I quit NPR at least 10 years ago, 15 the NYT, and in the odds The New Yorker and The Atlantic. These political organs are not in the news or even the serious commentary business, because that assumes the news. They don't report new stories because new stories tend to undermine settled narratives. They are not interesting in find the fact…
I quit NPR at least 10 years ago, 15 the NYT, and in the odds The New Yorker and The Atlantic. These political organs are not in the news or even the serious commentary business, because that assumes the news. They don't report new stories because new stories tend to undermine settled narratives. They are not interesting in find the facts and building out a big picture in the time-frame in which it is important. Alternative media and even citizen journalism is infinitely more satisfying, if also disconcerting in the picture it broadly presents of a corrupt and incompetent establishment bent on clinging to power at your, and the world's, expense, and by means of endless propaganda, the suppression of free speech, the criminalization of opposition, and the manipulation of elections through disinformation and algorithms. Regular media decided to sign up with this.
OK, "Viewpoint Diversity" then. Who do we invite? The conservative pundits from Left, Right, and Center? David Brooks? Or a congressman who claims the 2020 election was stolen? Or that lady I see on YouTube who posts about how the U.S. Government is secretly being run by Obama from his basement? How to choose? Or should we throw all standards out the window? Anyone can publish anything now and say it's true. That doesn't mean it is because there still are things called facts.
The problem is not whether there are facts--of course there are and it is the duty of media to report and analyze them--but what they are. And MSM has a terrible job especially from 2016 on finding them, reporting them in a timely way, and in the fullness of their significance.
Frankly, does anyone even care about NPR's opinion anymore? Why, when the educated and discerning viewer or listener can find so many better sources for both facts and commentary across the spectrum on alternative media. This isn't to deny that the net is full of kooks and crazies. It is. BUT SO IS MSM. Even more so, and with greater consequence, because it holds a kind of monopoly as state media, because CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, and the NYT, and to a lesser but still significant extent WSJ and Fox too, are also instruments of the establishment and of the permanent state.
The only thing that guarantees good journalism is not having a monopoly or some special hold in the hierarchy but actual journalist competence, where the proof is in the pudding. Aaron Mate and Greenwald, for example, are far better journalists at discovering the truth about Russiagate that anything NPR or PBS have. Taibbi and Shellenberger are the Nation's best investigative journalists. Why not put them on--and not neutralize them with "balancing" guests there to drown and dilute what they have to say? Give them a real hearing. Debate with them themselves, not (just) through proxies.
NPR doesn't have a serious audience any more. It did that to itself. It's not just who you invite for commentary but your core unwillingness to pursue stories according to the truth, for example, the Russia collusion hoax. One can name dozens of other stories deliberately squelched by the likes of NPR.
Left, Right, and Center was a great show back in the day, despite how annoying Matt Miller could be. The problem, though, is that NPR's Overton Window is decided by DC, which lives in a fantasy world (consider Ukraine, for example). As fas as Obama goes, DC is no longer capable of that kind of cohesion to be run by Biden--or anyone else. No one is in charge. It is not at all clear who is or could be running our government in an effective sense--certainly, Joe is not up to the job, and Kamala is a joke. This invites speculation. I think many actors are making their plays, including Obama, but he is by no means the only interested party in exploiting or filling for Joe's incompetence and senility, nor are they all partisan in the conventional sense. Wouldn't is be great if "public" radio could probe these pressing questions instead of obsessing about the "far right" (= anyone who doesn't listen to NPR).
Who is mainly responsible for that breakdown in public discourse? Not the people who have been driven out of the mainstream because they are traditional Democrats, civil libertarians, free-thinking individuals who follow facts and logic where they lead, or conservatives (unlike the insufferable David Brookes).
The conspiracy theories on the right were provoked by the conspiracy theories and real conspiracies denied not just emanating from left loons but the ones who run MSM--viz., Trump is a Russian agent, the laptop was Russian disinformation, Covid didn't originate from a lab and didn't originate with American help, the US did nothing to provoke, no, engineer, Russia into a war, etc., etc., etc. You really don't see the problem, do you?
