Fostering Belonging. Join us for a virtual panel that bring together parents of LGBTQIA+ youth and dedicated educators, all passionate about supporting LGBTQIA+ and gender expansive students in elementary school. This session aims to provide parents and caregivers with practical strategies to collaborate with educators in creating an inclusive and affirming environment for children. From open dialogue and communication with teachers to advocating for pronoun usage and nurturing a culture of belonging, our panelists will address the unique challenges and opportunities that arise in supporting young LGBTQIA+ students. No cost, registration required to receive Zoom link. Questions, email LGBTQfamilies@jccgb.org.
Note that this will be held in a Covid-safe virtual manner. Click the link above and register for September 12 at 8 pm!
What if you lived in Los Angeles? The school district runs Rainbow Club for “LGBTQ+ elementary school students”.
The mayor of Woburn, where hotels are housing 150 migrant families, said the state’s 40-year-old right-to-shelter law “was not meant to cover what we’re seeing now.”
[photo caption: Volunteers [in a church] cooked for Haitian migrant families in need of food at the United Methodist Church in Woburn, Mass.]
On Aug. 31, [Governor] Healey authorized more than 200 National Guard members to assist the more than 2,500 families living in hotels, a step meant to address a shortage of social service agencies to help incoming migrants.
… the volunteers … chafed with frustration when meals for the families arrived late from a state-contracted company
Translating for several adults, including his father, the teenager said their most pressing concern was how to swiftly become authorized to work. Current rules delay asylum seekers’ ability to work legally; Ms. Healey and elected officials in other states have increased pressure on the federal government to revise those policies.
The migrants have skills that would delight any employer and they desperately want to work. In fact, they hate to be idle. They were so busy learning calculus, physics, and engineering before they crossed the border that they never learned how to cook, which is why untrained volunteers and/or state contractors must cook and serve?
From the same article:
In Massachusetts, the only state with a right-to-shelter law that guarantees every family with children a place to stay, the crisis has been accelerating, with more than 80 cities and towns receiving migrants to date. … Officials estimate that as many as half of currently sheltered families are recently arrived migrants from other countries; most have come from Haiti, drawn by word of mouth and the pull of the state’s well-established Haitian community.
According to the NYT, the guarantee of free housing forever is not what has drawn migrants in.
How long did Maskachusetts go without being in a state of emergency? Based on “the Healey-Driscoll Administration announced that the state’s COVID-19 public health emergency will end on May 11, 2023” (source), it looks like there was a three-month gap between emergencies.
The kids got an #equity lesson last night watching the ATP part of the U.S. Open tennis tournament. When it was their bedtime, I explained that at this point (2 sets won) Medvedev could go home if he identified as a woman and played in the “women’s tennis” tournament (3 sets per match). But because he identifies as a man he will have to keep working for the same money (5 sets per match in the ATP tournament).
Ultimately, Medvedev was forced to play 4 sets to earn the same compensation that a woman in the female-only part of the tournament would earn for playing 2.
Here’s a head-scratcher: for whom will the righteous root in the ATP final? Djokovic, the vaccine-rejecting Deplorable? Or Medvedev, the Russian national (presented on screen as a player without a flag or country; both he and Djokovic live in tax-free Monaco)?
Related… “Fifty years ago, the US Open became the first sporting event in history to offer equal prize money for men and women competitors, and this anniversary will be the central theme of the 2023 US Open.” (source)
Project for loyal readers: See if you can find us a photo of Djokovic standing in front of a Moderna ad!
Here’s something confusing… the latest ATP rulebook says that players have to identify as “male” to play. No surgery or hormones are required, but the gender ID must be “male”. If the Women’s Tennis Association is restricted to “women” and ATP is restricted to “male”, where can players who identify with the other 72 genders recognized by Science compete?
What are the open-to-all-genders sports leagues, then? NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, NHL, FIFA Soccer?
Related:
“No U.S. Open Men’s Semifinalist Will Say If He’s Been Vaccinated For Covid—And 3 Have Voiced Skepticism” (Forbes 2021): No. 2 ranked Daniil Medvedev, who advanced to the semifinals Wednesday, declared in February, “As for me personally, I will not be vaccinated for medical reasons related to vaccines,” according to RT.com. … No. 4 ranked Alexander Zverev, who is making his second straight trip to the semis of the Open, told reporters in April he had not yet been vaccinated and he believes “everyone should act as they see fit,”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency public health order that suspends the open and permitted concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days in the midst of a spate of gun violence.
