Merck Pharmaceuticals and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced Friday that their investigational oral drug, Molanupiravir, reduced the risk of hospitalization or death in at-risk adult patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 by 50 percent.
In response, Merck said it plans to apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization "as soon as possible" to become the first oral antiviral for COVID-19.
In a comunicadoIn the interim analysis, only 7.3 percent of patients who received the antiviral were hospitalized or died, compared with 14.1 percent of those treated with placebo, the companies said.
They added that as of day 29, no deaths had been reported in patients who received molnupiravir, compared with eight who received placebo.
Thus, on the recommendation of an independent Data Monitoring Committee and in consultation with the FDA, recruitment for the study was stopped early due to these positive results. Merck plans to submit an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) application to the U.S. FDA.
"More tools and treatments are urgently needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which has become a leading cause of death and continues to profoundly affect patients, families and societies, and strain health care systems around the world," said Robert M. Davis, chief executive officer and president of Merck.
With these compelling results, we are optimistic that Molnupiravir can become an important drug as part of the global effort to combat the pandemic," he added.
For her part, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics CEO Wendy Holman said, "Because the virus continues to circulate widely and because currently available therapeutic options are injections and/or require access to a healthcare facility, antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with COVID-19 out of the hospital are sorely needed.
Results of the planned interim analysis of the drug for COVID-19
The planned interim analysis evaluated data from 775 patients who were initially enrolled in the phase trial on or before August 5, 2021. At the time of the decision to halt enrollment based on the compelling interim efficacy results, the trial was approaching full enrollment of the Phase 3 sample size of 1,550 patients, with more than 90 percent of the planned sample size already enrolled.
Eligibility criteria required all patients to have mild to moderate laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 with symptom onset within 5 days of study randomization.
In addition, Merck said, all patients were required to have at least one risk factor associated with a poor disease outcome at study entry.
Thus, Molnupiravir reduced the risk of hospitalization and/or death in all key subgroups; efficacy was not affected by timing of symptom onset or underlying risk factor.
In addition, according to participants with available viral sequencing data - approximately 40 percent of participants - Molnupiravir demonstrated consistent efficacy in the Gamma, Delta and Mu viral variants.
In anticipation of possible FDA acceptance of emergency use, and in anticipation of the results, Merck is already producing Molnupiravir.
In that regard, Merck plans to produce 10 million treatments by the end of 2021, with more doses expected to be produced in 2022.
It has also committed to providing timely access to Molnupiravir globally, if licensed or approved, and plans to implement a tiered pricing approach based on World Bank country income criteria to reflect the relative capacity of countries to finance their health response to the pandemic.
The drugmaker also announced that it has entered into voluntary non-exclusive licensing agreements for Molnupiravir with established generic manufacturers with the intention of accelerating the availability of the antiviral in more than 100 low- and middle-income countries.
About 65 cargo ships carrying imported goods are stranded at ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach. Sources indicate that both ports account for 40 percent of all imported goods entering the United States.
The delay is due to the fact that the U.S. has recently opened its borders to foreign trade, including imports, but the large number of containers entering the country that need to be declared has exceeded U.S. Customs capacity, said Gene Seroka, head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Port of Los Angeles.
After the U.S. economy shut down foreign trade due to the COVID-19 pandemic, imports of goods have slowed down and accumulated in recent months, so now authorities can't keep up with everyone.
Ocean freight is the cheapest form of transportation. It is slow, but compared to air, rail and truck freight, it results in low long-term costs.
As a result, most of the world's trade is conducted by sea. The Port of Los Angeles is the largest seaport in North America, with half a million employees.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global supply chain was disrupted. Reduced schedules and physical distancing measures meant that much less cargo could be processed at ports around the world.
The Port of Los Angeles was not immune to this.
With the reopening, Americans - the world's largest buyers - began spending their income on the only thing they could: goods. Instead of processing 20 percent of all cargo, the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach combined were processing nearly 50 percent of all cargo coming into the country.
It is as if they were being asked to do their work at up to 2.5 times the speed, not counting the delays generated by the effects of the pandemic - COVID-19 absenteeism.
As a result, shortages arose in sectors that were not previously considered urgent. Shipping containers were not emptied in the USA and returned to their countries of origin immediately.
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors took an important step toward fulfilling a decade-long commitment to effectively end homelessness: it approved the creation of a 240-bed shelter, along with counseling and other support.
The Board approved an agreement with the City of Redwood City that will allow for the development of such a state-of-the-art shelter, called the Navigation Center, to be located east of Highway 101 off of Maple Street.
Supervisor Warren Slocum, whose District 4 includes Redwood City, said, "We are one step closer to creating 240 safe spaces for the homeless and offering them hope and dignity so that the next step is permanent housing."
The Board approved the exchange of a county-owned parcel at 1580 Maple St. for a Redwood City-owned parcel at 1469 Maple St., an agreement that also sets aside 10 acres which will serve as a future waterfront recreation park.
