Category: Ramblings

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Don’t Be A Jerk

Earlier today I posted a meme thing on FB that basically said there are many reasons why somebody wears a mask and many why they don’t wear one – no matter which side you fall on, don’t be a jerk. I immediately got blow back from people wanting to know why certain things were and were not on the two lists. Seriously? If that’s your biggest problem with that meme, then you have been a jerk at some point and now you’re having to think about it in those terms.

We never like to be called out on bad behavior. It’s embarrassing to admit you’ve been a jerk. And when it comes to something that you know is personal…wearing a mask, you get even more uncomfortable. Regardless of their effectiveness masks have become a signal. Wearing it, a signal of your virtue. Not wearing one, a signal of your resistance to seemingly arbitrary rules handed down by governors without support from legislators. What does it mean if you wear one sometimes and not others? I’m not sure. Practical?

Full disclosure, I don’t wear a mask when I’m walking around outside. I do wear one when I go into the store. The stores are just trying to stay in business (yes, even the Target and Wegmans) and to stay in business they have to follow the current rules. I don’t want them to get in trouble and I need to go grocery shopping. I do not live in a state where I have options if I decide not to give a store my business because they require a mask. I can’t go anywhere else. But, believe me, I wear it as little as possible. After about an hour, I start to get eczema outbreaks on my face. I’m also slightly claustrophobic so wearing it for any length of time becomes very stressful. This means that the microsecond I get out of a store, the mask comes off.

At the same time, hell yeah, I laugh and comment – in my head – when I see people with their mask on their chin pull it up as they get near me. And I laugh at the sideways looks. But I’m wearing reflective sunglasses so they can’t see my eyes (which may explain why they don’t say anything…hard to when you’re not actually looking at somebody’s eyes). But…all of that is in my head, and I smile at everyone I pass on our walks. I do my damnedest to not be a jerk. At least not out loud to strangers. I try…emphasis on try.

When my husband and I go for our daily walk we do not wear masks. We have gotten some sideways looks, but nobody has said anything directly to us (not counting the Parks & Recs people today who offered us masks). In college a friend told me that I have a look that says “Fuck with me and I’ll bite your legs off”. I guess I still do. If anybody were to ever say anything to me, depending on what they said and their attitude, oh, they’d get a response.

It bothers me that many of my friends seem to feel that it’s required of them to make nasty, arrogant, and condescending remarks about wearing a mask. To go into “mansplaining” mode (both men and women do this), to let us hoi polloi know that we are so very, very wrong in our opinions and any data we bring to the table is clearly flawed. Many claim to want a clear and thoughtful discussion, but the minute you try to provide any counter-argument they balk. I know that nobody has ever won an argument on Facebook. But, c’mon. We can still have a civil discussion. Right? We can, if people remember that being a jerk is, as my dad would say, bad form.

Don’t be a jerk. Call out people when they’re being jerks. Don’t let them slide.

Image by rickey123 from Pixabay

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Books and Reading

Posts on books, reading, bookshelves, collecting books, buying books, culling books, not culling books, have been coming to my attention in the last few days (check out Cedar Sanderson’s post, Bibliophilia). I have a LOT of books. My husband has a LOT of books. Between us we have TONS of books. We live in a small two-bedroom apartment. There is not a lot of extra room. We turned the front room, which was meant to be the main bedroom, into a home office for both of us. It has five bookcases. The hallway has two, the living room has three, and the bedroom has one. This isn’t even dealing with the ten or so banker’s boxes of books that came from my campus office.

Before we moved away from California twenty years ago, I purged at least a hundred books. These were books that I had bought, read once (well before electronic books) and hadn’t picked up again. When we moved in together I had boxed them up and put them in storage. A year later, realizing I had not once looked for any of the books in storage, I donated them all to the local Goodwill.

