Inaccessible Accessibility

Why is remote learning suddenly so difficult to access when we have all the tech we need to pull it off?

When I was in grade 12, I started to just show up to classes I needed to go to. I had high 90s, so I just went for clarification when I couldn't understand the textbook, and I showed up for every lab and test. That's what worked best for me as a learner. Unfortunately, missing classes didn't go over well with admin, and I was "disinvited" to be in school. I loved learning, and I did very well on tests and assignments, but I never actually finished high-school.

I didn't feel like a rebel or the trouble-maker they might have seen me as. I just found it painfully tedious to sit through lengthy explanations of something I already understood, and I was unable to (and not allowed to) just tune it out and do other work during class. Could you even imagine bringing a walkman to class?? It's rude to do other work while someone's talking, so every class was an exercise in tolerating the repetitive droning on and on until everyone understood and was quiet enough for me to finally start the homework questions. 

Then I went to university a few years later, as a mature student, and nobody took attendance, and I could actually learn in the way that worked best for me. I went to most classes because they were full of rousing discussion, but I didn't go when profs (often "instructors") just literally read out the textbook to us. I thrived in that environment that enabled autonomy over my own learning and went on to do a masters as well. 

Now universities take attendance, and it's vital to attend, in person, even if nothing significant is gained from my presence in the room for myself, for my prof, or for the class. 

Yup, It's Still Airborne

The much publicized 60 Minutes episode on Covid ran last night. Lots of accolades on social media, but I wasn't impressed. We're just happy for scraps at this point.

The segment ran in two parts. The main part, at 13 minutes, was all about cleaning air in buildings. As they walked through a high tech Amazon office, they showed how they were able to keep the CO2 in every room below 800 ppm (I would have aimed for 500, but okay). The whole time I thought: that will never be available to public schools. Never. AND, they very much implied that clean air is all we need. Dr. Sean Mullen commented on social media today:

"Please know that in spaces with a high volume of humans, for long periods of time, you cannot simply rely on your HVAC to clean the air from the people coughing in your meeting. You can't rely on your booster shot either. . . . Respirators should always be Plan A!"

The second part, at 3 minutes, was about masks. (Word on the street is that the segments had to be separated because Joe Allen is anti-mask.) They explained how masks work to stop a tiny virus, and why cloths masks should be avoided.  

They made it very clear that Covid is airborne, and it's frustrating to me that this is something that still needs to be discussed at all. SARS1 was airborne. Why wouldn't SARS-CoV-2 be airborne - and not just in the "military" use of the term, whatever that means! Unfortunately, it does need to be said again and again to counteract the original misinformation.

The tag line for the episode was Joe Allen's words: "The original sin of the pandemic was the failure to recognize airborne transmission." 

This is a bald-faced lie that I really wish the interviewer had pounced on - but it's not that kind of show. 

Covid Affects Children! Who Knew??

 It's big news suddenly that Covid causes longterm damage to blood vessels in kids. 

This was known back in December 2020. Nothing has been suddenly revealed. I've been saying that Covid leave microclots in the bloodstream that can travel anywhere in the body. I haven't just said it on this little blog, but in letters to elected officials of all description. I've been yelling, "We have to protect children from getting Covid!" for years, with all the evidence from top peer-reviewed journals linked to each claim, and I've been consistently met with eye-rolling and looks of either contempt or pity. I've been telling my university professors, and they just chant like robots, "We can't tell people to wear masks." Sure, but you can ask, and you can definitely wear one yourself to show you understand the science. 

Lots of Covid cautious types are celebrating that last week's 60-Minutes spent a few minutes on cleaning indoor air. And tonight's episode is supposed to have more on it. But their tweet about it says, 

"Indoor air has been completely forgotten when we talk about public health, according to Harvard professor Joe Allen. 'The pandemic showed what a glaring mistake that was.'"

It wasn't forgotten. WEF organizers and participants at Davos didn't forget. People working on movie sets didn't forget. So many delegates to so many school boards didn't forget. 

It has been, and continues to be willfully ignored, discounted or avoided with lengthy, slow-moving "trials" to test the air before actually doing anything to clean it. 

Politicization of Masks

If political leaders on the left feel like they can't talk about the importance of N95s to prevent viruses, then points go to the far right, who started this anti-mask rhetoric.

I asked, "What's the NDP's position on bringing back masks in schools, healthcare facilities, and public transportation during this surge?? Save some kids, keep the economy running, win/win!!"

I included a link to numbers from Canadian Covid-19 Hazard Index that show, based on wastewater, hospitalization, and excess deaths, that we're in a worse place now than at any time with the exception of the December 2021 wave. I was hoping the stats would light a fire under them. It's the third leading cause of death, almost completely preventable, but we're just going to let it circulate widely.

It's a reasonable question, and it wasn't asked in anger or in an accusatory manner. I have no idea their stance on masks. The only response I got was that I should be going after the Cons instead. (Can't it be both?) And I understand why they're silent about it. 

Masks save lives but kill political careers.

Conservatives won't bring them back without pressure. Lots of us are phoning their offices directly along with social media tagging. They're going to do squat. The opposition is our only hope for movement on this, and they understandably don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole.

For all the Fierce Raindrops: Lessons that Should Have Been Learned

Changing minds on big issues takes a long time and the work never ends. 

