Don’t listen to weather forecasters and local news reporters who focus in on hurricanes. They have jobs to protect. Of course, hurricanes make everything worse, but that’s not, and never has been the main reason for the persistent out of control algae blooms.
SET LIST (Times preceding titles are start times, not song length.): 00:18 – Black and White 07:12 – I’m Alive 12:54 – Farther On 18:51 – The Naked Ride Home 26:21 – Live Nude Cabaret 30:57 – Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate 33:32 – The Pretender 40:34 – A Child in These Hills 46:38 – Tokyo Girl 51:32 – These Days 58:04 – In the Shape of a Heart 1:04:34 – The Late Show 1:11:06 – I’ll Do Anything 1:17:21 – Running on Empty 1:23:36 – Take it Easy 1:29:05 – Rock Me On the Water 1:35:03 – Before the Deluge
Many important takeaways from this accurate thumbnail history lesson. Well worth 14 minutes of your time. Watch it in full.
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“You do not need to be part of a huge corporation to get your message out to millions of people…anybody can do it…if you have something that people are interested in, you can get a following…”
The Beginning and the End: Robinson Jeffers’s Epic Poem About the Interwoven Mystery of Mind and Universe
“Pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things grow from a chemical reaction?”
BY MARIA POPOVA
“We forget that nature itself is one vast miracle transcending the reality of night and nothingness,” the anthropologist and philosopher of science Loren Eiseley wrote in his poetic meditation on life in 1960. “We forget that each one of us in his personal life repeats that miracle.”
The history of our species is the history of forgetting. Our deepest existential longing is the longing for remembering this cosmic belonging, and the work of creativity is the work of reminding us. We may give the tendrils of our creative longing different names — poetry or physics, music or mathematics, astronomy or art — but they all give us one thing: an antidote to forgetting, so that we may live, even for a little while, wonder-smitten by reality.
“Human being, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to an invisible tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious player.”
By Maria Popova
We are accidents of biochemistry and chance, moving through the world waging wars and writing poems, spellbound by the seductive illusion of the self, every single one of our atoms traceable to some dead star.
In the interlude between the two World Wars, days after the stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression, the German-American poet and future Nazi sympathizer George Sylvester Viereck sat down with Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879–April 18, 1955) for what became his most extensive interview about life — reflections ranging from science to spirituality to the elemental questions of existence. It was published in the Saturday Evening Post on October 29, 1929 — a quarter century after Einstein’s theory of relativity reconfigured our basic understanding of reality with its revelation that space and time are the warp and weft threads of a single fabric, along the curvature of which everything we are and everything we know is gliding.
Albert Einstein by Lotte Jacobi. (University of New Hampshire Museum of Art.)
Considering the helplessness individual human beings feel before the immense geopolitical forces that had hurled the world into its first global war and the decisions individual political leaders were making — decisions already inclining the world toward a second — Einstein aims in his sensitive intellect at the fundamental reality of existence:
“I am a determinist. As such, I do not believe in free will. The Jews believe in free will. They believe that man shapes his own life. I reject that doctrine philosophically. In that respect I am not a Jew… I believe with Schopenhauer: We can do what we wish, but we can only wish what we must. Practically, I am, nevertheless, compelled to act is if freedom of the will existed. If I wish to live in a civilized community, I must act as if man is a responsible being.”
When asked about any personal responsibility for his own staggering achievements, he points a steadfast finger at the nonexistence of free will:
“I claim credit for nothing. Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human being, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to an invisible tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious player.”
For Einstein, the most alive part of the mystery we live with — the mystery we are — is the imagination, that supreme redemption of human life from the prison of determinism. With an eye to his discovery of relativity, he reflects:
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, funded by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would totally tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong.”
[…]
I am enough of an artist to draw freely from the imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
“Even when he was unable to reach the ideals of personal growth, by either his own vices or by circumstance, he was constantly able to improve by means of practice. And, in the end, isn’t that what matters?”
At the ripe old age of twenty, Benjamin Franklin set out to make himself morally perfect. Having studied the ancient philosophers and their ideas of the virtues required to be an ideal man, he created his own list of thirteen virtues. Like the virtue ethicists of the ancient past and more modern times, Franklin sought to develop his entire character rather than focus on the question of how to act in a certain situation. His hope being that with the perfection of his character, he would never again have to ask how to act, as he would simply act as a virtuous person would by habit. Never again would he commit a fault at any time, he thought.
There is unavoidable emotional pain when those we care about are threatened or suffer.
Most of our stresses and upsets come from needless suffering that we cause ourselves, which is the opposite of being at peace.
Strengthen neural networks in the brain that support spacious mindfulness, staying in the present, and taking life less personally.
Humans are an empathic, compassionate, and loving species, so it is natural to feel sad, worried, or fiery about the troubles and pain of other people. (And about those of cats and dogs and other animals, but I’ll focus on human beings here.)
Unavoidable Physical and Emotional Pain
Long ago, the Buddha spoke of the “first dart” of unavoidable physical pain. Given our hardwired nature as social beings, when those we care about are threatened or suffer, there is another kind of first dart: unavoidable emotional pain.
For example, if you heard about people who go to bed hungry—as a billion of us do each night—of course, your heart would be moved. I’m usually a pretty calm guy, but when I visited Haiti, I was in a cold rage at the appalling conditions in which most people there lived. On a lesser scale but still real, a friend’s son has just started college and is calling home to tell his mom how lonely and miserable he feels; of course, she’s worried and upset.
Needless Suffering That We Cause Ourselves
But then—as the Buddha continued with his metaphor—there is the seconddarts we throw ourselves: rehashing past events, writing angry mental emails in the middle of the night, anxious rumination, thinking you’re responsible when you’re not, feeling flooded or overwhelmed or drained, getting sucked into conflicts between others, etc., etc. Most of our stresses and upsets come from these second darts: needless suffering that we cause ourselves—the opposite of being at peace.
Our second darts also get in the way of making things better. You’ve probably had the experience of talking with someone about something painful to you. Still, this person was so rattled by your pain that he or she couldn’t just listen and had to give you advice, say you were making a big deal out of nothing, or jump out of the conversation, or even blame you for your own pain!
In other words, when others are not at peace with our pain, they have a hard time being open, compassionate, supportive, and helpful with it. And the reverse is true when we are not at peace with the pain of others.
So, how do you do it? How do you find that sweet spot in which you are open, caring, and brave enough to let others land in your heart…while also staying balanced, centered, and at peace in your core?
The Practice
Keep a warm heart.
Let the pain of the other person wash through you. Don’t resist it. Opening your heart, finding compassion—the sincere wish that a being not suffer—will lift and fuel you to bear the other’s pain. We long to feel received by others; turn it around: Your openness to another person, your willingness to be moved, is one of the greatest gifts you can offer.
To sustain this openness, it helps to have a sense of your own body. Tune into breathing and steady the sense of being here with the other person’s issues and distress over there.
Have a heart for yourself as well. It’s often hard to bear the pain of others, especially if you feel helpless to do anything about it. It’s OK if your response is not perfect. When you know your heart is sincere, you don’t have to prove yourself to others. Know that you are truly a good person; you are, really, warts and all, and knowing this fact will help you stay authentically open to others.
Do what you can.
Nkosi Johnson was born in South Africa with HIV in 1989, and he died 12 years later—after becoming a national advocate for people with HIV/AIDS. I think often of something he said, paraphrased slightly here: “Do what you can, with what you’ve been given, in the place where you are, with the time that you have.”
Do what you can—and know that you have done it, which brings a feeling of peace. And then, face the facts of your limitations—another source of peace. One of the hardest things for me—and most parents—is to feel keenly the struggles and pain of my kids…and know that there is nothing I can do about it. That’s the first dart, for sure. But when I think that I have more influence than I actually do and start giving my dad-ish advice and getting all invested in the result, second darts start landing on me— and on others.
See the big picture.
Whatever the pain of another person happens to be—perhaps due to illness, family quarrel, poverty, aging, depression, stressful job, worry about a child, disappointment in love, or the devastation of war—it is made up of many parts (emotions, sensations, thoughts, etc.) that are the result of a vast web of causes.
When you recognize this truth, it is strangely calming. You still care about the other person, and you do what you can, but you see that this pain and its causes are a tiny part of a larger and mostly impersonal whole.
This recognition of the whole—the whole of one person’s life, of the past emerging into the present, of the natural world, of physical reality altogether—tends to settle down the neural networks in the top middle of the brain that ruminate and agitate. It also tends to activate and strengthen neural networks on the sides of the brain that support spacious mindfulness, staying in the present, taking life less personally—and a growing sense of peace.
About the Author
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a senior fellow of the Greater Good Center at UC Berkeley.
Bill Maher and Andrew Sullivan randomly riff on Andrew’s history in debating, the legality of certain substances in England, the terrifying nature of the Catholic upbringing, the people Andrew bonds with best, their mutual moments of enlightenment as kids, the benefits of circumcision, whether we’re born with certain desires, the beautiful melting pot of London, how you know when to throw down, and much more.
Sometimes we just have to do it when we’re overmatched by our internal struggles and need a trusted ear to vent the pressure. It makes sense to find a release valve. Life demands it from time to time.
We have free will to choose our audience but free will brings responsibility. Responsibility to make thoughtful judgement on who we’re sharing with, and the responsibility to respect others who are part of our story. The decision to share details of our personal life or life decisions with other people should not be taken lightly. That said, qualified, fully trained licensed therapists, operating in a controlled environment, offer us a safe place when we need help to move ahead. They have saved many of us from thoughtless decisions and impulsive behavior.
The risk of opening up outside of that structured professional therapeutic relationship is dangerous and fraught with red flags. Personal bias, preexisting resentments, or bitterness, any documented history of past mental instability or illness, and of course, the lack of any professional credentials.
There’s lots of people out there who mean well when a friend comes to lean on them or vent some steam. The best are those who always listen, but politely decline guidance, presumption of facts, or blind support. Most people are not like that. Caution flags for every one else.
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama
Adapted from https://zenhabits.net/25-ways-to-help-a-fellow-human-being-today/
Too often the trend in our society is for people to be separated from each other, to be cut off from the great mass of humanity, and in doing so to be dehumanized a little bit more with each step.
Cars have taken us off the streets, where we used to greet each other and stop to chat. Cubicles have taken away a bit of the humanity in working, as have factories and even computers to some extent. Television has planted us firmly in our living rooms, instead of out with other people. Even movie theaters, where many people get together, cut us off from true conversation because we’re staring at a big screen.
What we must guard against is the tendency of that individuality to have us focused on ourselves to the exclusion of our fellow human beings. The tendency towards selfishness rather than giving, on helping ourselves rather than helping our brothers and sisters in humanity.
