France

May 19, 2021

I am one of those Gen-Xers who jumped at the opportunity to get vaccinated ASAP, and got jabbed with the AstraZeneca 29 days ago. A lot of my peers have been asking me… do you regret it? And what are you going to do for your second dose?

To take a step back… at the time, a month ago, when the opportunity presented itself… knowing what I know today, would I have done it? I rhetorically ask this on behalf of the many people I’ve heard from, some with “vaccine regret”… who sadly say they’d have waited a few weeks if they’d known a Pfizer/Moderna possibility was on the near horizon… not sometime in August.

Given the misunderstanding with respect to what efficacy actually means, people have attached a 95 to Pfizer/Moderna and a 70 to AZ. They’ve also attached “blood clots / no blood clots” labels.

The PR mismanagement of AZ has been nothing short of spectacular, and I’ve written about it before. Without rehashing the awful messaging, I will summarize my thinking of it like this:

If AZ causes blood clots in exceedingly rare cases (and it might – but it might with the same frequency the other vaccines do too) – anyway, *if* they do (and notwithstanding catching Covid-19 elevates your risk of blood clots by 1000x), what are the chances?

Take 10 dice… throw them hard onto the floor and watch them bounce around. Now go look at them. Are they all the same? Bad luck if they are; you’re dead of blood clot. Otherwise, no worries. If you were to do nothing but throw dice for 10 hours a day, taking 10 seconds to pick them up and throw them again… after 20 years, you’d be at a 50/50 chance of having rolled that bad luck. At those odds, I’ll take a chance. For me, the blood clot thing didn’t enter the picture. What did… was the simple knowledge that armed with nothing but AZ vaccine, the U.K. has pretty-much beaten this thing; good enough for me.

Would I have waited a month for Pfizer/Moderna? No. Two weeks? No. A week? A day? Yeah… sure. Perhaps somewhere in there is a tipping point… but it wasn’t an option… and knowing what I know today, I’m happy that turned out to be the case; I’m exactly where I’d want to be.

Here in B.C., we’re being offered an option… get the second AZ jab, as per the successful U.K. model… or get a Pfizer for round two. For those who want that second AZ jab, it’ll be available a lot sooner than later, especially as the doses we have all dry up by the end of June, and there won’t be any more coming. If you want to be certain you’re fully vaccinated sooner than later, there’s your ticket, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Further to that, however… has been my personal intention to wait for the results of a U.K. study that’s following the AZ/Pfizer people… results coming soon, and before I’m due for any second jab. Similar studies are also ongoing in France and Germany.

But, in the meantime, a Spanish study following 600 people who did the AZ/Pfizer combo has come out, and here’s what it says:

The people who got AZ/Pfizer combo, compared to the double-dose AZ/AZ people, had IgG antibody levels 30 to 40 times higher. Also, the presence of neutralizing antibodies was 7 times higher. This is consistent with the anecdotal evidence so far; it’s what’s led to the studies, that this particular combination packs a particularly powerful punch. Also being investigated is what the ideal gap between jabs may be; and it’s looking like the answer is to be measured in months, not weeks. Also, in the study, less than 2% reported severe side-effects… and they were limited to headaches, muscle pain and general malaise. These are not symptoms one should consider serious. These are, in fact, the very reactions many of us got in the first place.

So, if you ask me what I’m going to do… I’m going to wait.

If there was no alternative, I wouldn’t hesitate in getting that second AZ jab… and I’d push it back to late June if possible. But a July or August Pfizer jab sounds even better… so that’ll be me.

Needless to say, I’m not a doctor… and any of the above shouldn’t be viewed as medical advice. And, given the results of the studies underway, this might change. But this is my opinion and my answer for today, to all of my fellow AstraZeneca’d Gen-Xers… wait a bit longer and Pfizer it up.

By |2021-05-19T17:03:34-07:00May 19th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , |8 Comments
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February 25, 2021

Leap years… leap seconds… even, with some calendars, leap months… these tiny (or not-so-tiny) course corrections are necessary because, unfortunately, the earth doesn’t rotate exactly every 24-hours, nor does it orbit the sun exactly every 365 days. At the moment, one rotation is 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09053 seconds. One year is 365.2422 of those rotations. These are not nice, round numbers to work with… and even if they were, the earth is slowing down, so it’d all have to change eventually. In fact, they change continually.

The people who manage all this keep careful track of it, and often fiddle with it without us even knowing. If you weren’t aware of it, you certainly would’ve missed the extra second that was tagged on to New Year’s Eve in 2016. Approaching midnight, the time went from 11:59:58… to 11:59:59… to 11:59:60 (!) before continuing on to 12:00:00am, January 1st, 2017.

