The Closing Piscean Age

Posted on February 6, 2022 by Ken
The Coming Age of Aquarius and the Rising Feminine Christ Consciousness
Age of Aquarius – The 5th Dimension (lyrics) H.D.

Archangel Michael through Celia Fenn, posted on 10 January 2021
The Closing Piscean Age – Bing video

Mary Magdalene, Venus and the Closing Piscean Age – Bing video
Vlog 20 – THE AVATARS OF THE PISCEAN AGE – JESUS AND MARY MAGDALENE – YouTube

So, Beloved Ones, we have arrived in your year of 2021 of the Earth Story.  
This is a momentous year for you as peoples of Earth, as you initiate the Golden Age
of Aquarius and begin to feel the returning energies of the Feminine Christ/Sophia consciousness.
The year 2021 is a Bridge out of the old consciousness and into the new.  As you put your feet on the bridge to cross over you are still surrounded by the echoes and energies of the past year.  So, you will still need to process and release the events and energies of 2020 to some extent.  January will be an especially eventful month, with a strong energy of disruption and chaos.  
By mid-year, you will have reached the middle of the Bridge, and by then you will be ready to begin approaching the end of the bridge and entering the New Reality.  By the time of Lions Gate in August, you will begin to perceive the “shape” of your new lives in the New Earth in the Age of Aquarius.
So, you will find that in 2021 you will need to be patient and to trust your inner guidance.  You will feel in your Heart and Soul what is true for you.  
You will not find your way in the stories and dramas of 2021…and there will be many to choose from!  Rather, Beloved Ones, the way forward will be found within your own Heart, in your own Inner Peace, Tranquility and Creativity.  Remember that your purpose on Earth is to create the New Earth and do not let yourself be distracted by other agendas.  Know who you are, and why you are here!

The Age of Aquarius: The New 2000-year cycle of the Grand Cycle of 26 000 Years
Beloved, there is a “Grand Cycle” of the Earth’s Journey through Time and Space that is called the “Precession of the Equinoxes” and it is an approximately 26,000-year cycle.  
The Equinoxes are two “marker” days when the day and the night are of equal length on Earth.  Every year, at the Spring Equinox, the Sun rises into a specific constellation of the astrological zodiac, the name given to the band of constellations that describe the Earth’s cyclical and circular journey in Time/Space.  Currently, the Spring Equinox sun rises into Pisces, but you are now completing that cycle and moving into the Aquarius cycle.
Precession runs “backwards” around the zodiac, so that the cycle before the current
Age of Pisces was the Age of Aries, and the one to follow will be the Age of Aquarius.

So, the Age of Pisces began roughly 2000 years ago.  
Its Avatars or Guiding Energies were Yeshua (Jesus) and Mary Magdalene, who came
to the Earth as Teachers of the Sacred Union of the Sacred Heart.  Their Mission was to prepare Humanity for the next cycle, the Age of Aquarius which was to be a Golden Age of Peace and Harmony that would embody the “Christ Consciousness” within the Greater Cycle.
The purpose of this “Grand Cycle” is to anchor the Light Codes of the Divine Creative Intelligence on the Earth, as within the Galaxy.  The Grand Cycle began when the Spring Equinox Sun was in Leo, which was called “Zep Tepi” or the “First Time” or the Beginning, by the Ancient Egyptians who learnt their Star Wisdom from the Sirian Star Teachers.  
It’s the reason why the Sphinx at Giza gazes into what would have been the constellation of Leo at the “Zep Tepi”, when the Royal Lions initiated the cycle of Creation together with the Elohim. So now, Beloved Masters, you are halfway across the Bridge of the Equinoxes too, your faces towards the new Age of Aquarius that is coming!

The Avatars of the Aquarian Age:  Yeshua (Jesus) and Mary Magdalene
At the beginning of the Age of Pisces, the Elohim sent two Avatars or Ascended Masters to anchor the energies that would take Humanity from the violence of the Age of Aries into the more spiritual Age of Pisces. Pisces, which is ruled by Neptune, is energized by high spiritual ideals, and Yeshua and Mary Magdalene were to embody these ideals that would be needed for the Shift of the Ages when the Age of Pisces would become the Age of Aquarius.
Unfortunately, the shadow side of Neptunian energy is manipulation and lying, and so
the true story of Yeshua and Mary was hidden and distorted in the manipulation of those, in several dimensions, who sought to control the Earth and its path.
Yeshua and Mary came to Earth as Divine Twin Avatars, to hold the essence of the evolving Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine, both within themselves and as a Divine partnership.  When Yeshua left the Earth, Mary went to France, and continued with her mission of grounding the “pure” Divine Energy and preparing for the Age of Aquarius that would come.  Humanity needed to be prepared.
Unfortunately, the energy of manipulation and control took over the first seeds planted in the Middle East, and the “Christian” church began to suppress and control people through fear.
The true line continued in Europe through the teachings of Mary Magdalene, the “Lady”, who established that the true “Christ Consciousness” was Love, Compassion, Kindness
and Freedom, practiced in loving and supportive communities of high frequency Master Beings, the “Pure Ones” or “Cathars”.
However, the followers of the Lady were wiped out by the Roman Church in the Albigensian Crusade of the 12th Century, and the true Avatar teachings were lost or suppressed.  But, Beloveds, not forever!  There was a beautiful prophecy given that
at this time, right now, the “Pure Ones” would return, to lead Earth into the Golden
Age and to recover the teachings of the Feminine Christ Consciousness.

The Wisdom of the Feminine Christ/Sophia
So, you may ask, what is it that needs to return that was lost to us?

What is the Feminine Christ/Sophia?
Beloved, this is the deep and loving energy of non-judgment and compassion.  
Both for others, and for yourself.  As Yeshua said to his followers, as he drew on his Feminine Christ wisdom: “You must love your Neighbour as yourself.”  This means you must first love yourself and know how to love yourself, before you can love others.
But, as you look deeper, you find the teachings of the Lady, Mary Magdalene, written within your Sacred Heart. This is the place of Balance, Harmony, Beauty, Serenity and Peace.  It is the soaring heights of the Galactic Journey and the deep depths of the Inner Realms. Beloveds, as you align with her wisdom, you will both soar high and dive deep.
One of the titles given to the Divine Feminine Avatars is “Stella Maris” or “Star of the Sea” (Ste Marie).  The Stella Maris is the Bright Star that guides you on your journey through the Cosmic Ocean.  Follow the Inner Cosmic Light, the Inner Divine Feminine, to navigate your journey through Time and Space.  “She”, the Stella Maris, the Guiding Light, lives within each one of you and seeks to be awakened NOW!

Blessings and Love to All. 

If you would like to learn more about the Aquarius Gate and these incoming energies, please join us for our online webinar series ” The Age of Aquarius webinars. 
You will join together with our Diamond Light Community for information, support
and activations with Celia Fenn and Archangel Michael and other Beings of light.
2/2 The Age of Aquarius Webinars | Starchild Global with Celia Fenn

The Coming Age of Aquarius and the Rising Feminine Christ Consciousness | Starchild Global with Celia Fenn

Venus, Mary Magdalene, and the Re-emerging Sacred Feminine – Astro Dienst
Heavenly Venus: Mary Magdalene In Renaissance Noli Me Tangere Images pdf, (usf.edu)

Mary Magdalene and Venus – Bing video


 FROM FEAR TO FREEDOM – VENUS AS THE GOLDEN KEY TO THE AGE OF AQUARIUS Jan 02, 2022

“The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear. “
~ Aung San Suu Kyi

Calum Scott, Leona Lewis – You Are the Reason (Duet Version)
The promise of the Age of Aquarius is for humans of heart to re-dream the world
through realizing our inherent power, genius, and sovereignty. We have the ability to create a culture based on care, interconnection and reverence for nature while protecting our most vulnerable members. All of these qualities connect to Venus.
 
We are now creating the template for our human experience for the next 2100 years.
When we hold the future generations in our hearts, what kind of world do we want to create? Venus teaches that when we embody love, we can dream of a positive future beyond our imagination.
 
To align with the high vibe version of the Age of Aquarius, a transformation of the dominator consciousness is required. We are rewriting the ancient stories of what it means to be a human being living on this planet. The courage of our hearts can light the way.
 
Dominator consciousness works through creating fear and lack and preying upon us
most fundamental need for connection, nurturing relationships, and a sense of belonging (all Venus themes.) In 2022, more of the collective will assist in transmuting these patterns.
 
Do you remember last December Solstice when we crossed an energetic bridge deeper?
into the Age of Aquarius with the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn at 0 Aquarius?
These two “social” planets come together every twenty years and represent knowing
our life purpose and bringing our gifts to the world, including financial success.
We have completed the first year of discovering our unique offering for this new age.
 
Women bringing their gifts to the world and men attuning to their feeling nature
are a huge aspect of healing from a culture that devalues the feminine principle.
 
The heroine’s journey of Venus supports us in this quest to know and
live from our sacred purpose. A new journey is imminent.
 
This December Solstice we celebrated amidst the intensity of the last ripples of a solar eclipse, the tension of the build-up of the final Saturn-Uranus square on December 23rd, and the intensity of Venus meeting up with Pluto, the Great Transformer on the 25th.
The purification of fear and control is still amped up to prepare us to embody more of our power in 2022.
 
Today, the Moon meets the Sun in Capricorn for our first New Moon. Tomorrow, on January 3rd, Venus meets the Moon in Capricorn for our first New Venus Portal of 2022. 

This is their last visible meeting in the Evening Sky. 
We are in the final days of Venus as Evening Star and, if you are lucky, you may be able to catch the celestial bodies representing the lunar and solar feminine in the west at sunset tonight or tomorrow.
 
Venus will unite with the Sun in Capricorn on January 8th, invisible to us, and plant the seeds of our next 19-month cycle of heart initiation. Her cycle guides us through another heroine’s journey to quest for more aliveness, truth and power. This entire cycle will be infused with the energy of Capricorn and themes of feminine empowerment.
 
The sign of Capricorn and the planet Saturn have come to represent the shadow aspects
of scarcity, fear and control and the dynamic of “power over” that rules through the use of force.
 
Capricorn is initiating, feminine earth energy of social responsibility and leadership,
so it’s quite a reversal that this sign is associated with patriarchy.
 
The energy of Venus in Capricorn will seed the next 19-months and inspire us to remember the positive manifestation of Capricorn consciousness.
 
We will all be called into greater maturity and to live from our deeper, embodied wisdom, as opposed to dissociating into virtual reality.
 
It’s time to take full responsibility for our lives and the ways we are still feeding the dominator culture and the dying paradigm. It’s time to remember the art of conservation that our ancestors knew and to become more self-sufficient locally in connection with our chosen community.
 
How we navigate the heightened fear that accompanies this level of change matters
more than ever. When we anchor in our heart wisdom, we find the strength to move
through these times powerfully.
 
FROM JESUS TO SAINT GERMAIN (pathwaytoascension.com)

Hieros Gamos: Universal Theology for the Age of Aquarius.

the age of Aquarius 5th dimension – Search (bing.com)

the age of Aquarius in the bible – Search (bing.com)

the age of Aquarius in bible prophecy – Bing video

Mary Magdalene ~ The Journey of the Sacred Priestess
Written by Jackie S

For as long as I can remember I have always connected and resonated with Mary Magdalene. 
My mother has a huge bible with beautiful gold encrusted pictures of many of the biblical characters. I sat for hours and read and gazed at the beautiful pictures depicted of each saint. My connection to Jesus was a very strong one as well and would prove even stronger as I had my adult spiritual encounter at 20 with invoking the name of Jesus.
I am not surprised that both Jesus and Mary Magdalene served as my direct representation of the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine and have proved to be my strongest guides in this lifetime…. But this blog is not about Jesus ~ It is about the mysterious life of Mary of Magdalene and how she has unfolded to me in a very personal way.
To really understand who Mary is… I ask you to open your mind and allow information to flow to you. I understand that many of you who will read this have preconceived notions and also family of origin teachings and also religious teachings handed down to you which you hang on to. It is quite alright if you do…
I have had to do a lot of sitting with information that I was taught and become open and ask myself…. Is this a belief I was taught and does this resonate with me? I have come to many a new understanding and belief in allowing myself to be open and see what resonates with me and sits well within my being.

With this being said. I have come to understand that I am part of the lineage of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was Mary of Magdala (her hometown, a village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee)
She is also confused and lumped into several of the biblical stories of Mary, such as Mary the sister of Martha and the brother of Lazarus. I don’t believe that all of these so-called biblical “Marys” all speak of Mary Magdalene. We must understand biblical text and its secret symbolic meanings and not in literal sense, with this being said let us journey forward.

Let us explore Goddess Worship and the understanding of the Goddess during these times.
The Divine Mother and her Consort/Savior Son is a strong theme in World Goddess Myth, making Virgin Mary/Mary Magdalene a likely composite. The title of Virgin was often bestowed upon sexually active Goddesses. Sacred Temple Priestesses were often called Virgins.
In addition, children of The Sacred Marriage, a ritual union of a temple priestess and a king willing to die for his people, were often called “virgin born” or “divine children,” just as Christ was, it is also possible that Mother Mary was dedicated to a Goddess temple when she was a child. 
Perhaps Mother Mary was a temple priestess, thus making Jesus (or Yeshua) a divine child. There is even stronger evidence that Mary Magdalene was a temple priestess, so perhaps this is the true connection between Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. This divine marriage rite practiced was called the Hieros Gamos and as you can see here it is representative of the alchemic elements and signifies the Star of David.

hierosgamos2
Four pieces of Gospel evidence strongly point to Mary Magdalene as a temple
priestess of the Goddess. The first is her title “Magdalene,” almost identical to
“Magdala,” noted earlier to be the name of the triple-towered temple of the
Goddess Mari-Anna-Ishtar.
Literally, “Mary of the Magdala” signifies “Mary of the Goddess Temple.”
Christian tradition has said that Mary is of the town “Magdala” or “Migdal,” which was known as “The Village of Doves,” a place where sacred doves were bred for the Goddess temple. In either case, two threads of strong symbolism link the name Magdalene to contemporary Goddess worship.

Yesterday I facilitated a Goddess Rite of Passage celebrating our womb opening and our Moon. It is a sacred ceremony allowing us to see that we are connected to Cosmic Creation and of course Mother Earth. We learned that our creation power and menstrual flow have powerful and medicinal medicine and healing power. We took vows in this sacred work to honor and heal the earth and to celebrate and honor our bodies and celebrate our empowerment as Divine Goddess and to empower other Goddesses and teach them and also to assist in the healing of the Divine Masculine and help them to fill their role as protectors and guardians of the womb and the goddess. This is the work of the Divine Priestess ~ Such as the work of Mary Magdalene. I am so honored and blessed to be a Priestess and a teacher and a keeper of the Holy Grail and the sacred teachings of the Goddess. This is the work of a Holy Priestess. The Divine work of Mary Magdalene.

The Divine work of the Goddess.

As we exited the age of Pisces, which was the age of the unhealthy male, The age of unhealthy Patriarchal rule. We now entered into the age of Aquarius, which is represented by the woman holding the cisterns of water. This is the age of washing… washing away the unhealthy and bringing new water and cleansing to the unhealthy energies to bring balance.
It is the age of the Goddess, a time for The Matriarchal. It is a time for us to bring back
the age of balance. Women restore and create so it is no wonder why this time has come. The time has come not for women to hurt and dominate and discourage men… The time has come for women to love and empower and encourage men to make the journey for balance. The men and women come together in balance. A balance of the Masculine and Feminine Divine within. What an exciting time to be living!

images
Mary Magdalene is a Divine Master, pertaining to the Priestess initiations into
the sacred teachings of the Goddess. Her diverse heritage and true spiritual purpose is what makes Mary Magdalene so unique.
A temple priestess who bestowed the power of the Goddess on those she initiated,
Mary was also an apostle and consort of Jesus, and the Judean mission in the heart of the land where the Jerusalem Temple lay. It was through Mary’s role as temple priestess that the most secret and sacred teachings of the Goddess were finally grasped.

