I wrote about concerns about the similarity between SARS-2 and AIDS back in November: Here’s info on Covid causing lymphopenia (aka lymphocytopenia), the reduction of B, T, and NK cells that fight off intruders in the body (i.e. our immune system). The only other disease that causes this is
Continue readingAuthor: Marie Snyder
A Puff of Absurdity: Teaching in the Face of a Bleak Future
I can’t imagine teaching right now. This post is a mishmash of thought around teaching at such a momentous time in history. Well, momentous for us. I’ve only been retired a year, but the world has gotten so much worse in that time with climate change hitting some serious tipping
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Frankl’s Logotherapy
The second half of Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning was added in 1962 to provide greater detail of Logotherapy, in which patients must hear difficult things in contrast to psychoanalysts provoking telling difficult things (see the first part here). It’s less introspective and more focused on our place in the world: “Logotherapy defocuses all
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We’re Back to Rhetoric of Welfare Cheaters
An old one, but the agenda still fits! According to Queen’s Park reporter Jack Hauen, on Monday Premier Ford said: “What drives me crazy, is people on Ontario Works–probably 3,400,000–that are healthy. . . . It really bothers me that we have healthy people sitting at home collecting your hard-earned
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s all the Scientists’ Fault!
We’re at the stage in climate change news that it’s time to blame scientists for not telling anyone about it before now. Headline from The Hill: “Catch-22: Scientific communication failures linked to faster-rising seas” “Scientists failed for decades to communicate the coming risks of rapid sea-level rise to policymakers and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Importance of Solidarity with the Covid Cautious
This is all from Conor Browne following a bit of in-fighting online: I consider the unmitigated transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to be the single most important risk facing humanity. Climate change is, of course, a close second. Both of these are systemic risks – that is to say, they are risks that involve
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Symbols of Class
The Titan submersible hasn’t been found yet, and the supply of oxygen is gone. Some think they perished days ago from pressure or another type of malfunction, all horrific to think about. That likely won’t stop anyone from looking for the vessel in order to recover the bodies. It’s my
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: An Assault on Gender is an Assault on Democracy
Here’s Judith Butler on gender. She’s a prof in California who teaches literature, philosophy, and critical theory, and wrote, most famously, Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter. Abridged transcript of the video below for easy skimming and with links to more information. “There are many different theories of gender, and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s Hard to Emigrate to New Zealand. I Checked
This one minute video is the type of thing the government of New Zealand posts: a virologist explaining that every Covid infection significantly increases the risk of getting diabetes, mental health issues, blood clots, breathlessness, chronic fatigue… so we need to do everything possible to protect ourselves. Yup, Covid will
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Debating Science
Dr. Peter Hotez is a medical doctor in Texas who did his undergrad at Yale and his medical degree at Cornell. He has been successful at creating Covid vaccine technology cheaply and patent-free so it can be distributed to low-income countries. His work has been “nominated for the 2022 Nobel
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Autistic Pride
Today is Autistic Pride Day. It’s well researched that people with autism are disproportionately 2SLGBTQIA+. A study, from the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders in 2010, studied people who had visited a gender identity clinic, and found that almost 8% were ASD, compared to 1% of people with ASD in the general
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Laughing Matter
I got laughed at in the grocery store today. That hasn’t happened in a while. Cases of hospitalizations/day are at their lowest since December 2021 right now, which is fantastic, but they’re still higher than some of the earlier peaks that once sent us into lockdown and masking everyone everywhere. Our
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Moral Injury and Definition Creep
In a class this week we talked about moral injury, but it was presented and discussed as if it meant any time there’s a clash of values. One of the examples given was being in university and realizing people in the next bed were having sex. Another explained that people
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Inclusivity of "Queer"
A bit of bell hooks to mark the middle of pride month (from here at 1:27): “All of our lives we’ve experienced ourselves as queer, as not belonging as the essence of queer. I think of Tim Dean’s work on being queer, and not as being about who you’re having
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Conspiracy
Journalist and activist George Monbiot wrote on why we can’t actually explain the problems with certain arguments anymore: Conspiracy fictions have succeeded, as Steve Bannon hoped, in “flooding the zone with shit”. It is almost impossible now to have a rational conversation about the real sources of oppression, destruction and injustice, as
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: When Hospitals Remove Protections
Dr. Kashif Pirzada wrote yesterday about this graphic from Robbie Meriales from the perspective of a doctor in a hospital in Toronto that’s lifting all mask mandates. “So much truth in this one graphic. True story, on a recent shift, I had to run and help a patient who had collapsed
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Ideology and Indoctination
We’ve got marches and rallies surfacing, sometimes right outside of schools, with people chanting, “Leave the kids alone” in order to put an end to “gender ideology.” What does this even mean? First off, check out this 8 minute TikTok on indoctrinating kids (also here if embedding doesn’t work): @headonfirepod Replying
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 readingA Puff of Absurdity: Brain Fusion and Long Covid
I can’t find a way to embed this, but a three minute video seen at this link is making the rounds. It’s an interview with Professor Yazi Ke of MacQuarie University, in Sydney, Australia, explaining Long Covid at the neurological level. She says, “What happens is when this virus infects
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Ontario School Safety
This small but mighty grassroots organization, Ontario School Safety, was at Queen’s Park Wednesday, on Clean Air Day, to plead for clean air in schools and school buses. They unmasked as they spoke with a CO2 monitor on the podium never getting beyond the 400 range of ppm, which means
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