Forbes deleted an article written by an education expert who asserted that forcing schoolchildren to wear face masks was causing psychological trauma after the piece began to go viral.
The article (archived here) was written by Zak Ringelstein, who has a a PhD in education from Columbia University and founded Zigadoo, an educational and development app aimed at helping children.
Ringelstein explains how he worked hard to remove standardized testing from schools but that this was derailed when the pandemic began, a process that “transformed the American public education system into something unrecognizable: a system of restrictions and mandates far more repressive than standardized testing ever was.”
Ringelstein attacked the notion that “kids are resilient” and can overcome the onerous COVID rules imposed on them by asserting, “Masks and social distancing induce trauma and trauma at a young age is developmentally dangerous, especially for children who are experiencing trauma in other parts of their lives.”
He went further, noting how the new measures were creating classrooms full of lonely, atomized kids.
Forcing people to use vaccine passports to access everyday freedoms is apparently protecting their civil liberties, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization’s opinion was, for obvious reasons, criticized as part of its continued recent decline into politicalization and moving away from values it once supported.
The ACLU expressed its controversial opinion in an op-ed in The New York Times. According to the civil liberties groups, there is permissibility for COVID-19 vaccine passport mandates because: “The disease is highly transmissible, serious and often lethal; the vaccines are safe and effective; and crucially there is no equally effective alternative available to protect public health.”
The ACLU added: “In fact, far from compromising civil liberties, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties. They protect the most vulnerable among us, including people with disabilities and fragile immune systems, children too young to be vaccinated and communities of color hit hard by the disease.”
President Biden on Thursday told Jewish leaders that he spent time at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after the October 2018 mass murder of 11 people there — but the synagogue told The Post he never visited.
“I remember spending time at the, you know, going to the, you know, the Tree of Life synagogue, speaking with them,” Biden said in a 16-minute virtual address ahead of the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Barb Feige, executive director of the Tree of Life, said that Biden did not visit the synagogue in the nearly three years since the anti-Semitic attack.
In a phone interview, Feige, executive director since July 2019, said firmly that “no” Biden didn’t visit, even before taking office when he had a lower public profile as a former vice president and then-Democratic presidential candidate.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Then-President Donald Trump visited the Tree of Life three days after the worst anti-Jewish hate crime in US history. Trump was joined by prominent Jewish members of his administration, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Biden last year issued a statement on the second anniversary of the attack, saying, “When anti-Semitism is allowed to fester, it shreds the fabric of our communities and erodes our soul.”
In his Thursday remarks to Jewish leaders, Biden also praised Pope Francis and shared personal anecdotes about his own links to Judaism and Israel.
“I happen to be a practicing Catholic and one of the things I like about my pope today is that he’s all about renewal and forgiveness… and I hope I’m going to get to see him in the not too distant future,” Biden said.
The president went on to reflect on his daughter Ashley Biden marrying a Jewish surgeon, Howard Krein, in 2012 and to recount his conversations with the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
“My daughter married a Jewish young man. And, you know, it’s the dream of every Catholic father that she married a Jewish doctor,” Biden joked.
“We had a chuppah on the altar… Now some of you aren’t gonna like this, but it was co-officiated by a Catholic priest as well as a Jewish rabbi.”
Biden said that his only request was for “my favorite hymn” to be played at the wedding — “On Eagle’s Wings” — but that he was unpleasantly surprised when the ceremony instead played “Hava Nagilah.”
“I only asked one thing… And they played, and my mind is going blank now, what’s the song that is played where everybody is on the chair? I can’t remember it. Anyway, but that’s the song that was played,” Biden recounted.
The president added: “So you know, I don’t know what the hell’s going on here. I just had one little favor, you know, just that they play ‘On Eagle’s Wings’.”
Biden mentioned his interactions with Meir while discussing his recent meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
“She kept pulling the maps down and showing me how many people have died and what happened,” said Biden, who took office as a senator in 1973 and met with Meir that year.
