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"I think I'm going to throw up."
That was the text I got from my dear friend Chris last Friday night. She is not one to normally share her digestive issues, so I sent her back a perplexed emoji.
"RBG is dead" was her response. Oh. My. God. The words most of us have prayed we would never hear – well, at least not until Joe Biden was safely sworn into office.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg. March 15, 1933 – September 18, 2020.
We were so foolish. How did we expect an 87-year-old/pound woman who had cancer 17 times to survive long enough to save us from ourselves? So, I did what a lot of people did last Friday night. I wept. The flat-out ugly cry. And then I cursed God and humanity and rent my garments in an Episcopalian sort of way. And then I felt fear. That kind of fear you feel deep in your gut – cold as steel.
I saw a montage of every civil rights march, vigil and meeting I've ever been to race before my eyes. Only the montage was running backwards – like Benjamin Button's aging – all those things so many of us have fought so long and hard for – women's rights, gay rights, trans rights, healthcare, all disappearing. I turned on MSNBC – I know I'm a liberal cliché and I can live with that. It was the first time I was praying for FAKE NEWS, but it was real. And then, before RBG's ferocious tiny body was cold, Mitch McConnell announced he would work to fill her seat as soon as possible. And that's when I got angry. White hot rage. And that's pretty much where I have remained and that's okay – that's a great place to be 39 days before this election. Rage gets shit done.
I've been working for Progressive Project Turnout for the past two months and we just moved into Phase 2 of our operations – ballot chasing. Think of it as storm chasing for political nerds. I don't have a cool truck or Helen Hunt by my side, but I do have my trusty data that tells me who requested a mail-in ballot but has not yet returned it. Sexy, right? Damn straight.
Ballot Chaser. Coming soon to a phone near you.
The truth is that talking to voters is the thing that has saved me since RBG died. I was dreading getting on the phone that first Ruthless Saturday afternoon. I was teary and anxious and wondered if I could maintain my neutrality with a Trumper. My first call was to a woman in rural Pennsylvania. "What do you want?" she barked at me and I could feel tears brewing. I gave my spiel, took a deep breath, and popped the question, "Are you supporting Joe Biden on November 3rd?" She said – and I swear on RBG's gavel that I am not making this up – "Hell, yes. He's next to the Lord in my book. I love Joe Biden." I checked to make sure that I had not called Jill Biden and I thanked the phone bank Gods and felt a smile on my face for the first time since Ruth died. But wait, that's not all – she went on. "I confess that I kinda liked Trump when he was on that stupid reality show, but when he talked about grabbing women by the hoo-hoo, I knew I could never vote for him. You know, I loved Obama. I wish he could have served forever like the Queen of England." It was an embarrassment of Democratic riches and it was just what my weary soul needed to hear.
I needed backup on my first day at work without RBG.
My next call was to a deplorable who told me to go to hell. And that was perfect, too – it got my blood pumping – my deep blue blood. Call after call, one clear theme emerged – voters are mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore. And here's the other thing – a TON of people have already voted. I love those calls! These voters are so cute – like the student that hands in their homework early for extra credit. They are proud to tell me that they have voted, and I give them a shiny virtual participation trophy and my endearing thanks.
These call shifts have gotten more difficult though – probably a combination of my grief from RBG's death and the anxiety of the election drawing closer. Some days I feel like a sponge – soaking up the angst and fear and hopes and dreams of the voters I am speaking with. I am exhausted when my day is done, but the good news is that these folks are giving me hope with their testimonials to democracy. And their stories. Good God, the stories.
I spoke to a woman in her late 50s who was in the hospital recovering from her 24th surgery related to a horrible car accident that killed her husband many years ago. I apologized for bothering her, but she was all in for talking to me. She has raised five children on her own and told me that because of her pre-existing conditions, if Trump erases the Affordable Care Act, "I might as well shoot myself in the head." I hope she was kidding. She has already mailed in her ballot.
I wondered how many folks would talk about the Supreme Court vacancy. A 21-year-old college student -a woman – told me the most important issue to her in this election was healthcare – until RBG died – now it was the Supreme Court and protecting the rights of women. As she said, rather eloquently, "Shit just got real." That's pretty much what a young trans woman in Philadelphia told me, too. She's worried about losing her legal marriage status to her partner. That one hit close to home. Damn.
My dear friend Lynn created this beautiful gourd a few years ago in honor of Justice Ginsberg. It is one of my most treasured possessions. She calls it Ruth's Dissent.
And the conversations around racial justice continue to gut me. I talked to a black man in his early 60s. When I asked him what issue was most important to him in this election, he said somberly, "Some justice. Not equal justice – I know that will never happen. Just some justice." This was the same day that dry wall got more justice than Breonna Taylor. And there was the older woman in Rockingham, NC who told me she's never missed a vote in any election. She explained, "Honey, you know folks don't consider what black women think about anything too much. Other than raising my kids, the most important thing I've ever done is vote." Conversations like this are not soon forgotten.
Everyone has a story. I spoke with an 86-year-old woman who graduated from nursing school in 1956. She's still working – because she wants to – as a home health supervisor. She talked to me about income inequality and the CNAs that work for her company for $10.25 an hour – while working their other two jobs. She has two grandchildren in college who both contracted COVID-19 and were very sick. "I'm a nurse. This is not a hoax," she said. She's voting for Joe Biden – the 13th president she will have voted for. Her mother lived to be 106, so let's hope she gets to vote to re-elect Kamala Harris in 2032.
Over mine and 204,057 dead bodies.
Democracy is a word I hear a lot on my calls. Many of the people I speak with talk about our democracy being vandalized by Trump and they are not having it. They are sick and tired of a president who spews division and hate and continues to undermine our institutions. They speak with pride of how great our country is – this is especially moving to hear from folks who were not born here. Like the Latinix woman who told me that she had lived in several other countries. "We have a lot of rights here, but if we don't fight to keep them, we will lose them. I'm going to be the first one in line when early voting starts." I bet she will be, too.
"The vote is precious. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democratic society, and we must use it." ~ John Lewis
And some days it is the simple kindness of strangers that makes me believe that good will prevail over evil on November 3rd. I had a long conversation last night with a 73-year-old man in Durham. He is retired after 55 years of masonry. He told me he has 10 kids – two served in the Marines – and all of them went to college. He preached me a little sermon. "I'm a black man. I've seen tyranny. We got too much hate and division in this country. What we got is precious and why do we want to hate and mess it up every day? I believe in love. That man in office is just too much – too much hate. We got to get him out." Amen, brother. Amen.
And then I thanked him for taking the time to talk to me and share so much and he said in such a genuine way that it might as well have been my own father speaking to me, "I love you so much. And you're doing a great job." And in that moment, I thought that ballot chaser was the most noble profession in the world.
Ballot Chaser. The most important job I've ever had. The coolest, too.
39 days, my friends. We can do this. We must. Democracy is counting on us. And so is Ruth.
Rest in justice, dear Ruth
Early voting in NC begins on October 15th. Click here to find early voting polling sites where you live.
September 24, 2020 addisono	democracy, Election Day 2020, income inequality, John Lewis, mail-in ballot, phone banking, Progressive Turnout Project, racial justice, RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court, Trump, Twister
4 thoughts on "Chasing Democracy"
nottooshabby says:
We can do this – and I'm taking solace – and joy – from your gourd!
addisono says:
linda borzilleri says:
Always enjoy your posts! Thank you for sharing your insight and for the hard work you are doing to bring out the vote! Can't wait to plant a beautifully huge Photoshopped L on Rumps forehead. Optimistic in Greensboro.
Thank you! We're getting our country back!


In this blog we take a fun look at some experiments that can be done in the classroom and that demonstrate how to measure energy consumption. We also take a look at what can be done to conserve energy.
Be energy efficient – this can be helped with the use of more modern technology. For example, modern refrigerators use much less energy than older ones. Compact fluorescent and LED lights burn less juice than incandescent bulbs.
Look at alternative forms of energy. A passive solar room or photovoltaic outdoor lighting takes advantage of free energy from the sun.
Stop wasting energy. We all do it but there are simple things that can be done such as fix those dripping taps, plug leaks where cold air can seep in and turn off appliances when you're not using them.
All the usual stuff but it really matters, and to show you how it matters, we have three fun experiments that you can try at school or at home.
We all know that you need energy to heat water and so if you can get a good wash without using so much hot water, you'll save energy, right? So which uses more water, a bath or a shower?
This experiment will help you determine that.
Get your family's cooperation and ask all family members to take a bath instead of a shower on one day. Make sure each person leaves the water in the bath when he or she is finished. Then check the height of the water. You can mark it with a bath crayon or with coloured tape. Or you can measure it with a ruler and record the level.
Next, get everybody to take a shower (using the bath shower) and ask them to plug the drain before they start so that the water doesn't escape and then measure the amount of water left in the tub when each person is finished and mark or record it.
Now compare the average amount of water used for each method.
Less water used = less energy used. Simples!
Really, can something as simple as shade from a tree or paint help save on home energy bills?
This experiment will help answer that question. The "house" in this case will be a small cardboard box. An anglepoise lamp (non LED) will play the role of the sun.
Firstly, set up the box – make sure it is a box with a tightly shutting lid – by placing a thermometer inside to measure the temperature. Next, arrange the light so that it shines directly on the box. After twenty minutes, record the temperature inside the box.
Next, set a houseplant between the lamp and the box so that it's shadow rests on the box or "house".
Check the temperature again after twenty minutes and see if the shade had the effect of keeping the box cooler.
To test paint's energy effect, take two identical boxes and paint one white and one black or a dark colour. Put each an equal distance from the light and record the temperature inside after 20 minutes. Which box gets hotter? How would this affect energy usage if it were an actual house?
In this experiment you can make your own hot water just by using the power of the sun.
First get a flat box around 90cm square and 5-7 cm deep and paint the inside black, or line it with black paper. Next, take 6 meters of flexible black tubing and make two holes in the sides of the box, one near a corner and the other close to the opposite corner. Insert the end of the tube through one hole. Shape the tubing into flat loops that don't overlap but run up and down the bottom of the box. Keep looping until you've used up most of the length. Pass the end out through the other hole.
Place a glass cover on the box and tape the edges to hold it down.
Now you have a solar collector and can begin the experiment by putting the box in the sun and submerging the lower end of the tube in a bucket of water.
Draw water into the tube and start a siphon action. Keep the outflow end of the tube lower than the inflow end to keep the siphon working and let the water trickle into another container. Use a clothes peg to crimp the tube and limit the flow to a trickle.
Place a thermometer in each container of water to track the temperature change.
Does the angle of the box toward the sun make a difference?
What if you use a longer piece of tubing and make more loops?
How could this work at home?


