Not an anomaly

It’s not an anomaly for Tinantia anomala to grow wild in a semi-shaded portion of our yard, as I was happy to discover a colony doing this past spring. Today’s front and back portraits are from April 25th, though I noticed some of these wildflowers still blooming at our place well into June.

Also not an anomaly among common names for plants are some designed to keep people from confusing a species with a similar one. That’s the case here, where the vernacular name false dayflower alerts you that this isn’t the plain old dayflower, Commelina erecta, that you recently saw here and that’s in the same botanical family. The false may be helpful, but I still wish Tinantia anomala had a more positive name than that or the widow’s tears that people also call it. How about purple dayflower or noble dayflower?

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What is an anomaly, at least during my lifetime in America, is the recent refusal by some media outlets to allow the discussion of certain subjects. Take the Covid-19 virus. In 2020, there were people, including reputable scientists, who conjectured that the virus had originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, where coronaviruses had been under study for years. Many media outlets labeled that conjecture a “conspiracy theory” and said it had been debunked—even though no evidence had been brought forth to disprove the conjecture. People attempting to discuss the topic on Facebook had their posts taken down.

In 2021, some countries have authorized the drug ivermectin as a therapeutic in treating Covid-19. India, the second most populous country in the world, is one of them. Other countries offering ivermectin as a treatment for the disease are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Mexico. Here’s an overview. On the other hand, some sites say ivermectin is not effective against Covid-19. You can search the Internet and find other sources that are against ivermectin as a therapeutic for Covid-19. I don’t know the truth of the matter. What I do know, though, is that institutions like Facebook and YouTube and Twitter should not be banning people from presenting legitimate evidence that a medicine is effective.

If you’ve been reading my posts for the last few months, you know I’ve been speaking out against censorship. Other have, too, like Bari Weiss: “How have we gotten here? How have we gotten to the point where having conversations about important scientific and medical subjects requires such a high level of personal risk? How have we accepted a reality in which Big Tech can carry out the digital equivalent of book burnings? And why is it that so few people are speaking up against the status quo?”

I hope you’ll join us by using your power of speech in the service of free speech.

© 2021 Steven Schwartzman