Yearly Archives: 2020

July 25, 2020

Forest Gump is a great movie, well-deserving of the Oscars it won… in a year that saw three of the best movies of the 90s all drop at the same time (1994), the other two being Pulp Fiction & The Shawshank Redemption.

Forest Gump is the village idiot who makes good – very good, in fact… as a result of some inherent talent, fortuitous timing and just plain old good luck. The charm of the movie is how innocent and well-meaning he is throughout it all, like he’s an actor just playing a part in his own life’s movie, a life that carries him to loftier and loftier places… and he barely recognizes it.

There’s one particular scene I want to talk about… it’s near the end, when Forest has taken up running, and he’s been running for over three years. Like, literally running… back and forth across the U.S. at least twice, probably close to 20,000 miles.

He’s running from pain and heartbreak… but nobody really knows that… they just start to follow him. Like, clearly… someone with that much passion and dedication; there must be a lot to the story. There isn’t, but that group of followers doesn’t know that, and as time goes on, the group that’s following him, running after him – continues to grow.

Until one day, in the middle of nowhere, Forest’s simple mind just clicks into a different gear. OK, he thinks, I’ve had enough. I’m done. And he stops. And the whole group stops with him, with baited breath and anticipation… “Shh!! He’s gonna say something!!”

Clueless to the moment, and irrelevant in his mind, Forest simply says, “I’m tired. I’m going home.”

And with that, he turns a 180 and starts walking home. And the group that’s been aimlessly following him… now stand around dumbfounded, and one of them yells out, “What are we supposed to do now?”

Indeed, a valid question, when you find yourself rudderless and confused, having realized the ship you’ve been following all this time… also has no compass.

Such is now the emerging dilemma facing a large percentage of the American population who themselves, for over three years, have been following a leader who also has no clue. And so, when that leader did a 180 on certain topics a few days ago, it left a lot of people asking that same question… what about us? Now what?

Yeah, the guy who was feeding you the bullshit about how it’s not serious, how it’s going away, how masks may be evil and, either way, it’s your choice… blahblahblah… how testing is broken because even though we have the best testing in the world, our testing is the best, world leaders are calling me up asking how we do it, they can’t believe our testing, I tell you, it’s a beautiful thing our testing. Experts tell me our testing, they’ve never seen anything like it.

Anyway, as great as the testing is, notwithstanding said leader’s mixed message that perhaps they’re doing too much testing, too good testing, and therefore that’s why there are so many cases… there’s something nobody can argue or justify, and that is the number of deaths. People in the U.S. are dying in record numbers of C19, and there’s no way to avoid telling it how it is. Their leader continually pushed for no masks and ill-timed re-openings, and the emerging results are now laid bare for everyone to consider.

So… it’s caused the fearless leader to backtrack significantly. Perhaps this is worse than I said. Perhaps masks are a good idea.

This is not news to most people, but it’s eye-opening to the sheep who’ve been following him blindly.

“Now what are we supposed to do?”

Well – there’s an answer to that rhetorical question, but I’m as curious as anyone else as to what exactly *will* happen. Stay tuned, I guess.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:35-07:00July 25th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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July 24, 2020

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (rhymes with “peachy”) said a lot of interesting things in his life. You’ve certainly heard some of them, even if you don’t know their origin… things like:

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

“When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.”

Less commonly known, here are a couple of other quotes:

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”

“Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

Those latter two quotes are pretty relevant these days, in light of the ever-widening wedge between reason and insanity.

Interestingly, Nietzsche also said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

Here, Mr. Nietzsche and I may have to agree to disagree. Or perhaps he was thinking super-big-picture when he said that, as in when dealing with topics that don’t actually have factual basis. You can discuss things like the merits of democracies vs. benevolent dictatorships, thinking you have all the “facts”, and therefore your opinion, and only your opinion, is “correct”. I think that’s the sort of thing he had in mind, and with that, I don’t disagree. Philosophical “facts” are meant to be discussed and challenged.

But people who feel strongly about the “facts” that they’re defending will rarely change their minds, even when the facts are indisputable… and, for some reason, the less “factual” those facts really are, the more they’re stuck to those opinions. It’s like being right is a necessary part of their existence, and challenging that opinion is basically challenging that person’s right to exist. Go try have a rational discussion with a moon-landing-denier or flat-earther; I dare you. If someone is convinced that two plus two is anything other than four, you need to understand that mindset before challenging it. And in doing so, you might realize that you’re wasting your time.

