Retired Humanities teacher; learner, explorer, searcher. B.Ed, M.Sped.
Joined October 2009
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Kelley Inden retweeted
What an achievement vaccines are. What a monument to our love for each other it is to stare straight into the face of something as horrific and unstoppable as smallpox or measles or polio or cervical cancer and say “You know what, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
HUMANS!
Kelley Inden retweeted
There's been a LOT about why RFK Jr is a terrible pick, but I want to focus on something that is very concerning to me, but no one seems to be mentioning.
He appeals to a widespread, common-sense idea that the problem with our food is that it has "lots of artificial ingredients". Get the artificial ingredients out — no chemical additives! no food dyes! no high fructose corn syrup! — and our health problems magically resolve.
This is 100% incorrect, and fundamentally misunderstands the problems with our food system.
Kelley Inden retweeted
@PaulSGundlach Hi! please find the unroll here: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1… Enjoy :) 🤖
Kelley Inden retweeted
In 1968, Sidney Poitier was at a press conference at the height of his career.
He made it very clear how he felt about the press.
Funny that I had to find this on a discarded film reel with 1000s of books, Microfiche and films.
Now you can see it.
We listen to ALL the experts. We try to make the best decisions. We refine/keep trying. There is NO ONE ANSWER - of course there isn't. All the tools. We don't let social media, that monetises and incentivises vitriol, hate, and polarisation, divide us and make us choose SIDES.
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Kelley Inden retweeted
A safe supply doctor effectively being threatened with jail; economists attacked. Under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party's attacks on experts have accelerated: blunter, nastier, and more personal. Is this the future in Canadian governance? thestar.com/politics/people-…
Kelley Inden retweeted
OK, I get why “toxic drug crisis” vs. “addictions crisis” is a little confusing. Let’s break it down. 🧵
Addiction has always been part of the human condition. It’s not a new phenomenon, and in BC, the rate of new addictions has actually been DROPPING for 7 years. Yet the rate of brain injuries & deaths from drug poisoning has almost doubled in that time.
That’s because every time a new, more potent opioid or sedative appears in the unregulated drug supply, the number of deaths spikes. Along with it, the number of non-fatal overdoses, the number of calls to 911, the number of patients in hospital, the number of people who need social supports and services, ALSO CLIMBS.
So the reason it’s a crisis — a public health EMERGENCY — is not because of a change in addictions, it’s because of CONSTANT CHANGES in the drug supply.
Earlier this month I gave testimony to the federal Standing Committee on Health. This was my key message:
ADDICTIONS are not driving this crisis. TOXIC DRUGS are. And unless policymakers in Ottawa and the provinces can get real about the cause of the crisis, we have no hope of finding solutions that will work.
Building more rehab capacity to treat an “addictions crisis” won’t address the cause of the problem. It doesn’t stop or reduce the increasing toxicity of the unregulated drug supply that Canadians continue to use for reasons from pain management, to trauma, to experimentation, AND addiction.
And now, Ottawa is suddenly seeing an “alarming” new substance in the city’s unregulated street supply, which brings the problem home to those legislators in Ottawa.
Which is why I hate to say I told you so. I really do … I hate how this problem continues to get worse while decision makers keep looking at THE WRONG THINGS. #Toxicdrugcrisis #cdnpoli #harmreduction #recovery
Every person in the economy creates jobs and helps build the infrastructure of Canada. Some contribute every dime they make through taxes and living expenses. Uncounted others contribute huge value through volunteer efforts. Everyone matters, everyone contributes.
Kelley Inden retweeted
Just received this (inaccurate) message from a Spectator journalist about an extremely important topic that many people have never even thought about.
So I'm replying by way of a 🧵.
ALT message from James Heale, political correspondent of the Spectator: "I have been told by one of the attendees there that you argued that that there ought to be a form of Nuremberg trials for people who had taken insufficient action on climate change."
Kelley Inden retweeted
4/5 BTW, the privileged status of the 10 Commandments is notable in its own right. Is this really the best we can do for moral guidance? #1 isn't even a commandment. Keep the Sabbath & Don't Covet are in the top 10, but genocide, slavery, child abuse, & rape don't make the list?
Kelley Inden retweeted
9. If correct, then both the NHS and Cass could be implicated in a massive cover-up of trans youth suicides despite being charged to evaluate the effectiveness of trans care.
The omission of these details will calls into question the veracity of the entire report.
Kelley Inden retweeted
How women IMAGINE they'd react to sexual harassment is wildly different from how they ACTUALLY react when harassed.
Julie Woodzicka & @ProfLaFrance created sexual harassment in lab and tested how women reacted when harassed by a male interviewer in real time.
What happened:🧵
Kelley Inden retweeted
We need to work harder to fight against the “if I don’t know about something it must not exist” instinct.
Government aid and NGOs have created hundreds of thousands of water-access points (wells and boreholes) in African countries. Mr. Beast is among them and that is fantastic, but if “scaling up” is 1000x what Mr Beast did, that happened long before his video.
Governments and NGOs just don't have big audiences and aren’t good at publicizing their work. That’s not really among their goals.
Anyway, by far the hardest hard part is keeping the wells functional as shallow wells can dry up in dry seasons when water is most needed and deep wells require a lot of energy to pull the water up. In places that don’t have electricity infrastructure that means fuel for generators which is a long-term forever-expense that ideally should be managed by the local community. Plus, generators can break or be stolen or sold off if a community has sudden, immediate needs, so NGOs and Governments best serve these communities by establishing long-term relationships with them, which they do...just not loudly.