Yes, I do see the problem, but Berliner doesn't address this. I think it's necessary to address and at the center of his argument. What do we do from here? Do we let conspiracy theories fly? How can we discern what is "liberal" and "conservative" anymore since both have become so distorted? If we're following facts and logic, these, to me, seem like important follow-up questions. We can't pretend that the landscape hasn't changed.
Well, I agree--Berliner only goes so far. I also agree that liberal-conservative, Dem-Rep, and left and right are unclear distinctions at present. Huge shifts and inversions are taking place. I would prefer a liberal democratic order in which the full spectrum of political opinion in both philosophical principle and in the population at large is represented, and that is what these distinctions permit. The true constitution that underlies "the" constitution is the full range of legitimate political-philosophical positions that any citizen is free to take, because no one has a monopoly. But right now, that "Overton Window" has been rendered meaningless by the narrative monopoly of MSM, on the one hand, and the wild but inherently uncultivated garden of the Web. I think the real shift that is occurring now is missed by many liberals and conservatives, namely the war of the establishment and the ruling elites against the middle, working, and lower classes as a whole. So I follow people like Joel Kotkin, Michael Lind, and Batya Sargon-Unger on this. It's class war, albeit not entirely like or unlike what Marx had in mind. The question is, will we have a true constitutional order in which left and right in a meaningful sense can still exist to play their role. Without a media committed to this, we are lost.
I agree with you on this. There's been so much polarization, and I think the MSM exploits this to increase their viewers. I would truly like to hear thoughtful news analysis from both liberal and conservative positions. I think the current rhetoric is scaring people into camps, creating a progressive illusory bubble.and elevating the wackiest voices on the right.
Hey, me, too. I am right-of-center but used to love to be able to hear good-faith perspectives from the other side. There's no good-faith on either side anymore. I loved the Atlantic until the Kevin D. Willamson fiasco. I'm grateful for Substack, the Free Press, podcasts... places where I can be challenged and learn.
I quit both NPR and the NYT around the same time as you. I used to love the in depth human interest stores. At that time, both skewed left, but not overwhelmingly so and I appreciated the different view point. However long before Floyd, both began to incorporate race into EVERY SINGLE STORY. It was so bizarre, I couldn't stand listening to it any longer. The preachiness of "white people bad" and racism is the root of everything negative in the world was just too much.
The Atlantic's decline was spearheaded by Jeff Goldberg. Sad because it was once a quality product. Now it’s just another liberal rag, the Huffington Post with better writing.
In terms of independent journalism, Debbie Wasserman calling Matt Taibbi a “so-called journalist” was the most repulsive thing I have seen in a Congressional hearing since Dick Durbin said “thank you for your service” to an IRS administrator.
I thought that was the Epstein connected, fake congress person gal from the Carribean who called him that. Just a little while before the former football player told him to take off his tinfoill hat and give thanks to the security state apparatus (who were on that very same day sending the IRS to Matt's door.)
I love these new interpretations of NPR. As for myself a former very strong supporter, I now consider it National Propaganda Radio. I fully support ending any & all public funding - if it disappears so be it.
Mamet’s Friday comics are reassuring in that they demonstrate that even the most talented artistic genius can be beyond mediocre, even bad at something. He’s no B. Kliban certainly.
I've gotten to where if a mass of "experts" is saying something, particularly as regards public health, but also things like foreign policy, I assume the truth is in the other direction.
The jabs are toxic poisons that do almost nothing good. Masks did vastly more harm than good, as did the lockdowns. Ukraine can and should end the war with Russia tomorrow, with no more money from us. Our open border is getting people killed, and diverting resources from poor Americans who need them. We can't absorb all these people, and they are only allowed here to protect the ultra-rich elite who control the Democrat Party, and enough of the Republican Party to create apparent but managed opposition.
Russia went in after Ukraine rejected the Minsk Accords it had ratified verbally, destroyed the NATO based that should not have been there, threatened Kiev to try and force a peace deal, was offered concessions, withdrew, then had the concessions canceled.
Now Russia is simply conquering and planning to occupy forever the Donbass region the Ukrainian government had been abusing and attacking militarily anyway.
Its perhaps not right or legal, but it could have been avoided, and the only pity I feel is for civilians caught in the crossfire of a stupid war, and the soldiers on bith sides forced to fight it.
