BeckyDem
BeckyDem's Journal"Today was a Difficult Day," said Pooh

Sometimes it just feels like too much. Stay safe everyone.

PEACE through PIE A Grassroots Peace Movement Creating a Culture of Peace
Let's Make Peace Together
Why PIE? Because Peace Includes Everyone
PEACE through PIE is about finding ways to connect with one another, and to the commitment that we are stronger together. Our mission is to cultivate the values, skills, and experiences that our world is hungry for. Our Recipe for Peace is built on firm footing. We go beyond the surface of kumbaya and wishful thinking by actively partner with schools, diverse faith groups, businesses, and community organizations, to create programs and experiences that build and support a peacemaking culture.
The Ingredients
We cultivate a way of being by incorporating People, Peace of Mind, and Peace Pie, the 3 pillars (3Ps), in our PIE365 year-round approach to peacemaking. This PIE365 approach enables us to broaden our awareness of community, learn to question our preconceptions, and to incorporate the power of food as a connector to achieving a whole-life balance that strengthens our emotional and physical wellbeing.
Take Action
Discover the three components below, that when integrated or held stand-alone, create the special sauce for your PIE365.
If you have an idea for a PIE365 (social, program, event), and want to discuss click here.
If your PIE365 (social, program, event) is already set and you want to list it on our calendar, click here.
https://www.peacethroughpie.org/
Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be over
Not a day has been spent in jail nor a penny paid in compensation for the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy in Mississippi that helped spark the civil rights movement
by Ed Pilkington
Sat 25 Apr 2020 02.00 EDT
Last modified on Sat 25 Apr 2020 02.02 EDT
Thelma Wright Edwards knows this is the last chance for justice for Emmett Till. The next few weeks and months will determine whether there will ever be closure for her beloved cousin Bobo, as the family affectionately call the child.
The Guardian has learned that a reinvestigation of the boys murder that has been carried out by the FBI over the past three years could be wrapped up in weeks. For Thelma and the rest of the Till family, a decades-long struggle for justice is fast approaching its conclusion.
In August, it will be 65 years since the battered and bloated body of the 14-year-old Emmett Till was fished from the muddy waters of the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. His kidnapping, torture and murder on 28 August 1955 for having whistled at a white woman was a defining moment of postwar American history.
It set in train a sequence of events that led African Americans in the south to make an unprecedented stand, sparking the civil rights movement. Today his name is emblazoned on history books, memorialized in movies, while the glass-topped casket which tens of thousands of mourners walked by before his burial now stands as the centerpiece of the National Museum of African American history in Washington DC.
To Thelma Wright Edwards, 88, Emmett Tills next of kin, he is more than a legend of history. He is the adored cousin who she remembers as a mischievous peacemaker forever devising pranks and cracking jokes.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/25/emmett-till-long-wait-for-justice?CMP=share_btn_tw
Trader Joe's and other US firms suppress unionization efforts during pandemic
As workers become increasingly concerned about workplace safety, employers have been suppressing organizing efforts
4-23-2020
US corporations are cracking down on unionization efforts as workers try to organize under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
Companies, including grocery chains Trader Joes and Whole Foods, airport concession operators, local authorities and even a furniture company owned by the billionaire Warren Buffett have moved to control efforts to unionize as workers become increasingly concerned about workplace safety during the emergency.
The Trader Joes chairman and CEO, Dan Bane, sent a letter to all employees on 31 March opposing labor unions, and calling attempts to recruit staff a distraction, the latest in a series of memos and actions taken by the company to suppress union organizing efforts calling for hazard pay and adequate protections for grocery store workers during the pandemic.
Its a blatant anti-union letter, said a Trader Joes employee in New Jersey who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. Its in bad taste and shows the greed this company has instead of taking proactive measures to keep the crew and customers safe.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/23/labor-unions-trader-joes-workers-coronavirus-us?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1587648213
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Researchers reviewed thousands of gun policy studies and teased out a consensus
The findings on stand-your-ground and child access prevention laws are conclusive, the report says
By
Christopher Ingraham
April 23, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Gun control discussions often get mired in competing academic claims regarding the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of various policy options.
Do concealed carry laws increase violent crime or make communities safer? Do assault weapon bans reduce mass shootings or do they have no effect? Do background checks reduce homicides and suicides or are they ineffective?
With so many disparate findings swirling about, it can be difficult to determine where the balance of evidence lies. But a new report from Rand Corp., a nonprofit think tank, has distilled reams of gun policy research published since 1995 to tease out the scholarly consensus.
