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Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Chonda Pierce continues to have the zest for making people laugh despite the tragedy in her life.

 





This past week, my wife and I accepted my sister's invitation to attend a Chonda Pierce comedy event at North Heights Lutheran Church. The concert was filled with bits of laughter as she shared openly with her audience her pain. In my life, I've personally known many comedians. They bring laughter at times we're unable to laugh. Most comedians, I've found, were able to take the darkness that lurks within and turn it into a spring of joy and infestive delight. Chonda Pierce was one such person.

Born Chonda Ruth Courtney on the 4th of March 1960 in Covington, Kentucky, in the United States of America, Chonda Pierce is a contemporary gospel stand-up comedian, television host, author, and actress. She is the third of four children – one boy and three girls. Pierce spent most of her early life in Georgetown, South Carolina, living in Myrtle Beach. When she was 15, her family moved to Ashland City, Tennessee, near Nashville.

Her father, a pastor, was a very abusive man. Her two sisters died before she turned 18: the older, Charlotta Kay, died in a car crash at the age of 20 while the younger, Cheralyn Ann, died of leukemia at 15 years old. Chonda had a traumatic childhood, to say the least.

She attended Trevecca Nazarene University, Nashville for her college, and later got a transfer to Austin Peay State University. She majored in theatre art; having the hope of one day becoming an actress.

On August 13, 2016, Chonda Pierce released the documentary of her life titled ‘Laughing In The Dark and Enough’. It chronicled the loss of her mother, the estrangement of her daughter, the death of her husband, and her struggle with clinical depression. She made the film hoping it would serve as a vehicle to inspire others who may be hitting points of darkness and depression in their lives. The documentary received five Daytime Emmy nominations and won the award for Best Documentary at the 2016 Park City International Film Festival.

She is also the winner of the Gospel Music Association’s Grady Nutt Humor Award and RIAA’s most-awarded female comic in history. Pierce turned her gift of storytelling into a successful comedic career, selling more comedy albums than any other female comedian. She has also authored eight books.

Beyond her works in the business of comedy, Pierce has used her success to help others. In 2006, she founded Branches Recovery Center, offering counseling and treatment to those with depression, anxiety, and addiction problems, regardless of their ability to pay. She has also raised several million dollars for international relief organizations like Compassion International, WorldVision, Food for the Hungry, and Feed The Children.

Chonda Pierce has two children: Chera Pierce Meredith (a daughter born on February 13, 1984) and David Zachary Pierce (her son, born on September 6, 1989.) Her daughter was named after her late sisters. Together with her husband, they were a family of four.

Chera began to resent her parents for reasons that are best known to her. However, it is said that her bitterness with her parents, especially her mom, has to do with Chonda’s extreme focus on her career at the expense of the family. Eventually, Chera got married, had kids, and cut off all contact with her parents and family.

Chonda and her husband, David W. Pierce met for the first time in his sophomore at Cheatham County High School, Ashland City, Tennessee. David was a handsome young lad who was a state champ wrestler; he equally played the guitar. Though he and Chonda started out as friends, their friendship metamorphosed into a full-blown romance over time. As at that time, David was caring for his divorced father who was a chronic alcoholic known as the Ashland City drunkard.

Shortly after college, Chonda and David got married in 1984 in Ashland City, with David working as an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University and Chonda pursuing her career in church comedy. With the loss of their daughter due to family negligence and misplaced parenting, David found solace in alcohol and things got messier for Chonda Pierce.

In 2011, she took David for treatment at Cumberland Heights where he spent 30 days. On his return, the pair celebrated with a dinner. However, it wasn’t long before David’s drinking habit resumed. Chonda took him right back to rehab for further treatment. This time, a men’s rehab in Burns, Tenn.

In the middle of the crisis, Chonda Pierce lost her mother and her relationship with her estranged daughter grew worse.
Sadly, David never managed to overcome his alcoholism, he frequented rehab and counseling outlets until he had a stroke in 2013. Thereafter, he was sustained by life support for more than a year, the doctors were left with no option but to pull the plug on him in 2014. He passed on an hour later with Chonda Pierce watching on.

Through it all, Chonda Pierce has kept on trusting her Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. It wasn't the journey she anticipated ever being on, but it was a journey God is using to help others recover from the dark periods of the soul. Her message is much needed during this pandemic where deep isolation and separateness prevails.