Mr. Beast’s work is amazing, but not if it makes us believe that government aid and NGOs somehow don't exist or don't do good work just because it isn't super visible. That’s when it becomes destructive.
A great backgrounder -The Salmon People @NatObserver podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas…
🤔 You know, we Canadians are the nicest, politest people on Earth...😇
...things change. however when you threaten our f***ing wild salmon!!! 🤬
You get THIS! 👉🏻🖕🏼.
Don't be a 🍆 be an 😇 and say #FckOffFishFarms #FOFF!
Much Love, Bill the proud Canadian ❤️
Kelley Inden retweeted
Incrementalism is no match for the crises we face.
As the fed gvt seeks a reset ahead of the fall 2025 election, it desperately needs to shake things up. I share ideas for how to do that on the climate front in my latest column: nationalobserver.com/2024/06…
Kelley Inden retweeted
Everyone thought that the US and Europe would electrify our vehicles first and then the developing world would keep buying gas vehicles for a while before electrifying but it looks like it might be the opposite.
The cost advantage and overnight charging convenience of small, cheap EVs is starting to make them appealing in places like Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia. The people there are at a very different economic moment and might be upgrading from bikes or scooters into electric bikes and scooters and small EVs. Their gasoline infrastructure isn’t as built-out as ours is and the average length of a journey is shorter. Also, lots of middle-income countries (unlike the US) don’t have much of their own oil.
Meanwhile consumers in the US (especially) have a ridiculously high standard of what a new car needs to be able to do (fit eight children and drive 800 miles without stopping and have a motorized lift gate and 25 freaking cameras and keep everyone alive in a head-on collision with a semi) which is just a lot harder to get a cheap EV to do. Also, culture is harder than technology and people will have a culture battle about freaking ANYTHING THEY CAN.
Meanwhile American auto makers also make all of their profit in SUVs and trucks, so they don’t want to make cheap little EVs that go 250 miles (even if Americans would buy them). But if you do that, you can make EVs pretty inexpensively so that’s exactly what Chinese companies are doing.
As a result, middle-income countries look like they’ll be the ones that drive EV technology and global market share forward. That’s just…not really what folks expected! Very different from how mobile phones happened, for example where middle and low income countries leapfrogged over telephone wires, but not until after rich countries developed the tech for wealthier consumers.
EVs will still happen in the US, but new car buyers here are so well-off and picky and we have so many regulations and so much long-distance infrastructure and such high expectations for the fill-up experience that we are going to be the old stodgy dinosaur as the world runs laps around us in this way (and possibly a number of others.)
The tech might end up getting pushed forward mostly to serve people in middle-income countries, and then once it’s top-notch and obviously better than any gas car, only then will EVs will take over the last bits of the American market.
Not the end of the world (probably), but not great!
P.S. I learned about this and had these thoughts listening to this week’s episode of “Shift Key” which is about why China is kicking our ass at EVs. Search for it wherever you get podcasts!
Kelley Inden retweeted
Just spent 3 hours on the highway in a car with a broken air conditioner. As a result, I have rechristened my vehicle as the Portable Sweatlodge. It has the added benefit of being able to drive in the Four Directions.
Kelley Inden retweeted
It must be a strange, dystopian time in Calgary, like someone has turned the city into a giant rez. Of course, if you’ve never been to a First Nation, you wouldn’t know what it is like to live without clean water – heck, any water – coming out of your taps theglobeandmail.com/opinion/…
Kelley Inden retweeted
I've seen a few opinion pieces criticizing the capital gains tax increase for those with >$250K of gains.
They note a few problems here; a shortcoming there. Fair enough---no real-world tax measure will be perfect.
But there's a "tell" in what these pieces *don't* say....
Kelley Inden retweeted
Shannon Phillips is a giant in Alberta politics. One of the sharpest political minds - and tongues! - in the province. To listen to her speak is to be rapt and, frankly, awed. Because she knows her stuff. Better than anyone else in the room. And she has a way with words that ensures you know it.
She is fiercely principled. She knows what she believes and why.
And she is tough. She probably always was, but being a progressive woman in politics on some of the most significant files during the renewal of the far-right in Alberta forced her to be tougher than anyone should have to be. It put her at risk in her own community by the very people responsible for her - and all of our - safety. And it was enabled by people who stayed quiet.
I used to watch her leave the Legislature every Thursday and imagine her going home to her boys and her family in a city where she felt unsafe. It felt unfathomable to me. Unjust. But it was her life. For years. And there's STILL no accountability.
Knowing what she endured and that she's now stepping down because of it, I'm angry. We all should be. Because the abuse & harassment you have to survive (yes, survive) as a woman in politics is bullshit.
And it's getting worse. It's emboldened by the far-right, especially since those people are now taking over conservative parties across the country. (And I have no interest in the "both side-ism" that will inevitably ensue - it's so disproportionate on the right that it's laughable to suggest otherwise.)
But along with feeling angry for Shannon, I feel relieved for her. To step out of this toxic abuse must feel like a huge weight being lifted. And she deserves that, as does her family.
And if you don't think every woman in politics looking at Shannon stepping down and feeling a small twinge of (dare I say it?) envy is a sign that something is wrong in politics, then that's the problem right there.
Shannon Phillips is a giant in Alberta politics. We are worse off without her voice in public service. But she will continue to do incredible things - of that I have no doubt. Now she will get to do it in safety, out of the public eye.