“She said, ‘We have no place else to go. We have no place else to go.’ Well, the truth of the matter is, that’s probably true, but it’s so sad. And we have to make — we have to continue to fight like hell to make sure there’s any place,” Biden said.
A fatal shooting officers say appears to have been in self-defense has launched a 35th homicide investigation of the year for Tulsa Police Department.
Officers responded around 4:15 a.m. Thursday to a shooting call from the 2100 block of North Hartford Avenue, where a victim later identified as Isaac Weeks was found with a gunshot wound to the chest. Weeks, 40, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to a Tulsa Police Department news release.
The individual identified as the shooter reportedly turned himself in and was questioned by detectives from the Homicide Unit before being released pending further investigation.
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Going into effect Wednesday is HB 3979. The bill abolishes teaching critical-race theory in public schools.
So how will this affect your child or your child’s teacher?
Administrators in the largest school district in the area, CCISD said not much is going to change and, like any other day, it’s business as usual.
“Our teachers will be teaching business as usual in line with our state standards,” said Kimberly James, Deputy Superintendent for CCISD.
State standards set by the Texas Board of Education via TEKS, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills.
The district also says it’ll continue to also follow CCISD board policy that’s already in place which includes that “the board relies on staff to present various sides of controversial issues….So that students can develop and make informed judgments in their daily lives.”
House Bill 3979 has been referred to as a critical race theory bill because, among other things, it bans teachers from teach anything that says a race or sex is inherently racist or oppressive, that an individual by virtue of their race is racist or oppressive, and that an individual bears responsibility for actions committed in the past and that no one should be made to feel guilty for their race or sex.
The bill is still being amended in the special session which ends next week. If not signed, it will keep House Bill 3979 as is.
SEATTLE – A would-be robbery victim turned the tables on his attacker, killing the suspect who allegedly demanded money from the man early Tuesday in Capitol Hill. police said.
Police say the man was in the 1000 block of East John Street at 1:12 a.m. when a 24-year-old man tried to rob him.
The 39-year-old man told police he took out his gun and opened fire, shooting the suspect.
Detectives say the potential robbery suspect was rushed to a hospital, where he later died.
“Deputies aren’t certain why the suspected intruder entered the home.”
“Detectives are working to determine what led up to the shooting.”
Huh? ‘I’ll take both ‘Burglary‘ and ‘Self Defense‘ for $500, Alex………..
A 46-year-old man who deputies suspect was a home intruder died Tuesday night after being shot at a home in Bonney Lake.
The man was shot Tuesday afternoon by the homeowner’s son, Pierce County Sheriff’s Department Detective Alex Richards said. He said the suspected intruder entered the home, and an altercation between the man and the 31-year-old son ensued.
The homeowner’s son shot the suspected intruder, Richards said. The man was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and later died.
The homeowner wasn’t at the residence at the time of the shooting, Richards said. He said the son was interviewed by investigators who determined the shooting was likely self-defense. He was not booked into jail.
Deputies aren’t certain why the suspected intruder entered the home. Richards said the investigation is ongoing.
Initial post (Aug. 31, 2:30 p.m.): A Bonney Lake man called 911 Tuesday morning to tell police he shot an intruder inside his home. The man shot was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.
Pierce County sheriff’s deputies responded about 11:10 a.m. to the 3200 block of 214th Avenue East near Bonney Lake after a 911 caller reported hearing gunshots coming from a neighbor’s house, according to posts on the department’s Facebook page.
Minutes later, another person called 911 and said he had shot an intruder inside his home, according to the post.
At the scene, deputies found a man inside the house with a gunshot wound. He was taken to the hospital.
Detectives are working to determine what led up to the shooting. No arrests have been made.
The fatal shooting of a man at 5520 Cavalcade Street that occurred about 5:05 p.m. Tuesday (August 31) will be referred to a Harris County grand jury.
The victim, Michael Saulsberry, 40, was transported to Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
The male shooter remained at the scene and was questioned and released, pending further investigation.
