Welcome
Greetings to all you Gnusies, Gnewbies, occasional drop-ins, silent regulars, and first-timers! Come sit with us to find and share messages of hope and to celebrate all the ways good people are triumphing over the evil-doers in power. The task we have set ourselves here in Gnuville is to search out hope no matter how difficult the situation might be. Fortunately, hope is not hard to find now, but this has been a long slog and we need to guard against getting worn out.
As always, this roundup is a pot-luck, so please share your own contribution in the comments, which we consider to be The Best Comment Section on the Internet™.
Introductory thoughts
I’ve been noticing lately that I’m getting emotionally and mentally tired and am much more prone to feeling discouraged than usual. I think this is due to several factors, starting with having had to deal with almost four years of the horrors inflicted on us by the Mobster-in-Chief and his Greedy Obsequious Poltroon enablers. Add to that the social deprivation and fear caused by the pandemic. And finally — surprisingly — factor in how close we are to Election Day. My musician husband is fond of saying, “The last hour is half the gig,” and I think that pretty much nails this phenomenon.
So if you’re feeling the same way (and based on some comments I’ve seen lately, I think a few of you are), let’s make a promise to each other to keep our spirits and energy buoyed up. If you aren’t yet writing Postcards to Voters or letters for Vote Forward, please sign up. If you haven’t contacted your local Indivisible chapter, please look them up and see what you can do to help build the Blue Tsunami locally. If you really, really can’t afford the time but can afford to make some donations, check out Mattrek’s amazing Flip Everything Google doc and get inspired to help out down-ballot Dems all over the country. Follow DKos hero Yosef 52 for the latest in GOTV strategies. And of course, make as big a donation as you can to Biden — judging from his most recent ads, his campaign will use your money wisely. Finally, if you need more enthusiasm for Biden, become a regular reader of Goodie’s inspiring series, 100 Days of Loving Joe Biden.
I’ll close this intro with one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs, brought to us by Playing for Change musicians from all over the world.
Lovers keep on lovin'
Believers keep on believin'
Sleepers just stop sleepin'
Cause it won't be too long
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Good news in politics
Joe Biden’s ads are terrific
Amazingly, it looks like the Dems have awakened and discovered that it’s possible to craft more powerful political ads than the snoozy wishy-washy ones we used to despair over. Here’s my favorite recent Biden ad:
And the Lincoln Project ads continue to knock it out of the park.
Headed to the Convention? Not I, More Republicans Are Saying
Moving the RNC from North Carolina to Florida has proven to be another idiotic move by the Self-Owner-in-Chief.
From the NY Times:
Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri and Pat Roberts of Kansas are planning to skip the Republican National Convention next month as the host state of Florida deals with the biggest outbreak of coronavirus cases in the nation.
Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Francis Rooney of Florida are sticking with their plans not to attend, even though the convention is now in their home state.
Marco Rubio, Florida’s senior senator, has not committed to attending. Neither has John Thune of South Dakota, the second-ranking Senate Republican, or Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican.
As new cases surge in Florida, including 15,300 reported on Sunday, more Republicans are taking a wait-and-see approach to the event, or deciding to skip it all together. The G.O.P., which moved the convention to Jacksonville from Charlotte, N.C., after balking at health precautions there, now finds itself locked into a state with a far bigger virus problem, and planning an event whose attendance is waning as the pandemic escalates.
“Everybody just assumes no one is going,” said Representative Darin LaHood of Illinois, an honorary state co-chairman for the Trump campaign.
And in a perfect snarky addendum:
RNC Floats Brilliant Plan For Outdoor Convention. In Florida. In August.
By Liz Dye on Wonkette:
Who wants to hang out with ten thousand MAGAts in 90 degree heat and one thousand percent humidity listening to Don Jr. barf out rancid nonsense about his father? How about if half the crowd refused to wear a mask, because their real daddy is Q, not that pansy Anthony Fauci?
Wait, where are you going?
Just six weeks ago President Shitmidas blew up two years of work and $38 million in donor cash, stomping out of North Carolina after Gov. Roy Cooper refused to guarantee that the GOP could hold a mask-free nominating convention in Charlotte sans social distancing. Because if the Gippers can't belch clouds of COVID into each other's faces, then the terrorists win!