Mary Magdalene works with the grid changes of the Earth that support our etheric reconnection to Lemuria and Atlantis. In doing this she supports the Earth and the
rapid ascension process of our corresponding body and consciousness back into the
5th dimension.
Her other main endeavor is to support the healing process currently occurring the East, specifically working to ease the pain arising from conflict issues within and between the Middle East and the West. In this unique template, the following symbols provide significant information in fully understanding the role of Mary Magdalene:



The Crystal Skull – holds the sacred key to the mysteries of St John and the Lemurian teachings of alchemy and etheric healing.
The Cave – symbolism going into the Earth or womb of the Goddess, as well as retreating into oneself, seeking a place of introversion.
The Candle – represents Mary Magdalene as holding the Light for others. The darkness
of her skin – reflects her ethnic and spiritual background as well as personification of the Black Madonna. 
The Snake and Chalice – represent the sacred practices and teachings of the kundalini
and also its alchemical healing and enlightenment powers, bestowed within the body and consciousness to enable one to evolve, awaken, ascend and embody the cosmic or celestial Lightbody system, the Christ Body.

The Master Symbol – located on Mary Magdalene’s 3rd eye consists of the ancient cross, the crescent moon and the cosmic symbol of Venus. These symbols represent a sacred lineage of priestess teachings that bestow the Goddess powers of the Feminine Principles into the consciousness of one’s faith. It symbolizes the ‘way’ of the Magdalene.

images
Sacred Symbol of Activation of the sacred lineage. 
I hope you enjoyed your time here reading and celebrating this sacred time of clarity
and understanding. If this information resonates with you perhaps you would love to
come and be a part of our Goddess Community and take part in some of our Goddess Workshops. I look forward to connecting with you ❤

Abundant Blessings ❤ ❤ ❤

Mary Magdalene ~ The Journey Of The Sacred Priestess | Passage Into Power

Venus, Mary Magdalene, and the Re-emerging Sacred Feminine – Astrodienst

Mary Magdalene | Gnostic Muse

Mary Magdalene – Wikipedia
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The Great Awakening: 2020

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Ken
Why I cried when I found out I had Covid (Opinion)
Opinion by Meg Jacobs

As soon as I got the call last week, I cried.

I was not worried about myself. I was worried about my four kids. Not for caretaking,
I have a very competent husband, and the kids are all either old enough to vote or close
to it. No, I panicked because my Covid-19 diagnosis triggered the memory of when I got my cancer diagnosis. I learned that information over the phone, too.

A routine mammogram at the age of 49 led to the discovery of a mass and a needle biopsy. For four days, I waited on the results. Finally, just as I was about to leave home to take my father-in-law to a doctor’s appointment, I saw the radiologist’s number pop up on my phone.

We had a short, efficient conversation. He gave me the name and number of a breast surgeon and told me not to wait too long. “So, if someone asks if I have cancer, the answer is yes,” I said. “Correct,” he responded. I hung up, took my in-law to the appointment and waited until I returned home before I called my husband to tell him the news.

All along, my single thought was: What will this do to my family?

Over the next few weeks, I was worried about my health. After all of the initial reassurances about catching the mass early and removing it with a successful surgery, clear margins and nothing in the lymph nodes, I got back the results from my genomic testing. Those results basically told me that my tumor, despite all of the promising initial signs, had an elevated risk of recurrence. My first doctor put chemotherapy on the table; several weeks and tests later, my second doctor took it off.

COVID, Jan. 6, Afghanistan: Top Biden Quotes From His First Year As President In 2021.
At first, I tried to inject some levity into the difficult road ahead. I would make jokes about the swanky, zippered, leather binder containing the treatment plan I’d received, along with a water bottle, tote and lots of other breast center swag.

However, the six-week daily routine of going to the hospital, stripping down, climbing on the table and getting zapped with radiation began to wear on me. The horrible burn that comes with the treatment stinks, too — way worse than the sunburn that every kid got in the 1970s. And I’ll forever have the dozen or so tiny tattoos that told the technicians the radiation beams were hitting me in the right place.

Having a cancer diagnosis and receiving treatment was, of course, hard.
But what was harder was thinking about what my cancer would mean for my kids.
They were younger then. My two little ones were just starting high school, and the
next oldest was a junior. My oldest was weeks away from applying to college.
My only meltdown — publicly, at least — over confronting the big “C” happened when
she and I were college touring and had to fly back home separately because the airline
had overbooked the flight from Chicago’s O’Hare back to New York’s LaGuardia.
In a vain attempt to persuade the ticket agent to let me travel with my daughter,
I yelled, “I have cancer!” (It didn’t work.)

I’m not sure what I thought my diagnosis would do to my kids.

Distract them from their schoolwork?

Leave them motherless at mealtimes?

Or maybe leave them motherless forever?

I certainly know what that kind of loss is like.
My father died from a massive heart attack when he was 47, and I was 12. He was playing his weekly Sunday tennis game with my mother when he collapsed. She tried to do CPR, but he was dead before the ambulance arrived. One day he was here, the next he wasn’t.
I wrote a note on a piece of yellow legal paper and stuck it in his inside suit pocket as he lay in the coffin.

He was leaving, and I wanted him to take something from me with him.

As painful as my heartache was (and is) for my father, I had survived his loss.

So, why was I so scared that my kids might not survive if I wasn’t around?

The answer: I was worried I couldn’t protect my kids from fears and heartaches of their own. It turns out they knew a lot, even more than me, thanks to endless streaming of
“Jane the Virgin.”

When there was a chance I needed chemo, they knew all about the cold cap.

Video: Thompson: There are ‘three circles of risk’ from Covid-19 (CNN)

My children are strong and self-possessed — three beautiful, very on-top-of-it girls
and one sweet, sweet boy. They’ve been through divorce and remarriage and the blending of two families into one. And yet I didn’t want to scare them or make them worry about
more than who they have a crush on or what outfit they should choose for the next day.

I wanted to protect them, not cause them grief. But life just doesn’t work that way.

Try as hard as you might, you cannot protect your kids from everything.

Now, I’m three years past my diagnosis and treatment. I go for all my scans and tests.
I take my medication. So far, so good. But, in 2020, along came Covid-19.
For almost two years, we’ve all worked to protect our children and keep them safe from this strange, strange illness. M y family left New York City on March 16, 2020, right as it became a hot spot for the pandemic. For a few days, we wore bandannas we got from the local Five & Dime in our temporary town, for a few weeks we washed fruit and groceries
(I still do).

We quickly learned more, we socially distanced, we wore masks, we stayed
away for nine months, and we did online school. We all hunkered down together.
They were safe. I protected them. We made it work, eventually seeing some friends outside, moving back home and gladly supporting the kids’ return to school. We got our vaccines and our boosters. And then I got Covid-19 — exactly what my family had feared.
My husband and I went to our friends’ apartment for dinner where everyone was triply vaccinated. It was our first or second dinner in years in someone else’s home, drinking wine, talking politics, and lingering. We all felt so good to be back together.

Five days later, just after I left the hospital for a biannual breast exam, I got the news
that my friends had tested positive. My heart sank. Four days later, I tested positive, too.
When I got the call with my Covid-19 results, it felt like getting diagnosed with cancer all over again. I knew it wasn’t the same, of course. But I feared that getting sick would cause my family grief. We are so lucky that my Covid-19 symptoms were not severe —
I felt like I had a mild cold, a few sniffles, a cough or two.

The worst part was being separated from my family. I was so looking forward to my older two girls coming home from college over the holiday break. But, instead, we are apart.
My husband, who somehow escaped the dinner party pathogens, took all four kids and left the city — again. They made a new family group chat, and I wasn’t in it. My “Covid-cation” is the first time I’ve been alone in two years. Since the pandemic started, we have had constant togetherness.

When the world is falling apart, all you want to do is protect your kids.
Because that’s what parents do. They don’t let the danger through the front door — if they can help it. Now it looks like the worst and the best is upon us. It seems pretty likely that my kids will contract Covid-19, if not from me, then from someone else, but unlikely that
it will be severe. And they are seeing that I’m OK. Thanks to science, we really can cure illness.

So, maybe, in some convoluted, exhausting, frustrating, terrifying and horrible way, the lesson is: we will survive. We cannot protect our kids from everything. That is always true, and we’ve all had a master class on that in the last two Covid-filled years.

But maybe we — I — need to realize that — that is OK.
I’ve survived the big “C” twice. Cancer and Covid-19. And my kids are OK.
Meg Jacobs teaches history at Princeton University. Follow Meg Jacobs on: Twitter @MegJacobs100. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.
Read more opinions on CNN.

Who should get a COVID test, how often and what type?

Meredith Cohn, Baltimore Sun – Search (bing.com)

Here’s what public health experts say.
Testing has become an integral part of a layered approach to keeping individuals and communities safe, in addition to vaccinations, boosters, masks and adequate ventilation. So, who needs a PCR or rapid test? 

Public health experts have answers.
Tests are most critical for those who have been exposed to COVID-19 because they live, work or have gathered with someone who is positive. It’s also critical for people to be tested if they have symptoms, which include fever, cough, difficulty breathing or loss
of smell, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

PCR tests typically conducted at a testing site and processed in a lab are the best at detecting COVID-19, with results in a day or two.
At-home rapid tests that come in a box from a store or public distribution site are more convenient and can detect the latest omicron variant.
They are, however, considered a little less reliable, especially in people with no symptoms, said Matthew Frieman, a longtime coronavirus researcher and professor in the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s department of microbiology and immunology.

Public health experts suggest people exposed or with symptoms using a rapid test should use one swab test and then another a few days later if the first result is negative. (There are typically two tests in the at-home test kits.) That gives the virus enough time to spread in the body and be detected. People should stay home or wear masks while they await results.

Healthy people who work in person might want to have regular PCR or rapid tests performed. Those visiting assisted living facilities and other places where people are at high risk due to age or medical condition often are required to be tested within a day or two of visiting.
Public health officials say it still may be a good idea even if it’s not required or when seeing grandparents or other vulnerable individuals at home. Older people often have trouble gaining or sustaining immune system defenses.

Dr. Jinlene Chan, Maryland’s deputy health secretary for public health services, adds that people should be tested before and after travel. And she said children should be tested so they can return to school safely after the holidays and so they can stay in the classroom when others test positive for the virus. Many schools are participating in a state schools testing program for that.

Those who want to go to an event or holiday gathering might use a rapid test the day before, Frieman said. That way there is time to get a PCR test to confirm a positive result.

Frieman said all this assumes tests are available, which for now, they may not be. 
If there are no tests, people with symptoms should avoid gatherings and healthy
people should rely on all the other layers of protection.

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Look at those Evil Eyes — AOC: Facebook ‘sabotaged’ the global COVID response with disinformation. By Max Zahn with Andy Serwer

Finance Progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Yahoo.
In an exclusive interview, Facebook (FB) and other U.S. companies have “sabotaged”
the global response to COVID-19 by spreading disinformation about the virus. 
The tech giant, which recently changed its name to Meta, should “be broken up” because it exploits its overlapping lines of business as a platform, vendor, and advertiser, Ocasio-Cortez added in the wide-ranging remarks.

“There are some things that the United States provides that are welcome,” she says.
 “There are also things that we want the United States to stop exporting and one of those things is disinformation — disinformation through U.S.-founded companies like Facebook that have absolutely slowed and frankly sabotaged the global effort to fight against the coronavirus,” she adds. The comments from Ocasio-Cortez, who spoke to Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer, on Jan. 27, came nearly a month after Facebook suspended House Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for 24 hours for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

Facebook imposed the suspension a day after Twitter banned Greene permanently. 

Facebook has drawn criticism throughout the pandemic for what some perceive as an inadequate effort to prevent the spread of false information about the virus.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. President Joe Biden set off a public back-and-forth with Facebook last July when he asserted that social media platforms are “killing people” through the spread of vaccine misinformation. 

In response, Facebook VP Guy Rosen refuted the accusation, arguing in a blog post that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users had increased since the previous January and advocating instead for a “whole of society” approach to ending the pandemic.
In later comments on the subject, Biden softened his criticism by directing his ire toward the top influencers who spread vaccine misinformation on social media, rather than the platforms themselves.

But documents later disclosed by whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed:
The company had gathered deep information about the spread of coronavirus misinformation on its platform, which the company did not share publicly, the Washington Post reported in October.
Facebook spokesperson Aaron Simpson provided this statement to the Post: “There’s no silver bullet to fighting misinformation, which is why we take a comprehensive approach which includes removing more than 20 million pieces of content that break our covid misinformation policies … connecting more than 2 billion people to reliable information about covid-19 and vaccines and partnering with independent fact-checkers.

“Only 12 people are responsible for up to 73% of anti-vaccine misinformation on Facebook, according to a report released in March 2021 by advocacy group Center for Countering Digital Hate. Joseph Mercola, a top anti-vaccine influencer with 1.7 million followers on the platform, frequently posts messages skeptical of vaccines and uses his Facebook page to promote his anti-vaccine book “The Truth About COVID-19.”

The CCDH report on the Disinformation Dozen shows that these 12 people, collectively have 59 million followers, are responsible for 73% of the anti-vax content on Facebook and 65% of anti-vaccine messages on other major platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. This in turn means that if the social media platforms will simply shut down their accounts (and other sites that they control, such as the misleadingly named Children’s Health Defense and National Vaccine Information Center),
we will see a dramatic reduction in false vaccine information, virtually overnight.

So, who are the Disinformation Dozen? Here they are:
Joseph Mercola
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Ty and Charlene Bollinger
Sherri Tenpenny
Rizza Islam
Rashid Buttar
Erin Elizabeth
Sayer Ji
Kelly Brogan
Christiane Northrup
Ben Tapper
Kevin Jenkins
Read the original post

“Ocasio-Cortez rose to prominence in June 2018 with a surprise upset of incumbent
Rep. Joseph Crowley, then the No. 4 Democrat in the House and a potential successor
to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When she took office the following year at the age of 29,
she became the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.
She has amassed nearly 13 million Twitter followers, giving her one of the largest online platforms of a U.S. elected official. Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Ocasio-Cortez reiterated her longstanding call for antitrust action against Facebook.

Last month, a judge rejected Facebook’s request to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit brought
by the Federal Trade Commission that claims the company is operating a monopoly in
the social media sector. “Facebook should be broken up,” Ocasio-Cortez says.

“They’re an advertiser. They are acting as both platform and vendor.

