Blogaround

1. China’s Left-Behind Kids Repeat Their Parents’ Tragic Choices (posted January 18) "In some regions, family separations have become a fact of life, with parents and children no longer considering it unusual to live apart for most of the year."

2. Larry King, broadcasting giant for half-century, dies at 87 (posted January 23) 

3. The lynch mob (posted January 19) Slacktivist's post, with links to 2 good articles about the January 6 insurrection.

4. COVID-19 ended blowing out birthday candles. Please: Let's put spitting on cakes in the past. (posted January 22) Okay yeah this writer is probably right.

5. The 11 days of drama at sea that changed cruising forever (posted December 29) This is a good summary of what happened with cruise ships during the pandemic.

6. And the big news in Shanghai is we have discovered 12ish locally-transmitted covid cases over the past week or so, which is a big deal because that number has been 0 since the 7 cases in November. (The 12 are all connected.) I am still going to work like normal (because I don't live or work near there) but there are some rules that are back to being strict again. Like we had to show the green QR codes to enter the mall last weekend- and only 1 entrance was open. The security guards at the office building where I work are being more strict about telling everyone to wear their masks. And food delivery workers aren't allowed to enter the building anymore. So, just some little things that don't really make a huge difference in my life. I have heard that some parts of the city are in lockdown / people who had contact with the infected people are all in quarantine now.

I expect they will have this under control and it'll all blow over in about 2 weeks and we'll be fine- which is what happened in November.