Anti-drinking and driving groups appeared in the early 1980s, like MADD, typically made up of survivors or relatives of victims who saw first hand that something must be done to prevent so many disabilities and deaths. I was a teenager at the time, and my circle didn't think twice about driving hammered. I remember people saying things like these boring old ladies should get a life and stop telling us when we can and can't drive! We were all pretty sure we could drive just fine after a few. Who are they to tell us otherwise? Breathalizer legislation was on the books in the 60s, and RIDE programs were legal in the 70s, but it wasn't until MADD came about that we got flooded with school visits and PSAs and then really strict penalties were enacted for drunk driving including jail time! And they we all sobered up about it, realizing our inconvenience in staying the night or going back to get the car in the morning doesn't really warrant potentially taking a life. 

Wheelchair ramps weren't an architectural requirement in public buildings until the 90s, but only after people with disabilities and allies fought for their rights to fully participate in society over decades, starting with Judy Heumann's winning lawsuit in 1970 against the NY Board of Ed that was preventing her equal access to the workplace because she uses a wheelchair. That was following by blocking traffic that got a weak bill passed, and then sit-ins that eventually forced politicians to listen and act. Check out Crip Camp, where activist Denise Jacobson said, "You can pass a law, but until you change society's attitude, that law won't mean much." And now we generally agree that everyone should have access to participate fully in society despite any form of disability. Right???

Early AIDS activists watched friends and loved ones die for years before they could get enough of an audience to have an effect on policy. "Sickness and death from HIV/AIDS was brought to a virtual standstill in the USA . . . by a vigorous public health campaign designed not around treating those who became infected, but by preventing infection in the first place." But it took years of activism, from 1979 to 1986, and many celebrities dying and children dying before public health started to issue PSAs, to actually teach the nation how to prevent the spread.

It takes a really long time to convince governments to impose safety measures that, in some way, affect people's freedom to do their own thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing on its own. to be careful about legislation, but it's very frustrating to be living during the activism phase watching so many children get sick. We've got children dying of Covid already. And lots of celebrities. But there's a huge coverup or spin or denial that has people claiming that, for instance, a fatal heart-attack at 13, 17, 27, and 44, all within a day of each other, is totally normal now. When my healthy friend succumbed to a heart attack in his early 60s, people were so fast to say that people die of heart attacks in their 60s all the time!! Instead of, you know, sorry for your loss. It's all ABC: Anything but Covid.

N95s Should Be the Default

Lots of chatter about this New South Wales comms hit and miss:

From Dr. David Berger,

"As the ninth Covid wave grows, NSW Health doesn't say 'wear masks'. It says, 'please don't be beastly to the people who wear masks,' like they're anxiously wringing their hands and begging the bully not to beat up the spotty kid. This is what passes for public health in 2023."

This is exactly the complaint I had about the WRDSB messaging back in September 2022:

"Please remain kind, considerate and respectful to those who choose to continue wearing a mask."

As I said then, the phrasing implicitly puts NOT masking as the default. It paints those who are making this random choice to wear a facial covering as odd ducks we should try not to beat up if we can help it.

From HSW Health:

"With Covid-19 cases increasing in the community, som people, including people at higher risk of severe illness, may choose to war a mask to protect themselves, such as when in indoor settings or on public transport. Be kind and considerate of someone's choice to wear a mask."

I spent three minutes to try to make it less douchey by adding one line:

But Amanda Hu went the distance:

By the way, wastewater levels in Southwestern Ontario haven't been this high since last Christmas - our winter surge started in mid-September - so maybe wear a mask whenever you enter a public building or public transportation! I just put one on whenever I leave the house and forget about it. Mask and relax; stay alive with an N95!

Covid at Work

We know Covid is costing employers time and money from absences. You'd think they'd actually want to prevent it to avoid lawsuits too! 

h/t Hayley for these quotes pulled from this precedent-setting case:

"An employment section of the Lima High Court declared Covid-19 as an occupational disease applicable to all types of workers, not just healthcare professionals. . . . A school, business or organisation that allows a Covid-positive employee to remain at work is almost certainly breaching its obligations under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Failing to have policies/procedures to prevent this is also likely to be a breach."

And from Pantéa Javidan, JD, PhD:

"Rationale in this case can be applied in other context with similar labor protections and anti-discrimination laws. It helps when a country's high court respects international legal standards. The case relates to a worker's estate which filed a lawsuit against their former employer, claiming that the worker contracted Covid-19 during their employment and died from it. The court rules in favor of the worker's estate and based its decision on recommendations and conventions from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO)." 

And, in a related case from the UK:

"Long Covid is estimated to affect more than 1 million people in the UK but remains relatively poorly understood, with no way of predicting who will contract Long Covid, how the symptoms will present themselves or how long they will last. . . . What is often more problematic operationally is planning for those employees whose symptoms are fluctuating, meaning sickness absences may be for shorter but more frequent, sporadic periods."

It goes on to explain that Long Covid legally counts as a disability after an employee charged his employer with disability discrimination for firing him for taking too many sick days. 

"What does that mean in practice? Does an employer have to treat an employee differently if they have a disability? Put simply, yes they do. Employers have a positive duty to consider reasonable adjustments where they know, or ought reasonably to have known, that an individual is disabled and must not behave in a way which places the employee at a disadvantage because of their disability."

This is true in schools, as well. We have a legal obligation to accommodate disabilities. What I would like to see, however, is a legal obligation to accommodate anyone trying to avoid a disability from getting Covid in the first place!! 

We are Afraid

That was a headline in Forbes yesterday, followed by: "Scientists Issue New Warning as World Enters 'Uncharted Climate Territory.'" 