Such is the mindset of the anti-vaxx, anti-mask, anti-lockdown crowd that’ll insist that “it’s a hoax”, “vaccines are poison”, “vaccines are crowd control”, “masks cause more damage than they prevent”, “things are going great”, “nothing to worry about” and so on. If you’re going to bother trying to engage in an intelligent conversation with any of that on the other side of it, you’ve been warned. I’m speaking from experience here.

A final quote from our friend Nietzsche:

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well, the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”

Agreed.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:35-07:00July 24th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , |17 Comments
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July 23, 2020

You walk into some high-school test. You’ve studied, but maybe not enough… you could’ve studied more. You should’ve. Maybe it’ll be one of those miracle days where the teacher is sick or someone pulls the fire alarm or it’s just postponed for some reason.

Oh well, no such luck… but… well, maybe it’s ok. You didn’t answer all of it, but you got to maybe 70% of the questions… should be ok. And of the questions you answered, you got most of them. Maybe. Yeah, it’ll be ok.

So, later in the week, you get the test back…. and indeed, you answered 70% of the questions. And of the questions you answered, you got about 70% correct…. so, all good… right?

Well, 70% of 70% is 49%. So, no… not so good. Indeed… Epic fail.

That’s the way math works, and that’s the way it’s going to work with three independent variables:

A: what percent of the population needs to be C-19 immune for there to be herd immunity?

B: what percent effective will a vaccine ultimately be?

C: what percent of the population will get vaccinated?

The unfortunate reality is that B x C will likely never exceed A, so this thing is going to stick around for a very long time. The lunacy of the sub-group that makes C anything less than 100% is particularly aggravating. It sincerely makes me wonder… if smallpox hadn’t been eradicated by 1980, would it be celebrating some sort of re-awakening these days, thanks to a bunch of “enlightened” individuals who’d never “poison” their kids with the vaccine…?

“Do you know what’s in a vaccine?”, they’ll ask you… and list off a bunch of poisons… “If it’s so healthy, try drinking it… you’ll probably die.”

Yeah, you know what else is healthy? Broccoli. Try injecting some into your bloodstream… you’ll probably die.

I no longer have any interest in arguing with anti-vaxxers. It makes my thoroughly-well-vaccinated blood boil. And I really wouldn’t care as much, were it not for the fact that their insanity has the potential to affect us all. There are those who wish they could take the vaccine, but for other health reasons, cannot. Those are the people who’d benefit most from herd immunity.

There’s no vaccine yet, but it’s coming. Many groups are making great strides. But if we think our problems are solved when it gets here, not quite.

Apart from the logistics involved in creating 7+ billion doses and distributing them… comes the issue of who gets them first. It’s an interesting discussion. The first thought is obvious – doctors, front-line medical practitioners, etc. They should certainly be near the top of the list, but those people have PPE and good habits and access to medical care. From a humanitarian point of view, it should be those at highest risk for numerous reasons, and if you think it through, you wind up with an interesting conclusion.

Here’s a list of risk factors… age, overall health, access to good medical care, and liberty to exercise social distancing. Ethnicity is not irrelevant, though socioeconomic factors play into it too… like in the U.S., twice as many Black people are dying from this than white people. That may or may not map to other places around the world, but either way, we can all agree it’d be better to ride this out in a first-world country as opposed to somewhere in the third-world.

Put it all together and what do you get? Somewhere in Mogadishu, there is an aging diabetic Somalian pirate, rotting away in a crowded cesspool of a prison. That guy needs the vaccine more than I do, but he’s unlikely to be offered it anytime soon. He’ll get his shot long after some enlightened local anti-vaxxer scoffs it away. Epic fail.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:36-07:00July 23rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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July 22, 2020

It doesn’t get much more West-Coast-B.C. than Stanley Park’s Third Beach Tuesday night drum circles. Every version of Vancouverite is usually represented, if not as a participant, certainly as an observer. These things have been going on for years, typically May to September, always on sunny Tuesday nights. But the thing with these sorts of somewhat-organized events is that even when the organizers pull the plug on it, not everyone is convinced. Such was the case last night. The people claiming to speak for the event, back on March 19th, announced the thing is on pause till further notice. Sounds good.

But somehow, the “we’ve had enough of this crap” crowd decided it was time… and out went the word, and a lot of people showed up. Social distancing? Masks? Haha.

