Health Care

Downside of Globalization: Stretched, secret supply chains hold Covid-19 patients’ lives in the balance

By Madlen Davies , Rosa Furneaux, and Ben Stockton | – ( The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) – As more coronavirus patients were admitted to intensive care, Drayton Hammond, a clinical pharmacist in Chicago, Illinois, frantically tried to order more sedatives. At one point, his hospital was down to a single day’s supply of propofol, […]

Books

Fundamentalist Pandemics: What Evangelicals and Khomeinists Could Learn From The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

This essay by Juan Cole was originally published in Tomdispatch.com. See the original for a perceptive introductory essay by Tom Engelhardt. This spring, the novel coronavirus pandemic has raised the issue of the relationship between the blindest kind of religious faith and rational skepticism — this time in two countries that think of themselves as […]

Donald Trump

The Trump Administration Is Rushing Deportations of Migrant Children During Coronavirus

ProPublica

By Lomi Kriel | – ( ProPublica) – The girls, 8 and 11, were alone in a rented room in a dangerous Mexican city bordering Texas. Their father had been attacked and abandoned on the side of a road and they didn’t know where he was. For seven months the children had waited with their […]

Donald Trump

Iran et États-Unis: l’ironie d’une curieuse affinité

Juan Cole

Introduction par Tom Engelhardt 19 mai 2020. Traaduit de l’américain par Jean Granoux Nous sommes dans un moment religieux étrangement viral. Récemment encore, une Maison Blanche dans laquelle peu de choses, y compris la mort d’Américains, comptent plus que le soutien des évangélicaux, a rejeté les directives initiales préparées par les Centers for Disease Control […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Rush to Reopen Economy is a Death Sentence for Some Minority Workers

OtherWords

By Negin Owliaei | – ( Otherwords.org) – Every morning for the last two months, I’ve checked the news in my home state of Florida with growing concern. First came the photos of unemployed people lining up to file for benefits in person, denied access to an overburdened system. Then came the news that only […]

Donald Trump

Coronavirus and the End of American Exceptionalism

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Remember the song “Over There”? “Over there, over there Send the word, send the word over there That the Yanks are coming, The Yanks are coming, The drums rum-tumming everywhere…” Maybe not, since it was popular so long ago, but it was meant to inspire American troops saying goodbye to their […]

Donald Trump

Male Face Masks have been the Height of Masculinity for Centuries: Why see Coronavirus Masks as Wimpy?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A recent study of the way Americans are adapting to the coronavirus found that “Men more than women agree that wearing a face covering is shameful, not cool, a sign of weakness, and a stigma”. The study indicated that American men resist wearing face masks more than do women, partly […]

Epidemics

As 27 Million Lose Job-based Health Insurance, Imagine if there were No Obamacare

The Conversation

By Simon F. Haeder | – The loss of 31 million jobs due to coronvirus has an added downside: 27 million have lost job-based health insurance. The worst may still lie ahead. One study estimated that 25 to 43 million people could lose coverage from their employer. The situation for many Americans feels dramatic. Fortunately, […]

Donald Trump

I guess “Islam” doesn’t Hate us After All: Trump pins hopes for Vaccine on Muslim-American Slaoui

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump became president in part by playing on fears, resentments and outright hatred among some segments of the American public, especially of a racial and religious sort. He bashed Mexican-Americans as drug dealers and rapists, and recently blamed Chinese-Americans for the coronavirus. But no group came in for so fierce […]