Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalThe NCAA Won't Punish Baylor For Failing To Report Sexual Assault Claims Against Players
Despite concluding that it had a "campus-wide culture of sexual violence," the NCAA said it will not penalize Baylor University after officials failed to report sexual assault claims against football players between 2010 and 2015.
The ruling is the culmination of a five-year investigation undertaken by the NCAA following the eruption of the sexual assault scandal at the private Christian university in Waco, Texas, in 2016.
"Baylor admitted to moral and ethical failings in its handling of sexual and interpersonal violence on campus but argued those failings, however egregious, did not constitute violations of NCAA rules," the NCAA panel investigating Baylor said in its decision. "Ultimately, and with tremendous reluctance, this panel agrees."
The NCAA did cite Baylor for several violations of collegiate athletic rules, however, and imposed a penalty on the university that includes four years of probation and a $5,000 fine.
https://www.npr.org/2021/08/12/1027070133/ncaa-baylor-sexual-assault-claims-failure-to-report
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Because of course. It is worth noting that former coach Art Briles, who was fired over the above scandal, is now at Liberty, which has its own sexual problems (including possible assault) that have yet to be addressed.
Tennessee mom goes viral after brilliantly explaining why optional masking won't work in schools
A Tennessee mom notified her child's school that her teenage daughter would be opting out of the dress code if masking was optional.
Students, teachers and staffers are required to wear masks at Hamilton County Schools, which opened Thursday, although parents may return "opt-out" forms to exempt their children from face coverings inside -- and one Chattanooga-area mom wondered why the dress code shouldn't be similar.
"I am writing to request the parent opt-out form to opt out of the school dress code," the mom wrote to school officials.
"In light of the opt-out option related to the recently announced mask mandate, I can only assume that parents are now in a position to pick and choose the school policies to which their child should be subject," said the parent, who asked to remain anonymous for news reports. "As someone who holds a strong commitment to my feminist ideals and my desire to raise my daughter to be a strong and empowered woman able to make choices for herself, I find that the school's dress code policy does not align with my belief system. I therefore intend to opt out of this policy and send my daughter to school in spaghetti straps, leggings, cut offs, and anything else she feels comfortable wearing to school."
https://www.rawstory.com/chattanooga-mom/#comments_section_start
'We are in harm's way': Election officials fear for their personal safety
In preparation for a vote on local tax assessments last week in Houghton County, Mich., county clerk Jennifer Kelly took extraordinary precautions, asking election staff in this remote northern Michigan community to record the serial numbers of voting machines, document the unbroken seals on tabulators and note in writing that no one had tampered with the equipment.
In the southeastern part of the state, Michael Siegrist, clerk of Canton Township, followed similar steps, even organizing public seminars to explain how ballots are counted.
Despite their efforts, they said they could not fend off an ongoing torrent of false claims and suspicions about voting procedures that have ballooned since President Donald Trump began his relentless attacks on the integrity of the 2020 election last year.
“People still complained about our Dominion voting machines, about the need for more audits, and most of all they complained about the use of Sharpies,” Siegrist said, referring to the widely used pen, which has become the focus of a conspiracy theory gripping Trump supporters in Arizona and other states.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/election-officials-threats/2021/08/11/bb2cf002-f9ed-11eb-9c0e-97e29906a970_story.html
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More right-wing terrorism
The ancient Persian way to keep cool
From ancient Egypt to the Persian Empire, an ingenious method of catching the breeze kept people cool for millennia. In the search for emissions-free cooling, the "wind catcher" could once again come to our aid.
The city of Yazd in the desert of central Iran has long been a focal point for creative ingenuity. Yazd is home to a system of ancient engineering marvels that include an underground refrigeration structure called yakhchāl, an underground irrigation system called qanats, and even a network of couriers called pirradaziš that predate postal services in the US by more than 2,000 years.
Among Yazd's ancient technologies is the wind catcher, or bâdgir in Persian. These remarkable structures are a common sight soaring above the rooftops of Yazd. They are often rectangular towers, but they also appear in circular, square, octagonal and other ornate shapes.
Yazd is said to have the most wind catchers in the world, though they may have originated in ancient Egypt. In Yazd, the wind catcher soon proved indispensable, making this part of the hot and arid Iranian Plateau livable.
Though many of the city's wind catchers have fallen out of use, the structures are now drawing academics, architects and engineers back to the desert city to see what role they could play in keeping us cool in a rapidly heating world.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210810-the-ancient-persian-way-to-keep-cool
Knox County school board rejects proposal to let superintendent make mask decisions
The Knox County Board of Education rejected a proposal Wednesday to let the superintendent determine whether to require masks in schools.
The proposal was made as cases of the COVID-19 delta variant spike across the country, particularly in regions like East Tennessee with low vaccination rates.
In Knox County Schools, masks are optional, social distancing decisions are made by school principals and nurses are not conducting contact tracing. Federal, state and local health officials support masks for students and staff so schools can continue teaching students in-person as the pandemic continues.