On sunny summer Tuesday nights, I often time my evening bike rides to wind up down there. It’s a really cool atmosphere, great energy and all the rest of it. But that was last year, and knowing what that space turns into, I wouldn’t consider it these days… because given the space and the crowd, it’s impossible for it to take place under the existing guidelines. And I don’t just mean participating… because when it’s going on, it’s crowded and difficult to walk (let alone, cycle) by on the seawall. The whole thing spills over wherever it can, just like it did last night; What’s been seen and described from last night is pretty-much exactly what you’d expect… especially some of the related attitudes, which are also very West-Coast-B.C…. “Whatever.”

That “Whatever” attitude partly led to today’s unscheduled news conference, which served up some not-so-great-numbers… and new restrictions.

Dr. Henry made it very clear, but here it is in my words: People need to understand and obey the spirit of the rules, not just the technical “here’s what’s written”. Yes, genius, you can get a group of 12 people to reserve two tables of 6 near each other and then table-hop… ohhh, aren’t you clever, being all technically law-abiding and everything. No, actually… you’re not. I feel bad for the servers in these situations, trying to enforce these regulations among people who are clearly too deserving and entitled to follow along like everyone else.

The whole idea of how many people with whom you’re in close contact has everything to do with exactly that… the risks of contact, and… contact tracing. There comes a point when contact tracing goes from manageable to impossible. This is happening in other parts of the world, where things suddenly and so quickly get out of control, that it’s just impossible to follow every lead.

Come on people, we need the vast majority to cooperate, because if we can’t get this under control now, we all know Vancouver weather… come September… back to school, back to grey skies and rain, back to the cold and indoor spaces. And, at this rate, back to Phase 1 lockdowns. Nobody wants that.

Socially distance. Wear a mask if you can’t socially distance. Follow the one-way arrows when you’re shopping. Wash your hands a lot. Don’t be a dick about any of that just because you feel you’re special or whatever. If you want to try to convince everyone that this is a conspiracy or a giant hoax or a Bill Gates 5G world-dominance control thing, that’s just great… do us all a favour and do it from home. Comfortably tuck yourself behind your computer, and watch all those videos, and comment to your heart’s content… and stay the hell away from the rest of us, who are simply trying to get to the finish line by doing the right thing.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:36-07:00July 22nd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Life in Vancouver, Space & Astronomy, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |19 Comments
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July 21, 2020

It was Arthur C. Clarke, notable author, inventor and futurist, who’s quoted as saying, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Very true indeed. We all take for granted technology these days that would baffle even the brightest minds of not-so-long ago. The little phone you carry around (and perhaps with which you’re reading this) is a prime example. We get mad at it when “the stupid thing isn’t working”, but you’d think about it differently if you considered the complexity of the underlying infrastructure that makes it all work. Imagine someone 50 years ago watching you take a picture with your iPhone. OK, fancy tiny camera… very cool. But not impossible. And then they watch you AirDrop™ that picture to the person next to you. That’d be nothing less than magic.

I’ve been around long enough to see true innovative technology arrive, explode onto the scene, and then slowly drift from relevance as newer, more advanced technology took over. For example, CDs. They appeared literally overnight (from a consumer point of view) and took over the world. They were, for a time… magic. And they have since drifted into obscurity.

One interesting thing in the early days of CDs was both the marketing and technology of what was called “oversampling”. There’s more to it than what I’m going to describe, but basically it was this – the laser that’s reading what’s on the surface of the disc has about a zillionth of a second to bounce itself off a particular spot and decide whether it’s a one or a zero. And it’s not always right. Since that’s happening 44,100 times per second, it’s not a huge deal if it gets it wrong once in a while. But, that depends how wrong… your music quality would tend to degrade, and if it’s data, it has to be perfect. Data inherently is stored with what are called “CheckSums” – that verify the integrity of the data. For example, a simple version might be that after every 1,000 bits, it tells you how many zeros there were. And also how many ones. If those two numbers don’t add up to 1,000… there was a problem, so read it again. Credit card numbers also have a built-in sanity check… VISA numbers start with 4, MasterCard with 5… but not just any random string of 15 digits after that will work. In fact, only one in ten.

But music isn’t stored that way… it’s just sample after sample. So what they did is this… they’d get the laser to sample each bit more than once. 2x oversample. 4x oversample. 8x oversample!! If 6 of 8 of those reads say it’s a one, go with that.

