From an Advertiser column

 ...what Medicaid expansion could have done...and the Alabama Legislature’s refusal to embrace it is a political and moral failure.

 

 

Source: column by Bryan Lyman

Reuters Story

 

MEXICO CITY, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Guatemalan authorities rescued 160 children and adolescents from the fundamentalist Jewish sect Lev Tahor in southeastern Guatemala on Friday following allegations of child abuse, including rape, prosecutors said.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

The rescue operation in the agricultural municipality of Oratorio, 78 kilometers (48.47 miles) southeast of Guatemala City, highlights ongoing concerns over the controversial practices of the Lev Tahor sect, which has faced similar allegations in the past.

KEY QUOTE

"Based on the statements of the complainants, the evidence obtained, and the medical examinations, it was possible to establish that there are forms of human trafficking against these minors, such as forced marriage, abuse, and related crimes," Nancy Paiz, a prosecutor at Guatemala's Prosecutor's Office Against Human Trafficking, said at a press conference.

CONTEXT

The Lev Tahor community, founded in 1988 in Israel, practice an austere form of Judaism with interpretations of Jewish law that includes long prayer sessions and arranged marriages.

Lev Tahor ("Pure Heart" in Hebrew) has faced multiple allegations of kidnapping, child marriage and physical abuse since it was founded in the 1980s.

Forbes

 

10 Of America’s Worst States To Work In:

(And Alabama manages to avoid being on the list!)

(story is HERE.)

Sorry Musk, you are NOT in control.

 

The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth $11.76 billion for the production and delivery of 145 F-35 fighter jets, affirming the program’s critical role in U.S. and allied defense despite ongoing criticisms.

The contract modification includes orders for 48 F-35A jets for the U.S. Air Force, 16 F-35B and five F-35C jets for the Marine Corps, and 14 F-35C jets for the Navy. Additionally, 15 F-35A and one F-35B aircraft will go to non-U.S. Department of Defense program partners, while 39 F-35A and seven F-35B jets are allocated for Foreign Military Sales customers.

...The announcement comes amid renewed criticism of the F-35 program by Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla. Musk, who has repeatedly questioned the viability of manned fighter jets, criticized the F-35’s design in a recent post on his platform, X. 

SOURCE: https://defence-blog.com/pentagon-orders-145-f-35-jets-despite-musks-criticism/

Media

 These reporting standards as as appropriate today as they were when they first appeared in the Washington Post in 1935:

The Post’s own “Seven Principles for the Conduct of a Newspaper,” published by Post owner Eugene Meyer in 1935:

The first mission of a newspaper is to tell the truth as nearly as the truth may be ascertained.

The newspaper shall tell ALL the truth so far as it can learn it, concerning the important affairs of America and the world.

As a disseminator of the news, the paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman.

What it prints shall be fit reading for the young as well as for the old.

The newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners.

In the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such course be necessary for the public good.

The newspaper shall not be the ally of any special interest, but shall be fair and free and wholesome in its outlook on public affairs and public men.

========================================================================

 And, they are equally appropriate for ALL news media, broadcasters included.

 

 

 

A thought!

 

Among The Worst Movies Ever? EVER?

 "This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

 The film?

Freddy Got Fingered' (2001)

Directed by Tom Green 

See the "collider's" list of 10 WORST movies  HERE.

WOW

 

A Daily Dose of History  ·

Follow

  ·

On December 18, 1994, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel and Christian Hillaire were hiking and exploring along the cliffs of the Cirque d’Estré near the village of Vallon-Pont-d’Arc in southern France, when Chauvet felt a slight breeze coming from out of a small hole among a pile of fallen rocks near the entrance to a small cave. Intrigued, they widened the hole and slipped inside. Once inside, they recognized that they were in a large cave but it was too dark to see anything. All three of them being experienced speleologists (cave explorers), they retrieved the necessary equipment from their vehicle and, even though night had fallen, returned to the cave and descended into it. What they discovered delighted them—vast chambers with beautiful geological formations, the cave floor littered with animal bones. As they were leaving the cave, Brunel’s headlamp hit something that grabbed her attention. She looked carefully and she was astonished. It was a painting of a mammoth. “They were here!” she exclaimed. The three explorers then carefully examined the walls of the cave and saw upon them hundreds of paintings and engravings. They had found the oldest and best-preserved prehistoric cave art discovered to date.

Eventually 435 animal images were identified on the walls of “Chauvet cave,” art left by the humans (homo sapiens of the Aurignacian period) who inhabited the cave about 36,000 years ago.

A rockslide sealed the entrance to the cave 29,000 years ago, allowing the rare and priceless cave art to remain undisturbed, until its rediscovery, 30 years ago today.

While a replica of the cave was opened to the public in 2015, to protect the delicate paintings, access to the cave itself is limited to a select group of scientists and researchers.