My husband and I have different tastes in books. He prefers, and almost exclusively reads, non-fiction. It can be historical, historical analysis, political, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him reading fiction. I, on the other hand, love urban fantasy (duh), swords and sorcery, mysteries, and science fiction. I also like a range of authors like Tom Clancy, P.G. Wodehouse, John LeCarre, Terry Prachett. We both like biographies, especially about bands and singers we like (we do share pretty identical tastes in music).

I have books that I’ve collected (for example all of the Oz books, a collection started by my grandmother for my father), books that I re-read often, and books that I’ve read once and keep because, well…because. There are reference books, and of course, books from grad school and beyond. I love being surrounded by books. And, I do love the electronic readers such as Kindle, etc. The ability to take a few dozen books on vacation or any trip is intoxicating.

The first time I went to Europe, I did the post-college-backpack-through-Europe-for-three-weeks thing with a couple of friends. One of the things I loved was picking up books in hostels or pensions reading them over the course of the next few days, dropping them at the next hostel/pension/b&b and picking up another one. That way you didn’t get weighed down carrying books, yet you were able to read several. That was how I ended up binge reading Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series. We must have followed that individual around Europe. I also learned that Ludlum has a definite formula (hero is wrongfully blamed, government baddies after him, ex-wife/gf/lover helps out despite rocky end to relationship, saves the world) that he uses in Every.Single.Book. By the time I got to the last two or three books I was challenging myself to figure out the plot arc by the end of the first chapter. I was correct each time.

It doesn’t matter what genre or type or subject, books provide escape, knowledge, information, ideas, a different world view, laughter, life lessons, puzzles, and entertainment. Sometimes all in the same book. In other words, books offer the world. Reading is not just fundamental, it’s necessary for me.

Writing has become another way for me to escape. Now I am indulging all my day dreams of worlds and discoveries in my own stories. And, I can’t tell you how much fun it is!

What kind of books/stories do you like? How eclectic are your tastes?

Enjoy a lazy Sunday! If it’s nice outside where you are, take a book outside and read!

Image by Birgit Böllinger from Pixabay

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Masking

To mask or not to mask, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged Karens, or to use research against a sea of shaming and by opposing end it? With profuse apologies to Shakespeare, this is where I find my brain wandering off to these days. I’ve had conversations and read numerous comments regarding the wearing of masks. I fall on the side of masks have become a symbol of compliance rather than a useful tool in the (endless and perhaps foolish) fight to stop the spread of COVID-19 or the Wuhan flu or CCP flu (pick your favorite name). I do not wear a mask when I’m out for a walk or otherwise simply mucking about. I will put it on in stores that require one as I don’t want to get them in trouble, but otherwise no.

Here’s the thing. The stated reason behind the wearing of masks is for the greater good. That greater good is based on the assumption that everybody is a potential carrier of Wuhan flu and everybody is a spreader as well. I have said for a long time now that the more realistic response to this virus was to isolate the sick and protect the vulnerable (elderly, immuno-compromised) people. People who show no symptoms should not have to curtail or end their daily lives. Yes, but, I’m told, you are contagious before you show symptoms. Yes, this is true. It is also true for a number of other viruses, including the corona viruses we know as the common cold and other strains of the flu. So why do we treat this thing so differently?

For one, the world received bad information from the Chinese government. They had their own reasons for not being upfront about things, primary among those was the desire to maintain the facade that the CCP is totally in control and does not make mistakes. This attitude has cost millions upon millions of lives throughout history. I also think that there were those in Europe and the US who saw this as a political opportunity. It is not an exaggeration to say that there are those who despise Trump so deeply that there are few if any limits to the depths to which they will go to ensure he is not re-elected in the fall.

But, beyond the geopolitical implications, fear is playing the largest role in keeping people from going outside and when they do venture out, fear makes them wear a mask. Also, and this is a strong reason as well, they don’t want people to think they don’t care, and wearing a mask, in their minds, shows they care. Right now, as states reopen, cases are rising…because testing is rising. But deaths appear to be flat and even lowering. If you look at the CDC numbers you can see this. But the fear engendered by the rising cases is bringing renewed panic. This is not a disease that kills on contact like Ebola. It is not waiting in the air for you to step out of your house so it can attack you. This fear is being drummed up.