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Medieval GTA Actually Works
Rustler plays a lot like Grand Theft Auto 2, but feels fresh thanks to its medieval theme
Zack Zwiezen
Image: Jutsu Games / Modus
These days, people are excited about old Grand Theft Auto games, like Vice City and San Andreas, getting remastered for modern hardware. But before the series went 3D, the '90s era classic top-down GTA games were Rockstar's quirky first stabs at an open-world crime game. Rustler, out August 31 on consoles and PC, is a similarly strange throwback to those simpler GTA titles, but it's also set in a highly inaccurate medieval setting. Even with this change in scenery, Rustler does a good job of recreating the feel of playing those old GTAs, warts and all.
Rustler's developer, Jutsu Games, is very honest about what this game is and what inspired the studio to create it. On its website, it openly calls Rustler "Grand Theft Horse" and directly reference GTA 2 as inspiration. And yeah, if you (like me) played a bunch of GTA 2 back in the day, then after just a few minutes it's rather obvious what the team has made here. Rustler has all the hallmarks of those older GTA games featuring a top-down view, arrows on the ground to point you toward missions, and a variety of small, simple, but open-ended missions. There's even a fart / burp button, and the police wanted system doesn't use stars, but instead tiny animated heads. All of this is directly pulled from the classic GTA titles.
Even Rustler's intro is a live-action homage to GTA 2's wild, iconic opening video
Where Rustler departs is its historically inaccurate medieval setting. You won't be driving around in fast cars or shooting rockets at SWAT trucks in Rustler. Instead, everything is redesigned to fit the ye olde setting. So gone are the pistols and shotguns, in their place are crossbows, swords and spears. No sports cars or SUVs either, instead horses and horse-drawn carriages are your main modes of transportation.
At first I was worried that this drastic change would be too dramatic and make Rustler play less like a GTA game and more like a top-down RPG or Elder Scrolls spin-off. But that's not the case.
Sure, this may look like a medieval world, filled with knights and castles and plague victims, but all the hallmarks of a classic GTA game are still here. Horses wearing yellow and black caparisons operate as taxis, and if stolen will let you complete cabbie side-missions. If the royal guards (aka the police) are after you, just take your horse through a local "Pimp My Horse" shop to get it dyed a new color, losing all your heat in the process.
Screenshot: Jutsu Games / Kotaku
Even the narrative and characters are very GTA-like. You have criminal bosses, shady drug dealers, partners in crime, and corrupt royal guards. Rustler's main character, Guy, is like so many other GTA protagonists. He's both tough—someone who will kill you at the drop of a heaume—but also unable to say "no" to all these assholes and creeps who keep telling him what to do. The Rustler devs even figured out a novel way to include in-game radios: Players can hire bards and then punch them to make them play different songs as they ride around the world completing missions or side activities.
I've played nearly five hours of Rustler so far, and while I appreciate how well Jutsu has translated the old-school GTA experience into a modern-looking medieval open-world game, I do wish it actually had lost a few elements in translation. For example, some missions can be a pain in the ass to complete as, like in old GTA games, the combat in Rustler can be annoying.
Some of the humor and writing is also bad. At one point my main character put on a dress and apparently that's the whole joke. It's lazy and while it feels like something you'd find in a Rockstar-developed GTA game, it's another example of something from '90s GTA that could have been left behind. There are also a lot of Monthy Python and other pop-culture references. Some of these are subtle enough that you might be able to ignore them. Other times they get shoved so directly in your face and feel so out of place that even NPCs will reference how random some of these moments are, which doesn't improve them at all.
Thankfully, you can skip past any and all dialogue, and as you complete missions you unlock skill points that let you upgrade a small tree, letting you take and deal more damage, which helps make combat easier to manage.
Rustler is a neat and appreciated throwback. While most devs, publishers, and fans are obsessed with chasing the 3D GTA games, the older 2D top-down entries in the franchise don't get nearly as much love or attention. It even feels like Rockstar forgets these games exist some days. So Rustler is like a nice treat for people like me who still have fond memories of those older games. And while it's true that Rustler isn't the first modern game to try and recreate the GTA 2 experience, it's the most successful, and its medieval setting makes it feel less like a clone and more like a unique homage. (Plus it runs and plays better than something like 2019's American Fugitive.)
If you can stomach some of the lesser elements of the old GTA games popping up in Rustler too, there's a great, creative open-world action game to be found under all the bad Monty Python references. I promise.
Rustler is out on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on August 31.
OpinionImpressions

