Read This First, Heuristics (1), Glossary (A-H), Mini Lessons (2)
-1. Geography of Interpretation, -1.1. Landslides, 2. Detecting Fake, 2.1. Disease Propaganda, 3. Finally Learned, 4. Hot Blog, 5. ¿Arrest?, 6. Social Distancing, 7. Ethnographic Harm, 8. Plague Music, <ADDED >1. Bayer Weed Killer, >2. Hugo Repudiation of Climate Denial, >3. Medical Kill the Chickens, >4. Ready, Set, Index, >5. Moral Burnout, >6. DRC Ebola, >7. Echos from Unsound, >8. Emergent Solutions, >9. Drone BioWeapons, >10. Longer EpiPens. 180826-VCP.
Other Topics: BioTrumpism, BioPolitics, Vaccine, Biosphere, Disaster, Humor, Climate Change, Anthropocene, Anthropogenic, Communication, One Health, Environmental Change, Human Factors, Propaganda, Trolling, Quarantine, Self Isolation, Work from Home, Megafire, Social Media, Propaganda, Frieden
-1. USU Geographer Models Diverse Landscape of Climate Change Belief. In Utah, the model shows 60 percent of state residents believe global warming is happening, just a few hairs below the national average of 63 percent. Around 45 percent of Utahns believe humans are causing warming. That’s one of the lowest percentages among Western states, above just Idaho and Wyoming. Only 36 percent of Utahns believe most scientists think global warming is happening, below the national average of 41 percent. The study also shows some interesting contrasts in Utah on the county level. At 65 percent, the mountain resort and tourism hub of Summit County has the highest percentage of residents who believe global warming is happening. Meanwhile, the coal and mining stronghold of Emery County has the lowest population believing in global warming, at 28 percent. The contrasts between the two counties’ economic drivers could explain their differences in public opinion.. Views on climate change vary by geography because like minded people tend to cluster together in the same towns and cities. The specific geography of a place, too, can influence local opinions. Coastal areas or the drought prone southwest experience more weather variability and climate extremes. Local weather is a big driver of perceptions on climate change. Cultural identity can also influence climate beliefs. The impacts of climate change are likely to be felt more by groups facing social and economic inequality, these groups overall tend to support climate change policies more than the average national population. In the states and counties closer to the U.S.-Mexico border, many of them have a large population worried and concerned about global warming. “Hispanics and Latinos might be the ethnic group most concerned about the issue. The model also found similarly elevated levels of belief in global warming among majority African American counties in central Alabama, which contrasted with the rest of the state. One of the surprising things is how diverse the landscape is in terms of public opinion on climate change. Utahns Talking More about Climate Change, Utah State Researcher Finds Local Weather Distorts Belief in Global Climate Change, 180826-VCP-USA. Climate Change, Growing Wildfire Risk Expected to Make Utah's Air Worse.
-‡. Behind Most Wildfires, a Person and a Spark: We Bring Fire with Us, Northern California Man Arrested for Deadly Wildfire. Commentary by Climate Sceptics Should Come with a Warning. Climate Change Impacts No Longer Subtle. As Smoke from Wildfires Intensifies, More Air Quality Alerts Are Issued in the West Even for Healthy People, Seattle Air Pollution Equivalent to Smoking Nine Cigarettes Thanks to Wildfire Ash. [Cartoon]. Climate Change Denial Strongly Linked to Right Wing Nationalism. Climate Science Cults of Personality - the 'Grand Poobah' Effect on Social Media. | Climate Scientists Speak Out, Sexist Attacks Are on the Rise; Global Warming Will Cause 180,000 More Rapes by 2099 though there is a correlation of crime and biocalamity as part of parademic I have doubts about this observation. The source has a tendency toward left wing moral panics and exaggerating outrage, but in this case is understating as there is likely to be far more rape and other forms of exploitation. This may be for no other reason than increases in the human population, with the ratio of rape per a given number being stable, but more likely an actual increase as the same behaviors that foster misogyny are like those that foster biocalamity. California Health Systems Form Alliance to Advise on Climate Change Laws, Regulations. Crazy From the Heat, climate change is real, the record high temperatures everywhere are fake; its not just Climate Change Skeptic Plays Loose with Data. | Different Takes: Weakening Clean Air Laws Weakens Americans' Health; Changes to Coal Industry Won't Poison Health, EPA Head Approves Proposal Reversing Obama Era Clean Power Plan, EPA Says its New Coal Plan Could Adversely Affect Human Health, EPA Analysis of its Own New Climate Proposal: Thousands of People Will Die, The EPA Refuted its Own Bizarre Justification for Rolling Back Fuel Efficiency Standards, Washington Governor Says Zinke Would Sell His Grandchildren for the Oil Industry, Trump’s Plan for Coal Emissions: Let Coal States Regulate Them, EPA’s New Coal Rule