Rothaí

That first one almost makes me weep.

My dental hygienist is from Vietnam, now working in California. She told me she wanted to go to Ireland to see how green and natural it is.

I told her to go to Ireland for towns and coastline, but stick to California for her green natural beauty.

Sheep are disappearing from our hills and our dinner plates Have we have passed "peak sheep" in the UK?

Great!!

Sheep are a *top* cause of nature loss.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Yes. And we have to talk about this now, because talking about it is the first step to making it seem like a callous crime rather than a surprising emergency.

$5 gas + Spring = think about testing an ebike.

I can carry a 110lb kid uphill to school, and two week’s groceries home. Have an extra trailer for bulky stuff.

Park at the door everywhere you want to go. No gas, tax, insurance, or parking costs.

And you can chat with bike pals and neighbors.

Thank you for what you do. You don’t deserve Bluesky screeds. Hugs to your cats. 💚

RIP Baudrillard you would've loved this episode of imperial decline

I limped one show past Led Tasso to that Christmas episode.

No. Nope. Never again.

What this plan has that we don't have in Chicago
- a functional acknowledgement of system dynamics and actual prevention measures
- honesty about a housing gap & the need for permanent supportive housing
- a price tag...people need to know it's expensive and also that it's not unthinkable

My sister rescued a new pom. He's inbred and his name is Sandwich

Im a historian of vaccination.
Every semester/year since 2015, I teach the histories of smallpox vaccination.
And every semester/year, I have had anti-vaxxers/vaccine hesitant people in my classes.
If I want to change their minds, telling them how evil or stupid they are isn't going to cut it.

Watching The Pitt residents stumped by an unconscious kid’s mysterious rash until a gnarled Gen X doctor pronounced “measles” was such an oh shit moment.

Did I want to punch the mother who refused to let them give that kid a spinal tap?

Yes.

Does that work?

No.

It’s really something.

I was using “anti-vax” today due to character limits but it’s really worth spelling out non-shaming labels that leave people room to move.

Yep! (I’m in Oakland, so I think of Marin as our Wario.)

I want that memoir pls.

This applies with a gentler framing too: parents who feel hesitant about vaccinating their kids because they have questions about health risks should now ask about measles risks too.

Those didn’t matter for 20+ years after we eradicated measles.

Now it’s real—and doctors have lost experience.

I’ve been saying “anti-vax” all morning in a bunch of posts about measles, but I take seriously the distinction between anti-vax grifters and vaccine-hesitant parents.

The latter frustrate me wildly, but all that matters is persuasion.

We’re susceptible, but possibly saved by lacking the stamina for the dodgy long-term Special Interests that consume so many neurodivergent bazillionaires out here.

The sheer breadth of ADHD enthusiasms gives me some perspective for my gullibility.

I want to learn what works from people doing the actual work.

Eg, today I learned 58% of kindergarteners 2 blocks away weren’t fully vaccinated in 2024.

The school / public health /families then brought it down to 16% in 2025, so there’s no way that was ever 58% hardliners or “bad” parents.

I regret every second I spent listening to Huberman Lab podcasts during lockdown.

Drinking stupid Athletic Greens on my stupid Peloton.

1 in 5,500 babies who recover from measles will go on to develop develop subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) 7-10 years later.

It’s degenerative and fatal.

Anti-vax parents are putting their own kids at risk of illnesses worse than their worst fears.

With odds I wouldn’t touch.

Parents afraid of autism should be *terrified* of measles.

Chance of an exposure infecting an unvaxed kid: 9 in 10.

1 in 20 gets pneumonia
1 - 3 in 1000 gets encephalitis

Measles encephalitis kills 10-15%.

Another 25% suffer the kind of permanent neurodevelopmental damage antivaxers fear.

California is one of four states that doesn’t allow personal belief exemptions for school vaccination requirements. Schools can lose state funding if they register kids without proof, and have to remediate.

We still require immunizations the CDC just dropped. Hope CA Public Health holds the line.

The elementary school two blocks from me had 58% of kindergarteners NOT fully vaccinated in 2024.

Down to around 16% in 2025, after remediation, but still way below the 95% we need.

What the fuck, people??? What about all the babies and grannies kindergarten kids hang out with?

Oakland schools on state vaccination watch list California is auditing 34 Oakland schools, and 428 schools statewide, over low vaccination rates. At one school, two-thirds weren't fully vaccinated.

Get it together, Oakland!!

34 schools below the herd immunity vaccination rates. Ugh.

oaklandside.org/2026/02/02/3...

It’s so odd to me that we would never let parents be “against”, say, car seats, even though car seats are distressing and even painful to some kids, and presumably in some tiny fraction of cases trap or strangle instead of saving a child.

The Pitt on HBO is so so good at bringing to life that so much of what doctors are battling now is fallout from very bad people.

Victims of quacks, “skeptics,”shooters, structural poverty, cyber attacks, fentanyl, industrial accidents.

Influencers poisoning themselves while dads ration insulin.

Mumps might be the reason the heirless George Washington was okay with a republic and term limits.

(Not really; apparently he got mumps as a child—too early to cause his infertility.)

Anti-vaxers now risk sterilizing their own children.

Welcome to the Age of Orchitis Protocols.

Tell the manosphere the second M in MMR vaccine stands for mumps, which causes a very painful infection of the testicles. If you get it during puberty/ teens, it often causes infertility.

Watched the Paltrow version of Emma, and had to explain to my kid that in Jane Austen, there’s always a character who fusses endlessly about health risks and insists everyone should wrap up /Take the Waters, etc.

It’s how we face our lack of control, I suppose.