Assorted content to end your week. – Mark Rowlinson points out how the obvious frailty of our current supply chains highlights the need to develop Canadian manufacturing. And Amanda Follett Hosgood notes the importance of localized food production in particular. – Bill McKibben calls out the oil industry’s attempts to
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Annie Lowrey writes about the long-term effects of the millennial generation facing a second economic shock in the years which would normally serve as the base for personal stability and growth. – Polly Toynbee weighs in on the holes exposed in social
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner writes that the COVID-19 pandemic is exactly the type of rare but severe event which should be the subject of thorough public preparation. And Eric Neudorf explains why so many governments failed to appreciate and act on the severity of the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Cat amid mayhem.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Miles Corak weighs in on how COVID-19 is revealing and exacerbating existing inequality rather than serving as any leveling force. – Jessica Yun reports on how the ability to work from home reflects existing privilege, while Sara Mojtehedzadeh notes that already-vulnerable migrant
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On absenteeism
The U.S. has seen some of its state elections turned into anti-democratic abominations by the absence of effective absentee balloting – with the lack of effective voting serving as an explicit strategy by Republicans to exclude people from exercising their right to vote. Fortunately, Saskatchewan doesn’t have the extreme exclusions
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tobias Jones discusses how COVID-19 has emphasized the importance of social interaction to human well-being: It seems callous to suggest that this tenebrous pandemic is letting the light in, and daft to offer immediate consolations amid so much grief. But there is a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lauren Leatherby and David Gelles examine how people are spending money differently in the midst of a pandemic, while Lucia Mutikani reports on a massive drop in prices as declining consumer spending outweights any disruption to supply chains. And Armine Yalnizyan comments
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On antisocialism
Plenty of attention is rightly getting paid to the unabashed evil that is the Republicans’ insistence on holding previously-scheduled elections at a time when it was certain to make. But how much worse is it then for a politician to actually treat the spread of COVID-19 as an excuse to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On private interests
So far, the COVID-19 crisis has offered plenty of lessons about the limitations of delivering public goods through self-interested banks. Any relief has flowed only slowly, while the crisis has been turned into a profiteering opportunity both in the form of fine print imposing higher long-term costs on people who
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Saturday reading. – Henry Giroux discusses how the greatest risks arising out of the coronavirus pandemic can be traced back to neoliberal political assumptions. And Patrick Sharkey notes that the effect of the pandemic has been to reveal the U.S.’ glaring inability to address collective action
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Musical interlude
Labi Siffre – I Got The…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your long weekend reading. – Andrej Markovcic discusses how the pursuit of profit above all else has contributed to the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating effects on people – while warning that we’ll only make matters worse by keeping the same warped priorities now. And Ian Welsh
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Damian Carrington reports on the connection between air pollution and more severe death rates caused by the coronavirus. Clyde Russell writes that there’s every reason to expect clean energy to win out over fossil fuels as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Brendan Kennedy discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic is proving to be the last straw for far too many workers already facing precarious finances. And Theodore Schleifer warns of the dangers of counting on billionaires to save us from breakdowns in public capacity which
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Night Cat Blogging
Surrounded cat.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Duncan Cameron writes that while the COVID-19 pandemic has been catastrophic, we shouldn’t pretend that it’s at all surprising – or that the necessary responses are in doubt: Though it has taken the world by surprise, the COVID-19 pandemic is a white
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Mariana Mazzucato comments on the triple crisis facing our current economic system, and the importance of addressing health, environmental and economic disasters alike. – Shannon Daub writes that it’s entirely counterproductive to withhold coronavirus relief from charities and non-profits until their resources have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Jim Stanford writes about the need for a new Marshall Plan to rebuild once we’ve won the fight against COVID-19: For many years to come, Canada’s economy will rely on public service, public investment and public entrepreneurship as the main drivers of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On stitches in time
It’s no secret that Canadians’ individual finances have been getting perpetually more precarious, with most people lacking the ability to fund even a single urgent expense. But the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed what happens when the fragile finances of large numbers of individuals shatter all at once. And while our
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