Kidzdoc hits the Reset button in 2021, Part 2

Now that the adults are back in charge in the White House I look forward to a much better year of reading in 2021 than the past four years were.

Currently reading:

    

The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto
Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch
Allegria by Giuseppe Ungaretti

Books read in 2021:

January:
1. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
2. The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
3. Summerwater by Sarah Moss

February:
4. Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
5. Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement by Jonathan M. Berman

March:
6. The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne
7. Fever by John Edgar Wideman
8. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

April:
9. Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden
10. Shelter: Notes from a Detained Migrant Children's Facility by Arturo Hernandez-Sametier
11. Some Days by María Wernicke
12. The Pear Field by Nina Ekvtimshvili
13. If You Kept a Record of Sins by Andrea Bajani
14. Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý
15. At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
16. The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard
17. The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa
18. Candy-Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars by Inua Ellams

May:
19. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
20. Vivian Maier: Street Photographer by Vivian Maier
21. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez
22. Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

June:
23. Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley

21 Classic Works of Fiction by Authors from the African Diaspora from the Shelves to Read in 2021

Abyssinian Chronicles by Moses Isegawa
American Hunger by Richard Wright
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Fever by John Edgar Wideman ✅
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
The Fisher King by Paule Marshall
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chestnutt
In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming
The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka
Maps by Nuruddin Farah
Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
Native Son by Richard Wright
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
A State of Independence by Caryl Phillips
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
Train Whistle Guitar by Albert Murray

21 Non-Fiction Books from the African Diaspora to Read in 2021

Afropessimism by Frank B. Wilderson III
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr. ✅
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr.
Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga
Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging by Afua Hirsch
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson ✅
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne ✅
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness by Kevin Young
Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education by Mychal Denzel Smith
Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudine Rankine
The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Of Africa by Wole Soyinka
Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America by Stacey Abrams
A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis
A Promised Land by Barack Obama ✅
Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream by Mychal Denzel Smith
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis

Black Male Writers for Our Time

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Friday Black ✅
Jeffery Renard Allen: Song of the Shank
Jamel Brinkley: A Lucky Man ✅
Jericho Brown: The Tradition ✅
Marcus Burke: Team Seven
Samuel R. Delany: Dark Reflections
Cornelius Eady: Hardheaded Weather ✅
Percival Everett: Glyph
Nelson George: City Kid: A Writer's Memoir of Ghetto Life and Post-Soul Success
James Hannaham: Delicious Foods
Terrance Hayes: American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin ✅
Brian Keith Jackson: The Queen of Harlem ✅
Major Jackson: Roll Deep
Mitchell S. Jackson: Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family ✅
Yusef Komunyakaa: The Chameleon Couch
Rickey Laurentiis: Boy with Thorn
Victor LaValle: The Ballad of Black Tom
James McBride: Deacon King Kong
Shane McCrae: In the Language of My Captor ✅
Reginald McKnight: He Sleeps
Dinaw Mengestu: All Our Names ✅
Fred Moten: The Service Porch
Gregory Pardlo: Digest
Rowan Ricardo Phillips: Heaven
Darryl Pinckney: Black Deutschland ✅
Brontez Purnell: Since I Laid My Burden Down
Ishmael Reed: Juice! ✅
Roger Reeves: King Me
Maurice Carlos Ruffin: We Cast a Shadow
Danez Smith: Don't Call Us Dead
Colson Whitehead: The Nickel Boys ✅
Phillip B. Williams: Thief in the Interior
De'Shawn Charles Winslow: In West Mills
George C. Wolfe: The Colored Museum
Kevin Young: Book of Hours

Recommended Black American Women Authors

Elizabeth Alexander
Osa Atoe
Toni Cade Bambara
Gwendolyn Brooks
Octavia E. Butler
Lucille Clifton
Edwidge Danticat: Brother, I'm Dying ✅
Toi Derricotte: The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey ✅
Bridgett M. Davis
Vievee Francis
Renee Gladman
Yona Harvey
Carolivia Herron
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God ✅
N.K. Jemisin
Gayl Jones
Tayari Jones: Leaving Atlanta ✅
Adrienne Kennedy
Jamaica Kincaid: Autobiography of My Mother ✅
Ayana Mathis
Shara McCallum
Toni Morrison: Beloved ✅
Harryette Mullen
Gloria Naylor
Lynn Nottage
Morgan Parker
Tennessee Reed
Sonia Sanchez: Does Your House Have Lions? ✅
Safiya Sinclair
Tracy K. Smith
Martha Southgate
Natasha Trethewey: Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir ✅
Jesmyn Ward: Sing, Unburied, Sing ✅
Phyllis Wheatley

Literature and nonfiction by contemporary Latinx authors, as recommended by Myriam Gurba, author of the memoir Mean:



Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera ✅
Tell Me How it Ends by Valeria Luiselli ✅
Black Dove by Ana Castillo
Bless Me, Última by Rudolfo Anaya
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
Across a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
Everyone Knows You Go Home by Natalia Sylvester
Native Country of the Heart by Cherríe Moraga
A Dream Called Home by Reyna Grande
The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli ✅

Also: Mean by Myriam Gurba ✅

2021 Booker International Prize Shortlist:

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis ✅
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti ✅
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West

Medicine, Public Health and Science:

Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement by Jonathan M. Berman ✅
Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky
Can Medicine Be Cured? The Corruption of a Profession by Seamus O'Mahony
Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden ✅
Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul by Roy Porter
How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France
I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre
Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America by Ayaz Virji M.D.
Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors & Lunatics by Roy Porter
Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky
Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing by Victoria Sweet

Reading Globally 2021

Q1 — Notes from a Small Population: 40+ places with under 500,000 inhabitants
Q2 — Childhood
Q3 — The Lusophone World
Q4 — Translation Prize Winners

  

Books by Contemporary British Female Novelists to Read in 2021:

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
Winter by Ali Smith (I've already read Autumn)
Spring by Ali Smith
Summer by Ali Smith
Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
Summerwater by Sarah Moss ✅
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Books to read in January: (subject to change)

Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement by Jonathan M. Berman
Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
The Folly by Ivan Vladislavić
Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales
A Promised Land by Barack Obama ✅
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ✅
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Summerwater by Sarah Moss ✅

This thread is officially open! Help yourself to pastéis de nata e um bica.

  

Happy new one, Darryl. I have to say, Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Lessons for our Own is one that I will definitely be looking for.

(and forgive me, but the cover just jumps out at me because of its design. I almost expect to see Bernie Sanders on one of those chairs! ;-)

>13 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. I haven't gotten far in Begin Again yet, but I hope to make good progress in it next week, and finish several books by the weekend. It's very good so far.

Haha! I have no doubt that James Baldwin and Bernie Sanders would have had plenty to talk about. Given that Sanders was intimately involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, as a member of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) when he was a student at the University of Chicago, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising if the two actually met. Checking...I don't see anything that specifically mentions this, but I could still easily imagine them meeting.

My favorite Bernie memes so far are the one with him as a member of the Spice Girls (Old Spice), and the one portraying him in Thomas Eakins' famous painting The Gross Clinic.

Happy new thread, Darryl. You have some good books lined up. I am very curious about the anti-vaxers book. Some of my in-laws are heavily involved with that. It seems nearly impossible to talk with them about their opinions on it.

>12 kidzdoc: Just the thing, so tasty!

Cheers! Always happy to have your thread as a landing spot of friendship and sanity.

Always glad to see you thread, Darryl. You've already interested me in a couple of the medical books.

My favorite Bernie meme to date is him flying past Dorothy's window during the tornado.

Happiest of new threads!

>12 kidzdoc: "Help yourself to pastéis de nata e um bica."

Those look absolutely amazing! I wonder if I can get any around here.

As for the Bernie memes, my favorites so far have been all of the Jewish themed ones. They've all been so accurate and resonant for me.

Good luck with the anti-vaxxer book. I find that trend so infuriating I can barely even engage.

Waving hello. When you get Covid & Cucina threads posted, could you post links here? I'm having trouble navigating the new groups format to find new threads. Thanks!

My dad got his first shot this week (whew), and I got mine as well. I volunteered for the Emory/Moderna phase 3 trial, and found out I got placebo this week. Scheduled for a second jab late February.

Happy new thread, Darryl!

Thanks for all the Covid vaccine information on your last thread.
I second the request ^above for providing links.

Happy new one, Darryl.

>12 kidzdoc: yum

also nice review of Summerwater. I can blame you when I pick up the next Sarah Moss. : )

Happy new thread, Daryl.

Continuing on the Sarah Moss theme....if you haven't read Night Waking yet, I highly recommend. I think it fits with Bodies of Light and Signs for Lost Children. I don't think Tidal Zone was ever released in the US, maybe because the bombing and rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral is such a big part of the book and many in the US wouldn't know that?

Alan has picked Night Waking as his book club choice in April, so I’ll report back.

>15 EllaTim: Thanks, Ella! I like the books I've lined up; now the challenge is to find the time to read them. I'm working Monday through Friday this week, and these past two days have been quite busy, but I'll be off service for at least eight of the following 10 days, and possibly all 10 if I'm not called in for a backup shift due to high inpatient census or because one of my partners takes a sick day. I do have several administrative meetings and other work related chores to do during that time, so I won't be able to dedicate as much time to pleasure reading as I would like.

I do hope to finish Anti-vaxxers either this weekend, or early next week. I told one of my partners about it this afternoon, and said that my hope was not to change the minds of hard core anti-vaxxers, but focus instead on families and friends who are hesitant or skeptical about vaccines, including recommended childhood immunizations and the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

The COVID-19 pandemic does seem to be slowing somewhat, with decreased number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. I did receive a tweet from the COVID-19 Tracking Project as I was typing this, which said that 3,734 Americans died due to COVID-19 yesterday. Unfortunately one of those was the adult son of a nurse I'm friends with who retired from Children's several years ago. Ryan was admitted to hospital just after Christmas, was on a ventilator for 23 or 24 days due to respiratory failure, as COVID-19 essentially destroyed his lungs, and, sadly, his death was inevitable. Pam posted several heartbreaking photos of her son, who looked like a healthy and muscular man in his 30s but was hooked up to a ventilator. Several of us who knew Pam mourned her loss, even though we didn't know her son, as she spoke of him proudly when she was working with us. Ryan died just before midnight, with his mother and younger sister at his side.

>16 rocketjk: Cheers, Jerry! I can guarantee friendship here. Sanity?! Umm...I'll do my best.

>17 auntmarge64: Thanks, Margaret. Which of the medical books struck your fancy?

My favorite Bernie meme to date is him flying past Dorothy's window during the tornado.

Ha! I haven't seen that meme yet. It's great that he's being such a good sport about it, and that he's going to devote proceeds from merchandise that feature the now famous photo on them to charity.

>18 streamsong: Thanks, Janet!

>19 Julie_in_the_Library: Hi, Julie! Given the sizable Portuguese community in Massachusetts I would think that you could find pastéis de nata locally.

I don't think I've seen any of the Jewish themed Bernie memes. I'll have to try to find them.

The hard core anti-vaxxer community is essentially a cult. There is little or no reasoning with them, similar to hard core MAGAts who are convinced that Trump won the November election, despite their being no credible evidence of fraud.

>20 markon: Yes, I'll definitely post links to the La Cucina and COVID-19 threads after I create them, unless someone else does so first. So far I am not a fan of the new groups format.

I'm glad that you and your father received the first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Now that the nurses are receiving their second jab this week and last week I can anecdotally state that more than half of the people I know who have had the second jab have had symptoms similar to the ones I had, namely low grade fevers, chills, nausea, headaches, muscle and joint aches, and pain and swelling at the injection site. The general consensus amongst my friends, and myself, is that these symptoms indicate that the vaccine is working to stimulate our immune systems, and we're happy and relieved to feel a bit rubbish on the day after the second vaccination.

I'm happy to see that we may be past the peak of this wave of Covid. A friend of mine's extended family had a giant celebration in late December to honor the birthdays of her husband's grandparents, both over 100 years old. The reasoning was that it might be their last birthday, so all of the family needed to be there. Predictably, a majority of the family came down with Covid along with my friend. She's feeling better, but the grandmother died and another family member is in critical condition.

Hopefully, this kind of situation will grow rarer as we get vaccinated.

>24 tangledthread: Oh, for heaven's sake. How could anyone miss that? I don't think much of the US is as ignorant as that. (Well, now that I think about it, I'm not so sure.)

There's a book I just remembered called To Say Nothing of the Dog, which is, in some ways, a parody of Jerome K. Jerome's famous boat-story. It is a Fantasy/Science Fiction novel about the bombing of Coventry Cathedral. Connie Willis, the author, has won many Hugo and Nebula awards, and also wrote the supremely affecting novel, The Doomsday Book. She is extremely funny, although that last book is not really funny at all, despite some satirical threads in it. She happens to be American. To Say Nothing of the Dog is hilarious, and the SciFi aspects are not that important; they are just the set-up. The same is true of The Doomsday Book which is about the Plague in England, and during which I had to take breaks it was so tragic and detailed.

>21 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! Now that the motion has been seconded I'll post a link to a COVID-19 thread, probably on Saturday.

>22 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie!

>23 dchaikin: I will gladly accept blame for anyone who reads a book by Sarah Moss based on a recommendation of mine.

>24 tangledthread: Thanks for recommending Night Waking, tangledthread. Similar to several of my other favorite writers I suspect that I'll be a Sarah Moss completist, and read every book she writes.

I just looked, and I purchased my copy of The Tidal Zone in the London Review Bookshop in 2016. Desoite not knowing anything about Coventy Cathedral beforehand I still loved that book.

>25 SandDune: Excellent, Rhian. I look forward to Alan's thoughts on Night Waking.

>27 RidgewayGirl: Yikes. I have heard similar stories to that one, Kay; people who are generally behaving sensibly and responsibly make one bad decision, which proves fatal for one or more people.

>28 sallypursell: Count me as one of the ignorant!

I just read your excellent review of A Promised Land by Barack Obama. I'm currently reading the book but my review will not reach your literary style, although I'm pretty sure my rating will be the same.

>1 kidzdoc: Wonderful opening photo!

>31 VivienneR: Thanks, Vivienne!

Sorry for the loss of your friend's son, Darryl. It's sometimes easy to forget that though the numbers are astronomical, each number is really a person, a person with a family and friends and a whole life. Here in Toronto, in the past few days, a young 19-year old died of covid. He had been a cleaner at a long-term-care facility. He came to Canada around 4 years ago with his family, as Syrian refugees, only to be one of the 4 (I think) teens to die of covid in our province. Every life lost is a tragedy, and every one has a ripple effect, touching so many others.

>26 kidzdoc: All those numbers have friends and families attached to them. It is so easy to forget that when one is untouched by this thing. Sorry about your friend’s son.

>27 RidgewayGirl: That’s somewhere between stupid and Darwin-award worthy. Yes - it could have been their last but they almost guaranteed it will be the last - and not just for the old ones. I had not been home since 2019. 2020 was the first year I did not see my Mom. Unless the vaccinations get really ramped up and under way, 2021 will be the second. But I am not going to risk a multi-country multi-flight trip in the middle of pandemic. It almost feels like even the people that were good earlier are starting to get tired and take risks they should not. Oh well. :( Hopefully everyone else recovers in your friend’s family.

>28 sallypursell: Most of the world, not just USA if you ask me. The Coventry Cathedral does not even ring a bell for most people who did not have specific English history classes in my experience.
PS: And her double volume novel on WWII is as good - even if some British readers are unhappy with some of the discrepancies (it is a world with time travel - things are allowed to be slightly different). :)

>26 kidzdoc: I'm going to be looking for local Portuguese bakeries now. Trying everyone's baked goods is my life goal. :-)

>29 kidzdoc: Ha! I purchased my copy of Tidal Zone at Daunt books!

>28 sallypursell: I was not familiar with Connie Willis....went to the library site and just downloaded a copy of To Say Nothing of the Dog. Thanks!

Science fiction is not usually my thing. Just finished reading Leave the World Behind. I can see why the book is getting so much hype given the pandemic and state of the world, but I don't think it's particularly well done. The author did a great job of depicting the tensions of racial and economic disparities, but not so much on the dystopian background in which the story is set.

>28 sallypursell: >34 AnnieMod: I'm not sure why it *would* ring a bell, really. It's one building. Countless buildings were destroyed in the war, and the human brain can only hold so much information.

Very sad about the loss of your colleague's son Darryl. Far too young.

Thought of you this morning when I saw this article about the Edinburgh book festival.

>28 sallypursell: I was wrong about the Coventry Cathedral thing, or at least I greatly overstated the case. It stems from my baseline irritation at the "Ugly American" or "Ignorant American" stereotype. It is certainly mostly true, but I hate it, and I loathe being included in the ignorant group. I'm not sure why that touches me so much.

>34 AnnieMod: There's no doubt that her WWII novel about the Blitz is very fine. In fact, everything of hers that I have read is very fine. Have you read Lincoln's Dreams? I am saving that one for no reason except the evocative title. I own it, though, and will definitely get to it.
Do you know she has won more major SciFi and Fantasy awards than any other single person? What a star!

Hi Darryl - very happy to have found you here. I was missing you in the 75 group. I love the Portugal reminder in your yummy photo. I've starred you now and hope I can keep up with your fast-moving thread!

>40 sallypursell: I understand what you are saying, and yet we can't instantly know and retain everything. And that is why we read! As long as we keep reading, we should become more informed.

Of course, there is that critical thinking part of evaluating what one reads and verifying facts....

>42 tangledthread: I was blessed with a kind of "trick" memory when I was young, and even now I have an exceptional memory. I have trouble keeping track that this is not typical, and the fact that I have spent most of my life reading (Since I was two.) is also not typical. I grew up being called, "Know it all", and "walking encyclopedia" and I learned no social skills at all, really. I am now more like the typical person in memory, and I cringe over my past way of judging some others by myself. I must have been awful, although it wasn't intentional. I still have a lot of trouble anticipating what is the usual information-load of my peers. I'm sorry for it.

Happy New Year, Darry. I too am hoping for a better reading year in 2021 as things stabilize politically and with the epidemic.

>28 sallypursell: I am a fan of Connie Willis as well, Sally. I have read seven of her novels, which I enjoy as historical fiction, rather than sci fi, despite the time travel element. I found To Say Nothing of the Dog laugh-out-loud funny, more so than Jerome K. Jerome's original Three Men in a Boat—To Say Nothing of the Dog. The scene at the jumble sale comes to mind. Doomsday Book was very affecting, especially the protagonist's relationship with the priest. I subsequently read Geraldine Brook's Year of Wonders, also about the Black Death, and was sorely disappointed. She was unable to finesse the tension between modern sensibilities and fourteenth-century science, which Willis did so well.

Oof. Another tough work week in the dead of winter has come to an end. The number of inpatients with COVID-19 continues to climb, and I saw seven or eight kids with it this week. One of them, a 9 year old girl, is very sick, and I transferred her to our PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) yesterday morning, due to rapidly progressing heart failure. I pray that she makes a full recovery, or at least survives her illness. We have had some deaths due to COVID-19 in the hospital I work in, but AFAIK those were all kids who were critically ill on arrival to us, admitted to the PICU, and died there. My medical school classmates who specialize in adult medicine have seen dozens of their longtime patients die, though.

I didn't get any significant reading done since I flew back to Atlanta from Philadelphia on Sunday night, perhaps 40 pages in Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr, which continues to be superb. Hopefully I'll finish it by tomorrow evening, as I now have to work Monday through Friday again next week, due to the abrupt resignation of the oldest hospitalist in my group, which we only found out about this week. That now makes me the oldest partner in the group (I'll turn 60 in March), and the one who has been with the group the longest (I celebrated my 20th anniversary at Children's this past August). I'm considered one of the "respected elders" there, as someone referred to me recently, and I'm already eligible to join the Section on Senior Members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, so as of March 24th I will be an official member of the OAF (Old As F***) Club.

I think I'll catch up here, then take a nap.

>33 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. I went to my biweekly appointment with my barber earlier this morning, and both barbers, another customer and myself had a conversation about the pandemic, and we all felt as that it was coming closer to home, as each of us knew of someone, either personally or the close relative of a friend, who died from COVID-19 this month.

The death of that teenager in Toronto is very sad. All deaths are tragic losses, but the ones of those who are still children are especially heartbreaking.

>34 AnnieMod: Absolutely, Annie. It's one thing to read about the astonishingly high number of daily deaths in the US (which exceeded 4000 one day this week), but another altogether when it touches you personally or hits close to home.

The Coventry Cathedral does not even ring a bell for most people who did not have specific English history classes in my experience.

I agree. It would be one thing to not recognize an iconic structure such as Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower, but something altogether different for a less well known church such as Coventry Cathedral. I've made at least two dozen trips to London and visited at least 17 British towns other than London by my count, but I only found out about the history and importance of Coventry Cathedral after I read The Tidal Zone.

>35 Julie_in_the_Library: I'm going to be looking for local Portuguese bakeries now. Trying everyone's baked goods is my life goal. :-)

That is a great goal, Julie! Do let me know when and if you find pastéis de nata, and how you like them. BTW pastéis is the plural form of pastel, in case you find them and only want one (pastel de nata) instead of two or more.

>36 tangledthread: Excellent, tangledthread! I now probably buy more books from the Marylebone branch of Daunt Books than the London Review Bookshop or one of the branches of Foyles whenever I visit London.

>37 Julie_in_the_Library: I'm not sure why it *would* ring a bell, really. It's one building. Countless buildings were destroyed in the war, and the human brain can only hold so much information.

Agreed. The most memorable such structure for me is the ruins of Alt St. Alban (Old St. Alban's Church) in Köln (Cologne), which was bombed by the Allies during World War II. The ruins contain a sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz which depicts a mother and father grieving over the body of their dead young child (who is not visible in the sculpture), which made seeing the ruins utterly unforgettable.

  

>38 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. Far too young, indeed. Pam is absolutely devastated by the loss of her son, and I worry about her own states of mental and physical health.

>39 markon: Thanks, Ardene! The Edinburgh International Book Festival is normally held in Charlotte Square in New Town, close to Princes Street, the main thoroughfare in that part of Edinburgh. I have a rough idea of the location of the Edinburgh College of Art, but I have not been anywhere near there during my visits for the Edinburgh Festivals in 2017 and 2018. The article mentions that most of the Book Festival will be virtual, with most author events taking place online, similar to last year's Book Festival. I had all but completely decided to skip Edinburgh this year, but this news makes it certain that I won't go.