The Forbes article summarizes an article from BioScience: "The 2023 State of the Climate Report: Entering Uncharted Territory," a follow-up on a 2020 report co-signed by over 15,000 scientists from 163 countries that called on government to make rapid changes: 

"We are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. . . . Record climate anomalies seen around the world in 2023 have astonished the scientific community, raising concerns that further extreme weather, as well as climate tipping points, could arrive sooner than expected . . . pushing our planetary systems into dangerous instability. Such instability, they warn, means that this century as many as six billion of the Earth's almost eight billion people could find themselves in regions that are no longer habitable, due to climate impacts such as extreme heat and dwindling food supplies. . . . The world is now undergoing changes at a speed never before seen in human existence. . . . It is the moral duty of us scientists and our institutions to clearly alert humanity of any potential existential threat and to show leadership in taking action. . . . 

Without actions that address the root problems of humanity taking more from the Earth than it can safely give, we're on our way to the potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems and a world with unbearable heat and shortages of food and freshwater. . . . The authors call for governments and communities to change their perspective on climate change, 'from being just an isolated environmental issue to a systemic, existential threat.' . . . Simply switching to renewable energy from fossil fuel sources will not be sufficient . . . They call for: 

* The implementation of policies that help reduce resource consumption, by reducing, reusing and recycling waste.
* A global, collaborative effort to ensure climate justice, entailing the fair distribution of the costs and benefits of climate action across less wealthy and more vulnerable parts of the world.
* The reorienting of economic measures to prioritize human well-being over growth.
* A stabilization and gradual decrease of the human population by supporting women and girls' education and rights. . . .  

This is our moment to make a profound difference for all life on Earth. We must embrace it with unwavering courage and determination to create a legacy of change that will stand the test of time."

More recommendations from the original article not mentioned in Forbes; the omissions are interesting:

* "In 2019, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for 48% of global emissions, whereas the bottom 50% were responsible for just 12%. We therefore need to change our economy to a system that supports meeting basic needs of all people instead of excessive consumption by the wealthy. . . . 
* Efforts must be directed toward eliminating emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change and increasing carbon sequestration with nature-based climate solutions. However, it is crucial to explore other possible strategies to efficiently remove additional carbon dioxide. . . . Although research efforts should be accelerated, depending heavily on future large-scale carbon removal strategies at this juncture may create a deceptive perception of security and postpone imperative mitigation actions. . . . 
* Coal accounts for . . . roughly 40% of current carbon dioxide emissions. . . . We support the Powering Past Coal Alliance and recommend the adoption of the international Coal Elimination Treaty to phase out coal and, more broadly, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty . . . 
* Climate feedback loops directly affect the relationship between emissions and warming. . . . We call for an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report that focuses on the perilous climate feedback loops. . . . 
* In 2022, an estimated 735 million people faced chronic hunger. . . . There is danger that hunger will escalate in the absence of immediate climate action. . . . Because of the growing risks of concurrent major crop losses in multiple regions of the world, adaptation-focused efforts are needed to improve crop resilience and resistance to heat, drought, and other climate stressors. A shift toward plant-based diets, particularly in wealthy countries, could improve global food security and help mitigate climate change." 

The original article is decidedly calling for a shift away from neoliberal capitalism. We have to create equity worldwide, meet the basic needs of all, reduce consumption of resources but also specifically reduce consumerism by the wealthy10% (which, worldwide, includes anyone with a net worth of over $130,000), and reduce meat consumption. If we can't do that immediately, then 75% of the world will have to migrate to the sliver of world still habitable, if anyone allows it, or else perish, within the next 75 years. 75 in 75!!      

Seven years ago, I wrote about how childish we were being, ignoring all the indicators that we're headed for collapse like a kid who refuses to take an umbrella when it's clearly about to storm out. Now we're all soaking wet and some will complain that nobody told them to take an umbrella, and others will still insist it's not that rainy out today; they've seen worse. I included this bit from the Newsroom, and it just about sums it up based on our current political climate!

On Housing and Value(s)

Here's a little story about the house at the end of my street. 

About 30 years ago, it was a bit of a grow-op, with vicious guard dogs, one that actually ate the leg off the neighbour's family dog! When I'd walk down the street with my kids, we'd always cross the street to avoid walking right past the place. 

Then the guy who owned it wanted to buy an RV and leave town for some reason, so he put the place up for sale, and I bought it to fix it up and make the end of the street less sketch.

It was a pretty crazy idea at the time, and sometimes hellish, but I did fix it all up!

Covid is Weakening Us as a Species

Yesterday I wrote about the probability of Long Covid sweeping through our civilization over the next five years. This post looks at how it presents in individuals: 

Infections rates are extremely high right now, and we not masking or ensuring there's clean air in hospitals, stores, or public transportation, and we're still actively preventing teachers and parents from taking measures to clean the air in their classrooms because so many people think it's just like a cold. It's really not. Here's just a few testimonies of life with Long Covid:

The Odds are Not EVER in Our Favour!

You either control a pandemic, or you let it control you. - Professor John Edmunds.

The CDC's estimate that 20% of infections will become Long Covid. 

Let's do some math!! If we take the lowest numbers out there, if just 10% of Covid infections become Long Covid, and almost everyone gets infected yearly since 2022, then in just 5 years, by 2028, half the population will have Long Covid, right?? 

Consider that Long Covid shows up in a variety of ways, sometimes like Alzheimers, sometimes ME/CFS, and many people can barely sit up in bed for 15 minutes at a time. Check out the documentary Unrest to get the picture. How will the schools (and all businesses and government and just about everyone) cope with THAT?? Who, in your life, will take care of you if you can't get out of bed or feed yourself? And who will take care of both of you if you both get it?

Pet Lovers Revolt!

For all the dog lovers out there, especially, there's some bad news: 

A recent study found that Covid definitely does infect dogs and affects their neural processing (their brain)!

