Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalOrganic cheese and free lunch for all: what the US can learn from other nations about better school meals
In a 2015 documentary, the film-maker Michael Moore cheekily suggested the US invade France because its school lunches are amazing.
School food culture in France is indeed enviable. Menus sometimes include beets with vinaigrette as the seasonal salad of the day, organic beef lasagne for the main course, followed by organic camembert for the cheese course and a pear for dessert.
The school community values meals and those who prepare them as contributing to students’ education. Meals are typically made from scratch using fresh ingredients. And joy is central to the experience of eating together. That said, the French system isn’t a perfect model: France doesn’t have a national school lunch program and parents are billed directly for the cost of meals.
In the near-decade since Moore’s film, there have been a lot of improvements in what the typical US student might encounter in the cafeteria. Thanks in large part to school food fights at local, state and national levels, more students have access to free school meals than ever before, schools across the country are cooking more recipes from scratch and local farmers are supplying more of the food that students eat. However, these changes remain precarious or subject to political and economic priorities. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In our new book, Transforming School Food Politics Around the World, we discuss how to successfully challenge and transform public school food programs to emphasize care, justice and sustainability, with insights from eight countries in the global north and south. Ultimately, we argue for the importance of school food as a public good.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/article/2024/may/31/free-healthy-school-lunches
This country is so focused on useless "testing" that they neglect everything else.
Boeing's largest plant in 'panic mode' amid safety crisis, say workers and union officials
Boeing’s largest factory is in “panic mode”, according to workers and union officials, with managers accused of hounding staff to keep quiet over quality concerns.
The US plane maker has been grappling with a safety crisis sparked by a cabin panel blowout during a flight in January, and intense scrutiny of its production line as regulators launched a string of investigations.
Its site at Everett, Washington – hailed as the world’s biggest manufacturing building – is at the heart of Boeing’s operation, responsible for building planes like the 747 and 767, and fixing the 787 Dreamliner.
One mechanic at the complex, who has worked for Boeing for more than three decades, has claimed it is “full of” faulty 787 jets that need fixing.
Many of these jets are flown from Boeing’s site in South Carolina, where the company shifted final assembly of the 787 in 2021 in what was characterized as a cost-cutting measure.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jun/01/boeing-safety-crisis-response-union-busting
We have to fly to Vegas in a couple of weeks. Just praying it's not a 747/787
Gov. Lee signs bill blocking local red flag laws
Governor Bill Lee has signed legislation preempting local municipalities from enforcing extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), commonly known as red flag laws, which allow judges and police to temporarily take away someone’s guns if they’re at risk of harming themselves or others, despite his push for extreme risk protection orders before the Special Session in 2023.
The piece of legislation, which became law with Gov. Lee’s signature on May 28, “preempts the entire field of legislation regarding extreme risk protection orders,” according to its language, “except as otherwise provided by state law.”
However, a year prior, Gov. Lee advocated for ERPOs ahead of the 2023 Special Session on public safety.
“A person that has shown that they are a real threat to themselves or to others, that person, that individual should not have access to firearms,” Gov. Lee said to reporters in April 2023.
After the Republican supermajority publicly said they would not support legislation allowing ERPOs, Gov. Lee dropped the issue, and it was never presented during the special session.
https://www.wate.com/news/tennessee/gov-lee-signs-bill-preventing-local-government-from-enacting-red-flag-laws/
Chickenshit bastard. His own friend was killed in the Covenant School shooting and he does....nothing.
Mother of Jan. 6 officer Michael Fanone swatted after he called Trump 'authoritarian'
Michael Fanone, a former police officer who was nearly killed by a mob during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, spoke outside the courthouse during closing arguments in Donald Trump's hush money trial on Tuesday, calling Trump "an authoritarian" with "a violence fetish."
Hours later, Fanone's mother was "swatted" at her home in Virginia.
On Tuesday, a fake "manifesto" attributed to Fanone was sent to a number of email addresses, including some associated with a high school that Fanone attended for a year more than two decades ago. The "manifesto," viewed by NBC News, claimed that the writer had killed their mother and planned to go to the recipient's school on Wednesday and shoot more people. It provided Fanone's mother's home address.
That night, Fanone told NBC News, his mother opened the door to law enforcement while in her nightgown, "mortified" to find SWAT team officers at her home.
"How dangerous is it to send law enforcement to an address in which you essentially are describing an active shooter, in which the only person present is a 78-year-old f---ing woman," Fanone told NBC News. "This is the reality of going up against or challenging Donald Trump. ... These swatting calls are incredibly f---ing dangerous, especially when the target is somebody like my mom."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/mother-jan-6-officer-michael-fanone-swatted-called-trump-authoritarian-rcna154467
The Washington Post said it had the Alito flag story 3 years ago and chose not to publish
Nine days after The New York Times reported about the political symbolism of an upside-down American flag that flew at U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home, the Washington Post acknowledged it had the same story more than three years ago and decided not to publish it.
The Post’s story was both an extraordinary example of journalistic introspection and an illustration of how coverage of the Supreme Court has changed since the incident itself, shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
That day, some of the demonstrators who marched in support of former President Donald Trump carried the upside-down flag. Both newspapers reported that the same symbol was displayed outside of Alito’s home in Fairfax County, Virginia, before President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Alito has said that his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, raised the flag as part of a dispute with neighbors who had placed “personally insulting” yard signs directed at them. Judges traditionally avoid partisan symbols to maintain the appearance of neutrality in political disputes that may come before them.
https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-alito-flag-missed-story-d7cfd2e8f5271fc8987ea2b0206bb7bb
Not exactly a sterling example of journalistic integrity.
