Sunday, October 10, 2021

Moderna, Racing for Profits, Keeps Covid Vaccine Out of Reach of Poor

Rebecca Robbins 
.The New York Times
© Simon Maina/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A Moderna Covid-19 vaccination in Nairobi, Kenya, a middle-income country where the United States has donated doses.

Moderna, whose coronavirus vaccine appears to be the world’s best defense against Covid-19, has been supplying its shots almost exclusively to wealthy nations, keeping poorer countries waiting and earning billions in profit.

After developing a breakthrough vaccine with the financial and scientific support of the U.S. government, Moderna has shipped a greater share of its doses to wealthy countries than any other vaccine manufacturer, according to Airfinity, a data firm that tracks vaccine shipments.

About one million doses of Moderna’s vaccine have gone to countries that the World Bank classifies as low income. By contrast, 8.4 million Pfizer doses and about 25 million single-shot Johnson & Johnson doses have gone to those countries

Of the handful of middle-income countries that have reached deals to buy Moderna’s shots, most have not yet received any doses, and at least three have had to pay more than the United States or European Union did, according to government officials in those countries.

Thailand and Colombia are paying a premium. Botswana’s doses are late. Tunisia couldn’t get in touch with Moderna.

Unlike Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which have diverse rosters of drugs and other products, Moderna sells only the Covid vaccine. The Massachusetts company’s future hinges on the commercial success of its vaccine.

“They are behaving as if they have absolutely no responsibility beyond maximizing the return on investment,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Moderna executives have said that they are doing all they can to make as many doses as possible as quickly as possible but that their production capacity remains limited. All of the doses they produce this year are filling existing orders from governments like the European Union.

Even so, the Biden administration has grown increasingly frustrated with Moderna for not making its vaccine more available to poorer countries, two senior administration officials said. The administration has been pressing Moderna executives to increase production at U.S. plants and to license the company’s technology to overseas manufacturers that could make doses for foreign markets.

Moderna is now scrambling to defend itself against accusations that it is putting a priority on the rich.

On Friday, after The New York Times sent detailed questions about how few poor countries had been given access to Moderna’s vaccine, the company announced that it was “currently investing” to increase its output so it could deliver one billion doses to poorer countries in 2022. The company also said this past week that it would open a factory in Africa, without specifying when.

© Luke Dray/Getty Images The United States wants Moderna to provide more doses for low-income countries like Uganda, where a Kampala site took registrations for Pfizer’s vaccine.

Moderna executives have been talking with the Biden administration about selling low-cost doses to the federal government, which would donate them to poorer countries, as Pfizer has agreed to do, the two senior officials said. The negotiations are continuing.

In an interview on Friday, Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said “it is sad” that his company’s vaccine had not reached more people in poorer countries but that the situation was out of his control.

He said that Moderna tried and failed last year to get governments to kick in money to expand the company’s scant production capacity and that the company decides how much to charge based on factors including how many doses are ordered and how wealthy a country is. (A Moderna spokeswoman disputed Airfinity’s calculation that the company had provided 900,000 doses to low-income countries, but she didn’t provide an alternate figure.)
© Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images In Tunis, medics prepared Moderna doses donated by the United States through Covax.

Nearly a year after Western countries began sprinting to vaccinate their populations, the focus in recent months has shifted to the severe vaccine shortages in many parts of the world. Dozens of poorer countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, had vaccinated less than 10 percent of their populations as of Sept. 30.

In August, for example, Johnson & Johnson faced rebukes from the director general of the World Health Organization and public health activists after The Times reported that doses of that shot produced in South Africa were being exported to wealthier countries.

Biden administration officials are especially frustrated with what they see as Moderna’s lack of cooperation, because the U.S. government has provided the company with critical assistance.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health worked with the company to develop the vaccine. The United States kicked in $1.3 billion for clinical trials and other research. And in August 2020, the government agreed to preorder $1.5 billion of the vaccine, guaranteeing that Moderna would have a market for what was an unproven product.

While clinical trials last year found that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were similarly effective, more recent studies suggest that Moderna’s shot is superior. It offers longer-lasting protection and is easier to transport and store.

Moderna’s shot is “essentially the premium vaccine,” said Karen Andersen, an industry analyst at Morningstar. “They’re in a position where they probably don’t need to sacrifice too much on pricing in a lot of these deals.”

There is limited public information about the deals that Moderna has struck with individual governments. Of the 22 countries, plus the European Union, to which Moderna and its distributors have reported selling the shots, none are low income, and only the Philippines is classified as lower middle income. (Six are upper middle income.)

Pfizer, by comparison, said it had agreed to sell its vaccine at discounted prices to 12 upper-middle-income countries, five lower-middle-income governments and one poor country, Rwanda. (Tunisia, for example, is paying about $7 per dose.)

Only a handful of governments have disclosed how much they’re paying for Moderna doses. The United States paid $15 to $16.50 for each shot, on top of the $1.3 billion the government gave Moderna to develop its vaccine. The European Union has paid $22.60 to $25.50 for its Moderna doses.

Botswana, Thailand and Colombia, which the World Bank classifies as upper-middle-income countries, have said they are paying $27 to $30 per Moderna dose.

The lack of transparency about how much other governments are paying has put relatively poor countries in a weak bargaining position. They are “negotiating totally in the dark,” said Kate Elder, who advises Doctors Without Borders on vaccine policy.

In some cases, Moderna has offered to provide poorer countries the vaccine at relatively low prices, but only after it has fulfilled other countries’ orders.

In May, Moderna offered the African Union doses for about $10 each, according to a bloc official involved in the discussions. But the doses wouldn’t be available until next year, causing the talks to fall apart, according to two African Union officials.

Dr. Ayoade Alakija, who helps run the African Union’s vaccine delivery program but was not involved in the procurement discussions, said Moderna’s attitude amounted to: “We’re here to make money. We’ve stumbled upon a good thing, and we’re not even trying to pretend that we’re trying to save the world.”

Moderna’s Covid vaccine has been transformative for the company and its leaders. The company has said it expects its vaccine to generate at least $20 billion in revenue this year, which would make it one of the most lucrative medical products in history. Ms. Andersen, the Morningstar analyst, projected that the company’s profits on the vaccine could be as high as $14 billion. In 2019, Moderna reported total revenue of $60 million.