>40 sallypursell: I've made roughly 30-35 trips to Western Europe in the past decade, and I've encountered plenty of Americans who blended in very well, and, less commonly, others who fit the "Ugly American" stereotype. I've seen more of the latter group in major US cities than abroad, though, as the "ugliest" amongst us tends to stay within rather than go outside of the US, and those who do travel to Europe often visit predictable sites that I generally avoid. Some of my most memorable and enjoyable meetings were with young Americans who were on holiday or studying abroad, particularly the young woman who gave me great tips about the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the first time I attended it in 2017, and the two college students who asked me to take their photo in the Castell de Montjuïc (Montjuïc Castle) in Barcelona, who spoke beautiful castellano (Castilian Spanish) to me, and vice versa, and we only realized that we were all Americans when one of us slipped up and said something in English!

I feel very comfortable in Western Europe and blend in there far better than I would in Trumplandia, small town and rural America. The locals are often surprised by me, though; Britons I meet for the first time are mildly shocked by my American accent (I've been told "I thought you were a Londoner!" on several occasions), some Spaniards think I'm Dominican or Cuban, since I apparently speak Spanish without an obvious American accent, and strangers in the Netherlands often address me in Dutch, as I apparently look to be from Suriname rather than the United States.

>41 vivians: Happy New Year, Vivian! Yes, this will be my main home in LT for the foreseeable future. I do plan to follow your and selected others' threads in the 75 Books group, hopefully beginning in a couple of weeks when I have some significant down time from work.

>44 labfs39: Happy New Year, Lisa! January hasn't been as good a reading month as I would like, but now that Trump is out of office my reading output should pick up, especially in March when my intense winter work schedule returns to a normal one.

>44 labfs39: You are so right!

Happy New Year, Darryl! Those are some impressive lists up there at the top of your thread. I recognize more than a few of the African diaspora authors. I still like to read out of Africa from time to time, which something catches my eye.

>48 avaland: Thanks, Lois! I still haven't read Travelers by Helon Habila, which I purchased last year based on your recommendation, but I'll get to it soon.

>45 kidzdoc: Naps are good for old timers. :)

A belated happy new thread Darryl! I've had a hectic couple of weeks as the new term has started, with lots of online inductions and teaching sessions to deliver, and ebooks to sources for reading lists. Sounds like you are busy too due to your colleague's retirement. Take care of yourself.

Happy Saturday, everyone! I've finished the second of a brutal two week stretch on hospital service, and unless I'm called in to help out the team on Tuesday and/or Wednesday I won't have to return to COVIDlandia until the Monday after next. This week was far busier than last week was (I left the hospital just before 9 pm on my 8 to 5 shift), as our caseload of inpatients with COVID-19 increased significantly starting in mid January. Many of these kids were sick, but fortunately none of the ones I cared for died, although there apparently were at least two deaths in our PICU last month.

I haven't have time to read a single page so far this week, but I should finally finish Begin Again: James baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie s. Glaude Jr today. After that I'll immerse myself in Anti-Vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement by Jonathan M. Berman, which I'm very eager to get into.

>50 BLBera: I think naps are great for many people regardless of age, Beth. Being able to take 20-25 minute naps on commuter trains when I took night courses at Drexel and Rutgers after work were restorative and allowed me to focus on my studies, which was essential since I was only sleeping 4-6 hours on weeknights for several years until I earned my bachelor's degree from Rutgers. I'll often take micro naps (5-10 minutes) at my desk on excessively long work days such as the ones I had these past two weeks, which also allow me to think straight.

>51 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! We both seem to have had hectic work weeks, but hopefully your schedule will relax as the university term gets underway. We were progressively busier as the week neared its end, and even though I wasn't on call for admissions I helped one of my partners by seeing several new kids, as she was getting crushed, and I left the hospital later last night than I did on my long call (8 am to 8 pm) on Tuesday. Hopefully I won't be needed next week, but even if that happens I'll work no more than two of the next nine days.

Hi, Darryl. I'm glad you're (likely) getting a break for a week. That sounds like grueling two week stretch you had. What stress this covid-19 vaccine has put on hospitals!

I'm impressed with your ability to take micro-naps. I need to lie down for at least an hour for a nap to work. My sisters and I are all a pain to be around if we haven't gotten enough sleep.

I read and liked Half of a Yellow Sun, which I see on one of your lists up there. I need to get to her Americanah. Did you ever read Walter Mosley? He recently won the National Book Foundation/National Book Association Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the first African American man to win that lifetime achievement award. I got hooked early on with his Easy Rawlins mysteries, but he's written good books in virtually every genre.

>52 kidzdoc: Glad you finished your brutal fortnight Darryl. I hope you don't get called in next week, so you can really recharge your batteries.

With your inability to be able to travel to Europe, will you still be working the same kind of patterns you were in order to have longer holidays, or will you cut yourself a bit of slack?

I really liked Begin Again, i look forward to your thoughts.

Hi Darryl. I’m just catching up and will try to keep up going forward. I had my first Moderna vaccine on Monday and had no symptoms. I go back on March 2nd for the next. I keep hearing the second may have more symptoms as you say you had. I hope you get to enjoy a few quiet days.

>53 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I spent much of Saturday catching up on sleep, as I usually do after tough work weeks. Fortunately I won't have to go to work on Monday, so today will be a more leisurely day, as I won't need to go to the supermarket or do chores, including laundry. I will cook another batch of alligator sauce piquante for my private Super Bowl party, though.

I'm sure that at least one person is wondering what's the big deal about working from Monday through Friday, as millions of other Americans do. Our days are long, hectic and mentally and emotionally taxing, I usually don't take a break for a proper lunch (I often scarf down SunChips or another semi healthy snack on the patient units while I'm entering progress notes into one of the workstations), and even if I manage to leave on time I almost always bring work home with me, whether it's writing progress notes or discharge summaries, submitting bills for seeing patients, and administrative work (I'm the section chief for the Department of Pediatrics in the hospital I work in (we have three hospitals in our system)), a completely thankless and unrewarding chore. It's all I can do to finish tasks before I fall asleep, and the same goes for my partners and most primary care physicians; my friends in private practice tell me that they routinely spend their work evenings charting until 9-11 pm. I don't sleep well when I'm on service, as I almost always wake up and think about my patients in the middle of the night, and if I can get six total hours of uninterrupted sleep that's a very good night. My lovely partner Nisha was working alongside me on the 2nd floor inpatient units, and she was also exhausted on Friday, even though she is in her early 30s and is in great physical shape.

Ooh, I can't take a nap for an hour; if I did I would be very groggy and cranky! My sweet spot is in the 20-25 minute range, but even a 3-5 minute micro nap can work wonders if it's in the late afternoon or early evening and I'm struggling to stay awake.

My father is a fan of Walter Mosley's works, but I have yet to read anything by him. I keep meaning to pick up one of the two books I own by him, or the ones in his collection, but I have plenty of reading material both at home and at their house. One of these days...

>54 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. According to our schedule seven of my partners are on service on Tuesday, so I almost certainly won't be called in that day (six of us worked each day these past two weeks), but only six are penciled in for Wednesday, with me being the person who would be called in if someone called out sick or if our inpatient census is excessively high. We were very close to needing a seventh person on Thursday and Friday, and if our census continues to climb next week I will be needed. Those are the only days I'm on the schedule between now and next Monday, though, so even if I'm called in it will still be a relaxing nine day stretch.

I work an intense schedule from November through February, as I put in many more shifts than I normally would, especially since we need more hospitals from late autumn through early spring. The payback is that June is my vacation free month from work, as I'm completely off the schedule and don't have to use valuable PTO (paid time off), as my off days are made up of the days I would normally be off that month, along with days I've earned from working those extra shifts from November through February. I wonder why I do this to myself in the dead of winter, when I and my partners are all worn down and crabby, but I work far fewer days from late spring through early autumn, which is why I'm able to visit you and my other European friends for weeks on end during that time. My inability to travel to Europe in 2020 was very depressing, as was the social distancing that made get togethers in Atlanta, NYC and Philadelphia impossible or not recommended, and my parents' declining health and my need to care for them during my visits (which is about as hectic as all but my worst work days), but I haven't changed my schedule because of the pandemic, mainly because it would be burdensome on my partners, especially because two of my longtime partners have resigned, and a third will do so at the end of next month. Hopefully we'll be able to replace them this summer, but it probably won't happen before then.

I finished Begin Again late last night, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant and essential reading for our times, even with the election of Joe Biden as POTUS, as Trump's cult of personality is still in great force in this divided country. I gave it 5 stars, and I'll go through it again before I write my review of it next week.

>55 NanaCC: Great to see you here, Colleen! I'm glad that you did well with your first Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. I would guess that well over half of the hundred or more friends and colleagues I've spoken to in person or who have posted on Facebook have had systemic symptoms starting 16-20 hours after the booster shot, consisting mainly of low grade fevers, chills, muscle and joint aches, nausea, diarrhea, poor appetite and fatigue, which lasted for 12-36 hours, regardless of whether they received the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna vaccines. Most of my partners and other colleagues at work scheduled the second jab, which we received through Employee Health at one of our hospitals, clinics or urgent care centers, on a day that would be followed by one or more off days. I could have worked on the day after I received my second shot, but I would have been miserable and I'm very glad that I was able to spend the day in bed.

As I always say, the best day of any week is No Work Monday, as it makes that day a great one and it also means that I don't have to think about or prepare for work on Sunday afternoon and evening, which makes that day completely enjoyable as well.

>56 kidzdoc:
I have several of Walter Mosley's books on my shelves and haven't read them either. However, Deacon King Kong is working its way up my bedside reading table. I also haven't read any of the James McBride books I have. Sometimes I think I am a slacker, but so many good books call out to me.

I got my second Moderna shot and hope I don't get the full blown reaction to it that I had last time. My 85 year old mother got the first dose of Moderna vaccine and ended up in the hospital for two days. Within 12 hours of getting the shot she was violently sick - nausea, diarrhea, fever and chills. She thought it would go away. It didn't so after 2 days she had my sister call the ambulance. By the time she got to the hospital she as severely dehydrated and so weak she couldn't stand. She had Covid back in December and was released from the hospital on December 11. I am amazed that the County Health Nurse gave her the shot. I thought she had to wait 90 days. Her doctor was angry as well, and said that she should not have had the shot until in mid-March. The County Health Nurse said that no guidelines they had from the state said anything about waiting to administer the shot if a patient had tested positive. I had told my mother two weeks ago not to get the shot until March, but my mother said that the County Health Nurse told her it would be OK and my mother trusted the professional. When she was released from the hospital her GP told her that she should call him before she gets the second dose and they will discuss whether or not she should do so at that time. At the same time this was going on my 94 year old Aunt got the shot (from the same source) and she got sick as well. She didn't need to go to the hospital but she is going to be staying with her daughter for the next two weeks so that they can watch her.

I think this is a prime example of the lack of communication that is rife in the system. I hope that now that we have a national task force in place that clearer guidelines go out.

The other thing that bothers me is that she told me over the phone that she wanted the shot because she wouldn't have to worry about staying home and could stop wearing that mask all the time. I told her that wasn't true. She would still have to wear a mask and curtail her activities. She started crying and said that she was so lonely. It is truly a frustrating time for all of us.

Meanwhile, as you pointed out - work goes on. So does my reading. I am currently reading a book about the American Jury system and what is wrong with it and how it might be fixed. Very interesting. I found the title listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center web site.

I just heard the author reading an extract from Begin Again on the radio today. It sounds really good. I am looking forward to your review.

>57 benitastrnad: Deacon King Kong is one of the books from my wishlist that my father bought me for Christmas, so I'll likely read it soon.

I'm sorry that your mother got so ill after receiving the first Moderna SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Unfortunately there are no published guidelines — or at least not any that I could find — that indicate how long a person should wait after recuperating from COVID-19 to receive the vaccine, other than the CDC recommendation on when it is safe to be around other people (10 days since symptoms first appeared and 24 hours with no fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and other symptoms of COVID-19 (save for any lost taste or smell) are improving). It is thought to be highly unlikely that a person could get reinfected within the first 90 days of having COVID-19, but there doesn't seem to be a recommendation to not vaccinate in that time frame. I think that her doctor is right in recommending that she not be vaccinated until mid-March, but I don't see any reason to believe that the county health nurse did anything wrong, either.

>58 wandering_star: I've found two hour long YouTube author talks that feature Eddie S. Glaude Jr. talking about Begin Again, one of which also included Cornel West, a previous director of the Program in African-American Studies at Princeton. I'll probably watch it this week, and go through the book a second time before I write my review of it.

Stopping by to say I hope all is well with you

>59 kidzdoc: - I also watched a live broadcast online last night through my local documentary theatre (they often do author talks, as well as films), with Eddie Glaude, about his book on Baldwin. He is in conversation with a local journalist/broadcaster. I will add this link but not sure it is available to view outside Canada:

https://boxoffice.hotdocs.ca/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=134895~fff311b7-cd...;

It was a great talk and I can't wait to get my little paws on the book.

Looks like the proprietor has gone AWOL over here... I hope it's just pressures of work Darryl.

>62 Caroline_McElwee: I've been wondering about that. It's not like him not to rack up huge numbers of posts. Wasn't he going on a visit to his parents? This is a 10-day absence. I'm about to get a little worried. Maybe he lost his internet.

I wouldn worried. Darryl has been posting almost daily on Facebook, creating fascinating bios on important African American figures, both well known and somewhat under the radar, for Black History Month. I assume that's just been taking up most of his Internet time. My guess is that he'll be back soon.

Hi Darryl, I see up above (>7 kidzdoc:) that you have read The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. I had to abandon that one, as it was spiralling down into a vortex of doom, and I really didn't feel like continuing on with it, given how disturbing it was. I found out later that my intuition was right, and that it didn't exactly have a happy ending.
What did you think?

>64 rocketjk: Oh, good. Thanks, rocketjk.

>60 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. February was a very busy month on hospital service, as we saw dozens of patients with acute COVID-19, who for the most part weren't that sick, and with MIS-C, multisystem inflammatory syndrome of childhood, the phenomenon that follows acute COVID-19 by 3-4 weeks; many of those kids were critically ill and required stays in our PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) or CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit). According to my Critical Care and Cardiology colleagues some patients went into ventricular failure and required ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) to keep them alive, but I don't know how many kids died from MIS-C in our system, although there were undoubtedly some.

An even greater burden to our service has been the number of patients with eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and atypical eating disorder), suicide attempts and other psychiatric disorders, which can be linked to stresses brought on by the pandemic, and social isolation, including the suspension of in person classes for junior high and high school students. At one point last week we had 18 eating disorder patients on our service, which is roughly fourfold greater than usual. Because there is a relative shortage of facilities that will provide residential care for kids with eating disorders who are too ill to be managed in an outpatient or partial hospitalization program (PHP) we have had great difficulty in placing these patients into appropriate settings once we have medically stabilized them. The relatively new eating disorders center close to the hospital I work in has been accepting kids from all over the country, but they literally dump them to our Emergency Department if they are too sick for them to handle, but getting them readmitted there or back where they originally came from has been a nightmare. Mental health care for all Americans is substandard, and that is even a greater problem for children, especially if they are preteens, boys, or LGBTQ.

My concentrated winter schedule (November through February) is now over, and my schedule will be considerably lighter during the next two months, and especially during the late spring to early autumn months, so I'll have more time to read and participate in LT. Two of my partners either resigned or retired recently, so the rest of us will have busier schedules until they are replaced, though.

>61 jessibud2: Thanks for posting that link, Shelley. I haven't yet looked at the talk that features Eddie S. Glaude, Jr and Cornel West in conversation that I mentioned earlier, so I'll watch it before I look at the broadcast you saw.

>62 Caroline_McElwee: You're right, Caroline. In addition to seeing plenty of sick kids I'm also in the process of completing a number of time consuming biannual tasks that are essential to staying on the medical staff at Children's, all of which fall in a short time frame in the early part of the year: submitting my lengthy reappointment application to be an Active member of the medical staff; renewing my state medical license; renewing my DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) license, which allows me to prescribe medications, especially controlled substances (these licenses are good for three years); renewing my Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) license; and making sure that I have enough Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits to be able to fulfill requirements for my state medical license and my Children's reappointment application; etc. It doesn't help that all of these chores have to be done during the busy winter months!

>67 kidzdoc: Oh dear! You must he exhausted! I've been quite busy recently, but I'm feeling less sorry for myself now that I see what you're facing. Good luck for all the admin hoop jumping.

>63 sallypursell:, >66 sallypursell: I'm back! For reasons I mentioned above I had little spare time to read, and I chose to spend my limited online time on Facebook, as many of my closest personal friends and colleagues are not members of LT, or are no longer active here.

>64 rocketjk: Right, Dan. I didn't think to post those bios of Black Pittsburgh Pioneers here, as I didn't think they would be as interesting to LTers as they were to my real life friends.

>65 LovingLit: Hi, Megan! I was impressed with The Discomfort of Evening, although it was a harrowing and difficult read, and certainly not one I would recommend to everyone. I can't blame you for abandoning it.

>68 Dilara86: Thanks, Dilara! I didn't have to work on Monday (I was on backup call that day), so I'm now on my last day of a five day work break (Saturday to Wednesday). I slept for 12-14+ hours on the first three days, as I was exhausted, and it was only yesterday that I started to feel human again, although I did sleep quite a bit on Tuesday, and my sleep schedule is now completely out of whack.

>67 kidzdoc: That is a lot of paperwork Darryl. I hope most of it is behind you now.

>71 Caroline_McElwee: I still need to complete the 2020 Pediatrics Review and Education Program coursebook by the end of next week, which will give me enough CME credits so that I can complete my Georgia medical license reapplication before it expires at the end of March...and I just realized that I need to complete the first quarter questions in MOCA-Peds (Maintenance of Certification in General Pediatrics) by the end of the month as well. I'll also have to start studying for the new board exam for pediatric hospitalists later this year if I plan to take the exam in 2022, although I'll probably put it off until 2024. I'll need to be board certified in both General Pediatrics and Hospital Pediatrics, now that Pediatric Hospital Medicine is a recognized subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Board of Pediatrics.

My ridiculously optimistic reading plans for March:

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne ✅
The Emigrants by George Lamming
Epidemics & Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
Fever by John Edgar Wideman
A State of Independence by Caryl Phillips
Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (reread)

Good to see you, Darryl... yeah, work life does have that way of overtaking everything else. I'm glad you at least get a chance to recharge periodically—you'd think that would be a given for folks in the medical profession (or anyone), but I'm seeing that it isn't always. I do think the mental health repercussions of COVID and the isolation it produces are going to be wide-ranging, and have barely been touched on. Eating disorders are such a pervasive problem anyway—I can't imagine how hard it is for kids right now to grapple with them.

I have some of the same problems with my work schedule that you experience. I have two months of intensity at the beginning of each semester where I work long periods of time and on weekends, but then - once I get the students oriented and figuring out how college life works - it becomes more normal. I am just finishing the intense period and instead of 5 hours a day on Zoom I am now down to working with graduate students for 2 hours at a time and I only have one each day. So much better, as I can think about what each student is trying to do and really dig in and help them. I realize that these are not life or death decisions, but they do demand concentration and the willingness to put in long hours at work.

I just finished reading Jim Crow's Children: the Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter Irons and it was very good. It was a history of the five desegregation cases that made up the Brown decision and their aftermath. The hard thing about such books is that they lead to wanting to read more about that subject. One book leads to the next, and then the next. Now I am curious about the Busing decisions. I thought I knew quite a bit about desegregation since it is about education and that is my specialty, but it is surprising how much I didn't know. And how much more I want to know.

I hope you have a good spring, and that you get to spend some time at the Arboretum - since you live close. I bet it is very pretty in the spring.

Good to see you back! I'm rereading Wolf Hall now, and it's well worth revisiting.

>69 kidzdoc: I didn't mean to pester you, I just didn't understand your patterns yet. I'm glad you are fine.

I'm sorry for all that CME and Licensing stuff. It can be so trying. I hated how they would change recommendations, and I would remember several versions of things like CPR and PALS, but would have trouble being sure of which one was current.

>67 kidzdoc: It's discouraging when mental health care is, as you say, substandard, even in medical meccas like Atlanta and Seattle. The additional burdens created by the pandemic are taxing the fragile system even further. I hadn't thought of the uptick in eating disorders, although I've seen children's depression and anxiety being mentioned in the media. My hope is that increased awareness will help bring change, but it's glacial at best so far. Mostly children's (mental) health is being bandied about by political pundits to validate their opposing stands on reopening schools.

>73 kidzdoc: >76 RidgewayGirl: If you are both rereading Wolf Hall that tells me I need to dust off my copy and finally read it. I don't hear either of you talk about rereading often.

Oh wow, Darryl, so sad about the increase in eating disorders during the pandemic.

Good luck on the reading! I hope that you get the Malcolm X biography read, because I am trying to decide whether to read it.

I am sorry to hear how busy you have been Darryl. Here in Holland we hear of the same increases in depression and eating disorders in kids. And the same difficulties in dealing with them. There weren't enough resources for those kids before the pandemic.

I hope your spring will be better!

>67 kidzdoc: Your post on MIS-C is alarming as a mother. In the UK we're hearing next to nothing about this - the narrative is that children don't get sick like adults do with COVID. I suppose proportionally that's no doubt correct, but still - it would be good to know about it and what to look out for.

>74 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. I think everyone in the health professions, to some degree or another, has had an emotionally draining and mentally challenging past 12 months — but, that can probably be said for everyone. Early in the pandemic when we were learning how to treat COVID-19 many of us were scared for our own health, and one of my older partners, who recently retired, asked to not see any hospitalized children with suspected or proven COVID-19. As we learned more and were provided with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) we became progressively more comfortable with being in close proximity to these patients, and now that we've all (or presumably all) been fully vaccinated our fears have almost completely dissipated. Even though we are vaccinated all of us continue to follow public health guidelines, and act as if we are still at risk of getting infected.

>75 benitastrnad: Thanks, Benita.

>76 RidgewayGirl: Hi, Kay! I haven't started rereading Wolf Hall yet, but I'll do so this weekend. I'm on day three of a six day break from work, and I spent most of the past two days sleeping.

>77 sallypursell: No problem, Sally.

>78 sallypursell: Agreed.