None of this is to say that the Wuhan flu is not a matter of concern. It is, especially if you or someone in your family falls into one of the vulnerable groups. But, and here’s the big part, for a large majority of us, that is not the case. As with the regular flu strains (which cause something like 20,000 deaths in the US annually), the usual precautions can be taken and have a good effect: wash your hands, sneeze/cough into your elbow, don’t touch your face, and if you’re sick, stay away from people.

Back to masking…sorry, that was a bit of a detour. No, I don’t like to wear a mask and I do not wear one whenever possible. I have eczema which is aggravated by a mask, especially in hot, humid weather. I also get claustrophobic if I have one on for too long. I have not yet been yelled at by a Karen, although I’ve received some sideways glances (all of which I’ve ignored). I don’t think states, cities, or other municipalities should be making rules regarding wearing a mask. Especially when doctors writing in NEJM suggest that mask wearing is not effective outside of a hospital setting and is indeed a reflection of fear and anxiety over the pandemic:

We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public spaces therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

Klompas et al, “Universal Masking in Hospitals in the COVID-19 Era”, NEJM, 5/21/20

This should be your guide to mask vs. no mask along with other general information, easily found, covering other strains of flu. Not fear of social ostracization.

Image by Elliot Alderson from Pixabay

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Big Changes

I resigned my faculty position at the end of May. Today, I finished cleaning out my office. Walking out of the building today, I got a little verklempt and teared up. I’ve joked that this is the end of an era, but it really is. My senior year of high school we were asked to write down where we saw ourselves in ten years. I wrote (which I rediscovered at my 10-year reunion) that I would have a PhD in political science and be teaching at a university. At that point, (my ten year reunion) I had just started my MA program. Four years later (took me three to finish the MA while working full-time, and then I took a year to apply to PhD programs) I started my PhD. I finished that and started teaching full-time in 2000. I went through two visiting positions before I landed the tenure-track position. Got tenure, and now I’ve resigned. Twenty years of teaching, 17 at the same place. All told, this job was my goal for 40 years!

It really is the end of an era and it’s the end of what I thought was my dream career. I love teaching, I really do. So, I know that will be a big loss, but one I am prepared for. I like research, but I found that I don’t like being pressured to do research on someone else’s time line. I also don’t like having to “stay in my lane” research-wise. Meaning, I like branching out and wandering through different areas. But, that is not the academic way. Small loss. Generally, I despise committee work (the “service” part of the trifecta of research, teaching, service requirements), so no loss there.

Two years ago, I had a sabbatical in the spring semester. I started out going full-bore into a new research project that looked really interesting (I still think it is, and I think there’s something to my thesis), but after a strong start, I basically lost interest in pursuing the necessary background research. I started reading lots and lots of fiction…urban fantasy, swords and sorcery. All the things I have always loved reading since I was a little kid (starting with the color fairy tale books…Red Books of Fairy Tales, Yellow Book…) And, I started wondering if I could write a story myself. So, I started. That first draft was horrific. Really bad. But, I was hooked. I read “how-to” books, how to describe, how to create characters and character arcs, how to reveal necessary background information and on and on. I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote.

I finally had a version that I felt confident sending out to beta readers. I got positive feedback, incorporated the suggested changes…and voila! I uploaded it to Amazon the other day. I was so excited I was vibrating. I’m still jittery. I’ve published non-fiction in academic journals, and that was pretty cool. But this is different. This is a part of me out there. It’s very exposing, but a hell of a lot of fun! As I said in the previous post, there are a number of people I owe a huge debt of gratitude to. Both for the writing advice and the encouragement to just write. The outpouring of support from my friends when I announced that the book was live on Amazon has been amazing as well.

My author page on Amazon says that I consider myself to be a “recovering faculty member” and that is true. I quit a job I couldn’t get fired from and I feel like I broke out of prison. It’s crazy. Scary, too. I’ve jumped…this has to work! And, I have every confidence it will.

