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In Stillness
I want to stop having MS so I can just be afraid of the virus like everyone else.
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Viral Education
Online education is, at best, a parachute until teachers and students can return to the classroom.
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“Quand les Cartes Postales se Croisent” (When Postcards Cross)
Under these imaginative circumstances I can move around Paris with impunity, unlike my friends and neighbors.
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Chalk Talk
The sidewalk was there before Covid-19, and it’s still here today, as solid as anything might feel to a kid right now.
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“After the First Death, There is No Other”
Syria and its millions of refugees rarely make the news these days.
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The Spuds Will Bloom in Baile Beag
There’s a scene in Brian Friel’s iconic play Translations (1980) that seems to me to speak to our current moment.
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A Gathering Quiet
Silence is now, for the moment anyhow, pervasive. It is a presence itself.
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Unfunny April Fools’ Day in Poland
Apparently the Polish PM’s repeated mantras are not enough anymore.
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Self-Help in the Time of Corona
No disease or infection is an “enemy” — for that very reason, we never become soldiers.
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It’s Our Turn
How many N95 masks would $4.5 billion buy? Roughly 2.5 billion. The aircraft carrier sits in Guam, dead in the water.
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A Music Critic in Quarantine
I haven’t felt much like listening to music, and it’s not because I don’t love music any more.
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Protests Under Cover
At the moment, a virus which doesn’t distinguish Muslims or Hindus has provided me with the cover I need.
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We Are All Gazans Now . . . Sort Of
Enforced social distancing and isolation are something my family and I have endured most of our lives.
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Downtown Crossing, Easter 2020
1 in 3 of the unhoused population of Boston have tested positive. We offer handmade masks, hand sanitizer, symptom screening, and calls to medical teams.