This fall, I’ve known six people who have died. None of them were close to me. I was a secondary mourner for all of these deaths: a cousin-in-law’s brother-in-law, a great aunt and great uncle I had never known well, an old friend’s father, and my aunt’s parents, who both died in the same month. […]
Read More FallA series in which I reflect on how, as the Buddha pointed out, life is suffering. Plague of Justinian It’s the original, the one, the only, first plague pandemic, and it got named after the man in charge, Justinian. For the next 200 years, this stuff, plague, would pop up and destroy, much like a […]
Read More Everything Has Always Been TerribleA series in which I recall that suffering in human life is something all humans have in common. Cadiz Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1800 You don’t know until you know. Is the vague statement I am making to begin this entry. (Apologies to Perd Hapley.) You don’t know if bad smells are the smell of […]
Read More Everything Has Always Been TerribleA series in which I gently suggest that I’m not the only person to be frustrated, though it certainly feels that way. Quebec Smallpox Epidemic of 1776 Why isn’t Quebec part of the United States? Yes, it’s due to one of your favorite Terrible Things: smallpox. Notorious baddie Benedict Arnold was up north in the […]
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Going On 