So the president and the RNC decamped for Jacksonville, Florida, where Trump's little buddy Ron DeSantis would be only too delighted to host a superspreader event, no questions asked. Then Florida's covid numbers spiked, which is HOLY GOD HORRIBLE!, and too late the RNC realized they'd have been better off staying in North Carolina, which is HILARIOUS!
And now all the Gippers are remembering that they have to stay home and put the relaxer on their home perms on August 23, so they must regretfully decline the invitation to sweat with the oldies in Jacksonville.
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Naturally, Maggie Haberman got the inside scoop on the new agenda coming out of the White House.
Officials met Monday night to discuss shifting the events of Aug. 25, 26, and 27 out of the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, where the indoor program was scheduled to take place, including President Trump's acceptance speech on the final night. The two outdoor options they've been examining are near the arena, the people familiar with the discussions said.
Mr. Trump often shifts positions, and officials emphasized that the plans could change.
"Shifts position" being Timestalk for "is a rapidly degenerating lunatic who yanks the rug out from under his employees on the daily.”
Wild poll out of Texas finds Black Lives Matter more popular than the NRA in the Lone Star State
Wow. Just wow. Let’s hear it for BLUE TEXAS!!
By Joshua Holland on Raw Story:
I’m a strong believer in paying attention to the polling averages rather than obsessing over individual polls, but rules are meant to be broken and a survey released on Sunday by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas, Tyler has some internal numbers that are worth digging into. …
Most reports focus on the topline numbers, which have Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by five points, 48-43. …
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But it’s when you dig a little deeper that it becomes clear that all the talk about Texas becoming a purple state isn’t just wishful thinking:
- Texans would favor a generic Democrat over a generic Republican for the Texas state lege, 52-47.
- A plurality of Texans hold a favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement, with 43 percent viewing it positively and 34 percent seeing it negatively.
- That’s better than the NRA, at 35/34.
- The Tea Party movement is also viewed favorably by a smaller share of respondents than BLM, at 35 percent. (Only 23 percent view that movement unfavorably, however, with a lot of people holding a neutral position on the Astroturf campaign.)
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The poll surveyed 1,677 likely voters, by phone and online, and has a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points. Forty-two percent of respondents identified as Republicans, 29 percent as Democrats and 19 percent as “neither.”
Government Rescinds Plan to Strip Visas From Foreign Students in Online Classes
Bunker Boy has caved again!
From the NY Times:
The Trump administration has walked back a policy that would strip international college students of their U.S. visas if their coursework was entirely online, ending a proposed plan that had thrown the higher education world into turmoil.
The policy announced on July 6 prompted an immediate lawsuit from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and on Tuesday, the government and the universities reached a resolution, according to the judge overseeing the case.
Under the agreement, which was announced by the judge, the Trump administration is reinstating a policy that had been put into place in March amid the coronavirus pandemic that gives international students flexibility to take all their classes online and remain legally in the country with a student visa.
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Good news from the Pacific Northwest
Washington city helps residents, merchants with wooden money
This is my favorite story of the past two weeks. What a terrific idea! Don’t you wish more small towns — or even neighborhoods — would do this? The scrip wouldn’t necessarily have to be made of wood.
From AP:
The blue-cheese salad dressing, butter, ground turkey, cans of grain-free dog food and new toothbrush came to $24.97.
Laurie Mahlenbrei handed the cashier a slice of wood marked $25, and walked out.
The wooden currency is good only in the small city of Tenino, Washington, part of an effort to help residents and local merchants alike get through the economic fallout of the pandemic. Decades after it created a similar program during the Great Depression, the city is dipping into its emergency accounts to give people in need up to $300 per month in wooden currency to spend.
Just about every business in town, from the gas station and auto-body shop to Don Juan’s Mexican Kitchen, is accepting the wooden scrip. The currency, made of maple veneer, is about the thickness, size and flexibility of an index card and printed on the same 1890s-era press that once printed the Depression currency and the local newspaper. It can’t be used for alcohol, tobacco or marijuana.
