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Spain's minister says older people have been found 'dead and abandoned'

Sam Jones
The Guardian
Mon, 23 Mar 2020 14:08 UTC
Emergency unit
© Reuters/Susana Vera
Members of the Military Emergency Unit leave an elderly home after carrying out disinfection procedures during the coronavirus disease in Madrid, Spain.
Soldiers drafted in to help Spain tackle the coronavirus pandemic by disinfecting and running residential homes have found a number of elderly people abandoned and dead in their beds, according to the country's defence minister.

News of the grim discoveries came as Spain experienced a further rise in the number of coronavirus deaths and cases, and as health authorities set about distributing almost 650,000 rapid testing kits.

On Monday, the country's defence minister, Margarita Robles, said that members of the specialist Military Emergencies Unit had found the corpses as they carried out their duties. "During some of its visits, the army has seen some totally abandoned elderly people - even some who were dead in their beds," Robles told the Ana Rosa TV programme.

Robles said such inhumane treatment would not be tolerated and that anyone ignoring their responsibilities would be prosecuted.
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Post-It Note

Signed by the Governor: Idaho expands "Constitutional Carry" gun law

Mike Maharrey
Tenth Amendment Center
Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
Idaho Governor Brad Little

Idaho Governor Brad Little
Last week, Idaho Governor Brad Little signed a bill into law to expand a current "constitutional carry" law, and allow any U.S. citizen over 18 who can legally own a gun carry concealed in city limits without a permit.

The House State Affairs Committee introduced House Bill 516 (H516) in February. Under the new law, any U.S. citizen can now carry a concealed firearm without a permit within city limits in Idaho. Under the former law, people over 18 could carry a concealed weapon without a permit in most places in Idaho, but only Idaho residents could do so within city limits.

Last month, the House passed H516 by a vote of 56-14. On Wednesday, the Senate concurred with a vote of 27-5. With Little's signature, the law will go into effect on May 19.

Since passing a law allowing permitless concealed carry outside of city limits in 2015, the Idaho legislature has loosened restrictions several times. In 2016, it got rid of the requirement that Idaho residents must have a permit to carry concealed within city limits. In 2019, the age for concealed carry in city limits was reduced from 21 to 18.

Comment: No doubt there are many individuals and groups who are now not only deeply concerned about the elevation in violent crime that is likely to occur as a result of impending economic disaster, but also fear Federal Government over-reach and the infringement of basic constitutional rights in an ever-growing police state.

See also:

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Stock Down

Stocks sag in volatile trading as Dow heads for worst-ever first quarter

Fred Imbert and Yun Li
CNBC
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 18:40 UTC
stock market face mask coronavirus covid-19
Stocks fell on Tuesday, the last day of the first quarter, as investors wrapped up a period of historic market volatility sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 197 points lower, or 0.9%. The S&P 500 was down by 0.9%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.3%. The 30-stock benchmark was up as much as 152 points earlier in the day; it has fallen as much as 293.63 points, or 1.3%.

Investors digested a slew of news that may be contributing to the volatile swings on Tuesday, along with the monthly rebalancing of portfolios:

Comment:

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Family

A review of 'Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family'

Louise Perry
Quillette
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 15:42 UTC
louise perry review feminism book surrogacy family
A review of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lewis, Verso, 224 pages (May 2019)
Why is it that when we grab for heaven — socialist or capitalist or even religious — we so often produce hell? I'm not sure, but it is so. Maybe it's the lumpiness of human beings. What do you do with people who somehow just don't or won't fit into your grand scheme?
So writes Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale, the most influential vision of a misogynist dystopia ever created. But Sophie Lewis, author of Full Surrogacy Now, has little time for Atwood. She is suspicious of the "'universal' (trans-erasive) feminist solidarity" that seems to be promised by the novel. In the fictional country of Gilead, women are valued for their reproductive capacities alone, while their social status is stripped away. This foregrounding of bodies, and what those bodies can do — or not do — seems to make Lewis uncomfortable, and she is not alone in that view. In 2018, Michael Biggs, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford and Quillette contributor, was condemned as transphobic in a student newspaper for tweeting an image of several handmaids, captioned with the line: "But I told them I am non-binary." The reality of sexual dimorphism apparent in The Handmaid's Tale does not sit easily within contemporary feminist politics.

