Reviews - GEORGE VECSEY

Scientific Fact: Watching Super Bowl Makes Time Pass – 6

1/31/2014

R.A. Dickey Reminds Us of Knuckleballs (Photo, 2013)

I have consulted with noted Talmudic and Jesuit scholars and am assured it is all right to watch the Super Bowl as long as one thinks pure thoughts of spring.

Say to yourself:

“I am watching it for the ads.”
“I am watching it for Renee Fleming.”
“I want to join the water-cooler conversation on Monday.”
“The TV just went on by itself.”

It looks as if the blizzard I predicted for this week hit the South instead. Oops.

New York is unscathed. Gov. Christie hasn’t shut down any bridges or tunnels, so far.

And six of us were on the East Side of Manhattan the other night, had a lovely meal at Teodora on E. 57 St. – and there was not a trace of Super Bowl in that part of Big Town. Not one button or chant.

Just repeat: Pitchers and Catchers. Pitchers and Catchers.

Ed martin

2/1/2014 04:50:41 am

see Dickey in a Toronto uniform reminds menof "knuckleheads."

(those who traded him.)

George Vecsey

2/1/2014 07:29:53 am

They didn't bring back Hawkins this year, either.
Different...but the same.

Alan D. Levine

2/1/2014 05:27:57 am

George--You've said it all. Just fifteen days to go--and counting.

George Vecsey

2/1/2014 07:33:10 am

Alan:
I'm going to do a baseball riff most days from now til then.
Like throwing a log on the fire.
Or lighting a candle in the darkness.
Thanks
GV

Alan D. Levine

2/1/2014 08:24:09 am

No, thank you.

Alan Rubin link

2/1/2014 08:01:04 am

George

No better way to get past the end of winter. It is snowing in Hinsdale, MA right now.

Just got home from a youth soccer session at the Fieldhouse in Canaan, NY. A baseball group came after us. Both sports are there most days of the week.

http://www.thefieldhousecanaan.com/

A nice trip down memory lane.

Ed Martin

2/1/2014 08:59:40 am

Here's a photo/memory to help out in the cause.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=554307294632694&set=t.100001939736590&type=3&theater

George Vecsey

2/1/2014 10:07:58 am

Ed, that is nice. I've been flipping through photos for my current series on baseball. It's interesting (or sad) to watch the evolution of spring training sites from funky old parks to moderate-security institutions where players sign autographs through fences. But still, the warmth and pace of spring training will be welcome....Thanks for the addition. GV

Brian Savin

2/5/2014 12:32:26 pm

Thank you for this.

Yepi Group link

6/1/2014 09:46:55 pm

I enjoy reading through your article..

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

Scientific Fact: Watching Super Bowl Makes Time Pass – 6

Categories

Buy the Book