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Cruelty to animals: when is Jamaica going to enact and implement stronger laws to protect them?

Petchary's Blog

A kick, a blow, a “chop” with a machete. For some Jamaicans, these are commonplace ways of dealing with unwanted animals.

It is not only painful and heartbreaking. Cruelty to animals is not something we should take lightly at all, as a society. It is a reflection of our humanity and our ability to deal with conflict and show love and empathy – towards each other, as well as innocent animals that cannot defend themselves.

I wrote about our “rescue dogs” last year for Global Voices, when 144 Jamaican “Royal Caribbean Terriers” (i.e. mongrels) were flown out to Canada from Jamaica, to new homes. Photos later emerged of the dogs happily wearing woolly coats, out for a walk in the snow.

A lovely Jamaican rescue dog being checked out before flying to a new home in Canada. (Photo: Jamaicans.com)

No one can deny that Jamaica is currently drowning, as wave…

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A collaboration of islanders: the Virtual Island Summit 2022

Petchary's Blog

The world is getting smaller. A cliché, I know – but since the “COVID era” we have been able to communicate, share knowledge, engage in heated arguments, socialise, plan and launch projects and more – all in the virtual sphere. All around the world, there have been lively discussions among students, business people, NGO leaders, academics, “distinguished panelists,” and more on almost every topic under the sun.

James Ellsmoor and his vibrant young team atIsland Innovationare doing it again with their ambitious (free) event that aims to bring together island people and island issues and concerns. Last year, some 10,000 participants from 500 islands met up virtually; more are expected this year. Virtual Island Summit (VIS) 2022takes off on September 26 (ending on October 2, 2022) under the theme: Sharing Knowledge for Resilient, Sustainable and Prosperous Islands Worldwide. You can register here. In fact, VIS has…

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COVID-19 hospitalizations drop again in LA County, but transmission remains high – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

“While lower case (numbers) and hospitalizations are welcomed, the continued high rate of transmission places many individuals at elevated risk of getting infected, and, for some, there can be serious consequences to a COVID infection,” she said. “People facing higher risk from COVID include many of our family and friends, along with community residents we encounter every day. Older people, people with underlying health conditions, those who are immunocompromised and those who are unvaccinated are all at elevated risk of experiencing a bad outcome if they get infected.

“There are also many who face higher risk because their job brings them close to a large number of people. These are often the people we rely on every day to provide food and medicines, to take care of us when we are sick, to drive our buses and trains, to teach and care for our children, and to provide us with essential goods and services. Others face higher risk because they live in very dense communities and overcrowded housing, where viral spread is easier,” Ferrer continued.

Source: COVID-19 hospitalizations drop again in LA County, but transmission remains high – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Monkey pox: she could have been avoided – Magic Mistura を

On September 22, 2017 , doctor Dimie Ogoina received a strange case at his office in Wilberforce, Nigeria. He was an 11-year-old boy with wounds on his face and body.

It could be chicken pox, but it wasn’t – the boy had already contracted this disease, and he healed, times before. Ogoina suspected a rare disease: monkey pox, caused by the MPXV virus. He took samples of the lesions and sent them for testing. It was positive.

It was the first case in the country in four decades. But not the only one: in the next two months, 41 others appeared. Ogoina was intrigued, because the disease was spreading strangely. Now she infected mainly young men (not children, historically her biggest victims).

These men did not live in the countryside, in contact with the wild animals that normally transmit MPXV. They lived in cities. And in many cases, patients had genital lesions, a new symptom.

This led Ogoina to suspect that the monkey’s smallpox was being transmitted directly between humans, which until then was considered very rare, and also through sexual relations, not only by contact with the patient’s skin or objects he touched (that 11-year-old boy took the disease at home: doctors found that two relatives he lived with had symptoms before him). MPXV was different. It had evolved, and the disease had become more difficult to contain.

Ogoina started trying to alert the authorities, and even published a study about it in the scientific journal PLoS, one of the most important in the world. Not only was it not heard, it was under pressure from the government to be quiet. “I was told not to mention that sexual transmission was possible,” he now revealed in 2022 to the American broadcaster NPR

Source: Monkey pox: she could have been avoided – Magic Mistura を

Where Does It End? Or Does It?

Filosofa's Word

Today I share with you an excerpt from an opinion column by Dana Milbank in The Washington Post earlier this month.  The article, which is adapted from Milbank’s book, The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party, is too lengthy for me to repost in its entirety, but is well worth the read, so I encourage you to read ‘the rest of the story’.  Meanwhile, here is a brief excerpt …

The GOP is sick. It didn’t start with Trump — and won’t end with him.

Dana Milbank

4 August 2022

Much has been made of the ensuing polarization in our politics, and it’s true that moderates are a vanishing breed. But the problem isn’t primarily polarization. The problem is that one of our two major political parties has ceased good-faith participation in the democratic process. Of course, there are instances of violence…

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Parashat Eikev (עֵקֶב) 5782, and Carrots And Sticks …

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

    This week’s Torah portion, Eikev (עֵקֶב),  is the 46th (46/54 or 52, depending on the year: this year, it’s 54…) reading in the annual cycle.  It’s the third parashah in the book of Dvarim, with the full reading in Dvarim/Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25.

      So this week we have more blessings and curses, incentives to follow the divinely commanded social order laid down by Moshe.  It makes sense, but do we still need such incentives today, when we have education and technology to give reach to the information needed in a modern Democracy?

I look forward to hearing your opinions on this matter, Thoughtful Readers.

We can really  Do Better.

-Shira

Last week was: Parashat Vaetchanan (וָאֶתְחַנַּן) 5782, and Free Legal Utterances   ,

I look forward to hearing your opinions, Thoughtful Readers.

We can really  Do Better.

-Shira

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