Daily Archives: April 9, 2020

The decade of transformation: Remaking international relations – NationofChange

Posted: April 9, 2020 at 6:42 pm

The coronavirus pandemic is magnifying the cruelty of U.S. foreign policy. The economic collapse is showing the failure of neoliberalism and how the empire-economy is not working for the people of the world, including the United States.

The U.S. is losing its global dominance as it demonstrates its own incompetence in response to the pandemic and its viciousness in the midst of this crisis. Other countries are showing leadership and solidarity while the U.S. is escalating its attacks.

This is an opportunity to change direction. What seemed impossible in the recent past is now possible. We must seize the opportunity to create change that ensures the necessities of the people are met and the planet is protected. COVID-19 is one immediate crisis, but the climate crisis, nuclear war and economic insecurity all require solidarity between the people of the world.

No country can fully recover from COVID-19 or the economic collapse unless these crises are resolved for the whole world. Both the economy and pandemic are global and interconnected as are the looming crises of climate chaos and nuclear war.Rather than showing solidarity with other nations in the midst of the crises, the U.S. is escalating economic sanctions and threatening war while undermining a global response to climate and increasing the risks of nuclear war.

Black Alliance for Peace points out:The brutality and criminality of the colonial/capitalist system of state violence is reflected most graphically by the illegal and immoral policy of sanctions imposed on 39 nations by the U.S. and its Western allies.Venezuela, Iran and other nations are being denied the ability to import medicines and medical equipment to protect their populations from the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 23, theU.N. General Secretary Antnio Guterrescalled for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world sayingnations should focus together on the true fight of our lives the#COVID19pandemic.Fifty-three countriesimmediately agreed.Instead of heeding this call, the U.S. has threatened Iran and Venezuela with military attacks and continued the war with Yemen whileeliminating the majority of humanitarian assistance to Yemen.These actions were wrong before the pandemic, but in the midst of the pandemic, they are obscene.

China is sending medical supplies and assistance to 89 countries so far as part of itsHealth Silk Road.It is ignoring U.S. sanctions bysendingdrugs, test kits, and supplies to Iran and Venezuela. Hard-hit Italy noted thatthe other EU nations ignored their desperate plea for medical equipment while China responded. China is building positive relationships by providingessential equipment and expertisewhile theU.S. is tryingand failing to get other nations to sign on to a statement blaming COVID-19 on China.

Cuba hassentbrigades of doctors and nurses to Italy, as well as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Suriname, and Grenada. Russia has also sent medical supplies to hard-hit countries like Italy.Even Venezuela, suffering from a U.S. economic blockade and threats of a military attack, issending aid to its neighbors, including Ecuador and Colombia even though Colombia has joined the U.S. in threatening Venezuela.The U.S. blocked a shipment of coronavirus aidfor Cuba from Chinas richest man, Jack Ma, including 100,000 facemasks and 10 COVID-19 diagnostic kits, along with other supplies.

Europe is starting to break with the United States. The EU finally sent aid to Iran ignoring U.S. sanctions.France, Germany, and Britain have sentmedical goods to Iran through INSTEX a workaround to export goods to Iran that bypasses U.S.sanctions. This development could have major implications for the ability of the U.S. to unilaterally sanction nations as it provides a way for countries to trade without the U.S. financial system.Europe, led by Germany, also backed out of war gamesagainst Russia, which would have included a practice nuclear attack, due to the COVID-19 virus.

President Rouhani of Iran sent an open letterto the people of the United States saying, the war on this virus can only be successful if all nations can win this war together, and no affected nation is left behind. He urged us to change the direction of the U.S. government, writing, Future generations will judge the American people based on the actions of their government.

The zig-zagging incompetence of U.S. policy is evident.During the three months when the Trump administration did not take the virus seriously, the Interceptreportsthe United States allowed exports of medical supplies and equipment. After examining vessel manifests, the Intercept found medical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus [was] being shipped abroad as recently as March 17. This has led to a persistent lack of medical supplies in the U.S.

Now, the U.S. has angered allies by diverting medical supplies to the U.S.The Washington Post reportsthat Berlin expressed outrageover what they said was the diversion to the United States of 200,000 masks that were en route from China, while officials in Brazil and France complained that the United States was outbidding them in the global marketplace for critical medical supplies. They report the U.S. is also stopping the export of masks to Canada and Latin America.

Even worse, Trump took time from his daily press conference on COVID-19 to escalate threats against Venezuela bysending U.S. naval vesselsnear Venezuelas borders.AP reportsThe deployment is one of the largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama It involves assets like Navy warships, AWACS surveillance aircraft and on-ground special forces seldom seen before in the region.

This followed aphony indictment of President Maduroand other Venezuelan leaders foralleged narcotraffickingthat included a $15 million bounty on Maduro. President Maduro wrote an open letterto the people of the world that decried the indictment as illegal and part of a U.S. coup attempt writing, the U.S. government, instead of focusing on policies of global cooperation in health and prevention, has increased unilateral coercive measures, has rejected requests from the international community to lift or make flexible the illegal sanctions that prevent Venezuela from accessing medicines, medical equipment, and food.The indictment was announced after Venezuela prevented weapons financed by the U.S. from being sent into Venezuela from Colombia for another coup attempt.

Venezuelans in the U.S. who want to fly back to Venezuela to escape the economic and health crises here are not being allowed to charter flights from Florida.The escalation against Venezuela also included the US-controlledIMF blocking a COVID-19 emergency loanto Venezuela.Venezuela has taken aggressive actions to stop the spreadof the virus and has been more effective than the U.S.

The U.S. also shows disregard for its own people, including those in the military, byfiring aU.S. Navy Capt. Brett Crozierafter he sought help for sailors on the U.S.S. Roosevelt aircraft carrier. Crozierwrote his superiors about hundreds of COVID-19 cases and when the letter was leaked, he was fired. As he left the ship,the crew cheered himfor standing up for their health and risking his career. The first government official fired over the virus was one trying to protect people from illness. The U.S. has also directed that reports onCOVID-19 in the military be kept secret.

The actions of the U.S. are leading tothe reshaping of global leadership.Patrick Coburn describesCOVID-19 as aChernobyl momentand concludes nobody is today looking to Washington for a solution to the crisis.

The people of the United States have been sold a false definition of national security. The pandemic shows that mass military spending on bombs, weapons, bases, and troops does not provide security. The coronavirus is expected to kill between 100,000 to 240,000 people in the United States if our response goes well and could be more than one million if it is inadequate. Deaths have already passed 9/11 and Pearl Harbor and could exceed the Vietnam War and World War 1.

We need to redefine national security.David Swanson calls for a real Department of Defensethat would prioritize the twin dangers of nuclear and climate apocalypse, and the accompanying spin-offs like coronavirus. He points out it would be less expensive to providefinancial security and top medical care to everyone on the globe than to fight wars.

Gareth Porter writes,For decades, the military-industrial-congressional complex has force-fed the American public a warped conception of U.S. national security-focused entirely around perpetuating warfare. The cynical conflation of national security with waging war on designated enemies around the globe effectively stifled public awareness of the clear and present danger posed to its survival by the global pandemic. As a result, Congress was simply not called upon to fund the vitally important equipment that doctors and nurses needed for the Covid-19 crisis.

The Pentagon was well aware of the threat of a pandemic and anticipated the lack of ventilators, face masks, and hospital beds, according to a2017 Pentagon plan.Intelligence agencieswarned about the threat from influenza viruses for two decades at least and warned about coronaviruses for at least five years.Luciana Borio, director of medical and biodefense preparednessat the National Security Council in May 2018warned that aflu pandemicwas the countrys number one health security threat and that the U.S. was unprepared.

