Of stockpiled ventilators a New York Times headline this morning screeched, “Thousands Do Not Work.” Of Senator Kelly Loeffler’s possible insider stock trading, an article said, “Can a person who is this wealthy represent your concerns, as, say, a family that has lost its job because of this pandemic?” Of health care professionals attempting to protect themselves, another headline said, “‘I Do Fear for My Staff,’ a Doctor Said. He Lost His Job.” We are in the midst of a pandemic, but what’s going on here really?
Read More
As languages go, I don’t mind the language of numbers. I do, however, think we’ve fetishized numbers as some sort of be-all and end-all that is dangerously illusory. Despite the universal historical practice of myriad forms of numerology, numbers a.k.a. data, aren’t the bottom line. The numbers for coronavirus have been startlingly bleak, haven’t they? So imagine my delight when a member of my household read that “113,000 people have recovered from COVID-19.”
Read More