Manchester church's 95-foot bell tower in danger of collapse - The Union Leader

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

Facing danger from on high, a Manchester Catholic church has temporarily shut its doors after experts warned that the church’s bell tower is in danger of collapse.

The St. Anthony of Padua Church — one of the centerpieces of Manchester’s Hallsville neighborhood — has moved offices and Masses to its nearby school building. Meanwhile, the Manchester Public Works Department has closed the sidewalk and a portion of Belmont Street in front of the church.

City officials have told the Diocese of Manchester it must remove the church tower as soon as possible.

Cracks and crumbling concrete have closed St. Anthony of Padua Church on Belmont Street in Manchester.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

“I can’t say it’s not a danger. We are taking it seriously,” said Karl Franck, plans examiner for the city of Manchester, who has been part of discussions about the bell tower. He said the Diocese of Manchester brought the problem to the city’s attention on Aug. 16.

No date has been set for the tower to be torn down.

“The emotions are mixed, like anything else. Surprise is the right word,” said the church pastor, the Very Rev. Richard Dion, as he darted into the rectory to grab some materials. He cannot stay in the rectory, which is just feet from the tower.

Tom Flanagan walks Abby in front of St. Anthony of Padua on Belmont Street on their morning walk in Manchester on Monday. Cracks in the building's tower have forced the church to move its services.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

He said the problem should be kept in perspective — it can’t compare to Afghanistan or Hurricane Ida.

“By the grace of God we will repair what we can and move on,” Dion said.

The bell tower is 95 feet high, topped by a cross that rises an additional 10 feet.

It overlooks the Hallsville area of the city, a working-class neighborhood of single and multifamily homes just south of Elliot Hospital.

St. Anthony is the only church in Manchester where Mass is celebrated in French every week.

The parish’s favorite son is a cardinal, Quebec Archbishop Gerald Lacroix, who was born in 1957 and grew up in the neighborhood.

The tower is not a traditional steeple.

Cracks in the masonry of the tower have closed St. Anthony of Padua on Belmont Street in Manchester.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

Four pillars of butterscotch-colored brick, concrete cornerstones and verdigris highlights compose the vertical elements of the tower.

The pillars support the base of a steep, pointed metal roof topped by a brass-tinted cross. The pillars are not enclosed, so they are exposed year-round to the elements. Franck said no steel was used to construct the tower.

The church building opened in 1954.

“Not all brick is created equal, I guess,” Franck said. The tower has never had a bell; a loudspeaker was always used to imitate the sound of bells, Dion said

“It’s falling apart, and it’s not that old,” said Tom Lamy, a parishioner, as he took a morning walk. He won’t miss the tower when it’s gone. A tower doesn’t make a church, he said.

Eddy and Jessica Rosado live directly across the street. Earlier this month, inspectors used massive hoists to examine the tower, Eddy said.

Within days, fencing went up around the church, and barriers were placed on the street and sidewalk. He pointed out crumbling concrete and a vertical crack climbing one of the pillars.

“You think about it, we really don’t know which way it’s going to go,” Eddy Rosado said.

Franck said that forensic specialists hired by the diocese determined the tower would not fall like a tree. But he said anything’s possible.

Jessica Rosado grew up in the neighborhood and her parents were married at the church.

A temporary fence and caution tape were put up because of structural issues with the tower at St. Anthony of Padua in Manchester.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

“It will be sad to see it go, honestly,” she said. “It’s been there for so many years.”

But she said the church will remain, which she likes because it separates the Hallsville neighborhood and the Wilson Street neighborhood to the west.

Dion said the church closure delayed the start of classes at the Cardinal Lacroix Academy, which is located in the St. Anthony School building. Daily Mass had been suspended but will resume next week at Blessed Sacrament Church on Elm Street, about a mile away.

Meanwhile, Dion is temporarily lodging at Blessed Sacrament rectory.

Cracks in the tower of St. Anthony of Padua have forced the church to move its services and events to other locations on the campus and to other parishes nearby.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

In an email, diocesan spokeswoman Bevin Kennedy said a forensic study determined that the tower is not salvageable. The diocese closed the church out of an abundance of caution, Kennedy said.

