Dr Bonnie Henry

July 27, 2020

When I was a kid, there were like 13 TV channels (instead of today’s 1,300), but most of it was crap and/or not interesting to me. But one thing that was never to be missed… Saturday morning cartoons.

One day, I will write about the revolutionary avant-garde music that accompanied many of those cartoons. Pull up any Tom & Jerry cartoon on YouTube, close your eyes and just listen to it. There should be graduate-level courses taught about it. Even without the cartoon, the sounds tell a story of their own, with an incredible, vast range of musical styles — and noise — all crammed into a few minutes.

Anyway, that’s not what this is about… this is actually about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

Wile Ethelbert Coyote (yes, really… don’t say you never learn anything reading these…) is an interesting character; both genius and stupid, rolled into one.

Here’s his schtick… he comes up with an idea to catch the roadrunner… some ideas are simple, some are super-complicated. Recall the complicated blueprints… and vast array of parts he orders from ACME. He puts together some very sophisticated contraptions, which of course inevitably fail… but here’s the thing… he never follows up on his initial idea. He gives up and moves on to the next one.

Like, think about it… a rocket-powered helmet for forward thrust, and roller skates… and it almost worked… he almost had the roadrunner… until the bird took a sharp turn, right in front of an enormous wall of rock… which the coyote hit with about 500 g of force.

But he’s a cartoon, and he brushes it off, and moves on to the next idea. Hey coyote… come on, man… it almost worked! Don’t give up on it. You know, like next time, fire up the rockets and roller skates somewhere else, when the roadrunner is on a 20-mile straightaway.

Or that catapult that looked so good on paper, but fired you straight into the ground… you know, modify it… put a limiter on it. Put something on it that ejects you at the optimum part of the swing. Fiddle with it. Do something. Don’t abandon it. Don’t just let the roadrunner stand there and laugh at you. Meep meep!

This bothered me more than anything… and if I, a seven-year-old-kid, could come up with the rudimentary mechanics of the scientific process just by watching a silly coyote keep “killing” himself, you’d certainly, these days, expect better from an army of “intelligent” adults who have the entire knowledge base of human achievement at their fingertips.

This is the way science works. This is how it progresses. And experimentation is a key part of it, because you’re rarely right the first time.

As a computer programmer, I can count the number of times something worked straight out of the gate. Exactly twice.

I remember the first time it happened; I had a program I wanted to write… I had it all figured out in my head. I sat down at the computer and banged it all out; it took about 3 hours. And then, I hit the [Build] button for the first time. But instead of the inevitable long list of warnings and show-stopping errors, it was zero warnings and zero errors; all I got was a program ready to run. And I ran it, and it worked perfectly. Any other programmers… please feel free to chime in with your opinions as to how often that happens…

We are, today, living in a huge science experiment, and since we’re immersed in it, it’s important to understand the process. There are mistakes all the time, and we learn from them and we course-correct them. The insanity of the sorts of arguments that say things like, “Dr. X, several months ago, said masks were not necessary. Now the doctor is saying they are. The doctor was clearly wrong back then, so how can we trust anything the doctor says?”

Brix, Fauci, Tam… even Henry. Pick your doctor; that statement applies. All of them have made statements which, at the time, agreed with the science. Then, through experimentation and observation, the science changed. And so did their opinions and corresponding directives. That’s how the process works.

Elon Musk has treated us all with first-row tickets to this process. If you’ve been following SpaceX from the start, you’ll have seen countless attempts at recovering a booster rocket by landing it vertically on a ship. Some blew up. Some missed the ship and fell into the ocean. Some landed and tipped over. But these days, they routinely simply fall from the sky, perfectly vertical, and perfectly hit a bullseye on some ship in the middle of nowhere, and, in gymnastic terms, stick the landing. It’s astonishing. As per a previous article, closely indistinguishable from magic.

But it’s not magic; it’s countless iterations of making mistakes, adjusting, trying it again, over and over and over, till you get it right. A couple of times in my life, I’ve hit that [Build] button and it’s just worked. Several thousand other times, I’ve had to hit that [Build] button several hundred times for a single, simple little program. That’s how the world typically works.

And that’s the world we’re presently in; where scientists are making decisions with the best information they have – at this moment. Certainly in hindsight, it might change. But for the moment, who exactly are you going to trust? A scientist with decades of experience? A former reality-show star? An Instagram influencer who has like, omg, so many followers?