So strike back against the selfishness and greed of our modern world, and help out a fellow human being today. Not next month, but today.
Helping a fellow human being has a few humble advantages:
It makes you feel better about yourself;
It connects you with another person, at least for a moment, if not for life;
It improves the life of another, at least a little;
It makes the world a better place, one little step at a time;
And if that kindness is passed on, it can multiply, and multipy.
So take just a few minutes today, and do a kindness for another person. It can be something small, or the start of something big. Ask them to pay it forward. Put a smile on someone’s face.
Don’t know where to start? Here’s an extremely incomplete list, just to get you thinking — I’m sure you can come up with thousands more if you think about it.
Smile and be friendly. Sometimes a simple little thing like this can put a smile and warm feeling in someone else’s heart, and make their day a little better. They might then do the same for others.
Call a charity to volunteer. You don’t have to go to a soup kitchen today. Just look up the number, make the call, and make an appointment to volunteer sometime in the next month. It can be whatever charity you like. Volunteering is one of the most amazing things you can do.
Donate something you don’t use. Or a whole box of somethings. Drop them off at a charity — others can put your clutter to good use.
Make a donation. There are lots of ways to donate to charities online, or in your local community. Instead of buying yourself a new gadget or outfit, spend that money in a more positive way.
Redirect gifts. Instead of having people give you birthday or Christmas gifts, ask them to donate gifts or money to a certain charity.
Stop to help. The next time you see someone pulled over with a flat tire, or somehow in need of help, stop and ask how you can help. Sometimes all they need is a push, or the use of your cell phone.
Teach. Take the time to teach someone a skill you know. This could be teaching your grandma to use email, teaching your child to ride a bike, teaching your co-worker a valuable computer skill, teaching your spouse how to clean the darn toilet. OK, that last one doesn’t count.
Comfort someone in grief. Often a hug, a helpful hand, a kind word, a listening ear, will go a long way when someone has lost a loved one or suffered some similar loss or tragedy.
Help them take action. If someone in grief seems to be lost and doesn’t know what to do, help them do something. It could be making funeral arrangements, it could be making a doctor’s appointment, it could be making phone calls. Don’t do it all yourself — let them take action too, because it helps in the healing process.
Buy food for a homeless person. Cash is often a bad idea if it’s going to be used for drugs, but buying a sandwich and chips or something like that is a good gesture. Be respectful and friendly.
Lend your ear. Often someone who is sad, depressed, angry, or frustrated just needs someone who will listen. Venting and talking through an issue is a huge help.
Help someone on the edge. If someone is suicidal, urge them to get help. If they don’t, call a suicide hotline or doctor yourself to get advice.
Help someone get active. A person in your life who wants to get healthy might need a helping hand — offer to go walking or running together, to join a gym together. Once they get started, it can have profound effects.
Do a chore. Something small or big, like cleaning up or washing a car or doing the dishes or cutting a lawn.
Give a massage. Only when appropriate of course. But a massage can go a long way to making someone feel better.
Send a nice email. Just a quick note telling someone how much you appreciate them, or how proud you are of them, or just saying thank you for something they did.
Show appreciation, publicly. Praising someone on a blog, in front of coworkers, in front of family, or in some other public way, is a great way to make them feel better about themselves.
Donate food. Clean out your cupboard of canned goods, or buy a couple bags of groceries, and donate them to a homeless shelter.
Just be there. When someone you know is in need, sometimes it’s just good to be there. Sit with them. Talk. Help out if you can.
Be patient. Sometimes people can have difficulty understanding things, or learning to do something right. Learn to be patient with them.
Tutor a child. This might be difficult to do today, but often parents can’t afford to hire a tutor for their child in need of help. Call a school and volunteer your tutoring services.
Create a care package. Soup, reading material, tea, chocolate … anything you think the person might need or enjoy. Good for someone who is sick or otherwise in need of a pick-me-up.
Lend your voice. Often the powerless, the homeless, the neglected in our world need someone to speak up for them. You don’t have to take on that cause by yourself, but join others in signing a petition, speaking up a a council meeting, writing letters, and otherwise making a need heard.
Offer to babysit. Sometimes parents need a break. If a friend or other loved one in your life doesn’t get that chance very often, call them and offer to babysit sometime. Set up an appointment. It can make a big difference.
Love. Simply finding ways to express your love to others, whether it be your partner, child, other family member, friend, co-worker, or a complete stranger … just express your love. A hug, a kind word, spending time, showing little kindnesses, being friendly … it all matters more than you know.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a weary world. – William Shakespeare
Much ink has been spilled on the importance of communication in romantic relationships. For instance, the benefits of using “I statements”, the importance of talking about one’s feelings, or trying to avoid using accusing or criticizing language. All of the above are positive, and I promote their use wholeheartedly. But there is, however, a subtler element to communication that does not seem to benefit from as much attention. An ingredient so important that without it, ‘communication’ would simply be ‘speaking’. The key element is listening.
At first glance, listening appears rather simple, and we all do it, right? Sit back, relax, and just hear the words exiting your partner’s mouth. But such a description would likely suit ‘hearing’ better than listening. In reality, listening is more complex, and certainly more challenging. But the good news is that knowledge and practice can lead to a significant improvement in our ability to truly tune into one another, and the payoffs are plentiful.
Listening entails much more than merely hearing a partner’s spoken words. In a 2003 study on communication in relationships, researcher Faye Doell drew attention to a key distinction, namely the difference between listening to understand and listening to respond, concluding that the former led to greater relationship satisfaction. And this distinction highlights one of the central elements of listening: understanding. Here are five strategies to help you along in your quest to become better listeners and as a result, most likely better partners, (and while you’re at it, better parents, family members and friends…)
Don’t make it about you. How many times are we engaged in conversations and all we want to do is give our opinion? Fix things? Defend ourselves? Listening is mainly about the other. It is about putting your needs, your opinions, your hurts aside temporarily and creating space and attention for the other to speak, to laugh, to cry, to explore – to just be. By being supportive and encouraging of this space, we are creating safety and freedom for our partners, as if saying to them: “You can say and feel what you need to say and feel right now. I can create that space for you.” Putting your partner first can be hard, especially if what they’re talking about is triggering or hurtful. Keep in mind that you don’t need to agree with your partner, or even like what they have to say. But being in listening mode is not the time to share your side of the story. (Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn… see below.)
Tune into their world. If you need to, take the time to actively prepare yourself to tune into your partner’s world. This can look like a brief solo-pep talk, or even a grounding ritual that can help you clear out your own agenda and focus on the other. Immerse yourself in your partner, turning their words and non-verbals into a narrative of a movie or book of their experience.
Strive to understand. As the listener, your first responsibility is to try to understand the position or experience of the other. Therefore, if what you’re getting isn’t clear, then ask clarifying questions to get the full picture. Steer clear of judgment and opinion, (which tend to be more about you than about your partner) and instead focus more on expressing interest and curiosity. This is your partner after all – would you not want to acquire a greater understanding of what they’re experiencing? Learn more about what makes them tick? Discover how they’ve evolved? Beyond being supportive in listening, acquiring a more profound knowledge of your partner deepens intimacy – one of the greatest antidotes to relational strife.
Take turns. Take a few deep breaths if you need to, and keep in mind that it is crucial for both partners to get a shot at expressing themselves and be listened to. Your turn may not be in 5 minutes, it may not be until after your partner’s finished their part. In fact, if you don’t feel the need to share your part, you may not even need to take your turn… this time. But be sure to get your turn next time around, or when something comes up for you and you will feel the need to express yourself. It’s only fair that if you provide that support to your partner, that they return the favour. So hang tight.
Don’t try to fix. Validate instead. Although good intentions may underlie attempts to fix, it is best used when solicited, as fixing often overshadows a partner’s experience and fast-tracks the discussion to the solution stage. Bombarding the other with suggestions and recommendations may appear caring & helpful, but it can also be received as “how is it that you haven’t thought of this?” Ultimately, as social creatures, what we often need above all else is to be heard, to be held, and to know that we are not alone. And therefore, validating our partner’s experience can go very far in providing such supports.
When working with clients, it never ceases to amaze me how many relationships have benefitted by simply applying some of the techniques listed here. As discussed above, part of the reason for this is that we acquire a greater understanding of one another, which is extremely important. But there are two more critical benefits that listening provides, often hidden from view. For one, in itself, being listened to deeply is calming and it can act as a dependable stress-reliever. Second, and more importantly, recognizing that our partner can reliably listen to us and be there for us significantly improves trust, the granddaddy of all relationship needs. So much so that renowned couples’ clinician and researcher Dr. John Gottman reported that the most significant predictor of healthy long-term relationships is reflected by the feeling that “I can trust that you will be there for me if I need you”.
So go out there, get your partner. Sit them down and let them tell you about them.
Above image: President Emmanuel Macron of France, second from left, and Malcolm Turnbull, then prime minister of Australia, third from left, on an Australian submarine during a 2018 visit by Mr. Macron to Sydney.Credit…Ludovic Marin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At the very least, what happened here is a major blunder in geopolitical respect and basic communications to a longstanding important ally. Not to mention the legal or contractual consequences. That’s a hornet’s nest itself. If this happened in a business deal outside the realm of national security or government military arena, there would be millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of punitive penalties imposed. I understand the decision to go with nuclear powered subs. There’s no comparison with conventional subs. Certainly not for security purposes when patrolling the Pacific. That’s a simple product comparison. They’re better. Period. How the French and Australia approached their original deal with that choice or conversation in mind is another topic. The issue here is not about that. It is about the multi billion dollar contract between them that got severed. It’s not even about why. It’s about how it happened. From how this clumsy decision was presented, it’s almost unforgivable behavior from the full trio of Australia, Britain, and U.S. given the size of the preexisting, now cancelled, agreement between Australia and France. This mishandling will cover Biden’s shoes in excrement for quite some time. It was ultimately his call to handle it this way, and he deserves the pain to fight his way out. But, the equal, if not more accountability, is in the complete failure of multiple military officials and diplomacy advisers to do something, anything, to make sure this incident had a chance, any chance, to be presented in a less damaging light. Instead, what they all collectively let happen, was radioactive fallout.
Recently, while cleaning out some files, I came across a news story I saved from 2009. It still resonates today with the same common sense logic and awareness that remains elusive among the masses, and frustratingly absent from public policy, political power groups, and corporate accountability. 12-13 years ago.
Sure, things have improved. But the proportion of outrage and individual virtues in comparison to the broad scale changes needed in oil reliance, automotive design, and all around energy production industries, remains too small to make a difference thus far.
A related link from 2015 I included at the bottom describes the problem as described by climate scientists, in even more stark terms than Friedman.