Gun enthusiasts are saying that this is unconstitutional, but that’s irrelevant if there’s an emergency. KOAT:
“I can invoke additional powers,” Lujan Grisham said. “No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute.”
It’s only for 30 days and it is intended to address what the governor has characterized as an “emergency”, so it is unclear why anyone could make a good faith objection to this order. The governor herself summarizes the situation succinctly (nytimes):
“I have emergency powers,” she said. “Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it’s an emergency.”
Let’s look at some history and consider what might be a more effective approach to ending the gun violence emergency…
Prior to 2020, Americans believed that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed each of us the right to leave his/her/zir/their home to assemble, e.g., at work or school. However, it turned out that the Constitution did not prevent lockdowns of young healthy Americans on the grounds that there was a statistical chance that the lockdown could save the life of an old person somewhere.
That the societies with lockdowns had as-high or higher overall excess death rates compared to lockdown-free and mask-free Sweden isn’t relevant to this post. Even if no lives were saved, the idea was that lives might be saved and therefore the Constitution could be set aside. #BecauseEmergency
The majority of Americans, among the world’s meekest and most compliant humans, seem to be happy to have traded what had been their rights for the promise of safety. (Dutch friend at the time: “All of the rights that Americans fought and died in multiple wars to defend, they gave up in one governor’s press conference.”) Here’s part of a recent comment on Twitter, in response to a freedom-lover who complained about lockdowns, forced vaccinations, mask orders, etc. and asserted that they were unconstitutional:
Coercion is not the same as force and weakens your argument when you conflate the two. A majority of society agreed protect public health, that’s democracy.
Nobody was forced to get vaccinated. It is just that a person could have a job or be in a public place only if he/she/ze/they accepted the experimental injection. The lockdowns were okay because they were a product of democratic processes. My response:
Democracy undiluted by the Constitution sounds good. Freedom from crime is an important element of public health. What if a majority of Americans voted to seal the borders of any neighborhood in which the residents had committed more than a certain number of violent crimes? See below for how it could work in practice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_13
Our democratically elected federal and state governments took away various freedoms based on statistical hopes and using an “emergency” as a justification. Do we have what we need to justify locking down neighborhoods from which we can expect criminal activity? From CNN:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, acknowledged Sunday that gun violence in the US is a public health emergency.
What would it look like in Detroit, Michigan, rated #1 in “Total Crime Index”? Referring to the map below, the neighborhoods in the darkest color (?!?) would be walled off as a reasonable public health measure. Residents could leave their houses only during certain daylight hours and only for purposes deemed essential, such as buying marijuana. (See this March 23, 2020 article: “Michigan marijuana shops may remain open during the COVID-19 coronavirus stay-at-home order issued Monday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer”) There would be checkpoints at a few points in the wall where people could be screened for guns and drugs on the way in or out (in those situations where the governor was permitting residents to go in or out).
Is there any flaw in the above reasoning? Separately, if you haven’t seen District B13, I recommend it!
The mayor of New York, Eric Adams, has said an increase in migration would “destroy” the city, seemingly blaming the Biden administration for failing to provide federal support as much as the Republican governors who have sent asylum seekers north.
“Never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to. I don’t see an ending to this,” Adams said. “This issue will destroy New York City.”
More than 110,000 migrants have arrived in New York since last year, Adams said, adding that governors of Republican states had bussed asylum seekers to the city without coordinating with New York officials. Adams seemed to specifically refer to the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, who bussed immigrants to Democratic-led cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
“We’ve turned this city around in 20 months,” Adams said. “And then what happened? Started with a madman down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City: 110,000 migrants.”
Dylan Stone-Miller took a 9,000-mile road trip this summer to see some of his 96 children.
Months after Stone-Miller and his wife split up in 2020, a stranger messaged him.
Stone-Miller has twice visited Harper and her sister Harlow—also one of his biological children. In July, he stayed nine days at an Airbnb near their house in Edmonton, Canada, the longest visit of his road trip. The girls’ mothers acknowledged the complexities of the relationship, from his role in their lives to what to call him.
“I don’t want Harper to feel like she can call him anything,” Bowes said. “He is not her dad. Period. If she were to say that in front of us, we would straight up say, ‘Dylan is not your dad. He will never be your dad. You don’t have a dad. You have a donor.’ ”
Before leaving on his trip, Stone-Miller went to see Cal, his 6-year-old biological child who lives in a suburb of Atlanta. He had visited the boy several times in the past two years, and Cal told his two mothers that he wanted to spend time alone with Stone-Miller. The moms agreed to let Stone-Miller drive Cal to a Target store to buy toys. … After Target, they went to the park to spend the afternoon with Cal’s moms and his 3-year-old brother, another of Stone-Miller’s biological children.
