Compiling a list here of all the tips, tricks and news we’ve covered at Consumer Reports this season on the perennial threat of vector-borne diseases – mostly so I can send one link instead of several to folks that ask. Will add to it as the season progresses: A Quick Guide to Mosquito & Tick … Continue reading My Day Job: Mosquitoes, Ticks, & Bite Prevention.
Reading The Grapes of Wrath and finding eerie echoes in it, of the present cultural and political moment. Can’t tell if it’s comforting or horrifying or just sad, but certain passages create this sense in me that we have been through all of this before, and are going through it still, and will go through … Continue reading Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, Right Now
I’m still trying to balance my staff job against the very long queue of freelance work that I signed up for before that job came along. Which means, sadly, no time for blogging. I haven’t given up the idea, though (I really love this blog). I just need a few more months to clear my plate. … Continue reading Happy New Year! I miss you! Here are some pictures from Alaska!
This blog has been / is still-kind-of, on a six-month (nay, year-long) hiatus while I adjust to the demands of having a real actual full-time job for the first time in about 100 years. But I just finished The Liar’s Club, Mary Karr’s memoir about her terrible Texas childhood, and wanted to make note of … Continue reading Mary Karr: When Poets Write Prose
I’m working on a piece that takes place in the inner-city, and going back over Random Family, which I read almost a year ago. The book is chock-full of incredible reporting, and clean simple prose that make the breaking heart of the story burst clear-through. Too many scenes and snippets (and even profoundly good exposition) to recount, but I wanted to … Continue reading Random Family: On showing, telling, and showing up…
Had this piece run in the April issue of Scientific American, and got a bit of flack from the precision medicine enthusiasts out there. They were particularly incensed that I wrote dismissively of Gleevec, the cancer drug that made headlines back in 2001, when it was found to work against CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia). Gleevec … Continue reading A few more thoughts on Precision Medicine
1. I was super nervous about my mother’s hernia operation. It’s a fairly minor procedure – doesn’t even require an overnight at the hospital – but she’s older and has some health issues that made it higher risk for her. Plus, the surgeon she picked wanted to use the da Vinci robotic system to operate. I went … Continue reading On journalism, medical decisions, and my new job