No date has been set for the demolition.

Kennedy said the diocese wants to preserve the cross and the bell tower’s roof.

Franck said that once the diocese has hired a demolition crew, the city will facilitate a demolition permit, he said.

Adblock test (Why?)

"danger" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 07:45AM
https://ift.tt/2V6J29U

Manchester church's 95-foot bell tower in danger of collapse - The Union Leader
"danger" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bVUlF0
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

Netflix's Clickbait plot explained: the show's many, many twists, broken down in detail. - Slate

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

Deciding which of Netflix’s thousands of shows and movies to grant your all-important click can be a paralyzing task for many of us, so there was something brilliant, or cynical—or in all likelihood, both—about the streaming service coming out with a show called Clickbait. It’s announcing itself as potentially dishonest and exploitative and daring you to click anyway, and the gambit clearly worked: As of Tuesday, the limited series, which premiered on the streaming service last week, was topping Netflix’s most-watched list. Whether you don’t want to give Clickbait the satisfaction of your click or you’ve already clicked many times over, let’s talk about it—and there is a lot to talk about—spoilers and all.

OK, what’s this thing about?

In the first episode of the eight-episode series, a video surfaces online of Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier), an improbably perfect husband and father, being held hostage and holding a series of signs: One says he abuses women. Another says that if the video gets to 5 million views, he will die. His sister, Pia (Zoe Kazan), his wife, Sophie (Betty Gabriel), and the rest of his family freak out, trying to find him before the video goes viral. As they look for the people who kidnapped Nick, they’re also forced to contemplate what Nick could have done, and to whom, to prompt this hostage situation.

Does the video get to 5 million hits?

Yes, it does, and as promised, Nick is a goner.

That’s not that many hits in 2021!

Regardless, he eats it by the end of the second episode.

How could this happen to a swell guy like Nick? Unless … is it possible that Nick’s life isn’t as perfect as it initially appeared?

Good guess. It looks like Nick wasn’t a faithful husband, first of all: He had profiles on dating sites and was involved with multiple women. But neither was his wife: She had an affair with a co-worker a few years ago. Plus, the night before he disappeared, Nick was fighting with his prickly sister. Also, at the school where Nick worked as an athletics department physical therapist, there’s a female student volleyball player who seems to know something.

Was it the wife then? Or her lover?

Nope. For a second, it seemed like the man Sophie cheated on Nick with, her co-worker Curtis, might have been involved, because he was caught on surveillance camera getting into a bar fight with Nick not long before his kidnapping, but it was just a red herring.

What about the sister?

No, though there are a few things about her that seem shady at first: In addition to the aforementioned prickliness (check the punky dyed-blond blunt-cut hair), she’s friends with a teenage hacker, and she also matched with the main detective on Nick’s case, Roshan Amiri, on a dating app.

It eventually comes out that she and Nick had been keeping a secret: When the two were kids, their father died by suicide, and they were the ones to discover him. This will matter later.

The detective on the case who the sister matched with—what’s his deal?

Amiri is angling to be reassigned to the homicide team, so it seems like that might give him impure motivations, plus he doesn’t always seem great at communicating with Nick’s family. Not to mention he’s married, so why was he on a dating app? But he’s separated, it turns out, and he’s basically a good guy. He’s also very handsome, shoutout to Phoenix Raei.

This is a show about the dark underbelly of the internet, so there’s got to be more shadowy figures from the web, right?

Yup. One of them is someone who goes by the handle “Al_2005,” a stranger who Nick’s oldest son, Ethan, is messaging with throughout the show. Ethan spills a lot to Al_2005, and it seems plausible that the kid is being preyed upon, or even conspiring with the stranger out of anger at his father. But eventually the two meet in person, and surprise, Al_2005 is a nice agoraphobic girl who exchanges shy smiles with Ethan and just wants to help him figure out what happened to his dad. Mmm hmm.

What about the college volleyball player, then? Was Nick a typical sleazy older man having an affair with a student?

