J. Offir, PhD

Yeah. I don't plan on going outside any time soon.

They say it's going to get even colder (minus 18-25°F). This does not seem normal, but of course, nothing is, anymore.

Prickly looking frost stars on my window this morning, overlooking my woods.

This morning's weather report: -3°F. Yikes.

3/ & even outlets that run wonderful pieces (like Ed Yong's work in The Atlantic) can also print some awful, offensive takes, as the Atlantic sometimes does.

I read bad POVs as well as good ones, because I want to know what all the POVs are; other readers have different priorities, & that's fine.

2/ work, but if you don't like their management & ownership (which is a legit POV) then simply pass over any WaPo articles you see posted on social media; that way you won't have to interact with it.

But know that *plenty* of news outlets have been sold to right-wing d**s (CNN is a case in point),

You think evey major outlet doesn't do that?

And I'm not sure what you mean by the problem being the downsizing; they downsized b/c they lost lost $100M in 2024 (along with 10% of their subscribers) & are continuing to face financial problems.

There's no reason to object to what the reporters'

Then simply don't click the link. I spent an hour excepting that piece today for folks on bluesky who didn't want to read it, btw.

Paid for by me, the subscriber - not by non-subscribers to whom I provided an access link.

Registration walls are in common useage, now.

2/ paragraph ot two w/o a subscription, & then makes you register to finish the article you've started? I've encountered that over many, many outlets. At least the WaPo lets you register upfront, rather than interrupting you mid-read.

It's to read the content. The don't always call it a "gift article," but that's what it is, b/c it's paid content, you're not a subscriber, & often they limit the # of pieces you can read over a period of time.

How is the WaPo any more dishonest than any outlet that allows you to read a...

Immigrant whose skull was broken in 8 places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked Alberto Castañeda Mondragón was hospitalized with eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages. Officers claimed he ran into a wall, but medical staff doubted that account.

ICE is a public health threat.

The man had 8 skull fractures & 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

ICE said he "purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall."

A CT scan showed fractures to the front, back & both sides of his skull - inconsistent w/ that narrative.

www.npr.org/2026/02/07/g...

3/ that, I find it odd when people become outraged at having to input an email address to access subscription content they haven't payed for, which is being handed to them gratis. Just as you're free not to read it if you don't want to pay, you're free not to read it if you don't want to register.

In first-party data play, The Guardian rolls out registration wall Registration walls make it easier to tailor content, services and advertising to readers.

WSJ, USA Today, the Atlantic, the Guardian & the New Yorker, among others. Not everyone is asked every time, so if you only read an outlet once in a while, you may not get asked & might not know. But registration walls are becoming an industry staple.

But beyond...

digiday.com/media/in-fir....

That's simply not true. A ton of media outlets now require or have previously required a "registration wall" sign-up to access free content, either immediately or after a certain amount of non-registered access. These include: STAT, CNN, Bloomberg, NYT, Politico, Reuters, Forbes, the Economist, the

Even better.

I was a competitive figure skater as a kid. I knew a guy who could land a triple axel (never in competition), but a quad is mind-boggling.

The sport sure has come a long way in my lifetime. (& the "figures" in figure skating are gone. That used to be before-school training, for us.)

Important thread for those with an interest in public health (that should be all of us).

3/ a period of time (who'd given consent); the HPV rate was enormous. But you know what's not enormous & never will be? The number of folks using dental dam.

The actor Michael Douglas also got stage IV oropharyngeal cancer from HPV; it happens.

Sometimes a celebrity can really raise awarebess.

2/ silent until its too late; how are unvaxxed men supposed to know they've been infected w/o frequent HPV testing (& vigilant risk reduction)?

Decades ago, I got the UCB wellness newsletter, & I recall a study they reported in which they'd tested all the women who'd come to the health center over

I'm so sorry about your friend!

If the consequences of viruses hit us like the pain when we touch a hot stove (Zap! Ow!) things would be different. But like children & dogs, we have huge trouble connecting the dots, & so, changing behavior, when there's a time lag.

And so many of these viruses are

Thank you.

My engagement here was always a small fraction of what it was on Twitter (until I repeatedly got shadow banned there, at least), but now it's a small fraction of what it once was here - for months. It's extremely discouraging, b/c these threads do take me some time.

"Masked members of the U.S. women’s Olympic cross-country ski team pose for a photo Thursday, Feb. 5 after a news conference at their competition venue in Tesero, Italy. From left , Jessie Diggins, Hailey Swirbul, Sammy Smith, Julia Kern, Novie McCabe and Rosie Brennan. (Nathaniel Herz for FasterSkier)"

When risks, costs & benefits are clear & big; the time pd. is circumscribed; & a group (like the US X-country ski team) makes a rule they require each other to uphold, folks can mitigate risk.

Meanwhile, the Finnish women’s hockey team has noro after karaoke.

fasterskier.com/2026/02/in-i...

12/ frame their attributions.

Sorry to be a Debby Downer, but it's just never that easy. If it were, I wouldn't have spent the whole 1990s banging my head against my office wall.

Now go have that chocolate; SNL will be on soon.

11/ to make other attributions. (Those are the "conspiracy theories" we see already.)

So we can't count on more wee graves turning our anti-science country around, while we just sit & wait for it. We need an actual, active plan to change the social context of viral intervention & help people better

10/ a big 🧵 about how the worst consequences of EBV, measles, Coxsackie, HPV, hepatitis etc. generally come *much later* than the acute stage.) And "later," drawing a line between cause/effect is much harder - esp. given that anti-vaxxers & MAGA/MAHA will be psychologically & politically motivated

9/ sit here & hope that more headstones will do the work of attitude & behavior change *for* us. It most certainly won't, especially because - unlike in the early years of covid & HIV/AIDS - there's going to be a huge gap between virus & morbidity/mortality for most folks affected. (I just today did

8/ themselves & each other - because the existential threat was from an anti-treatment government that disliked them, not just the virus.

This 🧵 is too long & no one will see it b/c my engagement has been suppressed for months, but the upshot is that context & framing are everything; we can't just

7/ it. They were scared, just not wanting to change interaction behavior that was a major source of comfort.

It was only a bit later, when the threat from people *not* willing to fund interventions (like Reagan & Helms) became clear, that community leaders were able to rally the troops to protect

6/ viewed interventions by public health officials (things like closing bathhouses in HIV epicenters & discouraging casual/anonymous sex) as outrageous attempts to destroy a cherished culture - even though, in those early days, folks were dropping like flies & no one in those epicenters missed

5/ Covid is an obvious example. (That anti-vax, anti-public health, reactant bed was already made & everyone just lay down in it.) But it's far from the only one.

In the very early 80s, when many gay men in the US first learned about HIV/AIDS (orig. called GRID), many members of that community...

4/ slips across the deck on their stomachs & off into the (anti-vax) water.

To be more concise: lots of deaths by a preventable cause don't always change behavior, at least in the direction we'd like.

That's b/c it's not the virus or the death that directs which way folks go - it's the context.

3/ Americans dead. Most people knew or knew of someone who died, & some people knew several. And yet, rather than increasing respect for medical interventions, the pandemic shoved huge numbers of folks the other way, so fast that it was like the scene in Titanic in which the boat breaks & everyone