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Friday Bread Crumbs

As those of you on the Bread email list have known all week, our baker Janice is taking Thanksgiving weekend off from bread baking. That, combined with the national resurgence of The Virus, means that the wine shop is also closed to visitors this weekend.
Until the national surge in Covid cases abates, we are backing off from allowing visitors inside for wine shopping. Instead we are going back to email/phone ordering only. Click on the Order Wine link in the header above for currently available wines with tasting notes and prices. We are making progress on setting up enough of an online store to allow our members to order and pay online for pickup on Fridays or by arrangement. For the time being, when you have made your selections you can call us with your order or email us using the Contact Us link above to send us your order. We will contact you to confirm your order and to make arrangements for pickup/delivery.
 
Wine of the Week: Sea Sun Pinot Noir 

Genesis, 28:10-32:3
This Week’s Torah Portion | Nov 22 – Nov 28, 2020 – 6 Kislev – 12 Kislev, 5781
In A Nutshell
The portion, VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out), begins with Jacob leaving Beer Sheba and heading for Haran. He stops for the night and in his dream he sees a ladder “set up on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Genesis, 28:12). The Creator appears before him and promises him that the earth on which he is lying will be his, that he will have many sons, and that He will watch over him. The next morning, Jacob sets up a monument in that place and calls it, Beit El (House of God).
Jacob comes to a well near Haran, where he meets Rachel and her father, Laban the Aramean, who offers him to work for him for seven years in return for permission to marry Rachel. At the end of the seven years Laban deceives Jacob and gives him Leah instead. He compels Jacob to work for him seven more years, after which he gives him Rachel and Jacob marries her.
Leah has four sons from Jacob, while Rachel is barren. Rachel gives to Jacob her maidens, who give birth to four more of his sons. Leah delivers two more sons, until finally Rachel conceives and gives birth to Joseph.
Jacob asks Laban to pay for his work. Laban gives him some of the flock, although they had a different agreement. Jacob shows the flock the troughs, and they conceive and deliver. Some of the lambs are born striped, some are speckled, and some are spotted.

The proposals for who may or may not qualify for a second stimulus check are dizzying.

Angela Lang/CNET

We know that the Senate will be “looking at another direct payment” when the new session starts on Monday, that much is clear. Among other things, the debate will center on how big a second stimulus check could be and who will (or won’t) qualify to get it. 

Even if you received the first stimulus check for the maximum amount of $1,200, you won’t automatically qualify for a second payment. Those requirements could be aimed at people who are currently unemployed or earn relatively low incomes, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said last week.

Eligibility is likely to be determined by citizenship, income limit, age, marital status and number of dependents in the household; these parameters could become either broader or more narrow in a second stimulus check. The first direct payment limited how many dependents you could claim and set an age limit for qualifying children (more below). 

Keep reading for all of the current information regarding another economic impact payment. And here’s when we think the IRS could send the first batch of new stimulus checks, if they happen. This story is updated frequently.

Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.

• PlayStation 5 will suffer from “enhanced” and “graphics” modes.
• What’s the point of next-gen if we can’t have a baseline?
• Will next-gen consoles even be worth the price?

Like many titles releasing over the next six months, Square Enix’s Avengers will have a next-gen version on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. According to Henri Le Chat Noir, players will be able to transfer save files and everything–a great boon for those buying current-gen versions.

But, the PS5 version comes with a catch that will seem familiar to those with a PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox One X: “enhanced” or “frame rate” modes.

How “Next-Gen” is The PlayStation 5?

The article reports that Avengers on the PlayStation 5 will have “extremely fast load times, boosted resolution and fidelity, improved texturing and armor destruction, ray-tracing, and more.”

That’s great! Only, these visual enhancements come at the cost of frame rate. Do you want gorgeous characters and action at a stuttery frame rate, or will you take neutered looks for a smoother experience? I thought next-gen meant we shouldn’t have to pick?

All of this stuff, but still struggling to run games. | Source: Sony

While the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro suffer from this, it’s understandable considering they are mid-tier upgrades. Even then, titles like Monster Hunter: World are barely playable in their “enhanced” modes. We’re talking sub-30 frame rates here.

Sure, those with powerful PCs won’t have to suffer this fate, but considering consoles are a much more accessible entry point, this shouldn’t be the case.

A bill to make it harder for Colorado parents to exempt their kids from vaccines is one step closer to passage — but only after six hours of debate and a Democratic compromise.

The Colorado House passed the bill on second reading after Democrats agreed to introduce an amendment to add what’s called a “petition clause.” This gives Colorado voters 90 days after Gov. Jared Polis signs the bill to collect enough valid signatures to put a repeal measure on the fall 2022 ballot.

The vaccine bill will get a final vote in the House on Wednesday and then must return to the Senate for a vote on the amendment.

Polis has said previously that he would support the bill, which he opposed last year, and the Senate passed the bill earlier in the session, before the pandemic threatened its chances of getting through the General Assembly this year.

Senate Bill 163 would require parents seeking nonmedical exemptions for their kids to submit a certificate of completion of an online educational module on vaccines or a form signed by a medical professional. The bill also creates a “vaccine-protected children” goal for every school to have 95% of its student population to be vaccinated. Each school will be required to publish its immunization and exemption rates annually and distribute them to parents and students.

“I think this bill brings Colorado in line with most other states,” said Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Avon.

Roberts said the bill aims to increase the state’s low vaccination rates while preserving parents’ rights to exempt their children from vaccines.

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Alastair Pike / AFP via Getty ImagesThe Twitter logo is seen on a phone in this photo illustration in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2019. (Alastair Pike / AFP via Getty Images)

Twitter said it mistakenly censored a tweet from House Republican candidate Rich McCormick on Tuesday, the day of the Georgia primary election, less than a week after the social media platform disabled another video of the military veteran.