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Posted on March 11, 2021 July 19, 2022
France, Italy, 1970
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
With Alain Delon (Corey), Gian Maria Volonté (Vogel), Yves Montand (Jansen), André Bourvil (Police Lieutenant François Mattei), André Ekyan (Rico), François Périer (Santi), Pierre Collet (the prison officer), Paul Amiot (the police inspector general)
As it was the case of his 1967 gangster movie "Le samouraï" director Jean-Pierre Melville begins the titles with a quote reflecting Asian spirituality – an anecdote from the Buddha about men who stand within a red circle the Buddha has drawn on the ground and then move on with their lives, straying from each other, carried away by their respective destinies, before meeting again in the hereafter as if they were stepping again within the red circle. This is an apocryphal story, once again, which however points to the film's sense.
The strange night conversation between a chief prison officer and a prisoner sets up the plot's dynamic but also illustrates the undercurrent driving the interactions of the characters and shaping the moral dimension of the film. This is after all an egregious example of corruption, presenting the pervasive influence of evil and the strange attraction and bonds it can naturally, spontaneously fosters. It is really disturbing to watch a prison officer carefully tinkering with a lock to secretly come into a cell and offering a gangster on the verge of being released a new job – a criminal job, that is. Corey has every right to be confused and dismissive – but then he quietly stands up from his bed, dresses up and listens intently. His initial rejection is now forgotten and the day after, once he is back on the street, he starts to behave as if he was busy doing a job.
And so they step in the red circle: Yves Montant (left), Gian Maria Volonté (center), and Alain Delon
The circle starts to be drawn, simply by the tranquil pacing up and down in a cell before a man calmly making his case – though the conversation has never been shot in full; the film cuts from the beginning of that chat right into the moment Corey is waiting to retrieve the stuff he had when he entered the jail four years earlier. The narrative would show how a group of men is put together and then how the connections go even further than it seems, in unexpected ways; the link turns out to be that attraction for crime, running against the social call for honesty and decency, and the only man standing apart proves to be the only one who does believe innocence is possible. The narration, meanwhile, would be wonderfully based on a consummate use of silence – even more than "Le samouraï", "Le cercle rouge" neglects words, dialogues, explanations, to focus intensely, precisely on gestures, actions, performances that are about efficiency, smoothness, quiet, a silent choreography defying expectations and expressing the most obvious truth.
Little words need to be exchanged on that muddy country path between Corey and the dangerous passenger hiding in the trunk of the old American car he bought: shot in medium shots, the way Vogel looks at the cold-blooded, daring fellow who has spared him from getting nabbed again by the police, and the reaction of Corey convey the relief, the satisfaction, even the pleasure of recognizing the other as a brother – they are cut from the same cloth and are equally determined to make it, relying on their thuggish skills. Instantly, Vogel becomes the partner of Corey and helps him to find the third man to pull off the big plan contrived by the warden: a sharpshooting former police detective, Jansen; apparently widening, the circle actually falls back to its corrupt origin, a rotten cop taking over the crooked jail officer.
But even as they get ready to rob a big Paris jeweler, they are under a cloud. Corey, a striking simile of Jef Costello, the eponymous hero of "Le samouraï" confidently and impressively played by the same actor, that is to say remarkably dashing, clever, hard to deceive and to trouble, is chased around by Rico, the mobster he paid visit after he was released, an old partner he was keen to rob to get a head start, if only because the middle-aged fellow has never been very supportive. Vogel, for his part, has escaped the watch of Police Lieutenant François Mattei while the two enemies were traveling by train; when he meets by chance Corey, Vogel is actually an exhausted guy on the lam and must stay one his guard as Mattei tries every trick on the book to know about his fugitive's whereabouts. Jansen, for his part, must struggle with his own devil, a dependence on alcohol that is shockingly illustrated – he is first introduced as he got a bad case of the DTs.
Still, their robbery is a success – and the long scenes painstakingly and silently tracking all their moves and actions are both a riveting and radical emphasis Melville puts on action and behavior in filmmaking and a testament to the work ethics and endurance of the bad men, a rewarding collaborative effort highlighting their stunning skills, mettle, intelligence. But the engrossing event quickly gives way to a hastier, grimmer montage as the trio is caught on a downward spiral. The sheer value of their theft actually makes it hard to be sold back on a black market quickly and surely and the police would use that problem to set up a trap – and so would Rico try to settle his score, thus unknowingly helping the scheme of Mattei.
This coincidence is narratively helpful – but feeds into the wider, troubling pattern. The circle has in fact keep widening, and corruption and evildoing turn out to be more widespread while the connections between folks are numerous. A brief scene unexpectedly reveals that the prison officer is also a friend of Rico, which would help him to be back on the trail of Corey. Earlier, a few words between Jansen and Vogel give the astonishing news that the crooked cop has graduated from the police academy in the same class as Mattei (the final sequence would underline they do know each other well). In a more complex development, Mattei sets about ruthlessly manipulating a nightclub owner with links to the underworld in the hope that Santi's help could be pivotal in Mattei's ruthless rush to arrest Vogel.
This trick is ugly and casts another light on Mattei, a soft-spoken, tranquil middle-aged policeman highly praised by his boss and the only character in the film shot in his private life, coming and going between crime scenes and police stations on the one hand and his cozy Paris apartment on the other side, a place he tenderly shares with three lovely Siamese cats. A serious and cautious professional, Mattei does believe that men can be innocent and that police must work with intelligence and without violence – so he is rightly incensed when another cop bullies Santi's son, who has dabbled into drugs, causing the high school student to attempt suicide; putting more pressure on Santi never meant destroying a life; but the camera clearly indicates that the other cop is not really remorseful. Earlier, in an even more decisive scene, Mattei must give explanations on Vogel's escape to the police inspector general. The powerful, independent civil servant is unimpressed by Mattei's ways and career; seasoned, suspicious and stern he rather expounds on his own theory about crime, that is it is part of the human nature, of every man, in fact. Everybody is guilty, evil is everywhere. Mattei is dismayed by such a harsh judgment.
But the whole story and the conclusion do support the fact that corruption, evil, violence cannot be avoided or properly punished. The trap goes awry and the three criminals end up being shot dead. At the end of that bloody finale, shot by night in a remote mansion's park, a strikingly dark, murky, depressing series of shots wrapping up the narrative in a decidedly somber atmosphere, fitting with the deep pessimism of the this story, Mattei, who fired the bullets killing Corey, cannot feel satisfied: he has taken big risks and played dirty games to bring to justice folks he has been forced to let die, he has found out how bad Jansen has become, and is confronted again by the police inspector general, eager to remind him what he has always been thinking. The irony, here, is that a previous confession of Jansen to Corey has revealed that the cop who taught Jansen a lot about bullets, guns, ballistics, shooting is just the one who is holding the inspector general's office. This is a small world, indeed: the circle of corruption is always wider than it seems and that truly shocking connections link people together, whatever their philosophies or actions are – or just moral principles, after all: the film has just put side by side two sets of men who are undoubtedly greatly skilled and professional, with strong work ethics and talents, which blurred the social distinction the audience could be pleased to make. To be part of the circle or outside is not that simple and may be just down to a belief in the appeal and strength of evildoing – which leaves Mattei in an awkward, poignant position.
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Last fall, on the first day after Sepi's tenants moved out of her house, I took out all the carpeting, including the stairs.
Over the next several weeks, I put in the new bamboo flooring in the upstairs living area and we moved furniture in.
Our intention was to do the stairs with the same material but it developed that there was a problem. The bottom four steps of the staircase widened out and had a curved edge. The bamboo nosers sold by the flooring company were not available curved.
Not only that, but using the floor pieces for the riser facing was problematic for the same reason: they couldn't be bent.
After going around and around with installers from the flooring company, we decided to take another path.
We found a man whose specialty was stairs and he agreed to do the job.
About this time, the water supply on our refrigerator leaked and thus began a nearly two month saga of repairs on our house. The stairs were put on hold during all this.
We moved back into our house – we had been 5 weeks in a local hotel – just before New Years'. Our stair guy came over and went over his plans with us. To match the bamboo with wood that could be more easily worked, Ben suggested that we use white oak, quartersawn. He knew a guy who he said was a master of staining and could match the bamboo color on the white oak.
Then, weeks went by with a word from Ben. When we finally called his work number, we heard a message that said he had gone into the hospital and was not going to be able to work for two more weeks. This happened several more times. He did finally call us back but the time frame for his return to work kept stretching out. It did not seem to occur to him to take a couple of minutes to call his clients and tell them what was going on.
So, long story short, he finally started on April 30th. The work was good, although he made a couple of decisions that I felt were poorly considered. One was that he put on the bamboo noser at the top of the stairs with glue, screws and nails leaving huge divots in the wood. He said Ralph, the stain guy, could fix it. Ralph had to replace it.
The other issue was at the bottom of the stairs where the rounding was. The original curves had been cut rather sloppily. As it was then covered by carpet, it wasn't such a big problem. When it became bare wood, it was. Ben seemed a bit puzzled when I asked him to fix it. It still isn't right, but it's better.
Most of the time, no one will notice it. To be fair to Ben, I think he got a little too caught up in the weeds of matching the original curves to step back and look at the big picture.
So, now Ben is done and Ralph is staining. He started last Monday. At this writing, he's not done yet. First, he didn't make it dark enough. Then, he complained that he couldn't get the proper pigment at the paint supply. I suggested that he look at art supply stores. This proved to be a success. Ralph, at least, has been good about keeping us informed of what he's doing, even telling us all about his aunt who had to go in the hospital last weekend. Today he went to pick up some more pigment for the putty but the stuff that they brought was wrong (at the flooring supply). Tomorrow they are supposed to have the right stuff.
He has put one coat of finish on it so he says it's ok to walk on. For three days, we had to enter the house by going up the side and around the back to the kitchen deck. It's actually worse than it sounds. Of course it was raining.
May 21, 2019 Chris Leave a comment


