∙ In this issue we launch a new Social Justice column. Please let me know what you think of the column? We hope readers will send in their thoughts to [email protected].
∙The statue of Father Junipero Serra in Sacramento’s Capitol Park was brought down amid a protest focusing on the rights and historical struggle of indigenous people. As you know, Ventura is deciding what to do with our statue. See coverage in this issue.
Truthfully, as a non-native American, I don’t have a really strong feeling about this. However, since it offends people whose family members were negatively affected, we should listen to them and make it their decision. If the city decides to move it, I think putting it in the garden at the Mission would be a perfect place.
∙Florida reported 15,300 new COVID-19 cases – the most any state has reported in a single day This number blew past the previous high, 12,274, by New York on April 4.
∙If you have heard the transcripts released of body camera footage leading up to George Floyd’s death, you realize that the police officer just out and out killed him. “I’ll do anything, I’ll do anything y’all tell me to, man,” he tells officers early into the transcript. “I’m not resisting, man. I’m not!” He told officers he couldn’t breathe nearly 30 times. He was still being held down even after he died.
∙History 101: The British surrendered at Yorktown October 19, 1781. America declared its independence in 1776, but it took another five years to win freedom from the British. That day came on October 19, 1781, when the British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his troops in Yorktown, Virginia.
∙A group of scientists at the University of Nottingham think they’ve come up with a new “cosmic evolution” based calculation that says that there are likely to be at least 36 ongoing intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy.
The Milky Way (home to our Solar System) is estimated to have 100 billion to 400 billion stars, and roughly one exoplanet per star in our galaxy.
A key assumption is that it takes around five billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as it does on Earth (we aren’t quite there yet).
∙Billionaire property developer Joe Farrell, a prominent Republican fundraiser, received up to $1 million in taxpayer coronavirus relief funds, according to federal data released Monday. I only requested $500,000 but haven’t received it yet.
∙The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the number of hand sanitizers it recommends U.S. residents avoid due to the potential presence of a toxic substance.
The FDA has issued warnings about 59 different hand sanitizers, many of which contain methanol, which can be dangerous when absorbed through the skin or ingested. All of the sanitizers appear to have been produced in Mexico.
The FDA recommended recalls for the products and warned that it has “seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products that are labeled to contain ethanol (also known as ethyl alcohol) but that have tested positive for methanol contamination.”
The following is about President Trump in case you don’t want to read it.
“On Sunday, July 5, a segment on Ghislaine Maxwell during Fox News Channel’s ‘America’s News HQ’ mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell,” a spokesperson for the network said. The Fox News spokesperson added, “We regret the error.” What they really regret is getting caught.
Dr. Anthony Fauci disagreed with President Trump’s claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.” Trump said this after being told that only 1% of people infected die. Apparently he doesn’t think (or understand) that post-viral syndrome associated with Covid-19 has incapacitated some patients for prolonged periods and could affect their health for the rest of their lives. Does he consider that to be “totally harmless.”
In an interview published in The Financial Times, Dr. Fauci stated he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 and has not briefed the president for at least two months.
Trump said of the virus, “I think that at some point that it’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.” We all hope, and of course at some point it will go away but that would have been much quicker if it wasn’t for his lack of acknowledgement and guidance. “Everything is being handled,” he stated.
President Donald Trump visited the US-Mexico border Tuesday and tried to credit his new wall with stopping both undocumented immigration and the coronavirus
President Trump is once more pushing to have his border wall painted black, a design change that is projected to add at least $500 million in costs. He is insisting that the dark color will enhance its forbidding appearance and leave the steel too hot to touch during summer months.
A day after Fox News’ latest national poll showed that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden had opened up a 12-point edge over Trump, one of many such surveys in recent weeks that has Biden widening his lead, the president called the Fox poll fraudulent and claimed it was created by “haters.”
President Donald Trump said some Americans might wear face masks not as a way to prevent the spread of coronavirus but as a way to “signal disapproval of him.” Tell that to the over 130,000 Americans who are dead. How sad.
It’s more work to put on a pair of pants or shoes than it is to put on a mask.
