Gun Culture
The following isn’t surprising. MAGA has been stirring this up for a while. See this from AP:
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates, a longtime cornerstone of public health policy for keeping schoolchildren and adults safe from infectious diseases.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights that hamper parents’ ability to make health decisions for their children.
“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, said at a news conference in Valrico. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”
Florida’s move, a significant departure from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration’s agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist.
Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said removing vaccines puts students and school staff at greater risk.
“When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun,” Alissa said in an email. “When children are sick and miss school, caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but also the local economy.”
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando mayor, said in a social media post that scrapping vaccines “is reckless and dangerous” and could cause outbreaks of preventable disease.
“This is a public health disaster in the making for the Sunshine State,” Eskamani said on the social platform X.
You have to wonder if Florida is throwing down the gauntlet. How many MAGA led states will follow. We all know MAGA Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t like to be left behind when it comes to going all in on MAGA so stay tuned.
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When I was a kid, we would have our run around at night moments during the summer. See this piece in today’s editorial column of the Chron hard copy by senior editorial writer Leah Binkovitz. This is how it starts:
All I remember was running.
With a group of neighborhood kids, I took off sprinting across a front yard that suddenly seemed acres away from the road. The house was a dumb choice for ding dong ditch, itself a dumb but mostly harmless prank we played on the edge of the small Ohio town where I grew up. This house was set back from the road with few trees to hide behind. Our flailing, little limbs swimming their way to the street would’ve been obvious as soon as the front door opened. I can still feel the panic, trying to will my leaden legs to move faster.
We worried about our parents finding out. We worried about getting caught. We didn’t worry about being killed.
Over the long holiday weekend, that’s exactly what happened to Julian Guzman, an 11-year-old boy, out by Clinton Park on a residential street just off the Ship Channel. The 42-year-old man arrested and charged for Guzman’s death apparently chased after him, shooting the youth far down the street from late-night doorbell ring.
The boy was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Here is the entire Binkovitz read: What a deadly game of ding-dong ditch says about Texas.
I have been watching the coverage of this on KPRC TV Channel 2 News. The alleged shooter had around 20 guns in his house. In this day and age anyone can own guns. It is our culture, the gun culture in America. Plain and simple. The kids could have been retrieving an errant baseball from the yard. It is our gun culture.
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Commentary mentions Dollar Dog Night when the Astros play on Tuesday nights at Daikin Park. That is my Dollar Dog in the featured photo from this past Tuesday night.
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We beat the Yankees last night and now own a four-game lead in the AL West with 22 games left on the regular season schedule. The series finale at Daikin Park with the Yankees has a 6:40 pm start time this evening.