One more farm to pay tribute to…thanks to our fellow blogger AGRIgirl–Life Lessons From My Kitchen.
Please check out AGRIgirl, it is packed with great content and valuable information. Tammy's love of good food, life lessons from her kitchen, leadership skills and an advocate for creating healthier communities is a food journal readers MUST!
Desert Roots Farm which is located in Queen Creek, Arizona. Farm owner, Kelly Saxer has been tending to this 33-acre CSA farm selling fresh high quality vegetables and herbs since 2001 without the use of pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Bringing back the farm to the community is her main goal. A win-win relationship everyone benefits from. When you sign up for Kelly's CSA you will receive a box of seasonal foodstuffs throughout the farming season. Know your farmer, know how the land is being treated, know your food.
Sun protection never looks so good…these Tula hats have timeless style and casual elegance. Our favorite hats are the Somerset Black Bow $43.99 and the Brook's $33.99…both UPF 50+.
Made from supple rubber and completely waterproof, they provide all day comfort. We just think these dirt kickers are so fetching.
Comes in Red and Hunter Green.
How cool are these swanky hanging gardens…they are all the rage. Made of 14 gauge steel and hand finished with a sealed rust patina finish. Each piece is one-of-a-kind. Love the city slicker style.
Farm fresh eggs just got better!!!
Detailed drawings to build your very own Chez Poulet, with a hip copper plated copula. Your feathered flock will love the design, their new digs and lovely agrarian lifestyle.
The Slow Food Movement shares lessons about how to cook well, eat well and live well. We are encouraged by Petrini to enjoy life to its fullest. Bring back the pleasures of the palate, focus on being convivial, nourishing our homes, communities and the humanity of food. A fresh look on an alternative lifestyle to the fast paced world we live in. I don't know who said this, but boy does it resinate loud and clear for me…he who lives slow, lives well.
Tomato week has been such a blast and has conjured up so many summertime memories for our crew.
We have found some great items to go with your garden's bounty.
How about doing pizza on the grill? We love this pizza stone, it has a heavy stainless steal frame and makes the pie easier to transfer. So what are the benefits of a pizza stone? It helps the dough cook more evenly and draws out the moisture which results in a crisper crust. A great tool for your indoor or outdoor kitchen.
Good quality flour should be a staple in every well equipped pantry, we love the products from Hayden Flour Mills and their pizza flour is a special treat . Local heritage grains stone milled here in sunny Arizona, made from hard white wheat and white sonora wheat.
We have given you a plethora of tomato recipes but thought you just might want a few more to add to your literary collection. This book from Chronicle Books is not just pretty to look at it is also packed with some quick recipes. We are thrilled to have this in our cookbook library.
You might like to try your hand at growing tomatoes in your own backyard patch and heirlooms are the way to go. The flavor and colors of these little gems will look delicious on your pizza. There are so many to choose from, we found some good ones to get you started on Etsy.
We can't leave out another local favorite for us, Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar from Queen Creek Olive Mill. Hand crafted and high quality flavored olive oils and vinegars, made from the only working olive mill in our state. Great for baking as well as drizzling over fresh produce, dips and marinades. The Balsamic Vinegar is a winning combination drizzled with a couple grinds of black pepper.
A hometown favorite for us, these culinary sugars are elegant, decadent, but so versatile and can be used in so many different ways. We went over the top and used the Ruby Pink Grapefruit Hibiscus as a finishing sugar to the broiled top of our grapefruit. We have also used them to rim glasses of our specialty drinks from week two. The possibilities are endless.
Local homegrown and handmade pottery. These one-of-a-kind pieces are just gorgeous and have rich and inviting colors, nothing is ever mass produced. Perfect for any decor, and adding these pieces to a brunch table will really make your event special. All of Alley's pieces are glazed, lead free, and food safe. Dishwasher, microwave and oven safe but she recommends hand washing.
We are thrilled to be using these Orange Sunshine Bitters and love to bake and cook with them. Another local fav, we are thrilled when we have the opportunity to go above and beyond the boundaries of just using them in cocktails. A real treat!
Heather has a documentary approach to photographing food and she has over 20 years experience in the food industry and brings the same passion to her work as a photographer as she did when she was a working chef. Now, Heather has added her amazing work to foodstuffs, kitchen decor and market bags. These hand towels will be a great focal point and give a European look to any kitchen.
This is a true classic, a must have in everyone's cookbook library. Marion Cunningham, aka Fannie Farmer, has written a book that celebrates the simple pleasures of cooking. Making the most out of the first meal of the day. Makes a great gift for a seasoned chef or someone just starting out in the kitchen.
Made in Brooklyn, these all-natural syrups pair so well in both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. A perfect alternative to the everyday mass-produced, soda has gone artisanal. Take matters into your own hands and make your own fresh and seasonal soda with your favorite home carbonating kit, bottled seltzer or sparkling water.
Join in on the liquid love rival; Jack Rudy is a small batch tonic handcrafted in Charleston, SC. It stands alone, because of its interesting ingredients of lemongrass, white pepper, allspice and orange peel, and none of that citric acid and high fructose corn syrup stuff. Bar none this is the best tonic around.
This modern raw metal mounted wine bar, with great design is perfect for showcasing your favorite wine, spirits, glassware, and vintage linens. A space saving piece for small space living.
This kitchy poster from The Boys Club Mixology 101 series, is a fun addition to any bar and highlights types of glassware, their name and what drinks they are used for. Your walls will never look better with good information and a little educational too.
Mix your drinks in true Mad Men style with these hand-carved sheesham wood muddlers. Sheesham (also known as Indian Rosewood) is a fast-growing hardwood, sourced from sustainable managed plantations. Three styles to choose from.
A few of our favorite finds for this week.
My favorite shop girl find this week, this Marcy Butler Apron, the Elizabeth brings me back to a simpler time and would make a glamorous addition to any collection. For us at Modern, the devil is in the details and this has all that, with European style and sophistication. Whether cooking, gardening, or entertaining this apron is sourced from fine Italian Linen, has deep pockets and is machine washable.
Loving these hand sourced, small batch dramatic rough-hewn edge cheese boards. Made from a family quarry in upstate New York, these special edition boards are the quintessential backdrop for artisan cheese, sashimi, sushi or small bites. It comes with cool soapstone chalk for labeling.
Giving back yard condiments a run for their money, Relish This is sweet, tangy and bright. Made with zucchini, sweet peppers and onions this relish is packed-full of flavor and a true local favorite here in town. We love spreading on big fat juicy burgers, adding it as a pop of freshness to chicken salad or simply topped on charred hot dogs. Our go-to picnic provision.
For over 200 years Sussex craftsman have honed their skills making these gorgeous traditional garden Trugs and now we our featured on our found list. Sourced locally from nearby forests, these wooden vessels have a great look and design. Perfect for your farmers' market produce, flowers or prop with fruit as a centerpiece.
At MDF we can't stop talking about how much we love working with these German made soda lime glass jars. They fill and empty with ease and convenience while preserving your favorite conserves or marmalades and are stackable too. Makes canning a real treat. A must have for your pantry and a tribute to this time honored method and the good old days of a jam session.


Kick off March basketball by participating in Kansas City's Big 12 Run. The course begins and ends in the heart of downtown Kansas City. Choose from the 1 mile, 5K, or 12K distance. Runners of all experience levels are encouraged to participate in this family-friendly event. Strollers are welcome for the 1 mile and 5K race. All participants in the 12K or 5K who cross the finish line will receive a finisher's medal.
In order to protect our participants and insure a safe event, each individual participating in this event must be officially registered under his or her own name with accurate personal information. Failure to do so will void the registration and prohibit participation. Registration entries and race numbers cannot be transferred to another person under any circumstances or used by registrant in subsequent years. Registration fees are non-refundable in all cases regardless of inability to participate or event cancellation. The race director reserves the right to cancel the event because of weather, natural disaster or other unforeseen circumstances which pose a significant danger to the participants.
The race will go on regardless of weather conditions. However, if it is determined that it is unsafe to walk/run, the race director reserves the right to cancel the event.
Complimentary parking will be offeredto all participants of the Big 12 Run at two parking garages along 11th Street. The first garage entrance is located at 1120 Oak Street. NOTE: This garage is located on the race route. Participants may not be able to leave until the race is completed.The second garage entrance is located at 11th Street at the corner of Cherry. Both of these garages will be free of charge for all participants. The Kansas City Sports Commission is not responsible for fees charged at other parking locations.
Avoid traffic on race day and ride the KC Streetcar to the start/finish line.Free surface lots are located at 7th and Main (limited space available).The streetcar begins at 7 a.m. Take the streetcar to the Metro Center stop (12th & Main) and walk 2 blocks east on 12th Street to the start line.
Overall Male and Female First Place: $1,000 Phillips 66 Gas Card, two tickets to the Championship game Saturday night.
Overall Male and Female First Place: $750 Phillips 66 Gas Card, two tickets to the Championship game Saturday night.
17 &under, 18-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80 &over.
All Results will be finalized on Wednesday, March 20. This is to ensure accurate information and placement for all participants. Overall event winners in each race category are excluded from age group awards.


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Q: Addition of Permutations in Second Quantisation of an Operator Sorry, if the title doesn't provide any clarity, but I didn't really know how to call it. Anyways, I've been studying quantum field theory from Blundell's book and during the derivation of the formula for second quantizing an operator I'm getting a little bit confused about a step he makes. I'll walk you through:
We first write down an expression of an $N$-particle state
$$\left|\psi_1\cdots\psi_N\right>=\frac{1}{\sqrt{N!}}\sum_P\xi^P\prod_{i=1}^N\left|\psi_{P(i)}\right>$$
where the sum is taken over all $N!$ permutations of the single particle states $\left|\psi_i\right>$. We take $\xi=+1$ for bosons while $\xi=-1$ is for fermions. Now, the inner product of two such states (either both boson states or fermion states) is:
$$\left<\chi_1\cdots\chi_N|\psi_1\cdots\psi_N\right>=\frac1{N!}\sum_P\sum_Q\xi^{P+Q}\prod_{i=1}\left<\chi_{Q(i)}|\psi_{P(i)}\right>\label{before}\qquad (1)$$
Then comes the confusing part. The author says that we can rewrite the above expression using $P'=P+Q$ which spans all the permutations $N!$ times and hence:
$$\left<\chi_1\cdots\chi_N|\psi_1\cdots\psi_N\right>=\sum_{P'}\xi^{P'}\prod_{i=1}^N\left<\chi_i|\psi_{P'(i)}\right>\qquad (2)$$
Writting down examples for $N=2$ and $N=3$ I can see what he means and then the generalisation seems kind of intuitive. So for $N=2$ one would write down the 2-particle state as:
$$\left|\psi_1\psi_2\right>=\frac1{\sqrt{2!}}(\xi^{\sigma_0}\left|\psi_1\right>\left|\psi_2\right>+\xi^{\sigma_1}\left|\psi_2\right>\left|\psi_1\right>)$$
Where $\sigma_0=i,\sigma_1\in S_2$ (the elements of the symmetry group). Then the inner product with another state $\left|\chi_1\chi_2\right>$ would be:
$$ \frac12(\xi^{\sigma_0+\sigma_0}\left<\chi_1|\psi_2\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_1\right> +
+\xi^{\sigma_0+\sigma_1}\left<\chi_1|\psi_1\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_2\right>
+\xi^{\sigma_1+\sigma_0}\left<\chi_1|\psi_1\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_2\right>
+\xi^{\sigma_1+\sigma_1}\left<\chi_1|\psi_2\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_1\right>)$$
$$ =\frac122(\xi^0\left<\chi_1|\psi_2\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_1\right>+\xi^{1}\left<\chi_1|\psi_1\right>\left<\chi_2|\psi_2\right>) $$
So, as it seems to me, for $N=2$:
$$\sigma_0+\sigma_0=\sigma_1+\sigma_1=\sigma_1$$
$$\sigma_0+\sigma_1=\sigma_1+\sigma_0=\sigma_0$$
However, the author from the example of $N=3$ seems to have defined in general for $\sigma_n,\sigma_m\in S_3$
$$\sigma_n+\sigma_m=\sigma_{(n+m)mod(3!)}$$
Well, now to make my confusion a bit more precise,

*

*Why is there a disagreement with my definition of addition and the authors one. Is it maybe because he might consider $\sigma_1$ for example a different permutation in the symmetry group?

