Shuttered Venues LOCAL COVID-19 RECOVERY FUNDS

Let's try to round-up and update from this NY Times report from 04 February 2021:

"In December, Congress created a $15 billion grant fund for clubs and performance spaces, recognizing that thousands of cultural institutions were at risk of closing permanently because there is no safe way to attend a rock concert or Broadway musical in a pandemic.

Now comes the hard part: doling out the cash.

The list of eligible recipients is large, and the Small Business Administration — the agency in charge of creating rules and systems for the initiative, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant — has never run a major grant program. Its biggest pandemic relief effort, the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program, was an extension of a long-running loan program, and even then it was plagued by confusion, complexity and inequities.

Shuttered Venue Operators Grant

This grant provides emergency assistance for eligible venues affected by COVID-19.

The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program was established by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, and amended by the American Rescue Plan Act. The program includes over $16 billion in grants to shuttered venues, to be administered by SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance.

Source: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/shuttered-venue-operators-grant

Eligible applicants may qualify for grants equal to 45% of their gross earned revenue, with the maximum amount available for a single grant award of $10 million. $2 billion is reserved for eligible applications with up to 50 full-time employees.

Content

• Program details
• Supplemental documents for applicants
• Who can apply
• Grant amount
• How to apply
• Allowable use of funds
• Video tutorials
• Get technical support with the SVOG portal
• What to expect after you have applied
• Information for awardees
• Program reports and data

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CITY OF MESA NEWSROOM

Stay Cool, Inspired and Engaged This Summer at Downtown Mesa Museums

June 28, 2021 at 4:35 pm

More BLOGGER insert > Does this work for you and The City of Mesa? INCLUSIVE

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TICKET ADMISSION PRICES
Find timed entries on each museum's website. Reservations are strongly recommended during busy summer months. You may also buy tickets at the door.
Admission

> Arizona Museum of Natural History is $7 for children ages 3-12 and $13 for ages 13 and up; museum members are free.

>  i.d.e.a. Museum, admission is $9 for ages 1 and up. Members and babies 11 months and younger are free.

> Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum is free, but reservations are recommended.

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Three exciting new exhibitions are opening in Downtown Mesa on July 1.

1 Travel back in time to ancient Arizona to walk with dinosaurs and then go behind the scenes to develop a deeper understanding of our past at the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AZMNH).

2 Next, explore the world of robotics through art and hands-on activities at the i.d.e.a. Museum.

3 Finally, stop by the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum and check out Angel Cabrales' reimagined SciFi-inspired parallel universe in The Uncolonized: A Vision in the Parallel exhibition.

ALL THREE - AZMNH, i.d.e.a. and Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum -

WILL BE OPEN DURING THE 4th OF JULY 4 HOLIDAY
Saturday, Sunday and Monday????

 "Families throughout the Valley are seeking fun ways to engage and inspire their children this summer, and our museums offer a great, indoor adventure for children of all ages, and a special respite from the sizzling Arizona heat," said Cindy Ornstein, Director of Arts and Culture for the City of Mesa.

"The visually stunning and educational exhibitions at our city museums will provide the community another reason to get out of the house and escape the heat through our cool experiences."

AZMNH presents 75,000,000 BC, walking visitors through southern Arizona and northern Sonora 75 million years ago. Learn about the giant volcanoes that shaped the economy of our state and the dinosaurs that lived in their shadow.

Additionally, Ologies!: The Science of Anthropology and Paleontology is the museum's first bilingual exhibition.

Visitors will learn more about the museum's anthropology and paleontology research departments to discover the kinds of objects in each collection, how objects become part of the collection, and how objects help scientists study the past.

At the i.d.e.a. Museum, the Robo Art exhibitions lets kids of all ages explore the design, engineering and technology of robots. Enjoy building a 3D bot, playing coding games, and learning about a variety of robots, the history of robotics and more!

Also, several hands-on activities and experiences have returned, including the jungle-themed Black Light Room, cozy Zen Den and the Magnetic Wall, featuring balls and chutes.

Plus, the HUB Gallery has added a Puppet Theater, storybook floor game and new art activity, featuring fairytale characters.

More times to explore & create!
Both museums also are extending business hours this summer to provide families more opportunities to stay cool, be inspired and experience fun learning. 
> Beginning July 1, AZMNH, located at 53 N. Macdonald, will be open

10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. on Sunday.

See dinosaurs that roar and so much more. Take a stroll through time from the birth of Earth through the age of the dinosaurs, visit a village of the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People and try your hand at gold panning.
> The i.d.e.a. Museum - 150 W. Pepper Place - returns to operating 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. Sunday.