They are a communication platform, which has historically been a well-established domain of antitrust.” “Because there are so many businesses and industries in one,”
she adds. “The case [is] right there in and of itself as to why they should be subject
to antitrust activity.”

image.png
H.R. 4310 section 1078 propaganda – Search (bing.com)

Obamacare Death Panels Are Real – Search (bing.com)
900,000 American COVID-19 deaths, less than two-thirds of US fully vaccinated.
As US surpasses 900,000 COVID deaths, the trajectory of the pandemic remains uncertain (msn.com)
AOC says capitalism is ‘not a redeemable system’ while Biden says he will work with Congress to make it better (msn.com)

Read more: What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants in the next Supreme Court nominee
New Johns Hopkins Study Proves The So-Called Experts Got It All Wrong,
Undermined Democracy [VIDEO] (redvoicemedia.com)
Russia and China Align Against U.S as They Issue Demands to Joe Biden (msn.com)
AOC: Capitalism ‘is the absolute pursuit of profit’ at all costs (msn.com)
AOC: Corporate ‘price gouging’ is fueling inflation. – Bing
How Millennials are Smarter than Boomers – Bing

Absolute Proof: Mike Lindell Releases Long Promised Documentary of 2020 Voter Fraud.
MINDY ROBINSON – Route 91: Uncovering the Cover Up of The Vegas Mass Shooting.
Watch the 19-Part Sequel to the Fall of Cabal Series (greatawakeningreport.com)
Chinese Supersonic Subs to The United States – Search (bing.com)
What is the great reset Davos agenda 2021 – Search (bing.com)?
Crimes Against Humanity & Anthony Fauci – Search (bing.com)
The Wildfires: California High Speed Rail – Search (bing.com)
Bill Gates Depopulation Ted Talk – Search (bing.com)
Build Back Better Agenda 21 – Search (bing.com)
Bill Gates Believes in Depopulation – Bing video

Bonus: Snowboarder Jamie Anderson doesn’t sugarcoat journey to Beijing Olympics: ‘Absolute nightmare’.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Becoming A Louse

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Ken
I? The answer to this most perplexing question.

louse [lous]
Noun

informal
derogatory, contemptible or unpleasant person.

synonyms:
scoundrel · villain · rogue · rascal · brute · animal · weasel · snake · monster · ogre · wretch · devil · good-for-nothing · reprobate · wrongdoer · evildoer · picaro · blackguard · miscreant · varlet · vagabond · rapscallion · whoreson
pl. lous·es (lous′ĭz) Slang A mean despicable person or disagreeable person, unpleasant person – a person who is not pleasant or agreeable

Traits of a toxic person – Bing video

My passion in life is communication in all its many forms. I enjoy nothing more than deep chats about life, love and the Universe. With a master’s degree in Journalism, I’m a former BBC news reporter and newsreader. But around 8 years ago I swapped the studio for a life on the open road. Lisbon, Portugal is currently where I call home.
My personal development articles have featured in Huffington Post, Elite Daily,
Thought Catalog, Thrive Global and more.
Written by Louise Jackson

1) Playing the victim
A loser may feel like life is against them. They can’t seem to catch a break.
Bad things happen to them, and they are always at the mercy of life.
Of course, some people really have been dealt a far worse hand than others.
Yet, there are plenty of people who still manage to create success and happiness
out of the worst conditions.
Winners take full responsibility for themselves, rather than always seeing everything as somebody else’s fault. Losers are unable to see that a victim mentality is the very attitude that keeps them stuck.
If we give other people power over our lives or feel dependent on how they behave to make us happy — it’s never going to end well.
Getting lost in self-pity, martyrdom, and telling yourself “Woe is me”
delays you from getting around to the important work of improving your life.
And at the end of the day, nobody else is going to do it for you.

2) Giving up all the time
No matter how much positive thinking you practice, let’s face it, life is hard sometimes. But when faced with challenges we only ever really have two choices.
We can either accept, deal with and move on from what has floored us or we quit and become defeated by it.
Of course, we’ve all felt pretty defeated by life at some point but winners eventually pick themselves up and start looking for solutions.
For example, if you feel like you don’t have any real friends — that certainly doesn’t make you a loser (it’s actually really common). But resigning yourself to a fate of loneliness when you want to make better connections does.
Losers convince themselves that nothing will ever change, so they give up on what matters most to them before they’ve even tried.
As the powerful Japanese proverb goes, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
Successful people understand that failing and falling are only a part of their journey.
They have cultivated enough resilience so that they refuse to give up hope — which strengthens them to keep on striving.
One of the biggest reasons that people become losers, is that they give up and lose their personal power.

Begin with yourself.
Stop searching for external fixes to sort out your life, deep down,
you know this isn’t working!
And that’s because until you look within and unleash your personal power,
you’ll never find the satisfaction and fulfillment you’re searching for. 
I learned this from the shaman Rudá Iandê. His life mission is to help people restore balance to their lives and unlock their creativity and potential. He has an incredible approach that combines ancient shamanic techniques with a modern-day twist. 
In his excellent free video, Rudá explains effective methods to achieve what you
want in life and to stop being a loser.

So, if you want to build a better relationship with yourself, unlock your endless potential, and put passion at the heart of everything you do, start now by checking out his genuine advice. Here’s a link to the free video again.

3) Constant negativity
Last year, I tried to go a whole week without complaining and it was tough.
I think we don’t even spot how much negativity falls out of our mouths on a daily basis.
Whilst having a bit of a moan can feel habitual at times, constant complaining is not only bad for your health but even rewires your brain.
For some people, negativity is so deeply ingrained that it puts a dark cloud
over everything they do.
You know, those people who never have a good word to say.
I call them “negaholics” because negativity and complaining are almost an addiction.
Losers manage to completely miss the bright side and promptly arrive at why everything and everyone sucks. It’s an exhaustingly heavy energy to be around and that excessive complaining just makes life worse.

4) Being totally self-absorbed
An inability to give a damn about anybody but yourself leads to a very shallow existence.
Even if you’ve climbed “to the top” by stepping on countless others along the way,
it doesn’t matter what material gains you make, you’re still a loser where it counts.
Sometimes egocentric qualities can even seem to be traits that drive success in some people, but I guess it depends on your definition of “success”.
A feeling of contributing and caring for others has been shown to be important for our happiness.
Tom Rath in his book ‘It’s Not About You: A Brief Guide to a Meaningful Life’ put it this way: “Your life has an unknown expiration date. Your efforts and contributions to others do not. The time, energy and resources you invest in people you care for and your community keep growing forever.”

5) Arrogance 
We’re always told how a healthy self-esteem is so important, so when does that cross over into arrogance?
Being unpleasantly proud or feeling like you’re better than everybody else might look like a mask of confidence from the outside, but I suspect it’s actually anything but.
Whenever I’ve looked down on people, it has served a purpose of helping to inflate my own ego and make them wrong and me right — so ultimately boiled down to a sign of my own insecurity.
Real winners in life don’t need to be cocky or full of themselves because they don’t have anything to prove.
Their sense of self or success comes from within and doesn’t feel threatened by others, which allows them to be humble. 

6) Zero self-awareness
I mentioned in the intro that most people who have ever questioned if they are a bit of a loser, probably aren’t. That’s because even just the self-awareness to look for negative qualities or circumstances in our own life suggests a level of sensitivity.
The chances are that it doesn’t even dawn on real losers that there is anything wrong with them. They have an inability to analyze themselves with any degree of objectivity or perspective.
If you are able to contemplate yourself and how your actions, thoughts, or emotions do or don’t align with your internal standards — this really is 90% of the battle when it comes to change. We can’t ever make positive changes until we can see a problem.
Having zero self-awareness is an invisible prison that keeps you stuck where you are.

7) Narrow mindedness and an unwillingness to listen to others
I’m right, you are wrong, and I don’t want to hear it. Losers seem to know it all and will fight to “defend” their perspective. Differences of opinions are natural; the world is full of points of view.
The “truth” is actually a lot harder to define in many situations than we might expect.
But losers are unprepared to even consider someone else’s side of things, preferring to vilify or blame them.
The older I’ve got the more I’ve realized how very little I actually know, but I see this as progress. I used to have such a long list of “rights and wrongs” that only gave me tunnel vision.
I’m sure that striving to try and understand other people and learn from their experiences will be a lifelong journey for me — but one worth taking.
A lack of tolerance for others or an inability to listen can be destructive to not just our own lives, but everyone around us as well as the societies we belong to.

8) Extreme vanity
There’s loving yourself, and then there’s LOVING yourself.
I’m not talking about wanting to look nice on a night out or letting loved ones
know your fantastic exam results — which falls under healthy self-esteem.
But the irony is that excessive pride or admiration for how you look or what you
achieve is actually quite ugly and may even spill over into narcissism.

According to Psychological and Brain Sciences professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne,
it’s also most likely a sign of some deep-rooted insecurity:
“People who are constantly bragging about their great lifestyle, their elite education, or their fantastic children may very well be doing so to convince themselves that they really do have worth.”
The more you feel the need to big yourself up, the chances are the more of a loser you feel deep down. When we feel good about ourselves, we don’t usually feel the need to prove anything to anyone else.

9) Bitching about people behind their back
I read that gossiping serves some kind of social function.
Research has suggested it can stave off loneliness, facilitate bonding and act as a form of entertainment. I wonder if there’s anyone who could proudly raise their hand and say that they have never participated in gossip. I certainly couldn’t.
But any purpose it has, there’s also clearly a much darker side to it.
Unkindness, meanness, or even cruelty towards other people,
whether that is to their face or behind their back is pretty much just bullying.
Nobody is perfect and I’m sure most of us have hurt someone we care about with our words, but only losers actually feel good about tearing other people down.
But I get it, letting those feelings out can be hard, especially if you’ve spent so long trying to stay in control of them.
If that’s the case, I highly recommend watching this free breathwork video, created by the shaman, Rudá Iandê.

Rudá isn’t another self-professed life coach. Through shamanism and his own life journey, he’s created a modern-day twist to ancient healing techniques.
The exercises in his invigorating video combine years of breathwork experience and ancient shamanic beliefs, designed to help you relax and check in with your body and soul.
After many years of suppressing my emotions, Rudá’s dynamic breathwork flow quite literally revived that connection.

And that’s what you need:
A spark to reconnect you with your feelings so that you can begin focusing
on the most important relationship of all – the one you have with yourself.
So if you’re ready to take back control over your mind, body, and soul, if you’re ready to say goodbye to anxiety and stress, check out his genuine advice below.
Here’s a link to the free video again.

10) Absence of integrity
A loser’s moral compass is flexible depending on what suits them best at the time.
They may be easily prepared to forsake their values or the people and things they
believe in.
If you’re prepared to lie, cheat and sacrifice whatever you once held dear in order
to “succeed”, then no matter what you gain, in many people’s eyes, you’ll still be the
biggest loser they know.

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11) Disrespecting yourself and others.
Disrespect might be being rude, angry, or generally emotionally unaware when
you’re speaking to others — but it equally applies to how you treat yourself too.
If you don’t believe in or respect yourself, you’re going to find you always seem
to end up on the losing side of life.
Without setting healthy boundaries, it’s easier for other people to manipulate
or take advantage of you.
Without a strong sense of self-worth, it’s difficult to find the courage to go after
what you want in life and believe it is possible for you or that you deserve it.
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy and our own behavior is the most disrespectful that we tolerate — whether it is through destructive habits or
 unkind self-talk.

12) A total lack of any purpose
Before writing this article, I was doing some research to see what qualities people
thought were signs of being a loser.
I noticed that quite a few viewed a lack of ambition or absence of goals as loser behavior. But I’m not so convinced.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a beautiful thing when someone feels passionate, inspired, and motivated to achieve anything. I love the dreamers and doers who have big ideas and plans. If you have them, then great, go after them.
But I think that many of us also feel pressured to accomplish things in life, in order to feel good enough. Like we always should be working towards something momentous.

What if you don’t have any specific ambitions? 

Does that make you a loser?
I really don’t think it does. I think the real problem arises when we can’t find
meaning from anything in our life. That is often when we feel lost, stuck or apathetic.
Experts tend to agree that seeking meaningfulness in life is even more important than happiness.
But I wonder if the trick is actually to discover meaning in everything we do and find purpose in the smallest of things. That way we see everyday life as the miracle that it actually is.

In a way, maybe finding purpose is an exercise in mindfulness rather than in acquisition. In the words of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle:
“Doing is never enough if you neglect Being. The ego knows nothing of being but believes you will eventually be saved by doing. If you are in the grip of the ego, you believe that by doing more and more you will eventually accumulate enough ‘doings’ to make yourself
feel complete at some point in the future. You won’t. You will only lose yourself in doing.
The entire civilization is losing itself in doing that is not rooted in Being and thus
becomes futile.”

13) Being entitled and spoiled
Spoiled people are losers because they will never be satisfied.
Feeling a sense of expectation from others around you or society, in general, is a quick route to disappointment.
If you are unable to feel grateful for what you have, it doesn’t matter how much you get out of life, you’ll always feel frustrated and lacking. The incredible thing about gratitude is that it actually makes you happier.

Is it ok to be a loser?
I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly no saint, and I know I’ve been guilty of
(And am still working on) some of these loser traits on the list.

Hey, we’re all only human and life is one giant classroom.
Maybe it’s ok to be a bit of a loser from time to time — it’s actually how we learn and grow.
It’s only not ok to be a loser if you know that you are guilty of some pretty shitty behaviour but make no attempts to do anything about it.
None of us are born winners or losers. It’s how we choose to respond to what happens in life and make the decision to change. I guess the good news then is that we actually have full control over whether we end up being a loser or not.

What makes a person a loser?
Losers are created when they become overly negative and have nothing positive in their life. This mindset is created through a lack of gratitude and appreciation for what they do have. Selfishness becomes the dominant way of living and everyone else is the problem in their eyes.

Why do I see myself as a loser?
There are a million reasons one might convince themselves of being a loser.
Lack of financial knowledge, or lack of money period. Feeling pressured to adhere to
societal timelines. A perceived failure or lack of success.

How do you know you’re a loser?

8 Habits That Can Make a Person Become a Loser
Being jealous and vilifying others.
Loving free or cheap stuff.
Rejecting other people’s opinions.
Procrastinating.
Not knowing how to communicate with other people.
Giving up on our goals and principles.
Not believing in ourselves.
Comparing ourselves to others.

How do you stop thinking I’M A Loser?
You can make a choice to stop thinking about being a loser or endlessly thinking
about yourself. It’s in your power. Give yourself something to focus on besides yourself.
Don’t compare yourself to others.
Stop trying to live up to everyone else’s standards.
Stop complaining, stop talking about your problems or shortcom.

How do I stop being pathetic?
The best way to stop being pathetic or worrying entirely about you is to focus your
energy in helping someone else. It will give you something else to focus on and give you something else to talk about with others. Try doing some volunteer work.

What is a loser mentality?
The loser mentality is that things need to be done every single way that you
want them done, because if they’re not done that way, well, then you lose control.
What does it mean if a girl calls you a loser?
When women say you’re a loser, they don’t mean for it to be entertainment or funny.
They mean that what you’re doing is so unattractive that you don’t stand a chance with them. That what you’re doing is repulsive.
It has nothing to do with your looks, race, looks, etc.

What’s worse than being a loser?
The only thing worse than being a loser is being a spectator. Sure, the spoils
only go to the victor. But the spectator never even gave themselves a chance.

Is Loser an insult?
You may have heard losers used to insult someone who has not had a lot of success in life, someone who might not have many friends.

What is the meaning of ne’er do well?
: an idle worthless person.

What is the definition of nobody?
: no person: not anybody. nobody. noun. plural nobodies.

What is the meaning of I am nobody?
1 pron Nobody means not a single person, or not a single member of a particular group or set. 2 n-count If someone says that a person is a nobody, they are saying in an unkind way that the person is not at all important.
What is the opposite of nobody?
Antonyms: anyone, anybody, everybody, somebody, someone, everyone.

What is another word for nobody? 
LIGHTWEIGHT
NONENTITY
nullity
number
pigmy
pip-squeak
pygmy
shrimp
snippersnapper
twerp

What is the positive word of nobody?
In this page you can discover 41 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for nobody, like: no one, absence, somebody, not a soul, vip, sycophant, jackstraw, not anybody, zero, nullity and upstart.

What is an unimportant person called?
If you’ve ever felt like a bit of a loser, firstly,
I think that a lot of us have likely felt that way at some point or another.
Secondly, the simple fact that you’ve even pondered it, highlights one of the
reasons you are probably not a loser.
Why? Because I’m not sure real losers actually ever see themselves as such.

So, what makes a loser a loser?
Some people may argue it’s the car you drive, the job you have, or whether you still live
at home with your parents at the age of 45. But these are just surface markers that don’t define us.
Surely what makes someone a loser (or a success) in life goes so much deeper to our core.
In this article, I’ll run through 13 traits that I think will turn anyone into a real loser in life.