*Does the generalisation come from noticing the common theme in specific examples or is there a more formal and elegant way of transitioning from $(1)$ to $(2)$?

*Could you maybe say if there is a better procedure to second quantise an operator?

The question is also posted on MSE (link).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Nowadays, all professional associations and associations of industry interested in the fields of fire and theft prevention are members of ANPI. Public authorities are also represented within ANPI. The purpose of ANPI is to promote measures, means and techniques aimed at fire and theft prevention as well as the protection of people and properties. ANPI's activities cover five main areas: regulation, information, laboratories, inspections, and certification.
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Timco Offers EMC testing, Equipment Certification, Emissions testing, CE mark testing and is accredited by A2LA to test intentional, un-intentional, licensed, & un-licensed devices. Timco Engineering, Inc. was one of the first laboratories to be designated as a Telecommunication Certification Body in June 2000. Timco is accredited to all possible TCB scopes. As a result, we can offer complete TCB certification services for intentional radiators, unintentional radiators and telephone terminal equipment.


text:
Home Animals Leopard on Brown Log Wild Tiger Animals Wildlife
Leopard on Brown Log Wild Tiger Animals Wildlife
animal, big cat, jaguar, pattern, safari, wild cat, wildlife, wild cat, animals,
The Indian Tiger likewise alluded to as the Bengal Tiger has pride of place in the rundown of tigers. Panthera Tigris is the name given to the Indian tiger by zoologists. The Bengal tiger is likewise alluded to as the Royal Bengal tiger in view of its magnificent appearance. The Bengal tiger is a flesh-eating creature. Be that as it may, once in a while it can transform into a man-eater. Tigers, by and large, are not man-eaters, but rather damage or an incitement can lead a tiger to wind up plainly a man-eater. The tiger in India is an ensured animal groups, yet the miserable part is that according to the last tiger enumeration led by the Indian Government, just 3846 tigers were tallied. Be that as it may, specialists have scrutinized the technique for leading evaluation of the tigers by the Indians which they feel isn't logical. Indian censuses of wild tigers are done by recognizable proof of impressions likewise alluded to as pugmarks of individual tigers. For this distinguishing proof, a specialist tiger tracker is an absolute necessity. However, specialists feel this strategy isn't precise.


text:
Alvin & Gilmore
Band: Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Album: Downey To Lubbock
Label: Yep Roc / H'art
Website: www.davealvin.net/ www.jimmiegilmore.com/
Folk heroes unite on Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore's odyssey across the American west, "Downey To Lubbock", the first-ever musical collaboration between kindred spirits and lifelong friends arrives june 1 via Yep Roc Records.
"It's like we've been playing together since we were kids," says Downey, California's Dave Alvin of his musical partnership with Lubbock, Texas native Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Given their myriad of shared influences and the undeniable chemistry the pair exhibits on 'Downey To Lubbock' (June 1/Yep Roc Records), it seems hard to believe they haven't.
Friends for over three decades, it took Alvin - the founder of seminal punk roots band The Blasters – and Gilmore, of the pioneering country-folk trio The Flatlanders, until last year to collaborate at long last. Embarking on a spontaneous twelve-city tour, the two seasoned veterans of the road found a mutual love of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues, Texas and West Coast Country Music, traditional folk and early Rock n Roll. Their duo sets could effortlessly drift from Merle Hagard to Sam Cooke to the Youngbloods, and the pair had so much fun they began planning a record as soon as the tour wrapped.
The result is 'Downey To Lubbock,' a twelve-song collection that takes on a diverse range of American music spanning nearly one hundred years. Along with ten covers, Dave Alvin wrote two originals for the record: the autobiographical title track and the fantastical "Billy The Kid and Geronimo." The latter sees Alvin and Gilmore trade verses as their folk heroes have a prescient bar room debate on morality, oppression and injustice.
Elsewhere on 'Downey to Lubbock,' Alvin and Gilmore explore the musical pipeline between their home states, taking on the work of Texan-Californians Lightnin' Hopkins, Brownie McGhee and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Hopkins was a personal favorite of both men during his regular sets at Los Angeles' Ash Grove in the 1960s. A wholly unique version of "Deportee – Plane Wreck at Los Gatos" breathes new life into a 1940s Woody Guthrie classic that is timelier than ever, while contemporary covers focus on friends of Gilmore and Alvin gone too soon: Steve Young, John Stewart and Chris Gaffney.
Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore will tour again this summer.
dave_alvin_and_jimmie_dale_gilmore_-_billy_the_kid_and_geronimo_official_audio
dave_alvin_and_jimmie_dale_gilmore_-_downey_to_lubbock_official_video
dave_alvin_jimmie_dale_gilmore_credit_jeff_fasano.jpg


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Start |Author Index | View Uploaded Presentations | Meeting Information
Southeastern Section - 65th Annual Meeting - 2016
Paper No. 22-6
Presentation Time: 10:00 AM
INSIGHTS INTO THE LOCOMOTOR MODE OF THE ANCIENT WHALE GEORGIACETUS BASED ON VERTEBRAL MORPHOLOGY
SMITH, Kathlyn M., Department of Geology and Geography, Georgia Southern University, Box 8149, Statesboro, GA 30460, LEVERETT, Kelsi Tate, Department of Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, 129 McNutt Hall, 1400 North Bishop, Rolla, MO 65409 and BEBEJ, Ryan M., Department of Biology, Calvin College, 1726 Knollcrest Circle SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546, ksmith@georgiasouthern.edu
Georgiacetus vogtlensis is one of the most primitive archaeocetes (ancient whales) from North America. Discovered in middle Eocene deposits of the northern Atlantic Coastal Plain of Georgia in 1983, it shows important adaptations toward fully aquatic behavior, including lack of articulation between the pelvis and sacral vertebrae. It also exhibits characteristics similar to semi-aquatic mammals, including a sizable pelvis. Georgiacetus, which is closely related to but not a member of the clade Pelagiceti (fully aquatic whales), is ideal for investigating skeletal changes associated with the land-to-sea transition evident in whale evolution. Lumbar vertebrae underwent drastic changes during this transition, as dorsomobile whales evolved from dorsostable artiodactyls and locomotion via hindlimb propulsion (for semi-aquatic whales) was replaced by locomotion via vertebral undulation (for fully aquatic whales). Thirteen measurements of vertebral morphology were collected from the two anterior-most (L1 and L2) and two posterior-most (LY and LZ) lumbar vertebrae of over 30 extant and extinct terrestrial, aquatic, and semi-aquatic mammals, including Georgiacetus. Separate principal components analyses (PCA) were conducted for each vertebral position (L1, L2, LY, and LZ) using these measurements and specimens. All four PCAs sorted specimens by vertebral mobility, and all four placed Georgiacetus between known dorsostable and known dorsomobile mammals. Separate discriminant function analyses (DFA) were also conducted for each vertebral position for fully and semi-aquatic specimens, using the same measurements and treating Georgiacetus as an unknown. DFA of L1 and L2 categorized Georgiacetus as semi-aquatic, but DFA of LY and LZ characterized Georgiacetus as fully aquatic. Because fully aquatic whales locomote via vertebral undulation, categorization of the posterior-most lumbar vertebrae of Georgiacetus as fully aquatic suggests an increasing reliance on vertebral undulation as its primary mode of locomotion, which in turn suggests a primarily aquatic lifestyle for this genus.
Session No. 22
T14. Fossil Vertebrates of the Southeastern United States
Friday, 1 April 2016: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM
Richland B (Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 48, No. 3
doi: 10.1130/abs/2016SE-273309
© Copyright 2016 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.
Back to: T14. Fossil Vertebrates of the Southeastern United States