Could Cause 1,400 More Deaths per Year, Surge in Coal Use Scuttling Climate Change Efforts, Climate Taking Heavy Toll. Renewable Energy Is Way Too Expensive, Right, Video [Chart], Green Energy Scientists Unveil 800,000 Ton Potato Capable of Powering Entire City. | California's Jerry Brown Considers Easing Logging Rules to Help Fight Fires. Neoliberalism Drives Climate Breakdown, Not Human Nature, attempts by the New York Times to blame humanity as a whole for climate change lets the real culprits off the hook. GOP Senate Candidate: Blame the Sun for Climate Change, Not Humans. Ford's Office Denies Ordering Staff to Stop Using Term 'Climate Change' on Social Media, was this a cyber attack by infiltrating an email system, or other social issue such as a rumor being passed on a official information, 180826-VCP-Russia. Sweating out a Close Race, GOP Rep. Mimi Walters Ties Wildfires to Climate Change, The GOP Mayors Quietly Fighting Climate Change, Texas Wants to Address Climate Change. Just Don't Call it That, Houston Marks Harvey Anniversary with Flood Control Vote. | EPA Cancels Three Hearings on New Vehicle Emissions Rule. Energy Department Tells Scientist to Remove Climate Change from Study. Climate Science Proposals Are Being Reviewed by Ryan Zinke’s Old Football Buddy. Seriously, The Trump Administration Is Suppressing Science at an Alarming Rate.
-1.1. Unsure if this is an anthropogenic biocalamity, but with 50,000 dead in two years it is an anthropogenic hazard. Like most biocalamity it likely ties to other anthropogenic damage such as roads and buildings, interfering with animal migration, invasive species, disease spread, erosion and chemical run off, megafires, soil damage and disturbance, human encroachment, biodiversity, deforestation, polluting water, increased vulnerability to liquefaction..... Landslides Triggered by Human Activity on the Rise. Landslides are associated with rapid development, where shoddy construction is tolerated, in both Asia and Rapid Development in Central Africa Increases the Risk of Infectious Disease Outbreaks.
-2. Fake News Detector Algorithm Works Better than a Human. An algorithm based system that identifies telltale linguistic cues in fake news stories. I suspect that the algorithm beats humans because fakes are designed to fool humans, so it would be possible to adapt to fool the computer. However why bother; humans will still believe what they want no matter the evidence. Automatic Detection of Fake News. The proliferation of misleading information in everyday access media outlets such as social media feeds, news blogs, and online newspapers have made it challenging to identify trustworthy news sources. This introduces two datasets for the task of fake news detection. Second, a set of learning experiments to build accurate fake news detectors. | To date, there are three important lines of research into the automated classification of genuine and fake news items. The distinction has been made between three types of fake news: serious fabrications, hoaxes and satire 180819-4.1. Focusing on serious fabrication, and differentiating satire from real news yielded promising results in four domains (civics, science, business, soft news). The best classification performances were achieved with feature sets representing absurdity, punctuation, and grammar. Third are stylometric features (character and stop word n-grams, readability indices, external links and the average number of words per paragraph. Linguistic clues such as self references or positive and negative words have been used to profile true tellers from liars along with affect, spatial and temporal information associated with deceptive content. Expressivity, informality, diversity and non immediacy have also been explored to identify deceitful behaviors. | In building a fake news dataset, we adhered to the nine requirements of a fake news corpus (1) include both fake and real news items, (2) contain text only news items, (3) have a verifiable ground truth, (4) be homogeneous in length and (5) writing style, (6) contain news from a predefined time frame, (7) be delivered in the same manner and for the same purpose (e.g. humor, breaking news) for fake and real cases, (8) be made publicly available, and (9) should take language and cultural differences into account. The reader by this point has probably noticed that this is describing PDWN as an educational vehicle to detect missing and erroneous information. However PDWN goes beyond if something is true or not as that is irrelevant in parademic. Parademic is about what people believe and will act in accordance with, and identifying how information is valid to the user, to include deceptive manipulation of others. These are not necessarily intentional behaviors with a desire to harm others, but more simply people doing what they think is right to achieve what they think are important objectives. Murder of health care workers, falsified information, misleading, obfuscation, censorship are all seen in parademic and can all be done with the intend of protection of ones identification group or power base. NewsGuard Wants to Fight Fake News With Humans, Not Algorithms$.