Today is our wedding anniversary, so I took the day off. Plus I’ve been told (and experienced in the academic side of things) that it’s a very good idea to reward oneself for a job completed. Monday, I will get back to plotting the next book in the series.

So, here’s to changes big and small. Go out and make those changes that appeal to you. Have a great weekend!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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Living in the city

I do like living in a city. I like being able to walk to a bar or restaurant. I like having the dry cleaner on the corner. I like having a big park right at the end of the block and the Schuylkill River and boat houses at the bottom of the hill. When we moved out here I was really looking forward to not having to drive 20 minutes just to get dinner.

BUT…

Now, I’m thinking that driving 20 minutes is a good thing. I’m tired of living on top of my neighbors and having them live on top of us. I’m tired of hearing five different conversations in five different back yards when I go out into our back yard. I’m tired of picking up trash that’s blowing around the street. I can hear the assholes doing donuts at 3:00am in the intersection at the bottom of the hill by the boat houses. I’m tired of the dirt bikes and quad runners that go up and down the street all day every day in the summer. They go through intersections without regard for traffic lights. I’m tired of constant traffic noise.

Some of these things are uniquely Philly, but some of them are endemic to cities everywhere. I lived in San Francisco for a few years and my parents lived there for 25 years. There are obviously different feels to each city, a different vibe, but some things are the same. Right now, the convenience and liveliness of city living are outweighed by the noise, crowding, and lessening quality of life. And, here in Philly, I don’t see that improving any time soon.

Some of my exhaustion and frustration is driven by recent events, especially these riots. A week’s worth of riots. An ATM a block north of us was blown up. There’s a protest and march tomorrow on the Parkway. Hopefully it stays quiet and there’s no accompanying looting. But, they’ve closed the entire downtown area (what we call Center City) and the Parkway from the Art Museum to 22nd. That means, on this, the first weekend of freedom from lock down, we can’t actually go anywhere.

(Yes, yes. I get why people are protesting. But, they’re losing any impact they may have had and the focus is now on preventing looting rather than actual justice and police reform. Please spare me the lectures on “privilege” etc.)

In the end, my general frustrations with city life have combined with the frustrations of the lock down (and hearing all of my upstairs neighbor’s work phone calls) and now riots, to make me think that no neighbors for at least a mile around is a very good thing. If you’d told me that 15 years ago I would have laughed at you. I really do like the energy of cities. But now, I think a visit of a few days will satisfy that itch. I know that some people are going to say we’re giving up. Well, yes, we are. But we’re walking away after 15 years living here. I think we’ve given it a fair shot. And, in the end, on top of everything is the feeling that we need to be closer to family than a six-hour flight (if we can get a direct flight).

So, in the end, we’ll be looking for something that’s got some space around it. And, likely driving 20 minutes to go to dinner. And, honestly, if I can hear crickets at night when I open the window, I’ll be happy. I’d be happier if I could hear waves, but that’s for later…

Have a good weekend, all!

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No, We’re Not Becoming Russia

On June 1, 2020, President Trump declared he would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and activate various military units to move into states to assist local police and national guard troops with quelling rioting and stopping looting and other violence. Since he did that media, Democrats, and other progressives have been up in arms shrieking about authoritarian moves and how dare he and…and…and… I even saw a post on FB suggesting that Trump would cancel the November election in order to remain in office. I have to wonder how dark, twisted, and pessimistic is one’s view of this country and it’s people, and how much hatred you hold for Trump that that’s where you go first. Seriously? I read that post, rolled my eyes, picked them up and put them back in my head, and then logged out of Facebook. I may check back in tomorrow, but I think I’m going to go back to my previous routine of checking in on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and then skipping that swamp for the rest of the week.

Back to my original topic…the mention of the Insurrection Act pushed me back into my political science researcher mode. What exactly does the act do, and when has it been utilized? My comparative side wanted to go find out if other democratic countries had something similar.

