Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalHow The Media Made A Villain Out Of Jordan Neely
After Daniel Penny killed Jordan Neely with a chokehold on May 1, several local media outlets reported that Neely had thrown trash at subway passengers, aggressively threatened them and got into an argument with Penny before Penny tackled him to the ground.
But within a few days, as reporting relied less on anonymous law enforcement sources, journalists began poking holes in each of these details, and outright contradicted some of them.
By that time, though, the two men involved in the incident had been painted with broad brushes. Penny, a 24-year-old white man, was written not as someone who’d used a deadly martial arts position for several minutes straight, but rather as a Marine veteran looking for work as a bartender in New York. Neely, on the other hand, was a Black, homeless, mentally ill former Michael Jackson impersonator ― an “unhinged” “vagrant,” as the New York Post described him ― whose killing recalled an era “when residents felt besieged by crime,” as The Associated Press put it.
Even after the city’s medical examiner found that Neely, 30, died of a fatal chokehold, some outlets used passive, soft language and invited debate. A since-deleted tweet from the AP read: “The choking death of a man with apparent mental illness in the New York subway set off powerful reactions, with some calling the chokehold a homicide and others defending the passenger’s action as a defense against disorder.”
For several days, media reports withheld Penny’s name while printing Neely’s police record.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jordan-neely-daniel-penny-homicide-new-york-media_n_64625ebae4b005be8ff529cb
Hospitals create police forces to stem growing violence against staff
When Destiny heard screams, she raced to a hospital room where she saw a patient assaulting a care technician. As a charge nurse at Northeast Georgia Health System, she was trained to de-escalate violent situations.
But that day in the spring of 2021, as Destiny intervened, for several minutes the patient punched, kicked and bit her. And by the time a team of security guards and other nurses could free her, the patient had ripped out chunks of Destiny's hair.
"We are not protected on our floors," she said as she recapped the story during testimony later that year to the Georgia Senate Study Committee on Violence Against Healthcare Workers. Destiny used only her first name at the hearing, for fear of retaliation for speaking out against the patient who assaulted her.
This May, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed a law that boosts criminal penalties for assaults against hospital workers and allows health care facilities in the state to create independent police forces. The law is a response to that testimony as well as hospital lobbying and data documenting a rise in violence against health care workers. In enacting the law, Georgia joined other states attempting to reverse a rise in violence over the last several years through stiffer criminal penalties and enhanced law enforcement.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/15/1175889585/hospitals-create-police-forces-to-stem-growing-violence-against-staff
During my 30 year career, I was punched, kicked, scratched, and bit. I got tired of hearing the excuse, "We.., they're not in their right mind," from the hospitals.
Vice Media, once worth $5.7 billion, files for bankruptcy
Vice Media, the edgy digital media startup known for its provocative visual storytelling and punchy, explicit voice, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early Monday.
A group of Vice lenders is set to purchase the embattled company's assets for $225 million and take on significant liabilities, listed at $500 million to $1 billion, according to the filing in a New York federal court. That group, which includes Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, lent it $20 million to keep it afloat during the sale process, during which other lenders can make higher bids.
"This accelerated court-supervised sale process will strengthen the Company and position VICE for long-term growth," co-CEOs Bruce Dixon and Hozefa Lokhandwala wrote in a statement. "We look forward to completing the sale process in the next two to three months and charting a healthy and successful next chapter at VICE."
Vice Media says it intends to keep paying its remaining employees and vendors throughout the process and to keep top management in place.
The company had tried without success to find a buyer willing to pay its asking price of more than $1 billion. Even that was a fraction of what investors once believed it was worth.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1173260377/vice-media-bankruptcy
As schools let out for summer, some students won't return next year. Here's why.
The police were in her driveway. They wanted her son.
Jayne Demsky’s teenage son was not a criminal. He never stole, used illegal substances, or physically hurt anyone. He just didn’t go to school.