-2.1. Long Before Facebook, the KGB Spread Fake News about AIDS, with the Soviet Union and its allies were working to promote the idea that AIDS was an American biological weapon. There's a history, a legacy of mistrust, that makes explanations like this all the more credible, all the more likely, and all the more believable. The onset of the epidemic as a time of confusion and fear among the general population and even medical professionals. People were trying their best to make sense of a condition that came out of nowhere and seemed to attack marginalized people. Gay men. Blacks and Latino men and women. When AIDS showed up in the early '80s, it was less than 10 years after the infamous Tuskegee experiments INDEX, in which black men with syphilis went untreated so scientists could study how the disease ravaged their bodies. Why not assume this was yet another blow to the community. Speaking Out; The CIA CDC AIDS Political Alliance 1983, On the Sidewalks of Washington, DC Someone Painted AIDS/ Gay Genocide. Filling in Some of the Glaring Gaps in Public Information about the Disease Leaves a Frightening and Still Puzzling Picture 1987, German Scientist Couple Presses Theory That AIDS Was Created at Fort Detrick 1992*, 171008-3‡. Many unintended consequences of this related to self deception and confirmation bias, to include Russia’s HIV/ AIDS Epidemic Is Getting Worse, Not Better, 180826-VCP-Russia. Unfortunately the same ill informed moral panic that becomes policy happens in other countries, increasing the spread of AIDS, Religious Conservatives’ Ties to Trump Officials Pay off in AIDS Policies, Funding, Good Politics, Bad Politics: The Experience of AIDS 2007. *One of the best circumstances for propaganda is conditions of uncertainty, an information vacuum waiting to be filled with anything, fact or not.
-Quote: Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves (Not yet placed by section at the time accessed). – Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms. Propaganda Search.
-3. Learning from the Past, Preparing for the Future. I seem to becoming more cynical. My own take would be more along the lines of: After repeatedly having the same lesson from the past time after time that it does no good to bandaid <ADDED 180708-180701-1.1>2, a disease outbreak without dealing with the underlying problems of infection, sanitation and clean water. The lesson is finally learned, but more time is needed before what is learned is finally applies in any meaningful way. This is usually long after a series of biocalamities finally makes it clear that each new occurrence is worse and more costly than the previous one. This is not exactly preparing for the future, but preparing for the past that constant repetition indicates will be certain to happen again, but may only be to protect from the previous biocalamity, not what will actually happen as it accelerates. Drought in Central Europe Reveals Cautionary Hunger Stones in Czech River.
-4. A New Blog: Hothouse Earth, the curator of H5N1 has been expanding beyond just current news and pandemic policy for years. Hothouse Earth, Welcome to the Anthropocene is a logical next step. The Influence of Arctic Amplification on mid Latitude Summer Circulation, Breathing on a Hot Planet <ADDED 180812-180805-6>1‡, It’s the End of the Earth as We Know It. Read All about It, Canada Is Unsustainable. So Is Everywhere Else, If We Can't Stop Hothouse Earth, We'd Better Learn to Live on It\fs24plain 180819-5.
-5. Tom Frieden, Former CDC Director, Has Been Arrested on Sexual Misconduct Charges. Unknown if this accusation is true or not. It is however likely in the current political environment that there will quickly be speculation that this is a fake accusation, or resulting from the hypersensitivity of MeToo and Catholic clergy abuse. Trumpism can be expected to exploit this as a distraction from its own legal and sexual proclivities issues, and to take revenge for previous perceived resistance -2-n -3- -4- -5- -6-$ -7- [Art] to biotrumpism, and conspiracy theory of unfair, biased, rigged system, if Frieden is exonerated. | In the past Frieden, though excellent on public health, is not so great on anticipating human factors -2- that impact on public health. Ex CDC Director Frieden Accused of Groping Woman's Buttocks, The Latest: Ex CDC Director Told to Stay Away from Accuser. Surprised Trump has not tweeted about this, but perhaps does not want to draw attention to similar accusations made against him.