A sleazy older man was having an affair with a student, but it wasn’t Nick; it was his colleague, Matt. However, Nick knew about it and pressured Matt to confess, which would give Matt motivation for wanting to get rid of Nick. Back to that in a bit.

But Nick wasn’t a saint or anything. He had those dating profiles.

True, he did, on a bunch of different sites under a bunch of different names, and we even meet one woman, Emma Beesly, who claimed to have been having an affair with Nick. We also find out about a woman named Sarah Burton who Nick was involved with—a reporter travels to another city to find her, only to discover that she recently died.

A dead woman—that definitely seems like a lead!

It is. It turns out that Sarah and Nick met on a dating app and were talking online—until she threatened to kill herself, and he seemingly encouraged her to do it. When her brother, Simon, devastated by his sister’s suicide (and whose mental state is not improved by a job as a content moderator, where he spends all day flagging abusive videos), figures out that she was talking to Nick, he wants revenge.

Finally! So Simon kidnapped Nick, made the video, and killed him, case closed?

Not exactly. Simon, along with a buddy of his, kidnapped Nick, and he shot and posted the video, but he also let him go at the last second, when Nick convinced him that it wasn’t him who was talking to Sarah online, but someone impersonating him.

And Simon believed him?

Enough to let him go. Nick was able to point out that the photos on the profile that was in communication with Sarah had been Photoshopped—a case of the ol’ mismatched horizon lines. Nick didn’t tell Sarah to kill herself; a catfish did.

This is where that secret Pia and Nick had comes into play: As Pia is trying to crack the case on her own, the thing that convinces her of her brother’s innocence is that she knows he would never encourage someone to hurt themselves, after what they went through growing up.

OK, but Nick was still a cheater! What about all those other women?

Only one of them, Emma Beesly, said she’d actually spoken to Nick. When Ethan’s son and his online buddy/love interest Al_2005 figure this out, they contact Emma and play her a tape of Nick’s real voice. They ask her if that’s how he sounded when they spoke, and the answer is no—meaning none of the women Nick supposedly was cheating with ever actually met him, meaning all of them could have been being catfished.

This is exhausting. Who was catfishing all these ladies? And did that person kill Nick?

For a minute, Clickbait has us convinced that it was Nick’s co-worker, Matt, but it turns out that it was someone else in Nick’s office who had access to their computer network (and Matt had an affair with one of the students on his team but, uh, is otherwise not a bad guy). This would be someone who was able to both plant a bunch of files on Matt’s computer and had access to all of Nick’s photos in the first place.

It was … Dawn, the kindly-seeming older lady admin who’d been present in the background all along. Married but childless, Dawn was sad and lonely, so when she found Nick’s dating profile—which he only started out of frustration after his wife’s affair—she decided to have some fun. And before she knew it, she’d gotten totally wrapped up in catfishing a bunch of ladies, so much so that she knew how to use deepfakes to convince them they were really talking to him. She must have been pretty good at technology, despite sucking at Photoshop? Maybe she learned as she went.

Phew. So Dawn did it.

Not quite! Her husband, Ed, did. Dawn was catfishing women, but she wasn’t actually out to hurt anyone. It was only when Ed discovered her secret and demanded that she stop that she got so upset that she didn’t talk Sarah Burton down from her suicide threats. After Simon let Nick go, Nick figured out that Dawn was responsible and went to confront her. Ed attacked Nick, and she helped him cover it up.

Damn, OK, would not and could not have guessed that one. One last question: So was Clickbait clickbait?

The definition of clickbait is something that grabs you with a tantalizing promise and then fails to deliver on it. By naming this show Clickbait, Netflix was kind of promising the opposite—that this series wouldn’t be clickbait but a sophisticated commentary on the clickbait-y world in which we live. In practice, it was a bunch of red herrings precisely engineered to get you to keep watching, whose final message was something along the lines of, er, Adrian Grenier actually was a great guy and lonely older women are dangerous. So, total clickbait.

Adblock test (Why?)

"many" - Google News
September 01, 2021 at 12:04AM
https://ift.tt/2WCNv4D

Netflix's Clickbait plot explained: the show's many, many twists, broken down in detail. - Slate
"many" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OYUfnl
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

With Workers In Demand, Many Are Choosing To Become Apprentices - WGLT

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

Christopher Basso spent 8 years as a cook, including at a country club in Springfield.