A video McCormick tweeted Tuesday showing him on the campaign trail was flagged with a warning for “potentially sensitive content.”

It’s going to be a great day! Primary vote today in Georgia and Trump Rallies are coming back! I feel very blessed to be an American and have the right to vote! #Trump #MAGA2020 #KAG2020TRUMPVICTORY #GA07 #Gapol #TuesdayThoughts #KAG2020 #MAGA #Blessed pic.twitter.com/O0QISJR8WO

— Dr. Rich McCormick for Congress (@RichforGA) June 9, 2020

“It’s going to be a great day! Primary vote today in Georgia and Trump Rallies are coming back! I feel very blessed to be an American and have the right to vote!” McCormick told his Twitter followers on Tuesday morning.

The statue of slave trader Edward Colston that was toppled into the river by protesters has long caused anger and divided opinion in Bristol.

The 5.5-metre (18ft) bronze statue had stood on Colston Avenue since 1895 as a memorial to his philanthropic works, an avenue he developed after divesting himself of links to a company involved in the selling of tens of thousands of slaves. His works in the city included money to sustain schools, almshouses and churches.

Although Colston was born in the city in 1636, he never lived there as an adult. All his slave-trading was conducted out of the City of London.

Colston grew up in a wealthy merchant family in Bristol and after going to school in London he established himself as a successful trader in textiles and wool.

In 1680 he joined the Royal African Company (RAC) company that had a monopoly on the west African slave trade. It was formally headed by the brother of King Charles II who later took the throne as James II. The company branded the slaves – including women and children – with its RAC initials on their chests.

It is believed to have sold about 100,000 west African people in the Caribbean and the Americas between 1672 and 1689 and it was through this company that Colston made the bulk of his fortune, using profits to move into money lending.

He sold his shares in the company to William, Prince of Orange, in 1689 after the latter had orchestrated the Glorious Revolution and seized power from James the year before.

For more than a week now, our screens have been flooded with footage of cops shooting rubber bullets at reporters, driving police vehicles into crowds of protesters, detaining essential workers exempt from curfews, macing a 9-year-old child, shoving elderly people to the ground and, of course, kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he died.

But such horrifying real-life images are at odds with the fictional portrayal of law enforcement we’ve consumed on TV for decades. Amid nationwide protests of police brutality against black people and other marginalized groups, that dissonance has spurred an industry-wide reexamination of the role pop culture plays in shaping our perception of both the police and the people they deem a threat. Nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization Color of Change released a detailed study on the topic earlier this year.

“[These shows] create a world where we have cities, police officers, political officials, poverty, different races, and yet racism doesn’t seem to exist — a fictional world that is often quite diverse but without racism,” Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, told The Times this week. “As a result, that normalizes injustice. It makes it seem like the changes that we are fighting for are changes that are not necessary.”

Titled “Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations That Define Television’s Scripted Crime Genre,” the study includes the following findings.

Spurs guard Lonnie Walker on Sunday was amongst volunteers serving to to scrub up injury from protests in San Antonio over the demise of George Floyd.

Walker handed out bottles of water to volunteers and in addition helped to take away graffiti from the perimeters of buildings within the metropolis.

“You all have a purpose to be good. It’s normal courtesy, being a human. Serving to out the very best you may,” he stated in a video posted on Instagram.

He stated seeing the variety of volunteers serving to to scrub up was “inspiring” and “means rather a lot to this metropolis.”

San Antonio is one in all a number of cities in the USA the place protests have taken place over the demise of Floyd, a black man who died final week in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeled on his neck for greater than eight minutes.

Walker, in his second yr out of the College of Miami, informed the San Antonio Specific Information that “I take nice delight in saying I’m a part of this neighborhood.”

Walker later posted an announcement to Twitter.

“Throughout this protest everybody is not seeing eye stage however we now have to grasp we will solely management what we will management,” a part of the assertion stated. “The best factor I’ve seen. No less than right here in San Antonio is that the COMMUNITY is coming collectively. The individuals coming collectively and understanding the last word subject. Black, white, Spanish, and so forth, everybody collectively as a bunch are coming collectively as one and shifting accordingly.”

INDIANAPOLIS–Police were not putting up with anyone being on the streets downtown Sunday night. A curfew went into effect at 8 p.m. and cops did not hesitate to put the cuffs on people who were violating the it.

WISH TV’s Richard Essex captured video of two women and a man being taken down by police after they did not obey orders to stop and drop. One of the women was repeatedly hit with a baton after an order from one of the officers.

“You made me piss myself,” one of the women was heard complaining to the arresting officers. “Why did you have to do her like that?” asked the other.

The young man who was arrested, or who was at least put in cuffs, told the officer he didn’t have a phone. The officer responded that it was 8:30 and he had had plenty of time to get out of downtown.

“Anyone in violation of the curfew order will be subject to arrest,” warned IMPD Chief Randal Taylor, earlier in the evening, at a news conference held at about the time that announcements of the curfew were made over loudspeakers on Monument Circle and warnings were broadcast over the TV and cell phones.

The curfew was announced Sunday morning after two nights of injuries, murders and destruction of downtown businesses. The strict enforcement of the curfew followed a protest Sunday afternoon, which was broken up by police with tear gas and pepper balls.

“I know there’s people that may have felt that they had been affected by it and didn’t do anything. The only thing I can tell them really at this point is, they shouldn’t be down there anyway,” said Taylor.

It appeared Sunday night that the strategy worked. Police blocked entrances to downtown and let only a certain few, who had permission, move about.