“My mother called my aunt today. The women in Tihar jail have filed an application for the Supreme Court, trying to obtain interim bail for three months amid Corona Virus pandemic. The hearing is on Tuesday. Two of our three female political prisoners are 50+, and suffering from co-morbidities that have worsened over time in prison due to lack of proper medications. This puts them in a high-risk group and makes them more vulnerable to this deadly virus as proven by fatalities around the world. The prison condition is most unfavorable and does not follow any WHO basic guidelines. The prison is crammed full and disease-ridden. No proper sanitization and hygiene are available. Prisoners are served meager food in polythene bags. The prison guard and other staff do not wear any protective gear and is constantly on move and if infected, can transmit this virus easily. Our female political prisoners who are detained there already suffer from a frail immune system and are in need of proper CARE AND ASSISTANCE and will not be granted the necessary health care in case they are faced with the Covid-19. An outbreak can prove disastrous as it will be impossible to contain in that closed space.”
–Kashmiri Ahmed Bin Qasim whose mother & father are both political prisoners
NASA satellite images show standing on balconies & clapping has made coronavirus energy dissipate in India. Don’t try this at home lest you be made a fool of also.
(Meme posted by Indian nationalist in earnest, not in jest)
Those who continue to spout conspiracy theories about this epidemic are in the same league as those who promote standing on your balcony & clapping it away. It’s obscurantism & nihilism.
‘Take Five’, a 1959 jazz classic by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, was first performed at the Village Gate, a NYC jazz club in the East Village. The Village Gate was one-half block from my walk-up apartment & all I recall is the giant rats it drew in the alley. After the 1970 Women’s Strike for Equality (the first women’s liberation march in the US) the journalist Pete Hamill asked to meet the organizers at the club to interview us. It was clear after a few minutes of his outrageous rudeness that he was completely disinterested in any of the actual organizers & hoped to meet the celebrity speakers like Gloria Steinem who did not hang out with us because of their own elitism. Hamill was a successful social climber & went on to date Jacqueline Kennedy & Shirley MacLaine. My associations with the venue do not alter what a magnificent piece of jazz this is.
Dancing with the door jamb reminds me of what a good dancer I used to be. I swear when this coronavirus quarantine is over that I’ll take up showing off my moves in a ballroom. Meanwhile, here’s to the door jamb, a graceful partner if there ever was one.
Yesterday, 79-year-old Plácido Domingo announced that he tested positive for coronavirus. He has, of course, withdrawn from his scheduled performances.