In January 2017, Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saidthere is no doubtDonald Trump will be confronted with a surprise infectious diseaseoutbreak during his presidency. In 2019, HHSorganizeda month-long simulation involving multiple federal offices that demonstrated the U.S. was seriously unprepared to cope with a pandemic. Despite all of this,the president claimedthe virus surprised the whole world, and nobody knew thered be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.

The White House created a National Security Council office on pandemics, but in 2018 that wasdisbanded by Trump. The Trump administration also ignored apandemic playbookthat would have ensured a more effective response. The Strategic National Stockpile has not been maintained for years, as it competes with the military budget, whichshoveled $15 trillion into wars. The unreplenished stockpile is one reason the U.S. does not have sufficient ventilators and other necessary equipment. The U.S. is also weakened by theshortcomings of the for-profit health systemincludingthe closing of hospitals.

First and foremost, the U.S. must cease its drive to be the dominant power in the world and recognize we are part of a community of nations that must cooperate to take on the many crises that will define the 2020s. This means ending military aggression and regime change efforts by respecting the sovereignty and integrity of other countries, large and small. It means ending our occupation of other nations in the form of hundreds of military bases and outposts and ending our support for other occupiers such as Israel until it stops its colonization of Palestine. Instead of international war games, we could hold international exercises on disaster responses to save lives. And it means respecting and obeying international law and joining the International Criminal Court. The U.S. must stop behaving with impunity.

Second, the U.S. must scale down the military to what is required for protection, an actual defensive approach rather than being offensive. This means cutting the military budget by at least 50% and converting all production of military equipment, supplies, and weapons into public entities to remove the profit motive that drives conflict around the world. These resources can be used for social uplift instead of causing death in a peace economy.

Third, the U.S. must move quickly to eliminate threats to human extinction.TheBulletin of the Atomic Scientistsreset the Doomsday Clock to100 secondsto midnight, putting the world closer to destruction than at any point since the clock was created in 1947. As Alice Slaterwrites, we have avirus of nuclear proliferation asnuclear arms control agreements collapse. The U.S. is spending more than a trillion dollars to upgrade nuclear weaponswhile placing low-yield nuclear weapons on submarines.

Its not only superpowers that are engaged in a nuclear arms race, countries like North Korea, which is threatened by the U.S., and allies likeGermany and Saudi Arabiabelieve they need their own nuclear weapons.The U.S. must commit to the rapid disarmament of all nuclear weapons in cooperation with other nuclear nations and disband the Space Force, which violates the treaty that makes space a global commons.

While COVID-19 isalmost certainly a zoonotic disease,David Swanson points outat least some diseases, such asLyme Diseaseand Anthrax, have been spread by military labs.Germ warfare is a criminal enterpriseand so labs disguised as being for our defense but that create bioweapons need to be closed.

Foreign policy includes trade, which has been designed for corporate profit since NAFTA. The coronavirus collapse shows corporate trade creates weak supply lines. It also hollowed out U.S. manufacturing for cheap labor in Mexico, China, and other nations, creating economic insecurity and leaving us ill-prepared for a crisis. Trade must be remade into fair trade that serves the people and planet, supports industry at home, ends factory farming andcreates a balance with naturethat will help prevent future animal-based viruses.

A new foreign policy must also confront the climate crisis. This is a global challenge and nations of the world must work together to confront it. The U.S. has been playing a counterproductive role by building fossil fuel infrastructure, becoming a leading oil and gas producer, and holding back global climate treaties.Next week, in our series on The Decade of Transformation, we will focus on the environment.

The global economic collapse and COVID-19 pandemic are causing widespread suffering and death but will result in change. What that change looks like, positive or negative, is up to us.We must create the new normal that provides for the necessities of the people and protection of the planet. The world must unite in solidarity to confront not only COVID-19 but other crises too.

We applaud countries that are beginning to stand up to U.S. sanctions and work around the U.S. financial system to help countries like Iran and Venezuela. These are positive steps to end U.S. hegemony. We agree with President Rouhani of Iran, it is our responsibility to remake the government so it reflects the best of us.

An immediate step is to end U.S. sanctions.Join us inthe Sanctions Kill campaignwhere the coalition will be organizing webinars and other events to end illegal unilateral coercive measures. There will be aninternational week of action against imperialism and sanctions from May 25 to 31. We will need to be especially creative to build an effective campaign with tactics that work in this time of physical distancing.

We must alsotake action now to stop the war on Venezuela. Join the webinar with Carlos Ron, vice foreign minister of Venezuela on Monday night at 6:00 pm Eastern.Click here for information. Sign ontothis demandthat the U.S. drop its charges against President Maduro and other Venezuelan officials who have been falsely charged with narco-trafficking. We must be ready to mobilize quickly if the U.S. moves to attack Venezuela, or Iran or any country for that matter while the government believes we are distracted by the pandemic.

We are living in a time of crisis and that can be unnerving. But we have the power to get through this if we mobilize together with a clear vision of the world we wish to create and show our solidarity with each other through our actions. We are one human community and we need each other to get through the rough times ahead.

FALL FUNDRAISER

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The decade of transformation: Remaking international relations - NationofChange

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57% of Canadians Say Household Income Negatively Impacted by COVID-19 – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 6:40 pm

TransUnion unveils research assessing pandemics effect on consumer finances

TORONTO, April 08, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nearly three out of five Canadians (57%) said their household income has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The newly released research from TransUnion (TRU) found that an additional 10% of Canadian adults said they expect their household income will suffer in the future.

Alberta (63%) and Saskatchewan (67%) were the provinces which reported the highest percentage of household incomes negatively impacted with both already dealing with economic shocks before COVID-19 as a result of oil price declines.

TransUnion has initiated a survey of adults in Canada and abroad to better understand the financial impact of COVID-19 on consumers. The survey (commenced March 31, 2020) of 1,064 adults marked the first for the country in what will be an ongoing series. Additional details as well as resources for consumers looking to minimize the potential negative impact of the pandemic on their credit, and access to self-serve, educational materials can be found at https://www.transunion.ca/covid-19.

Whether its their health, financial well-being or changes in day-to-day living, the lives of millions of people in Canada and abroad have been dramatically changed. The situation is evolving at an incredibly fast pace and we need to come together as a nation to solve the unique problems and situations that arise, said Todd Skinner, TransUnion Regional President for Canada, Latin America and Caribbean. The aim of our weekly consumer research is to better understand the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and better inform consumers, businesses and government decisions during these unprecedented times. It is important that businesses and consumers are able to continue to transact with confidence and we will do everything in our power to help facilitate the provision of lending and commerce during these uncertain times.

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TransUnions research found that the youngest generations, particularly Millennials (those born 1980 to 1994) and Gen Z (born from 1995 onwards), felt most impacted financially by the COVID-19 pandemic. While 70% of consumers who have had their household income impacted by COVID-19 are concerned about paying their bills, this increased to 78% for Millennials and 74% for Gen Z. On average, Canadian respondents said they will be short about $935 in the near future.

Our focus is on supporting Canadian consumers, businesses and the wider economy as a whole. We know this is an extremely difficult time, and were committed to helping people navigate any financial hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers are facing many unexpected challenges and its natural that people are concerned about their finances. Its really important that there is a dialogue between businesses and their customers at this time of uncertainty. Equally, we encourage consumers looking to minimize potential negative impacts of the pandemic on their credit to visit TransUnions COVID-19 website, concluded Skinner.

TransUnions research and credit education tools will be updated weekly on its COVID-19 website as the company continues to support consumers and businesses from around the globe.

About TransUnion TransUnion is a global information and insights company that makes trust possible in the modern economy. We do this by providing a comprehensive picture of each person so they can be reliably and safely represented in the marketplace. As a result, businesses and consumers can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good. TransUnion provides solutions that help create economic opportunity, great experiences and personal empowerment for hundreds of millions of people in more than 30 countries. Our customers in Canada comprise some of the nations largest banks and card issuers, and TransUnion is a major credit reporting, fraud, and analytics solutions provider across the finance, retail, telecommunications, utilities, government and insurance sectors.

