Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalClothes, shoes, passports: migrants forced to dump possessions at US-Mexico wall
In Yuma, south-west Arizona, just a short distance from a gap in the 30-foot-high border barrier between the US and Mexico, Fernando “Fernie” Quiroz collects piles of shoes, shoelaces and clothing from the dirt road and carries them to a large red dumpster already overflowing with personal belongings.
Every day, hundreds of people arrive at gaps in this stretch of border wall to request political asylum from uniformed federal border agents who stand waiting under a rudimentary metal shade structure in the Sonoran desert heat.
Most of those arriving to seek asylum are from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Romania, or other eastern European countries.
Official ports of entry dotted along the almost 2,000-mile-long border stretching from the California coast to the Gulf coast of south Texas remain closed to asylum seekers under the government’s enduring title 42 public health statute established by Donald Trump’s administration at the beginning of the pandemic.
So instead migrants arrive at ad-hoc places like these gaps in the wall, alongside the dried-up bed of the Colorado River, to exercise their right to request asylum.
In some circumstances, including dangerous conditions in their country of origin, and the distance and difficulty in returning the people there, asylum seekers are exempted from the summary expulsion under title 42 that has upended so many desperate journeys.
But to get to the next step in the asylum process, agents in Yuma, according to Customs and Border Protection, require they leave everything behind, except for what they can fit into a small plastic Department of Homeland Security-issued bag.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/08/us-mexico-border-agents-belongings
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CBP is forcing people to dump their passports, etc. This is blatantly illegal.
America's love affair with the lawn is getting messy
LeighAnn Ferrara is transforming her small suburban yard from grass bordered by a few shrubs into an anti-lawn — a patchwork of flower beds, vegetables and fruit trees.
It didn’t happen all at once, says the mother of two young kids. “We started smothering small sections of the lawn each year with cardboard and mulch and planting them, and by now the front yard is probably three-quarters planting beds,” she says. “Every year we do more.”
Her perennials and native plants require less upkeep and water than turf grass does. And she doesn’t need herbicides or pesticides — she’s not aiming for emerald perfection.
For generations, the lawn — that neat, green, weed-less carpet of grass — has dominated American yards. It still does. But a surge of gardeners, landscapers and homeowners worried about the environment now see it as an anachronism, even a threat.
Like Ferrara, they’re chipping away at it.
“America is unique in its fixation on the monoculture lawn,” says Dennis Liu, vice president of education at the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation in Durham, North Carolina. “Our English inheritance is our own little tidy green space.”
Now, drought, crashing insect populations and other environmental problems are highlighting -– in different ways, in different places –- the need for more kinds of plants in spaces large and small.
https://apnews.com/article/environment-gardening-white-plains-b2a0c7ab8940f93e872a90d86ea9c6f4
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If you have an HOA that insists on a manicured lawn, get on that board and work for change!
What they wore: Amish Country exhibit spotlights sex abuse
Clotheslines with billowing linens and long dresses are a common sight on the off-grid farms of Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, home to the nation’s largest Amish settlement. For many tourists they’re as iconic a part of Amish Country’s bucolic scenery as the rural lanes and wooden bridges.
But for two days in late April, a clothesline with a different purpose was strung in a small indoor exhibit here. Hanging from it were 13 outfits representing the trauma of sexual assault suffered by members of the Amish, Mennonite and similar groups, a reminder that the modest attire they require, particularly of women and girls, is no protection.
Each garment on display was either the actual one a survivor wore at the time they were assaulted or a replica assembled by volunteers to match the strict dress codes of the survivor’s childhood church.
One was a long-sleeve, periwinkle blue Amish dress with a simple stand collar. The accompanying sign said, “Survivor Age: 4 years old.Next to it was a 5-year-old’s heavy coat, hat and long, hunter green dress, displayed above sturdy black shoes. “I was never safe and I was a child. He was an adult,” a sign quoted the survivor as saying. “No one helped me when I told them he hurt me.”
There was also an infant’s onesie.