Moderna’s market value has nearly tripled this year to more than $120 billion. Two of its founders, as well as an early investor, this month made Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest people in the United States.

As the coronavirus spread in early 2020, Moderna raced to design its vaccine — which uses a new technology known as messenger RNA — and to plan a safety study. To manufacture the doses for that trial, the company received $900,000 from the nonprofit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The nonprofit group said Moderna had agreed to its “equitable access principles.” That meant, according to the coalition, that the vaccine would be “first available to populations when and where they are needed and at prices that are affordable to the populations at risk, especially low- and middle-income countries or to public sector entities that procure on their behalf.”

Moderna agreed in May to provide up to 34 million vaccine doses this year, plus up to 466 million doses in 2022, to Covax, the struggling United Nations-backed program to vaccinate the world’s poor. The company has not yet shipped any of those doses, according to a Covax spokesman, although Covax has distributed tens of millions of Moderna doses donated by the United States.

Mr. Bancel said that many more doses would have gone to Covax this year had the two parties reached a supply deal in 2020. Aurélia Nguyen, a Covax official, denied that, saying, “It became clear early on that the best we could expect was minimal doses in 2021.”

Late last year, the Tunisian government was hoping to order Moderna doses. Dr. Hechmi Louzir, who led Tunisia’s vaccine procurement efforts, didn’t know how to contact Moderna to begin talks and asked the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia for help, he said. Officials there contacted Moderna, he said, but nothing came of it.

“We were very interested in Moderna,” Dr. Louzir said. “We tried.”

In Thailand, where about 32 percent of people are fully vaccinated, a government spokeswoman said the government was paying Moderna about $28 per dose for one million shots that are designated for vulnerable people. Deliveries from that order will start next year.

In Botswana, the health minister told Parliament in July that the government had ordered 500,000 shots from Moderna, at nearly $29 per dose — enough to fully vaccinate about 10 percent of the population. (That would roughly double the number of Botswanans who are fully vaccinated.) A spokesman for the Health Ministry said that the doses were expected to start arriving in August, but that none had yet arrived.

Colombia ordered 10 million shots from Moderna. The government budgeted about $30 per dose, a price that may include the cost of transportation and other logistics, according to Finance Ministry documents. The country’s health minister, Dr. Fernando Ruiz, said Moderna’s vaccine was the most expensive among the Covid shots that Colombia had ordered.

There were some initial delays, Dr. Ruiz said: The first deliveries, expected in early June, came in August. About 2.3 million had arrived as of Friday.

Reporting was contributed by Noah Weiland, Mitra Taj, Elian Peltier, Jason Gutierrez, Daniel Politi, Flávia Milhorance and Muktita Suhartono.
It’s Time to Confront the Canadian Fashion Industry’s Startling Secret


Sponsored by:




Amanda Gomm

Campaigner, Oxfam Canada

Oxfam Canada’s What She Makes campaign is tackling inequality in the fashion industry and urging Canadian brands to pay workers living wages.

In today’s world, would you be able to live on $0.60 an hour? No? Neither can the Bangladeshi women who are making the clothes you’re wearing. Imagine trying to feed yourself or your family on so little. And yet, in stark contrast, it would take just over four days for a top fashion CEO to earn what a Bangladeshi woman working in the garment industry would earn in her entire lifetime.



There’s deep inequality in the fashion industry, and many Canadians are shocked to find out that while companies profit, the workers who make their clothes aren’t paid anything close to a living wage.

Systemic exploitation and widespread poverty wages in the fashion industry are denying the women who make our clothes basic human rights and decent lives, and Canadian brands are part of this problem.

Tackling inequality in the Canadian fashion industry


“What She Makes is a newly-launched campaign from Oxfam Canada that’s seeking to change the practices of big Canadian fashion brands,” says Amanda Gomm, a What She Makes campaigner at Oxfam Canada, one of 21 organizations worldwide that make up Oxfam International. Together they work in more than 90 countries to fight inequality. “Systemic exploitation and widespread poverty wages in the fashion industry are denying the women who make our clothes basic human rights and decent lives, and Canadian brands are part of this problem,” says Gomm.

Oxfam Canada believes that Canadian fashion brands have the potential to be a catalyst for good, and the organization is urging five companies — Joe Fresh, Roots, lululemon, Herschel Supply Co., and Aritzia — to make a commitment to pay the women who make our clothing a living wage.


The fashion industry’s gender imbalance

Women are the threads that hold the garment industry together. Approximately 80 percent of garment workers are women. Unfortunately, these women are an especially vulnerable group. They often come from poverty and lack basic education, having done low-skilled work since they were children. The pandemic has only worsened their situation.

“Before the pandemic, I used to get $154,” says 35-year-old garment worker Reshma. “Prices of daily groceries and everything have increased. The money I receive isn’t sufficient to run my family.”

“I feel tired all the time,” says Taslima, 21. “As I cannot afford proper food with my wages, I’m becoming weak. Everything is expensive now, including vegetables and potatoes. Some days I just eat rice with salt.”

Oxfam focuses on promoting the rights of women and girls in its mission to build lasting solutions to poverty and injustice, understanding that ending global poverty begins with women’s rights.

Standing up for Canadian clothing without poverty woven into its fabric

With their influencing power in the garment industry’s buyer’s market, Canadian fashion brands have a responsibility to make a change. We must support ethical fashion — and consumers have a role to play in this, too. When consumers speak up and let their favourite brands know that responsible consumerism matters to them, these companies will be encouraged to change their practices.

The cost shouldn’t be put on consumers, either. Gomm notes that they believe the cost of paying a living wage can be absorbed in the supply chain.

“Even if we’re able to get one or two major fashion retailers to commit, this could affect the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of women and their families,” she adds.




Author
Tania Amardeil, ca.editorial@mediaplanet.com
A podcast for retail workers is calling out the 'soul-defeating' industry for harsh management, abusive customers, and poverty wages

insider@insider.com (Áine Cain) 
© iStock; Skye Gould/Insider iStock; Skye Gould/Insider

Retail Warzone is a new podcast that focuses on the plight of retail workers.

Co-host Steve Rowland was a longtime retail manager who got laid off during the pandemic.

He is now focused on shining a light on industry "horror stories."

