I’ve been thinking about the concern with kids not going to school for reasons beyond the rampant illnesses caused by letting a highly-infectious virus run wild. The Fortune article suggests that schools are less welcoming now. “Everyone seemed less tolerant, more angry.” They mention a host of reasons for absences including
Continue readingTag: neoliberalism
Alberta Politics: Canada is facing a grave crisis, and it needs courageous leaders, but brutal street-clearing operations won’t help
There’s no question Canada is facing a grave social crisis on multiple fronts. Howard Anglin (Photo: Twitter/Howard Anglin). The homeless crisis, the housing crisis, the deadly drug poisoning crisis, and the crisis of our overburdened health care system are all real, and they share a common cause. Forty years of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Mixing Church and State
The religious far right is growing and getting more powerful and unnerving, and we know the fights happening in schools board meetings. This 25 min. BBC video from earlier this year is instructive. It’s telling that Patriot Mobile put millions of dollars behind school board elections, taking over politics from the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Role of Public Health under Neoliberalism
The air quality is bad again today, but public health hasn’t issued any warnings, and it’s not on the Weather Network website. A few people were commenting on their eyes burning and asthma being triggered. Sure enough, the air particulate numbers are up. So, it looks like we’re on our
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Problems with Psychiatry
Paul Minot, MD, wrote a thread inviting other threads on the practice of psychiatry. Caveat, I have no idea of the credibility of any of these claims, but some make a lot of sense to me: “I’ve been practicing psychiatry for 38 years. I love my job, my peers, and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Murphy points out the stark contrast between the UK Cons’ attempt to pretend that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, and the tens of thousands of excess deaths still resulting from it. Mary Van Beusekom discusses a new study showing that Ontario’s infection levels
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jessica Wildfire writes about the desperation to return to some past normal (stoked of course by the people who profit from it) which is leading far too many to take obviously reckless risks with their health in the midst of a pandemic.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Lost Counterculture
Henry Madison, just some random dude on twitter, wrote an interesting bit on concerts and the enmeshment of generations. I disagree with several of his claims below: Blondie “Imagine a 77-year old favourite of the boomers’ parents, playing at Woodstock in the 1960s. The oldest performer at Woodstock was Ravi
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: How neoliberalism brought down Russia … and nearly us
The economic collapse of the 1930s brought down democracies across Europe unleashing fascism across the continent. Other countries, including Canada and the United States, introduced drastic measures to protect the vulnerable which helped save them from the same fate. Capitalism was failing, rescued by the rudiments of the welfare state.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We’re Reaping What We’ve Sown
There’s tons of news about all the smoke – so much about the smoke. But I’m finding very little information about the actual fires. We know that firefighters are coming to help from the states and from South Africa, which is fantastic, but where are the videos of planes water
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Gil McGowan highlights how the UCP’s intolerable plans for Alberta include another four years of systematic wage suppression in order to further enrich the donor class. – Cory Doctorow writes about the importance of having “ideas lying around” to respond to an obviously
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – David Wallace-Wells writes that the U.S.’ neoliberal political consensus may finally have dissolved – though that possibility is of little comfort when the party continuing to push it is able to block change. – Ian Hudson examines how income inequality is worsening
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Carrie Arnold examines our current state of knowledge about the prevalence and effects of long COVID. Tanya Lewis discusses the particularly acute risks COVID-19 creates in the course of a pregnancy. And Violet Blue writes about the dissonance involved in an ongoing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Greg Jericho rightly notes that the COVID pandemic showed beyond doubt that poverty is a policy choice – which makes it all the more maddening that the powers that be are so determined to inflict it on people as part of any
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Spare us the dogma, ladies
Normally, I am pleased to see women emerge as political leaders. We need more women in positions of leadership in our governance. What we do not need are more free-market ideologues. And, unfortunately, we just got two of them, both elected to leadership by their parties, not by the people.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Bedir Alihsan et al. examine the effectiveness of face masks in preventing COVID-19 infections in both health care and community settings. And Taiyler Simone Mitchell and Catherine Schuster-Bruce note that the loss of smell may be returning as a signature symptom in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Mary Ward and Lucy Carroll report on New South Wales’ warning of the potential for COVID-19 reinfection as the newer Omicron variants become dominant. Zoe Swank et al. find that people with long COVID may have viral reservoirs in their bodies for a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Judy Melinek offers a coroner’s perspective on the large number of ways in which COVID infection can result in death or severe illness, while Lixue Huang et al. find that long COVID remains an issue even for many of the people who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Zak Vescera reports on the combination of high rates of hospitalization and virtually nonexistent vaccination that’s resulted from Scott Moe’s surrender to COVID-19. And Nicholas Larsen et al. add autonomic dysfunction to the list of post-COVID symptoms which are common even among people
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Peter Smits et al. examine some of the risk factors which tend to produce particularly severe breakthrough cases of COVID-19. The Economist summarizes what we know so far – and still have left to learn – about long COVID. Mark Lieberman discusses
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