Heavy rains forecast, Bristol Bazaar beckons, visitors back home and reforming health care

Posted By: David Fortier July 16, 2023

By David Fortier 

Come Sunday morning, the rains will have returned. The expectation is that they will be heavy and go on for a while. On Saturday, the forecast looked pretty bleak, especially since a family birthday party was planned. Things turned out fine though and one 7-year-old had a pretty nice time with his friends from school, while the adults chatted and ate and ate. 

Earlier on Thursday, the youngest son will have returned, with his partner Allison, to Australia, where they will complete a move from Sydney, where they had been living, to Melbourne, where they will be living now that they have permanent residency. Mary and I drove them back to JFK. We started at noon and did not make it home until 8 p.m. That makes for a long day. 

The couple made it back safely, though, and that’s what counts. And, of course, while they were here we did get to spend time together, mostly in our morning tea times on the porch. 

And also on Saturday, the new Bristol Bazaar opened on Race Street, in the hodge podge of Carpenter-owned properties that I have wondered about for years. If these properties become home to wonderful enterprises like Bristol Bazaar, then we really will have something to be proud of. 

BB is a space for “makers” to display and sell the things they make. The Edition’s Laura Bailey wrote this story about it almost two weeks ago. Click here. The story is worth a look, and of course, BB is a place to check out. Saturday was the ribbon cutting. More on that tomorrow. 

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This week I recommend another offering from the “Capital Isn’t” podcast, this one on fixing the U.S health care system, “Rebooting American Health Care, with Amy Finkelstein.” Finkelstein, an MIT economist, along with Liran Einav, of Stanford, has co-authored a new book,” We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care.”

In it, the two rephrase the current approach from, What is Wrong with American Health Care? to What should the U.S. health care system try to accomplish? It’s amazing what a shift in perspective might do to help introduce new possibilities. For the episode, click here. 

This week’s “On the Media” podcast offers a couple of segments that might make good complementary listening to the “Capital Isn’t” show mentioned above. The OTM segments are titled, respectively, “How American Business Taught Us to Love the Free Market,” “Understanding ‘Greedflation’” and “The Communist Manifesto Through the Ages.” Click on the titles for the individual segments. 

Reading this week has been the first of N.K. Jemisin’s “Broken Earth” series, “The Fifth Season.” Ordinarily I am not a fan of sci-fi, but “The Fifth Season” is riveting. And it follows on the heels of my reading Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents,” two of her prospective six-book series that was never completed because of her untimely death.

What I find so compelling is that each of these books captures the tenor and tone of our daily lives, even to the tune of politics and weather. (Note: I manage to read a couple of literary classics In between reading Butler and picking up Jemisin–Hemingway’s, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Farewell to Arms.” A good book is a good book, I am thinking, and the sci-fi books I mention can be considered good ones.) 

Have a good week. (And if you get a chance, check out Bristol Bazaar.” 

“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org. 

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