Farmworkers & Meatpacking Workers Say They Aren't Being Protected From COVID-19
On this edition of Your Call, we’ll talk about farmworkers and meat processing plant workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.
Kim Long: We can’t ignore the importance of mental health during lockdown
Our Green Party columnist has her say.
Letters: Fears over lockdown if rest of UK eases measures before Scotland
I’M very worried about what’s going to happen after the weekend when the rest of the UK begins to ease lockdown, while Scotland chooses not to.
Dr Punam Krishan: Positive vibes sparked U-turn on Tik Tok videos
A FEW months ago, while sitting with some mum friends, one of them talked about how her nine-year-old daughter was obsessed with Tik Tok.
Letters: We're being too soft with lockdown - give an inch and people take a mile
I NOTE the council stopping the free bulk uplift service.
Frank McAveety: Government faces crucial test over next four weeks to deliver key funds
IT has been remarkably clear throughout this crisis that Local Government has been crucial – being responsible for getting large parts of the support promised by the Scottish Government out to those that need it most.
Selina Hales: Glasgow asylum seeker is left feeling imprisoned again during pandemic
THE accommodation more often than not leaves a lot to be desired.
Glasgowist: City restaurants eagerly await news of lockdown being lifted
People Make Glasgow safer while staying at home.
Letters: NHS staff deserve permanent recognition - not just a clap
CLAPPING the NHS each week is all well and good but surely we can think of a more permanent recognition?
Susan Aitken: We need a team response in Glasgow once we exit lockdown
THE message from our medical experts leading the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic has been crystal clear in recent days: we have come too far together to drop our guard now.
Chris McQueer: How I spent a day with my dug and an alien
I’VE been thinking a lot, as ever, about aliens.
Glasgow's Secret Taxi Driver: Warm welcomes and smiles after delivering PPE
IT’S the smiling faces which keep you going.
Catriona Stewart: The demise of the O2 ABC is a scandal Glasgow should avoid
HOW many hearts have been broken under that disco ball?
Mike Dailly: Social justice is at the heart of our lockdown exit plan
THE Standard Life Foundation (SLF) has published the results of its UK financial impact tracker.
Tory View: Glasgow's firms are about to go bust because of council failings
I DIDN’T think I’d be writing again this week about Glasgow City Council’s administration of Coronavirus Business Support Grant funding but the poor progress made over the past seven days has compelled me to continue to shine a spotlight on this issue.
Greens View: This is what Glasgow's path to recovery needs to look like
LAST week, the council announced plans for a Covid-19 Recovery Group to steer the city’s response to the profound economic shock that has accompanied the public health crisis.
Enigma Machine: How to break an uncrackable code
HOW would you crack an uncrackable code?
Dr Punam Krishan: To mask or not to mask - what will you decide?
IT’S been six weeks since we went into lockdown and even though we have a long way to go until any normality is to return, it was so good to hear that the Scottish Government has started to consider what the future would look like for us when the time comes to ease restrictions.
Green's Allan Young: It’s vital that we make the best decisions
STRIKING the right balance between decision making and maintaining robust scrutiny and accountability is a constant conversation at the best of times, and is ever more important during a crisis. This played out strongly at the Scottish Parliament this week, and raises important questions for our own council too.
Letters: Business closure is terrible for workers
THIS is terrible news (City Blinds and Shutters ceases trading immediately – with 63 jobs lost, Glasgow Times online).
Letters of the day: Scottish Labour leaders have been found out for what they are
Pair are found out
Letters of the day: Tory council leader told of Thatcher's impact on Glasgow
Tory impact on country
Letters: Fury over 'scandal' of dumped coronavirus masks and gloves
IT’S a scandal! (South Side residents rage as dirty masks and gloves dumped in street, Glasgow Times online).
Letters: Castlemilk deserves a shopping centre fit for 21st century
AS someone who has lived in Castlemilk for many years and indeed written to the Glasgow Evening Times (in the past) outlining the very lack of decent shops here, I truly hope that Stefan King’s G1 Group (which has taken over the Braes shopping centre) is committed to its regeneration.
Cyclists already think pavements are fair game - we don't need lanes
INTERESTING to hear that the level of traffic is steadily increasing despite the restrictions.
We've had our freedoms stripped: give us something to hope for
THE brainless idiot scumbags who did this must be caught as soon as and thrown in jail for a very long time (Popular West End restaurant trashed by vandals in overnight raid, Glasgow Times online).
Heart failure patient hits out at AXM defibrillator vandal
Jim Tees should check his facts before jumping in with both feet and looking foolish.
Letters: People abusing lockdown will only make it go on longer
I TOTALLY agree as a frontline worker who is working 12-hour shifts that restrictions should have been tougher to start with.
