Russia is the Virus
“Russia is COVID-22, and the vaccine against it is weapons and sanctions.” This is paraphrasing what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zalensky said about Russia’s invasion of Europe. He called on the world and, above all, the most influential countries to ensure the defeat of tyranny.
“It is time to be one hundred percent influential. We can defeat tyranny. Indeed, every one of us – every one – is the leader of our time. We can reliably defend freedom. We can stop blackmail by a person who has no place on our list at all. If we are up to it, then we must do it. Because influence obliges us to do so,” he said in a video message to the Time 100 Gala distributed on the morning of June 9, 2022.
“The Russian army is shelling our cities with artillery and aircraft. The list of children killed by Russian strikes since February 24 already includes more than two hundred and sixty names. And when will this end? In fact, this is the key question. But why is there still no answer? Maybe we are missing something in our true strength? Maybe we are not using all the capacity of our influence and our leadership? And this is my question to the United States, both to the parties and to society; to both Democrats and Republicans; to the Congress and to the President,” Zelensky said, noting that he is “grateful to President Biden for uniting the free world when the Russian threat arose.”
“Hatred is a virus, and it’s even more deadly than COVID-19. It is spread through propaganda. Thanks to the impunity for murderers. Thanks to Russian oil, which is still on the global market. Thanks to money that is still flowing between the global financial system and Russian banks. Thanks to the big companies, which still believe that there is still not enough blood on the money from the Russian market,” he declared.
The History Center’s One Orlando Collection
Pam Schwartz the Director or the Orange County Regional History Center and Jeremy Hileman who is in charge of the One Orlando Collection gave a Lunch and Learn talk about the collection that was build after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
The shooting happened at about 2AM on June 12, 2016 killing 49 people at the Pulse Nightclub, and injuring about 68 others. The survivors have to live with the horrific memories.
The History Center has to decide what their roll would be in the community following the massacre. Pam immediately drafted a 5 page collection plan. Within a week, the museum became the collection entity following the tragedy.
Six years later, the collection is still growing. It has some 12,000 plus objects, oral histories, and terabits of video and photography. Some of the items predate the tragedy some are of the tragic event itself and some are of the love and support that followed and spread worldwide.
Many of the items in the collection are from the spontaneous memorials that cropped up following the shooting. People place items to try and replace the loss by giving. They don’t think what may eventually become of what was left behind. The History Center didn’t want to have that love and support just go away. There was no manual on how collect following a tragedy. The History Center collected for 32 days straight.
White crosses were donated by Greg Zanis, a midwestern carpenter, (now deceased) who brought crosses to a number of sites of mass tragedy. Memorial items were left on and around the crosses. The crosses were saved and put in special storage boxes and the items left behind were stored in a box for that individual whose name was on the cross. The Orange County Regional History Center will host the Pulse memorial crosses from Friday, June 10, 2022 through Sunday, June 12, 2022 in honor of the 49 and all others impacted. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Newborn COVID Neurodeficiancy
COVID-19 may affect a baby’s brain development in the womb. A study by the European Psychiatric Association and the University of Barcelona found babies exposed to COVID-19 in the womb had a higher risk of neurodevelopmental changes. Essentially, babies born to mothers who had COVID-19 while pregnant have a higher risk of their brains developing differently than babies who were not exposed to COVID in the womb.
The changes studied showed infants born to “infected mothers” had “greater difficulty in controlling head and shoulder movement.” The study said it suggests COVID-19 may have had an effect on motor functions for infants born to COVID-19-infected mothers.
A summary of the study produced by the European Congress of Psychiatry said the research showed babies born to infected mothers had “greater difficulties in relaxing and adapting their bodies when they are being held,” compared to other infants born to mothers who had not had COVID-19.
The infants were tested after birth to measure their movements and behaviors. “We found that certain elements of the NBAS measurement were changed in 6-week-old infants who had been exposed to the SARS-COV-2 virus. Effectively they react slightly differently to being held, or cuddled,” Águeda Castro Quintas, University of Barcelona, Network Center for Biomedical Research in Mental Health, said.
Research is ongoing, and this study was rather small, so a larger study can get a better idea of just how prevalent this condition is.
