Mark Cavendish broke his collarbone on Stage 8 of today s Tour de France and was forced to abandon the race, one day after narrowly missing out on what might have been his record-setting 35th sprint stage victory. I started following professional cycling during graduate school in the late aughts. Fixies and blogs were ascendant. I [ ]
Hmm, looks like I missed a couple of years there something must have come up. Previous editions. The PremonitionMichael LewisA prehistory of the Covid-19 pandemic that makes clear the importance as well as the invisibility of public health. Raising RaffiKeith GessenA series of connected essays from a (frustrated, exasperated, confused, loving) middle-aged literary dad, about [ ]
For some time now I have been struggling with how to end this COVID series of blog posts. I have other topics I d like to write about, but I kept waiting for some moment of closure, some demarcation point to end of this strange and uncomfortable chapter in our lives. Eventually I realized that this [ ]
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Yeats, The Second Coming It s been a fall full of surprises. The school year started with the Delta wave cresting, and indeed both kids had classmates test positive in August and September. But we were fortunate, and neither kid [ ]
Whiplash. It s the only way to describe it. With two kids under twelve, we never fully relaxed into the hot vaxx summer everyone was planning. But in June both kids were finally out of the house in camps and preschool all day, every day. Frankly it took a little while to get used to concentrating through [ ]
What a month.� More changed for us in April than since the pandemic started. We worked ourselves into a frenzy waiting for our turn to get vaccinated, but ultimately both of us were finally able to get shots.� Washington State flirted with maintaining the May 1st date for general adult eligibility, but ultimately accelerated it [ ]
Everything is moving quickly now.� It s disturbing, after so much stasis. We were relieved to see family members in other states get vaccinated, and thrilled to start planning (not merely dreaming) when we might see them again. Our state governor added K-12 teachers (but not higher education) to the then-current vaccination phase.� Then President Biden [ ]
It s been a year since we learned COVID-19 was spreading undetected in Washington State. More than half a million people in the U.S. have died. But signs are pointing in positive directions, finally.� Case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths are all down from their terrible holiday peaks.� More people have been vaccinated in the US than [ ]
Like so many others, I greeted the changing of the calendar year today with relief: there s some psychic release associated with putting 2020 behind us. Unfortunately we start the new year with lots of bad news.� A new virus variant first identified in the UK appears to be more transmissible, and it is already spreading [ ]
Today, I hope, marked the beginning of the end of COVID-19.� The first doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine were administered to health-care workers around the country.� And the Electoral College voted for Joe Biden to be the next President. I had hoped to capture a bit more of the last two and half months [ ]