If this sounds just like adding more and more blades to your razor, you’re right. At some point, the diminishing returns no longer make sense. How many blades do you need to get a perfect shave? I don’t know, but I know that two blades are better than one. Four is perhaps better than three. But I’m not sure 27 blades on some 6-inch razor are better than 26.

With CDs, I once saw a model boasting 96x oversampling. Come on.

This all comes to mind when reading numerous articles about COVID-19 testing. Rates of false positives. Rates of false negatives. People who’ve tested negative then positive then negative then positive. Good tests, bad tests, expensive tests, cheap tests.

In some cases, it’s a threshold… you could have it, but not in a high enough concentration to test positive. This is exclusively a problem for asymptomatic cases; I have yet to read about a test that reports a false negative for someone with symptoms.

Just thinking out loud… it makes me wonder… what would happen if you treated testing the way those CD players used to it. Do 8 cheap tests on someone all at once… instead of a far more expensive single test whose failure rate is lower, but not zero. Like I said, just thinking out loud… but one path of managing this involves testing; lots of it. And if you form a triangle of “cheap, fast, accurate” and have to pick two at the expense of the third… perhaps “cheap and fast” is the angle to go with. This is just simple statistics… not magic.

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:36-07:00July 21st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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July 20, 2020

We will leave the “South of the border political bashing” for a day and focus on ourselves.

The little charts that I post below the numbers had become relatively useless, as we’re so far into this pandemic that the logarithmic representations no longer meant much. It would have taken some drastic movement to have made any difference.

So… what you see now is simply a representation of daily new cases, along with a moving average to smooth out the trend.

Looking at B.C., and listening to Dr. Henry… here’s the deal; we’re hearing pretty much what we were hearing the last two weeks of March, when I started writing these daily reports… so I will go back to saying exactly what I was saying back then: It’s up to us.

We flattened this thing out, and now, the nonchalance may be catching up to us, but it’s not too late. Summer, parties, The Interior™… I get it. Anyone who grew up anywhere in B.C. gets it. Except perhaps some of the younger people, who have come to the conclusion that being outdoors, and being young, mitigates the risk to an acceptable level. It doesn’t. You can catch it, and you can give it to others… and with more than 100 cases over the weekend and Dr. Henry warning that we’re at the edge of “explosive growth” – that should hit home.

She made it a point of mentioning the younger people, and even made a plea to all of those younger people so adept at managing their social media; get the word out. Take this seriously. Social distance. Wear a mask.

Hopefully many of them do exactly that. My daughter will be blasting something out to the 10,000 or so followers that she has distributed among her social networks, and hopefully from there it’ll further propagate when all of those people do the same.

Indeed, getting the word out exponentially isn’t that hard to do. And that’s the only exponential thing we should hope to see around here. Or anywhere.

If you look at the now-more-useful graphs, you’ll see some definite trends… Quebec had a huge problem, resolved it, but needs to be careful… there’s a slow, gradual uphill in the making. Ontario seems to be trending downward and holding. And B.C…. well, you can see it pretty clearly… and that’s not the direction we want to continue. The same can be said for Canada overall.

And the U.S….? Pull up Trump’s interview with Chris Wallace from yesterday. Have a look at that graph. There’s little more to say.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:22-07:00July 20th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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July 19, 2020

A note about the numbers… B.C. hasn’t published numbers since Friday, so tomorrow I will update my guesses and align them with reality. Also… it’s like magic… ever since the White House took control of the numbers away from the CDC, the U.S. numbers have been dropping. It’s like magic.

You know, there’s a good reason why rain dances always work… 100% effectively, and it’s that when you do them right, you don’t actually stop until it starts raining. It could happen right away… or it could take weeks. Maybe months or even years. Either way, it doesn’t stop until it “works” – and then everyone is happy and congratulates each other on a job well done.

I worked with a guy in the 90s… a real contrarian, who was sure the markets were going to crash and burn. The NASDAQ composite index was around 800 in those days. It slowly crept up over the months and years, and every time it would slip a bit, he’d say “this is it!!”… and he was wrong. Until one day, in early 2000, I guess he was right… the NASDAQ, which had crept up to close to 5,000… crashed. It never came close to the lows of 800, but it fell steeply enough that I’m sure he went around saying (and I can’t confirm, because I was out of touch with him by then)…. “I was right!! See?? Told you!”

I guess if you wait around long enough and refuse to be wrong, perhaps in your mind the world eventually catches up with you. And sometimes it’s real.

