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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years

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One of the first articles that mentioned Moon’s pikareum sex rituals

A.D. magazine May 1974 by Jane Day Mook (pages 30-36)

New Growth on Burnt-Over Ground

Third in an A.D. series offering a critical look at new religions in America.

Hope and fear are almost always entwined in the impulses that cause a man or woman to seek a faith. Therefore it is not strange that religions contain promises both of divine intervention or mercy, and of judgment. Thus, Judaism speaks of a messiah and an apocalypse, the faithful of Islam expect a delivering mahdi and a terrible, bright-sworded angel, and some Christian Scriptures indicate that Christ will summon saints to glory and the wicked to perdition on a future Day of the Lord. Even among the new religions now sprouting on the burnt-over earth of American religious life, the notes of hopeful expectation and dread of doom are sounded. Religious leaders arise, and are examined by their followers: Are you he (or she) who will deliver us? And almost always a direct answer is avoided in replies that sound strangely like, “Who do men say that I am?” Today, in many areas of America, people are asking a middle-aged Korean named Sun Myung Moon who he is. Writer Jane Day Mook, in six months of extensive research, has come up with some of the answers.

The Unification Church

There has been a rash of headlines:

Korean Preacher Urges U.S. Not to “Destroy President” Minneapolis Star, December 1, 1973

Watergate Day of Prayer Asked by Unification Church Washington Post, December 18, 1973

Unification Church Program Under Way in Houston Religious News Service, December 27, 1973

There have been other media reports:

█ On December 26, 1973, Congressman Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan read into the Congressional Record a statement by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon of Korea, founder of the Unification Church International, urging Americans to forgive, love, unite.

█ Governor Wendell Anderson of Minnesota and Mayors Charles Stenvig and Larry Cohen of Minneapolis and St. Paul, respectively, issued proclamations saluting Moon when he visited the Twin Cities in December last year.

█ Twelve hundred supporters of Moon turned out—with specially issued tickets (100 of them for the best seats up front) — to cheer President Nixon at the national Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House on December 13, 1973. They carried signs saying, “God loves Nixon,” “Support the President,” and quite simply, “God.” Afterward, when the President came to greet them in Lafayette Park, one writer reports, they knelt down as he drew near.

█ Six weeks later Moon was invited to the 22nd annual National Prayer Breakfast in the Washington Hilton Hotel. While it was going on, more than 1,000 of Moon’s followers gathered to sing patriotic songs and demonstrate their support of the President. Tricia Nixon Cox and her husband walked among the disciples and spoke with Neil Salonen, national head of the Unification Church.

█ The next day, Moon had an unscheduled meeting with President Nixon. He embraced the President and then, it is reported, “prayed fervently in his native tongue while the President listened in silence.” Before leaving, Moon exhorted the President not to knuckle under to pressure but to stand up for his convictions.

What is this all about? Who is this Korean religious leader, Sun Myung Moon, who reaches the eye of those in high office, including the President himself?

What is this Unification Church that has suddenly surfaced in the United States with so much noise and splash? Is it really a Christian church? Is its aim political or religious, or both?

The Unification Church (whose full name is The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity) found its way into the consciousness of a few Americans about 15 months ago. In Tarrytown, New York, a gracious estate of 22 acres overlooking the Hudson River quietly changed hands for $850,000. [Price confirmed by Michael Mickler in History of the UC in the US.] “Belvedere” became a center for the Unification Church.

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Korean messiah? Christ of the second advent? Young Americans find new faith and new life in following him.

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Joyous, disciplined, loving, Moon’s young followers express the confidence of the deeply committed.

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Suddenly the residents of Tarrytown discovered that, because this is a “church” and therefore tax exempt, they had lost $8,000 in city taxes. They discovered, too, that by the summer of 1973 the estate was teeming with young people—Japanese, Korean, German, Austrian, and especially British.

The British—115 of them—came in response to ads posted on their college bulletin boards: New York and back for $25 and a summer of “leadership training” to boot. But the Belvedere mansion was not adequate. Crowding was dismal, regulations and restrictions irksome, morale bad, the program unfocused, the unabashed conversion tactics unpalatable. A good many of the students apparently went home to England disappointed and angry.

Meanwhile, the Unification Church had purchased a home for their leader, Sun Myung Moon, who has acquired permanent residency visas in the United States for himself and his family. Reported purchase price of the second estate was $620,000 with an additional $50,000 said to have been spent for furnishings.

By summer’s end attention shifted to New York City and the start of Moon’s 21-city Day of Hope Tour. Full-page ads appeared in the local papers:

CHRISTIANITY IN CRISIS NEW HOPE

Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The ads carried, center-page, a picture of a pleasant-faced Korean man, sometimes in Korean dress, sometimes in Western, sometimes posed with the capitol dome in the background. They told of coming meetings in Carnegie Hall. The same pictures and message were in subways, drug stores, shop windows. They were on leaflets handed out by dozens of earnest young men and women, some American, some from abroad.

Invitations went out to city leaders, especially clergy: “Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon request the honor of your presence” at a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. ...

Mayor John Lindsay and Senator Jacob Javits sent messages of regret, but approximately 250 others came. Catholic and Protestant clergy, armed services chaplains, foundation executives, university professors. Solid names all.

The pattern was to be repeated across the country as the much publicized Day of Hope Tour moved south and west through the last three months of last year, and again in the second tour of 33 cities that began in mid-February.

I went with my husband to the first presentation by Mr. Moon at Carnegie Hall on October 1. Outside, a few protesters milled about (Jehovah’s Witnesses mostly). Inside, the lobby was full of young people, most of them Oriental. “Welcome Mother. Welcome Father,” said a charming Korean girl taking our tickets as guards looked through our briefcases. “Welcome to our program. Thank you for coming, Mother. Enjoy it please.”

Mr. Moon was already sitting on stage. He was wearing Western dress, as was his translator, Lieutenant Colonel Pak Bo Hi, formerly a military attache stationed in Washington.

Moon spoke in Korean, flailing the air and pounding the lectern. It was not easy to follow his message, which was about Adam, Eve, Satan, and the Holy Spirit, linked in a mysterious theology we could not piece together.

Who is this man Moon, and what was the message he wanted us to hear?

Sun Myung Moon was born in what is now North Korea in the village of Kwangju Sangsa Ri [in North P'yŏngan province] on January 6, 1920. His parents were Christians, members of the Presbyterian Church, which is the largest Protestant denomination in Korea. After attending village primary school Moon was sent to high school in the southern city of Seoul.

On Easter Sunday 1936, when he was 16, Moon had a vision. As he prayed on a mountainside, he relates, Jesus himself appeared and told him “to carry out my unfinished task.” Then a voice from heaven said, “You will be the completer of man’s salvation by being the second coming of Christ.”