At the returns desk of a home decór store, a woman brought in flower pot writhing with gray maggots in its base. She was furious when an employee said the store would be unable to process the return, given the larvae-infested state of the product.

Steve Rowland, a manager, watched back footage of the exchange like game tape, wondering where the employee went wrong. The customer, who eventually called up the corporate office, hadn't followed the simple instructions to drill drainage holes in the pot. Still, Rowland was told by a district manager to reprimand the employee for the interaction, despite the fact he'd followed the company's guidelines. The customer eventually received a full refund and an additional $50 store credit.

For Rowland and his staff, it was just another morale-deadening example of management siding against employees who were just following company rules.

After 33 years in retail, Rowland was laid off from his job due to COVID-19. So in February 2021, he did what many others have done: He started a podcast. "Retail Warzone" is hosted by Rowland and Alex Rowland (no relation). The podcast showcases workers' "horror stories" each week and advocates for pro-worker changes within the sector.

"Retail in general is very soul-defeating," Rowland told Insider. "It breaks your spirit after a certain amount of time."

And the state of retail jobs affects a large swath of the labor force. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2020 there were about 4 million retail sales jobs, 3.4 million cashier gigs, and 4.4 million food server posts in the United States.

"That's a lot of people getting stomped on," Rowland said.

The pandemic has shone a light on the plight of many service workers. Retail workers have contended with workplace violence, often at the hands of enraged shoppers convinced that "the customer is always right." Rage-quitting and ghosting have become common practices, as a result of these conditions. Many work for low pay, as the federal minimum wage hasn't risen from $7.25 since 2009 and has failed to keep up with housing costs and productivity. Outsiders levy criticisms about retail workers being lazy, due to the labor shortage.

When he started out in retail in 1988, Rowland said customers would still cross a store to put back items that they decided against purchasing. Over the years, he felt himself watching "the wheels come off the wagon" as "society basically devolved in real time." Rowland said he blames retailers valuing "profits over people" and rewarding bad behavior from shoppers.

"Customers have become more entitled, more emboldened to treat retail employees, hospitality employees, and grocery employees like servants," he said. "You're not paid enough to be a punching bag for the customer. But corporations are willing to sacrifice the mental health and safety of an employee for avoiding getting a bad review on Facebook or Amazon."

According to Rowland, the result for workers is burnout and depression, on top of issues like low pay, poor benefits, and a lack of professional stability. The podcast host said that, thanks to the hiring crunch, "the workforce has more power right now than they ever have in the history of the retail industry." Still, he's upset by the lack of appreciation that frontline workers have received during the pandemic, even after being declared "essential."

"Retail workers got a little bit of a break in 2020 from the abuse," Rowland said. "But as soon as we turned the corner into 2021, everybody forgot that and the treatment got worse."
Read the original article on Busines
THIS ALSO HAPPENED IN CHINA EARLIER THIS YEAR
Dozens of runners were rescued from a northern Utah mountain after extreme winter weather

By Andy Rose, CNN 

A 50-mile race in the mountains of north of Salt Lake City, Utah, was cut short Saturday morning after more than 80 runners found themselves in dangerous winter conditions, the Davis County Sheriff's Office said.
© Davis County Sheriff's Office A screenshot from a video posted by the Davis County Sheriff's Office shows the weather conditions.

"There were white-out conditions and 12 to 18 inches of snow," Sheriff Kelly Sparks told CNN.

The DC Peaks 50 "ultra marathon" began at a park in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains and organizers were unaware of the winter conditions quickly developing up higher, the sheriff told CNN.

According to the official website of the event, the start of the line "has an elevation of 4,888'" while the average elevation of the race if 6,604 feet.

"Venturing onto the mountains, trails, and bodies of water at this time of year can be dangerous because the weather changes rapidly and conditions can quickly become life-threatening. Even a mild rain in the valley can translate to blizzard conditions at higher elevations," Kelly said in a statement included in a news release.

Race organizers suspended the race at the top of Farmington Canyon and authorities, aided by search and rescue teams, worked "for several hours" to get the runners safely off the mountain, the news release said

"A few" runners were treated for hypothermia and released at the scene, and one person treated for hypothermia and a minor injury was also released at the scene, the release added.

By 2:45 p.m. -- a little more than five hours after authorities were first notified of the situation -- all runners were accounted for and off the mountain, the sheriff's office said.

"The rapid and collaborative response of our Search and Rescue volunteers, race organizers, and first responders from multiple agencies, resulted in minimal injuries and all runners returning home safely today," the sheriff said in the statement. "I extend my deep gratitude to everyone involved in this rescue effort."

Saturday, October 09, 2021

GAIA LIVES!
Volcanic ash meets Saharan Air Layer in unique display over La Palma

Nathan Howes 
The Weather Network

Mother Nature can toil in mysterious ways to create a work of art out of something that appears to be nothing out of the ordinary.

These cool looking cloud rings have some very special ingredients

In the case of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, Spain, a stunning cloud ripple recently formed above it amid the ongoing eruptions.

The Volcanology Institute (INVOLCAN) observed a rise in explosive activity on Oct. 2, and in the midst of the elevated activity, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a unique image showing a dense plume of ash streaming south just two days later.




SEE ALSO: Take a photo tour of the Canary Islands, a region shaped by volcanoes

According to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Center, the plume soared to three kilometres in the air on Oc. 4, creating a hazard to aircraft nearby. Even though the activity spiked, volcanologists still assessed Cumbre Vieja’s volatile state as moderate -- garnering a 2 out of 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI).

According to NASA's Earth Observatory, the bull’s-eye-shaped cloud resulted from a rising column of superheated ash and gases -- known as the eruption column.

© Provided by The Weather Network(NASA)

The floating pillar of water vapour and other gases arose rapidly upward until it clashed with a drier, warmer layer of the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) at roughly 5.3 kilometres altitude, according to INVOLCAN.

"A handful of incredibly unique ingredients all came together to create an amazing display on the Spanish island of La Palma as an incredibly active volcano erupted," said Jessie Uppal, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

The abnormally warm air situated atop a temperature inversion acted like a lid, stopping the volcanic plume from going any higher. As a result, it just levelled out and spread horizontally.

© Provided by The Weather Network(Daniel Lopez/Storyful)

"We know warm air naturally rises into the atmosphere where the cooler air is surrounding it. This is exactly how we get the development of thunderstorms, but in this case, we have an eruptive volcano," says Uppal.

