Nashville Far From Alone...,

usatoday |  The vulnerability of the telecommunications system in Nashville and beyond became clear Christmas Day when AT&T's central office in downtown became the site of a bombing.

Mayor John Cooper called the blast on Second Avenue an attack on infrastructure. The effects of that attack are sure to ripple through the region for weeks, as the telecom giant scrambles to restore services while maintaining the integrity of an active investigation site teeming with federal agents.

State and local officials and experts say the fact that a multistate region could be brought to its knees by a single bombing is a "wake-up call," exposing vulnerabilities many didn't know existed and predicting it would lead to intense conversations about the future. 

The bombing and the damage to the AT&T office was a "single-point of failure," said Douglas Schmidt, the Cornelius Vanderbilt professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University.

American Comfort Taking Hits Left And Right

NYPost  |  Thousands of residents in Aspen, Colorado were left without heat during near-zero degree weather after vandals — possibly green activists from an environmental group — attacked the city’s gas system, authorities said Monday.

The vandals apparently attacked three separate Black Hills Energy gas lines, one in Aspen and two in Pitkin County, leaving around 3,500 residents shivering in their homes Saturday night, The Aspen Times reported.

The Aspen Police Department said the words “Earth first!” were written on one pipe near Aspen. It’s unclear if the environmental group “Earth First!” was behind the vandalism.

Aspen assistant police chief Bill Linn believes the vandals would have to be familiar with the gas system to pull off the scheme.

“They tampered with flow lines,” Linn said. “They turned off gas lines.”

Police scrambled to distribute thousands of space heaters to residents while Black Hill Energy continued working Tuesday to restore the gas.

Americans Flocking To Mexico For Their Corona...,

WaPo  |  The beachside dance floor was packed. The pulse of electronic music throbbed. In the middle of the pandemic, in the crowd of maskless dancers, some tourists commented to each other: "Tulum is back."

“It felt like covid was over. The borders are open. The world is back to normal. Let’s just have fun,” said Alexandra Karpova, 31, a public relations executive who flew from New York to attend the November festival, called Art With Me, on Mexico’s Riviera Maya on the Caribbean coast.

 But in the days after the festival, dozens of attendees tested positive for the coronavirus. Some brought it back to the United States.

The incident prompted a question at the heart of Mexico’s economic recovery: Is the country — with among the highest coronavirus caseloads in the world — taking too many risks to re-energize its lucrative tourism sector?

 Remarkably, the number of American tourists visiting the state of Quintana Roo, where Tulum and Cancun are located, has increased by 23 percent compared with 2019. With Europe closed to most Americans, Mexico has successfully marketed itself as a desirable alternative. Roughly 100 flights from the United States are now landing in Quintana Roo every day.

Many tourists are coming to stay at coastal resorts, where masks are mandatory in public places. Others are going on scuba diving tours or taking kite surfing lessons. But Tulum’s global reputation as a party destination has not changed during the pandemic.

“There are parties almost every night,” said Maria Prusakova, 30, the founder of a public relations firm, who traveled to Tulum in July from San Francisco.

When the restaurants closed at 11 p.m., she said, the parties started at private villas. No one wore masks. Prusakova got sick at the same time as 12 of her friends. They all tested positive — in her case, only after she returned to San Francisco.

“I’m still so happy I went,” she said. “I was so glad to see people. The food was amazing.”

Prusakova is returning to Tulum for New Year’s Eve, when the city is typically packed with parties. This year, authorities say they won’t permit them. State officials say they are scanning social media to find any mention of large gatherings. Event organizers are quietly telling tourists that they will find a way to host parties.

“We need to find a way to create jobs. Otherwise, the situation will continue getting worse,” said Marisol Vanegas, the state secretary of tourism. “But we always prioritize public health.”

 

California Has Become The Epicenter In America For Covid19

California’s surge stems from two sources, first the number of Mexicans living in poverty and/or severely packed households. La familia is the most important part of Mexican culture and it is not at all uncommon for one packed household to spread it to other households in the same extended family.

Second, well-to-do, working from home, don’t-know-anyone-who’s been sick white Californians spent the summer traveling both in state and flying to other places like Hawaii and Mexico. Always important to keep in mind that largely wealthy travelers were the initial vector in the US.

The well-to-do, working from home crowd would absolutely crumble if their mostly Latino nannies, housekeepers, and maids weren’t able to go to work every day. The servants and their employers are interacting in close quarters and are almost certainly exposing each other to the virus. Always important to keep in mind that largely wealthy business travelers were the initial vector in the US.

