GOP defense

Applying the Ukraine standard?

Brown medical anthropologist weighs in on coronavirus in China

“No evidence of a real crisis yet”

Brown University 

In 2001, fresh from college, Katherine Mason seized upon an opportunity to teach English in China. Then, mere miles away from her home and workplace, a deadly virus struck: severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known today as SARS.

“I got evacuated by the program that was sponsoring me,” she said. “When I returned to the United States, my parents tried to quarantine me in my sister’s apartment.”

Between 2002 and 2004, SARS killed at least 774 people worldwide and instilled fear in the hearts of Americans early in its spread. But that fear, Mason observed, didn’t strike China as quickly. 

“So many flu-like viruses come through that part of China that they didn’t start panicking until it began to spread all over the world,” she said.

Mason, who had majored in molecular biology, became interested in this cultural gulf between two nations grappling with the same virus. Today, she is an assistant professor of anthropology at Brown and a leading expert on the historical, social and political context of public health in China. 

Her 2016 book, “Infectious Change: Reinventing Chinese Public Health After an Epidemic,” examines how the outbreak of SARS “reimagined public health as a professionalized, biomedicalized and technological machine — one that has frequently failed to serve the Chinese people.”

Now, Mason has joined millions of medical professionals, scholars and members of the public in closely following the trajectory of another illness — a type of coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan in December 2019 and has since spread to at least six countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).  

There NEEDS to be a free lunch

Why Do We Have School Lunch Debt at All?

By Jill Richardson for OtherWords

A Google search for “paying school lunch debt” reveals a long list of recent news stories about good Samaritans paying off the school lunch debt of children whose families cannot afford it.

A Fredonia, New York man paid off $2,000 in school lunch debt in his area, helping 140 families. A Rigby, Idaho tattoo shop raised $1,200. Nationally, a charity called School Lunch Fairy has raised nearly $150,000 to pay off the school lunch debt of children in need.

These stories are heartwarming, and the people who donate are angels. But let’s look at the bigger picture: Why is there school lunch debt in the first place?

In 2008, Mark Winne wrote in his book Closing the Food Gap that he knew how to end hunger. I was impressed. What could it be? I figured the answer must be terribly complex.

But it wasn’t. End poverty, Winne wrote.

This ties back to the work of Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics who found that hunger was not due to a lack of food, but a lack of a right to food. If you lack the ability to buy food or grow your own food, and nobody gives you food, then in a capitalist economy, you are not legally entitled to food.

Or, in this case, if your parents cannot afford food, then children are not legally entitled to eat at school.

It's not over till it's over

Dramatic dismissal of landmark youth climate lawsuit might not close the book on that case
 Mary Wood, University of Oregon and Michael C. Blumm, Lewis & Clark

The legal battle these young plaintiffs are waging might not be over yet. AP Photo/Steve Dipaola

A sharply divided panel of three federal judges on Jan. 17 dismissed a high-profile climate lawsuit brought on behalf of 21 young people against the federal government.

The Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals’ ruling accepted with unusual bluntness that the federal government’s climate policies may pose “clear and present danger” capable of destroying the nation, but said it’s up to the federal government and Congress, not the U.S. courts, to do something about it.

The three judges agreed that the young plaintiffs have constitutional rights to a stable climate system, but judges Andrew D. Hurwitz and Mary H. Murguia said that courts have no role in bringing that about. 

Likely remedies would involve changes in transportation and energy policies, along with public lands management.

Lawyers for the youth plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States said that they aren’t giving up. They plan to petition the full court of 29 active Ninth Circuit court judges to review the case.

As environmental law professors, we often write and teach students about this groundbreaking case. 

In our view, this case is important not only because it seeks to force the federal government to phase out fossil fuels, but also because it frames the climate crisis in terms of fundamental constitutional rights.

Charlestown conspicuous by its absence

Local Efforts to Address Climate Crisis Make Difference

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

Charlestown's answer to climate change and plastic trash - tote bags.
Though not a bad thing, selling tote bags is a very weak response by
a town so vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis. (photo -
Charlestown Land Trust)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Congrats to ecoRI for surveying all RI municipalities. Charlestown and several other municipalities did NOT respond. The lack of response speaks volumes.  

