Prisoners Get Vaccines Before Teachers in These States, LA Converts a COVID Hospital into a Movie Set, Tulsi Gabbard Introduces Bill to "Protect Women's Sports" (The Five for 12/11/20)
Hey,
Happy Friday to everyone but my dog (who’s surgically losing his testicals as we speak, poor guy).
I know, you really needed to know that.
Of nearly equal importance, my co-founder Drew and I discussed three reasons why startups fail (and three dumb reasons people told us our new business might not work). If you missed the live stream, you can check it out on YouTube.
You can join me live and Thursday nights as Drew and I build this tech startup in real time. Next week, a podcaster with a bajillion downloads per month (who subscribes this newsletter!) joins us.
[one]
Well, this is something. Prisoners are getting vaccinated ahead of the public in nine states. The Daily Wire reports:
At least nine states will place prisoners in jails ahead of the general public in getting COVID-19 vaccinations. Those nine states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Montana, Nevada, and New Mexico, according to The Washington Post.
The U.S. currently houses around 1.4 million people in state and federal prisons and nearly a million more in local jails and other detention centers.
In Massachusetts, prisoners will be offered the vaccine before the general public, as the state’s three-phase distribution plan revealed on Wednesday. Inmates will be part of phase one, which also includes healthcare workers, first responders, and those in homeless shelters. Phase two, beginning in February will include high-risk people as well as school teachers, sanitation and public works employees, and adults over 65. Phase three, starting in April, will offer the vaccine to the general public.
I think there are big questions to ask around incarceration in this country…but whether or not an inmate should get a vaccine ahead of a teacher aint one of them.
[two]
As a follow up to the Chinese SpyGate, California Congressman Eric Swallwell is refusing to provide details on his relationship with Fang Fang. If Swallwell won’t provide details, I think we’re all assuming the same thing.
Which means he probably deserves this tweet from Ted Cruz.
Note: I hate websites that do the “here’s what Twitter had to say about ______ stories, but this one was too good to pass up).
[three]
I checked this out, and it looks legit.
While LA is under a “remain in your home” order (residents are discouraged from leaving their dwellings even to excercise or just take a drive for new scenery), a hospital which was formerly re-opened to treat COVID patients is now…a TV pilot set.
“Triage” is the name of an upcoming TV show.
Residents in the City of Angels are home-bound by force, according to CA Governor Gavin Newsome, because the state is running out of hospital beds. Well, one way to avoid that is not to use hospitals as hospitals rather than TV shoot locations.
While local businesses go bankrupt, the movie industry has been deemed “essential” in the state.
[four]
Former Democratic Primary candidate Tulsi Gabbard introduced a bill into the House to “protect women’s sports based on biological sex.”
Title IX protects individuals from discrimination based on sex in educational programs or activities that receive federal funding. The New York Post reports:
“Title IX was a historic provision championed by Hawaii’s own Congresswoman Patsy Mink in order to provide equal opportunity for women and girls in high school and college sports,” Gabbard said in her statement.
“It led to a generational shift that impacted countless women, creating life-changing opportunities for girls and women that never existed before,” she said.
“However, Title IX is being weakened by some states who are misinterpreting Title IX, creating uncertainty, undue hardship and lost opportunities for female athletes,” Gabbard continued.“Our legislation protects Title IX’s original intent which was based on the general biological distinction between men and women athletes based on sex,” she added.
Mullin said that “Title IX was designed to give women and girls an equal chance to succeed, including in sports,” adding that “allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports diminishes that equality and takes away from the original intent of Title IX.”
Recently, male to female athletes have been setting new records and erasing the athletic accomplishments of biologically born women, which has triggered a string of lawsuits.
The most extreme event around this is a fight between trans woman Fallon Fox, who delivered a skull fracturing blow to oppontent Tamika Brents in women’s MMA in 2014. Later, Brents commented:
I have struggled with many women and I have never felt the strength I felt in a fight like that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor. I can only say that I have never felt so dominated in my life and that I am an abnormally strong woman in my own right? I still disagree with Fox’s struggle. Any other job or career that I say I try, but when it comes to a combat sport I don’t think it’s fair.
You can see the fight in it’s entirity here, but be warned it’s brutal.
[five]
And on that note, let’s close this thing out with a little pop-culture roundup:
Taylor Swift dropped her second suprise album in less than a year at midnight, which is her third full lenght project in 15 months. evermore is once again a collaboration with indie rock heavyweights Bon Iver and The National co-writing and superstart pop producer Jack Antonoff (of Bleachers fame) handling a large share of the work behind the board.
Rapper Kid Cudi has a new project that continues his popular Man on the Moon album series. This one is titled III: The Chosen. Cudi’s innovation in the late aughts has had a huge influence on pop, r&b and hip hop over the last decade or so.
Disney revealed an “earth shattering” TEN Star Wars TV shows in production, as well as a host of new projects under the Marvel and Pixar brand umbrellas.
There’s a new tier of the Hulu/Disney+/ESPN+ package that’s completely commercial free for $19/month.
Harrison Ford will return to the Indiana Jones franchise for a send off to the character, helmed by director James Mangold (Ford v. Ferrarri, Logan, Walk the Line). Ford turns 79 next summer, which means he could legitimitately be filming an action movie at age 80.
Until the next one,
-sth