USA

Kroger workers survey reveals economic hardship, food insecurity

By Rich Klein

Negotiations over wages between Kroger/King's Snoopers and a union representing the company's workers in Colorado have stalled and could lead to a strike beginning Wednesday. 

File Photo by Bob Strong/UPI | License Photo


Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Nearly two-thirds of Kroger workers do not make enough money to pay for basic expenses every month, and some experience food insecurity, according to a survey of the company's retail workers in three states released Tuesday.

The survey conducted by the Economic Roundtable is the largest-ever independent survey of retail workers in the United States, according to the organization, a nonprofit research group. It was requested by four United Food and Commercial Workers unions.

Kroger is the largest grocery chain in the United States, including King Sooper's, Fred Meyer and QFC.

Three regions with 36,795 hourly Kroger workers were surveyed: The Puget Sound region of Washington state, the state of Colorado, and Southern California. Completed surveys were received from 10,287 workers, representing a 28% response rate.

Among the workers who reported being unable to afford necessities, 44% were unable to pay rent, and 39% said they wee unable to pay for groceries. Fourteen percent of respondents reported being homeless now or during the past year.

Kroger "falls short in using its abundant food resources to meet the essential needs of its front-line employees," the Economic Roundtable said.

Seventy-three percent of Kroger workers said they are not fairly compensated based on their experience and the work that they do.

Kroger's annual revenue rose 8% in 2021, to $132 billion, BuzzFeed news reported, with senior executives paid $5 million or more each in 2020. CEO Rodney McMullen earned $22 million.

Meanwhile, negotiations over wages between Kroger/King's Snoopers and a union representing the company's workers in Colorado have stalled and could lead to a strike beginning Wednesday.

As of Jan. 1, the minimum wage in Colorado was raised to $12.56 from $12.32.

#FIGHTFOR15

ALDOUS HUXLEY; ENDS AND MEANS/DO WHAT YOU WILL

 

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.201445/page/n3/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.78656/page/n5/mode/2up

SOMA

Psychedelic-laced beer may have helped this ancient South American empire rule

Beer laced with hallucinogenic drugs derived from plant seeds may have helped leaders of a South American culture maintain their political control for hundreds of years, according to new research.

© Lisa Milosavljevic/Royal Ontario Museum A team of researchers excavated the Quilcapampa site in Peru from 2013 to 2017 in order to better understand the Wari civilization.

By Ashley Strickland, CNN 

JAN 11,2022

The Wari, who built an empire and ruled the highlands of what is now Peru from 600 to 1,000 AD, preceded the Incas.

Archaeological excavations at the Quilcapampa site in southern Peru, which took place between 2013 and 2017, have found that the Wari used seeds from the vilca tree and combined the hallucinogenic drug with chicha, or beer made from the molle tree. This beer was then served to guests at communal feasts, reinforcing relationships while maintaining Wari political control.

The research, published Tuesday in the journal Antiquity, has shown the first evidence of vilca seeds at a Wari site.

The discovery of vilca at Quilcapampa fills a gap in the understanding of how different civilizations used substances.

"This was a turning point in the Andes in terms of politics and use of hallucinogens," said study author Matthew Biwer, a visiting assistant professor of archaeology at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

"We see this kind of use of hallucinogens as different use context than in prior civilizations, who seem to have closely guarded the use of hallucinogens to a select few, or the latter Inca Empire who emphasized the mass-consumption of beer but did not use psychotropic substances such as vilca at feasts."

The power of the feast

Researchers have yet to uncover the reason behind the collapse of the Wari Empire, but studying Wari sites is revealing more about its people.

​"The Wari Empire stretched from northern Peru to the far south near the Chilean border, and from the coast to the mountainous areas of the Andes," Biwer said. "It is the first example of an empire in South America, having collapsed around 400 years prior to the rise of the Inca Empire."

It has long been known that the Wari used beer and feasting as part of their political control, but the research proved their access to vilca and its use as a hallucinogen.

Additionally, the scientists discovered evidence that the Wari were brewing chicha in large quantities. Alongside the well-preserved botanical remains were ceramics from the center of the site, which indicate that this is where the feasts were held, the study authors said

.

© Lisa Milosavljevic/Royal Ontario Museum 

These molle drupes were used to make an alcoholic beverage similar to beer called chicha.