For more information visit: http://www.transunion.ca

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57% of Canadians Say Household Income Negatively Impacted by COVID-19 - Yahoo Finance

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Religion news April 4 – The Republic

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Services and studies

Cornerstone Outreach Ministries A nondenominational ministry at 1229 California St., Columbus. The Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m.

Bible study is on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

For more information, call 812-375-4502.

Dayspring Church Apostolic Worship begins at 11:15 a.m. at the church, 2127 Doctors Park Drive, Columbus. Every visitor will receive a free gift.

The Sunday Education Session starts at 10 a.m.

Bible Study is Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. and is a group session sponsored by Heart Changers International, LLC on Depression, Perfection and Anger with hand out questions. These help build our Personal Empowerment and walk.

Our Prayer of Power starts at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and is preceded with requests and instructions on prayer.

Ignite is the Youth Growth Session that happens every third Friday.

For more information, call 812-372-9336, or email dayspringchurch@att.net.

East Columbus United Methodist East Columbus United Methodist Church services and Bible studies are canceled due to the pandemic.

Fairlawn Presbyterian Weekly Worship Service on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. via Zoom (links and numbers below or folks can check fairlawnpc.net or visit our Facebook page for login and phone information).

Please use Zoom to call in by phone and/or login online.

Join the Online Zoom Meeting at https://zoom.us/j/431070245 with the Meeting ID of 431 070 245

Dial in using landline or cell phone: +1 253 215 8782 US; +1 301 715 8592 US; Meeting ID: 431 070 245

For more information, visit Fairlawns Facebook page or website (fairlawnpc.net), email office@fairlawnpc.net or call 812-372-3882.

All are welcome!

Please call or email the church office for most up to date information at 812-372-3882 or office@fairlawnpc.net

The church is located at 2611 Fairlawn Drive, Columbus.

Faith Lutheran Faith Lutheran Church will be streaming Palm Sunday worship on Facebook this Sunday, April 5, at 9 a.m.

During Holy Week, Maundy Thursday worship will stream live on Facebook on Thursday, April 9 at 6:30 p.m.

On Good Friday, April 10, worship will stream live on Facebook at 6:30 p.m.

On Saturday evening, April 11, Easter Vigil worship will stream live at 6:30 p.m. Then on Easter Sunday morning, April 12, we will gather together to worship again at 9 a.m.

Services are available on our Facebook site: Faith Lutheran Church Columbus. More information is at Faithontheweb.org or call 812-342-3587.

The church is located at 6000 W. State Road 46, Columbus.

First Christian Church The church will only be having an online service at 10:30 a.m. on Facebook (www.facebook.com/FCCOC) and at http://www.fccoc.org/sunday/watch-now.

Details at http://www.fccoc.org

First Baptist Columbus will not be holding public worship gatherings at present. The church does offer a live stream worship connection at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays.

First Presbyterian First Presbyterian Church has canceled all in-person gatherings, including worship and committee meetings, and our office is closed until further notice. If you need to be in touch with us, please call (812) 372-3783 and leave a message, and we will be back in touch with you as soon as possible.

Streaming of worship services is available here https://www.facebook.com/groups/56933406910/ each Sunday, until we are meeting back in the church. Join us as we worship together through technology!

Please know that we are praying for our church, our community and the world in this time of crisis, and we encourage you to join us in prayer. God bless you.

Information: fpccolumbus.org

First United Methodist Worship services at First United Methodist Church have been canceled through April 12. We will have a live stream version of worship every Sunday at 10 a.m. on our Facebook page.

The Life Planning Seminar that was scheduled for April 5th has been postponed.

With regards to our Holy Week Services (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday), FUMC will likely have some kind of video/live streaming services to view, but will not have services at the church.

Information: 812-372-2851 or fumccolumbus.org.

Flintwood Wesleyan The church is located at 5300 E. 25th St.

In response to the current Covid-19 (coronavirus) situation, Flintwood Wesleyan Church is canceling all in-person services and activities through April 5th. This includes Sunday worship, choir practice, Celebrate Recovery, I-Kids, Youth, and Bible study. Schools will be closed until May 1st, resulting in all our Wednesday activities being canceled until then.

A Livestream worship service will be available Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. via the Flintwood Wesleyan Church Group Facebook page and YouTube channel.

Please remember to check our various communication spaces Facebook, Website, Mobile App for updates. Your Flintwood staff will be doing everything possible to keep our congregation encouraged. We need to do all we can to keep our staff encouraged.

Above all pray!

For further information about services or our ministries, please call 812.379.4287 or email flintwoodoffice@gmail.com. Church office hours are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Our website is http://www.flintwood.org

Garden City Church of Christ Garden City Church of Christ is canceling services until April 5.

We intend to provide weekly sermons at gardencitychurch.com or on our Facebook page. These sermons will be available at or before 10 a.m. each Sunday morning. In absence of our weekly gatherings, you are encouraged to continue giving your tithes and offerings through the website and the GivePlus app.

The offices will remain open throughout the week. If conditions change, we will provide an update.

Garden City Church of Christ is located at 3245 Jonesville Road, Columbus.

For more information, visit gardencitychurch.com or call 812-372-1766.

Grace Lutheran The Rev. John Armstrong will preach on Sunday. Worship is at 8 a.m. and can be livestreamed at http://www.gracecolumbus.org/livstream/.

The church is located at 3201 Central Ave., Columbus.

New Vision Community Church Friendship Sunday is April 5 at 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. at the church, 1740 State St. The church welcomes everyone. Anointed singing and preaching in both services.

An Easter weekend revival will begin on Good Friday April 10 at 7 p.m. Communion will also be offered on Good Friday.

Saturday night April 11 at 6 p.m. will feature a gospel singing by the Riddells from Pendleton.

Sunday morning April 12 will feature special singing and preaching for Easter service.

Sunday School will be at 11:15 a.m.

For more information, call Chris Rutan at 812-447-2121.

Old Union United Church of Christ The Sunday worship service will being at 10 a.m. Sunday school will be at 9 a.m. with fellowship at 9:40 a.m.

The church is located at 12703 N. County Road 50W, Edinburgh.

Petersville United Methodist Church The Petersville United Methodist Church will be closed until further notice. Persons may check the Petersville United Methodist Church Facebook page for additional information.

Teresa Covert will post a childrens sermon on her Facebook page.

There will not be an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 4.

Information: 812-546-4438; 574-780-2379.

Sandy Hook United Methodist The church will be having a Bible study on the book of Jonah for seven spring Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. from April 1 through May 13. This video-based study is part of the Epic of Eden Bible studies.

Please contact the church office at 812-372-8495 or office@sandyhook.org if interested in participating (so books can be ordered).

The church is located at 1610 Taylor Road in Columbus.

St. Pauls Episcopal Church All in-person activities at the church are suspended until further notice. Sunday worship is being hosted on ZOOM at 10:15 am each Sunday morning (Meeting ID# 2912120372). Wednesday Stations of the Cross are hosted at 5:30 pm on ZOOM (same meeting ID). The First Thursday Ladies Lunch will also be on ZOOM (same meeting ID) April 2nd at 11:30 am. (Friends of Bill W. are still meeting on their regular schedule at this time).

St. Paul Lutheran In response to the Stay at Home order, St. Paul Lutheran Church has suspended regularly scheduled worship services through April 5th. For pastoral care, please contact the church at 812-376-6504.

Open enrollment for the 2020-2021 preschool and kindergarten registration continues. Classes are for children who are 3-, 4- or 5-years old by Aug. 1. Information: 812-376-6504 or stpaulcolumbus.org.