Lewis finds herself in a difficult situation. She has set out to write a book about pregnancy, but is determined not to refer directly to the class of people who can become pregnant. She pointedly avoids words like "women" and "mothers" and instead writes of "people who can gestate," with only occasional lapses. "There can be no utopian thought on reproduction that does not involve uncoupling gestation from the gender binary" Lewis says in her introduction. It does not make for a promising start.

Comment:

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Quenelle

Instacart workers in US begin nationwide walkout as Whole Foods workers plan sickout Tuesday

Erik Schreiber
World Socialist Website
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 00:00 UTC
instacart
Workers for Instacart, a grocery shopping and delivery service, began a nationwide walkout in the United States today to protest the company's refusal to protect them or provide hazard pay during the coronavirus pandemic. They have vowed not to return to work until the company meets their demands. Instacart employs more than 150,000 workers across the country.

The planned walkout is part of a nationwide and international fight by workers to demand safe conditions, including strikes and protests by Amazon workers, sanitation and public transit workers and workers in the auto, steel and meatpacking industries. Amazon workers in Staten Island plan to strike Monday, and workers at Whole Foods — also owned by Amazon — plan to strike Tuesday.

The coronavirus pandemic has increased demand for shopping and delivery services dramatically, as many people stay at home or in quarantine. Last week, Instacart announced plans to hire 300,000 new workers during the next three months to meet this demand.
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Health

UK media generating confusion about death of Chloe Middleton: Coroner says 21-year-old did NOT 'die from Covid-19' - UPDATE: Guardian deletes article

Matthew Weaver
The Guardian
Fri, 27 Mar 2020 22:16 UTC
Chloe Middleton
© Facebook
Chloe Middleton was taken to hospital after a heart attack, but attempts to resuscitate her failed.

Comment: Note: This article has been scrubbed by the Guardian. The original link now says "This article was removed on 28 March 2020 pending review."


The death of 21-year-old Chloe Middleton - the UK's youngest coronavirus victim, her family believe - has not been recorded in the official toll because of confusion about how she died, the Guardian can reveal.

Middleton was taken to Wexham Park hospital in Slough last Thursday after having a heart attack. Attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead soon after arriving, a source said.

A Berkshire coroner said the death was related to Covid-19 after being told Middleton had a cough, the source said. But this surprised medics at the hospital, who have not recorded it as a coronavirus incident.

Comment: This just illustrates the complete hysteria around the current coronavirus outbreak. People are not acting rationally and officials are not being careful in how they are reporting deaths. To say that someone 'died of coronavirus' simply because they had a cough is completely irresponsible. And there's a very big difference between 'dying of coronavirus' and 'dying with coronavirus', a turn of phrase the media has been all too willing to exploit.

See also:

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Red Flag

Megachurch pastor who promised to cure the US of coronavirus, arrested for service flouting social distancing

Will Sommer and Tracy Connor
Daily Beast
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 13:48 UTC
Rodney Howard-Browne
© Courtesy Hernando County Sheriff
Rodney Howard-Browne has been an outspoken opponent of social distancing requirements, claiming his church has machines that can stop the coronavirus.

A controversial Florida pastor who refused to stop holding packed church services, in violation of coronavirus restrictions, was arrested Monday by a local sheriff who said the preacher was putting his followers' lives at risk.

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was booked on misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly and violation of public health rules after flouting social distancing orders at The River at Tampa Bay church.

Howard-Browne — an ally of President Donald Trump — has been an outspoken opponent of social distancing requirements, claiming his church has machines that can stop the coronavirus and vowing to personally cure the state of Florida himself.
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TV

'Panic' among NHS staff with 25% off sick or isolating, fears over lack of protective equipment

Ross McGuinness
Yahoo
Mon, 30 Mar 2020 11:25 UTC
medi-visors
© PA/Getty
stack of medi-visors at the Royal Mint, in Llantrisant, Wales, where workers have been preparing PPE for NHS staff
NHS workers are hiding masks and calling in sick because of fears over equipment shortages in the battle against coronavirus, doctors have claimed.

