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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 9:38:00 GMT -8
Feeling pretty proud of myself. The Sesame Street puzzle I bought said 3-5 years, but I finished it in 18 months.
The US Doesn't Have More Mental Illness Than Other Countries. Just More Guns.
A Michigan State University student who was on campus during Monday's deadly mass shooting is also a survivor of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Newtown, Connecticut native Jaqueline Matthews was in the sixth grade on Dec. 14, 2012, when gunfire erupted at her school in an attack that left 26 dead, including several young children.
At the time, she crouched for so long while hiding from the gunman that her back is permanently injured.
Now a decade later, the 21-year-old international law major and member of the rowing team was watching chaos outside her campus window. After a three-hour-long manhunt, police found the suspect -- identified as 43-year-old Anthony McRae -- dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound off campus. The shootings at two separate on-campus locations left three students dead and five in critical condition as of Tuesday, officials said.
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Emma Riddle had felt this fear before.
It was just past 8:30 Monday night, and the freshman at Michigan State University was in her dorm room, staring at an email on her phone. Shots had been fired on campus.
“Secure-in-Place immediately,” it read. “Run, Hide, Fight.”
Emma, 18, took a screenshot and texted it to her parents.
“I’m sorry babe,” her dad, Matt Riddle, wrote back. “Let’s hope it is nothing.”
His daughter called a few minutes later. It wasn’t nothing.
“There’s an active shooter,” she whispered, hiding beneath her desk, the lights off and the windows covered. “I can’t believe this is happening again.”
On a winter afternoon a little more than a year ago, Emma had been 80 miles east, in the band room at Oxford High School, when someone rushed in, panicked. Something bad was happening. Then an emergency alert blared through the intercom. They had drilled on what to do next for years.
Emma, who played clarinet, waited in terror behind barricaded doors until the students decided to try escaping. A door at the back of the room led out to a field where the marching band practiced. They peeked out into the daylight, then fled.
Dozens of police cars sped by, and helicopters circled overhead. Sprinting through a neighborhood, Emma called her father.
“Dad, there’s an active shooter,” she said, weeping and out of breath. “I’m scared.”
Emma, then a senior, didn’t know that in the building behind her, in the town she’d spent all her life, a 15-year-old sophomore had opened fire, wounding 11 people. Four of them — all teenagers — died, including Justin Shilling, who was a friend.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 9:39:42 GMT -8
The US Doesn't Have More Mental Illness Than Other Countries. Just More Republicans.
Less than a year before a gunman attacked Michigan State University’s campus on Monday, killing three students and injuring five, Republican legislators in the state rejected an opportunity to change gun regulations.
In the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Michigan Democrats attempted to advance bills requiring secure storage of firearms and expanding background checks for gun buyers. Six months earlier, a shooting at Oxford high school near Detroit had also reinvigorated Democratic efforts to change Michigan gun laws. But the gun bills were blocked by Republicans, who controlled both chambers of the state legislature.
After years of thwarted efforts, Michigan Democrats may finally be able to act. In November, the party gained majorities in both chambers of the Michigan legislature for the first time in nearly 40 years, giving them a chance to reconsider the gun proposals that languished under Republican control.
It remains unclear whether the bills previously considered by the legislature might have prevented the mass shooting at Michigan State. Authorities identified the shooter as 43-year-old Anthony McRae, but they declined to offer details on the weapon used in the attack or a potential motive.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 9:51:04 GMT -8
My Two Closest Hospitals are HCA
On Dec. 7, 2021, more than a dozen surgeons convened a meeting at their hospital, HCA Florida Bayonet Point in Hudson, Florida. Their concerns about patient safety at the 290-bed acute care facility owned by HCA Healthcare Inc. had been intensifying for months and the doctors had requested the meeting to push management to address their complaints.
Unsanitary surgical instruments, inadequate monitoring of ICU patients, an overflowing emergency department, anesthesiology errors that resulted in patients waking up while in surgery — all were allegations ripe for discussion.
The meeting soon took an extraordinary turn, four doctors who attended told NBC News. With a hospital administration official on hand to hear the answers, the group was asked two questions. Is the hospital providing a safe environment in which to perform surgery? “No,” everyone in the group answered, according to the four doctors. Is it a dangerous place to practice? “Yes,” came the unanimous reply.
The hospital administrator promised to address the doctors’ issues, attendees told NBC News. But more than a year later, little has changed, they said. A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to comment on the meeting.
HCA Healthcare Inc., owner of Bayonet Point, is America’s largest hospital company, operating 182 hospitals and 125 surgery centers across the nation and in the U.K. HCA is highly profitable — last year it earned $5.6 billion — and its stock is an investor favorite.
But HCA’s laser focus on profits can put its patients at risk as it cuts costs and corners, say seven of the company’s doctors in California, Florida, Texas and Virginia, some of whom reached out to NBC News after our report last month about HCA. Nurses in five states concur. Most of HCA Florida’s that have been rated by the federal agency responsible for Medicare and Medicaid currently rank below average, and state regulators have raised issues about patient care at Bayonet Point at least twice in the past two years.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 9:51:49 GMT -8
The NYT Continues to Mix Excellent Journalism with Garbarge
One outlet continues to face criticism for its ongoing coverage of trans issues, and in my opinion, for good reason. Which one? The good old New York Times. The Times has faced (valid) backlash again and again for publishing op-eds filled to the brim with transphobia and misinformation, and because the Times does have considerable public sway via name recognition alone, the repeated centering of anti-trans voices (even if opinion pieces) unfortunately carries a lot of weight.