Information: 812-376-6504.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus UUCCI building has been closed for services and all other gatherings until further notice.

Many of these programs can be or have already been moved online at https://uucci.org/

The church is at 7850 W. Goeller Blvd., Columbus.

Information: 812-342-6230.

Westside Community Until further notice, all in-person and onsite activities, including Sunday worship, are suspended. Please visit http://www.WCCShareJesus.com for recorded sermons, as well as Facebook for daily Points to Ponder by Pastor Dennis Aud.

When able, WCC has plans to host a community-wide garage sale. Be on the lookout for more details in the upcoming weeks. If interested in participating, while you are stuck at home this might be a good time to clean out your basements, closets, garages, etc.

For more information on studies or small groups that meet throughout the week, contact the church office at 812-342-8464.

Events

Community Church of Columbus An eight-week parenting course entitled Parenting with Love and Logic is designed for parents of children ages 6 and under. The course will be offered at Community Church of Columbus, 3850 N. Marr Road, as part of the Tuesday Connection series. Dinner is also available each week at 5:30 p.m. along with child care at no cost.

Eckankar of Southern Indiana All Eckankar events in Indiana are suspended through May 31, 2020. This is to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. This includes the monthly Eckankar Spiritual Discussion held the third Sunday of the month at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation building in Columbus, Indiana.

Check http://www.eck-indiana.org for the latest update on events in Indiana, and you are invited to browse the main Eckankar website for videos and reading material at http://www.Eckankar.org.

Fairlawn Presbyterian Joint Lenten Study with First Presbyterian Church on Jesus Sees Women on the following dates:

Tuesday, April 7 at First Presbyterian Church 512 Seventh Street about Out of Chaos Hope Presbyterian Disaster Assistance led by Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Kirkpatrick.

Connect via your laptop or computer (if it has video and audio capabilities). Go to your internet browser and enter https://zoom.us/j/668104094 (or just click on the link). It is suggested that you log in a few minutes early because if youve never connected with Zoom, when you log in for the very first time it does require a small download for your browser.

Equally helpful is if you have a smart phone or iPad, then you can download the Zoom app and then join this meeting ID: 668-104-094.

If neither of these are options for you, you can still join via phone. Call (312) 626 6799 (Chicago) and enter this meeting ID when prompted: 668-104-094.

The church is located at 2611 Fairlawn Drive, Columbus.

Hope Community Church The free breakfast and Easter egg hunt on the April 11 is cancelled.

North Christian Church The church is temporarily suspending all church activities, effective immediately and for the foreseeable future due to caution concerning the coronavirus outbreak. The offices of the pastor and staff members will be closed as well. The church will reopen as soon as recommended by health officials.

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Religion news April 4 - The Republic

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The ‘The Wizard of Oz’ is Fit for a Pandemic 81 Years Later – Black Girl Nerds

Posted: at 6:40 pm

The movie starts in the black-and-white humdrum existence of Kansas and soon switches to glorious technicolor when our intrepid heroine Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) gets carried away in a tornado, ending up in the magical Land of Oz. Even now with the advent of high definition screens more than eight decades later, The Wizard of Oz and its incredible effects are just as vibrant as they were back then. In fact, maybe even more so, as digital retouching has allowed for the films radiant color palette to shine even brighter.

The Wizard of Oz follows young Dorothy in Kansas where her biggest problems are boredom and the nasty woman Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton), who is at war with Dorothys dog Toto. After Toto attacks Miss Gulch one more time, Gulch goes to the police and gets permission to seize the dog, who she plans on euthanizing herself, with gusto. Toto escapes, and, thinking she has no other way to save his life, Dorothy packs a suitcase and runs away from home. But while shes on her journey, a huge tornado makes its way toward her aunt and uncles house. In her efforts to find them, Dorothy, Toto, and the house get swept off into the skies to land with a solid thump in an entirely new world.

In Oz, Dorothy learns she accidentally killed the Wicked Witch of the East by dropping her house on her. Big oops. Vowing revenge, the Wicked Witch of the West (also played by Margaret Hamilton) tries to kill Dorothy, but cannot because the Good Witch Glinda (Billie Burke) has bestowed upon Dorothy the enchanted ruby slippers once worn by the Witch of the East. Dorothy must make the arduous journey through hallucinatory Oz in order to ask its highest ruler, the Wizard (Frank Morgan), to get her home. Because as marvelous as Oz might be, Dorothy cannot stop missing the Kansas she once wanted to escape so badly.

On her way down the Yellow Brick Road, she collects a strange coterie of friends: the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), the Tin Man (Jack Haley), and the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr), who also have requests from the Wizard. After more wild hijinks that include Dorothy killing the Witch of the East, she discovers that the power to get back to Kansas was with her all along. Theres no place like home, Dorothy Gale says once she finally returns home after a whirlwind adventure to the Land of Oz. Im not going to leave here ever again! Dorothy promises her family and friends.

While The Wizard of Oz closes with a message of personal empowerment and realizing how much power we have in ourselves if we would access it, it also includes a disturbing nativist lesson of not straying too far from your own back yard a concept that resonates with the MAGA America First crowd which also continues to hold strong eight decades later. In these years, and in particular, since 2016, we have seen the US government exit historic international treaties such as the Paris Agreement, NAFTA, UN Human Rights Council, UNESCO, NATO, and even the G7 in the guise of making America stronger, but this withdrawal has only painfully damaged Americas participation in global politics as well as necessary international oversight, especially with regards to issues of human rights violations and climate change. This nativism has led to increased attacks on immigrants of color where the racist phrase Go home to your country is used against even generations of American-born immigrants. For many of those, the only home they have known is the United States. And with these assaults, the idea of there is no place like home takes on an even more disturbing spin.

But with the current COVID19 global pandemic 81 years later, The Wizard of Ozs notion of theres no place like home has certainly taken on a new meaning as quarantine and stay-at-home orders dominate our lives in the battle to stop the exponential contagion of this viral pathogen. For some, the idea of no other place like home in the midst of a global crisis is a positive one that signifies protection, health, and safety. For many others, though, home has become a new prison as domestic violence reports have spiked dramatically since the first stay-at-home orders were announced.

Theres also a tragic irony in the message of no place like home today: We have thousands of homeless folks who have no place to shelter. Thanks to the toxic capitalism that drives America, they remain homeless and at risk. The city of Las Vegas drew social distancing markers in an empty parking lot as temporary shelters where homeless folks can sleep instead of opening even one of their now-empty hotels for this vulnerable segment of American society. And, just as horrifying, in America 2020 we have concentration camps at the southern border where asylum seekers and refugees are being held with no home to go back or forward to, who are also particularly at risk for coronavirus infection thanks to the degrading conditions theyve been left in. Theres no place like home indeed.

Home isnt just a place, as Dorothy finds out in The Wizard of Oz. It is also the social networks that keep that place thriving and supporting everyone who lives in it. Home is also where we feel we belong, whether that be a country, community, or something else entirely that gives us a sense of connection and can even contribute to our identity. At the same time, the physical shelter of a home, literally speaking, is also vital to our survival and good health. For segments of vulnerable Americans across the spectrum of economics, race, gender, and immigration status, unfortunately, the idea of having no place like home has become a messy notion steeped in many levels of uncertainty. Eighty-one years after The Wizard of Oz first enchanted audiences with its escapist fantasy, theres no place like home has become a multilayered statement for our current times.

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St. Olaf celebrates 50 years of ordaining Lutheran women – Manitou Messenger

Posted: at 6:40 pm

During the first week of March, St. Olaf celebrated the 50-year anniversary of women being ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the 40-year anniversary of women of color being ordained and the 10-year anniversary of LGBTQIA+ individuals serving openly.

