Trying to convince universities to allow remote learning in maskless in-person classes and maybe to allow mini-HEPAs on the desk during exams appears to be futile despite the current risk level. Higher learning, my eye! Why Universities Should Lead the Way Last July, two grad students from the University of
Continue readingAuthor: Marie Snyder
A Puff of Absurdity: It’s not the Lockdowns. It’s the Covid!
For people, like Maria Van Kerkhove of the WHO, who think immunity debt or the immunity gap or whatever new name they give for it is the problem, this one’s for you! Dr. Lisa Iannattone posted an excellent thread debunking the notion that keeping us all at home for a few
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Are the Covid Inquiries Just for Show?
How many inquiries do we need before Public Health kicks into gear again?? Wastewater in my area is hitting the tippy top of the graph, and that’s after the y-axis was doubled from 2 to 4 standardized concentration of SARS-CoV-2 gene copies. But we’re still carrying on as if everything’s normal.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The System Isn’t the Problem
See Lecce’s announcement on a mandatory anti-communism curriculum coming to schools: But then also check out Frank Domenic’s take on it and how similar our current provincial government is to enacting some atrocities typically blamed on communism. We should be teaching about the problem with leaders who harm their citizens. Absolutely!
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: New Covid: It’s the Real Thing
This might be just what we need to change the script. An Australian publication briefly had this headline: Why you don’t want to catch new Covid: Which was unceremoniously changed to: “Covid linked to deadly diseases, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, bowel disease,” They explain that “alarming new research suggests catching the virus
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Fracking Hell!
Sunday was the busiest day ever for air travel in the U.S. Almost 3 million people were screened at airports across the country. Meanwhile, Gianluca Grimalda lost his job doing climate-change fieldwork because he refused to take a plane back to the office, choosing a much longer journey home that took
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: How to Know
We need to fight back on the idea that there’s nothing we can really know. When I taught, more and more I’d run up against the claim that there’s nothing we can know in the world. I believe that it’s a dangerous situation if we think science is on par
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: These Masks are Made for Walking…Pneumonia
Mycoplasma pneumonia infections are on the rise in children in parts of the world, but the typically mild illness is sending them to the hospital. Forbes reports, “Typically, mycoplasma pneumonia doesn’t require hospitalization. However, young children with a nascent immune system may be at greater risk of developing more serious
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: It’s a Ruse!
We have to acknowledge how far we’ve gone down the rabbit hole of lies to be able to ignore this Covid wave that’s almost reaching the highest peak of hospitalizations. It’s the third leading cause of death and children are the fastest growing population affected by it, but people still balk at
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Brief History of Letting it Rip
Something, at some time, eventually, will be the last straw that finally gets people everywhere to change their behaviour around Covid. This is where I live, and I rarely see another person in a mask! This is save-worthy post on Twitter. Long Covid advocate Laura Miers wrote a timeline of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Genius of a Virus
We’re starting to see more effects of Covid. Yesterday, biorisk consultant Conor Browne wrote about something many have been screaming into the void for some time now: “A core part of the analysis I perform involves zooming out; that is to say, taking a very broad view of the effects of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Disagnosing Mental Illness During Difficult Times
A guest essay in the NY Times makes some excellent points about the way we’re framing mental health issues in kids. Psychologist Darby Saxbe discusses the well-intentioned but problematic way many schools have added mental health resources, like those focusing on emotional regulation or mindfulness: “Recent studies have found that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Learning Loss
A New York Times piece discusses, again, learning loss from the lockdowns of 2020, but a new study shows the lockdowns actually improved some skills. The Editorial Board of the NY Times wrote about the “Startling Evidence on Learning Loss” insisting that school closures “may prove to be the most
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Moonshot to End the Pandemic
A recent paper explains how easily we could stop the pandemic even with current highly transmissible, immune evasive variants. Barry Hunt explained the paper’s findings: Rt [the replication rate of the virus] typically hovers just around 1, just enough to sustain transmission endlessly. Rt typically peaks at less than 1.50.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Compassion as the Antidote for Capitalism
A Taylor Swift fan took the brave position of calling out the beloved superstar, and everyone else involved, for the death of Ana Clara and many in need of medical attention at her concert Friday night in Rio: “First of all, Taylor made sure fans had water during the show.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Party Like It’s 1699
It feels like there are three realities out there. It’s not just three separate groups of people, because lots of people straddle a couple or even all these realities. One reality is full of facts and figures. Climate change is being exacerbated by continued fossil fuel use and beef farming. The pandemic
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Putting the Brakes on Car Culture
I’m sure I’ve used that title before!. It’s a funny time of year for this, but lots has been reported recently on the trouble with cars. Part of it may have started from this video put out by the RCMP, depicting the car fatality issue as if it’s equally a problem caused
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Frustrating Run-Around on Filtration Units in Schools
This is a long but very informative video about what happened when people tried to improve air quality in schools. This is a very loose collection of things said that resonated with me in this meeting between Robert Bean and Adam Muggleton of Edifice Complex Podcast and Amanda Hu, a
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Legislating Kindness
If kind, other-centred behaviour isn’t entirely natural to us, then should it be legislated (more than it already is)? Many old timey philosophers agree that happiness is predicated on an increase in pleasure and decrease in pain, and that just seem like common sense. Yet all too often the choices
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: From Childcare to Prisons
There’s a growing and obvious labour shortage in certain fields that all connect to one culprit. But we don’t want be explicit about it. And N95s help as well! As mentioned by 1GoodTern, a Guardian article came so close to saying it in this editorial: “These days, staff shortages are causing
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