The local ground was ready for such ideas. Already there were among some Pentecostal Christians in the underground church in Pyongyang predictions of a new messiah who would be a Korean. As Moon went about his engineering studies at [a Technical High School affiliated with] Waseda University in Tokyo, he pondered, remembering his vision. In 1944 he returned to North Korea and set about to develop among these Pentecostals a following of his own. In 1946 he founded the “Broad Sea Church.” His followers, it is said, were fanatical people.

Meanwhile, in South Korea a man named Kim Paik-Moon [or Kim Baek-moon], knowing the prophecy of a Korean messiah, had already taken the obvious next step. Kim considered himself a savior and said so. In Paju, north of Seoul, he had established a community called “Israel Soodo Won” (Israel Monastery), and Moon spent six months there learning what was to become the basis of his own theology, the “Divine Principle,” before returning to Pyongyang.

It was about this time that he changed his original name of Yong Myung Moon to Sun Myung Moon. To many people “Yong” means dragon. “Myung” means shining, and Moon and Sun are understood as in English. Therefore, since 1946 his name has meant Shining Sun and Moon. It savors of divinity and of the whole universe. A name is essential to an Oriental, as revealing one’s character.

Now the facts become uncertain. Between 1946 and 1950 Sun Myung Moon spent time in prison in North Korea. The reason? His anti-Communist activities, Moon testifies, reminding us of the rabid Communism of North Korea. Bigamy and adultery, others claim, noting that his real anti-Communist campaign did not take shape until 1962.

In any case, late in 1950 Moon was released and he trekked to South Korea as a refugee with two or three [it was two] disciples. Settling in Busan, he began to propagate his principles. In 1954 he founded his new church [in Seoul], calling it “The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity.”

Moon had gleaned his theological ideas from Kim [Baek-moon], and a follower, Yoo Hyo-won [Eu Hyo-won], wrote them down. By 1957 Divine Principle, which proclaims the theology of the Unification Church, was in print. It was first published in English in this country in 1966 and for a second time in 1973.

Divine Principle is concerned with the physical as well as the spiritual salvation of humankind, and the doctrine goes like this:

God intended that Adam and Eve should be perfect and that therefore their children also would be perfect. But Satan entered the Garden of Eden and seduced Eve. By this act she became impure, her blood forever tainted. This taint she passed on to Adam, through their union, and so he too—and their children and all humankind—became forever impure.

God wanted to redeem humanity from this impurity. Therefore, he sent to earth Jesus, the second Adam, and Jesus began the work of redemption. Spiritual salvation he achieved. But God’s will was once again thwarted by Satan. Jesus died on the cross before he could marry and father children. Thus, physical redemption was not accomplished. Our blood is still impure. Now it is time for the third Adam or “the Christ of the second advent.” It is time for the physical redemption of humanity and the reign of the New Israel, Korea.

How will all this come about? Quite simply: the third Adam sent by God to earth—to Korea—will marry a perfect woman, and their children will be the first of a new and perfect world. Eden will return to earth. Heaven will be here, not in some shadowy afterlife.

Does Moon consider himself the new messiah? In the early days of the movement, he admitted that he did. He no longer does so, and his followers are apt to smile when asked what they believe and say, “It is a personal matter.” In the national headquarters of the Unification Church in Washington, however, a votive candle burns beneath a portrait of Moon. Furthermore, in some materials of the Unification Church in Korea there are mythical tales relating that Moon was worshiped by Jesus. Jesus asked Moon to help him complete the saving of humankind and supposedly said, “I have done half, but you can do the other half.”

The half assigned to Moon, of course, involves his fourth and present wife. In the early 1940s Moon was married, but in 1954 this first wife left him because, he said, “she did not understand my mission.” He also is said to have had two other wives before marrying in 1960 an 18-year-old [she was 17] high school graduate named Hak Ja Han. At the time of their union (which is called “the Marriage of the Lamb”), he told his followers that she had not yet achieved his own spiritual perfection, but he was confident that she would in time. Together they are the new Adam and the new Eve, the parents of the universe, and their children herald the coming perfection of humanity.

Here reference must be made to “pikareum,” or “blood separation,” which is referred to in Japanese and Korean sources. In this secret initiation rite, it is said that the inner-core members must have intercourse. In the early days of the Unification Church, this was with Moon who, through the act, made pure the initiate.

In 1955 in Seoul Moon was imprisoned briefly and several students and professors were expelled from their universities because of engaging in what were called “the scandalous rites of the Unification Church.” However, in the 14 years since Moon’s marriage to Hak Ja Han, it is not known whether in the secrecy of the initiation ceremony, the rite has become purely a symbolic one.

When asked about this matter of purification, a leader of the Unification Church in the United States replied that purification takes place at the marriage ceremony and that, with special prayers, God’s spiritual blessing and purification are conferred through Moon.

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To Moon, Communism is equivalent to Satan. Anti-Communism is the political backbone of his movement.

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Both the theology and what were understood as the practices of the Unification Church have been anathema to main-line Christians in Korea. Moon himself was excommunicated by the Presbyterian Church in Korea as long ago as 1948.

His church has not been accepted as a member of either the National Council of Churches or the National Association of Evangelicals in Korea, both of whom state unequivocally that the Unification Church is not Christian.

But Korea is used to offbeat religious movements. There are dozens of splinter sects and “new religions” there. The Unification Church, or Tong-il Kyo, is one of the largest of these with its claimed membership of 300,000 Koreans.

The Unification Church claims a world membership of about a half million. In the United States the number of followers is estimated at about 10,000 so far with between 2,000 and 3,000 core members.

[A more accurate assessment would be up to 20,000 in Korea and up to 200,000 as a worldwide total.]

The Unification Church may not be accepted by Korean Christians, but it is openly favored by the present government in Korea, and this sets it apart.

In November 1972 President Park Chung-hee promulgated a new constitution giving himself sweeping power. Christian leaders, among others, mounted effective opposition to it and called for a “democratic” constitution. On January 8, 1974, the president responded by decreeing anyone criticizing the constitution would be tried and, if guilty, imprisoned for up to 15 years.

On February 1, six ministers and evangelists (five Presbyterian and one Methodist) were sentenced to up to 15 years’ imprisonment for their criticism of the constitution. They were judged not by a jury of peers in a civil court, but by a special court-martial at the South Korean Defense Ministry.

Compare Moon, in this context of South Korean politics. Moon started and directs near Seoul a school to which the Korean government annually sends thousands of civilian officials and military personnel for training in techniques of anti-Communism.

In Moon’s view Communism is ideologically equivalent to Satan. Anti-Communism is therefore the political backbone of his movement. Thus he wins the support (which may be in part financial) of the government. At the same time Moon, as a “religious” leader, lends the administration the aura of respectability that all autocracies find useful when, for both home and overseas consumption, it is most needed.

Moon exports to 40 countries the main components of his religious-political movement: the Divine Principle theology with its Korean messiah coupled with vigorous anti-Communism. Chameleonic, the group changes its coloration depending on locale and circumstances.

