[Transcript: a young woman with long blonde hair is speaking directly into the camera.
“I’m gonna tell you guys something that honestly changed my life for good. So if you’re in college, and live in a dorm or an apartment, there’s a good change that a lot of people living in your dorm or apartment have an Alexa. And if you go into the hallway and yell loud enough… I’ll just show you the rest.”
The girl is now standing in a dorm hallway. She yells at the top of her lungs:
“Alexa! Play Fireflies!”
There is a moment of quiet where several Alexas responding can be faintly heard. After a few seconds, Fireflies by Owl City begins to play loudly, followed a few seconds later by another starting up, then another, then another as the woman begins to walk down the hall, smiling and laughing, to a growing cacophony of Fireflies by Owl City.
These might appear to be a thread of nonsensical unrelated tweets, so let try to me string them together:
First, we have unvaccinated antivaxxers blaming the spread of coronavirus on people who have been vaccinated. Yes, you read that right. (source)
Second, the unvaccinated, particularly in Southern states like Mississippi, are taking Ivermectin. Ivermectin is a de-wormer for horses and cows, that unvaccinated Trumpsters are taking because Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson told them that animal medication—which is not meant for human consumption—was safer than the coronavirus vaccine. (source)
It’s worth noting that all three Fox News hosts have reportedly taken the coronavirus vaccine themselves, even as they tell others not to.
Third, Alabama has run out of ICU beds because of a surge of COVID-19 cases. And Donald Trump is having a MAGA rally there, where he and his unmasked, unvaccinated supporters will congregate and then go back into their communities and spread more coronavirus (which they will blame on vaccinated people).
Fourth, Alabama has preemptively passed a law that prohibits businesses from banning customers who have not been vaccinated. However, Alabama is allowing businesses to require masks… for the time being.
…. I honestly do not know how to best describe these facts: “Darwin awards” or “death cult”.
Don’t be a jerk. You can spread information without insulting an entire, diverse state.
27 to 31% of people from Alabama are Black. This is the 7th largest percentage in the nation.
We have a growing Hispanic population (which is hard to track because Alabama government counts “hispanic” as separate from race and the numbers don’t add up. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.)
There are over 5 million people in the state.
Alabama is under vaccinated, and politics is a part of that, but so is poverty, a complete lack of public transportation outside a handful of large cities, actual availability (many places that claim vaccines or tests turn out not to when you call), lack of full time employment with benefits, low paid state workers and professionals, and gerrymandering to silence liberal voices.
Oh, and woke liberals who believe what the news and Republicans tell them about the state being white and completely owned by the Republican party, so they write off the entire state and everyone in it as ignorant white supremicists.
Only two decent people in the state? You are feeding the conservative machine by joining their bid to erase the state’s diversity of race, religion, politics, and education.
You are helping them out. So stop.
Who the actual fuck am I “helping” by stating facts??
Look, if you don’t like what I’m laying down, then go make your own fucking post.
And stop concern trolling me because, according to you, I’m not being “nice enough” to the deeply racist ass white people who keep voting even more racist ass white people into office.
White people OVERWHELMINGLY voted for racists like Roy Moore. And Black people stopped them. WE did that. This has been the history of the South since reconstruction.
And now you have white elected officials—who have already been vaccinated—blocking mask mandates and telling people the coronavirus vaccine isn’t legit. Are you really dumb enough to believe that White supremacists aren’t willing to cull a shit ton of poor racist white folks if that meant also getting rid of large swaths of Black and Brown citizens? Sometimes shit simplyisabout white supremacy, racism and anti-Blackness. So take your kumbaya diversity doublespeak anywhere else, but don’t put that bullshit on my blog.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday he doesn’t believe it would “serve any particular purpose” to criticize members of his party who voice skepticism of the coronavirus vaccines, even as he expresses shock and disappointment at the number of Americans refusing to get vaccinated…
McConnell said it “never occurred” to him the U.S. would face a challenge in getting people vaccinated – despite former President Donald Trump’s consistent downplaying of the pandemic last year.
Digby goes to town on this turtle-ass-looking motherfucker:
This is why we are where we are. Nothing is more important to the Republican establishment than tax cuts and judges and they got what they wanted. The devastation caused by their petty will to power is of no interest.
McConnell enabled Trump and the right wing nihilism that inspired this rejection of science. He went along with all the conspiracy mongering, the racist hate and after a mild rebuke over January 6th has shrugged his shoulders at the ongoing threat of violence from his own voters. (He doesn’t think criticizing people serves any purpose — unless they are Democrats.)
This crisis is as much his doing as it is Trump’s.
Ohoho now let’s get into this shit, shall we? Time for some numbers!
