Last week I published an article in Truthout about the lack of institutional guidelines and support for keeping ourselves and each other safe during the ongoing COVID pandemic. The main thrust of the article is about how good boundaries and better practices of consent can be used as helpful tools to negotiate safer situations and help people take care of each other given the larger failures in which we find ourselves. Dr. Connie Wun, the co-founder of AAPI Women Lead, who I had the pleasure of interviewing for this piece, helped me realize that this is a focus on “collective wellness.” In the process of writing the piece, I was particularly inspired by many of the ideas I heard from the people I interviewed about how possible it is to, as the People’s CDC says, have safer in-person gatherings. I hope you all will find something helpful and useful there too.

There is also an update in the Wendy Howard case that I wrote about in July. Victoria Law published a piece just yesterday at Truthout outlining the details; Wendy’s trial ended on Oct. 21 and she was acquitted on all charges but one. The jury deadlocked on the last charge, of “voluntary manslaughter.” The details are here. Wendy Howard’s Defense Committee is continuing to call on DA Zimmer to drop all the charges and to fundraise for Wendy’s defense.