If those little adjustments didn’t take place, the errors would accumulate. The sun would start rising and setting at weird times. It would snow in Spring and get super-hot in late Autumn. And, once in a while, having not kept up with the corrections, some abrupt fixes would need to be implemented.

The calendar we’re all familiar with is the Gregorian calendar, which was preceded by the less-accurate Julian calendar… and not everyone switched over at the same time. While the Gregorian calendar was adopted in places line France, Italy and Spain back in 1582, it wasn’t until 1752 that the U.S. and Canada switched over… and since the Julian calendar is less accurate with respect to leap-anythings, it was falling further and further behind. In 1582, it required a 10-day adjustment. When Canada and the U.S. did it, it required 11 days… and when Turkey and Greece finally made the change, less than 100 years ago, they had to drop 13 days from existence. History is full of stories of landlords who tried to charge a full month’s rent during those half-month switches; you can imagine how popular that was…

Indeed, that’s what happens when you keep letting errors pile up; they become more difficult to correct down the road.

All of this is relevant because of the data and charts you see attached to this little blurb… and it has to do with the inconsistency of the data with respect to testing and cases and deaths and vaccinations. Like I wrote about recently, if you have one watch, you know what time it is. If you have more than one, you’re not so sure.

I have managed, I think, to consolidate and normalize all the data so that going forward, it’s not quite so apples-to-oranges. But to get things to align, there’s a bit of a Julian/Gregorian leap-year adjusting to do. In some calendar switchovers, a February 30th was added just to make it work; think of it like that.

Actually, it’s not so bad… but here’s what’s changed, if you’ve been following closely:

The U.S vaccination number has gone down. I’d previously been getting a number that was confusing with respect to its allocation of first and second doses. The number now is up-to-date, and certainly only first doses. It’s also dropped the vaccinated population percentage from 20% down to less than 14%.

While it’s important to know how many doses have been dished out, it’s more important to know how many individuals have had at least one. Now, for all the data, … U.S., Canada and all the provinces, those numbers should be accurate and far-more up-to-date than before for “at least one dose” – as well as the vaccinated population percentages that go along with it. Note how Quebec seems to be way ahead of other provinces; in a way, they are… that’s an accurate representation of first doses they’ve injected. Along with that goes the not-so-irrelevant-fact that they still have yet to dish out a single second dose.

The other number that changed radically is Ontario. They had 1,138 new cases today, and that’s what I wrote down… even though the case counts grew by 5,000. Why? Because the new data source is a bit more ahead of the game; they tap into the individual health departments instead of reporting the single province-wide number that’s relayed daily. Ahead or behind the curve isn’t as important as it being the correct curve, and that representation hasn’t changed. Now that everything is newly-aligned, it should work just fine going forward… but looking at today’s data feels a bit like those lost 10 or 11 days… like things don’t add up. But they do.

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By |2021-02-25T17:03:19-08:00February 25th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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January 12, 2021

There was a presumed silver lining to this pandemic… that the masks and social distancing and just plain staying away from each other would lead to the number of seasonal colds and flus being less than usual. To be sure, those illnesses are around… and if you didn’t catch a cold this year, you’ll probably get it eventually… but, for that to happen, it has to get near you, and, like C19, if it can’t get close to you, it can’t infect you.

Catching a cold or flu is easier than C19; these things are generally more infectious. They’re also, of course, far less lethal… and the conventional trade-off with life in general is that you expect to get sick once in a while, especially during winter when these viruses/bugs are around, and our immune systems are more susceptible.

As per the CDC… let’s pick the 3rd week of December, where in 2019, 30,000 samples were tested for Influenza A…. 16.2% came back positive. This year, ie 2020, ie a few weeks ago… that same sample set of 30,000 came back with a positivity rate of… 0.3%. A drop of two orders of magnitude. Hugely statistically significant.

Some of that can be attributed to the fact that flu-shots were way up this year… but if you’re a rabid anti-vaxxer, you’ll have to pick your poison here… because something worked, and it worked very well. Was it the flu vaccines? Was it the masks and social distancing?

Whatever the cause (a lot of both is the answer), that’s a huge drop, and similar huge drops are being seen across the board of illnesses, including the common childhood infections of not just flu, but also croup and bronchiolitis.

As per above, it’s not that these things are gone… it’s just that they’re just more difficult to catch these days. Once measures are relaxed, these things will come back and numbers will be way up… but hopefully some of the measures we’ve become accustomed to stick around. The whole “hug-hug kiss-kiss everyone” that’s so prevalent in some cultures; good riddance. Go ahead and hug and kiss strangers if you like, but let’s make it optional and not frown on others who choose to not partake. And if you’re asking yourself “WTF is he talking about”, I’m guessing you’re Canadian, American, British… from one of these “low-contact” cultures.