The inversion is a layer within the atmosphere that temperatures typically increases with height, Uppal said, and that's why "we see that column of volcano plume stop right there and ripple its way out."

"Since volcanic eruptions typically have natural ebbs and flows in their intensity, pulses in the upward flow of the volcanic column created concentric gravity waves as they hit the temperature inversion and spread outward. The process is similar to the way a stone dropped in a pond creates ripples that spread outward," NASA's Earth Observatory explained.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The good news about the particular eruption that yielded the picturesque sight was its lack of energy to send large amounts of ash and gases into the stratosphere, NASA said, where it can have "strong and lasting effects on weather and climate."

With files from Jessie Uppal, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.
Follow Nathan Howes on Twitter.

Volcanic lava in Spain's La Palma engulfs more houses, land

Lava burns buildings following the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano, in Tacande

Silvio Castellanos and Juan Medina
Sat, October 9, 2021

LA PALMA, Spain (Reuters) -Red-hot lava engulfed the land Jose Roberto Sanchez inherited from his parents on Saturday and lightning flashed around the rim of the volcano that has been erupting on the Spanish island of La Palma for almost three weeks.

There were 37 seismic movements on Saturday, with the largest measuring 4.1, the Spanish National Geological Institute said, but La Palma's airport reopened after being closed since Thursday because of ash, Spanish air traffic operator Aena said. All other Canary Islands airports are open.


The magma streaming down the hillside from the Cumbre Vieja volcano destroyed at least four village buildings, some of nearly 1,150 buildings and surrounding land destroyed since the volcano began erupting on Sept. 19.

"The memories of my parents, the inheritance I had there, it’s all gone," Sanchez told Reuters of the land his parents owned in Todoque in the west of the island.

Lava has engulfed 493 hectares (1,218 acres) of land, Miguel Ángel Morcuende, technical director of the Canary Islands Volcanic Emergency Plan (Pevolca) organisation, said.

Some people, like Clara Maria, 70, who also lives in Todoque, have so far escaped the impact.

"The lava has not yet reached my house. (It) was 50 years of sacrifice, stone by stone we built it. I have hope and faith that it will be saved," she said.

About 6,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on La Palma, which has about 83,000 inhabitants.

Lightning flashes were seen near the eruption early on Saturday. A study published in 2016 by the journal Geophysical Research Letters found lightning can be produced during volcanic eruptions because the collision of ash particles creates an electrical charge.

Airlines flying to the Canary Islands were advised to load extra fuel in case planes had to change course or delay landing because of ash, said a spokesman for Enaire, which controls navigation in Spanish airspace.

(Reporting by Silvio Castellanos, Juan Medina, Graham KeeleyEditing by Jason Neely, Frances Kerry and Philippa Fletcher)

 

 

 





EXXON IS UNION BUSTING
Exxon discusses new terms with union representing locked-out Texas refinery workers


(Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp said on Saturday it and the United Steelworkers union, the union representing workers locked out of a Texas refinery, discussed terms of a proposed labor contract 
(A LOCK OUT IS THE BOSS BARGAINING IN BAD FAITH)
.
© Reuters/ERWIN SEBA FILE PHOTO: 
Exxon Mobil Beaumont locks out refinery workers

Exxon said it provided clarifications to its latest proposal and rejected the union's proposed changes to that offer, saying they would raise its costs.

"Union provided a one-pager with 24 proposed items they requested be included in our offer ... the majority of the items increase cost to the Company, and as we told the Union, we are not interested in including them in our offer," Exxon said.

It has been over five months since Exxon locked some 650 workers out at the Beaumont, Texas, plant, replacing them with temporary workers. SCABS

The new proposal came at a time when at least 30% of workers represented by United Steelworkers union local 13-243 signed a petition to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board to force a vote on removing the union.

The union on Friday accused the company of misleading people with confusing statements regarding the union, negotiations and the company's lockout.

Exxon also said the union refused to say whether it would seek a vote on the latest offer and the next bargaining meeting was not scheduled.

(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Chris Reese)



Ultra-wealthy Americans want you to think their philanthropy will change the world. They should just pay their taxes instead.

insider@insider.com (Paul Constant) 
© Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images 

Author Anand Giridharadas says charitable giving is a 'smokescreen' for the ultra-wealthy. 

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast.

In a recent episode, author Anand Giridharadas explained how wealthy Americans use philanthropy to avoid taxation.

He says it's a relatively cheap way the ultra-wealthy can "do bad things in the billions and wipe it out with gifts in the millions."


In this week's episode of "Pitchfork Economics," journalist Anand Giridharadas, author of the excellent book "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World," explains how billionaires use philanthropic giving to whitewash their reputations - and avoid taxation.

"We're living in this time in which you cannot walk down the street in certain ZIP codes of this country without bumping into a plutocrat trying to change the world," Giridharadas said. It seems as though every billionaire in America has at least one nonprofit foundation focusing on one social ill or another.

But aren't these splashy hundred-million-dollar-plus donations a good thing? Aren't these billionaires creating positive change with their charitable donations? Giridharadas argues that the charitable giving is a smokescreen to disguise the fact that the richest humans in the history of world "benefit from a near-monopoly on the fruits of the future" in which they have "essentially rigged the society to function as a casino in which the house - i.e., them - always wins."

"You've got a whole class of people who have cause to be resented," Giridharadas said, "who are, in many cases, manipulating their company books so they don't pay taxes, who are underpaying workers." For those wealthy few, he said, philanthropy is "a relatively cheap, bargain-basement way of changing your name. You can do bad things in the billions and wipe it out with gifts in the millions."

Despite their splashy press releases touting huge donations, the fact is that the super-rich's charitable giving is a drop in the bucket compared to their ever-growing fortunes. Zara Khan points out for Datawrapper, "charitable donations by the richest 20 Americans account for less than 1% of the total wealth of the donors."

If you are an average American taxpayer, the 400 wealthiest families in America now pay a lower tax rate than you. Imagine all the programs and projects we could have built had the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans stayed at 91%, where it was in the US from 1951 to 1964 (PDF), when the economy was growing at its fastest.

That's why "Pitchfork Economics" host Nick Hanauer this week wrote an editorial for the New Republic calling on Congress to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans - including Hanauer.