"We observed substantial brain pathology in SARS-CoV-2-infected dogs, particularly involving blood-brain barrier damage resembling small vessel disease. . . . Our findings of degenerative changes in the dog brain during SARS-CoV-2 infection emphasize the potential for transmission to other hosts and induction of similar signs and symptoms. The dynamic brain changes in dogs highlight that even asymptomatic individuals [without any symptoms; appearing perfectly healthy] infected with SARS-CoV-2 may develop neuropathologic changes in the brain."

Cats are mentioned in the report as well, but the study was done specifically on dogs.

Is this the thing that changes everything?? I took a chance and even shared it on Facebook, the place I was threatened brutally for sharing concerns about kids getting Covid. But I think people's relationships with their dogs is different. Seriously. This might start wearing a mask around town if they're worried their dog could catch Covid from them!

Improving Air Quality for Children Act

Our children are mandated to be in school. It should also be mandated that the building have clean air for children to breathe!

Chandra Pasma, MPP for Ottawa-West and Nepean, David Fisman, UofT epidemiology professor, Joey Fox, engineer, and Heather Hanwell and Mary Jo Nabuurs from Ontario School Safety (OSS), introduced a provincial private member's bill requiring air monitors in all classrooms and congregate spaces in schools and requiring experts to convene to establish an air quality threshold plan and guaranteeing action will be taken to improve and maintain air quality above ASHRAE standards. 

Here's the video in full, just 21 minutes, and there's a two minute part near the beginning that's a French repetition of Pasma's intro. (It's also on Facebook).

Of Course It's Airborne and We Should All Be in N95s

Just saving these here for posterity. 

Check out this whole thread of documents found on originsearch; there's tons more in the thread, but I have no idea why or how people suddenly have access. They're all over Twitter, though. That being said, it's entirely possible they're all fabricated; unlikely, but possible. 

The gist of these bits is that in February 2020, there was a lot of concern over public and international perception that affected the naming of the virus before it ever officially landed in the US, which isn't really surprising. Then by March it was clear that there was asymptomatic spread and more aerosol than the flu, and Fauci told his friends to wear N95s. Then in April it was clear they knew it was airborne, of course, that it was unknown how long inside a room the air remains infectious (and how long a room should remained closed off after someone infected was in it), and tons of concern with litigation if the message isn't exactly right. And a couple weeks after that, a disaster consultation firm advised strongly to get everyone in N95s or N100s, not homemade masks, specifically: "I don't see how it's defendable for an 'essential worker' working with the public in an enclosed space to work without PPE that is 'applicable and suitable for the purpose intended'. . . . It's not rocket science only for doctors." Then in May, the firm again pushed for N95s, clarifying the importance since it's transmitted just through just exhaling and talking and can spread up to 27' away - not just 6'. 

Remember when schools insisted just 3' of distance was perfectly safe the following September and made the kids eat together in classrooms??

I don't think any of it really matters. We all know they knew, it was in the news that it was airborne and can float a long distance in February 2020, and nobody important will every get in trouble for this ongoing risk to our health and wellbeing. They seem fine with children being bombed in Gaza, so a few dozen little ones dying of a preventable disease within our own borders is small potatoes. But it does kinda feel satisfying to see it all laid out in black and white. 

The Big Lie of Covid Herd Immunity

Why do some healthcare professionals still insist that herd immunity will work despite visual evidence to the contrary? 

A nicely explainer came out in Journal of Infectious Diseases March 2022: 

"As commonly understood, herd immunity thresholds are reached when a sufficient proportion of the population is vaccinated or has recovered from natural infection with a pathogen such that its community circulation is reduced below the level of significant public health threat. For example, this threshold has been met with polio and measles circulation in the United States. However, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is so different from polio and measles that classical herd immunity may not readily apply to it. Important differences include the phenotypic stability [tendency for the virus to remain the same] of polio and measles viruses, and their ability to elicit long-term protective immunity, compared to SARS-CoV-2."

With measles and polio, once you get it, you won't soon get it again because, as they figured out in 1876, they "elicited long-term protective immunity that reduced or prevented epidemics, until cumulative births resulted in sufficiently large cohorts of susceptible children to support new waves of transmission." So vaccinating everyone as infants was enough to stop the virus in its tracks! With Covid, as we really really know, for sure, you CAN get it again over and over, right away. Some people have had it six and seven times. Some people have had two infections within 30 days. 

The article further explains why herd immunity doesn't always work:

Basic Income - It's Possible

We almost had it. When CERB was introduced to help people at the start of the pandemic, some people who hadn't been to a dentist in decades finally got their teeth cleaned! People bought themselves boots without holes in them! People really needed money - straight up cash - and many spent it wisely. 

I commented about a year ago,

"The biggest concern with Canada's experiment with giving people money to keep them going is that some people made more than they did from their actual income. That's not a problem with UBI, but a problem with the shocking number of working poor we have in our wealthy country. Some analysts calculate a net cost of about $43-48 billion to eradicate poverty in Canada (Scotti, Hemmadi, Lum), which could be paid for with a 3% increase in sales tax OR crack down on money hidden abroad, OR add another tax bracket of 65% on income over $300,000, OR just add an 8% increase on income tax on income over $20 million /year. One study found that providing money for the poor in a cash lump sum dramatically increased the chance people would move into stable housing and dramatically decreased spending on substances."

FYI: There's a discussion about basic income happening in KW on October 27 at 1:00, and you can join virtually here. I'll be giving a book report to my class at the time, so I hope they record it!

