Peterborough's Boardwalk Board Game Lounge has options to eat, drink, and play for all pandemic comfort levels - kawarthaNOW.com

The Boardwalk Board Game Lounge in downtown Peterborough has over 550 games to play and also offers food and drink. Co-owners and brothers Connor and Dylan Reinhart opened the business after visiting board game lounges in other cities. Connor, who is a chef, and Dylan, who is an educator, grew up in Peterborough playing board games with their family. (Photo courtesy Boardwalk Board Game Lounge)

Connor and Dylan Reinhart, brothers and co-owners of the Boardwalk Board Game Lounge in downtown Peterborough, know that everyone has a different comfort level at this stage of the pandemic.

Even though they are again offering indoor dining and game play under step three of Ontario’s reopening plan, Connor and Dylan have decided to also keep their patio and at-home options running so everyone has a way to enjoy the Boardwalk’s games and food.

People who are comfortable doing so can again come inside to play games from the Boardwalk’s library of over 550 games, while enjoying food and drink from the game lounge’s menu. The brothers are doing everything they can to ensure their customers feel safe.

Advertisement - story continues below

 

 

Inside the game lounge, tables are spaced six feet apart and hand sanitizer is available at every touch point. Since games are now quarantined for 24 hours after they are played, Connor and Dylan have invested in extra copies of their most popular games to ensure they are always available for guests who want to play them.

The brothers have worked hard to ensure their customers’ experience is as similar as possible to how it used to be pre-pandemic while also being as safe as possible.

“If someone who is a little less supportive of our restriction comes in and is a little inconvenienced because we’re taking these extra steps, it’s better to have them complain than to have any single person feel uncomfortable or unsafe in our space,” Dylan tells kawarthaNOW. “We’re getting positive feedback. We’re seeing that people are grateful we are taking these steps and going above and beyond.”

As well as games, Boardwalk Board Game Lounge offers in-person dining and takeout. Co-owner Connor Reinhart, a Red Seal certified chef, brings his cooking expertise to the business, offering customers a delicious menu, including items like this popular mac-and-cheese dish. (Photo courtesy Boardwalk Board Game Lounge)

Dylan adds it’s been heartwarming to welcome guests back inside the Boardwalk space after more than a year of various pandemic-related closures.

“It’s so nice the games are getting played,” he says. “It’s so nice to see people coming together and playing together in a way that we haven’t been able to do over the past year.”

Throughout the past 16 months, the Boardwalk has found other ways of connecting its customers, both with their board games and with their food. This past spring, Dylan and Connor reopened their patio and signed up for Skip The Dishes and Uber Eats to offer guests takeout. Both options remain available for customers even though guests can now play and eat inside as well.

Advertisement - story continues below

 

 

The brothers first added the patio last summer when the government only permitted outdoor dining experiences. According to Dylan, they tried to capture as much of the original Boardwalk experience as possible while taking into account outdoor factors such as wind and weather.

“We thought very critically from a table perspective,” Dylan explains. “What kind of tables are going to be the best for playing games on as well as eating and drinking on? We thought not only about how we would build a patio, but how we would build a patio that works for us.”

As the brothers did not want to give up the board game component of their business, so they went through their game library to choose patio-friendly games only. For example, they opted not to offer games that used cards, which could easily blow away in the wind. While there were 20 games available to play on the Boardwalk’s patio last year, Connor and Dylan have doubled the number this year by weatherizing more games.

Boardwalk Board Game Lounge co-owners Dylan and Connor Reinhart have weatherized a selection of games to be played outdoors on their patio. Although all of their games are already laminated, they have selected board games that do not uses cards that can easily blow away. Dylan brings his experience as an outdoor educator to the business by teaching people to play the games in a smart and fun way. (Photo courtesy Boardwalk Board Game Lounge)

Since all of the patio games are protected against the elements, this has allowed the brothers to also offer “messier” food items on the patio. Some of these options, such as tacos, have remained on the menu for indoor dining, and Dylan says he expects them to remain as permanent menu items.

With more people staying at home during the pandemic and looking for something fun to do, Dylan and Connor also decided to expand their retail selection of games. Although they always had a few of their most popular games available for purchase at the lounge, they decided to offer even more games for sale.

Dylan says they began to offer contactless delivery right at the onset of the pandemic, before it became common. They also built an e-commerce platform into their website for online ordering. These changes were crucial in helping the business make it through the provincial lockdowns.

