Latest news with #PaleRider
Boston Globe
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
This week's TV: Elizabeth Banks in ‘The Better Sister,' Mike Birbiglia's special, Jesse Armstrong's ‘Mountainhead'
What else clicks this week? 1. 'Kevin Costner's 'The West' Monday at 9 p.m. on History: Costner's obsession with the West, from 'Dances with Wolves' to 'Yellowstone' to his bumpy fictional trilogy 'Horizon: An America Saga,' appears as relentless as Clint Eastwood's character in 'Pale Rider.' Now, the Oscar-winner hosts and, in tandem with historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, executive produces an epic docuseries that frames the West as the ultimate American dream, and promises a fresh take on the fight for the vast territory ultimately absorbed into the USA. Advertisement 2. ' ' Wednesday on Netflix: The Shrewsbury native presents a new stand-up comedy special. In this outing, following the Emmy-nominated 'The Old Man and the Pool' in 2023, the multi-hyphenate muses on the joys and jeopardies of middle-aged family life. In the special, developed in the wake of Birbiglia's father's stroke, the comic jokes about growing up in the big man's shadow ('He was a doctor, and in his free time, he got his law degree. That's how much he didn't want to be a dad.'). And, also, how that experience shaped his own uniquely messed-up fatherhood. Advertisement 3. 'Adults' Thursday at 9 p.m. on FX, then streaming on Hulu: Expect the unexpected when executive producer Nick Kroll assembles an ensemble cast in an updated take on the concept of 'Friends': A group of twentysomethings live together, and comedy ensues. This is a show for those who always wondered how the various 'Friends,' those stalwarts of syndication, could afford those fabulous Manhattan apartments — or the dental work behind their bright, white smiles. This new cadre of twentysomething roommates in Bayside, Queens, make a pretense at adulting in a comedy of codependence and shared utilities from 'Tonight Show' writers Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold. 4. ' ' Thursday on Netflix: Lovers of Scandi-noir will know the best-selling Department Q novels penned by Denmark's Jussi Adler-Olsen. For the English-language crowd, the many mysteries about a band of misfit cold case investigators working out of the police department basement has been transplanted from Copenhagen to Edinburgh, Scotland. Writer-director Scott Frank ('The Queen's Gambit') cast Matthew Goode ('The Crown') as Detective Carl Morck, the unit's brilliant but antisocial leader. The show's a must for 'Slow Horses' fans who prefer their heroes irascible, their bureaucracies impenetrable, and their murder investigations unconventional, twisted, and thorny. 5. 'Mountainhead' Saturday at 8 p.m. on HBO, then streaming on Max: 'Succession' wunderkind Jesse Armstrong makes his feature directorial debut in a satirical dramedy he scripted, shot in Park City, Utah, and set in the Musk era. Mass. native Steve Carell stars as one of four tech billionaires converging for an elite mountaintop retreat alongside Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith. Then a global AI-induced crisis intrudes, disrupting their elitist gloating and sending the bros spinning. Advertisement Thelma Adams is a cultural critic and the author of the best-selling historical novel ' ,' about Josephine Marcus, the Jewish wife of Wyatt Earp.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
The Guardian view on Covid-19, five years on: lessons still to be learned
'When asked what was the biggest disaster of the twentieth century, almost nobody answers the Spanish flu,' notes Laura Spinney in her book Pale Rider, of an event that killed as many as one in 20 of the global population. 'There is no cenotaph, no monument in London, Moscow or Washington DC.' Most of us will better understand that absence after Covid-19, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization five years ago this week. Some cannot put those events behind them: most obviously, many of those bereaved by the 7 million deaths worldwide (not including those indirectly caused by the pandemic), and the significant numbers still living with long Covid. Others want to forget the loss of loved ones, the months of isolation and the costs to businesses, families and mental health. Yet the political, economic and social ramifications are still playing out, just as the personal ones are. We now know more about the toll of the pandemic, and about how better preparation or a speedier and more adept grasp of the challenge could have reduced it. Some responses were exemplary: Taiwan, New Zealand and South Korea saved lives without excessive social costs. In other places, secrecy, recklessness or complacency took a deadly toll. Too often, health workers and communities excelled while governments fell short. The first report from the UK Covid inquiry, published last year, pointed to 'serious errors' by the state in pandemic preparations. Its next report, expected this autumn, will focus on political decision-making. The failures there are glaring. Almost 230,000 people died; studies suggest an earlier lockdown could have saved tens of thousands of lives. A global reckoning is equally important. Though Covid-19 arrived just over 100 years after influenza swept the world, pandemics are not once-in-a-century events. The way we live makes them increasingly likely. The next pandemic could be caused by a virus more transmissible, more lethal, or both. Across countries, as well as within them, it was poor people who suffered most. But inequity in healthcare and vaccine distribution could cost everyone dearly. Efforts to produce a global pandemic accord have stalled and need reinvigorating when talks resume next month. On the ground, there has been real progress, not just in vaccine technology but in measures such as access to medical oxygen, which are already saving lives. But preparedness means strong public health systems as well as good medical services. That's a problem because one of the pandemic's most potent effects was the sense of isolation and abandonment – even betrayal – that allowed conspiracy theories to flourish. While many felt immense gratitude to researchers and healthcare workers, others became increasingly distrustful not only of vaccines but more generally of science and authority. Robert F Kennedy Jr – who makes wild, false claims about immunisation and reportedly attempted to block the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines – is now the US health secretary. Measles cases are surging. Covid-19 showed that pandemic response is not just about knowledge, policy and resources, but about people's willingness to trust and protect each other. That more nebulous factor may be the harder part of the equation to fix, requiring social and political shifts. But as the WHO's director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote this week, we have no alternative to pandemic preparation: 'Our collective global security demands it.'
