Author: Cynthia Swan

The U.S. Supreme Court has established and maintained this precedent for more than a hundred years: individual liberty does not extend to the endangerment of other American’s lives. The precedent-setting court case was Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in 1905, where the Court stated: “States have the authority to enact quarantine laws of every description in their legitimate exercise to protect the […]

The coronavirus kills Americans. Therefore the virus is our enemy. So fighting the virus is an act of patriotism. Our weapons at this time are defensive: mask-wearing, testing, contact tracing, physical distancing, and hand washing. Therefore, not supporting these virus-fighting efforts by individual behavior or official policy is aiding and abetting the enemy, and treason. Be a patriot. Fight the […]

I got the transmission probabilities below from Thom Hartmann’s podcast; I believe the stats are from an infection diseases doctor in Washington state. When two people meet, where one person is carrying COVID-19 and one person is not . . . – If the COVID-19 carrier does NOT wear a mask and the non-carrier does wear a mask, the probability […]

In a world with any sort of normalcy—currently not OUR world in the United States, obviously—any one of these things would put a campaign in jeopardy. But no, we live in Trump-bizarro world, so even an entire list of negatives as the one below probably will not sway his fanatical followers. All the same, I’m going to post the list […]

Ever since I wrote a post about racism, my mind has been ruminating on the concepts of that post: degrees of racism, what I actively dismiss from my life, thihngs like that. I thought about editing the racism post to include more of the racist behaviors that I do not tolerate, such as Islamaphobia (which is suddenly appearing more frequently […]

[I’m with a group, Commune, where I took my Soil Advocacy class last year. The main guy there, Jeff Krasnos, has a podcast called Commune and he sends out a weekly e-mail of his musings to us. Yesterday (June 15, 2020), his message was titled “Privilege.” It’s about his thoughts on white privilege as he’s participating in a Black Lives […]

Today’s Politico’s quote-of-the-day was spot-on, in my opinion. It was from California Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager, spoken just before lawmakers knelt on the Capitol steps for eight minutes and 46 seconds to mark George Floyd’s death. “This day is picturesque. It would be a day to go jogging if you were Ahmaud Arbery. To ride a bike if you were Freddie […]

How are you behaving given the knowledge that one in seventeen people who get COVID-19 DIE? Will you change your behavior if you know that one in six people who get COVID-19 DIE? How is the fatality rate for COVID-19 actually calculated? Most websites that provide statistical information regarding COVID-19 include, at a minimum, Total Cases and Total Deaths, and […]

Damage to the kidney’s heart, brain—even ‘toes’—prompts reassessment of the disease and how to treat it *Based on Washington Post (WaPo) article by Ariana Eunjung Cha – May 10, 2020, and supplemented with WaPo data from “Coronavirus destroys lungs, but doctors are finding its damage in kidneys, hearts and elsewhere,” by Laurie McGinley – May 8, 2020. A recent article […]

Our country is now facing its worst crisis in modern history. We are in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic that could lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans and infect millions of others, and we are entering an economic downturn that could be worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the first week of […]

As nurses and grocery clerks keep the country running, Congress is developing a relief and recovery package to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers and the administration have put forward plans that attempt to return the economy back to a status quo where safety and security are promised only to corporations and the wealthy few. Gambling trillions of […]

Once upon a time, I was a professional flutist. I still play and perform some, though the neuropathy pain in my hands and fingers prevent me from touching my flute for more than about thirty minutes in a given day [and I cannot do anything else with my hands that day because the burn becomes so excruciating that I can’t […]

This is fantastic, utterly fantastic. Seriously. While eliminating fossil fuels absolutely must be done for us to prevent our own extinction, that alone cannot possibly save the planet or even our lives at this point. Regenerative Agriculture, however, WILL. Farmers and ranchers will be our climate saviors, with a “transition away from industrial agriculture toward family farm-based organic and regenerative […]

Source Article: Regeneration 2019: State of the Movement written by Ronnie Cummins 05/22/2019 Regenerate: Formed or created again; spiritually reborn or converted; restored to a better, higher, or more worthy state. –Webster “Regenerative agriculture provides answers to the soil crisis, the food crisis, the climate crisis and the crisis of democracy.” – Vandana Shiva, Regeneration International Co-Founder Five years ago, at […]

I originally wrote this as a reply to someone on Facebook, but then it got so long that I felt bad sticking it in someone’s conversation thread so instead I’m putting it on my own thread/timeline thingy, and on my cielemel.com blog, so if it seems slightly out of context to you, that’s why. Basically, one of my friends posted […]