>79 labfs39: Discouraging indeed, Lisa. We are both blessed and, in some ways, cursed by being a major referral center for secondary and tertiary pediatric health care, especially being the capital in an underserved state. Metropolitan Atlanta has sufficient resources for those who live here, but that care for children quickly drops off once you get outside of the exurbs, and sick kids who require specialty care are sent to one of our two major hospitals (our third hospital is mainly for poor kids in Fulton and DeKalb counties (Decatur is the seat of DeKalb County, as you may know from your visits here)). In general we see kids from all over the state of Georgia, and on uncommon occasions some who live near the borders of adjacent states, especially Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee. However, due to the even greater lack of specialty outpatient and inpatient mental health services, such as eating disorder centers, we are now getting kids from across the country; this year I and my partners have taken care of anorexic kids from Washington State, Miami, suburban Washington, DC and elsewhere who learned that our team specializes in medical stabilization of children that need to be hospitalized with eating disorders. One adult hospital tried to get me to accept a 25 year old anorexic one day last month, which I flatly refused!

We are seeing the tip of the iceberg, though. My friends who are primary care pediatricians are seeing hundreds of kids in their offices who are struggling with mental health problems due to the pandemic, and all of us want to see children return to in school learning ASAP, albeit as safely as possible.

>80 banjo123: Hi, Rhonda! I finished the The Dead Are Arising last week, and it was outstanding and well worth the effort. I'll try to write a review of it later this week.

>81 EllaTim: I'm sorry that the Netherlands also suffers from a lack of mental health resources for children, Ella. I suspect that eating disorders in children have worsened across much of the world, unfortunately.

>82 AlisonY: Right, Alison. MIS-C is known as Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS) in the UK, which follows a generally benign case of COVID-19 by three to four weeks, and often presents with signs and symptoms suggestive of Kawasaki disease (KD). A typical case of KD consists of fever for five days or longer, and at least four of the following five symptoms: conjunctival erythema, or redness of the whites of the eyes; a swollen, erythematous tongue ("strawberry tongue") or swollen, erythematous and cracked lips; a solitary enlarged cervical (lateral neck) lymph node; a generalized body rash (anything except pustules or vesicles counts); and swollen and erythematous palms and soles, with peeling of the superficial layer of skin of the toes and fingers in the second week of illness. Kawasaki disease is not an uncommon entity in the US, and all pediatricians — and hopefully most general practitioners — will be familiar with this syndrome, especially typical cases of it. Unfortunately infants, young toddlers and older children often have atypical KD, with fewer than four of those symptoms and sometimes only one or two, which makes the diagnosis of KD, and MIS-C/PIMS, considerably more challenging, which is where laboratory studies (complete blood count, CRP, ESR, ferritin, troponin, PT, PTT, D dimer, BNP (brain natriuretic peptide), and especially SARS-CoV-2 antigen and antibody tests) can help pinpoint these diseases.

Here's an information sheet from Great Ormond Street Hospital:
Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome

>73 kidzdoc: oooh, you are planning to reread Wolf Hall! I reckon I might schedule that one for a holiday read. Preferably a long holiday taken alone...which means I will be able to read it in approximately 2032 ;)

>86 LovingLit: Ha! I assume that Lenny and Wilbur will both be off to university by 2032, Megan — assuming that there are no unexpected buns in the oven between now and then.

Whew. Another busy work week is now behind me, and I look forward to a relaxing weekend and enjoyable upcoming week off clinical service. My 60th birthday is on Wednesday, and I'll fly to Philadelphia tomorrow morning to spend a week with my parents. Thankfully my father finally received his first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine this past Tuesday, and my mother has an appointment to get her first jab this coming Tuesday.

I suppose that most of you heard about the latest racist attack on Tuesday, when a young White man with an addiction to sex and a fetish for Asian women was kicked out of his parents' house due to his obsession and their strict and inflexible Southern Baptist beliefs, then chose to buy a gun and address his problem, not by taking his own life, but by shooting people in three massage parlors owned by Asian Americans, one in the Atlanta suburb of Ackworth, and two others in the Piedmont Heights section of Atlanta, a little more than two miles north of where I live. These Intown parlors are located across from each other on Piedmont Road, a major north-south street between Downtown, Midtown and Buckhead that is between where I work and where I live, which I take most days when I work, and not infrequently when I don't, including earlier this morning when I picked up freshly baked bread from Buckhead Bread Company to bring to my parents. As I was driving home from the hospital on Tuesday afternoon I listened to a story on National Public Radio's news program All Things Considered about the rise in attacks on the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community that was fueled by former President Trump's repeated racist comments about the COVID-19 pandemic and desire to place the blame for the effect of it on the Chinese people and government, instead of his own failed leadership ("China virus", "kung flu", etc.), which was propagated by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, other government officials, and right wing talking heads on Fox News and other propagandistic media outlets. Less than half an hour later as I was driving south on Piedmont Road back to my home in Midtown I and hundreds of other drivers were forced to detour around the section of the road where the two massage parlors were located, without knowing what the reason was for it. It wasn't until that evening that I learned what had happened, although I was aware of the four people who were murdered by the gunman in Ackworth.

Many of us are still shaken, upset, and extremely angry by what happened on Tuesday, especially my Asian American physician and physician assistant partners and colleagues, several of whom are very close friends who I socialize with outside of work, and other people of color (African Americans and Latinx), all of whom feel increasingly unsafe in the United States due to the rise of White supremacy that was fueled by Donald Trump and his extreme right wing supporters. What happened on Tuesday will remain in the minds of many of us who live and work in Intown Atlanta, particularly for those of us who pass by those massage parlors where four Asian women were murdered in cold blood by yet another aggrieved, insecure and sick racist White male.

I had planned to start my re-read of Wolf Hall today. Instead, I'll start reading Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu, a satirical novel of Hollywood stereotypes of Asian Americans, and how that influences many Americans' view of members of the AAPI community, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020.

Hi Darryl - My heart goes out to you, your colleagues and the Asian immigrant community, not only in Atlanta, but everywhere in the U.S. Unfathomable.

The attacks on elderly Asians, especially in Southern California are very disturbing.

Interior Chinatown was the February PBS/NYT Now Read This Book Club read. I just received it from the library a few days ago and will finish it today as it's a very quick read and I want to return it quickly so the next in line can have it.

I stopped by your thread with the intention of mentioning it to you - and there it is, already on your radar.

I read Charles Yu's book How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe last summer and at the time couldn't figure out how or why the book got so many positive reviews when it was published. I can say that it has made me think so I am sure that this is one book that somehow I missed something important in it that would have helped me to understand it better. I do think that his work is meant to be symbolic and realistic. I picked up the book and read it because I thought it was a work of Science Fiction, but quickly figured out that it was not. I think that confusion carried over into my reading. I don't generally reread books and have no plans to reread this one either, but I am very aware that apparently I missed something in that book.

>88 kidzdoc:

Sad to say, there's been an increase in attacks on Asian people in Canada and Europe too, and while it's not just because of Trump, a person like him getting the platform of the POTUS and using it to the end to promote white supremacy really stoked the worst everywhere. And there's no end to it in sight.

>88 kidzdoc: So sorry to hear about the events in Atlanta, Darryl.

Yes, Darryl, the murders angered me too. Most of my coworkers are Asian, and it stuns me that anyone would single them out

>89 streamsong: Thanks, Janet. The AAPI community has been sounding the alarm over the marked increase in attacks against elderly Asian Americans throughout the country, and one of them, Dr Michelle Au, an anesthesiologist and Georgia state senator from suburban Atlanta, spoke publicly about her concerns to her fellow senators on Monday, the day before the massacre. Not many people were paying attention to this before, and it's depressing that it took a tragedy such as this to get the country's attention. President Biden and Vice President Harris came to Atlanta yesterday, in a planned visit to explain and gain public support for the pandemic recovery act that was signed into law last week, but they spent time speaking to Dr Au and other members of the Atlanta AAPI community to express their sympathy, show their concern, and speak out about the wave of anti-Asian hate and White supremacist attacks in this country.

I agree; the attacks on elderly Asians in the Bay Area is utterly despicable, especially the 84 year old Thai man who was assaulted by a 19 year old African American man in San Francisco and died of his injuries. Elderly Asians in the Bay Area have long been victimized by criminals of all races, but these attacks have worsened considerably in the past few years.

I look forward to your thoughts about Interior Chinatown. I've only read the first few pages of it, as I took a very long two part nap for most of this afternoon, after an especially long call (7 am to 10:30 pm) yesterday at the end of a busy week on service.

>90 benitastrnad: I don't know anything about that book, Benita.

>91 LolaWalser: I'm saddened, but not surprised, that anti-Asian attacks are on the rise in Canada and Europe, Lola. I completely agree that Trump is not solely to blame for this, but his words and actions undoubtedly added fuel to the fire of hatred against the AAPI community in this country.

>92 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian. Unfortunately I expect these attacks against racial and religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community to continue in the United States, as Trump has helped unleash a groundswell of White grievance and fury over the "stolen" presidential election in a large segment of the population. People of color and well meaning Whites are increasingly aware of the danger of the nationalist movement in this country, and I expect to see multiracial coalitions that will speak out and take action to overcome the evil that has infested this country. Fortunately there are more of us than there are of them, and as long as we stand together I believe that we can eventually overcome them, although there will undoubtedly be much more bloodshed and many lives lost before that happens.

These racist attacks, in Charleston, Pittsburgh, El Paso and now Atlanta, have only bolstered my desire to retire abroad, as I want to spend my remaining years free of the fear of being assaulted or killed solely because of my skin color.

>93 Nickelini: Many of my closest friends, classmates and work colleagues over the past 30 years are Asian American, most likely because of my past and current areas of study (engineering, biology, and medicine). I have two good friends from separate spheres who moved to the United States from Taiwan as young children and were educated in mostly White grade schools, one in suburban Philadelphia and the other in Southern California, who were subjected to vicious racism by their classmates which permanently scarred them, my very sensitive and incredibly sweet medical school classmate in particular. Why anyone would want to express hatred toward anyone like her is completely beyond my comprehension, especially as a fellow person of color.

I hope your birthday week is happiness-filled. I'm glad you get to visit your parents :)
I don't really have anything to add about the latest acts of murder, sadly in your neighbourhood, as you and your fellow posters here articulate the issues so clearly already.

>95 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan! This should be a very enjoyable week, and it's started off well, with a picture perfect and unusually warm day for late March, with a high temperature of at least 20 C (68 F). The weather is supposed to be good all week, I believe.

The area where the murders took place Intown isn't my neighborhood, but it's not far from it, a little over two miles north, in Piedmont Heights. Despite its appealing name, that neighborhood is most notable for several adult entertainment spots on Piedmont Road, where the two massage parlors that the gunman visited are located, and Cheshire Bridge Road, and Piedmont Heights is casually, and unfairly, known as Atlanta's 'red light district'.

Here are some photos from Midtown, the far more attractive neighborhood I live in, starting with a view from Lake Clara Meer in Piedmont Park, the largest one in the city, which is a short 1-1/2 blocks from me:



Woodruff Arts Center, which consists of the High Museum of Art, the city's main art museum, Symphony Hall, home of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Alliance Theatre, one of the city's larger theatre companies. It's also an easy walk from where I live:



Atlanta Botanical Garden, roughly a mile away:



And, Georgia Tech (the Georgia Institute of Technology), one of the world's most prestigious engineering and computer science universities, is in the southwestern corner of Midtown:



Midtown is within Georgia's 5th congressional district, which was served for decades by the late congressman and famed civil rights activist John Lewis, and it was characterized by our moronic former POTUS as "falling apart" and "crime infested".

>96 kidzdoc: Your photos make Atlanta look beautiful. I was there for a couple of days in 1995 as part of a Greyhound bus trip around the Eastern US. Sadly we were just too late for dogwood season.

I hope you have a good time with your parents and manage to kick as much butt as necessary to get them vaccinated.

>97 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! Atlanta is a beautiful city, especially when you get away from Five Points, its historical center. If you've ever seen the movie Driving Miss Daisy, with Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman and Dan Ackroyd, it was filmed in the Druid Hills neighborhood, close to Emory University's campus, where I completed my pediatric residency. The house that Miss Daisy lived in is on Lullwater Road, and I drove by it practically every day when I was on rotations at Egleston, Emory's children's hospital.



I forgot to mention the good news about my parents: my father received his first Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 vaccine last Tuesday, and my mother has an appointment to get her first jab tomorrow. Last week the Bucks County Department of Health opened a mega vaccination site at Neshaminy Mall, which is a mile north of the Philadelphia city line on Roosevelt Boulevard, five miles from my parents' house, and since then the vaccine rollout in the country has accelerated considerably.

ETA: I finished Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu yesterday afternoon, on the train ride from Philadelphia International Airport to the town my parents live in. I'll write a review of it later this afternoon.

>98 kidzdoc: Excellent news about your parents. Those mega-sites are the key to getting this done quickly. I drove down to Columbia for my first shot, they've turned the Gamecocks stadium parking lots into a massive drive-thru site and I was in and out in 35 minutes, including the 15 minutes wait at the end, where volunteers roamed around the cars and told us to honk if we felt anything.

Good to hear that your parents are getting vaccinated, Darryl! Such a relief. Even the first shot will give them some protection. My mother has received hers as well.

>96 kidzdoc: Good pictures of Atlanta!

>99 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay. Pennsylvania has done a horrible job with the vaccine rollout, much worse than Georgia has. Things were so bad here that two of my physician colleagues flew their elderly parents to Atlanta to get vaccinated there. Atlanta is now using Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and MSL's Atlanta United play, and for anyone who resides in Georgia and is eligible it's now very easy to get vaccinated.

>100 EllaTim: Thanks, Ella! Yes, it is a huge relief, especially since they should have received their first doses at least a month ago.

I'm glad that your mother received her vaccine jab.

Atlanta is a beautiful city, filled with nice neighborhoods, excellent universities and a well educated population, and it was both outrageous and ridiculous that Trump maligned the city because John Lewis was critical of his, um, "leadership". It's very different from the exurbs and rural areas, which are filled with marginally educated and extremely ignorant rednecks, who overwhelmingly voted for the Messiah (Trump).

Darryl, are you from Philadelphia?

Darryl--I am hopeless behind on LT, but catching up on your most recent posts. Hope you have a wonderful birthday week and enjoy time with your parents. Have fun in Atlanta and I am glad your parents are getting their vaccinations!

>98 kidzdoc: I'm so glad to hear that your parents are or soon will be vaccinated! That must be such a relief for you. I hope you have a terrific time with them now that this load is off your mind.

Catching up. Appreciate the COVID chat and enjoyed the Atlanta photos. Happy memories of my visits to Georgia (just not enough time in the city itself).

Happy birthday, Darryl! I'm glad to hear your parents got their first vaccinations, too.

Looking forward to your thoughts on Interior Chinatown.

HB HB Darryl! Hope you're having a wonderful day and are celebrating with your parents. Enjoy!

Happy birthday, Darryl!

Hey there! Happy birthday, my friend. While you're in Philadelpha, a) have a great time and b) do me a favor and wave hello in the direction of New Jersey for me. Cheers!

Happy birthday Darryl!

Oh thank goodness I remembered you're in this group...Happy Milestone Birthday, fellow old man!

>103 dianeham: Darryl, are you from Philadelphia?

Hi Diane, the short answer is "Yes." My parents, brother and I moved from Jersey City, NJ to Bucks County, PA, just north of Philadelphia, in 1974 after my father's department's base of operations moved from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the Naval Air Development Center the previous year; I was 13 at the time. They have lived there since then. I've also lived in New Orleans, Pittsburgh and now Atlanta since 1997. I suppose that I could say that I'm from Atlanta, as I've lived there more than anywhere else, but if anyone asks where I'm from I say "Philadelphia."

>104 Berly: Thanks, Kim! I arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, and I'll stay with my parents until Saturday afternoon. My 60th (gasp!) birthday was yesterday, but my best present came a day earlier, as I took my mother to get her first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (Pfizer) on Tuesday afternoon. My father received his first jab on Tuesday of last week, so they will both be nearly fully protected when I see them again in late April.

>105 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! I learned the good news on Friday from my brother and their neighbor, and needless to say I was happy and eager to take her to Neshaminy Mall, which is off of US Route 1 just north of its intersection with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a mile north of the Philadelphia city line, to get her first vaccine dose. It wasn't well organized, as there were well over 100 people in line and I and most others had to stand for 1.5 hours to reach the actual vaccination stations. Fortunately my father, who sat in the mall's food court, found a wheelchair for my mother, so she didn't have to stand at all, but there were dozens of elderly people who did have to stand the entire time.

My father will receive his second jab on April 6, and my mother will get hers on April 13, and since the data suggests that full protection is achieved two weeks after the second dose they still need to remain cautious for the next five weeks.

I had hoped to return to Portugal in June, but it remains closed to American tourists, and now that Europe appears to be heading into a third wave of the pandemic I'm not optimistic that I'll be able to go that month.

>106 AlisonY: You're welcome, Alison. What cities did you visit in Georgia? Savannah, perhaps?

>107 bell7: Thanks, Mary! If I get the chance I'll review Interior Chinatown in the next day or two; if not I'll do so on Sunday, after I return to Atlanta.

>108 vivians: Thanks, Vivian! Hopefully we can meet up in NYC later this spring or in the summer, after we're all vaccinated.

>109 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley!

>110 rocketjk: Thanks, Jerry! I shall wave fondly to New Jersey on the train ride back to Philadelphia International Airport on Saturday.

>111 elkiedee: Thanks, Luci!

>112 richardderus: Thanks, Old Richard!

My brother surprised me by giving me three books from my Amazon wishlist for my birthday:

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum: "From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else."

Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein: "America’s political system isn’t broken. The truth is scarier: It’s working exactly as designed. In this book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us — and how we are polarizing it — with disastrous results."

The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D. and Zoë François: "Hertzberg and François return to five-minute-a-day bread making with new additions, including more than 30 new recipes and a gluten-free chapter. For those unfamiliar with the first edition, think artisan loaves made with high-moisture dough, sans proofing and kneading. Dough is made ahead of time (about a 15-minute commitment) and stored in the refrigerator until ready for use. Step-by-step photos guide readers through the process. Chapters including Ingredients, Equipment, Tips and Techniques prep home bakers before getting to the Master Recipe. Straightforward instructions with numbered steps guide readers through flatbreads, pita, bagels, brioche, and a variety of loaves. Additional, nonbread recipes such as gazpacho, chilled yogurt soup, and spicy kebabs lend meal ideas to be paired with baked goods. A fun, easy-to-follow collection for those who aren’t afraid to shun baking traditions." I purchased a bread maker last year, and had every intention of making a sourdough starter and expanding my bread making skills, but my interest in cooking, reading and other pleasurable skills fell off last year, which has continued into this year. Hopefully this book will inspire me to bake more bread.

Belated Happy Birthday Darryl.

Great news your parents have their Jabs.

Nice gifts from your bro. I have the first on my tbr mountain.

Congrats on your parents getting their jabs. Here in Ontario (and Quebec), they are waiting as long as 4 months between jabs, which, to my mind, is not a good idea. I won't even be eligible to make an appointment before June 1, to get my first. It's a mess. And could be worse if, as we heard on the news yesterday, Europe is going to withhold sending more vaccines overseas. My mother got her first one last month, at least that!

Nice birthday haul!

>117 jessibud2: I hear ya! I'm in Ontario as well and my parents were finally able to get themselves on a waiting list (they are in their 70's). No idea when I will be able to join a list. I'm in good health and work from home, so I'm fine waiting, but it would be nice to have an inkling of what the higher-ups are planning. The long wait in between makes me nervous as well.

That's great news about your parents getting vaccinated! Do you feel a great sense of relief? I felt a huge source of stress lift once my father got his.

Happy belated, Darryl, and congratulations on getting your parents vaccinated. That has to be a huge load off. I hope there's some celebration, for either reason or others, in your not-too-distant future.

>114 kidzdoc: Belated milestone birthday, Darryl!

On Georgia, I was briefly in Atlanta but most of my time was spent in Alpharetta. Although there's nothing particularly outstanding about it as a city, I was in my 20s and really enjoyed the independence of hanging out somewhere new and driving myself to the mall after work. And the people I worked with there were so lovely.

Happy Birthday Darryl! Ontario is indeed in a mess where it comes to roll out of vaccines. I found out that a hospital in Toronto has lowered the age for vaccines -only through friends. An area just north of me has also lowered the age limit. And theoretically pharmacies can give out vaccines (the AstraZeneca) to a lower age group- when they get the vaccine in stock.

Happy belated birthday! I am sorry to hear that you won't be able to travel to Portugal in June.

It's fantastic that your parent's have gotten scheduled for their first vaccine. It is frustrating to see how some places are so much better organized than others; I am sorry that the Philadelphia location required seniors to stand in line so long. I have family friends in MN, over 65 (one 95 years old) that had to miss injections because the wait in line was too long. :( Meanwhile in NYC actually scheduling an appointment seems to be some sort of blood sport.

Anyways, I hope you are having a lovely time off and visit with your folks!

Happy birthday + 2! I just saw the scenes from Georgia state gov. with Kemp signing that obscene voter suppression bill, locked with six other white men, and the arrest of the state rep who knocked on the door... it still feels unbelievable what is happening in the US in plain sight. Is there any hope the bill can be defeated?

So sorry! double post!

(ETA: haha, just noticed--we're zodiac buddies!)

>113 kidzdoc: Great news about your parents being vaccinated, Darryl. We have all had our first doses now, including Jacob, as he is on the list for having a pre-existing condition. Actually, his consultant doesn’t seem very sure that he does have a pre-existing condition any more, but it seemed sensible for him to go and have the vaccine if there was any doubt. Both Jacob and Alan were quite poorly with side effects, but are now recovered. The vaccination centres here that I have experience of are pretty well organised, and seem to be overrun with volunteers organising things. I took Jacob for his jab on Wednesday, his appointment was 2.15pm, and we were back home by 2.25pm.

My mother also had her second jab at the beginning of last week, and I am hopeful that we will be able to visit her in April.

Sounds like a good birthday. I too am from Philly. Raised in SW area and moved out when I was 19 and lived in Germantown. I worked in an oil refinery in South Philly for 10 years. I quit in 1985 and moved to nyc. I went to nyu full time when I was 35. I now live at the seashore in Cape May County, NJ. Got my bachelors at 38 and masters in library science 8 years after that.

Glad your folks got their vaccines. I’ve had both and my hubby gets his second next week.

My 71st birthday is next month.

Belated happy birthday, Darryl!

Glad to read about your parents first vaccination, such a relieve!

Happy Belated Birthday, Darryl!

I'm also glad to hear that your parents are getting their vaccinations.

I think vaccines are becoming quite easy to get in my Montana county. They are opening vaccinations to everyone sixteen and over on April first. The downside of course, is that the reason they are so readily available is that so many of the residents here don't want them. :( Grrrrr (Need I say that Montana is one of the states with increasing cases?)