There are cultures where saying hello with three kisses (alternate cheeks, start on the right) is the norm. In parts of France, that number is actually four. Heck, there are cultures where kissing on the lips (a quick peck, no tongue!) is a normal greeting. Latin American culture has a wide variety of customs, and they vary significantly from place to place… but they all have one thing in common; if someone is already sick, everyone will be getting sick.

At the risk of being accused of cultural appropriation, going forward, might I suggest what ancient cultures have been practicing for centuries: “Namaste”, or a similar bow – it conveys respect, and it respects personal space. And it also keeps the bugs far away.

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By |2021-01-12T17:03:20-08:00January 12th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Science of COVID-19|Tags: , , , , , , , |2 Comments
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January 7, 2021

Kool-Aid has gotten a bad rap over the years. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become synonymous with believing in something crazy. It was over 900 people who died by suicide… many of them children, fed cyanide-laced Kool-Aid by their parents… parents who poisoned their own kids before taking their own lives. Over 300 kids.

This was all thanks to Jim Jones, a charismatic cult leader who’d rather die, and take everyone down with him… instead of facing the music. There’s obviously a lot wrong with this picture… that one man could convince so many people to die for his cause.

The first thing that’s wrong is the Kool-Aid itself. It wasn’t actually poisoned Kool-Aid that they all drank; it was Flavor Aid. No big deal, what’s the difference, who cares… well, I’m sure the marketing department at Kraft-Heinz would beg to differ. It’s impressive the good-will that Kool-Aid must have had before that massacre that they would choose to keep the name instead of just re-branding the flavoured juice crystals. Oh, yeah.

Kool-Aid aside, just how deep down the well do you need to be to go along something like that? The aforementioned Jonestown massacre of 1978 is the most well-known, but cult mass suicides happen… well, not “all the time”, but they’re perhaps more common than you might believe.

There was the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide in 1997, where 39 people in California killed themselves because their cult leader, Marshall Applewhite, had convinced them that a UFO was lurking behind the Hale-Bopp comet that was heading towards earth, and that “leaving the human world” was the only way to hitch a ride on it. Accordingly, Applewhite provided some poisoned applesauce for the group…who put on identical black tracksuits and matching Nikes (they got a good deal on the bulk purchase), poisoned themselves, and waited for their ride to another planet. One of those was the brother of Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on Star Trek… but that’s about as close to a spacecraft as they got.

There was the Order of the Solar Temple suicides, led by charismatic leaders Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret… where are total of 74 people killed themselves to “escape the world to a higher dimension”. They were from Switzerland, Canada and France.

In March of 2000, there was “Judgement Day” for a cult in Uganda who believed it was time for the end of the world. It’s unclear how many were suicides and how many were murdered, but the death toll was close to 800.

This list goes on, but the summary above is a good indication that if you have a charismatic leader with a group of well-indoctrinated fervent followers, they will do anything. And if they’re willing to kill themselves, certainly storming the Capitol is not much of an ask. Certainly not after the 4-year build-up that it took to get to that point.

At first, it’s just the typical cult indoctrination… you’re with us, or you’re against us. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys. We’re the truth, they’re the fake news. Exaggerate, polarize, fictionalize… you’ll recall, it all started on day one. It actually started on hour one… less than one hour after the inauguration in 2017, with White House Spokesman Sean Spicer pleading to the bewildered world to believe him when he told you that Trump’s inauguration crowd was the biggest ever. And off we went, with more divisiveness and Charlottesville-type scenarios along the way, paving a road to a point that really has no destination. At some point, there’s nowhere left to go. Time to pay the piper… but the lead piper will be holed up somewhere, possibly in Florida or possibly not in the U.S. because, especially after yesterday, he may be facing an arrest warrant.

Now what? A good question with many possible answers… but to answer the question of “How could this happen?” – how about, honestly acknowledging, how could it not? Where else was this headed? How is what’s playing out now not exactly what should’ve been expected with four years of trying to pry this country apart? Shocking? Sure. Surprising? Not in the least.

The worse is gets, the more people jump off the cult bandwagon… but, jeez… it took this long? This is what it took? This was your breaking point? This is certainly really bad, but what about what came before? His misogynistic statements before he was even president weren’t enough? His embracing of white supremacists? His complete mishandling of this pandemic? His calling Biden a pedophile? His continual lies? This is a very long list, for those who’ve been paying attention. Every week of this “presidency”, many people were asking the question, “How low can he go?” because as difficult as it was to imagine how he’d do it, he always did. One notch lower, much to the horror of most people, but to the delight or indifference of others. It took this long for you to get it? It took this long for Twitter and Facebook to figure out what giving this guy a platform might do?