Sponsors of the International Federation for Victory over Communism, they take on in the United States a quiet title: the Freedom Leadership Foundation. In Japan, however, where they have the support of right-wing groups, they are openly part of the World Anti-Communist League. Here in the United States they sponsor prayer and fasting “for the Watergate Crisis.” In Japan, at the time of Red China’s seating in the United Nations, it was prayer and fasting “for Victory over Communism.”

Everywhere, political involvement is a high priority. The Freedom Leadership Foundation, a Unification Church subsidiary, openly avows its goal of “ideological victory over Communism in the United States.” Gary Jarmin, the 24-year-old secretary-general of the FLF says that they are already spending $50,000 to $60,000 per year trying to influence senators and congressmen on national security issues.

As a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, FLF is forbidden to lobby for specific legislation, but Jarmin and his seven colleagues in the work don’t hesitate to carry on “educational” programs for legislative aides. Furthermore, Jarmin says, there will soon be a totally separate, new organization that will engage in direct lobbying and openly support political candidates.*

* See John Marks, “From Korea with Love,” The Washington Monthly, February 1974, page 57

The World Freedom Institute is another branch of the FLF’s work, training young people in anti-Communist techniques from an ideological and “religious” point of view. Its International Leadership Seminars are rigorous.

Applicants must pass a preliminary interview. Alcohol and drugs are not permitted, smoking is allowed only at certain times and places, clothing must be clean and neat. All scheduled activities must be attended from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily, especially the lectures on Divine Principle, Communism, and Unification thought as a harmony of the Judeo-Christian image of God and the Eastern principle of yin-yang.

For all this, it must be said that political action within the Unification Church is probably limited to a few at center. Moon’s young converts may not be aware of the political side of their movement at all except in the most general terms.

If they wave banners and rally for Nixon, they feel it is because he is ordained by God and given power to be President at this time. Essentially they want to change the moral and spiritual order. They are committed to that, and for them it is enough.

Wherever they go, the Unification Church works to enlist the young. According to those who know the movement in Korea, Japan, and the United States, they are largely the disenchanted young—those whose activism in the ’60s and early ’70s has seemed to bring scant results, those who are turned off by the institutionalized establishment, who are looking for commitment and community, who want not just something but someone to believe in, who want unequivocal answers within a framework of discipline.

There are thousands of young Americans who, in our current retreat from involvement into privatism, fit this description. Moon’s followers are among them. Here in the Unification Church they find instantly a place among their own kind. The hierarchy itself is composed of young people.

The members live in communes that have been set up in most major cities of the country. “It’s like a family,” said one girl who helped establish a new church in Texas. “The whole purpose of the center is based upon God. There’s no premarital sex or drugs or smoking or drinking.” Indeed, Moon thunders against “sexual immorality” as the deadliest of sins.

These are young people who are earnest, sincere, committed, and of high moral character. They are also neat, pleasant, and polite. They are convinced. And they are innocent.

They probably know nothing whatever of Moon’s questionable background or of his strong right-wing political stance. And probably they do not know Christianity well enough (though they study the Bible fervently) to question the theology of Divine Principle. But they have a staunch belief in basic moral values and the possibility and power of spiritual redemption.

If you have not already seen the members of the Unification Church in your town, you will. They have centers in all 50 states and they are busy soliciting both converts and money.

In New York they have reportedly purchased a large old house a few blocks from the Columbia University campus and are offering rooms there for a low rent. They have established an office on the campus under the name of “Collegiate Association for Research of Principles” or CARP (appropriating the traditional Christian symbol of the fish) and at the time of this writing are busy recruiting students for a one-week International Leadership Seminar scheduled for the March recess at the former seminary of the Christian Brothers in Barrytown, New York, which the Unification Church recently purchased.

Some of the Columbia CARP group seem to have had experience in the movement elsewhere. For instance, one young man, a Japanese graduate student, asked a professor at nearby Union Theological Seminary to give him a private crash course in Christianity—something he had not needed for the work in Japan.

To raise money Moon’s followers have so far been selling flowers, home-made candles, bottled arrangements of dried flowers and grasses, and ginseng tea, a herbal tea with medicinal properties.

Everything they earn—everything—goes back to the Unification Church. They claim that when it was necessary to raise $280,000 for a down payment on the Belvedere estate in Tarrytown, the core members across the country dropped everything for eight weeks and did nothing but sell their wares.

Flowers and candles? Yes—and they raised the down payment and more.

In our town on a recent Saturday morning, a young Japanese girl came into a drugstore carrying a small bucket with “Drug Abuse” painted on it in white letters. In her other hand she held bouquets of pink and white carnations wrapped in green wax paper.

“I am Takako,” said the girl. “I am selling these flowers for the One World Crusade. Would you buy some, please?” The high school girl behind the counter looked doubtful but asked, “What is the One World Crusade?”

“Have you heard of the Unification Church?” asked Takako. “We are working against drug abuse.” She held out a paper encased in plastic. At the top in large letters it read: “Immorality/Drug/Abuse/Delinquency/Family Conduct.” Then it introduced Takako and again mentioned the program against drug abuse.

A bystander, a man, asked, “What is this program against drug abuse? I am interested in that myself.”

Takako struggled with English. “You know the Bible?” she asked. “We have meeting and religious education, and we study the secrets of the Bible.”

“But your program against drugs?” the man persisted.

“We work against drugs from the heart,” said Takako. “It is a heart thing, a heart change.”

The man smiled and shook his head. The drugstore owner and a woman customer each bought a bouquet.

This young Japanese girl has left her natural family back in Japan and has come halfway around the world to be part of another family, the Unification Family. This supplants her mother and father, her brothers and sisters. According to Unification doctrine they are impure and imperfect.

She herself, as she is initiated into the Unification Church, will be made pure, and her real family from now on is the group of purified and to-be-purified members like herself. The sadness she has caused (and this sadness is widespread in the homes these young people have left) is of no consequence.

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Flowers, candles, tea—where does the real money come from that supports the projects of Moon’s church?

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The idea of family is central to Moon’s teaching. The family gives blessing. At the top is the vast human family, then the national family, finally the marital family. One must be in a family to be saved, for the family provides the basic structure for the new Eden.

Most of the young people who join the Unification Church are single. After a period of membership—usually at least three years—they may be married if they have achieved an acceptable spiritual level. Marriages are arranged—a vast improvement, Moon’s followers say, over the chaotic system of personal choice that has destroyed the American family.

The arrangements used to be made by Moon himself, who knew most individual members in the early days and had, it is said, an uncanny gift for sizing up those he did not know. Now, with the growth of the movement, the arrangement of marriages will surely have to be delegated to senior members of the Family.