If It Can't Possibly be Both, then Either Give us Masks OR Accommodations

If masks are a choice, then shouldn't being protected from a virus also be a choice?? The freedom to go maskless is butting up against the freedom from getting infected, in the worst way.

AVOIDING INFECTION IN UNIVERSITIES

Earlier this year, I raised some concerns with Covid as we removed mask mandates in my Master's program, randomly, in February. The response was very clear: If you can't make it to class due to health concerns (including trying to avoid catching a debilitating disease), you will have to withdraw from the program. There's no allowance for just listening to lectures after the fact or watching them live online. Although some professors set up their class for that possibility, the expectation is that every student is actually attending in person regardless any potential disability or condition that could cost them their lives for attending.  

And I really don't understand why. 

I love participating, but that can be done very easily with a live feed. Alternatively, a message board can be set up for additional post-class conversation. I did that over ten years ago when Facebook Groups first came out. There's never enough time to take every raised hand in class, so I created a place students could continue to discuss and debate. It also enabled quieter kids to participate. And it was super easy to do!

Is demanding in-person attendance just to ensure we're using the real estate that they've paid for? Because, at this point in our technological advances, I can't think of a single pedagogical reason that university courses must be received in a physical room. They say it's to do with CRPO guidelines, but there's a near-identical program at Yorkville that is entirely online. Unfortunately it's four times the price!! That wasn't the biggest stopper for me, though; it's that they'll only transfer over three of the seven courses I've taken so far, so I'd be pretty much starting over.

When I mention my concerns to friends now, they still insist I should be getting some kind of accommodations (so cute!), despite that not being a reality in any institution as far as I'm aware. If you can't physically come in to learn, then it sucks to be you! I can't wait to take the required course on Intersectionality (if I'm still in the program) and see them explain why those lessons on breaking down barriers don't mean we should be trying to actually dismantle disability barriers here, though.

One prof at York says, 

"Every university classroom that hasn't been updated for hybrid learning is a testament to this anti-social 'you do you' mindset." 

Absolutely.

Trapped by our Insouciance

George Monbiot's article today is the perfect rant for our times. It's pretty much what I've been screaming into the void for the past while, but, thankfully, he has a large audience.

Monboit shames us with this, 

"When we forget the virus, we forget clinically vulnerable people trapped by our insouciance. Some can scarcely leave their homes as the danger to them of infection is so great. . . . Many who suffer [Long Covid] reported a lower quality of life than people with stage 4 lung cancer."

Yet my university will not grant accommodations if a student (like me) won't physically attend a class--that's always recorded and posted online--because the class is full of people who will not heed a gentle request to mask, and which requires daily group work, unevaluated, in which three or four people, a foot away, speak directly at their face. The CO2 in the room is regularly over 1200 ppm. Some people are perfectly capable of doing all the work of the program to a high standard, but just not in that room in that way. Sucks to be them (us). 

And we don't give a shit about harming healthcare workers despite desperately needing them right now. Monbiot continues,

"Symptoms of long Covid 'had an impact on health as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury.' Some doctors are unable to work, to care for their children, cook, perform basic arithmetic, even brush their hair. Some are now facing the loss of their homes, bankruptcy and destitution. Though most caught the virus in the line of duty, they've been bright-sided, sacrificed to the officially sanctioned delusion that it's over, and we should all get on with our lives. They must wish they could."

"For some people, going to hospital may now be more dangerous than staying at home untreated."  

It's Going to Get Worse Before it Gets Even More Worse

Times are dark. Try to find moments of calm and humour to get you through the day.

Covid is out of control. It's nothing new, but more and more are being affected in irreparable ways, taking out teachers and doctors and all sorts of necessary workers. It's harder to avoid when almost nobody else wears a mask. One-way masking only protects so far, and I know many people just getting their first infection now despite always wearing a mask. I've suggested to the region that we could use a post-Oktoberfest month of masking - just four weeks, and just in healthcare facilities, schools, stores, and public transportation to reduce case loads, since our entire city has been a full on superspreader event of frantic frivolity. But that's not going to happen despite the recent surge of hospitalizations. And people won't do it if other people won't do it in a downward spiral of disease. When I asked my class to mask, my dear, sweet professor put one on immediately, then realized nobody else was, and sheepishly took it off again. He wanted to do the right thing, but couldn't stand up for me alone. He wasn't quite that brave.

Kim Molloy's astute prediction: "The next phase of this pandemic is 'you should have known' from the systems and 'you should have warned me' from individuals." 

Manufacturing Consent to Spread SARS-CoV-2

Like the political/media machine convinced citizens that invading Iraq was necessary, we're being convinced to spread a virus that will come back to destroy our own lives. 

Yesterday, Arijit Chakravarty, who specializes in applying mathematical modeling to drug discovery and development, and Martha Lincoln, assistant professor of cultural and medical anthropology, wrote about the ongoing existence of Covid that's often matched with ongoing minimization of a deadly and disabling disease in the US. Politicians are very worried about people panicking and freaking out and being hysterical! They largely don't seem concerned at all with people succumbing to disease repeatedly or tragically, and they really should be:

"If there's one thing we've learned, three and a half years into the current crisis, it's that--contrary to what the movies taught us--pandemics don't automatically spawn terror-stricken stampedes in the street. Media and public health coverage have a strong hand in shaping public response and can--under the wrong circumstances--promote indifference, incaution, and even apathy. A very visible example of this was the sharp drop in the number of people masking after the CDC revised its guidelines in 2021, recommending that masking was not necessary for the vaccinated (from 90% in May to 53% in September). As that example suggests, emphasizing the message 'don't panic' puts the cart before the horse unless tangible measures are being taken to prevent panic-worthy outcomes. . . . 

