Posts:
By George Q. Daley The covid-19 pandemic is sowing death, suffering and economic devastation across the world. Containing its deadly march will require answers to many questions, most of which we are only beginning to chip away at. Among the most critical: How many...
By Vinay Prasad and Jeffrey S. Flier When major decisions must be made amid high scientific uncertainty, as is the case with Covid-19, we can’t afford to silence or demonize professional colleagues with heterodox views. Even worse, we can’t allow questions of science,...
By Ed Konderla I have been disheartened by how many expats post articles on these pages that appear to me to reflect weak, selfish characters. Characters you don’t expect mature people to have after living abundant lives full of opportunity that most of us have had...
By John Keeble Hey, Daddy, what did you do in The Great Pandemic of 2020? Well, son, I stayed at home, drank a lot of wine, and thought. But, Daddy, couldn't you have done something more important than think? Actually, son, no. Thinking was the most important thing...
By Bernard Avishai Nassim Nicholas Taleb is “irritated,” he told Bloomberg Television on March 31, whenever the coronavirus pandemic is referred to as a “black swan,” the term he coined for an unpredictable, rare, catastrophic event, in his best-selling 2007 book of...
By David Morrill On March 26, local news media reported the first bodies on the sidewalks of Guayaquil. Within the days, the international media, including the New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post were in town to share the lurid images with the world,...
We welcomed a new member to our intentional community at the Oasis this week. Marilyn is a very bright light and we are delighted to have her join our family. Her donation to the community will support us in completing our current upgrade to our farming and animal...
By Ray Horsley In a different time, place, and dimension there was once a land of many tribes. Each one had a chief, many elders, and a large number of native peoples who were born to the tribe. These tribal leaders and their advisors had tremendous control over their...
By John P. Ioannidis The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco. At a time when everyone needs better information, from disease modelers and governments to people...
By Giovanni Cambizaca Now that the coronavirus is no longer just a smudge of misery hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface, writing about food all the time seems a little trivial, so this week I’m going to consider the way we live now and try to place that in a...
By Louis Bourgeois I am being called this morning to begin writing in earnest, as we collectively "cocoon" around the world. In my writing as Sun King, I speak from a "place" that I call the energy body. I encourage any who are reading this post to accept that we have...
By Justin Fox Remember a week and a half ago when CNBC’s Rick Santelli said that “maybe we’d just be better off” if we just infected everybody with the coronavirus now? His reasoning: Then in a month it would be over because the mortality rate of this probably isn’t...
By Enda Curran Every economic shock leaves a legacy. The deadly coronavirus will be no different. The great depression spurred a "waste not want not" attitude that defined consumer patterns for decades. Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic still haunts German policy....
By Isaac Chotiner In his new book, Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present, Frank M. Snowden, a professor emeritus of history and the history of medicine at Yale University, examines the ways in which disease outbreaks have shaped politics, crushed...
By Toby Ord The world is in the early stages of what may be the most deadly pandemic of the past 100 years. In China, thousands of people have already died; large outbreaks have begun in South Korea, Iran and Italy; and the rest of the world is bracing for impact. We...
Reading yesterday's post in CuencaHighLife in which Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch advises that 40% to 70% of the world's population will contract the coronavirus confirmed my initial suspicion. I had the sense with the early reports that the media was...
By Jeremy Brown We have just commemorated the centenary of the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918, which lasted only a few months but claimed 50 million to 100 million lives worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. That pandemic remains a benchmark, and many...
By Marco della Cava Coronavirus is in the global spotlight, but a secondary character in this unfolding drama threatens to upstage the grim protagonist: fear. Chalk that up to what it means to be human. Animals have a fight-or-flight response to real and present...
By John Curiel and Jack R. Williams As Bolivia gears up for a do-over election on May 3, the country remains in unrest following the Nov. 10 military-backed coup against incumbent President Evo Morales. A quick recap: Morales claimed victory in October’s election,...
By Victor Davis Hanson An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation. Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations. My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall...
Week of September 06
U.S. sinkings of Ecuadorian fishing vessels trigger court scrutiny after 28 crew members are released.
Cuenca targets a November launch for its first new international link to Chiclayo.
Exports hit a quarterly record, but Ecuador’s import bill is rising even faster.