This war is about money making, for members of the American War Racket. You are a useful idiot.
That is propaganda that is so stupid you would need a four year college degree to believe it. He has had trouble with the Ukraine alone. Hes lost perhaps a 100,000 or more men. He knows full well the American war machine has been trying to engineer an excuse to destroy him for years. On what upside down world COULD it make sense for him to start a war with the WHOLE of Europe?
Use your brain. You are a pawn in the game of people who are astonished at how much they can get away with, and how easily. Somebody at that meeting said “nobody is that stupid”. You and many like you stood up and said YES WE ARE.
It would seem proud ignorance has become a dominant feature on our cultural landscape.
My contention is that this war never should have happened, and having happened, never should have continued. US representatives have torpedoed peace deals repeatedly.
Putin wanted the Donbass autonomous, since it was mainly ethnic Russians who wanted to be part of Russia, much like Northern Ireland wanting to be part of Great Britain. Zelensky was elected promising to adhere to the Minsk Accords, which granted relative autonomy and also promised to end attacks by the Ukrainian military on separatists in the Donbass. He reneged. Putin said "come back to the table or we will invade". Zelensky by then was fully under the control of the US, and said no, and Russia invaded.
Nearly all the money we are "sending" to the Ukraine consists in arms purchases made from American arms merchants using American tax payer money. People who sell weapons of war are making hundreds of billions of dollars because of this war. The whole is monstrous. A quarter of a million people would be alive today if the whole thing had been handled sensisibly.
NATO, I will add, seems to exist to feed the War Machine. That treaty dictates defense spending never get below a percentage of our GDP. A more convenient and reliable means of securing revenue from cuts could not be imagined. Our military spending is even indexed to inflation.
Well when women are in domestic violence situations and facing a much stronger, oppressive opponent, isn’t it kind of their fault if their resist? The beatings would stop if they would just give up!
N95 masks work well to protect the wearer. I'm not a liberal or NPR listener but I have health conditions making me extremely vulnerable to covid (lupus & emphysema) & care for a relative on chemo. You need to fit-test them.
They may help, but the 95 is 95% of particles larger than 650 nanometers and COVID particles are about 100-150. I wonked out on this stuff hard when the world was losing its mind.
You would do better doing the Zelenko Protocol daily, which is 30 mg zinc, 500 mg Quercetin, 1 gram Vitamin C and 5,000 iu Vitamin D. And in acute illness 50 mg zinc and ideally Ivermectin. That dose is on the web somewhere.
Mask wearing helps a LOT with TB, but has shown no real benefit with viruses of any kind. Masks also create their own health problems when worn a lot over time, which is why they are OSHA regulated.
N95 masks block 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. Covid virus is smaller than this, but when it is in the air, it is being carried in an aerosol droplet that is at least 1 micron in size. So yes, an N95 mask does indeed protect, IF it is fitted properly so that not much air enters or escapes through the openings around the nostrils. If you were shopping in a supermarket, say, in March 2020 for 10 - 15 minutes, the mask would greatly reduce how many particles you breathed in. Since something like 500 - 1,000 particles are estimated to be required for an infection (probably varies from person to person), you are more likely to stay below the number required for an infection if you are wearing a mask. Stay in the supermarket for an hour or two, and all bets are off.
As I understand virological science, it remains a debateable question whether it is viral particles themselves, which are exhaled in something like the billions per breath by the infected, or only the vastly more transitory and much larger water globules that are the main vectors of transmission.
Its POSSIBLE perfectly fitted N95 masks that are changed at least daily do something. I am open to that possibility although I know masks have been tried with flu and done nothing.
But can we agree that the policies pushed ny the CDC and NIH were stupid and fantastically, unbelievably ignorant? People weee wearing cloth masks that filtered nothing, wearing them over and over, and creating breathing problems for themselves in the process and very frequently bacteriological lung infections.
Good data show statistically zero effect on spread, and some studies show INCREASES in overall mortality, which is unsurprising since mask wearing creates cardiovascular stress.
Healthy people just needed to stay healthy—not least through Vitamin D sufficiency—and unhealthy people needed to stay home. If people want to wear masks that is their choice, but even if I were old and sickly I personally would abstain.