Much of that latter group is now diving to the exits. Sure, welcome aboard… welcome to the lifeboats many have been clinging to for four years… but, for some of them… not so fast. There is a long list of Republicans who sided with yesterday’s violence, at least in that they propagated the charade of the stolen election and objected to the certification and all that. Their names should not be forgotten… many of them thinking only for themselves, thinking this would further their political ambitions while actually all violating their oaths of office. I can’t wait to see Senator Josh Hawley try to throw his name into the 2024 election ring. I can’t wait to see him eviscerated by both sides of the aisle for what he’s done. Call it what you want; I’ll call it treason.

“I didn’t vote for this”
“This isn’t America”

You’ll hear that a lot in the future, but here’s some news for a lot of you… yeah, you did vote for him… and yes, just maybe… this IS America. It always has been, with an undercurrent of ugliness that was surfaced and normalized by a cult leader who understood that all along.

Some 74,000,000 people voted for him, but I’m sure in 20 years you won’t find many who’ll admit to it. Here we are after four years… what would’ve happened in another four? The question doesn’t need answering because if Trump had been re-elected, that would’ve been the last American election for many years… perhaps ever.

Good riddance to this cult leader. It’s less than two weeks, but I hope they 25th-amendment his ass out of there sooner and completely wreck whatever legacy might have been left for the completely brainwashed that are still clinging.

And, might I end with that… if, after all of this, you’re still supporting him, thinking he’s the good guy, the victim, etc… then you are indeed beyond salvation by normal means, and I’d suggest you drag yourself (or have yourself dragged) to the nearest cult-deprogramming facility.

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By |2021-01-07T17:03:28-08:00January 7th, 2021|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics|Tags: , , , , , , , , |14 Comments
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October 16, 2020

This is pretty long… not only because I couldn’t make it any shorter without leaving out something I consider important, but because I have a busy weekend ahead and might not get a chance to post much. No new local numbers till Monday anyway, so here’s most of the weekend’s updates in one convenient place… and we’ll start on the opposite end of the country.

About 25km off-shore from Newfoundland, you’ll find a collection of 8 little islands. They’re not very big. Collectively, they’re about 1/10th the size of Metro Vancouver. They’re known by the name of the two biggest islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon. Not relevant, but in case you’re curious… their population of 6,000 has had 16 cases of C19, 12 of which have fully recovered and 4 of which are still ongoing.

That entire population lives on those two islands, where they do a lot of fishing and play a lot of hockey. No big deal, except if you’ve never heard of them, you’ll be quite surprised to learn that they’re not part of Canada. Even though they’re closer to Newfoundland than Vancouver Island is to the mainland, they’re 100% French. Not like Québec French. Like French French.

How they got to that point is a long and interesting story… Indigenous people, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, American, Canadian… all have laid claim to the islands at some point over the centuries… but, as it often goes with land grabs/invasions/conquests, whoever had it last… gets to keep it.

And that was France, who, despite opposition from Canada, Britain and the U.S., seized the islands during WWII… seized by that troublemaker Charles de Gaulle… the same one whose “Vive le Québec libre” 20 years later started a shitstorm that will never go away.

But since then, these little independent French islands have been happily doing their thing, and for the most part have a very close and functional relationship with their Canadian neighbours. A little border dispute or fishing-rights argument pops up occasionally, but it’s never a big deal. It always gets worked out.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Trudeau suddenly went nuts and invaded those islands? It would be a very weird situation for us, but also for our allies, especially the U.S. and the U.K…. both of which are always on our side, but both of which also completely (and justifiably) would respect the sovereignty of France.

Interestingly, there’s a comparable example.

On April 2nd, 1982, General Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of Argentina (and last of their military dictators) invaded the Falkland Islands.

Lots of similarities… Search-and-Replace: Trudeau becomes Galtieri, Canada becomes Argentina. France becomes England. St.P & M. become the Falkland Islands, which have been under British Rule since 1833. Interestingly, the U.S. becomes Chile; we’ll get to that.

A brief history of Argentina… leading up to Galtieri, there had been a few other military dictators, the first of which had overthrown the democratic government of Isabel Perón… widow of Juan Perón – whose second wife was the famous Evita (Madonna… “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina…”). Those military dictators slowly eroded the country into a compete mess of economic crisis and civil unrest and violence against those who opposed them. Galtieri, who was disliked by the people more and more as each day went by, decided he needed to show everyone who’s boss, how he was a powerful leader, how he’s got things well-under control. A conquest of those islands… and he’d be a national hero forever.

