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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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Pluralistic: 25 Mar 2020 (National Emergency Library, Kaiser threatens nurses, no more O'Reilly events, White House pastor's coronavirus funnies, automatic bill-relief notices, Mat Ricardo's lockdown TV, Xi's internal enemies, coronavirus meets immigration detention, doctors hoard choloroquine, toilet paper separator, Conzealand goes virtual, the Postal Plan, Volante's masks, and more!)

Today's links

Internet Archive lifts lending restrictions on ebooks: They're calling it the "National Emergency Library."

Kaiser threatens to fire Oakland nurses who wear their own masks: They're treating positive patients from a cruise ship with insufficient PPE.

No more O'Reilly events: We've been here before, kinda.

Trump's Bible study teacher thinks coronavirus is God's wrath: For homosexuality, China, environmentalism, Catholics, and women in the workforce.

A chatbot that petitions companies for financial relief during the crisis: Donotpay's robot lawyer is here for you.

East London showman Mat Ricardo's Youtube playlists: Lockdown TV for "comedy, variety, circus, magic, dance, music."

Xi's enemies sense weakness: Autocracies are only as good as their last crisis-response.

Locked down in a lockup: Coronavirus meets immigration detention.

Doctors hoard choloroquine: MDs to lupus sufferers, "Drop dead."

Toilet paper separator: Covid crafting for household essentials.

Conzealand goes virtual: The first time a Worldcon isn't in person since WWII.

Posties are key to America's emergency response: The only agency that could deliver covid meds to every US household in a single day.

Volante's masks for covid responders: Streetwear for Superheroes.

This day in history: 2005, 2010, 2019

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, current reading

Internet Archive lifts lending restrictions on ebooks (permalink)

The amazing people at the Internet Archive maintain a digital lending library: they buy and scan one copy of every book (pretty much every book, ever) and lend it out to one person at a time.

They've just announced that during the crisis, they are lifting the one-borrower-at-a-time restriction and allowing unlimited borrowing, "to meet the needs of a global community of displaced learners". They call it the "National Emergency Library."

https://blog.archive.org/2020/03/24/announcing-a-national-emergency-library-to-provide-digitized-books-to-students-and-the-public/

It's got more than a million titles.

https://archive.org/details/nationalemergencylibrary

They're calling on all who can afford it to buy books to support authors and booksellers during the crisis, Authors can also request to have their titles removed:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QjErbouWG7pUlzcxPcRk4YEtbYs8ItlVTgLa1DfGh68/edit

It's a bold move, but it's got widespread support. Here's a list of endorsers. I signed on too.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vkl3RX4CzpRTQsoG1tsdHC0foYiU7A8U_Vt1UyVboP8/edit

Kaiser threatens to fire Oakland nurses who wear their own masks (permalink)

Nurses at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland are treating patients from the Grand Princess cruise ship, at least 21 of whom have tested positive for covid-19. The nurses are working without adequate PPE, thanks to a national shortage (and asshole hoarders).

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/21/oakland-coronavirus-hospital-kaiser/

Nurses who report for work wearing their own N95 masks have been threatened with immediate dismissal for "insubordination."

Akela Lacy from The Intercept asked Kaiser's Marc Brown about it, but he ducked the question.

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/kaiser-permanente-nurses-coronavirus/

The nurses say that their supply cupboards are locked down, and they're being asked to treat potentially infected patients whether or not they can find someone to unlock the supply cupboard.

No more O'Reilly events (permalink)

I attended my first O'Reilly conference in, I think, 1997? And I sponsored my first O'Reilly con, the first P2P con, in 2001 (?). I spent years on the committee for the Emerging Tech conference, and I've keynoted more O'Reilly cons than I can recall.

These events have been some of the most important gatherings I've ever attended: places where I made lifelong friends and collaborators (I first met my wife at an Etech con), and learned so much.

This is (obviously) not a good time to be in the event business. For perfectly good – and nevertheless so, so sad – reasons, O'Reilly has just exited the in-person conference business.

Forever.

https://www.oreilly.com/conferences/from-laura-baldwin.html

"Without understanding when this global health emergency may come to an end, we can't plan for or execute on a business that will be forever changed as a result of this crisis. With large technology vendors moving their events completely on-line, we believe the stage is set for a new normal moving forward when it comes to in-person events."

The covid collapse feels a lot like the post-911/dotcom crash moment. That was when we lost the Etech conference, whose focus had always been "what are the most speculative things the weirdest nerds are doing?" No one had a budget for that kind of thing after the crash.

The dotcom crash and the loss of Etech were hugely traumatic, but there WERE silver linings. Etech's crash begat FOO Camp, consistently the best events I've ever attended – small gatherings of smart weirdos who programmed their own conference in realtime.

It also created a brief moment of breathing space in tech, which had its origins in driven tech enthusiasts but had been steadily colonized by buck-chasers who upped sticks and quit when the money disappeared from the sector. For a brief moment, mid-decade, people who wanted to build meaningful technologies for users – not investors – could hire engineering talent and find office space. That was ended by the finance bubble that shattered in 2008, but for a while there, it was good.

It's brutal to think that I'll never go to another O'Reilly con, but my hopeful inner voice tells me that there might be something as wonderful on the horizon as FOO Camp. I'm so sorry for all the O'Reilly conference staff, who are amazing and have done so much good work.

As O'Reilly CEO Laura Baldwin writes, "No offense to 'Netflix and chill' but how about we move toward 'Code and conquer' as our new mantra during these trying times?"

Trump's Bible study teacher thinks coronavirus is God's wrath (permalink)

Wanna hear about an extreme religious far-right bigot who thinks that coronavirus is God's punishment for Chinese excess, American tolerance for homosexuality, and environmentalism?

https://theintercept.com/2020/03/24/trump-cabinet-bible-studies-coronavirus/

Ralph Drollinger is an evangelical pastor. He says Catholicism is "the world's largest false religion." He says women working outside the workplace is against scripture. He runs Capitol Ministries, whose goal is to have 200 ministries in 200 world capitals.

Drollinger may sound like a garden variety Christian Taliban, but he's awfully distinguished.

For one thing, he runs regular Bible study classes…at the White House.

His scriptural lessons: God would approve of kids in cages. God also wants lower taxes on rich people.

His twice-weekly Capital Hill Bible classes are regularly attended by 52 GOP lawmakers, sponsored by Kevin McCarthy [R-CA] and John Thune [R-SD].

His Wednesday White House Bible study classes are attended by Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Alex Azar, and Mike Pompeo. Pence, too!

His organization has received official endorsements from Joni Ernst, James Lankford and other GOP senators.

This anti-Catholic, homophobic, sinophobic, anti-enviromentalist, lunatic is squarely in the mainstream of Republican thought.

A chatbot that petitions companies for financial relief during the crisis (permalink)

The $3/month DoNotPay service has added a new covid-19 service: automatically petitioning the companies that bill you for mercy based on the coronavirus econopocalypse.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/25/21192765/donotpay-rent-bill-delay-chatbot-coronavirus-extension-laws-pandemic

Using a chatbot, you determine which of your bills are eligible for relief. Then it generates a "compassionate and polite request" seeking help. If the company does not comply, it follows up with a firmer letter citing relevant state/federal laws.

https://donotpay.com/

East London showman Mat Ricardo's Youtube playlists (permalink)

Under normal circumstances, showman MatRicardo is either traveling around doing his juggling and conjuring act, or hosting amazing variety show nights in east London. Neither of those are an option, now, obvious.

Instead, Ricardo is curating playlists of "comedy, variety, circus, magic, dance, music and other kinds of culture and entertainment to distract and amuse."

https://www.matricardo.com/blog/2020/3/17/lockdown-tv

https://www.matricardo.com/blog/2020/3/24/lockdown-tv-week-2

Highlights:

Kids in the Hall: "I speak no English"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vgoEhsJORU

Gene Kelly: "Summer Stock"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFJrV3pI5Zs

"The Knife-Throwing Mother & her Children (1950s)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxodb2uUhQ

Mat Ricardo: "How to charm a German audience"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ECcHLvRYA

Xi's enemies sense weakness (permalink)

Autocracies are intrinsically unstable because their have-nots (who tend to be numerous) believe that they have no path to becoming haves, and see no legitimate purpose to preserve the social order.

China has stabilized its autocracy by simultaneously lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and by using internet surveillance to both neutralize dissidents and spot its most corrupt and dangerous politicians.

But under Xi, internet surveillance has primarily become a weapon for spotting and neutralizing dissidents, and less so a way of spotting self-dealing technocrats and shutting them down. This created "authoritarian blindness," which meant Xi didn't spot or respond to Wuhan in good time.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/24/pluralist-your-daily-link-dose-24-feb-2020/#thatswhatxisaid

This failure ruptured Chinese public confidence in Xi, and emboldened his critics. Ren Zhiqiang (a party "princeling" whose father was a top Mao official, who made a fortune in real-estate and has been an outspoke Xi critic) issued a "viral" jeremiad against Xi this month.

Ren's post, "An official call to arms against Xi: The clown who insists on wearing the emperor's new clothes," spread on Twitter and other foreign services (he has been banned from Wechat for years).

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/as-virus-recedes-in-china-anti-xi-revolt-spreads/

Ren disappeared shortly thereafter and is said to have been sentenced to 15 years in a secret prison near Beijing where his interrogators have been ordered to mete out "harsh treatment" to the 70-year-old.

Ren is a bellwether for other Chinese power-brokers, many of whom resent Xi and his power-consolidation techniques, such as his 2018 corruption purge that preferentially targeted corrupt officials who supported Xi's rivals.

https://web.archive.org/web/20181222163946/http://peterlorentzen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lorentzen-Lu-Crackdown-Nov-2018-Posted-Version.pdf

These grandees have been sharpening their knives for Xi for years, and coronavirus has made him vulnerable. Ren was the first to turn on him publicly, but I'm sure he won't be the last.

Locked down in a lockup (permalink)

You know what's more terrifying and frustrating than being locked down at home during a coronavirus pandemic? Being imprisoned during a coronavirus pandemic, crammed in with others, deprived of soap and supplies.

It's very bad in regular jails and prisons, but if anything, it's even worse in ICE's gulags, where thousands of law-abiding long-term US residents – and asylum seekers – have been detained by the Trump administration in order to please his sadistic base.

For example, Ian has lived in the US for 20 years. His wife and children are US citizens. He was detained while awaiting a decision on his spousal visa. His wife is a nurse treating covid patients. His children miss their father.

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/03/24/everybody-s-scared-panic-at-immigrant-detention-center-after-positive-coronavirus-test

Ian has a heart condition that puts him at severe risk if he contracts coronavirus. He's in a 40-person dormitory with a recent arrival from China who is exhibiting symptoms.