​"The Wari added the vilca to the chicha beer in order to impress guests to their feasts who could not return the experience," Biwer said. "This created an indebted relationship between Wari hosts and guests, likely from the surrounding region.

"We argue that the feasting, beer, and vilca thus served to create and cement social connections between Wari affiliated peoples and locals as the Empire expanded. It also was a way for Wari leaders to demonstrate and maintain social, economic, and political power."

The guests of these feasts would have felt compelled to acknowledge the power of their hosts or feel the need to owe them a favor in the future, he said.

© Lisa Milosavljevic/Royal Ontario Museum

 Investigating Wari sites in South America could help researchers determine why the empire ended.

"In the Andes, this is typically known to have occurred by the consumption of beer (chicha), llama meat, various plants such as corn and potatoes, and other foods and drink," Biwer said.

The use of vilca, typically inhaled like snuff or through a pipe, dates back at least 4,000 years, indicated by an ancient pipe from that time found at the Inca Cueva site in Argentina. The drug was also used by those in Tiwanaku, a neighboring site in Bolivia, during the time of Wari rule.

A ritual for empire-building

Earlier findings also showed that vilca was only provided exclusively to some, like priests, and not available to all.

The Wari, however, were likely dropping the drug in their alcohol and providing it to others, effectively enhancing the psychoactive effects of both substances. This inclusive behavior by the Wari elites not only showed off their hospitality, but offered an experience that wasn't widely available elsewhere and couldn't be easily replicated by anyone who may want to oppose Wari control.

"They may have experienced euphoric or spiritual sensations," Biwer said. "This type of food would have been a very powerful experience for guests who were led on a journey by Wari hosts."

It would have been too dry in the region surrounding Quilcapampa to grow vilca, he said.

"Wari established a system of roads, which the later Inca used, that move people and resources," Biwer said. "I would say that it would not have been accessible to everyone, as it was in the interest of Wari leaders to control the use and access to vilca, but it would not have been extremely difficult to get vilca to Quilcapampa."

© Luis Manuel González La Rosa and Justin Jennings/Royal Ontario Museum 

Fragments of face-necked jars from Quilcapampa were likely used to serve vilca-laced beer. Afterward, the jars were sometimes intentionally broken with a blow to the chest, according to the researchers.

Vilca grows in the Ayacucho region, where the capital of the Wari Empire once stood, as well as parts of the Cusco region 249 miles (400 kilometers) from Quilcapampa, he said.

Previous research has shown that the Wari were also capable of accessing other distant resources, like seashells, obsidian and Amazonian feathers.

Next, Biwer and his team are eager to search for Wari sites in a coastal valley in Peru. Discovering new sites could help researchers determine how climate change and drought could have impacted the Wari before their reign ended.

© Luis Manuel González La Rosa and Justin Jennings/Royal Ontario Museum 

This Chakipampa-style cup from the Quilcapampa site may have been used to drink beer. It was shattered during the final feast.

© Lisa Milosavljevic/Royal Ontario Museum 

Maico Aybar Villalobos holds fragments of a Robles Moqo vessel that he excavated from Quilcapampa.

there is always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon...”

Soma in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932)

https://www.huxley.net › soma › somaquote

The prince, the mayor, and the U.S. fish that ate Japan

Christian Elliott 

National Geographic

JAN. 11,2022

When Crown Prince Akihito visited Chicago on October 3, 1960, his sole request was to visit Shedd Aquarium. Then Mayor Richard J. Daley, an avid angler, presented the prince with a gift that he scooped with a net from one of the tanks himself: 18 bluegills, the official Illinois state fish.

© Photograph by Associated Press Crown Prince Akihito of Japan looks at tropical fish at the Coney Island Aquarium in New York on Sept. 30, 1960. In the background is Dr Christopher Coates, director of the aquarium. Akihito is in New York as part of the Japanese royals state visit

© Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark 

A studio portrait of a bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus.

LONG READ

The 26-year-old future emperor was already a passionate ichthyologist, and he planned to stock the exotic fish in the moat surrounding his palace, according to accounts in the Chicago Tribune at the time.

At windy Chicago O’Hare International Airport the next day with Princess Michiko, Akihito bid the city farewell, carrying a gift that he couldn’t have imagined would cause a decades-long ecological crisis in his homeland.