This 'moral calm'--a sort of manufactured consent--impedes risk mitigation by promoting the underestimation of a threat. Soothing public messaging during disasters can often lead to an increased death toll. Tragically, false reassurance contributed to mortality in both the attacks on the World Trade Center and the sinking of the Titanic. . . .Some experts and public figures have uncritically advanced the idea that if the public appears to be tired, bored, or noncompliant with public health measures, then the pandemic must be over. But pandemics are impervious to ratings. . . . History is replete with examples of pandemics that blazed for decades, sometimes smoldering for years befoer flaring up again into catastrophe. . . . A pandemic cannot tell when the news cycle has moved on. . . . 

Teaching the Conflict

If I were explaining it all to a class of 15-18 year olds - and I would because they need to know, here's what I would say: my imperfect lesson with my own stance front and centre but wide open for debate and disagreement, and in a way that would just take up just one class because kids need help to understand the issues and a place to openly discuss it and ask questions, but without it overriding the curriculum significantly.

Remember being told "two wrongs don't make a right"? It was a probably a long time ago. I haven't heard the saying in eons. But I think we need to bring it back. Consider what you think. 

First, some backstory. This is the clearest brief video I could find, but be aware it's seven years old. 

It's Like the Sun

I missed this back in August, but, while I keep seeing Orwell and Huxley in everything around us, Tern saw Joseph Heller:

This is exactly the crazy-making that's going on. Tern is a priest and knows people who were dying of Covid, but their death certificate says anything but Covid. Instead it's pneumonia or a heart attack or anything else.

Just like with AIDS.

"It only looks like no one is dying of Covid because no one is saying that they're dying of Covid." 

Now some politicians are on about kids vaping which sends a few dozen to the hospital each year. It's harmful and gross and should be prevented, definitely, but Covid sends thousands of kids to the hospital, and we won't do anything to stop it. 

We don't mention Covid. It's too big. It's like the sun; you can't look directly at it. 

Henry Madison (aka Rage Sheen) offers a bit of comfort:

"If you feel despair about Covid, I think it helps to remember that everything you do as an individual to counter it is automatically multiplied many times over, even exponentially. No other social problem is that tractable to individual action. . . . You never know how many lives you save putting a mask on and avoiding infection. It can be thousands, interrupting chains of transmission. Plus the bloody economy, how it helps that too."

A commenter added an astute point: "Every single infection is a new Patient Zero." 

Let's maybe do our best to avoid being another in the millions of Patient Zeros walking around infecting others everywhere they go, shall we?

I Needed This Today

Another curious human behaviour: Just by chance, I posted every day for over a week last May rather than my typical range of anywhere from one to twelve posts in a month. Then I wondered how long I could keep it going. And now I'm at a point that I make an effort not to miss a day, for no other reason that to see if I can. More frequent posting has had almost zero effect on the number of readers and commenters, but there is so much going on that it's pretty easy to have something to say every day. I have about 20 tabs open to articles or threads that I want to think about more. I often write before I get out of bed in the morning to get all the online detritus off my chest before starting my day, then spend a bit of time looking for some useful or entertaining images to add while I drink my tea. Image curating sometimes takes longer than writing, taking me down so many rabbit holes!

I got a late start today, so here's a nice thread amid the horror show of the news and social media. It's from biorisk consultant Conor Browne:

"I think almost everyone who is still taking active steps to avoid being infected or re-infected with SARS-CoV-2 is tired at this point; I know I am. Having said that, late last night it occurred to me, with considerable clarity, that every single person I have had the pleasure of meeting through this platform [Twitter], every single person still trying to avoid Covid, form, as a group, the most compassionate and resilient set of people I have ever met in my life. These shared qualities are not a coincidence. 

The great conceptual mistake that the individuals and organisations who attack our stance (ranging from individual written or verbal abuse, all the way to the enactment of structural policies at national levels designed to make avoiding infection more difficult) is this: we don't take precautions to avoid infection just to protect ourselves, but also to protect everyone else. 

The science is very clear at this point: It is unquestionably a wise decision to avoid infection. It speaks volumes about the world in which we now live that something so obvious has to be stated. 

I will end with this: all of you are doing the right thing, from the standpoints of health, ethics, and, quite frankly, common sense. You are all outstanding human beings, and, I assure you, you will not regret your ongoing decisions."

Bless you all for continuing to protect others and yourselves, leading the charge with caring and compassion. 

Save David Tennant From Invasion!!

 There are lots of horrific things going on in this world. Most are out of our control. One is not.

There's nothing I can do about the atrocities happening between Hamas and Israel and Palestine. I can barely look at it. I've sent texts of support to friends who are Jewish or Muslim because you can guarantee some of that hate will be capitalized on here towards both groups. And there's also very little I can do, personally, to affect the global changes coming from increased warming of our climate. I don't drive much or ever use a drier, and I eat low on the food chain. But I produced three kids, one of whom drives a block away to see friends, eats meat a couple of times a day, and is pumped to have just moved out somewhere with a washer and drier, so he can do laundry pretty much as soon as he wears something with no concern for conserving water or energy. 

Sorry about that, world. I tried my very best, but there's only so much we can do.

But my kids always wear a mask inside public buildings. Wearing masks does have an effect on directly reducing the chance of transmitting a virus that is disabling people in ways they don't even notice. Before you think, "If they don't notice, then what's the big deal?" be aware that Covid affects the brain with dementia-like symptoms causing people to be suddenly confused and/or irrationally angry without warning. Have you noticed people driving worse than ever on the street??  