Estimates actually put the death toll between 30 to 60 percent of the European population, there were so many dead and so much variation from area to area you can’t accurately estimate how many it really was
People who got infected by the “Black Death” were to 80% dead within 3 to 5 days, the population was reduced so dramatically that it took between 80 to 150 years to regrow to where it was before, varying from location to location
Some places were almost entirely depopulated. Over 60% of Norway died within two years, China’s population was reduced from around 125 million to 65 million in the late 14th century, at its peak Damascus reported around 1000 dead every day, between 75 and 200 million people died overall in a time where the world population didn’t even reach 500 million.
And let’s not even get into the persecution the Jewish had to face. No wait, let’s do that actually. “The Jews are poisoning our wells” was something people liked to say because they couldn’t think of anything else and hey, why not blame the Jewish? The Jewish communities in Mainz and Cologne were completely annihilated (not a lot of character development happening in Germany, hmm) and about 2000 more people were killed in the Strasbourg massacre. Simply because they couldn’t figure out where the disease came from and hated the Jewish enough to blame them without evidence
Fun fact, the word quarantine originated in the time of the first global outbreak. It comes from the Italian word for 40, which was the period of time people were isolated if they came from infected areas.
The world didn’t survive the Black Death, too many people died for the disease to spread effectively
And then it came back several more times, including two more major pandemics and many more outbreaks. The most deadly one in modern times was, buckle up, 2017 in Madagascar where it killed 170 people and thousands more were infected.
Now, before someone starts worrying, here’s the good news: thanks to modern medicine the fatality rate was pushed down to around 10%. I think we can all agree significantly better than before.
So next time someone says “the plague went away without vaccines”, now you have numbers. Have fun.
Please don’t ever feel bad about posting about how your day’s going or a random story or how you’re feeling or a cute selfie because I actually really like seeing everyone on my dash. I follow you all for a reason.
Federal researchers will not objectively study ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19, the Kentucky senator Rand Paul claimed, because “hatred for Donald Trump” has tainted their view of those who say the drug used to deworm horses can aid the fight against the pandemic.
Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, does have uses in humans, to treat worms, lice and skin problems. But despite it having been discussed by doctors in testimony before Congress, it is not proven to combat Covid-19.
Doctors have also warned against its potential toxicity. Earlier this month, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a terse tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that a meeting with constituents in Cold Spring, Kentucky, on Friday, Paul said: “The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, they’re unwilling to objectively study it.
“So someone like me that’s in the middle on it, I can’t tell you because they will not study ivermectin. They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump.”
Trump both promoted and said he was using hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, when in office. Doctors warned against side-effects and studies said it had little or no effect in preventing hospitalisation or death from Covid-19.
According to the US National Library of Medicine, studies have not produced proof that ivermectin can treat Covid-19. The same source lists 31 completed, withdrawn or ongoing US clinical trials.
The FDA says taking large doses of ivermectin is “dangerous and can cause serious harm” and adds: “Never use medications intended for animals on yourself. Ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans.”
Cromwell’s brand of Puritanism is also where America’s prosperity gospel hails from, in addition to the Puritans being at least partially responsible for the British leg of the Transatlantic Slave Trade if memory serves.
Also, fun fact, the Pilgrim’s trip to America was actually funded by corporations in Europe, with the understanding that the companies would provide the settlers with ships and supplies, and in exchange the puritans would build a trading settlement and send back X-amount of whatever interesting crops or materials they find/grow as a return on their investment. Again, hardly the tale of a group of honest religious folk fleeing prosperity in a new land.
Similarly, the fact that the Pilgrims moved into an area that had been left depopulated due to a pandemic that had swept the continent (meaning many found crops already planted, homes already built, and graves full of “treasure” like grave goods to steal…) doesn’t get into the narrative either.
Likewise the amount of people sent to America who were indentured servants, criminals, and random homeless people that were rounded up and sent over seas (the idea being the urban poor would be able to find a better, more profitable life growing crops for some rich plantation owner in Carolina than they would living in Southwark)… This likewise didn’t work, as they rarely had the knowledge, experience or desire to become a farmer in a land thousands of miles away, hence why many of them realised that if they just used kidnapped people to do the work instead they could make money while not doing any manual labour.
All of this is 100% true. Another example of rewriting history to make it palatable that has been taught to young children basically since public schools were founded is the Thanksgiving Day story.
What we are taught: the pilgrims came to America to escape the Evil Evil Church of England, and they were starving! And winter was coming! But there was a native american named Squanto who worked hard and learned english, then introduced the pilgrims to his tribe. They all became friends and threw a big celebration feast and they lived happily ever after. The end.
What really happened: Squanto had been a slave in England, was set aboard a vessel to the Americas in order to help capture more native americans and force them into slavery, but escaped when he got there. He made his way back to the village he grew up in only to find that the entire population had been wiped out by either slavers or smallpox.
