The Best of the ‘Best of 2021′ Lists

2021 “Year-In-Review” lists you may have missed:

“Best face masks of 2021: Doctors share their favorite masks,” Nicole Saunders, NBC News

“The 20 best podcasts of 2021,” Hannah J Davies and Rachel Aroesti, The Guardian

“The Best Sweatpants of 2021,” Sean McCoy, Gear Junkie

“8 of the best TikTok accounts from 2021 to follow,” Kaitlin Hatton, The Verge

“The 8 Best TV Shows of 2021 for Entrepreneurs,” Zack Miller, Inc.com

“The 10 best memes of 2021, from Bernie Sanders in gloves to Aaron Rodgers’ face,” Charles Curtis, USA Today

“The Best Wellness Products of 2021, According to You,” Tiffany Hopkins, Bon Appétit

“The 10 Best Boxed Wine Brands for 2021,” Mark Stock, The Manual

“13 Best Dog Food Subscription Boxes (2021),”Adam Bryan, Urban Taste Bud

“The biggest Pinocchios of 2021,” Glenn Kessler, Washington Post

“Best Sneakers of 2021: Top Sneaker Releases of the Year,” Bredan Dunne, Riley Jones, Zac Dubasik, Matt Welty, Ben Felderstein, and Mike Stefano, Complex

“The Most Disappointing Gadgets of 2021,” Gizmodo

“The 10 weirdest celebrity apologies of 2021, from a ‘seductive’ Bible dance to making fun of Madonna,” Emily Yahr, Washington Post

“The Best Movies That Didn’t Release In 2021,” Charles Cameron, Screen Rant

“10 of the Deadliest Natural Disasters in 2021,” Brianna Navarre, US News & World Report

“The Best Book Covers of 2021,” Matt Dorfman, New York Times

“Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Cookbook Stories of 2021,” Sam O’Brien, Gastro Obscura

“Best cryptocurrencies of 2021 that delivered mindblowing returns of up to 51,000%,” Pawan Nahar, The Economic Times

“Here are the best vanity plates I spotted across Rhode Island in 2021,” Antonia Noori Farzan, The Providence Journal

“The best Canadian poetry of 2021,” CBC

“The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2021,” CoverMe

“The best stuff we didn’t report in 2021: Our staff’s year-end notebook dump,” Golf

“College football bowl game gift bags: the best and worst of 2021,” James Dator, SBNation

“15 Best Video Game Characters of 2021,” Daire Behan, GameRant

“The Best Beauty Looks From Music Videos in 2021,” Gabi Thorne, Allure

“Striking findings from 2021,” Katherine Schaeffer, Pew Research Center

“The 11 Coolest Archaeological Finds of 2021,” Isaac Schultz, Gizmodo

“The Worst Political Predictions of 2021,” Zack Stanton, Politico

“2021’s Top Five Oddities Of America’s Broken Redistricting Process,” Kate Riga and Matt Shuham, TalkingPointsMemo 

“The Best Swells of 2021,” Matt Pruett, Surfline

“Worst Climate Disasters of 2021 Included Heat, Drought, Flooding – Even a Deep Freeze,” By Jan Wesner Childs, The Weather Channel

“The top data breaches of 2021,” Maria Henriquez, Security Magazine

“The Top 10 Beers of 2021,” Untappd

“Notable Deaths of 2021,” Washington Post

“10 Things That Didn’t Suck About 2021,” Lauryn Schaffner, Loudwire

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Image (“Best of 2021, after an 1895 Engraving”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht,NotionsCapital.com

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Motorcycle Rally Revs Up the Delta Variant

Last August, 460,000 bikers from all over the country headed to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Many carried Covid-19 back home. Contact tracing was nearly impossible, but at least 649 Covid-19 cases were linked directly to the Sturgis rally, and they passed the virus around to friends and family. One estimate put cumulative infections from the event at 250,000 nationwide, generating public health costs of $12.2 billion.

The 2021 Sturgis Rally started Friday, with 700,000 riders expected, and something new has been added, the Delta Variant, which is more contagious, and makes people sicker. Sturgis is in Meade County, which has a 37 percent vaccination rate, and rates in the six bordering counties are even lower.

Naturally, pistol-packin’, hard-drivin’, snake-oil pushing,  Trump-touting former beauty queen and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem will be attending.

More:

“South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally: A ‘cautionary tale’ in the age of Covid-19,” By Ray Sanchez, CNN

“Sturgis bike rally revs back bigger, despite virus variant,” Stephen Groves, Associated Press

“Sturgis Motorcycle Rally revs up, drawing thousands and heightening delta superspreader fears,” Timothy Bella, Washington Post

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Image (“Disease Vector”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Rolling & Remembering, 2021

Since 1988, on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, the streets of Washington DC have reverberated with the roar of thousands of motorcyclists commemorating Americans lost in the Vietnam conflict and other wars, in an event most often know as Rolling Thunder. This year the AmVets will sponsor the cycle run, now known as Rolling to Remember. A smaller cycle run, Ride of the Patriots, will start across the Potomac in Fairfax, VA, and join up with the main group.

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Image (“Power”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Inaugration Day 2021

Today Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala D. Harris will be inaugurated as, respectively, President and Vice President of the United States of America. They will be inheriting a nation beset with violent threats of domestic terrorism, a deep economic crisis, and a plague that has killed 400,000 Americans in the past year.

God Save the Republic.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. More Capitol Hill security photos here.

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Greetings From Fortress Washington

The National Mall will be empty of well-wishers on Inauguration Day, but, thanks to the threats of domestic terrorists incited by Donald Trump, 25,000 National Guardsmen will join thousands of federal, local, and regional police to observe the transfer of power. More Capitol Hill photos here.

Bearing silent witness to the Inauguration: the souls of 400,000 dead Americans needlessly sacrified due to Trump’s criminal reglect.

More:

“‘I never imagined this’: Washington prepares for an inauguration under siege,” Lois Beckett and Julian Borger, The Guardian

“‘Wartime footing’: Capital draped in steel and concrete in unprecedented inauguration security operation,” Kevin Johnson, USA Today

— “Inside look at how 25,000 National Guardsmen are arriving in Washington, DC,” Luis Martinez, ABC News

“What It’s Like To Live Inside D.C.’s Militarized Security Zone,” Jenny Gathright, Carmel Delshad, Jacob Fenston, Natalie Delgadillo, and Tyrone Turner, DCist

“Sorry, Your Homeowners Insurance Might Not Cover Insurrection,” Rob Brunner, Washingtonian

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com. More Capitol Hill photos here.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Trump-Throttled Post Office May Disenfranchise American Troops

Georgia voters in the military and citizens living overseas are concerned that their mail-in ballots won’t get delivered in time to be counted in the January 5th senatorial runoff elections. The resource-starved U.S. Postal Service is reeling from Louis DeJoy’s cutbacks, COVID-19 staff outages, and after-effects and backlogs of the Christmas rush. USPS has pledged to fast-track election mail, but on-time mail deliveries in the Atlanta area were as low as 54% a few weeks ago. Ballots must arrive by 7:00 PM today to be valid. Results of the contest may determine control of the U.S. Senate.

More:

“USPS delays could hit Georgia military, overseas ballots,” Hannah Denham and Jacob Bogage, Washington Post

 

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and lengTrump-Throttled Post Office Disenfranchises American Troops. Again.th.