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“The city could have given out debit cards or cash, but we don’t know where that money is going to go,” said Tyler Whitworth, past president of the local chamber of commerce. “This is one of the ways we could keep the money here in the community.”
[Portland-based] Meyer Memorial Trust announces $25 million initiative to support Black lives in Oregon
Meyer Trust’s track record of effective grant-making in Oregon is excellent, so I have high hopes for this new initiative.
From the Oregonian:
Meyer Memorial Trust launched a five-year, $25 million initiative Tuesday to advance racial justice and equity in Oregon.
“Justice Oregon,” which is set to be the largest initiative in the trust’s 38-year history, was formed in the wake of two months of nationwide demonstrations in response to the horrific death of George Floyd…
“Justice is not simply an ideal; it is something Oregonians should expect to see in our everyday lives,” said Michelle J. DePass, president and CEO of Meyer Memorial Trust, in a statement. “In a state founded on anti-Black and anti-Indigenous bigotry, Meyer is explicitly acknowledging the history and present conditions that foster injustice by targeting strategic investments in the lives of Black Oregonians.”
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According to the organization, the dedicated funding will be aimed at deepening support for Black-centered organizations, uplifting a just system of public safety and investing in strategic change across the state. Future grants could go toward “reimagining public safety, prosecutorial reform efforts, wealth-building, sustained cross-racial and cross-issue progressive movement and the transformative work of changing hearts and minds by countering hate, injustice and dismantling anti-Blackness.”
Black Resilience Fund update
I’ve been sharing with you the story of this initiative, created from the ground up by a Black Portlander, for several weeks now. Today I can share a lovely video about it. The generosity of our community isn’t slowing down: since May 31st, the fund has received $1,128,300 in donations.
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Random Portland fun news
Introducing the Pix-O-Matic!
Pix Patisserie is the best in Portland, a city that has more than its share of excellent pastry chefs. Chef-owner Cheryl Wakerhauser figured out a very cool way to offer her treats in a hands-off way that has the further advantage of being available 24/7. Brilliant!
Introducing Pix-O-Matic, the 24 hour contactless vending machine of Pix desserts, macarons, conservas from Bar Vivant and other random stuff to make you smile (because who couldn’t use a smile these days?)
Now, you can get your Pix fix anytime craving strikes. Just visit the new refrigerated vending machine outside the Pix front door. The Pix-O-Matic will be thoroughly cleaned and restocked each day at 10AM with your favorite tasty treats. Make your selection and pay with the contactless credit card reader. Enjoy our Covid-19 playlist and party lights while you shop. Need a last minute birthday treat? The Pix-O-Matic has got your back. There’s even sparklers in the rotating selection.
But wait, there’s more! From time to time we will also feature a pop-up in the Pix-O-Matic. Restaurants or producers of craft products will take over sections of the Pix-O-Matic to sell their goods for a period of 3 to 7 days. ... Follow @pixpatisserie on social media to stay in the know … .
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Good news from around the country
CDC Employees Call Out Agency's 'Toxic Culture Of Racial Aggressions’
From NPR:
More than 1,200 current employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have signed a letter calling for the federal agency to address "ongoing and recurring acts of racism and discrimination" against Black employees, NPR has learned.
In the letter, addressed to CDC Director Robert Redfield and dated June 30, the authors put their call for change in the context of the coronavirus pandemic's disproportionate impact on Black people and the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks. NPR obtained a copy of the letter, which is published below.
"In light of the recent calls for justice across this country and around the world, we, as dedicated public health professionals, can no longer stay silent to the widespread acts of racism and discrimination within CDC that are, in fact, undermining the agency's core mission," the letter reads.
Converting Prisons Into Farms, Community Centers, and Shelters
From Freethink:
Across the U.S., some prisons, jails, and detention centers are being converted from facilities that confine people into ones that support them.
U.S. inmates are currently being housed in more than 5,000 prisons and jails across the country, but even as new correctional facilities are being built, others are closing due to budget constraints, crumbling infrastructure, and a slowly declining inmate population.
Some of those former prisons and jails have been converted into condos, breweries, or luxury hotels. But others are on the path to becoming mental health clinics, community centers, and homes for former convicts — and the three highlighted below have already made the transition into places that serve their communities.
