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Category: COVID-19

The Things We can(‘t) Afford

The Things We can(‘t) Afford

The economy is a bizarre thing. The word alone is as useful as a magic spell is to a movie franchise superhero. It’s brought into action by politicians and pundits to justify everything from the atrocious to the strange. Stick on a channel, any channel, and you’ll very often hear—we simply can’t afford adequate (one week) foodbank stocks right now. We just don’t have the money. Healthcare, justice, policing, and education have been wrung-dry for over the last decade for…

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Several Ways to Defeat a Pandemic

Several Ways to Defeat a Pandemic

The language we use in talking about COVID is difficult to get right. Do we borrow the military dictionary—already co-opted for medical use in cancer treatments and unrelated illnesses—describing our efforts as a ‘battle’ against an invisible ‘enemy’? Rhetoric which was counterproductive, unhelpful, and outdated two decades ago may be a poor choice for this particular diagnosis. The pandemic might be more accurately described as a natural disaster instead. Fitting more appropriately in a list which includes hurricanes such as…

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Late Decisions

Late Decisions

If we’ve learnt anything at all from modern news coverage, it’s that we’re unable, or at least unwilling to engage with anything at all unless it’s compressed and simplified into the format of dull sports journalism. At least that is the commonly held belief of every major media outlet and political commentator in the country today. Leave vs Remain, Left Vs Right, Cummings Vs Sense, Masks Vs Freedom, Lockdown Vs the herd. Even a biological pandemic is a political hot…

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Philosophical Differences

Philosophical Differences

When pressed for a reason why it’s worth bothering to vote, you’d find it hard to do better than the response and aftermath of the emerging COVID crisis. If there was ever a cure to the mass apathy and voter lethargy brought on by successive elections then it could be easily found in contrasting responses to the 2020 pandemic. “They’re all as bad as each other” and “it doesn’t matter which one you vote for” are sentiments being proven false…

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End Game

End Game

The world is a terrifying and dangerous place, at least so the saying goes. There are those who would have us believe that daily life is more dangerous today than it has ever been in living history. None of it’s true, of course, and those who would try to convince us it is are almost universally selling right-wing ideology, religion, or newspapers. Occasionally all three. Those selling as if it were, don’t really need it to be true either. A…

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