This planet is on the short side of the math, and that’s always been due to the blindness or denial of what the problem to solve actually is.
The last two Q & As in this interview say it best. >MB
Q&A: Columnist Tom Friedman on Climate Change
In his bestselling book “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman argues that countries that pioneer renewable-energy technologies will increase their national security and prosperity at the expense of those that cling to fossil fuels. He spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Sharon Begley: (Article continued below…)
Begley: A Gallup poll found that 41 percent of Americans—a record high—say concerns about climate change are exaggerated. Why is the public so resistant to the findings of climate science?
Friedman: What’s ironic is that that poll comes out at a time when more and more studies are suggesting that climate change is happening faster, bigger, quicker and with more powerful impacts than we anticipated just a few years ago. For whatever reason, climate change was presented as a political issue, and because [of that] there had to be sides … Also, there is a real aversion among scientists to popularizing things, so sometimes they’ve been a little diffident about making the case strongly. And part of the problem is that the most vocal global advocate on climate change has been Al Gore. For all these reasons it’s not surprising that the average person would be confused.
In the 1970s, the country was making progress toward renewable energy. Then things came to a screeching halt. What happened?
We were too successful. We imposed draconian mileage standards on cars, and it had a very big impact. At the same time, there was a global oil glut, and oil prices collapsed after Jimmy Carter left office [removing the economic pressure to move away from oil]. Ronald Reagan came in and instead of keeping up the initiative to have more solar energy, have more wind power, invest in energy efficiency and continue increasing mileage requirements for cars, he put the brakes on. Reagan proudly stripped the solar panels off the White House roof.
In “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” you use the phrase “dumb as we wanna be” to describe Americans’ attitudes toward energy and climate. What examples did you have in mind?
There are so many. I was trying to convey this idea that we thought we could sit back and delay everything until we got around to it. As a result we fell behind in the renewable-energy industries that are going to be the next great global industry. I believe this industry, which I call ET—energy technology, the search for abundant, cheap, clean, reliable electrons—is going to be the IT of the 21st century. One of the problems with the term “green” is that the definition was imposed by its opponents, by the Rush Limbaugh crowd. They named green [as] liberal, tree-hugging, sissy, girlie-man, unpatriotic, vaguely European. What I’ve been trying to do in this book is to rename green as geopolitical, geostrategic, geo-economic, capitalistic, patriotic. The country that owns green, that dominates that industry, is going to have the most energy security, national security, economic security, competitive companies, healthy population and, most of all, global respect. I want that country to be the United States of America. This isn’t just about electric power. It’s about economic power, it’s about national power.
You’re critical of efforts to get people to make small, symbolic gestures to use less energy. What’s wrong with that?
The danger is you think that if you change your light bulbs [to compact fluorescents], you’ve solved the problem. My motto is, change your leaders, not your light bulbs. Because what leaders do is rewrite the rules. They rewrite the rules of what utilities can burn as energy. They rewrite the car-mileage rules. They rewrite the rules of whether a nuclear plant can be built. These are the only things that give you [change at the scale we need]. Without scale change right now, in terms of climate we’re really cooked. You know, I come out of the world of covering foreign policy, and that trained me to look for where the leverage points are. I don’t think the leverage points now are in more consciousness-raising.
In the past, the public was ahead of politicians on issues such as civil rights. Is that the case with energy and climate?
It’s all about how you frame the issues. We’ve done polling at The New York Times, and if you ask people, would you like a carbon tax or a [higher] gasoline tax, they say no, no. But then you say, would you like a tax that combats climate change over the long term, [and they say,] yeah, I could see that. And would you like a tax that relieves us from living under the thumb of petro-dictators, [and they say,] yeah, I’d like that. I mean, what is it we’re trying to do? [To change things so] that there won’t be such a thing as a “green car,” there will just be a car, and you won’t be able to build it except at the highest levels of efficiency. There won’t be such a thing as a “green home,” there will just be a home, and you will not be able to build it unless it is at the highest standards of green energy, efficiency and sustainability. You’ll know the green revolution has been won when the word “green” disappears.
Ms. Lockwood is the ideas editor at the website Rest of World and the author of the forthcoming book “1,001 Voices on Climate Change,” from which this essay is adapted.
Devi Lockwood spent five years traveling the globe talking to people about changes they were seeing to their local water and climates. Here are some of the stories she heard.
Tuvalu
A little more than 10,000 people live in Tuvalu. Generations ago, Polynesians navigated here by the stars, calling the sprinkles of land in the vast blue of the South Pacific home. With 10 square miles of total area, less than five miles of roads and only one hospital on the main island, Tuvalu is the fourth-smallest countryin the world. Disney World is four times larger in area. Tuvalu’s capital city, Funafuti, sits about 585 miles south of the Equator.
By some estimates, Tuvaluans will be forced, by water scarcity and rising sea levels, to migrate elsewhere in the next 50 years. This mass exodus is already happening. Large Tuvaluan outposts exist in Fiji and New Zealand.
I came to Tuvalu with a question: What does it mean for a whole nation to become uninhabitable in my lifetime?
Tauala Katea, the director of Tuvalu’s meteorological service, sat in his office near the airport and tilted a monitor to show me an image of a recent flood when water bubbled up under a field by the runway. “This is what climate change looks like,” he told me.
“In 2000, Tuvaluans living in the outer islands noticed that their taro and pulaka crops were suffering,” he said. “The root crops seemed rotten and the size was getting smaller and smaller.”
Those two starchy staples of Tuvaluan cuisine are grown in pits dug underground. This crop failure was the first indication that something was wrong. The culprit was found to be saltwater intrusion linked to sea level rise.
The last 20 years have marked a period of significant change in the Tuvaluan way of life. Thatched roofs and freshwater wells are things of the past. The freshwater lens underneath the island, a layer that floats above denser seawater, has become salty and contaminated. Each home now has a water tank attached to a corrugated iron roof by a gutter. This rainwater is boiled for drinking and also used to wash clothes and dishes and for bathing.
Imported food is now commonplace. During my month in Tuvalu (from December 2014 to January 2015), I learned what climate change tastes like: imported rice, tinned corned beef, a handful of imported carrots and apples, the occasional local papaya, bananas and many creative uses for custard powder.
As United States reveals its plan to offer an extra dose of COVID-19 vaccine, equity and scientific questions abound.
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 373, Issue 6558.
As the extraordinarily infectious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread around the world, vaccines’ powers are showing their limits. Although they are still extremely effective at preventing severe COVID-19, the tantalizing hope that the shots could block almost all infections—and squelch transmission—has evaporated. That has upended return to office and school plans, threatened economic recoveries, and spurred fresh political rows over mask and vaccination mandates.
This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
CLAIM: COVID-19 vaccines make people produce a spike protein that is a toxin and can spread to other parts of the body and damage organs.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. COVID-19 vaccines instruct the body to produce spike proteins that teach the immune system to combat the spikes on the coronavirus, and experts say these proteins are not toxic.
I tried this with measured expectations. Admittedly because of preconceived assumptions, I figured it was another formulaic celebrity bio of the usual recipe. A surface skimming with one part intimacy, two parts fun and frolic, a few dashes of zaniness, and maybe some outrageousness thrown in. Just to keep us all watching.
Val is not this. It is not formulaic. It is much more. Its real.
Certainly, one reason I was caught off guard is because I haven’t followed the news of Val Kilmer. I had no idea, or just forgot, that he battled through a very tough throat cancer a few years ago. Whether you are aware of this, or not, if you know little else, or if you have not seen this film, I am here to recommend it.
I always found Val Kilmer an interesting actor, and a person. It sounds trite to use an ordinary word, but, to go much further in describing him, is to risk painting a portrait that could distract from his profile simply as a human being. And this is entirely the point.
Val is a human being that lived, and lives, a life in a way that isn’t particularly profound. At least as compared to world changing politicians, global humanitarians, or medical pioneers. He’s an actor. Actors (at least in costume) entertain us. We follow them. We have fun with them, turn them on, turn them off, and then move on to other things in our life.
Val has been fortunate. He was born with a matinee idol smile, grew up in privilege, and found a career he loved. He has also been slammed to the canvas with cancer. For this, as with anyone who has struggled against major health adversity and then comes out standing with their fist in the air, he deserves a look.
In full disclosure, I’m a pushover for deep thinking introspects. I know it can be a self defeating navel gaze, but in some cases, it is unavoidable, and truly the best way ahead if you haven’t come to terms with things that need resolution as you, and we age further. There really is no other way.
Here is a film that has this presentation. It is, of course, sad. It is also elevating and inspiring in an offbeat spiritual way. Which is part of who Val is anyway. It is also very touching. Disarmingly so. If you stay with it, and let yourself connect with the voice of his son who narrates most of Val’s words against the visuals of his family, and his loves, you might even bond a little as you listen and take it all in. Either way, it doesn’t take long to see what this film is about. It really is about Val. It is deeply personal. It is deeply honest. There really is no other way.>MB
Useful background and a reality check on the…”reality” of the situation.
The thing about actual history and scholarly text such as this one is they try and paint a picture of current events as accurately juxtaposed to past events. This is what gives perspective. And perspective is what makes true independent decision making happen.
The infernal noise of loudmouths, grandstanders, endless galleries of biased voices, along with all the other assorted hucksters, serves only to hijack our own common sense and deductive reasoning capabilities. There are people who can’t resist trying to “persuade” anyone who listens.
It’s not easy culling out basic data, information, and facts from all the noise around us. But that’s no excuse to embrace a POV just because they’re easily accessed online, and “sound” convincing. If that’s all we do, then we’re surrendering our own powers to others because we don’t want to do the work on our own. That is far worse for all of us. >MB
From 9/11 to COVID-19: A Brief History of FDA Emergency Use Authorization
Cross-posted from COVID-19 and The Law, where it originally appeared on January 14, 2021.
By Jonathan Iwry
The ongoing fight against COVID-19 has thrown a spotlight on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its power to grant emergency use authorizations (EUAs). EUA authority permits FDA to authorize formally unapproved products for temporary use as emergency countermeasures against threats to public health and safety.
Under § 564 of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), use of FDA’s EUA authority requires a determination that an emergency exists by secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, or the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as well as a declaration by the HHS Secretary that emergency circumstances exist warranting the issuance of EUAs. Each issuance of an EUA requires that FDA conclude that:
it is reasonable to believe that a given product “may be effective” as an emergency countermeasure,
the known and potential benefits of authorization outweigh the known and potential risks, and
no formally approved alternatives are available at the time.