Atlanta police surveil people opposing 'Cop City': 'There's this constant stalking feeling'
Atlanta police have been carrying out around-the-clock surveillance in several neighborhoods for months, on people and houses linked to opposition against the police training center colloquially known as “Cop City”.
The surveillance in Georgia has included following people in cars, blasting sirens outside bedroom windows and shining headlights into houses at night, the Guardian has learned.
While no arrests have been made, residents said they’re at a loss as to what legal protections of privacy and freedom from harassment are available to them. Chata Spikes, the Atlanta police spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comment.
The ongoing actions started soon after an 8 February pre-dawn, Swat-style raid on three Atlanta houses in which Atlanta police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sought evidence relating to arson of construction and police equipment.
Police have since established themselves in four neighborhoods, centering on about 12 houses – including those that were previously raided – with marked and unmarked cars parking near them, driving slowly by and leaving when approached by residents.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/29/atlanta-police-cop-city-surveillance
Feels ominously like Nazi Germany, doesn't it?
After a traumatic C-section, journalist takes on the medicalization of birth
When journalist and professor Rachel Somerstein had an emergency C-section with her first child, the anesthesia didn't work. She says she could literally feel the operation as it was happening. Later, after her daughter was born, Somerstein remembers a practitioner blaming her for the ordeal.
"[They] came to my room and told me that my body hadn't processed the anesthesia correctly, that there was something wrong with me," Somerstein says.
Somerstein considered suing the hospital, but since neither she nor her daughter suffered long-term consequences, she was told she didn’t have a case. So instead of pouring her energy into a lawsuit, she decided to write a book. In Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section, she writes about her own experience with childbirth, as well as the broader history of C-sections.
Somerstein notes that the earliest C-sections were performed on women who died in labor or who were expected to die in labor. The intention was to give the baby a chance to live long enough to be baptized by the Catholic priest. It wasn't until the late 1700s or early 1800s that the procedure was seen as a way to potentially save the mother's life.
"One thing that's so interesting about this history, to me, is that it shows that the forces promoting C-sections have always had something to do with an external pressure," she says.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/28/nx-s1-4977627/rachel-somerstein-invisible-labor-c-section
It's true that C-sections are sometimes necessary, but in the US they are performed far more often than in the rest of the world, probably because of the doctor's fear of litigation. When I was in neonatal/L&D, we used to say, "Failure to progress is whatever your doctor says it is, " and "Inductions are a major cause of C-sections".
After a traumatic C-section, journalist takes on the medicalization of birth
When journalist and professor Rachel Somerstein had an emergency C-section with her first child, the anesthesia didn't work. She says she could literally feel the operation as it was happening. Later, after her daughter was born, Somerstein remembers a practitioner blaming her for the ordeal.
"[They] came to my room and told me that my body hadn't processed the anesthesia correctly, that there was something wrong with me," Somerstein says.
Somerstein considered suing the hospital, but since neither she nor her daughter suffered long-term consequences, she was told she didn’t have a case. So instead of pouring her energy into a lawsuit, she decided to write a book. In Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section, she writes about her own experience with childbirth, as well as the broader history of C-sections.
Somerstein notes that the earliest C-sections were performed on women who died in labor or who were expected to die in labor. The intention was to give the baby a chance to live long enough to be baptized by the Catholic priest. It wasn't until the late 1700s or early 1800s that the procedure was seen as a way to potentially save the mother's life.
"One thing that's so interesting about this history, to me, is that it shows that the forces promoting C-sections have always had something to do with an external pressure," she says.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/28/nx-s1-4977627/rachel-somerstein-invisible-labor-c-section
It's true that C-sections are sometimes necessary, but in the US they are performed far more often than in the rest of the world, probably because of the doctor's fear of litigation. When I was in neonatal/L&D, we used to say, "Failure to progress is whatever your doctor says it is, " and "Inductions are a major cause of C-sections".
Swear Jar, or what do you say instead?
My language is definitely relaxed now, but when my middle one was 4, he came home from preschool with a swear word (I can't even remember which one now). I told him those were grownup words and didn't sound very nice when grownups said them either and that he needed to think of something else to say instead. He went off to his room and came back several minutes later with a thoughtful look on his face. "Mom, is it okay if I say BUSTERFEATHERS?" he asked. I told him sure, and to this day, 40+ years later, we all still say that, at least in polite company. Back then, we also said "Shazbat" and "Frack!" from the TV show Mork and Mindy (Lord, I miss Robin William!) but "Busterfeathers" has endured.
FDA urged to relax tissue donation ban for gay and bisexual men
The federal government in 2020 and 2023 changed its rules on organ and blood donation, reducing the restrictions on men who have had sex with another man.
But the Food and Drug Administration’s old restrictions on donated tissue, a catchall term encompassing everything from a person’s eyes to their skin and ligaments, remain in place. Lawmakers and advocates, especially for cornea donation, want to align the guidelines for tissue donated by gay and bisexual men with those that apply to the rest of the human body.
They have been asking the FDA for years to reduce the deferral period from five years to 90 days, meaning a man who has had sex with another man would be able to donate tissue as long as such sex didn’t occur within three months of his death.
And they are frustrated. The FDA has put changes to the tissue guidance on its agenda since 2022 but has yet to act on them.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2024/05/27/fda-tissue-donation-gay-men-ban/73837429007/
The ban is antiquated and prejudicial.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
Number of posts: 10,616