In 1970 Moon gathered a great group together in Seoul and performed a mass marriage of 777 couples. For those whom he joins, his blessing is a cherished benediction. It carries the notion that Moon himself is the giver of offspring to those he blesses and it makes pure the tainted blood of those who are wed.

Where does the money come from that supports the Unification Church? No one seems able to find out.

The Unification Church owns estates, a conference center, and many town houses (such as the handsome one on East 71st Street in New York).

It supports its core members in their work of evangelism, teaching, and preaching at a cost for food, clothing, and shelter conservatively estimated at $5 million per year. It brings hundreds of young Germans, Austrians, Japanese, and Koreans to this country at its expense, not theirs.

It pays for full-page ads in big newspapers. It publishes a tabloid newspaper, books, leaflets. It rents large meeting halls and lecture facilities for its leader to speak in. It invites the country’s leaders to banquets at the best hotels.

Where does the money come from? Not primarily from selling flowers, candles, and ginseng tea, though this effort should not be downgraded or underestimated. The member-businesses (in San Francisco, a printing press; in Denver, a cleaning establishment; in Washington, a new tea house) may swell the coffers but not substantially.

Moon himself is reputed to be a millionaire, the head of a sizeable conglomerate in Korea that product marble vases, machine parts, ginseng tea, pharmaceuticals, titanium, air rifles and other items. The value of the empire is estimated at $10 to $15 million. Some followers claim that Moon plows the profits back into the Unification Church, but others insist the industries belong to Moon, who has become a very wealthy man.

What outside backing does Moon have? Substantial sums may come from right wing Japanese industrialists and groups that are eager to reestablish the economic power Japan once held over Korea and who consider Moon “their man.” Former Japanese Prime Minister Kishi, leader of the violently anti-Peking faction of the Liberal Democratic Party, is actively associated with Moon’s International Federation for Victory over Communism.

The big question is: Does the Korean government back Moon? In the article in The Washington Monthly referred to above, John Marks, a student of the CIA in the U.S. and other countries, tackles this question. The Korean CIA, Marks points out, has on occasion secretly subsidized “private” organizations like the Unification Church if they will improve Korea’s image. It would certainly be interested, he says, in a “burgeoning religious-political movement run by a Korean who supports virtually all of the goals and who is in a position to work and lobby for its government’s position on the American political scene.”

Whatever the sources of its money, the Unification Church is in excellent shape financially, and that is very important to it. In Moon’s thinking, money is power and power indicates the blessing of God. God is on the side of power and wealth.

Moon and his followers have come a long way down the road from the mountainside where an earlier messiah, who had nowhere to lay his head, taught his disciples: “Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek. They shall inherit the earth.” A.D.

Jane Mook is a freelance writer and an occasional contributor to A.D. In addition to mission articles, she has compiled our portfolios of religious art at Christmas and Easter. Her home is in Tenafly, New Jersey.

A few of Sun Myung Moon’s Front Groups

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity

The Unification Church

Project Unity

One World Crusade

International Cultural Foundation (ICF)

International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC)

Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles (CARP)

Freedom Leadership Foundation (FLF)

World Freedom Institute

American Youth for a Just Peace

The Little Angels of Korea

Professors’ World Peace Academy (PWPA)

Committee for Responsible Dialogue

Tong-Il Industry Company

Il-Hwa Pharmaceutical Company

Il-Shin Stoneworks Company

Tong Wha Titanium Company

Tae Han Rutile Company [rutile = titanium dioxide]

Where Moon got his theology from

Moon’s theology for his pikareum sex rituals with all the 36 wives

The FFWPU is unequivocally not Christian

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

#Unification Church #Sun Myung Moon

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michaelandcrystal · 3 years

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WHERE TO STAY

There are so many fantastic places to stay within the city. Ultimately, it depends upon what you plan on doing and what you want to see during your visit.

City Folk

While it’s a bit of a drive to our venue from the city, Downtown and The Galleria are home to Houston’s finest restaurants and sites. We recommend flying into Hobby Airport if you choose to stay here.

The Hyatt Regency Houston Galleria

Sheraton Suites Houston

The Post Oak Hotel (for those of you feeling real fancy)

A Hop, Skip & Jump to the Venue

This hotel is out of the city and as close as you can get to our venue! Be sure to fly into IAH.

La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Houston

North Houston Options

We recommend these hotels to our friends with families. Flying into IAH will make your commute a breeze and there are great local restaurants and actives to keep you all busy.

Embassy Suites by Hilton The Woodlands at Hughes Landing

Margaritaville Lake Resort, Lake Conroe

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junker-town · 4 years

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Here’s how the PGA Tour plans to return without fans in June

Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Golf now has a real plan to return — but it’s aspirational without expanded testing, puts an end to The Greenbrier for good, and might end up with Tiger Woods prepping for The Masters in Jackson, Mississippi.

Let’s start with the obvious positives. We’re all running thin on Netflix specials, on new books to read, whatever. After five-some weeks isolated and socially distanced with little to watch, everyone’s ready for sport to come back to our lives — in any format we can get it. Aggressively ahead of most other professional sports organizations on plotting a return, the PGA Tour announced Thursday morning a plan to resume play starting June 8.

The question isn’t if we want sports back. The person you know that loathes golf the most would probably settle for a sleepy Saturday afternoon 3M Open broadcast right now. It’s a matter if it’s right for the country and the world during this global pandemic.

Here’s what you need to know — and what to think about as we’re looking at this new schedule.

The Tour’s timeline to return is aggressive and will require extensive travel. Can that actually happen?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who’s been a shining light of truth for many through this crisis, indicated just yesterday that there’s a path for sport to return this summer — playing without fans.

That’s not a problem for the Tour, which seems to be prepared to play events without galleries for several weeks. The return in Fort Worth at Colonial won’t feature anyone in the grandstands, nor will any event through the Rocket Mortgage Classic on the weekend of July 4 in Detroit. PGA of America president Seth Waugh has said the organization is prepared to play the August PGA Championship without fans at Harding Park in San Francisco. At the very least, the governing bodies are prepared for the reality that fans may not be present at golf tournaments for a long time.

But there’s one other item Fauci noted in his comments earlier in the week that would be a massive problem for the Tour’s proposed schedule — keeping the players quarantined, isolated, and restricted to a small geographic area.

“There’s a way of [returning].” Fauci told Snapchat on Tuesday when speaking about a possible return for Major League Baseball. “Nobody comes to the stadium. Put [the players] in big hotels, wherever you want to play, keep them very well surveilled. ... Have them tested every single week and make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their family, and just let them play the season out.”

Golf has an advantage other sports don’t in this struggle to return to normalcy. The game is by nature spread out over hundreds of acres, outdoors. It’s not a contact sport, save for interaction with a caddie. That makes it relatively easy to still adhere to six-feet-apart social distancing guidelines during competition.

