Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalSeeking redemption for aged and infirm prisoners amid Alabama's high bar for parole
Doug Layton, Jr. proudly takes a visitor on an after-hours tour at the glass shop where he works just outside Birmingham, Ala. Layton has been here less than a year but has been given the responsibility for locking things up at the end of the day.
"I haven't felt that since I was like 15 or 16 — where somebody just really trusts me," he says.
Layton is 56, and spent nearly 20 years in prison for reckless murder in a hit and run killing. With prior felony convictions, he was sentenced to life in prison. He had a clean record behind bars, and worked for 5 years at a work release camp. So when he was up for parole in 2021, he was hopeful he might get out. But even with support from the victim's mother, he was denied parole.
"What kind of message is that sending to somebody that's trying so hard to focus on their life, their character, their remorse, everything?"
Layton says repeated parole denials rip the hope out of incarcerated people, leading to more desperate conditions.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/11/1217710630/prison-parole-alabama-redemption-earned-prisoners-release
It's ridiculous to keep some of these people in prison. Read on....
National Park Service Teaming Up With Tribes To Tell 'More Complete Story' Of U.S. History
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Wednesday that the National Park Service is launching an initiative with Native American tribes to tell “a more complete story of American history” at the country’s 428 national park sites.
“I want to talk about how we tell our stories,” Haaland, who is the first Indigenous U.S. Cabinet secretary, said in remarks at the White House Tribal Nations Summit.
“There are parts of our history that are painful, but they do not define us,” she said. “We define ourselves by the world we collectively build for current and future generations. It is up to all of us to tell our stories. And not just the stories of the bad times — but of those that we celebrate. Those that show our resilience, our strength and our contributions.”
In that vein, Haaland announced that the park service is teaming up with tribes and academics for a theme study on the Indian Reorganization Period, “one of the most consequential periods of our history.” The centerpiece of this era, which spanned from the 1930s to the 1950s, was the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act — a federal law also referred to as the Indian New Deal that enabled tribal self-government and focused on improving the economic and social conditions of Native Americans.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-park-service-native-american-tribes-history_n_6571f7d0e4b001ec86a72ba1
I can hear the redhatters screaming now!
Most Funeral Homes Don't Know How To Bury Muslims. These Women Want To Change That.
More than a dozen women watch closely as Ida Khalil measures the length of the mannequin lying on the white table in front of her, stretching the palm of her hand and moving up from the figure’s toes to its head.
She then measures and cuts the white shroud, the garment in which Muslims are wrapped when they are buried — three pieces of cloth for men and five for women. Muslims traditionally aren’t buried in caskets, a practice connected to the belief that everyone is equal in death and no one takes along any of the possessions, status or wealth they may have accumulated in life.
Khalil’s voice, confident and clear, reverberates in the room as she explains the rituals of how to wash and wrap a body according to the Islamic tradition. She wears blue medical gloves and a medical apron over her long black abaya, a loose garment worn by Muslim women, that she paired with a keffiyeh-print hijab. Behind her are the Palestinian and American flags, representing the large Palestinian American community in the town.
The women in the audience tilt their heads with Khalil’s every move, some taking detailed notes, others recording the demonstration on their phones. Some of the women came alone, while others came in pairs, including mothers and daughters. The women ― some in their early 20s, others in their 80s, and still others of every age in between ― sit in neat rows of folding chairs at this cultural center, their jackets hanging off the backs of seats. The sun sets, and a chilly fall wind hits the doors.
Khalil is here because she believes it’s critical for the next generation of Muslim women to learn how to wash bodies. Otherwise, she worries, the tradition may be forgotten. In Islam, death is seen not as an end but rather as a transition from one lifetime to another. It’s not a taboo subject, and Muslims are encouraged to prepare for death to come at any moment, including by learning the related traditions, rituals and spiritual elements through the Islamic faith.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/muslim-burial-tradition-washing-bodies_n_6570cb35e4b0a10def8b50ce
This is similar to how we Orthodox bury our dead.
