ISRAEL LENT SEVERAL antiquities to the White House in 2019, including ancient clay lamps for a White House Hanukkah event. Unfortunately, Donald Trump was president at the time, which means the artifacts are now at Mar-a-Lago, and Israel can’t figure out how to get them back, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
The artifacts were only supposed to be in Washington, D.C., for a few weeks. Israel Hasson, then the director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, told Haaretz that because they are so valuable, he wanted someone to pick them up instead of having them shipped overseas. The pandemic derailed these plans, and the artifacts remained in the White House. Israeli authorities learned several months ago that they wound up at Mar-a-Lago.
Eli Eskozido, who took over for Hasson at the Israeli Antiquities Authority, has solicited the help of the Israeli government and Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to the nation in his efforts to retrieve the artifacts — to no avail.
Somehow, the former president stealing ancient Israeli artifacts isn’t surprising. Trump all but ransacked the White House on his way out of office, most notably absconding with hundreds of classified documents. Trump was criminally indicted for his handling of the documents in June, and yet still thinks he’s entitled to the sensitive material. Rolling Stone reported late last month that he was demanding his lawyers figure out how to get “my documents” back after the government retrieved them, even as it became clear he would be indicted for hoarding them.
Yeah if there is one thing about Reddit I wish wouldn’t carry over to Lemmy, it’s the political bias that’s completely disconnected from reality.
If you are legitimately upset over a company saying their employees can’t wear face masks, you’re in the minority. Most Americans don’t give a shit and have bigger things to worry about than mask policies in 2023.
Funny how “muh freedom” means you should be able to not wear a mask, but others should be disallowed from wearing masks, even if they have actual safety or health concerns. Very consistent.
Funny how the same people who said “Private companies can do whatever they want” back in 2020 when people were upset about mask requirements are now losing their shit because a private company said their employees can’t wear masks.
A certain subset of people on the internet wants to die on the hill of masks like they’re almost upset that it’s no longer 2020 or something. Seriously go outside, touch grass, see that nobody gives a shit about masks in the real world.
I've had to wear a mask for allergies since WAY BEFORE the whole mask thing became identity politics. There's plenty of flavors of grass, that no amount of Flonase or whatever that gets the straight up burning of the inside of my neck to stop. So. I've had to wear masks since as long as I can remember for pretty much every summer.
Then COVID happened and now what used to be something literally nobody cared about, suddenly everyone has fucking opinions about masks. So here's my thing. How about we all just go back to everyone leaving me and everyone else who have been wearing masks most their lives the fuck alone about their mask? Can we do that?
Y'all can fight about COVID or whatever fucking shit, I don't care. I didn't really want to have a dog in this race. But yes, some people still wear masks. And the reasons they wear masks can vary for all kinds of reasons. And believe it or not, before 2020, nobody gave two shits about people wearing masks. I know, I was there.
I worked at an Arby's in the late 1980s wearing a mask during the summer, nobody cared. I've worked in warehousing while doing college, nobody cared at the warehouse nor the college. I swear, and I have lived in middle of nowhere Tennessee most of my life and people I went to high school with (way back in dinosaur days) knew me and knew I wore a mask. And even still, today, they might run into me and be like "Oh I thought COVID was over... (snicker, snicker)" And yeah it gets fucking old having to remind them about my allergies and them going "OOOOOHH YEAH!" Like I know we're getting old, but we ain't that old.
So I get it, some of y'all just want a fight and apparently "masks" are one of the things on the field. Whatever. But, some of us out here wear masks because the grass is the devil. And gosh, it's weird thinking that wearing a mask between 1970 and 2020 was the glory days, but fuck, here we are.
All I'm asking is the whole:
wow, people still wear masks?
If you want to bitch, can you at least add "for COVID" at the end? And let us that have shitty immune systems the fuck alone? Can you at least not yank us allergy sufferers in this bullshit? I would greatly appreciate that.
I don't know why there was a mandate, I don't know why the mandates made people angry. No one consulted me about any of it and even if they did, I'm not smart enough to have opinions on it anyway. But I don't know why me putting a piece of cloth over my mouth so that evil grass seed doesn't get inside my throat has anything to do with that bullshit. Here's the US House and the US Senate I guess go get them or something. I don't know, but everyone wearing a mask isn't some evil liberal employed by Soros, or at least I'm not getting my fucking check.
TL;DR — Some of us wear masks for a lot of other reasons and no one used to give a shit about us wearing masks.
I love In-N-Out. I could even ignore the bible verses on their packaging since it was pretty hidden. But I haven't been there since they refused to enforce the mask mandates during the pandemic - if they ignore one health regulation they don't like, who's to say they're not ignoring others? I won't go there again until there's some sign that sanity is taking over.