I'm past the two week mark from my second vaccination and toured two gyms this week with the goal of ending PT and transitioning to a gym. Not a mask in sight. Double grrrr. The one gym has a small lap pool with only three lanes - that is probably where I will go since I can work on knee strength with very few other people in the room.

a belated Happy Birthday Darryl, a good week to have a birthday :)

>114 kidzdoc: A NYC meet-up is a wonderful prospect! It's such a relief to even start thinking of socializing again.

Hi Darryl! Just finished Night Waking by Sarah Moss. Have you read that one? We’ve just had our RL book club discussion on this, one of the best discussions ever in fact, and the words ‘work of genius’ was used by one participant who doesn’t say that lightly. I’m not quite sure I’d go that far, but the more we talked about the book, the more we found to talk about, which is always a good sign. A long hard (and somewhat uncomfortable at times) look at motherhood and the choices women make.

Woo! In half an hour my long call will be over, as will another busy work week on hospital service. I probably won't reply to all the messages before 8 pm, but I'll catch up later tonight or tomorrow if I don't.

>116 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I'm quite relieved that my parents have had their first vaccinations, and are considerably more protected from SARS-CoV-2 than they were at this time last month.

I look forward to your thoughts about Twilight of Democracy when you get to it. I'm hopeful that my reading will pick up significantly this month, after a slow start to 2021.

>117 jessibud2:, >118 Yells: Yikes. The vaccine rollout in Canada sounds considerably worse than it is here, especially the four month wait between doses. Hopefully the impending approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine will boost the amount of vaccine available for all citizens of the world, and make it easier for Canadians to get vaccinated.

>119 RidgewayGirl: I do feel a great sense of relief now that my parents are vaccinated, Kay. There was a recent study (I can't remember exactly where on the top of my head) which demonstrated that recipients of one of the two mRNA vaccines had 80% protection from developing COVID-19 two weeks after the first shot, which increased to 90% after the second shot. My father is at that level now (he'll get his second shot next Tuesday), and my mother will be next Tuesday.

>120 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. I'll see my parents again in about three weeks, and probably again for a couple of weeks in June, as it seems unlikely that I'll be able to go to Portugal then. Once they and my close childhood friends are vaccinated we'll have a big get together, either in May or June.

Hi, Darryl, and a Happy belated Birthday. I'm catching up, after taking a week to be with a family new mother who had a c/s and needed some help, and then a few days spent in the catch-up.

As you know, the baby did poorly at first, but is gaining weight now, so I feel so much better. Also, I'm home, which is never bad.

My beloved husband and I, who just celebrated our 47th wedding anniversary last week, got our second vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine on April 1. I feel so much better about life, with most of my siblings now vaccinated. I have seven, and the youngest few are too young still. I won't be comfortable until my children are vaccinated, and my nephews and nieces, too. Most of them are in the 28-40 year-old age group. The two of us have had no side effects so far, but that's one thing I don't know--just how long it takes for them to show up. I'll have to look that up when I finish here.

I was so sorry to hear of the hate crimes in your area. Your colleagues at risk are in my thoughts, just as my many similar prior colleagues are. St Louis itself is a place with notable prior and current strife between races, of course, and Missouri is Trump country outside St Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, Missouri, the places with the largest universities and largest cities.

I'm glad you got to visit your parents, and for their "jabs", too. Enjoy your books--I know you will.

Hmm. So much for catching up last weekend...

After the busiest work week I've had since the end of 2019 the worst is now behind me, after "working" five weeks in a row (the week I spent with my elderly parents, who need a lot of help, was anything but relaxing, so I'm counting it as a work week). I only have two backup shifts and four night shifts over the next 4-1/2 weeks, so I'll have time to resume reading and cooking for pleasure, and re-energizing my spent batteries. A recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 62% of health care workers in the US have had a negative impact on their mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic; my only surprise is that this percentage isn't higher. I and many of my colleagues have lost some degree of interest in our usual pleasurable activities, including reading, cooking, traveling, getting together with friends, attending concerts, plays, sporting events, etc., and it feels like all we do is work and sleep, especially during busy work weeks like the past several have been. My closest colleagues are becoming increasingly cognizant of this, and now that we and many of our families are all fully vaccinated we are eager to return to our normal lives, while still following recommended public health measures.

Although I'm still enjoying Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden I've read less than 20 pages in it in the past two weeks. Today will be a very rainy day in the Deep South, and now that I ran several errands between 7-9 am I can hunker down and hopefully finish it by tomorrow. I plan to start my much delayed reading of the first two books of Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy next week, starting with Wolf Hall, followed by Bring Up the Bodies in May, and since I'm off for the month of June I'll have plenty of time to read The Mirror & the Light.

The longlist for this year's International Booker Prize was announced last week:

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Lolli Editions
I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale
An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, translated from German by Jackie Smith
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili, translated from Georgian by Elizabeth Heighway
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, translated from Gikuyu by the author
Summer Brother by Jaap Robben, translated from Dutch by David Doherty
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West
Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley

I purchased Kindle editions of In Memory of Memory, The Pear Field and Wretchedness last week, so I'll get started on those books soon. I only managed to read eight books in the first quarter of 2021, so I should be much more productive this quarter, at least.

>121 AlisonY: Belated thanks, Alison! Even though it isn't far from me I've only been to Alpharetta once, shortly after I moved to Atlanta from Alpharetta in 1997. Several of my closest physician friends live there, though, and since there is an Indian restaurant there that serves dosas a trip there this spring is a near certainty.

>122 torontoc: Thanks, Cyrel! I'm sorry that the vaccine rollout in Canada has been so disappointing; I presume that's because no Canadian companies are making the vaccine, unlike here, and that the government has had to rely on foreign manufacturers for its supply. The recent problems with the Johnson & Johnson and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines are not helping matters, I'm sure. I hope that you're able to get vaccinated soon.

>123 ELiz_M: Thanks, Liz! I assume that I won't be able to visit Lisbon in June, as American tourists are still banned from entering Portugal, regardless of their vaccination status. (It doesn't help that forged vaccination cards are now available for purchase online.) It's certainly possible that the country in general, and the European Union in particular, could open up by June, but I think it's highly unlikely at this point. I hope that I can go there in late summer or early autumn, though.

I'm hopeful that soon there will be a way to have your vaccination status officially documented, and perhaps encoded in our passports, and that SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing on arrival will no longer be necessary, since studies suggest that vaccine recipients are highly unlikely to transmit the virus to others if they are exposed to it. That probably won't happen until much later this year or in 2022, though.

My father received his second (Pfizer) vaccine this past Tuesday, and my mother will get her second jab this coming Tuesday. Meanwhile here in Georgia everyone 16 years of age and older can get vaccinated, and Atlantans are easily able to get the vaccine, especially since Mercedes-Benz Stadium is now serving as a mega vaccination site, which is easily accessible by public transit (at least two Downtown metro stations are within walking distance to it). I'm sorry to hear that Minnesotans are having difficulty getting vaccinated, but hopefully that will change soon.

NYC sounds horrible. I'm very surprised that Georgia is considered one of the worst states to get vaccinated in, given the problems in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and the ease in which Atlantans, at least, can receive their jabs. It could be that the rest of the state is in much worse shape.

>124 LolaWalser: Thanks, Lola! The new Georgia voter suppression law, aka 'Jim Crow 2.0' (I also call it the 'If You Can't Beat 'Em, Cheat 'Em Law'), is absolutely despicable, and it's nothing more than a naked power grab by Republicans in the Georgia House and Senate and the governor to hold onto power as long as they can, and an attempt for Brian Kemp to gain the support of White supremacist Trump diehards who continue to believe the Big Lie that the 2020 elections were stolen. There have been at least eight lawsuits filed against Jim Crow 2.0, and you may have heard that the commissioner of Major League Baseball recently decided to move this year's All Star Game from Atlanta to Denver, which will mean the loss of millions of dollars of revenue to the state. The governor and state Republican leaders are currently meeting to discuss the fallout from the withdrawal of the All Star Game, and the increasing criticisms from the business community to this law, as these radical Republicans are now facing an increasing local and national backlash for their foolhardy and overtly racist decision, which could do serious damage to the city's and state's financial status and national and international reputation.

>125 LolaWalser: Aries people are the best.

>135 kidzdoc: Sorry to hear you had your busiest (I nearly wrote "worst"!) week in quite a while. Medical staff are being run to the ground all over the world...

The International Booker longlist looks interesting and varied. The only book on it I have read so far is At Night All Blood is Black (Frère d'âme), which I can definitely recommend! (Here's my 2019 post about it)

>126 SandDune: I'm glad that you, Alan and Jacob — and especially your mother — have all had at least your first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine doses, Rhian. Which vaccine(s) did y'all receive? Did Alan and Jacob have reactions after their first jabs, or the second ones? I did absolutely fine with the first (Pfizer-BioNTech) one, but roughly 16 hours after the second one I had the same symptoms that most of my colleagues had: low grade fever, chills, swelling and tenderness at the vaccination site (left deltoid muscle), malaise and fatigue, nausea and poor appetite, which were nearly gone 12 hours later and resolved completely by the following morning. These symptoms were so common, per reports from the other members of the Atlanta Pediatricians Facebook group and my physician friends from work, medical school and residency, that the only people who expressed concern were those who did not have any symptoms after the booster dose, as they were worried that their immune systems did not mount an appropriate response and that they weren't adequately protected. Most of us were pleased and relieved to feel ill after the second vaccination, as strange as that may sound.

As far as I know none of my vaccinated nurse and physician friends and colleagues have had COVID-19, even though we all continue to see patients with it on a regular basis, including one toddler I saw the past three days.

>127 dianeham: Very nice, Diane; thanks for sharing your background with me. I haven't yet been to Cape May County, but I've heard great things about it, and it sounds like a fabulous place to retire to. I'm glad that you and your husband will soon be completely vaccinated. New Jersey seems to have done a vastly better job at vaccinating its citizens than Pennsylvania has, as my young brother received both doses weeks before my parents did, even though he doesn't fall into any of the high risk categories.

>128 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! How is the vaccine rollout going in the Netherlands? Give my best wishes to Frank, and I hope to see the two of you later this year, or in 2022.

>129 streamsong: Thanks, Janet! It's sad that there continues to be a significant amount of vaccine hesitancy in this country. Two recent analyses suggest that Republican voters, particularly women, are refusing the vaccine for themselves or their children, although the silver lining is that they are willing to listen to their own physicians for advice about it.

>130 tonikat: Thanks, Toni!

>135 kidzdoc: So glad you're getting a break and are aware of the stress being put on you and your colleagues.

I've got An Inventory of Losses (I really liked her previous An Atlas of Remote Islands) and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (I like the translator's work a lot) and should read them soon. It looks like a good list.

I received my second dose of Pfizer on Thursday, spent yesterday leveled by the worst flu I've ever had - body aches, headache and fever - then woke up that night feeling fine. More importantly, my kids are immunized. My daughter got the J&J in NC last week and my teenage son got his first jab last Monday. He quizzed me about what to expect after and when I told him that, in general, younger people and women are experiencing more side effects, he sighed and said, "Oh, so vaccines are sexist, now."

Glad you're joining us for the Cromwell trilogy. I've found the reread very rewarding.

Pattie and I have our hotel reservation in Decatur and are busy speculating on who will be appearing at the book festival. Thomas Mullen has a new book out soon, so I'm reasonably certain he'll be speaking.

>136 kidzdoc:

Yes, I have been noting the backlash religiously--and baseball is not seen as a bastion of the left, is it?--but I still worry what might happen in the end... Can't discuss it without veering fast into unprintability, though, just the fact that Kemp's rating shot up among the Rs... um, something something something-uckers.

Aries people are the best.

It's a burden, this excellence--happily we have the constitution to support it. :)

I got my vaccine two weeks ago and most of my friends are vaccinated with the first dose. The vaccine roll out is starting to pick up with a push to get vaccines to people 18 years and up in the " hot spots" for Covid in Ontario. We are also in a serious lockdown for the next month as the hospitals deal with too many Covid cases.
but I did buy a lot of interesting books yesterday1 ( Ordered by phone and did a pick up by the bookstore door- I do miss browsing!

>131 vivians: Right, Vivian! I'm not sure, but our meetup (with Liz and Katie) in the summer of 2018 may be the last time I was in the city:



Hopefully we can do this again later this year, and include other LTers as well.

>132 SandDune: I haven't read and don't yet own Night Waking, Rhian. Based on your comments, and my love for Sarah Moss's work, I'll have to get to it.

>134 sallypursell: Thanks, Sally. I'm glad that the baby continues to gain weight well. On the surface it would seem like a simple enough thing, but hospital admissions for failure to thrive on our service are very common, and yesterday I saw three young babies with that problem, each for a different reason.

Congratulations on your impressive wedding anniversary, and the receipt of your second SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. I hope that your children, nieces and nephews will receive theirs soon. Now that both of my parents will be vaccinated by this coming Tuesday I can breathe a sigh of relief, although my mother's worsening dementia and my father's continued cognitive and physical decline are still very worrisome, as they will likely need to move out of their home for the past 45 years and into an assisted living facility relatively soon.

The two of us have had no side effects so far, but that's one thing I don't know--just how long it takes for them to show up. I'll have to look that up when I finish here.

You've probably found this out by now, but several dozen of my friends and I did report on our symptoms after the booster dose in January and February, and most of us began to feel ill roughly 16-20 hours afterward, were significantly better 8-12 hours later, and were back to normal by 24 hours after our symptoms began. Some were sicker for longer, others didn't develop symptoms at all. I've heard that people who had COVID-19 were quite ill after they received the first vaccination, but IIRC none of my physician colleagues, friends or medical school or residency classmates that I've heard from were infected with SARS-CoV-2 last year.

The shootings in Atlanta will stay in the minds of many of us who live and work Intown. I drive on Piedmont Road in Piedmont Heights where four people were murdered in two of the massage parlors almost every day, including this morning when I went to Publix Supermarket and Buckhead Bread Company, and both businesses continue to be decorated with dozens of bouquets of flowers, although the mourners are no longer present. That street is one of Atlanta's busiest north-south local roads, with two to four lanes in either direction stretching from Downtown through Midtown to Buckhead, and although hardly anyone knew about the massage parlors many thousands of Atlantans pass by them regularly. It doesn't seem that either parlor has been open whenever I've passed by since the shootings took place, and I wouldn't be surprised if the owners decide to go out of business or move their operations elsewhere.

>137 Dilara86: This was one of the worst work weeks of the past 12 months, along with one of the busiest.

One of my closest LT friends is a nurse, and she fell ill with a serious case of COVID-19 around this time last year. Unfortunately she is one of those who is still suffering with long term effects. Several of my medical school classmates are adult specialists who cared for dozens of patients who died from COVID-19, some of whom they have known for years, and they have undoubtedly experienced significant mental anguish as a result. What's extremely disturbing to all of us is the continued ignorance about the pandemic, particularly those people who refuse to believe that COVID-19 is real or as bad as it is, endorse bizarre conspiracy theories, won't wear masks or practice recommended public hygiene, and hold strong anti-vaccination beliefs. In the past two years I've seen far more unvaccinated kids than I ever have, as diehard anti-vaxxers were very uncommon in metro Atlanta, which is very discouraging. Fortunately I haven't had to care for a child with a serious vaccine preventable illness such as bacterial meningitis or measles in at least five years, but I fear that it's only a matter of time before that happens.

Wow. At Night All Blood Is Black sounds like a harrowing read. I'll definitely read it, although I'll wait until I'm in a better frame of mind to do so.

>139 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay. My partners and closest colleagues have been talking about our personal experiences more openly lately, and earlier this week I had a short but very therapeutic conversation with one of the nurse practitioners who is a fabulous cook, a food blogger, and an avid traveler (she is originally from Rio de Janeiro and gave me her recipes for feijoada and moqueca). We acknowledged that neither of us has posted hardly anything about our cooking or travel exploits on social media, and agreed that cooking, and especially trying new recipes, has become more of a chore than a pleasurable activity. These conversations, and especially more frequent ones with the nurses I know and love best, are very beneficial for me, and presumably them. Unfortunately, and without getting into much detail, there has been a shake up in the organization of the hospital I work in, and dozens of nurses have had to find new jobs, or chosen to do so, which has greatly affected morale and our mental well being. One of my favorite nurses will be starting a new position in the organization after next week, and since I probably won't see her next week she said goodbye to me yesterday, with several tear filled hugs. Fortunately we've agreed to stay in touch, and meet up for lunch once restaurants are back open.

I look forward to your thoughts about An Inventory of Losses and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. The only book I've read from the longlist is The Perfect Nine by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a short epic novel about the origin of the Gĩkũyũ people which I found to be a curious and disappointing selection. Ngũgĩ is one of my favorite authors, and this isn't a bad book at all, but it's easily my least favorite one by him, and I hope that people don't make this the first book they read by him, especially since his nonfiction work and previous novels, particularly Wizard of the Crow, A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood and The River Between, are so much better. Now that Amos Oz died before he could be recognized I am strongly in favor of Ngũgĩ being chosen as the next winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Javier Cercas would be a great choice, but Ngũgĩ is in his mid 80s and presumably won't be around for nearly as long as Cercas.

Ha! I know that we are in a polarized cultural climate, but this is the first time I've heard vaccines being described as "sexist". Hmm...I haven't noticed a clear age or gender predilection for post-vaccination symptoms, and two of my friends who were the most vocal in their worries about not having any symptoms were women in their mid to late 40s. I clearly felt under the weather the day after my second shot, but I would not have called out sick if I had to work that day, as I've felt far worse than that, although it was nice to be able to spend the day mostly in bed.

Great. I'm glad that you and Pattie are planning to attend this year's Decatur Book Festival. I'll ask my partner who makes our schedule to give me Labor Day weekend off, including the Friday beforehand. I'll touch base with two of my bibliophilic partners who live in Decatur to see if they are planning to attend. Sarah did go, although she spent her time in the children's section with her husband and two kids, but Laura, whose kids all recently graduated from college and are out of the house, would be much more likely to join us for author events and dining in restaurants. Another close friend of mine, a nurse practitioner who used to work on our inpatient Psychiatry service, has recently moved to East Lake, just west of Decatur, and since Erin is a book lover and a foodie she would be almost certainly be interested in joining us if she's free that weekend, possibly with her adult daughters and husband (who, BTW, is now the general manager and CEO of MARTA, Atlanta's public transit system).

>140 LolaWalser: You're right, Lola. Baseball is definitely not a bastion of the left, especially in comparison with the NBA, and the MLB commissioner's decision to move the All Star Game out of Atlanta was both surprising and brave. That may be the first volley in a barrage of decisions to move major events out of Atlanta, or for businesses to decide to not relocate here, and if that ends up being the case that may prove damaging, if not fatal, to Georgia Republicans in general, and Brian Kemp in particular. There was already a small split between well educated and well to do fiscal conservatives and the powerful business community in metro Atlanta, and the racist social conservatives from the rest of this backward state, the Marjorie Taylor Greene/Trump extremist wingnuts, and the decision to pass Jim Crow 2.0 will only widen that gap. Rednecks here may have the votes if suppression of Black and Brown voices is allowed to stand, but they certainly don't have the money to support Georgia's economy, especially if businesses and events decide to go elsewhere.

>141 torontoc: Congratulations on getting your first vaccination and your book haul, Cyrel! I'll visit your thread to see what goodies you bought.

Other than bookstores in the Atlanta and Philadelphia airports I doubt that I've been inside one since I was in London in September, 2019. Now that I'll probably be off all of next week I may visit some of my favorite local indie bookshops if they are open for in person shopping.

>138 kidzdoc: Vaccination is going slow here, Darryl.
My father is fully vaccinated, as he is 90, he got the Pfizer twice. Frank had an appointment last Tuesday, as he works in health care. He would get the AstraZeneca vaccin, but that one was withdrawn a week ago for people under 60, due to the very rare side-effects. Frank will be 60 in November, so his appointment was cancelled :-(

>135 kidzdoc: I have read two of the longlist. I would recommend At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop. I didn't like Summer Brother by Jaap Robben. I didn't like his previous book either, but he has a lot of fans, so others might like it better than I did.

>145 FAMeulstee: I'm glad that your father is now fully vaccinated, but sorry that Frank's appointment was cancelled. Hopefully both of you will get yours soon.

Now that you and Dilara have both recommended All Blood Is Black I'll definitely read it. Summer Brother sounds interesting to me, so I'm sorry that you didn't like it.
___________________________

Barring a last minute flurry of admissions from the Emergency Department I won't be needed as the backup hospitalist for my group today; there are currently 65 patients on our census, and 69 is the magic number when the backup person would be called in to see patients. I spent much more time sleeping than reading this weekend, but hopefully I can finish Epidemics and Society today.

I finally tried a new recipe yesterday morning for the first time in at least six months: Huevos a lo Pobre con Patatas, or Poor Man's Eggs with Potatoes, a simple Renaissance Era recipe originally created by Spanish peasants in the 16th century, using a recipe from the YouTube channel Spain on a Fork:



Ingredients:
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil 90 ml
3 medium sized potatoes
1 green bell pepper
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
5 cage-free organic eggs
handful freshly chopped parsley
sea salt & black pepper

Instructions:
1. Cut 3 potatoes (washed & patted dry) into small 1 cm (3/8 inch) thick pieces.
2. Heat a large fry pan with a medium heat and add in 1/3 cup (90 ml) extra virgin olive oil.
3. After heating the olive oil for 5 minutes, add the cut potatoes into the pan, mix every 3 to 4 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, cut 1 green bell pepper into thin strips that are 5 cm (2 inches) long, thinly slice 1 onion, thinly slice 4 cloves garlic and crack 5 eggs into a bowl, season with sea salt & black pepper and lightly whisk together for just 5 to 10 seconds.
5. After frying the potatoes for 25 minutes, they should be perfectly cooked, just pierce with a toothpick to ensure they are done, remove the potatoes from the pan and set aside.
6. Using the same pan with the same heat, add in the sliced green bell pepper, sliced onion and sliced garlic, mix with the olive oil.
7. After 6 to 8 minutes and the vegetables are lightly sauteed, lower the fire to a low-medium heat, add the fried potatoes back into the pan, season everything with sea salt & black pepper and mix together, then add in the whisked eggs and continue to mix everything together, cook for 3 to 4 minutes while mixing, then remove from the heat, transfer into a serving dish and sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley, serve at once, enjoy!
__________________________________

I used three Yukon Gold potatoes, five hen's eggs that one of my partners gave me from her farm in North Georgia, and a Vidalia sweet onion (which are readily available in Atlanta, as Vidalia is in South Georgia). This was an easy and very tasty dish, and I'll add this to my regular rotation of breakfast and brunch recipes.