I also thought it really interesting that in the under-18 year olds, Mexicans have nearly 2X as many cases as all other ethnies combined! (110,000 vs 57,000.. Among known race cases.) Always important to keep in mind that largely wealthy business travelers were the initial vector in the US.

I’d guess it’s because the Mexican cases are primarily younger (almost half Mexican infections are 34 years old or younger). I’d also say that it makes me question a lot of these statistics…For example, are Mexican children more susceptible to inflection or, are they more likely to have been tested? Always important to keep in mind that largely wealthy business travelers were the initial vector in the US.

Finally, Mexicans skew younger than whites and blacks at the top demographic level. Always important to keep in mind that largely wealthy business travelers were the initial vector in the US.

Indianapolis Slave-Catchers Caught Grabbing Titties And Whooping Ass

caitlinjohnstone |  Wherever these videos emerge online you will inevitably see a deluge of cop apologia (which I decided just now I’ll be calling copologia) saying the footage is fake or the victim deserved it and the cop’s just trying to get home to his family blah blah blah. There is not enough gold in the earth’s crust to make the number of olympic medals these people deserve for all the mental gymnastics they are performing to excuse unprovoked, completely unnecessary acts of violence from public employees whose job isn’t even statistically all that dangerous.

Most of these copologists do not even know why they are falling all over themselves to try and justify police brutality. It’s a conditioned response, like turning your head when someone calls your name. They don’t think about it, it’s just something they’ve been conditioned to do by decades of media and cultural indoctrination into an empire whose survival depends on the existence of a violent and militarized police force. They hear Pavlov’s bell and start salivating, just as they’ve been programmed to.

The thing is, their creative energy is being spent entirely in vain. Police and their apologists have already lost the argument.

A police force which cannot respond to protests about police brutality without the internet being flooded with a steady stream of police brutality footage is a police force in sore need of drastic overhaul. It has already been proven that that is in fact the case. There’s no taking it back. There’s no fixing it. It’s done. The debate is officially over. Huge, sweeping changes must immediately be made, and there’s no valid reason for the protests to stop until that has occurred.

These videos have made it clear that the institution of policing in America is completely sick from coast to coast, right down to its very culture. The most obvious example I can point to is that watching just a few minutes of the footage of police brutality at these protests makes it undeniably apparent that a belief pervades police culture that it is okay to physically assault someone who has made you feel emotionally upset. Over and over and over again we see police accosting civilians for saying impolite words to them or making rude gestures, or not demonstrating an adequate level of subservience. Over and over and over again we see an attack on a cop’s ego treated as an attack on the cop himself.

This is absolutely ridiculous. These are public servants. Imagine if teachers, mail carriers or DMV employees were routinely assaulting anyone who spoke impolitely to them.

The Rich Expect Isht To Go Sideways In The Big Cities

dailymail |  High-end stores throughout New York such as Louis Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana are boarding up their windows in anticipation of civil unrest as the death toll in the city reached 1,867 on Friday with 305 new deaths.

The wealthy businesses had already been ordered closed along with bars and restaurants as part of the shelter in place protections but they are now taking further steps to secure their property and products as the city's police department suffers high numbers of officers calling in sick with the coronavirus raging through its ranks.  

New York City cases spiked to 57,159 on Friday night with 5,350 new cases, as the national total rose to 277,999 confirmed cases and 7,164 deaths.  

Boarded up windows and empty streets have transformed the city that never sleeps into a war zone with city officials sending out on an emergency alert to New Yorkers' cellphones on Friday calling on health workers to present themselves for battle against the coronavirus outbreak on the front lines in the city's overstretched, overwhelmed and under resourced hospitals.   

The alert came amid warnings that New York City will run out of crucial supplies by the end of next week and that Sunday will be 'D-Day' in terms of assessing what is needed for the weeks going forward. 

Dolce & Gabbana, Jimmy Choo and Louis Vuitton were among the Manhattan stores to cover up their windows with plywood in the past week as the crisis in the city worsened despite streets being empty of customers or even passersby. 

The rows of boarded up buildings create a stark reminder of the newly unemployed workers who lost their jobs after the scale of the outbreak caused stores, bars and restaurants to shut their doors for the foreseeable future.  

Some businesses attempted to light the mood on the closures, despite the rows of plywood covering their entrance, painting messages of support and encouragement that the coronavirus will be beaten. 

Throughout Manhattan, the unsightly coverings are offset with the words of motivation.  

'We are all in this together,' one reads. 'Stay save. Save lives.' 

Louis Vuitton in Soho was among the storefronts to leave its customers a messages on the wooden boards guarding its property reading: 'The journey that was paused will eventually start again, Louis Vuitton wishes you & your loved ones health & safety.’