HPD Homicide Division Sergeant B. Smith and Detective M. Estep reported:
HPD officers responded to a shooting at the above address and found a Mr. Saulsberry suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics transported him to the hospital. .
Based upon statements from the shooter and evidence at the scene, the shooting appears to have been in self defense.
You can tell a Democrat is president, because we’re starting to see pieces blaming “us” for his mistakes. In TheAtlantic a couple of weeks ago, Tom Nichols wrote that “Afghanistan Is Your Fault.” “American citizens,” Nichols suggested, “will separate into their usual camps and identify all of the obvious causes and culprits except for one: themselves.” Today, Max Boot makes the same argument in the Post. “Who’s to blame for the deaths of 13 service members in Kabul?” he asks. Answer: “We all are.”
This is of a piece with the tendency of journalists and historians to start muttering about how the presidency is “too big for one man” when the bad president in question is a Democrat. Under these terms, Republicans just aren’t up to the job, while Democrats are the victims of design or modernity or of the public being feckless. Last year, coronavirus was Trump’s fault. Now, it’s the fault of Republican governors and the unvaccinated (well, only some of the unvaccinated).
Still, this has happened pretty quickly with Joe Biden. Usually, it takes a couple of years before the press starts to sound like a bunch of hippies sitting around a fire saying, “you know, in a sense, you’re me and I’m you, and all of us are we — and so when the president makes a mistake, it’s really, like, the universe making a mistake, isn’t it? And, y’know, we’re in the universe, so we are the presidency. That’s democracy, man.”
Question O’ The Day
Two questions everyone should be asking right now: – For how long in advance did we have eyes on the Kabul bomber *prior* to his arrival at HKIA? – Who issued the stand down order to the Predator drone operator that had a lock on the Kabul bomber? https://t.co/KvbxI5t8X2
A search-and-rescue operation was underway Tuesday night off the coast of San Diego for five crewmembers after the crash of an MH-60S helicopter from the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier about 60 nautical miles from shore, according to a report.
The helicopter was “conducting routine flight operations,” and crashed at about 4:30 p.m., Fox 5 San Diego reported. The Navy did not immediately respond to an email from Fox News. The U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement one crewmember was rescued.
MELBOURNE [Florida]— A Melbourne barbershop owner shot and wounded a masked gunman who entered the shop Saturday afternoon and pointed a firearm at several people, police said Sunday.
The shooting occurred about 3:25 p.m. Saturday at New York Hair Barber Shop, which is located in a small strip mall on Florida Avenue, just west of Babcock Street, said Melbourne Police Lt. Ryan Schorer.
The gunman, whom police identified as Palm Bay resident Marlon Mascoe, 24, was shot in the hip. He was disarmed and apprehended at the scene by patrons and employees, and is being treated at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Schorer said.
“The investigation revealed that it wasn’t related to a robbery. It was actually related to a prior haircut transaction he was unhappy with, or an interaction inside the business,” Schorer said.
Mascoe has been charged with aggravated assault with a firearm.
The grieving mother of a fallen Marine, Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikou, met with President Joe Biden on Sunday at the dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base.
The mother, Shana Chappell, took to social media to share her agonizing story of meeting the president, which didn’t sit well with the Facebook and Instagram censors. She was locked out of her social media accounts for what she had to say about the president.
“President Joe Biden, This [message] is for you!” Chappell wrote. “I know my face is etched into your brain! I was able to look you straight in the eyes yesterday and have words with you. After I lay my son to rest you will be seeing me again!”
Image credit: Shana Chappell/Facebook
“Remember I am the one who stood 5 inches from your face and was letting you know I would never get to hug my son again, hear his laugh and then you tried to interrupt met and give me your own sob story and I had to tell you ‘that this isn’t about you so don’t make it about you!!!!’” she wrote.
“You then said you just wanted me to know that you know how I feel and I let you know that you don’t know how I feel and you do not have the right to tell me you know how I feel!” she said.