Annie Kapnick’s post on COVID-19 and FDA’s EUA authority provides a helpful overview of FDA’s emergency powers and their use in response to the pandemic. A brief look at the history of FDA’s emergency powers, including key events leading up to their enactment — Thalidomide, swine flu, AIDS, and 9/11 — offers perspective on the situation facing FDA today and its implications for the future. The history of EUA illustrates how its use today against COVID-19 involves fundamental questions about the role of public officials, scientific expertise, and administrative norms in times of crisis.
The pre-history of EUA
The first event to foreshadow the major themes surrounding FDA’s EUA power was the Thalidomide tragedy of the mid-20th century. In the 1950s, a new drug called Thalidomide was put into circulation in West Germany and other countries as a treatment for morning sickness. The next decade would reveal that the drug resulted in severe birth defects, with known cases numbering in the tens of thousands. The drug’s introduction to market is remembered as one of the worst public health disasters in recent times. It underscored the importance of strict standards of clinical review in approving new food and drug products, and remains a key reference point for FDA regulators, emphasizing the importance of the agency’s extensive and thorough formal approval process.
Fast forward to 1976, when reports of cases involving a new strain of influenza A (the same family of flu viruses that caused the flu pandemic of 1918) prompted fears of a possible “swine flu” pandemic. President Gerald Ford pushed for a first-ever national vaccination program — shortly before starting his reelection campaign. After millions had been vaccinated, the public was alarmed by reports that the vaccine might be causing Guillain-Barré syndrome. And ultimately, a pandemic never materialized.
In their post-mortem study, Richard Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg described the swine flu episode as a policymaking disaster; yet they also expressed concern that the American public and policymakers would wrongly oversimplify the event in their memory as a case of government overreaction and overstepping, and that they would thus over-learn the dangers of responding too swiftly to fears of a pandemic. (Some would argue that this concern did not bear out, as nothing was learned at all.)
Next, the AIDS crisis gave rise to an early precursor to EUA authority. In the late 1980s, public health experts suggested that an investigational drug called DDI might prove useful for AIDS patients unable to tolerate other medications. Many objected that DDI lacked formal approval and was not guaranteed to be safe and effective; others countered that the risks of breaking protocol by issuing a drug lacking formal approval paled in comparison to the number of lives that could be saved. Impatient with FDA regulators’ conservative approach, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, proposed a new “parallel track” system to administer DDI to eligible patients while continuing to study the drug. Other measures for circumventing FDA’s formal approval process already existed at the time, but this proposal attracted the attention of President George H.W. Bush, whose support encouraged FDA to adopt the process and administer DDI to those in need.
The enactment and early years of EUA
Ultimately, it was the War on Terror that would give rise to emergency use authorization. After the events of September 11, 2001 and subsequent anthrax mail attacks, Congress enacted the Project Bioshield Act of 2004. The act called for billions of dollars in appropriations for purchasing vaccines in preparation for a bioterror attack, and for stockpiling of emergency countermeasures. To be able to act rapidly in an emergency, Congress allowed FDA to authorize formally unapproved products for emergency use against a threat to public health and safety (subject to a declaration of emergency by HHS). The record indicates that Congress was focused on the threat of bioterror specifically, not on preparing for a naturally-occurring pandemic.
FDA’s newfound EUA authority would be used relatively sparingly for the first 16 years following its enactment. During that time, its most extensive use was in combating the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009 by authorizing medical equipment and existing influenza drugs. Health policy experts would look back on the use of EUA against H1N1 as an overall success. It would also be used (pursuant to an amendment allowing for preemptive EUAs) to authorize occasional countermeasures in anticipation of MERS, Ebola, Zika, and other epidemics, none of which ultimately materialized in the United States.
EUAs against COVID-19
Then came COVID-19. In February 2020, HHS Secretary Alex Azar declared the pandemic a national health emergency warranting emergency use of in vitro diagnostics, followed by subsequent declarations in March warranting emergency use of other countermeasures. Since then, FDA has issued nearly 400 EUAs for personal protective equipment, medical equipment, in vitro diagnostic products, drug products, and, most notably, vaccines (compared to 22 EUAs issued in response to H1N1 in 2009). An EUA had never been granted for a brand-new vaccine before; the only vaccine ever to have received an EUA prior to the current pandemic was AVA, an anthrax vaccine that had already been formally approved for other purposes when it was granted an EUA in 2005. This, combined with the stakes of administering a vaccine to people who are otherwise healthy, led FDA to commit itself to heightened standards of review, or “EUA plus,” in evaluating a COVID-19 vaccine for emergency authorization. Two vaccines have been authorized thus far: one by Pfizer-BioNTech on December 11, 2020, and another by Moderna on December 18, 2020.
FDA’s exercise of discretion in issuing EUAs has not been without controversy, and the politicization of the pandemic by President Donald Trump has added a political dimension to FDA’s decision making as an administrative agency run by a presidential appointee. Many have criticized the White House for encroaching on FDA’s independence and failing to uphold basic standards of respect for scientific evidence and decision-making autonomy by technical experts. Trump notoriously pressured FDA officials into authorizing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, anti-malarial drugs that many believed might pose substantial risks for COVID-19 patients. The EUA came only days after Trump publicly endorsed the drugs; FDA revoked it months later. Public health experts were similarly concerned by FDA’s decision to authorize SARS-CoV-2 convalescent plasma on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Even FDA’s decision to grant its first vaccine authorization to Pfizer-BioNTech was somewhat controversial: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows allegedly contacted FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn the day the vaccine would be authorized, demanding his resignation if it was not authorized by end of day.
Yet even when making decisions free of overt political interference, FDA has confronted difficult decisions in exercising its discretion to grant EUAs. In the spring of 2020, for instance, FDA decided to address widespread testing shortages by issuing “umbrella” EUAs for entire categories of diagnostic and antibody tests (as well as masks and other protective equipment) ex ante — allowing those tests to come to market before reviewing them on a case-by-case basis. In doing so, FDA essentially made a value judgment that the risk of allowing unreliable tests to come to market — and thus the risk of contributing to inaccurate data about the pandemic — was outweighed by the value of having more testing data at all.
Historical reflections
Looking back through the history of EUA, two key themes emerge. The first concerns the influence of the President on FDA decision making: sometimes in ways that seem motivated by the public interest, other times by political or personal interest. As the swine flu affair of 1976 demonstrates, President Trump is not the first president to have pressed for a speedy vaccination effort while running for reelection. As long as health regulators are answerable to political officials, there will always be some possibility of political influence. This reflects a deep and fundamental tension between respecting technical expertise and ensuring that technical experts are held accountable to elected officials (and, ultimately, to the public will).
Second, this history points up an inherent ethical dilemma between protecting individuals and benefiting the collective in times of crisis — between cautious restraint and urgent pragmatism. How should FDA weigh the costs to individuals posed by unapproved and potentially harmful products against the benefit to society in addressing a public health emergency quickly? What degree of risk are health regulators justified in imposing on individuals for the sake of a promising but uncertain solution to a pandemic? Even when a drug or vaccine might seem to carry a low risk of serious side effects, the decision to authorize that product takes a stance on this dilemma, rather than finding a way around it. There will always be some tension between those who are willing to depart from ordinary protocol to save lives quickly (as in the case of the AIDS crisis) and those whose primary goal is to avoid authorizing the next Thalidomide.
Beyond COVID-19
Lawmakers and policymakers place great value in precedent, whether written or historical. There is almost no precedent to guide FDA’s use of this relatively new power, let alone during the greatest public health crisis the agency has ever faced. On the contrary, the history of EUAs points up essential dilemmas that aren’t going away, and that will have to be grappled with in emergencies to come.
These questions are not unique to FDA. Much has been written generally about the role of agency norms and institutional dynamics in the administrative state. Others have discussed the myriad violations of norms of democratic governance by the Trump administration (arguably the defining legacy of the Trump years). These issues cannot be resolved by looking to the law; they will inevitably require hard judgments about how to balance deference to scientific expertise with public accountability, how to integrate empirical analysis and value judgments, and how to weigh our competing values in times of crisis.
FDA’s emergency powers underscore the impact these questions have on the public welfare — and demonstrate that the way we answer them can literally be a matter of life and death.
At some point in every relationship we all need a shoulder to cry on and an open ear to listen to us. While you may think venting to your friends is helpful, it can also be hurtful. Unless you’re going through a major issue in your relationship where you seek the counsel of a therapist, rarely can any good come from others sticking their noses into it. Here are the 10 reasons why it’s better to keep your mouth shut about your partner.
1. THE LAW OF ATTRACTION.
The law of attraction basically states that you receive the same kind of energy you put out into the universe. If you believe this, when you speak negatively about your partner and your relationship, you’ll be encouraging more of it. Whether you believe in this theory or not, when people constantly rant and rave about their partner, they’re usually in worse moods because they continue focusing on only the things that aren’t perfect.
2. YOUR FRIENDS WON’T EVER FORGET.
Friends are like elephants – they’ll remember that one incredibly hurtful insult your boyfriend hurled at you mid-fight that you shared with them pretty much forever. They’ll never forget when you told them about the one or two times he was incredibly selfish or acted like a total D. When you share too much information ,you’ll inevitably taint their perception of him. They may smile and nod when you talk about him after that fight, but might secretly be hoping for you to end the relationship and move on.
3. YOUR MAN WILL FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE AROUND YOUR FRIENDS.
Your guy will know when you gossip about him to your friends. Not only will your friends’ opinions start becoming unfavorable when you share every disagreement, but your man won’t want to be around them. Guys are inherently more private than women and he probably won’t want to sit through happy hour feeling the glare from your pals that they know that one time for an hour last year you suggested taking a break or embarrassed that they know that he had trouble getting it up on your last weekend getaway.
4. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT’S REALLY LIKE BESIDES YOU TWO.
You can describe, vent and discuss your relationship until you’re blue in the face. You can get advice from your mom, your friends or even your mailman, but everyone’s advice will be colored by their own experiences and insecurities. No one really knows what it’s like to be inside of a relationship other than the two people who are actually in it. Instead of looking to outside sources, you should learn to trust your gut. It’s usually spot on. You just have to learn to pay attention to it.
5. DISCRETION IS A VIRTUE.
Regardless of how close you are with other people, sometimes your relationship is none of their damn business. Not everyone is as tight-lipped as we may like to believe, and there are some details both good and bad that should remain inside of the relationship.
6. ENDLESS DISCUSSION CAN CREATE MORE PROBLEMS.
Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? For example, if you become obsessed with a single complex issue in your relationship that requires joint effort and commitment to address and resolve together, but you instead decide to treat your partner with mistrust and judgement, like they’ve done something wrong, they will feel that and may actually start looking for someone else outside of your relationship to make them feel good about themselves. Not an excuse, just a realistic example.
7. IT MAKES YOU SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF.
When you incessantly discuss your relationship, you’re bound to nitpick. That’s a slippery slope because you inevitably augment the little things in your relationship that if you hadn’t examined ad nauseam, you probably would have been happy letting go, therefore creating more problems.