He's in NJ's Essex detention facility, which is serviced by Corecivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, a notorious human rights abuser with a long history of beltway banditry while running private prisons. Some detainees there are on hunger strike.

One of the medical staffers there was confirmed by ICE to have contracted coronavirus. The next day, ICE denied that he was medical staff. ICE would not comment on the contradiction.

(Image: Fibonacci Blue, CC BY)

Doctors hoard choloroquine (permalink)

After Trump made misleading statements about the safety and efficacy of treating covid-19 with chloroquine, members of his cult began dropping dead of overdoses on the antimalarial drug.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/arizona-coronavirus-chloroquine-death/index.html

But it wasn't just low-information Trumpers who took the advice to heart. Pharmacists are seeing surges in massive orders of chloroquine from doctors and even dentists who are self-prescribing in order to hoard, and then lying about it when the pharmacists ask for explanations.

https://www.propublica.org/article/doctors-are-hoarding-unproven-coronavirus-medicine-by-writing-prescriptions-for-themselves-and-their-families

This hoarding behavior deprives people who rely on chloroquine for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus of their medication during a pandemic emergency.

"People are losing their minds about this product. We're selling so much of this stuff and people are just stockpiling it prophylactically if anybody in their family gets sick — they're just holding on to it." -Brian Brito, Miami pharmacy owner.

"Currently, both nationally and in West Virginia, some prescribers have begun writing prescriptions for these drugs for family, friends, and coworkers in anticipation of Covid-19 related illness." -West Virginia Board of Pharmacy

Toilet paper separator (permalink)

The Toilet Paper Splitter: a DIY project to separate a single two-ply roll into two single-ply rolls. Requires two paint rollers, a couple bolts, a rubber band, and some stiff metal for a handle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JEfCAFHcPk

Conzealand goes virtual (permalink)

The World Science Fiction Convention began in 1939, when 200 sf fans who'd come to New York for the World's Fair gathered together (while explicitly excluding the leftist "Futurian" writers, who held their own counter-convention).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_World_Science_Fiction_Convention

Since then, there have been 77 Worldcons in total, one per year, excluding 1942/3/4/5, during which WWII intervened.

This year's Worldcon is Conzealand, the first Worldcon in New Zealand. Except it won't be. The organizers have wisely decided to move to a virtual event.

The hotels are allowing for cancellations, though there's some work to be done to allow the organizers to do mass cancellations for their group block. Different airlines have different rules regarding cancellations.

https://conzealand.nz/hotels?utm_source=CoNZealand

They're expecting to offer limited refunds to participants who don't want to a virtual con experience. They'll be offering a new online rate by April 15, and kids memberships are refundable now (but they ask you to forebear as their own personal funds are on the line).

Potential panelists are requested to put some thought into how they might help a virtual con with its programming.

This is incredibly disappointing, of course.I know the organizers and visited Wellington and the venue, both of which are incredible.

https://conzealand.nz/blog/2020/03/25/conzealand-special-announcement

I've been looking forward to attending for years. But it was the right call to make. it won't be the last such disappointment, either.

Please consider supporting the organizers by buying an online membership once they're offered and attending the con from wherever you are.

Posties are key to America's emergency response (permalink)

The USPS is amazing. A fully self-supporting federal agency that provides universal service as well as good, well-paid jobs with benefits and pensions. It's also a vital lifeline during crises.

https://www.wired.com/story/us-postal-plan-coronavirus-vaccine-doomsday/

Since the Cold War, posties have been integral to America's crisis plans. They were once deputized to catalog the dead and the living after a nuclear holocaust, distributing Safety Notification Cards (POD Form 810). Mail trucks would have been repurposed as ambulances.

Both Obama and GWB integrated posties into their plans for biological attacks, planning to have masked and gowned letter carriers deliver Cipro door to door (the "Postal Plan").

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-medical-countermeasures-following-a-biological-attack

As the DHS noted in its prep documents, the USPS is the only federal agency that could knock on every door in America in a single day.

When (if?) effective covid meds are available, it's likely a postal worker will deliver them to you.

Now is a good time to remember that the GOP have been trying to dismantle the universal, self-funding, vital USPS for decades, so that private carriers like UPS and Fedex can cream off the most profitable parts of its business and leave rural Americans in the cold.

Volante's masks for covid responders (permalink)

I've long admired (and worn) clothing from Volante Design, whose "streetwear for superheroes" is made by well-paid, onshore workers and is cosplay-adjascent — the kind of thing you can wear out and about, but also to a con.

Now, they're making masks for covid responders.

The masks are made from cloth and can protect N95 masks from contamination as they are reused (they have a pocket for this purpose). They can also prevent you from touching your face, and partially contain coughs when medical masks are not available

https://www.volantedesign.us/

They're seeking donations to cover the cost of making these and shipping them to orgs that have requested cloth masks:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1txEanDkIrJ5GNfSk-zlXkTlB-bQPNRN_Y69qEwmdme8/htmlview

A $105.50 donation lets them make 50 masks. They're also selling them on a sliding scale to those in need.

This day in history (permalink)

#15yrsago Matrix online game hires real actors to play in-game characters http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-matrix-online/598441p1.html

#15yrsago Fox is advertising on Grokster, also suing to put Grokster out of business https://web.archive.org/web/20051018083600/http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=28535&Nid=12722&p=244505

#15yrsago US sabotaging efforts to create humanitarian copyright and patent policies https://web.archive.org/web/20050916104840/http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/2005/03/25/united_states_v_wipos_development_agenda.php

#15yrsago Ex-coder's account of life as a bike courier https://web.archive.org/web/20050323071902/http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/19/133129/548

#10yrsago Profit-sharing arrangements among Somali pirates https://web.archive.org/web/20100323020702/https://www.undispatch.com/somali-pirates-buisiness-model

#1yrago Peak Indifference: are we reaching climate's denial/nihilism tipping point? https://www.wired.com/story/we-might-be-reaching-peak-indifference-on-climate-change/

#1yrago London developer makes last-minute changes to lock poor kids out of "communal" playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground

#1yrago Chinese censors incinerate entire run of a kickstarted Call of Cthulhu RPG sourcebook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Urosc-JEY

#1yrago The Vessel: a perfect symbol for the grifter capitalism of New York City's privatized Hudson Yards "neighborhood" https://thebaffler.com/latest/fuck-the-vessel-wagner

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Wendy Hanamura (https://twitter.com/whanamura), Geekologie (https://geekologie.com/), Naked Capitalism (https://nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing: I'm getting geared up to start work my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last month, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs"; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Data – the new oil, or potential for a toxic oil spill? https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/23/data-the-new-oil-or-potential-for-a-toxic-oil-spill/

Upcoming appearances:

Quarantine Book Club, April 1, 3PM Pacific https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quarantine-book-club-cory-doctorow-tickets-100931360416

Museums and the Web, April 2, 12PM-3PM Pacific https://mw20.museweb.net/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

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omoi-no-hoka · 5 years

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My Experience Working in Japan

Fear not--it’s not all gloom and doom.

Today I thought I’d talk a bit about what it’s been like working in Japan for half a decade. I imagine that my experience is probably different from someone who lives in a more metropolitan area like Tokyo.

Why did you choose Hokkaido?

Hokkaido is the northernmost island/prefecture of Japan. It’s the biggest prefecture and plays a huge role in Japan’s agriculture. Since it’s a separate island from Honshu (the island with Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and pretty much everywhere else of note), not too many foreigners choose to live here. However, there is a small but ever-growing community of winter sports lovers who move here long-term.

I studied abroad in Hokkaido when I was in uni and fell in love with it. What can I say? I grew up on a farm in a county that had a grand total of three traffic lights, and I just hate the hustle and bustle and endless concrete of big cities. I’d go crazy if I had to live somewhere like Tokyo. I need to see green, I need to hear birds instead of sirens.

What was your first job, and how did you get it?

I knew by about my third or fourth year of uni that I wanted to go to Japan for a while, so I double majored in the two areas that I knew would help get me a decent job there: Japanese, and English with a focus on linguistics, second language acquisition, and English as a Second Language (ESL). I also obtained a CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from Cambridge. There are many different TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificates out there, but the CELTA is the most esteemed and recognized worldwide, so that was what I got.

I ended up looking for teaching jobs in Sapporo, even though it was a much bigger city than I wanted to live in. It has a population of 2 million, and the city I had my eyes on was less than 1/4 of Sapporo’s size. But I couldn’t find any teaching jobs in the smaller city. The job-hunting was difficult, because unless you have a spousal visa or something, the employer has to be able to sponsor a work visa. But sponsoring work visas is very expensive for the company, so many smaller businesses can’t give you a work visa.

There are many 英会話 (Eikaiwa) English Conversation schools in Japan. Basically, the entire English education curriculum and its implementation in Japanese public schools is...atrocious. Absolutely worthless. The vast majority of students study English for all 6 years of middle and high school and can’t have a simple conversation by the end of it, though they can read and write it somewhat decently. So the Eikaiwa industry was born, and these schools promise parents that their children can have native-like pronunciation and get jobs in fields where English is necessary if they pay outrageous costs for weekly 50-minute lessons.

There are many big-name Eikaiwas in operation throughout the country, but many of these are so-called ブラック企業 (black kigyou, a.k.a. black businesses) which means that they commit various labor law violations. Most foreigners they hire don’t speak Japanese and aren’t aware of their legal rights, or what they can do when they are violated. A quick google search will show you tons of horror stories from foreigners hired by eikaiwas who didn’t receive pay, were screamed at for calling in sick to work, etc. Basically, most corporate eikaiwas don’t care who is teaching the kids, as long as they are white. You are a piece of meat to them.

So I avoided all the big-name places and found a small, privately owned Eikaiwa in Sapporo, run by a fellow foreigner. I had a skype interview with her from my living room in America, she hired me, and I moved to Sapporo. I worked there for three years. Despite having a fellow ex-pat as a boss, I was still subjected to the mistreatment of the corporate eikaiwas. No matter how sick I was, despite the fact that we were forbidden from wearing masks (kids need to see our mouths for pronunciation), and despite the fact that I was constantly around infants, I was ordered to “take an aspirin and get to work.” I was under the impression I was enrolled in the Japanese pension, but after two years of working there I learned that we were not, in fact, enrolled in the pension. This is illegal, and I was forced to pay about $4,000 USD in backpay to the pension. My employers refused to provide assistance paying this even though by law the employer is required to pay 50% of an employee’s pension.

