This is one of the key takeaways from Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. As devastating as this figure is, it could have been much worse. Before the end of 1666, the Bubonic Plague will kill roughly one-quarter of the city’s population. The city in question is not Wuhan or Milan or Manhattan. Upstanding citizens, deputized in various capacities as searchers, examiner, and watchmen, were - under the penalty of death - tasked with overseeing this quarantine. Infected individuals were locked in their houses with their families and were forbidden from leaving under the penalty of death. Public events and gatherings were banned, schools were closed and the city was divided into more readily policeable quarters. Invoking emergency measures passed in earlier times, the mayor issued a series of orders that aggressively changed life in the city. Those who stayed had a range of reactions: many laid siege to the markets, stocking up on provisions before barricading themselves and their families in their homes some congregated in churches while others consulted astronomers and fortune-tellers many more, dismissive of the invisible disease or the visible fear it stoked in the masses, continued their lives unabated. Those with means hurriedly packed their belongings and fled the city. The panic began the moment the earliest cases were confirmed.
0 Comments
In the end, I skip writing because I’ve made myself sick. I skip sleep so that I can write, I skip meals so that I can write, I skip shopping so that I can write, and then I skip meals again because I didn’t go shopping. My writing process consists of a cycle of skipping. There was another, Alexander the Great, but he’s dead now. We also have a couch, this one really nice lamp, and a few potted plants: Wally, Salvador, and Pinky. He’s a dog, and he wasn’t born so much as bought, but he’s still our heir. I live in Brisbane, Australia, with my Husband and our first-born son. So, due to my mother’s lack of censorship every time I made up something borderline controversial, I’ve grown into an adult that mostly just writes borderline controversial things.Īnd that, my friends, is how you shift blame. I’d concoct stories while my mother wrote them down for me, not even blinking an eye when I killed off the mother-dinosaur in my fictional dinosaur family, sending the baby dinosaurs off to live with their dinosaur grandparents. I started writing when I was two years old. Romantic Suspense New Adult Romance Paranormal Romance Romance Fantasy Teen & Young Adult The point of view occasionally shifts between second and first person. The novel's timeframe is not linear and frequently consists of flashbacks by the main character from when he was four until his 17th birthday. Half Bad is set in contemporary England, where witches live alongside ordinary humans and blend into mainstream society. Such material may be inappropriate for younger or more sensitive readers. This study guide and all its page citations are based on the book's Kindle edition.Ĭontent Warning: The book contains graphic descriptions of torture, violence, and physical abuse, much of which is directed at or perpetrated by children. It is classified under Teen & Young Adult Fiction on Social & Family Violence and Teen & Young Adult Fiction About Parents. Half Bad is a young adult fantasy for readers over 12 or in grades 7 to 12. Lots of chicks will be happy to have it in their spank banks. I’m referring, of course, to MyBriar, our school’s equivalent of Facebook, which ninety-five percent of the student body is on. I’m talking smooth tanned skin, sculpted pecs, and the tightest six-pack I’ve ever seen. Against my better judgment, I click to download it, and a moment later, a bare chest fills my screen. I’m about to walk out the door when a picture message meows out of my phone. When several seconds tick by and Garrett doesn’t respond, I give myself a mental pat on the back for successfully getting rid of him. Clearly it’s time to put an end to this before he gets his flirt on. Ugh, again with the baby thing? All righty. Me: How is it u know so much about pandemics? But I’m immune to pandemics that wiped out 40-mil ppl from 1918 to 1919. Him: How bout tmrw night? I’m free at eight. Him: What’ll it take to get u to say yes? Him: If u just showed up to study grp, I wouldn’t have to text u. Because Garrett’s tone is full on irritable. I’d signed up for the group at the start of the semester, but that was before Cass decided we had to rehearse on Mondays and Wednesdays at the exact time the study group meets up.Īnother message pops up before I can respond, and whoever said it isn’t possible to detect a person’s tone via text was totally wrong. The general premise is that Harry Potter’s Aunt Petunia marries an Oxford professor instead of Vernon Dursley. Concepts like Bayesian updating and evolutionary biology are well explained, but are done so partially as a critique of the Harry Potter universe. I assume the project began as a way to teach rationality through a common pop culture phenomenon, and it’s pretty solid at doing that. HPMOR, unlike The Sequences, is fiction, and I found it incredibly easy to read. I read the first couple of books, but they’re pretty dense and my interest dropped off. Last year I tried to read the essays known as “ The Sequences” or Rationality: A-Z at LessWrong. Through SSC, I found writings by Yudkowsky, mostly about artificial intelligence. I wasn’t around at the time, but I eventually found Scott Alexander’s work at Slate Star Codex, who is linked in the sidebar and is one of the inspirations for this blog. Yudkowsky is the creator of LessWrong which I often use as a shorthand for the entire Rationality space. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a Harry Potter fanfic written by Eliezer Yudkowsky (which you can find here). Join us as Ryan Holiday recounts this wild tale. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture? The verdict and the reveal of Thiel as its mastermind stunned the world. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental-it had been masterminded by Thiel himself. Holiday says this was the opportunity Thiel was looking for he would pit Hogan against Gawker in a multiyear proxy war through the Florida legal system, culminating in a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, leading to its bankruptcy and closure. After receiving an unsanctioned sex tape featuring Hogan, Gawker published the controversial video. Thiel’s plan found him with an unlikely ally: wrestling star Hulk Hogan. According to author Ryan Holiday, Thiel then began to plot his revenge. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends, but he didn't consider himself a public figure and believed the information was private. In 2007, a short blog post on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley gossip site of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Hobbies and other interests: Jazz, opera.ĪDDRESSES: Home-53 West 85th St., New York, NY 10024.ĬAREER: University School, Milwaukee, WI, English teacher, 1966–69 writer, 1969–. Education: University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.A., 1965 Columbia University, M.A., 1966 attended University College, Dublin, 1969–72. PERSONAL: Born March 2, 1943, in Milwaukee, WI son of Gordon Anthony and Elvena (Nilsestuen) Straub married Susan Bitker (a counselor), Augchildren: Benjamin Bitker, Emma Sydney Valli. Maybe those numbers have changed since then, but I doubt it. While our novel deals with some issues that are universal - the difficulty of maintaining friendships as we grow up and change, reluctantly planning a baby shower for a friend, marital drama - having a friend of a different race is still something of a rarity.Ī study from 2014 showed that about 75 percent of white Americans don’t have a close friend of another race. More importantly, they helped us build a stronger, more honest and more open bond. These conversations helped inform some of the conflict in the book. We also found inspiration in our own friendship and the intense and sometimes painful conversations we’ve had over the years. I am white and Christine is Black, and we relied on both of our experiences and insights to flesh out the main characters. It’s a tragedy that hits close to home for both women. In the new novel I co-wrote with Christine Pride, We Are Not Like Them, two lifelong friends - one white, one Black - see their relationship upended after a Philadelphia police officer shoots an unarmed Black teenager. Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, co-authors of We Are Not Like Them. Laura Backes kicks off the discussion with fascinating details about the backgrounds and colors in the illustrations and what they represent in the book. All the kids have to decide on what tribute to share, but what will Lil’ Alan do? And down home is where all of the children will find their special way to pay tribute to family history. Down home is where Lil’ Alan will hear stories of the ancestors and visit the land that has meant so much to all of them. Down home is where Lil’ Alan and his parents and sister will join great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. He says there’s nothing like going down home. Daddy hums as he packs our car with suitcases and a cooler full of snacks. On reunion morning, we rise before the sun. Welcome back! We’re here today with the second video in our 2020 Caldecott series to celebrate GOING DOWN HOME WITH DADDY by Kelly Starling Lyons and illustrated by Daniel Minter, published by Peachtree Publishers. But the fate of the ship-and the Vestrits-may ultimately lie in the hands of an outsider: the ruthless buccaneer captain Kennit, who plans to seize power over the Pirate Isles by capturing a liveship and bending it to his will. For Althea’s young nephew, wrenched from his religious studies and forced to serve aboard the ship, the Vivacia is a life sentence. Now the fortunes of one of Bingtown’s oldest families rest on the newly awakened liveship Vivacia.įor Althea Vestrit, the ship is her rightful legacy. Prepare to be swept away in this breathtaking eBook bundle:īingtown is a hub of exotic trade and home to a merchant nobility famed for its liveships-rare vessels carved from wizardwood, which ripens magically into sentient awareness. Set in the same sprawling fantasy world as her FitzChivalry Farseer novels, Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy unravels the story of a once-thriving city, a glorious and mythic species facing extinction, and the clan whose destiny is intertwined with both. |