Bearing Witness

 Brandon Friedman wrote an important thread about what we do now. Here it is in full:

"This is a German woman being marched past the bodies of Holocaust victims. After World War II, it was common refrain among German civilians: They just didn't know. For that reason, many were forced by Allied troops to bear witness. Like this. 

I bring this up because fascism is now here, in America. 

If you're thinking, "but it doesn't feel like fascism, nothing in my life seems amiss," then congratulations, you have discovered what fascism is like. 

Avoiding the Sausage Machine

click to read

I attended an excellent masterclass on "Trans-Inclusive Philosophy" with Sophie Grace Chappell last week, put on by The Philosopher magazine. She wrote Epiphanies and Transfigured, and this paper will be coming out in a collection soon. She discussed system-building in a way that lit some lightbulbs for me. I was waiting for the video to be posted before writing about it, but, in lieu of that, here's my transcription of it. 

She starts by responding to a call to build a theory of what gender, transgender, and gender identity are, and she clarifies the problems with gate-keeping off the bat. People will demand that before anyone's allowed to claim they're trans, they first have to define male and female, and she likens this to saying before you can sit on a chair and drink some tea, you first need to establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for chair and for tea, which is just ridiculous and very dangerous.

More interesting to me is her second argument, that defining what counts as transgender butts up against bigger problems with any system building. She prioritizing experience over theory because any attempt at an overarching trans theory will inevitably leave someone out. She has her own idea of what fits her, but it won't fit everyone, and other people might have great definitions for themselves, but they don't entirely fit her, either. 

Things May Appear Bleak, And Yet...

Byung-Chul Han's The Spirit of Hope is a beautiful book, the kind you want to treat with care and won't dare dog-ear a page. Anselm Kiefer's illustrations throughout provide a place for contemplative moments between ideas. It's more immediately accessible than The Burnout Society, which took me weeks to wrap my head around, yet no less profound. 

A REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS OF HOPE

We like a secure illusion of control over the world, yet that hasn't gotten us much further along. We recognize something's missing. Han writes, "Amid problem-solving and crisis management, life withers. It becomes survival. … It is hope that opens up a meaningful horizon" (2). 

Han explains how a lack of hope furthers the current neoliberal capitalist trajectory: 

"Fear and resentment drive people into the arms of the right-wing populists. They breed hate. Solidarity, friendliness and empathy are eroded. … Democracy flourishes only in an atmosphere of reconciliation and dialogue. … Hope provides meaning and orientation. Fear, by contrast, stops us in our tracks. … Hope is eloquent. It narrates. Fear, by contrast, is incapable of speech, incapable of narration" (2-3). 

The Flies Have Conquered the Flypaper

Steinbeck's The Moon is Down was first published in 1942, before he was sent off to fight. As a journalist, he enlisted in order to be in the thick of thing to write with authenticity. This may be a book for our times, unfortunately. It's about a town invaded by enemy forces.

It's a short read, but also captured fairly well in the movie, made just the following year, with Henry Travers (Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life). Of course it's a hopeful read as the town fights back, but it's also terrifying for what they endure. 

 

And then I watched Shame, which might be a more realistic depiction of what it is to live with the beginnings of invasion as sides get confusing and people betray one another.  

Possibly I'm looking for instruction of how to be when another country threatens invasion, what it looks like to be courageous in the face of real danger, but I may well be just torturing myself! I'm also reading Byung-Chul Han's The Spirit of Hope as a healthy antidote to the gloom.

Still Not at the Finish Line

Jon Douglas, who wrote In It for the Long Haul, shared a series of papers that were discussed at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) that just wrapped up this week. A few caught my eye, but Douglas summarized tons at that link:

French researchers analyzed blood samples from 100 Long Covid patients, 60 recovered Covid cases, and 60 uninfected controls to identify immune and metabolic biolmarkers that diagnosed Long Covid with 99% accuracy. 

Researchers in the Netherlands treated 16 severely immunocompromised patients with persistent Covid-19 using off-label nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, and 75% had viral clearance within 28 days. 

Barcelona researchers studied 130 children and young people three months after Covid-19 and found that those with Long Covid had more autoantibodies and inflammatory markers, suggesting immune system involvement. 

Researchers in another study used brain MRI to compare 23 people with cognitive Long Covid to 19 without symptoms, and they found less gray matter in regions tied to memory, speech, and executive function, plus white matter changes in key memory pathways.

Beyond the conference, Pfizer is testing a new Covid-19 antiviral, Ibuzatrelvir, and is currently in Phase 3 trials. It doesn't taste as bad as Paxlovid, has fewer drug interactions, and is designed to be more stable, so easier to prescribe. Hopefully that means more than just those over 65 can access it in Ontario.