The three highlighted programs are Growing Change (a program for at-risk youth already celebrated in a previous GNR); Grace Marketplace, a shelter and service center for Gainesville FL's homeless population; and the LOFT Legacy Teen Center in Arizona.
Communities consider replacing racist statues with those who fought for justice
From AP via American Independent:
As monuments and statues fall across the United States, activists and towns are left wondering what to do with empty spaces that once honored historic figures such as Confederate generals and Spanish conquistadors. They also are debating how to remember civil rights figures and events in areas where they have been forgotten.
The opportunity to reimagine spaces has created a debate: Whose history should the United States now honor and why? Should anything go on those empty podiums at all?
Some advocates say monuments to the late U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan or Mexican American civil rights leader Dolores Huerta should replace the toppled statues. Others say World War II Marine Sgt. Miguel Trujillo Sr., a member of the Isleta Pueblo who sued to get Native Americans the right to vote in New Mexico, or former slave-turned-abolitionist Olaudah Equiano should have monuments erected in their honor. Christy Symington, a London-based sculptor, has already created an image of Equiano that some advocates say should be replicated in now-empty spaces.
Scientists Generate Electrical Field That Can Help Repair Fractured Bones
This is quite amazing.
From the Good News Network:
...doctors may, in the near future, be able to repair broken bones by encasing the fracture in a field of electricity, which would be especially welcome for treating body parts, such as the skull, where casts don’t work.
A group of biomedical engineers from the University of Connecticut have invented a scaffold of non-toxic polymer that also generates a controllable electrical field to encourage bone growth. The researchers published a paper in Nano Energy after using their device to cure skull fractures in mice.
The scaffold mimics the natural electric field produced by our bodies, a characteristic called piezoelectric, meaning to generate electricity from vibrations, and can be affixed over the damaged bone without significant surgery.
The patient can wave an ultrasound wand over the area to stimulate the generation of electricity and, unlike similar existing machines that are bulky and require electricity from a power outlet or batteries, the device is lightweight and generates the field via ultrasound.
The polymer from which the device is made is non-toxic and gradually dissolves in the body over time, disappearing as the new bone grows.
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Musical break
DKos member gardnerhill posted this in the comments in last Friday’s Cheers and Jeers. I’d never heard it before, and I loved it so much I decided to add it to today’s music. It’s a song that Irish singer-songwriter Hozier wrote in honor of Nina Simone, Mavis Staples, and other Black musicians who spoke up and sang out for justice, and he got Mavis to sing it with him. You can read the back story of this song here. Hozier calls it “a thank you note to the spirit of protest”:
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Good news from around the world
Germany promises record contribution to the WHO
This is great news in light of the COVIDiot stripping U.S. funding from the WHO.
From Deutsche Welle, via Future Crunch:
Germany will contribute more than €500 million ($561 million) in funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) this year, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Thursday.
"We stand together in fighting global health problems," Spahn said at a press conference in Geneva, adding that the aid infusion amounted to Germany's highest-ever annual contribution to the WHO.
"We need a strong, transparent and accountable WHO today more than ever," he said. "A WHO able to lead and coordinate the global response effort."
The WHO is dependent on donations and membership contributions from its 194 member states, along with donations by international organizations and private donors.
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The new support package must first be approved by Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, Spahn said, adding that the government is very optimistic that the proposed infusion will be passed by the beginning of July.
Amazon India scraps single-use plastic in packaging across centers
Can we get Amazon to do this in the U.S.??
From Reuters:
The Indian unit of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has eliminated all single-use plastic in its packaging across fulfillment centers in the country, in line with its target to weed out the packaging material by June, the e-commerce giant said on Monday.
The company said in addition to replacing packaging materials such as bubble wraps and air pillows with “paper cushions”, it had also swapped out packaging tapes with other bio-degradable options.
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Amazon, often criticised for using too much plastic and thermocol to wrap its billions of packages of shipments, had said last September that its India unit would replace single-use plastic in its packaging by June 2020.
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Last October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called on citizens to help end the usage of single-use plastic - seen as a pollutant - by 2022.