text:
eurydice72 —
Eurydice ( eurydice72) wrote,
eurydice72
Not the greatest Queen
Today was all kinds of productive. Lots of laundry, starting to reclaim my house. I'm going to bed feeling accomplished, even if I didn't get to writing stuff.
Last night, we went out with friends to see the Queen musical, "We Will Rock You," in San Jose, with dinner at Morton's first. Dinner was good, but not nearly as good as I expected for the price point. As for the show...it was slightly disappointing. Craig and I saw it when it was first released in London in 2002. The show is cheesy as hell, but because of the music, it was a ton of fun. So much fun that we saw it two more times in London, including taking Alex and Alicia when they were still pretty young. So when the tickets for the touring show became available last winter, we jumped on them.
Well. They've updated and changed the show. Some of the changes are good, modernizing references and such. Some of them drag the show down. They changed out at least three of the big numbers in the first act with practically unknown Queen songs which completely kill the pacing. And the pacing is the one thing the show has going for it besides the music under the best of circumstances. They also turned the character of Pop from an older, stoner-type guy, into a young surfer type, which completely changed the vibe of the second act.
Throw into that the fact that there were serious sound issues in the first act, and we were really worried that we'd made a huge mistake by going when intermission came around. We were in the 4th row of the orchestra in the middle, and we could barely hear any of the principles in the first act. We couldn't hear Killer Queen at all. They seemed to fix it for the second act, which helped a lot. The female lead, Scaramouche, was replaced during intermission with the understudy who, while a good enough singer, was so shrill for her speaking lines, everybody was bitching about her as we were walking out of the theater. I overheard the phrase, "shrieking banshee," mentioned more than once. The guy playing the lead had a great voice, but he played the character with crazy eyes which made Galileo come across as a psychopath (especially when he's doing it and smiling during the beginning of Bohemian Rhapsody when he's talking about having just killed a man) and not very sympathetic at all.
So maybe not the best way to experience the show. I don't even know if I'd recommend it. I know the sound issues won't affect every performance, but there are still other factors that drag it down. Which is such a shame, because the original production was just so much damn fun.
Snowflake Challenge #10
In your own space, write a love letter to Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, creator, episode, or…
Snowflake Challenge #8 & 9
I skipped #7 because it's about coming up with new challenges, and I could not think of anything fandom-related that wasn't wish fulfillment. Which…
A fresh week
I have been buried under boring work for the past four days, and I'm only just coming out of it, so be prepared for a flood of Snowflake Challenge…


text:
Q: How can I color the levels of my one predictor with sjPlot (plot_model)? I have problems coloring the two levels of my predictor variable (group) when using plot_model, if I am just plotting one of the variables. Here is an example of that, where both groups are just black lines:
library(sjPlot)
n <- 30
dat <- data.frame(  group=rep(LETTERS[1:2], n/2),
                  age=sample(18:30, n, replace=TRUE),
                  x=rnorm(n))

m <- lm(x ~ group + age, data=dat)

plot_model(m, type = "eff", terms = c("group"), colors=c("red", "blue"))

If I plot the second variable along with it, it colors the levels of that, however:
plot_model(m, type = "eff", terms = c("group", "age"), colors=c("red", "blue"))

How can I apply the colors to the levels of "group" when only plotting the predicitions for this variable?
Thanks!


text:
US attack on Syrian airbase: Commitment on Syrian refugees vital if Trump truly cares about civilians
photo by Gage Skidmore
In response to last night's United States airstrikes against a Syrian army airbase in Homs, three days after a chemical weapons attack killed more than 80 civilians in Idleb province, Margaret Huang, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, said:
"President Donald Trump said that the attack was prompted by concern for the lives of Syrian civilians, but his administration has shown callous disregard for Syrians attempting to flee for their lives. He must immediately revoke the Muslim travel ban and end restrictions on refugees from Syria, fleeing the horrors at home.
"President Donald Trump said that the attack was prompted by concern for the lives of Syrian civilians, but his administration has shown callous disregard for Syrians attempting to flee for their lives. He must immediately revoke the Muslim travel ban and end restrictions on refugees from Syria, fleeing the horrors at home."
Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA
"US forces also must strictly adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and take all possible measures to protect the civilian population when carrying out military action, including by refraining from using internationally banned weapons, such as cluster munitions. Recent airstrikes by the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria have killed hundreds of civilians, many of whom were women and children trapped inside their houses.
"The United Nations Security Council has been unable to protect civilians in Syria for the past six years. It has emboldened all parties to the conflict in Syria to commit appalling crimes with impunity. It is imperative for member states to adopt a resolution that would ensure an investigation on the ground into the chemical attack that took place in Khan Sheikhoun and that would facilitate bringing perpetrators of such crimes to justice."
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Do we ever feel disconnected from God on some mornings?
Do we ever feel like the day will go all "to pot" and that it is pretty worthless getting up and continuing with your day? Most of the time we do not see the full picture. Yesterday I reflected on how I wondered how God was going to save everyone. Part of me would like to be universalist where I believed everyone was going to be saved, but I just don't know.
Our image of the world is blurred.
Like the picture, we only see a certain part of an image and we have not got the full image. We must simply trust in God no matter how bad things get and have confidence that He will come through for us.
I certainly felt like I was clinging to the dust this morning, but as ever I kept to the routine and gradually life seemed to ebb its way back into my body. The day didn't go that badly, in fact it went quite well, but I kept praying more often today.
When I am in times of distress I usually start to repeat prayers that I have learned. Jesus warns against repetitive prayers, but I don't think He meant you shouldn't learn some prayers and use them in times of stress.
Prayers told from the heart are not vain repetitions, they are heart felt. The prayer that always helps me is the prayer of St Francis. It reminds me that I should not be seeking things for myself but to be seeking to serve others.


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Our GMP course is aimed principally at personnel new to Supervisory and Management roles who need a detailed explanation of GMP, its requirements and how it works. The GMP course will also be of benefit for anyone new to pharmaceuticals who have had no significant GMP training previously.
Delegates will learn about GMP and how it is applied in a manufacturing operation. Delegates will leave the GMP course with a clear understanding of the requirements of EU GMP and an appreciation of USA GMP.
For a more in-depth review of GMP our 3-day Advanced GMP course may be of interest.
A short online refresher/compliance programme costing from £95 per delegate is also available with versions for Packaging, Warehouse, Laboratory and Manufacturing personnel available – for more details click here.
Why do we have GMP in pharmaceuticals?


I wasn't sure why that made me internally uncomfortable, I emailed them back in response & got an even nicer email back.
I sat & thought about why that made me uncomfortable. I am a lot of things but I have never sat & thought to myself "Geez you're a good person".
I will protect & defend those I love with my life whether they have skin, fur or feathers.
I will never invent a cure to save mankind I am just hoping to leave this world a better place than I found it.
When I am wrong I admit it, apologize & try to learn, when i am right I will defend it to my death.
Then it hits me, I see people like Mother Teresa, my countless foster parents, & the mentors in my life as "Good People" I have never been so bold as to apply that term to myself.
Well because I am not. I like myself, even love myself, I try very hard to be a good person but in my opinion I still have much learning & growing to do.
The saying goes: "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game" My father told me that is just something that losers say. I have never in life, been able to accept that anything my father told me was untrue or incorrect, & for many years that is how I played. I was bringing in 4 to 7K a month, I had a home, cars, college funds, assets & was able to take care of my 4 kids, 3 adopted kids, & 6 siblings. Then one day it was suddenly all gone, my ex didn't pay the IRS & since we were technically still married they took everything, but then because of all the trouble my husband started they took my youngest kids, I sent them down to my family, & did everything the state asked me to do & got them back & moved on.
That gave me perspective with a capital P. I lost material things but for months I slept at night without my kids in the house, my son went through a whole season of little league without me seeing any of his games, my daughter appeared in the nutcracker & I have no videotape to memorialize the event.
I still had all of my other kids at home & they were still placing foster kids with me but no child is any less important than any other. Yes you heard me right, they took my two youngest kids & were still placing children with me, & left 5 in the home with me; you can't even make that kind of stupidity up, that requires administrative actions.
I know what it feels like to stand there helplessly & have to get your babies shoes & coats on & hand them over to strangers & KNOWING I was being falsely accused, & when I had to hand over my animals while this woman gloated it was like reliving this all over again. (Maybe they should've called CPS & then they would've known they were going to have a fight from hell's fury on their hands) No one takes my babies & walks away with their dignity or their jobs… Just ask the 3 workers who got fired & my ex-husband who is now a 1 eyed gimp, or the women who were calling on me who have lost all of their kids permanently & 2 even went to jail for a while. I am also capable of vengeance, very capable.
The fight that I am in right now has NOT made me a very good person, the corruption that I am finding all around this state, has not brought out the best in me & I understand full well there are times that you must follow the standard of "When in Rome do as the Romans do" I am willing to fight anyway that I have to, to get back my animals & restore my reputation. I am also perfectly willing to retaliate, because some people just need to learn a few good lessons.
I am flattered that someone out there thinks I am a good person, I can be, but right now I am not making any promises to anyone… besides that the Creator isn't done with me yet, I am a work in progress! I will try to be the good person you think I am but I have a war to win.
"Good" is probably has a sense of right and wrong – or justice – of fairness – and may feel uneasy with labels. "Bad" doesn't.
"Good" is complex – at the end of the day, it all gets sorted out and things tallied up.