Since survival had a lot to do with relying on a community, when a ship full of pilgrims arrived he became friends with them - by speaking the English he was taught while a slave. He took them to the (now empty) village, and showed them how to tend the crops that were already growing. The shelter was already build. There was already stored food, and he showed them how to get more. Then he negotiated peace between the settlers and the Wampanoags. Then, yes, there was a feast to celebrate the peace.
One time. With one small group of pilgrims, the Wampanoags, and Squanto.
Meanwhile, the Puritans were busy coming to America in boatloads. Their entire goal was to take land and resources, capture young, healthy men and women as slaves, and kill everybody else. The second “Day of Thanksgiving” was a celebration of the massacre and capture of over 700 Pequot tribe members. All ages and genders. More were celebrated later for similar reasons.
So it went until Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day to be a national holiday, and the “official” story was spread across the US in an effort to bring people from the northern and southern states together…. on the same day he ordered the military to march against the Sioux.
Please don’t be surprised when a homeless person doesn’t want to leave their encampment or spot for a cooling center; this is the type of opportunity cops will take to clear out encampments while the owners of the stuff they’re throwing away are in centers trying to survive.
If you really want to give them some peace of mind, offer to rent them a storage locker for a few days so they can rest easy in cooler, less oppressive temps without losing everything they have left.
I found a webinar on EDS and psychiatric misdiagnoses and tl;dr the part I’m posting about here is regarding how a lot of us are misdiagnosed with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses (mainly but not only anxiety disorders) because part of our symptoms is high adrenaline but CONSTANTLY and so shrinks mistake that as us having a psychiatric condition related to anxiety or difficulty focusing.
Sleep is one of our biggest issues. From tossing and turning because of pain, to having adrenaline rushes all night, sometimes even the strongest sleep medicines don’t knock us out. You’ll always know whom to message at 3 am.
Dr. Alan Pocinki noticed we get knocked out of sleep cycles by our racing hearts. Sometimes beta blockers and other adrenaline lowering meds can really help! Here is his talk on sleep issues and EDS: https://vimeo.com/101947622
This would explain why sedatives and anxiolythics are some of the few meds that make me have repairing deep sleep while everything else either doesn’t work or only works by shutting me down completely but as a result the quality of sleep I get is terrible.
They said in the webinar that it’s a vicious cycle. When someone doesn’t get enough sleep at night, the next morning our adrenaline levels are higher in order to give us the extra boost to go through the day, but then when night comes we can’t sleep again because we’re high on a natural stimulant. But then the next day, since we again didn’t get enough sleep, we keep that increased level of adrenaline going, then we can’t sleep again, and the cycle keeps perpetuating itself.
There’s the fact too that adrenaline makes you notice pain LESS and we’re in constant pain, so in my not professional opinion, that sounds like a reasonable incentive for our bodies to increase adrenaline levels.
It would explain the high sensitivity to stimulants that a lot of us have, since, again, we’re basically already high on a self-produced stimulant 24/7 and if you add a cup of coffee to that you might as well be on Adderall.
If you don’t have EDS or chronic pain but do have dysautnomia, adrenaline levels are controlled by the autonomic nervous system regardless, so this can still be a possibility for you.
I’m NOT advicing anyone to take any medication for this without going to a doctor first. I’m not a doctor and I’m especially not your doctor. If you’re sure you’re not allergic maybe you could try off the counter herbal remedies, such as herbal infusions, but other than that, please talk to a professional before doing anything.
I was RIGHT. Chronic pain and chronic fatigue are incentives for the sympathetic system to increase adrenaline levels and for that increase in the adrenaline levels to be persistent through time rather than happening at specific moments!
That means too that after some time of this ongoing stress, we become absolutely depleted of energy reserves that we’re unable to rebuild, and that makes us avoid activities that require energy or focus.
Dr. Alan Pocinki starts talking about it at 22:40 here:
A good way to help you tell apart whether you’re actually fine vs being “fine” because you’re swimming in adrenaline is if you woke up exhausted but then suddenly felt better through the day, but had insomnia at night, especially if you felt worse at night.
The “suddenly feeling better” phase is the adrenaline kicking in to give you that extra boost, the insomnia is the adrenaline keeping you from sleep and the feeling bad at night is your body being DONE but even weaker than it was when you woke up.
An experience by a 33 years old patient from the video I linked above is:
She woke up feeling tired, but then “felt really good all day. I went to church, did stuff with my family, and organized my whole closet in the afternoon when I usually have to rest. My pain was better and I was talking really fast. I tried to go to sleep at 10, but was still wide awake at midnight, and then I started to get stomach pain and nausea, and feel dizzy and weak all over.”
Omg. Why does this perfectly describe my day? Anyone else wake up shaking like they’ve been on a run??? Because I actually have to wait a minute when I wake up because or else the shaking will lead to passing out.
