It's All So Simple

 ... if you are a devotee of Fox News and its ilk.

I talked to this lady who says drugs will be handed out tonight for Halloween by “illegals” because she saw it on an “episode” of Fox News. Happy Halloween and stay safe out there.

H/t Davram

Cool And Rational

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and I suggested to him that people like us (we who strive to be rational, critical thinkers) are an endangered species and becoming largely irrelevant in the world today.

It is good to know, however, that there are passionate and articulate people who refuse to go down without a magnificent fight. Politics Girl, an American voice of sanity, is one of those people. And, by the way, her observations are relevant to our country as well, especially given that many simple-minded people blame #justinflation for all of our economic woes.

Just Because I'm In A Mood

Make of the following what you will. If you view it, be sure to watch right to the end. 

H/t Annie

About Canada's Much-Vaunted Reputation On Human Rights

Despite our politicians' proud proclamations, there is actually much less to them than meets the eye:

From The Land Of Make Believe

That would be Ontario, though I suppose, in truth, it is far more widespread: a rising number of deaths from Covid (this week was the worst since last May, despite three days missing from the weekly data) in the province. Nevertheless, our political overlords and their minions continue to do little to dispel the delusion that the pandemic is over. 

That, presumably, would be bad for business.

True, Ontario's medical officer of health, Kieran Moore, has made some mewling sounds about mask-wearing and booster shots, chiding us for the low rate of -fourth-booster uptake among those 70 and up (a mere 16% , which he deemed "not acceptable"). Yet he seems strangely reluctant to really address the issue:

While a return to mandatory masking is not yet being recommended, Moore called on people to consider [italics mine] wearing masks indoors as cases rise and said he would not hesitate to recommend a stronger measure if necessary.

“If there is any significant impact on our health system where we can’t care for Ontarians appropriately, I will absolutely have the conversation with government (around) whether we have to mandate masking for a set period of time,” Moore told Global News.

Huh? Hasn't he heard about the current crises of overcapacity and staff burnout in our hospitals?

Perhaps his pusillanimous response is the inevitable outcome of working for the Ford government. The message seems to be: normalcy no matter what the cost. 

And the cost could be substantial. New immunity-evading variants are of growing concern.

The increasing concern around these emerging variants has earned them unofficial Twitter hashtags that spare users from constantly typing awkward combinations of letters and numbers. BQ.1.1 is known as #Cerberus; its parent BQ.1 is known as #Typhon; BA.2.75.2 is being called #Chiron; and XBB has earned the moniker #Gryphon.

Whether or not these new immune-evading variants will lead to worse health outcomes than previous variants is the key question.

Dr. Peter Juni, former head of the Ontario Science Table, says thanks to vaccines and previous infection, the new kids on the block may not be as deadly as previous iterations. However, he admits of the possibility

that a variant that is both very good at evading the immune system — and also more virulent than existing strains — could one day arise. 

Of course, the chances of new and deadlier variants increase with each new infection. Undeniably, vaccines are of tremendous importance in preventing serious illness and death, but so is masking. While neither confers absolute protection, statistics show significant reductions in infections and thus significant reductions in the chance for endless mutations to arise when both are embraced.

So why the increasing stigma and public repudiation of masking? I suppose some see the mask as a very visible constraint on what they regard as their freedom, binary thinking being very popular amongst the simple-minded. And, of course, as alluded to earlier, government sees it as a reminder that the pandemic isn't over, and that is surely viewed as an impediment to the economic imperatives that drive government.

It has been said that we get the government we deserve. Perhaps that observation needs to be updated to include the diseases that can decimate us.

Meanwhile, On The Other Side Of The Pond

One can either be appalled by the clown show that is now British politics, or one can cultivate and embrace a wry sense of humour.

M.G. Duggan chooses the latter:

A new door has been fitted at number ten.

Seems About Right For The Times We Live In

 

The Next President?

