Archive for November 2020
Back to School
I teach in a suburban high school. Our town decided to go with the Hybrid Model, but did not commit to the decision until mid-August, which left little time to make things happen: schedule 1800 students, reconfigure the building and solidify course re-planning. Kids arrived physically on 16 September. Since then this is what is…
Read MoreI Am a Nurse
Long before the pandemic hit, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared 2020 The Year of the Nurse, and now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems especially fitting to acknowledge the work of nurses, for whose life hasn’t been touched by a nurse? That degree of commitment to patients happens not just…
Read MorePL Recommends #5
The Rallying Cry of Street Art During Coronavirus (3 min) Mashable Watch and listen to two artists (Los Angeles and Barcelona) leveraging their talents to spread public health messages, inspire hope, and using their art to document this time for the future. It’s a great example of putting that truism into play–think globally, act locally.…
Read MoreSocial Asphyxia
People have different ways of looking at the world, and these views influence their perceptions of risks, benefits and costs and shape how they act. We’ve seen this in alarming degrees with the current pandemic. Historically, we, as global citizens, have woven a spiral of silence over climate and race issues. The term “spiral of…
Read MoreA Great Nation Shattered
A nation exhausted by eight months of bungled, intentionally ineffective attempts to fight a pandemic, devastated by nearly a quarter of a million preventable deaths, and ripped apart by a president and a plutocracy pledged only to their own vision and greed—this is the United States tonight. The country that brought the ideal of democracy…
Read MoreThe Power of a Tiny Light
(This post refers to works by my late husband, Bill Oakes, a visionary, educator, and prolific painter.) Halloween has come and gone but I’m still pondering how much scarier this year is than last year. The darkness enveloping everyone, due to the pandemic and multiple situations causing chaos, makes us all yearn for more light…
Read MorePre-Election Sunday
I’m struggling to get through these pre-election days and turning to music for solace and engagement. So, this morning, two days before the upcoming monumental event, I composed this piece and sketched my feelings as well. Stanley Sagov · a day in a life pre-election sunday2020 Copyright © 2020 Stanley Sagov Stanley SagovStanley…
Read MoreClarity and Hope
These days, botanical photography has become my escape hatch—a brief respite from the toxic miasma that’s seeping into every nook and cranny of our lives. I’m fortunate in many ways, and living near the wonderful greenhouse at Pemberton Farms in Cambridge, Massachusetts is another item on my gratitude list (the Pemberton grocery store, our go-to…
Read MoreTake Five: Elements
During the early stages of the pandemic, people seemed to experience a period of numbness, almost disbelief, that this was actually happening, followed by a period of dawning reality that it wasn’t just going to fade away. By late April, in the UK, there was a growing sense of fear, too, as death figures were…
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