For those who follow baseball, the name Bartolo Colón might ring a bell. He’s retired from MLB, but still playing in Mexico (if any playing is going on these days…)

Bartolo is famous for many things, but here are a couple… one, he broke into the league in 1997 and was the last remaining player who’d played for the Montreal Expos. And two, while playing for the Mets in 2017, almost 20 years after he’d been at it, he hit his first career homerun, at the fine old age of 42. Even if you’re not a baseball fan, that’s worth finding on YouTube. His team went crazy. The announcers went crazy. Even most of the fans, notable because it was an away game.

So yeah, like a broken clock… wait around long enough, and it’ll be right. Twice a day, in that particular case.

This all comes to mind as Donald Trump, not known for ever admitting he’s ever wrong, continues to double-down (it’s at least a quadruple by now) with his “It’ll all just go away” thing. Like, magically, one day, COVID-19 will disappear.

So yeah, as per my examples, it’s true. One day it will be gone, and Donald Trump will be saying… “See!! Told you!!”

Of course, the question is… how many people will needlessly have suffered or died, while he waited around for his miracle to kick in?

And speaking of rain dances… I’ve spoken before about the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where it never rains. But back in 2011, it did… in fact, it snowed. And I’m sure there may have been some group of Changos who’d been at it for decades, dancing away… and who went around after that, telling everyone… “See?! Told you we could make it snow!!”

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:22-07:00July 19th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Humour, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , |5 Comments
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July 18, 2020

The year 2010 was only 10 years ago, but wow, does it ever feel like a long time ago. That was when the Winter Olympics were here; the memorable Iginla to Crosby gold-winning goal… also the year I should’ve been generating and holding Bitcoins… but, who knew.

It was also the year of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Notwithstanding the catastrophic uselessness with which British Petroleum managed their little “faux pas”, there was an interesting footnote to the whole thing… which was that the environmental impact was far less than people imagined.

Don’t misunderstand; it was brutal, among the worst environmental disasters in American history. Almost 5 million barrels of oil leaking into the water over a period of months. The impact was felt for years, and BP ended up paying close to $20 billion to make it right; the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history.

But that interesting footnote of a lesser impact was due to… microbes. Little bugs that actually ate the oil and broke it down. While there had been some talk of trying to infuse the water with some sort of oil-eating bugs, and arguments whether the benefits outweighed the risks… and perhaps some little tests to sanity check it all… well, in the midst of that, mother nature came along and provided its own version, on top of what the humans were throwing at it. And surprisingly successfully.

Over the last couple of years, a lot of research has been done with respect to microbes and bacteria that eat plastic. And really, by “eating”, we mean consuming it and breaking it down… literally bio-degrading landfill waste. There’s that huge 600,000 square-mile garbage patch swirling in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between California and Hawaii… which some people think will be there “forever’. It won’t be… far from it. For now, it keeps growing, because we keep adding to it. But one day, when man is no longer around, that thing will start shrinking on its own… a far cry from “forever”.

A few days ago, scientists announced finding a bacteria that oxidizes manganese…and there are other microbes that can create conditions on other metals, leading to their breakdown.

The summary of all this is not that we shouldn’t care about our planet and the environment… we certainly should, because we have to live in it, in the present. More importantly, our children and grand-children have to, as well.

But it’s sobering and reassuring to know that no matter how badly we screw it up, it’ll all fix itself in due course. Unfortunately, that due course is measured in glacial, geological time frames. A million years isn’t much to earth (.02% of its existence), but it’s a lot if we’re hoping humanity lasts that long. It’s good knowing our super-long-term problems have solutions. Now let’s work on the present-day ones.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:23-07:00July 18th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , |8 Comments
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July 17, 2020

What a beautiful day… I hope you all managed to take advantage of it, and if not… good news… it’s mostly supposed to stick around over the next few days.

That is good news; what’s not so good news, as usual, is what’s going on south of the border. I know I sound like a broken record, but sometimes it’s important. Many news outlets are keeping track of Trump’s lies, as they should… otherwise, you get used to it and normalize it and it becomes par for the course. Accountability is important, even if it’ll ultimately be after the fact. Some things are not an OK part of the new normal.

Yesterday came the news that the White House will be controlling the data. Today comes the news that the White House will block the CDC from testifying on re-opening schools.