In the intervening six decades, the bluegills became an invasive, species-destroying nightmare, crowding Japanese freshwater lakes and rivers and destroying native fish biodiversity, says Kenji Saitoh, a researcher at the country’s Fisheries Resources and Education Agency.

 Photograph by Trevor Mogg, Alamy Stock Photo People fishing in Lake Biwa (Biwako), Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

Fortunately, science has marched on in 60 years. Now, Japanese geneticists are experimenting with the gene editing wizardry of CRISPR to sterilize the invasive bluegills. If the initiative succeeds, wildlife managers could use the same technique to rid the U.S. of damaging aquatic invasives such as the Asian carp.

In Japan, the public is ambivalent about the bluegills and wary of genetic efforts to curtail them, and it’s easy to see why. The 60-year history of bluegill in Japan is a cautionary tale about human intervention on all sides.
The invasion begins

When he arrived home after his 1960 U.S. tour, Akihito asked Japan’s national Agency of Fisheries to breed the 15 captive bluegills that survived the trans-Pacific journey, in hopes of releasing them into the wild as a new game fish, nicknamed the “prince fish” in his honor. In 1966, the bluegills’ offspring were deposited into Lake Ippeki-ko outside Ito City in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture. Three years later, a stone monument was placed on the shore to celebrate the prince fish’s successful introduction. More bluegills were released into freshwater ecosystems across Japan.

“At that time, we had not experienced any serious invasive species problems and bluegill did not look dangerous according to its feeding habits, not being a fierce piscivore,” says Nakai Katsuki, a Japanese research scientist at the Lake Biwa Museum who has studied invasive North American fish species in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture since 1989.

The Japanese government soon stopped breeding bluegill because the fish grew slowly in captivity. For a while, the bluegill was largely forgotten, says Katsuki.

But in the meantime, the fish thrived unnoticed in the wild, multiplying in Japan’s rivers, lakes, and streams, expanding its diet beyond insects, plankton, and aquatic plants to shrimp and native fish eggs. In their North American habitats, bluegills reproduce quickly and live for a long time, whereas in Japan, native shoreline fish had temporarily kept the bluegill population under control by eating their eggs and juveniles.

By 1999, the bluegill had colonized all freshwater ecosystems in the country, spurring government-supported research into bluegill dispersal. But by then, it was way too late.
Ineffectual resistance

In 2000, Saitoh, who specializes in fish genetics and evolution, went to the U.S. to track the origins of Japan’s bluegill. At the time, Japanese scientists fiercely debated whether the ubiquitous fish really originated from one source.

The research team, led by biologist Kouichi Kawamura at Mie University, southwest of Tokyo, compared mitochondrial DNA from 13 different populations of U.S. bluegill to 56 populations in Japan. In a pool of the Mississippi River near Guttenberg, Iowa, a small town nestled against limestone bluffs, the team found a perfect match: All of the prince fish originated from the 15 bluegills gifted to Akihito by Daley decades earlier. Limited genetic diversity from inbreeding didn’t seem to hinder the bluegills in Japan at all.

By now, the bluegills posed a serious threat to important native species across the country. In Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest and oldest freshwater body, bluegills decimated the Crucian carp population, a fish unique to the lake and beloved as a fermented delicacy called funazushi. So the Shiga Prefectural Government placed a $3 per kilogram bounty on bluegill to encourage commercial fishermen to target them, and enacted a $1,000 fine for restocking bluegill and bass for lure fishing. Several research teams designed new types of traps to capture bluegill and their eggs. In 2002, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment formally identified bluegill as an invasive threat.

The Prefectural Government created a website promoting recipes for bluegill, hoping to encourage people to eat the fish. A local seafood processing firm sold bluegill sushi and funazushi bluegill. Nearby Fukui University tried selling a bluegill “eco-burger.” None caught on, according to Katsuki.

“Originally accepted and celebrated as a tasty fish,” Katsuki said, by 2002 bluegill had become “an infamous fish because of its invasiveness. In this process, the good taste of bluegill has been almost forgotten in Japan.”

In June 2005, Japan’s national Invasive Alien Species Act outlawed importing, possessing, and transporting 97 species, including bluegill. Two years later, Emperor Akihito issued a formal apology for having introduced the fish to the country in what the Japan Times called “a rare expression of contrition.” “My heart aches to see it has turned out like this,” Akihito said.