"It drives me crazy when I hear Democrats say that 'for the sake of the economy' we have to cut back on the $3.5 trillion spending in Biden's Build Back Better legislation, or that we can't possibly raise taxes on the wealthy and huge corporations as much as Biden proposed," Hanauer wrote.

"Those folks have it totally backward," Hanauer continued. "Taxing the rich is the only plan that would increase investment, boost productivity, grow the economy, and create more and better jobs." He's right - raising taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations would pay for the $3.5 trillion in spending over the 10 years of the Build Back Better plan, and the mammoth scope of that legislation, from greening the economy to investing in childcare to increasing educational opportunities for children and adults, would more significantly transform the economy than any plutocratic philanthropy ever could.

That's because there's another benefit to raising taxes on the super-rich: Their money would no longer be hoarded in the kind of offshore accounts that we learned about last week in the bombshell Pandora Papers. Instead, once it was invested in ordinary Americans, that money would circulate through local economies from hand to hand, creating jobs, spurring small business growth, and strengthening local communities through increased consumer demand. It's a much simpler system than elaborately disguising ostentatious wealth through philanthropic giving - and it has the added benefit of being better for everyone in the long haul.
Migrants' hopes dashed by surprise deportation to Haiti from U.S. border


FILE PHOTO: Haitian migrants board a plane for a voluntary repatriation flight from Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince

Daina Beth Solomon
Fri, October 8, 2021


By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Haitian migrant Nikel Norassaint did not know where he was headed when Mexican migration officials put him on a flight last week in the southeastern city of Villahermosa, days after they had detained him near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The sea below was his only clue until the plane touched down in Port-au-Prince a few hours later, his first time in the country in five years.


"I said, 'Wow, I'm in Haiti,'" Norassaint, 49, recalled. "My heart almost stopped."

Norassaint, who has lived abroad for two decades, and another Haitian migrant on the flight said they were stunned to be returned to their homeland without warning.

They joined some 7,000 people expelled to Haiti from the United States after more than double that number amassed last month at an encampment in Del Rio, Texas on the Mexican border. Mexico has sent 200 people total back to Haiti as well.

Migrant advocacy groups and even a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haitian-migrants-face-crucial-choices-expulsion-flights-ramp-up-2021-09-23 have condemned deportations to the Caribbean country beset by poverty and violence as inhumane, casting doubt on pledges from both the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to aid struggling migrants.

Norassaint said he had been hopeful that Biden, who had advocated for a "humane" immigration policy, had "opened the door" for migrants when he crossed into Del Rio to seek entry to the United States.

But he decamped to Mexico once word began to spread of U.S. deportations. Migration officials detained him in the city of Ciudad Acuna opposite Del Rio and then bused him 930 miles (1,500 km) south to Villahermosa.

The Mexican government's National Migration Institute (INM) had described the Sept. 29 flight to Port-au-Prince with 70 migrants on board as "voluntary assisted return."

But for Norassaint, who lived in the Dominican Republic for 16 years before resettling in Chile in 2018, nothing about going back to Haiti was a matter of choice.

"There's no work, it's unsafe, there was an earthquake, many people are dead," he said, noting even President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July.

When asked about Norassaint's experience, Mexico's migration institute said it followed legal administrative protocol to return people to Haiti.

MIGRATION POLICY OF 'EUPHEMISMS'

Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of Human Rights Watch in the Americas, said in an opinion article on Sunday that the group has documented past instances of Mexican officials pressuring migrants to agree to "voluntary" returns, and described the country's migration policy as "riddled with euphemisms."

The migration institute sent another 130 migrants back to Haiti https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-sends-another-130-migrants-haiti-by-plane-2021-10-06 by plane on Wednesday; that flight was not labeled "voluntary." A video of migrants boarding the plane, filmed by a migrant rights activist and posted on social media, showed one man jumping from the stairs and dashing across the tarmac.

Norassaint is now staying with family in the coastal city of Miragoane and asking relatives in the United States to send money because he cannot withdraw funds from his Chilean bank account.

His 12-year-old daughter and 17-year-old stepson are still in Mexico with their mother.

Another man on the flight, Alfred, also mourned his surprise deportation to Haiti after he left the country in 2009 to live in the Dominican Republic, and then Chile.

He hoped to reach the United States to escape worsening discrimination in Chile, but hung back in Mexico to avoid deportation.

Officials detained Alfred, who requested anonymity because of Haiti's precarious security situation, as he was leaving his hotel in Ciudad Acuna to buy food and supplies for his wife, who is two months pregnant.

Alfred had made it to Mexico by following tips in a WhatsApp group while his wife took a plane so she would not need to risk her life crossing the jungle between Colombia and Panama.

During the week in migration detention, he was allowed to make one brief call to his wife, who said she was making her way to the northern border city of Tijuana.

"I'm about to have a heart attack, thinking I left my wife behind," Alfred said. "We've been together for ten years. Look where she is now, and I'm here."

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Aurora Ellis)



Former U.S. envoy to Haiti tells Congress: ‘No one asked me about the deportations’



Jacqueline Charles, Michael Wilner
Fri, October 8, 2021

When the Biden administration last month decided to deport thousands of Haitian migrants living underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, along the U.S.-Mexico border, the man who was supposed to be in charge of all U.S. things related to Haiti was not even consulted.

“No one asked me about the deportations. I found out about it on the news just like the rest of us,” former U.S. special envoy Daniel Foote told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a public briefing Thursday. “I thought I was the special envoy, so maybe when we’re making policy decisions, someone would come to me and say ‘Is this good? Is this bad?’ But it didn’t happen.“

Foote, who was appointed to the role after pressure from Congress and after the shocking July 7 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, resigned last month after only two months on the job. In his strongly worded resignation letter, he harshly criticized what he called the United States’ “inhumane” treatment of Haitian migrants and cited “irreconcilable policy differences” with the Biden administration on Haiti.


House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks later told the Miami Herald that he found it “disconcerting” that the envoy he and 67 others first pushed for in April was blindsided. On Thursday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, called for “the immediate appointment of a new Special Envoy for Haiti as the country reels from natural disaster, gang violence, COVID-19, and political crisis in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.”

