Jeff Samsonow

If COVID resulted in everyone getting harmless, untreatable, utterly gross pustules covering their entire face for weeks we wouldn't still be in a pandemic.

1. I've said exactly this for quite some time. Expanding on Adrian's @sillyputty78.bsky.social point on X / Twitter here, Covid-19 has three distinct characteristics as a disease that enables it to be denied at a societal level.

I just finished Lewis Mumford’s magisterial exploration of city life.

Published in 1962, it has some of the sharpest takedowns of car-centric society I’ve ever read.

Mumford: “We have sold our urban birthright for a sorry mess of motor cars. As poor a bargain as Esau’s pottage.”

Choice bits 🧵

i distinctly remember a decade+ ago when all the creative jobs started going out the window being told to “learn to code”

reverse heist movie where a single snake has to chase all the priests back into ireland

I'd stay in the garden. The house is clearly haunted.

HUH TURNS OUT THEY'RE REAL PEOPLE AND THEY NEED REAL DONATIONS

WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS

RFK Jr. Is Wrong - Autism Isn’t an Epidemic, Individualism Is and Why His Rhetoric is Dangerous

Found that story and study thanks to Steph Fowler's excellent newsletter: misfitmentalhealth.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-is-...

Fed study ties 1918 flu pandemic to Nazi Party gains The paper examined municipal spending levels and voter extremism in Germany from the time of the initial influenza outbreak until 1933.

From May 2020 and "those who fail to learn from history..." files: The conclusions come amid fears that the current coronavirus pandemic will shake up international politics and spur extremism around the world. www.politico.com/news/2020/0...

We've been spared the worst of it in Edmonton this year (so far) but I remember hitting the 300s in 2023. Probably got that bad the few years prior, but I didn't pay as much attention to readings (or have my own PM2.5 monitors!) I remain shocked to see people outside without masks during this. 😮‍💨

Of whose house? Because I know you just moved. 🏃🏻‍♂️💨 👹

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Your support fuels this election campaign. This is a campaign, of the people, by the people! Giselle General for city councillor ward sipiwiyiniwak. Independent Candidate.

This is a campaign of the people, by the people.

Thank you to those who have supported the campaign up to this point! Every action you take matters and fuels the work ahead.

Let’s keep going. 💛

🔗 gisellegeneral.ca
#yegCC #yeg #yegVote #EdmontonElections2025

President Trump Revives Iconic Pillars of American Youth Yesterday, alongside American sports legends and members of his administration, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order reviving the

It's buried in this announcement, but it looks like these athletes are now anti-trans all stars: "The Council will also play an important role in restoring tradition to college athletics, including... keeping men out of women’s sports." zurl.co/y23Eh

Navigating conflict in activist spaces Some ideas for how to make sure internal fighting doesn't derail your work

Just a really good read with some helpful advice. Especially around navigating spaces where not everyone is in 100% agreement on all issues. Glad I saw this ahead of municipal election season! noraloreto.substack.com/p/na...

Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year.

If it bleeds, it leads. And if it's not bleeding, it can get a brief mention on page 19. popular.info/p/why-you-might...

Because bigots have appealed to the lizard brain of little Sally’s parents who are $120,000 into a travel volleyball career and have been convinced there is an epidemic of young people undergoing incredibly expensive and ostracizing surgery to deprive Sally of a partial scholarship in three years.

The job my Tetris skills have been preparing me for.

Republicans' New Vaccine Restrictions Codify a False Healthy/Unhealthy Dichotomy Denying vaccine access to the "healthy" makes no sense, not least because anybody can become disabled by a single COVID infection

Coming this fall to Canada, unfortunately. Vaccine restrictions invite us to imagine that only some people are at risk from COVID. And if only some people are at risk from COVID, I can imagine I’m not one of them. www.thegauntlet.news/p/repub...

Screenshot from LinkedIn where Gary Kane has shared a photo of a Campbell's soup can with a label that says "designed in Canada", presumably to convince Canadians to buy their soup during the tariff wars.

What do you think a soup designer does? Wrong answers only.

Figured out that if I really quickly heat up my raw milk, a lot of the bad stuff goes away but you still get all of the same benefits. This is crazy.

"What we’re building today isn’t a more just, accessible, or resilient housing system. What we’re building is the illusion of affordability, an ever-distant dream propped up by debt, distortion, and denial." zurl.co/c1jRI

An email from Ikea about bathroom goals.

Stay out of my bathroom goals, Ikea.

Opinion: Why do we keep letting Canada’s ultrarich use tax havens to stash wealth? Carney needs to end a near-universally loathed loophole that allows the wealthiest and largest corporations to avoid paying billions

The headline kind of says it all. www.theglobeandmail.com/busi...

DoNoHarm BC We're a non-partisan action group of British Columbians advocating for evidence-based safety measures in high-risk settings.

3/ Do No Harm BC has posted an excellent website dedicated to this new standard: donoharmbc.ca.

Kudos to Canada for setting an international first in development of such a standard.

Thanks to Dick Zoutman of Queen's Univ for the heads up.

1/ Respiratory protection (including respirators)

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) has released CSA Z94.4, a draft revision of its standard on respirators and respiratory protection.

For the first time they are including healthcare settings in the new draft standard.

This is what it looks like when a Cybertruck cooked your lunch.

New report - Russia is running residential schools, doing their own 60s Scoop in Ukraine (though at a proportionately far smaller scale than Canada did) - and the word ‘genocide’ is used for it without qualifiers. www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder...

These kinds of requests really do sound bonkers when you re-frame the language to protecting others and being anti-virus.

The Weather Network announces a new wildfire and smoke map to monitor local fire danger and widespread hazardous air quality.

It's not the map we deserve, but it's the map we need.