In the interest of space, I have deleted those towns from the compendium of RI cities and towns below, only including those municipalities who actually reported on their plans and training. You can read them all, including the non-respondents, in Frank's original article.
- Will Collette

During a week-long bonus session of the General Assembly in September 2017, both the House and Senate approved bills that require Rhode Island municipal planning board members to undergo training related to the impacts of sea-level rise and building in floodplains.

The training is a free two-hour course required once every two years for both coastal and inland municipalities. Every municipal official mandated to participate was required to undergo the training by Sept. 30, 2019 and file a statement asserting that the training was completed. To meet this requirement, planning board/commission members can watch educational modules online.

The legislation, signed by the governor on Oct. 5, 2017, was one of the recommendations made in a 2016 report by a special legislative commission that studied the economic risks of flooding and sea-level rise. The 11-member commission “focused on risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities that would make business assets more susceptible to damage” from flooding and rising seas.

The commission found that many policymakers in municipal and state government are unaware of the threat of sea-level rise — Rhode Island has 21 coastal municipalities — and increased flooding.

New impeachment trial rules

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.

RI Community Food Bank seeks volunteers

Donate Now Make a Difference with your Extra Day  It's Leap Year which means we all get an extra day! Use yours to help out at the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. Prepare food donations for distribution to our neighbors in need.  You'll sort and pack food boxes and repack fresh produce with other caring volunteers. Advanced registration is required. Children aged 7 and up are welcome when accompanied by an adult. Leap Year Community Volunteer Day  Saturday, February 29 from 9 am to 12 pm Rhode Island Community Food Bank 200 Niantic Ave, Providence Register Now Bill selects fresh produce during his visit to the food pantry at the First Unitarian Church in Providence.  Living On the Bare Minimum  “We’re down to the bare minimum. There are times we’ve had to pay rent late, pay the car payment late, just to purchase groceries. If you name the bill, we’ve had to put it off.” Bill is 50 and unable to work because of a tumor in his pituitary gland and some other health issues. His wife still works, but she doesn’t earn enough to pay all of their bills. Yet, they don’t qualify for federal assistance programs like SNAP. They rely on the network of pantries in Providence and Pawtucket to put food on their table. Visit our website to read about other guests like Bill.  Read More

Donate Now Copyright © 2020 Rhode Island Community Food Bank, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Rhode Island Community Food Bank 200 Niantic Ave Providence, RI 02907-3150

Dog of the week

Meet Rufus.

Animal Rescue RI

Rufus is a well trained senior about 9-10 years young who is very sweet and super outgoing.

He just loves attention, being with people and has wonderful manners.

Do you have room in your home and your heart for our friend Rufus?

Are you in danger of catching the coronavirus?

Key questions answered
William Petri, University of Virginia

A worker in Wuhan, China removes biomedical waste from the Wuhan
Medical Treatment Center, where many patients of the coronavirus
have been treated, on Jan. 22, 2020. Dake Kang/AP Photo

Editor’s note: The Chinese government has quarantined Wuhan, a port city of 11 million people, and it has restricted travel to and from several other cities, including Beijing, to contain the coronavirus that has sickened more than 800 people and killed at least 25 as of Jan. 23, 2020. 

A case has been reported in Seattle, and officials are monitoring a patient with a possible case in College Station, Texas. 

This raises the question: Will this spread – to me?

Am I at risk?

Not now, because currently every case of the novel coronavirus is linked to Wuhan.

There are lots of different coronaviruses that group into three types. The common cold can be caused by both alpha and betacoronaviruses.

Coronavirus was never really taken that seriously until 2003, when a coronavirus jumped species – likely from bats to humans via civets – and led to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. 

This species-jumping ability of coronaviruses is being observed again, now in Wuhan at the seafood market. This coronavirus is in the betacoronavirus group. China has now put travel restrictions in place to limit spread from Wuhan.

