Julia Belluz explains that Sierra Leone is “imposing mandatory lockdowns on its citizens.” She provides the above chart showing the extent of the devastation: The districts where Ebola is believed to be moving fast — Port Loko, Bombali, Moyamba — are now isolated. People won’t be able to leave their homes or go to school … Continue reading How You Can Die From Ebola Without Getting It
Many readers discuss Zeke Emanuel’s essay on wanting to die at age 75. One pivots off a point of mine: Sorry, but Alan Arkin beat Leonard Cohen to that punch back in the 2006 movie Little Miss Sunshine. He plays the part of a grandfather in a nursing home who has decided to take up heroin … Continue reading What’s The Best Way To Die?
Ken Burns’s multipart documentary, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, premiered last night. Damon Root reviews it: [W]hile the film is clearly pro-Roosevelt in its leanings, it does make room for certain contrarian views. Among The Roosevelts‘ stable of talking heads, for example, is none other than conservative writer George Will, who pops up from time to time to … Continue reading Getting Intimate With The Roosevelts
by Matthew Sitman After asking readers about the novels, poems, and short stories that have meant the most to them, the response has been so affirming – at a time when we all wonder about the future of reading, writing, and publishing, it’s good to be reminded of why those questions matter at all. Many … Continue reading Reading Your Way Through Life: More Reader Reax
by Dish Staff Charles Kenny remarks that new Ebola treatments are in the works only because “the Department of Defense had taken interest in the disease as a bioterror threat and was financing development of the drug ZMapp as a potential response”: Ebola is the exception: Only a little more than 1 percent of new drugs approved between 1975 and 2004 were … Continue reading The Diseases We Neglect
Hayes Brown provides an update on the escalating emergency: [T]he United Nations on Wednesday upgraded Iraq’s crisis to a level 3 humanitarian disaster — the most severe rating it has. “Now we’re focused on delivering water, food and essential items,” Colin MacInnes, deputy head of UNICEF in Iraq, told the Washington Post. “Iraq already has a level 3 polio … Continue reading A New Iraqi Refugee Crisis, Ctd
288 cases of measles have been reported to the CDC so far this year, “the largest number of measles cases in the United States reported in the first five months of a year since 1994.” You can probably guess who’s to blame: “The current increase in measles cases is being driven by unvaccinated people, primarily U.S. residents, … Continue reading Not A Measly Number
Marking the 20th anniversary of the genocide, Lauren Wolfe considers how far the country has come and how it still struggles to cope with its past: Today, 20 years after an ethnically motivated genocide in which nearly 1 million Rwandans died and up to half a million women were raped, the government forbids certain kinds of public discussion about Hutus … Continue reading Remembering Rwanda
Cillizza passes along an infographic on the Indian election, which began today: The Economist explains how India manages to run such a massive voting operation: One answer is that elections are narrowly focused tasks of limited duration that are regularly repeated. Where similar conditions hold, bureaucrats prove similarly successful. One example is the ten-yearly national census; a newer success … Continue reading The Biggest Election The World Has Ever Seen
by Patrick Appel Russell Saunders blames anti-vaxxers for the measles outbreak in NYC: This is not some inconvenience to be laughed off. Measles is a highly-contagious illness caused by a virus. It usually presents with a combination of rash, fevers, cough and runny nose, as well as characteristic spots in the mouth. Most patients recover after an unpleasant but … Continue reading The Return Of A Deadly Disease