Letters: Lift the lockdown - the coming recession will be worse
PERHAPS we should wait until we have achieved the same level of containment of the virus as Germany before we think about restarting football (How German football intends to restart next week – and what the Scottish game can learn from their masterplan, Monday).
Perspective: Missing John Prine
Four weeks ago tonight, John Prine caught the April super moon and rode it to heaven. We knew he was sick with the virus and that his chances of recovery were slim, but it still hurt and it still does. I imagine he would have written some good tunes about our current state of being. As a “young man from a small town with a very large imagination,” he “made up songs,” along his postal route in the Chicago area. I can listen to his lyrics over and over and still get a rush of mixed emotions from his stories that are funny, absurd, devastating — and sometimes all in one song. John Prine introduced us to a colorful cast of characters: Lydia - “reading romance novels in her room,” while Donald was “envisioning romantic scenes” from the “barracks latrine,” and them “making love in their dreams.” Sam Stone returning from Vietnam with a “Purple Heart and a monkey on his back.” And the couple from “In Spite of Ourselves”- She “swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs,” and he “drinks his
Perspective: Is It Monday Again?
What day is it today? The woman on the other end of the phone asked, “How’s your day going?” “Oh, about the same as yesterday...” “Good one,” she says. At least I could inject a bit of humor. I don’t know about you, but for those of us quarantined at home, it seems as though every day is Sunday: one yawning day without very many milestones. I consider receiving the mail a major event. The governor’s daily address at 2:30 ish in the afternoon is another. At the beginning of this stay at home order I told myself that I would use noon as a cutoff: I had to be out of my pajamas by noon. Do I dare tell you that it is past 4:00 and I’m still in my nightgown? Let’s just say I’m getting in touch with my inner sloth. This order also breeds laziness. At one point I was counting out the number of underwear I had until I had to do laundry. What is wrong with me? I used to be a productive member of society: I read the newspaper daily. Now I collect the newspaper from the driveway every two days, I
Perspective: What About The Next Fifty Earth Days?
As you listen to or read this essay, you will be celebrating the beginning of a brand-new month. But it is being written and recorded on another milestone -- the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. I was present for the very first one, as a student at the University of Illinois. Seminars, programs, speeches and leaflets urged the protection of our environment and an appreciation of the outdoors. For me, that appreciation would continue for a lifetime. This was the era of the "back to the land" movement and Mother Earth News. REI and Backpacker Magazine. Community cleanups and widespread tree planting. I would be fortunate enough to acquire a small hobby farm in Northern Wisconsin, if only for a few years. I often think about that property and can imagine in my mind how the land has changed, and how it hasn't. I will celebrate today not only by getting outdoors, but also by revisiting some of my favorite outdoor writers: Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Sigurd Olson. Their thoughts are
Perspective: Sometimes The Worst Decision Is The Best Decision
If you have ever skimmed a self-help book, you will be familiar with the current trend to plan ahead, strategize and focus. In a world where so much seems beyond our control, they advise we channel our efforts into well-defined goals. Unfortunately, such advice never seems to take into account the Enrique Solares approach to life. Enrique Solares was my husband's uncle and a gifted musician. When, in 1936, he was awarded a scholarship to study music in Belgium, his father threated to disinherit him. As a founder of a successful pharmaceutical company in Guatemala, Enrique's father was adamant that he abandon music and dedicate himself to the family firm. On the boat to Europe, he met a young Czech actress. Two days later the captain married them, so when he arrived in Brussels, he was not only disinherited and almost penniless, but he had a young wife in tow when Europe was on the cusp of World War II. As Viera would confess later: "most people would think we were foolish". And
Perspective: Claws Out!