So… he invaded the Falkland Islands, claiming them “back” for Argentina. As an interesting side-note, similar to how when the Democrats say Zig, the Republicans will say Zag, or pretty-much anywhere where you have strong, opposing political parties ready to criticize anything… when Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing government instantly protested the invasion and began arming the response, the left-wing opposition party in England was a bit torn… between their ideology of being against war… coupled with their distaste for Margaret Thatcher… as opposed to simple patriotism. They stammered incoherently for a few days, going back and forth.

You know, when your country gets invaded, you defend yourself… political ideologies aside. If you don’t like war, it means you don’t throw the first punch. But if punches are going to fly, be sure you’re prepared to throw the last one. Anyway, that led to that memorable headline, “British Left Waffles on Falklands.”

Long story short, Galtieri led his country into a disastrous, unwinnable war by invading those islands… a war which cost the lives of hundreds of young Argentinian men, barely trained and barely armed. It took the British a few days to show up, but they showed up angry and ready to take back what was theirs. And take it back they did. They also suffered some losses, but not as bad as the Argentinians. Understandably, everyone on the planet disagreed with the Argentinian position, including their neighbour Chile… who allied themselves with Britain and cooperated fully, allowing their airports and military bases to be used as staging and refueling areas. Chile turned out to be an integral part of helping the Brits end the invasion quickly. The strange parallel would be the U.S. aligning themselves with France, helping them take back the islands from Canada. I wonder how many minutes that war would last.

From a personal point of view, the whole Falklands thing was strange – it was the first time I had a completely relatable view of a big conflict… very clearly from both, opposing sides.

On one hand, I was in grade 8, at a very British school, where many of the teachers were British themselves. They were adamantly opposed to this ridiculous invasion, and made their views known. Everybody (including me) was in agreement. What a useless, stupid war. Hopefully, it’d be over quickly.

On the flipside, my older cousins in Chile were of the age where if they’d been in neighbouring Argentina, they and their friends might have been drafted to go and fight. I knew a lot of people down there in that age group. It would have been like the grade 12s in my school going off to fight for one side… and, on the other side, it could’ve been my cousins and their friends, or at least guys whose personas and attitudes and everything else – I could easily relate to. Happy-go-lucky Latin Americans guys… suddenly thrown into a war because their leader needed some quick wins; some better approval ratings; some better numbers. No time for debates or town-hall meetings… let’s make a real statement.

The whole ugly episode wrapped up in about 10 weeks, but there were (and still are) some ridiculously short-sighted Argentinean patriots who think it was the right move. The vast majority would disagree with that… and if there was any Argentinian positive out of all of it, it’s that it not only took down Galtieri… but it took down the whole right-wing fascist military-dictatorship infrastructure that had supported him and his predecessors. From the failed war emerged democracy. And a final footnote… in 1994, Argentina adopted a new constitution. In it, they declared the Falkland Islands an Argentine Province. Some people just can’t let it go. The official British response was, “LOL”.

What may be relatable about the whole thing is this; there was a leader who was nearing the end of his tenure… something that doesn’t necessarily happen with military dictatorships. Many of those guys hang in there for decades, because their iron-fisted rule keeps them there. As long as the country is doing ok, it works.
But when it’s all going downhill, and people are calling for your head… well, what do you expect from a military leader… fight or flight? Galtieri knew the implications of leaving power, and they all came to pass. He knew what he’d done. He knew his track record leading up that last gasp. He knew that if he had to one day face the music, it wouldn’t go well for him… and, indeed… the rest of his life was no bed of roses. Arrests, prison, disgrace, legal fights, stripped of everything.

That is what faces Donald Trump, so it should come as no surprise that he’ll do anything to prevent it… and/or at least try everything he can to punt the ball 4 years down the field. The U.S. won’t be invading anyone as a distraction anytime soon, fortunately, but what’s going on is its own version of “last gasp”… an effort that started years ago, and will hopefully end on January 20th… 2021, not 2025.

October 16, 2020

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By |2020-10-16T21:17:30-07:00October 16th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Life in Vancouver, Travel Stories, Sports & Gaming, Philosophy, Art & Literature, History|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments
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August 13, 2020

There was an interesting battle going on during WWII, in the skies above England… and no, I’m not talking about the RAF vs. the Luftwaffe…

Back then, the British launched a very ambitious operation. They dropped thousands of homing pigeons behind enemy lines. The pigeons were in little crates, which, besides the bird, contained paper, and pen and a canister. Whoever found it was asked to fill out the questionnaire, roll it into the canister, attach it to the pigeon… and let it fly home, back to England, with the information. Sixteen thousand pigeons were dropped over France, Holland and Belgium. Something like 10% of them came back, many with useful information, detailing what life was like under German occupation, and indicating what they could about German troop movements. Some of these pigeons were so successful, over numerous trips, that they were decorated with medals. One directed a rescue crew to where a British bomber had ditched in the ocean. Another one saved more than 1,000 lives when it successfully delivered a message that a certain town had been re-captured by the British… a town that was about to be bombed.