Justin Lee recently wrote about our collective apathy:

"When it was like 40,000 covid deaths to 80,000, we were like, 'Oh no.' Then it hit 100,000 to 200,000; we were like 'Uh oh, this is terrible.' But there was a point we closed our eyes, as we started to reach 400 to 500,000 covid deaths, we started to comfort ourselves. Our 'adaptation' came in the form of getting used to death. Our sensitive little empathy meters all fried into oblivion. We hit the million, 1,000,000+ covid deaths, and arbitrarily decided, 'Phew! Glad that's over!' as we keep losing and disabling people. Now, nobody can fathom the scale of our destruction. Mythology and excuses are soothing, like ducks who let the pandemic roll off our backs, no moments of silence, no 'never forget,' just a belligerence to fighting against our nemesis. That's how we've adapted."

But one thing just might save the day: Our love of celebrities! 

Media Subterfuge

Want to be a respected news outlet? Stop writing horribly misleading headlines.

An article in The Guardian is causing a stir, not because of what the article says, but because of the heading and subheading: 

"Thousands of Covid generation under-fives excluded from schools in England: Nearly half of children in some areas arrive unable to talk and still not potty-trained as lockdown legacy take its toll, data show."

That's not actually what the data shows, however. The subheading is particularly ridiculous since these kids were infants during lockdown. They likely would have been home with mom anyway. 

This type of headline is not in the realm of clickbait or fake news, but it's still bullshitty and annoying, and it's got people on social media arguing about lockdowns now instead of discussing the real issues from the article: cuts to social services. It works to get people to discuss the piece, but few are clicking on it to actually read the thing anyway, so I'm not sure how well it pays off as a tactic. Unless, of course, the tactic is to get them to ignore the content. Can't spur on a socialist movement, now can we!

The article explains that the number of term exclusions in England last year were up 11% higher than pre-pandemic years, at which time they also had a problem with kids not yet school ready:

Faulty Wiring

We're hard-wired for immediate survival, so we need reminders to help us persevere longterm.

Short-Term Wiring

For decades I taught a course, the Challenge of Change in Society, which used the lens of social sciences to try to understand world issues and explore how we ended up with our current challenges and how to enact change. I taught about how media provokes consumerism and how to counter that, and why to counter that, in our daily lives for the sake of the planet, the people, and our own well being. I often stepped outside of the social sciences to draw on thousands of years of philosophies and religions that have understood that happiness isn't the result of an accumulation of things. 

I practice what I preach for the most part. Curiously, though, by about mid-July each year, I'd forget everything I had been teaching and end up on a shopping spree until I'd come to my senses. Ten years ago I wrote about how much I need government policies to restrain my habits - that we all do - or else we'll literally shop 'til we drop, as a species, which is happening before our eyes.

Barring that reality, and knowing this would be an ongoing, lifelong issue, I got a tattoo on my Visa-paying forearm to remind myself that my actions affect the entire world. I borrowed Matisse's Dance and have the characters circling a re-forming pangea. We need to come together on this, collectively, to reduce ongoing suffering: 

The Truth is Out There

Because it's harder than ever to discern fact from fiction means we have to work harder. Don't give up! 

Definitely not an example of Art Deco.

I once dated a guy I thought was absolutely brilliant. He seemed to know everything about every topic. He could answer and explain every question I had under the sun, and I had a lot because it was all long before the internet. 

But one day we went to an art gallery. He explained the style and history of each piece of artwork fluidly and confidently. Unfortunately for our relationship, I had spent four years studying art, and I knew that almost everything he said was just plain wrong. I gently corrected a few things, styles off by centuries, descriptions of depictions with no basis in scholarly discussion, but I let most things go. 

When we left the gallery he paid me a particularly arrogant compliment I'll never forget: "It's so nice to finally go to a gallery with someone who knows something about art so I don't have to teach them everything." 

Meanwhile, in my head, I was thinking backwards through all the many things he had "taught" me over the prior few months, trying to undo any damage the likely misinformation might have caused. 

And it got me thinking about Covid and the media. For most of my life I looked at media interpretation of events with a critical eye, but took most facts and sources at face value. I mean, I've been reading Chomsky since Manufactured Consent first hit the scene in 1988. I actually showed the three-hour long documentary on it to my class of 17-year-olds, and they all sat with rapt attention!! (That was also before the internet.) While I followed and agreed with most of Chomsky's claims around media bias, one foot was still in the camp that believes at least the facts presented must be true, right?? Distorted is different than just made up. Surely the big news outlets (distinct from "yellow journalism") aren't making things up!

Breathe, Grieve, Love, Repeat

We have very little direct influence over one another but we do affect one another in myriad ways that we often don't even notice.

I had a student once, about 15 years ago who I thought was a delight, as I did almost all my students. He was bright and funny and curious about history. He was also known to have significant gang involvement and may have killed someone by now or have been killed. Who knows. I can't barely remember anybody's name of the over 5,000 students I taught, so there's no looking him up. I likely had little impact on the general trajectory of his life, but I taught him a bit about the last century and solidified some writing skills. And maybe the fact that I warmly welcomed him into class on the rare times he showed up had a bit of an effect on him. I hope he's doing okay. 

About seven years ago I got into a big online argument about the meaning of a film, and it's was beautiful. We each had points and tried to persuade the other, and neither of us budged, and it got absolutely nowhere, but it was a delight to debate what we each saw in a work of art. Neither of us even considered name calling or threatening one another's life or getting all our buddies to destroy the other online. 

Remember those days?? It wasn't that long ago.