"The county has long had a goal of ending homelessness and this land swap gives the county the ability to expand services to achieve our goal of ending homelessness," said District 3 Supervisor Don Horsley.
The county plans to build the new center at 1469 Maple St., "a facility with services that have proven to break the cycle of homelessness," said County Administrator Mike Callagy.
It is "a safe navigation centre where people will be treated with dignity and respect, which will provide people with the stability they need to make the transition to more permanent housing".
The Navigation Center model provides short-term housing, while also offering on-site a range of intensive safety net services and other case management services focused on housing, stability and recovery.
County officials hope to begin construction on the new navigation center in 2022 and have it open by the end of that year. The site would also be engineered to be elevated to protect against sea level rise.
"The City of Redwood City has been an excellent partner throughout this planning process," said Callagy. "We know that a common concern among many San Mateo County residents is homelessness, and we applaud the city for taking the necessary steps to address the urgent need for a navigation center."
According to the county, more than 1,500 county residents were homeless in 2019, with more than 900 homeless. The largest number of unsheltered people were in Redwood City, with a substantial population living in tents or on the street, facing challenges such as exposure, high levels of stress, lack of sleep, unsanitary environments, lack of access to hygiene and care, poverty, and malnutrition.
"A navigation center will play an important role in addressing the need not only for shelter, but also for services," Callagy said. "The county's goal is to achieve zero functional homelessness, which means that anyone who wants shelter can access it through a variety of county facilities and programs."
YouTube announced that it will ban videos that claim COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective or dangerous - anti-vaccine - as well as all materials that question measles and chickenpox immunization.
Through a statementThe company said that as part of its new policies around medical misinformation, more than 130,000 videos have been removed since last year for violating the platform's rules on the COVID-19 vaccine.
"The politics around medical misinformation come fraught with challenges. Scientific understanding evolves as new research emerges and, first-hand, personal experience plays an important role in online discourse."
In this regard, he said that vaccines in particular have been a source of intense debate over the years, despite opinion and constant campaigns by health authorities on their effectiveness, so they extended their policies to vaccines currently administered, which are approved and confirmed as safe by health authorities.
It should be noted that YouTube's community standards already prohibit certain types of medical misinformation, working closely with health authorities, so they have long since deleted content claiming that drinking turpentine can cure diseases, for example.
He also reported seeing false claims about coronavirus vaccines leading to misinformation about vaccines in general, at a point when it is more important than ever to expand the work they started with COVID-19 to other vaccines.
As such, "content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce disease transmission, or contains misinformation about the substances they contain" will be removed.
This would include content that falsely states that vaccines cause autism, cancer, or infertility, or that the substances they contain can trace back to those who receive them. This not only covers specific vaccines such as measles or hepatitis B, but also applies to general statements about vaccines.
However, the platform stated that, given the importance of public discussion and debate to the scientific process, they will continue to allow content about vaccine policy, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures on YouTube.
Personal testimonials related to vaccines will also be allowed, as long as the video does not violate other community guidelines, or the channel does not show a pattern of negative promotion of vaccines.
"Today's policy update is an important step in addressing vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we will continue to invest across the board in policies and products that provide high-quality information to our viewers and the entire community," he said.
YouTube blocks Russian accounts
YouTube blocked the accounts of RT DE and Der Fehlende Part on Tuesday for violating internal community rules by spreading "false information" about the coronavirus and attempting to bypass a download suspension.
The Kremlin called the decision "censorship" and said it did not rule out the adoption of coercive measures against this platform, to respect Russian laws.
Russia's telecommunications agency, Roskomnadzor, said it had asked Google, which owns YouTube, to lift restrictions against RT DE and Fehlende Part as soon as possible.
He also recalled that the law provides for a full or partial suspension of access if the owner of a platform does not execute a warning of Roskomnadzor.
This Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a series of bills into law to address the crisis of homelessness and residents suffering from mental health issues and experiencing homelessness.
That strategy, Newsom said this morning, will complement a $12 billion housing plan to provide access to health care for Californians in need.
"We must implement bold and transformative solutions, investing more money than ever to get people off the streets and provide mental health and other services," the governor said.
He added that the current legislation "will allow us to address the crisis in a way that California has never done before.
Among the bills signed into law are those to increase coordination and accountability of state homeless spending, including Assemblymember Luz Rivas' AB 1220, which reforms the former Homeless Coordination and Funding Council, renaming it the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, which seeks to strengthen the powers of this body through new data mandates and oversight authorities.
In addition, this new Council, which will be co-chaired by Dr. Mark Ghaly, California Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramirez, will link housing and health care.
The California Interagency Council on Homelessness will also be the entity responsible for receiving, reviewing and ultimately approving homeless plans submitted by cities, counties and Continuums of Care agencies.
Local governments must now commit to measurable goals through six standardized metrics and move toward meeting or exceeding them in order to receive their full share of Homeless Housing, Homeless Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP) funding.
Governor Newsom required this new accountability as part of the multi-million dollar investment in homelessness and worked with the Legislature to craft these new oversight laws.