But the PGA Tour’s proposed schedule would struggle to meet the standard Fauci and others advise of sequestering athletes in a defined localized area. The MLB, NBA, EPL, and other leagues have all reportedly floated ideas to isolate players to complete seasons in places like Las Vegas or Arizona. The Tour is not doing that here. If regional and local containment becomes a priority and testing cannot increase to the capacity needed, is it safe to have professional golfers and a traveling cadre of broadcasters, support staff, and others? Despite the announced plans, the Tour seems to at least be keeping that in mind.

PGA Tour exec Andy Pazder expresses confidence that increased testing availability will facilitate a June re-start of competition but adds, "We will play only when we are certain that it is safe and responsible to do so."

— Will Gray (@WillGrayGC) April 16, 2020

RIP to the Greenbrier event, which is gone from the schedule for good

The casualty of all the schedule shuffling? The Greenbrier, which has been bumped around several times in recent years, is off the schedule for good.

There’s perhaps no full-field PGA Tour event in the modern era that’s had as weird and circuitous a history as the West Virginia event. Added to the schedule in 2010 to replace the longstanding, fan-favorite Buick Open, the tournament opened with a bang with Stuart Appleby’s stunning final-round 59 to beat Jeff Overton. That started a nice run, including appearances by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, even during an often-shifting July date.

Then came the devastating floods that hit West Virginia in 2016, forcing the cancellation of the event, from which the tournament never really recovered. The later arc of the event brought us the somewhat bizarre, flag-loving A Military Tribute At The Greenbrier name. The final death knell to the relationship between the resort and the Tour may have been the choice to move the event from July to September as part of the 2019 schedule changes — which no matter the spin, is a less desirable date for a golf event opposite football.

The Tour’s contract with the Greenbrier ran through 2026, but both sides were ready to walk. So, goodbye to Old White and summer in West Virginia. You were nothing if not weird.

The off-season for pro golfers is suddenly, uh, right now

We often joke about the year-round, never-ending professional golf schedule. The true 2019-20 PGA Tour schedule provided all of a couple of weeks off between the season-ending Tour Championship and the aforementioned September Greenbrier. Still, there’s a usual ebb-and-flow to things for top players. Start ramping up the schedule slowly in January, February, March to prepare for the usual summer major months, then play sparingly in fall downtime.

That won’t be happening this year. The reshuffling has created a back-loaded 2020 schedule with odd rhythms and weird travel patterns leading into majors for the top players. Consider this example: If a player wants to make a couple of pre-Masters warm up starts, but doesn’t want to play the week prior in Houston, they’ll have to leave the country. The entire lead-up to the biggest tournament of the year features events in Korea, Japan, China, and Bermuda — during a global pandemic! Lots of players aren’t going to love that, probably Woods included.

The FedExCup Playoffs-U.S. Open combo in August-September will cause weirdness, too. What if Jordan Spieth, now 110th in the FedExCup standings, doesn’t qualify for the BMW Championship? Does he opt to play on the other side of the country the week before the U.S. Open? Come in with a month off ahead of a major? Or look somewhere else — like another Tour, for a start? It’s bizarre to even consider, but we’re going to see oddities in individual schedules like this all year.

Here’s the rest of the full, revised schedule — for now.

Revised 2019-20 PGA Tour Season schedule:

NO FANS June 8-14: Charles Schwab Challenge, Colonial Country Club, Fort Worth, Texas

NO FANS June 15-21: RBC Heritage, Harbour Town Golf Links, Hilton Head, South Carolina

NO FANS June 22-28: Travelers Championship, TPC River Highlands, Cromwell, Connecticut

NO FANS July 2-July 5: Rocket Mortgage Classic, Detroit Golf Club, Detroit

July 6-12: John Deere Classic, TPC Deere Run, Silvis, Illinois

July 13-19: the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin, Ohio

July 20-26: 3M Open, TPC Twin Cities, Blaine, Minnesota

July 27-Aug. 2: World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, TPC Southwind, Memphis

July 27-Aug. 2: Barracuda Championship, Tahoe Mountain Club (Old Greenwood), Truckee, California

Aug. 3-9: PGA Championship, TPC Harding Park, San Francisco

Aug. 10-16: Wyndham Championship, Sedgefield Country Club, Greensboro, North Carolina

Aug. 17-23: The Northern Trust, TPC Boston, Norton, Massachusetts

Aug. 24-30: BMW Championship, Olympia Fields Country Club (North), Olympia Fields, Illinois

Aug. 31-Sept. 7: Tour Championship, East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta

And because the Gregorian Calendar stopped mattering on the PGA Tour schedule a few years ago, here’s where the new “season” begins in the fall. If you’re going by the definition of “season,” next year’s Tour schedule will have six majors in it, if all goes according to this plan.

2020-21 PGA Tour Season Schedule (fall portion):

Sept. 7-13: Safeway Open, Silverado Resort and Spa North, Napa, California

Sept. 14-20: U.S. Open, Winged Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, New York

Sept. 21-27: Ryder Cup, Whistling Straits, Kohler, Wisconsin

Sept. 21-27: Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship, Corales Golf Club, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Sept. 28-Oct. 4: Sanderson Farms Championship, Country Club of Jackson, Jackson, Mississippi

Oct. 5-11: Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, TPC Summerlin, Las Vegas

Oct. 12-18: The CJ Cup, Nine Bridges, Jeju Island, Korea

Oct. 19-25: Zozo Championship, Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

Oct. 26-Nov. 1: World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, Sheshan International Golf Club, Shanghai, China

Oct. 26-Nov. 1: Bermuda Championship, Port Royal Golf Course, Southampton, Bermuda

Nov. 2-8: Houston Open, Memorial Park Golf Course, Houston

Nove. 9-15: Masters Tournament, Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta, Georgia

Nov. 16-22: The RSM Classic, Sea Island Resort (Seaside and Plantation), Sea Island, Georgia

Nov. 23-29: Open week (Thanksgiving)

Nov. 30-Dec. 6: Mayakoba Golf Classic, El Camaleón Golf Club, Playa del Carmen, Mexico

Nov. 30-Dec. 6: Hero World Challenge, Albany, New Providence, Bahamas

Dec. 7-13: QBE Shootout, Tiburón GC, Naples, Florida

Dec. 14-20: PNC Father-Son Challenge, The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, Orlando

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tripstations · 5 years

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Brexit has not deterred business travelers in the UK

UK’s 2018 Hotels Market Report shows that the UK regional capitals are performing strongly with overall room nights booked growing by 8% across the top 250 UK cities.

London continues to be business travelers’ favorite capital for work trips with 663,000 room nights booked in 2018, an increase of 5% when compared to 2017. But Edinburgh experienced the highest level of growth in 2018 with room nights booked increasing by 16%, Belfast was up 13% and Cardiff up 5%.

The 2018 Hotels Market Report analyses data from corporate hotel bookings made between January and December 2018 by Advantage’s TMC members, who represent around 40% of the UK business travel sector, highlighting business travel trends and booking behaviour.

