Pandemic, Week 27 (RBG)

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Other stuff also happened this week -- both Presidential candidates gave town halls, Louisville, KY agreed to pay Breonna Taylor's family $15 million for killing her after executing a no-knock warrant mistakenly on her home, Scientific America endorsed Joe Biden (its first presidential endorsement in 175 years), the Big 10 reversed its decision to suspend the football season, and scientists discovered phosphine in Venus's atmosphere, suggesting the possible existence of life -- but mainly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. 

Ginsburg's dying wish, recorded by her granddaughter, was that she, "not be replaced until a new president is installed." Within 90 minutes of her death announcement, Mitch McConnell declared that, "President Trump's nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the Senate." McConnell had declared after Justice Scalia's death -- 270 days before the 2016 election -- that, "Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, [I] believe that the American people should should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court." Justice Ginsburg died just 47 days before the the election.

The world hit 31.0 million total COVID-19 cases and 961,000 deaths this week. Meanwhile, the U.S. hit 7.0 million cases and 204,000 deaths (though, as the President pointed out this week, if you don't count the deaths from all the blue states, the U.S. is actually doing pretty well). 

The kids continued with school this week – Owen got promoted to Music Theory II; Nora turned in her first ever excel chart depicting racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths (and got some constructive feedback from me about standardizing units that was not well received). We had Molly and Adam over for dinner. We spent the night at Katherine's and Lee's in order to see Makayla (whom we hadn't seen since March) and then headed back Saturday (after Nora's DCYOP rehearsal).  When we got home, Allen took Owen off to climbing while I visited the Supreme Court in order to pay my respects, before returning in order to be Nora's sous chef for Anais's birthday cooking party (which was awesome, but none of us ever need to make eclairs or cream puffs from scratch again).

But mainly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died this week. May her memory be a blessing, and may we endeavor to uphold her legacy.

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