Epidemics and Society sounds like busman's holiday reading for you, Darryl, but interesting potentially. Hope the sleeping did you some good.

>148 elkiedee: Hi, Luci! Yes, books about the history of medicine are amongst my favorites, and this one, written by a professor of the History of Medicine at Yale, is superb, with much greater depth about our greatest plagues and their impact on societies, and history. Unless it goes badly off the rails at the end it will earn 5 stars from me.

I am much more rested now than I was this weekend. During a typical five day work week I usually go to the supermarket, cook, do necessary housekeeping and laundry, but mostly catch up on sleep, which makes a two day weekend feel like one day. As long as I'm rested I'm normally quite productive on No Work Monday, my favorite day of the week, and, save for another backup shift tomorrow, I won't have to work until next Tuesday night.

>147 kidzdoc: Will be giving that a try Darryl.

Glad you caught up on sleep.

>140 LolaWalser: & >143 kidzdoc: Re Baseball and the All-Star Game, I agree that wholly that MLB is very much corporate America (not a bastion of the Left). However, I was not entirely surprised when they decided to move the game. They have been running frequent Black Lives Matter commercials including short testimonies by a variety of Black players for some time during MLB Network produced programming. To just go ahead and play the game in Atlanta would have rendered all that messaging hollow and I would guess have also infuriated the Black players (and probably many others). I could, for example, have imagined a boycott of the game by Black major leaguers. (It's an exhibition game and I don't think they're contractually obligated to play even if selected.) So maybe the MLB hierarchy felt that their hand had been forced, or maybe they sincerely wanted to take a righteous stand. I hope it was the latter, though I suspect it was a combination of both. While I'm sure there will be (or probably already is) talk among Republican baseball fans of forsaking the game now, I think in the long run that baseball fans are going to stay baseball fans.

I'm not implying that I don't give them full credit for the decision, though. In the end what matters is what you do, and they did the right thing.

Woo! I was all but certain that I would be called in to work today, as we usually have a large number of hospital admissions on Mondays. Fortunately for me my partners that rounded yesterday discharged a massive number of inpatients, in the 20 to 25+ range, so the influx of patients last night was more than offset by the kids who went home during the day. So, I'm now off for the next seven days, and will have time to read, cook and relax.

>150 Caroline_McElwee: The Huevos a lo Pobre con Patatas is a great recipe, Caroline, and there are dozens of others on the Spain on a Fork web site, which are all free for viewing. I'll try many more of them in the coming months.

>151 rocketjk: Good points, Jerry. I think of Major League Baseball as being far behind both the National Basketball Association and the Women's National Basketball Association, and on par with the National Football League in its social consciousness, and so the relocation of the MLB All Star Game is, to me, considerably more surprising than the removal of the NBA or WNBA All Star Games. I tip my (Phillies) cap to Rob Manfred, the current commissioner of Major League Baseball, for his bold move.

I suspect that Governor Kemp and other Georgia Republicans who voted for Jim Crow 2.0 will find themselves in increasingly hot water with the business community and local residents who will be hurt by the loss of income due to the relocation of similar events or other money generating ventures. They are already feeling the heat from folks in Cobb Country, where the Atlanta Braves' new stadium was built after the organization decided to leave the city of Atlanta. Taxpayers there were fleeced by the referendum that made them pay for much of the construction of the ballpark and surrounding attractions, and the loss of millions of dollars of revenue from the All Star Game and associated festivities won't sit well with many who live there, especially since it is one of the suburban counties that has gone from solid Republican when I first moved here to slightly Democratic.

I'll head back to the kitchen, to make crawfish étouffée, then resume reading Epidemics and Society, which I didn't finish yesterday but hope to today.

>152 kidzdoc:"I suspect that Governor Kemp and other Georgia Republicans who voted for Jim Crow 2.0 will find themselves in increasingly hot water with the business community and local residents who will be hurt by the loss of income due to the relocation of similar events or other money generating ventures."

Yes, I think this is finally a bridge too far for them. Jim Crow 2.0 laws are just too brazen, too much in absolute plain sight even for corporate America to ignore. I just googled to find Mitch McConnell's ridiculous warning to corporations to "stay out of politics" (I can barely imagine the nerve of that guy!) and found this Vanity Fair article:

Looks Like Corporate America Is Ignoring Mitch McConnell’s Warning to Stay Out of Politics
"More than 100 corporate leaders and executives convened online Saturday to discuss how to organize against restrictive voting bills moving through state legislatures across the country, GOP-sponsored legislation attempting to significantly limit access to the ballot in the wake of President Joe Biden’s victory. The Zoom call reportedly included senior leaders from Delta, United, Starbucks, LinkedIn, Target, and Levi Strauss, with some executives dialing in from Georgia’s Augusta National Golf Club as the Masters tournament was underway. The meeting, which was at times led by Merck chief executive Kenneth Frazier and former American Express chief executive Kenneth Chenault, sought “to unify companies that had been issuing their own statements and signing on to drafted statements from different organizations after the action in Georgia,” according to the Washington Post, referring to sweeping changes to Peach State election laws rammed through by Governor Brian Kemp."
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/looks-like-corporate-america-is-ignoring...

On the food front, my wife and I traveled to Argentina and Chile in late 2019. We found a very common dish there called "a lo pobre" which basically meant, "with an egg on top." So you could get steak, chicken or fish, just about anything it seemed, with a soft boiled egg on top of it. I'm sure there were other flavorings included. It was always delicious.

I just got a recipe from America's Test Kitchen that is a Spanish dish. It sounded so interesting I printed it out and plan on making it sometime soon. It is Espinacas con Garbanzos (Andalusian Spinach and Chickpeas). There was a very interesting story that accompanied the recipe about the fusion of Moroccan and Spanish food during the Moorish occupation of Spain from 700 to 1500. The article also explored the meaning of different kinds of tapas dishes and the proper way to eat them. The recipe sounds delicious.

the recipe you shared also sounds delicious and would make a great quick supper. This last weekend I watched an old Jacques Pepin cooking show in which he said that American's think eggs are only for breakfast, when the French eat them often for light meals at all times of the day.

>147 kidzdoc: This recipe looks delicious, I will give it a try soon as I have potatoes and eggs that need to be used. It seems to have a lot in common with Tortilla espagnol but looks simpler to make.

I'm glad work has eased off a little lately and I hope you get time to relax, read and recuperate.

My mum had her second Pfizer vaccination on Sunday and reported no side effects. Karen has her second AZ later this month. I have now been able to book my own shots, with the first one being this Saturday.

>138 kidzdoc: I had the Pfizer vaccine Darryl (with no side effects) and Mr SandDune and Jacob had the AstraZeneca one (with quite bad flu-type side effects for a couple of days). At the moment vaccines are being given 12 weeks apart, so none of us have had our second vaccine yet although mine is booked in for next week.

The vaccination programme is the one thing that the government have done right in the pandemic in my opinion, and probably only because they seemed to have let the NHS get on with it rather than interfering and putting one of their cronies in charge. At the moment vaccines are being offered to everyone 45 or over or with an underlying health condition or other eligibility such as health care workers, and you are contacted as soon as you are eligible with the online link to book your appointment which works very well. And our appointments have been very local.

My husband and I got our second dose on April 1, and each of us was side-effect free. I really wanted to feel crummy so I knew it was working!

After another long dry spell my reading output — and my ability to concentrate on reading for pleasure — finally picked up this weekend. After spending more than a month on it I finally finished Epidemics and Society by Frank M. Snowden, which was absolutely superb, and it will end up being one of my favorite books of the year. It was written after the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, but before the COVID-19 pandemic, although the latest edition starts with a very short preface about it. I'll write a more detailed review of it next week, but his insight into historically significant epidemics (plague, smallpox, yellow fever, dysentery, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, SARS-CoV-1 and Ebola virus) and their impacts on affected societies and the practice of medicine and public health was unique and interesting, as was his discussion about the factors that led to the decreased funding of public health infrastructure in many countries and international organizations, and how that played a direct role in 21st century epidemics. After reading the last chapter about SARS-CoV-1 and Ebola virus and his warnings about the regression of public health infrastructure and the likelihood of future epidemics, especially ones caused by zoonotic infections, it seems that COVID-19 was inevitable.

Reading it spurred my interest for a deeper look into Ebola virus, so I ordered the latest book by Dr Paul Farmer, Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: The Ravages of History, and I'll want to read more public health and health policy articles and books in the coming months.

I also read a short book about the child immigration crisis at the United States Southern border, Shelter: Notes from a Detained Migrant Children's Facility by Arturo Hernandez-Sametier, a former caseworker who worked with these children and wrote lightly fictionalized accounts of several of them, which was very good and insightful.

Today I'll finish The Pear Field by Nina Ekvtimishvili, a novel longlisted for this year's International Booker Prize about a "school" for intellectually disabled children located at the end of a crumbling street in a town just outside of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in the bad old days of the 1990s, which is based in part on the author's personal experiences with a similar school at that time period, which is very good so far. I've also started reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, and later today I'll start reading Eternity: Selected Poems by Tracy K. Smith, the most recent former poet laureate of the United States.

>158 kidzdoc: Even if you are not reading as much as usual, it sounds like you've covered some interesting and varied ground, Darryl. I've been following your comments on Epidemics and Society and am tempted to add it to my wish list, but am a bit daunted by its size. I liked The Great Influenza a lot, but it seems like it may have been written in a more narrative style than Snowden's book.

I enjoyed reading about Paul Farmer in Mountains beyond Mountains and was fortunate to have had the opportunity to hear him and Ophelia Dahl speak. I have not read any of his books though. Another person I admire is Bill Foege. He was an advisor at the Gates Foundation when I worked there. Do you know if a biography has been written of him? I haven't seen one, but I bet it would be a good read.

Both Shelter and The Pear Field sound like difficult but important reads and look forward to your reviews.

*or so we thought

>158 kidzdoc:
I'm looking forward to your thoughts on The Pear Field as I bought it the week before it was nominated for the Booker International. Not sure when I'll get to it, but I hope in 2021

>158 kidzdoc: Darryl, would you recommend the book for a none medically trained reader? Also, I would recommend Demon in the Freezer if you have not read it for its discussion of smallpox and its eradication. I think you would enjoy it.

Darryl, have you read any especially good books about Polio and the Bubonic/Pneumonic Plagues? I love reading about epidemiology and plagues. If I had been able to I would have gone on to a Master's Degree in Public Health, with a concentration in Epidemiology. I'm also interested in the other big ones--Tuberculosis especially, not to mention smallpox, Pertussis, and Diphtheria. So much work needs to be done. I do have the hardest time with the anti-vaxxers, and I remember the book you read about talking to them.

edit: How could I have forgotten Measles? There are lots of interesting other ones, too, like Yellow Fever.

>153 rocketjk: Yes, I think this is finally a bridge too far for them. Jim Crow 2.0 laws are just too brazen, too much in absolute plain sight even for corporate America to ignore.

There is a war for control of the Republican Party, and at the moment Georgia appears to be Ground Zero. Governor Brian Kemp is under attack from several sides, most notably the Donald Trump/Marjorie Taylor Greene extreme wing of the party, who are becoming more vocal in their belief in the Big Lie, that Trump did not win the election, both nationally and in Georgia, and, to a lesser extent, that the state's two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, lost their runoff elections in January, which cost the Republican Party control of the US Senate. Last week at least 10 local GOP committees voted to censure Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for not supporting Trump in overturning the Georgia presidential election result, and in their (correct) statements that the election was fair and free of any significant fraud. Kemp's decision to sign the voter suppression act is fitting with his past actions as Georgia Secretary of State to remove hundreds of thousands of Georgians from the register of eligible voters, the vast majority of whom were African American, for very controversial and borderline illegal reasons, which paved the way for him to narrowly win election in the 2018 gubernatorial election over Stacey Abrams, the former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives. The "reforms" in the voter suppression act mainly overturn the reforms in the voting process that were instituted in 2005 — by Republicans. Now that they have seen that these reforms, combined with Stacey Abrams' efforts, benefitted all Georgians, including people of color who overwhelmingly voted against Republicans up the line, they aim to make it more difficult for us to vote. Democrats, independent and moderate/fiscal Republicans are strongly opposed to this legislation, along with the business community as you mentioned (large companies in Atlanta and its immediate suburbs, not the much more modest operations in small town and rural Georgia). Several prominent Republicans who support Trump and the Big Lie have announced plans to run against Kemp in the 2022 gubernatorial race, and it is expected that Stacey Abrams will run against as the Democratic candidate.

This looks to be a repeat of the failed strategy by former US Senator Kelly Loeffler, who moved to the extreme right to fend off several Republican challengers in the primary election, embracing Marjorie Taylor Greene and a former KKK leader. That proved to be a successful move on that level, but it cost her dearly in the runoff election against Raphael Warnock, as she lost support from moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and independents, many of whom voted for Warnock, or didn't vote in that particular election; tens of thousands of Georgia Republicans voted for David Perdue, but not her. Whoever wins the Republican nomination for governor in Georgia will likely be a Trump supporting extremist, who stands a good chance to lose in the general election.

That South American dish sounds delightful. It's been a long time since I dined in an Argentinian restaurant, and I don't think I've had Chilean food, but I adore Peruvian cuisine. I need to find an authentic restaurante peruano in the Atlanta or Philadelphia areas, as I haven't had Peruvian food since I last visited London in September 2019.

>154 benitastrnad: Espinacas con garbanzos is a very common side dish in the south of Spain, and Bianca and I enjoyed it frequently during the week that we spent in Andalucía (Sevilla, Arcos de la Frontera, Ronda and Granada). I do have a recipe for it, probably from Spain on a Fork, and I should try it soon, as I love spinach and chickpeas and need to incorporate more dark leafy greens into my diet.

The Moorish influence on Spanish history and culture, including food, music, art and architecuture is very significant, and in evidence throughout much of the country, especially in Andalucía. The word mudéjar refers to the architecture seen in that region of Spain, with influences from the moriscos, judeos and cristianos, who existed side by side and mostly peacefully during much of the period of Islamic rule in Spain, which ran from 718 to 1491, when Granada finally fell to the Christians. Many of the older cathedrals in Andalucía are converted mosques, particularly the Catedral de Sevilla, which was originally constructed in the 12th century as an Almohad mosque, and its bell tower, Giralda, which was a minaret.The nearby Real Alcázar de Sevilla, one of the royal palaces of the King of Spain, was originally built in the 10th century for the first caliph of al-Andalus. Both are great examples of mudéjar art and architecture.

Sevilla is my second favorite major city in Spain, following closely behind Barcelona, and I hope to return there soon.

>155 Sakerfalcon: You're right, Claire. A traditional tortilla española only contains eggs (huevos) and potatoes (patatas), but I always make mine with onions (cebollas). Huevos a lo Pobre con Patatas also contains a bell pepper and garlic, and it's easier to make than a tortilla, especially when it comes to flipping the tortilla, which takes practice.

I'm very glad to see that your mother, Karen and you are all vaccinated! How did you feel yesterday?

Georgia is now offering approved SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to everyone 16 years of age and older, without an appointment.

>163 kidzdoc: My wife and I spent a very happy week in Sevilla, and then another week driving around the area, including visits to Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera, finally spending several days in a small town called El Bosque. I have very clear memories of the architecture you've described here, including that amazing, converted, cathedral.

>156 SandDune: I can understand the logic of the 12 week waiting period between vaccines in the UK, with the goal being to get as many single doses into as many people as possible. I haven't seen any data about the efficacy of waiting that long between the first and second doses, though. The CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recently stated that, although the recommended interval between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 21 days, the available data indicate that the second jab can be given as long as 42 days out. Have you seen any data there to support the 12 week waiting period?

As I mentioned just above, Georgia and many other states are now making vaccines available to anyone 16 years of age and older. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is approved for everyone in that age group, but the Moderna vaccine is currently limited to those 18 yo and older.

>157 sallypursell: IIRC, older adults have been less likely to experience side effects from the mRNA vaccines. My mother received her second Pfizer-BioNTech jab last week, and my father two weeks ago, and neither of them had the side effects that I did. For that matter I don't think my (younger) brother had significant side effects, although he is far more concerned about this than they are.

>159 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. I have been pleased with nearly all of the books I've read so far this year, despite my disappointing output so far. I still maintain the mindset of the 75 Books group, and I would like to hit that total, at least, by year's end. If I can average 7-8 books over the remaining nine months of the year I'll reach that goal.

Epidemics and Society originated from a lecture course at Yale, and although it was dense and long (just over 500 pages of text), I found it to be very readable, and enjoyable. It took me over a month to read it, but it was not a slog to get through, and my interest in the book prevailed, and increased, up to the last page. Although it is written for the non-clinician it is considerably denser than recent works about medicine and public health written by journalists and non-academicians, but in no way took away from my enjoyment of it. I thought briefly about dropping my rating of it to 4-1/2 stars, for minor reasons, but the last chapter was absolutely superb and ensured that I would give it a full 5 stars.

Thanks for the reminder about Dr Foege! I saw him speak at the 2018 Decatur Book Festival; did you see him there as well? (You were there with Kay, Pattie and I that year, IIRC.) He spoke about two of his books, The Fears of the Rich, The Needs of the Poor: My Years at the CDC, and The Task Force for Child Survival: Secrets of Successful Coalitions, both of which were published that year. I tried to buy them after his talk but they were all sold out, and I had forgotten to look for them in the Emory University Bookstore (I'm sure that you know that the CDC is adjacent to and just north of Emory's campus, on Clifton Road in Atlanta). I'll look for both books on campus very soon.

Here's an excerpt from his talk at the Decatur Book Festival: https://youtu.be/B2RLnX2LzLE

BTW, are you planning to come to the Decatur Book Festival this year?

Shelter: Notes from a Detained Migrant Children's Facility and The Pear Field were both good, although I was disappointed by the ending of Nina Ekvtimishvili's novel; I'll have to give some thought to my review before I write it, to avoid spoiling it for others. I gave it 3.5 stars and would recommend it, although I'll be surprised if it's chosen for the International Booker Prize shortlist, which will be announced tomorrow on Thursday. (That pronouncement by me makes it all but certain that it will make the shortlist.)

>160 Nickelini: I'll write a review of The Pear Field later this week, Joyce. Despite my relatively low 3.5 star rating I still liked it.

>161 Oberon: I would recommend Epidemics and Society to non-clinicians, Erik, as it was written for a undergraduate or graduate course, presumably not for medical students. I did take a History of Medicine course at Pitt, but that course was restricted to fourth year medical students, and possibly students in the School of Public Health, but it did not require a background in medicine.

>162 sallypursell: The only book I've read, albeit indirectly, about polio is The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis by Dr Paul Offit, the noted pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I own copies of Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio by Jeffrey Kluger, and Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky, but I haven't read either book yet. I haven't read any nonfiction books about the plague, although Albert Camus' great novel The Plague is one of my 10 favorite novels.

>164 rocketjk: Very nice, Jerry! I met Bianca (formerly of the 75 Books group) in Barcelona in the middle of June 2016, after spending a week with Claire and her sister in Amsterdam. The two of us spent a week there, then took a Renfe train from Barcelona to Sevilla. We spent two or three nights there, then booked a rental car and drove to Ronda, using the Route of the Almoravids and Almohads from the web site España es Cultura (Spain is Culture), visiting Los Pueblos Blancos de Andalucía, the White Towns of Andalucía, Unfortunately those web sites, the Spanish and the English ones, are down at least temporarily, so I can't be completely sure of our exact path. I still have my Michelin map of Southern Spain, and I can see that we drove south on a major highway from Sevilla to just east of Jerez de la Frontera, then traveled due east to Arcos de la Frontera, where we had lunch and toured that lovely town for a few hours before we drove to Ronda. We did not stop anywhere else, but if we drove on the more local east-west road (A372) we would have gone through El Bosque, but I suspect that we took A384, about 10 miles to the north, on our way to Ronda. We spent roughly 24 hours in that lovely town before we drove to Granada for another couple of days, and ended our vacation by driving back to Barcelona on the last day. That was an unforgettable trip, and I look forward to doing it again, although I was far less fond of Granada than I was of Sevilla, Arcos de la Frontera and Ronda.

My photo of Giralda, the bell tower of la Catedral de Sevilla:



My photo of el Patio de las Doncellas, the Courtyard of the Maidens, within the Real Alcázar de Sevilla, with its long rectangular reflecting pool:



BTW I have photo albums on Facebook with dozens and probably hundreds of photos of Sevilla, Arcos de la Frontera, Ronda and Granada.

ETA: Are you hosting The Jazz Odyssey today, Jerry? I was planning to listen while I cooked another batch of alligator sauce piquante.

>166 kidzdoc: Great photos! I have similar pictures on my hard drive and will dig them up when I get a moment. I remember reading a quote from the architect who converted the mosque into the cathedral that they were going to make the cathedral so large that people who viewed it hundreds of years later "will think we were crazy."

Our memory of Jerez de la Frontera is a great one. We pulled into town late in the afternoon, both feeling kind of grumpy. This was in December with Christmas season underway. We found a hotel room (it was basically an unplanned stop). Looking in our guidebook, we saw there was an area of town within walking distance that had quite a few nightclubs and restuarants, so we set off in that direction. About a block from our hotel, however, we saw a sherry bar. Since the plan was to go sherry tasting the next day, Steph (my wife), suggested we stop in there and learn a little about the different types of sherry on offer. When we stepped to the door, however, we saw that there was a private party going on. We were about to move on when we realized we were being enthusiastically waved into the bar. In we went, and we were graciously welcomed into this private holiday party, with a vast spread of shrimp and sausage and cheese. We paid for our sherry (and for rounds thereof when it was our turn), but they wouldn't let us contribute for the spread. Only one or two of these folks spoke any English, and our Spanish was spotty at best, but we all managed. Soon, it was time to take turns singing Christmas songs. After a few of the revelers had sung, the room swung round to look at us. What were we going to do, say no? Steph and I had noticed, I think while walking the streets of Cadiz, that there was a Spanish carol sung to the tune of Jingle Bells. This was perfect. Being Jewish, neither Steph or I are necessarily familiar with all the lyrics of all the carols, but Jingle Bells we know! So we started in on a lusty rendition of Jingle Bells. As soon as our friends realized we were singing a tune they knew, they began singing along in Spanish. Who knows what the words are? Can they be singing about "one-horse open sleighs" in Andalusia? At any rate, we were a big hit! Needless to say, we never made it to that nightclub section that evening! Some of the greatest travel/vacation moments my wife and I have shared have come from saying "yes" when we're waved into a place by strangers. You have to have your danger radar working, of course, but our default has always been, OK, in we go! (We were also invited to someone's home for dinner in El Bosque.)