The report also shows significant growth for cities in the Midlands and North East, with Derby seeing the highest growth with 31% more booked room nights compared to 2017, while York, Nottingham and Gateshead also saw double-digit percentage increases.

Top Ten UK Cities – Booked Room Night Percentage Increase (year-on-year), January – December 2018

1. Derby – 31% 2. York – 22% 3. Plymouth – 21% 4. Inverness – 20% 5. Nottingham – 18% 6. Edinburgh – 16% 7. Reading – 15% 8. Belfast – 13% 9. Norwich – 11% 10. Gateshead – 10%

Global Results

The business world continues to travel widely, with the 2018 Hotels Report recording that hotel demand remains strong in many international cities with New York, Auckland, Wellington, Houston, Paris and Sydney topping the Advantage Top Cities list. In total, worldwide volume grew by over 393,000 room nights, a total increase of 8.74% compared to 2017, indicating that SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) corporate accounts, in which Advantage TMCs specialise, continue to perform strongly.

The total number of bookings made by Advantage business travel members in 2018 saw similar growth – up 8.76% – while the average length of stay remained constant, at 1.87 nights. Increased demand and higher occupancy globally meant hotel rates have increased by US$2 to an average daily rate (ADR) of US$169.41.

The report also looks at trends on bookings and ADR for cities and locations around the world, with New York once again topping the list as the highest volume worldwide city outside the UK, with 90,799 room nights booked at an average rate of US$395.97 per night. Increases were also seen in Bangalore (up 54%), Kuala Lumpur (up 36%) and Boston (up 27%).

The corporate hotel sector continues to grow, with another significant increase in bookings year-on-year, made by independent TMCs. Despite continued uncertainty in both the global and UK economies including Brexit, hotel room night demand is at record levels in many destinations. Although not all destinations in Britain saw an increase in room nights booked, ADR remained strong.

The report is representative of hotel bookings made across most of the major international and independent hotel groups including: Accor, Apex Hotels, Choice Hotels, Citadines, Clayton Hotels, Design Hotels, The Doyle Collection, Edwardian Hotels, glh Hotels, Hallmark Hotels, Hilton, HotelREZ, Hyatt, House of Daniel Thwaites, IHG, Jurys Inn & Leonardo Hotels, Loews Hotels, Macdonald Hotels, Maldron Hotels, Melia Hotels International, Millennium Hotels & Resorts, The Montcalm Hotels, NH Hotels, O’Callaghan Collection, Omni, Park Plaza, Pegasus, QHotels, Quest, Rotana, Radisson Hotel Group, Sabre Hospitality, Small Luxury Hotels, TravelClick, Travelodge, Village Hotels Club, WorldHotels Collection and Wyndham Hotel Group.

Travel News | eTurboNews

Original Article

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#IFTTT #Tripstations

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auskultu · 7 years

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WEALTHY NEGROES FORM NEW GROUP FOR LEGAL RIGHTS

Will Lissner, The New York Times, 21 March 1967

Forty-seven of the country’s wealthiest and most influential Negro business and professional men and women have agreed to form an organization to raise a million dollars a year from Negroes for the legal defense of Americans claiming their civil rights.

The decision to organize and make fund-raising a regular annual affair was taken at a meeting over the weekend at the Harvard Club.

Officials of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which will receive the funds, praised the move as a "breakthrough” in a long effort to enlist upper-class Negroes in the civil rights movement. For the most part, the movement has so far involved Negroes of the working classes or the lower middle class.

The new group plans to recruit as members 1,000 men and women who will pledge to give $1,000 a year to the fund.

Answer to Extremists Some supporters viewed the effort as an answer to extremist versions of the “Black Power” strategy, which would divide Negroes from whites in support of the civil rights movement. The new group, while raising its funds from Negroes, will be giving them to a group that defends both Negroes and whites in court cases.

Spearheading the movement are Asa T. Spaulding of Durham, N.C., an insurance executive, and Dr Percy L. Julian of Oak Park, IL., a research chemist. They enlisted as its organizers ' insurance executives, hotel operators, real estate investors, owners of chains of businesses and leaders in law, medicine and other professions.

At the weekend meeting, the group decided to call itself the National Negro Business and Professional Committee for the Legal Defense Fund.

“This means the Negro millionaire is coming of age and taking a responsible place in the community,” one organizer said* “Up to now, we’ve taken little part in philanthropy, except maybe to give to citywide drives. In Chicago we’re getting up a Joint Negro Appeal for the Community Chest. That’ll make the Negro philanthropist visible.” The fund-raising drive was started, in part, because the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 has helped multiply vastly the number of civil-rights test cases and court challenges.

Some of these cases, which involve voting rights, school desegregation and job discrimination, are tried by the United States Department of Justice.

Far more are litigated by the legal arm of the civil rights movement, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

The fund, which separated; from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1950, operates on a $2-million-a-year budget and receives annual contributions from about 75,000 Negroes and whites. In the last year its number of cases has quadrupled, according to Jack Greenberg, director and counsel.

The Ford Foundation has given the fund a million dollars to litigate cases arising under the Federal Economic Opportunity Act, but these funds are separately administered.

At present the fund is handling cases for 186 teachers in 11 Southern states who contend they were dismissed on the basis of race rather than seniority. The dismissals came when Southern schools desegregated and thereby reduced the number of teachers needed.

The Justice Department has taken three other job discrimination cases to court under the Civil Rights Act, while the Legal Defense Fund is litigating 35 others. Since the Equal Employment Commission has found "probable cause” for litigation in 1,550 job discrimination cases, the fund expects its cases to grow substantially in the near future.

Insurance Chief Advised Gustav Heningburg of the fund staff called the situation and the accompanying financial problem to the attention of Mr. Spaulding, president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. Mr. Spaulding is a member of the fund's board.

The insurance executive agreed to call a meeting of the most active Negro business and professional leaders, if a fellow board member, Dr. Julian, served as co-chairman. Dr, Julian acceded. He is president of Julian Laboratories and a research consultant to several governments and to concerns in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

Ten days ago the two men sent out a call to a carefully picked list of 50 men and women. All but three responded favorably. One of the three is known to be seriously ill.

Affirmative Response Forty-one attended the meeting, five sent proxies and one sent a deputy. The latter was John J. Johnson of Chicago, publisher of Ebony, Jet, Tan and Negro Digest. He was represented by LeRoy W. Jeffries of Chicago, vice president ol the Johnson Publishing Company.

One of those who sent proxies was A. G. Gaston of Birmingham, Ala., head of Gaston Enterprises, which include an insurance company, a bank, motels, homes and other interests,

Another. was J. J. Simmons of Muskogee, Okla., an oil producer with wells in Oklahoma and Nigeria. He sent a pledge of support from Lagos, Nigeria, where he is on a business trip.