Starting with the U.S. law, Jefferson signed the Insurrection Act of 1807 into law. It has been used several times since. What most people probably recognize are Eisenhower and Kennedy’s use of it to break up anti-desegregation protests and open schools in the south. It was also invoked during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Wikipedia has a good discussion and a list of the times that its been used here.

What I hadn’t known (US law is not my area of specialization), is that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress changed the law and expanded it to include natural disasters, epidemics, public health crises, and terror attacks. By designating AntiFa as a terror organization, it seems to me that Trump has now provided two underlying justifications for invoking the Insurrection Act: a functioning terror group, and riots that have moved beyond the capacity of local law enforcement to handle. As of now (Tuesday morning), the act has not been officially invoked. However, we did have a relatively quiet night here in Philadelphia, so perhaps it will not be necessary. I hope.

Looking at other countries with federal systems, you obviously find laws that specifically outlaw riots (even in democracies the term “riot” can be defined more or less strictly, but usually includes violence and looting in the definition. Here’s the Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition). Sanctions for participating or fomenting vary between countries as well. Canada, for example, gives police and governments, provincial and federal, much more leeway to define a gathering as a riot, and take actions as police deem appropriate. As a member of the Commonwealth, Canadian law mirrors that of Great Britain. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is a federal police force and the one used most often to disperse violent gatherings and deal with things like wide-spread looting. My quick and dirty search for Canadian law regarding activating military units within the country didn’t turn up anything specific, but going off of their status as a former British colony and current Commonwealth member, I’m going to guess that there are provisions for the Prime Minister to call up military units if he deems it necessary.

India is another democratic federal system. It has a strong central government that has more control and power over state governments than does the U.S. government over states here. India also has so-called paramilitary units which function similarly to the U.S. National Guard. India runs high with tensions between Muslims and Hindus and those tensions frequently break out into violent clashes. Also, almost as frequently, police will either do nothing, or occasionally step in on one side or the other as opposed to simply stopping and/or arresting all participants. For the army to be called in to help control violent riots, the civilian authorities must make that request. The army is viewed as more secular than local police forces so when the violence is between religious groups (usually Hindu and Muslim) the army gets the call.

In the end, it does not mean that a government has shifted from a democracy to an authoritarian system simply because the leader, whether president or prime minister, has called in the regular army to help local and state police forces deal with violence. Yes, a democracy can morph into an authoritarian system so slowly that one might not notice. But, if this is a part of that process, I argue that people are noticing the change (I think some moves have been going on for a while) and are now taking steps to reverse away from authoritarian means of governing. As an example, during Obama’s presidency, conservatives were extremely upset about his use of executive orders (EOs) noting (correctly) that EOs violated the legislative process. During the Trump presidency so far, that concern has reverted to liberals who are now extremely upset about EOs and claiming (correctly) that they violate the legislative process. In the end, more people are learning about the problematic nature of EOs and that’s a good thing.

We must remember that the U.S. is a very unique political system in the world. We were the first to institute a representative or republican form of government. We also have the widest/highest levels of individual freedoms among the world’s democracies. Those wide freedoms mean our political culture is also unique and that can be seen in how we respond to issues like police brutality and looting, or even the fact that we do respond. I know that it is not fashionable to proclaim American uniqueness, but we are indeed a one-of-a-kind political culture and political system.

I believe we will come through this current craziness and we will not be an authoritarian system. That will happen only if we allow it. And, no, Trump will not be the cause of it. I’m more inclined to think that those who so violently and vehemently oppose him and his policies (without ever thinking through results or consequences), those who scream at any and all dissent from their policies (on both sides), and those who try to force speech conventions (i.e. political correctness) on the rest of us, shift history around to suit their needs (1619 Project), and those who demand conformity with their ideas are the ones who would institute an authoritarian system.

We are a country and political culture built on individuality and compromise. The very definition of compromise is that nobody and no group gets everything they want, but we all come away a bit more satisfied with the situation than we were previously. Compromise by its very nature is messy and less than wholly satisfactory. Long-term survival, both as a political system that gives people the most leeway to define themselves, and as a species, demands that we all compromise with each other.

