A semi-serious question: just by virtue of being forced to pay attention to so many things, at a certain point, the # of new cases a day might become...background noise. A number you see and don't necessarily even register. What volume of new cases could become "normal" to you?
Judgin' by the tweets of today, the number sure as hell isn't 313 new cases a day. But could 100 new cases a day blend into the background, and not incite panic for you? 150?
Obviously, there are levels to it, like how many does my specific health unit have, etc. But is there a place where you could move the pandemic to the back of your brain, if it's holding steady at a certain number province-wide?
(The answer to this may well be, "fuck off, Elamin, it's a pandemic, I am not moving it to the back of my brain until 2022).
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I learned today is that a boycott is called a boycott because an English land agent named Charles Boycott was in charge of collecting rent from Irish farmers and he was so unpopular that someone was like “alright, no one acknowledge he exists!” and everyone was like “bet!”
I haven’t worked at TVO for about 9 years but I deeply care about the place. First, I was disappointed with how management treated workers through the strike. BUT this statement is genuinely infuriating. Now I’m mad.
After TVO and the union came to an agreement that included buyouts for some folks, it would’ve been so easy for TVO to take a crack at common decency and issue a boiler plate statement — hey, thanks for your service, we’re sad to see you go. Right?? Oh is that what you THOUGHT?
Instead, TVO insisted that employees taking a buyout sign a non-disparagement clause, only to turn around and disparage them with a bafflingly bad faith statement. “Hey! Promise not to say anything bad about me???” “Uh.. sure” “Great… now imma talk shit about YOU”
All my rowdy friends (are leaning towards mask mandates again)
I know we’ve talked about the pandemic being an alternate political reality but since the dissolution of the last mandate, the accepted wisdom was that mandates are politically toxic and that era was done. And then COVID simply said: lol you thought????
Ppl watching politics are watching political barges turn on a dime because there’s the thing you think is the problem and then there is…reality?
It’s already been said but those of us who have worked on social teams would’ve absolutely giggled at this suggestion.
It’s not just not true, it is comically far-fetched! And there are writers and desks (and types of stories) definitely thriving in this space, but on balance it is so absurdly untrue it can barely be refuted. You’re just like: no, a sneeze from Facebook drives more
The only update I have is that I saw that clip of Taylor and Sadie doing some red carpet shots, and to get to the red carpet area in the atrium, they both would’ve been briefly very visible and somehow no one noticed????? It was surprising!!!! That area is not like… not hidden
My view rn. I’m probably halfway through the line if I had to guess
V. weird vibe to be talking about The Letter in the DMs but not talking about it publicly so let's flesh out some stuff.
The letter has become a story in and of itself. But the point, as I understood it, was to draw attention to a lapse of nuance in covering Palestine/Israel.
Particularly, missing nuance when it comes to representing Israel and Palestine as equal forces, or representing the uneven fighting as “clashes” between matching powers. They are not. Trevor Noah did a good job covering this: theguardian.com/culture/2021/m…
So I wanna talk about a couple of things — one is that the letter quotes Derek Stoffel in AlJazeera. What has been ricocheting around the DMs later, is that was not a quote that was freely given. It was leaked and thus missing context. He was not on the record. That's significant