Do you live in a country where the only vaccines available are from China or Russia? @cosmo_globalist correspondent @akshaya_jose is writing for us about vaccine diplomacy and wants to know about your experiences of it. Would you please let her know if you do?
You needn't be any kind of expert. She just wants to know how you feel about these vaccines and the countries that made them available to you, or perhaps how you feel about US/EU vaccine diplomacy @0kanAltiparmak@omersayli, @navalny@NighswanderJon
I skimmed through the names that came up when I pressed @ and thought, "Oh, that person would have something interesting to say about vaccine diplomacy." It's not an exhaustive list by *any* means, but start there--perhaps with the question,
"Who are you? Why might Claire have thought you'd have interesting reflections or strong feelings about vaccine diplomacy?" @akshaya_jose, if you want more names, tell me. The people I listed will also suggest people for you to speak to.
Re. "spreading disinformation," this is built into the social media business model, for this and many other reasons. We still haven't the first clue what to do about this very useful tool we're using. Humans are very inexperienced with it. washingtonpost.com/opinions/anti-…
I worry the First Amendment won't survive it, because at some point, we're going to say, "Our society can't survive unless we have *some* shared sense of epistemology." And we will be right to say that. If @Twitter and other social media companies don't figure this out,
they'll break liberal democracy for good. It's a massive, historic responsibility, and since I have no idea how to solve the problem, I don't envy them. I just hope they have a sense of how high the stakes are.
I'm sitting comfortably and healthily in my apartment while meanwhile in hospitals all around me they're fighting a war. And the trauma and stress of this for the medical professionals can, I think, reasonably be likened to wartime.
Around them people are dying, they are almost helpless to stop it, and their own lives are at immediate risk. It is not as loud and shocking as war and doesn't involve the same confrontation with the enormity of human evil,
Hey, @washingtonpost? This is disgusting. Give the man's family space to mourn privately. He didn't ask to be in the news; he didn't ask to be murdered; and they just lost their father, husband, son. How would *you* feel? washingtonpost.com/local/william-…
He's not the news. He's the *victim of a crime.* And you're stalking his family? Reporting every detail you can find about his family and their--until yesterday--perfectly normal, happy life? Why? To tantalize readers? For clicks?
It's in the public interest to know more about the murderer. It is not in the public interest to know so much about the victim that the press, minutes after the family, ---including his kids--have received by far the worst and most traumatic news they've received in their lives,
Among the things you should listen to it to learn: What's the best canal palindrome? (Hint: It's not what you think.) What's the fastest way to get goods to Europe if the Suez Canal is blocked? (Hint: It's not what you think.)
What should you do if you're attacked by Somali pirates? (Truth: We don't know, actually.) In what way have EU relations with China in the past week resembled progressive FM rock in the late 1960s? What's the future of the China-EU trade deal? (Hint: No f-- way it gets ratified.)
Are we moving into a world beyond geography, or one in which geography returns with a vengeance? For that, no hints: you have to listen.
Yes, my God, yes. I wander through the world now in a cloud of puzzlement: What did I get up to do? Why is my wallet in the fridge? What on earth did I order on Amazon this time? These nice people calling me to tell me I'm about to host a conference--who *are* they?
Why must I preface every communication with, "Siri, find my phone?" How many loads of laundry have I run twice because I forgot to take it out before it started to rot? How many times have I stood up firmly to find item X only to find myself somehow losing the next four hours--
either searching for item X, in a blind fury, or forgetting to search for item X because suddenly I remember with horror there's something even more important I've forgotten to do? Something for which item *Y* is required--
I, of course, said, "Why can't we just blow it up?"
But it turned out really interesting, when @IlvesToomas got us to look at a map and showed us that for pretty much every country but India--for which this is a disaster--it's a non-problem.
Yes, it's a traffic jam and a hassle for vessels that are stuck; but look at the map. Bienvenue, climate change! It's April. We don't really need the Suez Canal until next winter. So we can all stop worrying about it.