Some Context

 

Last month's remark, "Everything is terrible," deserves some explanation. I have been privileged enough throughout my life to enjoy immunity from the effects of most bad news stories - the COVID lockdowns and the recent spell of high inflation being notable recent exceptions. Two new developments in June affected me directly, as they did millions of other Americans: the Supreme Court's lawless Biden v. Nebraska decision cost my family 10,000 dollars in student-loan forgiveness, and the wildfires in Canada poured enough smoke and exotic chemicals (e.g. formaldehyde) into southern Indiana that I developed a very bad cough, akin to that of a pack-a-day smoker. Sometimes it feels like the world is out to get you.

 

New York City, 6.7.23. (Aelthemplaer, Wikimedia Commons)

On the other hand, my better half and kiddos and I managed to avoid most of the hideously-hot weather afflicting the southern United States - and southern Europe, and eastern China, and the world in general - this July by visiting family in the Pacific Northwest, where we enjoyed cool days and sunny skies. We would have enjoyed them even more if we hadn't all come down with COVID, the pandemical disease that the rest of the world has supposedly managed to put behind it. One's misfortunes aren't always synchronized with those of the rest of the world.