I am not a virologist, so I get my information by googling. I don't see a source that says the virus particles are in the air by themselves. My point is that if one is covering one's nose and mouth, whether with an N95 mask or cloth masks, and the covering traps X% of the globules or particles or whatever, that's X% less that gets into one's lungs. So if one's exposure is small (say, 10 minutes inside a not-crowded supermarket, as my guess for a small exposure), one has a better chance of not receiving whatever the threshold number of virus particles necessary to cause an infection. That's hard to argue with. But of course, if the mask gives one a false sense of security, then wearing a mask could be worse than nothing at all, as one exposes oneself to crowds for extended periods of time (like a crowded restaurant for dinner). I am sorry, but it is unavoidable that the argument is nuanced.
The studies were not designed to study a short exposure masked versus a short exposure not masked. Of course if a person is wearing a mask and is in a crowded environment for an extended period of time, wearing the mask will not help. (Hospital workers have tightly fitting masks plus suits.) I doubt that there is even one study that looked at the variable as I have described it.
I quit NPR at least 10 years ago, 15 the NYT, and in the odds The New Yorker and The Atlantic. These political organs are not in the news or even the serious commentary business, because that assumes the news. They don't report new stories because new stories tend to undermine settled narratives. They are not interesting in find the facts and building out a big picture in the time-frame in which it is important. Alternative media and even citizen journalism is infinitely more satisfying, if also disconcerting in the picture it broadly presents of a corrupt and incompetent establishment bent on clinging to power at your, and the world's, expense, and by means of endless propaganda, the suppression of free speech, the criminalization of opposition, and the manipulation of elections through disinformation and algorithms. Regular media decided to sign up with this.
Maybe NPR stopped asking conservative pundits to comment because they got tired of filling the airwaves with their BS.
Not likely, because conservative BS is far less toxic and mountainous than progressivist BS.
OK, "Viewpoint Diversity" then. Who do we invite? The conservative pundits from Left, Right, and Center? David Brooks? Or a congressman who claims the 2020 election was stolen? Or that lady I see on YouTube who posts about how the U.S. Government is secretly being run by Obama from his basement? How to choose? Or should we throw all standards out the window? Anyone can publish anything now and say it's true. That doesn't mean it is because there still are things called facts.
The problem is not whether there are facts--of course there are and it is the duty of media to report and analyze them--but what they are. And MSM has a terrible job especially from 2016 on finding them, reporting them in a timely way, and in the fullness of their significance.
Frankly, does anyone even care about NPR's opinion anymore? Why, when the educated and discerning viewer or listener can find so many better sources for both facts and commentary across the spectrum on alternative media. This isn't to deny that the net is full of kooks and crazies. It is. BUT SO IS MSM. Even more so, and with greater consequence, because it holds a kind of monopoly as state media, because CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, and the NYT, and to a lesser but still significant extent WSJ and Fox too, are also instruments of the establishment and of the permanent state.
The only thing that guarantees good journalism is not having a monopoly or some special hold in the hierarchy but actual journalist competence, where the proof is in the pudding. Aaron Mate and Greenwald, for example, are far better journalists at discovering the truth about Russiagate that anything NPR or PBS have. Taibbi and Shellenberger are the Nation's best investigative journalists. Why not put them on--and not neutralize them with "balancing" guests there to drown and dilute what they have to say? Give them a real hearing. Debate with them themselves, not (just) through proxies.
NPR doesn't have a serious audience any more. It did that to itself. It's not just who you invite for commentary but your core unwillingness to pursue stories according to the truth, for example, the Russia collusion hoax. One can name dozens of other stories deliberately squelched by the likes of NPR.
Left, Right, and Center was a great show back in the day, despite how annoying Matt Miller could be. The problem, though, is that NPR's Overton Window is decided by DC, which lives in a fantasy world (consider Ukraine, for example). As fas as Obama goes, DC is no longer capable of that kind of cohesion to be run by Biden--or anyone else. No one is in charge. It is not at all clear who is or could be running our government in an effective sense--certainly, Joe is not up to the job, and Kamala is a joke. This invites speculation. I think many actors are making their plays, including Obama, but he is by no means the only interested party in exploiting or filling for Joe's incompetence and senility, nor are they all partisan in the conventional sense. Wouldn't is be great if "public" radio could probe these pressing questions instead of obsessing about the "far right" (= anyone who doesn't listen to NPR).