SOURCE:

Catholic Church Sexual Abuse of Native American children

Tim Lennox Photo, unrelated to Post story.

 

From an excellent investigation by The Washington Post:

 "From 1819 to 1969, tens of thousands of children were sent to more than 500 boarding schools across the country, the majority run or funded by the U.S. government. Children were stripped of their names, their long hair was cut, and they were beaten for speaking their languages, leaving deep emotional scars on Native American families and communities. By 1900, 1 out of 5 Native American school-age children attended a boarding school. At least 80 of the schools were operated by the Catholic Church or its religious affiliates."

"The Jesuits agreed to pay $166 million in 2011 to about 500 survivors as part of a bankruptcy settlement. It is the fourth-largest sexual abuse settlement by Catholic entities to date, according to Terence McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability.org, a watchdog group that tracks sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church. Survivors received on average $332,000 each, depending on the severity of abuse, said their lawyers.

As part of the settlement, the Jesuits agreed to make public a list of priests who had been accused of sexually assaulting children."

 

 The full story is HERE.

In Auburn...a "Premier Home Builder" destroys the home/nest where a pair of eagles lived. From the story in the Washington Post:

"More than 3,000 people joined a Facebook group dedicated to the eagles, that had long been named Jim and Pam after the similarly beloved fictional lovebirds on the TV show “The Office.” Nearly 10,000 signed an online petition demanding justice for the newly homeless eagles while calling on people to boycott the developer."

Census Bureau: Growth of The South

 "...the American South remains the nation’s fast-growing region, adding nearly 1.8 million more residents this calendar year to record a population of 132.7 million, with the largest increases seen in Texas and Florida."

 

Alabama's current population estimate:

5,157,699

It WAS 

5,117,673 one year ago.

Source: HERE.

Proud of Deaths

 AL.COM headline:

Steve Marshall is proud Alabama leads nation in executions: ‘This has been a team effort’

(story is HERE)

=====================================

Note: Alabama could be even more proud if we had FEWER executions because we had FEWER murders, no?

And aren't more executions supposed to result in the same thing? FEWER murders because we're punishing the crimes?

 Something's not working.

Not that Alabamians will care, but our increase goes against an increased lack of support for the death penalty:

"Public support for the death penalty is currently at 53% according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That mark is a 50-year low according to the organization’s report." (source: HERE.) 

ProPublica Report: Segregation Academies

 

"A stark pattern emerged across states in the Deep South — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — where about 200 majority-Black school districts educate 1.3 million students. Alongside those districts, a separate web of schools operates: private academies filled almost entirely with white students. Across the majority-Black districts in those states, private schools are 72% white and public schools are 19% white."

"Many of those districts are home to segregation academies, which siphon off large numbers of white students. In many areas, particularly rural ones, these academies are the reason that public school districts scarcely resemble their communities — and the reason that public schools are more Black than the population of children in the surrounding county."

Very White Private Schools in Majority-Black Districts

ProPublica looked at majority-Black public school districts where private schools also operated. A wide swath of districts across the South exhibited the same pattern: Student populations in private schools are far whiter than in the surrounding public schools.

See ProPublica story HERE.

 

Vaccines

 Tiny Coffins: Measles Is Killing Thousands of Children in Congo

Problems with getting vaccines to families have left many children unvaccinated and in danger of contracting the virus.

======================================================================

Meanwhile in the United States, there are calls to ELIMINATE vaccines for children!!!!!!

Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine

Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

 

(The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.

That campaign is just one front in the war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds.)

 

 

About The Wisconsin Alleged Female Teen Shooter

The Washington Post reports:

"The teen is one of just nine female school shooters in the last 25 years, according to a database maintained by The Post. She is also among the younger recent shooters: Just over a month removed from her 15th birthday, she was about a year younger than the median age of school shooters. And the violence unfolded at a small K-12 school with a religious affiliation, an uncommon site for such incidents, researchers say."

“A lot of this is quite surprising,” said Jillian Peterson, the executive director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center at Hamline University.

Nice House, no?

 The Air Force just tore it down...after spending a fortune renovating it in Ohio.

HERE's the story.

The Lt. Gov is ALL IN about Alabama

 “Alabama is the best state in the greatest nation the world has ever known. It’s the best place to live, work, worship, and raise a family because we fiercely embrace our God-given rights, liberties, and freedoms,” Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth tweeted.

Uh, sure, Will.

What state would not make the same claims?

Are There NO EDITORS left?

 Advertiser Headline:

Social Security making it busy to do business with us online | KYLLE' D. MCKINNEY

Kylle' D. McKinney

Special to the Advertiser

Er, I suspect you mean "EASY" to do business with us online?

Statehouse Project

 

The land where the new Statehouse is being constructed.....this photo was taken before anything had been built.

Al.com reports that Retirement Systems of Alabama CEO David Bronner said the a portion of the project had to be rebid, causing a delay of about four to six months.

