DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 17, 2022

Back with my new hip.  I’m taking great pains, and great pain meds (thanks for everything, Jacqi!), to bring you the stuff that I find interesting.  Feel free, as always, to share with us the stuff you find interesting.  It’s what the Open Thread is all about.

Biden Labels Putin A War Criminal.  Because he is.  He has waged war on Ukraine and has sought to inflict unrelenting carnage on the most defenseless of citizens. Case closed.  Just bombed a bread line.

Could Matt Gaetz Go Down (electorally I mean)?  His opponent is certainly his worst nightmare. The scientist who got fired for telling the truth about Covid:

Most Floridians learned about Rebekah Jones when she won national acclaim for designing a fantastic Covid-19 dashboard before the White House decided that it preferred to downplay the number of cases rather than inform the public. Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis went along in lockstep. Then, the Florida Department of Health asked her to alter the data to present an inaccurate picture. She refused and was forced out of her job. For blowing the whistle, Florida’s GOP Governor allegedly retaliated by sending the state’s top police force to raid her home, with guns drawn around her children on a trumped-up charge of computer tampering. Last June, the Health department’s watchdog granted Jones official whistleblower status, a difficult achievement.

Looks like she’s leading, and she’s turned a Rethug issue (high utility prices) into a sledgehammer that she’s taking right to her opponent.  Man, she’s a real Democrat who immediately becomes a national figure should she win.

One More Reason To Love Norwegians:

Sven Holmlund, a local oil supplier, offered little sympathy for those aboard the vessel. “Why should we help them?” he told NRK. “They can row home. Or use a sail.”

Well, they could use a sail, assuming it hadn’t been stolen and replaced with a note that says, “IOU 1 sail. — Love, Sergei Shoigu”.

Voter Suppression Flourishes In Texas.  Especially impacting voters in Harris County, the largest D stronghold in the state.  Texas–an anti-democratic state sanctioned by the US Supreme Court.

Yes! Knollwood First Community To Benefit From NCC Building Back Better Communities Initiative. Major shout-out to Matt Meyer and NCC Council for creating this program, and for choosing Knollwood as the first community to benefit.  Many of Knollwood’s issues are due to drug traffickers coming from Chester and Philly.  It has caused tremendous hardship for the families who live there.  More about the project:

But the Building Better Communities initiative, coupled with a program that will be rolled out next week by New Castle County Police – Project Seed – could provide the additional help Knollwood needs.

Police and county officials in recent years have tried to target some of the community’s root issues, participating in multiple clean-up days that involved trash removal, painting areas in the neighborhood and planting flowers.

In addition to routine patrols, police also provided free floodlights to Knollwood and its community center as part of a project to brighten the area. While not a fix-all, studies have shown cameras and lights can reduce crime.

Building Better Communities is intended to enhance these efforts and “find out what else we can do outside of public safety and code enforcement,” said C.J Bell, New Castle County’s manager of special projects.

Already, Bell said, the eight-person Building Better Communities commission has been told that parents don’t feel safe sending their kids to Knollwood’s main playground because of drug paraphernalia.

Thus, one of the initiative’s goals will be to get organizations that are already in Knollwood or that “have the capacity to serve” its residents to provide access to a consistently cleaner playground.

Still, Bell said it’s difficult to give a timeline of when Knollwood will see the initiative’s efforts. He also cautioned residents not to expect the county to turn its most underserved neighborhoods into “utopias.”

“There are always going to be issues that may not be able to be solved at the county level,” Bell said, “but we’re definitely going to collaborate with different municipalities to ensure that each neighborhood, just like Knollwood, has the best chance to thrive.”

I apologize to the News-Journal (hey, I’m a subscriber) if I’ve exceeded fair use, but I know some of the leaders in the community who have pushed so hard to help restore the neighborhood.  I’m thrilled that they are getting this assistance.  They deserve it.

What do you want to talk about?