It was always amusing to see the coyote go off a cliff… and hang in the sky until he made the mistake of looking down, realizing where he was… and then have gravity kick in… like, if perhaps he hadn’t noticed, things would’ve been ok. Unfortunately, that’s not how the real world works. The bad things — in that case, gravity — will tug at you as soon as you give them a chance.

I think, collectively, it’s best not to have approached the edge of that cliff in the first place. But if you find yourself there, as is the case for many people these days, be careful who you listen to.

Just like what the roadrunner was so good at doing to the coyote… some of them will send you flying off that cliff. Meep meep!

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By |2020-10-08T01:10:34-07:00July 27th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , |13 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 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 14, 2020

You’ve probably heard of the book “1984”, even if you haven’t read it. Same with “Brave New World”. You probably had to (or were supposed to…) read one (or both) in high school. Maybe you went the Coles Notes route…

In any event, the two books are similar in that they talk about a dystopian future.

In the 1984 version, the future is an ugly place because the government controls everything, right down to reading your thoughts. Books are banned, free speech is banned, and society is captive to those that control it and “create” the truth, which they then jam down everyone’s throats.

In the Brave New World version, the world is a prettier place, and there’s no need for any of that because the world is happy in its ignorance. There is no need to ban books if nobody ever wants to read one. People are happy to be spoon-fed whatever keeps them happy, and do whatever they like to keep themselves entertained… hedonistically documenting their selfies, their incredible lives, their tasty food… while the world crumbles around them.

OK, that last sentence was a little retro-fitted to relate to the present, because as visionary as Aldous Huxley was when he wrote it, he probably couldn’t have conceived of that specific example.

I used to think this was very much a “1984” sort of world. After 9/11, even more so. Government over-reach is nothing new in times of crisis… the issue is getting some of those compromised freedoms back in due course. Twenty years later, the U.S. is still dealing with Homeland Security and TSA and so on. But it seems we’re pretty complacent when allowing the government to impose things on us “temporarily” because, well… it’s temporary, and it’s… well, whatever.

You know what else is temporary? Income tax… here in Canada, it came into existence in 1917 to fund The Great War for a couple of years. To quote Sir Thomas White, the Minister of Finance at the time, “I have placed no time limit upon this measure… a year or two after the war is over, the measure should be reviewed.” Yeah, if you could let us know how that review is going… that would be great.

You know what else is temporary? The power lines that run all the way up and down Boundary St… also put there just during WWII. An eyesore to be sure, but don’t worry – they’ll be gone soon.

This list goes on, and it’s why whenever the government goes for a grab, be weary on getting it back. It’s not so easy.

But that’s not what this is about… because as “1984” as it appeared the world may be heading, it’s entirely shifted course, especially when the temporarily-imposed government directives are killing people.

We’ve very-much been heading in a “Brave New World” direction. Big Brother is watching, and nobody seems to care. Ostensibly through concerns of security, a lot of personal freedoms are gone… but nobody cares enough to change things back. The hedonistic MeMeMe attitudes of people basing decisions purely on short-sighted self-interest have led us to a place of complacency… which works well-enough when times are good, but falters quickly, abruptly and, as we’re now seeing, tragically… when things go downhill.

Brutal to see that as opposite as those two dystopias are, we’ve managed to acquire parts of both of them. But it’s also interesting to see that when people finally start realizing that the great leaders above don’t have their best interests at heart… well, that’s when real change starts happening.

As usual, I’ll close this out by repeating my endless mantra: How lucky we are to be here. As bad as you might imagine things are here (and they’re not, far from it), they’re far worse elsewhere.

Imagine if Dr. Henry suggested one thing, but John Horgan ignored it and made up whatever he wanted… which was also contrary to the wishes of the local mayors… and in the midst of that arguing, Trudeau would parachute in a useless, contradictory directive. And throw into that mix… all local hospitals filled to capacity, and case numbers growing exponentially.

Yes, around here, it could be a lot worse. Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing, shall we?

Relevant to note… one final thing: Aldous Huxley also said… “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

Wise words… that unfortunately go unheard by those who need to hear them the most.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:24-07:00July 14th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , |11 Comments
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July 9, 2020

Isn’t in fun when your credit card info gets compromised, and your card gets cancelled… and you have to notify all 38 different auto-billers of the new card number… such a great use of time. Kudos though, to VISA and MC, whose AI fraud-detection these days seem to work quite well. Instantly flagged were $1,000+ online purchases at a number of high-end fashion retailers. Not quite in character for me.

I got sort-of wrongly accused of credit card fraud one time… I was in Calgary, and just before flying home, I filled up the tank of the rental car at the airport gas station before returning it.