It started in the middle of 6th grade when he began staying home from school on days his anxiety was too difficult to manage. Those days became more frequent, turning into weeks and months, until he stopped going altogether. Now an officer was at her house, waiting to take her son to school.
“I would describe it as hell,” said the mother from Mahwah, New Jersey, who recalled feeling hopeless and constantly "on the verge of an emotional breakdown."
Demsky sought help from educators, doctors and counselors, trying to understand what was stopping her son from going to school for nearly a year. Finally, a psychiatrist told Demsky about a condition that affects a growing number of students with severe anxiety: school avoidance.
School avoidant behavior, also called school refusal, is when a school-age child refuses to attend school or has difficulty being in school for the entire day. Several mental health experts told USA TODAY it has become a crisis that has gotten worse since the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/health/2023/05/15/school-avoidance-becomes-crisis-after-covid/11127563002/
The current structure of school may also have something to do with it. Maybe schools should also look within.
Stained glass window shows Jesus Christ with dark skin, stirring questions about race in New England
A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window that depicts a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women in New Testament scenes has stirred up questions about race, Rhode Island’s role in the slave trade and the place of women in 19th century New England society.
The window installed at the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren in 1878 is the oldest known public example of stained glass on which Christ is depicted as a person of color that one expert has seen.
“This window is unique and highly unusual,” said Virginia Raguin, a professor of humanities emerita at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and an expert on the history of stained-glass art. “I have never seen this iconography for that time.”
The 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide (3.7 meters by 1.5 meters) window depicts two biblical passages in which women, also painted with dark skin, appear as equals to Christ. One shows Christ in conversation with Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, from the Gospel of Luke. The other shows Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of John.
https://apnews.com/article/jesus-christ-stained-glass-dark-skinned-49c3d84ab5a939beba621bc1ae54eda0
Icons in Orthodox churches, from Coptic to Russian, all depict Jesus with dark toned skin, as any Middle Eastern man would have. And so?
Stained glass window shows Jesus Christ with dark skin, stirring questions about race in New England
A nearly 150-year-old stained-glass church window that depicts a dark-skinned Jesus Christ interacting with women in New Testament scenes has stirred up questions about race, Rhode Island’s role in the slave trade and the place of women in 19th century New England society.
The window installed at the long-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren in 1878 is the oldest known public example of stained glass on which Christ is depicted as a person of color that one expert has seen.
“This window is unique and highly unusual,” said Virginia Raguin, a professor of humanities emerita at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and an expert on the history of stained-glass art. “I have never seen this iconography for that time.”
The 12-foot tall, 5-foot wide (3.7 meters by 1.5 meters) window depicts two biblical passages in which women, also painted with dark skin, appear as equals to Christ. One shows Christ in conversation with Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, from the Gospel of Luke. The other shows Christ speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of John.
https://apnews.com/article/jesus-christ-stained-glass-dark-skinned-49c3d84ab5a939beba621bc1ae54eda0
Icons in Orthodox churches, from Coptic to Russian, all depict Jesus with dark toned skin, as any Middle Eastern man would have. And so?
Florida teacher defends showing Disney movie: 'I'm just being accepting'
A Florida teacher under investigation because she showed her class the Disney animated movie Strange World which features a gay character has defended herself on social media, insisting the film related to the curriculum and warning that state investigators were traumatizing her 10- and 11-year-old students.
Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters school in Hernando county, Florida, released a six-minute TikTok video in which she gave her side of the story. She said she had been reported to the local school board by one of her students’ mother, who sits on the board and was on a “rampage to get rid of every form of representation out of our schools”, Barbee alleged.
Barbee, who is in her first year as a teacher, said she was reported to Florida’s state education department for “indoctrination” before anyone had even spoken to her. She is now under official investigation for possible violations of the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, which was introduced by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis last year and which bans teaching about gender and sexual identity to school students at all ages.