Menendez made the request in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He and 14 other Senate Democrats expressed their disappointment over the “United States’ inhumane treatment of Haitian migrants at the southern border” and urged the administration to support long-term stability in Haiti. The State Department had previously said it did not think another special envoy for Haiti is needed.

Foote’s resignation has set off a debate over the U.S. policy toward Haiti, and has added pressure on the Biden administration, which was already facing questions over its approach to a series of crises in the volatile Caribbean country.

Foote has accused the U.S. and international community of propping up Prime Minister Ariel Henry and told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that absent U.S. support for Henry, he believes he would not survive.

“I think the risk of changing governments in a country like Haiti makes us nervous,” Foote said.

In a call with reporters Thursday before Foote’s briefing with lawmakers, a senior administration official said the administration was trying to avoid the impression that it was putting its “thumbs on the scale” in favor of one political figure over another.

“The situation with regard to the elections, the political dynamics and the security situation are all intertwined, and so we see our role as one where we’re going to be taking the long view on Haiti, and figuring out how we can be most effective at supporting Haitian-led solutions to Haiti’s challenges,” the senior official said.

“What that means on the political side is not putting our thumbs on the scale on the side of any one particular actor,” the official continued, “but rather being seen as supporting this broad dialogue while we engage with the interim prime minister, Ariel Henry, on delivering vaccines, making sure we’re providing robust support for those who are being repatriated.”

While pressure continued to build Thursday for the administration to stop its support for Henry, the Haitian leader has also been encouraged by senior Biden administration officials and others in the international community to continue to pursue a political accord he has forged with the goal of changing his government and holding elections and a vote on a new constitution next year.

However, his appointment has been controversial. Henry was tapped by Moïse just days before his death, but had not yet been officially installed, following pressure on Moïse by the international community to appoint a new prime minister who could lead a new consensus government that could take Haiti to presidential and long overdue legislative elections.

A 71-year-old neurosurgeon, Henry previously served in the cabinets of former president René Préval and Michel Martelly, and in 2004 was among a council of advisers who chose the prime minister to lead Haiti through a two-year transition after the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Though Henry has said he has no intentions on holding onto power, he remains a target of both those loyal to Moïse, who are opposed to his outreach to opposition groups, and members of civil society pushing their own governance accord.

“The reality is our current policy toward Haiti is a holdover from the previous administration and is in desperate need of fresh faces and perspectives,” Meeks, a New York Democrat, said at the start of the meeting. “I am concerned that using business-as-usual diplomacy is counterproductive in a country which is demanding closer ties and an ear toward the recommendation of civil society and grassroots groups.”

He said the plan is to continue talking and he will take back what they have learned to the Biden administration.

“We want to make sure there is an open dialogue where we are listening to the Haitian people,” Meeks said. “We are not picking winners and losers. We are creating an atmosphere so that the Haitian people can pick their own.”

At the time of Foote’s resignation, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that some of Foote’s policy proposals on Haiti “were determined to be harmful to our commitment to the promotion of democracy in Haiti and were rejected during the policy process.”

The senior official, in his call with reporters, said the Biden administration first learned of the outgoing envoy’s concerns with the handling of the crisis in Del Rio from his resignation letter. The White House has said in the days since his resignation that border policy was not in Foote’s portfolio.

“I’m not going to get into the particulars,” the official said. “We ran a very robust process, so every issue he put on the table was considered at my level, at the deputies’ level and the principals’ level to make sure that we came out with the best policy outcomes and the best recommendations possible for the president.”

During the 90-minute virtual public briefing before the House committee Thursday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers asked Foote about his resignation, his assessments of Haiti and U.S. policy, and why the ongoing deportations of Haitians forced his decision to leave the job. They also wanted to know more about his security concerns, which he cited as not just a factor in Haiti’s lack of readiness to hold elections but the repatriations of migrants.

“Deportation back to Haiti is not the answer right now,” Foote said. “Haiti is too dangerous; our own diplomats cannot leave our compound in Port-au-Prince without armed guards. Deportation in the short term is not going to make Haiti more stable. In fact it’s going to make it worse.”

The repatriations carry strong implications for Haiti as it is still reeling from the assassination of the president, followed by a deadly magnitude 7.2 earthquake a month later in the midst of spiraling gang violence. Committee members said the heartbreaking repatriations from Del Rio, on top of the president’s murder and an earthquake in August, are only exacerbating Haiti’s crises.

Haiti, Foote said, needs assistance with security. While Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman had told the McClatchy Washington Bureau that Foote wanted to send U.S. troops to Haiti, he told committee members that his recommendation was for the Haiti National Police to establish an anti-gang task force with several components, including commandos and intelligence.

“The gangs run Port-au-Prince. It is in their control, it is in their hands; they are better equipped and better armed than the police. They control the main highways and transit routes not only across Port-au-Prince but across the country and they are now moving out of the slum areas and have been in areas of Petionville where there has never been gang violence,” Foote said. “There were 20 kidnappings last Saturday, in one day in Port-au-Prince.”

Foote, who met only once with Henry, according to Haitian government sources, made no secret of where he stood: On the side of civil society, which has forged one of the three political accords circulating on moving the country forward.

Among the provisions Foote said he supports is banning any senior member of the current regime from running in the next elections.

“I don’t have anything personal against Dr. Henry,” Foote said, adding that there is consensus in Haiti that “the ruling party, PHTK, put Haiti where it is today and probably doesn’t deserve to be part of the solution.”

PHTK was founded by Martelly, a musician-turned-president, who later handpicked Moïse to be his successor.

“We sort of chose Martelly because there was a lot of controversy over runoffs back then in 2011, and the same thing with Moïse. We can’t do that again. We need to let the Haitians select their own presidents,” Foote said.

“Some of the previous presidents and prime ministers in Haiti, particularly in recent administrations, have had their bite at the apples and Haiti probably doesn’t need them back again,” Foote added without naming names, but referring to Martelly and one of his prime ministers, Laurent Lamothe. “Haiti doesn’t need the same old politicians, the ones that are in Pandora Papers, that’s corrupt. They need people that are looking for Haiti’s best interests and the Haitian people.”
America's unemployed are sending a message: They'll go back to work when they feel safe - and well compensated



Heather Long
Fri, October 8, 2021

The anemic September employment report, with only 194,000 jobs added, illustrates the extent to which the recovery stalled as coronavirus cases surged last month, but it also signals something deeper: America's unemployed are still struggling with child-care and health issues, and they are reluctant to return to jobs they see as unsafe or undercompensated.