How do I know if I am a loser?
The times in my life when I’ve felt like a loser have happened when I tried to measure myself with the wrong scale.
What I mean by that is, I’ve taken an outside look at other people’s lives and concluded that in comparison I don’t stack up somehow.
They’ve achieved something I haven’t, they earn money that I don’t, they have a relationship status I wished I had.
I don’t know if you can relate, but you end up throwing so many “shoulds” at yourself —
I “should” have this, I “should” be here by now — that you never stand a chance under
the weight of all the unfair expectations.
A loser is a person who is ultimately a bit worthless. But what defines someone’s worth?
I think you can have millions in the bank, be at the top of your field and still be a bit of a loser.
Ultimately in life, it’s not our ever-changing external life circumstances that really define us, surely, it’s our character.
So, if you’re wondering if you’re destined to be a loser, it’s more about the qualities you embody and who you chose to be.
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What’s your superpower?
Our revealing new quiz will help you discover your hidden superpower
and unlock your greatest gifts in life.

 Check it out here.

Source Louise Jackson, Author at Ideapod
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Remembering “Gabe”

Posted on February 1, 2022 by Ken
Hope: The Gabriele Ivy Grunewald Story | NBC Sports – YouTube

Brave Like Gabe
Rare cancer advocate.
Relentless optimist.
Pro runner.

We are all STRONG. But we don’t realize how STRONG we really are,
until being STRONG is all we have left.

Gabriele “Gabe” Grunewald (née Anderson) 6/25/1986 – 6/11/2019 was a professional American middle-distance runner and lifelong Minnesotan, born and raised in Perham, MN (population 2,985). Gabriele ran professionally for Brooks beginning in 2010 until
her passing in 2019.

She won a single track & field state title in the 800-meters competing for Perham High School. Gabriele walked-on to the University of Minnesota cross country and track &
field teams in 2004, where she was a part of several Big Ten Championship squads and eventually became an NCAA track & field All-American with a runner-up finish in the 1500-meters in 2010, her final collegiate race.

Her career highlights include a 4th-place finish in the 2012 USA Olympic Trials and a
USA Championship title in the indoor 3000-meters in 2014. Her personal best in the 1500-meters is 4:01.48, making her the 11th fastest performer in USA history. Gabriele survived multiple bouts with cancer—initially diagnosed with a rare salivary gland cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma, in 2009, and thyroid cancer in 2010. Throughout her cancer journey, Gabriele continued to compete and run professionally.

Gabriele aimed to return to elite competition in 2018 and continued training despite ongoing treatments and setbacks. She strongly believed in finding out what was possible despite her diagnosis and encouraged other cancer survivors to keep their minds open to the possibility of achieving their dreams and other goals by being brave in their own way. After living for 10 years with adenoid cystic carcinoma, Gabriele passed away on June 11, 2019, at her home in Minneapolis surrounded by family and friends.

Her story and legacy continue with the Brave Like Gabe Foundation that inspires others
to share their own struggles while also helping to find better, more effective treatments for rare cancers. Throughout each new diagnosis and treatment, I have made the choice to run and train when my body allows. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has always been the right decision for me. From the very first day I was told I had cancer in 2009,

I knew running would be a big part of my journey back to health.
It has truly been my refuge; when everything else seems to be going wrong and
the outcomes are far beyond my control, I can find perspective and hope on the run.
I believe that continuing to pursue my goals on the track has helped me to carry on with purpose in my life in the face of an uncertain future.

The mental boost I get from my daily run has become so important
to me and is something I wish I could share with every cancer survivor. 

It has become more and more of a challenge over the past two years (since my recurrence) to maintain the consistency and intensity of training required to be one of the best runners in the world, but I’m not giving up on my dream of taking one more shot at the Olympics in 2020! Being brave, for me, means not giving up on the things that make me feel alive — Gabriele Grunewald.

“I’ve always loved running and I never want cancer to take that away from me,”
Grunewald tells PEOPLE, “Having the opportunity to be a professional runner was something that I never expected.”

Her battle began when she was first diagnosed in 2009 with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare form of cancer. Surgery to remove the tumor from her salivary gland was successful, but two years later the cancer reappeared in her thyroid, which was also removed.

For five years she was healthy, living her life, traveling and competing. She finished fourth in the 1500 at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trails and won the 2014 USA Indoor 3,000-meter title.

It was in August 2016, that she discovered her cancer came back for the third time—
but now in her liver. “That was a huge bummer, and it was tough,” says Grunewald, who married her college boyfriend in 2013. “I had a big surgery that removed half of my liver and the tumor. 

I couldn’t run for like three or four months.”

But as soon as she could, she got back to training until her first scan in March showed that small tumors had returned. “I’m running, but not fast because I’m going through chemo,” she says, which she started on June 6. “The most important thing for me has just been trying to stay involved in the sport that I love even though it’s been hard to manage my health issues with running.”

She added: “It’s something that I felt like I really needed to do just to carry on and have something to look forward to.” When Gabe Grunewald crossed the finish line this past June in the US. Outdoor Championship.  The 31-year-old middle distance runner was undergoing chemotherapy to treat adenoid cystic carcinoma. A rare cancer that had recurred for the fourth time. The National meet fell during an off week of treatment.

She and her fellow world-class runners walked single file, hair tied in ponytails, to the starting line of one of track’s premier events. The women were a lithe pack, and it was difficult to pick out Grunewald. Identified by the purple half-moon scar that stretches across her abdomen.

The runners toed the starting line, the crowd fell silent, a gun sounded, and they were off.
Grunewald is not the world’s fastest 1,500-meter runner, although she is competitive and fierce down the stretch. Her emotion was greeted down the front stretch by the running community with enormous cheer as the other runners circled around her with well wishes.

   That was on June 22, and on July 12 Grunewald announced via Instagram that her body did not respond to chemotherapy. She explained her next step would be Immunotherapy and would be working with one of the best doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City. However, it wasn’t a devastating update being dealt a terrible hand once again.

   She deals with her dilemma with optimism, unwavering strength and with an
uplifting spirit. She still runs regularly often after spending hours at the hospital for her transfusion. Gabe reveals I am in a tough situation — but I want my story to be as positive as it can be. I am not in control of my cancer, but I am in control of my attitude and how
I live my life.

   That’s the message she wants to send — our circumstances don’t define us;
we can live our lives even in the face of a life-disrupting event like a cancer diagnosis. Across her abdomen, Grunewald bears a scar, the aftermath of surgery she had in August 2016 to remove a tumor from her liver. But this 13-inch strike across her middle is also a symbol of what she has been through and how she intends to keep living her life with her passion for running.  

 To receive a serious cancer diagnosis is to feel an overpowering desire to retreat within and to try to block out the chirpings of your mind. Grunewald made the decision to crawl out.She talks about her disease in the way of a stream tumbling down a mountain.

She has a website and a Twitter feed, and she encourages supporters to contribute to research on this cancer. “I’m a young adult with cancer,” Grunewald said. “I don’t always love talking about it. It’s not a made-for-TV movie. It’s real. It’s scary.” She gives and she receives, and that helps. “I love when people reach out to me, because it helps me get out the door.” 

Grunewald grew up in tiny Perham in Otter Tail County, a three-hour drive northwest of Minneapolis. She rode the bench in basketball. Running, even as temperatures dropped to 10 below and ice formed on her lips, was her freedom.
“Small-town politics could make team sports a headache,” she said. “Running is all about you.”
“I hope people see that you can still make something beautiful and powerful out of a bad situation.”
— Gabriele Grunewald

Scholarly Resources.
“There is substantial evidence that higher levels of physical activity are linked to lower risks of several cancers.” (1)
“Too much rest can lead to loss of body function, muscle weakness, and reduced range of motion. So today, many cancer care teams are urging their patients to be as physically active as possible during cancer treatment. Many people are learning about the advantages of being physically active after treatment, too.” (4)
“Research indicates that physical activity may have beneficial effects for several aspects of cancer survivorship–specifically, weight gain, quality of life, cancer recurrence or progression, and prognosis (likelihood of survival). Most of the evidence for the potential benefits of physical activity in cancer survivors comes from people diagnosed with breast, prostate, or colorectal cancer.” (2a, 2b)
 
WAYS EXERCISE CAN HELP
Keep or improve your physical abilities (how well you can use your body to do things)
Improve balance, lower risk of falls and broken bones
Keep muscles from wasting due to inactivity
Lower the risk of heart disease
Lessen the risk of osteoporosis (weak bones that are more likely to break)
Improve blood flow to your legs and lower the risk of blood clots
Make you less dependent on others for help with normal activities of daily living
Improve your self-esteem
Lower the risk of being anxious and depressed
Lessen nausea
Improve your ability to keep social contacts
Lessen symptoms of tiredness (fatigue)
Help you control your weight
Improve your quality of life

Brave Like Gabe.

World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research. Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global PerspectiveExit Disclaimer. Washington DC: AICR, 2007.

a. Speck RM, Courneya KS, Masse LC, Duval S, Schmitz KH.  An update of controlled physical activity trials in cancer survivors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Cancer Survivorship 2010; 4(2):87-100.
b. Rock CL, Doyle C, Demark-Wahnefried W, et al. Nutrition and physical activity guidelines for cancer survivors. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 2012; 62(4):243-274.

Grisham J. What are the benefits of exercising during and after cancer treatment? Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, January 2, 2014.

Survivorship during and after treatment. American Cancer Society, March 24, 2014
Physical Activity and Cancer. National Cancer Institute, January 27, 2017.
Abigail Anderson, Sister of the Late Gabe Grunewald, Was Hit by a Driver and Killed (August 19, 2021)
Running community mourns Abby Anderson, sister of ‘Gabe’ Grunewald | FOX 9.

Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma Survivors – Bing video

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Joe Burrow – Tiger King

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Ken
The Story of Joe Burrow and Ed Orgeron – Bing video

LSU quarterback Joe Burrow and LSU coach Ed Orgeron celebrate after winning the Southeastern Conference championship game 37-10 against Georgia on Dec. 7, 2019,
in Atlanta. December 7, 2019 – SEC Championship – #4 Georgia vs #2 LSU – video

Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Marx is the author of “Walking with Tigers:
A Collection of LSU Sports Stories” and five other books.
You can follow him on Twitter: @LSUTigersBook

This is the third in a three-part series. To read Part I, go here. For Part II, go here.
_____

Joe Burrow – Tiger King – YouTube

Tom Brady had funny remark about Joe Burrow’s career path (msn.com)
Give him his early-morning time alone on the balcony outside his office — his time
of solitary prayer and reflection — and then just give him non-stop people and action.
Give him noise and bustle. “Commotion all the time,” Kelly Orgeron says.

“Like … he can’t handle coming into a quiet room.”

Joe Burrow is fine with a quiet room. He is happy to be alone. No need for constant interaction or a lot of external stimuli when he has down time. “He really likes to be by himself … or in a very quiet environment,” Robin Burrow says. “Even when he comes home, we might all be together, but we’re watching our favorite shows or a movie, or
he’s playing video games.

“And I think that probably speaks to the fact that Joe grew up — even though he’s got Jamie (now 41) and Dan (38), the older boys — they were really not around in the house a lot as he was growing up. He was basically an only child with two brothers. It was mostly just me and Joe there. Jimmy was gone a lot, coaching or working, and recruiting and all that, so our house was always quiet, and I think that’s just kind of what Joe got used to.”

There are many other preferences and traits that set Coach O and Joe apart. Countless biographical details and personal tidbits also show us how different their journeys have been — how different they must be.

Coach O: hometown of little Larose, Louisiana, where the largest intersection has nothing to do with pavement or a stoplight. It is the intersection of Bayou Lafourche and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Joe: The Plains, Ohio, 1,000-plus miles from Baton Rouge but it might as well be planets away. The Plains is in the rugged Appalachian region and listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its Native-American burial mounds.

Coach O: Growing up, he thought himself the luckiest kid in the world whenever his mom, Coco, made him a shrimp po-boy and French fries for breakfast. Joe: Early in his time at LSU, he was teased by teammates for choosing salad instead of piling his dinner plate with the rich offerings of regional fare.

Coach O: had a summer job shoveling shrimp in Grand Isle. Also had a temporary job digging ditches. Joe: did a New York summer internship with Goldman Sachs, one of the most prestigious financial firms in the world. Did not dig any ditches on Wall Street.

Coach O: known and loved for his distinct way of speaking that is equal parts rumbling machinery and Cajun creativity — all of it lubricated and energized by a combination of Red Bull and endless passion. Joe: not always able to decipher exactly what his head
coach was saying. “The first year it was tough,” he recently said on The Rich Eisen Show.

As much as outsiders’ dwell on all the obvious differences, though, there is something else about Coach O and Joe that stands out to people who know them best. It is the remarkably long list of similarities. Both had been doubted and denied: Coach O fired at Ole Miss and passed over for the USC head job after a stellar stint as interim coach. Joe ignored by Nebraska — his dream school — and never able to win the starting job at Ohio State.

Both had been dogged by consistent questions about their so-called limitations: Was Coach O really just a defensive line coach without “the smarts” or proper personality to succeed in the CEO role of a head coach? Did Joe have the arm strength to make all the throws he needed to make

Both used their critics as motivation.

Both kept pounding away.

Both finally made it to the top of college football.

And they had done it the same way. With relentless work and perseverance.
With intensity and grit. With sturdy belief in themselves. With a natural love of competition. With toughness and single-minded focus. Derek Ponamsky spent
as much time as anyone with Coach O and Joe — and he is still amused by the
way people looking from afar automatically thought of them as being so different.

As if they were Felix and Oscar — complete opposites — from the old movie
and TV show The Odd Couple. “No, they’re pretty much the same guy,” Ponamsky says.
“I think if you cut them open, it’s the same exact DNA. They just look different. They just sound different. They’re just from different places. I mean, I’m telling you, they’re the same guy.”

How would he describe that guy?

The most straightforward, no-nonsense, passionate and compassionate person you could find. Always displays the mentality of a defensive player … just wants to go out and attack. And no BS. If he tells you something is going to happen, it happens. Always.

After following Coach O and Joe throughout the season, Marty Smith, ESPN reporter and storyteller extraordinaire, also saw the power of their similarities and the blending of two men into a singular being: “this two-headed monster of very like-minded philosophical approaches.”

Visiting with Jordy Culotta and T-Bob Hebert on their Baton Rouge radio show,
Off the Bench, Smith described those shared approaches by temporarily speaking in the role of that Coach O-Joe combination monster: “We’re blue-collar. We’re tough as hell.
We approach life like a linebacker – with snot bubbles and blood. And we’re gonna go do
this our way. And it couldn’t be more Louisiana, y’all.”
_____

Two primary factors allowed for the monster to be created and then held it together: mutual trust and mutual respect. And the bond was unbreakable. Over time — with Joe’s role as team leader constantly gaining strength — his interactions with Coach O extended well beyond the norm for any player and coach. “The more Joe showed me he could do,
the more I gave him the team,” Coach O says. “He was kind of like a player-coach for me.

“I believed in Joe. And I knew that he’d tell me the truth.
He never told me what I wanted to hear. He told me what I needed to hear.” Joe agrees — saying he never sugarcoated anything for Coach O: “If I thought we had a bad practice,
I was going to tell him. If you don’t trust your head coach enough to say that — to tell him anything — then you’re not going to be a great team.

I don’t think you can be a great team if you don’t have the trust in each other to be honest and direct.” Joe had the confidence to tell Coach O whatever he wanted or needed to say.
Coach O had the trust to then act on what he was hearing. Never before, not throughout his entire career, had Coach O sought out and relied upon input from any player as regularly as he did with Joe.

Sometimes it was Coach O walking over from working with the defense to check in with Joe about how practice was going for the offense. You guys getting what we want out of this period? Is what we’re doing here going to work against that coverage?