Hospital staff are taking the drastic measures amid a reported shortage of the personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to treat sufferers of COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

The news comes as the head of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) revealed that one in four NHS doctors are off work sick or in isolation.

Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the RCP, said that roughly 25% of the doctor workforce is off, either with coronavirus or because a family member or housemate is ill.

Comment: Unnecessary self isolation means fewer hospital workers which is leading to increased unnecessary chaos and, in all likelihood, will result in more deaths: In the US an evangelical pastor has been arrested for ignoring quarantine orders:
An evangelical pastor in Florida was arrested Monday for "repeatedly" ignoring confinement orders intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus by holding services with hundreds of people, police said.

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, 58, was arrested for unlawful assembly and violating quarantine orders while holding two services on Sunday in the eastern Florida city of Tampa, prison records show.

The pastor "intentionally and repeatedly disregarded state and local public health orders, which put his congregation and our community in danger," tweeted Hillsborough County sheriff Chad Chronister.

Howard-Browne, a staunch supporter of US President Donald Trump, does not believe the COVID-19 disease is serious and accused the press of "stirring up religious bigotry and hate."

He considers his church, The River at Tampa Bay Church, to be an essential service that must remain open during the pandemic.


Danial Defoe in his Journal of the Plague Year - written during an actual outbreak of plague in 1664 - noted that church services continued even during times when the plague 'raged'.


Following an arrest warrant, Howard-Browne turned himself in and was released less than an hour later on $500 bail.

As of Monday, Florida has 5,400 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 63 dead.


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X

Store throws out $35,000 in food after woman coughs on it


CNN
Thu, 26 Mar 2020 16:40 UTC
cough coronavirus
A woman purposely coughed on $35,000 worth of food at a Pennsylvania grocery store, police said. She likely faces criminal charges for coughing, one of the primary ways the novel coronavirus spreads.

The unnamed woman entered small grocery chain Gerrity's Supermarket in Hanover Township and started coughing on produce, bakery items, meat and other merchandise, chain co-owner Joe Fasula wrote on Facebook.

Staff quickly removed her from the store and called Hanover Township Police, who found her a few hours later and took her into custody, Police Chief Albert Walker told CNN.

Comment: The world has lost its mind. While intentionally coughing on food is pretty sick, so is throwing away $35,000 of food because of a hyped-up virus. Would they be throwing this food away if one of their customers had the flu and touched it?

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Hearts

Manolis Glezos, a hero of the Greek resistance passes away


ΝΕΟΣ ΚΟΣΜΟΣ
Tue, 31 Mar 2020 11:28 UTC
Manolis Glezos

Standing alone in the rain, and with the support of a cane, Manolis Glezos pays tribute to the dead of the 1973 Students’ Uprising at the Polytechnic University in downtown Athens.
Manolis Glezos, left-wing politician and resistance fighter during WWII, died from heart failure at the age of 98 in Athens on Monday.

While he is most known for hoisting the Greek flag at the Acropolis while the country was under German Occupation, Mr Glezos had a long history in the resistance movement and took part in the struggle for Greek freedom.


Comment: It is quite symbolic that all his life he fought against fascism and his heart stopped in the middle of the greatest fascist take over Greece - and the world - has ever seen.


Mr Glezos was born in the village of Apiranthos, Naxos in 1922, and he participated in the creation of an anti-fascist youth movement against the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese and the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas in 1939. He was admitted to the Higher School of Economic and Commercial Studies (know known as the Athens University of Economics and Business) in 1940, and served as a volunteer for the Hellenic Ministry of Economics after being rejected to serve the Greek army in the Albanian front against Italy because he did not meet the age requirements. During the Axis occupation of Greece he worked for the Hellenic Red Cross and continued to work for the resistance movement.

Comment: What the above article doesn't mention is that Glezos left Syriza as soon as Tsipras betrayed the people after the referendum in 2015.
Glezos publicly apologized in January of 2016 for having trusted Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after the government negotiated a painful third financial bailout. The political veteran remarked at that time "I'm not disappointed, I'm furious."


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