Upon landing in Vancouver, I picked up my car from the parking lot and filled it up with gas at that little gas station wedged between the entrance/exit roads to YVR. This was 20 years ago, before pay-at-the-pump was a thing. In fact, before pre-paying for gas was a thing.

I filled up my tank and went inside, and gave the guy my card. He ran it… and his expression changed.

“Uhh… it didn’t go through”.
“Oh, that’s weird… should be fine… I just used it.”
“I’ll call VISA.”
“Sure… actually, don’t bother… here, I’ll pay cash.”
“Yeah… umm… I’m going to call them.”
“Seriously, don’t bother… here’s the cash.”

But he wouldn’t take the cash, and he wouldn’t return the card. And then I started wondering what little message must have popped-up on his machine… Fraud alert? Destroy card? Call police?

It makes some sense… buying gas 2 hours apart with the same physical card… at two gas stations more than 1,000km apart… ok, that’s fair. We got it quickly resolved… but, in fairness, that should have set off some alarm bells.

You know what else sets off alarm bells, but doesn’t get resolved so easily? Disney World in Florida is opening up this weekend.

Trust me, I am well-aware of the financial problems this pandemic is causing. I’m very familiar with plenty of economic forecasts and cash-flow projections that, at present, have zeros for top-line revenue. Do you know how many companies have zeros up there when they’re planning their budgets? Zero. Because, without revenue, you don’t have a business.

Surviving to live another day has been a well-discussed topic, but I’m not going to write about government incentives or job losses… I’m just going to talk about Disney. Disney is a public company, so they have to disclose a bunch of information, and one of the things they disclose is how much cash they have in the bank… defined as cash, or highly-liquid investments that could be redeemed on short notice. Here’s how much cash they’ve had over the last few years:

2017: $4.0 billion
2018: $4.2 billion
2019: $5.4 billion

Up to March 31, 2020: $14.3 billion

I don’t have a clue where that new $9 billion came from. Maybe they bought lots of shares in Zoom. It doesn’t matter… what matters is… that there are a lot of struggling companies that can’t afford to take a hit, but Disney isn’t one of them. They could most certainly afford to sit tight for bit… especially when Florida is seeing record numbers. Like… scary record numbers. Florida has a little more than half the population of Canada. Since July 1st, Canada has had 2,500 new cases. Florida has had 60,000.

At the risk of sounding a little too socialist… hey Disney, pay your people to sit around for another month or two. You can afford it. But your local hospitals can’t afford what you’re about to impose upon them. They already can’t… 56 Florida ICUs are at capacity, 35 others are at less than 10% availability… as Dr. Henry would tell you, “This is not the time.”

It’s easy to ring alarm bells. But it’s seeming difficult to get the right people to hear them.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:25-07:00July 9th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Business & Economics, Life in Vancouver, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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Day 91 – June 15, 2020

It was nice to see Dr. Henry and Adrian Dix back on the podium. It’s been a while — since Thursday, in fact, that we got a live update. There’s something so incredibly calming about the way those two present themselves, and their messages. I suppose it helps that they’re reporting good news. The numbers locally are slightly higher than a week ago, but still nominal. No new deaths since Friday. Green data all across Canada today. Might I add, across the country, the new-cases numbers from yesterday and today (+379, +344), are the lowest since March 22nd… when they were heading very quickly in the other direction.

I don’t get stressed watching these reports any more; very calming… very sophisticated… very cultured. Here in Canada, we might take this sort of demeanour for granted… but elsewhere… you don’t have to look too far to see the way different cultures approach things.

Yeah, you know, I was going to write about the cultural differences, between here and south of the border, but perhaps that particular topic has already gotten enough attention from me. I get it. You get it… cultural thing or not, let’s talk about something else.

Like maybe a little follow-up to a post from a couple of days ago, where I mentioned San José, Costa Rica. I spent a fair bit of time down there at the turn of the century, and it was quite an experience. You don’t have to travel far in this world to collide with significant cultural differences, and as per my usual rant of not being ok with “that’s just the way it is”, that place certainly offerers plenty of opportunity to scratch your head in disbelief.

The first thing is… this is the place that U2 had in mind when they wrote “Where The Streets Have No Name”. The streets, literally, have no names. Destinations are defined by landmarks… like the government office whose official address included the words “behind the papaya/watermelon/cantaloupe stand”. Another one was “200 metres east of the bridge, north 300 metres, left at the Alcoholics Anonymous 100 metres, yellow house”. McDonalds, mango trees, large boulders, Antonio’s house, and, on one occasion, “where the bank used to be” — all parts of official addresses.