By 2007, the prince fish population reached an estimated 25 million. Along with bass, introduced from the U.S. for sport fishing in the 1970s, the invader accounted for 90 percent of all fauna in Lake Biwa, once home to 30 native fish species. In 2005, the Shiga Prefectural Government spent $1.2 million to remove 420 tons of invasive fish from the lake. Thanks to continual government-sponsored commercial fishing the population has halved since then, but bluegill and bass remain in the lake, as traditional gill nets can’t capture small juvenile fish. Over the past three years, eradication efforts cost the prefectural government $270,000 annually. If fishing ceased, the bluegill population would rise again.

“The number of habitats seems to have a little decreased, and the population size in large waters like Lake Biwa has declined since 2005, but the distribution does not seem to have decreased,” says Kawamura. “I am not hopeful for the future.”
A solution that may not happen

At long last, technology could provide an answer. Ongoing research led by fish geneticist Hiroyuki Okamoto focuses on “gene-induced suppression for alien populations” using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. Okamoto’s team sequenced the bluegill genome and recently produced first-generation male fish that could carry a female-specific sterile gene into the wild bluegill population, eliminating their ability to produce eggs. The program is in its sixth year in the lab.

While genetic sterilization seems to work, Okamoto estimates he would need to release a number of altered fish equivalent to 7 percent of the invasive population to completely eradicate bluegill in Japan’s waterways. Still, he thinks gene suppression could succeed.

The task may seem arduous, but “there is no more efficient way to eliminate the invasive species,” Okamoto says. “Contract commercial fishing takes time, it needs a budget, and in Japan that budget is very small and getting smaller, because we have been doing it already for 20 years. Now that we have CRISPR technology, maybe there’s a possibility to solve this problem.”

Still, he’s not sure officials will approve releasing his sterile gene-carrying bluegill into natural ecosystems. Okamoto said he faces online criticism and threats for his work from people who say organisms altered with CRISPR don’t belong in the wild.

“While we are aware of the genetic methods designed to disrupt the reproduction of bluegill, we remain cautious of the potential impacts on native ecosystems and their relations in law and regulations,” Masaki Ohara, section chief of the International Strategy Division of the Japanese Ministry of the Environment said in an email.

There’s another major obstacle: limited public support in Japan for bluegill management in general.

Okamoto compared the U.S. Invasive Carp Regional Coordinating Committee’s 2021 $45 million budget to the $16 million Japanese budget for all inland fishery issues. “Seeing this,” he says, “I think U.S. people have much more concern about invasive fish issues.”

Saitoh agrees. “Ordinary people do not pay much attention to what’s happening in the water because it is invisible to them.”
No 'silver bullet'

Across the globe in Illinois, where Japan’s bluegills originated, Kevin Irons is dealing with an invasive species of his own: Asian carp. As aquatic nuisance species program manager at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, he oversees mass capture efforts to remove 750 tons of carp along the 330-mile length of the Illinois River Basin each year.

Over the past decade, Japanese and U.S. scientists have occasionally swapped advice and methods for controlling their respective invasives. Irons’ teams collect water samples to test for DNA from sloughed-off carp cells, a technique pioneered by Japanese geneticists to track bluegill. In 2012, Nakai Katsuki, the Lake Biwa Museum fish researcher, flew to St. Paul, Minnesota to present advances in electrofishing and artificial nests design to a conference of carp managers. He remembers eating fried silver carp, rebranded “silverfin.”

Despite his best efforts, there doesn’t seem to be “a silver bullet out there right now to eradicate carp,” Irons says.

But the technique Okamoto’s team is developing in Japan—genetic biocontrol, or “gene drive”—has been called just that by some U.S. National Academy of Sciences researchers.

“The implications are potentially remarkable: For the first time we may genuinely have a tool with the power to permanently eliminate a target species from the planet,” three scientists wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015, just before Okamoto’s work started in earnest.

“The question is no longer whether we can control invasive species using gene drive,” they wrote, “but whether we should.”

But there are tradeoffs and risks with the technique, researchers say, such as unintended off-target mutations that spread through the population for generations, or the global loss of a species if modified individuals somehow escaped and returned to their native habitat. It’s also possible that another invasive would quickly fill the vacant niche.

As the decades have demonstrated, whether a Japanese prince takes a souvenir tank of bluegills home or a U.S. farmer imports silver carp from eastern China, as with any human environmental intervention, good intentions aren’t always good enough.

