Year End Ups + Downs

It’s just about time for the annual onslaught of year-end reviews. Pretty soon, every news show, magazine, and digital outlet will whip out montages of The Best Of. While I will confess that the tradition makes me a little batty, I also completely get the need for a break from the content creation grind. Spoiler alert: I will not be sending you a highlights reel about anything – not about COVID, and certainly not about puberty. (Though I can't resist a visual summary of 2021 vaccines-that-went-into-my-arm!)

Feels important to take a moment, though, to share a few things that popped onto my screen this week. And given the time of year, I'm doling it out as a list. Some items are painful, others awesome; each one worth a few moments of your time, I swear.

Starting with the hardest: I will fully admit I didn’t want to listen to this episode of The Daily, because conversations around suicide are nothing if not gut-wrenching. But it’s a must listen. And it’s connected to Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s declared state of emergency in pediatric mental health earlier this week.

Now something more positive, that’s moving the needle: New Zealand is going to ban smoking slowly but surely, going one year at a time.
Next, literally the needle: In case you missed it, the FDA authorized Pfizer COVID booster for 16 + 17 year-olds.

Sex will get your attention: But unfortunately US teens are getting less sex ed than they did a generation ago, with only half meeting the minimum federal standard. Women in the Arab world get even less… which is why Nour Emam took to social media to do something about it.

Everyone loves to be cool: Who would have thought that the South Korean trend of sporting hair curlers in public would qualify? Or wearing wired headphones? So clearly I now have to rock curlers with the wired ear-pieces I never gave up…

And finally, something profound: In this blog post/essay, MacKenzie Scott says it all. On a related note, this holiday season, give.