Christina Wyman is a “public intellectual” and academic who specializing in teaching critical theory. This is about all you need to know to realize she knows nothing about teaching and/or surgery.

It is disheartening to see so many people “liking” this argument because it may be one of the most ignorant statements about education since Terry McAullife’s election-destroying comment: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Let’s start with the easy part: parents ARE involved in surgery. What happens is that the doctors involved in the surgery come to the parents and give them options. I can tell you that the surgeon himself (or herself) will usually discuss the situation with the parents. No surgeon can force the parents to do the operation, and the parents are always allowed to get second and third opinions. Depending on the type of operation, many parents do get second and third opinions, so they are indeed “interfering” with what the surgeon may want to do. And sometimes parents decide not to get surgery at all because the condition makes surgery optional. Very often, surgery is more dangerous than the other options.

Once the surgery starts, it is necessarily closed off for reasons of health and security, but the strict parameters of the surgical process have been set by parent involvement. It is not as if surgeons have the freedom to say they are going to do heart surgery and then decide, mid-operation, to perform transgender surgery.

So, to sum up, it appears that Christine Wyman knows nothing about what happens during surgery.

But unfortunately she also knows nothing about public education. By design, the public school system necessarily involves parent involvement. (Whether or not parents take advantage of this is another question — most of us do not do the due diligence we should). Parents are involved in electing the school board, which sets curriculum and other policy. Parents are involved in seeing the grades that their kids get, these days via on-line portals, and teachers rely on parent feedback to make sure kids are getting assignments done on time. Teachers are available via email or other on-line systems for interaction with parents. And of course there are the old-fashioned parent-teacher conferences that actually are essential to the educational process.

So, in fact, the public school system relies extensively on parent involvement and feedback. I get daily emails from multiple teachers regarding my three kids still in public schools. I get opt-out forms for various classes all the time, meaning the school recognizes that I as a parent can decide whether or not my kids will participate in certain subjects that I might find objectionable.

Need I mention that according to recent US Census figures, 5 to 6 percent of kids nationwide are homeschooled, meaning the parents and the kids together do all of the schooling without government involvement in any way?

The alternate world of the Christina Wymans is a dystopian nightmare in which your children are owned by the state system and are programmed by the critical race and gender theorists to believe a long list of woke talking points. This is what the Christina Wymans of the world want: complete control over your kids so they can be brainwashed away from the influence of parents.

One of the most brilliant protest songs ever.

The saga reveals where we’re at currently, and where we’re probably headed

The Rittenhouse saga has, at least in my own mind, made clear that we no longer live in the United States of my youth and upbringing. I cannot pinpoint precisely when our country was transmogrified into something else entirely, but it happened fairly recently (within the last ten or fifteen years) and the result is that we are, broadly speaking, two radically different peoples living under the same system of government and society. For open and obvious reasons, this can’t continue indefinitely. This is going to get resolved, one way or the other.

Don’t believe me? Then look at the Rittenhouse affair, from beginning to end. From the very inception of the controversy to the end of the trial yesterday with a verdict of Not Guilty, people were viewing two radically different scripts, despite there being only one set of clear facts.1 Kyle Rittenhouse was attacked by thugs with criminal records and he defended himself using lawful and legal means. Yet for the past nearly year and a half, the mainstream media, powerful elites and politicians, and progressive drones all maintained (and continue to do so, despite the not guilty verdict) that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist vigilante who murdered two people and nearly murdered two others.

These two narratives are so diametrically opposed, and so intrinsically unreconcilable, that one is left to wonder how our society has devolved to this point. I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I have some thoughts on the subject, which I will share in this essay.

Continue reading →

Remember when Sweden was going to be a COVID killing field? Sweden had no lockdowns and no mandates, including no vaccine mandate. In the first year of the pandemic, the trolls who lurk around this blog like ghouls used to send me death reports from Sweden.

Strangely I don’t get those anymore. What could be the reason?

Well, it turns out that Sweden has the virus under control, and much of the rest of Europe does not. Here are confirmed cases:

Here are confirmed deaths:

Let me posit something that might make sense: Sweden was the only country in Europe that approached the COVID pandemic the same way we have approached all pandemics for decades (until the COVID cult took over in 2020): ie, health authorities urged the most at-risk to stay home but encouraged everybody else to go about their business. This led to a large increase in cases and deaths in the short run, but the population developed herd immunity, which is playing out now in very low case and death rates.

It turns out that when it comes to COVID there really is no school like the old school.

Continue reading →

This recent study from the Lancet ends with the following summary:

Community immunity to control the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic can be reached with the acquired immunity due to either previous infection or vaccination. Acquired immunity from vaccination is certainly much safer and preferred. Given the evidence of immunity from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, however, policy makers should consider recovery from previous SARS-CoV-2 infection equal to immunity from vaccination for purposes related to entry to public events, businesses, and the workplace, or travel requirements.

Isn’t it strange that very few public health officials are talking about this obvious point, ie, that there is no need to institute vaccine mandates that don’t consider the role of natural immunity?

The statement by the LDS First Presidency actually DOES consider prior infection when it points out that “we want to do all we can to limit the spread of these viruses. And we know that protection from the diseases they cause can only be achieved by immunizing a very high percentage of the population.” Note the use of the word “immunizing,” not “vaccinating.” Immunizing includes natural immunity, which the Lancet study clearly shows to be an important factor.

The Lancet study is actually a study of many different papers that have been released.

We reviewed studies published in PubMed from inception to Sept 28, 2021, and found well conducted biological studies showing protective immunity after infection (panel). Furthermore, multiple epidemiological and clinical studies, including studies during the recent period of predominantly delta (B.1.617.2) variant transmission, found that the risk of repeat SARS-CoV-2 infection decreased by 80·5–100% among those who had had COVID-19 previously (panel). The reported studies were large and conducted throughout the world. Another laboratory-based study that analysed the test results of 9119 people with previous COVID-19 from Dec 1, 2019, to Nov 13, 2020, found that only 0·7% became reinfected.¹¹ In a study conducted at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, OH, USA, those who had not previously been infected had a COVID-19 incidence rate of 4·3 per 100 people, whereas those who had previously been infected had a COVID-19 incidence rate of 0 per 100 people.⁶ Furthermore, a study conducted in Austria found that the frequency of hospitalisation due to a repeated infection was five per 14 840 (0·03%) people and the frequency of death due to a repeated infection was one per 14 840 (0·01%) people.

The Lancet report continues:

Although those studies show that protection from reinfection is strong and persists for more than 10 months of follow-up,³ it is unknown how long protective immunity will truly last. Many systemic viral infections, such as measles, confer long-term, if not lifelong, immunity, whereas others, such as influenza, do not (due to changes in viral genetics).⁴ We are limited by the length of current reported follow-up data to know with certainty the expected duration that previous infection will protect against COVID-19. Encouragingly, authors of a study conducted among recovered individuals who had experienced mild SARS-CoV-2 infection reported that mild infection induced a robust antigen-specific, long-lived humoral immune memory in humans.

So, to sum up: natural immunity exists and is an important factor in creating societal protection. Yet none of the COVID cultists are mentioning it. Why are they ignoring the science?