beginning to go all the way back to the field I had parked in.
While waiting in line, I was able to talk to a Nebraska librarian. She worked with others to gather signatures to keep vouchers out of the state and she spoke at length about the books legislators planned to ban — the pervasive feeling of fear when thinking about shelving books in Nebraska public schools. And then she beamed when talking about the feeling of hope that the Harris/Walz ticket brought.
I was able to meet a woman who was with her Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense group. I told her I was a member in Missouri and even started a rural group in which many of the members are gun owners. She said it was hard to keep folks interested in the cause and I know that first-hand, but the fact that Tim Walz is a sensible gun-owner who has a F-rating from the NRA, and stands proudly with those of us who just want to pass common sense gun laws, is a huge help. Common sense includes safe-storage and universal background checks. These are things that most gun owners agree with.
I talked to teachers and hospital administrators and union members and nurses and stay-at-home moms. There were t-shirts representing so many viewpoints. There were ally shirts and rural shirts and public education shirts and pro-choice shirts and Walz shirts.
There were smiles in line. There was no hate. There was no fear. There was hope.
I made it through security and my way inside the theater. The place was filling up quickly. I found a seat and the woman next to me told me she followed me on Twitter and lived outside Mount Ayr, Iowa. I drive through there all the time and even met with a group of about 30 Democrats there last year. She said she had to work or she would have come. She had on an “I’m Speaking” t-shirt. She’s rural. She’s an Iowan — you know the folks who are all supposed to be Trump voters?
I bumped into a friend working with the NE Dems who told me I could stand on the stage behind Walz. Yay! So, I got up and walked by lots of people with guns to the backstage where I could be one of the folks holding the sign, doing the smiling, and getting excited about everything a politician says. Well, I didn’t have to pretend to be enthusiastic. When Tim Walz came onstage with his wife, Gwen, and a former student, it was electric.
Governor Walz talked about rural spaces. He spoke about small towns and small schools. He introduced us to a few of his former high school classmates. He graduated with 24 people.
Walz told a joke about JD Vance likely thinking a Runza is a Hot Pocket. If you know, you know.
Walz talked about the midwestern school delicacy of chili and a cinnamon roll. We all laughed because it is a combination that we all ate in public school cafeterias. It’s a shared experience that we can all smile about.
Walz then spoke on the hurt that we experienced during a Trump presidency that seems like it was just yesterday. He talked of the hate and the discontent that oozed out with every policy and press conference. He reminded the crowd that we don’t have to go back. Trump can slip away into irrelevance. That Nebraska can return its progressive roots and elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
He spoke on abortion rights and feeding kids and health care and union wages and folks who have been left behind. Omaha could not get enough of his passion and good sense. He could barely speak at times because the theater was literally pulsing with cheers and applause.
He then spoke on something that I think about daily — public schools. As soon as he mentioned how important our educational system is to our country, the crowd erupted into a chant…
Teachers! Teachers! Teachers!
The place exploded and this is where I have to tell you that I nearly cried.
I was a teacher for 16 years and the last few were rough. I miss the kids, but the fact that everything became “political” was too much. Everything I taught could be deemed political…I taught a protest lit unit that was Board Approved and in my literature book, but I felt under the gun with each lesson.
The fact that this theater was filled with Nebraskans and Missourians and Iowans all chanting for public schools and teachers was heart-warming. I am called a “groomer” or a “pedophile” on social media at least a dozen times every day for opposing book bans and for my years in the classroom. The fact that there was so much love for teachers was uplifting. I am positive the current teachers in the theater left feeling they could start this year with something that has been missing in red states…hope.
My aim with telling you about this rally is to help you understand what is happening in small towns and rural parts of the country right now. Omaha is not a rural space, but most of the immediate surrounding areas are. I drove through two hours of cornfields to arrive at the event and so did so many others.
I wrote in another post that the vibes have changed since Joe passed the torch…it remains true and even more so.
I’ll leave you with this: I passed a homemade sign in Ringgold County, Iowa the other day. The entire county has less than 5,000 residents. The sign was planted in the yard of an old farmhouse next to a cornfield. They put duct tape over “Biden” and had written “Kamala” in Sharpie on an old Biden/Harris sign. I travel this route monthly, and have for years, and I never saw the original sign in the yard. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have it out in 2020.
That means something, friend. It’s enthusiasm. It’s hope. It’s rural and small town folks coming around. LFG.
~Jess
Starry, Starry Nights at Dark Sky Preserves
Dark sky tourism is on the rise as travelers head to remote destinations to catch a glimpse of the dazzling night sky.
Some time ago, many animals, including saber-toothed tiger and woolly mammoth, failed in their attempts to rid the community of grizzly bear, whose mean-spirited behavior had upset nature’s balance. That is until the birds, led by robin, pierced grizzly’s heart. Grizzly’s blood reddened the robin’s breast and, as he shook in pain, cloaked the autumn leaves in red and orange.
“The Creator placed the grizzly bear constellation in the night sky to remind us that bullying others carries consequences,” says Matricia Bauer, an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation. “Our creation story also tells of the star woman falling from the sky to become our people.”
It’s a brisk March evening, and I’m sitting with Bauer by the fire beside Beauvert Lake in Jasper, Alberta, waiting for the gunmetal-colored sky to darken and reveal a palette of seemingly infinite stars. I’m visiting to explore the most accessible and second-largest Dark Sky Reserve in the world.
“An elder taught me that when you used to look at the night sky and see all the stars, the Creator also looked down on Earth and saw our fires in reflection. Today, instead of fires sparkling across the landscape, our continents are outlined by the glare of artificial light. People must travel to find the night sky.” (snip-MORE )
Scottie's Playtime 