8. THE ONLY PERSON YOU SHOULD BE TALKING TO IS HIM.
If you have real issues in your relationship, you have to talk to your partner. As much as we’d like to believe that our partners must also realize there’s an issue or a problem, they don’t. Sometimes simply making them aware of your gripes is the easiest way to fix it. If they’re aware, no one will be able to fix it besides the two of you (or possibly a licensed therapist). Other conversations are literally a waste of your energy.
9. YOU NEED TIME TO THINK.
If all you’re doing is yapping, you aren’t necessarily processing a situation. If you need to make a major decision like working on your relationship or splitting or even something like whether you two are ready to move-in together, you need to silence your mouth so you can listen to your inner voice to figure out your true feelings about how you should proceed.
10. THE ONLY OPINION YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO IS YOURS.
You may make a choice that you’re happy with for the rest of your life, or the decision you make might be one that you regret in six months. Regardless, that means the decision was yours. There’s nothing worse than realizing that you based a major life decision on people who aren’t living your life. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we should grow from them. If you’re only listening to others you will never be able to mature into the person you’re meant to be.
The Delta variant of the coronavirus can evade antibodies that target certain parts of the virus, according to a new study published on Thursday in Nature. The findings provide an explanation for diminished effectiveness of the vaccines against Delta, compared with other variants.
The variant, first identified in India, is believed to be about 60 percent more contagious than Alpha, the version of the virus that thrashed Britain and much of Europe earlier this year, and perhaps twice as contagious as the original coronavirus. The Delta variant is now driving outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries like Malaysia, Portugal, Indonesia and Australia.
Delta is also now the dominant variant in the United States. Infections in the country had plateaued at their lowest levels since early in the pandemic, though the numbers may be rising. Still, hospitalizations and deaths related to the virus have continued a steep plunge. That’s partly because of relatively high vaccination rates: 48 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 55 percent have received at least one dose.
But the new study found that Delta was barely sensitive to one dose of vaccine, confirming previous research that suggested that the variant can partly evade the immune system — although to a lesser degree than Beta, the variant first identified in South Africa.
French researchers tested how well antibodies produced by natural infection and by coronavirus vaccines neutralize the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants, as well as a reference variant similar to the original version of the virus.
The researchers looked at blood samples from 103 people who had been infected with the coronavirus. Delta was much less sensitive than Alpha to samples from unvaccinated people in this group, the study found.
One dose of vaccine significantly boosted the sensitivity, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 still need to be vaccinated to fend off some variants.
The team also analyzed samples from 59 people after they had received the first and second doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
Blood samples from just 10 percent of people immunized with one dose of the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were able to neutralize the Delta and Beta variants in laboratory experiments. But a second dose boosted that number to 95 percent. There was no major difference in the levels of antibodies elicited by the two vaccines.
“A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was either poorly or not at all efficient against Beta and Delta variants,” the researchers concluded. Data from Israel and Britain broadly support this finding, although those studies suggest that one dose of vaccine is still enough to prevent hospitalization or death from the virus.
The Delta variant also did not respond to bamlanivimab, the monoclonal antibody made by Eli Lilly, according to the new study. Fortunately, three other monoclonal antibodies tested in the study retained their effectiveness against the variant.
In April, citing the rise of variants resistant to bamlanivimab, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorization for its use as a single treatment in treating Covid-19 patients.
Stephen Covey published The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989. For those of us who read it, it changed the way we interacted with others, with ourselves, and with how we strove to grow, and achieve balance in personal and professional lives. Decades later, I feel the weight today, perhaps more than ever, of how important these lessons remain. >MB
For fifty years Jackson Browne has rolled out platinum after platinum after platinum. To this day, he has the voice, emotional range, sensitivity, and personal presence that just stick. <MB
Most social obligations would be best left in the Before Times.
Jessica Grose, New York Times
When I was in my early 20s, my friends started calling me “The Bailer.” I was infamous for making plans and then canceling the day before. Even at the time, I knew this was irritating and ungenerous behavior. But I made the plans with the best intentions: I love my friends! I want to see their faces! That spoken-word event in a dank, low-ceilinged bar sounded like fun when you told me about it three weeks ago!
About 24 hours before many social outings, I would start to feel sweaty and inert. After a long day’s work at an office, I would often feel drained from human contact and all I would want to do is buy an enormous burrito at the spot near my apartment, get home, take off my pants and eat it in privacy while watching reality television. After a few years of disappointing my friends last minute, I learned that it’s much kinder and less stressful for everyone involved to be honest with myself — and my friends — about what I would actually show up for.
I began to evaluate what I really enjoyed doing and what I valued about interactions with friends. I did not like standing for prolonged periods of time, for almost any reason. I did not like waiting in line for food. I did not like anything that included the word “networking.” I did like getting drinks or dinner in a place where we could really talk, or lounging in someone’s living room, or going to a party if there were going to be lots of people I knew there and ample seating room.
Having children at 30 was a great excuse for being the hermit I naturally am, and it also helped clarify my socializing needs even further. I was both more tired but also more starved for grown-up conversation. I opted for even more socializing in small groups without my daughters, and when I was with them, I experienced the joy of raucous dinner parties with a separate kids’ table. I learned the valuable skill of continuing conversations through multiple interruptions.
During the pandemic I added a few more types of socializing to my repertoire, including outdoor walk-and-talks, like I’m some jerk in an Aaron Sorkin TV show. Though some pandemic behavior comes easily to me, because I do hate leaving my house, this year of enforced isolation has been depressing, and even a shut-in like me has been missing human contact with people I am not related to.
That does not mean I will come to your spoken word performance in the future. I am still short on time on this mortal coil, and I imagine I will return to my previous socialization preferences.
While obviously there are some obligations you show up to because you love and honor your friends and family even if you don’t want to attend, I invite you to figure out what you actually like about seeing people in the “After.” Especially now that people are making plans with frenzied abandon, saying yes to all manners of activities without a second thought because they are so starved for socializing. Yes to that group sound bath! Yes to the wine-cooler tasting! Yes to the early morning rave! Oh honey, no. No. No.
Be honest with yourself. If you like the energy of a big crowd, say no to that intimate coffee and parry with a trip to a concert. If you hate going out, invite people to come over.
Tell people the real reasons you’re saying no for things you say no to. This has two benefits: it will give you deeper intimacy with friends who will know you for the true crank you really are. And it will mean that they stop inviting you to things that you really don’t like to do. My friends no longer call me The Bailer, because now I always show up.
Social media is designed to keep us scrolling even when we know we’d be better off putting the phone down. Yale SOM’s Fiona Scott Morton and her co-authors argue that smarter and more robust antitrust enforcement can help, by making room for new social media platforms that promote themselves as healthier alternatives.
Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics, Yale University
Written by Susie Allen
If you’ve ever delayed sleep to doomscroll on Twitter or checked Instagram just one more time to see if someone else liked that selfie, you know that social media can be a time suck. But is it addictive?
A growing body of medical evidence suggests it is, economist Fiona Scott Morton of Yale SOM writes in a new paper, co-authored with James Niel Rosenquist of Harvard Medical School and Samuel N. Weinstein of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. That has important implications for how regulators should oversee social media platforms. And it also has surprising implications for antitrust enforcement.
Scott Morton, Rosenquist, and Weinstein argue that antitrust enforcement has long relied on assumptions about how to measure consumer welfare that simply don’t work when a company is making a habit-forming product. Indeed, Scott Morton points out, the entire field of behavioral economics has arisen to give us more sophisticated ways to understand “irrational” decision making, including evaluating the impact on our welfare of goods and services that come with self-control issues, from gym memberships and energy-inefficient air conditioners to opioids.
The addictive qualities of social media are compounded by a lack of competition in the industry. When air conditioners compete, the more efficient ones can gain an advantage by advertising their low running costs. But without meaningful social media competition or regulation, companies have little incentive to change the addictive quality of their content.
“We don’t want to ban cars because they are dangerous, nor would that be a good solution for social media,” Scott Morton emphasizes. “Instead we limit the danger of cars with tools like speed limits, traffic lights, drivers’ licenses, and seatbelts—and we have lots of competition and choice. In digital media we need to find a way to control the stuff that’s harming us, and our children in particular, while keeping the healthy part.” She believes smarter antitrust enforcement could help, making room for newer and safer social media platforms in the market as well as more competition.
For decades, the medical community was hesitant to accept that addiction was possible without the ingestion of a physical substance. But, as Scott Morton and her co-authors write, growing understanding of so-called behavioral addiction has chipped away at that resistance. In fact, gambling addiction is now recognized in the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Social media and gambling can hijack the brain’s reward system in similar ways, the researchers argue. In the case of gambling, you’ll keep pulling the slot-machine lever even after you’ve lost hundreds of dollars, just in case the next one is a winner; in the case of social media, you’ll get lost in the infinite scroll, no matter what else you should be doing.
It’s no coincidence that many of us find social media so hard to resist. The business model platforms have adopted depends on people giving up their time: the longer a user is swiping away, the more revenue-generating ads they’ll see. Features such as likes, comments, autoplay, and algorithmic promotion of emotionally arousing content are designed to keep users coming back again and again.
Scott Morton has seen it all firsthand. “Twitter will show me some posts, I’ll look at them, and then two minutes later, they’ll meter out some more…You can watch them try to drip it out so that I stay on the platform longer,” she says.
In theory, of course, there’s nothing wrong with spending a lot of time on social media. Companies have argued that the hours we log represent positive engagement with the platform: we like what we’re seeing, and so we stay.
But in practice, Scott Morton and her co-authors note, survey data finds that a large number of heavy social media users wish they used social media less because of its negative effects on their lives—a classic tug-of-war between short-term impulses and long-term goals that is a hallmark of compulsive behavior. Early data also links social media use among adolescents to mood disorders and ADHD. The dangers seem particularly acute for girls.
So, what does this all mean for regulators trying to decide whether social media platforms are engaging in anti-competitive conduct? Baked into antitrust enforcement is the idea of increasing consumer welfare: enforcement ought to make life better for consumers by promoting competition so that goods become cheaper, better, or both.
And economists have long argued that one especially useful way to look at consumer welfare is through what’s called output—the quantity of goods or services produced in a given market. “Historically, we have thought of pro-competitive things as being those that increase output and non-competitive things as those that decrease output,” Scott Morton explains.
If the merger of two ice cream companies results in an overall larger ice cream market, then (the basic argument goes) consumers must have benefited, either because ice cream was cheaper and they bought more, or because it was better and they bought more. If the merger reduces the size of the ice cream market, it must have been anticompetitive.