Thus, California is investing $22 billion to address the homelessness and housing affordability crisis, with $12 billion allocated for homelessness and behavioral health services.
Combined, the funds will lead to the creation of more than 84,000 new homes for Californians, including more than 44,000 new treatment units and beds for people in need.
The new funding also includes $5.8 billion to add more than 35,000 new housing units through Homekey, a national model for homelessness.
Lapiztola Collective. Let's sow dreams and harvests hopes. 2015.
By Eli Bartra and Liliana Elvira Moctezuma.
PRESENTATION
In these dismal times we are living in, people talk about THE pandemic all the time. But it is necessary to think that there is more than one: in Mexico the pandemic of feminicide is growing every day. Of course, calling it a pandemic is somewhat metaphorical because the concept itself means that it attacks all people, on a global level, and not, as in this case, that it only affects women.
A similar phenomenon happens when we talk about the Holocaust. There have been many genocides and holocausts, dozens of them throughout history and all over the world: there is not only that of the Jews by the Nazis. There were the Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century, which left some 11 million dead; the Muslim conquests in India in the fifteenth century produced 400 million dead and has been called the largest genocide in existence; that is, India suffered genocides, holocausts, by Arabs, Turks, Mongols, among others, for 800 years. At the end of the 19th century, in the Congo, Belgian colonialism exterminated 10 million people. At the beginning of the 20th century we have the holocaust of the Armenian people by Turkey in which some 2 million people died. And we must not forget the Stalinist Soviet holocaust (1924-1953) against the Ukrainian people, and other purges and atrocities, which claimed some 5 million lives.
Femicide is not a new phenomenon. What is relatively new is the concept and the proportions. Nor is that of raped women; perhaps they are as old as humanity itself.
Although violence against women has existed for a long time in Mexico, it has been practically invisible and even naturalized. In addition, women have had access to education and artistic creation for approximately 100 years, so it would be difficult for men to make it visible, unless it was to capture some specific facts, as José Guadalupe Posada did. It begins to express itself after the Mexican Revolution with a clear influence of the engraver, as in the cases of Isabel Villaseñor and Frida Kahlo.
As you can see in the examples we have selected of artistic practices from contemporary Mexico, the image of violence against women has been present since that time, in some expressions more and in others less.
Without any desire to compare, we will show works by both men and women, which we have considered significant for their aesthetic power, in order to shed light on their generic differences.
One of the main representations of violence against women in art is, without a doubt, feminicide. This is surely so because it is brutal, because it is extreme... beatings often have a solution, death does not, nor does feminicide. Art that depicts or denounces the problem of violence against women is intended to provoke discomfort and, sometimes, empathy. Discomfort when scenes of violence or elements that remind us of abused or even murdered women are explicitly shown. Empathy, when it reminds us of some who are no longer there due to situations of violence.
Since popular art tends to be made for a very particular market, if situations of violence were depicted, it might be more difficult to commercialize it. Popular art often tends to present repetitive themes in which such violent events and their denunciation have little place. However, it is likely that if popular artists had more creative freedom, it could then be a recurring theme given that, unfortunately, the fact of being a woman in Mexico almost necessarily implies having suffered some kind of violence: sexual, symbolic, labor and that derived from organized crime.
Artistic practices have a considerable influence on mentalities, on people's consciousness. The effects have been harmful, but they can also be very powerful and useful as a denunciation, as a challenge. That's why art has been used to communicate political ideas of all kinds. For example, the nudefeminine contributes to the objectification of women, but it is also used to make a critique of its subjugating use. Feminism gives way to the appearance of works that denounce violence against women in all its forms. It has been absolutely crucial, that's why today there is a lot of feminist artivism, fundamentally political artistic practices of contestation.
PLASTIC ARTS
José Guadalupe Posada(1851-1913).
José Guadalupe Posada. Corrido: the Chalequero. Second half of the XIX Century.
Francisco Guerrero, nicknamed El Chalequero, was a serial killer of at least 20 women during the Porfiriato. Posada made several engravings about his crimes, and it was one of the first representations that we find about the murder of women and that apparently served as inspiration for some later artists.
Isabel Villaseñor(1907-1954)
"Jesus Cadenas said to him:
I'm in charge of that blonde
I will give them satisfaction
Make no mistake".
Fragment
Isabel Villaseñor. The death of Güera Chabela. 1929.
She is one of the first representatives of feminicide in the art of Mexican artists. In her engravingo The Death of the Güera Chabela in 1929, Isabel Villaseñor illustrates a corrido written by Concha Michel. It recounts the murder of Güera Chabela by Jesús Cadenas, who finds her dancing in a fandango with other men and shoots her four times in the heart for being a "mancornadora". Villaseñor portrays Güera Chabela's family as her father, mother and other partygoers mourn her.
Isabel Villaseñor. Untitled or Elena the Treacherous. First half of the 20th Century.