That’s the end of this rambling rant. Thank you for reading. Here’s to a looting-free week and all of us calming down, correcting what needs to be corrected (so, maybe the MPLS PD can look at their training and discipline procedures…), and return to rebuilding our lives and economy.

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Riots and Mayhem

Watching Philadelphia burn the last two nights brought back memories of the L.A. riots in 1992. I was living in Long Beach, CA and we had a curfew and I had National Guard soldiers patrolling my block. A record store (they still existed way back then) and other stores a couple blocks away were completely looted and burned down. I remember lying in bed, hoping the roving gangs didn’t come down my street. But, then, like now, there were no stores on my block, thus nothing of interest for looters. Now, I live a block away from a reviving commercial corridor, but there are no big stores up there like a Target or CVS that provide a lure for the rioters. So, I spent last night under a curfew that started at 6:00pm and hearing sirens go through the neighborhood, but not stopping.

This morning, I saw stories of looting and arson across the river in West Philadelphia. Now, protesters are taking out livelihoods and stores in primarily African-American neighborhoods. The very people they claim to be fighting for. Yes, videos show a lot of African-Americans joining in the looting, but based on other videos, the instigators are white, young males who appear to be taking great joy in the destruction they wreak. They get to go back to their intact homes in the ‘burbs. They don’t have to live in the middle of that destruction and try to figure out how it all happened. The same thing in Center City on Saturday night. Sunday saw residents coming out to help with clean up along Walnut and Chestnut streets which were the hardest hit on Saturday (no police presence for almost two hours!)

I did see video from late last night/early this morning of West Philly residents trying to clean up, and I read a story of some (black) business owners who managed to protect their stores and restaurants because they had firearms and stood guard. One of the reasons they were forced into that situation is because when the National Guard showed up late last night, they were deployed around City Hall and other points in Center City. So the instigators moved into unpatrolled areas. Our city officials have not been covering themselves with glory during this craziness. They haven’t even been covering them selves with less-than-gifted competence.

Between the virus lock down and now this craziness, Philly has a very long, rough economic road ahead. Some areas will come back with relative ease because of the tourism. Others, like West Philly will see pockets of recovery around UPenn and Drexel, but further out, they’re screwed. North of Temple University, they’re screwed as well (until you get to the Northeast which is part of the city, but really a series of suburbs).

If all goes according to our plan, hubby and I will be moving out of Philadelphia this summer or fall. I love the people (mostly) and vibe of this city and I will miss it. But, the politics (this is full-on Tammany Hall, cement shoes, old school machine politics) and those in charge in City Hall have become a significant drag on any and all efforts to build up a truly vibrant, thriving city. We’ve lived in this place for over 15 years. Gave it our best shot. And, watching city officials actively work against those who would try to improve the city is disheartening at best and truly criminal at worst.

I’m done.

And, right now, I’m hearing helicopters overhead and sirens in the distance. Oh, joy.

But, I have a cat demanding attention, and worlds that need to be written. I will keep an eye on things, but get back to what makes me happy. Until the time comes when we can leave.

Take care of yourselves and those you love.

Image by joanbrown51 from Pixabay

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A new chapter

So, I went and did it. I officially resigned my faculty position. As of June 30 I will be a former professor. I’ll still be ornery, never fear. Now, a new chapter opens up in front of me. For a few years I’ve been picking at the corner of the page and peering under it in an effort to get some idea of how it’s going to go. Last year, I finally realized that that method was not going to work, nor would I be doing myself any favors. The only way to find out how the next chapter goes is to fully turn the page and dive in. So, last week I did just that.

I’ve received a lot of support from friends and family. I even got a comment from a colleague that he envies me my decision. I can only think that he, like many of us, is caught in the trap that there are “practical” ways to make a living and that things like writing are not “practical”. Maybe he has another idea for himself, I don’t know. But, I hope that his upcoming sabbatical gives him the opportunity to figure it out.

