A July 1 note before I write about June 30: About Saturday, I'd say, my nose started to run just a little bit. I started to have a low grade dry cough. This morning, since this mild runny nose continued, I tested for Covid.
The test came up positive. I'll continue to lie very low for the next ten days or so. My hope is that the very mild symptoms I've experienced so far stay mild.
Debbie's did.
1. I spent much of today reading articles in the June 24, 2024 New Yorker magazine. I relished how each article, in its own way, gave me more insight into how complicated the world is. Each persuaded me that we get closer to the truth about things when we accept contradictions and reject purity or absolute thinking.
The first article was about teen age gangs inn Gilbert, AZ. I think we are all pretty well conditioned to think of gangs being made up of youth from the underclass and youth from broken homes.
These teens, however, are from wealthy homes, teens who are neglected not because of poverty, but by their parents enjoying the spoils of their wealth. These marauders have come to see themselves as bullet proof, protected by wealth from facing consequences, and in their insulation are unfeeling toward those they beat up and attack in other ways.
I once had a professor in college who sardonically stated over lunch one day, with his tongue in his cheek, that criminals "should be condemned to wealth."
We all laughed, but his pointed remark held a truth about the contradictory nature of wealth. Wealth can be a source of material security, elite education, philanthropy, traveling the world, and other experiences that are great fun and expansive.
And, wealth can be a virus, a source of illness, neglect, insulation, isolation, and ignorance about the lives of most people in the world: a kind of condemnation.
I came away from this article thinking these Gilbert youth had been condemned to wealth.
2. The second piece I read was a feature story on Pennsylvania U. S. Senator John Fetterman.
The story focused on Sen. Fetterman's support for many progressive positions like support for LGBTQ rights, universal medical care, aid to the homeless and more.
But, unlike many who support these issues, Fetterman emphatically supports Israel in its war with Gaza and Hamas.
If you were to make one of those checklists to evaluate Fetterman's progressive bona fides, he checks off one issue after another until the checklist includes support for Gaza.
I don't see how these contradictions can be reconciled.
It's complicated.
3. The last article I read explored the cloning of dogs.
I honestly had no idea so many dogs were being cloned or that cloning was so expensive.
This article, to me, was about the contradiction between life and death and how cloning enables some part of a deceased dog to live on in the animals cloned from the deceased dog's cells.
I didn't leave the article with a strong position either in support of or in opposition to cloning dogs.
I left it actually feeling overwhelmed by learning about yet something else that is over my head, complicated, and a great comfort to many whose dogs have died.
All this reading happened on June 30th, but I'm writing about it on July 1st, Canada Day.
In honor of Canada Day, Stu wrote a limerick.
Here it is:
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