The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
— William F. Buckley, Jr., born in 1925
Czechs to Reopen Shops, Restaurants as Virus Spread Slows Bloomberg
Pandemic Motors: Europeans snap up old cars to avoid public transport Reuters
SHOCKER: CNN: The Wuhan files: Leaked documents reveal China’s mishandling of the early stages of Covid-19.
Lockdown has affected your memory – here’s why - BBC – Many of us have found ourselves in an isolated routine during the pandemic – and it turns out, that’s not very good for your memories. At the University of California Irvine, research is beginning on how the lockdown has affected people’s memories. It’s been reported that even some of those amazing people who usually remember events like buying a cinema ticket 20 years earlier because they have highly superior autobiographical memory are finding they are forgetting things. There are, of course, several different types of memory. Forgetting what you intended to buy is different from forgetting someone’s name or what you did last Wednesday. But research on how memory works points to several ways in which our newly constrained environment could be having an impact. The most obvious factor is isolation. We know that a lack of social contact can affect the brain negatively and that the effect is most serious in those already experiencing memory difficulties. For those with Alzheimer’s Disease, levels of loneliness can even predict the course of disease…”
OSHA Let Employers Decide Whether to Report Health Care Worker Deaths. Many Didn’t
Scores of deaths were not reported to occupational safety officials from the earliest days of the pandemic through late October.
The Pandemic Is a Marathon Without a Finish Line. How Can We Win?
With the positive news about the Covid-19 vaccine trials, I assume many of you have started to think about the potential end of the pandemic — what we’ll do, where we’ll go, who we’ll see, and reckon with what’s changed and what’s been lost. I know I have. Alex Hutchinson has written an intriguing piece on what sports science might be able to tell us about the psychology of a situation like the pandemic, where the finish line is poorly defined, ever-changing, or even non-existent.
The coronavirus butterfly effect: Six predictions for a new world order -Fast Company – “In chaos theory, the butterfly effect describes a small change that can have massive, unpredictable consequences. An insect flaps its wings and, weeks later, causes a tornado. The coronavirus is more like an earthquake, with aftershocks that will permanently reshape the world. If we are lucky, the world will pass “peak virus” within the next six months. But the economy, governments, and social institutions will take years to recover in the best-case scenario. Indeed, rather than even speak of “recovery,” which implies a return to how things were, it would be wise to project what new direction civilization will take. That too will be a bumpy ride. The next 3-5 years will remind us that COVID-19 was the lightning before the thunder…”
NOT ONLY IS 2020 STRANGER THAN WE IMAGINED, IT IS STRANGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE: Dead minks infected with a mutated form of COVID-19 rise from graves after mass culling
Related: Woke Publishing Employees Can’t Stand Their Woke Employer Publishing Books They Don’t Like.
Had the employee bothered to read 12 Rules for Life, he — or she or “xi” or “they” or “it” or whatever pronouns he or sheprefers to be called — might have found the book sophisticated, scientific, and illuminating. I certainly did.
Peterson’s bestselling book encourages people to take control of their lives, to abandon victimization, and to value the truth. Yes, Peterson disagrees with the radical transgender orthodoxy, and he is notorious for criticizing a law that would force people to refer to one another using their chosen pronouns. Peterson also explains that biological sex is real and that men and women are different in some ways — oh, the horror!
Peterson clearly contradicts transgenderism, but that hardly justifies accusations of “transphobia.” The professor has clearly said he will refer to people by their preferred pronouns when they ask him — he only objects to a government order on speech.
Does this make the professor a heinous “icon of hate speech,” an “icon of transphobia,” or an “icon of white supremacy”? No. If anything, Peterson is an icon of sanity in a world gone increasingly mad.
It seems there is little these triggered publishing company employees need more than to actually read Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. Luckily, they work at the company that published it! Perhaps the staff can lend them some copies.
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Pandemic Stories from Around the World, Fall 2020
My friend Jodi Ettenberg spent a decade traveling around the world, so she’s got friends and followers from all over the place. Over the weekend, she asked her Instagram followers to share their pandemic experiences and she’s been republishing them in Story collections: one, two, three. (You can also find them on her Instagram profile page.) Individually and as a collection, the stories she’s received are fascinating and heartbreaking to read. Almost 11 months into the pandemic — Wuhan’s lockdown began on Jan 23 — folks out there are really struggling and the response of governments around the world has varied widely (and wildly). Here are a few of the stories…check out the links above to read the rest.
Lockdown has affected your memory – here’s why - BBC
DISPATCHES FROM THE NORTH MINEHEAD BYE-ELECTION: Politician named Adolf Hitler wins election in Namibia.
(Classical reference in headline.)