Enjoy creative experiences that support early learning, nurture creative thinking, and engage families in quality time together throughout the museum.

Check out ArtVille - a colorful town featuring imaginative play activities aimed at little ones 4 and younger (socks required). 
 > While visiting Downtown Mesa, families also are encouraged to visit a third Mesa gem:

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, located at 1 E. Main St.

Business hours are
10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday.

Explore works by sculptor and mixed media artist Angel Cabrales, known for his provocative social commentaries on the Latin-American experience.

Also on exhibition are:

Passage, a collaborative site-specific installation of 7,000+ unfired clay beads symbolizing lives lost on the US-Mexico border

The Myth of the Incomplete Self (El mito del yo incompleto); and

Docents Select: Indigenous Americas.

 

Museum activities, tickets and more at arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org, ideaMuseum.org and mesaartscenter.com/museum.

Contact: Yvette Armendariz
(480) 644-4129
yvette.armendariz@mesaaz.gov

at Thursday, July 01, 2021

More  

YES The Housing Market is "On Fire"

The Fed is scarring up a large share of all newly-issued mortgage-backed securities. 

Unknown is the unclear answer to this question (or so it was spoken): Why, again, is The Federal Reserve adding $40 Billion a month to its holdings of MBS [Mortgage-Backed Securities] when the mortgage market doesn't seem to need any federal assistance?

The Real Lender on Your Mortgage Could Be the Federal Reserve

By Peter Coy @petercoyMore stories by Peter Coy

Bloomberg.com

". . .When you get a loan from a bank or a nonbank lender, there’s a good chance it will be packaged into a mortgage-backed security and sold to investors, and there’s a good chance the ultimate holder will be the Federal Reserve. Which means the Fed could be financing your mortgage. 

In the week ended June 23, the Federal Reserve owned $2.35 trillion in MBS, according to the Fed’s H.4.1 statistical release. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma) reports there were $8.44 trillion in the securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae at the end of 2020, meaning the Fed owns more than a quarter of the MBS market.

The Fed bought 47% of the net issuance of MBS in the fourth quarter, if you go by its $120 billion quarterly increase in holdings and Sifma figures showing that the total of outstanding MBS grew by $257 billion. True, not all mortgages are packaged into agency securities the Fed buys. The government-sponsored enterprises’ share of first-lien mortgage originations in the third quarter of 2020 was 61.9%. That share fluctuates, as does total issuance. Back of the napkin, though, multiplying 47% by 62% gives you about 30% of the overall U.S. mortgage market being financed by the Federal Reserve. 

On June 29, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said it might be time to start cutting back on the Fed’s support for housing. . .“I think it’s an easy sell to the public,” he told Bloomberg Television. “The housing market is on fire. We should think carefully about doing MBS purchases, and if we were to taper those first that wouldn’t necessarily be a big issue.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is trying to keep the Federal Open Market Committee united behind continuing to buy MBS and Treasuries as a way to hold down interest rates and promote economic growth. The recovery, he says, is incomplete. . .But he hasn’t done a wonderful job of articulating why buying MBS is the right medicine for the economy. It is not, he says—not—a way to support the housing market.

Read this somewhat confusing excerpt from the Fed’s official transcript[MOVED LINK TO ‘TRANSCRIPT’] of the FOMC press conference in April, where Powell responds to a question from Greg Robb of MarketWatch:

CHAIR POWELL: Yes. I, I mean, we’re—we started buying MBS because the mortgage-backed security market was, was really experiencing severe dysfunction, and we’ve sort of, sort of articulated, you know, what our exit path is from that. It’s not meant to provide direct assistance to, to the housing market. That was never the intent. It was really just to keep that as—it’s a very close relation to the Treasury market and a very important market on its own. And so that’s, that’s why we, we bought as we did during the Global Financial Crisis. We bought MBS, too. Again, not, not an intention to send help to the housing market, which was, which was really not, not a problem this time at all. So—and, you know, it’s, it’s a situation where we will, we will taper asset purchases when the time comes to do that, and those, those purchases will come to zero over time. And that time is not yet.

A better argument might have been, “Look, we’re a big player, so we try to spread our money around. Yields on Treasuries and MBS are linked, because investors choose between them. Buying MBS helps hold down interest rates on Treasuries and vice versa. All kinds of other interest rates consumers and businesses pay are pushed down when we buy Treasuries and MBS.”

