Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

COVID-19 Funeral Assistance | FEMA.gov

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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought overwhelming grief to many. At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters. We are dedicated to helping ease some of the financial stress and burden caused by the virus.

Under the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, FEMA is providing financial assistance for COVID-19 related funeral expenses incurred on or after January 20, 2020

Source: COVID-19 Funeral Assistance | FEMA.gov

COVID deaths surpass 900K: How to apply for FEMA funeral assistance

FEMA is paying a maximum of $9,000 per funeral and a maximum of $35,500 per application…

…Who is eligible for funeral assistance?

To be eligible for funeral assistance, you must meet these conditions, according to FEMA:

  • The death must have occurred in the United States, including the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
  • The death certificate must indicate the death was attributed to COVID-19.
  • The applicant must be a U.S. citizen, noncitizen national, or qualified alien who incurred funeral expenses after Jan. 20, 2020.
  • There is no requirement for the deceased person to have been a U.S. citizen, noncitizen national or qualified alien.

FEMA encourages people who have had COVID-19 funeral expenses to keep and gather funeral documentation. According to FEMA, the following types of information should include:

  • An official death certificate that attributes the death directly or indirectly to COVID-19 and shows that the death occurred in the United States, including the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.
  • Funeral expenses documents that include the applicant’s name, the deceased person’s name, the amount of funeral expenses, and the dates the funeral expenses happened.
  • Proof of funds received from other sources specifically for use toward funeral costs. FEMA is not able to duplicate benefits received from burial or funeral insurance, financial assistance received from voluntary agencies, government agencies, or other sources…

Source: COVID deaths surpass 900K: How to apply for FEMA funeral assistance

Joe Rogan and the Media Algorithm – NeuroLogica Blog

…So in effect, when the media follows the “interesting” algorithm they are choosing opinions and experts who are most likely to be wrong. If you combine this with a very low journalistic filter, then we have a problem. These two factors, which Rogan made explicit (remember, he’s just a regular guy and this is just entertainment), essentially have made him into a firehose of misinformation. Even still, it took a pandemic and Rogan spreading dangerous health misinformation to get any significant reaction.

Rogan is also a good representation of how social media has exacerbated (but again, did not cause) this problem. On social media, anyone can get into the game, and anyone can theoretically rise to the top, without ever having to earn their journalistic bones or work with an editor, simply by being entertaining. This is the world we made and are living in right now. How are you liking it?…

Source: Joe Rogan and the Media Algorithm – NeuroLogica Blog

Sundown Towns Rant: Job Preserves for The Quality?

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

       This just hit me: call me an idiot, but trying to explain to someone who grew up in a Sundown Town that this still affects us today was frustrating, partly because he refused to ack the fact that this not only deprived folks like me of another place to stay, but also, more pertinently to his ability to get a bank teller job while in high school, his ability to stay overnight in that town meant that he alone, and other white people alone, could work that evening shift in the bank to finish high school.  Forget the other factors involved, and there are many, the mere fact of living there and shutting out an entire and larger class of people from being there after dark meant that only whites would have those jobs.  Makes it a lot easier when you have so much less competition, huh?

 …

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Say WHAT???

Filosofa's Word

If you have lived your life believing that you are, by definition of your gender and skin colour, one of the superior beings on earth, I imagine it’s rather difficult to accept reality when it hits you in the face.  White males have dominated much of our political and societal ‘norms’ since the beginning of this nation.  Until the year 2008 when we elected Barack Obama, a Black man, to be our president, every president had been white.  And male.  We have yet to elect a woman to the highest office in the land, and in fact relatively few women hold seats in Congress.  And yet … a portion of those white males are now claiming that they are “victims of racism.”  SERIOUSLY???

Women fought long and hard just to get the right to vote … it took them until August 1920!  Men generally did not want women to vote…

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A Swift One To Get You Going

The Twisting Tail

Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.

Jonathan Swift

I’ve decided to referee
My children like competing football teams
I may be offside but I stand by
The penalties
And free kicks


The benefit of having no class
Is that if you bother me
I’ll put this boot
Right up your arse


Sometimes you kick
Sometimes you get kicked

Kick INXS


The letter K was designed
With kicking in mind


I call you names
Insult your family
and your cooking too
That’s how I
Get a kick out of you


Know your mark
Initiate contact
Clear the ground
Karma does the rest


I Have a break
Have a Kick Kat

(Think about it
It makes more)


A kangaroo will balance on its tail
Knowing it is liable to fall
Just to inflict as much pain as possible
With…

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“Where Shall I Flee?” by: Anne Clare

Pacific Paratrooper

“Where Shall I Flee?” by: Anne Clare

“Where Shall I Flee?”  by:  Anne Clare

One does not need to be a WWII buff or a lover of historical fiction to enjoy this accomplishment.  I recommend it to ALL!

Being as I normally read and report non-fiction, I was very impressed with Anne Clare’s realistic characterization and portrayal of WWII in Italy.  By showing the characters had their own faults and by not romanticizing war, she uses perpetual advancement to draw the reader ever further into their lives.

US Army on Anzio beachhead

Anne Clare is an avid history reader/researcher who asks, “What if?”  The end result is a suspenseful story that brings you into the sphere of action in Anzio and beyond, plus their own personal conflicts.

A nurse who isn’t quite sure why she’s there, to the soldiers of different backgrounds and how they connect – from combat, to…

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