Atlanta spa shooting victims highlight struggles for Asian and Asian American immigrant women in low-wage jobs

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/20/atlanta-spa-shooting-victims-highlight-struggles-asian-asian-american-immigrant-women-low-wage-jobs/



Many of the victims had come to the U.S. in search of a better life, following the difficult path of immigrant women before them

The three workers at Gold Spa in Atlanta had come to the United States in search of a better life, following the difficult path of many other immigrant women before them.

Suncha Kim, 69, did not speak English when she arrived with her son in tow around 1980, and picked up odd jobs washing dishes and cleaning office buildings. Hyun Jung Grant, 51, worked so much that one of her sons recalled that he and his brother were left with another family for at least a year. And Soon Chung Park, 74, had moved more than 800 miles to Atlanta from her family in the New York/New Jersey area.

The women, all originally from South Korea, were among eight people killed on Tuesday when a gunman opened fire at their workplaces and shot his victims in the head and chest.

Three other victims — Yong Ae Yue, 63; Xiaojie Tan, 49; and Daoyou Feng, 44 — were also Asian women and workers or managers at the three businesses that were attacked.

Two other people — Delaina Yaun, 33, and Paul Andre Michels, 54 — were also killed Tuesday. Yaun and her husband had decided to treat themselves to a couples massage and were in separate rooms when the gunman entered and started shooting, according to DeLayne Davis, a relative. Yaun was killed. Her husband escaped. Michels, a handyman at Young’s Asian Massage, was an Army veteran, family members told news outlets.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/bad-faith-talk-about-shooter/2021/03/19/17d86fa2-8838-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html



An incomplete list of things I do not ever need to hear or read about a shooter again, especially one who targets women:

I do not need to hear that he “snapped,” “lost it” or “had a bad day.”

After he has taken the lives of six or eight or 14 other people, I am not inclined to care what kind of day he had.

I do not need to hear that he was heartbroken over a woman who dumped him/rejected him/ignored him. It is not the responsibility of women to pay attention to men to make sure those men do not shoot other people.

I do not particularly care whether his family was shocked.

I do not particularly care whether he did not resist arrest.

I do not need to hear about how he was a churchgoer, unless that revelation also comes with an acknowledgment that some faiths have historically taught such horrifying messages of misogyny and female subservience that “he went to church” is as much of an explanation as an expression of dumbfoundedness.

What kind of church? Is it a place where non-heterosexual people are viewed as sinful? Where purity culture twists normal desires into malignance? Where premarital sex is seen as such a moral failing that girls believe they are worthless if they have it? Where boys believe they should blame girls for making them want it at all?

I definitely do not need to hear about how he struggled with “temptation.”

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62220/what-do-they-use-dye-chicago-river-green-st-patricks-day

It wouldn’t be a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in the Windy City without 400,000 spectators crowding the banks of the Chicago River to “ooh” and “aah” at its (temporarily) emerald green tinge. But how do officials turn the water green?

First, a bit of history: The dyeing tradition became an annual thing nearly 60 years ago, in 1962, but its real origins go back even further. In the early days of his administration as Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daley was a man on a mission to develop the city’s riverfront area. There was just one problem: The river itself was a sewage-filled eyesore. In order to get to the bottom of the city’s pollution problem and pinpoint the exact places where waste was being discarded into the waterway (and by whom), Daley authorized the pouring of a special green dye into the river that would allow them to see exactly where dumping was occurring.

Fast-forward to late 1961 when Stephen Bailey—part of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local, the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade chairman, and a childhood friend of Daley’s—witnessed a colleague’s green-soaked coveralls following a day of pouring Daley’s dye into the Chicago River. That gave Bailey an idea: If they could streak the Chicago River green, why not turn it all green?

Three months later, revelers got their first look at an Ecto Cooler-colored river when the city poured 100 pounds of the chemical into the water. They got a really good look, too, as the river remained green for an entire week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/washington-commute-coronavirus/2021/03/12/53cb5d2e-7dfe-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html

Most Washington-area residents who have spent the past year teleworking because of the coronavirus pandemic could be back to their commutes by fall, but it might not resemble the commute they left behind early last year.

Labor Day has become a target date among many employers eyeing the return of workers to the office, according to surveys, business leaders and public officials. A study led by the Greater Washington Partnership, an alliance of the region’s top chief executives, found employers expect 75 percent of their workforce to return by the end of fall.

Prospects for a return were heightened this month when President Biden’s administration announced that vaccines would be available for all adults by May, although business groups and other experts say the transition to widespread in-person office work should be gradual and telecommuting is likely to remain an option for many workers.

“Most employers are going to start to go to a more hybrid model where folks are in the office a couple of days a week,” said Joe McAndrew, vice president of transportation at the Greater Washington Partnership, which surveyed nearly 200 Washington-area employers. “This all kind of rests on our ability to both vaccinate the population at a scale needed for herd immunity, and to reopen the supporting services that enable folks to be able to get to the office.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/12/avalanche-rescue-dogs/



It hardly looks like anything other than a fun romp: A dog happily sticking its snout into deep snow, tail wagging in the air as the nose goes deeper and deeper. But for dogs trained in avalanche rescue, it could be a lifesaving mission.

Canines have become invaluable at many backcountry areas and ski resorts, a role highlighted during what has been an especially deadly winter season. Thirty-three people in the United States have been killed by avalanches since Dec. 18, according to statistics kept by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Its figures show that deaths this season (a season typically extends from November into June), are on pace to exceed the modern record of 36 recorded in 2007-08 and 2009-10. Over the last 10 years, an average of 27 people have died in avalanches in the U.S.

The ideal dog for search and rescue is energetic, goal-oriented and playful. They come from a variety of breeds. Some, like hounds, are gifted at tracking; others, such as Labrador retrievers, have a keen sense of smell and can search in minutes an area that could take humans hours.

With their heightened senses, trained rescue dogs can find “a bullet shell, a piece of plastic, a ballpoint pen or a set of keys,” said Scott Guenther, who works alongside his yellow Labrador, Nahla, with Jackson Hole Search Dogs in Wyoming.