For months, economists predicted a surge in hiring in September as unemployment benefits expired for millions of workers and schools reopened across the country. Instead, last month marked the weakest hiring this year, and an alarming number of women had to stop working again to deal with unstable school and child-care situations.

The numbers are striking: 309,000 women over age 20 dropped out of the labor force in September, meaning they quit work or halted their job searches. In contrast, 182,000 men joined the labor force, Labor Department data showed.

The simplest explanation for the mediocre jobs gains in September is the rapidly spreading delta variant of the coronavirus. It zapped a lot of momentum from the recovery as people in many parts of the country became more hesitant to eat out and travel. A mere 2,100 jobs were added in hotels and just 29,000 in restaurants.

The coronavirus surge also torpedoed the reopening of public schools and the return to in-person learning. Schools repeatedly faced outbreaks and concerns from staff members, including many bus drivers, who were hesitant to go back to driving vehicles teeming with children, as those under 12 can't be vaccinated.

"It's been so unpredictable. In-person school has not been reliable, and working moms had to balance that with trying to have a career," said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economics professor at Northeastern University. "My 9-year-old woke up with sniffles and could not go to school today. I am living this in real time."

The September jobs report offered fresh evidence contradicting Republicans who have said that generous unemployment aid has been keeping people away from the workforce. Millions of people lost all aid or had it significantly scaled back at the start of September. But there was not an immediate wave of workers returning to jobs.

The key takeaway from the jobs report is that this is an uneven and bumpy recovery. The reason the United States has roughly 11 million job openings and 7.7 million unemployed is more complex than many are willing to admit.

The coronavirus continues to be a major factor in people's hesitancy to return to work, but there is something deeper going on in 2021. Workers, especially low-wage workers, are revolting against years of poor pay and stressful conditions. It remains unclear how the Great Reassessment of work will play out going forward. For now, people are still hesitant to take the first jobs available to them, if they don't believe they're good jobs. And they are not reluctant to quit a situation they don't like.

"The big news out of the jobs report was the delta variant slowed things down. That disproportionately hit lower-wage workers," said University of Michigan economist Betsey Stevenson. "But people are also thinking they can afford [to] wait for a better job - or a safe job - to come along."

For those looking for silver linings in the report, the most obvious is that the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in September - the lowest since the pandemic hit. It marks a stunning rebound in just a year and a half from April 2020, when the official unemployment rate hit 14.7% (and it was probably even higher since the Census Bureau struggled to do its normal interviews that month).

It took nearly seven years for unemployment to drop this low after the Great Recession. Many credit the swift government response this time around, including trillions in aid for American households and businesses, for keeping people from falling into poverty and helping drive a swifter rebound.

But the unemployment rate declined for the wrong reason: The labor force got smaller in September. Fewer people, especially women, were looking for work as they continued to struggle with child care and schooling uncertainty. More than 5 million Americans have stopped looking for work during this crisis. A big question remains: Will they return?

Bahar Cetinsoy is among those millions. She was a substitute teacher in New York City before the pandemic hit. She and her husband relocated to College Park, Md., when he got another job offer. Cetinsoy is trying to get certified to teach in her new state and can't do much work in her field without that. She's also taking care of their young son, who was born during the pandemic.

"Child care is a big factor. It's expensive. If I get a part-time teaching job, I would pay more for child care than I would be making," she said. "I have never been unemployed for this long."

The optimistic view on Wall Street is that September was just another blip. There was a big decline in public education jobs, which was unusual and probably a result of many schools hiring over the summer instead of waiting until September. Excluding government and public education jobs, private-sector hiring rose 317,000 last month.

September saw modest job gains in nearly every sector outside of government. There were 74,000 hospitality jobs added, 60,000 business service jobs added, 56,000 retail jobs, 47,000 warehouse and transportation jobs, and 26,000 manufacturing jobs.

Even more encouraging is that coronavirus cases appear to be subsiding and vaccines could be available for children soon. This is driving renewed hope that hiring will pick up during the rest of the year and into 2022.

"The runway is cleared for a fall/winter jobs boom. I don't know if it starts this month or next, but I believe it's coming," tweeted Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, a jobs site.

But forecasters have repeatedly been too optimistic this year. The reality is that people continue to feel unable to return to work. For some, ongoing child-care or eldercare issues are holding them back. For others, it's concerns about being in a job with heavy exposure to the coronavirus - or one where they would repeatedly encounter customers who don't take precautions like mask-wearing and vaccinations. Some of this may improve in the coming months, but many government and business leaders have underestimated how long the deadly virus would stick around.

Beyond the virus, there is a deeper question of what jobs - and pay - people are willing to come back for. Hourly wages continued to rise in September as many businesses increased pay to try to attract workers, but the wage gains have almost entirely been eaten up by higher inflation this year.

There's also a clear divergence in how many college-educated, white-collar workers view this economy and how non-college-educated workers see it.

Employment in September grew by about 350,000 among people with a college degree or at least some college education. In contrast, employment declined by more than 430,000 among Americans with a high school degree or less.

"The labor market isn't working at the bottom," said Stevenson, the University of Michigan economist.

For now, many working-class Americans have some savings left from their stimulus checks and unemployment aid, and they often supplement it by taking on gig jobs like driving for Uber Eats. This gives them more of a cushion to wait for the right job to come along.

ONTARIO

Parents of high school students started a petition to remove a principal who loves classic heavy metal band Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden backstage
Iron Maiden members Adrian Smith, Nicko McBrain, Bruce Dickinson, Steve Harris, Dave Murray, backstage in 1985. Paul Natkin/Getty Images
  • A Canadian high school principal loves Iron Maiden and posts about the band on social media.

  • Parents started a petition to transfer Eden High School Principal Sharon Burns.

  • They said it was inappropriate for her to post a drawing that featured the symbol "666."

Parents of high school students in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada have started a petition to remove a school official because of the classic heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

Close to 400 people have signed the Change.org petition to transfer Eden High School Principal Sharon Burns.

IHeartRadio reported that the petition was started by Debbi Lynn.