Sidney Poitier – Hollywood’s first Black leading man reflected the civil rights movement on screen

Sidney Poitier, seen here in a 1980 photograph. 

Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images

January 7, 2022

In the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. introduced the keynote speaker for the 10th-anniversary convention banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Their guest, he said, was his “soul brother.”

“He has carved for himself an imperishable niche in the annals of our nation’s history,” King told the audience of 2,000 delegates. “I consider him a friend. I consider him a great friend of humanity.”

That man was Sidney Poitier.

Poitier, who died at 94 on Jan. 7, 2022, broke the mold of what a Black actor could be in Hollywood. Before the 1950s, Black movie characters generally reflected racist stereotypes such as lazy servants and beefy mammies. Then came Poitier, the only Black man to consistently win leading roles in major films from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Like King, Poitier projected ideals of respectability and integrity. He attracted not only the loyalty of African Americans, but also the goodwill of white liberals.

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In my biography of him, titled “Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon,” I sought to capture his whole life, including his incredible rags-to-riches arc, his sizzling vitality on screen, his personal triumphs and foibles and his quest to live up to the values set forth by his Bahamian parents. But the most fascinating aspect of Poitier’s career, to me, was his political and racial symbolism. In many ways, his screen life intertwined with that of the civil rights movement – and King himself.

Sidney Poitier, center, marches during the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., in May 1968. Photo by Chester Sheard/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

An age of protests

In three separate columns in 1957, 1961 and 1962, a New York Daily News columnist named Dorothy Masters marveled that Poitier had the warmth and charisma of a minister. Poitier lent his name and resources to King’s causes, and he participated in demonstrations such as the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage and the 1963 March on Washington. In this era of sit-ins, Freedom Rides and mass marches, activists engaged in nonviolent sacrifice not only to highlight racist oppression, but also to win broader sympathy for the cause of civil rights.

In that same vein, Poitier deliberately chose to portray characters who radiated goodness. They had decent values and helped white characters, and they often sacrificed themselves. He earned his first star billing in 1958, in “The Defiant Ones,” in which he played an escaped prisoner handcuffed to a racist played by Tony Curtis. At the end, with the chain unbound, Poitier jumps off a train to stick with his new white friend. Writer James Baldwin reported seeing the film on Broadway, where white audiences clapped with reassurance, their racial guilt alleviated. When he saw it again in Harlem, members of the predominantly Black audience yelled “Get back on the train, you fool!”

King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In that same year, Poitier won the Oscar for Best Actor for “Lilies of the Field,” in which he played Homer Smith, a traveling handyman who builds a chapel for German nuns out of the goodness of his heart. The sweet, low-budget movie was a surprise hit. In its own way, like the horrifying footage of water hoses and police dogs attacking civil rights activists, it fostered swelling support for racial integration.

Sidney Poitier, Katherine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in the 1967 film ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ Photo by RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images

A better man

By the time of the actor’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference speech, both King and Poitier seemed to have a slipping grip on the American public. Bloody and destructive riots plagued the nation’s cities, reflecting the enduring discontent of many poor African Americans. The swelling calls for “Black Power” challenged the ideals of nonviolence and racial brotherhood – ideals associated with both King and Poitier.

When Poitier stepped to the lectern that evening, he lamented the “greed, selfishness, indifference to the suffering of others, corruption of our value system, and a moral deterioration that has already scarred our souls irrevocably.” “On my bad days,” he said, “I am guilty of suspecting that there is a national death wish.”

By the late 1960s, both King and Poitier had reached a crossroads. Federal legislation was dismantling Jim Crow in the South, but African Americans still suffered from limited opportunity. King prescribed a “revolution of values,” denounced the Vietnam War, and launched a Poor People’s Campaign. Poitier, in his 1967 speech for the SCLC, said that King, by adhering to his convictions for social justice and human dignity, “has made a better man of me.”

Exceptional characters

Poitier tried to adhere to his own convictions. As long as he was the only Black leading man, he insisted on playing the same kind of hero. But in the era of Black Power, had Poitier’s saintly hero become another stereotype? His rage was repressed, his sexuality stifled. A Black critic, writing in The New York Times, asked “Why Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?”

