A new study on coronavirus songs in Africa looks at the impact of music with a message

...Unlike the US, where very few artists have taken on COVID-19 as a subject in songs, African musicians quickly turned to their songwriting as a form of communication and to disseminate crucial public health information: social distancing, washing hands and staying home during lockdowns...

 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2PGMGrz6LAU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PUHrck2g7Ic" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The 1905 case that governs the law - "states have broad “police powers”, i.e., the primary governmental authority to enact “reasonable regulations” to “protect the public health and public safety” all of its citizens."

In mid-March this year, shortly before St. Patrick’s Day, Gov. Larry Hogan ordered that the state’s restaurants be closed to stop COVID-19 from spreading...

...I told the reporter to read the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. Indeed, the Maryland Attorney General had already raised Jacobson in support of the Governor’s COVID-19 responses.  In the end, the restaurants closed, did not defy the governor and brought no suits.  It is very rare that a 115-year-old case still holds such overwhelming currency with over 1,500 references in law review articles and half that number in judicial opinions.

Jacobson concerned a regulation from the Cambridge Board of Health that every resident be vaccinated against smallpox or pay a fine. Smallpox at the time was highly contagious and could be spread by those who were asymptomatic. Thirty percent of those who contracted it died. And, even many of those who survived were left with unsightly body and facial scars...

...When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing for a 7-2 Court majority, ruled that, under the Constitution, states have broad “police powers”, i.e., the primary governmental authority to enact “reasonable regulations” to “protect the public health and public safety” all of its citizens.

Justice Harlan said that “the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint.”  (Emphasis added.)..

https://thedailyrecord.com/2020/06/11/michael-greenberger-the-1905-case-that-governs-the-law/

Real Food For Kids - Montgomery hosts screening of Cafeteria Man March 15th

From Real Food for Kids - Montgomery:

Real Food For Kids - Montgomery is hosting a screening of Cafeteria Man followed by a community discussion, on Friday March 15, 2013 at the Takoma Park Community Center at 7500 Maple Ave, Takoma Park, MD 20912 at 7:30 p.m. Cafeteria Man is a 65-minute documentary about Tony Geraci’s work in transforming the meals in the Baltimore City Schools from pre-plated and processed to locally-grown and freshly prepared. The film's director, Richard Chisolm, will be our guest at this event. We would love for you to join us and would appreciate it if you could share this information about our event with your networks. Suggested donation is $5 per person, $10 per family. More information about the film can be found at: http://cafeteriaman.com/

Real Food for Kids - Montgomery is a grass-roots, parent advocacy group promoting whole, delicious, fresh foods in the Montgomery County Public Schools. Formed in October of 2012, we currently have parents representing 35 different elementary, middle, and high schools. We are looking for at least one parent from each of the 202 schools in the county to share their expertise and passion for this issue, and who would be willing to work on a variety of topics including but not limited to: bringing fresh, local produce into the schools; opting out of school snacks; teachers rewarding children with food; free water in the cafeteria; sugar in the schools; vending machines; and processed food. If you are part of a wellness committee in your school, or just a lone crusader, please consider joining us.

RFKM’s next event is already being planned for May: a recipe contest to create a new meal that could be added to the MCPS menu.

For more information, please email us at RealFoodMCPS@gmail.com. Thank you!

Millions for Tech Toys, None for Public Health

As the swine flu spreads across Montgomery County, with Rockville High School closed this morning, and children at Einstein High School, and Takoma Park and Westland middle schools at risk, it appears you as a taxpayer have decided to spend millions and millions of dollars on tech toys like Promethean Boards, wigen gadgets and more, yet have made the decision to spend zero on Public Health.

A quick survey indicates MCPS and your elected Board of Education have no plan to swab the schools, or offer even a minimal plan to control the spread of this flu. At the same time the World Health Organization on April 29 raised the level to a Phase 5 pandemic. According to the CDC website,

A Phase 5 alert is a “strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.”

From what I can tell, teachers are not even being told to remind their students to wash hands frequently, and cough or sneeze into a tissue. While free reminder posters are available from CDC, where are they in the schools?

The County and your elected Board of Education has had at least two years to prepare for this event. Not even the simplest measures were or are being taken.

If there is a Public Health plan for the public schools, I sure would like to see it.

For those of you with no soap in the bathrooms, as I understand may be true in some schools in the county, boy, are you out of luck.