Tagged: coronavirus

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Ritorno, I

The trip begins on an auspicious note.  Yesterday a Trump-appointed Federal judge in Florida struck down the Biden administration’s imprudent and unlawful extension of the mask mandate in airports, airplanes, etc.

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2020: The Best Year of Our Lives

Perhaps it is only now, towards the end of 2020, that some of us are beginning to see this year as the best one in recent memory, perhaps in our entire lives.  But that’s only possible if you’ve really been reflecting on what is truly going on this year and you’ve taken the time to diligently compare perception with reality.

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An Unreconstructed Summer Symposium

It was the Summer of 2008 when I first made my way up to Rockford, Illinois.  It was a slow, languorous summer drive, with plenty of preparatory reading to do, some often crammed in during the final segment of the voyage.  In many ways, this year was no different.  In other ways, the long tentacles of Covid-19 (and its handlers) couldn’t help but be felt by the attendees.  But perhaps the miracle is that we were able to meet at all, while most of the world huddled inside or behind masks, frightened by the government, media, and the new bands...

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Cracks in the Quarantine

Two weekends ago the weather was particularly lovely and, while I was out for a Sunday stroll in my neighborhood,  what I had already been sensing over the previous weeks became crystal clear: Many Parisians were not abiding by the draconian rules of quarantine that had been laid down in March,

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Quarantined in the City of Light

While Paris started the year in the midst of a transportation strike that the strikers by and large lost in the end, there was only a brief respite for the hospitality industry as the specter of the global panic pandemic landed in Europe and then worked its way west.

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Panic Pandemic

Governments cannot save us from being ill. Governments cannot save us from dying. What they could do is engage people in helping rather than locking them down in their homes.