Or something like that. A market intervention as big and enduring as the Fed’s in housing finance requires a strong and understandable justification. 

Patterns-and-Practices and The Perils of Public Relations

Getting the right message out there: Consider the proposition that a company's aim is to

(1) frame the narrative in a favorable manner.

 

Any firm wants to be seen not as a money-grubbing corporation that pollutes the environment and exploits its workers but as an innovative pioneer with sustainable operations and a social conscience.

An expert PR executive can hone such a message and identify the best way of communicating it to investors and the wider public, for example by selecting the journalists and publications that will lend it a sympathetic ear. 

 

Companies can hire an in-house team while also choosing to use an external PR firm.

 

If bad news strikes, bosses often go farther to call in a firm that specializes in "crisis management".

 

Perhaps this frenetic activity has a use. There is a chance that some publication has a desperate need to fill space, or was looking for a random executive’s views on an issue of the day. But in most cases it only serves to irritate the correspondent who has to deal with the pestering.

 

 

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THE OTHER REALITY >    

“We want Mesa to be a bottoms-up community. The seven of us [on the City Council] are not sitting here because we are the smartest people in the city or because we’re the ones who have the best ideas in the city. That’s not the case. We have a very capable community that has lots of talent and resources, and we want to draw on that. This approach helps us be better at what we’re doing.” – Mayor John Giles

 

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WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Politicians have no morals, beholden to "higher interests."
We just can't leave it there - Put a screeching slam on the brakes!
Democracy cannot exist if a nation's leaders are free to simply invent whichever version of reality best suits their own priorities and ambitions.

We are seeing it happen:

02 January 2020

Duh! Golly, Gee Whizz! . . .So Many Media Stooges

Link > MesaZona 02 January 2020

"At the website PressThink, Jay Rosen had a post-Christmas examination of Meet The Press host Chuck Todd's startling new realization that, golly gee, it turns out that Republicans have been intentionally using his show and others to spread false information.
Yes, Todd just realized that now.
Yes, he is one of the top political "minds" in Washington, which ought to clarify just how boned we all are, as the nation's political press continues to somehow degrade into something even worse and more vapid than the all-too-chummy gullibles constantly spoon-fed to all of us almost all the time
So what now?
___________________________________________________________________________
READ MORE > The Daily Kos

Every approach, however, is a means of accomplishing the same thing: creating a mechanism by which those that spout disinformation to the public can incur damage, and not just rewards. This is not the same as attempting to shame politicians into honest behavior;

there is no such thing as political shame.
Stop expecting it; stop presuming it. . .

Liars will stop lying in public when the penalties for public lying are consequential enough to outweigh the advantages of broadcasting the lie.

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1996: "Independence Day" (The movie)

Recent archive material has revealed some unknown before 'behind-the-scenes' negotiating and censoring not know before: the "unknown unknowns"

‘No Area 51,’ and ‘you can’t blow up the Pentagon’: DOD attempted CENSORING ‘Independence Day’ movie script, archive files reveal

4 Jul, 2021 13:45 / Updated 12 hours ago

Get short URL

Independence Day (1996) by Roland Emmerich © IMDB

By Tom Secker, a British-based investigative journalist, author and podcaster. You can follow his work via his Spy Culture site and his podcast ClandesTime.

"This July 4 weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the much-beloved 1990s alien invasion blockbuster ‘Independence Day’, a tubthumping tale of the US military fighting back against a global incursion by gigantic flying saucers.

You might think that this was a story the US Department of Defense (DOD) would love, and recently obtained archive files show how the producers approached the Pentagon seeking access to military bases for filming, as well as F-18 fighter jets so they could record audio and video for use in the aerial battle sequences.  

These never-before-published files on ‘Independence Day’ were exclusively obtained from archives at Georgetown’s Lauinger Library and from the Marine Corps History Division, and they detail how the movie was ultimately rejected after lengthy arguments over the screenplay.  Unusually, some of the changes demanded by the Pentagon made it into the shooting script, even after the military turned down the project.   

 

Things started well enough when the producers pitched ‘Independence Day’ to the Hollywood liaison offices as a potential recruitment bonanza. A memo from producer Dean Devlin to Phil Strub at the Pentagon read, “We're going to make Star Wars and Top Gun look like paper airplanes! Just wait, there has never been any aerial footage like this before. If this doesn't make every boy in the country want to fly a fighter jet, I'll eat this script.”

But the fun police were not happy with the screenplay, and the files detail months of tense negotiations between the producers and the military’s script reviewers. .