Those supporting the move with enthusiasm included a number of men who are as widely known in the general community as they are in the Negro community.

National Figures They included Federal Judge William H. Hastie of Philadelphia; Norman O. Houston of Los Angeles, chairman and chief executive officer of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company; Edward A, Davis, Detroit automobile dealer; Leon Jordan of Kansas City, real estate operator, retired police lieutenant and internationally known expert in police administration, and H. H. Southall of Richmond, president of the National Insurance Association, trade association of Negro insurance companies.

Others included Carl Russell, acting Mayor of Winston-Salem, N. C.; Dr. Yon D. Mizell, surgeon and hospital owner of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; George S. Harris of Chicago, president of the Chicago Metropolitan Mutual Assurance Company; Mack H. Hannah of Houston and Port Arthur, Tex., president of the Standard Savings and Loan Association; A. Maceo Walker of Memphis, president of the Tri-State Bank; Ben Johnson of New Orleans, owner of a chain of insurance and undertaking enterprises, and Earl B. Dickerson of Chicago, president of the Supreme Life Insurance Company of America.

After the meeting a group gathered in suites at the New York Hilton Hotel to celebratei the undertaking and to plan the campaign, which they said they hoped to model on the lines of fund-raising efforts by the Jewish community.

The organizers, who will be grouped by region, will now ort ganize state committees.

#african americans #civil rights #law and order #desegregation #black power #naacp #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

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tourtelegraph · 4 years

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Marshall Hotels & Resorts assumes management of five hotels

Marshall Hotels & Resorts, a leading hotel management and services company that operates properties nationwide, announced that it has taken over management of five hotels. The hotels include the 100-room Holiday Inn NW Houston Beltway 8 in Texas, the 96-suite SpringHill Suites Winchester in Va., the 74-room Hampton Inn Adel in Ga., the 114-room Hilton Garden Inn Riverhead and the 131-suite Residence Inn Long Island East End, both in N.Y. “As the pandemic continues and travel remains at a trickle of what it previously was, owners require operators with the experience to weather these types of downturns,” said Mike Marshall, president and CEO, Marshall Hotels & Resorts. “This marks our fourth, major economic crisis since our founding, which has given us tremendous insight into operating during unfavorable conditions. We’ve learned firsthand what moves need to be made to preserve and eventually gain market share as the world awaits the return to a ‘new normal.’ With this depth of experience, we have been able to act as a guiding force for our owners.” Holiday Inn NW Houston Beltway 8 Located at 3539 North Sam Houston West within the Antoine business district, the six-story hotel is surrounded by numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Eaton, Amazon and General Electric. Other nearby attractions include Sam Houston Racepark, Willowbrook Mall and North Houston Bike Park. Hotel amenities include an on-site business center, indoor pool and 24/7 fitness center. Read the full article

#Hotel #MarshallHotels #Resort

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gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

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Must-Reads Of The Week

The Friday Breeze

Want to read the best and most provocative stories from the week? Welcome to the Friday Breeze, where we compile them all — so you’re set with your weekend reading.

Our regular newsletter editor remains on hiatus, so I’m back for a second (and final) round providing highlights of all the health care news you missed if you were locked in a closet or otherwise occupied.

While New York City, the Washington metro area, California and other regions loosen their stay-at-home restrictions, coronavirus cases continue to rise to surpass 2 million domestic infections. Hospitalizations are increasing in Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. Arizona’s health director told hospitals to “fully activate” their emergency plans as the state’s biggest system, Banner Health, said its ICU bed use was nearing capacity.

Dallas County reported new daily highs of new cases, and there are outbreaks in immigrant communities in Florida. The head of North Carolina’s health and human services department told NPR’s “Morning Edition” that “this is an early warning sign for us that we really need to take seriously and make sure that we don’t forget that COVID-19 is with us.” Yet some public health officials are being harassed or pushed out of their jobs.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the coronavirus “my worst nightmare” and underscored that “it isn’t over yet.” He said that AIDS, the disease caused by HIV, was “really simple” in comparison because the coronavirus presents so differently in different people.

Oregon’s governor put on hold county applications for further reopenings, but governors in other states seem reluctant to impose or reimpose restrictions. So do some individuals. A Houston hospital CEO told The Wall Street Journal, “I have been to pools where there are 100 people crowded in, and that’s not safe behavior.”

The Friday Breeze

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In The Hot Spots

Journalist Sara Shipley Hiles traveled to the Ozarks for KHN to see how the tourist season was shaping up, and found it’s going bananas after a shoulder-to-shoulder Memorial Day Weekend that went viral on social media. One resident said people have been eager to get out of the house because “it’s just the nature of freedom lovers.” Health authorities discovered one such freedom lover who was possibly already infected with the coronavirus partied through an ambitious Memorial Day itinerary that included stops at Backwater Jacks, Buffalo Wild Wings, Shady Gators and the Lazy Gators pool.

As President Donald Trump’s campaign prepares to resume rallies, attendees are being asked to sign waivers that they won’t sue if they get COVID-19. Joe Biden is warning of a second wave and wants to hire 100,000 contact tracers so that workers can return to their jobs.

The federal response continues to be pilloried as insufficient as each state struggles to figure out how to expand testing and how to reopen. A fifth of nursing homes still lack sufficient personal protective equipment despite Trump’s promise to “deploy every resource and power that we have” to protect older Americans.” Instead of proper medical gowns, a government contractor has been sending homes plastic ponchos without armholes that a nursing home administrator says look like trash bags.

To find supplies on their own, health care workers are resorting to desperate measures, including parking-lot meetings to negotiate gown purchases and arrangements with “shady characters” to blend their own hand sanitizer. Massachusetts has also turned to the gray market out of desperation, inking contracts with a businessman with expertise in selfie-taking equipment and a company run out of a New Jersey home.

Chris Kirkham and Benjamin Lesser at Reuters took a comprehensive look at how already-low nursing home staffing levels, a perennial concern for residents and their families, have gotten worse during the pandemic. Nursing home nurses and aides told them staffers are quitting “in large numbers” for fear of getting sick and because of a lack of testing and protective gear, and management’s downplaying of the dangers. Katie Thomas at The New York Times found some nursing homes want employees and their insurers to pay for testing rather than pay for it themselves.

In The Hot Seat

Heeding persistent complaints that provider relief money wasn’t helping those most in need, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced it would send $25 billion to safety-net providers, including $10 billion to about 750 hospitals that treat the most poor or uninsured patients.

The Wall Street Journal autopsies New York City’s hospital response to the pandemic and finds plenty of blame to apportion, including hospitals that transferred patients who were so sick they should not have been sent elsewhere, changing state and city guidelines about when sick health care workers could come back, and problems in obtaining personal protective equipment. “We are not running these ICUs safely or appropriately,” a resident wrote in an email to the attending physicians at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. “The emotional burden of working in these sci-fi-movie-gone-wrong ICUs is through the roof.”