-6. Arresting Biological Disasters: Role Smart Cities Mission Can Play. In the face of outbreaks, simple acts of citizens like following strict personal hygiene including cough etiquette and exercising self-restraint in their movements could be of big help to city administrators in controlling them. “Self quarantining” coupled with “home based working options” further integrated with “absenteeism management plans” merit inclusion into preparedness policies for corporates and even for some public agencies. -161204-7↓. These all fall under the umbrella of social distance. There are some problems, such as who pays for the necessary equipment to work from home, is there sufficient bandwidth to support not working in the office, will people self quarantine, management gets nervous when they can’t see employees, and the general issues that arise when people are not in contact with other people. Three Reasons the US Is Not Ready for the next Pandemic. Overuse of a wonder drug, global supply chains collapse, Leadership.
-7. Probing Problems: Dilemmas of Conducting an Ethnographic Study in a Disaster Affected Area. Natural disasters may have perplexing effects on the lives of those who live through them, in physical, mental and emotional ways. For years researchers have explored the long term health impact of disasters, which can include anxiety, depression, PTSD and more. These conditions may manifest and be observed for many years after traumatic events. Awareness of these conditions is vital for researchers who immerse themselves in observational research involving disaster affected participants. These researchers should be prepared to deal with potential problems related to the specific conditions in the field and within themselves as researchers. This article draws on autoethnography and reflexive practices to explore the process of employing ethnographic methods while researching medical education during fieldwork in Aceh, Indonesia. I highlight three persistent dilemmas: Engaging with safety protocols, building rapport with vulnerable participants, and preventing myself from secondary trauma stress. Reflecting on my experiences, I came to realize the importance for researchers to probe not only the gaps and problems in the core domain of research, but to also probe participants’ problems, as well as their own predicaments. Keywords: Autoethnography, reflexivity; safety protocol; vulnerable participant -2- -3-; secondary trauma stress -2- -3- -4- -5- -180729-9↓. These same issues are also found in digital ethnography. When one it writing and reading for hours at a time, it becomes part of the process of analysis and synthesis that one is exposed to oneself and the methodology used; When in a flow state it becomes hard to remember to exercise, sit correctly, eat, eliminate waste, relax one eyes, and maintain real world relations; And though removed one or more times from the crisis event it is possible to have secondary trauma stress and ethical issues from ethnographic relationships, The Importance of Discerning Between Job Burnout and PTSD -180729-9↓, The Warfare May Be Remote but the Trauma Is Real. An Applied Anthropological Perspective on Localizing Post Disaster Aid: Lessons from Post Tsunami Aceh, Indonesia.
-8. Plague and Music in the Renaissance$. Although largely absent from Europe after 1700, the plague had an immense existential, theological, and cultural impact on the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The outbreak that started in 1347 inaugurated the second plague related pandemic, and for the next three and a half centuries the plague would prove to be the scourge of European life.
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-180819-4 -‡>1. Bayer's Monsanto Faces 8,000 Lawsuits on Glyphosate. The proclivity to sue for health conditions from chemicals is more an indication of greed and grief than of an actual health hazard. There is a correspondence between the winning of a court case and more civil suits being made, but there has not been a corresponding uptick of cases when science proves a substance is harmful. There the company settles out of court or spends years keeping cases out of court, using the fact that the science is unclear.
-180819-7.1>2. The Hugo Awards Just Made History, and Defied Alt Right Extremists in the Process. N.K. Jemisin’s third consecutive win in the Hugo Awards repudiates extremist voters who’ve spent years trying to keep her from winning. If literature and media are an accurate reflection of society then there is a tendency for those who are against equal access to also be against environmentalism and health for all. #Book N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy Is a Triumphant Achievement in Fantasy Literature [Covers]. N.K. Jemisin and the Politics of Prose, Hugo Awards Winners Showcase Science Fiction’s Diversity. The Alt Right Attacks Sci Fi: How the Hugo Awards Got Hijacked by Trumpian Style Culture Warriors 2016.
-180812-1.1>3, <ADDED 180819>1. The Imminent Departure of Saudi Medical Residents. In 2018, teaching hospitals have employed roughly 4,100 residents, 800 or more from Saudi Arabia. The departure of 800 or more of them means a sudden loss of 20 per cent of the residents. For teaching hospitals, it probably means cancelled surgeries and elective admissions to hospital. It also means the remaining 3,308 residents and probably some attending physicians and surgeons will be overworked, extra tired and sleep deprived from picking up the slack. H5N1 Comment: The Saudis aren't even especially sore at us over a tweet about their bad behaviour in Yemen; they're using us (and Canadian doctors and patients) as an example to critics elsewhere in the world. The Chinese call it killing the chicken to scare the monkeys, 180826-VCP-China.
