Category: Uncategorized

In Missouri, apparently, masking does not slow the spread. We don’t want to listen to any stinking data that might indicate otherwise. And, yet, facts are stubborn things.

Pretty hard.

What are sometimes called child-access prevention laws are certainly on everyone’s mind as we consider the story of a troubled fifteen year old’s access to a semi-automatic weapon in a Michigan school. We can look here for an overview of the patchwork of approaches and limitations and observe that Michigan has no laws in this area. Statutory resolve in these areas is no panacea, however, as Karen Bleier has written on how what law enforcement and prosecutors do with the statute matters more than the mere verbiage: very little.

Let’s sit with that for a minute.

Because the last thing Missouri needs is safer hospitals, nursing homes, and clinics.

There’s litigation and there’s pure rhetoric. And, just maybe, there’s a very fine line between the two on this issue.

I’ll start by saying I love the name of this podcast series: Demented. There — right in the title — Kitty Eisle blurted out the taboo word. She developed this podcast series because, for better or worse, she became a parent to her parent. “Kitty’s dad was experiencing cognitive decline, but she felt like she was the one losing her mind.” A must listen.

It turns out that both Covid-19 and tuberculosis are spread by aerosols dispersed into the air by tidal breathing or ordinary restful inhalation and exhalation. It is not enough, then, to beware of the cough. Amidst a global surge in TB during Covid times, Covid is teaching us something important about the transmission of a disease that is a very old foe indeed.

Can a hospital justify defying a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for staff on the grounds that it would cause them to close their doors?

Apparently, it is the new must have on your resume.

The shortage of food for school lunch programs has finally hit the press. The New York Times tags it as a labor shortage, no make that a supply shortage. Perhaps it is both. But those who emphasize the shortage is the end result of the decision to make school lunch free to all students during the pandemic know very little about just how skimpy a federally funded school lunch can be in pandemic times under the waiver of many school lunch nutritional requirements. They may also know very little about childhood poverty in the U.S.