Because we can't always see how our actions will affect others in future, we have to take care with what we say and how we say it and watch for the direct effect on others. We have to be more careful online where we can't see one another's facial expression to check if they got that we were just joking or to notice the first sign that we're upsetting them. That concern with caring is waning -- I think largely because we don't get immediate facial feedback. But it's vital we get it back for the coming years. 

Christian Priorities

One for the Christian right. 

Sexual impurity was a two-fold concern in the ancient olden days. First, it was to ensure that everyone's spreading their seed in fertile ground, instructing men to stay away from lieing with other men as if they're women as well as avoiding masturbation and barren women!! Guys like Leonardo DiCaprio who trade in for a new model regularly could be argued to be following this rule of avoiding any woman who's no longer fertile. But now that we have more than enough people in the world, and we can barely afford rent and food for ourselves much less children, we intentionally prevent the seed in fertile ground thing as much as possible anyway. So maybe don't worry so much about people spilling their seed willy-nilly. 

Secondly sexual licentiousness was as much a concern in the Bible as it was for Plato because it distracts citizens from more important things going on. When people allow their passions to take hold, they stop making sure their city is functioning properly and things could fall apart. The big lesson is to measure passions carefully - with reason - so that you can continue to get to work each day and keep the house clean and have space for a bit of contemplation. 

So it's counterproductive to these aims to spend your life distracted by other people's sins! All the people gathering with their children to yell about the sinfulness of others should take the log out of their own eye first. Judge not, remember. Can you feel the love in these videos?

Accepting the Things We Cannot Change - Yet

We're really struggling to let go of our old familiar lives and realize we have to life differently from now on in order to keep going. 

It's a bit like Norman Bates keeping his mother in the attic. We can't move on fully when we've still got one foot in the past and expect everything to go on as it always has up to this the start of this tragedy. Our lack of acknowledgement of what's real is creating a horror show of our own making. Here are three recent threads to help further this point.

Media Taming of Covid

Every couple of months or so a headline tells us it's over or it's at least better, and we can all relax and go back to normal. T. Ryan Gregory curated a history of the "defanging and taming" of Covid:

"February 2021: "Superspreading drives the Covid pandemic--and could help to tame it" from a Nature article of all places!

June 2021: "With Covid tamed, it's a 'grand reopening' in California." They "turned a page on the pandemic"! 

September 2021: "With the virus 'defanged' by high vaccination rates, the Danish government dropped all remaining restrictions this month" in a Science article asking, "Will the pandemic fade into an ordinary disease like the flu? The world is watching Denmark for clues."

January 2022: "Now that science has defanged Covid, it's time to get on with our lives," from The Guardian.

February 2022: "Covid: How new drugs are finally taming the virus," from the BBC.

July 2022: "Covid reinfection has a silver lining--one that may help tame the pandemic," from Fortune. 

December 2022: "Is Covid a common cold yet?" from The Atlantic.

Goal Setting Feels Very Different Now!

How do we allocate our personal energy when the world is in such a state?

I've been thinking about that goal-setting exercise they had us do in high school: Divide a piece of paper in three and write 20, 5, and Bang at the top of each column. In the first section, write out where you'd like to be in 20 years to brainstorm potential long term goals. I think I mainly designed the house I'd live in. The second column is what you hope to be doing in five years to get some medium term goals and see if they can line up with long term goals and see if they're remotely attainable. Mine lined up perfectly. My 5-year goal was to have enough money for my own place -- something my kids have given up on as a remotely attainable. I worked a few well-paying jobs, took all the overtime they'd give me, lived in happy squalor in an old broken down house full of people, and amassed a 40% downpayment in three years. I bought my first house at 23 for just over $100,000, then filled it with friends to help with the mortgage (enticed by cheaper rent in nicer digs), and paid it off by the time I was 35. 

That's completely impossible in a low-ranking paper-pushing job right now, no matter how much overtime you're willing to work or how many people you're willing to cram into your home!  

Then, "Bang." Imagine you've just been shot. What do you wish you had done with the last few weeks of your life. This is the version of the exercise I remember, but it's likely far less gruesome now. We don't like to think about death in polite company; it might traumatize the kids. But it was an effective tool for provoking thought: The idea of making sure I actually enjoyed my life didn't at all coincide with my medium and long-term goals. I consciously put enjoyment aside for my money-focused years working for a soul-sucking insurance company that paid well and had subsidized meals to keep us in the building all day. I spent $10/week on food and $50/month on rent on that broken down house. It was actually fun, when I wasn't working, because we were all poor, and we lived like it, unashamed, with stolen milk crates a significant part of our furnishings. It had the feel of Rent a decade early, without AIDS playing a role. But, while everyone else got take-out, I was the only one eating baloney sandwiches with thousand of dollars in the bank.

It was so worth it! 

Ignorance is No Longer a Defence

There is compelling evidence that vaccines work, with few serious side effects, yet they're still being demonized while media continues to suggest Covid ended. 

An Australian 8-year-old went into cardiac arrest but was saved due to her mum's ability to do CPR until an ambulance arrived. The Australian news mention that "cardiac arrest incidents are at the highest ever recorded," but their newscast is all about the importance of learning CPR. The comments on the article were divided. 

Covid Vaccinations Prevent Acute Symptoms

Of over 500 comments at time of posting, the vast majority blamed vaccinations for the heart attacks. They provided no compelling evidence.  

ETA: One recent study of over 4 million people determined the stroke rate after vaccination to be 0.05% which is not significantly different than the average stroke rate of a population tracked before the pandemic.

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine this year is being awarded to two people whose work enabled the development of mRNA vaccines, and I won't even hazard a peek at the comments there.