Advertisement - story continues below

 

 

“We were constantly out-performing our retail sales and seeing more people buying and then returning to buy more,” Dylan explains. “It helped us keep the lights on and keep surviving, so on the other side of all this, we can still be here for people to come and play games while they eat and drink.”

This past spring, Connor and Dylan launched another pandemic option for guests who want to have a board game experience but from the comfort of their own home. On the fourth Monday of every month, the Boardwalk hosts a virtual game night called the ‘Roll & Write Club’.

“A roll-and-write game is a type of game where you do something like rolling dice or flipping cards — some randomizing element — and, based on that, you write something on a piece of paper,” Dylan explains. “They’ve been a very popular style of game. They’re typically portable. They’re typically puzzle-y.”

The Boardwalk Board Game Lounge offers the Roll & Write Club with a virtual game night on the first Monday of every month. Roll-and-write games are small and portable games that involve players rolling dice and marking the results on sheets of paper or erasable boards. (Photo courtesy Boardwalk Board Game Lounge)

According to Dylan, roll-and-write games work well for virtual play, so they are a great way to replicate the in-lounge game experience when customers couldn’t come inside to play.

“We thought there was a cool opportunity for us to use them to give people the opportunity to come together and play games together again even if we couldn’t operate the same space,” he says.

Every month, the Boardwalk selects a featured roll-and-write game that club members will play together over Zoom. The Boardwalk team explains how to play the game, and then everyone participating will play at least one complete game together.

Advertisement - story continues below

 

 

People can opt-in for the Roll & Write Club at three different levels. Level one includes the virtual game night and a print-off scorecard. Level two includes a laminated scorecard and a snack and a drink. Level three includes a snack and drink as well as a full copy of the featured roll-and-write game. It’s an option that has proved so popular than Dylan and Connor have continued to offer it even though the lounge is open again for in-person play.

“We’re excited about continuing to flesh out this idea of the Roll & Write Club, which has been a fun thing for us,” Dylan says. “We’re starting to think about what that kind of concept looks like in a post-COVID world when people can come inside and play.”

Dylan and Connor recognize that, although they are taking every measure to keep their customers safe when they come inside the lounge to play and eat, not everyone feels comfortable doing so. So the brothers are continuing to offer customers the choice to play games inside, outdoors, or in their own homes.

In addition to indoor and patio dining, Boardwalk Board Game Lounge offers take-out through Skip the Dishes and Uber Eats. (Photo courtesy Boardwalk Board Game Lounge)

“We’re doing our best to offer as many varied experiences as we can so that, whatever way people are comfortable having a Boardwalk experience, they can,” Dylan says.

Dylan adds he and the rest of the Boardwalk team are eager to welcome customers back to the lounge. During the provincial lockdowns, board games continued to be released and the Boardwalk has a lot of new games in their library for customers to try.

“We’re thankful for all the support we have received over the past couple of months,” Dylan says. “We’re grateful for any support anyone provides by having those experiences with us in the months and years to come.”

Located at 261 George Street North in downtown Peterborough, the Boardwalk Board Game Lounge is open from 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday to Friday and 1 to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. To learn more about the café and board game lounge and to browse their online retail selection of games, visit their website at www.boardwalkptbo.ca, where you can also find links to their social media channels.

Adblock test (Why?)

Peterborough's Boardwalk Board Game Lounge has options to eat, drink, and play for all pandemic comfort levels - kawarthaNOW.com
Read More

Cannibal toads eat so many of their young, they're speeding up evolution - Livescience.com

The cane toad (Rhinella marina) is an invasive species in Australia, where its tadpoles have become voracious cannibals. (Image credit: Jason Edwards via Getty Images)

The hatchlings of the invasive cane toad in Australia don't stand a chance against their deadliest predator: cannibal tadpoles who guzzle the hatchlings like they're at an all-you-can-eat buffet. But now, the hatchlings are fighting back.

They're developing faster, reducing the time that hungry tadpoles have to gobble them up, a new study finds. 

"If cannibals are looking for you, the less time you can spend as an egg or hatchling, the better," said study lead researcher Jayna DeVore, who did the research as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney and is now a biologist for the Tetiaroa Society, a nonprofit conservation organization in French Polynesia. 

Developing quickly, however, has its pitfalls. Compared with typically growing hatchlings, those that grew faster fared worse when they reached the tadpole stage of life, the researchers found. So it isn't "worth it to try to defend yourself in this way unless cannibals are definitely coming for you," DeVore told Live Science.