Not everyone believes in prayer, but whether you do or not, keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg in your thoughts. She is a fighter, a trooper, a survivor… a legend. And, for the moment, her presence implies a significant tipping point for the Supreme Court.

But she is 87 and is now undergoing chemo for a 4th recurrence of cancer, this time pancreatic… having fought off lung and colon over the last 20 years. The reality is she’s unlikely to be around another 4 years, though we can hope. But given her fighting spirit, perhaps we can see her hanging around till the end of the year… or at least, long enough that Trump wouldn’t have the opportunity to replace her with a frightening ultra-conservative.

It’s funny (or perhaps tragic) to listen to some of the fervent Trump supporters screaming things like “This is not a democracy! This is a republic!”

There isn’t enough room nor enough time for me to voice what I’d like to try to explain to some people, and unfortunately, it might go in one ear and out the other. But, to be honest, when I started writing this daily thing exactly 4 months ago (to the day), it was all about the pandemic. It’s shifted to the management of the pandemic, where the vast majority of the world is handling it properly, or at least making an effort to do it as well as they can. We’re all familiar with the glaring exception.

But interestingly enough, with all my Trump bashing, I think I’ve gotten through to a few people. Every time I write about Trump, I hear about it from a few people, including family… not because they disagree, but because they know I’ll be facing a barrage of negative comments.

And for a while…initially, that was true. A few Facebook friends took exception to my continual bashing of their guy, and left. A few others have stuck around, and stuck to their… guns. And I do hear from them.

But there’s also a contingent that perhaps has seen the light; perhaps has managed to differentiate their political leanings from the person who’s supposed to be promoting and leading those ideals. Trump's falling ratings… the only thing he seems to genuinely care about… are indicative of that.

I’m not American and I don’t get a vote. But I have family and friends who live down there, and while I fully support keeping the border closed for now… I miss them; they miss me. Trump’s spokesman yesterday said, “Why would anyone want to go to Canada, anyway?” … and he continued with the usual “this is the greatest country in the world, and Donald Trump, blahblahblah”.

Well, to reply to that rhetorical question, the answer might be “to get the hell away from exponentially growing coronavirus numbers”.

It’s kind of melodramatic to say that the suvivial of the U.S. as we know it depends on it… but history is full of examples of Republics rounding that ugly corner. It all used to be a joke, how Trump might be the last democratically elected president. Ha ha, it’s not so funny now.

From up here, all we can do is watch…enjoy our sunshine and our safe, closed border. And worry. And hope, that down there, they figure it out.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:23-07:00July 17th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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July 16, 2020

It’s been one of those days where I haven’t had much time to think, let alone write anything… so I will simply dig into my trove of cool words and pull out this beauty:

Semaphorism (noun): a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don’t go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling’—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.

I didn’t write that definition; I literally cut-and-pasted it… but I’ll give you my 2 cents, because, like some many oddities these days, it’s relevant.

I’m finding that as things migrate from the complete “WTF is going on” that we all felt in March and April… to May and June where we got used to the weirdness… that here’s what July and August will look like; very familiar, yet unfamiliar. It’s worth noting that this has all been (and continues to be) the strangest of times, and that applies to us all equally…. like, my life has been derailed in ways that make it completely unrelatable to what I was used to. You can say the same thing; everyone can. But what used to be normal for you was never normal for me to begin with. You’’ve been dealing with your own issues, as have I.

Forget the pandemic for a moment… even without it, we’ve all been absorbed in our little worlds from the day we were born. We’ve all had unique experiences. But suddenly, we’re all in the same boat, and it’s curious to think that the present derailed versions of what we’re all going through have a lot more in common with each other than ever… 6 months ago, we were all so different. Now we’re all derailed… and much more similar. Recall that word Sonder… the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own… isn’t it ironic (don’t you think) that it took a global pandemic to “normalize” life to this extent? A huge earthquake, a meteor strike or a nice, huge unexpected nearby volcanic blast would all achieve the same thing (and let’s hope we don’t find out anytime soon… but 2020 is only halfway done…), but when you think about it, we all have a lot more in common than we used to. We don’t need to fake it in conversations; we know exactly what someone is talking about when they talk about something that until recently, would’ve been completely unfamiliar to all of us.

A bit of a silver lining on the huge cloud… and I’m looking forward to the day when talking about all of that commonality will be within conversations that begin with, “Remember when…”

 

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:23-07:00July 16th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Interesting Words, Space & Astronomy, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , |5 Comments
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