Author's archive
The Propagators of Pandemic 0
At the San Francisco Chronicle, a doctor speaks. A nugget; follow the link for the rest.
Instead, our rage is directed at the disinformation profiteers — those bad actors with the big platforms who are behind each and every one of these deaths. Some of them run state governments, some have M.D. next to their names, others are millionaires who smugly sit on their Fox News perches and some spew bile from their radio pulpit. They are the ones who have helped drive us back into the throes of this pandemic.
And while we’re on the subject . . . .
Vaccine Nation 0
Elie Mystal minces no words. An excerpt:
The government can require people to be healthy. It cannot require people to get sick.
Via C&L, which has commentary.
Vaccine Nation, the Freaks Freak Out Dept. 0
Afterthought:
To again quote my history professor from many years ago, Dr. Shade, “history is irony.”
Here the irony, at least as I see it, is that many Republicans are willing to let voters sicken and die because they think that doing so will help them win votes.
Kale Fail 0
The traditional Southern way of cooking greens (spinach, turnip greens, collard greens, kale) is to put them in a pot of boiling water with a hunk of fat meat and simmer them until every nutrient has fled for its life.
I read once that the legendary restaurant critic and cookbook author Craig Claiborne*, who grew up in Mississippi, once said that, of all the greens, kale is the only one deserving of such treatment. (Unfortunately, these years later, I cannot track down an attribution.)
Me, I would rather eat dock weed.
I never have figured out a sensible reason for the recent lionization of kale. Neither, for that matter, has Charlotte Markey.
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*I have worn out three copies of his New York Times Cookbook and my copy of his New York Times International Cookbook continues to exist solely because of library tape.
The Silence 2
Perhaps what I remember most about this date 20 years ago is the silence.
Someone heard the news of the bombing in New York and a number of persons watched bits and pieces of the coverage on the lunch room television if their duties allowed. My workplace at the time was in New Jersey across the river from Philadelphia International Airport.
The main runway at Philadelphia International Airport runs generally in a west-south-west/east-north-east orientation. In easterly winds, airliners from the west would commonly fly by Philly to the north, turn right, fly south over New Jersey, then make a sweeping U-turn back across the Delaware river for their final approach to the main runway; otherwise, airliners headed north would take the reverse course, taking off in a generally WSW direction, then swinging back over New Jersey to head north or to take the great circle route to Europe. They didn’t fly right over my work place, but we could hear them and see them in the east, especially if we were outside in the smoking area.
We heard no airliners that day.
Maskless Marauders 0
Microbiologist Michael LaGier is fed up with those who spread lies and disinformation during a public health crisis. A nugget; follow the link for the complete article.