Pandemic, week 24 (The Calm During the Storm)

On Sunday, Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the his back while walking away from police and entering his vehicle in Kenosha, WI. Protests erupted, which turned violent. This motivated an armed 17-year-old and his mother to drive to Kenosha from Antioch, IL in order to "protect buildings" and ended with the teen killing two protestors and shooting a third before heading back to Illinois with his mom. He was later arrested and is charged with murder. The NBA and WNBA players refused to play and the leagues postponed their playoff games in response and several MLB teams forced postponements as well. Meanwhile, Republicans held their convention this week, culminating in a 1,500 person, mask-less gathering at the White House (which probably violated the Hatch Act) where Trump accepted the nomination. Hurricane Laura struck the gulf coast resulting in the evacuation orders for over half a million people. Chadwick Boseman, who starred as T'Challa, the Black Panther, died at age 43 of colon cancer.

The world hit 25.2 million COVID case and 847,000 deaths this week with the U.S. accounting for 6.1 million cases and 187,000 deaths. The White House on Sunday announced that the FDA had granted emergency authorization for blood plasma in treating COVID-19 which would result in a 35 percent increase in the survival rate. By Wednesday, they had walked back the statements and on Friday the PR person in charge of the press release was fired.

Our week was largely quiet, as we geared up for next week's start of school. We had family game night of Poetry for Neanderthals (thanks, Dave and Kara) which involved hitting your opponent in the head with a club if they used two syllable words. While the initial round ended with some tears, eventually we all had fun with Nora even adopting it as a way of life. Owen had a virtual retreat for Duke Ellington, which involved some practice classes and learning the school creed (Commitment, Responsibility, Excellence, Empower and Dignity, though Owen thought there was an "Empathy" in there somewhere, so he may have some more work to do). Nora had her final SWS summer bookclub meeting (The Unsung Hero of Birdsong, USA) and meet-up with her fifth grade class. We spent a lot of time trying to change the kids school schedules (with mixed results), entering the kids schedules into their calendars and testing that they had all the different platforms needed in anticipation of next week's first day. But most importantly, we watched the premiere of Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe (spoiler, Candace wins!).

Hopefully, we will too.

(To see this week's pictures, click here.)