Stone-Miller’s parents divorced when he was 14.
Stone-Miller, who was studying psychology at Georgia State University, was arrested for underage drinking.
The high price of homeowner’s insurance is one of the rare Florida problems that is not exaggerated by New York-based media (an organized attempt to stem the tax base exodus?). Folks near, but not on, the ocean can expect to pay about 0.7 percent of the structure value (not including the land) annually. Hoping to bring this down to 0.6 percent, and also insulate the recently-air-conditioned garage, I decided to swap out the 20-year-old wind-rated garage door for one that is wind- and impact-rated.
So what if the garage door is damaged in a hurricane? A car parked inside can’t be blown away. The rest of the junk in the garage is probably stuff that you didn’t need anyway. It turns out, however, that if the garage door fails it can open the house up to so much wind pressure that the roof is blown off.
Clopay, the manufacturer of our new 9200 door, configured it for shipment with 10 struts instead of the 5 that actually fit. This was the beginning of what in aviation is called “the accident chain”, a sequence of events that start small and eventually lead to the loss of an airframe. Clopay apparently delivered a kit with both 50 KSI 16-gauge steel struts and also the 80 KSI 15-gauge struts that are required for the W8 wind load that I paid for.
With 10 struts installed instead of 5, the door would weigh a spectacular 703 lbs. So Clopay also included two super heavy springs (the “#7 light blue” ones above). And they included non-standard big drums for the cables.
The high-school graduates (maybe?) who installed the door apparently didn’t get concerned about the extra struts. They put on the 50 KSI weaker struts, as it happens, thus rendering the door a W6 door.
The building inspector said that the result wasn’t right as far as the spring balance was concerned, but that he couldn’t fail the door installation because of that. He didn’t notice that the struts were stamped with “50 KSI” and that this marking didn’t match the “80 KSI” on the engineering drawing filed with the town.
While I was on an aviation hop up to Montreal and back, the installers came out to swap the springs and left without considering it odd that the door was as heavy to lift, once disconnected from the opener, as a 100+ lb. barbell. A properly balanced door can be lifted with a couple of fingers:
I began digging into this and discovered the 50 KSI struts that should have been 80 KSI. The result, of course, was everyone being angry with me. The installers, who’d been out 3 or 4 times total, were upset that I was hassling them and they weren’t at all contrite about having put in struts that didn’t match the engineering drawings, the building permit, or what was required to protect against the next climate-change-driven hurricane. The manufacturer tech support guy was upset because he said it was the installer’s job to calculate and fix everything (does it make sense for the manufacturer to send the installer a bunch of extra parts and the wrong springs and then hope that the installer will be able to do the engineering calculations that the manufacturer couldn’t do correctly?).
Here’s what I learned: if you live in Florida or some other hurricane-prone region, make sure that the struts on the back of the door actually are the right strength! Also, disconnect the door from the opener every now and then and check the balance.
Separately, a shout-out to Chamberlain and the Mexicans who assembled our 1/3 HP opener back in February 2003. This 20-year veteran has thus far survived the abuse of having to lift 5X the weight for which it was designed.
Related:
“Buffett’s Florida Bet Bodes Well for Troubled Insurance Market” (Washington Post, July 21, 2023): Last December, Florida’s legislature passed a controversial but necessary set of reforms aimed at shoring up the state’s teetering property insurance market, where a string of insurers had canceled policies and even filed for bankruptcy, leaving homeowners with dwindling options. [note that Governor DeSantis, who is typically blamed for laws passed by the legislature, does not get credit for this insurance “reform”!] … It’s also the top state for property insurance-related lawsuits, which companies contend are frequently frivolous and often fraudulent, pushing the cost of doing business even higher. … In remarks at Berkshire’s 2023 annual meeting, Vice Chairman of Insurance Operations Ajit Jain said the firm had boosted its property-catastrophe exposure by nearly 50% this year, including up to $15 billion now at risk in Florida. … Among other things, the package sought to curb the nuisance litigation by ending the so-called one-way attorney fee statute. Until the change, insurers had to pay prevailing plaintiffs’ attorney fees, an arrangement that the industry says incentivized frivolous lawsuits and helped build a cottage industry around exploitation of the system. In the most egregious cases, contractors would goad homeowners into filing claims under false pretenses, and insurers were often forced to settle to protect against soaring legal fees. Reinsurers in particular are “optimistic that between [higher prices] and the litigation reforms that Florida is becoming more attractive,” Frank Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America, told me by phone on Tuesday.
