Thursday, July 22, 2021

In The News: July 22

Why People Are So Awful Online Online is where I found a community beyond my graduate school peers. I followed and met other emerging writers, many of whom remain my truest friends. ....... and partake in the collective effervescence of watching awards shows with thousands of strangers. .......... online engagement is fueled by the hopelessness many people feel when we consider the state of the world and the challenges we deal with in our day-to-day lives ........ Online spaces offer the hopeful fiction of a tangible cause and effect — an injustice answered by an immediate consequence. On Twitter, we can wield a small measure of power, avenge wrongs, punish villains, exalt the pure of heart. .......... we have lost all sense of proportion and scale. We hold in equal contempt a war criminal and a fiction writer who too transparently borrows details from someone else’s life. It’s hard to calibrate how we engage or argue. ........... In real life, we are fearful Davids staring down seemingly omnipotent Goliaths: a Supreme Court poised to undermine abortion and civil rights; a patch of sea on fire from a gas leak; an incoherent but surprisingly effective attack on teaching children America’s real history; the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act; a man whom dozens of women have accused of sexual assault walking free on a technicality.

At least online, we can tell ourselves that the power imbalances between us flatten. Suddenly, we are all Goliaths in the Valley of Elah.

.............. My online following came slowly, and then all at once......... Then I wrote a couple of books, and blinked, and suddenly hundreds of thousands of people were seeing my tweets. ......... there are those who harass me for all kinds of reasons — some aspect of my identity or my work or my presence in the world troubles their emotional waters. .......... After being on the receiving end of enough aggression, everything starts to feel like an attack. Your skin thins until you have no defenses left. .......... It becomes harder and harder to distinguish good-faith criticism from pettiness or cruelty. It becomes harder to disinvest from pointless arguments that have nothing at all to do with you. An experience that was once charming and fun becomes stressful and largely unpleasant. .........

We have all become hammers in search of nails.

.......... There is another category entirely of racists, homophobes, transphobes, xenophobes and other bigots who target the subjects of their ire relentlessly and are largely unchecked by the platforms enabling them. And then, of course, there are the straight-up trolls, gleefully wreaking havoc. ............ Lately, I’ve been thinking that what drives so much of the anger and antagonism online is our helplessness offline. Online we want to be good, to do good, but despite these lofty moral aspirations, there is little generosity or patience, let alone human kindness. There is a desperate yearning for emotional safety. There is a desperate hope that if we all become perfect enough and demand the same perfection from others, there will be no more harm or suffering. ................

Some days, as I am reading the news, I feel as if I am drowning.

......... I have a wife, a busy career, aging parents and a large family. I have more physical mobility and, in turn, more interest in being active and out in the world. I now spend most of my time with people who are not Very Online.







The Legacy of Toni Morrison There is a blossoming of black women writers who are following in her footsteps and making their own impact. ....... She said she appreciated her ability to “say more and write less,” and her “desire to give the reader space.” ......... Everything I am and ever will be as a black woman who writes begins with the work of Toni Morrison. .......... When I read each of Ms. Morrison’s novels for the first time, I saw far more than a reflection of what it means to live in a black woman’s body. I saw majesty and infinite possibility. I saw a writer wielding her craft masterfully, being bold and audacious, avoiding the facile choices despite the risks in doing so. ......... “I can accept the labels because being a black woman writer is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from. It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it. It’s richer than being a white male writer because I know more and I’ve experienced more.” ..........

Ms. Morrison taught me and an entire generation of black writers to recognize that we are rich places to write from. She showed us that we must matter first to ourselves if we hope to matter to anyone else. She demonstrated that there is no shame in writing that is both work and a necessary political act.

.......... She was of us and wrote for us nuanced, complicated, authentic and honest representations of our culture, our lives, our triumphs, our sufferings, our failures. She demonstrated the importance of raising our voices and challenging power structures that harm vulnerable peoples. ......... She wrote impeccable sentences. She imparted wisdom in ways that seemed effortless. She commanded attention and demanded respect. She told incredible, passionate, resonant stories. .............

the very real life she lived, how hard she worked and how often she had to break through glass ceilings so that others could follow.

