Anyone else experiencing problems with the

Amazon app today?

Thomas Friedman, brilliant!

Three People I Would Interview About Afghanistan
Aug. 19, 2021

As I watch events in Afghanistan unfold, I find myself trying to ignore all the commentary and longing instead to interview three people: President Lyndon Johnson, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan.

President Johnson, what did you think of Joe Biden’s speech about quitting Afghanistan?

Johnson: I listened to it, and I have to say that I choked up. If only I had had the guts to give that speech on April 7, 1965, about America’s involvement in Vietnam — the war that I inherited and then expanded with that speech. Promise me one thing: You won’t link to that speech.

Friedman: Sorry, Mr. President, but I already did. Here are some highlights of what you said to justify sending more troops into Vietnam:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/afghanistan-us-taliban.html

Vaccine question about booster shots:

Will immunocompromised need a fourth vaccine if vaccine efficacy diminishes beyond 8 months and a booster shot is recommended?

Exiled Afghan president attended school in Lake Oswego

PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — Almost six years ago, then-Lake Oswego School District Superintendent Heather Beck announced a surprising discovery she’d made about a slice of local history.

It turned out that Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, who’d been inaugurated as president of Afghanistan about a year before Beck’s announcement, was a former student in the district. He’d been an exchange student at Lake Oswego High School during the 1966-67 school year and served on the student council. His photo appeared several times in the LOHS yearbook under another name he went by, Ashraf Ahmad.

“Not only are we the top school district in the nation, we produce world leaders,” Beck said at the time.

Ghani remains Afghanistan’s president as of this week, but in name only. Over the weekend, as the Taliban entered the capital city of Kabul and the fall of Ghani’s administration appeared imminent, he fled the county.

https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/exiled-afghan-president-attended-school-in-lake-oswego/

The End of the World

What you should know about indoor dining amid the delta variant

As Americans again grapple with the question of whether they should dine out, public health experts and epidemiologists agree on one thing: There is no such thing as zero risk. There are only degrees of risk, no matter your vaccination status or the damage the delta variant has done to your community.

Saskia Popescu, infectious-disease epidemiologist and assistant professor at George Mason University, likes to frame the question as a risk assessment. She says you should look at three factors before deciding whether you should dine at a restaurant: your vaccination status, the level of coronavirus transmission in your community (as determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Data Tracker) and your personal risk assessment (are you immunocompromised or do you share your home with someone who is vulnerable or can’t be vaccinated yet?).

Popescu, for example, resides in Phoenix, in Maricopa County, where the transmission rate is high, “which really sucks,” she said, “because it’s 110 degrees outside.” She doesn’t feel like dining under the summer sun where a customer can feel as fried as a bucket of chicken.

“I really am just not leaning into dining indoors right now,” Popescu said. “Being indoors is a high-risk activity when you’re dining because you’re eating and you’re drinking. You have no mask on. There’s a bunch of other people whose vaccine status you don’t really know and who are also unmasked. You’re there for prolonged periods of time. I look at all of those, and that’s how I make an informed decision. So it’s not black-and-white.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/08/05/restaurants-indoor-dining-delta-variant/

Oregon health care workers must get COVID-19 shots or submit to weekly testing, governor says

Source: The Oregonian

Oregon health care workers will have to get vaccinated for COVID-19 or face weekly testing, Gov. Kate Brown’s office said Wednesday, in an apparent step to fight the state’s run-away coronavirus case numbers fueled by the delta variant.

The move comes amid a nationwide push to drive up vaccination rates, both for the general public and among health care workers in particular. Brown’s intervention effectively neutralizes an Oregon law that says employers can’t fire health care workers for not being vaccinated.

Brown’s order, through the Oregon Health Authority, sidesteps the law by mandating weekly testing while allowing for an exemption from the requirement for those who can prove they’ve been immunized.

Oregon appears to be the only state in the nation with the prohibition specifically for health care workers, and one of the sponsors of the bill was perplexed by the ramifications, saying, “Why the hell did we do that?”




Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/08/oregon-health-care-workers-must-get-covid-19-shots-or-submit-to-weekly-testing-governor-says.html