“State Farm doubles down on Florida after Farmers Insurance pulls back” (Deplorable Fox, July 14, 2023): State Farm says it’s sticking with Florida months after ceasing new applications in California … [the company] sees more opportunity [in Florida], thanks to the state’s recent reforms for the industry. … DeSantis press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said that since that time, the main issue driving up costs for insurers in the state has been excessive litigation. So, in recent years, the state legislature passed a series of reforms signed into law by DeSantis to address the issues. [Fox credits DeSantis while the Washington Post ignores him!] … The company’s statement added, “We are encouraged by the recent insurance reforms and efforts to curb legal system abuse, and we will continue to work constructively with the Florida Legislature and the Office of Insurance Regulation to improve the marketplace on behalf of our Florida customers.”
Effect on children’s wealth when parents move to Florida (the main reason to choose a state these days, of course, is whether you agree with the goals of the state/local government (vastly more powerful since 2020), but it still might be interesting to look at the $$. Property tax burden in Florida, as a percentage of value, is similar to in Maskachusetts. Income and estate taxes are 0% in FL compared to top brackets of 9% and 16% in MA. So the person paying more for homeowner’s insurance in FL may find that the tax savings overpower the insurance pain. And, of course, moving into a modern apartment complex dramatically cuts insurance costs, even those paid indirectly via rent. since the typical apartment building is tough for a hurricane to knock over.
“Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century” (Nature Magazine 2021, by authors from Princeton and NOAA): “there are no significant increases in either basin-wide HU [hurricane] or MH [major hurricane] frequency, or in the MH/HU ratio for the Atlantic basin between 1878 and 2019”
A multiengine seaplane pilot has gone west. Let’s have a look at James William Buffett’s pilot certificate, from the FAA Airmen Registry:
Jimmy Buffett was a resident of Palm Beach County, as far as the FAA was concerned. He was typed in the Grumman Albatross (C/G-111), three Dassault Falcon bizjets, and the original Cessna Citation bizjet (bird strikes from the rear). The “date of issue” being in 2019 could have been due to a change of address, a change of gender ID, or an added rating.
Buffett wanted to see a Democrat-run Florida and Democrat-run United States. In “Jimmy Buffett takes musical shots at Trump during concert” (2018), for example, Buffett was supporting Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race against Ron DeSantis. He got his wish in 2020 for the country, at least.
Buffett became a billionaire via real estate development, mostly in Florida, and most recently with 55+ communities, e.g., in Daytona (see this New Yorker story). At the time of his death, he was working on a $400 million project just to our southeast in Riviera Beach. I hope that the project is completed. Even if I’m more of a classical and jazz listener, I’m sure that it will be an improvement over everything else that has been going on in Riviera Beach.
Or we could go to Key West, Florida. Although Buffett seems to have spent more time in Palm Beach, he is associated with Key West and built a hotel there. The good news is that Hotels.com is ready to help with the challenge of finding a gay-friendly place to stay in Key West. Note the “LGBTQ welcoming” checkbox at upper left in this listing of places available for Nov 3-5:
Now that the 125-degree heat is winding down in the U.S. and readers in the soon-to-be-frigid north are planning their winter escapes, some thoughts on a popular warm destination…
The culture nerds in Paris designated Cartagena, Colombia a World Heritage Site back in 1984:
Situated on the northern coast of Colombia on a sheltered bay facing the Caribbean Sea, the city of Cartagena de Indias boasts the most extensive and one of the most complete systems of military fortifications in South America. Due to the city’s strategic location, this eminent example of the military architecture of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was also one of the most important ports of the Caribbean. The port of Cartagena – together with Havana and San Juan, Puerto Rico – was an essential link in the route of the West Indies and thus an important chapter in the history of world exploration and the great commercial maritime routes. On the narrow streets of the colonial walled city can be found civil, religious and residential monuments of beauty and consequence.
… The components that make up the Port, Fortifications and Group of Monuments, Cartagena, are authentic in terms of location and setting, forms and designs, and materials and substance. The property constitutes an exceptional example of Spanish military architecture of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and the existing fortification works remain authentic examples of some of the most important military engineers of this period, including Juan Bautista (Giovanni Battista) Antonelli, Juan de Herrera y Sotomayor, Antonio de Arévalo, Ignacio Sala and Juan Bautista MacEvan.
The US Secret Service prostitution scandal involved as many as 20 women, 11 American agents and some military personnel, senior US officials say.
Senator Susan Collins, briefed by the Secret Service director, said 20 women were found at the US hotel.