Earlier this year, the 24-year-old changed course. As he put it, he wanted to “do something” with his life.

“You get tired of that kind of lifestyle, working weird hours. So I just wanted to start an actual career and not just keep going to work,” Basso said.

Today, Basso is about three months into what'll likely be a four-year apprenticeship with the Carpenters union. He is one of many new apprentices who have joined the Carpenters in the last couple years. The trade has seen significant growth.

Those apprenticeships bring Basso and others to the Carpenters training facility in Pekin. During a recent WGLT visit, Basso and his classmates were learning to build a little rocking horse.

It's a toy with a serious lesson, notably how to use tools and follow instructions.

“They’re actually pretty structural. You can really put some weight on them. One of the bigger kids in my class just stood on it and it didn’t go anywhere. It’s pretty fun,” Basso said.

The pandemic has reshaped the American labor market in many ways. For some workers, it’s prompted soul-searching about the difference between a job and a career – and what's fair pay for either.

Basso and others are coming into the apprenticeship program looking for a fresh start.

"With baby boomers retiring, there’s a need to fill these spots. And they’re good-paying jobs with good benefits."

Matt Watchinski, Carpenters union business rep

Matt Watchinski is a business rep with a Carpenters local based in East Peoria, which also serves Bloomington-Normal. They've brought in over 100 new apprentices in the past 2 years.

He said the recent push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage played a role.

“It made people do a lot of reflecting. Not everybody’s cut out for college. I wasn’t. That’s why I’m here,” Watchinski said. “Unfortunately, a lot of schools did away with their shop programs in the 1990s, to make way for computer labs, because that was the latest greatest thing coming up and we had to get people trained in that. You can’t fault the school districts. But with baby boomers retiring, there’s a need to fill these spots. And they’re good-paying jobs with good benefits.”

Watchinski said the new recruits are coming from all corners of the economy.

“Today we had a 19-year-old kid with zero experience (come in). We had a woman come in with her infant child that was looking for a job with benefits so she could make it on her own. We had a guy with 15 years of welding experience who wanted to branch out, as he topped out at the factory he was in. We could use somebody like that Rivian welding stuff. We could use him on bridges,” Watchinski said. “They come in from all over the board.”

The average age of an apprentice was 26 as of a couple years ago. That’s a number the Carpenters want to see lower.

“Apprentices have told me (they’re joining) because of the benefits,” said Rob Swegle, the training director in Pekin. “Because that’s (the age) when they’re starting to have families, looking for medical insurance, and a pension, that kind of thing. They want job security too.”

Swegle gave WGLT a tour of his training complex on a recent Monday afternoon. There were scaled-down versions of all the things apprentices will encounter out on the job. A small roof that needed to be shingled. A small room that needed a doorframe. Their own welding booth.

Other things were full-sized, like the steam turbine they got from a Caterpillar plant. The Millwright apprentices learn to dismantle and rebuild those using bridge cranes. The training facility in Pekin also provides advanced-skills training to those who are already journeymen. One example is teaching them how to mount solar panels on the ground or roofs.

Out back in Pekin, there's a 130-foot wind turbine that powers the complex, plus a dorm where up to 22 apprentices can live if home is far enough away.

“It’s 640 hours of instruction over the course of four years. One week every 3 months. The whole motto of apprenticeship is, the more you learn, the more you earn,” Swegle said.

Evolving with industry demand

The apprentices aren't the only ones adapting to something new.

The training facility itself has added new courses as the industry demanded it. There's now a simulated hospital room where apprentices learn how to work in a dust and contaminant-free way. That makes them more employable for the contractors who ultimately hire them.

One of those contractors is Peoria-based Mid-Illinois Companies, where Bobby Taylor is an owner. He's also a former Carpenters apprentice himself.

Taylor is on the training facility's board, helping it stay current with what industry needs.

Right now, it needs people. Taylor said his company – an interior systems contractor – stayed busy, even during the heart of the pandemic.

