Kail

UWO '19 / GTown '20 ☣

[Kail @kailey_fischer]

Any bump for my COVID-19 study on teachers and education workers from my fellow Canadians would be highly appreciated! @rickmercer @colinmochrie @BaruchelNDG @gerrydee @TorrensJonathan

[Infectious Disease Epi Research Unit @DiseaseEpi]

How has the #COVID19 pandemic impacted you as a teacher or education worker in Ontario?

@SinaiHealth is seeking research participants for a large online study on the impacts of COVID-19 on elementary & secondary education workers in ON.

Visit https://t.co/8dnDklu6Zp

#onted

[Marit Stiles @MaritStiles]

A man in Ottawa with a dozen blood clots in his lungs was put in a hospital storage closet because there was no bed. How can we accept that?

Doug Ford promised to end hallway health care, but it’s only gotten worse.

It’s time to end the wait times by bringing in safe staffing ratios and fixing the bed shortage, so every Ontarian gets a real bed when they need one.

[Team Canada @TeamCanada]

Forever proud of this team. ❤️

[Abubaker Abed @AbubakerAbedW]

I’m seeing people in Gaza posting food images constantly over the past 48 hours.

I have been yearning for this moment. May their happiness be eternal.❤️🤲

[Mariam Barghouti مريم البرغوثي @MariamBarghouti]

Israel just bombed an murdered the entire Aljazeera staff in Gaza city:

Correspondents Anas Al Sharif @AnasAlSharif0 and Mohammad Qreiqei, killed.
Cameramen Ibrahim Dhaher and Mo’men Aleiwa, killed.

Crew driver, Mohammad Nofal, killed.

All murdered in an Israeli bombing of their TENT stationed by Al-Shifa hospital.

This means, a commander gave the order, and others executed it. This should be tracked and made public, who killed the journalists.

It wasn’t just a bomb. It was its manufacturer, and the Israeli commanders that are giving the order, and the soldiers saying yes and conducting the strike.

All of these murderers need to be made public by name. Israeli state violence is made by people.

[Maha Hussaini @MahaGaza]

At some point of Israel’s starvation of Gaza, hunger stopped being just physical, and started to erode the mind. You would see people wandering aimlessly, not even asking for food anymore. Children stopped playing. Conversations became quieter, slower. People forgot certain tastes. The memory of sweetness faded.

Cravings for anything sweet became so intense that mothers began sharing stories, and sometimes recordings, of their children begging for larger doses of liquid medicine, simply because it tasted slightly sweet. After months of deprivation, they just wanted to experience the taste of sugar again.

Some residents, thinking outside the box, started selling ice cream made from children’s liquid antibiotics, since it contained sugar and a bit of flavour. Everyone knew what it was made of, and that it could be harmful. But people still bought it - including me - because it was the only sweet thing left in a landscape of tasteless survival food. No one was eating for pleasure anymore; we were eating to stay alive.
When people talk about starvation, they often think only of empty stomachs. But starvation is not just a bodily affliction. It eats away at the human spirit. It robs people of memory, emotion and clarity.

Days pass in a fog, filled with survival tasks: fetching water, searching for something to eat, waiting in endless lines, watching others faint beside you.

Some children became unrecognisable; their limbs thin and movements weak, their faces pale and expressionless. Parents, especially mothers, carry unbearable guilt - not just for failing to feed their children, but for the mere act of bringing them into this world, and for beginning to lose themselves, forgetting how to provide comfort.

But as we awoke this week to find crates of sugar, dates and cheese in our local markets, Gaza sounded different. The laughter of taxi drivers - known for their grumpy complaining in times of crisis - rang through the streets. A shift in the city’s mood was almost visible. People described it as a feast after prolonged fasting.
“It feels like Eid,” one Palestinian journalist wrote on social media. “We had tea with sugar and cheese manakeesh.”
Others shared photos and stories of drinking tea with sugar for the first time in months.
The prices remain painfully high, because the amount of goods allowed in is still a fraction of what people need. Regardless, the mere sight of food and the scent of sugar in the markets - the possibility of choice, however limited - was enough to stir something long buried. 
It was not normality. But it was enough to remind us that we are still human, after nearly two years of genocide and a siege that Israel said it was imposing on “human animals”.

On my way to work on Thursday morning, street vendors were selling pressed dates by the piece. I bought one and held it in my hand until I reached my office building. 
As I climbed the stairs, internally grumbling about having to ascend two more flights after my long walk in the scorching sun, I popped the date into my mouth - and immediately, the sugar hit. 