The College honored these anniversaries through themed daily chapels and a panel discussion. The anniversary is an opportunity to lament that women have been barred from serving, acknowledge how far women in the ELCA have come and identify what work still needs to be done, according to the Colleges Associate Pastor, Katherine Fick.

The week began with a chapel talk from Kristine Carlson 74, a retired ELCA pastor with nearly 40 years of ministry under her belt. She was one of the first women ordained in the Lutheran tradition, which also meant she was nearly always the first woman to hold any position she had throughout her career. Carlson shared the joys of her time as a pastor, but also the sexism and barriers that came along with it.

Regina Hassanally, the bishop of the Southeastern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA, led chapel on Tuesday. She was the first woman elected as bishop in the synod in which St. Olaf resides and is the youngest person ever elected bishop in the ELCA. She spoke to her vocational story, in which she found empowerment through a non-linear and non-traditional path.

On Wednesday, Fick gave a Lenten Liturgy of the Ordinary talk addressing how it is empowering that from her own personal experience, being a woman pastor is ordinary. Fick also stressed that if we want inclusive leadership not to be the exception, but the norm, we must normalize women of all backgrounds as leaders in the church.

I feel like there are still barriers to women of color, to trans women, to people who dont identify on a gender binary, for people who are gay or lesbian or queer, Fick said. I feel like those identities have not yet been normalized in the church.

Beverly Wallace, an African-American pastor and associate professor of congregational and community care at Luther Seminary, led a chapel talk on Thursday addressing the intersections of being a woman of color and a pastor. She called for the church to continue breaking down enduring structures of racism and sexism. For example, women of color still have longer waiting periods before their first call to serve a congregation than white women.

Thursdays chapel talk was followed by a panel discussion entitled Shes My Pastor: Fifty Years of Ordaining Lutheran Women.

When I think about the future, when we think of pastors, we see this beautiful range of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity represented, and that we can look at all of them, inclusive of identities and say, These are our leaders, Fick said. Thats what I look forward to.

brinke1@stolaf.edu

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Dress for Success Announces Common Threads Event to Go Virtual – Business West

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SPRINGFIELD Common Threads, the signature event of Dress for Success Western Massachusetts, will be held Thursday, April 16 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. as an online event.

The annual event celebrates women with an evening of sharing their stories of success as they have stepped up in the world. Dress for Success serves low- to moderate-income women, many of whom will be impacted disproportionally by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dress for Success Western Massachusetts is part of a worldwide nonprofit organization dedicated to the empowerment of women as they take control of their personal and professional lives. Programs include the Foot in the Door workforce-readiness program, the Margaret Fitzgerald one-on-one mentoring program, the Professional Womens Group, and the suiting program.

The April 16 event is free, but there will be opportunities throughout to donate to the work of Dress for Success Western Massachusetts. Click here to register.

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National policy on skill acquisition for youths Part 3 – Guardian

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Continued from yesterday

With their proficiency, some Tech-U students engage in technical jobs outside the university at their leisure. The Students Start-Up Fund to has been helpful for innovative students who have ideas that have already been transformed into startups.

The fact is that two things happen when the entrepreneurial capacity of youths is developed; the economy is strengthened because it has a direct contribution to the socio-economic development process through the development of indigenous expertise and it also helps to address youth unemployment. Policy and support programmes for TVET, therefore, need to be well-coordinated in Nigeria to achieve desirable results. While awareness for TVET programmes continues to increase, the same cannot be said about the coordination among the different sectors and ministries that offer TVET courses; this is evidenced by their different standards and the many inadequacies being faced. In many centres, the capacity of the trainers themselves still needs to be adequately developed. There is also the issue of financing as well as that of inadequate infrastructure.

Not only should entrepreneurship education be tailored towards the needs of the industry, but it should also be designed and administered according to the need of the target clientele. It should be put in mind that only entrepreneurial faculties will effectively deliver entrepreneurship instructions. The capacity of lecturers will, therefore, have to be developed from time to time. While the country eagerly awaits the formulation of a proper policy on skills acquisition, private enterprises can support collaborative research to identify skill gaps in the industry and also partner the ivory tower to develop training contents for youth development in response to the identified skill gaps. They could also be of help through the provision of opportunities for industrial work experience for students in training as well as the offering of an apprenticeship programme for unemployed youths.

Though youths are being trained in TVET, the outcome is not yet commensurate with the efforts being put in. And the higher a country ranks in terms of TVET training, the better for the country in the world economy. It is therefore not wrong to say that TVET development has a lot to do with economic and national development in the long run. It is obvious that no country develops without developing its science and technology. As such, enduring technological development may not take place without skilled technicians. Skilled technicians play major roles in the development of a technology-driven economy anywhere in the world. And TVET is the key that can ensure the required potential and productive workforce with the right scientific and technological competence. Matthew Lauer in his article titled: The future of work requires a return to apprenticeship, published in The Nation of March 9, 2020, put it succinctly when he noted that the skills required for the skilled jobs are not taught in the traditional university. He argued that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will eliminate many white and blue-collar jobs. This is perhaps the reason many countries are now prioritising TVET, and he cited the example of Switzerland where 2/3 of young people are pursuing dual-track classroom and vocational training.

It is undeniable that Nigeria has adopted TVET as an integral part of her national development strategy. TVET that was rejected by many only a few decades back is fast becoming the cornerstone for the development and transformation of education and training. To ensure, however, that the objectives of TVET, which include the impartation of knowledge and skills for increased efficiency in the world of work, personal empowerment and socio-economic development, are achieved, proper execution and management will be of absolute necessity.

Since TVET involves applying skills to support life, it will make a country technologically relevant and internationally competitive. It will also improve the quality of life through technological improvement. And of course, with those, there will be a reduction of poverty and it will culminate in the reduction of social vices. The absence of a national skills policy calls for urgent attention.

It will do the nation a lot of good for the government to invite stakeholders in the industry and the education sector to formulate a comprehensive national skill acquisition policy that aims at arming the youth against unemployment, building self-reliant youths and ultimately improving the economy. The government should also back this up with appropriate legislative instruments to compel and guide implementation.

The point must be made that nations do not just become great. Greatness is assured only on the heels of concerted investment in their people. Therefore, for Nigeria to emerge as a superpower, as commensurate with its latent potential, there has to be a calculated investment in people and skills. This, of course, will be with a view to fully developing comparative areas of strength and positioning for global relevance.

Nigeria will do well to learn from the stories of such outstandingly successful models as you find in Asia, for instance. The phenomenal progress countries such as China, South Korea and India have made with technology show what is possible when nations own their destinies and follow through with definite strategic roadmap. There are indications that the growth rate of Chinese students studying STEM-related courses in America in the last few decades, for instance, is not unconnected with a covert agenda for technological transfer.

Back home in Nigeria, while it is heartwarming that Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Education is increasingly being considered as potent tools for stimulating the economy, it has become necessary to have it codified in a strategic response for achieving national industrial development.

Taking a cue from similar policies deployed in advanced economies like the industrially-rich Germany, the imperativeness of the policy stems from its usefulness in providing sharp strategic direction to the overall formal and informal skills development processes in the country. Covering such broad areas as institution-based skills development and sectoral skills development which includes formal and informal apprenticeship models, the policy would assist to align the developmental priorities of the nation with active measures to produce the relevant manpower for both immediate and future needs of the nation.Sadly, there was a time the country thought better and acted in consonance with best global practices. Just sixty years ago, through the 1959 Ashby Commission Report, the Nigerian government had been counselled on her manpower needs for post-school certificate and higher education over a 20-year period. That report had enunciated both the intermediate and high-level manpower needs of the country, detailing the actual supply rate and estimated capacity of the nations tertiary educational institutions.

Parts of the recommendation of the Eric Ashby-led Commission for the nations educational system were the production of 2,000 graduates a year by 1970, a proposal on the establishment of a National Universities Commission (NUC) and it insisted that enrolment in the universities should reflect national needs in terms of technical and non-technical fields.