.......

how Morrison wrote her debut novel, “The Bluest Eye,” in stolen moments, while working full-time as an editor and raising her two sons as a single mother.

.......... she actively put in the work of being a writer, even in circumstances that would have stifled lesser people



A 5-year-old with COVID-19 died in an extremely rare case in Georgia Wyatt Gibson, who died Friday, had no underlying conditions before he got get sick ...... He had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as well as strep throat and a staph infection ....... Six percent of COVID-19 cases in Georgia have been reported in children under 11, and just five children have died with the virus ....... Wyatt had "barely had more than the sniffle" before getting COVID-19........ "No appetite, a little vomiting, a bit lethargic," Mitchell said. "He'd barely had more than the sniffle or two as prior illnesses go. Then the white tongue. Alarmed, he was hustled off to the local hospital." ...... Wyatt's father and baby sister have also tested positive for COVID-19 ....... Several US states have reported a slight rise in hospitalizations of children with COVID-19, highlighting the importance of adults getting vaccinated to protect them .........

"the most important thing to realize is that while children may be at low risk, they are not at no risk."





‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Alabama doctor talks about treating unvaccinated COVID patients, says they ‘beg’ for vaccine The state, like the rest of the US, is seeing a surge in cases and hospitalizations due to rise of the more contagious Delta variant, which is attacking more aggressively in younger age groups compared to previous virus strains. ........ State officials in Alabama reported that 94 percent COVID hospital patients that have died from the virus since April were unvaccinated. ........ Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have proven effective in preventing against the Delta variant, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has proven less effective ...... “What we saw in December 2020, and January 2021, that was the absolute peak, the height of the pandemic, where I was signing 10 death certificates a day,” she said. “Now, it’s certainly not like that, but it’s very reminiscent of probably October, November of 2020, where we know there’s a lot of big things coming up.” .......... Cobia worries the upcoming school year will bring about a similar surge. ...... “All these kids are about to go back to school. No mask mandates are in place at all, 70% of Alabama is unvaccinated. Of course, no kids are vaccinated for the most part because they can’t be,” Cobia said. “So it feels like impending doom, basically.” ...... “And the one question that I always ask them is, did you make an appointment with your primary care doctor and ask them for their opinion on whether or not you should receive the vaccine? And so far, nobody has answered yes to that question.”



Why NYC is still No. 1

Brazil's scandal-plagued President may face a reckoning as lawmakers consider impeachment The President said he's now feeling "100% well" after his recent health scare, a consequence he says of a failed assassination attempt in 2018 ........ 54% of Brazilians support a proposed move by lawmakers to open impeachment proceedings against Bolsonaro. The July poll also found 51% of Brazilians considered the Bolsonaro presidency "bad" or "awful." ....... Bolsonaro has been at the center of the storm, having downplayed the gravity of the virus from the beginning. This week, the President criticized governors for taking restrictive measures to contain the spread......... "Many governors have closed everything. They have destroyed jobs, especially informal ones. We have around 38 million people in Brazil who live from day to day, who work in the morning to eat at night," he said. "They have lost everything. If there wasn't emergency aid by the federal government, these people would be condemned to starvation." .....

"Trump of the tropics"

........ "They want to accuse me of genocide. Now, tell me in what country people have not died? This CPI has no credibility," Bolsonaro said. The President added he is "sorry about the dead, but people who were healthy had little chance of dying." ......... a "difficult scenario" for Bolsonaro in the run-up to the October 2022 presidential election, with Datafolha polling showing him trailing likely rival and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. ....... Da Silva has hinted at a presidential run in 2022 after his convictions for corruption and money laundering were annulled in March, effectively restoring his right to run for office. .............. Bolsonaro's eldest son, Sen. Fl├бvio Bolsonaro, tweeted about his father's recent hospital stay, "President @jairbolsonaro evolved for the better, he woke up in a good mood and, if he continues like this, he won't need to undergo surgery! Thank you all for your prayers! #WhoOrderedTheBolsonaroAssassination." ........... "May God bless us and continue to enlighten our nation. A big hug! -- Brazil above all; God above all!"



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