President Barack Obama presents Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier with the Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

That critic had a point: As Poitier himself knew, his films created too-perfect characters. Although the films allowed white audiences to appreciate a Black man, they also implied that racial equality depends on such exceptional characters, stripped of any racial baggage. From late 1967 into early 1968, three of Poitier’s movies owned the top spot at the box office, and a poll ranked him the most bankable star in Hollywood.

Each film provided a hero who soothed the liberal center. His mannered schoolteacher in “To Sir, With Love” tames a class of teenage ruffians in London’s East End. His razor-sharp detective in “In the Heat of the Night” helps a crotchety white Southern sheriff solve a murder. His world-renowned doctor in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” marries a white woman, but only after winning the blessing of her parents.

“I try to make movies about the dignity, nobility, the magnificence of human life,” he insisted. Audiences flocked to his films, in part, because he transcended racial division and social despair – even as more African Americans, baby boomers and film critics tired of the old-fashioned do-gooder spirit of these movies.

Intertwined lives

And then, the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sidney Poitier intersected one final time. After King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, Poitier was a stand-in for the ideal that King embodied. When he presented at the Academy Awards, Poitier won a massive ovation. “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” captured most of the major awards. Hollywood again dealt with the nation’s racial upheaval through Poitier movies.

But after King’s violent murder, the Poitier icon no longer captured the national mood. In the 1970s, a generation of “Blaxploitation” films featured violent, sexually charged heroes. They were a reaction against the image of a Black leading man associated with Poitier. Although his career evolved, Poitier was no longer a superstar, and he no longer bore the burden of representing the Black freedom movement. Yet for a generation, he had served as popular culture’s preeminent expression of the ideals of Martin Luther King.

Author

Aram Goudsouzian
Bizot Family Professor of History, University of Memphis

Canadian politician takes heat online for photo of snow-shoveling wife

By UPI Staff

Jan. 10 (UPI) -- After taking a photo that was almost certainly intended to compliment his wife, Canadian provinvial cabinet official Jon Reyes instead drew a hefty backlash on Twitter for the picture over the weekend.

Reyes, Manitoba's economic and jobs minister, had posted the photo on Saturday showing his wife outside shoveling snow in the couple's driveway


His caption read, "Even after a 12-hour night shift at the hospital last night, my wife still has the energy to shovel the driveway."

Some users quickly criticized Reyes for staying inside the warm house and letting his wife sweat with the shovel.

"I'm happy that she is getting the worldwide recognition she deserves, and it serves as a reminder to everyone -- especially me today -- that we can never do enough to show our gratitude to healthcare workers," Reyes said in a statement, according to CBC News.

"My wife is amazing, both at home and at work. I'm eternally grateful for her and everything she does. I love her very much," he added.

Canadian politician Thomas Lukaszuk responded by tweeting that the photo is "not a depiction of every politician husband."

Cynthia Reyes later defended her husband in a tweet, saying that, "All I wanted to do was shovel," accompanied by a facepalm emoji.

ITS A CANADIAN TRADITION

YORKTON SASK. 1914

 

Neo-Malthusianism and eugenics in the struggle over meaning in the Spanish anarchist press, 1900-1936

Jorge Molero-Mesa

2018, História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos

157 Views20 Pages

1 File ▾

History Of Eugenics,

History of Medicine,

History of Anarchism,

Neomalthusianism

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This article analyzes the debate on neo-Malthusianism and eugenics in Spanish anarchist publications in the first third of the last century. Using theoretical frameworks that have been under-utilized thus far, it provides new interpretations of what the term " eugenics " meant in pro-anarchist neo-Malthusian journals. Framed within a " struggle over meaning, " Spanish neo-Malthusianism re-signified eugenic ideas in an attempt to recover political ground that had been lost in the drive to promote individual control of human sexuality. This study also analyzes the role of the anarcho-syndicalist movement's " direct action " strategy, in which actions undertaken by individualist anarchists were seen as a complement to revolutionary action.

https://www.academia.edu/37327388/Neo_Malthusianism_and_eugenics_in_the_struggle_over_meaning_in_the_Spanish_anarchist_press_1900_1936?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

Special rescues help ailing owners find pets’ next home

By LEANNE ITALIE

1 of 6

Caitlin Koska, left, and Michael White appear with their 14-year-old rescue dog, Luna, at their wedding on May 1, 2021, in St. Joseph, Mich. The couple adopted their pet after her owner died through Tyson’s Place Animal Rescue, a specialized organization focused on helping the terminally ill and seniors headed to residential care. (Cat Carty Buswell via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Who will take your pet when you die?