“[You] then rolled your f***ing eyes in your head like you were annoyed with me and I let you know that the only reason I was talking to you was out of respect for my son and that was the only reason why,” Chappell added. “I then proceeded to tell you again how you took my son away from me and how I will never get to hug him, kiss him, laugh with him again, etc.”
“[You] turned to walk away and I let you know my sons blood was on your hands and you threw your hand up behind you as you walked away from me like you were saying ‘ok whatever!!!” she continued.
“You are not the president of the United States of America Biden!!!!” Chappell wrote. “Cheating isn’t winning!!! You are not leader of any kind! You are a weak human being and a traitor!!!”
“You turned your back on my son, on all of our Heros!!! You are leaving the White House one way or another because you do not belong there!” Chappell continued. “MY SONS BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!! All 13 of them, their blood is on your hands!!!!”
“If my president Trump was in his rightful seat then my son and the other Heros would still be alive!!!!” Chappell added. “You will be seeing me again very soon!!!”
“[By the way] as my son and the rest of our fallen Heros were being taken off the plane yesterday I watched you disrespect us all 5 different times by checking your watch!!!” she said. “What the f*** was so important that you had to keep looking at our watch????”
You’ve likely run into Wiki-how. It’s a well known site and gives easy instructions on how to do things. Well, guess they got political now. Take a look on their picture “how” on “how to avoid mass shootings:
UPDATE 8/30/2021: On August 27, 2021, at approximately 11:20 p.m. deputies from the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office responded to the 23200 block of Woodland Acres Road in California, for the reported burglary with an individual shot.
Deputies arrived on scene and located an individual, later identified as Tavein Malik Dickens, age 23 of Lexington Park, suffering from a gunshot wound. Lifesaving measures were attempted at the scene and Dickens was transported to an area trauma center where he was later pronounced deceased.
Preliminary investigation determined Dickens forced entry to the residence through the front door after repeatedly banging on other exterior doors and windows around the residence.
As Dickens entered the residence, he was confronted by the homeowner at which time a struggle ensued. During the struggle, the homeowner discharged a firearm, striking Dickens in the upper body.
The investigation is ongoing and will be reviewed with the State’s Attorney for St. Mary’s County
SEGREGATON NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER!
-Alabama governor George Wallace, 14 January 1963 inaugural speech.
What did Kipling write? “And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire”
American University [Washington D.C.] has created a Black-only course section, or classroom, for a class on racism, which freshmen are required to take.
Many universities use course sections to break larger cohorts into smaller-sized classrooms.
According to The Eagle, the university added a Black affinity course section to AUx2, a class where students learn about “race, social identity, and structures of power.” In the course, students will “evaluate how racism intersects with other systems of oppression.”
The student newspaper states that all-Black sections of the course began during the spring 2020 semester, an addition that had been considered for a few years.
“We’ve definitely heard from Black students and other students of color that the material can be a lot for them because it is part of their lived experiences,” Izzi Stern, the AUx program manager told the student newspaper. “And we wanted to create a space where they could be together in community and have an overall positive experience with the course.”
On the university’s webpage, a former AUx2 peer said this:
“The AUx Program is fundamentally shifting the culture, and students, of American University, while simultaneously fulfilling the institutions’ commitment to social justice and equity. I could not be more enthusiastic about my support for the transformative impact of the AUx2 course.”
Julien Hector a sophomore at American University, told The Eagle, “Having an all-Black space truly changes the way you interact in that space and the level of comfort you feel.”
Hector later on in the student newspaper article, went on to question why American University had not added more affinity groups based on race. The article goes on to say that AU might be adding affinity groups not just based on race, but based on other defining characteristics such as gender identity.
