politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: Hey, at least Omicron appears to have peaked in the US

Monday 24 January 2022

Hey, at least Omicron appears to have peaked in the US

January 24, 2022

Howdy. I hope you had a relaxing weekend. I, for one, went to the rodeo at the National Western Stock Show. It was awesome.

But the world is not a rodeo, and the outlook is, well, muddy. Yesterday, I read this New York Times article about the recent spate of random violent crime in our nation's largest city. The homicide rate is a fraction of what it was in the 1980s, but it would be naive—nearly three years into a pandemic, and a week after a man shoved a 40-year-old woman to her death in front of an oncoming subway train—to say that everything is A-OK. This quote, from an out-of-work 50-year-old nail salon employee, resonated with me: "No parties, people don't need to buy nice clothes, no makeup. Life is too boring, it's tiring. We're still not finished, still in the pandemic...I'm afraid because I'm Asian...We don't go out at night, we don't take the subway—what can we do? No hope, just living."

On top of all the ennui at home, there is troubling international conflict brewing abroad. I'm no foreign affairs expert, but the prospect of Russia invading Ukraine sounds scary. The US has put 8,500 troops on alert, and other NATO members have sent jets and warships to Eastern Europe in preparation for a possible Russian attack.

So, what are we to do, as we sit on our hands and wait for war? Well, we could look to the stars, where the James Webb telescope has parked a million miles from Earth, the first step in its quest to document distant galaxies. And if pondering the birth of the universe doesn't soothe you, you could always head into a field for a good scream.

—Abigail Weinberg