“And then coming out of the pandemic, obviously everybody was ready to get out and they were letting loose some of their money. Up to this point, it’s been good. The markets we work in have been busy. That’s Springfield, Champaign, Decatur. Peoria’s been a bit of a slower market, but we see it coming out more toward the third or fourth quarter and into next year,” Taylor said.

Dennis Jakubovski has seen this demand too. He's a fourth-year apprenticeship with a local out of Springfield. He's done work all over, including in Bloomington-Normal.

“It’s really good. It’s the same in Champaign. Now I’m working on Central High School in Champaign, and we have a hard time getting guys out there because of so many other projects going on in central Illinois,” he said.

Jakubovski started four years ago. At the time he was attending community college and working construction. He had a young son.

Today, he is about to “journey out,” meaning he'll become a full-fledged journeyman in the Carpenters union.

“It had its hurdles and difficulties, but I stuck it out. It’s almost like a four-year degree, but I don’t have no tuition. And I got to work while I’m learning, so I was making money,” he said.

Now, Jakubovski exits the apprenticeship program into an economy that's clamoring to hire him.

Adblock test (Why?)

"many" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 11:48PM
https://ift.tt/2Wyy25Z

With Workers In Demand, Many Are Choosing To Become Apprentices - WGLT
"many" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OYUfnl
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

GOP's refusal to negotiate on state budget leaves many in the lurch - ncpolicywatch.com

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

GOP’s refusal to negotiate on state budget leaves many in the lurch

- 8/31/2021

Adblock test (Why?)

"many" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 06:28PM
https://ift.tt/2Y7TSgR

GOP's refusal to negotiate on state budget leaves many in the lurch - ncpolicywatch.com
"many" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OYUfnl
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

NW fire bosses' pre-Labor Day warning: Danger still high, despite cooler temps - KTVZ

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

'Everyone needs to be extremely careful'

PORTLAND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- While there is some relief from this summer’s extreme heat, high fire danger will likely continue into September because of the ongoing drought. Northwest fire officials warned Monday.

Severe drought and record-breaking temperatures have contributed to extreme fire behavior and have made firefighting conditions very difficult. Fire officials say conditions remain dry and any spark could start a wildfire that could quickly spread.

“Right now everyone needs to be extremely careful,” says Oregon Department of Forestry Protection from Fire Division Chief Doug Grafe. “With the current conditions, just a spark, cigarette, or open flame could start the next wildfire. As we’ve already had a long fire season, we need your help preventing fires to help protect our firefighters and communities.” 

(Meanwhile, the fire danger in California is so great, the Forest Service announced Monday a temporary closure of all of the state's national forests, from 11:59 p.m. Tuesday through Sept. 17.)

Typically, the Pacific Northwest experiences widespread, sustained east and northeast winds beginning in late August and throughout the Fall. This wind can lower humidity and increase fire danger, as well as drive the spread of new fires and increase activity on existing wildfires. The main effects of this wind are in the Coast Range and on the west slopes of the Cascades.

There is not currently a significant east wind event in the forecast, like the one that caused massive devastation a year ago, but officials say it is good to be aware of this wind pattern and the effects it can have on wildfires.

While awareness of the conditions is important, officials also remind the public to adhere to fire restrictions that are in place to help prevent human-caused wildfires. Common day-to-day activities like mowing dry grass, off-road driving and campfires are not allowed in most areas. Campfire bans remain in place on state lands in Oregon east of Interstate 5 and many other federal lands, and there are a number of area closures in place. 

“Know before you go,” says Keep Oregon Green Association’s Kristin Babbs. “Either call ahead or log on to one of the many government agency, private land, or commercial recreation websites that provide this valuable information.” 

Homeowners and outdoor enthusiasts alike can contribute to the fire prevention effort by reducing fire-prone activities. Outdoor debris burning remains prohibited throughout much of the region and campfires are either prohibited entirely or only allowed in designated campgrounds. While logging activity is being curtailed under these extreme conditions, many large industrial landowners have also closed their gates to public access in efforts to reduce possible ignitions from off-road driving, target shooting, smoking and campfires; all of which are illegal or restricted during fire season. 