Many think the swamp in Florida will yield up one of its fondest denizens, Gov. Ron DeSantis, as a contender for the GOP presidential nomination. The following reveals much about the heart of darkness that defines him:

Meanwhile, In The Land Of The Looney

Danielle Smith cultivates her tribe.

H/t de Adder

However, those inoculated against her lunacy beg to differ.

Anti-vaxxers are wilfully ignorant and uncaring about their responsibilities in society. To my mind, for Danielle Smith to say they are being discriminated against is akin to saying that incarcerating crooks is discrimination against the criminal class. Before discounting this comment, consider the thousands of people that failed, through no fault of their own, to get timely medical care because hospitals were unnecessarily challenged by unvaccinated, COVID-19 patients!

As of February 2022, over 900,000 people had died of COVID in the U.S. If the Canadian program had been in place, with 91 deaths per 100,000 people, the U.S. would have seen 600,000 fewer people die. This was because of Donald Trump rhetoric, like that of Smith.

These are irresponsible statements from a main-stream politician. Is Smith really this ignorant or dismissive of medical science? Or is this an attempt to garner votes?

Tom McElroy, Professor Emeritus, York University

The unvaccinated are the most discriminated against group Danielle Smith has ever seen? How does someone with so little lived experience ever get elected? A quick search for “Amnesty International” will show that unvaccinated are among the world’s most privileged and pampered victims ever.

Paul Collier, Toronto

As with Covid-19, one wonders when this pandemic of demagoguery, ignorance and manipulation will end.

Perhaps This Is Part Of The Answer

My wife, who is far from being the cynic of the family (that would be me), often concludes that humanity is a failed experiment. It is not an assessment with which I disagree.

I often find myself pondering why and how we have reached our current perilous, likely terminal, state. While there are many obvious factors, perhaps one of the biggest is that there are far too many people today. Beyond the physical pressures that our population puts on our planet, there is a breakdown of any sense of community with the larger world. Perhaps in earlier times, hunters and gatherers found it much easier to feel a kinship and responsibility for each other. Even today, we behave toward our immediate community, family and friends, far differently than we do with those with whom we have no immediate connection.

And with that loss of connection comes increasingly selfish behaviour, and self-regard often becomes our default position. If Covid has taught us nothing else, it is that large numbers put their personal freedom and comfort over the safety of others. Hence the outrage over mask mandates, vaccinations, etc. The same, I suspect, is reflected in our attitudes toward climate-change mitigation. While some can see the larger picture, others can only see the cost of gas, carbon taxes, etc. that elicit reflexive, often violent, reactions.

There is a letter in today's Star that got me thinking about the above. It expresses a perspective that succinctly puts all of us in our place.

Microbes may have swarmed Mars, Oct. 11

So French scientists have concluded that Mars may have harboured an underground world teeming with microscopic organisms …. Sadly, they say, these microbes may have themselves altered the atmosphere and triggered a Martian ice age, leading to their demise. These French scientists have further concluded that simple life like microbes might actually commonly cause their own demise.

I look at what is going on in our world today: climate change caused by humans; senseless destruction caused by the Putins of the world; the toxic environment created by politicians like Trump, Poilievre, Smith et al.

My non-scientific conclusion is that humans are no smarter than single-celled microscopic organisms.

 Patrick Stewart, Toronto

A Lioness Roars

I wonder how many millions of people Nancy Pelosi represents here. No doubt, however, the right will denounce her for her threats of violence against their 'man'.

“I hope he comes, I’m going to punch him out ... I’m going to punch him out, I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s just-revealed response to the prospect of former President Trump potentially marching to the Capitol on January 6th.

Some Teachable Moments

I originally found the following on Twitter. You will see that the first speaker is earnest and forthright in his defence of diversity, The look on some of the audience members tells it all.

The second speaker is doing a sendup of those who would have students hew to a very narrow line of instruction, reading and discussion. Reading some of the comments that followed on Twitter, it is clear that many did not realize what he was doing.

I'm sure you will.

I trolled the school board meeting at Connetquot after they had a teacher remove the Progress Pride flag.