DeathSantis Bullies Special Olympics
The T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program, was a Nazi German effort, framed as a euthanasia program, to kill incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. Adolf Hitler initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the military defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
At first the disabled and inform were killed by by starvation and lethal injection, they later chose asphyxiation by poison gas as the preferred killing technique. Physicians oversaw gassing in chambers disguised as showers, using lethal gas provided by chemists.
On a related note, Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis ripped a page out of the Trump playbook by threatened the Special Olympics with a 27.5 million dollar fine if they insisted on a vaccine mandate to keep participating athletes safe.
The New England Journal of Medacine stated that, “If diagnosed with Covid-19, patients with intellectual disabilities were more likely to be admitted to the hospital, and…were more likely to experience mortality due to Covid-19 following an admission.” A page on the Special Olympic’s website reported that vaccination is especially urgent for people with intellectual disabilities, including Down syndrome, Fragile X syndrome and autism. These are the core of the organization’s community of participants, who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.
The Special Olympics caved and chose cow-tow to Florida State governor’s insanity rather than protect each and every athlete. DeathSantis has realized that his best chance of being a presidential contender in 2024 is if he is as anti vax and conspiracy minded as Trump. The cruelty is the point.
Vegas Scream
Where do the unvaccinated go to gamble? You guessed right, that would be Las Vegas. COVID-19 emergency declarations for Nevada ended on May 20, 2022 as the public health agency for metro Las Vegas noted that the pandemic isn’t over.
While most of the state’s pandemic measures, including business restrictions and mask mandates, have already been lifted, the Southern Nevada Health District said it was important to remind the public that the virus that causes COVID-19 continued to circulate.
“Cases are currently increasing, and new variants are emerging,” said Dr. Fermin Leguen, chief medical officer for the district. “It is as important as ever to protect yourself and others by getting fully vaccinated and boosted if you are eligible.”
CES a tech convention was held in Las Vegas marking a return to in person conventions. The show reported attendance of over 40,000 people, with 30% of those attendees traveling from outside the U.S. Immediately afterward, about 70 show goers from Korea who attended tested positive for COVID-19. “Many people who attended the CES international electronic product fair in Las Vegas, last week are testing positive for COVID-19,” said Son Young-rae, a South Korean senior health official. It is, of course, impossible to say exactly whether the people were infected on the show floor or in some other part of Las Vegas, such as casinos, where mask wearing is much less common.
Nevada has had over 10,909 deaths attributed to COVID-19 and over 744,000 reported infections. It is a great place to get infected and then return to your home state and infect friends and family.
The Battle of Omicron Variants
Deadline reported that Omicron variants BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5 are battling for dominance in America. The share of cases tied to Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 increased 79% in the past week. The result is overlapping waves of Omicron in various places around the country.
While BA.2.12.1 gained an advantage by being more transmissible than BA.2 before it, the two newer variants are said to be making inroads at least in part because of their abilities to reinfect.
BA.4 and BA.5 is substantially (4.2-fold) more resistant and thus more likely to lead to vaccine breakthrough infections. Hospitalization continue to slowly rise all across the country. That means the new variants have a much larger population that they can potentially access via breakthrough infections.
Epidemiologist and biostatistician Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, calls this the “battle of Omicron.”
“After our first massive BA.1 wave,” Dr. Jetelina wrote today in her email newsletter, “BA.2 tried to take hold only to be overtaken by BA.2.12.1. Now, BA.4 and BA.5 are gaining traction very quickly and seem to be easily out competing the rest. Given recent lab studies, though, this isn’t a surprise. BA.4 and BA.5 are particularly good at escaping antibodies and reinfecting people previously infected with Omicron, as well as boosted individuals.”
While BA.2.12.1 spread quickly first the Northeast, it’s now the Midwest — specifically Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri — that are feeling the brunt of BA.4 and BA.5. “Once BA.4/5 account for the majority of cases in the U.S., we should expect another (or extended) case surge,” wrote Dr. Jetelina this week.
50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint James Roman Catholic Church
Saint James Roman Catholic Church located at 32 James Street between St. James Place and Madison Street in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, is the second oldest Roman Catholic building in the city, built in 1835–1837 of fieldstone, with a pair of Doric columns flanking the entrance. The building was once topped by a domed cupola.
The neo-classical church is modeled on the published designs by Minard Lefever, and is sometimes attributed to him, there is no hard evidence of this being true.