As of August 15, 2021, 68% of COVID patients admitted to hospital in the U.K. who were over the age of 50 had received one or two doses of COVID injections. By mid-August, 59% of serious cases in Israel were also among those who had received two COVID injections, mirroring U.K. data
Only in the 50 and younger category were a majority, 74%, of British COVID patients unvaccinated. Those claiming we’re in a pandemic of the unvaccinated fail to differentiate between age groups
The same applies to COVID deaths in the U.K. Unvaccinated make up the majority of deaths only in the under-50 age group. In the over-50 group, the clear majority, 70%, are either partially or fully “vaccinated”
We cannot rely on U.S. data to get a clear idea of how the COVID shots are working, as the CDC has chosen to only track breakthrough cases that result in hospitalization and/or death
Reanalysis of Pfizer’s, Moderna’s and Janssen’s COVID trial data using the proper endpoint show the shots are hurting the health of the population, and if mass vaccination continues we face “a looming vaccine-induced public health catastrophe”
A new study shows that vaccinated individuals are up to 13 times more likely to get infected with the new Delta variant than unvaccinated individuals who have had a natural COVID infection
On Saturday night I had just sat down to have a drink with a friend when he got a call. He apologized for having to take it, but it was urgent: it was about the Afghan women’s orchestra. They were stuck in Kabul and desperate to get out. He was involved in the effort to extract them.
Twenty minutes later, we ordered another martini.
I’ve been thinking a lot these past two weeks about luck. The luck of where we are born. The luck of the parents we are born to. And, right now, the luck of who we know.
Knowing — or having proximity to someone who knows my well-placed friend, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — is a matter of life or death for untold numbers of Afghans.
Listen to the plea of just one of them:
The question of who will live and who will die — part of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer that all Jews say on the high holy days, which are just around the corner — is supposed to be in the hands of God. But right now, for so many Afghans, the answer to that question is in the hands of the Taliban. The chance to live relies on Americans: those who have the luck to live in freedom and those who are determined to right what the Biden administration has gotten so horribly wrong.
Melissa Chen is one of those people.
Melissa co-founded an organization called Ideas Beyond Borders, which digitizes and translates English books and articles into Arabic. And not just any books: Books like Orwell’s ‘“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Steven Pinker’s “Enlightenment Now,” and a graphic novel based on John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty.” Works that promote reason, pluralism and liberty. Suffice it to say the translators she works with in places like Egypt, Syria and Iraq do so at great risk.
Because of her connections in the Middle East — and because she is the kind of person who lives by her principles — it did not surprise me that she found herself involved in the efforts to save Afghans from the horrors of the Taliban. She shares some of the details of those remarkable efforts in the essay below.
The operation to get American allies out of Kabul has been dubbed the Underground Railroad and Digital Dunkirk. But I can’t help but think of the MS St. Louis. That’s the ship that came to this country in 1939 packed with more 900 Jews fleeing Germany. To our country’s eternal shame we turned the ship around and into the arms of the Third Reich. — BW
For the past two weeks I have been part of a 21st century Underground Railroad. We are a ragtag group — combat veterans, human rights activists, ex-special forces, State Department officials, intelligence agents, members of Congress, non-profit organizers, and private individuals with the resources to charter planes and helicopters — who have stepped into the vacuum left by the Biden administration.
Today the Pentagon announced the end of our 20-year war in Afghanistan. But there are hundreds of Americans and an estimated 250,000 Afghan allies who remain trapped there. Many of these Afghans, due to the nature of their work, their religious beliefs, their minority ethnic status or even just their appearance (say, sporting tattoos anywhere on their bodies), see escape as a matter of life and death. As Kabul descended into chaos, their pleas for help leaving were largely met with bureaucratic silence.
The operation to save them began before the Taliban were seen riding bumper cars in amusement parks and occupying the presidential palace. Many veterans and civilians who had deep ties to the country were under no illusions about the nature of the Taliban and what a deal with them would mean for the people who had worked with the U.S.
Long before Kabul fell, I noticed that military friends started using Facebook and Twitter to figure out how to help their “terps” — interpreters, linguists and translators who served alongside them during their tours in Afghanistan. WhatsApp groups, email threads, and ad hoc task forces with their own central command centers sprang up spontaneously. Google docs were cobbled together to compile and share resources for individuals assisting their Afghan friends in their evacuation and eventual resettlement. No one was relying on a White House that had voluntarily closed Bagram Airbase or a commander-in-chief who, as of last month, was assuring the American public that a Taliban takeover “is not inevitable.”