H/t Walter Masterson

We Need To Talk About PP

 

You have probably heard all about PP courting the incels, a profoundly misogynistic conglomeration of sad sacks who hate women because they can't seem to forge a relationship with them. The following is a video I found on Twitter that examines the type of people the would-be PM courts.

“Pierre Pollivere has been caught using a hashtag specifically designed to target anti feminist and hate groups…..”

Astounding Stubbornness

It is difficult to watch and read about. The revelations that Hockey Canada has been paying off victims of sexual assault are ugly; that ugliness is compounded by the fact that the money used was derived from the National Equity Fund, which is paid for by user fees from hockey players, including children, across Canada, as well as a second fund for the same vile purpose. The use of those funds for what is essentially hush money is going over well with neither the federal government nor the corporate sponsors, and both have suspended their funding of the organization. (In a new development, both Hockey Quebec and Tim Hortons have also taken measures against the organization.)

But Hockey Canada's leadership is hanging tight, brazenly resisting efforts for a full house-cleaning. Indeed, the board's insistence that their CEO, Scott Smith, under whose auspices the payoffs payouts were made, is the best man to lead them into a scandal-free future.

It is an insult to anyone of even average intelligence to suggest that the horrible crimes the upper echelon of the organization hid and even facilitated is just a big misunderstanding that can be taken care of by the guy who oversaw most of the crimes. By acting entirely out of organizational self-interest, the reputation of Hockey Canada taking precedence over a course of justice, the organization revealed itself as the corrupt entity it has become.

But one suspects that Acting Chair of the Board, Andrea Skinner is, or at least was until recently, confident they could pull this off with nary a ripple. The big clue is the hiring of the PR firm Navigator, revealed while Skinner was testifying in front of the heritage committee.

Conservative MP John Nater, brandishing minutes of Hockey Canada board meetings, noted that the organization had hired Navigator, a crisis communications firm, and received advice that it had to “shift the narrative” and get out the message that the fund used to pay sexual assault victims was meant to protect children and compensate victims.

“Settlement payments must be viewed in a positive manner, not a negative manner,” Nater said, reading from the board minutes. “Repetition required to state the narrative.”

He commented: “I find this deeply troubling that the organization is more concerned with shifting the narrative than with meaningfully implementing change.”

Committee Chair Heddy Fry described the

... sweep-it-under-the-rug culture at Hockey Canada.

“I have heard questions being asked. I have not heard a lot of the answers being given,” Fry said at the conclusion of the two-hour hearing.

She said the witnesses showed no sense of accountability or a willingness to be “rational and reasonable about what everyone is deeming to be a culture” that has fallen into a pattern of paying off sexual abuse victims, allowing perpetrators to walk away unpunished and hiding evidence of the sport’s problems with sexual violence.

So why is Hockey Canada defending Scott Smith, the CEO? I have my suspicions, but the official word from Skinner is this:

.... radical change, such as the removal of Hockey Canada’s board and senior executives, as many have demanded, would be detrimental to the reforms that the organization is putting in place and to the sport more generally, she said.

 “I think there is a significant risk to all of the organization if all of the board resigns and all of senior leadership is no longer there. I think that will be very impactful in a negative way to all of our boys and girls who play hockey,” she said. “Will the lights stay on in the rink? I don’t know. We can’t predict that, and to me that’s not a risk worth taking.”

All of this ultimately makes no sense. Arguing that the foxes should continue to guard the henhouse would simply lead to more of the same behaviour that has crippled Hockey Canada and created national uproar.

Hanging tight is no longer a reasonable or sane strategy when a structure is going up in flames.

How To Be A Good Canadian

With so much going on domestically and abroad, there is no dearth of topics to write about. However, with Thanksgiving fast approaching, perhaps a timely, gentle reminder from Brittlestar of what it means to be Canadian is in order:

A Sunday Afternoon Thought

 

Truth In Advertising?

Wouldn't you love to see a commercial like this, just once? I know I would.

Language warning: If tender ears are around, you might play this discretely.

H/t Adam McKay