Is it too windy out — should we go inside to finish?

“Coach O spent most of his time with the defense and was very rarely ever with us,”
tight end Thaddeus Moss says. “But when he would come over to the offense, first guy
he’d come up to was Joe.” Coach O might ask about anything. “And Joe would just tell
him straight up … almost like a coach-to-coach conversation.

It most definitely didn’t seem like coach to player.”

Sometimes it was more than just on-the-field practice stuff — such as Coach O seeking Joe’s input with the specific game plan against that week’s opponent. “He put a lot of trust in me,” Joe says. “And that’s something that I really appreciated … that I was very involved in the game planning and that he trusted me enough to hear my insights.”

Coach O also went to Joe about off-the-field matters large and small:
What was the overall pulse of the team? Was there anything he needed to know about? What did Joe and the guys want for dinner? What did he think of bowling and a movie
as team activities for the two nights leading up to the national championship game in
New Orleans.

“I would describe them as father-son … as close as it’s going to get,” Clyde Edwards-Helaire says. “And then when it came to business, it was man-to-man … always 100 percent truthful, 100 percent heartfelt with everything they did and interacted about.”

One of the most dramatic and impactful examples of Joe’s input came in the days
leading up to the 2019 Peach Bowl, which was LSU’s semifinal game of the College Football Playoffs. Edwards-Helaire, one of the most important offensive players for
the top-ranked Tigers, had a hamstring injury. Who would replace the star running
back against No. 4 Oklahoma?

LSU had two heavily recruited freshmen, Tyrion Davis-Price and John Emery, waiting in the wings. Conventional wisdom pointed to one of them. Joe did not. He wanted redshirt freshman Chris Curry — and privately spoke up for him. Curry had barely played in two seasons. He was fourth string. But Joe felt he had earned the opportunity in practice.

“Chris was a scout-team guy all year, and he never stopped fighting,” Joe says.
“He didn’t get discouraged. All he did was work really, really hard. I wanted to reward that. And I’m glad that the coaches felt the same way.” Joe’s explanation makes him sound as if he were one of the coaches. Was he even aware how unusual it was for a college player to be so involved in a decision like that?

“It didn’t feel like it was weird,” Joe says. “I had been involved in decision-making
for most of the year. It started out with decisions about the game plan … and then
kind of evolved into them asking me what I thought about stuff like that.”

Curry got the start. And the selection worked out well. He displayed an impressive combination of flash and physicality — rushing for 90 yards on 16 carries.

LSU dominated from start to finish and left Atlanta with a 63-28 blowout win.

The LSU Tigers were headed to the national championship game.
_____

Joe and Coach O talked about things other than football every now and then.
But not too often. And never for long. “He was all football, I’m all football,” Coach O says. “That was the best thing about it.” That does not mean their interactions were always serious.

In his earliest days at LSU, one hot summer afternoon before the start of his first
camp with the Tigers, sun blazing in full force, Joe got a feel for what he could expect.
He was working on his own at the football facility, throwing into a net, and Coach O happened to walk by.

“Hey, Joe,” he said. “What do you think of Ray Baker?”

Joe did not know a lot of guys on the team yet — not even their names.
But he didn’t want to sound clueless … didn’t want to be a guy who
wouldn’t know a teammate. So, he just went with it.

“Yeah, he’s good,” Joe said. “He’s really good.”

Coach O gave him a look of bewilderment and walked away.

Joe turned to the only other person there with him, Foster Moreau, and sought help: “Who’s Ray Baker?”

Moreau laughed: “The sun. That’s what he calls the sun.”

He explained: Ray as in rays of sun. Baker as in it will take you out here.

Joe thought that was funny. It also was a sign of things to come. He and Coach O would always get a good chuckle out of their light moments. They could come at any time.
But Joe and Coach O practically had a weekly appointment. Late in Thursday practices, there was always a period of about ten minutes devoted to special teams.

Joe would be standing off to one side of the field — nothing he had to do during this period. And Coach O would walk over to him. “It was almost like clockwork,” says Jorge Munoz, now the passing game coordinator at Baylor. “It would just be Joe and Coach O
off to the side … and they would just talk and visit.

But I think that was their bonding time a little bit.”

Coach O says it was intentional. He might use part of the time to check in about something related to the team. Mostly, though, he wanted to be silly and light, tossing out a ridiculous comment or two just to keep things loose.

“Hey, Joe, you know I used to be a tight end in high school?”

“You want to see some film of the 1977 state championship game?”

And then the banter would go from there — the star quarterback and the big old
defensive-lineman-turned-head-ball-coach yukking it up for a few minutes.

Joe always loved it.

“That’s kind of just who we were as a team,” he says.
“You know, we were very serious about what we did. But we didn’t take ourselves too seriously. And I think that was the beauty of what we did as a team. We just had a lot of fun together.” Joe even had a favorite line Coach O used multiple times during their little Thursday get-togethers.

“Hey, Joe, are you guys putting in that forward pass today?” As if the “old” coach who played in the 1970s had come up back in the days of leather helmets and offenses that
did nothing but run the ball. It made no difference that the silly line was on repeat.
Joe laughed every time — still does as he recalls it: “Because I think it just shows
how old-school Coach O is.”
_____

Dan Burrow had purchased a T-shirt with Coach O’s image on it.
He’d bought one for his brother Jamie, too. They enjoyed wearing them and anything
else that announced the depth of their devotion to their favorite coach and his team. They enjoyed everything about being part of the purple-and-gold universe that is LSU football.

Robin Burrow had a favorite spot before home games. Standing in a crowded area just outside the door to the LSU locker room, she would watch the players and coaches finish their walk down Victory Hill. It was there that she would see Joe for one final wish of good luck before he went inside. It was also there that Kelly Orgeron always made a point of seeking her out for a hug and a few words before entering the stadium.

For the Burrow family, there had been one missing piece during Joe’s first season in Baton Rouge. Jimmy was still coaching at Ohio University. With Joe entering his final year of college ball and the hope of so much excitement ahead, that was no longer going to work. Jimmy did not want to miss any of his son’s games.

So after 38 straight years of coaching, he retired at 65 and became a fixture wherever the Tigers were playing — home or away. The Burrows had a regular tailgating spot outside Tiger Stadium. Jimmy was interviewed so often as the season progressed — even had his own weekly segment on ESPN radio in Baton Rouge — that he might as well have been issued a media credential.

What a year it became for the whole family.

Joe kept taking the impossible and transforming it into routine activity —
breaking records every step of the way.

The Tigers kept rolling over opponents.

And the magical moments kept piling up.

For the Burrows, one of the most memorable happened the afternoon of Saturday,
Nov. 9, on the field of Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It would have been enough that LSU snapped Alabama’s 31-game home winning streak with a 46-41 takedown of Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide. The victory made it nine straight wins for the Tigers and solidified their status as the top-ranked team in the nation. But there was more.

It happened while LSU was celebrating after the game. Coach O and Joe were standing next to each other — front and center — during the traditional singing of the alma mater.

“Joe, your mom and dad are in the stadium?” Coach O asked.

Joe smiled as he nodded in affirmation.

Coach O cackled, lifting his right hand for a fist bump, and they knocked knuckles.

“How about Dan?” Coach O said.

“Dan just got engaged,” Joe gushed.

“He did? Really?”

“He got engaged yesterday.”

The exchange was extraordinary not only in its time and place: the head coach asking about his quarterback’s family right after the most significant LSU victory in years … smack in the middle of such an emotional celebration.

It was also remarkable for its substance within the ever-expanding football fairytale that never stopped getting better — the fact that an Ohio kid choosing to play ball in Louisiana would also somehow lead his brother to find the love of his life.

In September 2018, Dan was in Alabama for the LSU-Auburn game and — through friends — met an Auburn alumna named Jama Cash. They first saw each other in a parking lot outside Jordan-Hare Stadium. Dan and Jama hit it off. Their long-distance relationship kept growing. And two days earlier, back in Alabama, visiting Jama before attending the LSU-Alabama game, Dan had popped the big question.

So, what if Joe was off by a day in his postgame announcement of the engagement?
He had been focused on other things. Bottom line: The Burrow brothers were leaving Alabama with mighty big victories both on and off the field.

With the alma mater finishing — forever L-S-U — Coach O and Joe formed representative Ls with the fingers of their right hands and raised their celebratory digits for all to see. Defensive lineman Tyler Shelvin then lifted Joe onto his right shoulder — a mountainous man ready to transport a triumphant king — and off went the Tigers.
_____

As the backup quarterback, redshirt sophomore Myles Brennan always had to stay ready in case anything happened to Joe. He had another priority, too. He wanted to support Joe and make sure everyone knew that he was fully behind him. Although Brennan had hoped to be the starter by this point in his career — and was understandably not thrilled when LSU added Joe to the team — they were now friends and hotel roommates the nights before games. Plus, Brennan was a team guy before anything else.

With that in mind, whenever Joe threw a touchdown pass, scored himself, or otherwise
led LSU to points, Brennan routinely tried to be first to greet him coming off the field.
There was one exception. If Coach O was headed toward Joe, Brennan waited his turn.

He was not about to step in front of the head coach. But being so close at such moments put Brennan in the perfect position to see something he otherwise would have missed.
It was the way Coach O and Joe looked at each other.

Sometimes they would hug. Other times they would share a fist bump or chest bump. Whatever they did, it was the way they looked each other in the eyes that stood out to Brennan as the perfect illustration of their relationship. No words were needed. The look alone always reminded Brennan of the special bond between his coach and teammate.

What exactly did he see between them at those moments?

“Just … I don’t even know,” Brennan says. “I don’t know the words to describe it.”

He pauses. Then he tries again: “I mean, I want to say love.

And I feel like that is the word.”

Joe embraces the word choice: “I just saw the eyes of a competitor who knew what we
we’re trying to do and knew that I was going to get the job done. And I think that has a lot to do with love. Because Coach O had a lot of trust in me — and I had a lot of trust in him.”

Love.

“Like a father-son,” Coach O says. “Like a family would love each other.”

Coach O also offers his own interpretation of what he saw in Joe’s eyes.
It starts with something that happens every Thursday of the season.

In the team meeting, Coach O put a color photo of an eagle on the big screen behind him. It was a close-up head shot dominated by the white of feathers and a menacing yellow-gold beak. More than anything, though, the photo was all about the eyes. They were intense.

The oval pupils were large and black and unmistakably locked in on something. A message had been placed at the bottom of the photo. In large, gold letters: FOCUS. And below that: If you chase two rabbits, you catch none. Coach O pointed to that eagle and told his players those were the eyes he wanted to see from them during games.

“It’s total focus,” he says now. “Myles might call that love. I call it total focus. We’re in war. There’s not a lot of things to say. It’s just that frickin’ look, man. And Joe and I have had that same look. It’s a competitive look. It’s serious.”

Call it what you want — love or focus. When Coach O and Joe connected eye-to-eye
like that, it was indeed serious business: two men — together as one — stalking a lone
and ill-fated rabbit.
_____

They did not miss a single rabbit.

Fifteen rabbits chased. Fifteen rabbits caught.

In college football, that makes you national champions with a perfect 15-0 record.
In Louisiana, that makes you royalty: a quarterback and a coach who will be celebrated
for the rest of your days … and then for many more once your own days are done.

Joe started the season as a 200-to-1 long shot to win the Heisman. After leading the most prolific offense in the history of major college football — 48.4 points per game — he ended the year as the most decorated player in LSU history. His 60 touchdown passes set the NCAA record for most in a season. He broke nearly every LSU single-season passing record and numerous SEC marks as well.

Coach O collected national “Coach of the Year” awards from The Associated Press
and other organizations. Clearly, they were impressed that nearly half of LSU’s wins —
seven of them — came against teams that were ranked in the top 10.

After one of those games, the 37-10 shellacking of No. 4 Georgia for the SEC championship, Joe and Coach O played hot potato with the game ball.

Coach O handed it to Joe — wanting him to keep it as a souvenir. Joe gave it right
back — wanting Coach O to have it. Safety JaCoby Stevens saw that as symbolic of
their relationship: “Joe looks at Coach O as a role model. He looks at him as a leader.
And Coach O looks at Joe as a son.”

Stevens also saw that moment as a clear definition of his coach and quarterback as individuals: “For Coach O, it’s never about him. It’s about us. It’s about his players.

And for Joe to hand the ball back to Coach O — it’s not about Joe. He’s not doing it for himself. He’s doing it for Coach O. He’s doing it for all of us. So those are two selfless men. Everything they do, everything they’re doing it for, it’s bigger than them.”

For Coach O, such an approach goes back to his childhood days down the bayou.

For Joe, it goes back to life with a caring family in a humble pocket of Ohio.

For both of them — as a pair — it goes back to one weekend they will long remember … and especially to a single conversation one night in a restaurant parking lot.

Multiple times during their amazing run last season — once while in New York for the Heisman presentation, once in New Orleans after beating Clemson for the national championship, and there were other times — Coach O privately shared a celebratory thought with Joe: “Thank God we went to Mike Anderson’s and had those crawfish.”

The exact words of Joe’s response varied each time he heard that.

But his core sentiment never changed: “Damn straight! I’m glad we did it.”
_____

Joe Burrows Incredible Heisman Acceptance Speech (EMOTIONAL) – YouTube
Joe is bigger than ever in the LSU football ops building. That’s what happens when
your All-American quarterback wins the Heisman, leads your team to the national championship, and is now projected to be the first player picked in the upcoming
NFL draft. He blows up — figuratively anyway.

At the moment, though, Joe is literally as big as he’s ever been in this building, too.
Just turn toward the mammoth TV screen — 220 diagonal inches overlooking the lobby. There he is. Joe is still giving his Heisman speech. He is again gathering himself after finally getting out those opening words — “You have no idea what you mean to my family” — directed to Coach O.

ESPN now has them in split screen. Coach O nods toward his quarterback.

Jimmy Burrow, left arm draped over Coach O’s back, gently grips his shoulder.

Robin Burrow reaches across her husband and momentarily takes Coach O’s
right hand for a squeeze.

Joe, meanwhile, sniffs, wipes his eyes, takes in a big breath, audibly exhales,
and sniffs again.

“You know, I didn’t play for three years,” he says.

Sniff. Quick wipe of the nose with the back of a finger.

“You took a chance on me …”

Voice breaking: “… not knowing if I could play or not.”

Pause. Sniff. Exhale.

Joe’s eyes are a mess: puffy swamps now spilling over.

“And I’m forever in your …”

Deep breath. Big exhale. Sniff.

“… forever grateful for you.”

Coach O tightens his right hand into a fist and lifts it toward Joe.
He shakes it in gratitude and support … in togetherness … in shared emotion.
It is as close as he can get to knocking knuckles without being able to reach.

Coach O is now himself that eagle from those Thursday meetings in the team room. Focused. His eyes are locked on Joe. They are moist. They are full. But he somehow manages to hold on without actually shedding a tear. He’ll later share what he was thinking: “Better not start crying on national TV.” And how he kept from breaking:
“Just gritted it out a little bit.”

Joe unleashes another big exhale.

Then: “Can you imagine a guy like Coach O …”

Sniff. Eye wipe.

“… giving me the keys to … to his football program.”

Sniff. Eye wipe. Sniff.

“He just means so much to me and my family …”

Sniff. Nose wipe.

“… and to LSU. I sure hope they give him a lifetime contract. He deserves it.”

And with that the mood is instantly lightened — the silent theater filled with
laughter and applause. Joe laughs. His parents laugh. Ed and Kelly Orgeron laugh.