"As concerned parents with impressionable children at Eden High School in St. Catharines, Ontario, we are deeply disturbed that the principal assigned to the school blatantly showed Satanic symbols and her allegiance to Satanic practices on her public social media platforms where all the students can see them under @edenprincipal (not her personal account)," the petition said.

On Friday, an update on the petition said they didn't want to remove Burns because of her love for Iron Maiden but because of "openly displaying her OWN handmade sign with the 666 clearly displayed on it."

The number 666 is used to represent the devil, antichrist, or evil.

Iron Maiden was formed in 1975 in East London, England, and grew popular in the early 1980s with several albums going platinum or gold including "The Number of the Beast" in 1982 and "Piece of Mind" in 1983. The group is still touring.

Burns's Twitter bio identifies her as "Principal at Eden High School. Growth Mindset Practitioner. Fueled by metal & ska. & chickens."

petition in support of Burns had more than 10,000 supporters by Friday night.

"It is ridiculous that a couple of parents only judge her role as a principal only based on an instagram post. (About liking the band Iron Maiden. That's it.) Eden High School is a public school. Not a Christian school. If you somehow don't like the principal of your child, grandchild, relative etc.'s school, then send them to another one," it said.

The incident is reminiscent of the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s, when conspiracy theorists claimed satanic cults were abusing children, NPR reported.

Vox reported that paranoia grew in the 1980s as many faced anxieties over changing family structures, the need for childcare, and an increase in attention to kidnapping as faces of victims began to be placed on milk cartons.

At the same time, Vox reported that Christian fundamentalism was growing, and so were messages fighting against things relating to spirits. Anti-occult crusader Pat Pulling, for example, said Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy tabletop role-playing game, caused her daughter's suicide and labeled the game as dangerous to children.

Vice reported the fear also led to certain types of music being seen as the "work of Satan," especially heavy metal.

Eden High School, Burns, and Iron Maiden did not respond to Insider's request for comment at the time of publication.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION
 

The Devil Has All the Best Tunes

You may have heard that A. P. Carter could play the fiddle, but refused to do so on record because it was “the devil’s box.” And just about everyone knows Charlie Daniel’s 1979 hit song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” about a demonic fiddling contest. But here’s the question: Out of all the instruments, why is the devil so taken with the fiddle? Why not the accordion? The saxophone? I mean, surely the kazoo was born from hellfire, right?

Close up of fiddle in its case.
This fiddle from our collection looks pretty free of fire and brimstone… © Birthplace of Country Music; Photographer: Haley Hensley. Gift of Ruth Roe

Where there is fiddle music, though, there is often dancing, and where there is dancing, the devil is surely at play. I have stories of this in my own family – my grandmother’s Uncle Willard was very musical, but Grandma and her sisters would only dance to his music when their very religious Aunt Eugie wasn’t around to see them. The link between dancing and the devil is an old one in fact. Way back in the 4th century, St. John Chrysotom said that “where dance is, there is the devil.” Countless preachers over the centuries have espoused the same.

While the fiddle and its link to dancing was seen by many as the devil at play, the devil’s prowess with a fiddle and bow also brought inspiration. In the early 18th century, the Italian composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini claimed that his most famous work, the “Devil’s Trill Sonata,” was delivered to him by the devil in a dream. This, of course, led to some imaginative depictions of what that might have looked like…

Illustration shows a man asleep in bed with the devil seated at the foot of the bed playing the fiddle.

Illustration of the legend behind Guiseppe Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill Sonata.” Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Scotland’s favorite poet, Robert Burns, wrote “The Deil’s Awa Wi’ The Excise Man” a few decades later, in which the devil fiddles into town and dances off with the tax collector. The townsfolk react thusly:

We’ll mak our maut, and we’ll brew our drink,

We’ll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man,

And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil,

That danc’d awa wi’ th’ Exciseman.

In case your Scots dialect is a bit rusty…basically everyone extends their grateful thanks to the devil, for with the tax man gone, they can booze it up all they want and have a big time!

With that rollicking party in mind, here are a handful of the most devilish tunes I know:

“The Devil’s Dream”

“The Devil’s Dream” is a standard Appalachian fiddle tune. Laura Ingalls Wilder remembers hearing this tune as a child in the 1870s, so it’s probably safe to assume that it was also a familiar one to fiddlers in our region at the time of the Bristol Sessions. It originated in Scotland as “The De’l Among the Tailors,” and it was also noted in an English folk tale from the early 1800s. It is played here by the Whitetop Mountain Band (featuring Radio Bristol DJ Martha Spencer and family).

 

Detail of text describing Laura hearing her Pa play "The Devil's Dream" and other tunes on the fiddle.
Laura Ingalls Wilder remembers her Pa playing “The Devil’s Dream” in Little House in the Big Woods. Photograph courtesy of Emily Robinson

“Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?”

“Did You Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?” is another good fiddle tune. Fiddlin’ Cowan Powers and his family, who play it here, were the first family string band to record commercially…three years before the 1927 Bristol Sessions! I learned this tune as “Hop High Ladies,” and some may know it as “Miss MacLeod’s reel” – another import from the British Isles. Click on this link for an extra treat: Pipe Major Willie Ross playing both of these tunes in the early 20th century!

“Never Let the Devil Get the Upper Hand”

Speaking of the 1927 Bristol Sessions, here’s another devil-fueled tune recorded a decade later by Bristol Sessions artists The Carter Family: “Never Let the Devil Get the Upper Hand” – which just seems like good all-round advice! Spoiler alert, however: the devil DOES get the upper hand of the young man in this song and convinces him to murder his lover. This story might sound familiar if you’ve ever heard the old murder ballad “Knoxville Girl.” It’s basically the same tale, though the latter adds a lot more gruesome detail.

“The Old Lady & the Devil”

In contrast, a woman gets the upper hand of Old Scratch – and her husband! – in “The Old Lady & the Devil,” recorded by Johnson City Sessions artists Bill & Bell Reed. In this tune, a farmer happily lets the devil carry off his wife, but she raises so much hell in Hell that the devil brings her back home again. Dave Rawlings included a fantastic version of this song on his 2017 album Poor David’s Almanack… though he shortens the chorus and leaves out the bit where the woman whacks her husband with the dasher from the butter churn.

That gives you just a few of the devilish tunes out there, but I hope the music and the links between the devil and the much-loved fiddle get you in the mood for a very Happy Halloween!