Hi friends,
On Tuesday, I asked for good news and a friend sent this encouraging passage from a rather cheery Coronavirus Briefing:
I am a vaccination nurse in Massachusetts, and we are winding down. It is bittersweet. I have been there since the first dose on Dec. 15. There were days we vaccinated until we were stumbling with exhaustion. We vaccinated our co-workers, then our parents, then people our age, then teenagers and then middle schoolers. I’ve seen people burst into tears of relief after receiving their shot; the doctor who worked straight through although she was pregnant; the grandmother who hadn’t hugged her grandkids in a year. I’ll never forget the dapper 89-year-old who pressed a Werther’s candy into my hand in thanks before picking up his cane to head home. It was like spreading a blanket of protection over all the good people around me. Daily cases here dropped to 100 the other day after being in the thousands a few months ago. The mask mandate and state of emergency have been lifted. It worked. It was so rewarding. I will never forget this experience for as long as I live.
— Katherine Haradon, Holyoke, Mass
May we all feel such satisfaction in our work. It is also heartening to read that Biden is going to announce a US initiative to provide 500 million vaccine doses to other nations. It’s overdue AND it’s the right move.
Reading Haradon’s account also deepens my commitment to getting the NY Health Act to pass. This is our best way forward to a more equitable health care system for all New Yorkers and we are really close.
Today is the last day of the legislative session (“depending how you define Thursday,” according to one legislator), so commit a few minutes of your morning to pushing this law over the line. We’re talking about comprehensive healthcare including long-term care coverage for everyone!
If you’re on Twitter, share this message with Senate Majority Leader Stewart Cousins and Assembly Speaker Heastie urging them to #PassNYHealth this year to address our long-term care crisis.
Health means something different and larger than vaccinations and routine medical care. Healthy communities do not require or thrive in a police state. NYC Against Hate, a coalition of community-based organizations, is behind an initiative to get the city council to invest in
community-based and/or restorative justice approaches to public safety instead of relying on the police, who bring their own threat of violence for Black and Brown New Yorkers.
We have consequential elections coming up in less than two weeks and we are in budget season in NYC. There has been, understandably, a great deal of concern about public safety. The knee-jerk response is to hire more cops.
Use this calling tool to make two calls — one to your own council rep and one to the Council Speaker — to restore and increase funding to the Hate Violence Prevention Initiative.
Health also means addressing the climate crisis by sharply cutting greenhouse gas emissions. NYS legislators have proposed a moratorium on energy-intensive crypto-currencies.
According to the Senate bill, which passed yesterday:
The magnitude of computer processing output required to authenticate a single
block of a blockchain with a proof-of-work method uses as much energy as an
average American household uses in a month.
I have only the fuzziest grasp of what blockchain technology is, but it’s clear that crypto mining is a waste of energy. Apparently, Bitcoin is not actually untraceable, so even if one has criminal intent, I fail to see the appeal. We need to get the Assembly bill passed today.
Contact your representative to get their support for a moratorium. The bill is A7389/S6486A and it amends the environmental conservation law. Here’s a ready-made message.
Yesterday, the company building the Keystone XL pipeline canceled the project. This is happy news and evidence that activism works. Earlier in the week, police arrested over one hundred Indigenous Water Protectors and environmentalists who were protesting the expansion of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline on tribal land. The police arrived in riot gear and used sonic devices to break up the peaceful protest.
The intersection of abusive police power and corporate extraction makes this situation doubly untenable (I’m still not sure that you can double untenability).
Please write a letter to President Biden to call on him to Stop Line 3. This a ready-made action.
Tomorrow, we’ll get back to the plentiful local electoral drama.
Have a great day!
with love,
L