Hints on how A.E. Graves spends her imaginary spare time
I adore Canada, and I especially adore the Government of the Yukon’s guidance to prevent COVID-19 infections, which conceptualizes the space you should keep between yourself and others from outside your household as measured in caribou, ravens, huskies, and sourdough bread loaves. (Mmmmmm: sourdough.)
This is a witty way of doing public health notices VERY, VERY well.
The Power
by Naomi Alderman
published by Back Bay Books (Little, Brown and Company)
2016
What would happen to the structure of society if women had the physical power to defend themselves, or even routinely overpower men?
In this engrossing novel, women develop the ability to generate electricity. Humans already have a lot of electrical wiring internally, but in the book, a scientific intervention intended for one purpose may have inadvertently given rise to the ability for women to generate and control electricity, an have the ability to taze at will from puberty onward.
This changes the world.
The story follows several women, both privileged and disadvantaged, comfortable and abused, in the spotlight and sidelined, who find different ways of utilizing this development to influence the direction their societies evolve in. The story of an intrepid male reporter from Lagos also provides a sympathetic (and at times, alarmed) point of view.
Alderman does a remarkable job of showing the RANGE of impacts that could arise, from fiercely patriarchal societies harming or killing women to maintain control, to government leaders militarizing this new ability; from women who use moderation in utilizing their new powers in societies that have included them, to women who wreak vengeance upon their captors and oppressors in societies were they functionally enslaved.
The way the book ends… just be sure to read what looks like an appendix, but is a key part of the story.
Yes, I’m sure Margaret Atwood is DELIGHTED that she got to make such a concise review-and-play-on-words about this book ON THE FRONT COVER.
As someone who has daydreamed of subtly engineering women to be stronger to decrease abuses, do I think that power struggles could play out as they do in this book? Yes, and perhaps Alderman is more realistic than I am, considering history. When have the powerful ever shared power willingly and peacefully? When have enslaved people ever received justice? When have oppressors ever willingly made amends? My own dark futures in fiction are dark DIFFERENTLY, but yes, I think we agree on the backlash. Because: humans.
Also note: read the acknowledgements. No, really.
Summary: a page-turner of a book with a thoughtful story arc for the characters, thoughtful (and very dramatic) implications across the wide range of conditions, and a dark view which is entirely fair, considering the state of the world. I’m glad I read it.
The University of California’s San Francisco hospital and university (UCSF) are sending a team to help out the Navajo Nation. UCSF is a top-ranked hospital, and where I go for care – I’m so proud of them for going to provide their expertise.
UCSF Health Care Workers to Serve in Navajo Nation
A team of UC San Francisco health care workers – seven physicians and 14 nurses – is traveling to Arizona and New Mexico on Wednesday, April 22, 2020, to begin a one month voluntary assignment providing urgently needed health care support for patients in the Navajo Nation, at the request of UCSF’s colleagues in the Navajo Nation.
This trip isn’t a one-off: UCSF has a program offering two-year fellowships to provide medical care in underserved communities. The program is diverse enough that it has alumni who can help in their own communities as well!
Forty-nine health care workers in Navajo Nation are current fellows or alumni of the fellowship. Twenty-five of them are Navajo themselves.
How cool is that?
So yes, UCSF sent a volunteer team to NYC also, which gives me the warm fuzzies, but THIS fills my eyes with hearts and stars.
I haven’t mentioned it before, but my home state has also participated in supporting not only New York, but other states that need ventilators by loaning out 500 to those states that need them.
Early last month, the San Francisco Chronicle’s article, California lending 500 ventilators to distribute to hardest-hit states by Alexei Koseff (April 6, 2020), had some good quotes about states doing right by each other, including a report on Oregon’s loan of 140 ventilators to NYC, and Washington’s return of those it borrowed from the federal government.
The quotes I like are:
“I wish I could solve that for everybody, and to the extent we can, we will,” Newsom said. “This is the state of California. We have an abundant mind-set and we’re a well-resourced state.”
I like the implication that, because we do well, we SHOULD use our position to help others. (The article notes that our early prevention efforts have been successful enough for us to step in for the later-acting states.)
Also:
“We’re Americans, first and foremost,” he said. “As a nation-state, we can do certain things, where we can punch above our weight. We carry a big weight. But to the extent that other Americans need our support, our largesse, to the extent that we have the resources, we’re going to be there for as many people as we possibly can.”
This acknowledges our size and strengths – we are a state with a bigger economy than the UK, India, or France the last time I checked (2018 in Business Insider and currently in Wikipedia’s Economy of California article), and this gives us the opportunity to be a force for good.
The world needs more forces for good.
I got the warm-fuzzies from seeing photos and reports on Twitter about all of the ambulances driving cross-country to help out in NYC. It restored some of my faith in humans. I should share that feeling, so here’s a flurry of general human goodness for you, just a sample of the volunteerism directed toward NYC. (I <3 NY!)
Ohio:
Emotional video: Cleveland man records EMT wife, crew members leaving for NYC in long line of ambulances
CLEVELAND, Ohio (WJW) – Many Americans are being urged to stay at home during this coronavirus pandemic. But many essential workers can’t – and some are so courageous that they’re volunteering their expertise to help on the front lines.