Also diligently envisaged in that report were recommendations on teacher production and estimation of enrolment rates in our university system by 1970 and1980. One feels very sad that the country failed to implement the recommendations faithfully and also sustain such enviable planning tradition. But, it is not too late to reinvent that culture of diligence. The formulation of a skills development policy and the proper realignment of existing developmental structures are stepped in that direction.

It should be said that Nigeria needs to now urgently implement thorough skills gap analysis to help provide real-time data and on the actual human capital needs of the country. With such data, the nation is better informed on the extent of skills deficiency and the opportunities available for transformation. Anything short of this is tantamount to paying lip-service to solve the current job crises in the country.

Like Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, said, Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation, there is sure to be a failure. Without a national policy in place, it will yet be a long walk to the ideal situation in skill acquisition.

Concluded.

Professor Salami is Vice-Chancellor, First Technical University, Ibadan.

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OUR LOCAL NONPROFITS NEED YOUR HELP | Business – Yes! Weekly

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GREENSBORO, April 9th, 2020 -- The Annual Human Race event has always been about fundraising, but it has now become a platform for local non-profit organizations to raise the funds needed to aid their missions and the vulnerable populations they serve during this pandemic. The Volunteer Center has a collective goal to raise $157,500 before June 20th, 2020. Over 75 local nonprofits have signed up with teams of fundraisers that can easily be supported online. Several for-profit companies have also created fundraising teams to raise money for nonprofits that align with their values. These organizations are still fundraising and now is more important than ever.

On a regular day, these organizations are serving food to those that are hungry, freeing dogs from heavy chains, empowering the next generation, building homes for those without, showing support for those who need it, gathering resources for veterans, supporting those with disabilities, educating children at every level, offering health and wellness to all, and more. With the effects of the pandemic, fundraising for many of them has completely stopped or reduced significantly. Many have small teams that are trying to reach the masses with small volunteer crews. The number of people knocking on the doors of these organizations has doubled in some cases as more are out of work and in need of resources.

We need your help. Just $25 could feed a family, replenish supplies, pay for gas needed to deliver medications to those in need, and more. You can choose an organization or team to donate to HERE or you can donate to the overall cause HERE.

Participating Non-Profit Organizations include American Cancer Society, After Gateway, Animal Rescue and Foster Program, Break of Life Church, BackPack Beginnings, Beautiful Butterflies, Bingo Pet Hospice, Black Child Development Institute, Break the Chain Kennel Kru, Ronald McDonald House, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Greater Greensboro, Chosen Generation Connection, Church World Service Greensboro, Combat Female Veterans Families United, Communication Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Community Housing Solutions, Corporation of Guardianship, CreateME, Empowered Girls of North Carolina, Epilepsy Alliance NC, FaithAction International House, Feral Cat Assistance Program, Future Hope Single Parents Ministry, GCS American Indian Education, GMCPD, Grandmas Handz, Greensboro Bar Association, Greensboro Farmers Curb Market, Guilford Green Foundation, Hand In Hand Water Safety Awareness, Haynes-Inman Education Center PTA, Helping Hands of High Point, Herald Charters, Herbin-Metz Education Center PTA, Authoracare (formerly Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro), Interactive Resource Center, Kellin Foundation Smiles 4 Miles, Keris Crusade for ALS,

maCares, Manasseh Baptist Church, Mental Health Greensboro, National MS Society, MBCC Foundation, NC African Service Coalition, Nehemiah Community Empowerment Center, One Step Further, Operation Xcel, People to People Liason, Resources for Artful Living, Ruff Love Rescue, Senior Resources of Guilford, SHIELD Mentor Program, Singing Dog Farm, The Sparrows Nest and Black Suit Initiative, TC Mens Ministry, The Arc of Greensboro, The Circle Foundation NC, The Servant Center, The Volunteer Center, This is My Sexy, Tiny House Community Development, Triad Golden Retriever Rescue, Triad Health Project, Triangle Beagle Trotters, United Way of Greater Greensboro, Victory Junction, and the Womens Resource Center.

You can donate to any of these teams HERE. Non-profits not listed above can still create fundraising teams. Contact jordan@volunteergso.org for more information.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC OR NCDHHS. The state also has a special hotline set up where you can call 866-462-3821 for more information on the coronavirus. You can also submit questions online at ncpoisoncontrol.org or select chat to talk with someone about the virus.

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Thank you to our sponsors:

Bank of America has sponsored since 2001 and has been the presenting 5k sponsor since 2004 and is returning for this 26th annual Human Race. They also participate as fundraisers for 12 different nonprofit organizations and have been the top company fundraisers ever year.

Additional repeat sponsors are Dicks Broadcasting, WFMY News 2, Arch Mortgage Insurance, Jimmys Plumbing, American National Bank, Griswold Home Care, Zos Kitchen, Kneaded Energy, Little Guys Movers, and Palmetto Equity Group.

New this year, we have support and sponsorship from Novant Health, Renewal By Andersen, Truliant Federal Credit Union, Sequoia Services, Right Fit Storage, Smoothie King, Joy Squad, Shift, YES! Weekly, Hand in Hand Water Safety, Good Health Chiropractic, and Biscuitville.

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Registration for timed runners is $35. Day of registrations are $40. Walkers and those utilizing the short-route turnaround will not be timed, and can register at no cost but are encouraged to make a donation at registration. All registrants receive a link for personal fundraising pages as well as a link for the fundraising page for the team they join. These links offer a way for people everywhere to donate and support the cause whether they are near or far, participating or not.

Awards include best times for the top three individuals in each age group and gender, top ten fundraising individuals and teams, most spirited team awards, and more.

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About The Volunteer Center

The mission of The Volunteer Center is to strengthen our community by creating meaningful volunteer connections. We connect people, promote volunteerism, support nonprofits, and build partnerships. For more information about TVC, please visit http://www.volunteergso.org

Follow us on Facebook here and here, as well as on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

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The 19th Century Roots of Modern Medical Denialism – Undark Magazine

Posted: at 6:40 pm

Miracle cures, detox cleanses, and vaccine denial may seem to be the products of Hollywood and the social media age, but the truth is that medical pseudoscience has been a cultural touchstone in the U.S. since nearly its founding. At the dawn of the 19th century, when medical journals were still written almost entirely in Latin and only a handful of medical schools existed in the country, the populist fervor that animated the Revolutionary War came to the clinic. And while there was no shortage of cranks peddling phony medicine on a raft of dubious conspiracy theories in the early 1800s, none was more successful and celebrated than Samuel Thomson.

Portrait of Samuel Thomson

Visual: Wikimedia Commons

Portraying himself as an illiterate pig farmer (he was neither), Thomson barnstormed the Northeast telling rapt audiences things they wanted to hear: that natural remedies were superior to toxic chemical drugs; that all disease had a single cause, despite its many manifestations; that intuition and divine providence had guided him to botanical panaceas; that corrupt medical elites, blinded by class condescension and education, were persecuting him, a humble, ordinary man, because of the threat his ideas and discoveries posed to their profits.

For decades, Thomson peddled his dubious system of alternative medicine to Americans by playing to their cultural, political, and religious identities. Two centuries later, the era of Thomsonian medicine isnt just a historical curiosity; it continues to provide a playbook for grifters and dissembling politicians peddling pseudoscientific solutions to everything from cancer to Covid-19.

