So long, '25!

 On the last day of this seemingly long year, some of us inevitably turn a little contemplative and assess the past twelve months and the changes they've brought to the world.  In just such a mood I write this on a cold, sunny morning in central Alabama, while weighing my role in the universe.

From a personal standpoint, it's been a pretty mixed year.  As are most of them, I suppose, with ups and downs that culminate in a general sense of turmoil or serenity, as the case may be.  Early on in the year, I experienced a potentially serious health episode which resulted in my first ever ambulance ride and ICU admission.  Things turned out alright, and I used the episode to spark a renewed effort in personal wellness.  Through the rest of the year, I've accomplished some much-needed weight loss, improved my fitness, and improved some worrisome medical measurements.  By December, my annual physical exam produced a panel of blood test lab results that were, as my medical professional wife called "textbook perfect."  This is an area that I hope to continue in the coming year.  This summer also saw a landmark birthday for me, which was allowed to pass with a minimum of fanfare, as I had hoped.  Age hasn't produced wisdom, but it has certainly provided experience, which is maybe the next best thing.

The past year also saw our first real vacation in over five years.  In it, I overcame my aversion to the hassles and disappointments that so often accompany modern air travel, and we had perfectly smooth travel to a beautiful location on the midcoast of Maine.  Wonderful weather and beautiful scenery made it an enjoyable and memorable trip.  I only wish such a trip could be reliably reproduced!  Closer to home, I expanded my literary horizons with regular participation in the Trollope Society Big Read, where we read and discussed works of the prolific Victorian author.  That's also something I will continue this year.  This year I took the plunge and arranged to have professional landscapers to tend to our property, freeing me from the drudgery of lawn mowing and yard work.  It's made a tremendous difference in my life, and I wish I'd turned to this option years ago.  And finally, I've been diligently puttering along with Postcrossing, where I exchange postal messages with other like-minded people all around the world.  The daily arrival of a tiny personal connection to another human being does wonders for one's outlook on life.

Taking a wider view, things are decidedly less rosy.  My country continues to suffer a despicable felon at the head of government.  In the past year, nearly everything that could seriously be said to "make America great" has been dismantled or seriously damaged.  As a working research scientist, I have grown an astonishing capacity to absorb the daily developments that represent destruction of the nation's once respected and admired scientific system.  Higher education is under assault, research funding is a shambles, once respectable agencies are now run by crackpot hacks, and the nation's proud scientific tradition is a smoking ruin.  Restoration, if begun tomorrow, would take years to return us to the condition we boasted only 12 months ago.  This is just the area of life with which I am most familiar.  But almost every other aspect of American life has been systematically destroyed in the past year.  The environment is being destroyed, the arts are being demolished, rule of law is being contorted to unrecognizable dimensions, public health, safety, and welfare are a shadow of their former selves, international relations are a shambles, and simple American principles like Freedom of Speech are no longer upheld.  To merely express disapproval of the current regime is to invite thuggish retribution from the government or its agents.  It is difficult for me to express how much I despise the current demented resident of the White House (what remains of it) or of his ignorant cult of supporters.  Fortunately, Postcrossing members do not often delve into politics, and I am only occasionally required to apologize for the disgrace that my country has become.

Since my personal life is on balance a good one, and since the conditions of the wider world are so bad, perhaps it is understandable that my coping mechanism has been to ignore the outside to that extent possible, and instead focus on life close to home.  If I were a better person, I might try to do small things to change the world for the better, for that's what will be required if we are ever to return to a sensible existence on this country.  But I simply don't have that sort of energy.  So I'll content myself with my books, my postcards, my experiments - in the laboratory at work, and in the kitchen at home - and try to hold on until the national pendulum inevitably swings back towards sanity.  Will that begin in the year that begins tomorrow?  I'm not hopeful.  But it surely will eventually, given enough time.  And I will try my best to endure until it does.

Progress

I hope you'll forgive me if I indulge in a little personal horn-blowing.  You see, an effort that began many months ago and has become more dedicated in the past 10 weeks has paid dividends: I have lost 50 pounds of weight.  It's very gratifying to reach this landmark.  Even more so because I've done it on my own.  No fad diets, no subscription programs, no weight-loss drugs, and no surgery.  Just a very simple, common-sense regimen of eating less and moving more.  I've always maintained a healthy diet with a variety of foods, fruits and vegetable.  But recently I have been careful to have reasonable portion sizes.  Probably the most drastic change has been the end of my absolute favorite: the post work, pre dinner snack.  These were usually generous helpings of salty snacks from the broad potato chip and Dorito family.  Stopping that entirely is a serious daily calorie reduction.  And the reduced salt intake has done wonders to improve my hypertension.  But otherwise, I still eat a conventional diet - carbs included- but in smaller amounts.  

So today I find that I am 50 pounds lighter than I was at my peak.  Fifty!  That's more than two of the biggest sacks of Kingsford charcoal briquets.  That's nearly two full 5-gallon jerry cans of gasoline.  That's 10 bags of King Arthur flour.  I am really enjoying going through the back of my closet to find clothing I haven't worn in many years that now fits again.  Fortunately, my fashion sense has never been so daring that I can't wear a polo shirt that I bought ten years ago.  I'm also pleased to be able to get in and out of my little two-seater sports car much more easily.  And my aging knees thank me every day as we negotiate stairs so much easier.

