Back in 2021, I wrote this up on Twitter’s newsletter rival to Substack.
It’s interesting to see where my mind was then. It was mostly focused on the pandemic and our way out of it. But, there was my interest in pop culture — which hasn’t changed.
So, have a look at what I was writing about on a medium that hadn’t quite matured.
As 2021 comes to a close, it feels like things aren’t getting better – and that’s because of COVID-19.
Politics aside, it seems as this virus mutates, it’s making the efficacy of the various vaccines against it less, well, efficacious. The Pfizer and Moderna shots are still strong enough to protect the vast majority of people from being hospitalized…or dying from COVID-19-related complications. That’s borne out by the data reported in most newspapers and news outlets. But data is one thing. What about doctors, nurses, and other medical pros who have seen an endless stream of patients (almost all of whom are not vaccinated against COVID-19) filling hospital beds in need of care? NBC News ran a piece that had this money quote from a doctor in New York who has been treating Covid patients since this whole thing started in 2020: “The general trend that I’m seeing is if you’re boosted and you get Covid, you really just at worst end up with bad cold symptoms. It’s not like before where you were coughing, couldn’t say sentences, and were short of breath,” said Dr. Matthew Bai, an emergency medicine physician at Mount Sinai Queens in New York City. I haven’t had COVID-19 (yet), but I know vaccinated and unvaccinated people who have. The anecdotal evidence is that for those who got their shots, their bout with the virus was relatively mild (very much like a cold). For those who didn’t get their vaccinations, many were extremely sick for weeks and still suffer from some of the long-haul symptoms. And yes, I know of some folks who lost family and friends to the virus. Just as things looked promising in early spring, the summer turned glum when a little thing called the Delta variant showed up and ruined whatever optimism and hope people had about making this pandemic into an endemic. To put a fine point on it, The Sacramento Bee reported on July 22nd:The highly infectious Delta variant of COVID-19 has made up more than 80% of California samples sequenced for July, the same proportion top U.S. health officials have recently cited as the national rate. Delta increased from 53% of sequenced cases in June to 83% in the first three weeks of this month, the California Department of Public Health reported Thursday. And now with the Omicron variant that spreads even faster than Delta, it’s not a surprise to see positive cases spiking. Most counties are bracing for a surge in patients in a couple of weeks. Health officials and many local governments have to make the tough choice of getting people back into serious virus mitigation mode for the next few weeks. What this all means in terms of general happiness in the country is…well, not great.
Data source: Gallup.com from November 2021
Okay, so there’s the bad news. Are there any hopeful signs for 2022 on the public health front? Based on my reading of the news (I have four subscriptions to digital versions of newspapers), watching talking heads on 24 cable, and listening to news radio (not news talk) some glimmers look promising: Higher vaccination rates testing Pfizer and Merck pills designed to treat the virus vaccine mandates, Continuing use of masking in large public settings combine those things and compare them with what we had (or didn’t have) in 2020 and early 2021 and the path out of the pandemic is clear. Mind you, this is only from a public health perspective. The politics of this continue to be pure poison.
Podcasts! Podcasts! Podcasts!
Like many folks, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. Some are really great, but some make me hit stop because I’m not sure where they are going. While I tend to gravitate toward music-related podcasts (that’s because I have a music podcast), I also listen to a couple of pretty good current event/political ones that take a more measured approach to volatile topics. One of the better ones is Politicology hosted by Ron Steslow. Ron is a former Lincoln Project alum who renamed his ‘cast after leaving the center-right Political Action Committee. He often has fellow (former) Lincoln Project folks on, but one of the better guests is Mike Madrid – a political consultant who’s based in Sacramento. I don’t always agree with Mike, but he’s been very sharp on the dynamics of racial politics that look beyond the black/white dynamic. The Ezra Klein Show is great for center-left folks who like a mixture of politics and culture. A fascinating interview one should seek out is with science fiction short story writer, Ted Chiang. It’s a wide-ranging interview, but he considers something that may rankle the fandom of those who love superheroes, and that’s superheroes who fight crime but ignore injustices politicians, the police, and the state (writ large) perpetrate. On the music-related podcast front, may I point you toward three:1991: The Year AOR Ate Itself from two Popdose alumni, Jeff Giles and Matt Wardlaw. I still write for Popdose from time to time, but these two really get into it with a band I was never passionate about: Genesis. Specifically, the band’s last album with Phil Collins, We Can’t Dance. And they do so with another Genesis superfan and Popdose alum, Jason Hare. And keeping with the Popdose alumni network, there’s X Marks The Pod hosted by Beau Dure. Beau invites a fellow (former) Popdoser, Dave Lifton, on the ‘cast chew over the question: Why does today’s music suck? It’s not what you think. It’s not older Gen Xers getting all grumpy about the music kids these days listen to. It’s actually more nuanced. Both Beau and Dave bring some great insight on how to find new (or old) music to connect to in an age where everything is so fractured. The final one is with Steve and Gerry who do a fantastic job on the Something For Nothing podcast. Yes, it’s about one of my favorite bands: the Canadian power trio, Rush. But these guys are super sharp when dissecting Rush’s studio albums. They don’t go in chronological order with the records, but one of my favorite episodes (a three-parter!) was when they really dug in deep with the band’s 2002 release, Vapor Trails. And with that, I wish the small number of readers of this newsletter a very happy new year!
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