A serving of ivermectin intended for horses (Image: Supplied)

EXPLOITING THE STUPID

If there’s one thing more certain than rank stupidity among a dedicated proportion of the population, it’s that someone, somewhere will be making money off that stupidity. Meet the claque of right-wing medicos making millions from the ivermectin idiocy. Facebook is now the largest autocracy on the planet, and must be treated like that.

Zemmour for Président? The latest offering from France’s long-running assembly line of far-right media-political figures. The new villains of inequality? It’s the 9.9% who enable the 0.1% who really prop up inequality, a new book argues.

CARE AND NEGLECT

Social scientists, it turns out, rely too much on a small number of “model cases”. Monika Krause explores the neglected cases that shed much more light than Sociology 101. Giorgio Agamben versus the pandemic: the philosophy of state power in lockdown. Europe struggles to get its act together on defence (funny, they seemed to have no difficulty when they were fighting among themselves). And the sixtieth anniversary of Paris Massacre of 1961 is almost upon us.

If Indigenous people die younger, why can’t they retire earlier? On special treatment and its history for Indigenous Australians. And while Timor-Leste continues to face significant economic challenges, it is the region’s most vibrant democracy.

CAPITALISM, ITS FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

(Image: AP)

How capitalism gets blamed for everything (along with neoliberalism, I might add — and I should know, I’ve blamed it for plenty of things). Counting kilowatts in Johnsonian England (and did you see Johnson struggle to answer what he would do about the impact of Brexit and UK low-wage policies on the UK labour market; if only Australian interviewers had a fraction of Andrew Marr’s intolerance for bullshit).

US media darling (in both senses) Ozy Media hits the fence after a lurid tale of executives impersonating YouTube reps. Europe can blame climate change and geopolitics for its gas shortage — and Russia is the winner.

THE AFTERLIFE IN BIG TROUBLE

Catholic writer Rod Dreher examines the collapse of the US Catholic Church amid slumping engagement and what to do (in short, whatever you do, embrace faith fully). The bankruptcy of the Boy Scout movement in the US means churches might have to abandon their links with it.

Do physicists’ fear of death drive them to anthropomorphic theories of the universe (in other words, are they just like the rest of us)? It’s now becoming too expensive to die in America.

SHELL NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Time for the arts to break up with fossil fuel companies engaged in “artswashing“. Bond and female agents — a secret history or yet more misogyny?

“A special kind of love”: Spock, queer icon. Dogs, lockdown and looming freedom: difficult times ahead for pets? And bonus tear-inducing but also uplifting dog content: a dog’s last day in the snow.