In other words, theyve waded through thousands of findings so you (and your elected representatives) dont have to.
( excerpt) First, there was a clear consensus (indicated by three or more high-quality studies in agreement) that stand-your-ground laws, which allow people to use guns to defend themselves in public even if retreating is an option, result in higher overall rates of gun homicide. The higher rates arent simply from bad guys getting shot; the research shows that the additional deaths created by stand-your-ground laws far surpass the documented cases of defensive gun use in the United States.
There was also a broad consensus that child access prevention laws, which set requirements for how guns must be stored at home, are effective in reducing self-inflicted gun injuries among children and adults.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/definitive-guide-which-gun-safety-policies-actually-work/
Juan Gonzlez: "Make No Mistake: This Country Is Edging Closer to Neo-Fascist Authoritarianism"
April 21, 2020
( excerpt ) But, Amy, I wanted to talk about something else which I think is very important. Were seeing a lot of it now, which is these protests around the country of people demanding an end to the shutdowns that were aimed to stop the spread of the pandemic. And what troubles me most about this is how right-wing extremists are brandishing automatic weapons, and theyve become regular features of these protests, and with the man in the White House saying nothing to condemn this form of intimidation. And obviously, most of them are Trump supporters.
And Id like our viewers and listeners to ask themselves a question: If hundreds of African Americans or Latinos showed up in cities around the country brandishing automatic weapons, what would be the response of the country to this? Why is this being almost accepted and normalized now as a method of protest? And my fear is that this will become normalized over the next few months as we head toward a bitter national election. And we should make no mistake, that this country is edging closer and closer to neo-fascist authoritarianism.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Juan, you say the issue of it being almost accepted. Its not almost. The president, from the bully pulpit of the White House, is encouraging it right? saying these are his people.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/21/juan_gonzalez_coronavirus_update
Rev. Dr.William J.Barber II @RevDrBarber: We should not listen to these governors who want to end
https://twitter.com/RevDrBarber/status/1252645446234845186
How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes
( But hey, lets liberate the country, because this is a no big deal pandemic. )
by Meredith Wadman, Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, Jocelyn Kaiser, Catherine Matacic
Apr. 17, 2020 , 6:45 PM
Sciences COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
On rounds in a 20-bed intensive care unit (ICU) one recent day, physician Joshua Denson assessed two patients with seizures, many with respiratory failure and others whose kidneys were on a dangerous downhill slide. Days earlier, his rounds had been interrupted as his team tried, and failed, to resuscitate a young woman whose heart had stopped. All shared one thing, says Denson, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Tulane University School of Medicine. They are all COVID positive.
As the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 surges past 2.2 million globally and deaths surpass 150,000, clinicians and pathologists are struggling to understand the damage wrought by the coronavirus as it tears through the body. They are realizing that although the lungs are ground zero, its reach can extend to many organs including the heart and blood vessels, kidneys, gut, and brain.
[The disease] can attack almost anything in the body with devastating consequences, says cardiologist Harlan Krumholz of Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, who is leading multiple efforts to gather clinical data on COVID-19. Its ferocity is breathtaking and humbling.
Understanding the rampage could help the doctors on the front lines treat the fraction of infected people who become desperately and sometimes mysteriously ill. Does a dangerous, newly observed tendency to blood clotting transform some mild cases into life-threatening emergencies? Is an overzealous immune response behind the worst cases, suggesting treatment with immune-suppressing drugs could help? What explains the startlingly low blood oxygen that some physicians are reporting in patients who nonetheless are not gasping for breath? Taking a systems approach may be beneficial as we start thinking about therapies, says Nilam Mangalmurti, a pulmonary intensivist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP).
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes
Rev. Dr.William J. Barber II @RevDrBarber: When people say stupid things, don't get stuck on stupid.
https://twitter.com/RevDrBarber/status/1251610273741508609
What am I missing? Reported on CBS Morning News, so many restaurant owners feeding the poor.
Doing what they can for their workers too, keeping them on their health insurance plans. Reduced the prices on their menus. Arranging curb side pick up etc. Providing free food for shelters and most especially feeding children.
WHERE IS OUR ARMY, NAVY, AIR FORCE able bodies????? I don't understand, are they helping distribute food instead of people waiting in long lines across the country for a free bag of food! Did I miss where that is happening?
I fucking despise Trump and the Republican Party