There are so many things as a GP that we cannot access day to day since the NHS focused on Covid in March. The list is endless, my patients have suffered... These are not real patients, but real scenarios I have faced since March. Imagine....

Okay folks, you all have been very kind over the last few days. I promise this account hasn't been highjacked. There's a lot going on & evangelical proximity to it is maddening.

But I promised you a thread about cancel culture, socioeconomics, & vocation.

First, let me say that I believe peer pressure & shunning happens in every social group. I believe the group can rally against the individual to force them comply w/ established norms & established powers. It is feature of human community.

So I don't disbelieve that something akin to "cancel culture" exists. But living in & ministering in working class spaces, I've never understood the emotion attached to popular iteration.

Sure, we talk about political correctness & the pressure to not say things, but the cancel culture narrative always felt imported somehow. Like, it wasn't organic to the way we moved thru the world.

So it's always puzzled me. The emotion that is. The fear. The panic of the woke mob coming for your job. Why is it framed this way? None of this made sense to me until I started mixing more w/ mid-upper class conservatives, particularly Xians.

[THREAD]

1/ I was once in a position to find out from employees working in a regulatory agency which demographic groups cheat and lie the most in running their small businesses. These regulators (split pretty evenly between whites and non-whites) almost unanimously agreed that:

2/ Male business owners were more likely to engage in untruthful or dishonest behavior than female business owners.

Politically-liberal whites cheated a good deal less than blacks and conservative whites (who cheated at about the same rate).

3/ How did they know the political orientation of the owner? They told me that it was because certain areas in their jurisdiction were overwhelmingly liberal, and certain others were overwhelmingly conservative. They assumed political orientation based upon the business location.

4/ But everyone agreed that immigrant business owners were worse than Americans — much worse — and that:

Middle Easterners were usually untruthful.

But not as much as Chinese business owners.

And no one — and all of them made a big point of this — lied like the Indians.

5/ They told me that when they dealt with immigrant Indian businesses they safely operated under the assumption that there would be lying, falsifying, and cheating of all kinds. This was because none of them had ever run into an Indian business owner who didn't do these things.

(THREAD) Quarantine Act - we should all know what we are dealing with

1/ The devil is in the details. The first couple of sentences raise a red flag.

A communicable disease need to pose "a risk of significant harm to public health"

How is significant defined? Do the covid deaths meet that bar?

2/ While looking for a definition of significant harm to public health I found this gem!

2007 Jun 19:

"When I trained in public health, some 25 years ago, quarantine had fallen into disrepute because of the widespread perception that it did not work"

3/ "Mass quarantine gained further currency when it was adopted as a control strategy against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003. Now, quarantine is re-entrenched in the mainstream of public health theory such that it is being proposed as a measure to fight pandemic

4/ "The Control of Communicable Disease Manual4 provides an authoritative summary of control measures for more than 150 infectious diseases of public health concern."

Do you know how racist you gotta be to fall for QAn*n?

It certainly isn’t driven by economic anxiety. They’re scared of losing the privilege whiteness affords. Trumps represented the last bastion of hope. He was the vanguard.

That’s what made them scale the Capitol walls, wave a Confederate flag, and smear sh*t on the walls. That’s what compelled them to beat a cop with a hockey stick.

When’re are y’all gonna play that part out loud?

You gotta be so deeply vested in your racism that it vetoes all rational thought.

My grandparents were very poor. My dad was ashamed & created dumb tension about it. My grandma though always took me aside to give me a chocolate orange after Xmas gifts were unwrapped; she’d make me crack it and eat a slice before going back to Xmas fun.

Did their poverty matter? No! Everything was out of love. My grandpa made us things from his workshop. One year he said, “We try” and 14 yo me said laughing “I know”. Gramps gave me a 1 arm hug & slapped my back with a grin. That did not go over well with dad.

He chewed me out for making them know I knew or something gay like that. My grandparents didn’t have hot water. They knew I knew. They were why I tried hard at college. My grandma came to my campus only once and gave me the “ya done gud, anon” line when she left.

Once I graduated & had a job, I got a case of Sam Adams for Xmas day with my grandpa because I wanted to drink with him when he went out for his Xmas cigar. My treat. I felt like an adult not just his grandson. We talked for an hour in his workshop with the space heater on.