“Even with the cooler overnight weather Oregon has seen, the fire risk is still present,” State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple said, urging Oregonians to be prepared in case an evacuation is necessary. “With the current fire risk, people should take a moment to make sure they have prepared themselves and their family for evacuation.” 

As of August 29, 3,027 fires have burned 1,276,795 acres in Oregon and Washington according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland. Over 2,000 fires have been human-caused. For additional information on fire prevention and restrictions in your area, please visit any of the websites below. 

Oregon Department of Forestry: www.oregon.gov/ODF/Fire/Pages/Restrictions.aspx
Keep Oregon Green: www.keeporegongreen.org 
Washington Department of Natural Resources: www.dnr.wa.gov/WildfirePrevention 
Oregon State Fire Marshal: www.oregon.gov/osp/sfm/ 
Bureau of Land Management: https://www.blm.gov/orwafire 
Northwest Interagency Coordination Center: https://gacc.nifc.gov/nwcc/
                                                                                                                                                                                                                ###

The Pacific Northwest Wildfire Coordinating Group is established to provide a coordinated interagency approach to wildfire management in Oregon and Washington. PNWCG provides leadership in interface and wildland fire management for local, tribal, state and federal agencies and their constituents to enhance firefighter safety and protection of life, property, and natural resources. PNWCG is comprised of USDA-Forest Service; USDI-Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service; Oregon Department of Forestry; Washington Department of Natural Resources; Washington Association of Fire Chiefs; The Oregon Fire Chiefs Association; The Oregon State Fire Marshal and the Washington State Fire Marshal.  

Adblock test (Why?)

"danger" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 01:59PM
https://ift.tt/3ywVtt2

NW fire bosses' pre-Labor Day warning: Danger still high, despite cooler temps - KTVZ
"danger" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bVUlF0
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

Opinion | Many Republicans Are Anti-Vax. Are They Also Pro-Covid? - The New York Times

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

President Barack Obama promised unity. In his 2008 campaign, he said he would heal the nation’s political divides and end more than a decade of partisan rancor.

To keep this promise, Obama needed allies, or at least partners, in the Republican Party. But they said no. If they could block Obama — if they could withhold support on anything significant he planned to do — then they could make him break his promise. Republicans would obstruct and Obama would get the blame. Which, you might remember, is what happened. By the 2010 midterm elections, Obama was a divisive president.

Joe Biden, in his 2020 campaign for president, promised to get the coronavirus pandemic under control. With additional aid to working families and free distribution of multiple effective vaccines, he would lead the United States out of its ongoing public health crisis.

I think you can see where this is going.

Rather than work with him to vaccinate the country, Biden’s Republican opposition has, with only a few exceptions, done everything in its power to politicize the vaccine and make refusal to cooperate a test of partisan loyalty. The party is, for all practical purposes, pro-Covid. If it’s sincere, it is monstrous. And if it’s not, it is an unbelievably cynical and nihilistic strategy. Unfortunately for both Biden and the country, it appears to be working.

Naturally, some of the loudest vaccine-skeptical Republicans are in Congress. “Think about what those mechanisms could be used for,” Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina said of the Biden administration’s plan for door-to-door vaccine ambassadors. “They could then go door-to-door to take your guns. They could go door-to-door to take your Bibles.”

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has similarly criticized the president’s effort to reach the unvaccinated. “People have a choice, they don’t need your medical brown shirts showing up at their door ordering vaccinations,” she tweeted. “You can’t force people to be part of the human experiment.”

Cawthorn and Greene are obviously fringe figures. But these days, the fringe is not far from the center of the Republican Party (if it ever was to begin with). Their rhetoric is not too different, in other words, from that of their more mainstream colleagues in the Senate.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has attacked vaccine mandates — “There should be no mandates, zero, concerning Covid,” he said in a recent interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity — while Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has urged Americans to “resist” efforts to stop the spread of the virus. “It’s time for us to resist,” Paul said in a video posted to Twitter. “They can’t arrest all of us. They can’t keep all of your kids home from school. They can’t keep every government building closed, although I’ve got a long list of ones they might keep closed or ought to keep closed.”

