Uncertainty is terrifying. Loneliness is unbearable. Death is painful. Born from the onslaught of Covid19, the three have joined forces to hit us where it hurts the most. With the exception of key workers who are required to work, most of us abide by the necessary isolation restrictions, some with family and some alone, and […]
The Covid-19 crisis highlights how the interests of individual patients and those of public health officials can sometimes be at odds. In other words, the general advice that government officials give from a public health perspective – looking at the proverbial bigger picture, the statistical aggregate – might not actually be the best advice for […]
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has been accused of sexual assault by a former staffer named Tara Reade. Such a serious allegation against a presidential candidate would normally be a loud, leading, global story. Instead, America’s biggest mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN have remained eerily quiet about the Tara Reade accusations. […]
“My dear Mother, You will I know have been longing to hear from me. I do not know how much you have heard since the last note I sent you from the G.P.O. On Friday evening the Post Office was set on fire and we had to abandon it. We dashed into Moore Street and […]
Right from the get-go, I have to admit that Planet of the Humans, a documentary about the environmental movement produced by Michael Moore, is unfair, very unfair. And unkind, too, very unkind, to Al Gore. Alas. But as the Sierra Club might have said, you can’t produce clean, green biomass energy without levelling forests. Planet of […]
James Annan is a climate scientist involved in climate prediction, who has made a number of well-known bets against people who disagree with him around climate predictions. In March, he and his associate Julia Hargreaves were looking at the pandemic modelling and predictions that the government in the UK were relying on. Even though it […]
Last week, Harvard Magazine published a hit-piece on homeschoolers. In an interview with Prof. Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor with Harvard Law School, the article highlighted the dangers and risks homeschooling poses to children, and even to democracy. So concerned is Prof. Bartholet that she has run a workshop in Stanford University on the issue, and […]
During the course of last Thursday’s Dáil session, the word ‘pharmaceutical’ was mentioned just one time. Even that solitary mention was within the context of a speech given by the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, when he spoke of how the internationally traded sectors of our economy, such as those relating to technology, pharmaceuticals and […]
In February 2020, in the middle of the first wave of coronavirus infections in China, Hong Kong’s emeritus bishop Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun visited the United States and spoke with members of Congress. Cardinal Zen, a vocal supporter of Hong Kong’s democratic movement and a passionate defender of the underground Catholic church, painted a […]
In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary. “Who knows,” she wrote, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.” During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669 – […]
At midnight tonight New Zealand’s strict lockdown of 33 days will be slightly eased. As you can imagine, I cannot wait. We will be able to get a few takeout coffees, the children will be able to see their grandparents again and, most importantly, some people can head back to work and some businesses can […]
Last year human relations think tank Reventure (A Future that Works) published a report on how the loneliness “epidemic” is impacting workplaces in Australia. Now, in the middle of another epidemic that is shaking economies and the world of work, feeling isolated in a huge, open plan office seems the least of a worker’s worries. MercatorNet asked Reventure’s managing director, Dr Lindsay McMillian, […]