Inequality fuels unrest

Abuses of Power in Trumpworld and Davos

By Robert Reich

Photo: AFP

As the Senate debates Donald Trump’s future, chief executives, financiers and politicians have assembled in Davos, Switzerland, for their annual self-congratulatory defense of global capitalism.

The events are not unrelated. Trump is charged with abusing his power. 

Capitalism’s global elite is under assault for abusing its power as well: fueling inequality, fostering corruption and doing squat about climate change.

Chief executives of the largest global corporations are raking in more money and at a larger multiple of their workers’ pay than at any time in history. The world’s leading financiers are pocketing even more. The 26 richest people on Earth now own as much as the 3.8 billion who form the poorer half of the planet’s population.

Concentrated wealth on this scale invites corruption. Across the world, big money is buying off politicians to procure favors that further enlarge the wealth of those at the top, while siphoning off resources from everyone else.

Corruption makes it impossible to fight stagnant wages, climate change or any other problem facing the vast majority of the world’s population that would require some sacrifice by the rich.

Popular anger is boiling over against elites seen as irredeemably greedy, corrupt and indifferent to the plight of most people struggling to get by. 

The anger has fueled uprisings in Chile, Spain, Ecuador, Lebanon, Egypt and Bolivia; environmental protests in the UK, Germany, Austria, France and New Zealand; and xenophobic politics in the US, the UK, Brazil and Hungary.

Trump’s support comes largely from America’s working class whose wages haven’t risen in decades, whose jobs are less secure than ever and whose political voice has been drowned out by big money.

Although Trump has given corporations and Wall Street everything they’ve wanted and nothing has trickled down to his supporters, he has convinced those supporters he’s on their side by channeling their rage on to foreigners, immigrants, minorities and “deep state” bureaucrats.

New legislation would expand women’s right to choose and improve equity

Commemorating Roe v. Wade and closing the gaps on access to abortion

On the 47^th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision protecting the right to choose an abortion, Sen. Bridget Valverde and Rep. Liana Cassar announced legislation that will lift the ban on abortion coverage for state employee health plans and ensure that abortion care is covered by Medicaid.

“Abortion is basic health care and should be covered by your health insurance no matter how much money you make or where you work. Right now, we have an unfair, discriminatory system in place here in Rhode Island. State employees and Medicaid patients deserve the same coverage as everyone else, but the law prohibits their insurance from providing it. 

"These policies result in people and their families being denied access to health care, and in this case, those impacted are disproportionately poorer Rhode Islanders. We believe that every person has the right to make their own reproductive health decisions, but these Rhode Islanders cannot do that when their insurance is expressly prohibited from covering their choice,” said Senator Valverde (D-Dist. 35, North Kingstown, East Greenwich, Narragansett, South Kingstown).

The bill would add Rhode Island to the ranks of 16 states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine, whose Medicaid programs cover abortion.

Alan Dershowitz's clientele

He started young

DNA Damage to Breast Cells from chemicals in some cosmetics, sunscreens

Study found two cosmetics chemicals damage DNA of breast cells at low doses

University of Massachusetts Amherst

A new approach to studying the effects of two common chemicals used in cosmetics and sunscreens found they can cause DNA damage in breast cells at surprisingly low concentrations, while the same dose did not harm cells without estrogen receptors.

The research, published Jan. 15 in Environmental Health Perspectives, identifies a new mechanism by which estrogens and xenoestrogens -- environmental chemicals that act like estrogens -- may promote breast cancer, says breast cancer researcher D. Joseph Jerry, professor of veterinary and animal sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

"The new research offers more sensitive tools to screen for the potential deleterious effects of environmental chemicals, which would be overlooked by methods currently used," Jerry explains. 

He notes that federal agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), typically screen for toxicity of these chemicals in cell lines that don't have estrogen receptors.

The two compounds -- examined in cells grown in the lab and in the mammary glands of mice -- were the ultraviolet filter benzophenone-3 (BP-3), also known as oxybenzone, and propylparaben (PP), an antimicrobial preservative found in cosmetics and other personal care products.