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Sound Off for Tuesday, June 1 The Delaware County Daily TimesFour-star cornerback Justyn Rhett is one of the most sought after 2023 recruits in the nation.
Rhett, 6-foot-1/192 lbs from Las Vegas, NV (Bishop Gorman), is ranked in 247Sports’ composite rankings as the No. 13 cornerback in the nation and the No. 3 player in Nevada.
The talented cornerback already has offers from Arizona State, Florida State, Georgia, Michigan, Oregon, Tennessee, and USC, among several others.
Rhett recently discussed his recruitment with Rivals.com and he revealed that he has an interesting connection to the Vols.
Marcus Nash, a former Tennessee wide receiver who played for the Vols from 1994-1997, is Rhett’s personal trainer.
“My personal trainer (Marcus Nash) actually went to Tennessee and graduated with (Peyton) Manning,” said Rhett. “Great facilities, got him to the league, they have all the tools there.”
Rhett told Rivals that he’s “definitely” planning on visiting Tennessee this summer.
Another connection Rhett has to the Vols is through current UT wide receiver Cedric Tillman. Rhett attends Bishop Gorman, which is also where Tillman attended high school.
Tillman was a member of the Vols’ 2018 signing class.
There’s still a lot of time left in the battle for Rhett, but it certainly sounds like Tennessee is going to be strongly in the mix to land the dynamic defensive back.
Featured image via Rivals.com
Last week, after 10 months of negotiations, Troup County’s Service Delivery Strategy agreement was approved, ending a saga that went on for far too long.
In case you missed it, Hogansville, LaGrange and Troup County agreed to the proposal, which satisfies the law. West Point did not approve it, never taking a vote on it.
The fact that there are three signatures on the document instead of four is telling.
For anyone not up to speed, SDS is meant to ensure the delivery of services to citizens in a cost-effective manner. The guidance dictating how it works is very vague, meaning a lot of the interpretation is left to the cities and the county to sort through.
While we agree with letting local governments sort through their own problems, the law lends itself to long, drawn-out negotiations. It’s not extremely clear and in our opinion probably needs to be reevaluated.
Thankfully, it’s only required every 10 years. (Though, we also wonder if that timeline should be shortened.)
In review, our local negotiation has been very complicated.
Early in the proceedings, Hogansville and West Point declared publicly that they were working together — even hiring the same SDS attorney.
Whether you agree or not, that decision to stand in solidarity kept negotiations going, as it gave both cities more negotiating power. When the first deadline came in February, all four entities decided to move forward with extending the previous SDS through June.
Then, the county pushed Hogansville by giving notice that it was not going to provide fire services in the city any longer, if a SDS agreement wasn’t signed in 90 days.
In the end, both Hogansville and the county realized it would be beneficial to both if Troup County continued providing fire services to the city.
As the clock ticked toward June’s deadline, the county sweetened the deal, giving Hogansville two years of free fire services, and understandably, the city just couldn’t refuse a deal that good. There’s a lot more to the agreement, and plenty to parse through if you like sorting through government documents, but fire services was the sticking point between the county and Hogansville.
Those three entities signing was a decision that should be celebrated. It means sanctions won’t be implemented and ongoing projects will continue without a gap in funding.
But there’s also another party in all this. West Point isn’t happy and doesn’t feel it’s getting a fair shake. Our understanding is that West Point hasn’t been involved in recent SDS discussions, as little progress has been made between the county and the West Point to come to an agreement.
It’s simple to write that our local leaders should be able to figure this out. It’s just too complicated to oversimplify it to that point.
But West Point does need to be brought back into the fold. And frankly, with the largest employer in the county within its borders, West Point’s importance shouldn’t be undervalued.
SDS can be renegotiated and resubmitted at any point. Assuming the Department of Community Affairs accepts Troup County’s submission (it requires 30 days to review it), there will no longer be a set deadline requiring all of our local leaders to try to beat the clock, so there would be time to negotiate and to figure this all out.
On the flip side, without a date on the calendar to meet, the urgency to get approval from West Point might fizzle out.
We hope that doesn’t happen. While we think a break in talks should be encouraged (10 months is a long time), we encourage local leaders to continue these discussions in an effort to understand West Point’s argument. Four signatures would mean a whole lot more than three.
Pandemic life has saddled us with lots of conflicting emotions. Here’s how to cope with feelings of uncertainty and make a fresh start.
Feeling unsettled? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Welcome to the summer of 2021.
I asked thousands of New York Times readers of all ages to share how they’re feeling right now. The most common answers revealed the mixed feelings of the past 14 months: unsettled, anxious, overwhelmed, frazzled, tired, hopeful, optimistic, stressful, exhausted, excited.
Some readers said just one word was not enough to describe how they’re feeling.
“Bored, anxious, hopeful — all at once. Is there a word for that?” asked one reader.