An acquisitive paranoiac with the steely-eyed look of a fundamentalist preacher, Thomson lectured on the same circuit as the Second Great Awakenings theatrical revivalists, one of countless unschooled peoples doctors as the esteemed orthodox physician Daniel Drake called them. In addition to his lectures, Thomson spread his gospel in his mega bestseller, New Guide to Health, a catalog of herbs accompanied by anecdotes testifying to their medicinal utility. Credulous readers learned that simple preparations of herbs like cayenne pepper or Lobelia inflata also known as puke weed not only relieved minor complaints like headaches and coughs but also rapidly cured progressive, terminal diseases like cancer. In breathless testimonials and self-aggrandizing anecdotes, Thomson and his followers attested to individuals being cured of dysentery, smallpox, and measles using the Thomsonian system. Between sales of the book, which went through 13 editions, and the family rights to buy his patented botanical nostrums, Thomson grew fabulously wealthy.

Though he was dismissed at the time as a dangerous fraud by mainstream physicians, Thomson was nevertheless held in high esteem by millions of Americans, who saw him as an avatar of self-reliance and entrepreneurial ambition. His followers wrote songs, poems, and prayers in homage to him. They congregated in Friendly Botanic Societies that more closely resembled churches than scientific seminars. His most zealous supporters, including some state legislators, hailed him alternately as the American Hippocrates or Jesus. That Thomson was regularly accused of killing patients and was even tried for murder once in Massachusetts seemed only to burnish the legend of his persecution and martyrdom.

In retrospect it can be hard to see how Thomson garnered so much influence. None of his botanical remedies were new to medicine, nor were they very effective for treating any serious condition. Yet in some states, such as Ohio and Mississippi, between a third and half of residents were said to have eschewed orthodox medicine in favor of Thomsons patented system. What made the Thomsonian sales pitch so successful was not just its blanket condemnation of the medical establishment, but its populist conception of healing itself. Just as Americans were free to be their own governors, lawyers, and priests, Thomson argued, so too should they be free to act as their own physician and surgeon. In this view, attempts to enforce state licensure laws or raise standards for medical education and practice were merely assaults on therapeutic choice and medical freedom as anti-American as government establishment of religion.

The parallels between our post-truth era and the age in which Thomsonian medicine prospered are striking. Though rural Americans were highly literate by the standards of the time, they had quickly come to associate intellectualism with the hated urban ruling class. The Thomsonians, the sociologist Paul Starr has written, viewed knowledge as an element in class conflict. In other words, Americans then, as today, were deeply distrustful of an ostensibly egalitarian government led by learned patricians or at least by those who looked and spoke the part. The simplicity of Thomsons system and his elaborate pantomime of socioeconomic solidarity were thus vital elements of his commercial success.

Thomsonian medicine could only succeed in a nation lacking scientific medicine and sharing a widespread belief in the superiority of inborn, intuitive, folkish wisdom over the cultivated, over-sophisticated, and self-interested knowledge of the literati and well-to-do, as Richard Hofstadter put it in his landmark Anti-intellectualism in American Life. Glorification of what one Thomson biographer later called the native practical sense of the ordinary man with direct access to truth would later reach its zenith in national icons like Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett. But Thomson provided a template thats still followed today.

The parallels between todays post-truth era and the age in which Thomsonian medicine prospered are striking.

Thomson and his followers also shared the conviction that access to information is not only an adequate substitute for formal education but preferable and superior to it. As steam-powered presses enabled the mass production of newspapers, early 19th century Americans were deluged with information of questionable provenance and reliability. The effect, as with the internet today, was to generate pervasive cynicism about what can actually be known; truth becomes whatever is believed most widely or fervently. Nowhere was this more evident, and to some extent warranted, than in pre-scientific medicine. In 1825, you might well have been better off seeing a pig farmer about your headaches than seeing an M.D., who probably would have recommended mercury-based purgatives and bleeding to ooze you back to humoral harmony and health.

Yet today, when medicine can claim more successes than ever and is among the most respected professions, people of all political persuasions are embracing pseudoscientific alternative therapies in truly staggering numbers. In 2012, the last year for which authoritative statistics are available, Americans spent over $30 billion out-of-pocket on so-called complementary and alternative medicine, despite a dearth of evidence suggesting any of it works. In fact, about the same proportion of Americans use such products and services today as used Thomsonian medicine in the 1830s. And despite the perception, even among some physicians, that alternative medicine is harmless, its use today is associated with significant adverse public health outcomes, such as vaccine noncompliance and a greater risk of death in cancer patients. How did we arrive at this strange place, where so many educated Americans in the 21st century reject proven, evidence-based medicine in favor of 19th century magic?

The answer is complex. Surely part of it is that we have become victims of our own success. Life expectancy is long. Infant mortality is low. Most of us get more than enough to eat and, at least prior to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, have worried little about dying in an infectious disease outbreak, as so many of our ancestors did. Since we enjoy a relatively high standard of health, were free to focus on newer and harder problems like chronic diseases and developmental disorders precisely the conditions that modern medicine lacks good treatments for. Then there are the long-term crises of knowledge and authority that have been well-chronicled by others: the glut of misinformation online, declining trust in institutions, the devaluation of expertise, and the disturbingly common belief that much if not most of what happens in our world is the result of vast, invisible conspiracies.

But Americans embrace of pseudomedicine is also a reaction to less abstract and more personal problems: the inaccessibility of proper care, the alienating experience many have receiving it, and its intolerably burdensome costs. Research has shown that patients in highly commodified health care systems like ours express the highest mistrust of physicians, and while the exact reasons for this are unclear, its reasonable to suppose that perceived conflicts of interest play a role. Enter the white-coated naturopath or chiropractor, resembling a physician in all but training, education, and experience, and eager to confirm the worst suspicions of their frustrated marks. Just as in Thomsons time, dissatisfaction and distrust drive otherwise reasonable people into the arms of unregulated quacks who, in Hofstadters words, flatter their intuitive, folkish wisdom, provide an outlet for their political anger, and sell them an expensive illusion of empowerment and control over their health.

If we hope to limit the spread of modern medical denialism and the predatory industry feeding on and profiting from it, we must acknowledge this reality. Until we do, the neo-Thomsonians among us will continue to rake in cash and put all of us at risk with their pre-scientific, 19th century ideas.

John Charpentier is a Ph.D. candidate and immunology researcher at the University of Michigan.

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What does COVID-19 mean for the social fabric of our nations? – BFPG

Posted: at 6:40 pm

As much of the world has entered into a bleak period of social confinement and dramatic economic decline, there has been an understandable urge to identify the upshot of this dark moment in global history. In particular, the desire to regard the pandemic as an opportunity to spark a kind of social, economic and political reset, reinstating a nostalgic vision of a simpler, more community-focused time.

In 1887, Friedrich Engels predicted that only a brutal war would provide the necessary chaos and economic disruption to precipitate a revolution. In 2020, these kinds of hopefully utilitarian aspirations for the pandemic are not confined to any one political tradition. In Western nations in particular, COVID-19 has been portrayed as the Great Leveller. Yet, it is difficult to afford this notion any credence beyond the superficial universal requirements of behavioural change.

The flagrant use of this term reveals much about the social challenges in Western liberal democracies, which pre-dated this pandemic. As our societies have become more diverse in every sense, and more empowered, the task of conjuring the imagined community that Benedict Anderson espoused has become more difficult. And with the arrival of pandemic, the public sphere itself is reconfigured to some degree, with millions tuning in to watch national broadcasts from leaders and their advisers, providing the backdrop of that most elusive quality of modern life: a shared reality.

A survey I published just before the crisis showed that the desire for a greater degree of national unity was one of the few consensus positions in European nations. The outsized salience of nostalgia in Western politics and its cultural resonance at least in part captures the absence of community-forging national tests over recent decades, and strengthens the potency of historical crises such as the Second World War. Leaders and citizens alike have been desperate to chart a course towards a rejuvenation of social ties, because the fragmentation of communities on the back of economic and technological change has made it more difficult to govern and embedded a persistent sense of insecurity.