If you are someone who is suffering dark moments of hopelessness and despair, you can the hope Chondra has simply by praying this prayer of salvation.

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.











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Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Buried in the Startribune news paper is this article that highlights how the ban on abortion in Texas is actually saving more lives

 The Texas ban on abortion is saving the life of the mother by not subjecting her to unsafe procedures of terminating her baby's life and it is preserving the life of her unborn child by finding the resources so she will be able to raise her child.  What people do not see is the untold decades-long grief of a mom who made a spur of a moment decision decided to terminate the life within.  This is very real grief that must be factored into the equation. It is my hope that the Texas abortion law will become the law of the land within a matter of years.

Texas abortion law is already saving lives

Alternatives to abortion are out there, and women are being helped. 
By Cynthia M. Allen, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
 
SEPTEMBER 7, 2021 — 11:22AM

Last Wednesday, Lila Rose, the founder of anti-abortion group Live Action, euphorically tweeted, "It's a beautiful day in Texas, which is on its way to being abortion-free."

Her statement was hyperbolic, but only slightly.

On Sept. 1, Texas' fetal heartbeat law took effect, exposing anyone who assists in the procurement of an abortion after the unborn child's heartbeat is detected (with the exception of the pregnant woman, who is explicitly protected) to civil liability.

Effectively, this prohibits abortions at or beyond six weeks of pregnancy (when the majority of abortions occur), except in cases of medical emergency.

Texas' law has not been blocked by the courts, in no small part due to its unusual construction.

It relies on private citizens instead of state actors to enforce abortion restrictions. The legal concept is not new — it's used in instances of Medicaid fraud, for example — but unique in this area of the law.

Chelsey Youman, Texas state director of the anti-abortion group the Human Coalition, says this approach offers a meaningful way for society to engage in the cause of protecting innocent life.

But the mechanism has a practical application, too.

For years, abortion providers have been successful at blocking conventional attempts to regulate doctors and clinics — like establishing certain standards of care — by cherry-picking courts willing to find that almost any regulation on abortion constitutes an undue burden. This usually happens well before the law is even enforced.

But because the Texas law empowers private individuals to sue those who "aid and abet" in an abortion only after one has occurred, it cleverly denies the law's opponents any chance of legal success on a pre-enforcement challenge. It exposes anyone providing an abortion after the law's enactment to financial penalties and potentially even loss of licenses.

It's why the law's challengers have had such difficulty getting a court to stop it, and why their bizarre eleventh-hour appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was summarily and rightly dismissed on procedural grounds.

It's also why the law actually works.

Abortion clinics have already seen "dramatic drops in patients on their schedules," according to the New York Times, while "pregnancy crisis centers, where anti-abortion groups offer pregnancy services, reported surges in phone calls and walk-ins."

For opponents of abortion, especially those who have devoted themselves for decades to protecting the unborn, seeing the fruits of their labors is a tremendous and joyous relief.

But the celebration can be only momentary. Great victory requires great responsibility.

And as the influx in calls to organizations that seek to help women through — and not out of — crisis pregnancies suggests, the work is now really beginning.

There is good news there, too.

In states like Texas, a vast and often underappreciated network of nonprofits, clinics, church groups and medical professionals have already been serving women for years.

Youman said the state now spends $100 million on abortion-alternative services including medical care, counseling and other forms of assistance. The Human Coalition has a network of 2,700 clinics around the country, outnumbering abortion clinics 20:1.

And while a loud but vanishingly small group of abortion-supporting activists "shout their abortions" with pride and insist that few if any women suffer regret or feelings of loss after aborting a child, Youman says that three-quarters of the women walking into her group's clinics admit that if they had other options or assistance, they would much prefer to parent their unplanned children.

"We seek to understand and love the women and their children," she said.

For these organizations, whose work it is to come alongside women in crisis and to help stabilize their circumstances, the mission (at least in Texas) has become that much bigger.

If and, hopefully, when Roe v. Wade is overturned and regulation of abortion is returned to the states, anti-abortion groups will again need to redouble their efforts.

They will also need to recalibrate their legal strategy. As even staunch conservatives have pointed out, Texas' heartbeat law is far from ideal, especially in a post-Roe context. It should not necessarily become the model for other states.