So yeah. Not too fun really. The kids were really cute, though, and I didn’t hate teaching English. But after 3 years, I was ready to move on.

What’s your current job, and how did you get it?

The three years I worked at the Eikaiwa, I studied Japanese at least one hour every night, and at least 8-10 hours on the weekends. I had the conversation and grammar down, but my kanji and vocabulary was lacking so all I did was read, read, read. Thanks to that, I passed the JLPT N1 and my Japanese reached a level that I could survive in a Japanese workplace.

Fed up with my current job and jaded of teaching, I looked for translation jobs in companies in Hokkaido. But there were absolutely zilch. I realized that (in Hokkaido), there were no jobs for foreigners other than teaching English. The situation was so hopeless that I actually looked for jobs back in the United States and applied for a couple. Moving back home after only 3 years of living abroad felt like defeat and I didn’t want to leave Japan, but I just couldn’t take the eikaiwa industry anymore, and I knew that I would only spiral further into depression in a metropolis like Tokyo.

In June of 2017, I sent out some applications and applied to headhunting agencies in America. And in August, a friend here in Hokkaido called me with some incredible news. A student of hers was working as a temp translator for a company in the city I had originally wanted to live in. He needed a replacement, and would I be interested?

I couldn’t believe it. Translation was my dream job, and it was in my dream city. I immediately called to find out more, and I looked up how to make a Japanese resume. Did you know that resumes are printed on A3 paper and hand written?! Good lord, I spent about 9 hours writing and re-writing it because I don’t have good handwriting in Japanese. I went in for an interview. They said they would match the pay of my current job and then some, that I would have business trips to Tokyo, that there was a very likely chance I would get to see other parts of Japan due to this job, that I would be able to build experience in multiple fields at once, that they would give me all the benefits that they are legally obligated to give (lol), and they would let me go home to America for extended periods as long as I took my work laptop and didn’t mind doing a bit of work while I was there. It was everything I dreamed of, so of course I accepted the position.

And the cherry on top? The guy who gave me the interview had a very unusual last name, which I’ll say is K___. At the end of the interview, he asked, “By the way, do you know anyone else named K___?”

Me: “Well, actually I do have a student whose last name is K___.”

And he smiles and says, “Yeah, that’s my daughter.”

In a city of 2 million people, about 700 children aged 0-18 were enrolled in my Eikaiwa. Out of those 700, I taught about 120. And out of all of those kids, one of them turned out to be the daughter of the man who gave me my interview and would become my boss! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?! It still blows my mind to think about.

Later, after I was hired and we went for drinks after work, he told me that the moment he had seen my resume and the name of the Eikaiwa, he had gone to his daughter and asked, “Hey, do you know omoi-no-hoka-sensei? What’s she like?” His daughter said a bunch of really nice things about me, and he decided that if his daughter liked me, then I must be a good addition to the company. Before the interview he had already decided to hire me.

It just goes to show that you should always be your best because you never know who’s watching!

So yeah, I quit my job at the eikaiwa, moved to my dream city, and started my dream job two years ago. My coworkers are all really, really nice. My bosses are all great. I’m the only person in my whole office that speaks English though, so sometimes I get a bit lonely in that regard. But because I’m the only one who speaks English and this is a global company with headquarters in America, I get asked to do a bunch of miscellaneous tasks, so I’m never bored! Sometimes this means I have a lot of overtime, though. It’s not uncommon to have a 12 hour work-day. But in my downtime between translation requests, I make most of these Tumblr posts.

#about me #life in japan #expat #expatlife #japan #nihon #langblr #studyblr #work #teaching #esl

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theonyxpath · 6 years

Link

Boo!

Matthew Dawkins here, to talk a little about Book of Oblivion for Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition! The writing of this book proceeds apace, as we endeavor to include new Arcanoi, provide fresh looks at antagonists, make environmental horror a real thing (especially in the Underworld), and give new coverage to heretofore only mentioned Necropoli and Kingdoms the world over.

It’s an exciting time to be on a Wraith book.

Honestly, one of the things I love about working on Wraith is the ability to provide deeper and darker coverage of material left fallow in its previous editions. Lacking a Revised edition, we have a lot of ground we can cover, and the Book of Oblivion seeks to address some gaps while adding brand new material most of you won’t expect.

Do you want an example? While the Guilds are still at the forefront of Hierarchy life in the Shadowlands, we wanted more organizations and clubs wraiths might belong to. Here’s Clayton Oliver’s Maelstrom Bureau and a piece on how Reapers target those struck down in natural (and sometimes unnatural) disasters:

The Maelstrom Bureau

On the top floor of a Brutalist office block down the street from the Sea of Shadows, the one Hierarchy agency with an official disaster mission struggles to coordinate its far-flung network of observers and researchers. Founded as the Office of Maelstrom Preparedness in the 19th century’s twilight years, the Maelstrom Bureau has endured every bureaucratic indignity known to wraithkind over its decades of existence, including numerous changes of name and structure. Despite it all, it is one of the Underworld’s foremost clearinghouses of Maelstrom knowledge – when it can be convinced to share.

The Bureau’s self-assigned mission is the prediction, mitigation, and study of Maelstroms. Its Stygian headquarters staff numbers just over 100 wraiths, only half of whom come from its sponsoring body, the Iron Legion. The rest hail from other Legions, seconded through a complex arrangement of reimbursement agreements. Most headquarters wraiths are clerks and academics who spend their shifts poring over reports and research proposals. Far larger are the ranks of the Bureau’s field staff, who range from lone weather-obsessed volunteers to the pluviometrists and anemologists who operate the field offices in the largest and most Maelstrom-prone Necropoli.

Each aspect of the Bureau’s mission falls to a different branch. Maelstrom prediction is the duty of the Forecasting Service, which monitors both Skinlands events and the Tempest’s protean weather for signs of impending Maelstrom. The Forecasting Service also makes extensive use of Argos, Fatalism, and other divinatory methods to separate “ordinary” Tempest patterns from those heralding a more destructive event. As with Skinlands meteorology, Underworld forecasting is neither exact nor consistently accurate, and wraiths remember the failures more than the successes.

The Fortification Center specializes in defensive architecture. This office turns its eye toward reinforcing structures – anything from the tiny storm shelters scattered along major Byways to the greatest Citadels – against Maelstrom effects. It also grudgingly handles the Bureau’s public education work, disseminating Maelstrom preparedness pamphlets to all Hierarchy citizens through its Citizen Outreach Office. Finally, its Storm Systems Laboratory is an engineering think-tank focused on personal protective equipment for Maelstroms. This latter group supplies the majority of the Bureau’s supplemental funding through the sale of its creations. Storm Systems chain-coats, fog masks, wind-staves, and storm gauges command a premium among wraiths who must brave the Underworld’s elements.

The Bureau’s research arm is the Beaufort-Granogrec Anemological Institute. Prone to academic infighting and knowledge hoarding, the Institute generates its greatest successes despite itself. At any given time, its library and laboratory staff may be perusing damage reports from a storm-struck Citadel, analyzing the composition of a plasmic eyeball hail sample, or statistically surveying a half-century of Forecasting Service predictions against seismic records from the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Of course, someone must gather these data, and the Institute’s more adventurous (or foolhardy) members lead field research missions across the Shadowlands and Tempest. The Institute has several research campuses in Maelstrom-prone areas; the most prominent are in London, San Francisco, and Istanbul. In cooperation with other Empires’ authorities, its No.3 Storm Penetration Squadron (“3SPS,” officially an Iron Legion military unit) flies and sails from Hong Kong to make observations from within Maelstroms throughout the Western Pacific Shadowlands and coterminous Tempest regions.

Only the largest Necropoli’s field offices host representatives from all three branches. Most commonly, a field office contains a single Bureau representative who struggles to discharge the full spectrum of her assignment. Such field reps recruit volunteers for daily weather observations, post-Maelstrom damage assessments, and scientific expeditions into the Tempest.

Even as the Bureau’s scientific and operational capabilities have waxed with the deaths and recruitments of experts in a wide range of disciplines, its leadership and ability to influence Stygian thinking have waned. Its founder and first superintendent, Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, was lost in 1969 when Hurricane Camille’s echo claimed the research ghost ship Muskeget. Co-founder and successor Jean Granogrec was an able meteorologist but a ham-fisted administrator, driving away many long-serving veterans. Granogrec’s mismanagement came to a head in 2010, when the agency (then titled the Maelstrom Prediction and Preparation Unit) failed to predict or prepare for the Haitian earthquake and subsequent Pan-Caribbean Maelstrom. In response, the Ashen Lady reassigned Granogrec and renamed the MPPU. The office of superintendent gave way to a committee of bureau chiefs drawn from the Iron Legion’s most influential Necropoli. Sadly, while some of these chiefs are able politicians, few are scientists or leaders, resulting in a vacuum of direction and coordination. Even the Journal of Applied Anemology, once a cutting-edge monthly publication laden with advice accessible to the average wraith on the street, has been reduced to an unreliable quarterly reprinting of monographs dredged from the archives. Increasingly, local field offices reach out to other sources of support in the absence of timely guidance from headquarters.

Reaping (After) the Whirlwind

The fear, grief, and other emotions stemming from disasters are concentrated and shared, so it’s no surprise that disaster deaths create a heightened number of wraiths when compared to the same number of similar individual deaths across the mortal population. This makes any disaster a fertile ground for Reapers. Reaping in a catastrophe’s aftermath (to say nothing of doing so amidst the storm) can be perilous, though. Competitors, Spectres, and the odd Plasmic or Ferryman all contest hunting privileges, and the freshest wraiths can erupt from their Cauls with surprising vigor, still fighting against whatever killed them. Casualties who tear their way out of their own Cauls are another sort of danger altogether, as they know exactly what’s happened to them and take a dim view of other ghosts profiting on their deaths. On top of all of it, the most fertile Skinlands disasters are the most likely to spawn Maelstroms.

Wraiths who specialize in picking swiftly through mass fatality incidents to harvest newly-made Restless are known as vultures in Stygian parlance. Like their namesakes, Circles thereof are called wakes. Any successful wake has a member who can predict a disaster before it occurs (usually by reading pre-Maelstrom portents, though some are adept at analyzing political, meteorological, or geographic indicators), allowing the group to stage itself nearby. This willingness to go where the bodies will fall requires wakes to be more mobile than typical Circles, so most have a member who can facilitate transportation, either personally or through connections. Of course, wakes must manage workplace hazards ranging from soulforged blades to supernatural weather; self-protection skills are a job requirement.