No One Left Behind, a charity that was founded to help interpreters through the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program and resettle them in the U.S., has been at the vanguard of these efforts. Human Rights Foundation and Human Rights First were very effective in helping activists and dissidents secure political asylum. AfghanEvac, a self-organized group of beltway insiders and outsiders, have been logistical ninjas, chartering planes and requesting landing rights in neighboring countries. The Commercial Task Force set up shop in a conference room at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C., and has so far helped evacuate 5,000 Afghan refugees. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton set up a war room office to take over the duties and responsibilities that the State Department had abdicated. Democratic Rep. Andy Kim had his office set up an email account to assist those seeking help evacuating allies.
And then there were the extraction teams like Task Force Pineapple and Task Force Dunkirk, informal, volunteer groups of U.S. veterans who took matters in their own hands to launch dangerous secret missions to save hundreds of at-risk Afghan allies and their families.
Because of my work with Ideas Beyond Borders, I wound up in one of these coalitions and joined several group chats on Telegram and WhatsApp. They would ping at all hours of the night with updates about the latest conditions on the ground and about assistance with particular cases. Any successful evacuation was announced and had its steps reverse-engineered in the hopes that it might help another hopeful evacuee.
It was in one of these groups that I met Esther Joy King.
Esther Joy King dancing in Kabul in 2008.
King, a 35-year-old lawyer from Illinois who recently announced a run for Congress, had spent time in Kabul as an aid worker in 2008. But the seeds of her connection to Afghanistan were planted long before: Esther’s grandparents had immigrated there under the last King of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Her grandfather taught at the American University of Kabul; her grandmother was a midwife; both were Christian missionaries. Esther’s mother, Susan King, was born in Kabul and spent the first nine years of her life there.
When Esther moved to Kabul for her aid work, Susan, together with her husband Robert, took the opportunity to visit. The Kings decided to stay on to start a K-12, co-ed school called Bahar International School in the Kart-e-Char neighborhood of Kabul. Susan taught English there until her cancer diagnosis just this year in February; she passed away in April. When she died, Esther filled in and took over her mom’s classes, teaching remotely until the end of the school term in May.
Robert and Susan King welcoming children to their school in Kabul.
Three girls — Rahima, Mursal and Spoogemi — stood out in her class. They were eager to learn more, so Esther continued tutoring them well into the summer and ultimately secured three student visas for them in the U.S. The plan was for the girls to attend boarding school in Nebraska.
The story of one of those girls, 15-year-old Rahima, paints as accurate a picture as any about the chaos involved in, and the fortune required to get people out of Kabul.
Rahima on Skype with Esther the night before Kabul fell.
Rahima made her first attempt at Karzai International Airport on August 16 with her student visa in hand. Amid the chaos, she Skyped Esther from 7,000 miles away. “Miss Esther,” she said, “I saw someone fall from the sky to die.” Flights shut down that day, so Rahima went to a safehouse to wait for further instruction.
Five days later, she made her second attempt. Rahima and her 13-year-old brother made it within 200 feet of the airport’s Abbey Gate. By this point, the State Department had outsourced visa and identity verification to the Taliban, quite literally putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. It was nightfall and the gates were already closed, so the siblings had no choice but to spend the night there, in front of the Taliban guards, who harassed them and beat them.
It was at this point that Esther told me she found out about a WhatsApp group with roughly 15 members including a former CIA agent and a former Marine who had connections on the ground. They had successfully extracted other girls from the school and felt they could do the same for Rahima.
Three days later, on August 24, the teenager and her family made their third attempt, armed with a map of Taliban checkpoints sent by someone from the WhatsApp group. They made it to the Abbey Gate without any obstacles. But the Marines wouldn’t acknowledge Rahima. The crowd was increasingly out of control, pushing them further and further back till she could no longer see the gate. The entire time, Rahima was sharing updates with the WhatsApp group.