Related: Image gallery: Invasive species 

The cane toad (Rhinella marina) is a poster child for invasive species. The warty toxic toad, notorious for gulping down anything that fits into its wide mouth, is native to South America. In the 1930s, farmers in Queensland, Australia, thought the toad would be the perfect predator to gobble up beetles that were destroying sugarcane fields. But with no natural predators Down Under, the toad population ballooned from only 102 individuals to more than 200 million, according to WWF Australia. 

Another reason for their population spike is that female toads can lay more than 10,000 eggs at a time in small ponds. "When these eggs first hatch, the young can't swim or eat yet, so they can pretty much only lie there on the bottom of the pond until they develop into tadpoles," DeVore said.

The hungry tadpoles strike during this vulnerable hatchling period. "Once the hatchlings develop into tadpoles, they are too large and mobile for other tadpoles to eat them, so the cannibals have to work quickly if they want to consume them all," DeVore said.

Tadpoles that cannibalize the younger generation are doing themselves a huge favor; they're getting nutrients and eliminating later competition for resources. "When I first saw this behavior in the wild, I was amazed at how voraciously cane toad tadpoles sought out cane toad hatchlings and ate them," DeVore said. To determine whether this behavior was "normal" or whether it was an adaptation to extreme competition among invasive cane toads, DeVore and her colleagues compared Australia's invasive cane toads with the native-range ones, or cane toads from their indigenous regions.

Cane toad cannibal tadpoles swim around in the water. (Image credit: Jayna L. DeVore)

Warty toad arms race

Several experiments revealed that the invasive toads — both the hatchlings and the cannibalistic tadpoles — are evolving at breakneck speed. 

In one experiment done more than 500 times with different individuals, DeVore and her colleagues placed one tadpole in a container with 10 hatchlings. Although the native-range tadpoles did engage in some cannibalism, "we found a hatchling was 2.6 times as likely to be cannibalized if that tadpole was from Australia than if it was from the native range," she said.

Moreover, the invasive tadpoles were much more attracted to the hatchlings than the native tadpoles were. In another experiment, the team placed tadpoles in a pool with two traps; one trap held hatchlings, and the other was empty. "In Australia, the cannibalistic tadpoles were attracted to the hatchlings; the odds that an Australian tadpole would enter the trap containing hatchlings were about 30 times those of it entering the empty trap," DeVore said. 

Related: Survival of the grossest: 8 disgusting animal behaviors 

In contrast, the native-range "tadpoles were not attracted to the hatchlings; they were just as likely to enter the empty trap as the hatchling trap," she said. "This demonstrated that this strong attraction to the vulnerable hatchling stage, which is what helps the cannibalistic tadpoles to detect and locate their victims in Australia, is not present in the native range."

Fighting back

To fight back, invasive hatchlings have evolved an escape strategy. When the researchers compared the time eggs and hatchlings spent developing, they found that the invasive toads developed faster than the native-range ones.

In both groups, "we found that cane toad clutches from Australia developed more quickly; they reached the invulnerable tadpole stage in about four days, whereas native range clutches took about five days," DeVore said.

In addition, the invasive hatchlings had a more "plastic," or flexible response than the natural-range hatchlings when a cannibal tadpole was present; the hatchlings from Australia were "more likely to be able to smell when cannibals are around and actually accelerate their development in response," DeVore noted.

While these strategies helped the hatchlings survive, they paid for it later. The researchers tested 1,190 tadpoles for survival, development, growth and plasticity, and found that those that developed faster as eggs and hatchlings to escape cannibalism fared worse and developed more slowly at the tadpole stage than the native-range tadpoles, the team found. 

Could cannibalism lead to extinction?

Could the cane toads eat themselves into extinction? Probably not, DeVore said.

"Australian cane toads may well be their own worst enemy, but I wouldn't expect them to go extinct anytime soon," she said. That's because the cannibals benefit too much from eating their own kind. After gaining nutrients and limiting competition, the cannibalistic tadpoles "transform into toads more quickly and at a larger size," she said. It's even possible that these "successful" toads will more rapidly invade new places in Australia.

"The good news is that cannibalism can control population growth," DeVore said. "So, although cane toads are unlikely to drive themselves extinct, these cannibalistic behaviors may help to regulate their abundance post-invasion."

The study was published in the Aug. 31 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Originally published on Live Science.

Adblock test (Why?)