As happy as this day is, it's sobering to think that I still have a long path ahead.  I will need to make this achievement once again, and more, before I am at a normal, healthy weight.  But if the proverb is true that a journey of 100 miles begins with a single step, I've made mine.  Maybe even 50 of them.

Not dead yet

 Only hours after it began, April Letter Writing Month had to be put on pause.  You see, on the morning of April 1, I was unexpectedly hospitalized for a bit more than two days (no foolin'!)  Yes, only months away from beginning my sixth decade of life, I was admitted to a hospital overnight stay for the first time ever.  Got to take my first ever ambulance ride, too!  I'm home now, feeling very much better, and eager to jump into daily correspondence with family and friends at last.  I also have a lot of postcard writing to catch up on. But to all my correspondents, fear not.  I am back at my desk, pen in hand (or typewriter, as the case may be), and daily letters will resume immediately.  Write on!

Blinded by science

As my day job is working as a research scientist, I find it important to live by decisions based on empiric evidence.  Living in the USA, and especially in the Deep South, that's not always easy.  This is, after all, the region of the nation best known for discarding settled science in favor of various flavors of religion.  Alabama still requires disclaimers in school science textbooks that claim the principle of evolution is somehow still unproven.  Many other similar topics are disputed by those who can't or won't accept the scientific method:  climate change, the age, and even the shape of the earth.  Fortunately, these misguided individuals can be refuted by a most infallible authority- the slogan t-shirt.  In my collection, I have multiple shirt that proclaim "science doesn't care what you believe."  That is to say, science is true, whether or not you find it convenient to accept it.  This adage is most apropos throughout and after our most recent global pandemic.  For selfish personal and political reasons, many people chose to blame various parties for the origins of the deadly virus, despite having little or no evidence to support their claims.  Early on in the struggle with the new virus, there was little real evidence to be had that supported anyone's claims.  But that has slowly changed, and today another convincing piece was added to the pile.  The prestigious science journal Cell published a paper with strong evidence that the virus arose from a food market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.  This adds to previous work that suggests the most likely source of the virus was a natural spillover from animals sold as food in the market.  Not an accidental escape from a lab.  Not a deliberate pathogen released to target specific populations.  Not any other fanciful theory concocted without evidence and repeated by those with crackpot political views.  As far as humankind is able to determine at this moment in history, this is the best explanation of the pandemic's origin.  Of course, that's not to say future, better evidence will change things if and when it comes to light.  But that's how science works- more and better data improve our understanding of all things.  And as always, one's personal opinions, or religion, or politics don't matter, because science doesn't care what you believe.

 

Pandemic memories

 In the corner of the entrance to my laboratory building lies a neglected and forgotten relic of the recent worldwide pandemic.  This month, four years ago, the saga of Covid began in this country and would severely test the social structure of the nation.  That first weekend of March 2020, my wife and I were on one of our frequent long weekend trips to New York city to see a Broadway show.  Early news stories at that time had just begun to describe a new viral illness, with cases being detected on the west coast, and mere days before our trip, in upstate New York.  With little concern, we went ahead with the trip and spent several days roaming around Manhattan taking few additional precautions over our normal routines.  We enjoyed being in the audience of a performance of The Lehman Trilogy, viewing what would be virtually the last performance of that wonderful show.  The Monday after that first March weekend, we flew home.  Less than a week later, Broadway closed and the city of New York locked down.  Thus began a public health crisis that would test the nation's resolve and resourcefulness.

Today, happily, the situation is much improved.  The past four years seem to be both a blink of the eye and an eternity.  The anachronistic sign that stands forgotten in a corner of my building is a souvenir of those difficult days as we struggled to deal with this new illness.  What the crisis revealed about society is both heartening and dismaying.  We saw the endless and largely unappreciated dedication of healthcare workers on the front lines of the fight against this new, insidious illness.  We also came to belatedly appreciate the value of the unsung members of society, the grocery store workers, restaurant servers, and all those in constant contact with the public who provide crucial services.  With more disappointment, however, we saw with clear vision the utter and complete moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican party.  From the party leader and nation's president on down to local government, the GOP failed the nation with its endless obstruction of virtually every public health measure from masks to vaccines to social distancing, the vilification of scientists as they struggled valiantly (and sometimes imperfectly) to understand this new pathogen, to the belligerent, cultish adoption of unproven treatments and medications that were mere defiant emblems more than they were useful countermeasures to the disease.  So now, four years later, the nation and the world stands, scarred but hopefully wiser and better prepared for challenges to come.

Scientia potentia est

 Just a few days ago, it was announced that the government would resume sending free Covid home test kits to all households, free of charge.  By applying online here, one can receive four free tests to have on hand when needed.  This valuable program helps prevent a resurgence of the disease by giving a quick, convenient diagnosis at home.  When positive, individuals can isolate early to prevent transmission to others, and in appropriate cases begin medication that is most effective when taken early in the course of the illness.  There is also a new and improved vaccine now available that better protects against newer variants of the virus.  I'm a supporter of all these new developments.  Although the pandemic has waned, the disease, for certain individuals, is a significant threat to health.  Due care must still be taken to avoid contracting and spreading a virus that, despite improvements in treatment and growing immunity, can prove fatal for some.  It should be no surprise that as a scientist, I base my actions on fact-based knowledge.  Not religion-driven contrariness or politically emblematic knee-jerk opposition.  Truly sensible individuals will not panic, but will adopt common sense measures to reduce disease and further suppress what has been one of the greatest health emergencies in generations.