Close my eyes: I can see the Adrienne Barbeau poster, the 10 hand planes on the wall & cigar boxes holding screws, nuts & nails. We started real talks then; he told me his war stories & life before grandma. We had more in common than I thought. I later named a son after him

There have been a bunch of questions about the review over the weekend. Here’s my best go at answering ones that have been asked by a few people..

1) Is this a review of ‘care’ or of the whole of children’s social care? It’s the whole thing and that’s why it’s exciting. The system of CSC is so interconnected that to look at one part (say, residential children’s homes) alone would limit the opportunity for big change

2) Why are you creating an Experts by Experience Group? It shouldn’t be down to me alone to decide how the review hears from the thousands of people who need this system to work. I need help deciding this and the EbE is *one* structured way of doing this

3) Why do people need to apply to join this group? With so many people who could be on this group (lots have already generously offered to help) there needs to be a fair way of deciding. The application process has been made as simple as possible.

3 continued) … I understand why some may not want to apply - there will be lots of ways to contribute to the review in a big way once we’re up and running.

For edification and in leading by the Holy Spirit, I would like to share with the body of Christ the reason why I use a King James Bible, as opposed to the newer modern versions. Please know, I myself was adamantly opposed to switching from an ESV for years, being actually..

saved through an NIV bible. I believed the issue was a small one and that it did not matter. I am not here to convince anyone that the love of God in Christ unto salvation is only found in a certain bible, for we know that a man is justified by the grace of God through faith..

apart from any works. Yet, I am led to share some findings (which others already have shared). The newer bible versions have apparently corrupted the word of God, by eliminating words and whole verses. This appears to be the enemy's game plan since most people use the modern..

versions. I am going to list book, chapter, verse (if any one wants to compare the KJV to the modern versions) with a brief description of the differences. In many cases there are whole passages that have been eliminated from the modern versions. Some of you have already done....

their own work here, esp @SolaScriptura99 and also @JoshuaVats to whom I am thankful. They have more extensive findings than mine I am sure. What is evident, is there has been a purposeful hiding of important words/terms in these newer versions such as 'blood', 'heaven',...

People get it confused.

Productive conversations are not had by communicating with people who think differently than you.

It's communicating with people who share similar reservoirs of information, yet come to different conclusions that create productive conversation.

(1/12)

I have had many unproductive conversations with people on Twitter, and the primary reason why those conversations are not productive is because they are generating conclusions from a set of narratives and interpretations that I don't share.

It is all about...

(2/12)

...these differences in information.

Even if you have different moral or political values, those can be identified quickly and you can see the reason for the disagreement.

But, when someone is reading publications much different than you and listening to podcasts...

(3/12)

...you don't, then unfortunately the conversation you two will have will be fraught with confusion and misunderstanding.

You will become frustrated with each other, because the facts you use to build an argument are facts unbeknownst to them, and vice-versa.

(4/12)

But if you are speaking to someone who is drawing from the same body of ideas, but somehow comes to a different conclusion - then you have the dialogical jackpot!

I relearn this lesson monthly when communicating with anti-social justice folks.

I am...

(5/12)

1/Officers, veterans, undoubtedly active duty folks, have fallen prey to propaganda. The military is a reflection of society, and as such, we get these weak-minded individuals. It cannot overshadow those who serve, have served honorably.

I just took a 1,600-mile road trip from Washington to St. Louis and back. I was shaken by what I saw.

(1/x)

Almost everywhere I stopped — gas stations, rest stops and hotels, across Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois — there was a sign on the door saying that people had to wear masks to enter. And almost everywhere, most people ignored the sign.

(2/x)

At a Fairfield Inn in Ohio, a middle-aged couple sat unmasked on a lobby sofa for hours, drinking beers and scrolling through their phones. The hotel staff evidently did nothing about it.

(3/x)

At a convenience store in Indiana, a hand-drawn sign on the door read: “Face masks are required. Please do not enter without one!!” Customers did anyway.

