After a year in which we had a new virus and no way to fight it except with masks, social distancing, and staying isolated, having an effective vaccine is a game-changer for sure Last year my friends and I hiked nearly every Sunday None of us had access to the vaccine, and some of us are over 65 years old We put on masks and quizzed each other about our carefulness in avoiding groups and people outside our households We got lucky; none of us ever tested positive for Covid-19 Now we are all vaccinated and boosted, and we get into each others' cars and drive out to the wilderness areas together with barely a qualm Last Sunday I invited two new people to join our group One of the more careful members of our group asked whether the additional people had been vaccinated They had, and we had a wonderful time on a beautiful winter day
January 24, 2022
A history professor in our town has a tradition of making elaborate, thought-provoking Halloween displays. This year, he -- and his friends and family, media reports share -- tackled both #BLM and COVID-19, as well as the death of RBG. My family and I went for a walk over the weekend to check it out. It's impossible to capture the full display in a single photo, but I've tried to snap a few. Media reports -- local and national -- capture a bit more. For example: A Connecticut man's Halloween display features real-life horrors: The coronavirus and Black lives lost https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/us/connecticut-man-halloween-covid-blm-trnd/index.html West Hartford family's annual Halloween display tackles BLM, COVID-19 https://www.wfsb.com/news/west-hartford-familys-annual-halloween-display-tackles-blm-covid-19/article_b22f79a0-0724-11eb-97fd-5f5558807e19.html This panel shows Black people killed by police. It's part of a series of four panels that starts with excerpts from announcements of runaway slaves that appeared in local Connecticut newspapers in the 1770s and 1780s, followed by a second panel showing quotations from Frederick Douglass, WEB Dubois, and MLK, then this panel showing people murdered by police. A horrible continuity.
October 8, 2020