In this untitled work, which has also been called "Elena la traicionera", Isabel Villaseñor again resorts to illustrating a corrido, this time of her own authorship. To represent the situation of women, the author resorted to the corrido genre; she wrote the lyrics, a theatrical piece and this engraving. In the corrido Elena speakinga young woman from the highlands of Jalisco in 1870, is courted by Don Fernando, a French military man. When her husband finds out, he kills them in separate events. In the image we can see Elena just before her partner murders her with a machete, while the domestic worker watches the scene in horror. Isabel Villaseñor in her work sought to represent many everyday situations of women: motherhood, care, self-representation and, in these cases, violence. By denouncing it both in her music and in her graphic work, she appeals to women's freedom over their lives and bodies.
Frida Kahlo(1907-1954)
Frida Kahlo. A few little snacks,1935
The artist apparently read in the newspaper that a man had killed his wife and in court defended himself by saying that he had only given her "a few piquetitos". According to the police, there were twenty stab wounds. There is no doubt that Kahlo was sensitive to this feminicide and hence the crudeness and cruelty with which she represents it, where the image goes beyond the canvas and reaches the painting.
Demetrio García Aguilar. A Few Little Bites. (1969).
The Aguilar family, from Ocotlán, Oaxaca, has turned numerous times to the representation of Frida Kahlo, but rarely with some of the cruder works, as is the case of A few small bites. In this work by Demetrio García Aguilar, the image is reproduced exactly as it is: the stab wounds, the murderer's face, the blood and the only shoe the victim is not stripped of.
Frida Kahlo. The Suicide of Dorothy Hale. 1939.
"In New York City on October 21, 1938, at six o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Dorothy Hale committed suicide by throwing herself from a very high window of the Hampshire House. In her memory [....] this altarpiece was executed by Frida Kahlo. (sic)"
Frida Kahloshe painted it when she was separated from Diego Rivera and apparently had suicidal thoughts herself. It has been said that it may be a visual commentary on the despair of women when a man abandons them. Dorothy Hale was an aspiring actress who, seeing that she had not achieved what she wanted, threw herself from her apartment in New York. It is said that she was commissioned to paint a posthumous portrait of Frida Kahlo, who depicted the exact moment of her suicide.
María Izquierdo (1907-1954)
María Izquierdo. Prisoners. 1936.
It has been said that this work represents the pressure of women in patriarchy, specifically romantic love. Three naked women, tied to classical columns as a phallic representation in the midst of lifeless, lifeless mountains, like the rest of Izquierdo's metaphysical work. One woman lies on the ground with her naked torso inert and her skirt folded into a pink heart; behind her is a broken column. María Izquierdo, like many of the artists of the time, suffered macho violence in many ways, being excluded from creative spaces and even stigmatized for being an artist and divorced.
María Izquierdo. The proletarian mother. 1944.
In this work, María Izquierdo depicts a woman sitting on the floor with her eyes lost, resting her head on a chair; in her arms she carries a child while behind her stands her daughter holding a string. Although this painting could be considered within the current Indigenista predominant in the art of those years, the painter seems to criticize the condition of the poorest women, whose situation hardly improved after the Mexican Revolution.
Aurora Reyes (1908-1985)
Aurora Reyes. The attack on the rural women teachers (originally called the The murdered teacher). Mural. 1936
This was the first mural painted by a Mexican woman in a public building, the Centro Escolar Revolución located in downtown Mexico City. In it, Aurora Reyes depicts a woman brutally beaten: one man tortures her with a rifle while the second man pulls her hair with one hand and with the other pulls out a book; this second man with his body forms a swastika. It shows the brutal repression before the struggles of the teachers, always mostly female, especially in those years of the Cristero struggle that sought to abolish rural education as socialist. Behind a column, two boys and a girl observe the scene. Aurora Reyes was one of the painters with the greatest political participation and was an active member of the union of education workers.
Aurora Reyes. Dramatic plot. 1946.
It couldn't be more explicit. A burly man whips two naked women with a whip. One is on her back and the other is kneeling on the ground, while her face shows a gesture of pain and disgust with her eyes closed. Aurora Reyes, as part of her political activity, was also part of the feminist group "Las pavorosas", so the theme of violence against women seems to be one of the concerns of her work.
Olga Costa (1913-1993)
Olga Costa. Selfish Heart. 1951
In this work, Olga Costa shows us a still life that today has been considered part of the surrealist influence in Mexico. In it we can observe different elements that are distinguished for being dry and inert: from the skull of an animal in reminiscence of an animal, to the podsThe work is also made from the cactus, even parts of endemic plants, such as the pod of a capulín (a type of cactus). But the central object of this work is a dried cactus in the shape of a heart pierced by a knife. From the very title of the work, it seems to be a critique of love, with a traditional iconography: the knife as pain and the skull as the end of pleasure.
Exvotos
Anonymous. It's to take the peeping tom away from the neighbor. 1971.