But people are really joining together to make a unified stand. On Wednesday, more than 180 contributors to the Times published an open letter calling out the problems with the Times’ coverage, as covered at BuzzFeed News. Signers of the letter include cis, trans, and nonbinary folks who are activists, writers, past and former contributors to the Times, and some major celebrities. The Freelance Solidarity Project (a group of freelance writers) helped write the letter.
Letter writers argue the Times has “platformed cisgender (non-transgender) people spreading inaccurate and harmful misinformation” about trans issues, and that it ultimately damages the paper’s credibility.
“And it is damaging to all LGBTQ people, especially our youth,” the letter continues. “Who say debates about trans equality negatively impact their mental health, which is a contributing factor to the high suicide rates for LGBTQ youth.”
The letter points out that editorial guidelines for the paper require writers to “preserve” a “professional detachment” without bias, yet treat “gender diversity with an eerily familiar mix of pseudoscience and euphemistic, charged language.” The letter also accuses the Times of publishing works that leave out relevant information.
Letter writers include a list of demands, including stopping printing anti-trans stories, actually holding meetings and dialogues with trans community leaders, and hiring at least four openly trans writers and editors within the next three months.
Letter writers also point out the paper’s less-than-ideal history when it comes to queer issues. Yes: The HIV/AIDS crisis. The letter references “hateful rhetoric” and the rise of the term “patient zero.”
“This is the same rhetoric that transphobic policymakers recently reintroduced to the American lawmaking apparatus,” by quoting an article from the Times, the letter argues.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 10:00:13 GMT -8
Still, Bakhmut Holds
We’re at least three weeks into the latest round of “Bakhmut is going to fall any moment.” Still, Bakhmut holds. In fact, it’s worth taking a look at the Bakhmut area again this morning because Ukrainian forces there have done more than just hold. In at least one area—the area that may be the most critical to sustaining the city—Russia’s line of control has been moved back significantly.
There are so many different spins on the idea that Russia has already launched, is now launching, or soon will launch some new offensive that the idea has lost a lot of meaning. Two weeks ago, we complained that the handwringing over a new Russian offensive in the north, or is it south, or maybe at Donetsk, had already become so vague and ill-defined that it was was becoming more of a distraction to planning rather than a guide.
There’s little sign that Russia is capable of any tactics other than the ones it has used at all times and in all situations throughout the invasion: High-cost, low success rate probing attacks, where those occasions when they do win are used to establish new positions for artillery. Then artillery pounds everything in reach as the process starts over.
Meanwhile
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 10:00:39 GMT -8
Proposition 8 Must Die!
A pair of state lawmakers have introduced a proposal that would enshrine marriage equality in California, and repeal from its constitution the discriminatory 2008 measure that recognized “only marriage between a man and a woman.” Even after numerous court rulings—notably the Supreme Court’s landmark 2015 decision recognizing marriage equality nationally—the initiative remains on the books.
Passage of state Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblyman Evan Low’s proposal seems like a no-brainer in a state with a Democratic supermajority. But just like Proposition 8 was passed by voters, it would also need to be repealed by voters.
Should two-thirds of the state legislature approve the proposal, it would once again need to go in front of voters. With the most extreme faction of the already right-wing Supreme Court publicizing its wish list to strike down key rights, the lawmakers say it’s time for the state to strike the bigoted language from the state constitution once and for all.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 10:01:54 GMT -8
Yet Ukranians Die Every Day
Russia has already 'lost' the war in Ukraine as the one-year anniversary of its brutal invasion approaches, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley said in Brussels Tuesday.
Milley spoke amid warnings of a renewed Russian offensive, with allies seeking to rush modern weapons and ammunition to Ukrainian forces – who have been battling Russian forces who have been slowly gaining ground around Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region.
'Russia is now a global pariah and the world remains inspired by Ukrainian bravery and resilience. In short, Russia has lost — they've lost strategically, operationally, and tactically,' said Milley.
'Ukraine remains free, they remain independent. NATO and this coalition has never been stronger,' he said.
The U.S. and NATO allies have rushed billions in military aide to Ukraine, and long-neutral Finland applied for NATO membership following Russia's invasion of its neighbor.
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 10:06:15 GMT -8
Newsmax: "To Wit" ??
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Post by mhbruin on Feb 15, 2023 10:08:17 GMT -8
Freight Train, Freight Train, Going So Fast
Trains are becoming less safe. Why the Ohio derailment disaster could happen more often
In 2013, a train derailment and subsequent fire in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people and required all but three downtown buildings to be demolished for safety reasons. The following year, a derailment in Casselton, North Dakota, spilled nearly 500,000 gallons of crude oil and caused $13.5 million in damage, prompting the Obama administration to push for a new safety rule to govern the transportation of hazardous materials, avoid environmental disasters and save lives.
The effort to create a new safety rule was fought by industry lobbyists, including Norfolk Southern Corp., the Atlanta-based company whose train derailed in eastern Ohio and spilled chemicals earlier this month, leaving residents in East Palestine worried about their air, soil and water quality.
When the safety rule was issued in 2015, however, it was narrowly crafted and required only electronically controlled brakes – which applies braking simultaneously across a train rather than railcar by railcar over a span of seconds – to be installed by 2023. It applied only to certain “high-hazard flammable trains” carrying at least 20 consecutive loaded cars filled with liquids like crude oil.
The Trump administration repealed the rule three years later, stating that its cost exceeded the benefits.
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