Republican rhetoric in Washington, however, is a sideshow to the real fight over Covid, in states like Florida and Texas.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected vaccine passports and launched an aggressive campaign against mandatory mask-wearing in schools. “It is very important that we say, unequivocally, no to lockdowns, no to school closures, no to restrictions and no to mandates,” he told a gathering of conservative activists in Utah last month. DeSantis has suspended city and county emergency orders, put limits on future mitigation efforts, and signed a law that “shields nursing homes, hospitals and businesses from legal liability if employees and patrons contract the virus on their premises.”

All of this, even as the state has been ravaged by the Delta variant of the virus. Florida has been reporting more than 20,000 new infections a day and has averaged 262 Covid deaths — the most of any state, at least in absolute numbers. More than 16,000 people are hospitalized and thousands have been taken to intensive care units. Who does DeSantis blame for these outcomes? Biden.

“You know, he said he was going to end Covid. He hasn’t done that,” the Florida governor told the Fox News host Jesse Watters last week. “At the end of the day, he is trying to find a way to distract from the failures of his presidency.”

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has banned mask mandates, signed legislation that would deny state contracts or licenses to businesses that require proof of vaccination, and — after recovering from a breakthrough Covid infection himself — banned local governments from requiring the vaccine for any public agency or private institution. In a statement, Abbott said that this was to avoid a “patchwork of vaccine mandates across Texas.” But in a message to the state legislature, the governor appeared to be asking lawmakers to consider an outright ban on vaccine mandates. On Aug. 25, the day Abbott sent his message, Texas reported more than 23,000 new cases of Covid, along with 14,000 hospitalizations and 245 deaths.

Abbott and DeSantis are not alone. Earlier this month, the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, created two new grant programs that would give funds to families and school districts that rejected mask mandates. And in South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem once again cheered the Sturgis motorcycle rally, a year after it contributed to a Covid outbreak throughout the region and into the Midwest. This year, health officials have already linked the rally to cases in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The effect of all of this for the country is a pandemic that won’t die. The effect of it for the Republican Party is a substantial part of its base that won’t take the vaccine. According to data collected by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Republicans lag most of the rest of the country in vaccine uptake; 54 percent said they had received at least one dose at the time of the survey, compared with 67 percent of all adults. And the effect of this for Biden is a sharp drop to his approval rating; a Reuters poll conducted mid-month found the president down 21 points among all Americans for his handling of the pandemic.

What amounts to a Republican effort to prolong the pandemic shows no sign of abating. It may even get worse, as powerful conservative media personalities spread vaccine skepticism and embrace dubious miracle cures like ivermectin, a drug typically used to treat parasitic worms in livestock, not viruses in humans.

If Biden does not want the kind of backlash that his Democratic predecessor faced, he needs to act aggressively to push the United States off its vaccination plateau. Republicans might be setting him up to break his promise to stop Covid, but the president should understand that he’s not actually at their mercy.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

Adblock test (Why?)

"many" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 04:00PM
https://ift.tt/3Dut6Q1

Opinion | Many Republicans Are Anti-Vax. Are They Also Pro-Covid? - The New York Times
"many" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OYUfnl
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr

Sisters continue a mission of justice and peace, despite danger - Global Sisters Report

tetekrefil.blogspot.com

Life in Nigeria is better experienced than described. A country in West Africa with a population of about 219,000,000, Nigeria has a Christian majority in the east and south, a Muslim majority in the north, and both Christians and Muslims in the west. It is not news anymore that life in Nigeria is as unsafe for its citizens as it is for foreigners. At one time a country with some of the happiest and most religious people in the world, it is currently one of the most terrorized nations on the face of the earth: and this is where the religious sisters witness to the Golden Rule, on a daily basis, without counting the cost.