Hey, all you cool cats and kittens! This is not Carol Baskin. It's Lynnea from Safe Passage. Have you hopped on the craze that is sweeping the nation? Have you fallen prey to the Tiger King? There's a lot of things to love in this series. The wacky hijinks of a gun-toting, sequin-wearing music video star and private zookeeper are just the ticket when you might be getting cabin fever in your home. But while we were all distracted by the complicated rivalry between Joe Exotic and The Big Cat Rescue, we missed a lot. Namely, we missed the abuse. For a documentary on private zoo owners, the unhappy and unsafe lives these animals were forced into was largely glossed over. Even more, the abuse the people faced hardly got a mention. Doc Antle was accused of building a coercive sexual relationship with the underage girls who came to work at his zoo. Joe Exotic was known to use drugs and gifts to lure and keep his husbands with him. Carol's history of being abused and assaulted starting at age
Perspective: Finding Gifts
“Come look!” announced my husband on an early spring morning over a month ago. “I have a surprise!” I followed him out to the backyard, and there rising up out of the cold brown earth, were a myriad of green stems with sheathed yellow flowers just beginning to make themselves known. “Two hundred daffodils!” my husband beamed brightly. “I planted them last fall in honor of our 50th wedding anniversary. Looks like they made it through the winter.” Although our 50th anniversary isn’t till June, we had scheduled a celebration trip to the island of Kauai in March, but as the frightening days of the corona virus quickly escalated, that trip was canceled. So many others have had to do the same, canceling weddings, spring breaks, graduations, and sadly, even funerals. So instead of sitting on a beach looking out at the blue Pacific as a rosy sun slid into the sea, we are sheltered at home looking out the windows to our leafless backyard. The bright spot, however, is that those 200 daffodils
Perspective: Migrant Mother
I clearly remember stories I heard as a kid from my older relatives about living through the Great Depression. The over-arching lesson I took from those accounts was this: unless you lived through it, you couldn’t truly understand what it was like. When I think of what life was like in the “Dirty 30s,” one image always comes to mind: Dorothea Lang’s “Migrant Mother,” taken in California in 1936 of Florence Thompson, a widow, with two of her seven kids huddled around her. Her look, complete with the 1,000-yard stare often associated with combat veterans, captures the quiet panic of a parent who cannot provide enough for her children. That look is also one of the fear and hopelessness of a victim of the economic system that betrayed her. She looked middle-aged 1936, but she was all of 32. As of April 24 th , close to 50,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and 27 million have lost their jobs. On top of our catastrophe, we are sorely missing something Florence Thompson’s generation had:
Perspective: The Promise And Peril Of COVID-19 Tracking
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred efforts to control the spread of the virus through development of innovative digital contact tracing tools. In Singapore, Israel and India there is already an app for that. In Europe there’s debate between two competing frameworks, which have names that sound like Star Wars’ droids: PEPP-PT and DT-3T. And in the US, Apple and Google recently announced collaboration on a contact tracing feature that will eventually be integrated with updates to the mobile device operating system. Although providing promising solutions, these technologies are not without problems. First, the privacy protections for such systems need to be carefully scrutinized. The US currently does not have a general data protection law, like the EU's GDPR, that would permit government oversight and review of these contact tracing solutions. Second, contact tracing only works when a significant number of users opt-in and agree to use the technology. But there is no guarantee that
Perspective: What Does It Take To Govern Well?
What does it take to govern a nation well? This question has risen to the top of my list of concerns during these challenging Covid-19 days. And yes, it has increased my level of anxiety about the future of our nation and its citizens. Like me, you’re probably experiencing nagging anxieties about staying safe. Will I find toilet paper rolls today? Am I protecting myself enough when I bring groceries into the house, or after handling the pump at the gas station? But a much broader and significant issue for me is leadership – leadership that secures the future of our well-being as individuals, families and a healthy nation. I know leadership theories and training can vary greatly, but I have found a common denominator of leadership excellence. I call it “Maturity of Self-hood.” It’s a leader who is secure as a person, who knows her strengths as well as what triggers negative reactions in her. It is someone who is passionate about new possibilities, but tempers this by listening to ideas
Perspective: Six Feet, A Mask, And Clean Hands
If you’re like me, you probably having a hard time changing the idea of social distancing into a habit. That’s not easy. Old habits die hard. Why don’t we wear a mask in public, wash our hands more often…or stay at least six feet apart? We each have our own reasons. Sometimes we just forget. I do. And some people just don’t understand the consequences if someone else is exposed to their cough; their hands or something they touched with the virus on it. Other people resist the whole idea of being told what to do. They think that social distancing imposes on their freedom. Or worse, they just can’t be bothered, no matter who they expose to the virus, even their loved ones. So here’s a thought -- Six Feet is Not That Far Away. Where I live in Princeton, Illinois, right off Interstate-80’s Exit 56, a group of us are asking “What does social distancing mean to us? We’re hoping that artists of all kinds will share their interpretations of that message in photographs, videos and music about
Perspective: Educators Are Essential
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is one unexpected silver lining that I just have to share. Teachers are finally getting some of the love and respect that they so sincerely deserve from parents who now have that role – at least temporarily. Praise for educators is all over social media right now, and even celebrities and sports stars are acknowledging how challenging it is to teach and how appreciative they are for their children’s teachers. Teachers of all levels – from preschool through college – have shifted their instruction online while also demonstrating their compassion and concern for their students. Teacher car parades are driving through neighborhoods with signs to remind children and families that their teachers care about and miss them. Teachers are calling students to show they care, and online class sessions are routinely beginning with “check-ins” to make sure everyone is OK. Has the shift to at-home learning been perfect? Absolutely not, but educators across
Perspective: Disparities By Design
The COVID-19 pandemic is a situation most Americans alive today have not experienced. It’s challenged our American freedoms ranging from how we worship, work, educate, congregate, socialize, shop, vacation, and grieve. As a nation we take pride in our capitalistic economic system. Over the last several weeks we’ve witnessed 401K’s lose value, the stock market crash, along with historic joblessness and unemployment applications. I applaud both sides of the aisle for getting the stimulus package out, which includes the CARES act. But it’s not enough. The long-term effects of this pandemic will be far reaching. As states share their data on new cases and death related to COVID-19; the reality of American racism is being exposed again. According to the Surgeon General, African-Americans comprise 35.7% of confirmed cases and 53.2% of deaths despite only representing 27% of the US population. The US Census Bureau states the white population of Chicago, IL is 49%, and 30% African-American. As
Perspective: How Do We Connect Now?