Interestingly, at some point, someone decided to try numbering some streets… they did some of “downtown”, but the plan seems like it was ultimately abandoned… and nobody uses the street numbers. Why is that, you might be wondering…

Like every other Latin American city, town or village… you will find, right in the middle, the Central Plaza. From there… avenues that run east-west, and streets that run north-south, nicely numbered. So far so good, right? Except… in San José, the avenues north of the plaza are the odd numbers, and those south of the plaza are the even numbers. Want to go from 5ᵗʰ Ave. to 6ᵗʰ Ave? That’s a 6-block walk. And to keep things ridiculously consistent, same with the streets. West of the plaza, even numbers… east of the plaza, odd numbers. A walk from 12ᵗʰ St. to 13ᵗʰ St. will be a very nice 13-block walk. Back in school, you may have asked the teacher… like, teacher, when am I ever going to use trig in the real world? Well, if you’re a kid in San José, there’s an answer to that. Typical word problem…. If Carlito is walking east on 1st Ave, and he just crossed 14ᵗʰ St, and Juanita is walking west on 4ᵗʰ Ave. and just crossed 11tᵗʰ St, who will reach the Central Plaza first? Well, if you take the cosine of the angle formed by (1,14) and then take the tangent of (4,11) and then… oh, wait… more important point… if the question is, “When/where will they meet?”, and you throw into the mix the fact that one of them got lost and asked for directions, then the answer is… “never”. Because for some reason, the friendly people in San José don’t really like to say “I don’t know”. So when you ask for directions, you will always be given directions… very confidently, with specific instructions and finger pointing. And often, they will be completely wrong, the result of someone just making it up because they don’t want to admit they don’t know. I guess there’s another relevant U2 song that applies to that place… “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. I guess it’s a cultural thing.

It reminds me the time there that we went to the beach; me and a couple of friends. It was a “Beautiful Day” (yeah, U2 song), and the beach was quite packed. Curiously, nobody was in the water. And, there was no lifeguard… the lifeguard stand was empty, but had a red flag. Weird… the water looked pretty calm, with “Every Breaking Wave” (U2, of course) but not a single person in there. To hell with it, we thought… we’ll take the risk of these one-foot waves. We went into the water… it was warm and amazing, and we spent a long time in there. A few people looked our way, but nobody else came in, and nobody said a thing. We eventually left, packed our stuff, and found a nice beach-side restaurant for nachos and beer. I was the only one who spoke fluent Spanish, so I was the one who did most of the talking with the waiter… who asked where we were from, etc. I asked him about the beach — so beautiful, calm water… how come nobody was swimming? Oh… he said… yeah, this morning a whole bunch of sharks were spotted in the water. Oh. Yeah… great, thank you. You'd think one of the thousand people on the beach might have said something. I guess it’s a cultural thing.

Actually, same trip — we went snorkelling… this was a few days later, and the shark thing was still on our minds… but the tour guide/captain assured me, where we were going — no sharks. I wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing… I really had no “Desire” to go… but a group of people wanted to go… so, ok, let’s go. We went out in this guy’s boat… put on the equipment and went in. Some jumped in, others lowered themselves in… and somehow, I managed to scrape my leg on the way into the water. It was bleeding, a tiny bit. OK, I thought, there’s no way I should in the water if there’s any chance of a shark nearby. But the captain was adamant… no no, no problem, don’t worry, it’s fine. I vehemently disagreed, but he really said I should go in. Then I said something like, hey buddy… you’re going to get paid either way. The full price, even if we don’t all go in the water. Ooohhh, ok, yes sir… yes, maybe you shouldn’t go in the water. Yeah, thanks man. I guess it’s a cultural thing.

There’s plenty to learn from other cultures… and if you want to go somewhere cool, “I Will Follow”, but certainly one thing I’ve learned over the years, having travelled to many interesting places… I’m always happy to come home. With Or Without You.