Cannibal toads eat so many of their young, they're speeding up evolution - Livescience.com
Read More

Wei Weng's Eat A Chili/吃辣椒 – The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail

Eat A Chili/吃辣椒,
Wei Weng, designed by Jan Rosseel, translation with Zoénie Deng
Self-published, printed by Rob Stolk (Amsterdam), 2021

The humble chili exists as a dare. When growing, it dangles temptingly from the leaves of its plant, begging to be plucked but primed to irritate upon contact. This thrilling dance between pleasure and danger invigorates the pages of Eat A Chili, a self-published work by Wei Weng that uses its namesake plant as the linchpin of a sensorial saga. The half-inch-thick publication is part photobook, part sci-fi story, with photographs interspersed with short texts that stitch together a chili-centric and action-packed narrative. Weng provides no written introduction or synopsis to her hybrid work, whose enticing orange-red cover almost softly glows. The cover also features a slit that recalls the stark slashes of a Lucio Fontana “Tagli” painting. This laceration lures the eye while alluding to the quiet ferocity within the pages.

The cryptic tale begins with the explosion of a chili grenade at a bakery and introduces a cast of adventure-seeking characters bound by a hyperactive, futuristic economy of chili: a programmer who smuggles and weaponizes the sought-after commodity; a machine that injects additives into fruits so they are numbingly picante; monks who make small-batch jars of chili paste; a “foreign gazetteer” who imports prized capsaicin. Weng’s photographs, rather than literal and illustrative, are equally obscure in their message, with tenuous parallels to the written fiction. Each is a double exposure, interrupting the plot with otherworldly scenes such as a girl surrounded by floating playing cards and a cat “inked” with tattoos of eyes. The layered images can, at times, distract more than enlighten.

Deliberately slippery in form, Eat a Chili refuses to explain itself, and it stands as its own dare to engage. Weng’s debut publication, it is a deeply experimental exercise in approaching written and photographic language to meditate on the lingering effects of everyday thrills.

The publication can be read two ways: from left to right in English, and from right to left in traditional Chinese characters. Positioned with its spine on the right, the book features a second cover with the title 吃辣椒 (literally, “eat chili”). Weng, who was born in Nanning, China near the border of Vietnam and currently lives in Copenhagen, includes both of the languages she grew up speaking. But the book’s bilingual nature also reinforces her interest in crossing cultures to appeal to a universal way of understanding: through senses. Weng experiments in constructing meaning by stimulating the physical self, most effectively through words rather than her images. Frequent mentions of distinct forms of chili coax tingles—pleasurable and painful—on the tongue, skin, and even eyes: chili mango, viper chili, chili grenades, pepper spray, chili burn. Weng’s descriptions at times replicate the vivid experience of synesthesia, pooling together several senses: the burning effect of chili has a “deafening vengeance” while human touch has a “labored, smoky essence,” and mangoes, pumped with stimulants, ripen with a “sweet, tearful piquancy.”

Spice, appropriately, was the seed for Eat A Chili—specifically, a bowl of chili-sprinkled noodles that Weng consumed last year during her pandemic-induced lockdown. The kick, triggering potent memories of home and travels, inspired her to create a project with a 10-year archive of snapshots she took in China, Thailand, Myanmar, Denmark, Australia, and the United States. In a four-month span, Weng worked with book designer Jan Rosseel to sequence the images and wrote the accompanying speculative fiction in English, collaborating with Zoénie Deng on the translation.

Although its material is rooted in specific geographies, Eat A Chili indulges in colliding place and time as it progresses. Weng’s world is reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli vision, where traditional street vendors, high-tech vending machines, and intelligent genetic manipulation machines coexist in an isolated metropolis boasting a harbor, mountains, a monastery, and an implied circumnavigational train that serves as a surgery center. Weng’s double exposure images also obscure their real-world whereabouts: a busy street, overlaid with a kitschy figurine of a chef; the interior of a metro car, its straphangers oblivious to the eyeballs adrift in the otherwise orderly space. Disorienting, these episodes contribute to the whir of exhilaration underlying the slow burn of Weng’s thriller.

With brief texts separated by anywhere from one photo to several spreads of images, Eat A Chili progresses with an uneven staccato as the mind pauses to not only digest but also decode text, then visuals, and text once more. The varying pace can frustrate attempts to cohere the many plot points—I found myself flipping back to revisit segments multiple times—but the disruption also suggests a deliberate resonance with the author’s peripatetic life, as someone who left her native country at age eight, when her family moved to Pakistan, then Malawi, then Sudan. Latent in Eat A Chili is the feeling of being caught between cultures and an awareness of how one’s memory, hazing over time, sharpens with certain stimulants. Moving through Weng’s world is akin to gazing at a curved mirror, where reality is always present but distorted.