World War Two: When 600 US planes crashed in Himalayas
Since 2009, Indian and American teams have scoured the mountains in India's north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, looking for the wreckage and remains of lost crews of hundreds of planes that crashed here over 80 years ago.
Some 600 American transport planes are estimated to have crashed in the remote region, killing at least 1,500 airmen and passengers during a remarkable and often-forgotten 42-month-long World War Two military operation in India. Among the casualties were American and Chinese pilots, radio operators and soldiers.
The operation sustained a vital air transport route from the Indian states of Assam and Bengal to support Chinese forces in Kunming and Chunking (now called Chongqing).
The war between Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the US, the Soviet Union, China) had reached the north-eastern part of British-ruled India. The air corridor became a lifeline following the Japanese advance to India's borders, which effectively closed the land route to China through northern Myanmar (then known as Burma).
The US military operation, initiated in April 1942, successfully transported 650,000 tonnes of war supplies across the route - an achievement that significantly bolstered the Allied victory.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-67633928
One of my favorite home health patients flew The Hump. Boy, did he have some stories to tell!
Colorado medical team cut 65-year-old Lakota man's hair without permission, family says
A police investigation is underway after the family of a Lakota man said staff members at a Colorado hospital cut the 65-year-old’s hair without permission.
Members of UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital “lied” about having a video that allegedly showed the medical center was not at fault for cutting Arthur Janis’ hair, a regent of the University of Colorado said.
Arthur Janis is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, for whom hair is sacred from the moment of birth. It is significant in many sacred rites — such as the Keeping of the Soul, Arthur Janis’ brother, Keith Janis, said.
“Each of the strands is the power of you and represents your power as a Lakota individual,” he said. “It’s also a memorial to our loved ones that we’re leaving behind. … In any part of the hemisphere here, Indigenous people’s hair is sacred to them.”
Keith Janis contends that workers at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital neglected “basic hygiene” for his brother, whom he says suffered a stroke at the facility, leaving him unable to comb or wash his own hair.
Hospital spokesperson Dan Weaver said members of Arthur Janis’ care team had to trim his hair to address a medical concern, and said the hospital conducted its own “extensive” investigation into the allegations.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/colorado-medical-team-cut-65-year-old-lakota-mans-hair-permission-fami-rcna128898
I was taught in nursing school that you do not EVER cut a patient's hair without the patient's or the family's permission. It's considered assault if you do. There are shampoo caps that make it possible to wash a patient's hair and then you can rinse and dry it. I know. I've done it.
3 UNLV faculty members were killed in the Las Vegas campus shooting
A gunman who opened fire at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Wednesday killed three faculty members and left one injured, the university said.
On Thursday, the university identified two of the victims as Patricia Navarro-Velez, 39, of Las Vegas and Cha-Jan "Jerry" Chang, 64, of Henderson, Nev. — both professors in the business school. On Friday, the Clark County coroner's office identified the third person killed: Naoko Takemaru, 69, of Las Vegas, who oversaw UNLV's Japanese Studies program.
UNLV said another faculty member, who was not identified, remains hospitalized.
On Friday, the university announced that next week's scheduled in-person final exams have been cancelled, but said it has decided to proceed with commencement ceremonies Dec. 19-20.
"The milestone moment of commencement is the most special day on the university calendar, and it's in difficult times like these that we can and should celebrate our graduates' academic dreams fulfilled," UNLV President Keith Whitfield wrote.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/07/1217832246/unlv-shooting-las-vegas-update
Very interesting that they were all people of color. I suppose this was part of his grievance too.
'Save Sarasota, Deport the Zieglers': Locals Want Couple Out
Last Sunday evening, contemporary worship music filled a Sarasota Baptist church while actors in shepherd robes led a llama, sheep, and donkey to a living Nativity scene. On stage, choir members sat on risers for the congregation’s annual “Singing Christmas Tree Spectacular,” forming a dazzling 25-foot-tall human conifer.
But one prominent couple caught the attention of some revelers that night, and it wasn’t the people playing Mary and Joseph.