The question often doesn’t have an easy answer, especially for ill or older people headed to residential nursing care or assisted living. During the pandemic, specialized rescue, advocacy and adoption services run by volunteers are trying to fill the void, one pet at a time.

Leaders in the small movement said the past couple of years have opened the eyes of many.

“The thing about COVID is a lot of people are thinking, I can’t be guaranteed to be around forever. A lot more people are trying to make plans in advance, which is the best thing to do because unfortunately, a lot of people wait until they’re in hospice or there’s a desperate situation,” said Amy Shever, founder and director of 2nd Chance 4 Pets in suburban Sacramento, California.

A shelter dog looks out from a crate after having been unloaded from a cargo plane, Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP File)

The number of pets surrendered to shelters due to caretaker health or death is up from 7.3% in 2009 to 10.2% during the pandemic, according to the Best Friends Network of thousands of public and private shelters, rescue groups and other animal welfare organizations in all 50 states.

The pets of seniors are often seniors themselves, languishing in shelters or the first to be euthanized after they’re declared unadoptable, Shever said. They’re routinely given up by relatives who can’t take in a dog or cat. The life spans of other pets, such as parrots, are far longer, which sometimes scares off loved ones.

Shever’s focus is educating veterinarians and shelters on how they can get involved. Her organization also tries to help pet owners in need of direction. She urges owners to identify a committed caregiver, provide written instructions for a pet’s routine and put a financial plan in place. Her group has distributed thousands of emergency-card door hangers, for instance, to pet food banks and animal welfare organizations so owners can make their wishes known.

Another organization, Pet Peace of Mind, works directly with about 250 hospices around the country to provide and train volunteers who care for pets of the seriously and terminally ill, said Dianne McGill, the president and founder in Salem, Oregon. Most of the hospices are providing home services, where pets are often giving comfort and support.

“These specialty volunteers bring pet care knowledge with them so they can do whatever is needed to help,” she said. “So they’re walking, feeding, playing, cleaning up or helping to arrange a plan for rehoming.”

While providing pet care or adoption services often isn’t top of mind for social workers or nurses, it’s a huge emotional driving force for patients and loved ones living far away, McGill said.

“Care workers hear about the issues from family members,” she said. “They say, my mom is really, really upset about what’s going to happen to her pet. I live out of state. I can’t help her. How do we get some pet care in place while she’s navigating her end-of-life journey or when she passes?”

“I’ve got a million stories about patients who literally hung on until they heard that their pet had received a new home,” McGill said.

Kathy Reister and her pet Chihuahua Jackson at her home in Grandville, Mich. on Sept. 18, 202. (Kathy Reister via AP)

Enter angels-on-earth like 79-year-old Kathy Reister.

She adopted a 12-year-old Chihuahua named Jackson with the help of Tyson’s Place Animal Rescue in Holland, Michigan. The nonprofit helps people with terminal illnesses find new homes for their pets. Reister, who has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, had recently lost her own dog and was having a hard time at home alone when she took in Jackson last August.

“I’ve never been without a dog since about 1965,” said the widow. “His previous owner had passed away.”

Soon after, Jackson was also diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and Tyson’s Place stepped in with a grant to help Reister cover his medical bills. She promised to return him to the agency for rehoming should her health take a turn for the worse.

“Having him has really helped me want to continue to live and keep fighting,” said Reister, of Grandville, Michigan. “I started walking one block down and one block back home with him. Now we walk at least 20, 25 minutes a day. He needs to walk and I need to walk. He’s made such a big difference in my life.”

Caitlin Koska, 31, and Michael White, 34, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, included 14-year-old Luna in their May 1 wedding after Koska adopted her through Tyson’s Place around Thanksgiving 2020. Luna, also a Chihuahua, was their ring bearer.

“Her owner had gone into a nursing home and could no longer take care of her,” Koska said. “She has a lot of dental issues, cataracts and very poor hearing. She’s just the sweetest dog. Everybody who knows her loves her.”

Jill Bannink-Albrecht founded Tyson’s Place about six years ago. It services the entire state of Michigan, working directly with a pet owner before rehoming becomes an urgent matter, or with family members after a death, using a small network of foster homes.

For Koska, Tyson’s Place took care of extensive dental work for Luna before she was adopted.