Never Again?

All this tariff talk is provoking a recession, which seems to be a feature, not a bug. As the economy falls, companies go bankrupt and are cheap to take over by the wealthy. The very rich will be able to take advantage of desperate times to buy businesses and property, and then are even further ahead when (or if) the economy rebounds. More power. More control. More stuff. The suffering of the citizens is not a concern. At all. 

This entire scheme was kick-started back in 1971 by the Powell Memorandum. Chomsky and Chris Hedges have been talking about this forever. And, of course, Ralph Nader. It's the precursor to disaster capitalism. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote a memo attacking "extremists" like Nader who was doing things like trying to get cars to add seatbelts to improve traffic safety. The Memorandum is a push to allow unfettered capitalism without any regulations because, as far as Powell was concerned, businessmen really own the country. They pushed for more business involvement in colleges and universities way back then.  

A couple days ago, Senator Chris Murphy clearly outlined the corruption in the White House. It's all out in the open BECAUSE THEY CAN. Like in Russia, few in positions of power dare call them on it. 

"Trump and Elon Muck and their billionaire friends have engaged in a stunning rampage of open public corruption. It's not fundamentally different than what happened in Russia. These are efforts to steal from the American people to enrich themselves, and their strategy is to do it all out in the open. ...  

Over Five Years of Covid

David Wallace-Wells has a piece in the New York Times about hitting the five-year mark with Covid (although it started in 2019, and the first case in the US was reported on January 21st). 

He seems to blame Covid for making America more divisive, but that didn't happen everywhere. Curious. He says Covid turned Americans into hyper-individualists: 

"Isolated, we saw one another first as threats and then as something less than real. Covid unfolded on screens for most Americans, and although the experience was in many ways collective, everyone's screens were different: Some showed overflowing morgues, others revealing a sham. Soon, we began to worry less about how our actions affected others and more about how their affected us--a sense of interdependence giving way to anomie, atomization and entitlement."

On Weaponizing Empathy

Lots of people struggle with boundaries; luckily there are many little sayings along the lines of "not my circus, not my monkey" that help people remember not to get worked up about someone else's problems.

It's a useful strategy to notice when you're getting too invested in other people's lives. It's really handy to be able to let go of how people perceive you or whether or not they like you. We have a strong need for belonging, and we can sometimes be easily guilted into taking on the burdens of others just to get a little taste of perceived connection. So, sure, if it's not your fault or responsibility, then it's not your problem. 

There's a "Let Them" poem (by Cassie Phillips) that blew up then got somewhat plagiarized into a book deal for Mel Robbins. (I actually only clicked on that video because I somehow thought it was about the very funny comedian Mel Giedroyc! The thumbnail looked a bit like her, and, apparently, I didn't actually know her last name! But then I got hooked by the content.) Robbins' daughter used the phrase "let them" to talk her mom out of nosing in to her son's plans for prom. This is a great philosophy to shut down the busybodies in your life, but I can't imagine those two words flushed out into an entire book, and you could get this, and so much more, from books on Buddhism or Stoicism. I'm clearly not the target audience.

Accepting Difference

I recently watched the lovely film, A Real Pain, about two cousins (played by Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) who travel to Poland to visit their departed grandmother’s home. In the first 20 minutes of the movie we’re shown two dramatically different personalities, both neurotic in their own way, but one more inward and the other laser focused on other people. It’s in our vernacular to understand the characters as introverted and extraverted, but there is still disagreement over what that means and, more importantly, what to do with that information.

I think we’ve veered off course since Jung’s Psychological Types, now over a century old, the precursor to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and more recently the Five-Factor Model (FFM) or “Big Five.” There are lots of other personality inventories like John Holland’s six Personal-Orientation types, Arthur Brooks’ mad scientists, cheerleaders, poets, and judges, and Martin Seligman’s top five strengths, but MBTI and FFM seem to have sticking power.

Neither Lazy nor Stupid, but Unfortunately Conned

Well, this sucks. At times like this, like when Mike Harris got in a second time, I think of Rousseau's bit, "When the opinion that is contrary to my own prevails, this proves neither more nor less than that I was mistaken, and that what I thought to be the general will was not so," and how much I disagree with that sentiment. I don't believe this is really what Ontario wants.

Data from Elections Ontario

Conservatives and Liberals were up a bit, and a few more people voted than last time despite the weather warnings in some areas, yet even with the consistency with the last election, I still can't believe people want the type of government that dismantles healthcare and iconic structures and natural habitat so openly and vividly: 

Democracy Requires Participation

Just 18% of registered voters was enough to give Ford a majority back in June 2022 because so many people stayed home. The polls predict another Con win, but screw the polls! Get out and show them they're wrong!! 