We are now going to refer to the painted votive offerings from Mexico, but it must be said that there are very few in which raped women appear. They are anonymous, therefore, we do not know who painted them but only the person who offers them, in this case, women. Two are supposedly from the 1970s and another from the 1950s. They may be real or invented, we don't know, but they are significant in terms of showing violence against women.
Some outsiders began to follow them with bad intentions, frightened "we entrusted our honor" and at that moment, some ranch hands appeared and the outsiders got scared and left without "attacking our virtue". 195...?
She was assaulted, raped and thankfully didn't get pregnant. 1975
Sonia Felix Cherit(1961)
Sonia Felix Cherit. The dress. 2020.
Visual artist, activist, feminist and director of Casa de Engracia de Zacatecas made a mural, The dress, 2020, for the virtual group exhibition The absent ones. The 43 participants expressed themselves against violence against women. The artist says: "the work has an iconographic content that goes from romantic love, passion and abandonment, to feminicide. The old existence of this evil that is violence against women reflected from mythology and since then remaining in impunity. The central figure of the dress -made of mud and blood- symbol of the abandonment of our dead women in dunghills, deserts and/or garbage dumps. Where many times it is the only garment of identification for their loved ones". This exhibition was presented on the occasion of Casa de Engracia's tenth anniversary.
Adriana Raggi (1970)
Adriana Raggi. Self-representation. S/F.
Adriana Raggi. Self-representation. S/F.
A face, presumably hers, all beaten up. A black eye and other signs of violence towards her. The same as in another drawing, which also shows a battered woman in her entirety.
Lapiztola Collective(2006)
Lapiztola Collective. Let's sow dreams and reap hopes. 2015.
Lapiztola emerged in 2006 when there was a strong conflict between the teachers' union and the Oaxaca state government. It is made up of Rosario Martínez, Roberto Vega and Yankel Balderas, who have dedicated themselves to urban art with stencil and silkscreen printing. At Let's sow dreams, let's harvest hopesLapiztola sought to pay homage to Bety Cariño, a defender of human rights, women and indigenous peoples, who was murdered in 2010 by a paramilitary group in the town of San Juan Copala. This work was painted on a wall in the center of the city of Oaxaca, whose government asked for it to be erased in 2015.
Black Sea (2019)
Black Sea. Stop the violence. 2019.
Mar Negro is a young illustrator and urban artist originally from Mexico City. She is part of PasteUp Morras, who are dedicated, as their name says, to creating urban art with paste up. Her work tries to denounce violence, feminicide and resignify sexual dissidence. In her work, female bodies are frequently present.
PasteUpMorras Collective (2020)
Paste Up Morras. 2020.
PasteUp Morras is a collective of women dedicated to urban art. They focus on denouncing harassment, violence and defending women's freedom. Their work is found both in Mexico City and in the State of Mexico, especially in areas where disappearances and femicides have occurred. Her work seeks to appropriate through art a space that is normally hostile to being a woman.
INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE
Elina Chauvet (1959)
Elina Chauvet. Red Shoes. 2009.
Red shoesis an unequivocal installation that denounces feminicide in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. This work has been presented in different places in Mexico and in about eight countries, perhaps approaching a hundred installations today. The artist herself stated that "We have been living a pandemic of femicides for 30 years in Mexico.". The red shoes are recovered, symbol of imposed femininity, but also the pure shoes, immobile remains of women who are no longer here.
Maria Maria Acha-Kutscher (1968)
Maria Maria Acha-Kutscher. Sleeping Beauties. 2007.
Transcultural and multicultural feminist artist. Sleeping beautiesThe performance is a project against male violence through the denunciation that involves many people in society from a broad call.
Sonia Félix Cherit (1961)
Sonia Felix Cherit. No more. 2007
Sonia Félix Cherit organized in 2020 the exhibition "Las ausentes", at Casa Engracia, Zacatecas, as part of the 10th anniversary of the Casa. In 2010 it was at the National Feminist Encounter, Zacatecas, but has been shown in several other places. "No more violence against women" is the cry of this work. A huge red woman's body hangs in front of a canvas filled with photos of women saying "No more..." A pile of sand strewn with red body parts sits in the center.
Sonia Felix Cherit. A journey of no return. Installation/performance. 2020.
It covers many issues, sexual harassment, trafficking, organ trafficking and the femicide of girls, all referring to the violence that women suffer. A rich man carries a suitcase, The suitcaseThe scene of the murder, in which a dismembered girl is found.
Sonia Felix Cherit. The suitcase. 2007.
In another suitcase he carries organs, in yet another suitcase all the evidence of the kidnapped and murdered girls. Throughout the performance, he exposes the explosive combination of narco-governments-rich people in power.
Natalia Eguiliz(1978)
Natalia Eguiliz. Untitled. 2010.
An eloquent visual commentary on the mutilation and lack of freedom of women in housework symbolized by the pink apron, of course.
Katia Olalde
Katia Olalde. Anteros III: How to define violence? Drawing. S/F.