The Germans quickly discovered this was happening, and started planting pigeons of their own, with a bit of a different questionnaire (and a pack of British cigarettes, to make it look legit), trying to sniff out local patriots to the allies.

Above and beyond that, the Germans had a little army of their own, trained Hawks and Falcons, whose job it was to take down the British pigeons. How has this not been made into a movie?

Our hero, the British pigeon, already battered and mangled, trying to fend off numerous attacks, struggling to get home… bleeding, missing the tip of one wing… suddenly spotted by a German Hawk… who, with his little goggles and leather helmet (emblazoned with a swastika) swoops down for the attack.. and just as he’s about to make contact, our hero pigeon crosses into British airspace where the hawk is instantly taken down by a sniper from MI14. Yes indeed, the British Secret Service set up a detachment, whose job it was to drive up and down the coast, monitoring bird activity and shooting down those killer German birds.

It’s an interesting little story, detailing one particular battle — amongst a sea of other battles — that constituted the Second World War. A small but important battle.

And that’s how it is with all battles, big or small. It’s not just one big fight. It’s lots of little ones, many of which we’ll never hear about… whether we’re fighting a World War, a virus, or an election… etc etc.

It’s something to consider for the near future, because lots of battles are heating up, and some of them, big and small, are going to get ugly. It’s important to consider their part in the bigger picture, not just the individual pieces… because in this era of self-serving propaganda and misinformation, many of these battles are, as they say… for the birds.

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By |2020-10-08T01:09:48-07:00August 13th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments
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July 8, 2020

I’ve never been a high-school teacher, but like most people reading this, I spent 5 years on the other side of it. And, like most people, experienced the entire spectrum of really good ones to really bad ones. But one thing they (and we) all knew; there’s an inherent power struggle between the teacher and the class, and it’s delicate. A teacher has to be very careful about playing that balance, especially as it’s twenty-plus students vs. one. Too strict or too mean, and they will lose the respect of the class. On the flip-side, too casual and buddy-buddy and they will also lose the respect… and control.

If you’re a teacher and you’re going to fail, it’s probably better to be over-strict and tough and not care what the students think. At least you’re likely to get results, and who cares about the bad-mouthing that goes on about you outside of class. I had many teachers who were that type. I also had a few, the best ones – who managed to skirt that fine line. They were friendly, relatable and fair… and received the respect due to them. They also got excellent results.

And then there were the few – some that lasted less than a year – that lost the class very near the beginning, and from there, they were doomed. There was no fixing it.

One such teacher that comes to mind was my grade 8 math teacher. He was new to the school, as were we all. But unlike all the other grade-8 teachers, this guy wanted to be our friend… and it didn’t take long for that to melt down, into an hour of anarchy every math class. Those 55 minutes were about 15 minutes of us all yelling “Boring!” in unison every few minutes, 15 minutes of him telling us to shut up… “Quiet guys. Quiet please.”, another 15 minutes of him handing out detention time, and maybe 10 minutes of actual teaching.

His technique for handing out detention was unique; he dished it out 5 minutes at a time. Every noise infraction would net someone 5 minutes, 10 if it was really bad, and he would dutifully write it down in a notebook before continuing to teach… only to be interrupted again moments later. And on Friday, he would read out the list of names and how many minutes everyone had earned. I’m not too proud to say that I was usually on that list, often near the top.

One particular day, we were playing rugby… this teacher had also managed to earn the coaching role for some of the grade 8s; the second and third-tier athletes. In my school, everyone had to play rugby, so… like the whole spectrum of great to awful teachers, there was also that spectrum of rugby players. All the way from world-class down to “he shouldn’t even be dressed to play, let alone out on the field”. I was somewhere in the middle, and on this day, found myself running with the ball, unimpeded, toward the goal line. I rarely found myself in that situation and was already celebrating in my mind… when, out of nowhere, I got tackled… hard.

I should add… in rugby, there is exactly one right way to play, and that is… hard. If you don’t go in as hard as the other guy, you will get hurt. This applies at every level, assuming everyone is pretty-much the same weight. There’s a reason why the world-class players are all monstrously large and very fit; they need to out-class the other guys. In fact, one of my classmates went on to play for the Canadian national team and then professionally, in France. He’s probably reading this, and if he is (hey Rich, what’s up), he’d tell you the same thing – you go in hard.