Last time, there was slim pickings all around. This time we have much better choices. Social media and mainstream media has been almost completely taken over by the billionaire class, feeding bullshit to the masses, and Ford is all in with Musk. If Ford wins this time, I think it will be because of people believing their lies because it's all they see. So tell your friends and neighbours about his actual shenanigans. He's not the man of the people; he's in it for himself. 

Some recent highlights:

CANADA-US 

Check out Ford's "strategic alliance" with the US titled Building Fortress Am-Can: He plans to "Pursue enhanced collaboration between Canadian cyber security infrastructure and US counterparts," which includes designating areas of Canada with critical minerals as regions of strategic importance to the national security of Canada and the US. 

If we don't want to make Canada in line with the current US policies, we have to get Ford out of power. 

Canadian Broadcasting In Crisis

Does saying "Jeeeezus" and "oh my God" over and over as I scroll through the news count as praying? 

It's not just all the bizarre appointments in the US that will chase out any competent people leaving an empty husk as a gift for Russia - or something like that - but the CBC feels compromised. It's been a bit of a problem here and there for decades, but this latest mess of a "balanced" call-in show on Canada becoming the 51st state with flippin' Kevin O'Leary and David Frum hosting, feels like it's no longer Canadian at all. People are calling them, and the producers Quislings, and I think that word will become more and more commonplace. CBC News reported on the backlash and asks that we pretty please watch the show to make up our own mind. No thanks.

Why Is Everyone Suddenly Sick??

Some people are working hard to believe this level of illness, getting sick several times each year, has always been the case. The latest bizarre reason I've heard for all the illness recently is microplastics. It's definitely a problem that there's so much plastic in our world, and has been for decades (mainly from car tires), BUT that's not why so many people are sick now. T. Ryan Gregory explains a more likely reason below:

I'm sure infectious disease minimizers are attributing the record-shattering surge of severe flu this year to "immunity debt". Let's think this through, shall we?

1. Serious mitigations ended more than 4 years ago. Why would immunity debt only kick in now? And why wasn't four flu seasons without mitigations enough to repay whatever "debt" there was? We wrote this more than two years ago.And yet we had to reiterate the same point this year because the "debt" is somehow still not repaid. 

Improving Indoor Air Quality

Literally years ago, as a trustee around February of 2023, I noticed that the CO2 monitor testing proposal that was ratified had a sneaky line about not beginning the test until after we're back to pre-Covid ventilation levels (i.e. no longer bringing in more fresh air), which might never happen. I was the one to push the issue, but I was told that I shouldn't be the one to put the motion forward because I had just proposed encouraging people to mask, so I was the seconder on that motion to re-write that motion. 

Shop Canadian here!

The motion was just to try out having CO2 monitors in three schools as a test case. The monitors wouldn't be visible to people, but hidden in the vents, remotely monitored by board staff, and that's a line they wouldn't budge on. If they were visible, then teachers could use them to decide if windows should be opened for a bit to air out the room or the HEPA filter actually plugged in! Maybe they were worried about it causing a panic. Who knows! Before I left, which was before that motion was going to be argued about and voted on, I pleaded with the chair to try to add in a line that the reporting of the monitors must report per classroom or at least a range, not just give an average per school. She didn't seem to think it was important. 

It's so clearly important. The school average could show 700 ppm, which is pretty good, and miss that some rooms are at 500, and others at 2,000. As a teacher with my own monitor, I was in a classroom that regularly hit over 2,000 - every day - while other rooms were much better. My room also barely got any heat in the winter. It was an ongoing problem for decades that never really got fully addressed. 

What a Failing Democracy Looks Like

Rachel Gilmore lived in Tunisia just before the fall of their democracy, and has important markers for us to notice: 

"The canary in the coal mine for a failing democracy are society's most vulnerable members. If people who are low income or are members of vulnerable groups are sounding the alarm, you should listen. ... Democracy is not something you have, it's something you do." 

Like Al Capone in a Syphilitic Period Trying to Do a Shakedown

A couple videos not to be missed:

Charlie Angus on Trump - full transcript below:

Angus: "What President Trump also said is that the tariffs will not come off until we give up our birthright and our sovereignty to a convicted predator. That is never, ever, ever going to happen. So what Donald Trump has done is unify Canadians in a manner I've never seen before. And while Americans may be waking up to the tariffs, we've already started the pushback. People in Kentucky, did you know that your biggest export market for spirits is Canada? We just took everything off the shelf. California, did you know that the largest purchaser of wines in the world is the liquor agency in Ontario? You don't get any more California wines in Ontario. Elon Musk, our premier just canceled a $100 million deal today. Canada is getting ready for this fight because we know that he's erratic, may be this week, may be next week, but there's a huge actual boycott going on. Grocery stores, ordinary people, people stopping on the streets. Nobody is buying anything that comes out of the United States right now, because we understand this is a threat to who we are as a nation." 