The Asian country of 1.3 billion does not have an organized system for management of plastic waste, leading to extensive littering. Many Indian cities rank among the world’s most polluted, and waste generated from single-use plastic has been a growing problem.
Walmart Inc’s (WMT.N) India e-commerce unit Flipkart, a local rival to Amazon, said last month that it had cut down the usage of plastic packaging in its own supply chain to about 50%.
Ex-Guerrillas Turn into Citizen Scientists Using Their Knowledge of the Colombian Jungle to Protect Biodiversity
From the Good News Network:
After 2016, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government, scientists realized that it was suddenly safe to explore the rainforests, mountains, and savannas from which FARC waged a 50-year guerrilla war—and these areas are counted among the most biodiverse and least-explored places on earth.
A few biologists who longed to journey to the heart of these places also seized the opportunity as the perfect way to bring 14,000 former guerrillas back into society in a meaningful way that could benefit not only them, but the country’s stunning biodiversity.
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Who better to help protect Colombia’s wild spaces than those who know them best, pondered Jaime Góngora, a wildlife geneticist at the University of Sydney who is originally from Colombia.
Góngora now leads a group of researchers from the United Kingdom, Australia, and 10 different Colombian scientific institutions in a program that trains ex‑guerrillas to study Colombia’s native plants and animals—a program which to date has uncovered nearly 100 previously-unknown species.
Wildflower corridor scheme launched to boost insect numbers in England
From Positive News:
B-Lines [is an] online map [that] joins the dots between existing wildflower habitats in England and identifies suitable routes between them that could be turned into wildflower corridors for pollinators.
The map was launched by the conservation charity Buglife, which is calling on farmers, businesses, public bodies and individuals to plant wildflowers along its B-Lines network in a bid to restore habitats that pollinators depend on.
England has lost an estimated 97 per cent of its wildflower meadows since the second world war. This rampant habitat loss has had a catastrophic effect on butterflies, hoverflies and bees, with numbers of some species estimated to have fallen by 80 per cent in recent years.
“A complete England B-Lines network is a real landmark step in our mission to reverse insect declines and lend a helping hand to our struggling pollinators,” said Catherine Jones, Pollinator Officer at Buglife. “We hope that organisations and people across England will help with our shared endeavour to create thousands of hectares of new pollinator-friendly wildflower habitats along the B-Lines.”
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Weird world news
Pub adds electric fence to remind customers of social distancing
From ABC News:
...while table service, sanitizing stations and one-way systems have become essential to the pub experience, one landlord has gone one step further to protect staff and customers: the installation an electric fence.
"If I had put a little bit of rope there, I don't think anybody would have taken this much attention," he said. "I run a very small bar. Everybody is accustomed to sitting at the bar, pushing at the bar. They can't do that now. Things have changed."
McFadden said he'd been assured the fence was completely legal if adequate warnings are provided, and while the fence is switched off, customers still had the "fear factor" to make sure they comply with the government's guidance on social distancing.
"There is a serious point to it," McFadden said. "We've all got to keep social distancing."
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Animals
Baby wombats are charming!
And so are foxes! Our friend buglady99 posted this in a comment recently. It's too wonderful not to re-post.
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Inspiring video for today
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Hot lynx
www.wonkette.com/...Bari Weiss Self-Deports From New York Times. Stephen Robinson has fun with the departure of whiny conservative drama queen Bari Weiss from the NYT. Don’t miss the comments!
www.rawstory.com/...Here is how the 99% can force the 1% to defeat COVID-19. An interesting long piece focused on worker activism.
www.rawstory.com/...‘Irish slaves’: Historian destroys racist myth right wingers love to share on Facebook. I wasn’t aware that racist RWNJs like to diminish the horrors of slavery by conflating it with indentured servitude. Here’s a deep dive.
www.goodnewsnetwork.org/...Wild Bison Are Returning to England’s Forests For First Time in 6,000 Years. This article is very informative on the subject of why bison are a “keystone species” for renewing forest ecology. BTW, the bison being reintroduced in England are a European subspecies from Poland and the Netherlands.
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Closing music
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Thanks to each and every Gnusie for your smarts, your hearts, and
your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.
❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE! 💙❤️