Blog

One Year in 150 Words

March 17, 2021

On February 28, the letters editor of the Los Angeles Times requested submissions summarizing readers’ thoughts on the past year of life during the coronavirus pandemic. I was inspired to condense the swirling chaos in my brain to 150 relatively coherent words.   The Times has published many readers’ letters. But not mine. So I…

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Pandemic fatigue

November 17, 2020

Why did we think that we would escape the kind of historic cataclysms that have upended the lives of every generation? Think of our parents. And grandparents. I think of my grandmother. First cataclysm: Flu epidemic of 1918. Mary and Phil Flynn lived in the first floor apartment of a brand new triple-decker on Morton…

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Mrs. Penfire gets fired up!

May 5, 2020

A week ago Sunday, April 26th, the Los Angeles Times ran an editorial entitled “The brutality of coronavirus triage.” This piece acknowledges a terrible reality—the incomprehensible dilemma that doctors face when emergency rooms are overwhelmed with more desperately sick people than they can possibly help. “The most harrowing instances have been in the northern Italian…

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