Staying Informed and Sane

 Who I'm reading to get through this mess (among many others):

#1 - Timothy Snyder

Yesterday's piece, "The Logic of Destruction," should be read in full, but here are some important bits:

"The parts of the government that work to implement laws have been maligned for decades. Americans have been told that the people who provide the with services are conspirators within a 'deep state.' We have been instructed that the billionaires are the heroes. All of this work was preparatory to the coup that is going on now. ... The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. ...They will have bet against the stock market in advance of Trump's deliberately destructive tariffs, adn will be ready to tell everyone to buy the crypto they already own. ... The economic collapse they plan is more like a reverse flood from the Book of Genesis, in which the righteous will all be submerged while the very worst ride Satan's ark. ... 

Trump's tariffs (which are also likely illegal) are there to make us poor. Trump's attacks on America's closet friends, countries such as Canada and Denmark, are there to make enemies of countries where constitutionalism works and people are prosperous. As their country is destroyed, Americans must be denied the idea that anything else is possible. ... [These oligarchs] are possessed, like millennia of tyrants before them, of fantastic dreams: they will live forever, they will go to Mars. None of that will happen; they will die here on Earth, with the rest of us, their only legacy, if we let it happen, one of ruins. They are god-level brainrotted." 

So, yikes! It doesn't look good for us here no matter how you slice it. As long as Trump is in power, Canada is in danger. Snyder calls for Trump and Vance to be impeached, but so far I don't see many standing up to him beyond Sanders and AOC. That's not enough. Beyond that, he calls for government workers to keep working until officially fired to slow the process down. Muddle up the works as long as possible. 

#2 Heather Cox Richardson

The Art of Life

Here's a nice distraction from our nutty lives: I watched this lovely film about Michael Behrens, a math prodigy who studied at MIT, then left it all at 29. Now he's 82, living in Hawaii where he can walk through the forests and swim with dolphins. He says, "I spent 13 years in the university learning how to think, and now I'm spending the rest of my life learning how not to think."

He explains that loving everything that's positive and beautiful is one strain of spirituality, but he practices perceiving everything as beautiful. It's only 38 minutes long, but I'll get to the bits I like below:

We're all separate beings, but we're also all just molecules shifting in space. Both things are true at once. While we need to work to feed and house ourselves, we don't need big goals beyond what we do today.

Norms are for Breaking

Anonymous is urging me to move on away from precautions and towards prior norms of society in a string of comments on a previous post. I had too much to say to the most recent comment, so I moved it here.

from Catherine Flynn

Anon responded for a third time (or a third Anon -- who's to say) to this point from a week ago in which I borrowed the analogy that sharing air unprotected with someone likely carrying Covid is about as wise as having sex unprotected with someone likely carrying chlamydia:

"Analogies often fail with covid. This isn’t really like seatbelts or smoking which are additions to our base state in the world. If we’re going to play analogies, then perhaps this is like setting the right speed limit for cars. People die in crashes every year. We have speed limits to limit harms. What should these speed limits be? Some might want cars abolished. Some might want German autobahns. But here we’ve set certain norms based, ostensibly, on some sort of cost/benefit ratio. The pandemic was like a pile up on the 401. Everyone had to slow down and for a while we were all stuck. But now we're back to normal speeds. Some, though, are shell shocked. “I’m not driving again!” Some are now petitioning to lower the speed limits and to educate others to the dangers of driving. It’s all good. But life goes on and things go back to the norms that were.

Still with the Immunity Debt Claims?

Two competing claims were made in the past few days on whether Long Covid should be a concern for parents of children or if children actually develop greater immunity from getting sick. Still.

In one corner, two Canadians and an American:

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault, Arijit Chakravarty, and T. Ryan Gregory wrote this week on immunity debt: 

"Infections do not build a stronger immune system. There is no lasting immunity to RSV. If you get infected one year, it does not mean you avoid it the next. ... With influenza, the virus in circulation this year is not the same as last year. ... You can get infected over and over with SARS-CoV-2. ... In the absence of public health measure to limit transmission, repeated waves of infection will continually surge through the population driven by the evolution of new variants and the waning population immunity from infection and vaccines. If you are lucky, your most recent vaccine will offer you some protection against being infected, but this protection varies from one person to the next and lasts only for a few months. ... Long-term effects [of SARS-CoV-2] are shockingly common. ... Evidence is accumulating that the virus damages our immune system."