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By |2020-10-08T01:22:27-07:00June 15th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |9 Comments
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Day 90 – June 14, 2020

Over the years, I’ve been part of many board meetings where there were a lot of people. I always look around and think… what exactly does that person bring to the table? Quite literally, why are you at this table? What do you have to offer? In poker, there’s a saying… if you sit down at a poker table, look around, and try to pick out the sucker… and you can’t… it’s because you’re the sucker. Similarly, I’ve felt that way in meetings. If I can’t figure out who’s the waste of space, jeez… maybe it’s me. There’s one particular board I sit on… we meet every few months, and it’s populated by some very intelligent, well-educated people who are far more familiar with the relevant issues than I am. I feel a little out of place in that one, but every time I make a little noise to the chairperson about perhaps stepping back and letting someone more worthy take my place, I’m met with “No no… we love having you here”, etc… OK. I’ll stick around for now I guess. And so I go, enjoy the catered lunch and drinks… and listen. I’ve learned far more from those people than they’ll ever learn from me. Once in a while, I’ll ask a question which I hope doesn’t sound too stupid… just so they know I’m not just some quorum-filling seat-warming presence. When the real decision-making happens, leave it to the experts.

Yes, experts… what’s an expert these days? There are a lot of people around who are very intelligent and well-educated, but for some reason, what comes out of their mouths is neither… because we seem to be living in the age of the curated expert. Allowed to be themselves, they’d be every bit the expert you’d hope for… but when they’re dangling off marionette strings, being controlled by someone else, it’s a whole different story.

You have to feel for Dr. Anthony Fauci. He is, by any definition, an expert. His education and experience are top notch, perfectly suited to be heading the response team. His experience… HIV/AIDS, SARS, H1N1, MERS, Ebola… and now, of couse, COVID-19. There is one thing that’s different this time… and that is as spokesman for what The President wants out there. The President’s message. Not necessarily just the… you know, truth.

It’s always a delicate song-and-dance for anyone who wants to remain employed under the direction of The President, and Dr. Fauci is no exception, walking a fine line between having to speak for the president, but also disagree with the discernible nonsense. No clearer was that exasperation than an interview in late March where reporter Jon Cohen pressed Dr. Fauci on a certain, very important point… that Trump's response timeline "just doesn't comport with facts.” Dr. Fauci agreed.

"I know, but what do you want me to do?" Dr. Fauci asked… "I mean, seriously Jon, let's get real: what do you want me to do?"

That’s a very honest statement, a subtle version of screaming “Hey, there’s an elephant in the room!” or “Hey, the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes!”. The words of the expert.

Speaking of experts… when my daughter Sophia was around 18 months old, she was pretty skinny. She has been all her life, a result of genetics, metabolism, and healthy eating. But back then, not knowing all that, a few people thought maybe she should get checked out. I didn’t think so, but ok… let’s see what the experts say. We got a referral to a paediatrician.

The paediatrician asked as about her eating habits. He listened to what she ate, mostly fruits and vegetables, some healthy proteins (including sashimi)… not a lot of carbs, almost zero junk. He checked her over, decided she was probably ok, but… just in case… “Let’s make sure she’s metabolizing fat properly. I want you to feed her some foods that are very high in fat… get some fries, nuggets, things like that… feed her that for a few days, collect her stools, and bring them back for analysis.”

Yeah, ok… sure. We stopped at a McDonalds drive-thru on the way home, and picked up some fries and McNuggets. And ketchup… and sweet-and-sour sauce for the nuggets, because even though I hadn’t had McD’s in a while, back in the day, that was my thing.

We went home, put her in the high-chair, and put this selection of junk food in front of her. She was not interested, at all. It was no use trying t feed it to her; she wouldn’t budge. No way. And she started getting upset, and what really got her upset was that she could see the vegetables on the kitchen counter and kept pointing at them and screaming for them… “Want! Want!”… and I found myself saying something like…. “No no Sophia… eat your fries… try this nugget… after that, you can have your veggies”.

It went nowhere. She was frantic, and crying. So were we all. After 5 minutes of this insanity, I scooped up all of the McD’s up and threw it in the garbage. Well, actually, of course I ate those McNuggets (sweet-and-sour, come on)… and maybe a few fries. And then, I cut up some cucumber and carrots, gave that to her… and all was once again well in the universe. And we never went back to that expert.

I’m not saying he was wrong; given what he had to work with, why not check it out. Maybe, like me, in my example at the top, he felt the need to add some value and not label the entire visit a waste of time. Maybe there might have been more to it, and of course we would’ve pursued it if it made further sense… but experts aren’t always right. As a good starting point, if you’re going to listen to an expert, make sure you’re listening to their sincere words, not those of the puppet-master. Dr Fauci said yesterday that maybe there wasn’t going to be a second wave; a curious statement that contradicts what pretty-much every other expert is saying. It doesn’t make a lot of sense… until you consider the bigger picture. Then, of course it makes a lot of sense; like, who might want him to say something like that… oh… yeah.