Except when it’s a full-grown adult vs. a 13-year-old. Said teacher probably could’ve taken a bit off the gas pedal… but he didn’t. And, so… instead of scoring a try, I ended up with a broken arm. It happens, and the teacher felt awful about it, but the rumour that made the rounds was that he’d done it on purpose, to sort of get back at me for ridiculing him in class so often. I don’t believe that for a second; he was a good guy. Too good to be thrown into the wolves with the likes of us, to be honest.

But… that cast on my arm earned me a bit of a free pass for a while. I didn’t change my behaviour in class at all, but when he’d spin around to dish out 5 minutes and see it was me — at that moment casually scratching my head with my broken arm, or making faces like I was in pain — he’d pause, roll his eyes, and turn back around. Until one day, either I overdid it or he’d just had enough… this was maybe 6 weeks later. He turned around angrily, and said something like “OK, Kemeny, that’s enough of this. That’s an hour.”

What? You can’t give me an hour all at once. That’s not fair!

Fair or not, he did… but, I should add, it did little to earn back any respect; from me, or from the rest of the class. He did not return the following year.

Like I said, there comes a tipping point when the respect is gone, and it’s never coming back. And so, as usual, as seems to happen with a lot of what I’m writing about these days, I look south of the border and am noticing something that perhaps is new; perhaps that wasn’t there before. A lot of people – who still have some — are losing respect for the sitting president. It’s important to make that distinction… there’s a huge difference between the actual president… and The Office of the President. This has nothing to do with Republicans vs. Democrats. Or the office of the president. We’re just talking about the man himself. Is he worthy of the respect he feels he’s earned? Worthy of a second term?

Trump is slowly losing his core… his unshakable supporters. After his niece’s book comes out, he’ll lose more. My personal view is that the U.S. can certainly survive another 4 years of a Republican-led government; Democrat too, for that matter. But what it perhaps can’t survive is another 4 years of Trump. The country is pretty fractured at the moment, and it’s telling that it’s taking steps to fix itself in spite of the president and his desires, not because of them. He’s lost the majority of the people, and the people realize what they need to do to fix what’s broken.

But healing takes time. My arm took two months. The U.S. will take years… but it needs to be given a chance.

For those who don’t want to see a second term, and can actually do something about it… and are politically strategizing their next moves… my advice: Go in hard. It’s the only way to win and not get hurt.

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By |2020-10-08T01:21:26-07:00July 8th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, Politics, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |15 Comments
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Day 81 – June 5, 2020

My list of top-ten favourite movies has evolved over the years, but since 1994, the number-one spot has been held by a title that’s unlikely to ever move from that spot. The movie is “The Shawshank Redemption”, based off a Stephen King novella by a similar name. Stephen King movie adaptations are very hit-and-miss, especially as SK is known for giving movie rights away to aspiring film makers for $1. The good ones get proper treatment though, and it doesn’t get any better than this one. If you haven’t seen it — just do. Don’t Google it, don’t preview it, don’t research it. The less you know, the better it’ll be.

I’m going to talk about one particular scene… and don’t worry, this doesn’t spoil anything. In this scene, which takes place in Shawshank prison, a particular prisoner gets hold of a record player and some vinyl. The record happens to be from Mozart’s opera “The Marriage of Figaro”. He starts playing it, and quickly realizes he’s in the same room from where the P.A. system for the entire prison is operated. He flips on all the amps and starts blaring this beautiful duet to every corner of the prison.

The movie is narrated by a character named Red, played by Morgan Freeman, and he describes it like this:

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't wanna know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared, higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.”

I had the experience of seeing this opera in Italy, and experienced something I’d never seen… after this particular aria (an aria in this context is a little song within an opera), the applause was so thunderous that it brought the performance to a halt. The applause turned into a standing ovation, and the chants of “Brave!” — side note, the plural of Bravo is Bravi — but when it’s feminine, like if you were applauding a single female, you’d say Brava!, but the plural, as would be appropriate in this duet sung by two women, is Brave. Anyway, the chants of Brave turned into “Encore!”. Typically, of course, an encore comes after the performance, not during it… but technically, in French, “encore” means “again” — and that’s what the crowd wanted. And that’s what the crowd got, much to their rapturous delight. The performers and musicians turned back a few pages, rewound 4 minutes, and did the aria again. Very powerful.

The aria (“Canzonetta Sull’aria”) comes along at the perfect time in the movie, and its effect on the audience is similar to what Red describes in the prison. Again, very powerful. Red doesn’t know what the aria is about, but I do, so I’ll tell you… these two women are scheming… one of them is a Countess, and she’s dictating a note to her maid… because, as it turns out, the Count is sort-of into this maid, and the Countess is trying to catch him cheating. So, she’s dictating to the maid, a note… a sort of “Meet me later tonight out by the bushes” sort of thing… where she (the Countess) intends to dress-up like the maid and catch him red-handed. Good stuff — not anywhere near as pure and powerful as Red may have interpreted it, but at least it’s intriguing.