Ours was not a scientific survey — the respondents all had signed up for the 10-day Fresh Start Challenge, which delivered daily texts with tips for healthy living. But the answers are consistent with national survey data that shows many people are still struggling with the emotional toll of pandemic life. The Household Pulse Survey, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that as of mid-May, almost a third of Americans (30.7 percent) were experiencing symptoms of anxiety or depression. While that number was down from a peak of about 42 percent in November, it’s still alarmingly high. In 2019, about 11 percent of adults in the United States had similar symptoms, according to a comparable survey from the National Center for Health Statistics.
Dr. Judson Brewer, director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center and an associate professor of psychiatry at the medical school, said many of his patients are describing themselves as feeling overwhelmed and frazzled. The emotions are likely to stem from the general uncertainty created by pandemic life. For the brain, feelings of uncertainty are like hunger pangs to your stomach, he said. While a stomach growl is a signal you need food, feelings of uncertainty are a signal to your brain that it needs information. The problem for many people right now is a lack of information about how life looks going forward.
“Information is food for our brain,” said Dr. Brewer, author of the new book “Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind.” “But when there is continuous uncertainty that we can’t resolve, that leaves people feeling anxious. They can feel overwhelmed because there’s not a resolution; the brain is not able to solve the problem. That leaves them feeling frazzled, tired and exhausted.”
“The last year,” said Dr. Brewer, “has created a huge amount of uncertainty in so many different realms.”
The good news is that times of uncertainty are also opportunities for personal growth and building resilience. Studies show that periods of disruption, like moving to a new town or getting divorced — or living through a pandemic — can also be opportunities for breaking bad habits and starting healthy new ones. Here are some strategies to help you cope with an anxious, uncertain and hopeful summer.
Worrying about what you don’t know will just make anxiety and stress worse. But accepting that some answers aren’t available right now can help you build an emotional muscle called “distress tolerance.” People with low distress tolerance often turn to unhealthy ways of coping, like substance use or spending excessive amounts of mindless time watching television or gaming.
Telling yourself that you accept the current state of uncertainty can help, Dr. Brewer said. Try telling yourself, “I’ll change the things I can, and accept the things I can’t.” Identifying and naming your feelings can calm the part of your brain that is feeling stressed. A multi-sensory exercise like five-finger breathing, in which you trace the outline of your hand with a finger while focusing on your breathing, can help stop negative thoughts from taking over.
“As a society we’re not doing a great job of teaching ourselves to have distress tolerance,” said Dr. Brewer. “Just knowing we can’t change something, that we can’t get the information — that information alone can be calming. The most adaptive response is to be OK with the uncertainty.”
A common source of anxiety these days is that the slower pace of pandemic life will soon be replaced by our previous, more stressful routines. “I would like to savor the slower pace,” said one reader. “I’m afraid we’ll go back to before-times levels of overscheduling.”
Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the new book “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” advises people to look back on the past 14 months and identify the changes you want to keep.
“One of the things I find really interesting about the pandemic is that it forced us to experiment in ways that we wouldn’t usually,” she said. “We were all forced to try Zoom or try different kinds of workouts. One important thing is to be conscious of what experiments were good. What did you discover that you want to keep doing?”
In her own life, Dr. Milkman realized she had been frazzled by the effort to orchestrate her energetic 5-year-old’s social calendar. “We were trying to do play dates regularly, and it was truly miserable,” said Dr. Milkman. “It was such a relief to realize, ‘Maybe we don’t need so many play dates. Maybe it’s OK to go on hikes together as a family.’ I think everybody had their own discoveries through the forced experimentation the pandemic imposed.”
To stop yourself from sliding back into old behaviors you no longer want to keep, ask yourself the questions: “What am I getting out of this? Is there a new way of doing this?” advises Dr. Brewer. He said the pandemic restrictions taught him to rethink his busy travel schedule. Before the pandemic he was traveling around the country to conferences, but learned he could be just as effective giving talks via Zoom without being away from his family as often.
“If we see an old behavior we might be slipping back into, it’s a matter of paying attention and being aware,” said Dr. Brewer.
Numerous studies show that stronger social connections help us cope with anxiety and build resilience. A number of readers during the Fresh Start Challenge said they were anxious about returning to old social routines.
“What is normal now?” texted one reader. “Looking forward to being with people again, but feel like I’ve lost my ability for casual conversations.”
During the Fresh Start Challenge, we gave readers a list of 36 questions to help them get social conversations started. The questions, designed to help people reveal more about themselves, come from a study called “The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness,” led by Arthur Aron, a scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
One reader shared that asking her husband the question, “What super power would you like?” revealed something she didn’t know about him.
“My husband told me he’d like to be able to stop time and restart it when he got caught up,” she said. “This gave me a better understanding of his feelings about time and how best to approach certain subjects with him.”
Although the questions in Dr. Aron’s study became known as the 36 questions that lead to love, he points out that the goal of the questions is not to spur romance. Most of the time, the questions will help strangers to become friends, friends to become closer and romantic partners to feel more connected.