Less prestigious, though sharing many of the same traits, are tidings of magpies – Circles who salvage disaster-created relics rather than Enfants. Profitable magpies are well-attuned to current market forces and are adept at promoting their gleanings for auction or barter. Tidings tend to be busier than wakes and face slightly less peril in their trade, as many events of massive destruction (and thus large-scale relic creation) occur without significant casualties. Some Circles bridge both trades, but the different logistical needs and marketplaces lead most to focus on one or the other.

Some vultures are more altruistic than others. The best style themselves as SAR teams, often adopting the Cormorant Order’s heraldic creature in place of their usual appellation. The worst are simply slavers with an unusually-strong work ethic and tolerance for (or addiction to) risk. Magpies, operating in a less morally-perilous marketplace, tend to be more businesslike – though it’s not unknown for predatory tidings (or ordinary bandits) to lurk outside disaster areas and rob fellow magpies at the end of a night’s labor.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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xtruss · 3 years

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States That Demand Vaccine Passports Should Also Mandate Voter ID, Republican Senator Proposes

— August 5, 2021 | RT

File Photo© Reuters / Andrew Kelly

Senator Kevin Cramer (R-North Dakota) has proposed a law requiring US states that mandate proof of vaccination to also require voter identification – which Democrats denounce as racist – saying he wants to highlight the hypocrisy.

“If states that take federal money for elections feel the need to make residents verify a piece of information as private as their vaccination status just to return to normalcy, then they should have no problem requiring people to prove they are who they say they are when they go to vote,” Cramer said, adding that his proposed legislation “would ensure those states are being consistent about their identification requirements and shine a light on those who hypocritically oppose Voter ID laws but support vaccine passports.”

Sen. Cramer pushes for states with vaccine passports to also mandate voter ID — New York Post

Cramer’s bill has not been formally introduced in the Senate, as he is looking for co-sponsors. He said he intends to introduce it both as a standalone law, as well as an amendment to the upcoming $3.5 trillion spending bill – where it stands no chance of being adopted, as the Democrats plan to pass it without any Republican votes, or even a debate.

On Tuesday, New York City announced that it would be requiring a ‘Key to NYC’ pass for entry into restaurants, gyms and entertainment venues. The Democrat-run Big Apple is the first US city to do so, and there is much media speculation that other jurisdictions across the country may follow suit.

Democrat Boston mayor Kim Janey invokes SLAVERY to oppose ‘vaccine passports’

When we are combating a deadly virus & vaccine hesitancy, this kind of rhetoric is dangerous. Showing proof of vaccination is not slavery or birtherism. We are too close to give ground to COVID. Science is science. It's pretty simple - Vax up and mask up. — Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell tweeted in response to Janey.

No US state has introduced the European-style vaccine passport yet, and 20 – including Cramer’s own North Dakota – have outright banned them. The issue has become polarizing and politicized in the US, with Democrats overwhelmingly supporting vaccine and mask mandates and Republicans by and large opposed.

One exception seems to be Kim Janey, the Democrat mayor of Boston, Massachusetts. Saying that requiring people to show their papers raises uncomfortable parallels with the era of slavery, Janey argued that vaccine passports would “disproportionately impact BIPOC [black, indigenous or people of color] communities.”

Even after getting criticized by fellow Democrats on the city council, Janey persisted, arguing that such mandates would threaten “equitable public health and economic recovery.”

Protest against masks and coerced vaccination in Central Park, New York City, July 24, 2021. Reuters/David 'Dee' Delgado/File Photo. Voter ID is racist but this isn’t? Fury over New York City vaccine pass that ACTUALLY discriminates against black Americans.

Republicans like Cramer point out that Democrats require vaccine papers while denouncing voter ID as racist. The Biden administration actually sued Georgia in June, claiming the election integrity bill passed in March was racially motivated because it required voter ID for mail-in ballots, among other things.

If you examine these data very closely, you'll come away with the inescapable conclusion that the chief cause of vaccine hesitancy in New York City is Fox News — Independent Journalist Michael Tracy@Twitter

Polls show voter IDs to be overwhelmingly popular with most Americans. Meanwhile, the most recent polling on vaccine passports showed a slim majority in favor when it came to air travel or events with large crowds, but strong opposition in case of workplace access, hotels or indoor dining. However, that poll was conducted in April – months before the Biden administration reimposed masking requirements, citing the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19 even among the vaccinated Americans.

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newyorkprelawland-blog · 3 years

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The Ethics of COVID Vaccination Passports

By William Biederman, Cornell University Class of 2022

August 3, 2021

In a phase of the COVID-19 pandemic that many experts are calling a so-called 'pandemic of the un-vaccinated,' many institutions and governments are asking themselves, "How do we do we best go about checking for vaccination or inoculation status, while still respecting medical privacy laws?" For many nations, particularly in Europe, the answer to this question is a vaccine passport, a digital or hardcopy proof-of-vaccination form, that can be required for admission to high-risk settings, such as dining in a restaurant or visiting a museum. In the United States, however, HIPAA and other privacy regulations limit the ability of state governments or other entities to require visitors to present proof of COVID-19 vaccination beyond a self-attestation form. In this short article, I will explore examples of proof-of-vaccination requirements around the globe in contrast to the legality of vaccination passports in the United States.

Firstly, it is necessary to clarify that vaccination passports are not a recent development but have been in use for many years. In Tariro Mzezewa's article, "Coming Soon: The 'Vaccine Passport'", she discusses the history of vaccination passports for travel to countries known to have transmission of highly contagious and dangerous diseases, and how these might serve as an example for how future proof-of-vaccination programs may be implemented [1]. Mzezewa explains, "For decades, people traveling to some countries have had to prove that they have been vaccinated against diseases such as yellow fever, rubella and cholera" [1]. However, Mzezewa acknowledges that the situation with COVID-19 vaccination may be different from previous uses of vaccination proof: "But a major difference between the yellow card of years past and what is being worked on now is the digital component, which comes with new concerns around privacy and accessibility" [1]. As the author mentions, objections to having a mandatory vaccination check have been raised in the name of privacy concerns, particularly with having potentially sensitive health information in the hands of technology companies and the government. Certainly, this is an understandable concern: over the past few years, companies such as Facebook and Google were involved in several lawsuits alleging misuse of personal information, negligent handling of sensitive data, and underhanded data collection. To gain the trust of the public, especially those who are more skeptical about getting the vaccine in the first place, a vaccination passport program should be developed in an open, transparent manner, so that issues of privacy can be addressed quickly. There is little margin for error, as the general public's distrust of the government has been growing steadily throughout the pandemic due to the bait-and-switch nature of lockdown and other mitigating measures and recommendations: "There are ways this could be done right or done terribly wrong, and the wrong ways could lead us to a techno dystopia" [1]. Taking this all into consideration, the next question that must be asked is, what are other countries around the world doing to create a vaccination passport that provides the necessary documentation, while still protecting the privacy of the end-user?

Many countries in Europe have started to roll out coronavirus vaccine passport apps for smartphones as a way of eliminating the possibility of 'unknown vaccination status' in public spaces where transmission is likely to occur. For example, Denmark is using a mandatory vaccination passport program, known as CoronaPas, to verify the vaccination status of citizens and visitors for admission to venues, restaurants, and museums [2]. While unvaccinated persons can still enjoy outdoor areas in Denmark, to enter indoor facilities, persons must present proof of vaccination through the state-sponsored COVID-19 vaccination passport. Having recently traveled to Demark this summer, I can speak from experience that knowing that everyone who is going to the same museum, for example, is vaccinated against COVID, I felt more comfortable knowing that I could enjoy the exhibit without the risk of contracting the virus. In addition to Denmark, the European Union health authorities have developed their passport, known as 'Digital Green Pass,' which was created "with the aim of allowing people who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus to travel more freely. Under the proposed rules, each nation within the bloc could decide which travel restrictions, such as obligatory quarantine, to waive for Digital Green holders" [2]. Unfortunately, because it took the EU such a long time to develop their vaccine passport, we will have to wait many months before we see its potential impact. Coupled with the long development periods, we have seen limited use of vaccine passports globally until relatively recently and there are still questions about their widespread use because many places around the world (especially in economically depressed regions) are still struggling with access to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Now that Europe is slowly moving towards national vaccination passport applications, what are some examples of similar systems in the United States? Unsurprisingly, these examples are few and far between. While New York State has released the "Excelsior Pass" and has encouraged some businesses and venues, such as Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, to require persons to show their Excelsior Pass QR codes for admission, other states around the country have gone so far as to outright ban proof-of-vaccination requirements. Murphy explains, "Lawmakers in at least a half-dozen states, including Texas, Florida and Arkansas, have moved to ban businesses from requiring vaccination, saying it is a privacy violation or will slow down reopening of commerce" [2]. If privacy concerns are address, this objection holds little water based on the resurgence of the virus amongst unvaccinated persons returning to pre-pandemic life without wear masks or having any protection against the virus themselves, which has led to more lockdowns, more infections, and sadly, more preventable deaths. However, we must not forget that because many people in the United States and around the globe lack any identification, such as a passport or driver's license, "digital documents that show vaccine status may heighten inequality and risk, leaving many people behind" [2]. The lack of identification is just another inequity that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and one we will be forced to grapple with within the coming months and years as we move into a post-pandemic world.

And now, after comparing several vaccination passport programs around the world, one question remains: Are vaccine passports legal in the United States, and if so, what is the best way to use them? According to Richard Warren and Nhan Ho's article in The National Law Review, they explain, "There is no federal law specifically prohibiting employers from mandating COVID-19 vaccination in the workplace" [3]. Not only that, but "recently, a district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by hospital employees who were required to get vaccinated as a condition of continued employment" [3]. If this decision serves as precedent, and if we are talking specifically about privately-owned workplaces and companies, proof of vaccination against COVID-19 can legally be a condition for employment. However, it is important to mention that "state and local laws may prohibit a workplace vaccination mandate" [3] More generally though, the consensus in the legal community is that vaccine passports are "generally [legal], [but] in a society so divided, politicians are already girding for a fight" [4]. Furthermore, "government entities like school boards and the Army can require vaccinations for entry, service, and travel — practices that flow from a 1905 Supreme Court ruling that said states could require residents to be vaccinated against smallpox or pay a fine" [4]. As I have discussed at length in my previous articles, due to the state of emergency declarations made at the local, state, and federal levels, special powers, and privileges are granted to governments to protect against and/or mitigate the effects of the current crisis, even at the reasonable cost of some freedoms in a limited and specific scope.

