I started writing this the day “Barbie” was opening in the theatres. I had not seen it yet, because I am writing less about the film and more about the cultural and political moment we inhabit as it opens. I went as soon as I finished an early draft, exactly one week...
At their January 2023 meeting, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Group will consider instituting COVID vaccines as an annual fall event like the Turkey Trot, Trick-or-Treating, and the flu shot. Beyond the FDA, the mask and distancing mandates have been...
I was 1 year old when the legendary blizzard of ’77 struck Buffalo, NY. This coincidence made me a “blizzard baby,” as my late mother Gail frequently recalled with a fond, nostalgic smile. She shared the Buffalo folklore tales of snowbanks towering to the height of...
In September 2021, an assemblage of TikTok users anointed themselves “Purebloods” for their repudiation of the COVID vaccine. This was one month after the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the first major life-saving intervention of the pandemic. The social...
The concept of normality, favored by so many executives and administrators, is like a mantra attempting to stave off the grieving for the end of our lives as we lived them in 2019.
Around May 15, 2022, depending on whether you doomscroll the New York Times or the Center for Disease Control, the United States reached one million COVID deaths. Silences wrapped around COVID’s epic global story have been normalized.
“The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible” — Toni Cade Bambara The American public is being told to get used to living with COVID-19. This means “we” are being asked to abide the inequalities that disallow a more robust challenge to the virus....
For months, health experts have warned wealthy countries of the dangers and the immoralities of hoarding the COVID-19 vaccines. Wealthy countries have fully vaccinated about 65% of their populations. In the absence of global vaccination, COVID-19 is not only spreading...
In October 2020, India and South Africa introduced a proposal to temporarily suspend patent protections for coronavirus vaccines to boost the inadequate global supply. One year and about 3.5 million deaths later, negotiations remain at a standstill. Marking the...
In an age when the majority of Americans get their news from digital platforms and where misinformation about a pandemic is spreading just as fast as the virus itself, digital media literacy is more important than ever. Recent studies have found that popularly used...