(4/x)

Nationwide, about half of Americans are not wearing masks when in close contact with people outside their households, according to a survey by the University of Southern California. (5/x)

Today I am ASHAMED of my people. The BACKBITING, BLATANT THEFT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, APPLAUSE AND SUPPORT GIVEN TO SAID THIEVES, THE CRABS IN THE BARREL MENTALITY AND BEHAVIORS... ALL OF IT!!!!!!! WHEN & WHERE do ETHICS & MORALITY come in? I’m also seeing A LOT OF SELF 1️⃣▶️

HATRED. Because YOU CAN’T love yourself, and LACK INTEGRITY. You CAN’T love yourself, and ALLOW yourselves to be used and swayed by DISINGENUOUS, FRAUDULENT, CALCULATING, MANIPULATIVE, THIEVING people. You WOULDN’T just stand by, or take part in UNSCRUPULOUS behavior. 2️⃣▶️

ESPECIALLY against people who THOUGHT ENOUGH OF YOU AND YOURS, who would CREATE something to BENEFIT YOU AND YOURS at THEIR EXPENSE. What WRONGS YOU are willing to do or allow to be done to others, is a DIRECT REFLECTION of how LITTLE YOU THINK OF YOURSELVES. It DOESN’T 3️⃣▶️

matter if you disagree with those people. It DOESN’T matter if YOU have decided for PERSONAL reasons that YOU no longer want to support or applaud those people. But, RIGHT IS RIGHT...and WRONG IS WRONG. And, YOU have to have enough SELF RESPECT to STAND ON THE SIDE OF RIGHT 4️⃣▶️

and CALL OUT THE WRONG. This is NOT about *liking* people, and joining *cliques*, or clubs. YOUR individual behavior AFFECTS THE ENTIRE COLLECTIVE. The MORE people who VALIDATE, PARTICIPATE, CONTRIBUTE, and PROMOTE the UNPRINCIPLED, IMMORAL, UNETHICAL, CALLOW BEHAVIORS of 5️⃣▶️

@Qtah17 I just had a 98-99% blockage removed from my left carotid artery yesterday. For more than a year, I had EXTREMELY mild symptoms that only occasionally manifested & lasted only minutes. My diagnosis and survival is nothing short of miraculous.

Some thoughts on remote working...

Remote makes communication skills more critical. Some of this is valuable anyway (clarity, conciseness, logical structure) but can be compensated for with co-location. Some of this is easy with co-location but becomes difficult with remote (non-verbal cues, humanisation).

Externalise everything. People can't read your mind, especially with reduced non-verbal cues, nor can they remember everything. Get it of your head into something other people can interact with. Words and pictures, not just words. Logical structure, not just a freeform dump.

No unwritten rules (GitLab), AKA a simpler expression of Kanban's "make process policies explicit".

Distribute decision-making with decision rules/guard rails. This is an example of "no unwritten rules". At larger scales, I expect "just trust people to make good decisions" leading to either a mess or indecision.

I'll tell you a story about new years

when I was 19 one day I woke up and there was a hole in the knee of my jeans and when I got up to walk my hip began clicking with each step, a problem that would continue for years,

and I didn't know how long I had been asleep, which is to say, passed out, knocked out, I had a vague memory of the drugs I'd taken just before vanishing into the darkness but that was it. I spent weeks asking people what day it was

calling people up from a pay phone -- "Can you tell me what day it is?" And them, audibly upset, sad, worried: "John, you called and asked me this five minutes ago" "I know but please. I think it will help"

but it didn't help, nothing helped. my brain had taken a hard hit from something somehow. I would leave the apartment to look at the newspaper machine to see what the date was. I thought if I could keep that straight maybe I'd be OK.

This is the news no one wants to hear – but it's important.

We always knew there would be cases and clusters. We have plans and systems in place to deal with precisely this scenario – and those are already well underway.

But I just wanted to give everyone a quick update and make sure you've all got the most up-to-date info – and what will change as a result:

As of this afternoon, there are 8 locally acquired cases in Victoria.

All 8 are safely isolating, as are their close contacts.

The public health team worked through the night to track their movements and get a list of exposure sites together.

This is live on the DHHS website and will be updated frequently, so please take a couple of minutes to have a look.

If you visited any of the locations listed you'll need to get tested as soon as possible and isolate until you get your results. Please don't delay it.

That's the nuts and bolts of where we're at.

Here's what's happening next:

As of 5pm this evening some new measures will be in place to make sure everyone stays safe tonight – and in the days to come.

The private gathering limit will be reduced from 30 to 15.

That means a maximum of 15 guests in your home, not including babies under 12 months.