There she learned that a particular U.S. Marine would be willing to extract her and her brother from the crowd. The catch was that they would have to wait till 2 AM, after his shift guarding a separate entrance ended. The plan was to gather at a certain tower where they, and another family with a baby in a pink hat, would be personally escorted into the airport. Passwords were coordinated: Pedro and Jolly.
At go time, Rahima turned on her flashlight to signal to the tower, trying to draw the Marines’ attention to her. No response. After 45 minutes, the WhatsApp group informed her that she was at the wrong tower. By now, Rahima was exhausted and defeated. She begged Esther to ask the Marine to come to them and not the other way around.
Knowing that was an impossibility, one of the women in the WhatsApp group, Erica Jensen of Omaha, Nebraska, had an idea. Her neighbor was an Afghan woman, so she ran across the street and banged on her door. What they needed was a very clear explanation of where Rahima needed to go with exact directions to the right tower in her native language, Dari. Stepping over sleeping bodies in the crowd, Rahima and her family made the trek and eventually found the Marine waiting for them.
Once through to the airport, the family still had to undergo biometric screening, waiting in lines for another 20 hours. Their ordeal did not end there. After they boarded a plane bound for Qatar, the pilot informed them that the destination — a military base in Doha — was so overcrowded that they had no authorization to take-off. Another 24 hours elapsed as the family sat in a Boeing C-17. Esther reached out to Rahima on WhatsApp, telling her that she couldn’t wait for her to to arrive in America.
Rahima and her family just before boarding the plane where they sat for 24 hours.
Esther woke up early on Thursday morning to good news. Rahima and her family had made it to Kuwait. Asked how she even had cell phone reception, Rahima explained: “Oh, I borrowed a soldier’s hotspot.” The entire WhatsApp group received a message from the teenager that read: “I learned a precious lesson from you all, that I should always stand with people and help whenever I can.”
When I asked Esther how she did it, she replied, “miracles and persistence. Oh and WhatsApp. Thank God for WhatsApp.”
Esther Joy King (in pink pants) in her Situation Room, with volunteers filling out spreadsheets, passenger manifests and other paperwork.
As for me, as Esther had been working on getting Rahima out, I had been fretting over a list. On August 17, I was part of a group that was given access to a list of 500 names of Afghan aid workers, human rights activists, and religious and ethnic minorities. When it became clear that the American government wasn’t doing enough, such lists started circulating among various volunteers. My heart sank when the person in charge of flight manifests asked us to split the list into “high priority” and just “priority.”
By Wednesday night, August 25, shortly after receiving a memo from the U.S. military that signed off with a bleak “may God be with you all,” I was asked to cut my evacuation list down to just five people.
Message that Melissa received from a contact working with the Commercial Task Force shortly before the bombing at Kabul airport.
I struggled with this intensely, especially after reading hundreds of emails with personal pleas, and poring over documentation of entire Afghan families with real faces and identities. I could not do it. But I had to do it. Along with my co-worker, Faisal Al Mutar, I ultimately did pick just five based on a basic evaluation of relative risk and ease of extraction. The moral weight of such a decision was overwhelming. We should have never been in a position to make such a call in the first place.
A few hours later, we got the devastating news that a suicide bomb went off right outside the Abbey Gate, taking the lives of 13 American service members and more than 90 Afghans. It was the same gate where Rahima and so many of Esther’s students and teachers had attempted to gain access to a departing plane.
Tomorrow is August 31, the Biden administration’s “hard deadline” for withdrawal. It’s clear that we won’t be able to evacuate all the Afghans we promised to protect. It’s clear that we won’t be able to help those Afghans, especially women and girls, who will now face the barbarism of Taliban rule.
But people like Esther are not giving up. She and her father are determined to continue helping bring more at-risk Afghans to safety. So far, they helped more than 50 peopleescape.
Meanwhile, my WhatsApp groups keep buzzing. My email inbox swells with requests. A young singer and model begs me to save her life: “Being an Afghan woman under the Taliban is tough enough but being a Muslim who sings songs and models is even more difficult. My life is in danger. Please help.”