Yes, The Jazz Odyssey will be coming your way at 1 PM Pacific, streaming live at www.kzyx.org. Let me know if you have any requests. Cheers!

What a great memory of Jerez de la Frontera! I've had some wonderful and unforgettable experiences meeting strangers in Europe, but that easily tops any of mine.

Ha! I had not heard about that quote. We did not go into the cathedral, as we didn't think to buy tickets until we got there. Fortunately we did get to go to the Real Alcázar, with a stroke of luck. I had a copy of Rick Steves Spain 2016 on my Kindle, and was reading the section on Sevilla on the train from Barcelona Sants to Sevilla Santa Justa. On the night we arrived I tried to order tickets, but found that everything was sold out. I consulted the guidebook, which included a photo of one of the two guides that Steves recommended meeting. We went to the Plaza del Triunfo, located between the cathedral and the palace, and fortunately I noticed a woman who looked to be the guide, which she was. We were able to pay her for same day tickets to enter the royal palace, which included a personal tour by her, which was superb. We must have only spent three nights and two days in Sevilla, as our time there was far too short.

Excellent. I will turn in for The Jazz Odyssey. I just had lunch (crawfish étouffée — did I ever post my recipe for it in Club Read?), so I may wait until late afternoon to start cooking the alligator sauce piquante.

The Real Alcazar was wonderful- from the architecture to the incredible gardens!

>169 torontoc: Yes! Here are two more photos I took:

Darryl--Love all your travel photos. Makes me feel hopeful that one day I will once again be able to travel and see sights like these. Thank you!

And I see up in >1 kidzdoc: that you are reading Caste -- I am about halfway into it. It is a slow read because I have to think about it and take it in. Awesome. : )

Happy Tuesday!

>163 kidzdoc: I made the Huevos a lo Pobre con Patatas last night and it was a great success! I scaled down the ingredients so I made enough for one meal, and used a red pepper instead of green as that was what I had. It was simple to make and delicious. I could imagine adding salsa and wrapping it all up as a breakfast burrito.

I felt fine after my vaccination - I had AZ - with no side effects at all. I've got the second dose in early July.

Your pics of Sevilla are bringing back memories from my only visit there, in March 2001. It is such a beautiful city and I would love to go back to Andalucia one day.

>165 kidzdoc: Yes, I was at the 2018 Decatur Book Festival. There were so many wonderful sessions, it was hard to choose. I decided against Bill Foege's because I had heard him speak before, but from the excerpt you shared with me, it seems like I missed an entertaining session. I won't make it back this year, but I will be thinking of you, Kay, Patty?, maybe Ardene? I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time.

>171 Berly: Thanks, Kim! I also hope that you're able to travel soon.

I'm glad that you're getting a lot out of Caste. I may not get far into it before the weekend, as I'm working the next four nights, and because my beloved aunt, my mother's oldest sister, died this morning in a suburb outside of Houston. Given that news and today's verdict in the death of George Floyd this has been an emotionally exhausting and very long day, which will be over in a little over two hours, at 1 am.

Dang, another admission from the Emergency Department. Back later...

Sorry to hear about your aunt's passing Darryl. Keeping you and your family in my thoughts.

>172 Sakerfalcon: Great! I'm glad that you made and enjoyed Huevos a lo Pobre con Patatas, Claire. I made another batch yesterday, using a yellow bell pepper and six cage free organic hen's eggs from Sprouts Farmers Market (I doubt that this small chain was in Philadelphia when you lived there), as I had a large Vidalia onion and a large bell pepper. It tastes nearly as good when it's reheated in the microwave, and I'll get four servings from what I made yesterday.

Ooh, great idea to make breakfast burritos from this! You're absolutely right, and I hadn't thought of that. I have flour and corn tortillas on hand, and I can put together a quick salsa to go with it, or buy a jar after work early tomorrow morning from a 24 hour CVS Pharmacy on the drive home from the hospital. I'll give it a try tomorrow morning, as I just had another serving for a late breakfast.

BTW, are sweet onions sold in the UK? I almost always use Vidalia sweet onions when I cook, unless the recipe calls for red onions, and I eseentially never buy any other types of onion.

I'm glad that you'll be fully vaccinated by July. Hopefully I can return to the UK in August or September.

Sevilla was absolutely lovely and very memorable. I absolutely want to return there, although not in the end of June as Bianca and I did five years ago, when temperatures were around 35° C every day. I won't forget the text I received from Bianca later that week when we were in Granada; she decided to go shopping in the middle of a blazing afternoon, when nearly everyone else — me included — were taking siestas or staying indoors. She saw a clock and thermostat outside of a store, similar to the ones you would see outside of banks when I was a kid, which registered a temperature of 42°C (107.6° F). She sent me a photo of the clock, and asked me if I wanted to join her. Needless to say I politely but firmly declined, as the hotel had very good air conditioning.

>173 labfs39: I definitely remember you and your friend attending the 2018 Decatur Book Festival, and I probably still have the photo of the five of us (you, him, Kay, Pattie and me) enjoying dinner at The Iberian Pig. I couldn't remember if you have attended Bill Foege's talk, although now that I thought about it more I remember that I didn't see you in Decatur until we met for dinner that Saturday night. I haven't yet looked at the video in >165 kidzdoc: that I posted, but you'll get a flavor for his talk when you watch it.

I suspected that you probably wouldn't join us for this year's Decatur Book Festival. I just requested that weekend off from work so that I can go, and meet up with Kay and Pattie again, and hopefully Ardene and some of my bookish friends from work. We thoroughly enjoyed the 2018 and 2019 festivals, and I hope that this year's festival is able to be held in person again.

>175 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. My aunt's death was not unexpected, but it came sooner than we thought it would. Her husband was my one of my father's late older brothers, and because of that our families were extremely close, especially since we all lived in Jersey City, as we spent practically every Sunday together when I was a kid (go to church, read Sunday newspapers (which is why I continue to buy and read newspapers, including my visits to London and other European cities), watch American football, and have Sunday dinner), and we almost always vacationed and spent many of our summer days together throughout my childhood. My father's three siblings all died at least two decades ago, but Betty was the first of my mother's two sisters to die, although she was nearly 88 years old and had a much longer than expected life, due to her chronic health problems. Unfortunately I haven't seen her in person since 2017 after she moved from Jersey City, as the pandemic prevented my planned visit to see her and her youngest sister in their home south of Houston last year.

Condolences on the loss of your aunt, Darryl. Did I read that correctly, that your mother's sister married your father's brother? Very cool. I have heard of that before but it is not that common. I can imagine that would certainly help the families stay close!

>177 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. Yes, my aunt who just died was dating my uncle before my mother was introduced to my father. My father and uncle lived in Jersey City, on the west bank of the Hudson River, and my mother and aunt lived in the Bronx in NYC, on the river's east bank. They didn't hit it off at first, but a couple of years later they met at a party at City College of New York; my father remembered my mother, but she didn't recognize him. She invited him to a barbecue at her parents' house, and my aunt immediately spotted him and told my mother who he was. Despite that unsuccessful first meeting they hit it off the second time, and were married in 1960.

My aunt's two surviving sons (the middle one died of sudden cardiac failure from an undiagnosed congenital cardiac condition) and my brother and I are double first cousins, as we share the same maternal and paternal grandparents. I don't know of anyone else, past or present, who can make that claim. We would have been close anyway, but living a few miles apart from each other in Jersey City throughout our childhoods cemented that relationship. Another of my father's older brothers also lived in Jersey City, but even though we lived closer to them the relationship wasn't the same, partly because of my uncle and how he mistreated and used my father.

>178 kidzdoc: Wow, that's a complex bond. My sympathies on your loss.

>179 lisapeet: Thanks, Lisa. BTW, my maternal grandparents lived on E 222nd St in the Bronx, between White Plains Road and Boston Post Road. At that time it was a mostly Italian neighborhood, and their neighbors were quite friendly, as I recall.

So sorry to learn about the loss of your beloved aunt. It’s been a rough year and a half, and this just makes it tougher. Take care, Darryl.

>181 SqueakyChu: Thanks, Madeline.

So sorry to hear about your aunt’s death, Darryl.

I'm really sorry to hear about your aunt, Darryl. I'm keeping you and your family at this time.

>176 kidzdoc: I think you can buy sweet onions here, but as I only tend to get red onions which I use for everything I never really look for any other kinds! (just checked online - Sainsbury's sell them so I imagine other supermarkets will too).

No, I don't remember Sprouts from my time in Philly. It can only be a good thing to have a competitor to Whole Foods, which I remember being the major organic supermarket.

>184 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire.

I looked up the sweet onions on Sainsbury's web site, and they look similar to Vidalia sweet onions, but they are apparently grown in Chile and Spain. The only downside to Vidalias is that they have a high water content relative to other onions, and when they are cooked they produce a lot of liquid. I usually have to drain off this liquid when I sauté them.

I like red onions, the only other type of onion I routinely buy, but the ones sold in the US, at least, are quite pungent and have a strong taste, especially when eaten raw. I've read that soaking cut red onions can decrease some of the "bite", but I haven't tried doing that.

Sprouts Farmers Markets are relatively new to Atlanta compared to Whole Foods, as the market closest to me opened in late 2016 or early 2017. There are only two in Pennsylvania, one on S Broad Street in Philadelphia, and the other close to Willow Grove, whereas metro Atlanta has 15 markets. I've started going there more often, as the Morningside branch is less than 1.8 miles from home, a half mile further north than my preferred Publix Super Market. The three story Whole Foods Mega Market is still my closest supermarket, as it's on the street I live on and only 1/2 mile away.

The shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize was announced today:

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell
The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, Lolli Editions
In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale
The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West

The winner of the prize will be announced on June 2nd, and the prize money will be equally split between the author and translator.

Yikes, yet another ER admission. We're getting killed tonight...

ETA: I've so far read two longlisted books that didn't make the shortlist, The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili, and
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, and had started a third, Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý, yesterday. I have the Kindle editions of At Night All Blood Is Black, The War of the Poor and In Memory of Memory, so I'll get started on them soon, especially since the first two books are less than 200 pages in length, as is Wretchedness.

Finally caught up with you Darryl. I've been way behind on LT this year. Love the travel photos. I'm holding out hope to be able to travel by next year. Our Covid numbers are going up and there are increased restrictions here. I was able to get my first jab, but as others have said, have to wait 4 months for the next one.

Things are looking good here at UA. We have had 0 (zero) cases of COVID among the faculty, staff, or students for two weeks! Huzzah!

This is our last week of classes and next week is finals week. Graduation is Saturday, May 1 and our semester ends. The University administration is hoping that students will go home for the summer and that they will get vaccinated in their Home Counties because UA has no vaccine for students. I don't think that will happen. With apartment rents hovering around the $1,000 per month per person mark and leases that have to be paid through July 31, I think that many students will opt to stay here. That will mean that in the fall they may not be vaccinated when it is time for school to start.

>186 kidzdoc: I have At Night All Blood is Black and In Memory of Memory, looking forward to getting to both soonish Darryl.

I'm very pleased to report that April will end up as my best reading month in nearly five years, as I've already read eight books this month and should knock out at least two more by Friday, which will make this the first time I'll have read 10 or more books in a month, certainly since the disastrous November 2016 presidential election, and possibly for a year or longer beyond that. I'm definitely in high gear, as I anticipated that I would be now that I and my parents are fully vaccinated, the current POTUS is doing an excellent job in office, and the jury ruled favorably and correctly in the murder of George Floyd; my heart was racing in the hour before the verdict was read, as I was in deep fear and premature despair over what would happen in Minneapolis, and especially here in Atlanta, if he was found not guilty.

I read two short historical novels from this year's International Booker Prize shortlist, both of which were very good (at least 4 stars each): At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, which concerns a Senegalese "Chocolat" soldier who fought with the French Army against the Germans during World War I and how the death of his best friend and fellow soldier drove him to commit acts which terrified his infantry mates, and The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, the story of the German Peasants' War of 1525, Thomas Müntzer, the German theologian who inspired the uprising, and past efforts by European peasants to rebel against the feudal lords and the Catholic Church in the previous two centuries. I'll review both books soon.

I recently renewed my subscription to Archipelago Books, the Brooklyn based publisher of translated literature, and now that I'm (thankfully!) getting inundated with their books I have started to read some of the ones that have found their way to my door step recently. Last week I finished If You Kept a Record of Sins by the Italian author Andrea Bajani last week, a touching novel about a young Italian man who travels to Bucharest for his estranged mother's unexpected funeral, and revisits his childhood without her, and today I'll start The Society of Reluctant Dreamers by José Eduardo Agualusa, a novel set in Angola just after its independence from Portugal about a young man who dreams about revolutionaries and writers, who meets a Moçambican woman who is captured on a camera he finds on a beach, and with her explores more dreams in her art work.

I've agreed to host the third quarter Reading Globally theme of 'The Lusophone world: writing from countries where Portuguese is or was an important language', and I'll start working on it in the upcoming month, hopefully with assistance from my two Portuguese LT friends who I met in Lisbon in 2018. I'm off from work for 2-1/2 weeks and will fly to Philadelphia on Wednesday to spend 1-1/2 weeks, including Mother's Day, with my parents, and one of the books I'll bring with me is Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley, which should provide a good background of the colonies of Portugal.

I have two other books going now, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, which three of my physician friends have recently read (and loved) or are currently reading, and Eternity: Selected Poems by Tracy K. Smith, the recent past Poet Laureate of the United States.

>187 Familyhistorian: Great to see you, Meg! I'm glad that you've received your first SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and I hope that, as more Canadians are vaccinated, the number of cases will begin to decline.

>188 benitastrnad: Good news, Benita.

>189 Caroline_McElwee: Sounds good, Caroline. I plan to read In Memory of Memory sometime in May, and I'll try to read the entire International Booker Prize shortlist by the time of the prize announcement on 2 June. I still need to get The Employees and When We Cease to Understand the World, as neither book has been published in the US yet.

Darryl, a young girl (13 years old) died here a couple of days ago, from covid. It is such a tragic story but apparently, we are seeing an uptick in people dying at home, whose symptoms escalated quickly, even before they were able to get to hospital. None have been as young as this one but it is still a turn away from what was experienced in the first 2 waves of this insidious disease. Are you seeing any of this down your way?

https://nationalpost.com/news/mayors-offer-condolences-as-13-year-old-toronto-ar...

>192 jessibud2: That's a terrible tragedy for Emily and her family, Shelley. I have not heard of any pediatric deaths from COVID-19 at home, either in Atlanta or nationally, although an untreated case of the infection, or multiorgan inflammatory syndrome of childhood (MIS-C), could easily be fatal, regardless of age. I've cared for at least 15-20 critically ill kids with MIS-C who probably would have died if they weren't being managed promptly and aggressively, and especially if they were managed symptomatically in their homes. That news article doesn't provide me with enough clinical information to know what happened to Emily, although I would guess that she probably died from sudden cardiac death from a myocardial infarction (heart attack) due to blockage or ruptured aneurysm in one or more of her coronary arteries. She could have also developed rapid onset of heart failure due to poor cardiac output, as her ventricles became so damaged that her heart couldn't pump enough blood and oxygen to her organs, although that would likely be less of a sudden event.

It's very sad and extremely worrisome that her father thought that her local hospital could not adequately treat her as an inpatient.

>193 kidzdoc: - She lived in one of the city's biggest hot-spots. The dad works in a factory and many in that area are essential workers who have not yet been vaccinated and who can't afford to stay home if they are sick. There are huge outbreaks of covid among factory workers, to the extent that some factories are now closing or partially closing for 10 days or so. It's a mess. It's a horrible choice to have to choose between working or putting food on the table. Our premier is still balking at providing paid sick days so workers like Emily's dad don't have to make that choice. I think I heard that the entire family had tested positive and the mum is in serious condition in hospital. Many hospitals here are at capacity in their ERs and ICUs and patients are already being sent to other hospitals, often far from their home areas. I think that is why he didn't want to send her to hospital, because he wasn't sure she would be in the same hospital as her mum and he was already caring for her younger brother at home, while he, himself, was also sick. She had been sick for a week and her conditioned worsened only in the last day or so before she passed away. It is just such a horrible tragedy.

One of our big hospitals here set up a mobile hospital unit in their parking lot, to accommodate patients from the hospital who don't have covid in order to make space in the ICU for covid patients. I actually passed this hospital (it is right near where I used to teach) when they were assembling the tents, a month or so ago. It was sobering to see this, as I felt they must have known this was coming or they wouldn't have gone to the effort and expense of such preparation. On the news today they announced that the first patient was admitted today to this mobile unit.

A doctor interviewed on the radio said they won't know for sure the cause of death until the autopsy but given that she had tested positive, and her symptoms, it was likely caused by covid or by a complication of covid.

A real nightmare.

>194 jessibud2: A real nightmare indeed, Shelley. In some respects it seems that Canada is experiencing some of the same problems we in the United States had last spring and summer.

I'm still having trouble keeping up with your thread, Darryl, but now that I've caught up for the moment, Epidemics and Society has definitely gone onto my wishlist. It's a damned poor silver lining, but I do seem to be accumulating a lot of good recs for books about diseases and epidemics these days.

My condolences on the death of your aunt.

>196 bragan: Hi, Betty! It's sometimes difficult for me to keep up with my thread. I'll have to write a proper review of Epidemics and Society and the other books I've read, which I'll try to do over the next two weeks. If I didn't say so already the next book I'll read in this category is Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Dr Paul Farmer, which I'll start in mid May.

Thanks for your good wishes about my aunt. I think we all agree that it was her time, and that she suffered long enough. Her ceremony will take place next Saturday, a little more than a week from now, and I'll be able to watch it on Zoom with my father, at least. Due to her dementia we haven't yet told my mother about her sister's passing, but we'll have sufficient time to figure out how to tell her before then, as I'll fly to Philadelphia tomorrow to spend 1-1/2 weeks with them.
_______________________________

I have two more books to read to complete 10 books this month, and after I do that I'll create a new thread and start writing reviews.

This sobering post came from one of my dearest friends and medical school classmates, who is an adult pulmonologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and has seen a dozen or more of her patients die from COVID-19 over the past year:

>198 kidzdoc: Any idea whether “breakthrough” covid (covid contracted after being “fully immunized”) can also cause such lung scarring or other long-lasting issues past the date of seeming recovery?

>199 SqueakyChu: No; you're asking the wrong person, as I'm not an adult physician or a pulmonologist! I'm not sure anyone has the answer to that yet.

I'll post this here, for my friends who aren't members of Club Read.

There were two important releases from the CDC this week. The first was the Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People, which stated that:

Fully vaccinated people can:

*Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing
*Visit with unvaccinated people (including children) from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing
*Participate in outdoor activities and recreation without a mask, except in certain crowded settings and venues
*Resume domestic travel and refrain from testing before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel
*Refrain from testing before leaving the United States for international travel (unless required by the destination) and refrain from self-quarantine after arriving back in the United States
*Refrain from testing following a known exposure, if asymptomatic, with some exceptions for specific settings
*Refrain from quarantine following a known exposure if asymptomatic
*Refrain from routine screening testing if asymptomatic and feasible

For now, fully vaccinated people should continue to:

*Take precautions in indoor public settings like wearing a well-fitted mask
*Wear well-fitted masks when visiting indoors with unvaccinated people who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease or who have an unvaccinated household member who is at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease
*Wear well-fitted masks when visiting indoors with unvaccinated people from multiple households
*Avoid indoor large-sized in-person gatherings
*Get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms
*Follow guidance issued by individual employers
*Follow CDC and health department travel requirements and recommendations.

This week's issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report contained an article titled Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Vaccines Against COVID-19 Among Hospitalized Adults Aged ≥65 Years, which looked at 417 adults ≥65 Years who were hospitalized in 24 hospitals in 14 states from January 1 to March 26, 2021, 187 of whom were diagnosed with COVID-19 (the remaining 230 people served as controls for the study). The study found those who were fully vaccinated by one of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines (defined as 14 days after receipt of the second vaccine) had 94% protection against hospitalization, whereas partial vaccination (anything less than 14 days after the second dose, including those who had only received one dose) were only 64% protected. This study emphasizes both the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccine in elderly people, and the necessity to get the second jab.

The other piece of good news came on Monday, as a high ranking official in the European Union said that its member countries would be open to tourists who are fully vaccinated sometime this summer, although a formal date was not set.

NPR: Vaccinated U.S. Travelers Will Be Allowed To Visit Europe Again Starting This Summer

>201 kidzdoc: Super helpful. Thanks, Darryl.

>201 kidzdoc: - Thanks for that info, Darryl. Does the travel mean that vaccine passports will be issued to prove that people are truly fully vaccinated?

>198 kidzdoc: That message needs to be posted on every available billboard in France, where there is still a vaccine reluctance.

Like you, I will be journeying to Kansas to care of my mother. She had COVID back in early December and has had a lingering ear infection since then. Two weeks ago she was hospitalized because she had nausea and balance issues. It was determined that the ear infection was the main problem, but there was also some nutritional problems and pressure sores. At the bottom of all of this is COVID. She wasn't cooking or eating much of anything and so it was a downward spiral. She is now in a nursing home facility were she will stay for the next two weeks. When I get back there I will get her and she will come home where I will stay with her for three weeks. If she can get good nourishing food and have someone to remind her to drink and move around the doctor thinks that the prognosis is fairly good for someone her age.

My mother has three daughters and I am the only one with FML. I have a sister who teaches school and when her school is out in June she will come to Kansas and stay with mom. My sister is dealing with fallout because a fellow librarian at her school is out for 2 weeks because of a positive COVID test. When will this nonsense stop? Why can't people just go get the shot?

My mother is 84 and I know that we are dealing with end-of-life and quality of life issues here, but COVID doesn't have to be the reason why we are dealing with this. We knew what we needed to do a year ago to keep this under control. All we had to do was follow the science. I think that there is an embedded lack of trust in science that has been fostered by certain elements in our local, state, and federal governments and that makes me very angry. And, I am still carrying a grudge against all those people who didn't wear a mask, and those who don't go get the shot. I guess that makes me one angry woman.

Darryl, I hope that you have a good trip and get lots of reading done. I am already picking out the pile of books I will take with me while I am gone. That is much more fun than deciding what size of suitcase to take.

