One persistent prediction arising from our pandemic house arrest is that we’ll have a baby boom in nine months. There are good reasons to doubt this. Sure, people are going to do things to pass the time. Makin’ whoopee is…
As the news of the spreading Wuhan coronavirus increasingly occupied the news over the past several months, the pinecones rained down from the ponderosa pines that comprise the Hidden Forest in the foothills of the Rockies south of Denver. Back…
While watching Donald Trump’s coronavirus press briefing last Saturday, my 92-year-old stepfather, Juan, made a curious observation. “The 21st century started this year,” he said. Juan has lived through many of the conflicts in modern history: World War II, the…
Charles Mackay wrote not of pandemics but “moral epidemics” 179 years ago in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. “We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object,” he observed, “and go mad in its…
It’s easy to feel depressed and scared these days. News about the impact and death toll of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, is constant. Government responses have been chaotic, ranging from near-indifference to suddenly shutting down the economy, with politicians offering…