This has already gotten long, so I’ll stop here… especially since there are no B.C. numbers to report today (or yesterday — I will correct my guesses tomorrow), but just in case you’re wondering what I was going to say… it’d be another paragraph, all about Dr. Henry and how lucky we are to have an expert in our midst who speaks an unfiltered, unscripted and uncensored truth… honestly and convincingly. No filtering needed, no hidden political agenda, no puppet-master. Just what we need to hear. Expertly presented.

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By |2020-10-08T01:22:27-07:00June 14th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Space & Astronomy, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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Day 77 – June 1, 2020

One of my all-time favourite movies is “Inception”. Christopher Nolan’s film-making and story-telling won many awards, and deservedly so, but above and beyond that is one of the fundamental concepts of the movie, and it’s a fascinating one. Its importance plays out in the world continually. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, that basic idea is easy to understand… the difference of a thought, and its origin, and how different you treat a thought, depending on whether you came up with it yourself, or whether it was suggested to you. And how you might act completely differently, depending on that.

The simplest example… I tell you to think about pink elephants. Now you’re thinking about pink elephants… but you know it was me that made you think of them.

A better example… after dinner, you realize you haven’t done the kitchen cleanup all on your own in a long time, and decide you’re going to be a nice person and do everyone a favour. “I’m going to wash the entire kitchen”, you think to yourself, happy and proud to be a helpful and appreciated part of the family.

Compared to… you thinking that, but before you get a chance to announce it, someone says… “Hey… you haven’t done the kitchen in a while… go do it”. The end result of the action you ultimately take might be the same, but you’ll be thinking about it very differently.

In fact, you might have been mere moments away from announcing your intention, but now that someone else suggested it to you, it completely reframes it… and you probably feel differently (and not as good) about it. So much so that you might be tempted to say, “Hey, I was going to do it, but if you put it that way — forget it. You do it.”

The magic would be, from someone else’s point of view, if they could plant that thought into your head. They want you to do the kitchen, but they want you to come up with the idea. When you own the idea, you feel a lot differently about it, and… more importantly, you’re far likelier to take responsibility for it.

Throughout my life, I’ve been on both sides of that… well all have… professionally, personally, whatever… there’s no technical solution to Inception, as in the movie, with fancy (and presently non-existentent) technology… so in the real world, the closest thing would be social engineering — not in the sinister fashion of trying to extract login or bank info from people, but by simply interacting with people in a way that guides things in the direction — and ultimately, conclusion — that you’re hoping for.

From one point of view, this can happen when someone has managed to surround themselves with excellent, intelligent people… but because of corporate hierarchies, they’re the one in charge, and the decisions and responsibility fall on them… yet the real brains may be “below” them. Nobody down there wants to be responsible; it’s better for those people if the boss comes up with the idea… so while they won’t come right out and say it, they know exactly what needs to happen… and will dance around it until the boss says, “Hey! I have a great idea!”. “Great!”, they will reply… knowing exactly what’s coming.

The other point of view… well, as a parent, you quickly learn that there comes a point where telling your kids what to do… doesn’t work. As per above, “Do the dishes, now!” isn’t often met with the success for which one would hope. But here’s what does work… “Hey, we want to try to start watching the movie at 8. Try to get everything you need to get done… out of the way by then.” They know they have to do the dishes; you don’t need to even mention it. And, now the power is entirely in their hands. It’ll be their idea of “Oh… better do the dishes”.

With respect to this pandemic, I’ve spoken about the difference between having a doctor instead of a politician in charge. And that even though there are politicians involved, they’re deferring to her order, and the messaging is clear. There is one voice…. but… Dr. Henry isn’t really telling us what to do. Like an excellent parent, she’s transparently presenting us all the facts, but to a great extent, letting us figure out for ourselves how to act. She’s never said “Don’t travel this weekend.” — but she’s hinted as to why it’d be a bad idea and suggested against it… yet left it in all of our collective minds to consider… to the extent that if you did, or if you’re not socially distancing, or if you’re not wearing a mask when you really should… you’ll actually feel a little guilty about it. You’ll actually have taken ownership of the decision… and I think our high compliance numbers and resulting success are a great testament to that one simple fact… a fact that has even bigger implications these days; great success can be found by educating people, and arming them with enough knowledge that it allows them to reach correct conclusions on their own.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:07-07:00June 1st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |4 Comments
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Day 76 – May 31, 2020

Looking around the world for some good, optimistic news… we could all use a bit of that… I came across both France and Italy, both showing steadily declining numbers… and entering re-opening phases… a very welcome progression for those two places that were hit very hard.

