All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Loneliness

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Loneliness is such a cliché that one wears it like armour, sharpened, shiny? Or is it simply a fault in our makeup? You were manufactured with a loose wire, a missing screw? To be alone is to admit defeat? Diminished in character, low self, absent ego? One or one hundred friends, does it make any difference? I don’t know. I just noticed that when I’m present in a moment of kindness, a moment of love… I forget I was born alone, at that hour just before dawn.

_____

OCTOBER 2018


Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet and translator, born 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.

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NY AG cautions Walgreens, CVS against denying customers birth control, reproductive services – Gothamist

New York Attorney General Letitia James sent out letters this week to CVS and Walgreens, cautioning the pharmacy giants that it is illegal in the Empire State to deny customers reproductive health products.

The warnings come in response to recent news reports that employees at Walgreens stores elsewhere in the country have delayed or refused reproductive services such as refilling a birth control prescription or selling condoms because of their religious beliefs.

While the AG’s office has not seen this happen yet in New York, reports of such incidents in other states have gone viral on social media, sparked calls to boycott Walgreens and raised questions about Walgreens’ and CVS’ policies on this type of employee conduct.

Walgreens stated in a 2018 tweet that it allows individual employees to “step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection.” It added that “they are required to refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager on duty to meet the patient’s needs in a timely manner.”

 

Source: NY AG cautions Walgreens, CVS against denying customers birth control, reproductive services – Gothamist

As Americans ditch Covid measures, pandemic worsens for the vulnerable | Coronavirus | The Guardian

Dr Jeannina Smith has seen organ transplant recipients who have been very careful throughout the pandemic venture out for one activity, contract Covid-19 and lose their transplant.

A mobile Covid test site is seen in New York City.
‘Most have thrown their hands up’: has the US forgotten about Covid?

“I have been at the bedside of a transplant recipient” who “was very ill and in the hospital, and she got Covid the second time in a healthcare setting”, said Smith, medical director of the infectious disease program at University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics. “She was sobbing because she said, ‘It’s so hard for me to see that people care so little about my life that wearing a mask is too much for them.’”

While much of US society has breathed a collective sigh of relief at no longer having to wear a mask in public, that freedom has placed people who are immunocompromised at risk, such as Smith’s patients. Nor are they the only ones. Older adults, the very young and those with long Covid are at greater risk too. So while for many Americans the pandemic increasingly feels over, for others – often the most vulnerable – it rages on.

As Smith puts it, “What troubles me as an infectious disease specialist with an interest in public health is the abandonment of the idea that public health exists to protect the most vulnerable.”

Source: As Americans ditch Covid measures, pandemic worsens for the vulnerable | Coronavirus | The Guardian

UN Rights Chief Slams Israel Over Blocked Staff Visas

“In 2020, the 15 international staff of my office in Palestine — which has been operating in the country for 26 years — had no choice but to leave,” Bachelet said in a statement.

“Subsequent requests for visas and visa renewals have gone unanswered for two years. During this time, I have tried to find a solution to this situation, but Israel continues to refuse to engage.”

She said that as a member state, Israel had to cooperate with the UN in good faith and allow its officials to carry out their duties.

“Israel’s failure to process visa applications that are necessary for my staff’s access is inconsistent with these standards,” Bachelet said.

The former Chilean president — who leaves office on Wednesday after four years as the UN rights chief — said Israel’s treatment of her staff was part of a “wider and worrying trend to block human rights access” to the Palestinian territories.

“This raises the question of what exactly the Israeli authorities are trying to hide,” she said.

Her statement said that in 2021, Israeli forces killed 320 Palestinians — “a 10-fold increase on the number killed in 2020” — and injured 17,042 people, six times the 2020 figure.

The UN recorded the highest number of incidents of settler violence since recording began in 2017, and arrests of Palestinians doubled last year.

“So far in 2022, Israeli forces have killed at least 111 more Palestinians,” said the statement.

Despite the visa situation for international staff, Bachelet’s office said it was still monitoring compliance with human rights obligations and providing technical assistance.

 

Source: UN Rights Chief Slams Israel Over Blocked Staff Visas

Update: Invisible Children vulnerable to invisible debts: Action Items to help

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

Orphans like Çilek deserve protection, especially if they cannot do magic to protect themselves!

(from free book Invisible Children, KARA:)

“In your Child Protection System is there a volunteer program from a local law school that assigns a volunteer attorney to an abused child? I’ve met some well- meaning and bright attorneys who genuinely care for their clients this way. If not, are there adequate public legal representation for abandoned children?”

Kids who grow up ‘invisible,’ especially those without stable and functional families who protect and give them middle class cultural capital, like dinner table discussion of financial laws and mutual funds, are especially vulnerable to predatory lenders and debt collectors.

Until there are enough pro bono lawyers giving free legal and financial clinics, the rest of us can help in these ways:

1.)  ask local community colleges to offer free legal and financial clinics on your…

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