Still catching up on movies

Streaming multi-season programming continued its enticements this year, with the number of movies I watched declining again.  I finished the Sopranos, with time out for the latest season for Better Call Saul. I find myself much more likely to stop a movie shortly after it begins if it doesn't pull me in, and the list of films started but stopped is probably as long as the one below.  These are the ones that stuck. 

Ida
A Hidden Life
Shoplifters
Western
The Mustang
The Last Black Man In San Francisco
The Rider
Where is Kyra?
Destroyer
Birds of Passage
Uncut Gems
American Factory
Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Wildlife
Certain Woman
All About Eve
Mank

Books I read in 2020

Covid History Project - Student blogs

 Want to see what the student side of life was like during the Fall 2020 pandemic semester at UK?  My students in GEO 261 Global Dynamics of Health were required to keep Covid blogs to fulfill UK Core standards. Each week students provided details about their lives with Covid. They were also asked to respond to weekly prompts presented and discussed in their Friday recitation meetings. Are US college students at a competitive disadvantage because of the disruptions caused by Covid? What happens if one country 'wins' the vaccine race?  How should vaccines be distributed? What are the ways in which Covid is global as well as local? How have memes been used to convey the politics of Covid? These are some of the topics the students reflected upon with this activity. However, it was their individual entries that captured the way in which this global pandemic was not only one shared experience, but many different ones. I was surprised by how many of the students had or were exposed to Covid. And of course, there are student lives not represented here because their economic precarity kept them too busy to make regular contributions to their blog or they were just unable to go to school this semester. Thanks to my TAs this fall, Aleks Craine and Michael McCanless for helping with this project.

https://covid19historyproject-4oaa2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-3imb2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-7lnb2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-4jtb1999.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-4ojb2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject4qmb2002.blogspot.com

http://covidhistoryproject-6egb2001.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-3kmb2001.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-1mmc2002.blogspot.com/

https://8ecl1999.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-9tmd1999.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-4skd2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-3dlf2003.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-4amgl1998.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-6jmg2001.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-7cgh2000.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-9sh2002.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-9awh2000.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-4eth2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-7hnh2000.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-2lnj1999.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-7alj1999.blogspot.com

http://covidhistoryproject-3hgj2002.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-8haj2002.blogspot.com

http://covidhistoryproject-7vl2000.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-8jnl2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-4akm2001.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-4lam2000.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-6gfm2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-2rem2001.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-1psm2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-3cam2002.blogspot.com

https://3eem2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-1jrp2000.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-3tmp2002.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-4kmp2002.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-4kar1999.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject5ktr1999.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-3ztr2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-2jnr2000.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-3ems2001.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-5mas2002.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-1mfs2000.blogspot.com

https://covidhistoryproject-6trs2002.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-4jks2000.blogspot.com/

https://covidhistoryproject-8anw2001.blogspot.com/

https://8kaw2001.blogspot.com

Participating in a Covid-19 vaccine trial

 I am participating in a Covid-19 vaccine trial. It's for the Novavax vaccine. My first inoculation was in the early fall. After the Day 0 inoculation I developed a low-grade fever as shown in the photo, so I am assuming that I was not in the placebo group. My Day 21 vaccine did not cause any fever or other symptoms. I go back for my last vaccination in February 2021. The Novavax vaccine is not a mRNA vaccine like the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Instead, the Novavax vaccine is a Covid-19 spike protein. The gene sequence of a Covid-19 spike protein is cloned into baculoviruses, which are then inoculated into moth cells, which in turn produce the protein. The spike proteins are then engineered to form micelles, agglomerations of the spike protein close in size to the virus. This recombinant vaccine is far more engineered than those they are use attenuated viruses, but it doesn't rely on the host's cellular machinery to make the vaccine like mRNA vaccines. 

Documenting my participation in a Covid-19 vaccine trial

There weren't many requirements for participating in the trial. I had to administer Covid tests to myself several times and mail in my swabs. I also had to donate blood at intervals after each vaccination.  After a dose, I had to complete a series of questions through an app in my phone. The questions were about any symptoms I might have experienced immediately after my shot. I was struck by the ordinariness of the vaccine trial. It was like going to the doctor for a regular checkup. I did not belabor the decision, although I periodically reflect upon the likelihood of any immune enhancement effects. This is when exposure to a vaccine inadvertently triggers a heightened response to the pathogen when exposure does occur. Will I get take another vaccine when they become available to the public? I'll have to wait and see what the numbers come out to be all the vaccines. Look for a combined flu/Covid vaccine for the 2022-2023 viral respiratory season. 

 

Nature versus nurture

From the book The Mirage of a Space between Nature and Nurture by Evelyn Fox Keller (2010). Explanations do not neatly fall on the side of biology or  environment.  Click on the image for a pdf.

Anthropocentrism

Look, let’s abandon this charade, all right?

Doubt over belief, or why I am a pragmatist

From the pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce, The Fixation of Belief

A critique of critical critique

From Cary Wolfe (2010), What is Posthumanism?. This passage draws from Pfau's (2004) book Laws of Cool. 

Earth as a Pale Blue Dot

3.8 billion miles away from Earth.

The Anthropocene as topology

In press: visualizing the Anthropocene