When unprecedented change happens, its repercussions seem to overpower anything worth smiling about in the world. But at the same time, with this huge change in society, comes the effort by so many to heal and reconnect, to positively respond to adversity in the best way we know how. This past week, my choir teacher reached out to our small choir group, one that had just recently been through the trauma of losing one of our own to a car crash. He spoke of the importance of connections and the realness that comes with being involved in a deeply connected group. He spoke of the power of music in sharing emotions, in bringing joy to even the most distraught. He then requested that each of us share a song that has been especially impactful during this unexpected extended quarantine. The shared clips were more than songs...they were deep feelings. Sadness, confusion, a small flutter of hope. With music we can see the raw emotions of our souls. We can see the small rays of sunshine that come
Perspective: Trust The Scientists
The disaster movie starts and when bad things start to happen, a scientist always warns the people to change course. But the people never listen. That’s the gist of a mordant Facebook post circulating among scientists as they, along with the rest of us, have watched this frightening scenario play out in real life. The pandemic moved so fast and was so vicious that it’s no mystery why people insisted it couldn’t happen here. After all, we’re not Italy, or China. Scientists knew better, and in January, warned that it was going to happen here. Trump called them alarmist. In February, health experts were sure the virus had been lurking in communities for a while and was spreading fast. Precious weeks passed and the federal government failed to take charge. Against scientists’ advice, Trump urged those with the virus to take an untested drug. What have you got to lose, he said. In the meantime, governors scrambled to prepare hospitals, issue stay-at-home orders, and figure out testing. This
Perspective: Do Mom And Dad Have A Point?
During tough times, my parents sing a song. It's sweet -- two real voices, not quite in tune, but full of energy. Whenever I complained, they’d break into song: You’ve got to accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative And don’t mess with Mr. In-Between! Listening, I often thought it’s old fashioned mumbo jumbo. It’s parent talk. Finally, I listened to Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters sing the whole song. The lyrics surprised me: You've got to spread joy up to the maximum Bring gloom down to the minimum Have faith or pandemonium’s Liable to walk upon the scene Sitting at home, while medical professionals work long hours, while so many small businesses struggle, we have a choice. We can accentuate the positive. But, it’s rosy skies and all smiles. Does it encompass our entire situation? Those who may be ill, who are alone, who may not be safe at home? Does it lack a realistic message for those whose lives are so far from simple hope? Since we can’t
Perspective: COVID-19 Exposes Flawed Food Security System
“I never thought I would have to ask for food.” The young mother said as a box was placed in her car. In the last three weeks over 500,000 Illinois residents have filed for unemployment. We have never seen such a sudden, dramatic increase in the need for food in our region. There are now growing lines at area food pantries. Numbers of those seeking help has tripled. For 70% of them this is their first visit to a food pantry. This is occurring when food banks are receiving fewer donations from their sources. The food banks are dependent upon the donations from large food chains. Usually food whose shelf life has nearly expired, or produce that is about to go bad. Because nervous buyers have cleared out so many store shelves there is less leftover to donate. When you live at the bottom of the food chain and depend on leftovers, it is extra frightening when there is little left behind. We need to use this crisis to question our present food system built on dependence. We need to ask how
Perspective: Good Friday
“You’ll be gone by spring,” said the same voice that drove me to retire. I was afraid this might be true, that I’d be dead by the time the weather warmed. Recent estate planning put death on my mind. I’ve heard enough about the frailty of old age, that it’d be all right by me to leave here with my faculties intact. You’ll be gone by spring. I couldn’t tell Bruce. Then came the snotty nose, my appetite gone, and sleep rising. While my pneumonia wasn’t COVID-19, I needed breathing treatments four times a day. Good doctors cared. I tell you there is healing beyond the science, in their touch, their listening. Then a dear friend said he might not survive this pandemic. An author wrote she was sick with COVID-19. You’ll be gone by spring. Was it Jesus’ voice or the voice, clanging like a train banging from one track to another, the cars jostling against their couplings, the voice of my life, maybe all our lives, rolling onto a siding while the pandemic roared by? Here on Good Friday we
Exclusive: Obama says in private call that 'rule of law is at risk' in Michael Flynn case
Former President Barack Obama, talking privately to former members of his administration, said Friday that the “rule of law is at risk” in the wake of what he called an unprecedented move by the Justice Department to drop charges against former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