A beautiful black woman, with pink hair, in profile and carmine lips, wants to grab a multicolored butterfly, symbol of winged freedom.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Nacho López (1923-1986)
Nacho López. The compliment. When a beautiful woman splits the square in Madero. 1953.
A group of men throw compliments and looks at model and actress Maty Huitrón. This is a photo directed by the photographer, who told her friend Maty to walk around to provoke the compliments.
Lola Álvarez Bravo(1907-1993)
Lola Álvarez Bravo. In their own prison. 1951.
A woman leers out of an open window. The shadow of a gridded fence is on top of the whole photo. A metaphor, perhaps, of the confinement of this woman in her house. Lola Álvarez Bravo in some of her photographs and photocollages portrays women both in the domestic sphere and in their incursion into education and the labour market, always with a critical and, apparently, feminist gaze.
Rotmi Enciso(1962)
Rotmi Enciso. March 8th March. 1991.
This photograph is iconic in Rotmi Enciso's work. It depicts a woman in the March 8 March 30 years ago.
Sonia Madrigal(1978)
Sonia Madrigal. Death comes out of the east. 2014.
Death comes out of the east is a work that addresses the issue of feminicidal violence in the state of Mexico and is based on three axes: documentary photography, territorial intervention and collective digital mapping. This work began in 2014 and is still in progress.
Daniela Edburg (1975)
Between reality and fiction. 2017.
What's left of the day. 2008.
What's left of the day. 2008.
Between reality and fictionn y What's left of the day are eminently clear projects about femicides in Mexico; in all three images women lie on the ground in the countryside. In the first one, the fiction is surely represented by the announcement of the bull while the crude reality is the woman lying. The other two make reference to the women murdered and sown as remains everywhere.
Monica Gonzalez(1976)
Monica Gonzalez. Star. 2009-2011.
In Juchitán, Oaxaca, by tradition, the youngest daughter has to take care of her parents in their old age. Estrella represents economic security and companionship for her mother. Her father does not accept that she decided to be muxe. To be muxe is for the Zapotec population of the Central Valley in Juchitán, a pride. However, Estrella feels that there is a certain amount of rejection. In the last few years there has been a series of murders and aggressions against members of the homosexual community. Monica Gonzalez says: "Being a photojournalist on issues related to violence is not easy if you are a woman. She has a project (on video) called "Geography of Pain."
Romina Solís (1985)
Romina Solís. Untitled. 2017. A sick woman runs to request medical support for a person rescued in the vicinity of the Enrique Rebsamen School, which collapsed in the earthquake of September 19, 2017 in Mexico City.
This photograph is a simile of The Piropo, by Nacho López. However, this one is not directed as far as we know. It is the more than frequent response of men harassing young and beautiful women. We can even hear the whistles!
DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING
Lucia Gaja(1974)
Intimate Battles. 2016.
Five women from five countries tell their stories of domestic abuse: Finland, Spain, Mexico, India and the United States. It is important to see the coincidences between such different places and with such different economic development. Very different cultures, political and social realities converge in the same problem.
Tatiana Huezo(1972)
Tempest. 2016.
Two testimonies related to organized crime, prison in Mexico... and the ever-present disappeared.
Carolina Corral(1984)
Love, our prison. 2016.
This animated short is a visual story about women deprived of their freedom, who succumb to the all-too-frequent prison of marriage.
The San Mateo County Event Center hosted a conference Monday with more than 5,000 attendees, the first major in-person business meeting in the county since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following all health security protocols, the annual SaaStr meeting was held in its 2021 version, aimed at companies in the software industry.
Beginning with this and subsequent conferences, attendees must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a negative test within 72 hours prior to the conference. Those who do not have it must take the rapid test in the parking lot and wait for a negative result before being allowed into the conference. Those who test positive will be required to retest and return home or to the hotel for quarantine if they test positive a second time.
All conference activities will be held outdoors on the Event Center grounds, and masks will be required in the registration and testing areas, as well as in any indoor areas of the center.
Conference organizers worked with the Event Center, the San Mateo County Convention and Visitors Bureau and Silicon Valley to ensure a safe and secure gathering.
John Hutar, president and CEO of the San Mateo County and Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, said they are excited to host the conference and that "San Mateo County is open to the public."
During the pandemic, the Event Center became a site for COVID-19 testing and mass vaccination. In June, the space hosted the San Mateo County Fair.
Polls and analysis following the California statewide recall election showed that a majority of voters in communities of color rejected Gavin Newsom's recall and even tipped the scales for his continued tenure.
According to Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State LA, one of the problems seen in this election was that some media outlets presented national polls that did not really represent communities of color.
He even said, during a meeting convened by Ethnic Media ServicesIn a recent report, media outlets indicated that a majority of Latinos would vote to recall the governor, so understanding voters is the first step in reversing the terrible syndrome of the media jumping to conclusions that can change the views of the rest of the electorate.
"We need to get better data in polls that are greener, that is, that are actually useful, that are done in the neighborhoods where the voters live; also, to have reliable, larger samples than the ones that are done nationally to show much more reliably the community."
