HOT AIR BALLOON FLIGHT

For school children under 12, there's no approved vaccine option yet, and health experts believe masks are the next best thing -- but governors in Florida and Texas are blocking mask mandates.

 

Lucia Baez-Geller spent 15 years teaching in Florida's Miami-Dade County schools before joining the school board. She was one of the seven members of that board who voted to defy Gov. Ron DeSantis' order against mandating masks in public schools. "Due to the governor's anti-mask rhetoric," Baez-Geller wrote, she received "a large number of angry messages" accusing her of "breaking the law, ignoring parental rights, of being brainwashed by 'Big Science,' of being a communist, and worse," along with some supportive responses.

 

"As elected school board members, the health and safety of our students is our number one responsibility. Their health should never be turned into a political or partisan issue, and I hope that the governor changes course and starts to work with us to protect our students from this dangerous disease." On Friday, a Florida judge ruled against the state's effort to stop mask mandates.

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The evacuation of Americans and Afghan refugees had shifted into high gear at Kabul Airport Thursday when a suicide bomber and gunmen attacked crowds outside the airport. Thirteen US service members were among the more than 170 people killed. Frida Ghitis called the "horrific attack" a "reminder of the threats in Afghanistan and the challenges that lie ahead as America tries to disengage."

 

Among the many questions facing the Biden administration: Should the US recognize the Taliban regime? Will the new leaders of Afghanistan, who promise peace and an amnesty, impose the same kind of draconian rule they enforced when they first took over the country in 1996?

 

"So far, evidence that the Taliban has changed is mixed, at best," Ghitis wrote. "Already women have been told to stay home, for their safety. ...Prominent female journalists have reportedly been taken off the air and there is evidence that much worse unfolded as the Taliban swept toward Kabul."

 

In The Atlantic, Peter Nicholas wrote, Thursday's attacks "cast doubt on a core claim that Biden has used to justify the troop pullout—that even without a military presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. can still stave off terrorist attacks." With the evacuation continuing ahead of the Aug. 31 troop withdrawal deadline, he noted, about 1,000 Americans were still in Afghanistan. "Biden has pledged to leave none behind. If anyone remains stranded, Biden's unfulfilled promise may haunt his presidency for the rest of the term, while providing propaganda fodder for terrorists," observed Nicholas.

 

"Is there a greater terrorist threat today than Afghanistan?" That was Peter Bergen's question after the Kabul terror attack. "The UN says thousands of 'foreign fighters' have poured into Afghanistan in the past months, energized by the Taliban's victories, to join jihadist groups such as al Qaeda," Bergen noted. "Just when you think that Biden's unforced error of unilaterally and incompetently withdrawing from Afghanistan couldn't get any worse, it does."

 

Gen. David Petraeus, in a Q&A with Bergen, called the takeover "hugely disheartening and sad" and said the US made key errors in its negotiations with the Taliban over the past three years, beginning with the Trump administration.

 

"First, the negotiations announced to the Afghan people and the Taliban that the US really did intend to leave...regardless of what they committed to us. Second, we undermined the elected Afghan government, however flawed it may have been, by not insisting on a seat for it at the negotiations we were conducting about the country they actually governed. Third, as part of the eventual agreement, we forced the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters, many of whom quickly returned to the fight as reinforcements for the Taliban."

 

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In the past two weeks, the US and its allies have evacuated more than 104,000 civilians from Afghanistan, according to Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, who heads the US Central Command. Many are refugees who aided the US and its partners during the 20-year-long war -- and they face the daunting task of starting over in a new country.

 

When she heard the news of the evacuation, Rep. Ilhan Omar thought back to her own childhood. Her family fled civil war in Somalia and spent nearly four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. "I wouldn't be here today, raising my children in comfort, without the generosity of the Kenyan people, the tireless efforts of UN workers and the welcoming spirit of the American people who gave me and my family a second chance at life," Omar wrote.

 

"In this critical moment, we must draw upon the best of our history and open our arms to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free," she argued. "Of course, every new group of immigrants is met with resistance. After an initial wave of Chinese immigration in the mid-19th century, Congress shamefully passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that wasn't repealed until 1943. After welcoming millions of European migrants at the dawn of the 20th century, nativism took hold and the Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. This law would disgracefully remain fully on the books until 1952, barring millions of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, and forever staining our history."

 

Will America "recognize the suffering and needs of the Afghan people" or fall victim to "nativism and hate"? she asked. "That is the choice our country faces right now. We owe it to the Afghan who risked his life to fight alongside the United States. We owe it to the little girl huddled in a refugee camp, wondering if she will have a shot to ultimately become not just a guest, but an American. I know, because that little girl was me."

 

(If you've come to the US as a refugee from any part of the world and want to write about the experience, the CNN Opinion team is interested in hearing your story. Please email us at cnnopinionsubmissions@turner.com with the subject line: "Resettlement personal essay".)

 

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Martin Luther King III was only 10 when his father was assassinated in Memphis, but he was old enough to see that Martin Luther King Jr. "gave his heart, soul and very life for social justice for people of color and for people who felt the sting of economic disadvantage."

 

The month before he died, former President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to students at the LBJ Library's civil rights symposium, recalled his daughter, Luci B. Johnson. "I watched him place a nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue and rushed to his side afterwards to ask him why he had come to speak when he was so very ill? He told me, 'If I had died speaking for civil rights then I would have gone dying for what I lived for. What more could any man want?'"

 

The children of King and Johnson wrote for CNN Opinion on the 58th anniversary this weekend of the landmark March on Washington. They lamented that much of what their fathers accomplished on voting rights is "unraveling," due to the Supreme Court's 2013 decision gutting a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as legislation in many states that restricts the opportunity to vote.

 

"In 1965, Democrats and Republicans came together to make our fathers' vision for the right to vote a reality for all Americans. Now we must come together once again to deliver on that promise."

It was bad enough that Louis C.K. "recently kicked off a new standup tour with a sold-out pair of shows in New York" featuring offensive jokes of all forms, wrote Sara Stewart.

 

Or that fans of "Ted Lasso" and "In the Heights" had to endure controversies about those otherwise broadly appealing pieces of entertainment. "All along the pop culture spectrum, the time elapsed between a star or show's moment in the sun and a subsequent reckoning (and, sometimes, comeback) seems to be decreasing exponentially," Stewart noted.

 

"I find myself more and more hesitant to sing the praises of a new movie or show or comic or singer, lest it all go to hell two news cycles later. At this tumultuous moment, I think we each have to decide for ourselves which pieces of art to keep, and which to throw out. Perhaps fandom -- defined as the attachment to the artist as creator -- should no longer be the point."

 

As for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," Stewart wrote that controversy over the director's alleged "shoddy treatment of women" concerned her. So she gave it a re-watch and found it "a groundbreaking show that a lot of people besides that guy -- many of them women, like later-seasons showrunner Marti Noxon and writer/producer Jane Espenson -- worked hard to make great."

 

I "still love Buffy, flaws and all. And I've decided I'm keeping it."