“You feel rage when you get a tiny little outfit in the mail,” said Ruth Ann Brubaker of Wayne County, Ohio, who helped put the exhibit together. “I didn’t know I could be so angry. Then you start crying.”
https://apnews.com/article/religion-pennsylvania-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-assault-lancaster-0e97364f986c9b9fffaed44520fc2b1f
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This made me cry. Sexual abuse happens everywhere and is no respecter of traditions
Mike Pompeo Raises Fears About Dual Citizen Dr. Oz Serving In U.S. Senate
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed national security concerns on Friday about Donald Trump-endorsed candidate and TV celebrity Mehmet Oz serving in the U.S. Senate after Oz’s campaign confirmed Wednesday he’d voted in the last Turkish presidential election.
The heart surgeon, widely known as the host of the daytime “Dr. Oz Show,” was born in Ohio to Turkish immigrant parents and is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Turkey. He claimed in February that he had never been politically involved in Turkey “in any capacity,” and has said he would renounce his Turkish citizenship if he wins office.
However, Oz’s campaign spokesperson Brittany Yanick confirmed to ABC News on Wednesday that Oz had, in fact, voted in Turkey’s 2018 election. She denied that it constituted “political involvement,” and said he had voted for the opposition candidate who lost to President Recep Tayyep Erdogan.
Pompeo, who has endorsed Oz’s GOP primary rival Dave McCormick, said on a conference call on Friday that McCormick hosted with reporters: “We criticize American candidates all the time because they didn’t vote. This is different from that. ... he engaged in the Turkish political process. That raises in my mind a lot of judgments about his priority.”
“The people of Pennsylvania and the Americans [Oz] will be representing [in the] Senate, voting on important national security matters, need to understand the scope and depth of his relationship with the Turkish government,” Pompeo said on the call.
For a civilian, voting in another country’s election would set off a “giant, flashing red light” for security concerns, Kel McClanahan, the executive director of the nonprofit public interest law firm National Security Counselors, told ABC.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-pompeo-dr-oz-dave-mccormick-turkish-presidential-election_n_6275a657e4b046ad0d7c41f7
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I don't like Mike Pompeo at all, but I think the concerns he raises are valid
Leonard Peltier To Joe Biden: 'I'm Not Guilty. I Would Like To Go Home.'
Leonard Peltier knows his time is running out.
The Native American rights activist is 77, has serious health issues, just survived an ugly bout with COVID-19 and is now serving his 46th year in federal prison ― where the U.S. government put him without any evidence that he committed a crime.
Peltier and his supporters are holding out hope that President Joe Biden will finally send him home. Because, if anything has become clear with time, it’s just how troubling Peltier’s imprisonment has been from the start. Prosecutors in his trial hid key evidence. The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into lying. A juror admitted she was biased against Native Americans on day two of the trial, but was allowed to stay on anyway.
Even some of the same U.S. government officials who helped put Peltier in prison in the first place have since admitted how flawed his trial was and how horribly the government has long treated Native Americans, and they have urged clemency for him.
There is reason to believe that Biden could, at last, give Peltier his freedom. He has already demonstrated a willingness to address past injustices against Native Americans. Since taking office, Biden has made it a priority to examine the government’s ugly history of Indian boarding schools, to protect sacred Indigenous sites and cultural resources, and to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. He also canceled the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a major win for tribes and environmentalists.
Biden also chose Deb Haaland to lead his Interior Department, making her the nation’s first Indigenous Cabinet secretary. Haaland strongly advocated for Peltier’s release from prison in her former role as a member of Congress.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/leonard-peltier-joe-biden-clemency_n_6266f6d9e4b0dc52f49aaf1f
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Leonard Peltier is a political prisoner. Let him go home.
A controversial doctor. A disputed abuse diagnosis.Two convicted Wisconsin men say they are innocent
Nearly nine years after her son, Brayden, died, Shannon Turnbill still replays the image of the 5-year-old lying on the bed, unresponsive.
“It’s a picture I’ll never get out of my head,” she said of the encounter in October 2013. “His eyes were rolled back. It almost looked like he was having a seizure but not moving.”