While it rewards multiple visits, the book ultimately feels too sweeping in ambition, tripping itself with its abundance of ideas. Happily, Weng has already set herself up for a second effort, as her final line promises: “To be Continued.”

Adblock test (Why?)

Wei Weng's Eat A Chili/吃辣椒 – The Brooklyn Rail - Brooklyn Rail
Read More

Secret Effects of Eating Plums, Says Science | Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

As the days grow shorter and the nights get cooler, there's nothing like savoring the last few bites of all that amazing summer produce. Tangy tomatoes and sweet peaches seem to always be late summertime favorites. Tart, juicy plums also are a late summertime delicacy but seem to be underrated compared to its peachy counterpart. And yet, when you dive into all of the incredible health benefits that come with eating plums, you may think twice about which fruit you actually want to snack on. Eating plums, or even dried plums (prunes), have been linked in multiple studies to benefit your body in incredible ways that you probably don't even know.

We listed a few of the secret effects you likely don't know about this underrated summertime fruit. Here's why you should snag a few plums next time you're at the farmer's market before summer draws to a close, and for even more healthy eating tips, be sure to check out our list of The 7 Healthiest Foods to Eat Right Now.

Shutterstock

Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can help reduce blood pressure thanks to their antioxidants, and enjoying prunes (dried plums) specifically can benefit hypertension in your body. According to a clinical study published in the Journal of Ayub Medical College, prune consumption is linked to a reduction in blood pressure and even linked to reduced LDL blood cholesterol levels. Given that these two health concerns are linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, reducing blood pressure and LDL cholesterol will ensure a healthier heart.

RELATED: Get even more healthy tips straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter!

Shutterstock

Speaking of antioxidants, plums are full of them. One study published by the journal Food & Function found that the polyphenols in dried plums are potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidative agents. Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants that can help fight off free radicals in your body, reducing oxidative stress and the risk of developing a chronic disease.

Here's Why You Need Antioxidants In Your Diet—And How To Eat More Of Them.

Shutterstock

In a review published by the Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, dried plums have been linked to increased feelings of fullness which, in turn, can reduce the intake of food. A reduced intake of food can help to control weight-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular. This can potentially be linked to the fact that plums do not cause a sharp rise in blood sugar and insulin release in the body, which tend to be the factors that cause such diseases.

Shutterstock

Antioxidants aren't the only benefit of eating plums. According to a review published by Phytotherapy Research, plums also have memory-improving characteristics. The review looked at 73 articles, including 25 human studies, and found that plums have been linked to improved cognitive function.

The study does make it clear that dried versions of plums were used over fresh fruit in human trials, so more research would be needed to make such a claim. However, plums are rich in anthocyanins—a type of antioxidant in the flavonoid group that gives food a blue, red, or purple pigment (like blueberries). According to the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, anthocyanins are credited to enhance cognitive performance.

Shutterstock

According to Ageing Research Reviews, animal studies as well as a 3-month clinical trial found that consuming dried plums can have positive effects on bone density. The studies showed in some cases dried plums have helped to reverse the loss of bone due to skeletal unloading, which leads to decreased bone formation and bone mass. This is especially important as you get older given that your bone mass decreases as you age causing an increased risk of developing osteoporosis.

Shutterstock

This one is likely not as much of a surprise as the others, but still equally as important to note. Plums—and prunes—are both fruits that are linked to assisting with constipation relief. According to Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition, plums contain sorbitol, fructose, fiber, and phytochemicals which can all help with constipation relief.

Prunes, specifically, can be beneficial for constipation due to their high levels of fiber. One review from Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics even points out how prunes appear to be superior in improving stool frequency compared to psyllium, which is typically used to help with constipation relief.

For more healthy eating tips, read these next:

Adblock test (Why?)

Secret Effects of Eating Plums, Says Science | Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That
Read More

Opinion | How right-wing media and social isolation lead people to eat horse paste - The Washington Post

“There is no such thing as society,” Margaret Thatcher famously said in 1987, insisting that we all had to take responsibility for our own fate. But something tells me that even Thatcher would be alarmed if she saw people so determined to isolate themselves from institutions, mutual responsibility and simple sanity that they wound up eating horse dewormer to cure themselves of a deadly disease for which there was a widely available vaccine.