“A few people were like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe they’re here,’” one patron at the event told The Daily Beast. “They duped everybody. They aren’t who they say they are.
“And if you’re going to be that bold, you better live it.”
The unexpected guests were Republican power couple Bridget and Christian Ziegler, who until last week enjoyed a life of MAGA celebrities as a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and the Florida GOP’s chairman, respectively—until a three-way sex scandal and Sarasota police probe mangled their image as the epitome of conservative family values.
Now the Zieglers, widely perceived by critics as right-wing anti-LGBTQ crusaders, have all but been run out of town.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sarasota-residents-want-maga-couple-bridget-and-christian-ziegler-gone-after-rape-threesome-allegations?ref=home
With bison herds and ancestral seeds, Indigenous communities embrace food sovereignty
Behind American Indian Hall on the Montana State University campus, ancient life is growing.
Six-foot-tall corn plants tower over large green squash and black-and-yellow sunflowers. Around the perimeter, stalks of sweetgrass grow. The seeds for some of these plants grew for millennia in Native Americans' gardens along the upper Missouri River.
It's one of several Native American ancestral gardens growing in the Bozeman area, totaling about an acre. Though small, the garden is part of a larger, multifaceted effort around the country to promote "food sovereignty" for reservations and tribal members off reservation, and to reclaim aspects of Native American food and culture that flourished in North America for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers.
Restoring bison to reservations, developing community food gardens with ancestral seeds, understanding and collecting wild fruits and vegetables, and learning how to cook tasty meals with traditional ingredients are all part of the movement.
"We are learning to care for plant knowledge, growing Indigenous gardens, cultivating ancestral seeds, really old seeds from our relatives the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara: corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers," said Jill Falcon Ramaker, an assistant professor of community nutrition and sustainable food systems at Montana State. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Anishinaabe.
"A lot of what we are doing here at the university is cultural knowledge regeneration," she said.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/12/09/1217920232/buffalo-seed-native-american-food-diet
Texas attorney general says he will sue doctor who gives abortion to Kate Cox
The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, has threatened to prosecute any doctor who provides an abortion to Kate Cox, a woman with a non-viable pregnancy, advising hospitals to ignore a court order issued on Thursday allowing her to get the procedure.
The rightwing Paxton issued the warning to three Houston-area hospitals after a Texas judge ruled this week that Cox, a pregnant woman with a lethal fetal diagnosis, may obtain an abortion under the narrow medical exceptions offered by the state bans.
In a brazen dismissal of the court’s decision, Paxton wrote that the judge’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors or anyone else from civil and criminal liability”.
Paxton also wrote that the hospital where Cox obtains an abortion “may be liable for negligent credentialing the physician” who performs the procedure.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/08/ken-paxton-texas-abortion-kate-cox
Hey Ken---Go to hell. Go straight to hell. Do not pass go, or any of the rest of it. Just go. NOW! You sanctimonious bastard.
'They're trying to kill me': Hunter Biden talks with Moby about the rightwing vendetta against him
Hunter Biden has told the pop star Moby in the first of a two-part podcast interview that the right wing is trying to “kill me” by harassing him to relapse into drug addiction in an effort to sink his father’s presidency.
The day after a second set of criminal charges was filed against the US president’s son, this time for tax issues, the interview had Biden describing his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction after the death of his mother, his sister and most recently his beloved brother Beau, and his pride in getting sober four years ago.
“The hard part, the excruciatingly difficult thing to do, is to maintain that when you are literally the focus of a hatred and an intensity that is both specific and global,” Biden said.
Recorded at Biden’s painting studio in San Francisco before the new indictments were filed, Biden told Moby – a friend and fellow recovering addict – about his shame at feeling like the Biden family “fuck-up”, and how he drank and used drugs to mask it.
He also described being doxed – having his personal information and address published – by the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post, which led to Trump supporters wearing Maga hats shouting through bullhorns outside his house while his wife was eight months pregnant.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/08/hunter-biden-moby-interview-addiction-far-right
This is appalling and disgusting in the extreme.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Virginia
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