After a University of Wisconsin doctor trained in identifying child abuse said Brayden had suffered from abusive head trauma, law enforcement blamed the only adult home with Brayden: Turnbill’s boyfriend, Dakota Black of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
In April 2016, Josh Gehde found his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter lying lifeless on the floor of their Madison, Wisconsin, apartment. Just minutes before, Gehde had given the toddler crackers and went to the bathroom to shave. When he came out, he saw chewed-up crackers on the rug near her face. He turned over her already cold body, struck her back to dislodge food and called 9-1-1.
The girl died two days later after being removed from life support. Dr. Barbara Knox, the same UW child abuse pediatrician from Black’s case — who has been suspended and investigated by two hospitals in two states — said abusive head trauma caused the brain injuries that killed the girl.
Courts, legal experts and medical specialists are increasingly scrutinizing the abusive head trauma diagnosis, an umbrella term that includes the controversial diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, for lacking a scientific basis and criteria for diagnosis.
https://captimes.com/news/health/a-controversial-doctor-a-disputed-abuse-diagnosis-two-convicted-wisconsin-men-say-they-are-innocent/article_991ef24a-d4bf-56b7-b1bc-6095a3d4ffdf.html
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This "diagnosis" is increasingly being labeled "junk science" but because the subject is emotionally fraught, prosecutors love it
Women athletes are being mistreated across the board
How many times can the system fail its female athletes? Today’s newest report of an abusive coach from The Athletic feels like it’s just the next in a long line of the mistreatment of female athletes by their coaches and institutions willingly overlooking complaints.
The case reported on today is somewhat more high-profile because of who the coach was — Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, described as the “Michael Jordan of women’s basketball” — is a pillar of the sport, having made a name for herself as one of the greatest players of all time on the college, professional, and international levels. Perhaps that is why she was able to keep moving from college job to college job as her athletes came forward and were turned away at the door, administration standing firmly by Cooper-Dyke as she allegedly abused basketball players physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The report is somewhat graphic in its detail, describing Cooper-Dyke calling her players “bitch,” “pussy,” and “retarded,” pretending to perform oral sex on a male assistant coach, commenting frequently and inappropriately on her athletes’ sex lives, forcing athletes to play through injuries, and physically punishing one athlete to the point where she was vomiting profusely and had skin scraped off of her knees and shoulders. It goes on — at UNC-Wilmington, at USC, at Texas Southern, at Prairie View A&M. Some former players spoke on the record, and others off, but the sentiment abounded: Cooper-Dyke had severely abused her power as a trusted adult in these girls’ lives.
And it’s happening on every level of women’s sports. Take the NWSL a professional league in which multiple coaches were accused of abuse just last year in the form of racist and bigoted statements, verbal abuse, and even sexual coercion directed toward players. Last month, the head coach of the University of Florida women’s soccer team was fired after complaints of verbal abuse just one season in. The Syracuse women’s basketball coach resigned in 2021 after players came forward with allegations of physical harassment and abusive language. Illinois fired their head women’s basketball coach in 2017 after players filed a lawsuit alleging a racially abusive environment within the program.
https://deadspin.com/women-athletes-are-being-mistreated-across-the-board-1848887855
Women athletes are being mistreated across the board
How many times can the system fail its female athletes? Today’s newest report of an abusive coach from The Athletic feels like it’s just the next in a long line of the mistreatment of female athletes by their coaches and institutions willingly overlooking complaints.
The case reported on today is somewhat more high-profile because of who the coach was — Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, described as the “Michael Jordan of women’s basketball” — is a pillar of the sport, having made a name for herself as one of the greatest players of all time on the college, professional, and international levels. Perhaps that is why she was able to keep moving from college job to college job as her athletes came forward and were turned away at the door, administration standing firmly by Cooper-Dyke as she allegedly abused basketball players physically, mentally, and emotionally.
The report is somewhat graphic in its detail, describing Cooper-Dyke calling her players “bitch,” “pussy,” and “retarded,” pretending to perform oral sex on a male assistant coach, commenting frequently and inappropriately on her athletes’ sex lives, forcing athletes to play through injuries, and physically punishing one athlete to the point where she was vomiting profusely and had skin scraped off of her knees and shoulders. It goes on — at UNC-Wilmington, at USC, at Texas Southern, at Prairie View A&M. Some former players spoke on the record, and others off, but the sentiment abounded: Cooper-Dyke had severely abused her power as a trusted adult in these girls’ lives.