But the logic of output maximization falls apart when it comes to any addictive product. For someone addicted to, say, OxyContin, giving them more OxyContin represents an increase in output—but it surely doesn’t represent a simple increase in consumer welfare.
“This shortcut, which is, ‘Let’s use an output measure like number of pills to proxy for consumer surplus,’—it isn’t a valid shortcut anymore, not when you’ve got an addictive product,” Scott Morton says. “Giving people a larger quantity of something they’re addicted to is likely not increasing social welfare.”
So, rather than looking at output, regulators need to take a more expansive view of consumer welfare, Scott Morton and her co-authors argue—a view that incorporates the specific nature of the product in question. In the case of social media, an antitrust case might rely on whether a company’s business model offers incentives for addiction or has other negative effects on users’ behavior.
By looking at social media companies from this perspective, regulators can promote competition and innovation. It may seem paradoxical to argue that the answer to the problem of social media is more social media, but there’s good reason to believe it. Basic consumer protection regulations would also help by creating a level playing field.
With more companies vying for users, Scott Morton explains, they’ll have a greater incentive to differentiate in ways users value. In all kinds of markets—cars, movies, food—companies have thrived by promoting themselves as the safe option. A non-addictive social media platform could have similar consumer appeal.
“More social media sites means I can choose the site that offers me fewer ads, less addiction, more of the content that interests me,” Scott Morton says.
How far are we from a world of safer social media? Scott Morton thinks there’s reason to be optimistic. Indeed, considering how long it took to rein in exploitative practices in products such as cigarettes and credit cards, there’s an argument that social media regulation is on a fast track.
Lawmakers and regulators are paying more attention because “today, the harms are really much more visible to everybody,” Scott Morton says. “I think the younger generation is speaking up more and they understand it. The Europeans are moving quickly. So all of that is, I think, creating an environment where there might really be some progress.”
In the recent elections in India, voters faced a dizzying choice between candidates and political parties.
Around the world, voters appear to be turning away from traditional political organisations, but can democracy survive without them?
From Knowable Magazine
In 1796, President George Washington lambasted political parties for allowing “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” to “subvert the power of the people”.
His indictment seems brutally timely today, just a few months after 147 Republican US congress members publicly challenged results of the most recent US presidential election. But even long before then, many Americans shared Washington’s concern.
The popularity of parties is at a nadir, with both the Democratic and Republican parties in the US widely condemned as not only unrepresentative but also hijacked by elites. Indeed, a steadily increasing share of US voters – 38% in 2018 – identify as unaffiliated with either party. That proportion is now larger than the share of voters identifying with either Republicans or Democrats.
It seems to be an international phenomenon. In Europe, for example, traditionally powerful centre-left parties are being accused of ignoring their voters, potentially contributing to a backlash that helped push the United Kingdom into Brexit.
The mounting animosity toward the parties has inspired debate among political scientists. Defenders of the traditional party system contend that democracy depends on strong, organised and trustworthy political factions. “People in politics often try to go around parties, to go directly to the people. But without the parties, we’d have chaos,” says Harvard University political scientist Nancy Rosenblum, who explores the challenges facing political parties today.
Yet a small group of scholars, many of them young, say it’s time to start visualising a more open and direct democracy, with less mediation by parties and professional politicians. Such proposals were seen as “completely fringe” until a decade ago, says Hélène Landemore, a political scientist at Yale University. But events including the 2008 economic crisis and Donald Trump’s 2016 election as president, she says, have enlarged the scope of debate.
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The choice between candidates and the political parties they represent has become a defining feature of most democratic elections (Credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
Several trends have sped the declining popularity and power of the parties in the United States. Party-run patronage schemes that rewarded supporters with government jobs have long given way to more meritocratic systems. The rise of independent political action committees has given candidates a source of campaign funding — around $4.5bn (£3.17bn) in the last decade – outside the party channels that once dominated access to campaign money. This has made many candidates more entrepreneurial and less beholden to the party bureaucracy.
Thirdly, parties now determine their candidates through primary elections instead of with meetings of party insiders. Just 17 primaries were held in 1968 – today every state has a primary or caucus. This switch to universal primaries has shifted influence from party veterans to more extreme activists, who are more likely than average voters to vote in primaries, says Ian Shapiro, a political scientist at Yale. In 2018, the Democratic National Committee even cut back on the influence of superdelegates, the hundreds of party VIPs who also had votes in selecting candidates. This was to reassure voters that party officials were listening to them, the DNC’s vice-chair said at the time.
In many parts of the United States, partisan gerrymandering has contributed to making candidates less representative of their constituents by creating “safe seats” for both parties. That means that the winners are, in effect, decided in the primaries that pit Democrats against Democrats and Republicans against Republicans. This phenomenon helps explain the 2018 election of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, then a 28-year-old democratic socialist who had never before held elected office, says Shapiro. Ocasio-Cortez beat an establishment Democrat in a primary in which less than 12% of voters turned out.
Not everyone agrees that political parties are weaker today than they once were. Today’s extreme polarisation means that much of the public is more strongly attached to their own party, says Rosenblum, and party-led voter suppression or voter mobilisation efforts in fact make party leaders more powerful than ever.
Parties serve many other important roles, including facilitating compromise, says Russell Muirhead, a political scientist at Dartmouth University
Still, Shapiro and many other experts believe political parties have suffered a major loss in clout, which in turn has been a loss for democracy in general.
“Political parties are the core institution of democratic accountability because parties, not the individuals who support or comprise them, can offer competing visions of the public good,” write Shapiro and his Yale colleague, Frances Rosenbluth, in a 2018 opinion piece. Voters, they argue, have neither the time nor the background to research costs and benefits of policies and weigh their personal interests against what’s best for the majority in the long run.
To show what can go wrong with single-issue voting that lacks party guidance, Shapiro and Rosenbluth point to California’s notorious Proposition 13, a 1978 ballot initiative that sharply restricted increases in property taxes. At first, the measure seemed like a win to many voters. Yet over the years, the new rule also decimated local budgets to the point where California’s per-pupil school spending now ranks near the bottom of a list of the 50 states.
Parties serve many other important roles, including facilitating compromise, says Russell Muirhead, a political scientist at Dartmouth University and Rosenblum’s co-author. As an example, Muirhead points to the US Farm Bill, which the two parties renegotiate roughly every five years. Each time they sit down, “the Democrats want food support for urban people and Republicans want support for farmers, and somehow, they always come to an agreement,” Muirhead says. “The alternative is favouring one side or simply passing nothing at all.”
Perhaps most important, the US’s two main parties have traditionally cooperated in acknowledging their opponents’ legitimacy, as Rosenblum and Muirhead write. Other nations, such as Thailand, Turkey and Germany, have banned political parties that their governments have seen as too destabilising to democracy. American parties’ cooperation has helped keep the peace by reassuring US voters that even if they lose today, they may well win tomorrow. Now, however, this fundamental rule is being broken, say Rosenblum, Muirhead and others, with some party leaders even accusing their opponents of treason.
Despite the tense and often combative party politics in many countries, political parties also find room for compromise and work together (Credit: Bill Greenblatt/Getty Images)
“The key thing going on now is that we have an explicit argument that the opposition party is illegitimate,” says Rosenblum. “Trump has been calling the Democrats the enemy of the people and illegitimate, and saying the election is fraudulent. This is the path to violence, as there’s no way to correct this with another election.”
Political parties throughout the world have lost considerable goodwill and influence, says Shapiro, yet he suggests that rather than ban them or further sap their power we must strengthen them and make them more reliable. He and his colleagues advocate reforming campaign financing, to eliminate the currently chaotic bidding wars for candidates’ loyalties, although that goal continues to be elusive. To combat the rise in extremism, they also urge that the job of redistricting go to nonpartisan commissions instead of gerrymandering.
To further reduce the risk of primaries increasing polarisation, Shapiro proposes that party leaders be allowed to choose candidates if the turnout in a primary election has fallen below 75% of the turnout in the previous general election.
Landemore and her faction contend these ideas don’t match the urgency of the current dilemma. She invites people to imagine how democracy might function with less or even zero reliance on political parties and particularly without costly and potentially corrupting political campaigns. One possibility, she says, would be to randomly appoint groups of citizens, chosen much as today’s juries are, to lead government, while rotating in fixed terms through a permanent “House of the People”. These citizens’ assemblies would be more representative than the current US Congress, wrote Rutgers University philosopher Alexander Guerrero in a 2019 opinion piece, in which he advocated choosing representatives by lottery.
Several European nations have already tried alternatives to party-driven democracy
“In the United States, 140 of the 535 people serving in Congress have a net worth over $2m (£1.4m), 78% are male, 83% are white, and more than 50% were previously lawyers or businesspeople,” he wrote.
Several European nations have already tried alternatives to party-driven democracy. In 2019-20, France held a Citizens’ Convention on Climate, calling on 150 randomly chosen citizens to help devise socially just ways to reduce greenhouse gases. In December 2020, the French President agreed to hold a referendum on one of the convention’s suggestions, the inclusion of climate protection in the national constitution.
And in 2016, the Irish Parliament assembled 99 citizens to deliberate on stubborn issues, including a constitutional ban on abortion. A majority of the assembly proposed that the ban be struck down, after which a national referendum confirmed the result and changed the law – all accomplished without involvement of established political parties.
Despite the limited impact of these efforts to date, Landemore says the tide of public opinion is turning. Just five years ago, colleagues mocked the notion of an “open democracy” at a political science conference, she says, adding: “Five years from now I’m guessing we’ll be completely mainstream.”
Studies show that moments of disruption offer a unique opportunity to set and achieve new goals.
Tara Parker-Pope, New York Times
If there was ever a perfect time to make a life change, this is it.
Behavioral scientists have long known that times of disruption and transition also create new opportunities for growth and change. Disruption can come in many forms, and it happens when life knocks us out of our normal routines. It can be moving to a new city, starting a new job, getting married or divorced or having a child. And for many of us, there’s never been a bigger life disruption than the pandemic, which changed how we work, eat, sleep and exercise, and even how we connect with friends and family.
“I think this fresh start is really a big opportunity,” said Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the new book “How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. “I don’t know when we’ll have another one like it. We have this blank slate to work on. Everything is on the table to start fresh.”
Much of Dr. Milkman’s research has focused on the science of new beginnings, which she calls “the fresh start effect.” Dr. Milkman and her colleagues have found that we’re most inclined to make meaningful changes around “temporal landmarks” — those points in time that we naturally associate with a new beginning. New Year’s Day is the most obvious temporal landmark in our lives, but birthdays, the start of spring, the start of a new school year, even the beginning of the week or the first of the month are all temporal landmarks that create psychological opportunities for change.