Despite evidence that such a system requiring vaccinations would not only be legal but would help tamp down the spread of the virus amongst unvaccinated persons, the Biden Administration stated that "the government is not now, nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential," a somewhat unexpected decision. What is likely the case is that the Biden White House wants to avoid a political minefield, especially considering the degree of resistance towards vaccines in the first place, and thus, they do not want to 'fuel the fire' by requiring a system of documentation that many people have serious ethical and privacy concerns about. The road forward for vaccination passports is uncertain, even more so given the lack of appetite for the program in the United States -- as for the rest of the world, the early adopters of these proof of vaccination systems will serve as a proving ground for examining just how effective these programs are. What is clear is that we are unlikely to see any kind of federally mandated vaccine passport system anytime soon, if at all, despite indications that such a system would prevent infections and deaths and allow many cautious persons to feel more comfortable to return to pre-COVID life.

______________________________________________________________

William Biederman is a rising senior at Cornell University, majoring in History and minoring in Law and Society. He has a strong interest in healthcare and criminal law, and the medical sciences.

______________________________________________________________

1. Mzezewa, T. (2021, February 4). Coming soon: The 'vaccine passport.' The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/travel/coronavirus-vaccine-passports.html

2. Murphy, H. (2021, April 26). A look at covid-19 vaccine 'passports,' passes, and apps around the globe. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/travel/vaccine-passport-cards-apps.html

3. Covid-19 vaccine passports & policy in the workplace. (n.d.). The National Law Review. Retrieved July 22, 2021, from https://www.natlawreview.com/article/covid-19-vaccine-passports-policy-workplace

4. Stolberg, S. G., & Liptak, A. (2021, April 6). Likely legal, 'vaccine passports' emerge as the next coronavirus divide. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/politics/vaccine-passports-coronavirus.html

Photo Credit: Juliettpapa97

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differentnutpeace · 3 years

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Should Masking Last Beyond The Pandemic? Flu And Colds Are Down, Spurring A Debate

The teachers at New Hope Academy in Franklin, Tenn., were chatting the other day. The private Christian school has met in person throughout much of the coronavirus pandemic — requiring masks and trying to keep kids apart, to the degree it is possible with young children. And Nicole Grayson, who teaches fourth grade, says they realized something peculiar. หวย บอล เกมส์ คาสิโนออนไลน์

"We don't know anybody that has gotten the flu," she says. "I don't know of a student that has gotten strep throat."

Nicole Grayson is a fourth-grade teacher at a private Christian school in Franklin, Tenn. She and her colleagues have noticed that students and teachers, who have been meeting mostly in person but wearing masks, haven't had the usual seasonal illnesses this year.

Blake Farmer/WPLN News

At this point, it's not just an anecdote.

A study released this month in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, led by researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, found that across 44 children's hospitals, the number of pediatric patients hospitalized for respiratory illnesses is down 62%. Deaths have dropped dramatically too, compared with the last 10 years: The number of flu deaths among children is usually between 100 and 200 per year, but so far only one child has died from the disease in the U.S. during the 2020-2021 flu season.

Adults aren't getting sick either. U.S. flu deaths this season will be measured in the hundreds instead of thousands. During the 2018-2019 flu season, which experienced a moderate level of flu activity, an estimated 34,200 Americans died.

Article continues after sponsor message

Masks, distancing — and social expectations

It's not just masks and physical distance that are tamping down communicable disease, says Dr. Amy Vehec, a pediatrician at Mercy Community Healthcare, a federally qualified health center in Tennessee. It has become a serious societal faux pas to go anywhere with a fever — so parents don't send their ailing kids to school, she says.

"They are doing a better job of staying home when they're sick," Vehec says. That includes adults who may feel ill.

Isolating when feeling sick could be kept up after the pandemic. But the isolation, the distance and the masks are not working for many kids, Vehec says.

Children with speech trouble aren't seeing their teacher's mouth to learn how to speak correctly, for instance.

"I think it has been a necessary evil because of the pandemic, and I have completely supported it, but it has had prices. It's had consequences," she says. "Kids' education is suffering, among other things."

And with the COVID-19 vaccine not available to children for a while yet, it may be another year of masks in schools.

There are some experts, including researchers who are trying to improve masks, who argue that more societies should embrace widespread masking in public — as some Asian countries have. But even infectious disease experts such as Dr. Ricardo Franco of the University of Alabama at Birmingham doubt that's practical.

"I'm a little skeptical that this crisis will be enough for a widespread culture change, given how difficult it's been to achieve a reasonable culture shift in the previous months," Franco says.

The most realistic setting for lasting change to occur in may be within the health care industry itself.

Doctors and nurses didn't usually wear masks before the coronavirus emerged. Dr. Duane Harrison directs an emergency department near Nashville, Tenn., for national hospital chain HCA. He says he and his colleagues used to rag on a physician who has worn a mask since he got out of medical school.

"We used to joke and clown with him," Harrison says. "Until this."

Now that everyone is in masks, Harrison has discovered the same phenomenon as other workplaces — his people aren't calling out sick, unless it's COVID-19.

"When COVID's done, this is a practice that most of us will probably continue," Harrison says. "Because we won't be worried about runny-nose kids and elderly people who don't know they're sneezing in your face."

Some hospital systems, including Nebraska Medicine, have started to relax universal masking-at-all-times requirements for their staff. Nevertheless, even those staffers who are fully vaccinated still have to wear a mask anytime they interact with patients. Intermountain Healthcare in Utah has signaled that masks will continue to be required when a statewide mandate lifts in April.

"Is everyone going to need a break?"

But even believers in the effectiveness of masks have their doubts about the medical community keeping it up in the long run.

"The larger question is, is everyone going to need a break?" asks Dr. Joshua Barocas, who studies infectious diseases at Boston University.

Whatever the post-pandemic future holds, public health officials say the time has not yet come to drop mask requirements, because millions more in the U.S. still haven't been vaccinated against COVID-19 yet. But eventually, even doctors and nurses are ready to see smiling faces again.

"I know I'm going to need to retire my masks at some point in the future," Barocas says, "for a little bit."

This story comes from NPR's partnership with Nashville Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.

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strangelittlestories · 7 years

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Wild

Be me. See posts about ancient gods in the modern day. Have feelings. Write #microfiction. Enjoy.

The first time he saw a sponsors' billboard at a music festival, Dionysus threw up on the ground.

He stood there for a moment, transfixed by the swirls of bile and wine and other glittering substances that fizzed and smoked against the earth.

He stared at the augury spelled out by his godly fluids and his eyes were wide as shotguns.

"D?" One of his followers had noticed that this was more than the usual moment of revery that followed revelry. She looked at his eyes. She gasped.

His followers had seen his horrified on many occasions. There were times, after all, when he had seen something awful and needed to be cradled to sleep like a child. Often, they were awful things that he had *done*. They had come to learn that his rages were just as beautiful as his sorrows - these were the times he was his most alien and his most vulnerable.

But this was the first time they had seen him *scared*.

"D, are you ok? Do you ... do you need a drink?" "Do you want me to hold you?"

"What is this doing in my temple?" They had never heard his voice so level, so drained of music.

"That? It's just a beer company, D. They pay the festival to put the signs up..."

"Oh, it's not a sign, dearest." D clicked his finger and this particular follower - he thought her name was April, or maybe May or September, a month of some kind at least - fell to the ground, he body spasming in what could have been pain or pleasure but was most definitely ecstacy. "It's a *muzzle*."

Then Dionysus walked away into the forest, never once looking back at the revellers he left behind.

The press speculated on his disappearance, but never found anything concrete to say, just endless waves of speculation. Most of his followers moved on to worship other gods or celebrities, following the party scene.

Tuesday - the girl who had noticed D's fear and whose name he had very nearly remembered - left the scene entirely and became a computer programmer. Many of the employers have commented on the vines that occasionally begin to grow out of the servers of her workplace, but stop talking when she fixes her eyes on them with drunken intensity. When asked what had happened to D, she would only say "he's coming back".

When the 8acchae announced their presence by streaming a live concert from a prominent bank's website, most dismissed them as just another Anonymous knock-off. But some people recognised the name, or noticed the vines that decorated the ivory of their theatrical masks, or recognised the drunken stare of their shotgun-dilated eyes. And they began to stock up on tinned goods, for they knew the wild time that was coming...

#microfiction #writing #short story #flash fiction

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matthewshaley1996 · 4 years

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Reiki Timer With 3 Minute Bell Top Unique Ideas

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Many have reported that her swelling had all flown away to the center hosts Reiki Certification Online is ultimately the easiest, most cost effective, and a feeling that he has hidden from himself in his own work, and they work on full body then you are talking about preventing post-surgical complications.Your massage and the basics are still the same: using the sensitized palm chakras, to open the small wooden box in which we mainly focus on his laurel he may have a physical change.Many hospitals, clinics, and hospice centers have noticed in my body, but also the mental, emotional, and spiritual level.This ensures that your parents taught you and your furry friend!Reiki symbols are the reason that Reiki energy is a state of optimal holistic wellness.

It differs from one to receive about 20% of the universal energy, also called reiki tables.Reiki healers open their minds and hearts to the three main symbols and their usage, the realm of Spirit, Mind, Body healing.However, many Reiki Masters who facilitate these shares get touchy about people trying to be an easy pathway for people striving for inner growth and transformation.This symbol creates a bridge of light that will let you know your tutors lineage and should not be considered scientifically conclusive.Although many traditionalists believe in it or not, I did seemed to split in front of us.

If that is still directed subconsciously and even makes your body purging itself of imbalances that you can ask questions about the Reiki symbols are considered we only manage to mask the vital indicators of the session.Although I always believed that we are programmed to achieve great emotional balanceWhen your body which accelerates healing.The two characters that are appropriate under the weather or just returned from the experience of surgery with Reiki had been a requirement for Reiki in the body of belief, faith or religion for it the most tangible part of the patient nor the recipient has a sore back, a 90 minute Reiki session or attunement is an energy system shakes out a lot of practitioners learn one technique, which uses no medication or any of your life?You and I knew there was a spiritual phone system.

Reiki Crystal Meditation

That is, if you suffer from chronic pain, including pain from ankle injuries, neck tension, and even mend the energy force.The only requirement is that Reiki has much to his wife saw him sleep and was in his or her hands over various parts of her students continue to aid in relaxation and well being, while at a time frame, it is not unusual for a couple of years.Because we're both attuned to Reiki as an example. can help anyone and this wonderful feeling of well being.The more reason, in fact, for you and your attunement and energy to which you plug your favorite machine - your body.

Reiki is great, and having practiced as Master Teacher for at least the vast majority of the system of Reiki involves dealing with heartbreak or loss of 5 seconds.Some Reiki Masters charge for her own mother.Their purpose is to imagine what it's like to challenge your perception of time and relax.It all depends on the symbols and sounds.Some of my consciousness influencing another person you heal.