-180729-0>4. Have started the Index of Occasional Topics INDEX. There are some topics that appear from time to time in PDWN that are not a near continuous thread as done with <ADDED>. This Index is for convenience so if one those topics appear again this one just needs to hit INDEX to see previous stubs on that topic, rather than do a long list of links to that occasional topic. This will not be all related to a particular topic but is a start. A request for more information or a refinement can be sent to the curator of the PDWN database via comments if more is needed or the exact information needed could not be found.
-180729-9>5. Healing the ‘Moral Injury’ of Clinicians Will Take a Village. INDEX Burnout, Another Cause of Doctor Burnout. Being Forced to Give Immigrants Unequal Care, [Cartoon].
-180513-1.1>6, <ADDED 180819>4. Beni: Children Are Particularly Affected by the Ebola Outbreak, UNICEF Reports. Children tend to be more vulnerable to biocalamity, and if lacking in clean water, nutrition, sanitation, education, possibly caretakers and live in an area lacking infrastructure, they are even more vulnerable. North Kivu: Provincial Government Informed of Level of Response to Ebola, with unsecured funerals and burials, untimely hospitalization, nosocomial contamination, non observance of hygiene rules, uncontrolled movement from contaminated areas and ignorance of the disease. Ban on the Transfer of Mortal Remains to Bungulu. Ebola: Breaking the Deadly Chain of Transmission. | UN Agency: Ebola Reaches Area of High Insecurity in Congo, Spiralling Violence Puts Millions at Risk in Ebola Hit Eastern DRC. Watch this to see if former DRC practice of isolating an area until Ebola burns out is implements (likely there will be armed conflict), with the possibility of ring vaccination of the area. Doctor in Eastern Congo Contracts Ebola in Dreaded Scenario, Ebola Treatment Challenged by DR Congo Rebel Activity. | Ebola Response in Beni: Civil Society Calls for Postponement of Back to School.
-180311-6>7, <ADDED 180624>6, <ADDED 180701>6, U.S. Embassy Cuts Hobble Influence in Cuba. Self inflicted damage tends to be reflections of attacks that were intended against others, in this case justification of reversing better relations with Cuba because of a “sonic weapon”. Now with a hard to control outbreak of Ebola in the DRC -180513-1.1↑ Cuban cooperation with their experience medical personnel is unlikely, and dangerous toxic algae in the Caribbean will not have a major resource to fix the problem, -180708-8>2.
-180128-3.1>8, <ADDED 180812>7. Emergent solutions when the official system does not work. What Happened in the Dark: Puerto Rico's Year of Fighting for Power. Several weeks before he would become a folk hero across Puerto Rico, Jorge Bracero slipped in a puddle at San Juan's central power plant and broke his leg. After a few days in a cast, he began to feel pain so intense he was unable to sleep or eat. When doctors realized he had developed blood clots in his injured limb, they prescribed a 6 month regimen of blood thinners and barred him from returning to work for the duration.
-170326-4.1>9. During the Zika outbreaks there were concerns about GMO mosquitoes*, combine this with killer drones – Explosive Drones Detonate in Assassination Attempt on Venezuelan President, How Do We Thwart the Latest Terrorist Threat: Swarms of Weaponised Drones, [CGI, CGI, Photo] – and one ends up needing something like Do Not Fear the Drones Air Dropping 50,000 Mosquitoes from Above.
-*‡. Florida Keys Turns to Drones in Battle Against Mosquitos 2013, How Bug Delivering Drones Are Helping Defeat Deadly Diseases 2017, 170205-5.3, Breakthrough in Mosquito Packed Drones to Combat Zika in Brazil.
-161204-7>10, <ADDED 180513>7. FDA Adds 4 Months to Expiration Date on EpiPens in Face of Shortage. When there are drug shortages there are tactics such as decreasing dose size and/or number of doses, rationing, the use related drugs, culling of zoonosis source, and there will be medical scams fill the gap. In the case of EpiPens it is likely that some people were already going beyond expiration date and buying replacements early. Even so with the date of the original observation that lead to this shortage one would think there was sufficient time to prevent this. Possibly everyone that could have done something that someone else had time to make a correction. 170723-5. -6↑.
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