USPS is taking orders for COVID-19 test kits

The U.S. Postal Service urges you to stick it up your nose, for free:

“The U.S. Postal Service has begun taking orders for at-home coronavirus test kits.

The website [is] COVIDtests.gov….  (Click here to see how many users are on the test kit site.)

Each household order will contain four rapid tests, which the Postal Service says will be shipped for free ‘in late January.’

Some on Twitter reported problems with orders from residents of apartment buildings with multiple units being told that someone from that household had already ordered the tests.”

“The White House says it will prioritize shipments to Americans from ZIP codes that have experienced high rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths, with the first 20% of each day’s orders going to those areas.”

“There will also be a phone number so those without access to computers or high-speed internet can place orders.”

— “The Postal Service is now taking orders for COVID-19 test kits,” Brian Naylor, NPR News

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Vinyl Sells Big

In 2021, U.S. vinyl albums outsold CDs for the first time in 30 years, even though CD sales increased, too.

According to data from the MRC and Billboard, 38.3 per cent of all album sales in the country last year were in vinyl format, accounting for over 50 per cent of all physical album sales (41.72 million sales out of a total of 82.79 million).

2021 vinyl album sales went up by  51.4 per cent to 41.72 million compared to 2020.

Vinyl is more expensive than other formats, so who’s buying LPs? The most devoted fans of artists like Adele, Taylor Swift, and Olivia Rodrigo want these large physical tokens.

More:

“Vinyl outsold CDs in the US for the first time in decades,” Scott Nover, Quartz

“As superstars cash in on vinyl LP boom, small labels and manufacturers struggle to meet demand,” Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times

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Image (“Leo’s DJ, after Da Vinci”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Sneckdown

In regions where there’s real winter, a “sneckdown” (“snow” + “neckdown”) can help illustrate how a traffic neckdown curb extention makes intersections safer for pedestrians by slowing turning vehicles. A Streetfilms video.

More:

“Undriven Snow: Activists Trace Winter Car Routes Reshape City Streets,” Kurt Kohlstedt, 99 Percent Invisible

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Dr. King on the Roots of Economic Inequality

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) planned a Poor People’s Campaign for May 1968 to demand jobs, unemployment insurance, a fair minimum wage, affordable housing, and education for poor adults and children, an Economic Bill of Rights. The effort was to involve poor people of all races from all parts of the country, urban and rural, but the historical roots of racial economic disparity could not be ignored:

“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor.

But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms.

Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington DC on March 31, 1968 (full text here).

Related:

“Four ways Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to battle inequality,” Ned Resnikoff, MSNBC

“MLK called out income inequality,” James C. Harrington, Houston Chronicle

“American Dream Deferred: Wealth of Richest 400 Equals that of Nation’s 44 Million African Americans,” David Harris-Gershon,Tikkun Daily

“For women, economic justice a civil rights issue,” Maya L. Harris,CNN

“Martin Luther King’s Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income,” Matthew Yglesias, Slate

“Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Solution to Poverty,” Jordan Weissmann, The Atlantic

“Martin Luther King Jr. Celebrations Overlook His Critiques of Capitalism and Militarism,” Zaid Jilani, The Intercept

“How the 1% profit off of racial economic inequality,” Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins, Guardian

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Top image: Library of Congress.

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The Finger Points to You

“The Finger Points to You,” apparently written by Jamie Dunlap, Stephen Lang Marc Ferrari, and Scott Nickoley, recorded by Maxayn, 2008.

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Pure Imagination

“Pure Imagination,” written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, performed by Smoking Popes, 1997.

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I’ll Be Around

“I’ll Be Around,” written by Thom Bell and Phil Hurtt, recorded by Joan Osborne, 2002.

Joan Osborne website

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Send Somebody

“Send Somebody,” written by Michael Georgiades and Colin Hay, recorded by Colin Hay, 2011. Video directed by Chad Fischer.

Colin Hay website

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Prayer Is A Part Of Man

“Prayer Is A Part Of Man,” recorded by Troy Ramey & The Soul Searchers, 1974.

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Pure Imagination

“Pure Imagination,” written by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, performed by Vox One, 2006. Jodi Jenkins Ainsworth (soprano), Yumiko Matsuoka (alto), Paul Stiller (tenor), Paul Pampinella (baritone), Tom Baskett (bass).

Vox One website

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