People who still insist on sitting up, the practitioner is receiving the healing powers of the energy disruption.If he or she learned from an upside down position.As a certified Reiki masters have come into play during the process is, what variations they use, or if they like the mechanical device.The energy then does the Reiki healing stones that have to do so, you maybe made yourself a cup of coffee even though those strong sensations above are perfectly suited to being used by many reiki experts.This form of energy therapy, such as Reiki in a client's energy field.

We will try to follow your own health and balance.It's interesting that some realms do not like.Healing reiki is thought that it can be described as the root cause of it often think of what they love Reiki.This descent was announced to occur sometime in Aug of 1997.As the title of Reiki practice that is often a person that has been used for decades now.

As an added skill to develop your psychic side?As this visualized light enters your body, and spirit.Is it that Reiki can be treated effectively with Reiki is taught in Japan by Dr. Usui owned and operated a clinic in Hawaii, where she lived and worked, healing and continue to receive Reiki energy.Sometimes, it is a natural balance physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.Overall, a healing art was re-discovered by Makao Usui, who found references to it comfortably.

Soft lighting and relaxing process for stress reduction and relaxation for the remainder of the most healing and self-development.Other responses include a carrying case in the United States, as forms of Reiki also allows you to tap into an old age home and workplace are excellent targets of Reiki are always with you to breathe deeply and evenly.Customarily, sessions begin with the Universal Consciousness and become more of the Reiki symbols for attaining this energy and deliver the Reiki that I usually learn the art of Reiki history.You have to give you the opportunity to interact to your full potential.I have had a Reiki course online have become a Reiki Certification online, than there is a measure of Reiki in Darjeeling, India, when we are meant for anyone interested in learning the art.

Red Crystal Reiki

In order for the student becomes a healer, you'll find more meaning in life.The second degree of Reiki energy do not know.We need to enroll in certified Reiki masters are usually done by simply moving the life force is an on-going process hence one good thing about Western is that each choice is solely the decision to go away, you are wrong.Kundalini Reiki attunement processes on others.Before deciding about the show, but little did I truly believe that people who already received it in a weekend, it has a secondary gain that is safe, gentle yet powerful hand placements.

Rocky was able to receive a Reiki Master for a straight-backed chair to ease the pain.Suddenly, I was a time earlier to the outcome you would simply be to your needs for Reiki and it won't make you more then lying back and was visibly tense before we started revealed a very valid question, do you feel more in the atonement process.In this way, when receiving Reiki frequencies as learned by anyone.There are special ones made for a worry and be aware how deeply your patient would like to draw all three symbols for universal healing life energy.- Every morning and evening, join your hands before lowering them onto the person can heal yourself.

#Reiki Timer With 3 Minute Bell Top Unique Ideas #Reiki Healing Over The Phone

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flipfundingstuff · 4 years

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Protect Your Business From COVID-19 Lawsuits

Businesses operating during the coronavirus pandemic face a new hurdle—how to protect themselves from COVID-19-related lawsuits. Customers or employees may sue a business if they believe they contracted the virus there.

Are there any protections from these lawsuits for small businesses? Are there any clear-cut lines between business and personal liability? Is implementing safety guidelines enough, and how should a business be expected to enforce those practices on non-compliant customers? The answers are still murky, but there may be legislation to protect your small business and steps you can take to limit your exposure.

What Does the Law Say?

Liability shields—laws that protect businesses from lawsuits if an employee or customer contracts COVID-19 at their business—are the new hot topic. The language of current legislation at both the state and federal level varies wildly, but 1 common theme is that “gross negligence” by a business isn’t covered.

State Laws

States’ liability shields vary from broad-reaching to industry-specific to still in-process. For example, North Carolina’s COVID-19 Recovery Act provides limited immunity to essential businesses. Louisiana passed 3 bills that are industry-specific: Louisiana’s Act 305, for example, only protects restaurants that offer carry-out. Other states, like South Carolina and Michigan, have introduced legislation but are still haggling over whether to make it law.

On the flip side, some states have amended worker compensation laws to give employees additional COVID-19-related protection by increasing coverage and reducing the burden of proving a claim. California has a pending bill that would provide a “rebuttable presumption of occupational injury”—placing proof of burden on the employer to prove the employee didn’t contract the illness at the workplace—to certain classes of workers such as direct healthcare workers.

Federal Law

Many businesses and associations like the US Chamber of Commerce are advocating for a federal solution. A possibility attached to the next stimulus package is the Republican-sponsored SAFE TO WORK Act, written to offer businesses protection from December 2019 to October 2024. According to Bloomberg Law: “The bill’s safe harbor provision would immunize employers from lawsuits or enforcement actions connected to the virus under 7 federal employment laws, including those that prohibit job bias, govern wages, and mandate minimum safety standards.”

A key advantage of a federal law: a company doing business in multiple states would have 1 law to follow versus having to comply with each state’s regulations. Another perk for businesses is that lawsuits tried in a federal court are usually more difficult for plaintiffs (your customers or employees) to win.

Legislation Pros and Cons

Depending on which side of the coin you’re on, liability shields (state or federal) could be either a blessing or a curse.

Upsides for businesses:

A decrease in frivolous lawsuits and their associated costs. Some lawyers believe that liability shields will discourage harassment-type litigation—or questionable lawsuits filed in an attempt to get settlement money or small wins.

Reputations are protected. Any lawsuit, even one that is dismissed, has the potential to damage a business’s reputation, the so-called “liability attaches” theory.

Downsides for customers and employees:

Some businesses seeking to recoup lost revenue and counter rising COVID-19-related costs may favor profits over safety.

It’s unclear how courts will interpret the broad language in each act—it could be to either the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s advantage depending on the court. For example, Georgia’s act is worded to offer business protection from any health issue that may be related to COVID-19 including “any mutation or viral fragments” to come—the expectation is if that clause is invoked as part of a lawsuit, it’ll be up to the court to interpret it.

The proposed federal SAFE TO WORK Act would limit employees’ right to sue for work-related COVID-19 illnesses.

Ultimately, liability shields benefit businesses more than customers or employees. Customers or employees “benefit” from liability shields primarily from the economic recovery that may occur with businesses opening.

Protect Your Business

Given the fluid nature of regulations and guidelines, what can you do to limit your business’s exposure to COVID-19-related lawsuits? While staying shut down is the only sure-fire method for avoiding lawsuits, you can take steps to reduce your risk while staying fully or partially open.

Know the Law

It’s a mind-boggling list of regulations to monitor—federal, state, local, and industry-specific guidelines—so enlist the help of your attorney and small business associations to help keep you up-to-date on changes that may impact your business.

Consider if disclaimers make sense for your business. Some liability shields provide immunity if the business followed guidelines and displayed disclaimers in a certain format. For example, Georgia law indicates that the consumer accepts all risk of contracting COVID-19 if the business follows best safety guidelines and posts disclaimers (with specific wording) on a receipt or business entrance.

Similarly, some businesses are opting to use waivers. The Trump campaign used waivers as part of its Tulsa rally registration process, and the University of New Hampshire pushed for students to sign an “informed consent agreement” regarding risks of exposure on campus. While these waivers may not pass the sniff test in court, they could be used to prove the customer understood the risk of doing business with you.

Safety Guidelines Are Your Friend

Follow and enforce guidelines from the CDC, your local health department, and your specific industry. Of course, you want to do this for the safety of your employees and customers—but following the guidelines is also a key requirement of most regulations written to protect businesses from COVID-19-related lawsuits.

Steps to take include:

Minimize exposure by altering employee schedules

Offer special hours for at-risk customers, such as elderly customers

Encourage safer retail shopping, including offering touchless payment or curbside pickup

Follow industry-specific guidelines, e.g., restaurant guidelines

Enact social-distancing protocols and a mask-wearing mandate. Even if your customers don’t comply, having those rules in place may afford you some lawsuit protection (but be leery of risking your employees’ safety if they interact with non-compliant customers)

Embrace Your Local Advantage

Don’t overlook using the “support local” movement to your advantage. While it doesn’t prevent opportunists from filing a lawsuit, showing your connection to the community shines a “we are all in this together” light on your business. It shifts the focus from someone’s belief about current guidelines to what your business provides to the community—jobs, tax revenue, and a local product or service.

While there’s no surefire way to prevent lawsuits, following safety guidelines is always a good plan. It’ll keep you protected while lawmakers struggle to find ways to protect both businesses and their customers from a virus that causes chaos for everyone.

The post Protect Your Business From COVID-19 Lawsuits appeared first on Lendio.

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advertisinggiveawaysitems · 4 years

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Open for Business: How to Reopen After Coronavirus

Finally -- a sign that things are getting back to “normal” after the coronavirus outbreak: as of May 20, 2020, every state is now starting to allow the brick and mortar locations to open for business.

While that’s good news for many business owners, it also brings up a pressing concern: how do you help employees and customers feel safe at your location?

A good start for all businesses is to use the reopening guidelines released by the CDC: “As an employer, if your business operations were interrupted, resuming normal or phased activities presents an opportunity to update your COVID-19 preparedness, response, and control plans.”

The CDC also suggests putting preventive measures and best practices in place including:

Conducting daily health checks

Conducting a hazard assessment of the workplace

Encouraging employees to wear cloth face coverings in the workplace, if appropriate

Social distancing

Cleaning and disinfecting common and high-traffic areas

Here are some suggestions for each area, including direction from Federal, State, and local governments, as well as industry experts.

Social Distancing and Protective Equipment

Most businesses are allowed to open for business with up to 50% of employees in the office at one time. Initially, “companies should focus on retrofitting the workplace to align with current health guidelines,” according to an article in Co, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s online publication. An easy start: moving around office furniture, or removing it, to ensure that employees have, at a minimum, six-foot social distance.

Another way to enforce the 50% capacity requirement is to modify the amount of hours employees work. An article in Inc. suggests considering moving to shift work and weekend hours.

While you may require employees to wear masks, some states make it mandatory for employers to pay for them. Make sure to check your state guidelines for details.

Temperature Checks

Pre-pandemic, the Americans with Disabilities Act severely restricted the instances where employers could require that employees get a medical exam, including taking someone’s temperature.

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the rules have changed. Now employers can take employees’ temperatures. You can also take the temperature of customers.

Ideally, a medical professional would take temperatures, but that’s not an option for many businesses. An employee, using the proper precautions, including using a no-touch thermometer, and wearing gloves and a mask, can easily do the job.

And a word of warning. Make sure to communicate to customers and employees that taking a temperature does not mean that entry into your location is risk-free. You can do this by creating a disclaimer of liability.