Over recent years, new identities have emerged and assumed an astonishing degree of power and influence, with societies polarising around generational, socio-economic, educational, regional and gender lines. Over the past five years, policy-makers and researchers and have frequently discussed how an effective invocation of the community underpinning the nation could provide the key to softening some of these seemingly insurmountable barriers repairing the atomising effects of our late-stage capitalist, digital era lives.

There was a considerable desire amongst citizens, too, to believe in the crisis alchemy of social trust. At the outbreak of the crisis I appeared on Sky News discussing, amongst other things, the feverish stockpiling of toilet paper and penne pasta that had consumed the United Kingdom. It was suggested that this behaviour, disadvantaging the elderly and vulnerable, was completely out of character this is, after all, the land of the Blitz Spirit. When I made the point that the Blitz saw moments of great heroism and selflessness, but also precipitated astonishing spikes in the levels of violent, sexual and petty crime, I received a torrent of threats and abuse on social media and via email for having tarnished the legacy of this crucial period in the national consciousness.

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out some of the best traits of the people of the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on its generosity; not least of all, the staggering number of applications to volunteer for the National Health Service. Yet, it cannot come as a surprise that stressful situations that inspire a degree of competition around access to scarce resources do not always lead to the highest expression of the immense capacities of human nature. Many other less visible and more troubling forms of destructive social behaviour, whether child abuse, domestic violence, or the tinder box compelled in council estates by confining large families in cramped, unsatisfactory accommodations have predictably flared, with devastating and lasting consequences for the victims.

As I discussed last week, there is nothing endemic in this crisis that naturally suggests that populism in the West will fall by the wayside in its aftermath even despite the rallying we have seen around the flag in many nations, and the renewed empowerment of our institutions. Similarly, any sense of national unity the pandemic inspires is vulnerable to erosion as we over-compensate for our confinement in the transition, and in the face of the acceleration of social conflict and competition seething beneath the surface of this collective test. At the heart of this pandemic is in fact a very unevenly experienced situation.

While it began as the globalists disease, striking down politicians and political staff, those attending international conferences, or partaking in skiing holidays in the Dolomites, the citizens who bear the brunt of hospitalisations, and indeed deaths, are those with underlying medical and health conditions. Conditions that often reflect deep structural inequalities including the higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and respiratory illness affecting citizens from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Those in cities are especially vulnerable, with air pollution linked to a higher propensity for complications and even death. As are those with mental health conditions. In some nations, including the United States, socio-economic disparities are fused onto racial inequalities meaning citizens from BAME backgrounds are disproportionately likely to be hospitalised, and to pass away.

The trauma of another economic recession of this nature will be collectively shared, yet ultimately, the personal financial impacts of this pandemic will also be asymmetrical. While governments are offering unprecedented interventions to help shield workers and employers from the brunt of the disruption, as in the 2008-09 Financial Crisis, it will be the young who are most vulnerable to its immediate and long-term effects. As the Resolution Foundation noted, The Government is rightly socialising much of the costs of this crisis [] But these approaches create insider/outsider dynamics in which the young come off worst compensating people for the earnings they already had rather than the potential earnings they would otherwise have received. So too are many women, already disadvantaged in their career earnings by the structural inequalities of child-bearing, housework and family caring responsibilities, bearing the brunt of burden of this crisis to the working lives of parents.

The daily experience of this allegedly unifying crisis is also deeply subject to personal circumstance. While we all must undertake social distancing, limiting many of the pleasures of life and certainly the fall is greatest for those who are able to regularly partake in a vibrant social calendar, excursions to restaurants and the theatre, and overseas travel the environment in which we live through this lockdown varies tremendously. While abuse and violence are of course the extreme, though distressingly common, expressions of disadvantage, many citizens safe in their homes are also due to prohibitive housing costs living in small, dark flats with no outdoor spaces. Contrast this with the experience of those living in the countryside, or with large gardens, and the scale of the disparities of constraint and sacrifice become clear.

While images of middle-class runners sprinting buoyantly through parks in their Lululemon athletic gear feature heavily on the news, policy-makers are all too aware that every day that the lockdown continues, many other citizens are eating more, smoking more, drinking more, and experiencing a greater degree of mental strain than they would in their ordinary lives. The elderly have lost many of the activities and support services that maintain their quality of life. Children are forced to confront dark sides of the world previously unbeknownst to their innocent minds. Those who rely on medical support and interventions, including cancer patients, are treading water, and those with undiagnosed conditions may now only discover their illnesses at a dangerous moment in their spread.

The costs to society, and to the state, mount day by day forcing governments to balance choices about which groups of individuals, and which types of afflictions, are to be privileged.

Worryingly, many of the groups disproportionately affected in a negative manner by the economic, social and daily experiences of the crisis, are those most vulnerable to political disengagement. If there is an eventual backlash from this crisis and remembering that the lag on shaping political behaviour can be relatively long it could potentially deepen and embed disenfranchisement amongst certain social groups, or equally, create the conditions for a new wave of anti-establishment movements predicated on correcting injustices and inequalities revealed by the crisis. Depending on your personal politics, this second scenario may appear to be a positive option; however, simply from the perspective of governance and social cohesion, it would undoubtedly foretell more rocky years ahead.

I do not wish to appear to forecast only lasting doom and gloom from this crisis. Indeed, there are many ways in which it could indeed offer a pathway towards some profound social reckonings lighting a fire under burgeoning movements towards a recalculation of our relationship with nature, with work, and with one another. Amidst the obvious stresses, parents are given the chance of a modern lifetime to bond with their children. There will be tremendous opportunities for third sector organisations to have their work more visible and valued, and to build on the momentum of charitable and community acts compelled by the pandemics swift hand. It also feels inevitable to some extent that lower-paid workers (often described as unskilled) on the frontline of this crisis will be afforded a greater degree of respect, and that there will be increased public pressure to reduce the pernicious environmental impacts of industry and transport.

The pandemic has already compelled a surge in public sector innovation and an unprecedented degree of speed in policy responses, and enacted changes to the welfare state that will be difficult to reverse including the long-called-for adjustments to the payment level and access period of Universal Credit, the UK Governments flagship centralised welfare payment system. It is also difficult to imagine that the red lines of the first iteration of the UK Governments new immigration policy will remain as fixed, with thousands of desperately needed frontline NHS migrant workers having had their visas extended in the heat of the crisis.

Ultimately, governments will need to ask themselves why is it unacceptable for citizens to experience acute poverty or social deprivation during a pandemic, and acceptable at other times? Why must social media organisations intervene to combat conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, but are allowed wash their hands of the harmful proliferation of conspiracy theories that work daily to undermine social and political trust? Why is it outrageous for a woman to suffer at the hands of her partner during a lockdown, and somehow not worthy of our outrage on a normal day? Is it because the circumstances conjured by the pandemic are seen as so outside of reasonable individual agency? In asking ourselves these questions, we may well begin to expand our common societal understanding of what is beyond a persons control, and in doing so, find ourselves willing to look with fresh and frank eyes at some of the more enduring structural barriers that have persisted in plain sight.

Yet, it is nonetheless important to caution and particularly in light of the very human desire for this crisis to somehow, naturally lead us towards salvation that its harmful social effects will be profound and potentially long-lasting. And that governments will find themselves at the end of all of this, with a list of unresolved problems that pre-dated the crisis, as well as these more recent consequences of the pandemic itself.

While it is perfectly possible that leaders can rise to this tremendous challenge, we do not have ample evidence from the past five years which has brought up the bodies of many simmering tensions and conflicts and inequalities of their will and capacity to do so. Perhaps the trauma and jolt of this fast-moving, wide-reaching pandemic will provide the grist to the mill to support this in a manner that was not possible before its emergence. It is too early to say. All we can assert with certainty, is that no outcomes are inevitable.

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What does COVID-19 mean for the social fabric of our nations? - BFPG

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