I spent the better part of yesterday morning in the waiting room at a dental surgeon’s office while my daughter got her wisdom teeth removed. They said it would take 40 minutes, but it was more than 90 before I could see her. She’s fine. I was pleased to discover
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A Puff of Absurdity: A Quick Evolution of Masking
After my laptop died, and I found out the harddrive was corrupted, and all my pictures were lost, I started backing up my phone photos, and noticed an evolution in my mask wearing that evaded my memory. I’m not much for selfies, but I did take a few along the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Resignation
I’ve officially resigned as a school board trustee. As with almost all endings and beginnings, it comes with mixed feelings. As soon as I hit send on the email, I felt like, okay now I’ve finally retired. But I feel horrible for disappointing people who helped me win and for leaving people
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Grief and the WHO and Culpability
I wonder to what extent the desire, or even the ability, to kill one another has been affected by being surrounded by leaders who are looking the other way while so many have died or are disabled by a virus that we’re told we just have to live with. It makes me
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Back to Basics: A Reminder of How It All Works
What Covid is and how it spreads: It’s a virus that mutates very quickly inside “host” bodies (that’s us if we get it). It can seem respiratory, but it’s actual vascular, causing micro-clots in the bloodstream that stick around and cause issues in many organs. Because it mutates so quickly,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: There is No Cure for Covid Except Maybe MAiD
Dr. Rae Duncan is a cardiologist who, pre-pandemic, mainly saw people aged 55-80. Now most of her clients are 16-40. They were previously healthy, but Long Covid affected their heart. Most are housebound, some cannot walk. Some are in bed for over 20 hours per day, and can only sit
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Why Take the Risk?
If you read my blog and still don’t take Covid precautions, why not? Justin Lee posted a list of his guesses of what people might be feeling when he asks them to take precautions (test, mask, maybe open a window) before in-person meetings. His list is slightly tidied up and
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Quiet Comprehending
A pretty song for our times form Bo Burnham: Female Colonel Sanders, easy answer, civil warThe whole world is at your fingertips, the ocean at your doorThe live-action Lion King, the Pepsi Halftime ShowTwenty-thousand years of this, seven more to go . . . That unapparent summer air in early fallThe
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Social Darwinism and "Useless Eaters"
Some people are arguing that the removal of mask mandates in hospitals is a form of eugenics. Tamara Taggart, President of Down Syndrome BC, said on “This is Vancolour,” “This is eugenics, like 100%. So now we don’t care about people. . . . All those people are expensive. I
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Chris Hedges on Our Current State of Paralysis
Hedges writes on Substack now, if you haven’t been able to find him lately, and his piece today is excellent. He starts by pointing out the growing rich-poor divide that is seeing the top earnings increase by almost 90% in the last decease in the states, while the lowest struggle
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Earth Day #53: Simple Solutions
As a social science teacher talking about climate change, I’d often get students who raise the fact that there are just 100 companies, worldwide, producing over 70% of all GHGs. Therefore, they reason, if we petition or protest or rally to shut down those 100 companies, then climate change will
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Forced Exposure in Hospitals
If you’re feeling unwell, McMaster is advising you to NOT go to a hospital because they no longer require masks there, and they don’t want people in there spreading their diseased germs around. Wha…?? Some doctors and nurses are excited to ditch their masks, despite the potential harm that could come
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Transphobia is the New Homophobia
Natalie Wynn, one of my favourite YouTubers, came out with a 2-hour long video, basically a feature-length film, her first in 10 months. This one is on J.K. Rowling, whom she discussed two years ago (and I wrote about here if you need to catch up on the controversy). This time she goes
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Still Hopeful
I went to a book talk via Zoom tonight to see Maude Barlow talk about her recent book, Still Hopeful: Lessons from a Lifetime of Activism. I last saw her in person, seven years ago, when she worked to try to get Nestle out of Guelph. This time her book
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: At What Point is Inaction a Form of Eugenics??
This impressive and prescient thread worthy of saving is from Miles W. Griffis. He interweaves a speech from Vito Russo, AIDS activist, back and forth with current headlines on Covid-19 to show how easily we write-off a group of people when they become inconvenient: Vito Russo’s 1988 ACT UP speech
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: We’re Not Ready for This
I’m waiting to write my last exam of the term. It’s supposed to open at 8:00, and we have 90 minutes to write it, online, multiple choice, open book. I set aside 8-9:30 am today to write, and asked my kids to stay in their rooms until I finished. Except
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Age of Absurdity
We’re skipping gleefully into the most absurd period in history. The philosophical notion of the absurd came from Camus. It grew legs with existentialists after WWII when the youngest and fittest men were sent to be slaughtered in war. The streets of Paris were full of widows and grieving mothers
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Looking for the Enlightened
The season finale of The Last of Us sets up a great deontological v. teleological conundrum with the big question (tiny spoiler), which ends up being an episode-long trolley problem: Is it right to kill one person if doing so could save multitudes? (The brilliant Just an Observation explains how the entire
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Liquid Life and the Myth of Government Protection
Liquid life is a concept some Buddhist cultures had of the young and old, typically those under 6 and over 70, whose lives weren’t seen as quite solid due to the greater likelihood of death at either end compared to the middle. This book discusses, among other things, some of the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Where We’re At: It’s Still Here!
Several people have been screaming into the void about how Covid works, how bad it is, and what we need to do to stop it now that we’re dealing with another dominating variant: We’re on to Arcturus now, guardian of the bear. I’ve collected three threads here explaining the current situation and
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