The parish was established by Bishop John Dubois in order to relieve the overcrowding at St. Peter’s on Barclay Street. He purchased an Episcopal church building on Ann Street, retaining the name of Christ Church, and asked Father Félix Varela to organize a congregation. Varela also established a free school.
In October 1833, it was discovered that nearby excavation had rendered Christ Church unsound. Pending the completion of a new building on James Street, premises were rented at 33 Ann Street. However, some members of the congregation found this too far uptown, and instead purchased the Reformed Presbyterian Church on Chambers Street. This would become the parish of the Transfiguration.
The first Mass was said in the basement of the James St. church on September 18, 1836.
The church was ordered to be closed by New York City officials in 1983, because of the danger of its roof collapsing. It was scheduled to be torn down in 1986, but was saved by the efforts of the community, especially the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the first branch of which was organized in the church in 1836. The building suffered significant damage in a fire on January 11, 2011. In 2007, St. James Parish merged with the nearby Parish of St. Joseph. The combined Parish of St. Joseph/St. James was merged again with the Church of the Transfiguration in 2015.
50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Paul’s Chapel
Saint Paul’s Chapel at 209 Broadway (between Fulton and Vesey Streets) New York, N.Y was built in 1766. St. Paul’s was the tallest building in New York when it was finished. It is Manhattan’s oldest surviving church building. Land for the church was granted by the Queen of Great Britain at the time, Queen Anne, and was designated in the Parish of Trinity Church.
In 1776, during the American Revolution, the Great Fire of New York destroyed one-third of the city. But a bucket brigade saved St. Paul’s.An archivist discovered an ancient bucket int he rafters of the church which could have been from that historic effort.
On April 1789 General George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States and then went to worship at St. Paul’s Chapel.
The chapel regularly hosts community events, concerts, and art exhibitions. It is open to visitors daily and worship services are held in the chapel every Sunday. Saint Paul’s Chapel welcomes over 1 million visitors every year.
In 2016, the church underwent an extensive restoration to modernize and repair the building. The interior was repainted, and landscaping was added outside. The church got air conditioning installed, repairs to the steeple, and a production room for webcasting.
St. Paul’s Chapel was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and an official New York City Landmark in 1966.
50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Mark’s in the Bowery
Saint Mark’s in the Bowery 131 E. 10th Street at Second Avenue, Manhattan, New York. In 1651, Petrus Stuyvesant, Director General of New Netherland, purchased land for a bowery or farm from the Dutch West India Company and by 1660 built a family chapel at the present day site of St. Mark’s Church. Stuyvesant died in 1672 and was interred in a vault under the chapel. This is why the church building faces true South, even though that makes it skewed from the City’s grid: it originally stood on a rural lane, before the city grew north to meet it.
in 1793, the Stuyvesant family sold the chapel to the Episcopal Church for $1. In 1795 the cornerstone of the present fieldstone Georgian style church was laid, built by John McComb Jr. who also built New York City Hall; it was consecrated on May 9, 1799.
Alexander Hamilton helped incorporate St. Mark’s as the first Episcopal parish independent of Trinity Church in the United States. By 1807, the church was flourishing.
St. Mark’s continued to grow in stature and prominence throughout the 1800s. In 1828 the church steeple, designed by Martin Euclid Thompson and Ithiel Town, was erected; in 1835, the Parish Hall was built; and in 1836 the Sanctuary was renovated, replacing its square pillars with slender Egyptian Revival pillars. The cast- and wrought-iron fence was added in 1838; in 1856, the Italianate cast-iron portico was added; and in 1861 the building gained a brick addition.
In 1903, beautiful stained-glass windows were installed (you can still see some of them in the Sanctuary’s first floor) and in 1913, St. Mark’s was given the altarpiece of the annunciation in the Parish Hall—a reproduction of an original created c.1475 by Andrea della Robbia.
On July 12, 1978 a fire started—apparently caused by a restoration worker’s acetylene torch. It turned into a three-alarm blaze. The iron fences around the church prevented fire companies from using normal equipment, and there was fear that the steeple would collapse. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the steeple stood the blaze—but a back section of the roof did fall in, and 9 of the 23 stained-glass windows in the church were destroyed. The 1836 church bell was cracked beyond repair. The bell and the steeple’s original clock still sit in the East and West churchyards today.
Saint Mark’s is New York’s oldest site of continuous religious practice, and the church itself second-oldest church building on Manhattan.