Hopefully you all had a happy Halloween, filled with more treats than tricks. Although we’re past October 31, that doesn’t mean that the scares have stopped, at least not in the US, where Election Day looms next week, Tuesday, November 5. As this blog is a collective effort and there is no singular viewpoint, it is not possible for us to offer an official “endorsement”, which I suppose puts us in the esteemed company of Jeff Bezos. But I, personally, would feel derelict in my duties to the scholarly community if I didn’t offer a reminder that one campaign is said to intend to turn over public health oversight (including the HHS, NIH, USDA, FDA and CDC) to a science denialist who, among other conspiracy theories, believes that vaccines cause autism, despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
For those not in the US, please be aware of the upcoming election, its aftermath, and the accompanying anxiety that it is likely to prevent many of your US colleagues from concentrating on much of anything for the following week.
For me, music is a way to self-soothe, and so I’ll leave you with “The New World” by X (the band, not the platform), which has long colored the way I view elections in America. It was always better before they voted for “what’s-his-name.”