Lately, I’ve heard from a lot of readers who are berating themselves for gaining weight or exercising less during the pandemic lockdowns. “I feel out of control and self indulgent, particularly with regards to eating and drinking,” a reader told me. “The increased weight makes moving uncomfortable and lowers my opinion of myself.”
It’s important to remember that almost everyone struggled with balancing the restrictions of pandemic life. Shaming yourself is counterproductive. A large body of research shows that when we give ourselves a break and accept our imperfections — a concept called self-compassion — we’re more likely to take care of ourselves and live healthier lives.
“One of the major things self-compassion gives you is the ability to not be so overwhelmed by the difficult emotions you’re experiencing,” said Kristin Neff, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has pioneered much of the research on self-compassion. “Give yourself a little kindness.”
Dr. Neff offers guided meditations and exercises to learn self-compassion on her website, Self-Compassion.org. One of the simplest ways to start practicing self-compassion is to ask yourself one question: “What do I need right now?”
“If you’re judging yourself, you’re harming yourself,” said Dr. Neff, whose new book is “Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.” “What do you need to be well? Maybe what you need is not to lose five pounds. Maybe you need more self-acceptance. The more you are able to accept yourself, the more you’re able to make those positive healthy changes in your life.”
10 challenges to help you live more mindfully.
Myanmar pro-democracy supporters took to the streets on Tuesday in several districts, as fighting between the army and anti-junta militias raged in border areas, four months after the military ousted an elected government in a coup.
Despite a ferocious crackdown by security forces, Myanmar's military is still struggling to impose order after arresting Aung San Suu Kyi and senior leaders of her party, sparking nationwide protests and paralysing strikes.
In the far south of Myanmar, anti-military protesters staged a march in Laung Lone, a photograph posted by the Irrawaddy newspaper on social media showed.
Meanwhile, in the commercial hub of Yangon a group of mainly young protesters rallied in the district of Kamayut, photographs posted by the Myanmar Now news portal showed.
"This is not over yet. We still have our turn," read a sign written on a sheet carried by one protester.
Demonstrators in urban areas have had to become more nimble to avoid security forces, often using flash mobs or staging small unnannounced protests, after larger rallies in the first months after the coup were often met with security forces firing live rounds.
Decades-old conflicts between the military and ethnic minority armies in border areas have also reignited since the coup. Ethnic militias allied with a shadow civilian government have stepped up attacks on the army, which has responded with heavy weapons and air strikes, forcing thousands to flee.
Mobile phone footage obtained from a resident in Kayah state bordering Thailand showed what appeared to be artillery being fired from inside the state capital Loikaw into Demoso, about 14.5 km (9 miles) away, where a People's Defence Force said it had attacked troops and was coming under heavy fire.
Residents in Loikaw said that about 50 rounds had been fired on Monday and six on Tuesday morning.
"The sound of artillery is deafening us," a resident told Reuters on Monday, requesting anonymity due to safety concerns.
The Karenni Nationalities Defence Force, a militia active in Kayah state, said in a post on its Facebook page that 80 army soldiers had been killed on Monday, while one of its fighters and a civilian were also casualties.
Reuters could not verify the claim and a spokesman for the junta did not answer calls seeking comment.
Fighting in Kayah has displaced about 37,000 people in recent weeks, according to the United Nations. Many have fled into jungles and are in need of food and medicine.
Civilian forces, often armed with rudimentary rifles and limited training, have been formed in towns and regions across Myanmar to challenge the military, in support of a National Unity Government that the junta says is treasonous. read more
Security forces have killed 840 people since the coup, according to figures provided by an activist group.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has said the toll was nearer 300, and has said it is unlikely there will be a civil war in Myanmar.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
From towering steel walls to deafening sound blasts, the European Union is doubling down on its efforts to keep migrants out.
"Our main goal is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. To accomplish this, we use new and modern equipment," said Major Dimosthenis Kamargios with Greek Border Police.
With the world on lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, Greek border police have been busy building and testing new barrier technologies to deter migrants, many traveling from Turkey.
According to the Associated Press, this includes long-range sound cannons, observation towers, and steel walls similar to what has been constructed along the U.S. and Mexico border.
The outlet reports that the EU has spent nearly $4 billion to research and expand border security technologies following the refugee crisis it experienced in 2015- 2016. The EU has even invested in the development of artificial technology, such as lie detectors for border crossings.
But while Greek residents along the border have welcomed the barrier testing, some EU politicians say they are concerned that the technology lacks oversight and could potentially be used against EU residents.
"What we are seeing at the borders, and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it's often a testing field for technologies that are later then used on Europeans as well. And that's why everybody should care, in their own self-interest, [about] what is happening at the borders," said Patrick Breyer, a member of the European Parliament from Germany's Pirate Party.
Despite dropping nearly 78% during the pandemic, border officials say they anticipate migrant arrivals to swell again as the world and borders begin to reopen.
Residents of Tampa, Florida have reported hearing strange noises coming from the bay for years, and now scientists believe it may be fish ...
