Health Care

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The ancient Greek philosopher Bion of Borysthenes said that boys throw stones at frogs in jest, but the frogs die in earnest. The United States government hasn’t placed sanctions on Afghanistan as a joke, but it certainly has done so in a blunt way, and Afghans are on the verge […]

Epidemics

Is America a Nation Coming Apart?

Tom Engelhardt

By Tom Engelhardt | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Let me start 2022 by heading back — way, way back — for a moment. It’s easy to forget just how long this world has been a dangerous place for human beings. I thought about this recently when I stumbled upon a little memoir my Aunt Hilda […]

Conspiracy Theories

Why our Democracy is Ailing: Another Grim winter for our Unmasked, Unvaccinated, Disputatious, Confrontational, Conspiratorial, and disturbed Country

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Whether the pandemic that’s swept the world started from a bat or not, as 2021 ends, I think it’s safe to say that we’re all far battier than we were when it began. In my neighborhood at least, as this year draws to a close, that old Lone Ranger line, “Who was […]

Anti-Vaccination

Without Biden’s Vaccination Program, a Million and a Half Americans would have died in 2021 and 12 mn would have been Hospitalized

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden made a major pandemic policy speech on Tuesday, pleading with Americans to get vaccinated, and, indeed, to get the three-shot course that is now standard. He notes that 400,000 people died from COVID-19 in 2021, almost all of them unvaccinated. He is backed up by medical professionals. Augusta […]

Addiction

Opioid Crisis: Purdue Pharma/ Sackler Family Fails in End Run around Justice

F. Douglas Stephenson

Gainesville, Florida (Special to Informed Comment) – In a seismic victory for justice and accountability that re-opens the deeply flawed recent September, 2020 settlement of the Purdue pharma bankruptcy case, the Sackler family will be forced to confront the pain and devastation they have allegedly caused. Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for […]

Climate Crisis

Why spending $2 trillion on child care, health care and fighting climate change won’t make inflation any worse than it already is

The Conversation

By Michael Klein | – One of the main concerns raised by critics of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan is that it will drive up inflation, which is already running at the fastest pace in four decades. The Senate is currently considering a roughly US$2 trillion bill passed by the House that would […]

Epidemics

South Africa did the Right thing on Omicron: Why are Europe and the US Punishing it?

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor) – The decision by several governments across the globe to institute travel bans on seven African countries, starting on 27 November, due to the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, was perceived to be hasty in the eyes of some and fully justifiable on medical grounds, in the view of […]

Epidemics

How Greed is Prolonging the Pandemic – Unless the World is Vaccinated, Variants will Keep Emerging

Peter Certo

( Otherwords.org) – Stop me if this sounds familiar. It’s been kind of a hard year, but I felt optimistic about the holidays. My wife and I had just scheduled our COVID-19 boosters. Even better, we’d been able to get our young child vaccinated. We imagined a cautious return to simple family pleasures like indoor […]