Who is mainly responsible for that breakdown in public discourse? Not the people who have been driven out of the mainstream because they are traditional Democrats, civil libertarians, free-thinking individuals who follow facts and logic where they lead, or conservatives (unlike the insufferable David Brookes).
The conspiracy theories on the right were provoked by the conspiracy theories and real conspiracies denied not just emanating from left loons but the ones who run MSM--viz., Trump is a Russian agent, the laptop was Russian disinformation, Covid didn't originate from a lab and didn't originate with American help, the US did nothing to provoke, no, engineer, Russia into a war, etc., etc., etc. You really don't see the problem, do you?
Yes, I do see the problem, but Berliner doesn't address this. I think it's necessary to address and at the center of his argument. What do we do from here? Do we let conspiracy theories fly? How can we discern what is "liberal" and "conservative" anymore since both have become so distorted? If we're following facts and logic, these, to me, seem like important follow-up questions. We can't pretend that the landscape hasn't changed.
Well, I agree--Berliner only goes so far. I also agree that liberal-conservative, Dem-Rep, and left and right are unclear distinctions at present. Huge shifts and inversions are taking place. I would prefer a liberal democratic order in which the full spectrum of political opinion in both philosophical principle and in the population at large is represented, and that is what these distinctions permit. The true constitution that underlies "the" constitution is the full range of legitimate political-philosophical positions that any citizen is free to take, because no one has a monopoly. But right now, that "Overton Window" has been rendered meaningless by the narrative monopoly of MSM, on the one hand, and the wild but inherently uncultivated garden of the Web. I think the real shift that is occurring now is missed by many liberals and conservatives, namely the war of the establishment and the ruling elites against the middle, working, and lower classes as a whole. So I follow people like Joel Kotkin, Michael Lind, and Batya Sargon-Unger on this. It's class war, albeit not entirely like or unlike what Marx had in mind. The question is, will we have a true constitutional order in which left and right in a meaningful sense can still exist to play their role. Without a media committed to this, we are lost.
I agree with you on this. There's been so much polarization, and I think the MSM exploits this to increase their viewers. I would truly like to hear thoughtful news analysis from both liberal and conservative positions. I think the current rhetoric is scaring people into camps, creating a progressive illusory bubble.and elevating the wackiest voices on the right.
Couldn’t agree more-
I picked up the NYT at the store Sunday and leafed through all the pictures and boring headlines. Then I put it down. It wasn't worth $6.
Back in the 1960s, I walked blocks through deep snow to get the Sunday Times, and I collect the Book Review and NYT Magazine. There is no there there.
I miss the New Yorker of old, long form investigative journalism.
Hey, me, too. I am right-of-center but used to love to be able to hear good-faith perspectives from the other side. There's no good-faith on either side anymore. I loved the Atlantic until the Kevin D. Willamson fiasco. I'm grateful for Substack, the Free Press, podcasts... places where I can be challenged and learn.
I quit both NPR and the NYT around the same time as you. I used to love the in depth human interest stores. At that time, both skewed left, but not overwhelmingly so and I appreciated the different view point. However long before Floyd, both began to incorporate race into EVERY SINGLE STORY. It was so bizarre, I couldn't stand listening to it any longer. The preachiness of "white people bad" and racism is the root of everything negative in the world was just too much.
The Times publishes long boring stories with huge pictures and other graphics because they're cheaper than real journalism.
The Atlantic's decline was spearheaded by Jeff Goldberg. Sad because it was once a quality product. Now it’s just another liberal rag, the Huffington Post with better writing.
The Atlantic has seemed a little better to me lately. More diversity of opinion on Israel Palestine and DEI related issues at least.
In terms of independent journalism, Debbie Wasserman calling Matt Taibbi a “so-called journalist” was the most repulsive thing I have seen in a Congressional hearing since Dick Durbin said “thank you for your service” to an IRS administrator.