Robin Burrow claps three times. Then she turns to Kelly. Reaching across Jimmy and Coach O, Robin extends her left arm and takes hold of Kelly’s right hand. Robin uses her own right hand to give Kelly’s two light taps. She leans in and kisses the back of Kelly’s hand. She gives it two more taps. Then Robin and Kelly look into each other’s eyes —
two mothers of boys, two wives of coaches, two proud women sharing a moment they will always own.
_____

The LSU sports world already had its most important pieces of action footage. In football, it was the black-and-white majesty of Billy Cannon’s legendary Halloween Run in 1959 — the 89-yard punt return giving the top-ranked Tigers a 7-3 victory over No. 3 Ole Miss and propelling Cannon to become the first LSU Heisman winner. In baseball, it was Warren Morris hitting the most dramatic home run in school history: his two-out, walk-off shot — bottom of the ninth inning and trailing Miami 8-7 — to win the 1996 College World Series.

Now LSU also had its most unforgettable piece of off-the-field footage — Joe Burrow live from New York — a speech for the ages. It was not only the love we saw between Joe and Coach O that elevated the speech to instant classic. It was also the way Joe revealed parts of himself we had never seen. It was the way he opened up and let his emotions pour out. As Joe would later say: “That’s the most I’ve cried in 23 years of living.”

He began by thanking his offensive linemen. Who does that?
Who wins a Heisman and starts by naming each guy on the O-line? Joe also brought up a non-football topic that nobody saw coming: the overwhelming problem of poverty in his home region of Southeast Ohio and the attendant issue of childhood hunger.

His closing words on the subject were spoken with great feeling and sincerity:
“I’m up here for all those … all those kids in Athens and in Athens County that go home to not a lot of food on the table — hungry after school. And you guys can be up here, too.”

It was a lesson for all of us. As things turned out, Joe’s message would also evolve into a lesson for himself. Thanks to his speech — watched by close to three million ESPN viewers and pieces of it bouncing all over the internet — people began donating to the Athens County Food Pantry. More than $500,000 was donated in two weeks.

What a beautiful way for Joe to learn about the power of his new platform —
so quickly realizing how strong it was and how easily he could use it to help others.

He was both awed and inspired by that.

Others felt the same way about the overall substance and feel of his speech — about
the depth and emotion of it all. Tom Rinaldi of ESPN had it just right on the broadcast:
“The pauses spoke as loudly as anything else.”

Congratulating Joe on stage, shaking his hand and hugging him, 1981 Heisman winner Marcus Allen told him, “Your speech was better than your season.”

If the immediate outpouring on social media could have been reduced to one collective statement, it might have been this: I’m not crying. You’re crying.

The Orgerons could hardly believe what they had just seen out of Joe.

“We were completely blown away,” Kelly says. “We just didn’t expect that.

We had never seen Joe show any emotions like that.”

“Not one time,” Coach O concurs.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a devoted fan of LSU football and friend of the Orgerons, had been sitting next to Kelly in the front row. He thought back to something Coach O told
him before the season — that the 2019 Tigers were going to be “scary good … really good” and would even have a chance to play for the national championship. As Edwards remembers the conversation: “He had a lot of confidence in the entire program, but especially in Joe Burrow.”

Sitting in New York only months later — watching Joe accept the Heisman and seeing how much Coach O and the entire state of Louisiana meant to him — felt “sort of surreal” for the governor. He was glued to Joe’s speech.

“It was tremendously emotional in the room,” Edwards says. “I remember wondering how it was coming across on TV. If somebody was sitting in their living room watching it, I was wondering whether it was coming across the same way. And obviously it did. I think Joe connected with people all across the country … just by being so sincere and genuine and authentic.”

Bunnie Cannon, Billy’s youngest daughter, 50 and an employee of the Tiger Athletic Foundation, had also been in the front row. Seated across the aisle from the Orgerons
and Joe’s parents, she could see pretty much everything when Joe was speaking. She saw Coach O’s cheek quivering … saw the rims of his eyes getting red. She took in every word, every movement, and every emotion as Joe spoke to Coach O — and she felt the bond.
She saw the love.

Bunnie also thought about her father. Oh, how she wished he could have been there to see that LSU finally had another Heisman winner. She knew how happy that would have made her dad. She also knew he would have been instantly drawn to Joe — would have savored that speech as if a proud grandfather. “I was a basket case,” Bunnie says. “I was doing the ugly cry … total ugly cry … tissues in my hand.”

Chris Fowler, longtime host of the Heisman Trophy ceremony for ESPN, never
anticipated any emotion at all. He had great respect for Joe — for the way he played
and for how he handled himself. But Fowler had also seen him as being “almost robotic
… sort of insulating himself from the emotions” in the days leading up to the ceremony. When ESPN was timing out its broadcast, Fowler told his producers not to worry about Joe going too long as a speaker: “I didn’t think he would be expansive.”

Fowler was wrong. And he came to see that as a good thing.

Standing just off stage, the veteran broadcaster watched with amazement as Joe delivered one of the most powerful speeches he had ever seen — so packed with feelings and the expression of feelings that Fowler could hardly believe it. He now puts it this way: “Twenty-six years of doing this, of being ringside, having the honor of presenting the guy who wins the Heisman and then interviewing him right afterward, that one stands out.”

Once the speech was done and the ESPN show was over, Fowler noticed that Joe had left his folded sheet of paper — his notes — on the podium.

So, what if Joe had hardly even looked at his bullet points?
Fowler thought Joe should have the piece of paper as a keepsake.

So, he tracked him down.

Handing Joe, the paper, Fowler said: “You might want this back … pretty cool souvenir.” Joe thanked him and put the paper in a pocket of his suit jacket. Fowler shared a final thought: “That speech you gave was a gift to everybody.”

Some gifts are better than anything that can be bought in a store or wrapped in a box.
For a special group of four beaming recipients — Ed and Kelly Orgeron, Jimmy and Robin Burrow — the gift would forever represent a shared journey and their endless gratitude for every step along the way. It was the gift of seeing Joe — their Joe, the young man, not just Burreaux the football star — breaking out of his comfort zone and leaving an indelible mark of passion and purpose … shining for all the world to see.

“Just made my heart want to burst,” Kelly says.

She thought back to the Joe Burrow who first showed up in Baton Rouge: “very, very guarded … walls up … not someone you would sit down with to just chit-chat and have conversation.”

She thought about the way Joe had gradually opened up during his time at LSU: “letting his guard down — somewhat — and also falling in love with the people of Louisiana.”
And now: “those raw emotions … completely showing all of his raw emotions up on the stage like that.”

There was one additional gift Kelly felt throughout that night.
It was the way Joe’s parents so naturally embraced the Orgerons and pulled them in as complete partners in all the glory and celebration. Jimmy Burrow with his arm around Coach O when Joe was speaking.

Robin Burrow repeatedly reaching out — literally reaching out with her hands — to Coach O and Kelly. The Burrow parents shared whispered comments with the Orgerons — their words punctuated by the warmth of loving looks.

“They didn’t have to do those things,” Kelly says. “I mean, they are the parents, and they are the ones that should be getting all the attention.” But the Burrows did what came naturally. And that allowed Kelly to feel something she would always cherish.

Yes, she was there as the wife of a coach. But she also felt like an additional parent —
as if the Burrows and Orgerons were actually four parents sitting together to witness
the public crowning of one son.

When Robin found out Kelly had framed it that way — four parents together —
she responded with a grateful wow and then a stretched-out awwww.

“I mean, goodness, none of us would have been sitting there without Coach O, and Coach O includes Kelly,” Robin says. “I just can’t even say enough how much we appreciate the opportunities that Coach O has given to Joe, and the support, and the communication between them and our family. It’s just been wonderful.”

To adopt and adapt from Coach O: Two families. One heartbeat.

Coach O says he and Joe ended up joined at the hip. Joined in a two-year football
journey that gave new life to both of them. Joined in a storybook ending that took
them to the highest of heights. Joined in a stunning chapter of LSU sports history
that will be told and retold for years to come.

Jimmy Burrow has a thought about the perfect way to publicly and permanently commemorate the relationship: “If Joe ever has a statue, there better be one of
Coach O right by him, right?”

The idea is mentioned to Joe.

“Absolutely,” he says. “You know, I meant what I said in my Heisman speech.

Give him a lifetime contract. He’s done more for LSU than I think anybody ever has.”

So, lifetime contract first … “joined-at-the-hip” statue after that?

There is no pause now. No wipe of the eye. No sniff.

Heisman Joe just answers without a beat: “Absolutely.”

Source: The story of Joe Burrow and Ed Orgeron: Here’s the last chapter
of our ‘forever linked’ series | LSU | theadvocate.com

Joe Burrow Talks Bengals, NFL Draft & More with
Dan Patrick | Full Interview | 1/31/20 – video
Joe Burrow’s parents offer some Super Bowl advice

Image result for play that joe burrow was hurt on
COMEBACK PLAYER of The Year 🙂

ENTIRE PLAY – JOE BURROW TEARS ACL leg knee injury – Cincinnati Bengals Washington Redskin 11/22/20

Bengals are in Super Bowl with fourth-most projected cap space in NFL (msn.com)

How the Bengals Won the AFC Championship at Arrowhead | Baldy Breakdowns

Reacting to Bengals Advancing to Super Bowl LVI | Good Morning Football

Bengals vs. Chiefs AFC Championship Highlights | NFL 2021 – YouTube

Bengals Super Bowl run worth $344M to region

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Those LSU-Bengals connections are strong.

Joe Burrow’s and Ja’Marr Chase’s dad’s celebrate together

Image
#Blessed: love this team!!!
🐅
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

‎The morning after with Kelly Stafford

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Ken
Matthew Stafford spent 12 years trying to get to a Super Bowl in Detroit and falling short. 

Matthew and Kelly Stafford have been together for over a decade. 

In his first season with the Los Angeles Rams, he did it.

And Kelly Stafford, who has been with him while they were at Georgia, got to celebrate with him on the field after the QB took down the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in the NFC title game to clinch a spot in Super Bowl 56, which will be played at home in Los Angeles.
The Rams quarterback doesn’t share too much about his private life, but his wife
Kelly certainly does. With her large social media following, Kelly posts photos of their family pretty regularly. She also makes occasional headlines for some of her passionate outbreaks at games.

MORE: Wife of Matthew Stafford apologizes for throwing pretzel at
49ers fan during MNF

Here’s what you need to know about Matthew Stafford’s wife, Kelly. 

Who is Matthew Stafford’s wife?
Kelly Stafford has become quite the celebrity herself despite just being married to
tenured NFL quarterback Matthew. As of January, Stafford has 300,000 followers on Instagram.
She posts various photos of her personal life, including family outings or updates of their children. She also posts a lot about the Los Angeles Rams or her husband’s former team, the Detroit Lions.

MORE: Rams’ Matthew Stafford stumped as to why Bucs’ Ndamukong Suh dislikes him, says wife Kelly Stafford 

How long have Matthew and Kelly Stafford been together?
The Stafford’s met while both students at the University of Georgia. Matthew was the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback from 2006-2008 until he was drafted by the Detroit Lions in 2009. Kelly was a year younger than Matthew. She was a football cheerleader during the time Matthew was quarterback. 

Video: Has Rams’ Matthew Stafford already proven the doubters wrong?
Although it’s unclear exactly when the couple started dating, they eventually got
engaged and married. The couple tied the knot on April 4, 2015, in Atlanta, Georgia.

MORE: Kelly Stafford apologizes for calling Michigan a ‘dictatorship’ during Instagram rant 

How many kids do Matthew and Kelly Stafford have?
The couple has four daughters together: twins Sawyer and Chandler, Hunter and Tyler.
Sawyer and Chandler were born in April 2016, making them five years old. Hunter was born in August 2018, making her three years old. Then, Tyler was born in July 2020, making her about a year and half. 

Kelly Stafford shares story of brain tumor diagnosis, 12-hour surgery (clickondetroit.com)
In the spring of 2019, Kelly revealed that she would undergo surgery after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

At the time, she detailed in an Instagram post where her health troubles began.
“Within the last year, I began to notice things that I thought were just me getting older.
I would show my girls how to do a front roll or twirl in ballet class and immediately feel dizzy & off balance… Things that I had been doing my entire life were now, all of a sudden, difficult,” Kelly explained.

After enduring several bouts of vertigo, Kelly was advised by Stafford’s team
doctor to get an MRI of her brain. “A few days later we were hit with the results.
I had a tumor sitting on some of my cranial nerves,” she continued.

“All I heard was brain tumor & that they had to do surgery to take it out. so that is what we are going to do & we believe we found the best doctor to do it.” Following the procedure,  Kelly penned a touching message to Dr. B. Gregory Thompson, who performed the operation.

After undergoing surgery for a brain tumor in 2019, Kelly Stafford posted an Instagram message to her doctor, who performed the operation.
After undergoing surgery for a brain tumor in 2019, Instagram/Kelly Stafford

Kelly Stafford posted an Instagram message to her doctor, who performed the operation.
“This is him; the man God chose to remove my brain tumor. After my diagnosis, Matthew and I visited doctors all over the US.
He made it a super easy decision after we met Dr. Thompson @ the U of M hospital,”
she wrote on Instagram in May 2019. “When I spoke w/ him, he reminded me of my dad. He truly cared & was empathetic, which meant so much to me.” In October 2019, Kelly chronicled her experience in an essay for ESPN, praising Stafford for everything he had done for her throughout the harrowing ordeal.

“Matthew was incredible during the whole process. He was literally by my side at every step. I had exercises I needed to do — some of them were seemingly simple, like shaking my head left and right — and Matthew helped me through all of it,” she recalled.

Kelly was very open about her experience with the tumor. She even wrote a detailed account of her experience that was published on ESPN. She also posted updates throughout her experience on Instagram.

Kelly later celebrated a clean two-year scan in April 2021.

Matthew Stafford was traded to the Rams in early 2021 after 12 seasons with the Lions.
Stafford was traded to the Rams in early 2021 after 12 seasons with the Lions.
Instagram/Kelly Stafford

New beginnings: The early days of 2021 brought about new changes for the Stafford’s, whose NFL home became Los Angeles after 12 seasons in Detroit. Following the news of Stafford’s trade to the Rams, Kelly thanked the Lions fanbase, as well as the city of Detroit, in a heartfelt Instagram message.

“This place, our home, the people… it’s hard to find the words to explain what this
place means to me. Random tears come very often when I think about not being here.
This place supported me during the toughest time of my life and during the happiest
times and I want to thank y’all in the right way,” she shared.

MORE: NBC mistakes woman for Matthew Stafford’s wife in awkward ‘Sunday Night Football’ moment  

Does Kelly Stafford have a podcast?
In September 2021, Kelly began a podcast called: ‎The morning after with Kelly Stafford.
So far, Kelly has completed 19 podcast episodes that are released weekly.
She covers topics in her personal life, including sharing details about her relationship
with husband Matthew, along with mothering experiences.
She even detailed the “pretzel gate” incident that happened back in November.
Needless to say, Kelly does not hold back talking about anything on her podcast. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

SOMETHING TO BE REMEMBERED BY

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Ken
Tony Bennett, 95, leaves his heart onstage in a moving final concert with Lady Gaga
By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga perform ‘One Last Time’
Tony Bennett won over generations of fans crooning “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” And on his 95th birthday, the beloved singer left his heart on the stage of Radio City Music Hall.

Six months after Bennett and his family revealed he is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Bennett sang alongside Lady Gaga before sold-out crowds in a two-concert series in
early August billed as his final New York performances.
Now the rest of the world has a chance to take in the moving August 3 show in a TV special, “One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga,” which aired Sunday on CBS.
In addition to his signature song, Bennett performed standards like “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Steppin’ Out with My Baby” and duets with Lady Gaga including “Love for Sale” and “Anything Goes.”

His family members have said sometimes Bennett doesn’t know where he is and what
is happening around him. But onstage in the TV special, the legendary performer didn’t miss a beat.