I stopped in the middle of the stairs, closed my eyes, and sighed in relief for the first time in months: “Where have you been all these months, sweet taste? Oh, I’m willing to forget everything that has happened. I’m willing to climb the two floors. I think I can handle the current situation a bit longer now.”

Apparently, dopamine does its job faster when it has been absent for too long. I finished the date, and a few moments later, came back to my senses after being briefly “sugar drunk”.

Now I understand. This is what they are fighting us with: dopamine. 
This is the energy they are rapidly draining from the bodies of an entire population. You cannot push a people determined to resist your attempts at forced expulsion unless you first strip them of life, hope and energy.

Full article: https://t.co/5i6SwJm8b4

[Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East @CJPME]

Israel's announcement that it plans to "flatten all of Gaza" must be understood as stated intention to commit genocidal acts. Canada has an obligation to intervene and prevent Israel from acting on its genocidal threats to annihilate and ethnically cleanse Gaza.

[Richard Southern @RichardCityNews]

It’s election day in Ontario. Voters will head to the polls to choose their next provincial government as the snap, month-long campaign ends. Polls are open form 9AM until 9PM. Bring your voter card & one piece of ID to vote, though you can still vote without a voter card.

[Evy Kwong @EVYSTADIUM]

just to be clear mans basically sold our entire province to the shoppers conglomerate

[Kimiko Shibata 🦋 @ESL_fairy]

I don’t need booze in corner stores.

I don’t need a spa.

I do need to know that all Ontario residents can access medical care when needed.

[Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières @MSF_canada]

Doctors without Borders is outraged by the repeated killings of our staff in #Gaza and calls for an immediate halt on attacks of medical personnel, humanitarian workers and civilians.

[Catherine Fife @CFifeKW]

Shocking to hear the Finance Minister failed to consider the $225M price tag to accelerate beer & wine into corner stores. Millions of taxpayer dollars at the expense of ON’s healthcare, education system & infrastructure. This is the definition of fiscal irresponsibility. #onpoli

[David Moscrop @David_Moscrop]

People will die because of this decision. So, no it’s not.

[Raghu Venugopal MD @raghu_venugopal]

“Here's the most galling part of Doug Ford's safe injection site ban”

[Ted Hsu @tedhsu]

The funding for the province's wastewater surveillance system is set to expire on July 31st.

The province claims that "the federal government was expanding its wastewater surveillance program and it didn’t want to duplicate the efforts."

But when my team reached out to federal officials, we were told their program wouldn't be replacing the provincial one.

@fordnation, you might want to be careful about the pattern it looks like you're setting with key public health services.

First, it was well-water testing, then it was public health labs (which you still won't commit to keeping open), and now it's wastewater surveillance.

This isn't an anomaly — public health services are being weakened by this government.

#onpoli

[PressProgress @pressprogress]

NEW: LCBO President also sits on the board of a big business group actively lobbying Doug Ford to privatize alcohol sales.

Public accountability groups and labour leaders call it a ‘clear conflict of interest’ and a ‘betrayal of the public trust’

https://t.co/1vryJmFpEv #onpoli

[Kail @kailey_fischer]

Longlegs (2024)

[Jill Promoli @jillpromoli]

29 minutes to Listowel.
29 minutes to Clinton.
31 minutes to Walkerton.

What happens in an emergency? In an accident? A heart attack? A stroke? When someone has stopped breathing?

When minutes matter?

When will Doug Ford's government address these constant closures?

#onpoli

[Lisa Gretzky @LGretzky]

Children suffer while schools remain under resourced. 70,000 children with autism are on a wait-list, the worst it has ever been in the history of this province. And what does this Premier do? Closes down the legislature early and extends his summer vacation by 19 weeks. #OnPoli

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

BREAKING: The Lancet has just published this article "conservatively" estimating that the death toll in the Gaza genocide could be 186,000 people or more. That's 8% of the population, obliterated. These are apocalyptic figures.

https://t.co/HaRTAvTvVI

[𝚂𝚎á𝚗 𝙾’𝚂𝚑𝚎𝚊 Global News @ConsumerSOS]

I called the architectural firm that built the Ontario Science Centre — Moriyama Teshima — for comment. They have issued a statement supporting the current site. And they’re offering free consulting services to get roof repairs made and the Science Centre reopened.