That about sums it up.
I think it was Stacey Plaskett, who, ironically, refers to herself as "Congresswoman" even though she is a non-voting delegate
I thought that was the Epstein connected, fake congress person gal from the Carribean who called him that. Just a little while before the former football player told him to take off his tinfoill hat and give thanks to the security state apparatus (who were on that very same day sending the IRS to Matt's door.)
What happened to Schultz?
She died of an overdose of Ugly Pills.
NPR
Nietzschean Patriarchy Rejectors
I love these new interpretations of NPR. As for myself a former very strong supporter, I now consider it National Propaganda Radio. I fully support ending any & all public funding - if it disappears so be it.
David Mamet called it National Palestinian Radio.
His pithy witticisms are way better than his Friday cartoons!
The substack app double posted and then when prompted to delete one duplicate it double deleted my comment. Oh, internet!
Mamet’s Friday comics are reassuring in that they demonstrate that even the most talented artistic genius can be beyond mediocre, even bad at something. He’s no B. Kliban certainly.
National Pandhandler Radio
Nonwhite Peoples Radio
Needlessly Pompous Reprobates?
Not particularly relevant.
I've gotten to where if a mass of "experts" is saying something, particularly as regards public health, but also things like foreign policy, I assume the truth is in the other direction.
The jabs are toxic poisons that do almost nothing good. Masks did vastly more harm than good, as did the lockdowns. Ukraine can and should end the war with Russia tomorrow, with no more money from us. Our open border is getting people killed, and diverting resources from poor Americans who need them. We can't absorb all these people, and they are only allowed here to protect the ultra-rich elite who control the Democrat Party, and enough of the Republican Party to create apparent but managed opposition.
That's a short list.
"Ukraine can and should end the war with Russia tomorrow"
only if you think appeasement is a good policy
Appeasement versus what?
Russia went in after Ukraine rejected the Minsk Accords it had ratified verbally, destroyed the NATO based that should not have been there, threatened Kiev to try and force a peace deal, was offered concessions, withdrew, then had the concessions canceled.
Now Russia is simply conquering and planning to occupy forever the Donbass region the Ukrainian government had been abusing and attacking militarily anyway.
Its perhaps not right or legal, but it could have been avoided, and the only pity I feel is for civilians caught in the crossfire of a stupid war, and the soldiers on bith sides forced to fight it.
This war is about money making, for members of the American War Racket. You are a useful idiot.
Putin wants to recreate the Russian empire. Ukraine is just step 1
That is propaganda that is so stupid you would need a four year college degree to believe it. He has had trouble with the Ukraine alone. Hes lost perhaps a 100,000 or more men. He knows full well the American war machine has been trying to engineer an excuse to destroy him for years. On what upside down world COULD it make sense for him to start a war with the WHOLE of Europe?
Use your brain. You are a pawn in the game of people who are astonished at how much they can get away with, and how easily. Somebody at that meeting said “nobody is that stupid”. You and many like you stood up and said YES WE ARE.
It would seem proud ignorance has become a dominant feature on our cultural landscape.
So your contention is that the American war machine has been trying to destroy him. And so going to war in Ukraine Is the correct move???
My contention is that this war never should have happened, and having happened, never should have continued. US representatives have torpedoed peace deals repeatedly.
Putin wanted the Donbass autonomous, since it was mainly ethnic Russians who wanted to be part of Russia, much like Northern Ireland wanting to be part of Great Britain. Zelensky was elected promising to adhere to the Minsk Accords, which granted relative autonomy and also promised to end attacks by the Ukrainian military on separatists in the Donbass. He reneged. Putin said "come back to the table or we will invade". Zelensky by then was fully under the control of the US, and said no, and Russia invaded.
Nearly all the money we are "sending" to the Ukraine consists in arms purchases made from American arms merchants using American tax payer money. People who sell weapons of war are making hundreds of billions of dollars because of this war. The whole is monstrous. A quarter of a million people would be alive today if the whole thing had been handled sensisibly.
NATO, I will add, seems to exist to feed the War Machine. That treaty dictates defense spending never get below a percentage of our GDP. A more convenient and reliable means of securing revenue from cuts could not be imagined. Our military spending is even indexed to inflation.