And it’s happening on every level of women’s sports. Take the NWSL a professional league in which multiple coaches were accused of abuse just last year in the form of racist and bigoted statements, verbal abuse, and even sexual coercion directed toward players. Last month, the head coach of the University of Florida women’s soccer team was fired after complaints of verbal abuse just one season in. The Syracuse women’s basketball coach resigned in 2021 after players came forward with allegations of physical harassment and abusive language. Illinois fired their head women’s basketball coach in 2017 after players filed a lawsuit alleging a racially abusive environment within the program.
https://deadspin.com/women-athletes-are-being-mistreated-across-the-board-1848887855
Teachers often cancel recess as a punishment. A growing number of states want to change that.
In Florida, kids in a second grade class were told to walk laps during recess after no one confessed to taking money from a classmate. In Kentucky, a first grader who hadn’t been paying attention in class had to sit on a bench next to his teacher and watch his friends play. In Texas, after a few students misbehaved, an entire first grade class had to sit inside silently for recess.
Amid long, structured school days filled with academic demands, recess serves as a critical outlet and break for kids, according to pediatricians and child development experts.
But, on any given day, an untold number of children in elementary schools nationwide have all or part of their recess revoked for infractions such as failing to finish their work, talking out of turn or not following directions. The long-standing and common punishment in schools occurs even though the practice flies in the face of considerable research supporting the importance of free play for young children.
Recently, there has been growing momentum to pass laws to protect recess time. Lawmakers in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Minnesota introduced bills over the past year to prohibit schools from withholding recess as a punishment.
If successful, these states would go further than nearly anywhere else in the U.S. in banning the practice. Eleven other states and Washington, D.C. — as well as districts including the Austin Independent School District in Texas and the New York City Department of Education — have laws or policies that limit how teachers can use the punishment, but few have outright bans.
Most states still allow the practice, and in places that restrict it, enforcement can be rare. Even in states that mandate physical activity or recess time, some parents report their children still sometimes lose entire recess periods. Overwhelmed educators have pushed back against losing disciplinary options or have continued withholding recess, with few consequences.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teachers-cancel-recess-punishment-state-laws-rcna27531
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Note that the proposed laws/policies are all in blue states/areas. And just as bad is the policy of "silent lunch". Ask your child.
A New York surgeon's lawsuit highlights gender discrimination in medical profession
The surgeon faced a dilemma: continue an operation that could kill an extremely sick patient on the operating table or sew the patient up, extending their life by only a few painful days at most.
Dr. Deborah Keller, a second-year attending colorectal surgeon at the time at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, wanted assurance she was making the right decision.
She asked a nurse to call her boss, Dr. Pokala Ravi Kiran, the division chief of colorectal surgery, for a second opinion.
“The patient is going to die. Close. What’s the issue?” Kiran barked at her, humiliating her in front of the other medical staff members in the operating room, Keller says.
The brusque remark during the 2019 operation was not out of the ordinary for Kiran, Keller says. She claims he would also comment on her appearance and make her do administrative duties that male colleagues were excused from and that he hired her at a lower starting salary than her male teammates.
Yet her institution did nothing to address the imbalances, her attorneys allege in a complaint filed on Dec. 21, 2021, in Manhattan federal court in which they accuse the prestigious New York City-based medical center of tolerating a “toxic culture of gender discrimination.”
Attorneys representing NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails about Keller’s case. An attorney for Columbia University and Kiran directed NBC News to Robert Hornsby, a spokesman for Columbia University. He declined to comment on the allegations, saying the university does not comment on pending litigation.
Given how ill the patient was in the operating room that day, Keller says, any supervisor would have offered the same advice hers did. But she feels her boss would have addressed the other surgeons on her team — all men — more respectfully had they been in the same situation.
“It would have been the same result, but it just wouldn’t have been embarrassing them in front of a room full of people,” she said. “I had not ever had a patient die. I just needed to know that I was doing the right thing.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/surgeons-lawsuit-highlights-gender-disparities-workplace-discriminatio-rcna22908
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Read on. It gets worse. Much worse.
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