Other districts around the state, including Nashville and Memphis, have put mask mandates in place in an effort to follow scientific guidelines against the delta variant.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/education/2021/08/11/knox-county-school-board-rejects-superintendent-make-mask-decisions/5552379001/
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Perhaps afraid they'll get screamed at like in Franklin, TN, the Knox County School Board lets the maskholes win
Antimasker Ted Cruz sends his kids to a private school with a mandatory mask policy
Texas senator Ted Cruz energetically opposes vaccine and Covid mandates. He even introduced legislation to ban mandates. On Monday Cruz told Fox News, "That means no mask mandates regardless of your vaccination status. That means no vaccine mandates. That means no vaccine passports. And I've introduced legislation, a bill to ban vaccine passports. This week, I'm introducing a bill to ban vaccine mandates, and this week I'm introducing a bill to end mask mandates."
Oddly enough, Cruz's children don't attend public school. They attend a tony private school in Houston, which requires masks regardless of government rules around Covid, or lack of them.
I won't name the school, but here's a screenshot of its face coverings policy, which states, "Due to the current situation in our community, all persons on campus will be required to have a face covering."
So, Senator Cruz, when are you going to remove your kids from this oppressive private school and place them in a public school where the delta flies free?
https://boingboing.net/2021/08/11/antimasker-ted-cruz-sends-his-kids-to-a-private-school-with-a-mandatory-mask-policy.html
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Hypocrite much, RAFAELITO?
Knoxville TN reports 5 ICU beds available in 19 regional hospitals
The Knox County Health Dept. (KCHD) posted daily COVID-19 updates through the last full week of May. Starting on June 2, the COVID-19 case numbers will only be updated here on Wednesdays. KCHD will also stop reporting currently hospitalized patients. That number was manually reported each day by the hospitals, and KCHD said "the local situation no longer requires this level of reporting from our hospital partners."
The numbers may vary slightly from the official state numbers that are released weekly here because of reporting differences.
August 11
There are just 5 total ICU beds available in all 19 regional hospitals, according to new data from KCHD. Current hospitalizations also grew from 230 to 333.
https://www.wbir.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/knox-county-confirmed-corona-virus-cases/51-af7e8663-67de-4a26-be3e-c5c6434ba31a
The guardian of Colorado's Front Range
At the summit of Devil's Head, the highest point in the state of Colorado's Rampart Range in Pike National Forest, Ashley Farinacci-Silfies stood in her lookout tower, gripping a pair of binoculars: "That could be a fire," she said, looking intently into the distance. Shortly afterwards, she realised it was only dust, likely from a dirt bike, mimicking the smoky wisp of a new fire. "Luckily, not this time."
Named for its jagged peak, Devil's Head soars 9,748ft into the sky in the Rampart Range, part of Colorado's Front Range that makes up the easternmost edge of the Rocky Mountains. The mountain offers stunning vistas that extend east towards Kansas, west to the Continental Divide, north to Wyoming and south to Pike's Peak, a popular "fourteener" – mountaineering parlance meaning a mountain over 14,000ft. To preserve the forest's beauty, fire management is crucial.
Employed by the US Forest Service, Farinacci-Silfies is the last remaining fire lookout in Colorado's Front Range, and the Devil's Head Lookout tower is one of only a handful of fire towers in the US that still maintain seasonal operations. Her job, which she has been doing for two seasons, has largely been replaced by technology, such as 360-degree cameras, drones and aircraft equipped with heat sensors used to detect new fire starts. But, according to Farinacci-Silfies, "Technology can't replace me." She points out that forest service teams appreciate the flexibility offered only by humans; our ability to synthesise information and respond to teams on the ground is something that "drones can't do".
Farinacci-Silfies's job as a fire lookout requires her to spend six months of the year living in a remote log cabin accessible only on foot via the Devil's Head trail, a 1.25-mile hike covering 900ft of elevation. However, much of her time is spent in the nearby fire lookout tower, perched atop the terminus of the Devil's Head trail, one of the Denver area's most popular.
Farinacci-Silfies appreciates the novelty of her work, marvelling at the beauty of her surroundings. "Every hour the sun changes, illuminating something different that I haven't seen before."
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210809-the-guardian-of-colorados-front-range
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When I was in college I knew a guy who worked summers in a fire tower in Montana. I didn't realize there were so few left.
Climate change, rising seas may lead to extinction of small island nations
Island nations across the world are warning that they face catastrophic consequences of rising sea levels and possible extinction, after a landmark U.N. report warned of the effects of a warming world.
An alliance of 39 coastal and low-lying nations said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was a "major alert for the world" and called on more powerful countries to do all they can to keep global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius to "save lives and livelihoods."
"We have to turn this around," Diann Black-Layne, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, said in a statement Monday after the IPCC report was released.
"The IPCC confirms the experience of small island states: that cyclones are getting more intense, and that sea levels are rising, but it also confirms we can still curb the worst of it."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-change-rising-seas-may-lead-extinction-small-island-nations-n1276394
Kathy Hochul Will Soon Make History As The First Woman Governor Of New York
Source: NPR
New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will become the state's first woman chief executive, after current Governor Andrew Cuomo steps down on August 24.
Cuomo announced he would resign one week after the state's attorney general, Letitia James, released a scathing report finding that the three-term governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women and created a hostile work environment.
Cuomo said the transition for Hochul to take over "must be seamless." In his resignation announcement on Tuesday, he called her smart and competent and said, "She can come up to speed quickly."
Hochul said she agreed with the governor's decision to step down.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/04/1024678599/cuomo-impeachment-kathy-hochul-new-york
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