“My goal originally was I was going to be done in ’25,” Bronner said. “But now it’s going to roll over into 2026, probably the first four to six months,” Bronner said.

 

(left: a more recent photo of the project)

 

 

The building is expected to be finished in 2026.

Story HERE.

"I'll take some bananas, and a box of .45 ammo"

"Dallas-based start-up American Rounds rolled its first automated retail ammo machine into a Fresh Value grocery store in Pell City, Alabama, late in 2023, selling various brands of rifle, shotgun and handgun ammo."

"Ammo sales have been good and are steadily rising as buyers grow familiar with the machines, according to Magers, though American Rounds did remove one machine in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in July due to poor sales."

FULL Washington Post STORY IS HERE.

Automakers

 From a N.Y. Times story today:

"In the United States, President-elect Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress want to repeal Biden-era tax credits designed to promote electric vehicles. The shifts in policy endanger the hundreds of billions of dollars that G.M., Hyundai-Kia, Volkswagen and others have invested in new factories and cars."

 

Full story is HERE.

175th Anniversary! The Capitol Building Burns exactly 175 years ago at this time!

On this date--December 14th--- in 1849, 175 years ago, Alabama's almost brand new Capitol building burned to the ground. The ruins were cleared by March 1850, with a new building soon to follow.

     The new capitol was built on the foundation of the burned building. The cause of the fire was a poorly watched-over fireplace in The House of Representatives! (Fireplaces were the only source of heat in the old building, and there are dozens of them in the "new" building, none used now, of course!)

From The Alabama Pioneers site:

"At one o’clock on that day the House was engaged on the call of the counties for the introduction of bills and petitions. The order was temporarily suspended to allow the consideration and second reading of a series of resolutions, introduced by Mr. Elevens, of Dallas, to abolish the white basis of representation. Mr. Jones offered a motion that 133 copies of the resolution be printed for the use of the House, Pending this question, the roof of the House of Representatives was discovered to be on fire. The House journal of that session does not show that the House adjourned. The reference to the fire in the journal of the House for that day’s session is the following, which follows the proceedings:

Note by the Clerk: Pending the above motion, at one o’clock and fifteen minutes P. M., an alarm of fire was given. The roof of the Capitol was discovered to be in flames, and in three hours from the first alarm the broken walls alone remained. The public records of the various departments were saved and the greater part of the furniture. The fire originated over the Representative Hall.”

The present capitol building was built on the same foundation that was constructed for that first building.

Early photo of current building

Below is a drawing of the original building...the one that burned:

Was it a coincidence that the fire started as the House was debating a measure to delete the racial basis for representation? I can find no evidence of the fire being anything other than a fireplace accident, though it IS suspicious!

The first Alabama Capitol building in Montgomery.

SCOTUS Ollie's Ruling

 60 years ago today, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that then Governor George Wallace called "a staggering blow" to the rights of private property owners. The Court ruled that Ollie's restaurant in Birmingham could not refuse to serve black customers because it violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While Ollie's did sell food "to go" to anyone, black customers were not allowed to sit down inside.

More about Ollies HERE.

225 Years After George Washington's Death in 1799

 12-13-2024

Note The painting of Washington at the front of the Alabama Senate Chamber. It was painted by Gilbert Stuart, who painted Washington for use on the $1 bill.

 

 The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints more than 16 million new one-dollar bills every single day. It is the most used piece of U.S. currency.

 

Polio: a reminder of the vaccine WIN.

 (from The New York Times)

Polio

Parents in the early 1950s lived with a terror few could later imagine: the substantial prospect that their child could touch the wrong toy and end up in a wheelchair, an iron lung or a grave.

Polio epidemics, which had been occurring for decades, had gained new magnitude by the middle of the 20th century, killing or paralyzing more than half a million people worldwide each year. Families were avoiding public spaces and turning down summertime play dates, knowing that the malady struck fast: In the words of the historian and author Richard Rhodes, “One day you had a headache and an hour later you were paralyzed.”

In some parts of the world, the disease is still a major threat. It is transmitted by exposure to fecal matter, such as on contaminated foods or objects. Most people who contract the virus have no visible symptoms, though they can still pass it on. About a quarter develop common flu symptoms such as a sore throat, fever and nausea.

In severe cases, polio can affect the nerves and brain, causing meningitis and paralysis. When the muscles responsible for breathing are affected, the case can be lethal. And even decades after a resolved polio infection, people can experience muscle weakness and atrophy, which is referred to as post-polio syndrome.

In the United States, vaccines drove paralytic polio cases down from more than 21,000 in 1952 to just one in 1993. But in 2022, the C.D.C. confirmed a new case in Rockland County, N.Y., which had low vaccination coverage. The agency called the single case a public health emergency.

Emily Baumgaertner is a national health reporter for The Times, focusing on public health issues that primarily affect vulnerable communities. More about Emily Baumgaertner