Darryl, I ran across the mention of a title which may interest you, and I wanted to draw it to your notice. Note, please, that I have not read this. It is called African Medical Pluralism, by Carolyn Sargent and William C. Olsen, and from the description is a

collection of ethnographic essays examine health care on the African continent. Most patients in Africa draw on a 'therapeutic continuum' that includes traditional medicines like herbs, religious healing, and the latest biomedical technology. Through a look at these treatments, scholars examine how Africans perceive sickness and understand suffering.

Some others may also find this interesting. I tore out the entry, and I don't remember what it is a quotation from.

I was solicited to follow a Twitter account called "Old Gits and Dragons--a resting place for Old Gamers and the Dragons they slay" and, after falling over laughing, immediately thought of you.

Truly can't think why...you've never talked about being a gamer...

>202 rocketjk: You're welcome, Jerry.

>203 jessibud2: Good question, Shelley. President Biden has said that the United States will not issue vaccine passport to American citizens, but European countries, at least, and possibly the European Union, are currently investigating "vaccine passports", and/or apps that travelers can use to demonstrate that they are fully vaccinated, more so than the vaccination card that we in the US, at least, have been given. Apparently some unscrupulous people are forging these vaccination cards here, so they in themselves may not be adequate to provide one's vaccination status. There will undoubtedly be more to come on this in the coming weeks.

>204 baswood: The same is true here, Barry. Paula, my pulmonologist friend and classmate, previously said that she had patients who were critically ill with COVID-19 who would argue with her that the infection was a hoax, and chided her for not telling them what was the actual cause of their illness, or not being thorough in investigating what was wrong with them.

The level of science ignorance and denial in this country is both astonishing, and discouraging.

>205 benitastrnad: I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your mother, Benita.

>206 sallypursell: Thanks, Sally. I'll look into that book.

>207 richardderus: Huh. No, that definitely wasn't me. I'm not and never have been a gamer, and I have more than enough on my plate as it is to waste time on that.

>208 kidzdoc: patients who were critically ill with COVID-19 who would argue with her that the infection was a hoax - that's really incredible. I think in the UK we had a couple of protests outside hospitals by people who "didn't believe in COVID" - infuriating - imagine all the hospital staff working themselves into the ground to save lives and then coming out and being shouted at by idiots. One of my mother's neighbours was the same, although at least in his case when another person in the street got ill and was taken to hospital, he changed his mind.

>205 benitastrnad: I share your anger. I've certainly had my eyes opened as to the fantasy that in a moment of crisis, Americans will pull together to help each other.

I finished Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson this morning, which was absolutely superb. As others have said it was a bit repetitive in the beginning, as Wilkerson said in 100 or so pages what she could have effectively stated in 50 words or less, but her explanation of the resurgence of virulent White supremacy in this country after Barack Obama was first elected president, the Trump "phenomenon", and the associated seemingly inexplicable (at least to me) decision of a majority of White women to vote for a barely literate, spectacularly incompetent and xenophobic sexual predator over a highly intelligent, accomplished, competent and caring fellow White woman was as clear and as understandable as anything I had read previously. I took off 1/2 star for its overly long and repetitive beginning, but it's still a very worthwhile and important work that deserves to be widely read, as a half dozen of my physician friends of all races in Atlanta are currently doing.

>209 wandering_star: Sometime last year the mother of a very sick hospitalized child got extremely angry with one of my partners for informing her that her daughter tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and met diagnostic criteria for COVID-19. She refused to believe it, said that the infection was a hoax created by the liberal media, and insisted on walking freely in the hospital without wearing a mask. I'm not completely sure, but I think that Security had to be called to put MAGAt Mom in her place by threatening to remove her from the hospital if she didn't comply with the mask wearing requirement. Other parents have given all sorts of astonishingly lame excuses for why they couldn't put on a simple mask during 15-30 minute staff visits to their rooms, as we all wore double masks (N95 masks under surgical masks), goggles or face masks, gowns, gloves and head coverings throughout our visits, and double masks for 8-12 hours per day. Thanks to the science deniers and vaccine skeptics, many of whom are White Republican voters in small towns and rural areas, it is now very unlikely that we will achieve herd immunity in the United States, and that SARS-CoV-2 will be a thread in this country for the foreseeable future.

>210 RidgewayGirl: Caste provides a good explanation of the persistence of caste and tribalism in ths country, and it makes me even more convinced that this sick democracy is no place for me to spend my retirement years, as I see no reason to think that racism and casteism will significantly improve here during my lifetime.

I want to read Caste, Darryl but with so many library holds all coming in at once, I think I will wait for it to come out in paperback. It will take me at least that long to get to it. I watched Isabel Wilkerson in conversation with Barack Obama through a link via Barnes & Noble, a month or so ago. Someone here on LT put that on my radar and it was great, though I wish it was more of a 2-way conversation instead of just her asking him questions. Still, I enjoyed it.

The whole covid denier thing makes me sick and believe me, it is happening here, too. Just on the news tonight, they exposed a postal facility just outside Toronto where the management and staff were holding retirement parties, most without masks, no distancing. Despite that very facility having been shut down for 10 days recently due to huge outbreaks of covid. I hope every last one of them were fined heavily but since the newscaster never mentioned that, I am inclined to believe they weren't. Which is part of the problem, in my opinion. If there are no immediate and severe consequences, what incentives do the idiots have to do the right thing? It's clear that they aren't going to do it without consequences. Grrrrr

Enjoying catching up on the discussion here.

Caste sounds interesting. On Trump, was the conclusion that people voted him in on the back of his policies, or because he was from a non-political background so there was a perception he'd shake things up and just get things done without the usual political red tape and diplomacy? From afar it felt like a mixture of both. Again, from a distance, it also felt like Hilary Clinton was not thought to be trustworthy. Despite her husband's dubious past with the 'that dress' affair, he always seemed to be more popular as a figure than Hilary (there's a whole other interesting feminism discussion right there).

Incredible that when you're caring for someone's child they can't even have the decency to mask up - what idiots.

>211 kidzdoc: I recently had Caste out from the library but it had to go back before I had a chance to get around to it. I will probably buy it as certainly it’s the sort of thing Jacob would read as well.

‘decision of a majority of White women to vote for a barely literate, spectacularly incompetent and xenophobic sexual predator over a highly intelligent, accomplished, competent and caring fellow White woman’

I can’t imagine why anyone who didn’t specifically identify as racist could vote for Donald Trump. But then I can’t imagine how anyone would vote for the current Conservative Party (particularly Boris Johnson), and they are riding high in the poles, so I’m obviously not a good judge of these things.

We have local elections here today (to local councils) as well as mayoral elections in some cities and a by-election to replace an MP in the House of Commons. And in most of those the Conservatives are riding high...

I wouldn’t vote for someone just because they were female though - it would very much depend on their policies and general character. At the moment my favourite politicians (which doesn’t pay attention to gender or race) are as follows:

- Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London) - he’s up for re-election today but is absolutely expected to be re-elected. The Conservative candidate (who seems an idiot) is way behind in the poles, against the trend in the rest of the country.

- David Lammy (currently a shadow minister). I’ve just finished his book Tribes which looks at the increasing polarisation of society. It does deal with racism so may cover some similar background to Caste (David Lammy is black and his parents were immigrants from the Caribbean) but is probably more focused on political and social differences overall.

- Angela Raynor (also currently a shadow minister). Someone with a much more ordinary background than the average politician and straight-talking.

I had great hope of Keir Starmer (the current leader of the Labour Party) but at the moment he’s really not capturing the public imagination.

>211 kidzdoc: Caste ok it's now been checked out, I had it lower on my list of let's call them corrective books but your review and an sudden aduiobook becoming available have pushed it to the top. Although there is a geophyisics/earthquake metaphor early on that makes me wilt inside a little, it is so far an excellent read.

Science denialism is an evergreen topic. An ever-changing mix of reasons and conspiracies. I'd be shocked if there wasn't widespread denial across the spectrum. The polio vaccination campaign was a modern day miracle. Unlike Polio, I don't think COVID-19 presents the same extensional threat that feasters in the mind of healthy people. It has reached a widespread bogeyman status, a bad "flu". When healthy people aren't sufficiently afraid, all the reasons to avoid vaccination can take hold and because we are shitty at risk assessment it has become all too easy to become entrenched in their stance. Overcoming the hesitation of all population groups is going to take so much more work and is beyond simple messaging that only time and sadly more infections will cure. So yeah it'll be with us for a long time to come.

>214 SandDune: "I can’t imagine why anyone who didn’t specifically identify as racist could vote for Donald Trump."

Speaking as an American, my perception is that we have way, way too many people who are racist but who do not specifically identify that way. They "don't see color," for example, but refuse to acknowledge the country's systemic racism and resent having that put in front of them "all the time." They're "not racist" but they resent how Blacks are "given things" (like welfare programs that in fact help many more whites than Blacks, but who's counting?). There are (and I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know) all sorts of "don't specifically identify" manifestations of racism. For such folks, it was evidently easy to rationalize voting for the guy who was going to "drain the swamp" or "shake up Washington."

I haven't read Caste, but I just finished and highly recommend The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee.

>216 rocketjk: Excellent description of the 'I'm not racist, but... ' crowd. I just finished reading White Fragility which looks at this as well.

Speaking of vote demographics, it's important to note that (to the best of my current knowledge, updates eagerly sought) all the current wisdom relies on election-day exit poll data. This data is skewed (possibly severely skewed), over-representing Republican voters. For proof of the bias, consider that, according to it, about a third of LGBTQ voters cast a vote for Trump--utter nonsense, as was confirmed by independent polling of LGBTQ voters (GLAAD 2020 Post Election Poll of almost four times larger pool of respondents).

This specious data was also used to exaggerate trump's support among minorities because--according to it--they ALL registered INCREASED support for Trump compared to 2016. One representative conclusion (BBC): "The group that saw the biggest increase in support for Trump compared to 2016, however, was black men."

Does that make sense to anyone in the real world? Of course not--but it does make sense in the sample that's over-representing Republican/Trump voters.

Unfortunately, there is no easy (or legal, I believe) way to connect the mail-in ballots to demographics so we may be left forever with only this skewed sample and all the rubbish conclusions deriving from reliance on it.

>218 LolaWalser: To your point, which I agree with, the BBC's 6% "increase in black men" voting for Trump, as per the piece you linked to, says that demographic's Trump vote rose to 19%. To increase a number 6% and end up at 19%, you have to start at 17.92%. So the claim there is that 1.08% more of the male black population voted for Trump in 2020 than did so in 2016. This is out of a total of 25,000 respondents overall, not just blacks. So is a 1.08% supposed rise actually a significant and trustworthy number? Not for me, it isn't. Revised to its 6% perspective, it sure does make a sexy headline, though! It's not about the news, it's about the click bait, after all!

I got curious about polling in general and had a look via google. What I found was more or less a mixed bag.

Here's a 538 piece from just before the election suggesting that Trump was, indeed, gaining some ground among younger black and hispanic voters:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-losing-ground-with-white-voters-bu...

Here's a Vox article from right after the election that seems to include a mix of exit polling and pre-election surveys that taken together seem to indicate a 2% rise in black Trump voters from 2016 to 2020.

https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21537966/trump-black-voters-exit-polls

That article references the following one, published by the Washington Post, that includes this statement: "The results that The Washington Post is publishing explore demographic trends identified in national and state exit polls. These surveys randomly sample voters as they exited voting places on or before Election Day and through a telephone survey of more than 25,000 early voters to help account for the huge increase of votes cast early. Poll results have been adjusted to match vote tallies." So "exit poll" in this case is not just people walking out of a polling spot, but also early voters they talked to via telephone calls. I'm not sure how much of an improvement that represents, how ever (if any) in terms of how honestly people are willing to respond to questions about how they voted.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/exit-polls/presidentia...

I never put faith in poll numbers in particular, anyway, and I agree absolutely that exit polling is the worst of the worst, all other things (such as constructive crafting of question wording) being equal. But I also agree that published reports about these polls do further sway public perception, and so their effects have to be monitored and, when appropriate, objected to.

I will say that I hope the Democrats don't just shrug off any such findings because they don't believe the numbers. In my opinion, they need to keep working to find out as best they can just how accurate they might have been, just in case, and to figure out why and what to do about it. (Re: the Biden administration at this point, in my opinion, so far so good.) Even the BBC piece, spurious numbers and all, does include a series of takes on the various issues involved.

I guess the real bottom line for me is that the Democrats need to govern in ways that overcome any hesitancy about supporting them, and possible belief in Republican lies and/or support for their policies, that might be held by minorities and whites as well.

>219 rocketjk:

I've discussed this a lot in Pro & Con; I don't want to take over Darryl's thread with it. I direct people who want to learn more about the tendentious analyses of minority votes to the reports on Democracy Now by Juan Gonzalez.

First thing to remember is that 2020 was an unusual year, in that the pandemic had a tangible effect on who was going to vote when and how (by mail or in person). Again, I don't know of perfect data on this at the moment, but people in general may recall that Covidiocy correlates with Trumpism. It seems certain that more Republicans than Democrats opted for election-day in-person voting. And, circumstantially at least, the results such as I mentioned for the LGBTQ demo support that--27% according to the ubiquitously reported Edison poll (which is what the BBC link and others has), vs. 14% in the GLAAD poll.

Obviously this is no proof of trends in other demos but it does strongly suggest that the exit poll sample was very skewed.

Darryl - I’m sorry to learn about your Aunt.

I’m catching up from early March and, yeah, wow, the topics here. All i’ll add is a, like, 6-week belated happy milestone birthday, and that I’m really happy you read Caste. And, thanks for all the covid info.

My nephew is working in a music store in the Phoenix area while waiting to start grad school this fall.

This week, his boss asked a customer to put on a mask.

Said customer pulled up his shirt to to reveal he had a gun in his waistband.

The police declined to do anything, wouldn't even take a report.

I'm glad you enjoyed Caste; my book club is reading it in July. Since I suggested the title due to the high regard it met here on LT, I'll have to lead the discussion. It's the library's public bookclub - hopefully we won't attract too many MAGAt's.

>222 streamsong: That was something I don't miss about Arizona -- the fun of standing in line at the Circle K behind some large white dude wearing a large firearm.

>223 RidgewayGirl: I honestly didn't ask what race the gun toting customer was. I also don't know what color my nephew's boss was. It's an appalling reaction to being asked to put on a mask.

Here in Montana, there's a good chance everyone involved would have been white. The state legislature just liberalized gun laws so it's legal to carry just about anything just about anywhere.

Seems like you got a lot out of your read of Caste, Darryl. I read it at the beginning of the year and found it enlightening. I was especially appreciative of how Wilkerson took a very close look of the caste system in India and then compared it to what was going on in the US.

Woo! Finally, a break from work, caring for my parents, and more work! I'll be off until next Wednesday, work the next five days, then I'm off for the month of June, as usual. I had a great reading month in April, started off well in May, then fell off the rails the past 2-1/2 weeks. I'll catch up on posts here and elsewhere in Club Read, create a new thread, then start writing reviews of the books I've read recently.

>212 jessibud2: There are several YouTube videos in which Isabel Wilkerson talks about Caste, and I'll look at one or more of them before I write my review of it. I left my copy with my father at my parents' house in suburban Philadelphia, and since I won't return there until mid June I may wait to put my thoughts into words then.

My COVID fatigue comes from the anti-vaxxers and those who refuse to get vaccinated, wear masks and follow basic public health measures. The CDC announced last week that vaccinated people in the United States could refrain from wearing masks in most settings, due to the spectacular efficacy of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, and that unvaccinated people should continue to wear masks in public, as they are still at risk for developing moderate to severe disease. Unfortunately, we all know what's going to happen: everyone will stop wearing masks, whether they are vaccinated or not, and since more than half of the adults in Georgia and other Deep South states are unvaccinated, most by choice, there will likely be a mild to moderate surge of cases during the summer months "down heah". The vaccines provide 94-95% protection, not 100%, so I'll plan to continue wearing a mask in public settings for the foreseeable future, and keep one handy if I'm outdoors.

I have at least three other reasons to wear a mask. First, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) infections have surged dramatically in the past few weeks, and my group has seen dozens of babies and young toddlers hospitalized with RSV bronchiolitis since early April, after seeing a microscopic number of cases over the previous 12 months. The immune protection against RSV is poor, and I usually contract a bad upper respiratory infection with an associated asthma attack every year from RSV. Wearing a mask at all times in and outside the hospital will make it less likely that I'll get sick. Second, although the pollen count in Atlanta has dropped significantly, as the trees have finished blooming, I'm still experiencing mild to moderate allergy symptoms, especially since we haven't had any significant rain in at least a week. Third, the air quality will start to worsen, as we're about to experience a major heat wave, with a week's work of high temperatures of 90-95° F (32-35° C) starting on Sunday. I'll only go outside from 7-10 am for the next few days to run errands, and wear a mask when I do.

>213 AlisonY: On Trump, was the conclusion that people voted him in on the back of his policies, or because he was from a non-political background so there was a perception he'd shake things up and just get things done without the usual political red tape and diplomacy? From afar it felt like a mixture of both. Again, from a distance, it also felt like Hilary Clinton was not thought to be trustworthy. Despite her husband's dubious past with the 'that dress' affair, he always seemed to be more popular as a figure than Hilary (there's a whole other interesting feminism discussion right there).

I don't have my copy of Caste in front of me, so my answer to your question may be tainted by my own biased opinions. Having said that I think you're right in saying that Trump's appeal was due to a combination of being an outsider who promised to shake up Washington and "drain the swamp" of career politicians, lobbyists and other unsavory characters, and to his "policies" designed to appeal to cultural conservatives and to restore Whites, the upper caste, to their God given preferred status, and suppress the importance and status of the hordes of people of color, Jews, Muslims and immigrants, i.e. the middle and lower castes, especially as Whites are projected to become a minority of Americans in the next quarter century. I remember Isabel Wilkerson's comments about working class Whites voting against their short term interests (e.g., affordable health care, and increases in the minimum wage) in favor of the long term benefit of having their Preferred status restored, i.e. Make America Great Again. Trump best tapped into the smoldering White grievance that festered after Barack Obama was elected POTUS, and he and his racist ilk continue to represent White supremacists far better than anyone else does, which accounts for their cult like devotion to him, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Josh Hawley and other undemocratic extremists. Even though Hillary Clinton was a White woman, her fellow White women largely despised her and were opposed to her "radical socialist" policies of equality and justice, rather than preferential treatment accorded to Whites. American citizens were also labeled as "radical socialists" and "communists" in the 1950s and 1960s, and beaten, shot and killed for peacefully protesting for equal rights during the Civil Rights Movement, and these racist conservatives are cut from the same cloth as their predecessors, IMO.

Incredible that when you're caring for someone's child they can't even have the decency to mask up - what idiots.

Agreed. The excuses I heard from parents for not bothering to put on a mask for the 15-30 minutes I was seeing their sick kids were pathetic: "I can't breathe"; "I feel claustrophobic"; "It gives me a headache", etc. Meanwhile I and my nurse and physician colleagues were wearing occlusive N95 masks underneath surgical masks, goggles or face shields, and often surgical caps for hours on end, along with gowns and gloves when we entered the rooms of patients with COVID-19.

ETA: I'm getting sleepy, so I'll finish catching up tomorrow.

I'm glad you've made it through this high intensity stretch. I'll admit that the hatred directed at Hillary Clinton mystifies me, but I do think the reason it gained traction was the distaste we have for intelligent, ambitious people who are also women.

I wonder if a few of the anti-vaxxers will start to mask up out of fear of someone thinking they were vaccinated? Probably a fantasy. Like you, I'm keeping my mask on in public indoor areas, but it is lovely to not wear it outside.

See you in September!

Hi Darryl. Switching gears a bit, I just wanted to mention to you a book I am reading right now. It's actually a cook book, the newest from Marcus Samuelsson, called The Rise - Black Cooks and The Soul of American Food. I am not much of a cook and am not likely to attempt any of the recipes (though they look scrumptious!), but I am immensely enjoying the narrative in this book. He talks of Black food, Black cooking and immigration, among other things and how all these come together in this time and place. The book was published just last year, and he talks of how, just weeks after opening his newest restaurant, he had to shut down when covid hit, and pivot completely, to cooking and feeding the hungry. I like that for each chef he profiles, he tells their story, where they were born, the influences that brought them to spotlight and then he presents a few recipes by each. The book is also a visual feast of wonderful photos, as well. I think you'd love it.

For someone (like me) who doesn't cook much, I find it kind of funny that I love reading cookbooks so much! But I loved Samuelsson's memoir I read a few years ago so when I saw this one, I had to borrow it from the library.

As for those who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a mask, don't get me started. It will be a long time before I stop wearing my masks.

I slept very poorly last night, due to a couple of long daytime naps after a rough work week, my decision to have a mug of coffee with dinner, and far too many things on my mind. I stayed awake after 12:30 am, and fought off sleep to run my typical Saturday (or Sunday) early morning errands: grocery shopping at Publix, biweekly hair cut, drive thru car wash and wax, trip to the spirits store to buy wine, along with brandy to put into a modified version of Julia Child's classic Coq au Vin recipe, and take away breakfast (potato, cheese and egg breakfast burrito) from my favorite Midtown taquería, which is on the same block (Piedmont Road) where a young White man murdered four Asian employees in two massage parlors in March. I returned home just after 9 am, and I'll stay inside for the rest of the day. I'm sure that I'll crash at some point, but hopefully I can finish catching up here before that happens.

>214 SandDune: Excellent, Rhian. I hope that you, Jacob and Alan all read Caste; I would love to know what you think of it.

I can’t imagine why anyone who didn’t specifically identify as racist could vote for Donald Trump.

People like myself who lived in the NYC area (I was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, immediately west of Lower Manhattan, whose nickname is "New York City's sixth borough", and lived there with my family until I was 13 yo, when we moved to suburban Philadelphia) knew about Donald Trump and his racist father Fred, who was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927 while wearing a KKK robe and head gear, and openly discriminated against Black and Puerto Rican potential tenants in his buildings after World War II. It was so bad that he was sued on multiple occasions for his discriminatory practices, and Woody Guthrie wrote a song about him, titled "Old Man Trump":

I suppose
Old Man Trump knows
Just how much
Racial Hate
He stirred up
In the bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed
That color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project.

I'm sure that some Trump supporters were unaware of, didn't believe, or chose to ignore the stories about him and his father, who was very likely a closet supporter of the American and German Nazi Parties. Trump's thinly veined racist and White supremacist rhetoric should be easy for anyone with more than two functioning brain cells to detect, and many of my conservative friends — mainly physicians, along with a small number of nurses — openly rejected him and what he stood for, and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Very few people I know who voted for or supported Trump are diehard MAGAts, but a few older nurses did, and I quickly shunned them, and blocked and unfriended them from social media, as I founded their stances and statements to be abhorrent and unforgivable.