Equipped with spiritual armor, the sisters traverse the country to strengthen the populace, in spite of physical dangers. In the past, not many sisters were seen in Nigeria engaging in works that would have had a place in the limelight, but a vocation boom has multiplied the number of religious congregations and institutes in the country. Today, sisters are everywhere. Their mission: eloquently advocating for peace, conscientiously cleaning wounds, and courageously wiping the faces of impoverished and traumatized masses who have been turned into refugees in their own country, thus united in hardship. Justice and peace are the watchwords of these sisters.

I have been reflecting on how religious sisters/nuns — women who profess the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience — participate in the daily work of peace and justice in Nigeria, to strengthen their resilience in the work of evangelization. Once chosen and called, no one who looks back is worthy of the kingdom (Luke 9:62), and our experiences as sisters in Nigeria, I believe, will be an encouragement to others in other parts of the world.

Corruption has robbed our country of good leadership, impoverished the people, destroyed social amenities and infrastructures, and promoted and empowered terrorists' activities that are violating human rights and rendering many homeless, orphaned and widowed. The recent events of the #EndSars protest in the country is just a tip of the iceberg of brutality which is producing victims who need the attention of sisters in many situations.

As every sector is endangered, the lives of the sisters also are in perpetual danger, yet they go out daily to give hope to the people all over the country in schools, orphanages, civic centers, clinics, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, home visitations, and camps for people who are displaced.

I am still thinking about Sister Henrietta Alokha of Bethlehem Girls College, Lagos, who was killed when a pillar fell on her as she searched for her trapped students, after an explosion leveled their school last year.

Due to insecurity all over the country, the bandits, kidnappers, herdsmen, and Boko Haram activities know no bounds. The fate of sisters engaging in apostolates in every corner of the nation is wrapped in uncertainty.

I remember one example of some sisters working in a diocese in western Nigeria. For years they have been agents of security and peace in the area, where they run a diocesan school. The school has been set on fire three times by parents from an "untouchable tribe," whose children were sent home because of their refusal to pay school fees; not that they could not afford it, but because they felt impunity. Sisters have continued teaching there for the sake of others who also need education. Their perseverance and undaunting spirit always calm the residents of the area.

When I was serving as principal of a school in the north, I watched very traumatized students struggle with perpetual anxiety because of religious differences that led to gunshots and the raiding of churches, schools and homes by terrorists. Here, the sisters organized forums for parents to discuss our common goals for the students' welfare and their positive mental health.

Sisters have also joined our voices in calling for an end to incessant killings in the country, justice for victims and equity for all.

Again, our identifying with the people paves the way to acceptance and collaboration. There is a high acceptance of the sisters among Muslims. They especially appreciate the sisters' habits, which indicate — "we come in peace" — and endear them to the people. Bishops in the north are leveraging this acceptance and are using more sisters in evangelization in the dioceses.

Sisters in the medical field take mobile clinics to very remote settlements, to provide as much help as they are allowed to give to the numerous young mothers who are married off very young due to religious belief in early marriage. Such opportunities are used to instruct the women on topics not prejudicial to religion, to maintain peace and harmony. Many sisters work with displaced persons in camps and use the opportunity to give them hope.

In addition, some sisters engage in advocacy for the vulnerable victims of human traffickers. They, the sisters, go from school to school, to town gatherings, markets and village settings, giving enlightenment programs and training people on various skill acquisitions to develop self-worth and self-confidence, and reduce the chances of being exploited.

Other sisters take in girls with unwanted pregnancies, nurture them to term, and train them in skills for motherhood, thus helping to reduce the rate of abortion. Some get involved in ecumenism and interreligious dialogue programs; since sisters' integrity is not in question, they broker peace and harmony wherever they are. Trust and confidence in the sisters is the only key that opens the door allowing them access to all these places.

Therefore, adorned in their religious habits, sisters work for and among all classes of people; among Christians and non-Christians, in churches and in civic centers, in camps and villages, in schools, clinics and hospitals — anywhere there are human beings in the country, regardless of creed — giving love, offering hope and encouraging fervent faith to drive out fears.

Adblock test (Why?)

"danger" - Google News
August 31, 2021 at 03:11PM
https://ift.tt/2Y1bKdd

Sisters continue a mission of justice and peace, despite danger - Global Sisters Report
"danger" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bVUlF0
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr