Weekend Reading: The Short Post for a Long Weekend Edition

I'm in the middle of a four day weekend. My kids get a four day weekend for President's Day, and we decided to make it a family affair. We had thought we might find a house with a pool to rent in Palm Springs or Anza Borrego, but when we looked into options there was nothing for less than $500/night, and we decided that was a lot of money to pay to go sit in a different house for a few days, swimming pool or no.

So we're home in San Diego. Yesterday, Mr. Snarky and I took a long walk on the beach. The beach was fairly empty and it was a very relaxing walk. We've decided to do a couple of things from our Family Fun List, so today we're all playing Roblox, and tomorrow we're going to go on a hike. 

The kids also want to make Valentine's cookies today. They're getting old enough that they can mostly bake things without my help, but they like me to be nearby in case they need me. The nice thing about have a four day weekend is that it doesn't feel quite so much like I have to trade off between what they want to do and what I want or need to do. I feel like I have time to make it all happen, which is nice.

Anyway, on to the links. I don't have many, because the price of the four day weekend was a really, really busy week at work. But here's what I have:

Senator Patty Murray's story about hiding from the insurrectionists on January 6 is harrowing. 

There's more good news on the COVID-19 treatment front:

Good news (again) from the UK’s impressive Recovery trial:

Tocilizumab reduced deaths from #COVID19 by about 4% and that was on top of dexamethasone.
It means that giving 25 people this drug on top of the standard of care will lead to one saved life. https://t.co/lf4bhjCfHz

— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) February 11, 2021

The CDC is issuing new guidance right and left, and it is good to see them off the sidelines under the new administration. They issued new mask guidance this week. This NPR article about the latest info on masks pre-dates that guidance but I think it largely mirrors it and is a nice, clear explanation of the options.

I am glad people are stepping up to help seniors get vaccination appointments, but it shouldn't be this hard. It is a symptom of our fragmented healthcare system and honestly, a failure. 

I have a bunch of podcasts to recommend because I keep forgetting to do that:

Krista Tippet's interview with Katherine May about her new book Wintering was so good that I bought and read the book. I enjoyed the book, too.

Vox has taken the old Ezra Klein show feed and made it a general interviews feed. I liked both Sean Illing's interview with Jason Stanley about fascism in America and Anne Helen Petersen's interview with Rachel Sherman about being a "good" rich person. I will keep the new podcast in my feed!

I will keep the new Ezra Klein show in my feed, too. I recently listened to his interview with Yuval Levin about the future of the Republican Party, and am looking forward to listening to his interview with Adam Jentelson on the filibuster.

And things that made me smile this week:

A woman rescued a koala from a road and it posed for some adorable pictures while she waited for the wildlife rescue people to arrive.

Speaking of wildlife encounters... over at Adjusted Latitudes, I wrote about my favorite encounters from my travels. Nothing as exciting as a koala rescue, but it still made me happy to revisit them.

This video from the Oregon Zoo:

Lettuce venture into branch manager territory pic.twitter.com/RclWtnWkGS

— Oregon Zoo (@OregonZoo) February 5, 2021

TV news theme song choreography:

I've found TV news music choreography Tiktok and I'm never leaving. pic.twitter.com/vUc48e81HJ

— Blaine Stewart (@BlaineStewart) February 3, 2021

And here's your bunny for the week:

pic.twitter.com/FmR0G5lb1h

— うさぎ島の写真bot (@rabbit_isle_bot) February 11, 2021

Have a good weekend, everyone!