He also added that many times the media presents the statement of the "typical" voter in some community, however, there is nothing typical about the elections or the voters, and in most cases the polls do not reflect the reality of the entire population.
"You have to break free from the narrative that is manipulated by a small, fairly large, national polling group who are creating a very negative consequence for the interpretation of the behavior of communities of color."
Radiography of the vote in Latino communitiesin California
Sonja Diaz, founder and director of the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Initiative, said Latinos make their decision much closer to Election Day, meaning they prefer to vote in a much more traditional way than other voters.
"In terms of mobilization and participation, there is still an opportunity to knock on their doors to talk to them about voting during the last week before the election," he added, and they may even change their vote depending on how important the outcome of the election is.
For example, he explained that in Los Angeles County, 83 percent of Latinos voted against recall. In precincts with the highest concentrations of Latinos, 77 percent were against recall; while in places with the lowest concentrations of Latinos, 47 percent were against recall.
In counties such as Madera, where there is a lower concentration of Latinos, the anti-repeal results were lower, while the Bay Area had the highest results, such as Contra Costa (88%), San Francisco (82%) and San Mateo (77%).
He also commented that if Latinos had not voted it is very likely that the elections would not have been so clear, since Latinos were against the recall, and this decision was not due to the campaigns of one party or another, but to the mobilization of civil society.
Asian and African American communities with large participation
Jonathon Paik, director of the Orange County Civic Engagement Board, said that while communities of color represent 60 percent, this is a conservative region, the mobilization of the Asian American community was critical because they were able to speak in their languages.
He recalled that at the beginning of August this community had not yet defined their vote, regardless of their partisan position, so it was important to work to make known what was at stake, so that was a turning point in the elections and indicates a process of transformation for the next decade.
In that sense, he said they tried to communicate what the possible scenarios would be with the reinstatement of Governor Gavin Newsom, how it would have changed tenant protections, what it would have meant in terms of wages, or what the handling of the pandemic would have been, which was important to share with them.
For Janette Robinson-Flint of African-American Women for Well-Being, the importance of women in that community voting is that they have been a moral compass in the state with a progressive agenda, and they have also built a relationship in the community to educate voters.
He commented that what they learned from observing people voting, both non-voters and super voters, is that no one asked them their opinion until mid-August, so they weren't paying attention to what they were doing and their vote was being taken for granted.
In that sense, he said they had been campaigning in beauty salons and barbershops to communicate the relevance of this election, and they had also reached out to many young African-Americans who thought their vote was not important or did not count.
They also made house-to-house visits, put signs on fences, on buildings, on construction sites and on the radio, so they tried to cover a whole range of spaces to make sure that the word got out that this election was important to the community.
Civil society, crucial in the recall
Michael Gomez Daly, director of the Inland Empire, said that before the election they were calling voters in Riverside and San Bernardino, and some of the things they noticed is the importance of messages from people they trust, as well as less partisan identity.
And that's because, he said, when the campaigns tried to focus on this being a Republican Party strategy to unseat Governor Newsom, that's when they were the least popular with the people.
"Another thing we saw was that during the election a lot of people had kids going back to school and grandparents at home at the same time, who thought they were at greater risk and that the state had loosened the reins on any kind of protection you might have."
So, he said, there was a feeling that the Delta variant was just around the corner and that neither Newsom nor the state of California was taking enough proactive steps to protect them, so that was a really controversial issue that came up during the election process.
So within the conversations that they had with voters in communities of color in California, they also laid out the scenarios of what would happen in terms of the pandemic in terms of a possible recall of the governor, and that's how they were able to persuade people.
This afternoon, Redwood City officials held a meeting with Redwood City Mayor Diane Howard, Vice Mayor Gisselle Halle and Council members to read a new proclamation recognizing September 15, 2021 through October 15, 2021 as Hispanic Heritage Month.
The proclamation "honors the rich culture that Hispanic Americans have brought to the Redwood City community and recognizes the indelible mark of Latino heritage in everyday life," Redwood City Mayor Diane Howard read aloud.
Veronica Escámez-Martínez, director of Casa Círculo Cultural; María de los Remedios Gómez Arnau, Consul General of Mexico in San Francisco, and Arnoldo Arreola, of the Latino Community Council of Redwood City, were also present at the event as representatives of the Latino community.
Gomez Arnau thanked her for her participation as a guest at the event and expressed her appreciation for the proclamation of Hispanic Heritage Month by the authorities, noting that the vast majority of people in the Latino community in Redwood City are of Mexican origin, with a large representation of people coming from the sister city of Aguililla, Michoacan, Mexico.
"We want the entire Redwood City Council to know that the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco is here to help strengthen the bridges that already connect Mexico to Redwood City," Gomez Arnau said.
"I'm glad we can present this proclamation," Howard said. And he pledged to make this proclamation an annual tradition.
