I have many fond memories of regularly going to the Ness Creek Music Festival, a hippie festival in Northern Saskatchewan, when I was in my twenties.
I can’t remember their name but one moment of perfection was a band I’d never heard of but that ended up being a reggae band who brought a little Jamaica jammin’ to the festival.
So good and so perfect under the northern Saskatchewan moonlight on a hot summer night.
“Waiting in Vain” – Bob Marley and the Wailers
If you pay attention, you’ll see that though I aim for daily posts on this blog, I often don’t do them until the following day for one reason or another (get busy with the kids or fall asleep early or just forget or whatever.)
Two ways to know it’s a backdated post are if the time stamp shows anything between 23:00-24:00hrs which is the time I always use when backdating for some reason. My posts also get syndicated to Twitter immediately so that’s another clue – this one will show up on Monday morning for instance.
So anyhow, this is technically a “Secular Sunday” post but I woke up on Monday to something the 24-hour news channel tells me is pretty serious breaking news – Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouelette has resigned after multiple misconduct allegations.
I know this is a standalone issue but given the church’s role in homophobia and attacks on libraries offering drag queen storytimes (aside: proud to say my branch offered the first ever drag queen storytime held at RPL – all credit to my programmer at the time who brought the idea to fruition and managers/program leads who didn’t blink an eye when we put it forward), I’m reminded of the various memes about who is the real danger in society…
Charlie has decided he loves to jump into the tub. I guess that’s better than having a dog that hates water but definitely makes our baths…interesting.
Hopefully the regional park we camp at tries to break this record that was recently set by another park in Saskatchewan.
I know we’ve been practicing for this moment for years…
Pace did this to himself after parkour, he wasn’t being bullied by a classmate (or a parent) – honest!
I’ve said it before but #RPLStories is easily the best marketing campaign the library I work for has ever done (they’re focused on patron stories so I’m not just saying that because I have a cameo in one of them!) 😉
I knew his story already (likely from his own #RPLStory) but had a lengthy conversation with City Councillor and RPL Board Member, John Findura, recently and it was amazing to hear firsthand about the role the library has played in the success he enjoys today – from a new Canadian who literally knew no English to discovering the library as a life-changing sanctuary and on to become a long-serving City Councillor.
Random thoughts:
* Covid isn’t over even if people are acting as if it is.
* I don’t think its fear-mongering/living in fear to pay attention to what is being reported by scientists, medical professionals and others.
* I have a pet peeve with people who say “My Covid was mild” which I hear as “I don’t know how to process information in the digital age.”
For example, research is showing that Covid persists in causing damage after the initial infection “ends”:
?
Occasionally a new bit of SARS-CoV-2 research just smashes through the door.
This is one of them.
It's jaw dropping.
It's about Covid persisting after the initial infection and the ongoing damage that causes.
?????https://t.co/Oxt2jY9rGd pic.twitter.com/RF2VqeBEfN— tern (@1goodtern) January 19, 2023
Cognitive impairment after Covid is impacting the workforce:
Huge numbers of Covid survivors are out of the workforce. One reason – cognitive impairment – e.g. problems following directions, sustaining attention, remembering details, prioritizing tasks, grasping concepts etc. How has cognitive impairment impacted your work? @CIBScenter
— Jim Jackson (@DrJimJackson) January 22, 2023
And many people (including myself!) talk about their “brain fog” after having had Covid but the reality is this is a name that softens the effect. The real name for what is happening/has happened to people is “brain damage”:
Calling #LongCovid Brain Damage as "Brain Fog" was one of the worst decisions some researchers and PHO's did.
It minimizes & trivializes the harm of Covid causing people to take it less seriously
It is actual brain damage
Good on you for quantifying it to make it real
— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics) January 22, 2023
There is still no effective treatment for Long Covid and less than 10% of survivors are recovering after two years, no matter what type of treatment is attempted:
Study looking at #LongCovid 2 years after infection:
Despite exercise, respiratory & olfactory rehab, cognition/speech therapy & psychological support, the main symptoms (fatigue, neurocognition, muscle) did not resolve.
Only 9% of patients recovered. 1/https://t.co/hPBbx1dnYm pic.twitter.com/BxeKGOI9AG
— Hannah Davis (@ahandvanish) January 21, 2023
“Black hairy tongue” is perhaps the strangest Covid side effect I’ve heard of:
In multiple COVID patients in southern USA.
AIDS-Like Syndrome???
Answer: Most likely. pic.twitter.com/9G6pBq3CrJ— Dr. Paul Cottrell (@dr_cottrell) January 21, 2023
Fifty papers have said that, unlike HIV which can take 8-10 years to cause immune-dysfunction, Covid can cause immune dysfunction even during the initial infection:
With HIV, the immune deficiency (AIDS) doesn't become significant for 8-10 years. With COVID infections, studies show some immune dysfunction can start even during the initial acute infection.
Attached is a thread written in Nov pointing to 25 papers. By now there are about 50. https://t.co/8LHAOUPUfT
— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) January 22, 2023
And finally, a new study shows the places where (and how) you are most likely to catch Covid. (Of course, I’ll never know for sure but I’m 97% sure I caught mine at work during a crowded special event where I stupidly chose not to mask consistently because I was running around doing a lot of physical effort *and* having a lot of conversations with people – including one person who happily shared she had Covid at the event!) 😮
“Running The World” – Jarvis Cocker
My brain hurts that this is one of the “leaders” of the United States…
Speaking on the end times, Lauren Boebert said she believes Jesus will return because Satan will beg him to because Christians are out in such “a great force” not because they are “hiding in caves” due to “a government lockdown.” pic.twitter.com/74ApxDWeaM
— PatriotTakes ?? (@patriottakes) January 22, 2023
