NYT Cheerleads School Reopening as Covid Spikes
New York’s mayor’s dubious plan to reopen schools has found the New York Times to be its best form of public relations.
‘Emancipation Never Really Came to Agriculture’
“We say, on the one hand, that they’re essential; we would like to compel them to go to work so that the rest of us could have the comfort of still ordering in our T-bone steaks and what have you. But we don’t pay these people in a way that reflects how essential they are.”
‘The Ones With the Most Risk Are the Ones We’re Most Ill-Prepared to Reach with the Vaccine’
‘We’ve had decades-long underfunding of state and local public health departments, and just myopic funding cuts for pandemic preparedness. And this hampers coordinated access, and leaves us ill-prepared to reach the very populations that are the most affected by this virus.”
Ricardo Salvador on US’s Dysfunctional Food System
As those of who do so celebrate Thanksgiving, we ought also to acknowledge the work that brings the harvest from the earth to the plate.
Ravi Gupta on Vaccine Infrastructure, Murtaza Hussain on Trump’s War on Yemen
The coronavirus crisis highlights the urgent need to reimagine our vaccine infrastructure.
‘We Basically Made Recovery Much, Much Harder Than It Has to Be’
“Centering workers in a genuine recovery, and really trying to rebuild economic security, it’s going to take movement on a bunch of fronts.”
Julie Hollar on Moving Democrats to the Right, Josh Bivens on Pandemic Unemployment
Blaming the left has been the practice of elite Democrats and their media abettors for decades.
No, China Didn’t ‘Stall’ Critical Covid Information at Outbreak’s Start
US media dutifully follow US government directives to propagate the myth of Chinese “coverups” and “delays” by retroactively projecting current knowledge of Covid-19 onto China during the initial phase of the outbreak.
Teachers Left Out of School Reopening Discussion—Even on the Left
Coverage of the issue of reopening schools downplays the risk faced by teachers and other adult staffers, and far too often ignores education unions as sources.
‘Independent Media Is About Introducing People to Each Other’
“The reality that we live in today is not immutable. It is the product of choices, of power dynamics, of motivations of certain sectors over others, a set of priorities that we can shift. And not just in some abstract, pie-in-the-sky, theoretical thinking, but actually right here, right now.”
Evidence-Free ‘Lab Leak’ Speculation Boosts Trump’s Xenophobic Approach to Coronavirus
Even if it is exceedingly difficult to prove a negative, there’s little reason to entertain a lab origin theory when no actual evidence is presented that the virus originated at any particular lab.
A Quick (Corrected) Calculation on Child Covid Deaths
People who promote the idea of accepting Covid infection in pursuit of herd immunity rarely acknowledge the high death toll that such a policy necessarily entails.
Antonia Juhasz on the End of Oil
While we welcome the demise of an oil industry that does such harm, we have to remember that a creature can do tremendous damage in its death throes, and that a better way forward isn’t guaranteed, unless we fight for it.
‘A Vaccine Can Be a Public Good’
“If we can’t deal with the problem of pharmaceutical monopolies, if we can’t deal with the problem of politics influencing health criteria, before there is a safe and effective vaccine, then we can see that we’re in for a world of hurt.”
Peter Maybarduk on Covid Treatments, Kia Rahnama on the Right to Protest
There is a connection—underexplored —between brutish police responses to peaceful protests and a history of Supreme Court rulings around the First Amendment.
US Media Can’t Think How to Fight Fires Without $1-an-Hour Prison Labor
Coverage dances around the fact that there are plenty of workers available in a state with 2.5 million people currently unemployed.
‘There’s Been Very Little Attention, Despite a Great Deal of Advocacy, to Our Incarcerated Residents’
“Sentencing in the United States is way too extreme and has racist roots, and there should be an intentional effort to revisit them and recalibrate them.”
‘It’s Not Who Has the Most Deaths; It’s Who’s Doing What to Prevent the Spread’
“If you do want to reopen schools, far more important than paying attention to how much hand sanitizer there is on hand, is make sure there isn’t a lot of virus out there that people can be catching.”
Neil deMause on Reopening Coverage, Nicole Porter on Covid and Prisons
More thoughtful attention to the “how” of re-opening is necessary, but for that, you’d need to listen to people who actually know—and care—rather than constantly handing the mic to Mr. “It Is What It Is.”
Extra! August/September 2020 Soundbites
Lack of a BLM Covid Spike Should Make Us Listen to Epidemiologists Though joined by many other outlets, the Atlantic was particularly urgent in its warnings that protests against police violence would create a new spike of Covid-19 cases. “The wave of mass protests across the United States will almost certainly set off new chains […]