But then I can’t imagine how anyone would vote for the current Conservative Party (particularly Boris Johnson), and they are riding high in the polls, so I’m obviously not a good judge of these things.

The political situtation in the UK, including Brexit, and the growing support of the Conservative Party, has been extremely discouraging and astonishing to me as a frequent visitor to England, and an unabashed Europhile. I keep thinking that the British people will surely see through the naked ambitions and repressive policies of the Tories, and will reject them in the next election, but they continue to get stronger, as the Labour Party seemingly shoots themselves in the feet over and over again. I have more hope for the American electorate than the British electorate, which is quite a sad commentary given my disillusionment with far too many of my fellow citizens.

We have local elections here today (to local councils) as well as mayoral elections in some cities and a by-election to replace an MP in the House of Commons. And in most of those the Conservatives are riding high...

How did those elections go? I subscribe to the online edition of The Guardian, but I haven't been paying much attention to British politics since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

I wouldn’t vote for someone just because they were female though - it would very much depend on their policies and general character.

Agreed. I wouldn't automatically vote for a person of color just because they were Black, Latinx or AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander), especially since some prominent local Black politicians have drunk the Kool-Aid, or sold their souls to the Devil, and come out in support of Trump and other extreme conservatives.

I have high opinions of Sadiq Khan and David Lammy, both of whom I follow on social media (Facebood and Twitter). I know little about Keir Starmer other than that he is the current Labour Party leader, and I haven't heard of Angela Raynor; I will look her up, though.

>215 stretch: I'm glad that you're enjoying Caste so far, Kevin. I'll have to look for that geophyisics/earthquake metaphor that rubbed you the wrong way, as I don't remember it offhand (at least not in my current sleep deprived state).

Science denialism, science ignorance, vaccine skepticism, and mistrust of medical and public health experts is as entrenched and prevalent today as it has been during my lifetime. I am starting to see many more children whose parents refuse to vaccinate them due to personal beliefs, and their anti-vaxxer views are far more entrenched and unyielding than before, when I could have a civil discourse with them about vaccines. In past years the anti-vaxxers were almost universally White upper middle class parents, but lately progressively more Africn American parents have become diehard anti-vaxxers.

Unlike Polio, I don't think COVID-19 presents the same extensional threat that feasters in the mind of healthy people. It has reached a widespread bogeyman status, a bad "flu". When healthy people aren't sufficiently afraid, all the reasons to avoid vaccination can take hold and because we are shitty at risk assessment it has become all too easy to become entrenched in their stance. Overcoming the hesitation of all population groups is going to take so much more work and is beyond simple messaging that only time and sadly more infections will cure. So yeah it'll be with us for a long time to come.

I suppose this may be because the vast majority of COVID-19 survivors don't show any readily visible evidence of infection, in the manner than most paralytic poliomyelitis survivors did.

Hi there,
I am in the wet, misty, cool borderlands of Kansas/Nebraska. My mother was been hospitalized once again with the lingering effects of COVID she contracted in December 2020 and now has spent the best part of April in and out of the hospital. She was then moved to a complete care nursing home/Rehab center at the end of April and I hope that on Monday I will be able to bring her home. I am here on Intermittent FML until June 5 and am working at my mother's kitchen table instead of my office or my tiny home office in Tuscaloosa.

You can probably tell that with my experiences that I just don't get the COVID thing. I find myself thinking "just wear the mask." Enough said on that.

I did bake a cake yesterday. I experimented with a prune cake recipe from King Arthur Flour that is made with whole wheat flour. When the cake went into the pans the batter was very wet. When it came out, I think that the cake is going to be very dry. I am going to frost it with a buttercream frosting and take a piece to my mom this afternoon. It will be as healthy of a cake as a cake can be since it is loaded with prunes and whole wheat flour. I am going to keep working with this recipe until I get it right because the idea of a cake made mostly of whole wheat flour intrigues me.

We had our deck rebuilt last summer and I purchased a couple of pots for plants that I want to get set up on the deck. I think these will provide some wonderful visual interest for my mother and get her to move outside. She needs to exercise much more than she has been, and daily PT is going to be part of her regime for the next two weeks. She needs to eat better and exercise more, so I am here working on ways to make that happen. Fortunately for us, our county has extensive home health care services that are publicly funded and I intend to make use of them.

I will go back to Alabama around June 5 and work for two weeks and then return here for two weeks just to make sure that things we have set in place are working. My sister (she teaches school and doesn't get out of school until June 6) will come later in July and stay for two weeks and we hope that by then we have a system in place that will work for the fall semester. The doctor (the GP) has told us that in his opinion we are not dealing with end of life issues - yet, but that because of the COVID problem we should be prepared for anything since my mother is 84.

I am getting some reading done, so all is not lost!

>229 kidzdoc: How did those elections go? Well in England the Conservatives won, in Scotland the S.N.P (Scottish National Party) won, and in Wales Labour won, but overall Labour had an appalling election. And as expected Sadiq Khan was re-elected as Mayor of London. The Conservatives did very well in some of the traditional Labour heartlands: Labour has a real problem in that its traditional core vote was working class industrial areas (and it is haemorrhaging that vote at the moment), but it’s gained the younger more educated vote. Marrying up the interests of those two disparate groups is difficult. And the vote on the left is split between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens, whereas the right wing vote has all reunited again under the Conservatives. I’m actually a member of the Green Party, but I’m happy to vote tactically across all those parties. Interestingly, in some traditional Conservative areas like mine, the Conservative vote was down. They still won most seats, but there were unexpected Lib Dem and Green victories as well, and the Conservative majorities were down.

I’m happy that vaccine take-up here seems to be pretty high, and the whole thing has been well organised. Alan had his second jab last Sunday so we are both now fully vaccinated. He had an appointment for a couple of weeks time, but the policy was changed last week and they were offering walk in vaccinations to anyone who had their first jab before a certain date.

Happy Not Memorial Day, everyone! For some reason, probably because this is the fourth Monday in May, I assumed that today was Memorial Day until half an hour ago. I'm now caught up on sleep and wide awake, so I'll definitely finish catching up on old threads this morning.

I didn't do as much reading as I had hoped to, but I did make a modified version of Julia Child's Coq au Vin for Sunday dinner, which turned out great. I'll post photos and the recipe in my new thread, and in La Cucina. I'm off today and tomorrow, so hopefully I'll do a better job of reading before I have to go back to clinical service on Wednesday.

>216 rocketjk: Speaking as an American, my perception is that we have way, way too many people who are racist but who do not specifically identify that way. They "don't see color," for example, but refuse to acknowledge the country's systemic racism and resent having that put in front of them "all the time." They're "not racist" but they resent how Blacks are "given things" (like welfare programs that in fact help many more whites than Blacks, but who's counting?).

I agree completely. That description would include Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who recently ordered Georgia school administrators to not teach "critical race theory" in classrooms, which is a "educational concept that seeks to highlight how historical inequities and racism still shape public policy and cultural conditions," as he and other extreme conservatives describe it as a "dangerous ideology." This is also typical Republican hypocrisy, as Kemp struck hundreds of thousands of Georgians, mostly African Americans, from the list of registered voters when he was Secretary of State for not voting in one previous election, which paved the way for him to defeat Stacey Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial race. Kemp was still serving as Secretary of State when he ran against Abrams, and one of his responsibilities as SoS was to oversee the election process; he only resigned his position after he became Governor. While this is not technically illegal these actions were very shady and undemocratic, at least.

Trump repeatedly described himself as the "least racist person", which undoubtedly gave cover to thousands if not millions of racist conservatives to say and think whatever they wanted.

Although I didn't comment on it I did read your review of The Sum of Us, and I bought a copy of it for one of my parents' closest neighbors and friends, a White home care nurse who they have employed to help them out three times a week. She is fiercely liberal, and she promised to let me read it after she's finished with it. I think she told me about the book when I was up there last month, after she saw me reading Caste, as I doubt that I told her about it first.

>217 Yells: White Fragility is high on my wish list, and I may purchase a copy of it from my local indie bookstore for my Thingaversary (number 15!) on June 8th.

>218 LolaWalser: Great points about the skewed post-election polling data, Lola. I was both astonished and horrified at the thought that Trump's support increased amongst African American males from 2016 to 2020, and that there was a wide difference in Trump's support as compared to African American women. There are a few visible African American politicians in Georgia who were avid Trump supporters, most notably Vernon Jones, a self-aggrandizing, showboating and corrupt clown who switched parties from Democrat to Republican during the presidential race, in a thinly veiled ploy to benefit politically, and likely financially, if Trump was re-elected. I don't know of a single African American, or any person of color, who is not vehemently opposed to Trump, although I suspect that some who haven't said anything publicly are closet supporter of The Big Liar.

>219 rocketjk: I will say that I hope the Democrats don't just shrug off any such findings because they don't believe the numbers. In my opinion, they need to keep working to find out as best they can just how accurate they might have been, just in case, and to figure out why and what to do about it.

I guess the real bottom line for me is that the Democrats need to govern in ways that overcome any hesitancy about supporting them, and possible belief in Republican lies and/or support for their policies, that might be held by minorities and whites as well.

Agreed. A good number of African Americans have recently become disillusioned with the Democratic Party, as they feel that the party takes their votes for granted, yet does little or nothing to help the poorer elements of the "community". They and other people of color could theoretically be attracted to the Republican Party, but the GOP has moved so far to the right that is no longer a viable option for the vast majority of us. I have voted for moderate Republicans in the past, particularly former Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and former Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, but the latter has recently moved further to the right, to match his fellow Georgia Republicans, so I will no longer support him.

I cannot fathom why the GOP fails to grasp that it has become too extreme a party to be attractive to well educated urban and suburban voters, and is rapidly losing support, especially here in metro Atlanta, and is blind to the changing demographics here and elsewhere in the country.

>220 LolaWalser: I don't know of perfect data on this at the moment, but people in general may recall that Covidiocy correlates with Trumpism.

Agreed, and agreed. Most of the Deep South states, including Georgia, have the lowest percentages of fully vaccinated citizens, which is due in large part to vaccine hesitancy amongst conservatives and people in rural areas (Trump Country). I haven't heard a single person at work say that they were not going to get vaccinated or openly express any crazy beliefs or conspiracy theories about the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, probably because they would be harshly criticized and publicly flayed for their opinions. Vaccination is not required here, but because the medical staff was routinely seeing patients with COVID-19 everyone I know was chomping at the bit to get vaccinated ASAP, and I and others were quite stressed out when we had to wait a whole week after the first tier of recipients at Children's received their first jabs (I received my first Pfizer-BioNTech dose on December 23rd, and the second exactly three weeks later, on January 13th, which is still well before everyone else I know on LT.)

It seems certain that more Republicans than Democrats opted for election-day in-person voting.

That was absolutely the case in Georgia, and that had everything to do with the way in which the vote count for POTUS and the two Senate races played out here. (BTW I've been almost always voting early for over a decade, and I took advantage of mail in balloting in 2020.) The votes cast in person on Election Day were tallied first, followed by early in person votes and mail in ballots; as a result the Republican candidates had sizable leads early, which were whittled down in the late evening hours on Election Day, and by the early morning the Democratic candidates took leads that they did not relinquish. That phenomenon, combined with Trump's claim that the election was stolen even before Election Day and his comments after he badly lost, probably had a lot to do with conservatives' refusal to accept that the Messiah was no longer going to be POTUS, and the outrage in Georgia that a Jew and a nigra were the state's newest Senators.

>221 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. My aunt's death was imminent, although she died about a week or two before I thought she would, even though her doctors were correct in their assessment of how much longer she would be alive.

Speaking of vaccines, I did get the second Shingrix (shingles) vaccine on Mother's Day, along with my parents, and it was significantly worse than getting the second Pfizer-BioNTech SARS-CoV-2 jab. I felt fine on Mother's Day, was very fatigued the following day when I flew back to Atlanta, and I mainly stayed in bed the next two days, with moderate fatiure, low grade fever, diffuse muscle and joint aches, and nausea. I mentioned this on Facebook, and several of my 50 yo and older friends had similar symptoms, some of whom fared worse than I did. Fortunately I was off those two days after I returned, but more importantly I'm protected against shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia, either of which would be far worse than my moderate post-vaccination symptoms.

>222 streamsong: That is absolutely frightening, Janet. This country is becoming progressively stranger and scarier, which only bolsters my plan to leave it after I retire. Violent crime has risen substantially in Atlanta over the past year, including the widely publicized Atlanta spa shootings in March and a near massacre in a Publix Super Market in Atlantic Station, close to where I live last month, in which a gunman armed to the teeth was observed going into a men's bathroom by a customer, who called police and led to his arrest after he came out of the bathroom before he could start shooting. There are also plenty of aggrieved rednecks in the suburbs and exurbs, and road rage shootings on the major highways here, so I've decided to lay low this summer and only go out to work and perform errands in the early morning hours. I'm also disinclined to vacation in the US, but I do hope to visit Lisbon in September and London in October, as I should be safe from gun toting crazies in Europe.

I look forward to your and your book club's thoughts about Caste.

>223 RidgewayGirl: That was something I don't miss about Arizona -- the fun of standing in line at the Circle K behind some large white dude wearing a large firearm.

No, thank you. I have absolutely no reason or desire to visit Arizona, now or ever.

>224 streamsong: ...or Montana, or most states in this God forsaken country.

>225 Familyhistorian: I did get a lot out of Caste, Meg. I'll visit my parents from June 16-30, and since my copy of it is there I'll review it then.

>227 RidgewayGirl: I'll admit that the hatred directed at Hillary Clinton mystifies me, but I do think the reason it gained traction was the distaste we have for intelligent, ambitious people who are also women.

I was definitely not a fan of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, especially after she and Debbie Wasserman Schultz conspired against Bernie Sanders, who I voted for in the primary election. She ran an absolute crap of a campaign against Trump IMO, and I have lost a tremendous amount of respect of and tolerance for her. Having said that, there was no question in my mind that she would have been a competent if not inspiring POTUS, and there was never a millisecond when I thought about voting for Trump instead of her (then again I would have voted for a steaming pile of elephant poop over him). Even though reading Caste helped me understand to a degree why a plurality, or at least a large minority, of White women voted for Trump I'm still astonished that so many of them chose him instead. I expected as much from American men 🙄, and obviously her political positions were not in alignment with those of the dominant caste who sought to maintain their Preferred status rather than achieving short term benefits, but it's still difficult for me to accept that the lack of support from White women, especially in comparison to women of color, was, at least IMO, the key factor in her loss.

I wonder if a few of the anti-vaxxers will start to mask up out of fear of someone thinking they were vaccinated? Probably a fantasy. Like you, I'm keeping my mask on in public indoor areas, but it is lovely to not wear it outside.

Americans are liars, if nothing else, I suspect that anti-vaxxers will not wear masks, both because they don't believe that they work, and because they still fail to grasp how serious and deadly this pandemic has been. My medical school classmate whose comment I posted in >198 kidzdoc: also wished that some of these ignoramuses could spend one day on hospital rounds with her, especially when she saw critically ill and dying patients in the ICU in the hospital she works in, although she also recognized that their beliefs transcended reality and many would find a way to deny what they were seeing and blame the patients' illnesses on other reasons.

See you in September!

Absolutely! I requested and was granted off from Friday through Sunday or Monday of Labor Day weekend, so I'll be there.

>228 jessibud2: Thanks for mentioning The Rise: Black Cooks and The Soul of American Food to me, Shelley! That sounds right up my alley, so I'll look for it when I go my favorite bookshop next month.

I've acquired quite a few cookbooks over the past few years, now that I'm cooking in earnest. I need to read and review some of my favorites, especially Soup for Syria and Ottolenghi Simple.

As for those who refuse to get vaccinated or wear a mask, don't get me started. It will be a long time before I stop wearing my masks.

Same here. My closest female cousin spent 11 days in the hospital due to COVID-19, her oldest sister nearly died from it, and a new friend spent 18 days in hospital because of it. Less than half of Georgians are fully vaccinated, although I'm sure that this percentage is higher in the city than outside of it. Still...

>230 benitastrnad: I'm sorry to find out that your mother was hospitalized again due to COVID-19, Benita. I hope that you're able to bring her home today.

Good luck on your prune cake. I'm not a baker of desserts, mainly because I'm far more savory than sweet, but I would be interested in finding out how your cake turns out once you've perfected the recipe.

After we discussed and looked at models my father purchased a Schwinn recumbent bicycle on Friday, model 720 IIRC, which had the highest rating on Consumer Reports. My mother's exercise tolerance has declined considerably as of late, as she is spending less time on their treadmill, and we're hopeful that she'll use the recumbent bicycle, as she did at the nearby senior citizen center before the pandemic hit.

My mother turned 85 in October, and my father celebrated his 86th birthday in December, so I can empathize with your plight.

I work Wednesday through Sunday this week, and then I'm off until July 2nd, as June has been my vacation free month off service for several years. I work extra shifts from November through February, as we're traditionally much busier then, and instead of earning extra pay during that time I'm paid back by having compensatory days off in June, and those days combined with my normal days off that month means that I don't have to work at all, and don't have to use precious vacation time. Spain has announced that vaccinated American tourists will be allowed entry into the country without having to quarantine starting on June 7th, but Portugal hasn't made a similar pronouncement, and the UK won't relax its restrictions until June 21st, so I'll stay stateside next month and plan to use my vacation to travel to Europe in September and October.

>231 SandDune: Ugh. I'm sorry to hear that Labour continues to do poorly in England, Rhian. I suppose that the new leadership hasn't made much difference? What's the likelihood that Nicola Sturgeon will call for another referendum on Scottish secession from the UK?

I'm pleased that you and Alan are both fully vaccinated. What about Jacob?

Belated condolences for your aunt's death, Darryl.

On the election, it's at least good that Biden's victory brought back hope, but I regret deeply the slant that was picked up based on the exit poll data, where everywhere I looked the media were trumpeting forever the "man bites dog" "news" about trump's "increased" support among the minorities, because I'm firmly convinced this played entirely into the now-entrenched conspiracy theory about the "stolen" election. In short, it did terrible damage and the effects will still be playing out a very long time. For one thing, it also helped consolidate trumpism as an acceptable political choice, that will exist even without Twitler.

Hi Daryl,
I don't know how much Pitt alumni stuff you get. So I thought to send you a link to this recent newsletter with some interesting remote events in June:
http://pittsburgh.imodules.com/controls/email_marketing/view_in_browser.aspx?sid...

Hi Darryl! Condolences on your aunt's death. I am glad that you are able to spend time with your folks, even thought it's often bittersweet times. I hope that the recumbent bike works for your mom. That brings back memories for me!

My mom died about 20 years ago, she had heart problems and several strokes fairly young; and spent many years quite disabled, but determined. She had a (very basic) stationary bike she used to ride, even though she was paralyzed on one side and blind. When we'd visit, my daughter, who was a preschooler, used to ride on the bike, and then she'd get my mom to get on the bike, and would call out "Go, Goggy Teace, Go!"(Goggy Teace was her nickname for my mom.) After my mom died, I helped my dad clean things out, and I took that bike, because I couldn't bear to give it away, even though I had no use for it. It sat in the spare room, and then the basement, for several years until I realized that I could keep the memories and not the bike.

>234 kidzdoc: What's the likelihood that Nicola Sturgeon will call for another referendum on Scottish secession from the UK? My personal view is that, while I don’t think she will do it just yet, I think there will be a new referendum in the next few years. I strongly expect Scotland to be independent say within 20 years or so.

>234 kidzdoc: What about Jacob He had had his first (Astra Zeneca) vaccine and his next one is due next month.

Congratulations to author David Diop and translator Anna Moschovakis, who shared the 2021 International Booker Prize that was awarded to Diop's novel At Night All Blood Is Black. I've only read three of the six shortlisted books so far, and it was my favorite. I'll start a new thread today, and write a review of it there.

I'm now at the beginning of my vacation free month from work, which I earned by working 2-1/2 weeks of extra shifts this past November through February. Due to the pandemic I'll stay stateside, as I did last June, although I'll visit my parents again for the last two weeks of the month.

I'll use this month to prepare for the upcoming third quarter Reading Globally theme of Lusophone literature, which I'll host, and I'll get an early start on reading several books I already own, beginning with The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto. My reading output tailed off in May, due to busy work days, but I should pick up the pace over the next several months.

>235 LolaWalser: I agree; trumpism now seems to be acceptable, and it's infested and taken over the Republican Party, to the detriment of the GOP, and our democracy.

>236 tangledthread: Thanks, tangledthread! I didn't see that communication, as I may not have signed up for emails from the Pitt Alumni Association (I'll correct that today). Unfortunately I saw your message too late to watch 'Addressing the Effects of a Pandemic', but I'll see if I can view a recording of it.

>237 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda. One result of the pandemic is that I'm able to spend more time with my parents, as I'm still unable to travel to Portugal to explore the country more and start working on retirement plans, as it is not yet open to American tourists. Unfortunately the British government just announced that it has moved Portugal from its "green list" (unrestricted travel to the country for UK citizens, with no need to quarantine upon return) to its "amber list" (returning citizens will have to quarantine at home for 10 days) starting on Tuesday, which will be a devastating blow to holiday travel there. US citizens who wish to travel to the UK must also quarantine in place for 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status and negative SARS-CoV-2 test results before departure and after arrival, so I won't be able to travel to London until this requirement is lifted. At the moment fully vaccinated US citizens can travel to Spain without quarantining on arrival, so I may end up spending a good bit of time there in September and October if I can't go anywhere else (without restriction) in Europe.

Thanks for sharing that great memory of your mother.

>238 SandDune: Thanks for your thoughts about a future Scottish referendum, Rhian. I'm glad that Jacob will soon be fully vaccinated.

>238 SandDune: At Night All Blood is Black was the only shortlisted book I have read, Darryl. I found it an impressive story, and I am glad it won.
Enjoy your time off, even though you still can't travel abroad.

>240 FAMeulstee: I read your review of All Night All Blood Is Black, Anita, and I had planned to read it before it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. I'm also glad that it won.

I have a 10-12 day break in July, so I could travel to whichever European countries are open to vaccinated American tourists then. I would love to return to Madrid, and visit Toledo, Zaragoza and possibly Segovia, but it will likely be blazing hot there then, with high temperatures in the mid 30s to 40 C or higher, so I'll wait to go there until some other time of year.