Tony Bennett reveals he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
Belting out “New York, New York” before Bennett took the stage, Lady Gaga teared
up when she paused to talk about him. “He’s, my friend. He’s my musical companion.
And he’s the greatest singer in the whole world. And I’m counting on you, New York, to make him smile. So, you better cheer. You better yell. You better laugh. You better cry.
You better give your soul.”

The Radio City Music Hall audience held up its end of the bargain. Bennett got his
first standing ovation before even singing a note — and racked up at least a dozen more throughout the night. In “Fly Me to the Moon,” when he crooned the line, “Let me sing forever more,” the audience erupted in cheers. At one point the camera panned to an audience member shouting, “We love you!”

Bennett, whose singing career spans eight decades, is no stranger to performing for throngs of adoring fans. Still, before the concert, family members told “60 Minutes”
they weren’t sure what would happen during the show. But wife Susan Benedetto
said that once she saw him onstage that night, his eyes twinkling and arms outstretched toward the crowd, she knew everything would be alright.

“He became himself. He just turned on. It was like a light switch,” she told “60 Minutes”
in a segment that aired last month. That’s because music and performing are so ingrained in the singer, according to Bennett’s neurologist, Dr. Gayatri Devi.

“People respond differently based on their strengths. In Tony’s case, it’s his musical memory, his ability to be a performer. Those are an innate and hardwired part of his brain,” Devi said on “60 Minutes.”
“So even though he doesn’t know what the day might be, or where his apartment is,
he still can sing the whole repertoire of the American Songbook and move people.”

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga performed together at The Grammys in 2015.
Bennett released his first album with Lady Gaga in 2014. Their latest collaboration, a Cole Porter tribute album titled “Love for Sale,” was released in October. Last week it garnered six Grammy nominations. After the nominations, Lady Gaga told BBC Radio 2’s “The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show” that it’s been heartbreaking to watch what Bennett is going through.

She told “60 Minutes” that Bennett had been calling her “Sweetheart” every time she’d seen him since the pandemic began, and she wasn’t sure he knew who she was. But when she came onstage to join him during the Radio City Music Hall concert, Bennett appeared to have no doubt.

“Wow,” he said as she twirled around in a shimmering gold gown. “Lady Gaga!”
A look of joy flashed across Lady Gaga’s face. She bent over, her head in her hands, before doing another twirl. “I had to keep it together, because we had a sold-out show and I had a job to do,” Lady Gaga told “60 Minutes.” “But I’ll tell you, when I walked out on that stage, and he said, ‘Lady Gaga,’ my friend saw me, and it was very special.”

Lady Gaga gave the world — and me — a powerful gift.

After the successful Radio City Music Hall shows, Bennett canceled future tour appearances. His son and manager Danny Bennett told Variety those New York concerts would be his last. “This was a hard decision for us to make, as he is a capable performer. This is, however, doctors’ orders,” Danny Bennett said. “It’s not the singing aspect but, rather, the traveling. Look, he gets tired. The decision is being made that doing concerts now is just too much for him.”

Lady Gaga told “60 Minutes” she heard a powerful message in Bennett’s last Radio City Music Hall performances. “It’s not a sad story. It’s emotional. It’s hard to watch somebody change.
I think what’s been beautiful about this, and what’s been challenging, is to see how it affects him in some ways, but to see how it doesn’t affect his talent,” she said. “I think he really pushed through something to give the world the gift of knowing that things can change, and you can still be magnificent.” Despite his Alzheimer’s, Tony Bennett prepares to perform with Lady Gaga

 Joel Sartore Wifes Cancer Story

Taking Time Out: Lessons from Cancer (CBS Sunday Morning) – Joel Sartore
Joel’s essay about his wife Kathy’s experience with breast cancer and successful treatment, as it appeared on CBS Sunday Morning.  

Joel Sartore Reflects on 15 Years of Photographing At-Risk Species for Photo Ark.
By Jessica Stewart on August 24, 2021

Photo Ark 15 Year Anniversary – Bing video
Joel Sartore is a photographer, speaker, author, teacher, and a 20-year contributor to National Geographic magazine. His hallmarks are a sense of humor and a Midwestern work ethic. Joel’s assignments have taken him to every continent and to the world’s
most beautiful and challenging environments, from the High Arctic to the Antarctic.

Simply put, Joel is on a mission to document endangered species and landscapes
in order to show a world worth saving.

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A endangered Florida panther, Puma concolor coryi, at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo.
(Photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark)

His interest in nature started in childhood, when he learned about the very last passenger pigeon from one of his mother’s Time-Life picture books. He has since been chased by a wide variety of species including wolves, grizzlies, musk oxen, lions, elephants and polar bears.

His first National Geographic assignments introduced him to nature photography,
and also allowed him to see human impact on the environment first-hand. In his words, “It is folly to think that we can destroy one species and ecosystem after another and not affect humanity.

When we save species, we’re actually saving ourselves.”

In addition to the work, he has done for National Geographic, Joel has contributed to Audubon Magazine, Geo, Time, Life, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and numerous book projects. Joel and his work have been the subjects of several national broadcasts including National Geographic’s Explorer, the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s Weekend Edition and an hour-long PBS documentary, At Close Range. He is also a contributor on the CBS Sunday Morning Show with Charles Osgood.

Joel is always happy to return from his travels around the world to his home in Lincoln, Nebraska where he lives with his wife Kathy and their three children.

Since 2005, photographer Joel Sartore has been on the hunt to document the world’s biodiversity through the National Geographic Photo Ark project. Now in its 15th year, Photo Ark has become an important tool for raising awareness about conservation issues. As Sartore travels to zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the globe, he reminds the public of the precious species that we are at risk of losing. Amazon.com: National Geographic The Photo Ark: One Man’s Quest to Document the World’s Animals: 9781426217777: Sartore, Joel, Ford, Harrison: Books  

Having created portraits of over 11,000 species under human care, Sartore is on track to hit his goal of photographing 20,000 animals in 20 years. From amphibians and reptiles to birds, fish, and mammals, the Photo Ark is a reminder of what can happen when we take away the precious habitats that these animals need to thrive. The portraits are used
as educational tools in the classroom and through exhibitions and publications, raising awareness to the general public.

As Photo Ark celebrates its 15-year anniversary, the project continues to get people
talking about endangered species. To celebrate this special anniversary, Photo Ark is currently running a sale on its print inventory.
Just go to the Photo Ark store, use the code PhotoArk15 by August 31, 2021, and you’ll receive a discount. All proceeds from the store go back into making the project possible.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Sartore and ask him to reflect back on
15 years of the Photo Ark.

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A federally threatened koala, Phascolarctos cinereus, with her babies at
the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital. (Photo: Joel Sartore/ Photo Ark)

How has the mission of Photo Ark changed over the past 15 years, if at all?

The mission behind the National Geographic Photo Ark hasn’t changed.
If anything, I feel like we’ve made an actual impact. When I started the Ark 15 years ago, my mission was to inspire people to help protect species and get them to care. That’s always going to be an uphill battle, but I’m proud to say that we’ve moved the needle.

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A pygmy slow loris, Nycticebus pygmaeus, at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo
and Aquarium. (Photo: Joel Sartore/ Photo Ark)

Over the course of the 15 years, what’s your proudest moment with Photo Ark?

I have a few, but National Geographic Magazine pulled together a story not too long ago about the work many people are putting forward to save the Florida grasshopper sparrow.

Historically, the Florida grasshopper sparrow inhabited the prairies of central Florida.
In the last few years, however, it has neared extinction, with biologists struggling to find the reason why.
When the Photo Ark covered the bird for an Audubon Magazine cover story, it got so much attention that the U.S. Government went from spending $20-30k per year to document its demise, to $1.2 million to begin a captive breeding program. That breeding program is a success today, and so there’s real hope for the sparrow, thanks to the hard work of the researchers and breeding centers such as White Oak Conservation Center in Yulee, FL.

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Two Golden snub-nosed monkeys, Rhinopithecus roxellana, at Ocean Park Hong Kong.
(Photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark)

You’re now more than halfway through the 25-year project.
What’s been the most challenging part of Photo Ark?

My goal is to photograph the approximately 20,000 species in the world’s zoos, aquariums, and wildlife sanctuaries. At this moment, I’ve photographed nearly 12,000 species. I’ll have to travel farther and wider to get the remaining species for Photo Ark.

What’s on the roster coming up and what’s the game plan for the next 10 years?
Well, I’m now able to do a bit more traveling. The past few months I’ve been driving across America to take photos of species in various zoos and aquariums (and also some even in my own backyard of Lincoln, Nebraska), which has been exciting. Soon I’ll be working in Peru, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. For the next 10 years or more, I’ll be working on Photo Ark.

The bottom line is, I’ll likely be doing this for the rest of my lifetime.

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An endangered baby Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, named Aurora, with her
adoptive mother, Cheyenne, a Bornean/Sumatran cross, Pongo pygmaeus x abelii,
at the Houston Zoo. (Photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark)

What do you hope the public takes away from your work?
I want people to care, to fall in love, and to take action for species conservation.
Quite literally, our future depends on nature. We cannot continue to destroy one species and ecosystem after another and think it won’t matter to humanity. It’s quite the opposite—everything we depend on, our air, water, and food, hangs in the balance.

What’s one species that you haven’t photographed yet that you are hoping to
get in front of the camera? I hope to take a photo of the Amazon River dolphin,
also known as the pink river dolphin. It only lives in freshwater in South America.
Time will tell.

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An endangered Malayan tiger, Panthera tigris jacksoni, at Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo.
(Photo: Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark)

The Photo Ark is a National Geographic project which has the goal of photographing all species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the globe in order to inspire action to save wildlife. 
 
The project has been documented in a series of books and in a three-part documentary first shown on PBS and then released to home video. A selection of photographs from the project has been exhibited in various museums, zoos, and exhibition halls around the world. The documentary, RARE: Creatures of The Photo Ark, was awarded the Best Conservation Film award in 2018. The Photo Ark was featured on American television program 60 Minutes, with the episode first airing on October 14, 2018.[1]

The Photo Ark project, led by Joel Sartore in association with National Geographic,
has the goal of inspiring action through education, and to help save wildlife by supporting conservation efforts.[2][3][4]

It is a multiyear effort which originally intended to document 12,000 species [5]
living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries.
In November 2021, the 12,000th species was photographed by Satore who was 59 at the time, and the new goal was announced as being 15,000 species, which Satore anticipated would take him another 10 to 15 years.[6]

According to a February 2017 press release by National Geographic, one half of
Earth’s animal species could go extinct by 2100. “Joel Sartore… is acutely aware of this devastating reality and is passionate about protecting our planet’s animals.”[7] Regarding the scope of the project, Sartore said: “The logistics of pulling off a project of this scope is numbing at times. The travel, the long hours, the setup and teardown of our mobile photo studio… it wears me down just thinking about it”.[8]: page 170 

In a February 2017 interview with NPR, regarding the issue of him being able to complete the project before retirement, Sartore said: “I will be greatly relieved when all this is done, but I figure another 15 years or so, that’s what it’s going to take. No matter what, I’m going to get it done if I can still do it, if I can still walk and talk and shoot”.[9]
Sartore says that National Geographic sees themselves as responsible stewards of the environment and says that they are in it for “the long haul”.

He said that he believed that if he could get the project started, National Geographic
would see its value, and he believes that they have. Since starting the project, Sartore says several species he photographed are now extinct. “It saddens me greatly, but also angers and inspires me to want to give everything I’ve got to this project and use extinction as a wakeup call. As these species go away, so could we.”[10]


Satore gained a love of nature while growing up in Nebraska. He was amazed by the
idea of species going extinct and thought that he would never see such occur in his lifetime. However, now he believes that in the 11 years
he has worked on the Photo Ark project, he has seen 10 go extinct.[11] In a March 2018 interview, Sartore said that he went to the Omaha zoo regularly as a child, getting to
know the various animals. He says that his parents “made sure he was out in nature and appreciated it”, which he says made all the difference.[12]

In a February 2018 interview, Sartore said that he began the Ark project about 12 years ago when he was caring for his three young children while his wife was being treated for cancer, leading Sartore to consider his own future. “That’s how the Ark got started, and I’ve been going at it ever since.”[13]

In an April 2018 interview, Sartore said he had been a National Geographic photographer for over 27 years, and although he worked for 15 years doing various conservation stories, the impact was not enough to “stop the extinction crisis”. So he realized that maybe “very simple portraits lit exquisitely so you can see the beauty and the color, looking animals directly in the eye with no distractions, would be the way to do it.”[10]

The lush and unique photography in this book represents National Geographic’s Photo Ark, a major initiative and lifelong project by photographer Joel Sartore to make portraits of the world’s animals—especially those that are endangered. His powerful message, conveyed with humor, compassion, and art: to know these animals is to save them.

Sartore is circling the globe, visiting zoos and wildlife rescue centers to create studio portraits of 12,000 species, with an emphasis on those facing extinction. With a goal of photographing every animal in captivity in the world, he has photographed more than 6,000 already and now, thanks to a multi-year partnership with National Geographic,
he may reach his goal.

This book showcases his animal portraits: from tiny to mammoth, from the Florida grasshopper sparrow to the greater one-horned rhinoceros. Paired with the eloquent
prose of veteran wildlife writer Douglas Chadwick, and an inspiring foreword from Harrison Ford, this book presents a thought-provoking argument for saving all the
species of our planet.  The Photo Ark – Introduction HD – Bing video

Joel Sartore Photography: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by National Geographic.

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JESSICA STEWART
Jessica Stewart is a Contributing Writer and Digital Media Specialist for My Modern Met, as well as a curator and art historian. Since 2020, she is also one of the co-hosts of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. She earned her MA in Renaissance Studies from University College London and now lives in Rome, Italy.

She cultivated expertise in street art which led to the purchase of her photographic archive by the Treccani Italian Encyclopedia in 2014. When she’s not spending time with her three dogs, she also manages the studio of a successful street artist. In 2013, she authored the book ‘Street Art Stories Roma‘ and most recently contributed to ‘Crossroads: A Glimpse into the Life of Alice Pasquini‘. You can follow her adventures online at @romephotoblog.

Read all posts from Jessica Stewart

Birds Are Rapidly Disappearing from the Earth.

‘The Guardian’ reports that in the past 50 years, a fourth of all the birds in North America have disappeared. In a recent opinion piece, author Kim Heacox shines a light on these amazing creatures and the grim warning their disappearance represents for humans.

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Biden Should Be Impeached

Posted on January 29, 2022 by Ken
Pictured: Charlotte Bellis, reportedly during her time in Afghanistan.

Stranded and pregnant New Zealand journalist turns to TALIBAN for help.
Even before the Taliban retook power in August, Afghanistan ranked as one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman. Al Jazeera journalist Charlotte Bellis finds a country fearful of what the future might hold.   12/15/2021 Afghanistan: Women’s Rights (msn.com) Duration: 05:04

A pregnant New Zealand journalist stranded in Afghanistan has turned to the Taliban for help after being unable to return to her homeland because of Jacinda Ardern’s draconian Covid curbs. Charlotte Bellis, a broadcast journalist, said she has repeatedly tried to return to New Zealand since she learned she was pregnant in September.  

Charlotte has submitted 59 documents to New Zealand officials in Afghanistan in an attempt to secure an emergency return home, but her bid was turned down and led
her to turn to the Taliban, one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, for sympathy.

It’s a particularly cruel twist of fate for the woman who was revered worldwide
for her fearless questioning of the jihadist group’s previous record on women’s rights. 
To add insult to injury, Ms. Bellis has warned that pregnancy can be a death sentence
in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan because of the poor state of maternity care and lack
of surgical capabilities.  Speaking to 1News about her situation, Ms. Bellis asked:
‘To the NZ Government, I ask what do you want me to do?

I have done nothing wrong. I got pregnant and I am a New Zealander.