One of the well-known symptoms of COVID-19 is how it affects the sense of taste and smell.. and that reminded me of amusing thought… due to an observation I had when I was in Paris in 1996. My girlfriend at the time was studying a year abroad at The Sorbonne, and I’d gone over to visit her for a couple of weeks. We didn’t have a lot of money to spare as we were saving money to go to Italy the following week, so we spent most days just wandering the streets of Paris, from park to park, coffee shop to coffee shop. And what struck me were two things; everybody smoked, and nobody picked up after their dogs. The streets were littered with cigarette butts and dogshit, and it occurred to me that the two things were connected. Most people didn’t realize now badly their city smelled, because all they could sense on a continual basis was cigarette smoke. Actively, stale or second-hand — you couldn’t get away from it.

And all of that reminds me of a funny story…

She lived in a tiny apartment above a coffee shop that she frequented, and on my first morning there, we went down to grab a coffee.

“Un latée, si vous plait”, I said to the shopkeeper/barista/older French guy.

“Monsiour, there is no such thing as a ‘latée’ — what you want is a café-au-lait. You Americans… you butcher our language.”

Whoah dude, what… jeez.

Typically, in that situation, the first thing I do is clarify the very relevant, important and proud point that I am Canadian, not American. But in that very WTF moment, what I said was… and I should point out, I don’t speak German… but having visited Berlin a few years earlier, I still remembered a few key words… and so what I found myself saying was,

“You know… if it weren’t for us Americans, I wouldn’t be asking for a latée… or a café-au-lait… I’d be asking for Ein Heisse Milch Kaffe.”

As you might imagine, that was not well-received. The look of genuine surprise on his face though, the way his eyes got all wide… his own WTF expression… that was funny.

“Get out. Don’t come back”.

Hell yeah man, we’re outta here, and we’re not looking back.

So that’s how you get banned from a French coffee shop. The girlfriend wasn’t too pleased, having had her daily coffee hook-up destroyed (it wasn’t, she went right back to it after I left), but that whole episode brought to mind that old saying that France is wonderful, except for the people. I don’t really agree with that; we met some great people on that trip and I’ve been back there a few times since. Always a great experience. Arrogant jerks come in all shapes and sizes, and you’ll find them everywhere.

And we did make it to Italy, near the end of the trip… near the end of the relationship too, in fact… due to episodes like that one, but also this:

The idea was to get to Venice, but it was going to be shoestring all the way. Staying in Venice was out of the question, but we found a cheap hostel in Padova, about a 30-minute train ride away. Cool hostel by the way… the rooms were all molded plastic. The bathroom — sink/toilet/shower — was one tiny molded room, and after you used it, you’d push a button and the entire thing — every part of it, would be thoroughly cleaned; a whole cycle of soap/rinse/dry.

So in the morning, we headed to the train station to catch the train to Venice. I don’t remember how much the tickets were in Lira (this was before the Euro), but it was roughly $14 for a 1st-class ticket and $12 for a 2nd-class ticket, and we got into a huge argument. I wanted to pay the extra $2, and she argued we didn’t need to. Come on it’s only $4, yeah but it’s throwing money away, yeah but jeez, for the experience, who knows when we’ll be back here, as if we’re ever coming back here together, etc. Finally, I had to cave because — well, does that even need explaining. In any event, she spoke Italian so she went to deal with it… she bought us two 2nd-class tickets and she guided us to the platform and onto one of the train’s 2nd-class cars.

And, I have to be honest. It was really nice. Plush, comfortable seats. Not crowded. Quiet. Air conditioned. Wow, I thought… this is great. OK, I was wrong.

Halfway through the journey, the conductor shows up to take our tickets. We hand them over. He frowns. No no, he says… not 1st class. Huh? Oh crap… we’re sitting in 1st class. Oops. Sorry, we say… we will move right away. No no, he says, wagging his finger at us… you pay. Oh… yeah, ok, we will pay. Ironic, I think… all that fighting for nothing; here we are. I’m prepared to pay the “upgrade”, except now they’re both arguing and she’s getting upset and eventually explains to me that no, we can’t just upgrade the tickets… we’re being fined. She’s crying, I’m yelling, and he’s telling us police will be meeting us at the other end if we refuse to pay the fine, on the spot. The fine was $40 each, which took our entire budget for the day. I’d been trying to figure out how we were going to eat, catch a chamber-music concert at some church, and go for a gondola ride with the budget we’d had. The problem was solved… we did none of that… just wandered the streets (and bridges) of Venice till we could walk no more. At least there was less dogshit to contend with.