"Wild ducks follow the leader of their flock by the shape of his flight and not by the strength of his quacking," notes a Chinese proverb. The best leaders are always able to inspire greatness in others through their words and actions. And while the issues facing communities diversify, the qualities of true leaders remain.
African American Community
Martin Luther King Jr. was born under the name ofMichael King Jr. was a Baptist pastor and activist who was at the forefront of the U.S. civil rights movement for African Americans and was involved in numerous protests against the Vietnam War and poverty.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Four years later he was assassinated in Memphis.
Rosa Louise Parksthe 42-year-old seamstress who worked at a department store in Montgomery, Alabama, boarded her bus on December 1, 1955, to head home, as she did every day after work.
On that day, however, the African-American defied racial segregation by refusing to give up her seat for a white person to sit down.
Her protest was supported by many others in her community and sparked the civil rights movement that, in the 1960s, eventually won equal rights.
Malcolm XEl-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, born Malcolm Little and known as Malcolm X, was an orator, religious minister, and activist advocate for African-American rights. He has been described as one of the most influential in his community in the history of the country.
Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Pattrice Cullors - They are the activists behind the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. In 2013, after George Zimmerman was acquitted for shooting the boy Trayvon Martin to death, they started the African American Civil Rights Movement, within Black Power, 1980s black feminism, anti-apartheid, LGBT activism and the Occupy Wall Street protest.
Latino Community in the U.S.
Vilma Socorro Martínez. She is an American activist who fights for Hispanic rights and the recognition of minorities in the United States. The daughter of Mexican parents, Vilma grew up in the midst of the hardships and racial hostility that the Hispanic community faces daily in the country. In 1967, she received her law degree from Columbia University.
Cesar Chavez. He was a very important Mexican-American activist of the 20th century, recognized both by society and by great figures in American politics. Robert F. Kennedy described him as "one of the heroic figures of our time.
He was born in the state of Arizona in 1927, in the bosom of a farming family that after the Great Depression had to face great injustices and economic difficulties. In 1952 he began his political activity in the Community Service Organization.
Janet Murguía. A leading civil rights advocate, she was born in Kansas in 1960 to a family of Mexican descent. She studied journalism, Spanish and law at the University of Kansas. However, her legislative career began in Washington, D.C., where she served as an assistant to Jim Slattery.
In 2005 she was elected president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, an organization that fights for the rights of Hispanics and Latinos in the United States. Her work has
Fred Korematsu. Born in Oakland, California, to Japanese parents who owned a nursery. He was a civil rights activist who opposed the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Shortly after the Imperial Japanese Navy launched its attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the expulsion of people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast from their homes and their mandatory incarceration in internment camps. Korematsu defied the orders and became a fugitive.
He received the Presidential Medal of Honor, and on January 30, 2011 California celebrated the first Fred Korematsu Day in his honor.
Haunani-Kay Trask. Born into a family that defended Hawaiian statehood, Haunani-Kay Trask went against the grain and has spent her life fighting for the independence of her people.
Born in 1949, 10 years before Hawaii became a state, he spent several years on the mainland while attending the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago, where he joined the Black Panther Party. Trask focused on the preservation of Native Hawaiian culture.
Grace Lee Boggs. She was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist, known for her years of political collaboration with CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s. By 1998 she had written four books, including an autobiography. In 2011, still active at the age of 95, she wrote a fifth book, "The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century," with Scott Kurashige and published by the University of California Press. She is considered a key figure in the Asian American Movement.
Yuji Ichioka. He was an American historian and civil rights activist best known for his work in ethnic studies, and for being a leader of the Asian American movement. An adjunct professor at UCLA, he coined the term "Asian American" in 1968 during the founding of the Asian American Political Alliance to help unify different Asian ethnic groups-Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, etc.
Native American Community
Leonard Peltier. Born on September 12, 1944, he is an American activist of Anishinabe Lakota descent, a member of the American Indian Movement and incarcerated since 1976.
Lorelei DeCora Means. She was a Native American nurse and civil rights activist. She is best known for her role in the second siege at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. She also co-founded the Native American organization, Women of All Red Nations.
Russell Means. He was an American Indian actor, writer, politician and activist. He was born into the Lakota tribe. He was a member of the American Indian Movement. He was a member of the Libertarian Party, and was a candidate in 1988.
He was an actor in the movie The Last of the Mohicans, playing the role of Chingachgook. He also appeared in Pathfinder, the Gorge Guide in 2007. He provided his voice in the 1995 film Pocahontas.
Sacheen Littlefeather. She is a Native American civil rights activist. She is best known for giving a speech on behalf of actor Marlon Brando at the Oscar ceremony on March 27, 1973, protesting the treatment of Native Americans in the film industry. She wore a typical Apache dress on that occasion.
LGBTTIQ+ Community
Harvey Bernard Milk. He was an American politician and activist who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the U.S., as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
Martha Shelley. She is a bisexual American activist, writer and poet best known for her involvement in lesbian feminist activism.
Ellen Broidy. She is a gay rights activist. She was one of the proponents and co-organizer of the first gay pride march.