READ MORE at the source:

 

Step Lively! Women Warriors Drilling For A 30th Anniversary Ukrainian Independence Day Parade in Kiev

Gotta wonder "what's-on-parade" here - Sexist Parade Heels mebbe ;)

Russia & Former Soviet Union

Something’s afoot! Row breaks out after female Ukrainian army cadets forced to march in HIGH HEELS, Kiev pledges to change shoes

3 Jul, 2021 12:01 / Updated 1 day ago

Source: https://www.rt.com/russia/528301-ukraine-sexist-parade-heels/

Ukraine's army command appears to have put its foot in it this week, with a growing scandal breaking after a brigade of women cadets were told to march in step while wearing high-heeled shoes along with their obligatory khakis.

Image Credit: ©Ukrainian Defense Ministry    

"The Eastern European nation is currently gearing up to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its independence from the Soviet Union next month, and the armed forces have already been dipping their toes into preparations. On Thursday, the defense ministry in Kiev published photos of female cadets from a university in the capital drilling for an Independence Day parade. However, along with their camouflage gear, the troops had been instructed to wear conspicuous black high heels.

The images drew attention from the public, with some people deciding that the outfits were demeaning for women warriors. When Defense Minister Andriy Taran came to parliament the next day, he was met with condemnations from female MPs over the photos.

"How could one disgrace a simple idea of inspiration?" exclaimed Elena Kondratyuk, the deputy speaker of the national parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, who led the charge. She answered her own question: "By making female soldiers parade on heels for the 30th anniversary of our independence."

I'm sorry, but what we saw on the website of the defense ministry is totally messed up. Mr. Minister, is that your way to bring us closer to NATO standards?

The minister was also presented with several pairs of stilettos in a gesture of protest. MP Iryna Gerashchenko remarked that Taran and President Volodymyr Zelensky should wear them to the parade in Kiev when the time comes.

While many of the minister's critics were opposition MPs, like Kondratyuk and Gerashchenko, some representatives from Zelensky's own party also joined the chorus. One of them, Aleksey Zhmerenetsky, minced no words in wondering rhetorically why women soldiers get "dressed like carnival dolls to entertain the crowd."

The current parade uniform, which includes heeled shoes for women, was ordered by the defense ministry in 2017, under Zelensky's predecessor Petro Poroshenko. Defenders of the incumbent president were quick to point out this fact, accusing the outspoken MPs of political posturing.

While many of the minister's critics were opposition MPs, like Kondratyuk and Gerashchenko, some representatives from Zelensky's own party also joined the chorus. One of them, Aleksey Zhmerenetsky, minced no words in wondering rhetorically why women soldiers get "dressed like carnival dolls to entertain the crowd." . . .

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks — story of a whistleblower | DW Documentary

The 5th Wave: Vaccines Outpaced by Variants

New data and new warnings

Vaccines ‘outpaced by variants’, WHO warns, as Delta now in 98 countries

James Tapper

the Guardian

Rich nations are sharing vaccines with low-income countries too slowly to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of Covid, risking millions of lives, the head of the World Health Organization has warned.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said the sharing of vaccines was “only a trickle, which is being outpaced by variants”, after it emerged that the Delta variant is now present in at least 98 countries.

Last week, the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization joined the WHO in calling for “urgent action” to increase vaccine supplies. They also asked the G20 group of nations to accelerate efforts to reach vaccination targets.

Scientists have emphasised the urgency of vaccinating the world, because the current vaccines are already less effective against the Delta variant than other variants, and Delta is substantially more transmissible.

David Bauer, group leader of the RNA Virus Replication Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute, said: “From a virology perspective, it’s very very clear – the Delta variant is going to displace all the other variants that currently exist. It took about eight weeks to displace Alpha in the United Kingdom, it’s well on its way to displacing Beta in South Africa, and you see similar exponential trends in the United States.

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More

“The Delta variant is dangerous and is continuing to evolve and mutate, which requires constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response,” Ghebreyesus said. “Delta has been detected in at least 98 countries, and is spreading quickly in countries with low and high vaccination coverage.

“The world must equitably share protective gear, oxygen, tests, treatments and vaccines.” By next July, 70% of people in every country should be vaccinated, he added. “This is the best way to slow the pandemic, save lives and drive a truly global economic recovery, and along the way prevent further dangerous variants from getting the upper hand.”

. . .“We need everybody vaccinated now. We are not all protected until the whole world is protected. It can come across as idealism, but it’s not – there’s a cold-hearted, self-interested motivation behind all of it.”