First posted on May 16, 2021 “The spectacle is the guardian of sleep”: Guy Debord – ‘But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be… Read More Society of the Spectacle / इमेज – Image: A Poem on Deaths in the Age of Covid
Helen Davidson Chinese censors have reportedly been ordered to flood social media with innocuous posts about Xinjiang to drown out mounting complaints of food and medication shortages in a region under lockdown for more than a month. The Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture, also known as Yili, is home to about 4.5 million people, and is believed to… Read More Xinjiang lockdown: Chinese censors drown out posts about food and medicine shortages
Ever since the pandemic struck, concerns have been raised about the improper use of antimicrobials amongst Covid-19 patients. The worry is that unnecessary prescription of antimicrobials will lead to a further increase in the already high levels of drug resistance in most parts of the world. In the past few years, alarmingly high resistance rates in pathogens… Read More Kamini Walia: The growing scourge of anti-microbial resistance needs urgent attention
The “sovereign citizen” theory is a powerful current running through these movements. Its adherents insist that they stand above the law. Some of them refuse to buy vehicle licences, or pay taxes or fines. They believe they are exempt from public health measures, such as lockdowns and vaccine passes. In other words, they arrogate to themselves sovereign… Read More George Monbiot: There’s no solidarity in ‘sovereign citizen’ protests — only incoherent rage
Weiss is the former New York Times journalist best known for her departure from that paper. In a resignation letter posted to her own website, Weiss complained that she had been subjected to constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with her views, and that the Times had “become a kind of performance space.” A New York Times spokesperson… Read More Jillian Horton: A slap in the face to health care workers
Europe’s political approach to the coronavirus pandemic has divided down stark east-west lines, a Guardian analysis has found. Five of 18 eastern European countries have registered major violations of international democratic freedoms since March 2020, according to research conducted by the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, compared with none of 12 western European countries. The research also… Read More Eastern European countries adopting authoritarian measures in face of Covid
The climate crisis resembles a huge planetary lockdown, trapping humanity within an ever-deteriorating environment. There is a moment when a never-ending crisis turns into a way of life. This seems to be the case with the pandemic. If so, it’s wise to explore the permanent condition in which it has left us. One obvious lesson is… Read More Bruno Latour: The pandemic is a warning: we must take care of the earth, our only home
It’s possible that the latest Covid-19 variant is actually a blessing in disguise. In 1796 an English physician, Edward Jenner, observed that milkmaids who had gotten cowpox were immune to smallpox. He surmised, rightly, as we now know, that the disease was related. Smallpox, which has killed hundreds of millions of people dating all… Read More Will Omicron Finally End the Covid-19 Pandemic? By Stephen Londe, MD
The advent of the Omicron variant has given us a glimpse of an alternative future in which, had the Sars-CoV-2 virus been initially identified in Africa in early 2020, the world would have maybe locked Africa away. There would have been no emergency funding for vaccine development, limited global attention, and Africa would have become known as… Read More Africa alerted the world to Omicron. Why are we now the pariahs? By Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija
Despite the repeated warnings of health leaders, our failure to put vaccines into the arms of people in the developing world is now coming back to haunt us. We were forewarned – and yet here we are. In the absence of mass vaccination, Covid is not only spreading uninhibited among unprotected people but is mutating,… Read More Gordon Brown: A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are hoarding vaccines
After the truth-shower 