The SOUTH ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT —
"[The] blog he developed was something that made the district better." - Tim Jemal, SOCCCD BoT President, 7/24/23
While coronavirus testing continuing to be in short supply statewide, Orange County has reported numbers that appear to put it significantly behind its southern neighbor.
As of Tuesday evening, OC reported about 3,500 tests per million residents, while San Diego County has reported about 6,000, and Los Angeles County about 5,000. Other California counties, like Santa Clara County, also have reported more than 5,000 tests per million residents.
San Diego County, in particular, has a similar population size to Orange County – with about 4 percent more residents than OC – while reporting about 80 percent more COVID tests (20,336 versus 11,307, as of Tuesday evening)....
At a sober press briefing in the White House last week, members of President Trump's coronavirus task force unveiled data supporting the need to continue the national effort to limit the spread of the virus. Even while maintaining policies aimed at limiting person-to-person contact, the administration projected between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans would die of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. One slide, using data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, showed a predicted peak in the daily death toll from the disease arriving in the middle of April.. . . Late Tuesday night, however, the IHME estimate shifted in the other direction. While the model last week projected nearly 94,000 deaths by late summer, its new estimate puts the toll by August at 60,400 — a decline of 26 percent from the model’s previous estimate.. . . This is unequivocally good news, but it carries with it several caveats….
No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the 2003 United States invasion. However, we know that over 182,000 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the US, its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through November 2018. The violent deaths of Iraqi civilians have occurred through aerial bombing, shelling, gunshots, suicide attacks, and fires started by bombing. Because not all war-related deaths have been recorded accurately by the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition, the 182,000 figure for civilians killed from 2003 to 2018 is lower than the actual figure. .. . . Several estimates based on randomly selected household surveys estimate the approximate numbers of civilians killed, injured, and made sick due to war. These surveys place the total death count among Iraqis in the hundreds of thousands, including nonviolent or indirect deaths….
Conventional wisdom in American politics focuses only on American costs in the war in Iraq: the casualties to U.S. soldiers, the financial costs, and sometimes the strategic costs. But the human cost to the Iraqis themselves are nearly ignored in political discourse, the news media, and intellectual circles. This site is a corrective to those oversights. We present empirical reports, studies, and other accounts that convey and assess the consequences of war for the people of Iraq. . . . Another household survey, this one conducted by the Iraq Ministry of Health at the same time as the second Hopkins study, found 400,000 excess deaths, 151,000 by violence. As is the case with most such surveys conducted during time of war, there were problems in data gathering and the analysis tended to minimize violent death estimates. But the survey generally confirmed the very high mortality reported in The Lancet.
Estimates of deaths in [Gulf] war still in dispute
With a second Persian Gulf War drawing near, Beth Daponte's telephone has been ringing off the hook with journalists from around the country asking about her estimates of Iraqi casualties in the first one. Now a research professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Daponte was a 29-year-old demographer at the Commerce Department in 1992, responsible for keeping track of developments in the Middle East, when she estimated that 158,000 Iraqis -- 86,194 men, 39,612 women and 32,195 children -- had perished in the war and its aftermath….
As many as 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the Persian Gulf war because of economic sanctions imposed by the Security Council, according to two scientists who surveyed the country for the Food and Agriculture Organization….
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
1946-2020
John Prine, Hero Of 'New' Nashville, Dies After Developing COVID-19 Symptoms NPR
Rebel Girl is more sentimental than you may suspect. Hence she shares these photos of last year's commencement as it becomes all but certain this year's ceremony will not occur. So much loss already and more to come.
Rebel Girl tries to feel grateful for employment, for family, for health (so far) - but nothing is certain. As one of her students pointed out during their last class on campus: "We are living through history." Reb agreed and pointed out that it was the kind of historical moment one could hear, grinding its gears. She now sees those students, not all of them, only some, via Zoom meetings. They are smaller on the screen, more anxious, alone, worried. While some are working (many too much), others have lost their jobs. Their parents have lost their jobs. Their family obligations interrupts their virtual classes. Some have not returned at all.
Yesterday, IVC staff received the appeal below and Rebel Girl passes it along to you, hoping that you will click this link (as she did) and make a donation to help the most vulnerable through this time. It's not going to get better for awhile. Let's help. Most of us are so lucky.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Irvine Valley College Foundation has established a new Emergency Fund.
Within the first two hours of announcing the IVC Emergency Fund to our campus, we received over 200 requests from frightened members of our campus community who are not sure how they are going to get through the next month or two.
NOW, MORE THAN EVER, OUR IVC FAMILY NEEDS YOUR HELP!
COVID-19 presents a new set of obstacles for our students and some employees, including:
Loss of income to afford housing, food, and childcare
Increased healthcare costs
The need to access the internet and remote-learning technology
Our new Emergency Fund will provide immediate emergency bridge funding to our most vulnerable students and employees, helping them through this challenging time.
Your support will enable us to meet these evolving needs. Together, we can make sure Irvine Valley College students and employees get the critical assistance they need for themselves and their families
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER!
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‘Zoombies’ Take Over Online Classrooms
Inside Higher Ed Digital disruptors sharing racist, sexist and pornographic content in Zoom videoconferences show no sign of slowing down as “Zoombombing” trend grows.
…Zoombombing attacks, or Zoom raids, are planned on services such as Discord, a communication platform popular among gamers. In a Discord group accessed by Inside Higher Ed, online trolls seemed to delight in the confusion and distress they caused instructors, some of whom, they gleefully reported, had burst into tears. Some members of the group described themselves as wishing to pursue “good old-fashioned trolling” and said they drew the line at “really fucked-up shit” such as sharing child pornography or repeating the N-word over and over. “That’s boring,” one user wrote….
Dozens of resources advising instructors on how to secure their videoconference calls have been published in the past week as awareness of Zoombombing grows, including this one from the company itself. The University of California, Berkeley's information security office shared this detailed prevention guide. On Twitter, instructors also shared tips and tricks to prevent intrusions….
The escalating problem of Zoombombing isn’t exclusive to education. AA meetings, prayer groups and book readings for children have been recently commandeered by Zoombombers. A small number of people have started referring to these trolls as “Zoombies” -- a fitting term for the apocalyptic atmosphere of a nation gripped by a global pandemic….