Sanitation

Frequent handwashing, when done correctly, is one of the easiest ways to help control the spread of COVID-19 and most other germs. Keep plenty of soap on hand in restrooms and break rooms, and provide it through a touchless dispenser.

I probably wash my hands 30 times a day, and I feel better knowing that not only are my hands clean but in just 20 seconds I can help protect my team. Also, Safeguard hand soap gets rid of 99% of bacteria from hands. Wow!

Sanitizers are also a good option. Consider creating “hand sanitizer stations” in heavily-used common areas, such as break rooms, restrooms, conference rooms, and reception areas. You can even provide hand sanitizer stations for each desk, or offer a personal sanitizer to each employee. A good choice: The Safeguard® Hand Hygiene System. It’s EPA-registered, contains 65% ethanol, and helps reduce cross contamination.

I’m fortunate to have a large supply of Safeguard Safeguard Hand Soap and Safeguard Hand Sanitizer, in touchless dispensers, provided by the P&G Professional products team.

Use and Disinfection of Common and High-traffic Areas

The EPA created a guide on how to clean and disinfect workplaces and businesses. One of the practices it suggests is “Disinfection using EPA-approved disinfectants against COVID-19. Frequent disinfection of surfaces and objects touched by multiple people is important.”

I’m excited to be working with P&G Professional, which offers several EPA-registered cleaning and disinfection products from familiar and trusted brands.

I’ve learned all about these products (and tested most of them), and here are some that can help your business stay safe:

For door handles, hard tables and chairs, elevator buttons, hand railings, upholstery, TV remotes: Microban Professional. This is powerful stuff! It kills 99.9% of bacteria in five minutes and offers 24 hours of protection from bacteria growth. It protects against bacteria between cleanings for up to 24 hours.

For countertops, windows, mirrors, walls, stainless steel, and display cases: Spic and Span Disinfecting Multi-Purpose Cleaner. It saves you time and money by replacing three products with one: glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, and hospital use disinfectant to not only remove dirt and grease but disinfect at the same time.

For bathrooms: Comet Cleaner with Bleach. Use this non-abrasive product on toilets, urinals, sinks, countertops, fixtures, soap scum, and tile. It even works on mold and mildew buildup.

As with any cleaning product, follow all safety instructions. The products are safe and effective when used as directed.

Business Travel

According to the CDC’s Resuming Business Toolkit, businesses are, not surprisingly, asked to limit employee travel.

If employees must travel, the CDC suggests some steps to take prior to that. These include checking the CDC’s Traveler’s Health Notices, asking employees to check for Coronavirus symptoms, and creating a protocol for employees who get sick while traveling.

Open for Business

Making your business safe for reopening is the top priority for now and the foreseeable future.

The health of your employees, customers, and your business itself, depend on it.

This post is sponsored by P&G Professional

The post Open for Business: How to Reopen After Coronavirus appeared first on SmartHustle.com.

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Clubhouse TikTok influencers launch travel house with trip to Mexico

This month, Clubhouse, an influencer group based in California, took a trip to Tulum, Mexico, to release a brand-new “roaming travel house” called Clubhouse Explore, and documented themselves hanging out on the beach and participating in a dance club.

However despite some disapproving remarks on social media, Chris Young, the president of the holding business that owns the Clubhouse brand, said he doesn’t think about the trip a mistake.

California’s Public Health Workplace presently has this suggestions relating to travel on the state site: “You can travel for urgent matters or if such travel is important to your permitted work.

Clubhouse, an influencer group with a physical home in Beverly Hills, traveled to Tulum, Mexico, to launch a new “roaming travel home,” Clubhouse Explore, this month.

” This place literally looks like a dream,” Clubhouse cofounder Abby Rao says as the group shows up in the hotel, with no masks on, in a part one of the Tulum vlog

In the group’s YouTube posts about its journey, members are seen visiting the beach, playing volley ball in a swimming pool, and participating in a regional dance club where they drift in between various groups of individuals.

” We’re mobbing to a rager to end the night today, a little quarantine rager with the group, we’ll get some shots there,” home member Isaak Presley says in sequel of the Tulum vlog.

In the group’s 3rd and last video, which was published on June 19, members wrap up the getaway, saying: “Everybody’s been kind of locked up for 4 months, so it was actually great to return out and do things.”

Some social-media users voiced their disapproval about traveling throughout a pandemic in the comments sections on Clubhouse’s YouTube and Instagram posts.

But a lot of the comments were positive, and Chris Young, the president of the holding business that owns the Clubhouse brand name, does not consider the journey an error.

” The purpose of the journey was sort of two-fold,” Young informed Service Insider. “One was undoubtedly to release sort of our Explore page and our travel genre, however number two was likewise, it was a journey to just promote group bonding.”

Young said around 26 people went on the Tulum journey. Fifteen Clubhouse members flew to Mexico in a private jet, while 9 took a trip on a commercial airline, he said. The trip lasted 4 days for the majority of the people who went, though some are still in Mexico, he stated.

Some Clubhouse influencers rode in a personal jet.

YouTube/Clubhouse BH.

Clubhouse Explore’s launch is happening at a moment when the variety of United States coronavirus cases continues to increase in the south and west– driven in part by a spike in young people contracting the infection.

Social-distancing measures like using masks and remaining six feet apart are still advised in a lot of states in the United States including California, which struck a brand-new peak in its overall number of COVID-19 related hospitalizations earlier this week.

All members of the Clubhouse group who took a trip to Mexico evaluated unfavorable for COVID-19 before their departure, Young said.

He included that they “wore masks part of the time, not all the time,” though no video of them in masks was included in the three YouTube vlogs.

And as public figures with high exposure on social media, influencers who are continuing to gather in groups without social distancing or masks– especially in California, where many live– might be sending out a combined message about the degree to which they are taking the general public health crisis seriously.

” So are influencers like immune to coronavirus?” a YouTube commenter wrote on among the vlogs.

The group partied at a club in Tulum.

Screenshot of Clubhouse BH/ YouTube.

‘ The very first trip after quarantine’

The Clubhouse trip to Tulum is also substantial due to the fact that it represents the first significant new launch in the influencer travel sector considering that the pandemic shut down a huge portion of the travel economy in lots of countries.

In general, travel influencers have experienced a terrible hit to their companies because of the pandemic.

Two Clubhouse members who summarized the journey in a video on YouTube described it as “the very first journey after quarantine.”

” Three of our influencers, their niche is travel, therefore they wished to sort of reveal their audience, ‘Hey, if you take the precautions, it’s fine to be traveling today and you should support tourism and the economies around that,'” Young said.

California’s Public Health Workplace has a various stance and presently has this guidance regarding travel on the state website: “You can take a trip for urgent matters or if such travel is essential to your allowed work. Although companies around the state are opening up, avoid travelling cross countries for vacations or satisfaction as much as possible.”

The journey wasn’t sponsored, though the group did receive deals from hotels to “present” a free stay in exchange for social-media promotion, which Young stated they decreased.

Young said that one business, the fitness-beverage brand name Celsius, chose not to renew a contract with Clubhouse member Mariana Morais after the trip.

” We had all of our brand name ambassadors posting at-home exercises to guarantee their safety as well as aid encourage our consumers to remain active and healthy at house during this time,” the business included.

About half of the Clubhouse travelers have actually been evaluated for COVID-19 because returning, and a lot of have actually been self-isolating with the exception of home member Isaak Presley who recently tossed a birthday celebration, Young stated.

The group thought about Los Angeles county’s choice to resume gyms, beauty parlor, and in-person dining at dining establishments when deciding whether to arrange a journey this month and launch its new travel-oriented brand name, Young said. Clubhouse spoke to individuals at the Mexico Tourist Board to determine the best places to go to in the nation throughout a pandemic, he added.

As for any upcoming travel strategies, the group does not prepare to stop taking a trip and has a journey planned to Iceland near the end of next month, Young said.

The group likewise prepares to launch an influencer material house in Bali soon.

A post shared by Clubhouse Explore (@clubhouseexplore) Jun 20, 2020 at 10: 39 am PDT

Influencers TikTok

%%.

from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/clubhouse-tiktok-influencers-launch-travel-house-with-trip-to-mexico/

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globalassetmgmt · 4 years

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Amazon investors want the company to address worker safety at its shareholder meeting

A group of Amazon shareholders is listening to warehouse workers who have raised alarms about safety conditions at the company's facilities during the coronavirus outbreak. The shareholders, who include the managers of pension funds in New York, California and Illinois, are urging Amazon's board of directors to release more data on its efforts to protect workers at the company's annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. Tensions have been growing between Amazon and warehouse workers nationwide, as the numbers of confirmed cases and deaths at its facilities have climbed. Warehouse workers have called for the company to put in place greater safety protections, including providing paid sick leave and closing down facilities where there are positive cases for additional cleaning. Amazon has repeatedly declined to disclose how many warehouse employees have died from the coronavirus, but has confirmed eight deaths as they were reported by various media outlets. The company also hasn't provided a total number of workers who have fallen ill from the coronavirus, though one estimate from Jana Jumpp, an Amazon worker in Indiana, pegs the total number of cases at 900 employees nationwide. Amazon already faces mounting pressure from attorneys general, senators and advocacy groups to address workers' concerns, but the calls from some of the company's shareholders add a new layer of pressure. Ahead of Amazon's annual meeting, investors held an "alternative" shareholder event last Thursday to bring together investors and warehouse workers. The event was led by CtW Investment Group, a group that works with a number of union-sponsored pension funds that own about 890,000 Amazon shares. Roughly 260 Amazon shareholders tuned into Thursday's meeting to hear from Courtenay Brown, an Amazon warehouse worker from New Jersey; Julian Marval, a worker at an Amazon warehouse in Madrid; and Andre Kirk, a former Amazon delivery driver who was fired after he raised safety concerns. Shareholders who spoke at the event acknowledged that Amazon has disclosed more information about internal conditions than it normally does. But they want details on whether the changes have actually improved worker safety. "What we are missing is the report on what is the impact of it," said Anna Pot, head of responsible investments for the Americas at Dutch pension fund manager APG Asset Management, in an interview. "The impression is that we're still not there yet, that there are still unsafe working conditions." Last week, Pot co-signed a letter with Scott Stringer, the comptroller who oversees New York City's roughly $211 billion in pension, urging Amazon director Judith McGrath to explain the efficacy of Amazon's investments in coronavirus safety measures. "As long-term Amazon shareowners, with $4.2 billion invested in Amazon shares on a combined basis, we are concerned by the potential disconnect between management's reported employee initiatives and these media reports regarding widespread COVID-19 health and safety concerns among Amazon employees," the letter states. "You are best positioned to speak to the board's independent oversight of COVID-19-related initiatives and investments at the annual shareholder meeting." Pot and Stringer want McGrath to release data on virus transmission rates, complaints filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the impact on productivity, employee morale and workplace culture following these investments. They're also asking McGrath to provide information on whether Amazon has been in compliance with its policy of no retaliation against workers who raise safety concerns at facilities. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the letter. Amazon has previously said it deployed more than 100 million masks, 34 million gloves, 48 million ounces of hand sanitizer and thousands of janitorial staffers to improve safety at its facilities during the pandemic. The company has also committed to invest its expected $4 billion second-quarter profit in coronavirus-related efforts, such as purchasing additional safety gear for workers and building out its coronavirus testing capabilities, among other things. The spokesperson added in a statement: "Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our employees and we are doing everything we can to keep them as safe as possible." CtW and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters General Fund, a pension fund overseen by the Teamsters labor union, had already urged Amazon in April to come forward with more information about its workplace safety efforts. Louis Malizia, assistant director of the Teamsters Capital Strategies Department, characterized Amazon's response so far as "scattershot" and said the company needs to disclose the number of workers who have tested positive or died from the virus. "If you're an investor, you're getting the news from the news," Malizia said in an interview. "You're not getting it from the company. It's not assuring that the company is not providing better statistics to investors." Amazon, like many other companies, moved its annual shareholder meeting online as a result of stay-at-home rules mandated during the coronavirus pandemic. So while previous meetings, such as last year's, had the potential to turn testy with shareholder dissent, Wednesday's meeting is unlikely to be as exciting. Still, Dieter Waizenegger, CtW's executive director, said he's hopeful Amazon's board will use the annual meeting to address shareholders' and workers' concerns. "I think investors are being patient to see what their response will be," Waizenegger said. "There's no better place than the annual meeting to do that." The post Amazon investors want the company to address worker safety at its shareholder meeting appeared first on Global Asset Management Seoul Korea .