The story of ivermectin — the horse paste in question — is about the omnipresent grifters who prey on the Republican masses. It’s about the merging of politics and media on the right, and how they can combine to nurture people’s worst instincts. And it’s about the atomization and alienation that conservative ideology can produce when confronted with a pandemic and taken to an absurd degree.

Ivermectin, of course, is the latest supposed miracle cure for covid-19 that people on the right have seized on as an excuse to not get vaccinated. I don’t need some vaccine that probably has a microchip in it so Bill Gates can track me! If I get sick, I’ll just take this stuff!

Last year it was hydroxychloroquine, and a month from now people may be drinking antifreeze. But now feed stores are overrun with people stocking up on horse dewormer, some of whom wind up frantically calling poison control after they overdose.

One might argue that people are idiots and always will be, so this kind of thing isn’t unexpected. But this is a conservative phenomenon, and one particular to this moment in history.

The first element that drives it forward is the unstoppable right-wing grift machine, which sees the Republican masses as gullible fools just waiting to be separated from their money. Every major development in politics or current events — the rise of Donald Trump, the tea party, the pandemic — produces a wave of opportunists who get rich (or richer) by hitting up those masses for “donations” to scam PACs, support for phony charities, or the sale of cheap memorabilia. GOP elites have long seen average Republicans as suckers and marks just waiting to be exploited.

The second element is the union of media and politics on the right that is now more entrenched than ever. Republican politicians move seamlessly into Fox News gigs, right-wing media personalities are featured performers at political rallies, and no one pretends that conservative media are much more than a propaganda apparatus for the Republican cause.

That union is responsible for an enormous amount of conservative resistance to coronavirus vaccines. Fox News hosts including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have acted as a kind of nightly clearinghouse of anti-vaccine propaganda; Republican politicians, knowing their most vocal and passionate constituents are watching those shows, parrot (or pander to) vaccine skepticism, and over time, vaccine resistance becomes a key part of Republican identity, a way to define who you are and, more importantly, whom you hate.

That’s where things really come together. It’s almost as though all the trends in conservative identity politics were built for making people resist vaccines and gravitate to quack cures, no matter how outlandish and distasteful (that’s meant literally; apparently the horse paste tastes absolutely disgusting).

The long-standing conservative inclination toward individualism and independence has in recent years grown into not just a skepticism toward institutions and systems of expertise but a burning hostility toward them. Conservatives have weaved a tale of their own noble martyrdom, in which every element of society is arrayed against them: government, corporations, pop culture, schools, the media, even democracy itself — all are supposedly opposed to their values and out to destroy them.

So the fact that government agencies, the scientific community and the mainstream media are all urging you to (1) take the vaccine, and (2) not eat horse paste only makes the horse paste more compelling.

After all, aren’t those the very people who fought against Trump, stole the 2020 election and want to turn America into a socialist dystopia? And the fact that liberals are gleefully mocking people for eating horse paste further convinces some that that’s exactly what they should do. If I have to poison myself to own the libs, it’s worth it.

All this is wrapped up in a narrative of individual rights (If I have to wear a mask in the supermarket, I’m not free!) and self-reliance, in which one’s disconnection from others becomes a source not of despair but of empowerment.

Conservatives are constantly telling each other to “do your research." That means almost the opposite of what it purports to say: It means ignore those with authority and credentials and instead dive into the sea of social media misinformation until you’ve heard enough lunatic conspiracy theories that you arrive at a whole other kind of “truth.”

The endpoint of “doing your research” isn’t the realization that coronavirus vaccines are a remarkably effective way to avoid dying; the endpoint is an embrace of QAnon-style conspiracy theories and a livestock dewormer appetizer. You’ve found a “truth” that is likely to further isolate you from your existing community — co-workers, friends, family — and substitute for it an online community of like-minded paranoiacs.

But you know who isn’t sucking down horse paste? Tucker Carlson and the rest of the multimillionaire Fox personalities. One local-market anti-vax right-wing radio host after another may be dying from covid, but that’s because they got high on their own supply. The folks running this show never forget that it’s a scam you feed the rubes — and the lonelier and more alienated the masses feel, the better.

Adblock test (Why?)

Opinion | How right-wing media and social isolation lead people to eat horse paste - The Washington Post
Read More

How A.I. may impact what you eat - Fortune

Adblock test (Why?)

How A.I. may impact what you eat - Fortune
Read More