There are a couple of things I have to finish up, including cleaning out my office. But, right now, I have all the time in the world to write (I should probably stay off of Facebook…yeah). I’m working on creating a daily schedule that takes care of the physical chores as well as the writing and writing-related chores. I think I’m close. Now, I just have to create a routine. And remember that I need to work on different things simultaneously. I kind of had to do that between class prep and research, but this is different, and much more creative. So, I’m trying to mix things up so that I can let ideas that are blocked rattle around in my brain while I do household chores. So far, that seems to be working.

Now that the news is out in the open, I’m going to be posting a lot more on here (both because of fewer time constraints and fewer work constraints). I’m going to be cross-linking between here, Instagram, and Facebook as well (we’ll see how long it takes me to get bumped off of one of those…)

Keep an eye out for book announcements and other fun projects.

Enjoy your weekend!

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

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Freedom vs. killer diseases

Lately I’ve seen a lot of snark towards people who dare to express concerns regarding the rapid erosion of our civil liberties and freedoms during the Wuhan flu* lockdown. A college friend even started a Facebook post the other day with “but muh muh freedoms” and then proceeded to rant that people concerned with freedoms obviously wanted to kill of a third to half of the US population in exchange for those freedoms. I was appalled. No disease mitigation is worth the loss of our fundamental freedoms.

This is not about trading lives for freedom. It’s about maintaining our freedoms so that government overreach does NOT result in the clusterfuck we’re seeing here and now. Our privacy, our ability to provide for ourselves and our families, our ability to learn and grow…all of these things are in jeopardy from the current level of restrictions and overreach practiced by many states and counties. I’m not really sure if those individuals inveighing against the respect for and restoration of our freedoms have given any thought to how the country will move forward and recover without these freedoms.

Where do they expect to get basic necessities like toilet paper or food if manufacturers and farmers are subject to random, yet mandatory shut downs? How do they expect to educate their children? And, yes, how do they expect to take care of their ill and/or elderly family members when governments (see PA and NY for example) are requiring that assisted living facilities and nursing homes admit residents who have tested positive for Wuhan flu? Roughly 70% of all cases in the US (massively tilted by NYC) are in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. So, please tell me, how is locking the rest of us up helping when your government is locking up healthy elderly with those who are ill? And then depriving us of the means to support ourselves and take care of those ill/elderly relatives? That’s also part of your freedoms…information. And that has been severely restricted by state governments…all in the name of keeping us safe.

The government cannot and more importantly should not take care of everything for us. I don’t know about you but being infantilized by politicians is guaranteed to make me angry and act in a most contrarian manner. And, being told by useful idiots that “it’s for our own good” and that we should support every authoritarian whim of politicians as long as they claim it’s for safety reasons, is guaranteed to piss me off even more. I’m capable of discovering the dangers for myself. And, if you’re going to tell me that there are people out there who “don’t know” well, that’s on them. Or, if you’re so concerned, go tell them yourself. Governments function best when they acknowledge they are governing adults, when those adults take responsibility for their own actions, and when the rest of you don’t expect or allow the government to do everything. In my intro American politics classes I’ve always asked my students what happens if you allow the government to give you something? The answer is, it can, and often does, take it away.

Right now, we are experiencing a loss of freedoms and there is a fairly large chunk of our population that is OK with that for some strange reason. They seem to feel that since the “experts” are putting these ideas out there, those ideas must be perfect. It’s already been revealed that the “expert” model created by Neil Ferguson, MD in the UK, for example, is deeply flawed and relies on ancient FORTRAN code (seriously? Even I know that FORTRAN is the computer code equivalent of stone tablets). Ask any techie friend you have what is meant by spaghetti code. That’s what the “experts” are relying on and expecting you to take at face value. Don’t give up your ability to question everything.

Take the precautions you feel most comfortable with. Don’t let others, family or friends or experts, panic you into doing something or not doing something that your rational mind knows is not rational. Remember, fear and panic crowd out rational thinking. And, note that fear and panic are what’s being encouraged. To borrow from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…Don’t Panic.