Nebraska:
Scribner paramedics deployed to New York City to battle COVID-19 pandemic
Joe Roberts had never been to New York City prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. He never experienced the shoulder-to-shoulder stuffy traffic that filled Times Square or the packed parkways that connected the city’s five bureaus.
He remembers state troopers pulling into the median to take photos on his phone as Robert’s convoy of ambulances crossed into New Jersey. He remembers the cars that would drive alongside the ambulances to honk and wave at the first responders as they entered the city.
-Joe Roberts, volunteer paramedic / regional manager of an ambulance company
“I get choked up just thinking about it,” he said. “People would walk up to the truck and just thank them for coming. To have people come up to you as you’re sitting on the corner and just saying thank you, it’s just so hard to put into words.”
Virginia:
Fredericksburg-area EMTs volunteering in NYC see warm welcome, ‘a lot of sleepless hours’
Matthew Hebert’s shifts as a volunteer EMT in New York City are supposed to be 12 hours, but he hasn’t worked a shift that “short” since he arrived April 1. “The shortest shift has been 16 hours and the longest was 26 hours,” said Hebert, 28, during a brief break before taking more 911 calls.
Two hundred and fifty ambulances and 500 EMTs and paramedics from around the country have traveled to New York, which has been a hot spot for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
-Matthew Hebert, volunteer EMT
“People are here from California, Texas, Colorado and honestly every state in the U.S.,” Hebert said.
There are a lot of these… I’m just selecting a few.
It isn’t just ambulances, either: medical volunteers are arriving by convoy and bus. There are lots of hometown stories about one or two people volunteering, but here’s one complete with flags and police/fire escorts about a nurse convoy (one of several) from upstate New York – and yes, they got up on a crane and hung a flag, because they wanted to see them off in STYLE:
Area crews honor Upstate nurses headed to NYC | X101 Always Classic
(update 1:35 pm) Around 8:00 this morning, a caravan of 12 vehicles began a trip carrying 25 nurses from Upstate Medical Center to their eventual destination at the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The special escort began at the hospital and continued along Interstate 81 led by the Upstate Hospital Police and …
As someone who has long conversations with a biologist friend about protein sciences, I have many opportunities to discuss and ask about science. Well, biology pal PYT came through by recommending this excellent feature in the April 30th issue of the science magazine Nature.
The race for coronavirus vaccines: a graphical guide
More than 90 vaccines are being developed against SARS-CoV-2 by research teams in companies and universities across the world. Researchers are trialling different technologies, some of which haven’t been used in a licensed vaccine before. At least six groups have already begun injecting formulations into volunteers in safety trials; others have started testing in animals.
I love coffee. I love reading. I love people making fun of badly made coffee. So this article works for me.
Perspective | Dalgona coffee is sweet, milky and pretty. It’s also not for coffee lovers.
My hands are shaking as I prepare a second batch of dalgona coffee, the quarantine-chic drink and the latest piece of evidence that we have no idea what to do with ourselves during a pandemic.
The quote I like best:
I hate to sound like a snob, but when I tried the Via coffee straight, it tasted like dirt, burned rubber and imminent death. Via Instant, at least this version, is to coffee what “Jaws 3-D” is to cinema.
– Tim Carman, Washington Post
I may even forgive him for the lack of Oxford comma, eventually.
This started out as a sort of joke, but morphed into an excuse to learn about archaea!! 🙂
Can Lava Kill The Coronavirus? An Investigation
I was recently asked, via email, if lava can kill the new coronavirus. It can, but there’s a good reason why no-one is using it in the fight against the ongoing pandemic: nothing else would survive the encounter with molten rock either.
Archaea are interesting prokaryotes, and I’m happy this inspired me to read more about them – not just about the extremophiles, but (via Wikipedia) about their abundance just about everywhere, including inside us.
My City believes in data! And it even develops graphics to display it so it can be easily interpreted and visualized.
This is a serious topic, and I appreciate how the City is making such an effort to be sure we UNDERSTAND it.
I had another one of those trips to the grocery store that made me never want to set foot in it again. There are no delivery appointments available, so it is THE option if I am trying to obtain food within a short distance of my home. It is a risk, because there have been more than 160 confirmed COVID-19 cases in my zip code, which means that neighbors have been, and perhaps continue to be, exposed. Each visit seems slightly worse than the previous one in terms of waiting to get inside (longer), existential dread (more), awkwardness in reaching for an item near other people also reaching (constant), and a lack of accommodation for a minor wrist problem (paper handle bags are a ticket to unavailable physical therapy for me; yes, repacking my groceries outside without touching any environmental surfaces or standing near anyone else in public on a busy street is icing on a sand-based cake).
The staff are hard-working and polite; the rules are well-intentioned. Yet, it still feels like the ordeal dial will turn up each time I go, and my next visit may somehow involve needing to defeat a video game villain in hand-to-hand combat for the right to purchase a pineapple that may or may not be in stock. [Imagine the little 8 bit video game victory song here, with a sad sound if there are no pineapples…]
I’m posting this perspective piece because I find it relatable:
I am doing okay, and I know how lucky I am to be able to keep myself well-supplied: I just hadn’t expected that needing fruit could ruin my day, that I would be rationing oranges in 2020 to avoid going outside, or that my blood pressure would creep upward whenever there’s only one banana left on the counter.