Yes… this has little to do with anything; blame it on Dr. Henry and her lack of releasing numbers on Sundays. I will correct the numbers tomorrow, as usual, and hopefully have something more relevant to convey… but it seems to be a “flat-or-better” sort of day.

But for now, that’s it; the weather looks good… maybe go outside and take your dog for a walk. And pick-up after it.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:08-07:00May 31st, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Life in Vancouver, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |17 Comments
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Day 73 – May 28, 2020

The whole “too many chefs in the kitchen” or “too many cooks spoil the broth” — the thought behind it applies to pretty-much everything in life. Certainly, from experience… having been both the guy being told what do do — and the guy telling others what to do — I strongly believe in it.

One key to success — again, in many facets of life… and I’ve said it often… surround yourself with capable people and let them do their thing. This means understanding that they will do things… differently. Compared to what you would’ve done, it might be better or it might be worse… but it’ll certainly be different. The thing is, as long as you were right — that they were the right person for the job, capable of doing it — it should turn out alright. And this doesn’t mean that person is the one who does everything; it’s just clearly understood that the entire thing, no matter what it is… they answer to it. They can delegate jobs, hire extra people, whatever… but it’s up to them.

The chef/kitchen thing is a great example, actually. One can only imagine the chaos a large-scale kitchen would endure if multiple bosses were screaming out orders. There is a hierarchy, and at the top of it is the head chef. There may be a sous-chef, a pastry chef, a number of others… and multiples thereof. But there is a well-defined tip of the pyramid.

On one particular day… around 20 years ago, three former premiers of this province were all in Provincial Court on the same day. A complete coincidence… Bill Vander Zalm with his Fantasy Gardens scandal, Mike Harcourt with his BingoGate scandal, Glen Clark with his casino-license-for-deck-repairs scandal…. all there for different reasons, but all there to face the music with respect to abusing the public trust in some way, scandals that drove all of them out of office. That’s a SoCred and two NDPers, but corruption crosses all party lines. Subsequent to that came Gordon Campbell, Liberal, ultimately driven from office by the BC Rail Scandal. What is it with B.C. and our elected premiers? Scandalous.

I guess I’m relieved that the guy in charge these days isn’t some wild-west shoot-from-the-hip sort, doing whatever he pleases for personal gain. That would be a disaster in this present climate. John Horgan picked the excellent people with whom to surround himself, Adrian Dix and Dr. Henry, and he’s letting them run with it… and they were the right people for the job, and they continue to deliver outstanding results. This is textbook good management and proper delegation, and we in this province are very fortunate to have it.

Can you imagine a scenario where first Dr. Henry gives her daily update, then Adrian Dix gives his, and then The Premier stands up and discounts all of it? Questions their numbers, questions their strategies, makes up some stuff to suit his narrative? Suggests we ignore what we just heard? What a nightmare for the people listening and trying to figure it all out. That’s perhaps the biggest blessing around here, and perhaps the biggest differentiator than many other places; at the end of the day, our response is being led by a scientist, not a politician. On paper, Dr. Bonnie Henry isn’t the top of that pyramid, but in every other practical sense, she is…. and the consistent messages we get on an almost-daily basis, and their transparency, may well be the biggest reason we’re doing so well around here, compared to even other parts of Canada, where the response has been driven by politicians.

The corruption aspect — at the expense of the greater good — is nowhere clearer than in some of the head-scratching decisions we have seen being made elsewhere. The push to open gyms — enclosed spaces of people breathing heavily and touching many common surfaces? Sure, they have to open eventually… and around here, some are — under strict regulation. But in places where numbers are still rising? You have to look no deeper than the political connections and influence being imposed. That was the easy and obvious part to understand. Political business as usual. Like everywhere. Except the stakes aren’t money; they are people’s lives.

And now, there’s a more serious problem… some of those governors, intelligently ignoring the confusing and conflicting directives coming from higher up, are imposing their own orders… and many people are simply ignoring them, choosing to listen to whomever is in charge, somewhere up there — that agrees with what they want to hear. Many businesses, gyms among them, in numerous states… will be (if they’re not already), defying their respective governor’s orders to stay closed for now. Business as usual.

What a mess, from so many different points of view… legal, health, practical. And when it all goes to hell, the fingerpointing will be fierce. Sure, the mayor said we should’t open, but the governor said it was fine. Yeah, the governor said we shouldn’t open, but the president said it was ok. Unfortunately, those mixed messages may come back to haunt them.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:09-07:00May 28th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Business & Economics, Science of COVID-19, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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