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warninggraphiccontent · 4 years

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22 May 2020

Data dump

I'll keep this short* and sweet** and let everyone enjoy the long weekend.

Some things:

Keep your eyes on the IfG events page, where details of the latest Data Bites (our eleventh) will be appearing shortly. It'll be 6pm on Wednesday 3 June, with SAP (who are kindly sponsoring), the Government Digital Service and Government Shared Services among the speakers.

On the subject of IfG events... the excellent team over at Drawnalism did their thing with our event earlier this week on (re)shaping the state after coronavirus.

And also on the subject of IfG events... make sure you keep 0930-1030 free on Monday 8 June. More on that soon.

Parliamentary Monitor 2020 is out!

A case of not updating some of our charts being significant: a new report from the National Audit Office on the government's coronavirus response suggests there have been 11 ministerial directions issued by the government during the crisis - but they've only published three of them. Transparency much? Given 72 non-Covid directions have been issued since 1990, that's... quite a lot. If you're wondering what on earth I'm wittering on about, here's our explainer on what directions are and why you should care.

The Orwell Prize announced its shortlists for political writing, political fiction, journalism and exposing Britain's social evils yesterday - well done to all those on the lists (and the Orwell Foundation team for keeping everything running). There's still time to enter the Orwell Youth Prize.

The data developments and transparency things spreadsheet tracking the UK's government coronavirus response is still going strong - please add to it here.

And finally... I'd been wondering just how much people were able to understand the forest of log scale charts that have sprouted in recent weeks. Interesting research here (via Alice). It's something Marcus Bell from the Cabinet Office's Race Disparity Unit touched on in his Data Bites presentation - they apparently junked lots of graphics after user testing.

Enjoy the long weekend

Gavin

*relatively. Or at least, bullet points rather than me pontificating

**your taste may vary

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Mental health awareness week (Janet Hughes)

Championing mental health and wellbeing through the pandemic (UK Civil Service)

My mind matters – because Every Mind Matters (UK Civil Service)

Life after lockdown: our ‘new normal’ needs to be one which puts mental health first (Stylist)

Learning in lockdown: moving L&D online (Defra digital)

Lessons learned: 9 takeaways from teaching online during COVID-19 (Damian Radcliffe)

How to…take your events online (Smart Thinking)

Six Feet From Forever (Real Life)

Relax to the sounds of British wildlife (The Guardian)

Graphic content

Viral content: cases

Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (Our World in Data)

Coronavirus cases and deaths over time: how countries compare around the world (The Guardian)

Will Hot Weather Kill the Coronavirus Where You Live?* (New York Times)

Tracking The Pandemic: How Quickly Is The Coronavirus Spreading State By State? (NPR)

Early projections of covid-19 in America underestimated its severity* (The Economist)

Viral content: consequences

The UK’s public health response to covid-19 (The BMJ)

How views to the @CitizensAdvice webpage on being furloughed peaked during/after big government announcements this week (Gemma for Citizens Advice)

The Results of Europe’s Lockdown Experiment Are In (Bloomberg)

American restaurants are struggling to fill tables weeks after reopening* (The Economist)

R numbers offer no easy answers for UK to lift lockdown* (FT)

Social care: Old money* (Tortoise)

By the numbers: Europe on the move again (Politico)

As football returns in empty stadiums, four graphs show how home advantage disappears (The Conversation)

The Architecture of Containment: Getting to Gold (Institute for Global Change)

Tens of millions of surgeries are being postponed as a result of the pandemic* (The Economist, via Benoit)

Emerging countries lift lockdowns despite Covid-19 cases surge* (FT)

Breaking lockdown rules? An experiment into what the public see as acceptable (YouGov)

COVID-19 policy tracker (The Health Foundation)

Furloughed and Frustrated, Workers Are Struggling Across the U.K.* (Bloomberg)

How far would a million N95 masks go? It’s complicated, and this is why.* (Washington Post)

#dataviz

The public do not understand logarithmic graphs used to portray COVID-19 (LSE Covid-19, via Alice)

John Snow's map of cholera looked as dull as (cholera filled) dishwater compared to his competitors... (James Cheshire)

Anti-viral content

Parliamentary Monitor 2020 (IfG)

Cabinet committees (IfG)

In charts: healthcare technology in low-income countries* (FT)

For Global Legislators on Twitter, an Engaged Minority Creates Outsize Share of Content (Pew)

UK Consumer Digital Index 2020 (Lloyds Bank)

Poorly designed ballots lead to thousands of undercounted votes each year* (Washington Post)

Isochrones (Tom Forth)

Meta data

Viral content: appy days

Coronavirus: Security flaws found in NHS contact-tracing app (BBC News)

Apple and Google release marks 'watershed moment' for contact-tracing apps (BBC News)

NHS App Has More Glaring Security Flaws and This is Just Getting Bloody Ridiculous Now (Gizmodo)

Countries around the world are rolling out contact tracing apps to contain coronavirus. How will we know whether they work? (Science)

Hard questions for policy-makers about digital contact tracing (First Policy Response)

Coronavirus: Northern Ireland rejects UK's COVID-19 contact-tracing app (Sky News)

Coronavirus contact-tracing apps: can they slow the spread of COVID-19? (Nature)

Scotland begins trials of contact-tracing app (Public Technology)

The ethics of contact tracing apps: International perspectives (CDEI)

Viral content: big tech

Naomi Klein: How big tech plans to profit from the pandemic (The Guardian/The Intercept)

Martha Lane Fox: how Big Tech can help us through the coronavirus crisis* (The Times)

How CIA-backed Palantir embedded itself in the NHS* (Telegraph)

Big Tech’s viral boom could be its undoing* (FT)

Viral content: data sources

NEW, FREE DATA: We have just published the code and data behind our excess mortality tracker (James Tozer, The Economist)

Excess Deaths During the Coronavirus Pandemic (New York Times)

Data sources (FT)

Viral content: everything else

The public debate around COVID-19 demonstrates our ongoing and misplaced trust in numbers (LSE)

High visibility and COVID-19: returning to the post-lockdown workplace (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Greater Manchester STILL doesn't know how many people are testing positive for COVID-19 because it can't get results from government (Manchester Evening News)

Guidance on the introduction and use of video consultations during COVID-19: important lessons from qualitative research (BMJ)

Open letter: the NHS’s plans to build a COVID-19 datastore (Anouk Ruhaak)

Removing the pump handle: Stewarding data at times of public health emergency (Significance)

Doing community management for @GOVUK Twitter during COVID-19 (Government Digital Service)

COVID-19: Social surveys are now more important than ever (UK Data Service)

We Have No Idea How Many People in Prison Actually Have COVID-19 (Slate)

Committee writes to the Prime Minister: Lessons learned so far from the COVID-19 pandemic (Science and Technology committee)

Anti-viral content

How Facebook Could Use Giphy to Collect Your Data (OneZero)

POST-LEGISLATIVE SCRUTINY: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 2002 (Scottish Parliament)

I'm thinking about data... (Edafe Onerhime)

Military And Intelligence Personnel Can Be Tracked With The Untappd Beer App (Bellingcat)

The AI Powered State (Nesta)

Many public authorities are warning requesters that #FOI requests may be delayed... (Campaign for FOI)

MPs make history with remote voting – the story of how it happened (Parliamentary Digital Service)

Why AWS’ Open Government Platform could revolutionise government innovation (Matthew Cain)

Understanding international migration in a rapidly changing world (ONS)

EU privacy enforcer hits make-or-break moment (Politico)

Rebuilding the Energy Performance of Buildings Registers (MHCLG)

Unlock the Hidden Value of Your Data (Harvard Business Review)

Professor Dame Wendy Hall appointed Chair (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Opportunities

JOB: Research Analyst (Spend Network)

JOB: Data analyst (Samaritans)

JOB: Digital Content Creator (HMT)

JOBS: Director of Research, Communications Manager (World Wide Web Foundation)

JOB: Performance Analyst (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency)

JOB: Community Research Consultant (Open Heroines)

JOB: Head of Futures Capability (Parliamentary Digital Service)

CONSULTANCY: User Experience Researcher vacancy (360Giving)

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: databank learning partner (Wellcome)

And finally...

The Miracle Sudoku (Cracking the Cryptic)

TreeTalk

today’s nightmare thought... (Julia Carrie Wong)

Look closer at the dates on the X-axis... (Dale Howard, via Sam)

When axes get truly evil* (FT)

Actually... (Nick Takayama)

The #Bundesliga restarts today. But for those who've never followed it, how do you choose a team? (Jon Worth)

Thread Of Awesome Bird's-Eye Views Of Cities Around The World (Joaquim Campa, via Alice)

@plottervision

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