Day: May 12, 2020💾

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How coronavirus disrupted California meat plants – Los Angeles Times

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How coronavirus disrupted California meat plants – Los Angeles Times

There’s no shortage of demand for beef.

Prices are up. Grocery stores are limiting how much each customer can buy. Last week more than 1,000 Wendy’s restaurants ran out of hamburgers.

There’s also no shortage of cattle earmarked to be turned into beef.

But prices for those animals have dropped. Sales are down. At a recent livestock auction in the San Joaquin Valley, just a handful of buyers bothered to make an appearance.

Employees at these factories work closely together, and thousands nationwide have become infected with the novel coronavirus. At least 20 have died. As their workers fall ill, the plants have lowered capacity or temporarily shut down.
The plants’ diminished capacity means some beef can’t get processed, and that has thrown cold water on the market for cattle: Why pay top dollar for the animals if you might not be able to sell them later?

That’s a problem for California, the nation’s fifth-largest cattle-producing state. In a good year, commercial ranchers could aim to get more than $1 per pound for a premium calf. Now, the expected price has dived 15% to 25%, said Mark Lacey, president of the trade group California Cattlemen’s Assn.

“We’ve had some major droughts, we have had some bad market years, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said Megan Brown, a sixth-generation cattle rancher and manager of Brown Ranch in Plumas and Butte counties. “Even in the family history, nothing compares to this.”

Let’s just have a think…

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On the 50th Anniversary of the first ever Earth Day, Jeff Gibbs and Michael Moore released a documentary film free on You Tube. The film is called Planet of the Humans, and it proved quite popular. This week we review the movie and consider its implications for climate activism.

Map: Berrymill Pond Trail From North

Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

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Want Your Stimulus Check Direct Deposited? Sign Up By Noon Wednesday : Coronavirus Live Updates : NPR

If you're still waiting for your pandemic payment from the federal government, and you would like to receive it directly into your bank account, head over to the IRS website by noon on Wednesday.

If the IRS doesn't have your direct deposit information by that deadline, you'll still get your payment — but you'll receive it in the form of a paper check, which might not arrive until June.

I didn't get my direct deposit yet, because the feds didn't have my bank account. But that website was helpful, and now I know when to expect my check in the mail.

How Michael Moore Damages Our Most Important Goal – Rolling Stone

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Bill McKibben: How Michael Moore Damages Our Most Important Goal – Rolling Stone

If you’re looking for a little distraction from the news of the pandemic — something a little gossipy, but with a point at the end about how change happens in the world — this essay may soak up a few minutes.

I’ll tell the story chronologically, starting a couple of weeks ago on the eve of the 50th Earth Day. I’d already recorded my part for the Earth Day Live webcast, interviewing the great indigenous activists Joye Braum and Tara Houska about their pipeline battles. And then the news arrived that Oxford University — the most prestigious educational institution on planet earth — had decided to divest from fossil fuels. It was one of the great victories in that grinding eight-year campaign, which has become by some measures the biggest anti-corporate fight in history, and I wrote a quick email to Naomi Klein, who helped me cook it up, so that we could gloat together just a bit. I was, it must be said, feeling pleased with myself.

We Can’t Lose the Right to Protest in the Age of Coronavirus

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We Can’t Lose the Right to Protest in the Age of Coronavirus

From Emma Goldman’s fiery speeches at Union Square during the Gilded Age through Occupy Wall Street in the Bloomberg era, the New York City left’s fight for social justice has often encompassed a simultaneous battle on behalf of the First Amendment right to protest.

Yet amid the current pandemic, the city’s progressive mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, has deemed public protests “non-essential” gatherings, and NYPD commissioner Dermot Shea (a registered Republican) is enforcing the ban.

Last week cops dispersed a gathering of LGBTQ activists speaking out against the alliance between Mt. Sinai Hospital and Samaritan’s Purse, an anti-gay, Islamophobic evangelical organization. The event’s participants adhered to the city’s social-distancing guidelines.

A few days prior, large crowds had gathered across the city to watch a decidedly non-essential flyover by the Blue Angels, and although many onlookers did not practice social distancing, there was no NYPD enforcement.