1.
A few things I’ve found out during the pandemic:

– You CAN put the toothpaste back in the tube.

– I haven’t found bigger fish to fry.

– Silence isn’t always golden but you get used to it.

– A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single airplane ticket.

– If you come to a fork in the road, you’re just lucky to get out of the house.

– A watched pot is sometimes all you can do.

2.
Speaking of the pandemic, David Leonhardt, who writes The Morning (New York Times) newsletter every weekday, posted an interesting piece (brought to my attention by my friend Pat Tomek in KC) about Covid Fear. The article is based on a little fable that Guido Calabresi, a federal judge and Yale law professor, has been telling law students for more than three decades and asks the question “why do so many vaccinated people remain fearful?”

“If you’re vaccinated, Covid presents a minuscule risk to you, and you present a minuscule Covid risk to anyone else. A car trip is a bigger threat, to you and others. About 100 Americans are likely to die in car crashes today. The new federal data suggests that either zero or one vaccinated person will die today from Covid.

It’s true that experts believe vaccinated people should still sometimes wear a mask, partly because it’s a modest inconvenience that further reduces a tiny risk — and mostly because it contributes to a culture of mask wearing. It is the decent thing to do when most people still aren’t vaccinated. If you’re vaccinated, a mask is more of a symbol of solidarity than anything else. Victory over Covid will not involve its elimination. Victory will instead mean turning it into the sort of danger that plane crashes or shark attacks present — too small to be worth reordering our lives.”

Worth pondering.

3.
Bored with painting on canvas, or paper, or any other traditional material for art? Try Banana Art! One of Connie’s friends who lives in Albuquerque passed this on to her.

4.
My friend Bill O’Hara posted this recently on Facebook. Laugh it up.

5.
My friend Jenny Franklin posted about this 18th century cowskin diving suit called The Old Gentleman of Raahe. It’s housed in the oldest local museum in Finland, The Raahe Museum. Check it out.

6.
Meanwhile in Arizona, a bill that would stop some voters from getting a ballot automatically mailed to them each election failed unexpectedly in Arizona’s state Senate Thursday after a single Republican joined Democrats in voting against the legislation. State Sen. Kelly Townsend supports the legislation, unfortunately, and is demanding another audit, paid for by us, and still believes and promotes the BIG LIE. Something smells in Maricopa County as the GOP in Arizona is doing all it can to make sure it’s harder to vote next time around.

We vote by mail and want to continue to do so. It’s easy, you don’t have to stand out in the heat, and we have water at home. Cripes, these Republicans.

7.

David Fitzsimmons, Arizona Daily Star

From Lee Papa:

“Finally, I want to end this with a moment to remember George Floyd, a flawed man, like all of us, who suffered so awfully before our eyes, who it's not hyperbolic to say died for our sins. But you can't remember him without remembering every single name, every Eric Garner, every Breonna Taylor, every Adam Toledo, and you can't remember them without thinking about all those whose names we never got to learn. 

We can breathe where they can't. But we need to use that breath for something more than sighs of relief.”

Somewhere deep in Colorado, 1988

And now, some of this…