notes

1. New York Times article saying "The Best Bagels Are in California" has caused chaos in the California bakeries as orders pour in. They don't even include my favorite local bagel vendor, which is in Palo Alto. Their choices are in San Francisco/Berkeley, which I might drop into if I were there (I haven't been to either city since before the pandemic), or in LA, which is rather too far away, but which the Times treats as interchangeable with SF. It's 350 miles away! Would you treat NYC as interchangeable with Lynchburg, Virginia?

2. B. got caught in the feud between the county and the state over vaccine distribution. She was one of the Kaiser patients who'd signed up with the county because it was taking them before Kaiser would, but had their second shots canceled due to their low supplies, and redirected to Kaiser. Kaiser was mighty annoyed about that. But B. got an earlier appointment from them for her second shot than she would have had from the county, so it all worked out OK at least for her. Meanwhile I've had my first, the only challenging part of which was getting out of the high-seated but back-slung chair they'd put me in for the shot.

3. Conservative columnist Marc Thiessen says that terms like "B.1.1.7 variant" are confusing and technical, and we should use the geographic terms of their origin. He says that while terms like "the kung flu" are racist, "China virus" is not. It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be, except that association of the virus with China seems to be what's causing racists to punch anyone of East Asian ancestry, including Koreans and Thais, in the face or even murdering them. Which has to be the stupidest form of racism yet invented, against strong competition.

4. Meanwhile, there's stuff like what's described here. It is both unfortunate and deplorable. It is also casual thoughtless stereotyping and quite distinguishable from a punch in the face. We need more precise and distinctive terminology than "racism" here.

5. Much sorrow locally at the announcement of closure of at least undergraduate education at Mills College. We held two Mythcons there in the 1980s, because our chair, Diana Paxson, was an alumna. Much mention too of the music instruction that's gone on there, though much of that is at the graduate level. My harmony instructor had been a pupil of Darius Milhaud, who taught there for many years.

6. As for the Boulder shootings, what else can I say besides, "Oh no, not again"?