The Red Velvet Lawyer

Then Help as Much as you Can Pick one person to help, then help him or her as much as you can. I have picked my driver, Ashif and his five mates, including his brother-in-law, Moinu. Before I bought my SUV, I relied on the very reliable services of Ashif. He took me to and from the university, guided me through the phone souk, computer souk, fabric souk, and other shopping destinations, sat by my bedside while I recovered from three surgeries, picked up my dry cleaning, got a new battery for my swim watch, and performed other tasks. I quickly started calling him my personal assistant, which he enjoyed.   He arrived on time.  Waited patiently for me to get to his car and safely seated.  He learned I liked to ride with the radio off.  He knew I would comment, then share the report, on the air quality in Doha.  Each year, for two to three months over the summer, he would go back to Kerala, India to stay with his family. His daily calls on...

When Shopping  Feels Like a Gamble Yesterday, as cases spiked in Doha to nearly 1,000 per day, I went to the grocery store as soon as it opened. Every time I go, I feel I am tossing a coin. Heads, I win. Tails, I lose. Qatari officials now require all shoppers and service workers to wear masks. I wore my new N95 mask. Again, a guy was wiping down the carts and was happy to let me use the bottle to spray the handle and seat with extra disinfectant. A woman took my temperature. People were mindful to keep a distance, and were friendly when I asked them to stand a bit further from me. But, one women actually knocked into me in an aisle. And, there was plenty of room to avoid me. I now have a tub near the door where I deposited my shoes and keys and sprayed them with disinfectant. I slipped into my house shoes and washed my hands. Then, I stripped out of my clothes in the kitchen and put them in the washer. Next, I showered. Dressed. Went...

It's a Marathon,  Not a Sprint A friend said this had been the longest month of her life. I paused. Qatar University switched to distance learning on March 10. Had it been the longest seven weeks of my life?  The answer is no. I've had practice. In 2005, I had a tri-malear fracture of my left ankle just before Christmas. While friends gathered for celebrations, I sat home with my leg elevated for 8 weeks. The injury set off a cascade of related events. Two years later, as the cartilage failed, I had ankle fusion surgery.  That required ten weeks of social isolation, recovering with my leg propped up on pillows in bed.  But, in week 8 or 9, I fell out of a car door trying to get to my wheeled walker and broke my sternum. That was another four to six weeks back in bed, now hopping around on one leg the short distance to my bedside potty chair. I saw my nurses, my housekeeper, and a few friends during those three months. Luckily, I had tw...

Thanks everyone for helping me reach this milestone.

April 16, 2020 Journal Entry of Dr. Jason Hill , age 40, a Frontline Emergency Room Doctor at New York Presbyterian Hospital Borrowed from a Facebook post. "Covid at 40. The eyes stay with you. In peace time most of those we intubate are chronically ill, or profoundly confused, or unconscious and unaware of the world around them. Covid has changed the equation. Most of my patients now remain awake and alert until the end. These days the ER is permeated with frank conversations about death and dying and what a chance to live entails. It is a hard thing to tell a healthy and functional person who felt fine and well six days ago they may be dead in a day or two and humbly ask how aggressive they want us to be. A chance to live comes with the risk of dependence on life support and pain. The alternative is the guarantee of an imminent but peaceful death. I have never had more harrowing, more frequent, more brutally honest, more meaningful, more exhausting conversations i...

The New Normal Under the Emergency Order This advisory will help people in, or planning travel to, Thailand.

Start Early, Vaccines, Social Distancing in Classrooms, & Testing Law professor and legal blogger, Brian Leiter , offers this advice: Having followed carefully the work of experts and science writers the last few weeks, this is my assessment of how a fall term will be possible in the U.S. (at least for some schools), assuming there is no significant medical breakthrough in the coming months (let us hope there is, then it will be easier); readers are invited to offer corrections, suggestions, links to other sources etc. First, universities would be well-advised to start the school year earlier than late August, on the assumption that by June and July we will see some decline in illness and infection (either because of the weather or because of the massive lockdowns). If schools start in early or even mid-August they could conceivably finish the fall term by Thanksgiving, that is, before the ordinary winter flu season gets going, which will just compound the proble...