 ‘At what point did we get so bogged down in these rules we’ve come up with
that we can’t see that she’s a Kiwi in need of help and she needs to come home?’

Although the spread of COVID-19 has been limited in New Zealand and just 52 deaths have been reported since the start of the pandemic, the nation still requires citizens to spend 10 days in isolated hotels run by the military.

The ‘zero Covid’ policy has repeatedly come under fire and the strict self-isolation restrictions have now caused a backlog of thousands of people desperate to return home. Ms. Bellis has become one of the most high-profile Kiwis to fall victim to New Zealand’s extreme border controls, 

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As Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured)

Faces further embarrassment over her policies. Writing in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Ms. Bellis said it was ‘brutally ironic’ that while she had once questioned the Taliban about their treatment of women, she was now asking the same questions of her own government. ‘When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman –
safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,’ she wrote.

Jacinda Ardern has faced a slew of criticism from campaigners and members
of the public after imposing strict Covid curbs since the start of the pandemic.

International borders were promptly closed on March 19, with a nationwide lockdown enforced on March 25 after 102 cases, and no deaths, were recorded in the country.
New Zealand has managed to keep the spread of the virus to a minimum during the pandemic and has reported just 52 deaths among its population of five million.
Stories of citizens stranded abroad in dire circumstances have caused embarrassment
for Jacinda and her government, but Ms. Bellis’s situation is particularly striking.

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Last year, Bellis (right) 

Was working for Al Jazeera covering the withdrawal of American troops from
Afghanistan when she gained international attention by questioning Taliban leaders about their treatment of women and girls. In her column on Saturday, she said she returned to Qatar in September and discovered she was expecting a baby with her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek, a contributor to the New York Times. She described the pregnancy as a ‘miracle’ after earlier being told by doctors she could not have children. 

She is due to give birth to a girl in May. Extramarital sex is illegal in Qatar and Ms Bellis said she realized she needed to leave. She repeatedly tried to get back to New Zealand in a lottery-style system for returning citizens but without success. She said she resigned from Al Jazeera in November and the couple moved to Mr Huylebroek’s native Belgium, but she could not stay long because she was not a resident. She said the only other place the couple had visas to live was Afghanistan.

Ms. Bellis said she spoke with senior Taliban contacts who told her she would be fine
if she returned to Afghanistan. ‘Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry,’ she said they told her. She said she sent 59 documents to New Zealand authorities in Afghanistan, but they rejected her application for an emergency return.
New Zealand’s COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins told the Herald his office had asked officials to check whether they followed the proper procedures in Ms. Bellis’s case, ‘which appeared at first sight to warrant further explanation’.

Chris Bunny, the joint head of New Zealand’s Managed Isolation and Quarantine system, told the Herald that Ms Bellis’s emergency application did not fit a requirement that she travel within 14 days. He said staff had contacted her about making another application that would fit the requirements. ‘This is not uncommon and is an example of the team being helpful to New Zealanders who are in distressing situations,’ he wrote.

Ms. Bellis said pregnancy can be a death sentence in Afghanistan because of the poor state of maternity care and lack of surgical capabilities. She added that after talking to lawyers, politicians and public relations people in New Zealand, her case seems to be moving forward, although she has yet to be approved for passage home.

It comes after Ardern announced a swathe of new measures under the country’s Covid
Red Alert system, meaning a return to universal mask-wearing and stricter quarantine requirements for New Zealanders.
The PM rolled out the restrictions after just nine cases of the Omicron variant were detected in a single family that flew to Auckland for a wedding earlier this month.
Under limits incurred by New Zealand’s My Vaccine Pass, those who are unvaccinated will be unable to eat at indoor restaurants or visit gyms or hairdressers. Any Kiwis working in health and disability, education, fire and emergency, police, defense, and corrections must be able to show proof of having vaccines.

From February 3, the wearing of bandanas, scarves or t-shirts pulled over the nose in public places such as gyms and cafes will be banned. And under new Covid curbs enforced by Ardern, all residents must wear face masks in public areas such as shops and there are limits on gatherings to a maximum of 100 people from Monday after a cluster of Omicron cases were detected in the country. The changes mean Ardern was forced to postpone her own wedding. Anyone testing positive must now isolate for 14 instead of ten days – and household contacts have to isolate for an additional ten days on top, leaving them to stay indoors for 24 days.

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Pictured: Anti-vaxxer protesters at a Covid vaccination clinic in Auckland.

Ardern has faced a slew of criticism from campaigners and members of the public after imposing strict Covid curbs since the start of the pandemic. International borders were promptly closed on March 19, with a nationwide lockdown enforced on March 25 after
102 cases, and no deaths, were recorded in the country. On June 8, the PM announced there had been no new community transmissions within the past fortnight and says she
is ‘confident New Zealand has eliminated community transmission of Covid’.

But within two months, Auckland was placed under strict lockdown measures after just four new cases were recorded in the city area. A draconian ‘Zero Covid’ goal was then implemented across the country, with New Zealand aiming to completely eradicate the virus from its shores.
But this policy was met with ridicule as the Delta variant ripped through the world in
the summer of 2021, prompting a return to multiple weeks of lockdown for Auckland’s 1.7million residents.
Critics slammed the return of draconian curbs on everyday life, pointing to the fact
other countries have started to reopen despite reporting thousands of new cases. 

MailOnline columnist: Dan Wootton hit out at the ‘terror and paranoia’ that has
enveloped New Zealand since implementing its drastic zero-Covid policy while the
rest of the world learns to live alongside the virus.
His deeply personal column prompted support from a host of British and New Zealand readers, including former All Black star Zinzan Brooke, who tweeted: ‘Completely agree with Dan here’.

Update: Pregnant New Zealand journalist in Afghanistan can go home (msn.com)

America is in a ‘bad situation’ under Biden: Rep. Tenney Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., tells ‘Fox News Live’ that the Biden administration is ‘projecting weakness’ amid Russia-Ukraine tensions. – Bing video

“Taliban Treated Me Better,” says Pregnant New Zealand Journalist Stranded in Afghanistan – The Daily Skeptic

Female journalists fear for their future as Taliban take to the airwaves | Media Watch – Bing video

Tom Brady retires, leaving legacy of unprecedented victory and longevity.

BREAKING – Tom Brady Retires with Perfect Record Over Cowboys

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`N, Joy My Space in Place

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Ken
Here’s my space…. Puts me at peace.

Able to really think and noodle things out…

While sometimes catching fish and sometimes not.

How often do you see the sunrise over Folly Beach?

It’s therapeutic and puts things in perspective without the noise. 

 Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place.

Alone. To figure everything out.  


Yes, can someone help me get to that place literally.

A place you don’t have to buy a ticket for. Smiling face with smiling eyesSmiling face with open mouth and smiling eyes


Most beautiful music in the world is your heartbeat.

It gives you an assurance that you survive —

even when the world leaves you alone.

Good morning… worldFolded hands


Self-Care Tip 1: The calmer you are, the clearer you think.

Being calm is a state of being.
You can’t practice staying calm by sitting alone, closing your eyes and observing your thoughts like a passing cloud.

Let it come and go. Don’t judge, don’t get involved, just watch!  
All riches and all material things that anyone acquires through self-effort begin in the form of a clear, concise, mental picture of the thing one seeks – Think and grow rich. Never has any decision that was made in anger turned out to be good. The same applies to decisions made when you were overly joyous.

Keeping your emotions in check, whether they’re positive or negative, while making important life decisions – top 1% trait.  

This is because your brain waves slow down and become more regular when you calm down. This makes it easier for your brain to process information and come up with solutions to problems.  So, I’m always calm!

I’ve seen enough to know what can happen when you’re not.

It’s dangerous, when your thoughts are moving faster than you can process them.  

It’s been proven by neural brain scans.

Stress dampers the cerebral cortex, thus affecting executive functions.

Self-Care Tip 2: The less you give a f*ck the calmer you are.

Choose which things to give f*cks for.  

And the clearer you think, the calmer you become. Cause and effect. Folded hands


A clear mind can calm the troubled sea. The challenge is calming yourself down. ✌


I love how ppl hate seeing someone so calm Folded hands

In other words: try your absolute best to stay and remain calm Relieved face


Self-Care Tip 3: 24 hours don’t make a day. It’s the count of hours that are Serene.

Set peace of mind as your highest goal and organize your life around it. -Brian Tracy  

Psychology says, being alone until you feel like you again are a form of self-care.

Be alone. In the midst of this you will learn about yourself.

You will grow, you will figure out what inspires you, you will curate your own dreams,
your own beliefs, your own stunning clarity. Psychology says, being alone, not lonely,
can be addictive.

Once you realize the calm and peace it brings, you will be craving for more.

Being alone within yourself…will always be the perfect self-care routine,
because you tend to realize the potential you have.  

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Self-Care Tip 4: Be alone. Get inside your mind.

Figure things out and return to a different person.

Being private, staying low-key and not telling everyone everything is self-care.  

Read: 100 MENTAL MODELS (gumroad.com)

Wrap Up:
1. Routine: Heal with the flow
2. Track: Document your journey
3. Willpower: Fight through events Life changes with time.

Nothing ever remains the same.

Self-Care Tip 5: Master your mind. Master your life.

Start reading 100 MENTAL MODELS (gumroad.com)

Stay Positive [Granted Your life will change] Maybe Today!!!

Self-Care Tip 6: A private life is a happy life — Stay private always. 

When you keep yourself private you have complete control of your life.

With no external influences trying to cause you harm.

The less people who know your business the better of you are.

Normalizing keeping things private, in this overexposed world, keeping your privacy
is a real flex. Not everyone needs to know about you. Stay low and enjoy a peaceful life.  

The funny thing is that when you decide to be private you become very conspicuous.

I think we have to express ourselves not with everyone, but someone should be in our life to whom we can share anything to be free from burden.  

BOTTOM LINE: Outside energy often throws off goals.

Keep it private and let the results speak for themselves.

Agreed! I personally know some people who hate seeing others progressing in life.

And the sad part? Some of these people are my friends Upside-down face  

Work and grind in silence until you succeed. 🙂
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It wasn’t enough.

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Ken
COVID hits one of the last uninfected places on the planet.

By NICK PERRY and SAM METZ.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — When the coronavirus began spreading around the world, the remote Pacific archipelago of Kiribati closed its borders, ensuring the disease didn’t reach its shores for nearly two full years.

Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to bring home 54 of the island nation’s citizens.

Many of those aboard were missionaries who had left Kiribati before the border closure
to spread the faith abroad for what is commonly known as the Mormon church.

Officials tested each returning passenger three times in nearby Fiji, required that they be vaccinated, and put them in quarantine with additional testing when they arrived home.

More than half the passengers tested positive for the virus, which has now slipped
out into the community and prompted the government to declare a state of disaster.

An initial 36 positive cases from the flight had ballooned to 181 cases by Friday.

Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last places on the planet
to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no match against the highly contagious omicron variant.

“Generally speaking, it’s inevitable. It will get to every corner of the world,” said Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccine expert at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

“It’s a matter of buying enough time to prepare and getting as many people vaccinated
as possible.” Only 33% of Kiribati’s 113,000 people are fully vaccinated, while 59% have had at least one dose, according to the online scientific publication Our World in Data. And like many other Pacific nations, Kiribati offers only basic health services.

Dr. Api Talemaitoga, who chairs a network of Indigenous Pacific Island doctors in New Zealand, said Kiribati had only a couple of intensive care beds in the entire nation, and
in the past relied on sending its sickest patients to Fiji or New Zealand for treatment.

He said that given the limitations of Kiribati’s health system,
his first reaction when he heard about the outbreak was, “Oh, my lord.”

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FILE – In this photo provided by Broadcom Broadcasting.
(Marian Kupu File) © Provided by Associated Press

People clear ash off a damaged area in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, following Saturday’s volcanic eruption near the Pacific archipelago. Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no match against the highly contagious omicron variant.

Kiribati has now opened multiple quarantine sites, declared a curfew and imposed lockdowns. President Taneti Maamau said on social media that the government is
using all its resources to manage the situation and urged people to get vaccinated.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in the U.S. state of Utah,
has a strong presence in many Pacific nations, including Kiribati, where its 20,000 members make it the third-largest Christian denomination. The church has about
53,000 missionaries serving full time around the world, working to convert people.

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FILE – This image made from video provided by Broadcom Broadcasting.

Shows a damaged Mormon church on the Tongan island of Atata, Sunday,
Jan. 16, 2022, the day after tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption near Tonga.

Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no match against the highly contagious omicron variant. (Kilo Folau/Broadcom Broadcasting via AP, File) © Provided by Associated Press

The pandemic has presented challenges for their missionary work, which is considered a rite of passage for men as young as 18 and women as young as 19.

As the pandemic ebbed and flowed, the church responded. It recalled about 26,000 missionaries who were serving overseas in June 2020, reassigning them to proselytize online from home before sending some back out into the field five months later.

When COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in many countries in April 2021, church officials encouraged all missionaries to get inoculated and required it of those serving outside their home countries.

Church spokesperson Sam Penrod said the returning missionaries remained in quarantine, were cooperating with local health authorities and would be released from their service upon completion of their quarantine.

“With Kiribati’s borders being closed since the onset of the pandemic, many of these individuals have continued as missionaries well beyond their 18 to 24 months of anticipated service, with some serving as long as 44 months,” he said.

Before this month’s outbreak, Kiribati had reported just two virus cases: crew members on an incoming cargo ship that ultimately wasn’t permitted to dock.

But the Kiribati charter flight wasn’t the first-time missionaries returning home to a Pacific Island nation tested positive for COVID-19.

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In October, a missionary returning to Tonga from service in Africa was reported as the country’s first — and so far, only — positive case after flying home via New Zealand.

Like those returning to Kiribati, he also was vaccinated and quarantined.

Tonga is desperately trying to prevent any outbreaks as it recovers from a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami earlier this month.

The nation of 105,000 has been receiving aid from around the world but has requested that crews from incoming military ships and planes drop their supplies and leave without having any contact with those on the ground.

“They’ve got enough on their hands without compounding it with the spread of COVID,” said Petousis-Harris, the vaccine expert. “Anything they can do to keep it out is going to
be important. COVID would be just compounding that disaster.”

In the long term, however, it is going to be impossible to stop the virus from entering Tonga or any other community, Petousis-Harris said.

Nearby Samoa, with a population of 205,000, is also trying to prevent its first outbreak.
It imposed a lockdown through Friday evening after 15 passengers on an incoming flight from Australia last week tested positive.

By Thursday, that number had grown to 27, including five front-line nurses who had treated the passengers. Officials said all those infected had been isolated and there was
no community outbreak so far.

While the incursion of the virus into the Pacific has prompted lockdowns and other restrictions, there were signs that not all traditional aspects of island life would
be lost for long.

“Government has decided to allow fishing,” Kiribati declared on Thursday, while listing certain restrictions on times and places. “Only four people will be allowed to be on a boat or part of a group fishing near shore.”

The Truth About Vaccine-induced Myocarditis | Principia Scientific Intl. (principia-scientific.com)

Marvel Actress Hounded for Standing Up Against Vaccine Mandates – Summit News

Millions can’t isolate from COVID at home. Here’s what experts suggest. (msn.com)

This omicron variant symptom emerges in the stomach (msn.com)

 Dr. Renee Dua, Chief Medical Officer and Founder of Heal, discusses how the vaccines fare against the new variants discovered in the U.S. and how hospitals are managing the record number of COVID-19 deaths.  

Researchers Say New Strain of Coronavirus Discovered in Ohio.

New COVID-19 subvariant ‘BA.2’ detected in the state of Washington.

Produced by Nissan | 5 Electrifying Fitness Innovations and Trends | SELF

Fitness Trainer Sarah Machemer Shares Her Battle with Crohn’s Disease | SELF


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