But today, it will save the lives of an estimated 150 children in Texas.

That is reason enough for celebration and a reminder that this is where the pro-life cause begins in earnest.


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Tuesday, September 7, 2021

This pandemic has lead to a record number of opioid overdoses that threatens to surpass 2020's total.

 

Pandemic, homelessness brought record overdose calls in Minneapolis

By  and  Star Tribune
 
SEPTEMBER 4, 2021 — 6:14PM

After a year in which Minneapolis first responders were called to a record 1,400 suspected drug overdoses, they are on pace to match that total in 2021.

Firefighters responded to at least 1,361 nonfatal and fatal overdose calls during a pandemic-stricken 2020 — many involving opioids — an increase of 25% from the roughly 1,089 such incidents that they handled in 2019, according to a Star Tribune analysis of thousands of incident reports. The pace of overdose calls in the first three months of this year put the city on track to nearly equal 2020's final tally.

Fire personnel administered nearly 900 doses of the opioid reversal drug, Narcan, last year — or more than twice a day, on average.

As COVID-19 swept through the U.S. last year, substance abuse experts and advocates say the country's opioid epidemic began to feel like a forgotten crisis. And yet, more than 90,000 Americans died by drug overdose in the 12 months ending in October 2020, according to preliminary federal data — more than the number of people killed by guns and car crashes last year combined.

Officials say that while most overdoses appear to be opioid-related, there has also been a rise in the use of stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine.

The Star Tribune's analysis found that nonfatal and fatal overdoses surged locally last year, with previously hard-hit neighborhoods on the city's South Side again recording high numbers of calls. But the analysis also revealed that the opioid epidemic spread to other parts of the city unaccustomed to high calls.

Minneapolis drug overdose calls

Minneapolis firefighters responded to almost 1,400 overdose calls in 2020, an increase of 25% from 2019. The calls were most concentrated in the East Phillips neighborhood.

Data source: City of Minneapolis

The Star Tribune reviewed roughly 27 months of Fire Department reports, using keywords such as "overdose" "OD," "Narcan," and the names of other common opioids to identify calls that involved suspected overdoses. The figures almost certainly undercount overdoses since many go unreported and some victims go directly to the hospital or clinic to seek treatment. But, the data give the clearest picture yet of how the opioid crisis has spread through the city.

As in years past, overdose-related calls were most concentrated in the East Phillips neighborhood. Authorities in 2020 responded to at least 44 overdose calls in a two-block radius of a now-shuttered Speedway gas station at 25th and Bloomington avenues, the analysis shows. Another hot spot near the intersection of Franklin and Minnehaha avenues recorded 35 overdoses.

On the city's North Side, the only significant hot spot was centered along W. Broadway near N. Lyndale Avenue, which has a reputation as one of the city's largest open-air drug markets.

The pandemic undoubtedly contributed to the surge in opioid use, as many Americans found themselves struggling to navigate life amid feelings of isolation and financial stress from lost jobs, according to medical professionals and researchers who study addiction. And more people began using drugs alone, meaning there was no one around to bring them back if they overdosed. Meanwhile, many drug users were cut off from treatment as clinics closed or reduced patient contact.

"People rely on a network of support to assist in their recovery from addiction, and without having close people taking care of each other, that puts people at risk," said Dr. Serena King, a psychology professor at Hamline University who has studied gambling and substance addiction. "The pain and stress of the pandemic has affected many people, and some people have returned to substances of abuse to address existing pain and suffering they're experiencing."

At the same time, she says, the pandemic also exposed longtime disparities in access to opioid treatment, based on race, income and other demographic factors.

Authorities say that another reason for the rise in overdoses is the growing availability of the synthetic painkiller fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin and can be lethal to non-opioid users in doses as small as two milligrams. In 2016, the DEA issued a warning about the increasing number of dealers buying pill presses and cheap fentanyl on the internet and then making fake oxycodone or Xanax pills and selling them for $30 to $35 each. The small tablets are often crushed and snorted, to produce a faster high. The problem is that most dealers aren't mixing the fentanyl correctly, authorities say, leaving users guessing at the potency of the drugs — turning casual drug use into a form of Russian roulette.

