I’ve just published Chapter 8 of my open access textbook. This new chapter focuses on women’s homelessness. An English summary of the new chapter can be found here: https://nickfalvo.ca/womens-homelessness/ A French summary of the new chapter is here: https://nickfalvo.ca/litinerance-chez-les-femmes/ All material related to the textbook can be found here: https://nickfalvo.ca/book/
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Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Umair Irfan discusses the possibility that carbon pollution may have reached its peak in 2023 – while recognizing that even if that proves true, there’s still a long way to go in reducing the additional climate carnage being inflicted by continued emissions.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Psychosomatic Illness
I don’t know anything about Fibromyalgia, yet I wince when someone says it’s psychosomatic. I wonder about almost any conditioned considered psychosomatic now. I realize I’m using the term in the vernacular to mean “it’s all in your head”. That’s how it is largely understood even though, technically, psychosomatic illness can refer to anything
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Canada’s Healthcare Crisis
A major backbone of Canada is falling apart, and much of it is from poor policy decisions that has led to a serious doctor shortage. Mary Fernando, MD, wrote about it. “A personal post in two parts: 1. Someone I love needs a specialist but wait times are dangerously long
Continue readingwmtc: "i’m afraid to leave the house, because i’ll hear about another death": the ongoing crises and the toll on frontline workers
The branch supervisor of the Port Hardy Librarymade these, on her own initiative. We have givenaway more than 50 of these “crisis keychains” so far.Front and back pictured here. The Port Hardy community has been besieged with a series of untimely deaths, many of young people. This has been going
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No surprise, Alberta’s privatized surgery clinics don’t seem to be doing anything to reduce wait times
Does anyone remember Premier Danielle Smith’s handpicked administrator of Alberta Health Services confidently predicting that wait times for surgeries in this province were about to fall and fall dramatically? NDP Opposition Health Critic Luanne Metz (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Reduced surgical wait times would be the biggest single mark of
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Enshittification of Health Care
Last week David Moscrop wrote an excellent piece in The Walrus about Loblaw. He wrote, “If you live in Canada, you’re probably part of the Loblaw ecosystem, whether you like it or not. . . . It accounts for nearly a third of Canada’s grocery market. . . . Loblaw’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kate Irwin reports on new research showing that dozens of the U.S.’ largest corporations are doling out more money to their five top executives than they paid in total federal income tax. And Robert Renger makes the case that windfall gains in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Brishti Basu reports on the ill effects of WorkSafeBC’s decision to push people back to work while they continue to suffer from long COVID. And Alex Skopic calls out the CDC’s choice to direct people back to work while they’re still infected
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Erosion of Public Health
You would think that after dealing with Covid for over FOUR years that Public Health would be amazing at stopping Measles in its tracks, unless maybe they’ve been directed otherwise. From Henry Madison: Why persist with Covid questions? Because our greatest achievement in history was the invention of public health.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Avoiding Pathogens Benefits Babies
My mom was right after all: We really should do everything we can to keep babies from getting sick. When I was close to the due date of my first child, my mom warned me not to pass around the baby to people or let lots of people into the house
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Susan Riley points out the glaring gap between the urgency of the climate crisis, and the Canadian political response which (Charlie Angus aside) ranges from mealy-mouthed corporatism to outright sabotage. And Gillian Steward calls out the UCP’s continued climate denial which is preventing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andre Picard highlights the dangers of treating the return of measles (and other threats to health exacerbated by anti-science zealotry) as something to be mocked rather than taken seriously. And John Paul Tasker discusses the widespread frustration Canadians are experiencing trying to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Infection Control Measures Work
A Lancet study found that there’s little Covid transmission in schools WHEN infection control measures were in place. Since we stopped all mitigation efforts, hospitalizations for Covid in Ontario have increased year-round. We don’t need lockdowns for Covid, but we do still need N95s until we can clean the air.
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Is There a Conspiracy to Break and Then Fix Health Care ?
So how would this work. I suggest first you underfund public health care as well as simply not spending budgeted funds. As the public facilities fail to meet the needs you claim private facilities are needed. You then transfer funds from public to private facilities further reducing the public facilities
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ian Welsh discusses how COVID-19 is the second-most important story in the world – and how our failure to respond with appropriate regard for human life and well-being mirrors our inability to address any social challenge. And Ruth Link-Gelles et al. find that
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: N95s Reduce the Risk
There are more studies coming out that show that N95s and fresh air help in schools, and we’re still not going to act on them! A pre-print just came out yesterday that studied university classrooms and the way students interacted, and concluded, “Due to high-population density, frequent close contact, possible poor
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It turns out Shoppers Drug Mart clinic plan does nothing to improve access to primary health care in Alberta
The plan announced Thursday by an Ontario-based drugstore chain to add new stores in Alberta and renovate older ones does nothing to improve access to primary health care in this province. A sign inside an Edmonton-area Shoppers store advertises pharmacy services offered (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). So why was it
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith struggles to pump up new drugstore ‘clinics’ as primary care – no slur on pharmacists, but that dog won’t hunt!
The sight yesterday of Premier Danielle Smith and two of her ministers struggling to pump up the tires of a corporate scheme to pass off pharmacists as practitioners of family medicine and their drugstores as clinics was as embarrassing as it was disturbing. Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. CEO Jeff Leger
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Peak Advancement
Measles cases are on the rise because of lower vaccination rates. It’s one of the most contagious diseases out there, but that’s still not going to budge policy. An article in yesterday’s Guardian explains that we’re actually less prepared to cope with any viral activity now than we were in 2019.
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