“I used to work for a high-kill animal shelter, and I knew what happened to the old dogs when they came in. I remember one dog who animal control literally picked up from the side of his dead owner’s body, and he didn’t even have an opportunity to be adopted. He was put to sleep because we didn’t have space,” Bannink-Albrecht said.

Now, hospices and social workers refer patients to Tyson’s Place. Bannink-Albrecht is struggling to expand her foster reach.

“I just can’t meet the demand for this kind of service, especially when it comes to cats,” she said. “In the last two months, I’ve turned away 40 cats that meet our mission just because we don’t have a place to put them.”

Bannink-Albrecht knows of just a few other rescues like hers. One, in Canada, also needs help.

Angela Rafuse, 27, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, founded My Grandfather’s Cat on May 18, her grandfather’s birthday. He died in 2019 and left behind his grumpy 14-year-old cat, Mackenzie.

Angela Rafuse and her cat, Mackenzie, at home in Chester, Nova Scotia, Canada, in July 2021. (Angela Rafuse via AP)

“She was my grandmother’s best friend and when she passed away, my grandfather took care of her for the next year before he passed away,” Rafuse said. “He wouldn’t put his name on the list for a nursing home knowing nobody would take the cat, who has the grumpiest meow I’ve ever heard.”

Rafuse promised her grandfather she would take Mackenzie. She began posting TikTok videos of their adventures. One video, of Mackenzie scratching Rafuse’s face as she held her up to the camera, has been viewed nearly a million times.

“Then so many people started sharing stories with us about how their grandparents’ cats ended up in shelters and how their grandparents worry about what will happen to their cats or their dogs because there’s nowhere to take them,” Rafuse said. “I’ve worked at a nonprofit for the past four years so I thought, it should be pretty easy to find resources to help these people. Nothing existed that empowered a senior and helped them arrange this and empowered their family. Everything was just shelters.”

After she launched, emails asking for help and offering donations rolled in, but she didn’t have enough foster homes to meet demand. She’s working to expand. One of Rafuse’s goals is to help keep a pet at home until the final moment.

As for Mackenzie, she’s living her best life, hiking and kayaking with Rafuse.

“She’s still grumpy,” Rafuse said. “She’s developed a really special connection with my dad, and I know my dad loves that because she’s the last thing he has of his parents.”

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

Judge says FTC’s antitrust case against Facebook can proceed

By BARBARA ORTUTAY

FILE - Facebook's Meta logo sign is seen at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on, Oct. 28, 2021. A federal judge has ruled, Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, that the Federal Trade Commission’s revised antitrust suit against Meta, formerly known as Facebook, can proceed, shutting down the social media company’s request for a dismissal.

 (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)

A federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission’s revised antitrust suit against Meta, formerly known as Facebook, can proceed, shutting down the social media company’s request for a dismissal.

In a revised complaint filed last August, the FTC argues that the company pursued a “buy or bury” strategy against rivals to suppress competition.

This is the FTC’s second antitrust run at the company. A federal judge in June dismissed antitrust lawsuits brought against Facebook by the agency and a broad coalition of state attorneys general that were among multiplying efforts by federal and state regulators to rein in tech titans’ market power.

The FTC is seeking remedies that could include a forced spinoff of Facebook’s popular Instagram and WhatsApp messaging services, or a restructuring of the company.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who in June ruled that the FTC’s original lawsuit was “legally insufficient” and didn’t provide enough evidence to prove that Facebook was a monopoly, said in Tuesday’s ruling that the the first complaint “stumbled out of the starting blocks.”

But he added that, though the “core theory” of the lawsuit — that Facebook is a monopoly engaging in anticompetitive behavior — remains unchanged, the facts alleged this time around are “far more robust and detailed than before.”

Meta said in an emailed statement it is “confident the evidence will reveal the fundamental weakness of the claims.”

“Our investments in Instagram and WhatsApp transformed them into what they are today,” the company said. “They have been good for competition, and good for the people and businesses that choose to use our products.”

Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s bureau of competition, said the agency presented a “strong amended complaint a strong amended complaint, and we look forward to trial.”

JANUARY 11 1949, Los Angeles noted a record-setting snowfall, a rare event for the city's semitropical climate. A three-day storm in early 1949 dumped more than a foot of snow through much of the San Fernando and outlying valleys.