The spread of fentanyl has coincided with the growing overdose death rates of Black, Latino and Native Americans, officials say, groups that have also been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Such disparities were one of the reasons that in 2015 Marc Johnigan founded Twin Cities Recovery Project, which offers culturally specific recovery services and serves as a "safe space [where] individuals who're in transition could come and have social events."

Because of the racial inequities of the past War on Drugs, which led to over-policing in Black neighborhoods and the disproportional incarceration of men, many Black users are reluctant to openly discuss their addictions, he said.

"Our community needs to understand that this is a disease, that it's not a moral failing," he said.

In recent months, officials have ramped up outreach in the Native and East African communities. Mayor Jacob Frey included $100,000 in his proposed 2022 budget to develop an opioid treatment center for people who were wary of visiting the hospital. And last month, the city applied for a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Justice Department to "develop, implement, or expand comprehensive programs in response to illicit opioids, stimulants, or other substances of abuse." The proposed project would focus on the Phillips and Powderhorn Park neighborhoods and specifically on a five-block radius around the intersection of Bloomington Avenue and E. Lake Street.

In Hennepin County, deaths related to opioids jumped last year, notably picking up in March, around the initial surge in the pandemic as the health care system struggled to cope with the virus' outbreak. At least 285 people died from opioid overdoses countywide in 2020 — almost exclusively from fentanyl and its analogues — up from 170 in 2019, setting a five-year high. Preliminary county data show the trend has continued this year, with 164 fatal opioid overdoses through June, compared with 128 in the same period in 2020.

The Star Tribune's analysis found that not only did the overall number of drug-related calls increase citywide, but there were more overdose hot spots in 2020 than the year before.

In 2019, one small area along Hiawatha Avenue accounted for more than 60 overdoses. While that area saw fewer incidents in 2020 — possibly due to the closure of a nearby homeless encampment — there were at least 29 areas with 10 or more overdoses in 2020.

In the first three months of 2021, neighborhoods like East Phillips, Elliot Park, the North Loop, Jordan and Audubon Park were on pace to exceed their 2020 totals, while Willard-Hay, Seward and Ventura Village — a major hot spot two years ago — were on pace for declines.

Emily Ralph, who runs a food shelf in Ventura Village, said that drug buyers and sellers who hang out in the area occasionally cause a commotion that startles the families lining up to receive food. But given the ongoing debate over the role of police since the murder of George Floyd, Ralph said she now thinks twice about calling 911.

"We would like to know what other resources are out there, maybe more community-oriented resources," she said.

Terry Haigler takes a different view, saying he wishes that authorities would have stepped up law enforcement over the years he ran a series of Christian sober houses, including one in the Seward neighborhood.

"I can see if you want to have compassion and not harass people who were in active addiction … but sitting on a park bench where children play it's still a crime, and you don't solve a problem by ignoring it," said Haigler. Many hot spots were centered on homeless encampments.

Mo Mike, a syringe services specialist at the Indigenous Peoples Task Force in the East Phillips neighborhood, sees a link between homelessness and addiction, saying that nothing will change until the city solves its affordable housing shortage. On top of that, Mike says, "a lot of people out there are just really dealing with intergenerational trauma" and untreated mental illnesses.

And yet, city officials seem more interested in tearing down encampments than in helping the people who call them home, according to Linda Julik, a regular presence along Bloomington Avenue who for years has collected used needles and passed out Narcan, fentanyl test strips and other necessities.

With so many people losing their safety nets due to the pandemic, Julik said that she has noticed the unsheltered people are increasingly turning to fentanyl or drugs laced with bath salts, which send users "flip-flopping like a crappie."

That more people aren't dying, she said, is thanks to the wide availability of Narcan.

Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter: @StribJany

Michael Corey • 612-673-4750 Twitter: @mikejcorey

Libor Jany is the Minneapolis crime reporter for the Star Tribune. He joined the newspaper in 2013, after stints in newsrooms in Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Mississippi. He spent his first year working out of the paper's Washington County bureau, focusing on transportation and education issues, before moving to the Dakota County team.

 612-673-4064 

Michael Corey is a news developer for the Star Tribune. He specializes in data journalism, and his reporting has focused on mapping, science, remote sensing, history, data on the radio, police use of force, the U.S.-Mexico border wall and sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

 
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