In one study, Dr. Milkman found that students were most likely to visit the gym around the start of the week, the first of the month, following birthdays or after school breaks. Another study found that “fresh start language” helped people kick-start their goals. In that study, people were far more likely to start a new goal on a day labeled “the first day of spring” compared to an unremarkable day labeled “the third Thursday in March.” (It was the exact same day, just labeled differently.)
Another study found that when people were advised to start saving money in a few months, they were less likely to do so than a group of people told to start saving around their birthday that was also a few months away. The birthday group saved 20 to 30 percent more money.
Although the pandemic is far from over, for many people, the lifting of restrictions and getting vaccinated means planning vacations and returning to more-normal work and school routines. It’s exactly the kind of psychological new beginning that could prompt the fresh start effect, said Dr. Milkman.
“We have this opportunity with this blank slate to change our health habits and be very conscientious about our day,” said Dr. Milkman. “What is our lunch routine going to look like? What is our exercise routine? There’s an opportunity to rethink. What do we want a work day to look like?”
It’s Not Too Late to Reset.
As the pandemic recedes, some people are worried that the past year of lockdowns, restrictions and time at home was a missed opportunity. Leslie Scott, a nonprofit event organizer in Eugene, Ore., said she feels that she just muddled through a stressful year, rather than using the time to make meaningful life changes.
“I sometimes wonder if I squandered this gift of time,” said Ms. Scott, who is an organizer of the Oregon Truffle Festival. “I have all this anxiety that we’re just going to go back to what people think of as normal. As we come out of our cocoons, am I emerging from something and moving toward something new? Or am I just stuck?”
While some people did develop healthy new habits during pandemic lockdowns, it’s not too late if you spent your pandemic days just getting by. The good news is that the end of the pandemic is probably a more opportune time for meaningful change than when you were experiencing the heightened anxiety of lockdowns.
“Covid-19 was an awful time for many of us,” said Laurie Santos, a psychology professor at Yale who teaches a popular online course called “The Science of Well-Being.” “There’s lots of evidence for what’s called post-traumatic growth — that we can come out stronger and with a bit more meaning in our lives after going through negative events. I think we can all harness this awful pandemic time as a time to get some post-traumatic growth in our own lives.”
So What’s Your Next Chapter?
One of the biggest obstacles to change has always been the fact that we tend to have established routines that are hard to break. But the pandemic shattered many people’s routines, setting us up for a reset, Dr. Santos said.
“We’ve all just changed our routines so much,” she said. “I think many of us have realized during the pandemic that some of the things we were doing before Covid-19 weren’t the kind of things that were leading to flourishing in our lives. I think many of us were realizing that aspects of our work and family life and even our relationships probably need to change if we want to be happier.”
One reason fresh starts can be so effective is that humans tend to think about the passage of time in chapters or episodes, rather than on a continuum, Dr. Milkman said. As a result, we tend to think of the past in terms of unique periods, such as our high school years, the college years, the years we lived in a particular town or worked at a certain job. Going forward, we’re likely to look back on the pandemic year as a similarly unique chapter of our lives.
“We have chapter breaks, as if life is a novel — that is the way we mark time,” said Dr. Milkman. “That has implications for the psychology of fresh starts, because these moments that open a new chapter give us a sense of a new beginning. It’s easier to attribute any failings to ‘the old me.’ You feel like you can achieve more now, because we’re in a new chapter.”
Take the Fresh Start Challenge!
While the start of a new chapter is a great time for change, the pages will turn quickly. Now that we’re emerging from the restrictions of pandemic life, social scientists say it’s an ideal time to start thinking about what you’ve learned in the past year. What are the new habits you want to keep, and what parts of your prepandemic life do you want to change?
“It’s time to rethink your priorities,” said Dr. Milkman, who outlines more detailed steps for change in her new book. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘How am I going to schedule my time?’ We have a limited window to be deliberate about it, because pretty quickly, we’ll have a new pattern established, and we probably won’t rethink it again for a while.”
A good first step is to take our 10-Day Fresh Start Challenge. Each challenge will prompt moments of mindful reflection, help you build stronger connections and offer small steps toward building healthy new habits. You can find all 10 installments on The Fresh Start Challenge page.
“I think a lot of us have realized how fragile some of the things were that gave us joy before, from going to the grocery store, to going out to a restaurant with friends, going to a movie, giving your mom a hug whenever you’d like,” said Dr. Santos. “My hope is that we’ll emerge from this pandemic with a bit more appreciation for the little things in life.”
As we have seen over the last year, perceptions of the Coronavirus/Covid lethality, the risks of contraction, and the vaccines available to contain it, vary among the population. The response has been predictably wide. Ranging from thoughtful and informed behavior from many states and communities country-wide, to outright flouting of any responsible behavior. Whether based on blind denial or blunt philosophical frankness in rejecting any unwanted lifestyle or behavioral modification.
The consequences from the latter group’s behavior have been clear and on display from the start of the Covid pandemic last Spring. It no longer matters how or why the net response to the pandemic became so fragmented and fractured instead of unified in battle. What matters now is that we all get on board now together unified against this thing. If we do not, it will spin out of control…again. More people will get sick…again. More people will die…again. Lockdowns will come back…again. Business will suffer and go down…again. People will argue and blame each other…again. The only thing possibly different this time around is that all of the above will be worse.
Because of the second group’s behavior above, along with worldwide breakdowns in political structures, public trust, information guidance, and inadequate health systems, the Coronavirus has infected far more people than it could have, and in the process, has mutated into more dangerous variants of the original strain that can escape vaccination defenses.
In particular, the South African variant, aka B.1.351, and the Brazilian variant, aka P.1, are concerning to all virologists and medical professionals. There are now reports these strains have infected previously vaccinated people and caused illness. Both of these variants are already in the U.S. in numbers enough to grow exponentially if they are not contained in the very near future.
BUT, there IS good news. It does NOT have to be this way. We have the power to prevent this from happening. It comes from medicine. It comes from informed and responsible behavior.
There is one way to fight the growth of mutated variants and thus, any virus. Stop infection transmission in the population with vaccines.
If you don’t want to get the vaccine, and you’re okay constantly wearing a mask, staying distant from everyone, being anxious every time you leave the house, and segregating from virtually everyone outside your home bubble, not being able to travel, for possibly ever, then stand your ground, and don’t get the vaccine. Maybe you’ll wait out the herd immunity thing (80% vaccination) hoping it’ll happen soon enough, and you’ll just get the benefits from everyone else’s immunity. You’ll then be part of the illustrious group tagged “Free Riders.” Not too flattering.
I’m not scared of medicine. I’m thankful of it. I’m thankful there are smart enough people in science and medicine that have confidence and skill to treat my ailments and those around me for years. It’s illness I have a problem with. Covid is a tough adversary. It caught us short sighted and required an EUA vaccine to help us fight it. That’s not something anyone I know has been through before. It’s understandable to be skittish. It’s normal.
We’ve been here before. Humanity has been here before. The global timeline of health, illness, disease, treatments, medicine, vaccines, and recovery are long and rich enough in detailed history to give us all perspective. In most ways, medicine is so far advanced today that it almost isn’t meant to be understood by patients. Not unless you want to study genome sequencing and DNA up close. No. What ultimately matters is trust. You either trust medicine and your health providers, or you do not. If you’re already receiving medical care, you’ve decided to trust the doctors.This doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to be anxious or scared. That’s called being normal. But trust is a conscious, necessary decision to make. If you trust medicine, and doctors (in general) you have to trust the EUA vaccine. Get it done. Help us fight this damn thing, or, just stop going to the doctor altogether. You can’t have it both ways.
If you’ve been vaccinated. You’ve already taken a crucial step to helping all of us out of this muck and mire. The vaccine, however, is not an automatic ticket to freedom and normalcy. Many states have opened up businesses and relaxed restaurant and congregant capacity guidelines as infection rates have dropped. But (again another “BUT”), the political and commercial pressure on state governors is tremendous. It’s not right that these factors are playing a role in public health decisions, but unfortunately that is reality. This is why it is incumbent on all of us to not look to political leaders for guidance on our personal decisions going forward from this pandemic. It is naiive and dangerous to do so. The people to look to for clues and cues on what to do and how we should do it after vaccinations are medical and health professionals who have no political ties.
Beyond that, don’t push aside your own deductive reasoning and common sense for assessing risk just because you can’t wait to go out with friends, jump on a plane, get a facial, a massage, or go to a gym. It doesn’t work that way.
You may not like math, but the math here is simple. Take a few measly minutes and look at what’s happening with the variant trend in your state. There are some good interviews available with medical people. There are articles, columns, op-eds, easy to read graphs and charts. There is plenty of good info out there. There is no excuse to not be informed with credible health and safety guidance about what’s going on. Whether it’s deciding on the vaccine, or how to act after you’ve gotten the vaccine. Like anything worthwhile learning, or understanding. It takes your time. It takes your effort. Give both to learn and understand.
I don’t use the term lightly. It sounds harsh because it is harsh. I confess there’s something about avoiding premature, preventable death that brings out the judgement in me.
Its a shame that differing opinions on protecting ourselves from Covid continues on a similarly divisive track that politics has for the last several years. I do not speak entirely for the camps on both sides here. There are always odd exceptions of mixed breeds among us, but as far as I can tell so far, a sizable amount of Conservative and Trumper sympathies are also very gung-ho about going back to eating INSIDE restaurants, gathering among groups of vaccinated or non-vaccinated, and cheerfully eager to drop their masks and make believe things are normal again. The problem is, things are not normal, and saying they are doesn’t make it so. Nor does a politically pressured state governor have a right to say it is by rolling back restrictions or lockdowns. If anyone doesn’t realize the political pressure put on state Governors right now, in spite of medical evidence urging caution, they are burying their heads, or don’t know politics. Again, see above post title.
It’s one thing trying to analyze certain (mostly Florida?) spring breakers, who by ritual indoctrination, get possessed to risk any and every thing for the sake of boozing themselves to unconsciousness, having sex with anyone who looks sideways at them, to proving they know how to define a party at any cost. Its quite another thing to observe the adults doing something that is, while much quieter, also risky.
There are people taking the reopening edicts and their holstered vaccines as a racehorse does at the track when the steel gate flies open for them. “And they’re off!” They can’t wait to do something normal, and they go for it when the first authority figure gives their permission. The problem is, there should only be one type of authority figure here to guide us, Health and medical authority figures. No businessman. No friend or family members. And definitely, no politician.
If you want to know the risk for Covid right now outside a household or controlled bubble, the answer is not radically different than it was six months ago. This goes even if you’ve already been vaccinated. Read it again. It goes even if you’re vaccinated. For some reason, there is a real tone deafness among the populous that doesn’t seem able to understand the language and word choices coming from every public health official, virologist, and virtually all medical professionals right now. For some reason, there is a deafness in the populous to the warnings of the threats of the emerging and established variants.