In her TikTok statement, Barbee said she had decided to show Strange World to her fifth grade class to give them a break after a morning of exams. She saw the film as directly relevant to the curriculum they were studying on earth science and ecosystems.
She had signed permission slips from the parents of all pupils in the class, giving their approval for showing PG movies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/14/florida-teacher-disney-film-strange-world
The fact that there is a gay character is incidental, not central to the plot, which is directly relevant to the curriculum. Fuck off, Moms for Liberty. Oh, and why don't gay and ally parents have "parental rights" in the classroom? Hmmmmm?
A Tennessee company is refusing a U.S. request to recall 67 million air bag inflators
A Tennessee company could be heading for a legal battle with U.S. auto safety regulators after refusing a request that millions of potentially dangerous air bag inflators be recalled.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding that ARC Automotive Inc. of Knoxville recall 67 million inflators in the U.S. because they could explode and hurl shrapnel. At least two people have been killed in the U.S. and Canada, and seven others have been hurt as a result of defective ARC inflators, the agency said.
The recall would cover a large portion of the 284 million vehicles now on U.S. roads, but the percentage is difficult to determine. Some have ARC inflators for both the driver and front passenger.
In a letter posted Friday, the agency told ARC that it has tentatively concluded after an eight-year investigation that ARC front driver and passenger inflators have a safety defect.
"Air bag inflators that project metal fragments into vehicle occupants, rather than properly inflating the attached air bag, create an unreasonable risk of death and injury," Stephen Ridella, director of NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation, wrote in a letter to ARC.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/12/1175984778/tennessee-company-refuses-recall-air-bags
Tucker Wanted to 'Start Threatening' Fox Staff After 2020
Long before Tucker Carlson was ousted from Fox, thanks in part to behavior suggesting he believed himself to be larger than the network, he and his top producer contemplated leveraging his clout to threaten and bully Fox News employees—and to bend the network to their will.
Such revelations are contained within previously unreported text messages obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast. The exchanges were contained in documents pertaining to Dominion Voting Systems’ now-settled defamation case against Fox News. In the past week, The Daily Beast has reported on other messages included in these materials, including text exchanges between Carlson and Fox colleagues Bret Baier and Jesse Watters.
Fox News declined to comment, and Carlson did not respond to a request for comment. In a text message, Wells suggested without any evidence that Fox News executives leaked the texts to The Daily Beast. He added that he didn’t “quite understand what the story or peg is here” and did not provide any further comment.
In this particular text exchange, which took place on Nov. 19, 2020, Carlson’s senior executive producer Justin Wells told the star host he was apoplectic over a social-media post from the network that seemed to criticize then-President Donald Trump. This was at the same time Fox News suffered a ratings plummet after angry Trump supporters boycotted the network over its Arizona call for Biden—a crisis that prompted Fox to increasingly embrace Team Trump’s wild stolen election rhetoric.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-wanted-to-start-threatening-fox-news-staffers-after-2020-election
Such a nice boy...
How Putin Walked Right Into an Election Sex Tape Scandal
Turkey’s opposition is accusing Russia of trying to influence Sunday’s elections in order to keep President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in office as several polls suggest he is on the verge of losing power.
Although Erdogan’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin have long raised alarm, a sex tape scandal is shaping up to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Muharrem İnce, a presidential candidate who led the main opposition party in 2018, left the race this week over rumors of an alleged sex tape spread online. The candidate claimed that the tape was a deepfake and said he had gone through a false character assassination.
Soon after, the presidential candidate for Turkey’s opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accused Russia of spreading deepfakes and conspiracies, including “tapes that were exposed in this country yesterday.”
“Get your hands off the Turkish state,” he wrote in a tweet on Thursday.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-vladimir-putin-walked-right-into-a-sex-tape-scandal-in-turkeys-elections?ref=home
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHome country: USA currently
Current location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
Number of posts: 12,418