And that’s sort of what this is about… when Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “The medium is the message” back in 1964, there was no Internet. People’s present-day information came from 4 sources.. TV, radio, print and word-of-mouth. The stakes back then were much, much higher. The words of Walter Cronkite were gospel; indeed, he was known as “the most trusted man in America”. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Anarchists…. whoever — they may all have vehemently disagreed on many things, but they all listened to the same source. And perhaps that’s the fundamental issue; broadcast news went from boring to entertaining when competition came in… 3 major networks (and 2 here in Canada) were the critical mass… “real” news could survive in that environment. But beyond that, if you wanted to grab those advertising dollars, you’d better have had a competitive product… and that’s clearly when things went downhill… down to where we are today, where it isn’t news that people are after; it’s easily-digestible content confirming what they already believe, or want to believe, disguised as news. And the social media platforms welcome those clients with open arms, spoon-feeding them curated “news” that’s right up their alley… click-click-click… $-$-$.

The education that’s necessary that I spoke about yesterday… it has to begin at an early age, and it has to begin with critical thinking. Someone who can’t think for themselves will welcome the spoon-feeding that comforts them. I don’t want to think, I don’t want to change my mind… I’m happy with my beliefs, and look, a lot of other people think the same way. We can’t all be wrong. Gimme gimme gimme. Feed me. Om-nom-nom.

In the movie, Red is a convicted criminal with a grade-school education. He’s touched by something he doesn’t understand, but at least manages to guess the language correctly, and knowing full-well he can’t understand a word of it, comes up with an interpretation that suits the moment. There’s a huge difference between “this is what it says” and “this is what I hope it says”, and knowing when and how to apply that difference… that is the key for an educated, peaceful and harmonious future.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:06-07:00June 5th, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Politics, Science of COVID-19, Travel Stories, Philosophy, Art & Literature|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |13 Comments
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Day 79 – June 3, 2020

They say you can tell a lot about a culture by how many different words they have for certain things. The classic example is the Inuit people, having 30 or 50 or even 100 different words to describe different types of snow. When something is important to you, potentially hazardous, a bit of detail is called for. It’s not always life-or-death… but the ability to be a little more descriptive than usual is always helpful.

It was amusing while reading about this topic to find that the English language has 40 different words for the word… “different”… like alternate, dissimilar, eclectic, mixes, varied… and so on. I also found that English has over 300 different words to describe… drunk.

Sometimes, something doesn’t need lots of different words… but just a single word that captures a lot of meaning. You can certainly learn a lot about other cultures as well, when they have certain words to describe something oddly specific… such as German, and their famous word “schadenfreude (n): pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune”

You know how sometimes, as a joke, you like to tap someone’s shoulder while standing behind their other shoulder? There’s a word in Indonesian for that: “mencolek”

You know the people who sit around coffee shops for hours on the laptops, using up the free WiFi and not really buying anything? The French have a word for them: “seigneur-terraces”

You know that feeling you get when your haircut is finished, and you sit there, looking at the mirror… in horror, because it’s nothing like what you were hoping for? The Japanese would call that “age-otori”. I suspect many of us will be feeling that in the coming days… I don’t know about you, but I’m really enjoying this full-on fro I’m presently sporting.

You know the feeling you get when you’re sitting on a barstool, and it starts to tip over backwards? Well, turns out there’s no word for that, but there should be. We’ve all felt that particular instant fear/horror/panic induced by that experience.

So, here’s a good word… and I remember the most powerful experience I’ve had of this emotion… Monday, March 1st, 2010… at around 9pm, I stood in the middle of the intersection of Burrard and Hastings. There was not a single car or person visible in any direction…. talk about eerie. If you’re wondering, it was the day after the Canada/U.S. gold-medal game; the day after the 2010 Olympics. It as all over and we were all Olympic’d out I guess. Downtown was a ghost town.

The word for that is: “kenopsia (n): The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.” This is something we’ve all felt at one point or another in the last couple of months… and if you’ve felt it… and/or if you’ve felt the emotion of my bar-stool example, I’m just here to state the obvious; you’re not alone. We’ve all felt it, but perhaps we didn’t have the word to describe it. Words are important. Being able to talk about it is important. And as recent events have shown us, even when we haven’t been vocal about it, we’re all capable of feeling the same thing. Let’s keep adding new words to our vocabulary… because we have a lot to discuss.

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By |2020-10-08T01:23:07-07:00June 3rd, 2020|Categories: COVID-19 Daily Report, The First 100 Days, Business & Economics, Life in Vancouver, Sports & Gaming|Tags: , , , , , |15 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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