I get the fatigue. But we’ve come a long way to get here. What’s the rush now? Why is it so necessary to lunge back into the fray while we’re still in the hot middle of this mess? The sun can and will come out. We can not blow the clouds away before they’re ready to blow away. There is still a serious viral overcast. Why is it so imperative right now to open and run into the restaurant where many servers and others remain unvaccinated.
There is no free ticket to immunity here. Even with the vaccines. The variants have already shown concerning resistance. People have gotten reinfected with and without vaccines. There are people with good immune systems who have gotten infected, gone on ventilators, and died. There are many explainable deaths and sickness from Covid. There are also plenty of unexplainable deaths and sickness. Try reading some of those stories, instead of just talking about the elderly and infirm nursing homes victims.
Listen to the national health spokespeople and professional medical consensus, and then blend it with some common sense. Sure this is all hard. It’s been a year. I choose to look at things from the other side. Its actually not been that long a time. And it actually is quite easy.
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“You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., said on Friday.
Daily infections rose about six weeks after counties allowed restaurants to open for dining on the premises, and death rates followed two months later.
Even if restaurants limit capacity, however, aerosolized virus may accumulate if ventilation is inadequate, Dr. Allen said.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s a restaurant, spin class, a gym, a choir practice — if you’re indoors with no masks, or no ventilation, we know that’s higher risk,” he said. “Respiratory aerosols build up indoors. It’s that simple. This is a real problem for restaurants.”
The Virus Spread Where Restaurants Reopened or Mask Mandates Were Absent
C.D.C. researchers found that coronavirus infections and death rates rose in U.S. counties permitting in-person dining or not requiring masks.
“You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, said Friday.Credit…Ringo H.W. Chiu/Associated Press
Federal researchers also found that counties opening restaurantsfor on-premises dining — indoors or outdoors — saw a rise in daily infections about six weeks later, and an increase in Covid-19 death rates about two months later.
The study does not prove cause and effect, but the findings square with other research showing that masks prevent infection and that indoor spaces foster the spread of the virus through aerosols, tiny respiratory particles that linger in the air.
“You have decreases in cases and deaths when you wear masks, and you have increases in cases and deaths when you have in-person restaurant dining,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., said on Friday. “And so we would advocate for policies, certainly while we’re at this plateau of a high number of cases, that would listen to that public health science.”
On Friday night, the National Restaurant Association, which represents one million restaurants and food service outlets, criticized the C.D.C. study as “an ill-informed attack on the industry hardest-hit by the pandemic.” It pointed out that researchers had not controlled for factors other than restaurant dining — such as business closures and other policies — that might have contributed to coronavirus infections and deaths.
“If a positive correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks is found, that would not mean that ice cream causes shark attacks,” the association said in a statement.
The group also faulted federal researchers for not measuring compliance with safe operating protocols, and it noted that the research did not distinguish between indoor dining or outdoor dining, nor whether restaurants had adhered to distancing recommendations or had adequate ventilation.
“It is irresponsible to pin the spread of Covid-19 on a single industry,” the association said.
The findings come as city and state officials nationwide grapple with growing pressure to reopen schools and businesses amid falling rates of new cases and deaths. Officials have recently permitted limited indoor dining in New York City. On Thursday, Connecticut’s governor said the state would be ending capacity limits later this month on restaurants, gyms and offices. Masks are still required in both locales.
“The study is not surprising,” said Joseph Allen, an associate professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the university’s Healthy Buildings program. “What’s surprising is that we see some states ignoring all of the evidence and opening up quickly, and removing mask mandates and opening full dining.”
Other researchers said the new study confirmed the idea that viral transmission often takes place through the air, that physical distancing may not be sufficient to halt the spread in some settings, and that masks at least partly block airborne particles.
President Biden’s health advisers have said in recent days that now is not the time to relax. As of Thursday, the seven-day average of new cases was still 62,924 a day, according to a database maintained by The New York Times.
Mr. Biden on Wednesday criticized the decisions by the governors of Texas and Mississippi to lift statewide mask mandates and reopen businesses without restrictions, calling the plans “a big mistake” that reflected “Neanderthal thinking.”
The president, who has asked Americans to wear masks during his first 100 days in office, said it was critical for public officials to follow the guidance of doctors and public health leaders as the coronavirus vaccination campaign gains momentum. As of Thursday, about 54 million people had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“It may seem tempting, in the face of all of this progress, to try to rush back to normalcy as if the virus is in the rearview mirror,” Andy Slavitt, a White House adviser on the pandemic, said on Friday. “It’s not.”
Diners in San Antonio on Wednesday. Credit…Eric Gay/Associated Press
C.D.C. researchers examined the associations between mask mandates, indoor or outdoor restaurant dining, and coronavirus infections and deaths last year between March 1 and Dec. 31. The agency relied on county-level data from state government websites and measured daily percentage change in coronavirus cases and deaths.
Infections and deaths declined after counties mandated mask use, the agency found. Daily infections rose about six weeks after counties allowed restaurants to open for dining on the premises, and death rates followed two months later.
The report’s authors concluded that mask mandates were linked to statistically significant decreases in coronavirus cases and death rates within 20 days of implementation. On-premises dining at restaurants, indoors or outdoors, was associated with rising case and death rates 41 to 80 days after reopenings.
“State mask mandates and prohibiting on-premises dining at restaurants help limit potential exposure to SARS-CoV-2, reducing community transmission of Covid-19,” the authors wrote.
Shortly after publishing the report, the C.D.C. amended it, urging establishments that resume serving diners to follow agency guidelines for reducing transmission in restaurants.
“The message is, if restaurants are going to open for on-premise dining, it’s important to follow C.D.C. guidelines to do so safely and effectively,” said Gery P. Guy, a scientist with the C.D.C.’s Covid response team and the study’s corresponding author.
That includes “everything from having staff stay home when they show signs of Covid or have tested positive or been in contact with someone who has Covid, and requiring masks among employees as well as customers who are not actively eating or drinking,” Dr. Guy said.
Other steps include adequate ventilation, options to eat outdoors, spacing customers six feet apart, encouraging frequent hand washing, and sanitizing of surfaces that are touched a lot, such as cash registers or pay terminals, door handles and tables.
Even if restaurants limit capacity, however, aerosolized virus may accumulate if ventilation is inadequate, Dr. Allen said.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s a restaurant, spin class, a gym, a choir practice — if you’re indoors with no masks, low or no ventilation, we know that’s higher risk,” he said. “Respiratory aerosols build up indoors. It’s that simple. This is a real problem for restaurants.”
Linsey Marr, an expert on aerosol transmission at Virginia Tech, said Americans could not be expected to follow all the latest science, and so many simply rely on what is open or closed as an indicator of what is safe.
But indoor dining is particularly risky, she added. People typically sit in a restaurant for an hour or more and don’t wear masks while eating, leaving them vulnerable to airborne virus.
“Limiting capacity will help reduce the risk of transmission, but indoor dining is still a high-risk activity until more people are vaccinated,” she said.
Restaurant workers are particularly exposed. While they can wear masks, diners do not, reducing protection against the virus. And workers spend many hours inside with every shift, Dr. Allen said.
He recommended that restaurant workers double-mask, wearing a surgical mask covered by a cloth mask, or buy high-efficiency masks like N95s, typically reserved for health care workers, or KN95 or KF94 masks, taking steps to assure they are not counterfeit.
“Now is not the time to let our guard down and pull back on the controls when we’re so close to having a lot of people vaccinated,” Dr. Allen said.
College students crowded the beaches of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on March 11.
Reading the latest CDC guidelines, as well as recognizing some states’ loosening, one would hope, think, we are moving in the right direction. Its something at least. Right?
But, given the UK B1.1.7 variant (already dominating the U.S.), the So. African B1.351, and the P.1, both here ashore as well, albeit expected, I wonder if this loosening up is fueled more by politics, especially state and local, than science. No matter the Democratic President or the appointed CDC head.
Factor in the dumbfounded recent decisions in Florida, Texas, Mississippi, all now wide open states, who gather and travel amok, plus the 50%-80% higher transmission rate of the new variants, plus the increase in severity levels, plus the still open question of transmitting the virus even if vaccinated and/or asymptomatic, and I’m not sure how to relax at all outside of the tightest, most trustworthy bubble of a single household, or maybe two, that are almost clones of each other’s controlled activity patterns.
People gather for spring break on the beach in Port Aransas, Texas on, Friday, March 12, 2021.
Politics aside, which is already barely possible to remove from the current guidance, the new guidance right now, today, is positive. BUT, when the guidance is merged, as it must be, with aggregated human behavior right now, today, it becomes a different calculation. One with a bold asterisk.
A look back at the past year, and already questionable current activity, is enough to see how thoughtless, selfish, ultimately clueless human behaviors can always upset any positive outcome of scientific trajectory. No matter how promising it might sound in the beginning.
States like Florida, Texas, Mississippi, and all the other usual actors defying common sense, are already playing the same losing hands as recklessly as they did last Summer of 2020. We know what then followed in this country.
I wish I could fully embrace the new CDC guidelines, including the state where I live, but I just can’t. I honestly don’t even know why anyone could.
>MB
Related News:
CORONAVIRUS IN CONNECTICUT Experts concerned that rolling back restrictions will cause a COVID surge in CT
Connecticut Post March 9, 2021
Gov. Ned Lamont’s decision to loosen COVID-19 restrictions has experts concerned about an increase in coronavirus cases and possibly deaths.
“I am concerned that we, yet again, have lulled ourselves into a false belief that we have gotten SARS-CoV-2 under control,” said immunologist Kristian G. Andersen on Twitter. “We’re getting close — much closer, in fact — but we’re not there. Yet.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, told National Public Radio Wednesday that although cases are dropping, the pandemic is not over yet.
“I think the next two or three months could go in one of two directions,” Walensky said on NPR following the Texas governor’s decsion to recind that state’s mask mandate. “If things open up, if we’re not really cautious, we could end up with a post-spring break surge the way we saw a post-Christmas surge. We could see much more disease. We could see much more death. In an alternative vision, I see we really hunker down for a couple of more months, we get so many people vaccinated and we get to a really great place by summer.”
Lamont announced Thursday that capacity limits will be lifted for restaurants and other businesses, though social-distancing rules and mask mandates will still be in effect.
Under the new rules, social and recreational gatherings will be limited to 25 people indoors and 100 people outdoors. Sports teams will be allowed to practice and compete again, and venues will be allowed to include 100 people indoors and 200 outdoors.
The loosened restrictions take effect on March 19, 2021.