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Home » House Democrats Briefed on Active Security Threats
House Democrats Briefed on Active Security Threats
by Lightlynews.com · On January 12, 2021 · In U.S.
House Democrats had been briefed Monday night time on a handful of particular lively threats to the Capitol and to lawmakers within the aftermath of the mob assault on the Capitol.
The briefing by the appearing Capitol Police chief and sergeant-at-arms additionally mentioned safety steps that had been being put in place, as lawmakers pushed for extra particulars on precautions as they returned to Washington for votes on impeachment and a decision demanding that Vice President Mike Pence wrest the powers of the presidency from President Trump.
Democrats who had been on the decision stated that the displays detailed the plans of advert hoc militia teams and mentioned how decided they had been to attempt to carry them out. At least one plan concerned in search of vengeance for the loss of life of Ashli Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran from Southern California, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer outdoors the House chamber final Wednesday.
Lawmakers had been left rattled; a number of confided afterward that they had been afraid of re-entering the Capitol this week. Others had been additionally involved about flying after some had been threatened on the airport. Lawmakers pressed the officers on what precautions had been being taken to assist lawmakers safely journey to and inside Washington.
In a memo that circulated on Monday, lawmakers had been reminded that the acquisition of a bulletproof vest was a reimbursable expense, as was safety coaching. Democrats raised the prospect of requiring lawmakers to undergo a steel detector on Inauguration Day, citing some Republicans who've pushed to be allowed to hold a hid gun in Washington regardless of federal and district legislation. Given the involvement of a number of Republicans in numerous "Stop the Steal" rallies, there's deep distrust amongst Democrats towards these colleagues.
One Democrat, who requested to stay nameless out of safety issues, known as the decision "essentially the most terrifying hour of my whole life." But one other Democrat on the decision, who works on nationwide safety points, stated afterward that it was reassuring as a result of it confirmed that the authorities had been correctly partaking with the menace, in contrast to the relative silence and assurances given within the run-up to Jan. 6.
In the Senate, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic chief, stated in a letter to his caucus that the assault "confirmed us we'd like certified Senate-confirmed individuals (not in an appearing capability) in key nationwide safety positions on Day One, together with Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of State, Attorney General, and others."
The Senate was anticipated to carry a safety briefing on Tuesday afternoon.
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Twitter briefly suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene's private account.
Kamala Harris Will Resign from Senate Monday
As Biden seeks to jump-start his time period, regulation enforcement braces for doable violence.


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Home > Doctors > Lindsey Bowser M.D.
I was born and raised in Brandon, Florida. My father is from Cuba while my mom is from Pennsylvania. I can speak a little bit of Spanish although I understand it more than I can speak it. My father is a family practitioner, and my mother is a Dermatologist, so I grew up going to their offices all the time. I studied Psychology while in college and enjoyed working with the patients so much that I decided to further my career in the medical field.
A good day at work for me means that I've made an impact in a patient's life and helped them achieve their health goals. I hope that I can help my patients lose weight and live healthier lives because of my diet plans.
At Sanitas, we like to empower our patients by providing them with resources to improve their health for the better. We offer a variety of medical services, and all of the staff is incredibly knowledgeable.
In my free time, I enjoy running every other day and competing in half marathons. I also enjoy cooking, going to concerts, and going to Disney World with my husband at least once a month.


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Q: Is it possible to include a phtml file from another module in my template in Magento 2? I'm making a Megamenu Module, where I want to include the phtml of a file in my MailChimp module (Signup Form). Is there a way I can call on this template from within another module?

A: Definitely, you can call any PHTML file from another PHTML file or layout file:
To call phtml from phtml file, use below syntax:
echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock("Namespace\Module\Block\BlockClass")->setTemplate("Namespace_Module::filename.phtml")->toHtml();

or you can even try:
<?php include ($block->getTemplateFile('Namespace_Module::/foldername/filename.phtml')) ?>

A: Yes you can include / add other's module template in different module. in your module's layout file add block like that :
 <block class="other\module\block\class" name="mail.chimp.template" template="Mail_Chimp::template.phtml" />

here :

class="other\module\block\class", will be other module block class.
template = "Module_Name/template_file.phtml"

A: Sure you can. In your layout xml, specify the module
see below (where vendor i will assume it's MailChimp:
<block class="YourBlock" name="your.name" template="Vendor_module::path/template.phtml" >