Demand that your government recognize and respect your natural rights and freedoms. We are better than this.

*Yes, I’m using Wuhan flu to describe this thing. It’s not racist to name a disease after the city where it was first identified. Lyme Disease anyone?

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

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Life is risky

As the memes and cliches say…no-one gets out alive. Life is risky and we’re all gonna die (unlike in the movie “Cocoon” where Wilfred Brimley says “you won’t ever get sick and you won’t ever die” when they find the aliens). Stay on Earth and you will die. Where we seem to be having an argument is over how and when we die and what risks we are all willing to take *before* we die.

Slowly but surely (and I’m very happy about it) the country is opening back up. There are stories from all over about states moving at their own speed and counties within states defying governors and moving at their own pace. Even Cuomo has had to allow some counties in New York to open up faster than, oh, say, NYC. But, with the reopening, some people have reverted or turned to a greater level of fear. It’s hard to tell if they’re afraid of catching the Wuhan flu and dying, or if they are pretty sure Wuhan flu won’t kill them, but will leave them scarred for life. Or, if they even know what they’re arguing for.

Now, people who were pragmatic and skeptical about the lockdown and the reasons behind it, are freaking out at the talk of reopening. I was puzzled at first, but I think I may have figured it out (note, I said *may*. I will not presume to be telepathic). Many of these people were happy to play the devil’s advocate regarding lockdown, but now that the reopening is actually happening, they’re reacting as if their biggest bluff has been called. They were comfortable when they and everybody else was restricted in movement. But, now, with things opening back up and people chafing to get out and back to some semblance of a normal life, they feel like they’re the only ones left who are worried. And, nobody likes being the only one on one side of an argument. So they’re bringing out the big guns to try to get people back into the fold.

The problem with this is that now they’re doing what they’ve railed against previously. They are trying to tell the rest of us that *we* have to adhere to *their* rules because they don’t want to be the only ones following those rules. I’m not sure why the sudden panic about disease when that has not been a primary concern prior to about yesterday. Like I said, the only thing I can figure is that suddenly they’re the last ones left and they never saw everybody else leave. So, they’re mad at the rest of us and getting defensive.

You may ask, how am I arriving at these conclusions? Well, my data source is the purely biased, anecdotal data from Facebook. I kinda sorta monitor my feed for these sorts of things. The kerfuffle over how to reopen has dissolved into a giant kerfuffle into whether each individual action within each step is wise. There’s really nothing overall to fight against. After all, they want to reopen things as well. Again, based on my own personal anecdotal evidence (which does not mean it’s wrong), they seem to like the idea of opening in the abstract, but are extremely fearful in the actual.

I’m still puzzled by all this fear. I guess the media has done a good job in stoking it. But, I am constantly amazed at how easy it is to drive out the ability to think clearly. I mean, any semi-rational individual can see that the information we’ve been getting changes rapidly. The rules/guidelines/regulations are less than useful after about two days (and that’s being generous). So, why can’t people follow that? I’m not sure, but I think it may have to do with several factors. The ability to take care of yourself, if you can work from home, that means you can easily avoid others (leaving out that your grocery delivery person is risking their health for you), and you can just hunker down.

All of this completely ignores those who cannot work from home. They’re the ones who need/want to go back to work. So, why do people not see that? How blindered are they?

I’m not sure. All I know is what I said before. Protect the vulnerable populations, wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, and fucking stay home if you’re sick. I will wash my hands before I come visit you. If you wish me to wear a mask I will do so and sit or stand 6 feet away from you. But you cannot expect me to do the same with every other person. Your requests are not theirs. We are more risk-acceptant than you. Deal.

We need to just open back up and let the Karens fall where they may. Life is risky. Don’t expect me to adjust to your acceptable level of risk and I won’t expect the same of you. We’re all gonna die. Just have a ton of fun between now and then.

Image by Oleksandr Pyrohov from Pixabay