I’d rather not see their smiles and not get whatever illness they may have. There’s a reason food prep people wear hair nets, gloves, blue band-aids, and all that other stuff. We’re just getting done with a global pandemic, can we let people wear masks if they want to for a while please?
They had a reputation as a good company before the pandemic, and they let it go to the crapper during. Now they're sprinting in the other direction. Bunch of reality-denying dipshits.
I don’t have a problem with this. I was an “essential” employee in the before-times and I muddled through and never had an incident of sickness…I think my masking and sanitation saved me from hazard. I’m not downplaying the whole pandemic - I lost a few very good people because of it (I miss you, Russ).
The before-times are past…we need to work through the now times and that requires that we are together as people and a part of being present in the now-times is not hiding behind fear. We need to connect and see each others visage to gauge our connections.
Wear a mask if you have the sniffles (cold/flu), wear a mask if you want to avoid allergens or smoke in the air. Wear a mask if you, like me, are just plain ugly and it makes others more comfortable but do not wear a mask because of covid anymore. That threat is behind us as a people just as the Spanish Flu is behind us as a people, despite it’s presence in the world at large.
Do they offer insurance? It should be illegal to require doctors notes if you don’t offer insurance. Fuck, insurance should be illegal and visiting doctors should be free.
Sorry, but you’re insane. COVID is still alive and well, and killing people daily. How can you say you lost people and miss them, and then turn around and say we shouldn’t wear a mask due to COVID?
I had a double lung transplant. I’m wearing my mask. You’re ignorant as shit.
This policy is obviously insane and, I hope, legally challengeable. That everyone is acting like this will cause all the customers to die is alao absurd. I live in a pretty liberal area of the country and basically no one is wearing masks anywhere.
I went to in-n-out yesterday and literally no one there had masks, customers or employees.
My wife and I ate in the car as per usual, but I know full well that we’re some of the last holdouts.
I got it very early, back in March 2020 and had severe long covid from it. I had trouble just breathing for the following year and moderate aphasia for nearly three years. I still have mild aphasia and, as a professional communicator, it’s been emotionally devastating.
I know the current strains don’t cross the blood brain barrier as easily as the earliest strains, but the idea of going back down that road doesn’t sound terribly appealing.
My wife was recently diagnosed with a congenital condition and covid could give her a permanent disability or even kill her. We’re consulting with doctors, but we’re still very much in the uncertainty phase.
Finally, a friend of ours, who’s been nearly as cautious as we are, recently got pressured into unmasking at a corporate retreat, got covid and now has (permanent?) heart damage. We all know it’s a fluke and just very bad luck, but it’s no less traumatizing for her or her family.
There will almost certainly be a time in the near future where we no longer mask for basic activities. We watch things like excess deaths, wastewater analysis and hospitalizations as closely as possible and the situation is clearly improving.
That said, every war has a final victim, and we have no intention of being that person. For now, masking is physically easy, we have a social circle that we trust and honestly don’t miss a lot of the excesses we’ve stepped away from.
I am very sorry to hear that about your family and friends…I know of a couple people who ad Long Form COVID and it was similar. I hope the best for you and your family moving forward! Thank you for sharing.
Where do you find those metrics you’re following? I’m also hesitant to drop all precautions as I don’t think my mental health could take an extended bout of brain fog. I’m a bit of a hermit anyway, and like you said, masking is easy.
I hardly see masks in public at all anymore, though, so I’m feeling unsure about how to tell if everybody’s just acting like it’s over when it isn’t, or if I’m holding out way longer than necessary.
I generally check this every week to get a high-level feel for how the pandemic is going. For months now there’s been around a 1% drop every week. You’ll notice a slight up-tick this last week, breaking that trend.
Not all waste water data gets sent there, so Google your state ant COVID waste water and you can probably find some universities or state government run trackers that might have better data specific to your area.
Finally, excess mortalities can be a helpful metric to watch as well, but it’s more about the overall state of the pandemic, not how any particular week is going.
Why did adding this little bit of context get downvoted? Yes it’s still a ridiculous requirement to require a doctors note if someone wants to wear a mask to protect themselves from illness but OP wasn’t commenting on that, just adding context. If we want this place to be better than Reddit we really should only use the downvote button against posts and comments that are off-topic, inflammatory, or trolling
I agree. That commenter may have been trolling but as a personal rule I only downvote people being rude or people I KNOW are disingenuous from other interactions. If I disagree I just move on.
Definitely not trolling. I saw the news elsewhere and this post was missing what I considered an important piece of information in the title. But yeah I guess brevity failed me.
I dislike this move by my favorite burger joint, but I also dislike headlines that are crafted for more outrage than is deserved. Even if it’s just a teaspoon more.
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