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There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
One of the minor annoyances of the United States election was how unreliable the polls turned out to be, particularly in some key swing states. Unsurprising, but still annoying for those hoping for a massive repudiation of the Trump presidency. In the large scheme of affairs the failure of the polls to predict is insignificant, but it does raise interesting questions about its implications for public life in the United States and in Australia.
The response to COVID has invited reflection about the relative value of one human death (and so of one human life) as compared with another. This is a radical question because it makes us ask whether the value of a human life is defined by economic wellbeing and by potential contribution to the economy, or by deeper qualities.
An everyday exercise in planning and humility is gardening. For amateur gardeners, at least, planning, planting, pruning, watering and placing all have their place. But ultimately the plants make their way and take their individual shape.
With COVID-19 having reached the prison population, the risks for prisoners are real. It is plain to see that prisons are vulnerable environments. Hundreds of people detained in close confined quarters and concerns around hygiene standards and access to masks are but some of the issues that make them fertile ground for the virus to grow in.
While the legislation was proposed as something of a measure of last resort, the numbers already tell a different story. Unfortunately, many of us with a disability look at these figures (and at the proposed legalisation of euthanasia in New Zealand, which will be voted on later this year) with a weary mix of familiarity and horror.
A recent report from Jesuit Social Services’ Support after Suicide program reflects on the experience of people who have accompanied a friend or family member before, through and after their suicide. At the heart of the report is its insistence on the importance of the human face in health care.
The Catholic Social Justice Statement embodies this generous vision. Its title emphasises the gift that each human being is, and the blessing that is mental health. Health is not to be taken for granted as an entitlement but accepted and nurtured as a gift.
The pandemic has lit up the areas in which our neoliberal economies are basically unfit for the purpose of providing healthy and safe environments — whether it be privatised aged care homes and quarantine services or ‘the gig economy’, which forces sick people to ‘soldier on’ infecting people as they go. One area that has been rather less considered, however, is disability.
The capacity to story our experience is a powerful tool for reflection and understanding. As adults we learn that no story is pure and we are capable of telling ourselves spin, but the shaping of experience into story is the bread and butter of our lives. Narrative, it has been said, is a primary act of mind.
Many in the community are crying out for accountability. The idea is appealing because it sounds like a simple framework, but in practice it is extremely difficult to apply.
If they are to enlist the support of their people in acting responsibly in the face of coronavirus, governments must themselves practice responsibility. They must look to the good of the whole community, and especially to disadvantaged people who are at the greatest risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Many of us, of course including residents of the towers, understand the exceptional response that COVID-19 has required, and that these lock downs form a part of the response. But when the situation has meant that people must, unless there are exceptional personal or medical grounds, remain house-bound for at least five days, we must be careful in the way we go about caring for the health of people.
133-144 out of 200 results.