So Young

Researchers and doctors are still trying to decipher how the virus injures children in a small number of cases known as pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome. NPR’s Peter Breslow and Lulu Garcia-Navarro reported how doctors at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., are handling the cases. One big mystery is how the syndrome afflicts children differently than adults, since a majority of the kids did not test positive for the virus but did have antibodies. “Is this acute viral? Is this post-infectious? Is it a combination? We’ve got to figure this out in our patient cohort,” one doctor told NPR. In Queens, St. Mary’s Hospital for Children is allowing one parent for each hospitalized child to move in during their stay.

Another medical mystery is why the debilitating symptoms of the virus linger for more than 60 days in some people, including younger ones in great shape. “I’m better, but the hardest, most confusing thing about this is that I’m not well,” one triathlete told The Washington Post’s Ariana Eunjung Cha and Lenny Bernstein.

Medical Advances

The first-known double lung transplant in a COVID patient, a Hispanic woman in her 20s, occurred at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Dr. Ankit Bharat, Northwestern’s chief of thoracic surgery, said he’s been contacted by health centers around the country to see if Northwestern would perform transplants on their patients, and five other patients are now being evaluated as candidates.

Researchers are looking at decades-old vaccines against tuberculosis and polio to see if they might be useful to fight COVID-19, and seeing if mosquito spit might be used to ward off all diseases spread by the insects. If the rest of this week’s crop of we-don’t–have-a-vaccine-or-treatment-but-we’re-working-on-it updates are too numerous to digest, The New York Times has a nice tracker of where individual vaccination efforts stand. The Urban Institute published a tracker of more than 100 resources summarizing state policy responses, data and other relevant information on COVID, food, income, housing and elections. This tracker of trackers — very meta! — will be updated monthly, Urban says.

Do Not Disturb

The hotel experience will be changing as chains try to provide psychological comfort that their guests will not check out with a case of “corona.” Chains such as Hilton are asking guests to use mobile apps to unlock their rooms rather than giving them key cards. Buffets are being replaced with prepacked foods, coffee stations are gone, and if you want one of DoubleTree’s warm chocolate chip cookies, you’ll need to ask for it. The Beverly Hills Hilton is using a 3-foot-tall robot named Kennedy that flashes ultraviolet light into rooms to kill germs.

Finally, the New York Times’ Modern Love column offers 18 first-person sketches of how relationships are going in pandemic isolation. The tl;dr version is: not so hot for everyone. A wife wants to scream every time her husband yells “woo” as his go-to response; a couple stuck in a studio apartment is celebrating their one-year anniversary by spending a week apart; and a 30-year-old living with her boyfriend in New Jersey declares she’s moving across the country when their lease is up. On the positive side, a grandmother is doing the swiping for her granddaughter on dating sites; two roommates, one 83 and the other 27, enjoy ogling handsome men on TV, and a couple in Florida now argue in British accents so they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Enjoy the weekend, and if you’re in the Ozarks, try to limit yourself to one gator-themed venue per day.

Must-Reads Of The Week published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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dinafbrownil · 4 years

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Must-Reads Of The Week

The Friday Breeze

Want to read the best and most provocative stories from the week? Welcome to the Friday Breeze, where we compile them all — so you’re set with your weekend reading.

The Friday Breeze

Want a roundup of the must-read stories this week? Sign up for The Friday Breeze today.

Please confirm your email address below:

In The Hot Spots

In The Hot Seat

So Young

Medical Advances

Do Not Disturb

Enjoy the weekend, and if you’re in the Ozarks, try to limit yourself to one gator-themed venue per day.

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/friday-breeze-health-care-policy-must-reads-of-the-week-june-12-2020/

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stephenmccull · 4 years

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Must-Reads Of The Week

The Friday Breeze

Want to read the best and most provocative stories from the week? Welcome to the Friday Breeze, where we compile them all — so you’re set with your weekend reading.

The Friday Breeze

Want a roundup of the must-read stories this week? Sign up for The Friday Breeze today.

Please confirm your email address below:

In The Hot Spots

In The Hot Seat

So Young

Medical Advances

Do Not Disturb

Enjoy the weekend, and if you’re in the Ozarks, try to limit yourself to one gator-themed venue per day.

Must-Reads Of The Week published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

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icrowdnewswire1 · 4 years

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Energy Marketing Conferences, LLC announced the winner of the “Retail Energy Provider of the Year Award” that was presented at its thirteenth semi-annual Energy Marketing Conference held in Houston, Texas on March 3rd 2020.

iCrowd Newswire - Mar 9, 2020

EMC announced the winner of the “Retail Energy Provider of the Year Award” that was presented at its thirteenth semi-annual Energy Marketing Conference held in Houston, Texas on March 3rd 2020.

The theme of the Energy Marketing Conference was ‘Believing in Tomorrow’ and it featured 45 sponsors, a sold-out exhibit hall, more than 50 industry professionals speaking on six interactive panels, eight executive workshops, a networking breakfast, luncheon and receptions with live music.

More than 520 attendees from all over the country participated in the largest networking opportunity in retail energy.

Sponsored by Everlast Energy, the seven nominees for the Retail Energy Provider of the Year Award were: Clearview Energy, Eligo Energy, Green Mountain Energy, Inspire Energy, LE Energy, Pulse Power, and WGL Energy.

“All the nominees were companies who are extremely successful in the retail energy industry,” said Larry Leikin, Co-Founder of Energy Marketing Conferences and founder of TrustedTPV. “Congratulations to Green Mountain Energy for winning the award.”

“Green Mountain Energy has been committed to innovation, transparency and sustainability for more than two decades,” said Jack Doueck, Co-Founder of Advanced Energy Capital, LED Plus and Energy Marketing Conferences, LLC. “They offer a portfolio of products that meet customers’ needs. They actually set aside money each month on behalf of their customers, and have used these dollars to support the installation of 30 million solar panels producing over 11 million kWh of clean electricity. They also donated funds to help non-profits such as the Houston Food Bank, AMLI, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and ZeroFossil to name a few.”

To watch a 30 second clip from the Energy Marketing Conference in Houston, click HERE

The next Energy Marketing Conference will be in New York City on September 17th at the Midtown Hilton Hotel.

To register click HERE

EMC also announced at the conference that it will be running an event for regulated utilities in November in Orlando called “The Utility 2030 Collaborative.” To find out more, visit www.utility2030.com

About Energy Marketing Conferences:

The mission of Energy Marketing Conferences is to provide the competitive energy industry with exciting conferences in premium locations at extremely affordable prices. The goal of the conferences is to bring together hundreds of energy companies, utilities, marketers, vendors and suppliers in the competitive energy industry to network and learn more about our industry. EMC is the largest gathering of retail energy executives in North America and it takes place twice a year: Houston Texas in the Spring and New York City in the Fall.