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17 Strong Female Movie Characters to Watch When You Need More Confidence
Kelly Dawson
Kelly Dawson is a writer and editor who focuses on architecture, interior design, and culture. She has been writing for MyDomaine since 2017.
Momnoi/Getty Images. Graphic by Cristina Cianci
For better or worse, we explore our emotions through film. The way that certain movies can tap into our need for acceptance, our quests for adventure, and even our curiosity around danger is the reason why an entire audience can have a similar reaction to a scene. Even if it's fantasy, the things we see displayed on screen can feel real. And depending on the circumstances, some film characters can help us navigate the tenuous positions of being heroines in our own lives, too.
Take a strong female character, for instance. When we're dealing with our own issues, watching a film starring one can be a welcome escape as well as a push in the right direction. That's why we chose 17 films with strong female characters who rose to various occasions—like enrolling in Harvard Law School, turning down a loveless proposal, and moving to New York City—so that you might be inspired to do the same. It may not be the best idea to follow in their exact footsteps since we are talking about movies, but feel free to emulate their confidence when dealing with your own issues. After all, you're still in the midst of your compelling story.
Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice/Focus Features
The many screenplay adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice through the decades have made Elizabeth Bennet's wit, charm, and tenacity come alive for generations of women, though we may be partial to Keira Knightley's 2005 performance. Nevertheless, her interpretation of Elizabeth as a woman who will protect her family, speak her mind, and marry for love—despite all the societal pressures she faces—highlights this character's subtle strengths.
When to Watch: If everyone around you is getting engaged or married.
Hermione Granger in Harry Potter
Harry Potter/Warner Bros. Pictures
Harry and Ron had more than a classmate and best friend in Hermione (played by Emma Watson)—they had someone who would challenge their skills, question surrounding authority, and ultimately save them from danger, too. In Harry Potter, Hermione's determination to be a stellar student should give real-life girls the go-ahead to be smart and strong, too.
When to Watch: If you're learning a new skill.
Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures/Fox 2000 Pictures
We think all three leading characters in Hidden Figures—who were inspired by the real-life Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson at NASA in the '60s—are deserving of praise, but for the purposes of simplicity, we'll focus on the main storyline of Katherine (played by Taraji P. Henson). Her ability to excel in an environment that was not welcoming to her, and advocate for herself and others in the process, is a stirring example of poise and perseverance.
When to Watch: If you need to stand up to a co-worker.
4% of Hollywood Directors Are Female—These Are the Women Giving Us Hope
Leia Organa in Star Wars
Star Wars/20th Century Fox
When audiences first meet Princess Leia, she's a tiny hologram asking Obi-Wan Kenobi for help as the resistance's only hope in Star Wars. But the truth is, she can handle her own battles—and with plenty of perfectly delivered lines, too—while still fostering teamwork and unity among her peers. Carrie Fisher was only a teenager when she first played this role, but the strength she displayed through this character throughout the series is what makes her a legend.
When to Watch: If you've just taken on a leadership role.
Mulan in Mulan
Mulan/Walt Disney Pictures
There are catchy songs and heartwarming familial themes in this beloved Disney film, of course, but it's also a movie about female empowerment. After Mulan poses as a male soldier to save her father from enlisting in the Chinese army, she prepares for an imminent war among peers who first see her as weak, and later, as an equal. Soon after, Mulan proves herself to be an indispensable and quick-thinking leader, and that doesn't change when her true gender is revealed.
When to Watch: If you're itching to start a new business.
Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs
Silence of the Lambs/Strong Heart/Demme Production
Silence of the Lambs may be remembered for its calm, methodical villain Hannibal Lecter—as well as the serial killer he's asked to help capture, Buffalo Bill—but Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) deserves the spotlight, too. After all, she's the FBI trainee who's tasked with interviewing the incarcerated Hannibal in the first place, which leads her to try to solve who Buffalo Bill is and where his latest victim is hidden. She does most of this on her own, in surroundings that are, to put it lightly, far from hospitable.
When to Watch: If you're determined to handle a new project on your own.
The Bride in Kill Bill
Kill Bill/A Band Apart
Uma Thurman plays the Bride in this Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill series, who vows revenge on a team of assassins—featuring Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Darryl Hanna, and their leader, Bill—after they try to kill her and her unborn baby. Like most Tarantino movies, this movie has a lot of violence, one-liners, and stylized scenes. But it would all lack dimension without the fierceness of the Bride, who sticks to her mission with absolute control.
When to Watch: If something didn't turn out the way you planned.
Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games/Color Force
When Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) yells the now-famous line of "I volunteer as tribute" to save her sister from fighting to the death in The Hunger Games, it turns out to be the start of her journey as a strong-willed and methodical survivor amid an ever-changing and ruthless competition. Everdeen now has to rely on her past skills as a hunter and form alliances with other participants in order to survive—and it's not always clear if she's making the right decisions.
When to Watch: If you're settling into new surroundings.
Elle Woods in Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
When audiences first meet Elle Woods, played by Reese Witherspoon, she's a spoiled sorority sister in Legally Blonde, who thinks that an engagement from her equally beautiful boyfriend is inevitable. But after he dumps her—and Elle decides to win him back by applying to Harvard Law School (what, like it's hard?)—she realizes her own capabilities.
When to Watch: If you're going through a tough breakup.
Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada/Fox 2000 Pictures
When the title of this character's movie is The Devil Wears Prada—and Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, is the so-called devil—it can be a challenge to see her as anything other than a villain at first. But make no mistake, Priestly is the type of boss you'd want right out of college (or at any other time in your career). She's risen to the top of a cutthroat industry, she expects the best from those around her, and she doesn't coddle the new girl, Andy. It's because of Priestly's high expectations that Andy is able to succeed, and ultimately, create the confidence she needed to figure out what's best for her.
When to Watch: If you're looking to score a promotion.
Ellen Ripley in Aliens
Aliens/20th Century Fox
She does her job in clothes that suit it, and she doesn't care if she's seen as aggressive, rude, dirty, or makeup-free in the process.
The best thing about Ellen Ripley's character (played by Sigourney Weaver) in the Aliens franchise is that she was never out for the audience's approval. She does her job in clothes that suit it, and she doesn't care if she's seen as aggressive, rude, dirty, or makeup-free in the process. In the original film, Ellen is on a spaceship called Nostromo when she and her crew are awakened by a mysterious transmission. After landing, a creature is discovered on the ship and kills everyone aboard, except for her.
When to Watch: If you need to handle a problem on your own.
Kat Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You
10 Things I Hate About You/Touchstone Pictures
Kat Stratford, played by Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You, isn't the typical high school student—her sister Bianca is, though, and that's the problem. Bianca wants to go to parties and date the most popular guy in school, but their overprotective dad makes a rule that Bianca can't do any of that until Kat joins in. Kat may be the original advocate for #JOMO, but she's also unapologetically feminist, decidedly rebellious, and kinder than she appears, too.
When to Watch: If you're trying to care less about what people think.
Foxy Brown in Foxy Brown
Foxy Brown/American International Pictures
This '70s film turned actress Pam Grier into a superhero who's outspoken, sexy, and strong—all while delivering some great one-liners. She plays a woman, Foxy Brown, who's avenging the death of her boyfriend, a narcotics agent, by infiltrating a prostitution ring. While not everything about this movie can be celebrated, we can applaud it for revolutionizing the genre by showcasing a black female superhero.
When to watch: If you need to defend someone's honor at all costs.
Cheryl Strayed in Wild
Wild/Fox Searchlight Pictures
After her mother passes away and her marriage falls apart, Cheryl Strayed (who wrote the book this movie is based on) decides to cope with the pain by making an unlikely decision: She hikes the Pacific Crest Trail. Cheryl has no hiking experience and can barely carry the weight of her overstuffed pack when she begins. But through the extreme physical demands of this goal, and the physical and mental toll it requires of her, she allows herself to heal from the past and focus on the present.
When to Watch: If you're working hard to live in the moment.
Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich
Erin Brockovich/Universal Pictures
Based on a true story that won Julia Roberts a Best Actress Oscar for her role, Erin Brockovich centers around a woman who discovers that the behemoth California company PG&E is likely poisoning the water supply in the small town of Hinkley—and trying to cover it up. Through the endless research and tricky politics surrounding the need to create a case against PG&E, all of which she does despite not having a law degree, Erin becomes a force the company cannot ignore. She's strong but compassionate, careful yet fearless.
When to Watch: If you need the confidence to walk into an intimidating room.
Jess Bhamra in Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham/Redbus Film Distribution
In Bend It Like Beckham, Jess Bhamra is a young Indian woman living in London's suburbs who has dreams of one day playing professional soccer like her idol, David Beckham. There are only two problems with that wish: There is no professional women's league in Britain and her parents disapprove of her playing soccer in the first place. So Jess decides to play anyway, going behind her parents' backs and getting caught up in a forbidden romance in the process.
When to Watch: If you're dealing with some family drama.
Jo March in Little Women
Little Women/Columbia Pictures
As with Pride and Prejudice, there are earlier adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women that have introduced audiences to Jo March. But we're fans of Winona Ryder's version, if only because she gives the free-spirited, creative, and adventurous sister a modern sense of trying to find herself. It's impossible not to admire Jo's determination to be a writer one day—often staying up after her sisters have gone to sleep—but that admiration deepens once she moves to New York City to make it happen.
When to Watch: If you're looking to start over somewhere new.
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LedgerOnline / January 2, 2018 / No Comment
Steve Bannon has opinions about 'Jewish Palm Beach matrons'
(JTA) — Steve Bannon had some choice words for Palm Beach Jewish women who support Donald Trump. In an interview with Vanity Fair published on Thursday, Dec. 21, the former White House adviser and current head of Breitbart News described the reception he expected to get in the tony Florida enclave in November, when he attended Restoration Weekend — an annual gathering of right-wing thinkers hosted by leftist-turned-conservative David Horowitz. "The thing about Restoration Weekend," Bannon tells author Gabriel Sherman, "is you got a lot of Jewish Palm Beach matrons who used to be superhot. They were all left-wing in the '60s. That was before they locked down successful Palm Beach business guys. Now they're hardcore. You half expect them to throw their panties at Horowitz. They're all Trump people."
The comment is sure to fuel more accusations that Breitbart is antisemitic — accusations that stem from Breitbart's hyper-nationalist, anti-"globalist" worldview and an allegation by his ex-wife, denied by Bannon, that he didn't want their twin daughters to attend a private school with a large Jewish population.
In the same article, Bannon shows he hasn't buried the hatchet with Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, with whom he frequently clashed as a rival for the president's ear. Bannon suggests his worldview, not Kushner's moderating influence, still holds sway in the White House he left in August. Trump "momentarily has lapses when he's convinced by people around him in the White House to do ridiculous things like support Big Luther Strange, another genius move by Jared," Bannon said. Trump supported Strange in Alabama's recent Republican Senate primary, while Bannon backed the eventual nominee, Judge Roy Moore, in a race seen as a testing-ground for Bannon's assault on the Republican establishment. Moore lost the general election to Democrat Doug Jones.
CAP: Steve Bannon
Day school enrollment rises, non-Orthodox enrollment down
Michael Solomonov is helping to build culinary school in Israel
With US abstention, Israel again forced to face reality of world's rejection of settlements


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https://www.manisteenews.com/insider/article/Video-visitation-weekly-testing-How-Oaks-15801314.php
Video visitation, weekly testing: How Oaks Correctional Facility is handling the pandemic
By Erin Glynn, Manistee News Advocate
Updated 5:16 pm EST, Monday, December 14, 2020
There have been 15 cases among prisoners in Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee since the pandemic started.
Photo: Courtesy Photo
MANISTEE — Health officials have been recommending people stay six feet apart from others since March. Most people in Manistee County have the space to follow those guidelines. But in places like nursing homes, medical care facilities and prisons, it's more difficult to socially distance.
Officials at Oaks Correctional Facility, on Caberfae Highway in Manistee, have addressed this by instituting weekly COVID-19 tests for prisoners and staff. Prison officials do contact tracing when a prisoner tests positive and move prisoners with COVID-19 so that they interact only with other prisoners that have tested positive and not with those who haven't contracted the virus.
The Oaks houses just over 1,000 men and there are currently four active cases of COVID-19 in the prison. Since the pandemic started, there have been 15 cases among prisoners. These cases are not included in the Michigan Health and Human Services data for Manistee County as correctional facility data is reported separately.
"They've been relatively unscathed," Chris Gautz, public information officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections, told the News Advocate in an interview on Wednesday.
There have been 27 cases since the start of the pandemic among the prison's 307 staff members. It should be noted that case numbers among prisoners and staff are likely to be higher than other populations because the prisoners and staff are tested more frequently.
If a staff member tests positive, they quarantine for 10 days, Gautz said. To come back to work, staff has to have gone 24 hours without a fever without using fever reducing medication and, if they had symptoms, those symptoms have to be on the decline.
RELATED: 9 Oaks Correctional Facility inmates positive for coronavirus
Gautz said MDOC is discussing when prisons can safely return to hosting visitations and what that will look like. He said it may involve scheduling visits in advance and putting time limits on visits.
"Before, as long as there wasn't a wait and people taking up a space — which typically happened on Mother's Day, Father's Day and Christmas — you could just stay there all day. Some people will do that," he said.
Gautz added that since there haven't been visits for almost a year now, the department is preparing for a "huge rush" of visitors when in-person visits are allowed again.
In the meantime, MDOC is rolling out video visitation. The department announced the pilot program on Wednesday which will initially be available in six prisons before it is available statewide. However, Oaks is not one of the prisons in the pilot program.
"We recognize the importance of having that family connection and being able to see your loved ones, especially around the holiday time," Gautz said.
He added that MDOC is planning to continue having a video visitation option even after in-person visits are reinstated.
"If your loved one is at the Oaks, and you're from Detroit or in another state, it gives you that ability to still have that visit, without having to go the expense of driving seven hours or getting a hotel or having to rent a car," he said.
There have been 17,180 cases and 94 deaths among prisoners statewide, according to the Marshall Project. Michigan has the third highest number of cases in state prisons in the country and is fourth for number of deaths.
The Michigan plan for vaccination, last updated on Sunday, places workers "who have direct contact with large number of vulnerable residents" like nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals in Phase 1A for receiving vaccines. This means the workers will receive vaccines within the first five weeks of the rollout.
Prison staff are in Phase 1B with staff for homeless shelters and child care centers, meaning they will receive vaccines within the first 10 weeks of the rollout. Though vulnerable residents in long-term care facilities are included in Phase 1A, there is no mention specifically of prisoners in the plan.