The incidents took place in Cartagena, Colombia, ahead of last weekend’s Summit of the Americas.
The BBC article includes a subhead “Dog-handlers investigated” with no explanation or elaboration.
Hoping to catch up with Hunter Biden, I visited in February 2023 via Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas (onboard Internet made it a work trip with a colleague in which we stopped to stretch our legs periodically).
Coming into the historic city and docks as viewed from the deck:
Let’s check out the iPhone 14 panoramic capability:
Here are the smart folks walking 50 steps and getting on a tour bus:
Our decision to walk took us through a fun welcome center:
As soon as we got out of the port, we were besieged by taxi drivers who told us that it wouldn’t be safe to walk into the historic center. We ignored them because we wanted to get a feel for the town and they were partly right. The first 15 minutes of the walk is on narrow sidewalks that are in poor condition. The streets are jammed with traffic and it was already uncomfortably hot by late morning.
Nonetheless, it was interesting to see a few views that the tourist who zips straight to the historic center might miss.
The tourist center is jammed with… tourists:
The cathedral offers some escape from the sun and heat:
The local museum features some good views of the plaza below and also some practical ideas for Covidians:
The Ring doorbell people could take some ideas away from here:
The town was previously fortified by a wall and now is protected against invasion by a ring highway as well as the wall.
This is unfortunate because the town can’t truly meet the water. We walked to the 16th-century Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas, watching our step carefully:
Then it was an Uber (less than $3 for the luxury option) back to the port.
Note the young slender local wearing a mask (voluntarily, I think, because some other employees did not have them). Colombia had a “mandatory nationwide lockdown” for approximately six months. Children lost more than a year of education as “most of the schools remained closed during most of 2021”. Borders were closed until May 2021 with testing and vaccine papers demands after that. The population was ordered to wear masks outdoors through at least February 2022 (Reuters) while indoor masking was required in 2023. (What was the short-term effect of these efforts? Colombia has suffered from a 23 percent excess death rate (versus 5 percent for no-lockdown no-mask Sweden) since January 1, 2020.)
Were we sad to sail away? Did we wish we’d booked a hotel and stayed three or four days? No and no. The old city of Panama is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Panamanians are much wealthier than the Colombians, which means they can afford to restore everything, including the sidewalks, and they don’t need to be aggressive in trying to sell stuff to tourists. Also, there is much less car and truck traffic. If we wanted to vacation in the midst of an old Spanish colonial city in the region we would choose Casco Viejo.
If you’re planning to visit, maybe stay in the richest part of the modern city and hit the historic stuff for one or two days. Or check it off your bucket list by visiting via cruise ship! December through April are the agreed-on best months to visit and this is also when cruise ships sailing from Florida are unlikely to encounter any hurricanes (end of November is the end of the season for nautical and property insurance woe).
Lawyers, accountants, consultants, cryptocurrency analysts and other professionals have racked up more than $700 million in fees since last year from the bankruptcies of five major crypto firms, including the digital currency exchange FTX, according to a New York Times analysis of court records. That sum is likely to grow significantly as the cases unfold over the coming months.
A man who arrived in New York City two months ago from Venezuela has randomly attacked at least three strangers and two cops, and gotten arrested – and released – six times on 14 different charges, police and sources said.
Daniel Hernandez Martinez, 29, arrived on June 27 and allegedly committed his first crime the following day.
On Aug. 21, he violently attacked a woman in Midtown, cops said. He “grabbed a stranger by the hair, dragged her across the floor and kicked her,” and smashed her phone on West 45th Street around 1 a.m., court documents show.
In a letter sent to parents on Tuesday, Rosemary Hills Elementary School principal Rebecca Irwin Kennedy said she made the move after ‘three or more individuals’ caught the virus in the last ten days.
She demanded students don thick N95 masks to ‘keep our school environment as safe as possible’, despite a recent study finding the mask may expose users to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.
And while even embattled medical guru Dr Anthony Fauci admits there is a lack of evidence the masks stop the spread of Covid, Kennedy told parents the N95s will only become optional after 10 days.
This is my old school district, as it happens, Montgomery County Public Schools. It’s interesting that there is no explanation of how SARS-CoV-2 will be stopped if the students remove their masks “while eating or drinking”. The letter from the principal doesn’t mention any changes to lunch procedures. So the kids all sit in the classroom together wearing masks and then they all sit together at lunch not wearing masks?
What the Maryland principal did, of course, would be illegal under Florida law. Not contrary to a governor’s order, but illegal under a statute passed by the legislature. Third graders in Florida could tell the fearful Fauci-denying adults where to put their N95 masks.