Well when women are in domestic violence situations and facing a much stronger, oppressive opponent, isn’t it kind of their fault if their resist? The beatings would stop if they would just give up!
N95 masks work well to protect the wearer. I'm not a liberal or NPR listener but I have health conditions making me extremely vulnerable to covid (lupus & emphysema) & care for a relative on chemo. You need to fit-test them.
They may help, but the 95 is 95% of particles larger than 650 nanometers and COVID particles are about 100-150. I wonked out on this stuff hard when the world was losing its mind.
You would do better doing the Zelenko Protocol daily, which is 30 mg zinc, 500 mg Quercetin, 1 gram Vitamin C and 5,000 iu Vitamin D. And in acute illness 50 mg zinc and ideally Ivermectin. That dose is on the web somewhere.
Mask wearing helps a LOT with TB, but has shown no real benefit with viruses of any kind. Masks also create their own health problems when worn a lot over time, which is why they are OSHA regulated.
N95 masks block 95% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. Covid virus is smaller than this, but when it is in the air, it is being carried in an aerosol droplet that is at least 1 micron in size. So yes, an N95 mask does indeed protect, IF it is fitted properly so that not much air enters or escapes through the openings around the nostrils. If you were shopping in a supermarket, say, in March 2020 for 10 - 15 minutes, the mask would greatly reduce how many particles you breathed in. Since something like 500 - 1,000 particles are estimated to be required for an infection (probably varies from person to person), you are more likely to stay below the number required for an infection if you are wearing a mask. Stay in the supermarket for an hour or two, and all bets are off.
As I understand virological science, it remains a debateable question whether it is viral particles themselves, which are exhaled in something like the billions per breath by the infected, or only the vastly more transitory and much larger water globules that are the main vectors of transmission.
Its POSSIBLE perfectly fitted N95 masks that are changed at least daily do something. I am open to that possibility although I know masks have been tried with flu and done nothing.
But can we agree that the policies pushed ny the CDC and NIH were stupid and fantastically, unbelievably ignorant? People weee wearing cloth masks that filtered nothing, wearing them over and over, and creating breathing problems for themselves in the process and very frequently bacteriological lung infections.
Good data show statistically zero effect on spread, and some studies show INCREASES in overall mortality, which is unsurprising since mask wearing creates cardiovascular stress.
Healthy people just needed to stay healthy—not least through Vitamin D sufficiency—and unhealthy people needed to stay home. If people want to wear masks that is their choice, but even if I were old and sickly I personally would abstain.
And I agree about the Vit D, as well as zinc and hydrochloroquine or its substitute (escaping my mind at the moment).
I am not a virologist, so I get my information by googling. I don't see a source that says the virus particles are in the air by themselves. My point is that if one is covering one's nose and mouth, whether with an N95 mask or cloth masks, and the covering traps X% of the globules or particles or whatever, that's X% less that gets into one's lungs. So if one's exposure is small (say, 10 minutes inside a not-crowded supermarket, as my guess for a small exposure), one has a better chance of not receiving whatever the threshold number of virus particles necessary to cause an infection. That's hard to argue with. But of course, if the mask gives one a false sense of security, then wearing a mask could be worse than nothing at all, as one exposes oneself to crowds for extended periods of time (like a crowded restaurant for dinner). I am sorry, but it is unavoidable that the argument is nuanced.
Large scale epidemiological studies found no statistically significant difference in spread between mask Nazi places and “do what you want” places.
Thats really not nuanced: the policy failed to achieve its stated objective, which is not surprising since no science supported it at the outset.
The studies were not designed to study a short exposure masked versus a short exposure not masked. Of course if a person is wearing a mask and is in a crowded environment for an extended period of time, wearing the mask will not help. (Hospital workers have tightly fitting masks plus suits.) I doubt that there is even one study that looked at the variable as I have described it.
Don't forget the Clorox and eye of newt.
Couldn't agree more.
The same is true of the CBC in Canada. But we don’t have any insiders exposing CBC lies (yet).
Nailed it.
A short list that should not be debatable. That progressives believe otherwise says it all.
Yes, dividing the country. Always going on about race and gender and religion.